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

Emprendimiento social en el medio rural: cáterin social intergeneracional

Este trabajo presenta una propuesta de emprendimiento social: se trata de construir una asociación juvenil para implementar un Cáterin Social Intergeneracional -en adelante CSI- como principal actividad; todo ello en el medio rural, y concretamente para este TFG, en Cuéllar, un pueblo de Segovia. Este Cáterin es un proyecto en el que personas de diferentes generaciones cocinan juntas (aprovechando el saber culinario de los más mayores) para un fin social: los alimentos van destinados a las familias más necesitadas.This work presents a proposal of social entrepreneurship: it is about building a youth association to implement an Intergenerational Social Catering - hereinafter CSI - as the main activity; all this in rural areas, and specifically for this end of degree project, in Cuéllar, a town in Segovia. This Catering is a project in which people from different generations cook together (taking advantage of the culinary knowledge of the elderly) for a social purpose: food is destined for the neediest families.Grado en Educación Socia

Features of non-kinship foster care children with birth family contact in Andalusia

The aim of the presentation is to describe the personal features of non-kinship foster care children who have visits with their birth family in Málaga, Granada and Jaén (provinces of Andalusia, Spain). This study was funded by the research project Application of a psychoeducational intervention program to improve visits between foster children and their biological families (Reference EDU2016 77094-P). SPSS v.21.0 was used to carry out the descriptive and frequency analysis of socio-demographic information collected by the Child File Summary Form designed for this study. There are 212 non-kinship foster care children who have visits with their birth family. Their mean age is 8.09 years old (SD= 4.73). The more frequent types of foster care are both long-term and short-term placement (30.7%, respectively), followed by specialized long-term foster care (20.3%), urgency placement (10.8%) and specialized short-term foster care (7.5%). The period of time they have been into the Child Protection System is on average 4.08 years (SD= 3.88) and into the current placement is on average 2.53 (SD= 2.95). Thus, 44.8% of foster children were in residential care and 30.2% were in previous foster care. The latter could have been with the current foster care family. Also, 41.0% of foster children were placed at least with one sibling. It is important to know the features of foster children in order to apply the main principle of “the best interests of the child” to the whole decision-making process about the child’s protection and welfare. In our project, these decisions concern foster care placement and birth family contact to maintain and strengthen family affective bonds and child’s identity formation. Our findings contribute to develop: (a) initiatives to improve children’s well-being; (b) support and social resources required by families; and (c) socio-educative tools for the social workers.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

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

Los imponderables de la tecnología educativa en la formación del profesorado

El artículo se focaliza en la influencia que tienen la actitud y los valores culturales y pedagógicos del profesorado ante el uso de los dispositivos tecnológicos en las aulas. La formación del profesorado en tecnología educativa, como valor estratégico relevante, queda orientada en la dirección de promover la innovación y el cambio educativo para la mejora. El análisis llevado a cabo permite identificar hasta cinco principales imponderables de las tecnologías en la formación del profesorado. Se trata de la inestabilidad de los protocolos de equipamiento de los centros escolares, la innovación en los centros escolares versus el desarrollo de artefactos tecnológicos, la gestión y el control como servidumbre, la cultura tecnológica de los centros escolares y los nuevos roles y representaciones entre los agentes educativos. Algunas consideraciones últimas a las que se llega destacan la conveniencia de potenciar en los centros escolares una cultura tecnológica sostenida en actitudes y valores como la libertad, la democracia y el espíritu crítico. Siempre desde la lógica de la reflexión compartida y la cooperación entre los distintos agentes que configuran las comunidades educativas. En el desarrollo de nuestra sociedad del conocimiento se va a precisar, también, de un profesorado adecuada y oportunamente formado en actitudes y valores éticos, pues en el ejercicio de la docencia van a resultar pilares básicos tanto la independencia, como la participación y la configuración de una ciudadanía crítica

A qualitative study about changes that parents experience through a pilot parenting support program to improve the quality of contact visits in non-kinship foster care

