Report on design of new teaching methods and remediation tools for dyslexia

The aim of this work is to provide a review of the remediation therapies that can be used in the rehabilitation of developmental dyslexia; a special emphasis is put on morphological instruction as a promising strategy for compensating the phonological deficits exhibited by dyslexic children, both monolinguals and bilinguals, and enhancing their literacy skills. We will begin our discussion by presenting an overview of developmental dyslexia, discussing its manifestations and its relationships with other developmental disorders, and in particular with Specific Language Impairment. We will then present the results of the studies that we carried out within the European Project AThEME, which confirm the presence of a morphological deficit in dyslexic children, but also point to an advantage in morphological tasks of bilingual children, both dyslexics and typically developing, over their monolingual peers. On the basis of these results, we propose that morphological training could be a viable and effective strategy for the treatment of reading difficulties in both monolingual and bilingual children. We will back this proposal up by presenting the results of three meta- analyses, for a total of 46 studies reviewed, confirming that morphological treatment can lead to enhancements in reading, spelling and literacy-related skills, including phonological and morphological competence, vocabulary development and reading comprehension

Environmental Justice in Remediation: Tools for Community Empowerment

Exide Technologies finally closed its secondary lead-battery recycling plant on March 12, 2015. The community of primarily Hispanics around the facility had to fight many years to have the polluting facility shut down. Because government agencies, whose job is to protect citizens from polluters, were not regulating the facility properly, residents are not sure if they can trust the agencies to carry out remediation effectively and efficiently either. In this paper I explore the environmental justice issues associated with environmental remediation and what community members can do to make sure that their neighborhood is cleaned up properly. Through interviews with government agencies and environmental activists heavily involved in this case, I discovered that the main environmental justice issue in remediation is increased exposure to toxins. I argue that strong community activism and involvement are necessary for remediation to happen properly, and explore some tools that can be used in this process

Coastal brownfields and adaptation to climate change: Discussions on potential hazards from contaminated groundwater displacement due to saltwater incursion

Toxic-waste associated with coastal brownfield sites can pose serious risks to human and environmental health. In light of anticipated sea-level rise (SLR) due to global climate change, coastal brownfields require heightened attention. The primary intent of this study is to pose questions and encourage discussion of this problem among policy makers. Impacts from SLR on coastal zones are examined within a brownfield policy framework and, current coastal brownfield policy discussions with respect to SLR are also examined. (PDF contains 4 pages

Teachers Know Best: Making Data Work For Teachers and Students

The Teachers Know Best research project seeks to encourage innovation in K - 12 education by helping product developers and those who procure resources for teachers better understand teachers' views. The intent of Making Data Work is to drill down to help educators, school leaders, and product developers better understand the challenges teachers face when working with this critical segment of digital instructional tools. More than 4,600 teachers from a nationally representative sample were surveyed about their use of data to drive instruction and the use of these tools.This study focuses on the potential of a specific subset of digital instructional tools: those that help teachers collect and make use of student data to tailor and improve instruction for individual students. The use of data is a crucial component in personalized learning, which ensures that student learning experiences -- what they learn and how, when, and where they learn it -- are tailored to their individual needs, skills, and interests and enable them to take ownership of their learning. Personalized learning is critical to meeting all students where they are, so they are neither bored with assignments that are too easy nor overwhelmed by work that is too hard

A Nitrile Hydratase in the Eukaryote Monosiga brevicollis

Bacterial nitrile hydratase (NHases) are important industrial catalysts and waste water remediation tools. In a global computational screening of conventional and metagenomic sequence data for NHases, we detected the two usually separated NHase subunits fused in one protein of the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis, a recently sequenced unicellular model organism from the closest sister group of Metazoa. This is the first time that an NHase is found in eukaryotes and the first time it is observed as a fusion protein. The presence of an intron, subunit fusion and expressed sequence tags covering parts of the gene exclude contamination and suggest a functional gene. Phylogenetic analyses and genomic context imply a probable ancient horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from proteobacteria. The newly discovered NHase might open biotechnological routes due to its unconventional structure, its new type of host and its apparent integration into eukaryotic protein networks

A shared agenda for the Seoul Conference on Cyberspace, South Korea, 2013

This briefing is ASPI’s distillation of the thoughts of a group of prominent members of the Australian cybersecurity community. We held a workshop in Canberra on the key panel sessions that will take place at the Seoul Conference on Cyberspace, South Korea, in October 2013. Workshop participants included the Australian Government departments with a stake in cyber issues and members of the private sector, including the banking and IT sectors, defence and security industries and representatives from the wider business community. The aim of the workshop was to provide creative Australian perspectives to take to the Seoul conference

Use of phytoremediation and biochar to remediate heavy metal polluted soils: a review

Anthropogenic activities are resulting in an increase of the use and extraction of heavy metals. Heavy metals cannot be degraded and hence accumulate in the environment, having the potential to contaminate the food chain. This pollution threatens soil quality, plant survival and human health. The remediation of heavy metals deserves attention, but it is impaired by the cost of these processes. Phytoremediation and biochar are two sound environmental technologies which could be at the forefront to mitigate soil pollution. This review provides an overview of the state of the art of the scientific research on phytoremediation and biochar application to remediate heavy-metal-contaminated soils. Research to date has attempted only in a limited number of occasions to combine both techniques, however we discuss the potential advantages of combining both, and the potential mechanisms involved in the interaction between phytoremediators and biochar. We identified specific research needs to ensure a sustainable use of phytoremediation and biochar as remediation tools

