The relationship of certain word analysis abilities to the reading achievement of first, second, and third grade children,

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Contribution of Collaborative Work to Teacher Reflection and the Transformation of Pedagogical Practices of School and University Science Teachers // Contribución del trabajo colaborativo en la reflexión docente y en la transformación de las prácticas pedagógicas de profesores de ciencia escolares y universitarios

Poor results of science learning, both at school and university, have led us to acknowledge the need to transform our teaching. Currently, reflection and collaborative work with colleagues are conceived as being key factors in the process of the transformation of practices. Based on the experiences of a group of school and university science teachers working on action-research, we describe the contribution that collaborative work has on reflection for the transformation of practices. The main aspects are the recognition of strengths and weaknesses, listening to and learning from the experience of others, and the discussion of specific classroom practices. On the other hand, these reflections contribute to the transformation at different levels: the teacher, classroom teaching practices, and the school community. The fact that it is a diverse group that includes both school and university teachers generate enriching reflections that help to transform practices in both areas. These reflections not only benefit the school system, but also science teachers education, and provide insights on a new University-School relationship // Los deficientes resultados de aprendizaje en el área de las ciencias, tanto en el ámbito escolar como universitario, nos han llevado a la necesidad de transformar nuestra enseñanza. En la actualidad, la reflexión y el trabajo colaborativo con colegas se conciben como claves en el proceso de transformación de las prácticas. A partir de la experiencia de un grupo de docentes escolares y universitarios de ciencia que realiza una investigación-acción, describimos la contribución que tiene el trabajo colaborativo sobre la reflexión para la transformación de las prácticas. Destacan aspectos como el reconocimiento de debilidades y fortalezas, el escuchar y aprender de la experiencia de otros y la discusión de prácticas concretas de aula. Por otra parte, estas reflexiones contribuyen a la transformación en diferentes niveles: del profesor, de las prácticas del docente en el aula y de la comunidad escolar. El hecho de que sea un grupo diverso, que incluye a profesores tanto del sistema escolar como universitario, genera reflexiones enriquecedoras, que ayudan a transformar las prácticas en estos dos ámbitos, beneficiando no solo al sistema escolar, sino también a la formación de profesores de ciencia, y dando luces acerca de una nueva relación universidad-escuela

A Compensatory Mutation Provides Resistance to Disparate HIV Fusion Inhibitor Peptides and Enhances Membrane Fusion

Fusion inhibitors are a class of antiretroviral drugs used to prevent entry of HIV into host cells. Many of the fusion inhibitors being developed, including the drug enfuvirtide, are peptides designed to competitively inhibit the viral fusion protein gp41. With the emergence of drug resistance, there is an increased need for effective and unique alternatives within this class of antivirals. One such alternative is a class of cyclic, cationic, antimicrobial peptides known as θ-defensins, which are produced by many non-human primates and exhibit broad-spectrum antiviral and antibacterial activity. Currently, the θ-defensin analog RC-101 is being developed as a microbicide due to its specific antiviral activity, lack of toxicity to cells and tissues, and safety in animals. Understanding potential RC-101 resistance, and how resistance to other fusion inhibitors affects RC-101 susceptibility, is critical for future development. In previous studies, we identified a mutant, R5-tropic virus that had evolved partial resistance to RC-101 during in vitro selection. Here, we report that a secondary mutation in gp41 was found to restore replicative fitness, membrane fusion, and the rate of viral entry, which were compromised by an initial mutation providing partial RC-101 resistance. Interestingly, we show that RC-101 is effective against two enfuvirtide-resistant mutants, demonstrating the clinical importance of RC-101 as a unique fusion inhibitor. These findings both expand our understanding of HIV drug-resistance to diverse peptide fusion inhibitors and emphasize the significance of compensatory gp41 mutations. © 2013 Wood et al

Long-term changes to the frequency of occurrence of British moths are consistent with opposing and synergistic effects of climate and land-use changes

