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This article sharpens consideration of aspects of policy transfer to address climate change and gives greater attention to the context that might support efficient adaptive resilience. Using the example of Australian reforms to water policy, we evaluate how different elements of policy proved more (less) successful in facilitating efficient adaptation to climate variability and thus expose elements that might be more (less) attractive as candidates for policy transfer. Overall, we find that Australian policy reforms in the water sector provide useful guidance in some instances and not others. Establishing caps on extraction, flexible water markets and individual carry over rights generally facilitated flexible and efficient adaptation, and could be transferred. Related policy concepts, like formulating clear water planning rules and entitlements, are worth considering for implementation elsewhere, even if the groundwork on governance is a prerequisite. We also note the importance of shaping drought responses from government in such a way as not to distort the incentives for individual adaptation, and there is some evidence of this working in the Australian setting. Achieving transferability of these policies, however, may be a challenge. Australian policies around ‘hard infrastructure’ investments have generally proved less desirable and ideally should not be considered as a roadmap. These relate specifically to: (1) extravagant augmentation of urban supply; (2) using infrastructure to supposedly improve irrigation efficiency for environmental water provision; and (3) governments’ infrastructure responses after flooding. None of these approaches is consistent with the aim of fostering adaptation to a more variable climatic future. Key policy insights Australian water policies that have focussed on capping water extractions, development of flexible markets and specifying rights to allow greater flexibility have generally worked well against a changing climate, and could be transferred. The development of clear planning rules and entitlements also proved important, although the conditions to favour transfer are difficult to engender. Policies dealing with hard physical infrastructure have proven problematic and their adoption elsewhere is discouraged, even if transfer is more amenable. Encouraging more individual adaptation to flooding is a particularly significant challenge, even in a country renowned for drought. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

In this paper we describe our early, qualitative work on “teacher talk moves” such as revoicing , situated within the urban classrooms of highly skilled teachers, including their role in the work of managing multiple constraints while maintaining productive inclusivity. We then describe our attempts to discern the impact of these talk tools on student achievement in multiple classrooms, using both post-hoc controls and in vivo studies. We move on to the challenges present in disseminating this work in professional development settings; our approach includes framing talk tools as rational responses to actual classroom challenges. Finally we describe current efforts to disseminate cyber-enabled PD in science education K-12, including a central focus on academically productive talk.

We explore vocal vs. silent student participation in whole-class mathematics discussion in relation to learning outcomes, relying on additional data analysis from a previously published in vivo controlled comparison in two sixth grades (n = 44) which contrasted an “academically productive talk” (APT) condition (emphasizing frequent discussion) with a “direct instruction” condition (without discussion), where content was tightly controlled across conditions. In the current study, controlling for a variety of factors, we find no relationship between the degree to which students contributed vocally during the lessons, and those students' scores on the outcome measure, in either condition. This finding adds to a growing literature on participation in classroom discussion, and may inform thinking about the multiple constraints faced by teachers as they attempt to orchestrate whole-class discussions. However, we suggest that this result can most confidently be applied to classrooms in which a culture of active participation has already been established.

The vision for science teaching in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards requires a radical departure from traditional science teaching. Science literacy is defined as three-dimensional (3D), in which students engage in science and engineering practices to develop and apply science disciplinary ideas and crosscutting concepts. This knowledge building presents many challenges for teachers. We describe a two-pronged program for scaling 3D science professional development (PD) across a state: (a) 24 teachers developed expertise in 3D learning and facilitating teacher study groups; (b) these peer facilitators led 22 study groups of teachers in 3D science activities, analyzing student learning, and investigating classroom interactions. We describe design approaches for supporting teacher and facilitator learning. We present analyses of teacher learning, including shifts in 3D science, beliefs, and pedagogical content knowledge that supports 3D science teaching, and ...