Despite the important impact that contact with birth parents during non-kinship foster care can have on a child’s well-being, there are few psychoeducational programs aimed at improving the quality of visits. The purpose of this study was to analyze the perceptions of changes in birth parents who have completed the first program of this kind to be developed in Spain, here in its pilot application. The aim of the program Visits: a context for family development is to improve parents’ emotional, communication, and parenting competences, and it comprises a total of seven sessions: six individual sessions that take place in the hour prior to consecutive scheduled visits with the child, and one group session involving all participating birth parents. A total of five families began the program, and three mothers completed all seven sessions. We conducted semi-structured interviews with mothers before and after the intervention so as to explore their perceptions regarding changes in their parenting competences and the quality of visits with their child. These data were complemented by participant-observer notes taken by one of the researchers during program sessions. Through content and semantic network analysis of interviews, we were able to identify changes in relation to five aspects of contact visits following participation in the parenting program. The results suggest that the program has the potential to enhance the parenting competences of birth mothers, to improve parentchild interaction during contact visits, and to encourage collaboration between the birth and foster families. These preliminary findings support the utility of the program for improving the quality of contact visits between birth parents and their children in non-kinship foster care.This study is part of an R + D Project of Excellence financed by the Spanish government (EDU201677094-P) [Proyecto I + D de Fomento de la Investigaci ón Científica y T écnica de Excelencia]. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de M ́alaga / CBUA. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBU

The challenge of discovering the threshold concepts of medical research areas: a bibliometrics-based approach

During the last XX century, several changes were applied to traditional educational methods, positioning the student as a central actor in the learning process. One of the pedagogical theories developed was the Threshold Concepts (TC) educational framework, based on education as a space of uncertainty, where the student needs to learn a certain concept or learning experiences that allow developing a new way of thinking. In medical education, written accounts about significant learning experiences, analysis of practice essays and semi-structured focus groups interviews have been applied to identify TC. In that way, our hypothesis is that the use of bibliometrics, as a tool to discover hidden relations between keywords, can overcome traditional difficulties related to TC identification. Keywords are applied to highlight the content of a digital object; they are concepts with a special meaning, similar to TC. Our challenge is to identify the bibliometric indexes that are able to show the relationship between the keywords that make them TC, especially in a medical context. In previous scientific literature, several methods were applied, mainly based on qualitative assessment. In this sense, we propose a quantitative, objective, and reproducible approach that can enrich the learning process from a scientific-based perspective

First results in the development of a genetic marker based on the storage proteins in two species of the Nothofagus genus

The Nothofagus genus (Nothofagaceae) in Chile includes 12 species and some hybrids among them. Some of these species are seriously threatened, presenting a low distribution and high genetic erosion. In this study a molecular marker based on seed storage proteins Nothofagus sp. was developed. Seed samples of Nothofagus alessandrii and N. glauca from two locations in southern Chile were analysed for each species. Among the different fractions of seed proteins (albumins, globulins, prolamins and glutelins) analyzed, the glutelins showed the best results, presenting conspicuous bands. Up to 39 bands were detected in both species; 22 in N. alessandrii (including 14 polymorphic) and 26 in N. glauca (21 polymorphic), with seven of them common to both species. There was a clear difference between the protein profiles of both species; we detected a preliminary value of genetic diversity in N. glauca greater than in N. alessandrii. These results, although preliminary, suggest that this marker could be useful for assessing genetic diversity in the Nothofagus genus.El género Nothofagus (Nothofagaceae) comprende 12 especies y algunos híbridos entre las mismas. Algunas de estas especies se encuentran seriamente amenazadas, presentando una distribución reducida y una gran erosión genética. En este estudio fue desarrollado un marcador molecular basado en las proteínas de reserva de la semilla de especies del género Nothofagus. Para ello se tomaron muestras de semilla de dos especies del género, N. alessandrii y N. glauca. De las diferentes fracciones de proteínas de la semilla (albúminas, globulinas, prolaminas y glutelinas), las glutelinas mostraron los mejores resultados al presentar bandas más conspicuas. Hasta 39 bandas fueron detectadas entre las dos especies, 22 en N. alessandrii (14 de ellas polimórficas) y 26 en N. glauca (21 polimórficas), siendo siete de ellas comunes a ambas especies. Se encontró una clara diferencia entre los perfiles proteicos de ambas especies, detectándose mayor diversidad genética en N. glauca que en N. alessandrii. Aunque estos resultados son preliminares, sugieren que este marcador podría ser útil para la evaluación de la diversidad genética en especies del género Nothofagus

