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This article reports results of a phase 2 exploratory trial of a vocabulary program delivered in elementary schools to improve student’s reading ability, including their comprehension. The intervention was tested as a targeted intervention in classrooms with children aged 7–10 across 20 weeks during one school year, with eligible students learning in small groups of four. Teachers and support staff received training in this cooperative learning approach to develop children’s vocabulary with particular focus on Tier‐2 words. School staff received additional support and resources to equip them to develop and implement the vocabulary instruction sessions to targeted students. The trial was undertaken with a sample of 101 students in seven schools from three English district areas with high levels of socio‐economic disadvantage. A standardized reading test was used to measure reading outcomes, with significant gains found in student’s overall reading ability, including comprehension. Owing to the positive results found in this trial, including positive feedback about implementation of the technique, next steps should be a larger trial with 48 schools to avoid the risk of sampling error due to limited number of schools.

This paper presents the research protocol for a Phase 2 randomized controlled trial of the Fluency into Comprehension program in primary schools. The program is a workforce development program that supports teachers and teaching assistants develop and deliver targeted reading fluency and comprehension instruction to children aged 7–9. The protocol outlines a research design to assess whether the program delivered over approximately 12 weeks improves reading outcomes, in a sample of up to 192 children from 12 schools in four English districts with high socio-economic disadvantage. The outcome measures are two reading standardized tests. A process evaluation will measure fidelity and potential for scale-up.

Abstract Euclid is a European Space Agency medium-class mission selected for launch in 2020 within the cosmic vision 2015–2025 program. The main goal of Euclid is to understand the origin of the accelerated expansion of the universe. Euclid will explore the expansion history of the universe and the evolution of cosmic structures by measuring shapes and red-shifts of galaxies as well as the distribution of clusters of galaxies over a large fraction of the sky. Although the main driver for Euclid is the nature of dark energy, Euclid science covers a vast range of topics, from cosmology to galaxy evolution to planetary research. In this review we focus on cosmology and fundamental physics, with a strong emphasis on science beyond the current standard models. We discuss five broad topics: dark energy and modified gravity, dark matter, initial conditions, basic assumptions and questions of methodology in the data analysis. This review has been planned and carried out within Euclid’s Theory Working Group and is meant to provide a guide to the scientific themes that will underlie the activity of the group during the preparation of the Euclid mission.

A system for providing routine seven-day forecasts of sea level observable at tide gauge locations is described and evaluated. Forecast time series are aggregated from well-established operational systems of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; although following some adjustments these systems are only quasi-complimentary. Target applications are routine coastal decision processes under non-extreme conditions. The configuration aims to be relatively robust to operational realities such as version upgrades, data gaps and metadata ambiguities. Forecast skill is evaluated against hourly tide gauge observations. Characteristics of the bias correction term are demonstrated to be primarily static in time, with time varying signals showing regional coherence. This simple approach to exploiting existing complex systems can offer valuable levels of skill at a range of Australian locations. The prospect of interpolation between observation sites and exploitation of lagged-ensemble uncertainty estimates could be meaningfully pursued. Skill characteristics define a benchmark against which new operational sea level forecasting systems can be measured. More generally, an aggregation approach may prove to be optimal for routine sea level forecast services given the physically inhomogeneous processes involved and ability to incorporate ongoing improvements and extensions of source systems.

Abstract  In northern forest ecosystems, most soil nitrogen (N) is in organic form and forest trees are largely dependent on ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi and their degradative abilities for N uptake. The ability of ECM fungi to acquire N from organic substrates should, therefore, be a widespread trait given its ecological importance. However, little is known about the degradative abilities of most ECM fungi as they remain untested due to problems of isolation or extremely slow growth in pure culture. In this paper, we present data on extracellular protease activity of 32 species of ECM fungi, most of which have not previously been cultured. Milk powder plates and zymograms were compared for detecting protease activity in these intractable species. In total, 29/32 of the species produced extracellular protease activity, but detection was method dependent. Growth on milk powder plates detected protease activity in 28 of 32 species, while zymograms only detected proteases in Amanita muscaria, Russula chloroides, Lactarius deterrimus and Lactarius quieticolor. The study supports the hypothesis that protease excretion is a widespread physiological trait in ECM fungi and that this ability is of considerable significance for nitrogen uptake in forest ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]