Fabrication of Novel In-Situ Remediation Tools for Unconventional Oil Contamination

The aftermath of unconventional oil (UO) accidents highlights the lack of preparedness of governments to deal with UO emergencies. Because bioremediation is considered slow process, physicochemical treatment processes are necessary in removing contaminants to constrain the spread of oil. In preliminary phase of study, bed systems for adsorption of oil compounds packed with modified dolomite were applied as pre-treatment for bioremediation systems. The high affinity of oil molecules to the active sites due to hydrophobic nature of dolomite surface, as well as low solubility of oil in water, resulted in rapid process of oil adsorption on external surface of modified dolomite. UO contaminated site contain high concentration of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Thus, the final phase of study focused on finding enzyme mixture for biodegradation of PAHs contaminated sites for water and soil treatment. In this regard, screening of indigenous bacteria, identification of involved enzymes, and biodegradation tests were carried out. Several combinations of the pre-selected strains were used to create most prompting consortium for enzyme production. To mimic in situ application of enzyme mixture, bioremediation of pyrene contaminated soil was carried out in soil column tests. The average values of pyrene removal after 6 weeks indicated that the enzyme cocktail can be an appropriate concentration for soil enzymatic bioremediation in the soil column system. A bioinspired device was fabricated as a sustainable remedial method. Our results showed that after 200 seconds of circulating the enzyme solution 100% of anthracene in 1.5 L of 4.6 mg/L was removed from the beaker side. In addition to the circulation of PAH degrading enzymes in hollow fiber lumens, aliphatic degrading enzymes confined in multilayer nanofibrous membrane systems play an important role in the removal of oily compounds. Based on our studies, modified polyimide aerogels were suitable to support enzyme immobilization. The degradation tests clearly showed that immobilized enzymes had biodegradation ability for model substrate in contaminated water. Our results confirmed that immobilization of cocktail enzyme mixture enhanced their storage stability, more than 45% of its residual activity at 15 ± 1 ºC for 16 days. This study could set the guideline for the enzymatic bioremediation of aromatic pollutants especially polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in highly contaminated soil and water body

Marine environmental risk assessment and management : putting into practice an ecosystem-based management approach

In addition to the complexities of marine ecosystems and the current state thereof, marine management is even more complex given the range of activities and legislation to manage them. Marine planning processes are considered as the means for an integrated management approach to address ecosystem concerns while promoting sustainable growth, development, and use. Although marine plans are mostly considered as an ecosystem-based approach to management and conservation, they seldom provide clarity as to how their objectives are to be achieved. In policymaking, administrations develop and implement standards, codes of practice or guidelines to “carry into effect” the policy objectives through regulatory and non-regulatory frameworks. In fact, environmental protection regulatory frameworks used to manage human activities and their pressures in the marine environment are such frameworks. The effectiveness of marine protected areas is shown to be dependent on the pressures generated outside the protected area even though activities within such areas are prohibited. In this thesis, I discuss the need to integrate environmental protection regulatory frameworks and conservation measures as a comprehensive environmental protection and conservation strategy for managing human activities at large while protecting vulnerable ecosystem structures, functions and processes. Given the need to understand the effectiveness these regulatory frameworks to achieve broader ecosystem and conservation objectives, I also propose the use of risk management standards and tools. These standards were developed to identify the management measures needed to achieve policy objectives in contrast to an assessment of impacts risks. In an ecosystem-based management context, these standards and tools assign a prevention role to environmental protection regulatory frameworks and a mitigation and recovery role to conservation measures

Bi-Directional Learning: Identifying Contaminants on the Yurok Indian Reservation.

The Yurok Tribe partnered with the University of California Davis (UC Davis) Superfund Research Program to identify and address contaminants in the Klamath watershed that may be impairing human and ecosystem health. We draw on a community-based participatory research approach that begins with community concerns, includes shared duties across the research process, and collaborative interpretation of results. A primary challenge facing University and Tribal researchers on this project is the complexity of the relationship(s) between the identity and concentrations of contaminants and the diversity of illnesses plaguing community members. The framework of bi-directional learning includes Yurok-led river sampling, Yurok traditional ecological knowledge, University lab analysis, and collaborative interpretation of results. Yurok staff and community members share their unique exposure pathways, their knowledge of the landscape, their past scientific studies, and the history of landscape management, and University researchers use both specific and broad scope chemical screening techniques to attempt to identify contaminants and their sources. Both university and tribal knowledge are crucial to understanding the relationship between human and environmental health. This paper examines University and Tribal researchers' shared learning, progress, and challenges at the end of the second year of a five-year Superfund Research Program (SRP) grant to identify and remediate toxins in the lower Klamath River watershed. Our water quality research is framed within a larger question of how to best build university-Tribal collaboration to address contamination and associated human health impacts