Python software tools for GNSS interferometric reflectometry (GNSS-IR)

[EN] Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) interferometric reflectometry, also known as the GNSS-IR, uses data from geodetic-quality GNSS antennas to extract information about the environment surrounding the antenna. Soil moisture moni-toring is one of the most important applications of the GNSS-IR technique. This manuscript presents the main ideas and implementation decisions needed to write the Python code for software tools that transform RINEX format observation and navigation files into an appropriate format for GNSS-IR (which includes the SNR observations and the azimuth and elevation of the satellites) and to determine the reflection height and the adjusted phase and amplitude values of the interferometric wave for each individual satellite track. The main goal of the manuscript is to share the software with the scientific com-munity to introduce new users to the GNSS-IR technique.The authors want to thank the staff of the Cajamar Center of Experiences, and especially Carlos Baixauli, for their support and collaboration in the Paiporta experiment. The authors also want to thank Alfred Leick and Steve Hilla for their valuable comments and suggestions.Martín Furones, ÁE.; Luján García Muñoz, R.; Anquela Julián, AB. (2020). Python software tools for GNSS interferometric reflectometry (GNSS-IR). GPS Solutions. 24(4):1-7. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-020-01010-0S17244Chen Q, Won D, Akos DM, Small EE (2016) Vegetation using GPS interferometric reflectometry: experimental results with a horizontal polarized antenna. IEEE J Select Top Appl Earth Obs Rem Sens 9(10):4771–4780. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2016.2565687Chew CC, Small EE, Larson KM, Zavorotny VU (2014) Effects of near-surface soil moisture on GPS SNR data: development and retrieval algorithm for soil moisture. IEEE T Geosci Rem Sens 52(1):537–543. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2013.2242332Chew CC, Small EE, Larson KM, Zavorotny UZ (2015) Vegetation sensing using GPS-interferometric reflectometry: theoretical effects of canopy parameters on signal-to-noise ratio data. IEEE T Geosci Rem Sens 53(5):2755–2764. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2014.2364513Chew CC, Small EE, Larson KM (2016) An algorithm for soil moisture estimation using GPS-interferometric reflectometry for bare and vegetated soil. GPS Solut 20(3):525–537. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-015-0462-4Gurtner W, Estey L (2015) RINEX: the receiver independent exchange format version 3.03. ftp://igs.org/pub/data/format/rinex303.pdfLarson KM, Small EE, Gutmann ED, Bilich AL, Axelrad A, Braun JJ (2008a) Using GPS multipath to measure soil moisture fluctuations: initial results. GPS Solut 12(3):173–177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-007-0076-6Larson KM, Small EE, Gutmann ED, Bilich AL, Braun JJ, Zavorotny VU (2008b) Use of GPS receivers as a soil moisture network for water cycle studies. Geophys Res Lett 35:L24405. https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL036013Larson KM, Gutmann E, Zavorotny VU, Braun J, Williams M, Nievinski FG (2009) Can we measure snow depth with GPS receivers? Geophys Res Lett 36:L17502. https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL039430Larson KM, Braun JJ, Small EE, Zavorotny VU (2010) GPS multipath and its relation to near-surface soil moisture content. IEEE J Selec Top Appl Earth Obs Rem Sens 3(1):91–99. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2009.2033612Larson KM, Nievinski FG (2013) GPS snow sensing: results from the EarthScope plate boundary observatory. GPS Solut 17(1):41–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-012-0259-7Leick A, Rapoport L, Tatarnikov D (2015) GPS satellite surveying, 4th edn. Wiley, Hoboken, p 840Martín A, Ibañez S, Baixauli C, Blanc S, Anquela AB (2020) Multi-constellation interferometric reflectometry with mass-market sensors as a solution for soil moisture monitoring. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-3573-2020Nievinski GG, Larson KM (2014) An open source GPS multipath simulator in Matlab/Octave. GPS Solut 18:473–481. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-014-0370-zNischan T (2016) GFZRNX—RINEX GNSS data conversion and manipulation toolbox (Version 1.05). GFZ Data Serv. https://doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.1.1.2016.002Roesler C, Larson KM (2018) Software tools for GNSS interferometric reflectometry (GNSS-IR). GPS Solut. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-018-0744-8Roussel N, Ramilien G, Frappart F, Darrozes J, Gay A, Biancale R, Striebig N, Hanquiez V, Bertin X, Allain A (2015) Sea level monitoring and sea estimate using a single geodetic receiver. Remote Sens Environ 171:261–277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2015.10.011Roussel N, Frappart F, Ramillien G, Darroes J, Baup F, Lestarquit L, Ha MC (2016) Detection of soil moisture variations using GPS and GLONASS SNR data for elevation angles ranging from 2º to 70º. IEEE J Selec Top Appl Earth Obs Rem Sens 9(10):4781–4794. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2016.2537847Sanz J, Juan JM, Hernández-Pajares M (2013) GNSS data processing. Volume I: fundamentals and algorithms. European Space Agency Communications, 223 ppSmall EE, Larson KM, Chew CC, Dong J, Ochsner TE (2016) Validation of GPS-IR soil moisture retrievals: comparison of different algorithms to remove vegetation effects. 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Information and Scientific Impact of Advanced Therapies in the Age of Mass Media: Altmetrics-Based Analysis of Tissue Engineering