We examine the discursive influence of competing interest groups and how and when U.S. federal legislators use empirical evidence to consider Missouri River diversion projects originating in the relief, recovery, and reform thinking behind President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Twelve U.S. Congressional committee hearings that occurred between 1944 and 2006 are content analyzed to demonstrate the nature of instrumental arguments in legislative deliberations. Members of Congress in favor of diversion projects used more economic-based, instrumental arguments than interest group representatives sharing their views while members of Congress opposed to the diversion projects consistently used less science-based, instrumental arguments than did interest group representatives sharing their stance. As a percentage, more instrumental arguments were made in field hearings than in Washington, D.C. hearings. While more economic-based, instrumental arguments were made in Senate-related hearings than in House of Representatives related hearings, in the House more science-based, instrumental arguments were made than in the Senate.

Many research methods exist to elucidate the functions of BMPs during osteogenesis. This chapter briefly reviews common immortalized mesenchymal cell types used to measure the efficacy of osteogenic factors like BMP-2. Detailed information regarding media and culture conditions are provided. Parameters relevant to experimental reproducibility and cell line authentication are discussed.

Many research methods exist to elucidate the functions of BMPs during osteogenesis. This chapter briefly reviews common immortalized mesenchymal cell types used to measure the efficacy of osteogenic factors like BMP-2. Detailed information regarding media and culture conditions are provided. Parameters relevant to experimental reproducibility and cell line authentication are discussed.

Advances in probabilistic forecasting, notably based on ensemble prediction systems, are transforming flood risk management. Four trends shaping the assimilation of probabilistic flood forecasting into flood risk management are longer forecasting lead times, advances in decision-making aids, inclusion of probabilistic forecasting in hazard mitigation and collaboration between researchers and managers. Confronting how to use probabilistic flood forecasts to make binary management decisions for reducing flood losses requires developing institutional capacity while acknowledging flood risk estimation is one component of decision making under uncertainty in an evolving policy landscape.

This article focuses on both research and practice relating to academically productive classroom discourse. We seek to “expand the conversation” to include newcomers to the field of classroom talk, as well as practitioners and youth researchers who want to contribute to knowledge building in this area. We first explore a variety of traditions, questions, and methods that have been prominent in work on classroom talk. We also summarize some key findings that have emerged over the past several decades: • Finding 1: Certain kinds of talk promote robust learning for ALL students. • Finding 2: The field lacks shared conceptualizations of what productive talk is and how best to characterize it. • Finding 3: Dialogic discourse is exceedingly rare in classrooms, at all grade levels and across all domains. • Finding 4: A helpful way forward: conceptualizing talk moves as tools. Following the presentation of each research finding we provide a set of commentaries—explicating and in some cases problematizing the findings. Finally, we provide some promising approaches that presume cultural and linguistic assets among both students and teachers, including curricular programs, teacher education, professional development programs, teacher research, and intergenerational communities of inquiry. In all of this, we try to make our own assumptions, traditions, and governing gazes explicit, as a multi-generational and multi-role group of authors, to encourage greater transparency among all who work in this important and potentially transformative field of study.

The consistent sporadic transmission of West Nile Virus (WNV) in the city of New Orleans justifies the need for distribution risk maps highlighting human risk of mosquito bites. We modeled the influence of biophysical and socioeconomic metrics on the spatio-temporal distributions of presence/vector-host contact (VHC) ratios of WNV vector, Culex quinquefasciatus, within their flight range. Biophysical and socioeconomic data were extracted within 5-km buffer radii around sampling localities of gravid female Culex quinquefasciatus. The spatio-temporal correlations between VHC data and 33 variables, including climate, land use-land cover (LULC), socioeconomic, and land surface terrain were analyzed using stepwise linear regression models (RM). Using MaxEnt, we developed a distribution model using the correlated predicting variables. Only 12 factors showed significant correlations with spatial distribution of VHC ratios (R2 = 81.62, p < 0.01). Non-forested wetland (NFWL), tree density (TD) and residential-urban (RU) settings demonstrated the strongest relationship. The VHC ratios showed monthly environmental resilience in terms of number and type of influential factors. The highest prediction power of RU and other urban and built up land (OUBL), was demonstrated during May–August. This association was positively correlated with the onset of the mosquito WNV infection rate during June. These findings were confirmed by the Jackknife analysis in MaxEnt and independently collected field validation points. The spatial and temporal correlations of VHC ratios and their response to the predicting variables are discussed.

