The Impact of Advocacy Organizations on Low-Income Housing Policy in U.S. Cities

Financial support for affordable housing competes with many other municipal priorities. This work seeks to explain the variation in support for affordable housing among U.S. cities with populations of 100,000 or more. Using multivariate statistical analysis, this research investigates political explanations for the level of city expenditures on housing and community with a particular interest in the influence of housing advocacy organizations (AOs). Data for the model were gathered from secondary sources, including the U.S. Census and the National Center for Charitable Statistics. Among other results, the analysis indicates that, on average, the political maturity of AOs has a statistically significant, positive effect on local housing and community development expenditures

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

O ensino da leitura e da escrita no 1º ano de escolaridade: os resultados dos alunos em leitura

Tese de Doutoramento em Psicologia Aplicada, Área de especialidade Psicologia EducacionalO presente estudo teve como objetivo caracterizar as práticas de ensino da linguagem escrita em Portugal e perceber o seu impacto na aquisição da leitura no final do 1º ano de escolaridade. A primeira etapa deste estudo correspondeu a um estudo descritivo e comparativo com o realizado por Fijalkow (2003) em França. A partir da resposta a um questionário de 883 professores foi possível verificar que os professores dos dois países se aproximam no que diz respeito aos aspetos metodológicos do ensino da leitura e à avaliação da leitura e da escrita dos alunos. Contudo, os professores portugueses dizem utilizar com maior frequência do que os professores franceses, atividades a partir de livros infantis, outros materiais para além do manual e diferentes propostas de escrita. Na segunda etapa deste estudo, o questionário utilizado foi validado através da sua estrutura fatorial e foram utilizados os fatores revelados para a realização de uma análise hierárquica de clusters. Esta análise revelou três grupos de professores: a) um grupo de professores que centra as suas práticas no ensino do código da linguagem escrita (unidades curtas); b) um grupo que realça a construção de significado na interação com o material escrito (unidades longas); c) e um grupo de professores que reúne nas suas práticas características de ambos os grupos referidos anteriormente (unidades diversificadas). A terceira etapa realizada diz respeito à validação das respostas do questionário através da observação de sala de aula. Foram selecionados 5% dos professores de cada um dos três grupos constituídos (N=42). Cada professor foi observado duas vezes durante 60 minutos em situações escolhidas por si como situações privilegiadas para o ensino da linguagem escrita. Através da utilização de uma grelha de observação que divide as atividades desenvolvidas em atividades que remetem para o código ou para o significado, foi possível confirmar as respostas ao questionário para 55% dos professores participantes. No sentido de perceber o impacto das práticas dos professores na aquisição da leitura dos alunos foram selecionados os professores cujas observações foram coincidentes com as respostas ao questionário e avaliados os seus alunos com recurso a três provas de leitura: leitura de palavras isoladas, decisão lexical e compreensão. Participaram 461 alunos distribuídos pelos três grupos referidos anteriormente. Através da realização de uma MANCOVA, controlando a escolaridade das mães dos alunos, verificou-se que os alunos do grupo unidades diversificadas obtêm melhores resultados em todas as provas do que os alunos dos outros dois grupos. Foi ainda possível constatar que não existiram diferenças de desempenho entre os alunos do grupo unidades curtas e os alunos do grupo unidades longas.ABSTRACT: The present study aimed to characterize the teaching practices of written language and understand its impact on reading acquisition by the end of 1st grade. The first step of this study was a descriptive and comparative study to the one conducted by Fijalkow (2003) in France. Based on questionnaire answers of 883 teachers, we found that teachers from both countries have similar approaches regarding methodological aspects of teaching of reading and students’ assessment of reading and writing abilities. However, Portuguese teachers stated that they use more frequently activities from children's literature, other materials besides the manual and different writing proposals than French teachers. In the second step of the study, the questionnaire was validated through its factorial structure and the factors disclosed were used to perform a hierarchical cluster analysis. This analysis revealed three groups of teachers: a) a group of teachers who focus its practices in teaching the code of written language (short units), b) a group that emphasizes the construction of meaning in interaction with the written material (long units), c) and a group of teachers who gathered in their practices characteristics of both groups mentioned above (diversified units). The third step concerns the validation of the questionnaire answers through classroom observation. 5% of the teachers in each of the three groups were selected (N=42). Each teacher was observed twice during 60 minutes in situations identified by them as privileged situations for teaching written language. Using an observation grid which divides the activities conducted in code-activities or the meaning-activities it was possible to confirm questionnaire answers for 55% of the participating teachers. In order to understand the impact of teachers’ practices in students reading acquisition, teachers whose observations were coincident with the questionnaire answers were selected and their students were evaluated using three reading tests: single words reading, lexical decision task and comprehension task. Participants were 461 students distributed through the three groups previously mentioned. By conducting a MANCOVA, controlling mothers’ education level, we concluded that students in the diversified unit group obtain better results in all reading tests than students from the other groups. It was also possible to confirm that there were no differences in performance between students of the short units group and students of the long units group.Tese de Doutoramento em Psicologia Aplicada, Área de especialidade Psicologia EducacionalApoio financeiro da Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/64630/2009

Macroeconomics : aggregate theory and policy /

Includes bibliographies and index

An analysis of the demand for skill in a growing economy

We construct a trade theoretic model of skill formation with skill as a produced intermediate input. Capital is required for production as well as for education which transforms unskilled labor into skilled. We use this model to reflect analytically on India's rising requirement of skilled manpower. We show that even if growth of capital and supply of skilled manpower match, relative stagnation of unskilled manufacturing sector will magnify the gap between growth in demand and supply of skill. This may happen, for example, if there is a vast pool of workforce who may not have even the basic education to qualify as "unskilled" and excessive capital flows into the skilled sector. Thus a country with lack of education at a very basic level will be forced to import skilled manpower from the rest of the world.Skill formation Growth Capital allocation