Studying and Addressing Listening Levels of Children in a Rural Poverty-Stricken Area

This chapter reports the work of a teacher educator/researcher as she supported teacher candidates to assess and tutor struggling readers in a public school in a rural, economically depressed, yet diverse, area. Alerted by the scores for listening comprehension the candidates were finding over several semesters that indicated little reading potential for the students being assessed, she worked with the school's principal to reassess one group of students at the end of the year to determine growth, and therefore potential success, of the school's new intervention program in raising listening levels. No significant results were found, yet school personnel made no change in their program to address it. The teacher educator/researcher subsequently followed the implications of the research to provide instruction in listening skills to students in two other schools. The chapter closes with a discussion of what may truly make a difference in developing listening skills for the children in this community beyond a commercial program.

Regime cycles and political change in African autocracies

ABSTRACTThis article applies a regime cycle framework to understand patterns of change and continuity in African competitive autocracies. We observe that regime change in African autocracies is rarely the result of actions carried out by rebels, opposition leaders or popular masses substantially altering the structure of power. Instead, they are more frequently carried out by senior regime cadres, resulting in controlled reshuffles of power. We argue that such regime shifts are best explained through a cyclical logic of elite collective action consisting of accommodation and consolidation, and ultimately leading to fragmentation and crisis. These dynamics indicate the stage of leader-elite relationships at a given time, and suggest when regimes may likely expand, contract, purge and fracture. We argue that, by acknowledging in which stage of the cycle a regime and its senior elites are dominant, we can gauge the likelihood as well as the potential success of a regime change. Our framework is finally applied to understand recent regime shifts in competitive autocracies across Africa.

Water Quality Analysis in a Subtropical River with an Adapted Biomonitoring Working Party (BMWP) Index

Subtropical rivers in developing countries often lack adequate monitoring, which makes it difficult to comprehensively determine their water quality when faced with different anthropic impacts. There are no proper protocols in the regulations to incorporate indicators and adapt them to different biogeographic regions, limiting the potential success of conservation and restoration of river ecosystems. This study proposes implementing macroinvertebrates as bioindicators of water quality in river ecosystems, and modifying the calibration of the widely used Biomonitoring Working Party (BMWP) index for its adaptation in a subtropical river. The Duero River, Mexico, was used as an example in this study. Data were explored with multivariate statistics, and the water quality and habitat values were averaged to obtain the families’ bioindication values and the index categories. The BMWP adequately described a deterioration gradient from the origin to the river mouth (from fair to extremely polluted), with some intermediate recovery points related to the presence of springs. Its performance was compared with other biological indices and exhibited a positive relationship with all of them. In addition, how BMWP changed over time was analyzed by examining previous samples, and highlighted increased river deterioration over time. A calibrated BMWP will allow for long-term monitoring at a low cost.

Monitoring Rainfed Alfalfa Growth in Semiarid Agrosystems Using Sentinel-2 Imagery

The aim of this study was to assess the utility of Sentinel-2 images in the monitoring of the fractional vegetation cover (FVC) of rainfed alfalfa in semiarid areas such as that of Bardenas Reales in Spain. FVC was sampled in situ using 1 m2 surfaces at 172 points inside 18 alfalfa fields from late spring to early summer in 2017 and 2018. Different vegetation indices derived from a series of Sentinel-2 images were calculated and were then correlated with the FVC measurements at the pixel and parcel levels using different types of equations. The results indicate that the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and FVC were highly correlated at the parcel level (R2 = 0.712), whereas the correlation at the pixel level remained moderate across each of the years studied. Based on the findings, another 29 alfalfa plots (28 rainfed; 1 irrigated) were remotely monitored operationally for 3 years (2017–2019), revealing that location and weather conditions were strong determinants of alfalfa growth in Bardenas Reales. The results of this study indicate that Sentinel-2 imagery is a suitable tool for monitoring rainfed alfalfa pastures in semiarid areas, thus increasing the potential success of pasture management.

A Failure Modes and Effects Analysis Framework for Assessing Geotechnical Risks of Tailings Dam Closure

Tailings dams remain on site following mine closures and must be designed and reclaimed to meet long-term goals, which may include walk-away closure or long-term care and maintenance. The underperformance of these structures can result in significant risks to public and environmental safety, as well as impacts on the future land use and economic activities near the structure. In Alberta, Canada, the expectation is for a tailings dam to be reclaimed and closed so that it can undergo deregistration. To aid in assessing the risks of underperformance during and after closure, a Generalized Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (G-FMEA) framework was developed to assess the long-term geotechnical risks for tailings dams in Alberta, with the goal of assessing the potential success of a tailings dam closure strategy. The G-FMEA is part of an initiative to enhance closure evaluations in Alberta in a collaborative effort between industry, the regulator, and academia. The G-FMEA incorporates the element of time to account for the evolution of the system, which should be applied at the planning stage and updated continually throughout the life of the facility. This paper presents the developed G-FMEA framework for tailings dams in Alberta, including the developed risk matrix framework.

