Smartization in Gatchina

In the paper, a case of a Russian town Gatchina is examined to find the reasonable balance between international Smart City practice, governmental requirements, historical identity preservation and human-oriented approach. The article focuses on the democratic urban design of a public space. The project included qualitative and quantitative research; three project sessions with local inhabitants; preparation of an architectural project based on the collected data. During the design process, organizers faced two types of challenges: economic (shortage of funding) and communication issues (difficulties with informing and recruiting the citizens for the project sessions; underrepresentativeness of some target groups; etc.), whereby the latter dominate. Nevertheless, the project was effective; it showed that such towns can afford Smart City (though by separate projects only), and that collaboration with the citizens contributes to both history and culture preservation and effective competition in federal grants for Smart City development.

Smartization in Gatchina

In the paper, a case of a Russian town Gatchina is examined to find the reasonable balance between international Smart City practice, governmental requirements, historical identity preservation and human-oriented approach. The article focuses on the democratic urban design of a public space. The project included qualitative and quantitative research; three project sessions with local inhabitants; preparation of an architectural project based on the collected data. During the design process, organizers faced two types of challenges: economic (shortage of funding) and communication issues (difficulties with informing and recruiting the citizens for the project sessions; underrepresentativeness of some target groups; etc.), whereby the latter dominate. Nevertheless, the project was effective; it showed that such towns can afford Smart City (though by separate projects only), and that collaboration with the citizens contributes to both history and culture preservation and effective competition in federal grants for Smart City development.

Become a Public Educator

Even though your prime duty is to your research, becoming a public educator can serve both one’s research and the information needs of the public. It also serves your field as a whole. Public education can mean teaching a science appreciation course, giving public lectures, registering with the institution’s speakers bureau, and advising the media on science and technology. Working with local schools, mentoring young people, and helping science centers create exhibits are also productive activities and bring professional benefits. These activities teach valuable communication skills, meet the Broader Impacts Criterion of federal grants, highlight one’s own department and institution, and bring you visibility.

Implementing presidential particularism: bureaucracy and the distribution of federal grants

Do agencies implement the president's particularistic goals uniformly? This paper clarifies the presidential particularism literature by explicitly considering the mechanism through which the president pursues their policy goals: executive agencies. The constellation of bureaucratic agencies responsible for allocating grants plays a key role in facilitating or frustrating presidential policy priorities. Using a dataset of 21 agencies over 14 years, I find that only agencies ideologically proximate to the president engage in particularism benefiting the president. I find no evidence that politicization influences agency implementation of particularism. Critically, the moderating effect of the bureaucracy on particularism only occurs for distributive programs over which agencies have discretion. When disbursing formula grants written by Congress but administered by the bureaucracy with little or no discretion, ideological distance between agencies and presidents has no effect on particularism.

The Problem May Not Be as Complex as You Think: A Conversation With Joe Wehby

Dr. Joseph (Joe) Wehby currently is the Chair of the Department of Special Education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development. In addition, he is a researcher at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and the Director of the National Center for Leadership in Intensive Intervention. He has received more than US$30 million in federal grants for research and training. Much of his research efforts have focused on evaluating the effectiveness of multicomponent mental health and academic tutoring interventions for students with significant behavior difficulties. He shares his reflections on his career in providing training and support to those students who require intensive interventions. He also discusses what he sees as the future of the field and offers suggestions for those entering the field.

Satisfaction, Preparedness, and Implementation: Teacher Culture and Climate in Magnet School Conversions

In this study, we examine teacher perspectives of magnet school implementation in two recently converted elementary schools that had received federal grants to reduce minority group isolation. We draw on 2 years of data on teacher perspectives related to satisfaction, preparedness, and implementation of the magnet program. Surprisingly, we found that as involvement and a sense of preparation increased, teacher satisfaction decreased from the planning year to first year of implementation. We conclude by considering the implications of these findings for magnet school success in creating staff culture and climate that are more likely to support successful magnet implementation.

Advances in Research on Adolescent Suicide and a High Priority Agenda for Future Research

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for adolescents in the U.S., yet remarkably little is known regarding risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs), relatively few federal grants and scientific publications focus on STBs, and few evidence-based approaches to prevent or treat STBs are available. This “decade in review” article discusses five domains of recent empirical findings that span biological, environmental, and contextual systems and can guide future research in this high priority area: 1) the role of the central nervous system; 2) physiological risk factors, including the peripheral nervous system; 3) proximal acute stress-responses; 4) novel behavioral and psychological risk factors; 5) broader societal factors impacting diverse populations; and several additional nascent areas worthy of further investigation.

Delegative Federalism? Subnational Abdication and Executive Fiscal Centralisation in Argentina

What accounts for the varying and increasing levels of centralisation in federal systems? This article contributes to this debate showing that, despite normative and theoretical arguments on the advantages of decentralised fiscal federalism, changing economic conditions and governance hurdles prompt an increasing trend towards executive fiscal centralisation. It seeks to unravel this theoretical riddle by proposing the concept of delegative federalism, defined as a model of federal governance suitable for explaining how economic contexts impel a dynamic of subnational assent to centralisation policies and reforms that oftentimes breach the historic institutional empowerment of subnational authorities. The experience of Argentina, a paradigmatic case of hyper-presidentialist federalism amid institutionally strong provinces, is analysed to show that national executives may increasingly extend their reach not only because of congressional dysfunction but also due to the disproportionate sway of overrepresented, mostly transfer-dependent subnational governments that shun revenue responsibility. Accordingly, and perpetuating centralisation, they delegate tax authority in crises times and abdicate it further when economic windfall affords them with predictable federal grants.

Publishing Children Books by Minority Voices in Canada: The Case of Groundwood Books

In Canada today the children’s book publishing scene is quite different from what it used to be in the 1970s and 1980s. Even if most publishers are small and rely heavily on federal grants the sheer range of publishing houses which feature the multicultural composition of the country for children and young adult readers is vast. The pendulum covers houses such as Annick Press, Fifth house, Second Story, or Theytus Books. The situation forty years ago though was radically different. In those days one of the groundbreaking houses was Groundwood Books. In this article we intend to look into the origins of the project, the wider political, social and cultural context, and three works by minority voices which clearly marked the publishing house’s profile and aspirations (Paul Yee’s Tales from Gold Mountain, Thomas King’s controversial A Coyote Columbus Story and Shirley Sterling’s My Name is Seepeetza). Our aim thus is to afford insight into the part played by Groundwood Books in fostering a new poetics in children’s books within the framework of Canada’s nation-building process.