This article describes the MODEL2TALK intervention, which aims to promote young children's oral communicative competence through productive classroom talk. Productive classroom talk provides children in early childhood education with many opportunities to talk and think together. Results from a large-scale study show that productive classroom talk has a positive effect on young children's oral language abilities. This is of great importance as good oral communicative competence is related to later reading comprehension skills and social acceptance and mediates learning, thinking, and self-regulation. Teachers can promote productive talk in their classrooms by giving children more space to share their ideas, listen to one another, reason, think together, and reflect on their communicative performance. The examples in this article support teachers to adopt productive talk and move toward a classroom culture in which children think and communicate together.

Organizations at the local and regional scales often face the challenge of developing policy mechanisms rapidly and concurrently, whether in response to expanding mandates, newly identified threats, or changes in the political environment. In the Canadian Province of Ontario, rapid, concurrent policy development was considered desirable by 19 regional organizations tasked with developing policies for protection of drinking water sources under very tight and highly prescribed mandates. An explicit policy transfer approach was used by these organizations. Policy transfer refers to using knowledge of policies, programs, and institutions in one context in the development of policies, programs, and institutions in another. This paper assesses three online mechanisms developed to facilitate policy transfer for source water protection in Ontario. Insights are based on a survey of policy planners from the 19 regional organizations who used the three policy transfer tools, supplemented by an analysis of three policies created and transferred among the 19 regional source water protection organizations. Policy planners in the study indicated they had used policy transfer to develop source protection policies for their regions-a finding confirmed by analysis of the text of policies. While the online policy transfer tools clearly facilitated systematic policy transfer, participants still preferred informal, direct exchanges with their peers in other regions over the use of the internet-based policy transfer mechanisms created on their behalf.

In Eva Marsal’s article, a model is presented that teaches children to philosophize by acquiring a set of skills in step-by-step exercises. In the classroom examples that Marsal provides, however, it remains unclear how teachers support the kinds of thinking and philosophizing that her Five Finger Model aims to promote. This is why, in response to Eva Marsal’s article, we argue that productive classroom dialogue can be seen as a complementary approach that supports teachers in bringing dialogue into their classrooms. As its aim is to promote children’s “meaningful learning and cultural development in an emancipatory way” (van Oers, 2012a, p. 59), it enables them to do more than appropriate or reconstruct conventional cultural meanings. Through productiveclassroom dialogue, children learn how to collaboratively progress in communicating, thinking, and understanding. As such, we believe it to be a suitable context for philosophizing with children that goes beyond step-by-step exercises. In this commentary, we subsequently elaborate the notion of productive classroom dialogue and discuss how it interanimates with Marsal’s Five Finger Model.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease where the body perceives joint tissue as a foreign object and attacks it through the immune response. During this process the immune response destroys the native joint tissue and later replaces it with nonfunctional scar tissue. The joints and surrounding tissues continue to have uncontrolled chronic inflammation which produces perpetual pain, swelling, and tissue destruction. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) metabolizes arachidonic acid into eicosanoids which can regulate the inflammatory response and affect bone metabolism. When articular cartilage is damaged, bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) is released from cells and can upregulate COX-2 expression. It is hypothesized that this BMP-2 induced COX-2 expression results in cartilage producing cells known as chondrocytes to advance to hypertrophy. In this study, articular chondrocytes harvested from wild type mice were treated with BMP-2 to determine if COX-2 expression could increase chondrocyte maturation and hypertrophy. Samples were collected at 0, 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14 days after treatment to analyze protein and gene expression. BMP-2 treated cells had statistically higher COX-2 mRNA and protein levels when compared to control cells. The expression of COX-2 on days 1 and 3 was followed by the expression of collagen 10a1 (a marker of chondrocyte hypertrophy) on days 7 and 10. These data suggest that BMP-2 directed COX-2 expression can affect chondrocyte maturation. In conclusion, this mechanism may contribute to the bone loss associated with chronic inflammation in diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.