This study was supported by CTS-115 (Tissue Engineering Research Group, University of Granada) from Junta de Andalucia, Spain, the Spanish State Research Agency through the project PID2019-105381GA-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (iScience) , a postdoctoral grant (RH-0145-2020) from the Andalusia Health System, and the European Union Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional para la Inversion Territorial Integrada Grant for Cadiz Province (PI-0032-2017) . The authors thank Altmetric LLP (London, UK) for granting access to Altmetric Explorer for research purposes.Background: Tissue engineering (TE) constitutes a multidisciplinary field aiming to construct artificial tissues to regenerate end-stage organs. Its development has taken place since the last decade of the 20th century, entailing a clinical revolution. TE research groups have worked and shared relevant information in the mass media era. Thus, it would be interesting to study the online dimension of TE research and to compare it with traditional measures of scientific impact. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the online dimension of TE documents from 2012 to 2018 using metadata obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) and Altmetric and to develop a prediction equation for the impact of TE documents from altmetric scores. Methods: We analyzed 10,112 TE documents through descriptive and statistical methods. First, the TE temporal evolution was exposed for WoS and 15 online platforms (news, blogs, policy, Twitter, patents, peer review, Weibo, Facebook, Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, F1000, Q&A, video, and Mendeley Readers). The 10 most cited TE original articles were ranked according to the normalized WoS citations and the normalized Altmetric Attention Score. Second, to better comprehend the TE online framework, correlation and factor analyses were performed based on the suitable results previously obtained for the Bartlett sphericity and Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin tests. Finally, the linear regression model was applied to elucidate the relation between academics and online media and to construct a prediction equation for TE from altmetrics data. Results: TE dynamic shows an upward trend in WoS citations, Twitter, Mendeley Readers, and Altmetric Scores. However, WoS and Altmetric rankings for the most cited documents clearly differ. When compared, the best correlation results were obtained for Mendeley Readers and WoS (ρ=0.71). In addition, the factor analysis identified 6 factors that could explain the previously observed differences between academic institutions and the online platforms evaluated. At this point, the mathematical model constructed is able to predict and explain more than 40% of TE WoS citations from Altmetric scores. Conclusions: Scientific information related to the construction of bioartificial tissues increasingly reaches society through different online media. Because the focus of TE research importantly differs when the academic institutions and online platforms are compared, basic and clinical research groups, academic institutions, and health politicians should make a coordinated effort toward the design and implementation of adequate strategies for information diffusion and population health education.CTS-115 (Tissue Engineering Research Group, University of Granada) from Junta de Andalucia, SpainSpanish Government PID2019-105381GA-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033Andalusia Health System RH-0145-2020European Union Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional para la Inversion Territorial Integrada Grant for Cadiz Province PI-0032-201