Optimizing Bidding Strategy of the Roadway Projects – An Application of Utility Function Theory

The "A+B" bid method is determined by the lowest combined bid. Contractors must greatly shorten construction time to be able to win bidding competitions. However, the risk under the shortened duration of construction increased rapidly. For this reason, it is important to propose a bidding strategy to acquire the best composition of construction cost and time. This research targeted contractors with a questionnaire regarding A+B bidding in Taiwan by applied “Utility Function Theory” to construct a decision model of the best construction cost and time. It was found that the optimal profit regressed from the modified utility function differs from contractors’ preliminary bids. In the situation that the difference in basic profits is not large, contractors can set up a decision maker’s utility function based on their ability to take a risk and simulate the major competitors based on experience to judge the potential success and risk from shortening the construction time.

Host Defense Peptide-Mimicking Polymers and Polymeric-Brush-Tethered Host Defense Peptides: Recent Developments, Limitations, and Potential Success

Amphiphilic antimicrobial polymers have attracted considerable interest as structural mimics of host defense peptides (HDPs) that provide a broad spectrum of activity and do not induce bacterial-drug resistance. Likewise, surface engineered polymeric-brush-tethered HDP is considered a promising coating strategy that prevents infections and endows implantable materials and medical devices with antifouling and antibacterial properties. While each strategy takes a different approach, both aim to circumvent limitations of HDPs, enhance physicochemical properties, therapeutic performance, and enable solutions to unmet therapeutic needs. In this review, we discuss the recent advances in each approach, spotlight the fundamental principles, describe current developments with examples, discuss benefits and limitations, and highlight potential success. The review intends to summarize our knowledge in this research area and stimulate further work on antimicrobial polymers and functionalized polymeric biomaterials as strategies to fight infectious diseases.

Functionally Calibrating Life Satisfaction: The Case of Mating Motives and Self-Perceived Mate Value

If life satisfaction has functional significance for goal achievement, it should be calibrated to cues of potential success on active and fundamentally important goals. Within the context of mating motivation, we tested this hypothesis with self-perceived mate value—an assessment of one’s potential mating success. As hypothesized, because most individuals (eventually) seek long-term relationships, self-perceived long-term mate value predicted life satisfaction for men and women regardless of relationship status. In contrast, and also as hypothesized, self-perceived short-term mate value predicted life satisfaction only for individuals with short-term mating goals—single uncommitted men (Studies 1, 2A, and 2B), individuals dispositionally motivated toward short-term relationships (Studies 2A and 2B), and single uncommitted women for whom short-term mating motivation was experimentally engaged, enabling causal inference (Study 3). Results support a functional conceptualization of life satisfaction, showing that currently active mating goals can shape the extent to which goal-specific self-perceived mate value predicts life satisfaction.

The youth’s perceptions of the labor market in Russia, China and Germany: A comparative analysis

The study of the specifics of professional choice and of the factors that determine labor orientations of the youth is one of the urgent sociological tasks for researchers all over the world. The universal, supranational nature of this task under globalization explains the need to compare labor orientations of the Russian youth with their foreign peers. The article aims at assessing the basic ideas about the labor market of the youth in Russia, Germany and China. The empirical part of the article is presented by the survey and interviews of the Russian, German and Chinese youth. The author considers typical problems that the young professionals face when searching for a job, their opinions on the most important work qualities, similarities and differences in the perception of the ideal worker. Young people in Russia, Germany and China name different aspects of working life as the most important: Russian respondents value wages and the stability of organization more than the Chinese and especially German. On the other hand, German and Chinese students prefer activities that reveal personal creativity and leave space for personal life. Considering social capital, unlike their peers from Germany and China, Russian respondents do not associate the fact of having a university diploma with potential success in the labor market. More often than the Chinese and Germans respondents, the Russian youth mention nepotism and corruption as an obstacle to successful employment. Among the similar social perceptions of the respondents from three countries, one can name the difficulties associated with the lack of work experience. The interaction of educational institutions and employers can help in overcoming the difficulties that the young Russians face when searching for a job.

Fostering Civil Public Dialogue Through Collaboration: Opportunities for Extension

This article addresses the issue of incivility in public policy debates by pointing to citizen collaboratives as an alternative that promotes civil dialogue. Collaboration forums bring together those having diverse and often opposing interests to craft solutions to public policy issues intended to advance all parties’ interests in an atmosphere of mutual trust, mutual learning, and respect. Extension has a role to play through engagement with collaboratives to build community capacity and advance community and ecological sustainability. Examples of Extension involvement and the potential success that collaboratives can achieve is presented.