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Contains fulltext : 283810.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access), In the current study, the development in reading comprehension performance of students in lower-SES versus higher-SES schools during and after school closures due to Covid-19 lockdowns was examined, and compared to a normed reference group. Furthermore, we explored protective factors against negative effects at the time of school closures, by pinpointing successful practices in a sub sample of resilient lower-SES schools. The total sample consisted of 2202 students followed from grade 2-4. Overall, we found that students in lower-SES schools made less progress over time than students in higher-SES schools. On average, students made less progress during the lockdowns, but here, the interaction with SES was not significant. Students' reading comprehension levels partially recovered after the lockdowns. Questionnaire-data revealed that schools were better prepared during the second lockdown, with teachers making more use of digital means, and providing more online reading instruction. In addition, collaboration with the parents seemed to have improved. The in depth interviews with resilient lower-SES schools revealed that the introduction of online education and investing in educational partnerships with parents may have helped to minimize the negative impact of lockdowns. We conclude that lockdowns have a negative effect on the development of reading education, but that students are resilient. Digital means and partnership with parents may be seen as protective factors to attenuate the negative effects of emergency remote teaching.

21 oktober 2022, Contains fulltext : 283810.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access), In the current study, the development in reading comprehension performance of students in lower-SES versus higher-SES schools during and after school closures due to Covid-19 lockdowns was examined, and compared to a normed reference group. Furthermore, we explored protective factors against negative effects at the time of school closures, by pinpointing successful practices in a sub sample of resilient lower-SES schools. The total sample consisted of 2202 students followed from grade 2-4. Overall, we found that students in lower-SES schools made less progress over time than students in higher-SES schools. On average, students made less progress during the lockdowns, but here, the interaction with SES was not significant. Students' reading comprehension levels partially recovered after the lockdowns. Questionnaire-data revealed that schools were better prepared during the second lockdown, with teachers making more use of digital means, and providing more online reading instruction. In addition, collaboration with the parents seemed to have improved. The in depth interviews with resilient lower-SES schools revealed that the introduction of online education and investing in educational partnerships with parents may have helped to minimize the negative impact of lockdowns. We conclude that lockdowns have a negative effect on the development of reading education, but that students are resilient. Digital means and partnership with parents may be seen as protective factors to attenuate the negative effects of emergency remote teaching.

Background: For prospective meta-analyses (PMAs), eligible studies are identified, and the PMA hypotheses, selection criteria, and analysis methods are pre-specified before the results of any of the studies are known. This reduces publication bias and selective outcome reporting and provides a unique opportunity for outcome standardisation/harmonisation. We conducted a world-first PMA of four trials investigating interventions to prevent early childhood obesity. The aims of this study were to quantitatively analyse the effects of prospective planning on variations across trials, outcome harmonisation, and the power to detect intervention effects, and to derive recommendations for future PMA. Methods: We examined intervention design, participant characteristics, and outcomes collected across the four trials included in the EPOCH PMA using their registration records, protocol publications, and variable lists. The outcomes that trials planned to collect prior to inclusion in the PMA were compared to the outcomes that trials collected after PMA inclusion. We analysed the proportion of matching outcome definitions across trials, the number of outcomes per trial, and how collaboration increased the statistical power to detect intervention effects. Results: The included trials varied in intervention design and participants, this improved external validity and the ability to perform subgroup analyses for the meta-analysis. While individual trials had limited power to detect the main intervention effect (BMI z-score), synthesising data substantially increased statistical power. Prospective planning led to an increase in the number of collected outcome categories (e.g. weight, child’s diet, sleep), and greater outcome harmonisation. Prior to PMA inclusion, only 18% of outcome categories were included in all trials. After PMA inclusion, this increased to 91% of outcome categories. However, while trials mostly collected the same out