1. Species’ distributions are likely to be affected by a combination of environmental drivers. We used a data set of 11 million species occurrence records over the period 1970–2010 to assess changes in the frequency of occurrence of 673 macro-moth species in Great Britain. Groups of species with different predicted sensitivities showed divergent trends, which we interpret in the context of land-use and climatic changes. 2. A diversity of responses was revealed: 260 moth species declined significantly, whereas 160 increased significantly. Overall, frequencies of occurrence declined, mirroring trends in less species-rich, yet more intensively studied taxa. 3. Geographically widespread species, which were predicted to be more sensitive to land use than to climate change, declined significantly in southern Britain, where the cover of urban and arable land has increased. 4. Moths associated with low nitrogen and open environments (based on their larval host plant characteristics) declined most strongly, which is also consistent with a land-use change explanation. 5. Some moths that reach their northern (leading edge) range limit in southern Britain increased, whereas species restricted to northern Britain (trailing edge) declined significantly, consistent with a climate change explanation. 6. Not all species of a given type behaved similarly, suggesting that complex interactions between species’ attributes and different combinations of environmental drivers determine frequency of occurrence changes. 7. Synthesis and applications. Our findings are consistent with large-scale responses to climatic and land-use changes, with some species increasing and others decreasing. We suggest that land-use change (e.g. habitat loss, nitrogen deposition) and climate change are both major drivers of moth biodiversity change, acting independently and in combination. Importantly, the diverse responses revealed in this species-rich taxon show that multifaceted conservation strategies are needed to minimize negative biodiversity impacts of multiple environmental changes. We suggest that habitat protection, management and ecological restoration can mitigate combined impacts of land-use change and climate change by providing environments that are suitable for existing populations and also enable species to shift their ranges

A joint individual-based model coupling growth and mortality reveals that tree vigor is a key component of tropical forest dynamics

Tree vigor is often used as a covariate when tree mortality is predicted from tree growth in tropical forest dynamic models, but it is rarely explicitly accounted for in a coherent modeling framework. We quantify tree vigor at the individual tree level, based on the difference between expected and observed growth. The available methods to join nonlinear tree growth and mortality processes are not commonly used by forest ecologists so that we develop an inference methodology based on an MCMC approach, allowing us to sample the parameters of the growth and mortality model according to their posterior distribution using the joint model likelihood. We apply our framework to a set of data on the 20-year dynamics of a forest in Paracou, French Guiana, taking advantage of functional trait-based growth and mortality models already developed independently. Our results showed that growth and mortality are intimately linked and that the vigor estimator is an essential predictor of mortality, highlighting that trees growing more than expected have a far lower probability of dying. Our joint model methodology is sufficiently generic to be used to join two longitudinal and punctual linked processes and thus may be applied to a wide range of growth and mortality models. In the context of global changes, such joint models are urgently needed in tropical forests to analyze, and then predict, the effects of the ongoing changes on the tree dynamics in hyperdiverse tropical forests. (Résumé d'auteur

Loving to Straighten Out Development: Sexuality and ‘Ethnodevelopment’ in the World Bank’s Ecuadorian Lending

Gender staff in the World Bank -- the world's largest and most influential development institution -- have a policy problem. Having prioritised efforts to get women into paid employment as the "cure-all" for gender inequality they must deal with the work that women already do -- the unpaid labour of caring, socialisation, and human needs fulfilment. This article explores the most prominent policy solution enacted by the Bank to this tension between paid and unpaid work: the restructuring of normative heterosexuality to encourage a two-partner model of love and labour wherein women work more and men care better. Through a case study of Bank gender lending in Ecuador I argue that staff are trying to (re)forge normative arrangements of intimacy, a policy preference that remains invisible unless sexuality is taken seriously as a category of analysis in development studies. Specifically, I focus on four themes that emerge from the attempt to restructure heteronormativity in the loan: (1) the definition of good gender analysis as requiring complementary sharing and dichotomous sex; (2) the Bank's attempt to inculcate limited rationality in women such that they operate as better workers while retaining altruistic attachments to loved ones; (3) the Bank's attempt to inculcate better loving in men, such that they pick up the slack of caring labour when their (partially) rational wives move into productive work, and; (4) the invocation of a racialised hierarchy resting on the extent to which communities approximate ideals of sharing monogamous partnership. Aside from providing clear evidence that the world's largest development institution is involved in micro-processes of sexuality adjustment alongside macro-processes of economic restructuring, I also critique the Bank's sexualised policy interventions and suggest that they warrant contestation

Principios de Desarrollo Profesional Docente construidos por y para Profesores de Ciencia: una propuesta sustentable que emerge desde la indagación de las propias prácticas / Principles of Teacher Professional Development built by and for Science Teachers: a sustainable proposal that emerges from the inquiry of self-practices

