Transexualidad, adolescencias y educación: miradas multidisciplinares

En las últimas dos décadas, la temática trans (transexual/transgénero) ha emergido como un asunto de interés creciente a nivel social y cultural. Esto se ha debido, entre otros motivos, al trabajo de colectivos y asociaciones trans que han conseguido que las administraciones competentes legislaran a favor de sus necesidades y demandas en materia de educación, sanidad y ocupación. En la actualidad, una consecuencia de estos avances es la mayor visibilidad de las personas trans en los medios de comunicación y las redes sociales. Por ejemplo, una búsqueda reciente del término Transgender en Google (noticias) nos ha proporcionado un resultado de 3.160.000 artículos. En Norteamérica, gracias al impulso de editoriales independientes y la autoedición, la literatura trans, que explora la amplia diversidad de identidades de género, se está expandiendo a un ritmo sin precedentes (Kelleway, 2014)

Analysis of professionals and family foster care on advantages and difficulties of visits between foster children and their biological families

Contact between a foster child and birth parents play an important role in relation to the foster child’s wellbeing. The main aim of this study is to give voice to social workers and foster families about contact visits. This research is part of a project financed by the regional government of Andalusia (Spain) (SEJ-7106) regarding contact visits in foster care. Two focus groups were organized, one with 8 social workers from four foster care agencies and another with 8 foster carers (4 were recruited through the Association of Foster Families in Andalusia and 4 through fostering agencies). Access to foster care agencies and foster families was obtained through the official Andalusian Child Protective Services (SPM). The focal groups were audio-recorded. Transcripts (of the two focus groups gave rise to primary documents for the hermeneutic unit under study. All this information was exported from an Excel database to the ATLAS.ti v7.0 software. The transcripts were examined using an inductive method of open coding in order to identify themes among participants’ responses. Results show that both groups agreed on the utility of visits to maintain the children’s attachment to their birth family, to bring a greater sense of continuity to the children’s life story, to enhance the psychological wellbeing of the foster children and to know the real situation of their birth family. In relation to the difficulties remarked in the course of the visits, one of the issues mentioned by both groups refers to a lack in the coordination among the social workers, the SPM and the foster families involved. The other issue brings together several complaints to the SPM, such as the fact of not providing information about taking decisions regarding the future of the child; the lack of support and preparation of the foster carers, the children and the birth families about visits; as well as the shortage of social workers and economic aids provided by the SPM. The conclusions of this study highlight the need to improve contact visits by developing intervention strategies targeted at all those involved (foster children, family foster care, birth family and social workers). These findings have important implications for practice.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Aplicación de técnicas de toma de decisión multicriterio a la rehabilitación energética de áreas urbanas residenciales

La rehabilitación energética de edificios es, indudablemente, uno de los aspectos clave en la transición energética justa. El objetivo de este tipo de actuaciones no es únicamente la reducción del consumo de energía o de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, sino también cuestiones fundamentales como la mejora de las condiciones de confort o combatir la pobreza energética. Sin embargo, la cuestión sobre la rehabilitación energética se ve afectada por importantes barreras que hacen que las tasas de rehabilitación sean radicalmente bajas. Algunas de estas barreras son de índole técnico, económico o legal pero también aparecen otras, de igual importancia, propias del proceso. Estas barreras están fundamentalmente relacionadas con la fragmentación de la cadena de valor, el reto de la integración de los intereses de los diferentes agentes o el uso de herramientas que reduzcan los tiempos del proceso a la vez que permitan encontrar las soluciones óptimas. La presente tesis doctoral ha trabajado en este ámbito con el objetivo de generar y validar un sistema de evaluación que permita dar soporte al proceso de toma de decisiones. Este sistema se basa en la integración de las prioridades de los actores involucrados en la cadena de valor, así como en la implementación de técnicas de decisión multi-criterio que permiten evaluar, comparar y optimizar las alternativas de diseño. Además, el enfoque de este sistema integra la cuestión de la escala, buscando maximizar los beneficios derivados de considerar el distrito como unidad energética. La tesis doctoral se presenta como compendio de publicaciones en revistas de impacto y, además, optando a la mención de Doctor Internacional.Departamento de Construcciones Arquitectónicas, Ingeniería del Terreno y Mecánica de los Medios Continuos y Teoría de EstructurasDoctorado en Arquitectur

The voice of birth families to improve visits in foster care

In foster care, contact visits with birth families play an important role in relation to the child’s wellbeing, and they may impact on placement outcomes. However, the views of birth parents with respect to such visits have largely been unexplored. This research is part of a project financed by the regional government of Andalusia (SEJ-7106) regarding contact visits in foster care. This study aims to give voice to parents and gather their views about contact visits, including how they might be improved. Participants were 23 birth families who had contact visits with 35 children in non-kinship foster care. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted in order to explore two key aspects: the parents’ opinions regarding the contact visits and the main areas they felt needed improving. The interviews were transcribed and the transcripts were examined using an inductive method of open coding to identify themes among participants’ responses. The main themes to emerge concerned their general view of contact visits and the organization of visits. The paper discusses the study’s implications of the findings for practice.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Microhardness of different resin cement shades inside the root canal