Am 20. Januar 2021 wird Joe Biden als der 46. Präsident der USA ins Weiße Haus einziehen. Mit dem Machtwechsel in Washington werden in Deutschland und in Europa große Erwartungen und Hoffnungen verbunden. Viele versprechen sich eine Entspannung der transatlantischen Beziehungen sowie die Rückkehr der USA zum Multilateralismus und einer regelbasierten internationalen Ordnung. Auch in der Wirtschaftspolitik wird mit Veränderungen gerechnet, die vor allem der Handels- und der Klimapolitik positive Impulse verleihen würden. Sind die Hoffnungen auf eine neue politische Ära berechtigt? Philipp Hauber, Institut für Weltwirtschaft, Kiel, rechnet mit erheblichen Veränderungen in der Wirtschaftspolitik. Die Agenda von Joe Biden sehe weitreichende Ausgaben vor allem in den Bereichen Infrastruktur, erneuerbare Energien und Bildung vor, die zum Teil durch Steuererhöhungen finanziert werden sollen. Stormy-Annika Mildner, Aspen Institute, Berlin, geht davon aus, dass Biden zwar die „America-first“-Politik von Trump nicht fortsetzen werde, allerdings werde seine Handelspolitik ebenfalls protektionistische Elemente enthalten. Zudem gehöre Handel nicht zu seinen Top-Prioritäten. Umso wichtiger sei es, dass die Handelspartner der USA – allen voran die EU – nicht auf Angebote warten, sondern den USA aktiv Angebote unterbreiten. Galina Kolev und Jürgen Matthes, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft, Köln, sehen vor allem eine Änderung im Ton bei der Handelspolitik. Jedoch dürfte auch unter Joe Biden der wirtschafts- und handelspolitische Kurs der USA weiterhin von dem Grundsatz “America first” geprägt sein. Sonja Peterson, Institut für Weltwirtschaft, Kiel, geht davon aus, dass sich die USA mit Joe Biden wieder den Zielen des Pariser Klimaabkommens verpflichtet fühlen. Denn er habe für die USA ambitionierte und angemessene langfristige Ziele – u. a. Treibhausgasneutralität bis 2050 – angekündigt. Reimund Schwarze, Universität Leipzig, sieht ebenfalls positive Zeichen für die internationale

Fire is a powerful ecological and evolutionary force that regulates organismal traits, population sizes, species interactions, community composition, carbon and nutrient cycling and ecosystem function. It also presents a rapidly growing societal challenge, due to both increasingly destructive wildfires and fire exclusion in fire‐dependent ecosystems. As an ecological process, fire integrates complex feedbacks among biological, social and geophysical processes, requiring coordination across several fields and scales of study. Here, we describe the diversity of ways in which fire operates as a fundamental ecological and evolutionary process on Earth. We explore research priorities in six categories of fire ecology: (a) characteristics of fire regimes, (b) changing fire regimes, (c) fire effects on above‐ground ecology, (d) fire effects on below‐ground ecology, (e) fire behaviour and (f) fire ecology modelling. We identify three emergent themes: the need to study fire across temporal scales, to assess the mechanisms underlying a variety of ecological feedbacks involving fire and to improve representation of fire in a range of modelling contexts. Synthesis : As fire regimes and our relationships with fire continue to change, prioritizing these research areas will facilitate understanding of the ecological causes and consequences of future fires and rethinking fire management alternatives.

Fire is a powerful ecological and evolutionary force that regulates organismal traits, population sizes, species interactions, community composition, carbon and nutrient cycling and ecosystem function. It also presents a rapidly growing societal challenge, due to both increasingly destructive wildfires and fire exclusion in fire‐dependent ecosystems. As an ecological process, fire integrates complex feedbacks among biological, social and geophysical processes, requiring coordination across several fields and scales of study. Here, we describe the diversity of ways in which fire operates as a fundamental ecological and evolutionary process on Earth. We explore research priorities in six categories of fire ecology: (a) characteristics of fire regimes, (b) changing fire regimes, (c) fire effects on above‐ground ecology, (d) fire effects on below‐ground ecology, (e) fire behaviour and (f) fire ecology modelling. We identify three emergent themes: the need to study fire across temporal scales, to assess the mechanisms underlying a variety of ecological feedbacks involving fire and to improve representation of fire in a range of modelling contexts. Synthesis: As fire regimes and our relationships with fire continue to change, prioritizing these research areas will facilitate understanding of the ecological causes and consequences of future fires and rethinking fire management alternatives.