La transformación de las prácticas de los docentes en el área de ciencias, tanto a nivel escolar como universitario (incluida la formación inicial), constituye una necesidad urgente si pretendemos alfabetizar científicamente a la población. Este estudio muestra una propuesta de cinco principios para el desarrollo profesional docente en ciencias, que emergen desde la indagación colaborativa de las propias prácticas de un conjunto de docentes de educación primaria, secundaria y universitaria, quienes trabajan hace cuatro años en un proceso de desarrollo profesional conjunto. Estos principios incluyen la construcción de una visión común acerca del para qué enseñar ciencias, la indagación de las prácticas a partir de las particularidades de la educación científica, la reflexión individual y colectiva sobre las prácticas, la valoración de la autoridad de la experiencia para el aprendizaje docente y la promoción de un ambiente de desarrollo profesional que involucre diversidad de contextos y niveles de enseñanza. // The transformation of teaching practices in the area of sciences, both at school and university levels (including initial training), is an urgent need if we intend to achieve scientific literacy in the population. This study shows a proposal of five principles for teacher professional development in sciences, emerged from the collaborative inquiry of self-practices in a group of primary, secondary and university teachers, who have been working together for four years in a professional development process. These principles include the construction of a common vision on the purpose for teaching sciences; the inquiry of practices starting from the distinctive features of scientific education; individual and collective reflection on practices; the valuation of the authority of experience for teacher learning; and the promotion of an environment of professional development involving diverse contexts and teaching levels. Implications for professional development are discussed

Of shepherds, sheep and sheepdogs?: governing the adherent self through complementary and competing ‘pastorates’

Foucault’s concept of ‘pastoral power’ describes an important technique for constituting obedient subjects. Derived from his analysis of the Christian pastorate, he saw pastoral power as a prelude to contemporary technologies of governing ‘beyond the State’, where ‘experts’ shepherd self-governing subjects. However, the specific practices of modern pastorate have been little developed. This papers examines the relational practices of pastoral power associated with the government of medicine use within the English healthcare system. The study shows how multiple pastors align their complimentary and variegated practices to conduct behaviours, but also how pastors compete for legitimacy, and face resistance through the mobilisation of alternate discourses and the strategic exploitation of pastoral competition. The paper offers a dynamic view of the modern pastorate within the contemporary assemblages of power

Climatic versus biotic constraints on carbon and water fluxes in seasonally drought-affected ponderosa pine ecosystems

We investigated the relative importance of climatic versus biotic controls on gross primary production (GPP) and water vapor fluxes in seasonally drought-affected ponderosa pine forests. The study was conducted in young (YS), mature (MS), and old stands (OS) over 4 years at the AmeriFlux Metolius sites. Model simulations showed that interannual variation of GPP did not follow the same trends as precipitation, and effects of climatic variation were smallest at the OS (50%), and intermediate at the YS (<20%). In the young, developing stand, interannual variation in leaf area has larger effects on fluxes than climate, although leaf area is a function of climate in that climate can interact with age-related shifts in carbon allocation and affect whole-tree hydraulic conductance. Older forests, with well-established root systems, appear to be better buffered from effects of seasonal drought and interannual climatic variation. Interannual variation of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) was also lowest at the OS, where NEE is controlled more by interannual variation of ecosystem respiration, 70% of which is from soil, than by the variation of GPP, whereas variation in GPP is the primary reason for interannual changes in NEE at the YS and MS. Across spatially heterogeneous landscapes with high frequency of younger stands resulting from natural and anthropogenic disturbances, interannual climatic variation and change in leaf area are likely to result in large interannual variation in GPP and NEE

A multilevel neo-institutional analysis of infection prevention and control in English hospitals: coerced safety culture change?

Despite committed policy, regulative and professional efforts on healthcare safety, little is known about how such macro-interventions permeate organisations and shape culture over time. Informed by neo-institutional theory, we examined how inter-organisational influences shaped safety practices and inter-subjective meanings following efforts for coerced culture change. We traced macro-influences from 2000 to 2015 in infection prevention and control (IPC). Safety perceptions and meanings were inductively analysed from 130 in-depth qualitative interviews with senior- and middle-level managers from 30 English hospitals. A total of 869 institutional interventions were identified; 69% had a regulative component. In this context of forced implementation of safety practices, staff experienced inherent tensions concerning the scope of safety, their ability to be open and prioritisation of external mandates over local need. These tensions stemmed from conflicts among three co-existing institutional logics prevalent in the NHS. In response to requests for change, staff flexibly drew from a repertoire of cognitive, material and symbolic resources within and outside their organisations. They crafted 'strategies of action', guided by a situated assessment of first-hand practice experiences complementing collective evaluations of interventions such as 'pragmatic', 'sensible' and also 'legitimate'. Macro-institutional forces exerted influence either directly on individuals or indirectly by enriching the organisational cultural repertoire