Objectives: To compare microhardness along the root canal post space of two resin cements in different shades and a dual-cure resin core material. Study D esign: Root canals of 21 bovine incisors were prepared for post space. Translucent posts (X?Post, Dentsply DeTrey) were luted using one the following resin luting agent: Calibra (Dentsply DeTrey) in Translucent, Medium and Opaque shades, RelyX Unicem (3M ESPE) in Translucent, A2 and A3 shades and the dual-cure resin core material Core?X flow. All materials were applied according to manufacturers? instructions and were all photopolymerized (Bluephase LED unit, Ivoclar Vivadent, 40s). After 24 hours, roots were transversally cut into 9 slices 1 mm thick from the coronal to apical extremes, three corresponding to each root third. Then, VHNs were recorded (100gf, 30 s) on the resin luting materials along the adhesive interface in all sections. Data were analyzed by two- way ANOVA and SNK tests (?=0.05). Results: A significant influence on microhardness of resin luting material in their respective shades (p<0.001), root third (p<0.001) and interactions between them was detected (p<0.001). RelyX Unicem cement showed the highest microhardness values and Calibra the lowest, regardless of the shade selected. All resin luting materials tested exhibited a significantly higher microhardness in the cervical third. Conclusions: Microhardness of resin luting agents tested inside the canal is dependent on material brand and resin cement shade seems to be a less relevant factor. Microhardness decreased along the root canal, regardless of the shade selecte

To examine appropriate deep-retrofit practice using simulation results in an EU-funded urban regeneration project

This paper is based on a recently completed feasibility research - report of the Passivhaus standard retrofitting innovation activities - for the EU Horizon 2020 project REMOURBAN (REgeneration MOdel for accelerating the smart URBAN transformation). REMOURBAN is a major Future Cities demonstrator project supported by an investment of EU Lighthouse project scheme [1]. A block of terraced houses, which is one of the eight archetypes to be retrofitted at Nottingham demo site, will be cost-effectively retrofitted to a high energy-efficiency standard. Both static and dynamic simulation results play important roles in identifying appropriate retrofit standards and practice to achieve expected energy savings for such a major investment project. This paper aims to explore the building simulation effect on predicting the improvement potential in terms of energy savings under various refurbishment scenarios in the early project stage. The current feasibility study ushers the next project phases of implementation and real-time field monitoring, when detailed simulations are also expected to play important roles

Effects of Combined HIIT and Stroop on Strength Manifestations, Serve Speed and Accuracy in Recreational Tennis Players

Background: The importance of the serve in tennis players' performance is well known but no previous studies have analyzed the effects of both physical and cognitive fatigue on the speed and accuracy of the serve. This study analyzed the effect of a High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) with and without cognitive load on serve speed and accuracy, spirometry, and strength manifestation. Methods: 32 recreational players (25 men and 7 women; aged 21.40 +/- 1.52 years) performed a HIIT and a HIIT with a Stroop in recovery phases before performing a series of tennis services. Speed and accuracy of the services, spirometry, and strength manifestations were registered. Results: The main findings of the study showed that strength manifestations and spirometry were not affected by either protocol. A decrease in serve speed was observed in both protocols (p < 0.001) but service accuracy did not show impairments (p = 0.66). Conclusion: A combination of physical and mental fatigue may decrease serve speed but will not affect strength manifestations or spirometry negatively. These results could be caused by a response of the central nervous system to maintain the accuracy of the ball in presence of fatigu

SEBIO: A Semantic BioInformatics Platform for the New E-Science

Knowledge integration and exchange of data within and among organizations is a universally recognized need in bioinformatics and genomics research through the e-science field. The main problem looming over the lack of integration is the fact that the current Web is an environment primarily developed for human users and micro-array data resources lack widely accepted standards; this leads to a tremendous data heterogeneity. Using semantic technologies as a key technology for interoperation of various datasets enables knowledge integration of the vast amount of biological and biomedical data. In this paper, we aim at providing a semantically-enhanced bioinformatics platform (SEBIO), which handles these issues effectively. We will describe the problems arisen and the solutions applied so far. For that, the SEBIO approach is unfolded and its main components explained, to see in more detail how perfectly it copes with the aforementioned difficulties

An evaluation framework to support optimisation of scenarios for energy efficient retrofitting of buildings at the district level

Producción CientíficaEnergy-efficient retrofitting of buildings has become essential to achieve the environmental objectives of the European Union’s (EU) strategies towards reducing carbon emissions and energy dependency on fossil fuels. When tackling retrofitting projects, the issue of scale becomes essential as sometimes this can determine the sustainability of the project. Therefore, a comprehensive approach is essential to ensure effective decision-making. A platform has been designed within the EU funded OptEEmAL project to support stakeholders in this process, providing functionalities that can automatically model and evaluate candidate retrofitting alternatives considering their priorities, targets and boundary conditions. A core element of this platform is the evaluation framework deployed which implements a multi-criteria decision-making approach to transform the priorities of stakeholders into quantifiable weights used to compare the alternatives. As a result, more informed decisions can be made by the stakeholders through a comprehensive evaluation of the candidate retrofitting scenarios. This paper presents the approach followed to develop and integrate this evaluation framework within the platform as well as its validation in a controlled environment to ensure its effectiveness