Modeling Habitat Associations for the Common Loon (\u3cem\u3eGavia immer\u3c/em\u3e) at Multiple Scales in Northeastern North America

Common Loon (Gavia immer) is considered an emblematic and ecologically important example of aquatic-dependent wildlife in North America. The northern breeding range of Common Loon has contracted over the last century as a result of habitat degradation from human disturbance and lakeshore development. We focused on the state of New Hampshire, USA, where a long-term monitoring program conducted by the Loon Preservation Committee has been collecting biological data on Common Loon since 1976. The Common Loon population in New Hampshire is distributed throughout the state across a wide range of lake-specific habitats, water quality conditions, and levels of human disturbance. We used a multiscale approach to evaluate the association of Common Loon and breeding habitat within three natural physiographic ecoregions of New Hampshire. These multiple scales reflect Common Loon-specific extents such as territories, home ranges, and lake-landscape influences. We developed ecoregional multiscale models and compared them to single-scale models to evaluate model performance in distinguishing Common Loon breeding habitat. Based on information-theoretic criteria, there is empirical support for both multiscale and single-scale models across all three ecoregions, warranting a model-averaging approach. Our results suggest that the Common Loon responds to both ecological and anthropogenic factors at multiple scales when selecting breeding sites. These multiscale models can be used to identify and prioritize the conservation of preferred nesting habitat for Common Loon populations

Assessing Reading Comprehension in Bilinguals

A new measure of reading comprehension, the Diagnostic Assessment of Reading Comprehension (DARC), designed to reflect central comprehension processes while minimizing decoding and language demands, was pilot tested. We conducted three pilot studies to assess the DARC’s feasibility, reliability, comparability across Spanish and English, developmental sensitivity, and relation to standardized measures. The first study, carried out with 16 second‐through sixth‐grade English language learners, showed that the DARC items were at the appropriate reading level. The second pilot study, with 28 native Spanish‐speaking fourth graders who had scored poorly on the Woodcock‐Johnson Language Proficiency Reading Passages subtest, revealed a range of scores on the DARC, that yes‐no answers were valid indicators of respondents’ thinking, and that the Spanish and English versions of the DARC were comparable. The third study, carried out with 521 Spanish‐speaking students in kindergarten through grade 3, confirmed that different comprehension processes assessed by the DARC (text memory, text inferencing, background knowledge, and knowledge integration) could be measured independently, and that DARC scores were less strongly related to word reading than Woodcock‐Johnson comprehension scores. By minimizing the need for high levels of English oral proficiency or decoding ability, the DARC has the potential to reflect the central comprehension processes of second‐language readers of English more effectively than other measures

Fully Accounting for English Learner Performance: A Key Issue in ESEA Reauthorization

This article presents a set of recommendations that promote a more nuanced, meaningful accountability policy for English learners in the next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The authors argue that the ESEA reauthorization must strengthen the law's capacity-building purpose so that federal, state, and local leaders support continued attention, direction, and innovation in effectively educating ELs. The recommendations put forth in this article focus on monitoring both current and former ELs, establishing time frames for the attainment of English language proficiency, and setting expectations for academic achievement that are reflective of English language proficiency level and time in the state's school system.Keywords: policy analysis, language comprehension/development, educational policy, accountabilit

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Schizophrenia-associated somatic copy-number variants from 12,834 cases reveal recurrent NRXN1 and ABCB11 disruptions

While germline copy-number variants (CNVs) contribute to schizophrenia (SCZ) risk, the contribution of somatic CNVs (sCNVs)—present in some but not all cells—remains unknown. We identified sCNVs using blood-derived genotype arrays from 12,834 SCZ cases and 11,648 controls, filtering sCNVs at loci recurrently mutated in clonal blood disorders. Likely early-developmental sCNVs were more common in cases (0.91%) than controls (0.51%, p = 2.68e−4), with recurrent somatic deletions of exons 1–5 of the NRXN1 gene in five SCZ cases. Hi-C maps revealed ectopic, allele-specific loops forming between a potential cryptic promoter and non-coding cis-regulatory elements upon 5′ deletions in NRXN1. We also observed recurrent intragenic deletions of ABCB11, encoding a transporter implicated in anti-psychotic response, in five treatment-resistant SCZ cases and showed that ABCB11 is specifically enriched in neurons forming mesocortical and mesolimbic dopaminergic projections. Our results indicate potential roles of sCNVs in SCZ risk

Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk: Report #58

The Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR) was established in 1994 and continued until 2004. It was a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and Howard University. CRESPAR’s mission was to conduct research, development, evaluation, and dissemination of replicable strategies designed to transform schooling for students who were placed at risk due to inadequate institutional responses to such factors as poverty, ethnic minority status, and non-English-speaking home background.In this report, transitional programs refer to instructional programs for students who have been schooled in their native language and are now in “transitional” classrooms where literacy instruction takes place in English. Transition usually occurs during the elementary years but may occur in middle and high school for older students recently arrived in U.S. schools who are entering English-only literacy programs in the U.S. With regard to the development of literacy and transition from a first language to a second language, the paper focuses on school-age children who are acquiring English as a second language, where English is the societal language.Grant (No. R-117-D40005) from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Educatio

Format appears to matter less than story salience

Researchers suggest another factor other than format may be at work in determining the amount of time readers spend with an online news story, and that is the story’s relevance. They suggest journalists choose the format based upon the best way for telling a particular story

The Effects of Video Formats in Online News: A Study of Recall and Stickiness

News organizations putting content on their websites may better engage their audience by offering a choice of raw video rather than packages. A two-by-three experiment studied the relationships among video format, time spent, and recall for online news. Test subjects viewed a traditional, broadcast-type standard news “package,” a disassembled package, and raw video with text. Results showed users spent significantly more time with the raw video format than with the other two formats. Time spent was strongly correlated with post-test recall of elements of each story, but there was no direct relationship between format and recall. A model is proposed for further research in which format predicts time spent, and time spent predicts recall, with no direct relationship between format and recall

Impact of Format on Evaluations of Online News

The emergence of online news offers journalists the opportunity to use a variety of formats to present news, including traditional text and video forms and emerging multimedia forms. This paper reports the results of a series of studies exploring these formats, two experiments and a survey. The first experiment compared three formats of video news delivery and found that format was related to time spent viewing a story, and time spent predicted recall of the story, but no direct relationship was observed between format and recall. The secondexperiment compared three different formats (text, text with pictures, and text with videos), finding less difference in time spent by format, but finding that time spent predicted recall. The third study used a survey of experts to predict the changes in the delivery of news over the next 20 years, projecting that the tablet will emerge as the primary delivery tool, but that the content of news will be little changed