Is there a place for the role of families in secondary education? Perceptions and proposals to transform the institutional programme of schools

Las respuestas a un cuestionario realizado al inicio de una investigación-acción en diferentes institutos de secundaria, nos muestran las opiniones que el profesorado de estos centros tiene acerca de la relación con las familias. Se trataba no sólo de conocer los puntos de vista de los y las docentes sino de utilizarlos en el claustro de los centros implicados para abrir un proceso de reflexión y de implementación de propuestas pedagógicas dirigidas a modificar aspectos de la cultura escolar. Todo ello en beneficio de una relación más fluida y, a la vez, más profunda, con las familias. Precisamente, el papel y el lugar de las familias en los institutos supone una de las claves para avanzar hacia un nuevo programa institucional en los centros de secundaria, una reinstitucionalización que tendría que situar en el centro de las preocupaciones docentes, la vinculación con las familias y la comunidad, aspecto indispensable para la mejora de los aprendizajes de todo el alumnado.The responses made to a questionnaire at the beginning of an action-research in different secondary schools show us the opinions that teachers of these educational institutions have on the relationship with families. The aim was not just to know the opinions of the teachers but to use them in the staff meetings of the schools involved in order to open a process of reflection and implementation of pedagogical proposals to modify aspects of the school culture. All this was done in favour of a more fluid and, at the same time, deeper, relationship with families. Indeed, the role and place of families in the secondary schools is a key point to moving towards a new institutional programme, a re-institutionalization that should place links with families and community at the centre of educational concerns, as an essential aspect to improve the learning of all pupils.Grupo FORCE (HUM-386). Departamento de Didáctica y Organización Escolar de la Universidad de Granad

Repeated hypoxic episodes allow hematological and physiological habituation in rainbow trout

Introduction: Under climate change, the increase in temperature in aquaticenvironments may induce oxygen depletion. In extreme cases, low oxygenmay become a limiting factor for fish, thus generating stress. In addition,consecutive hypoxic episodes may complicate the recovery of individualsand hinder their ability to modulate physiological and biochemical responsesto maintain homeostasis. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine thehematological and physiological responses of rainbow trout under a conditionof repeated hypoxic and manipulation stresses at three different time points.Methods: Every hypoxic episode consisted of exposing the fish to low dissolvedoxygen concentrations (2 mgO2/L for 1 h). Following the exposure, the fishwere allowed to recover for 1 h, after which they were sampled to investigatehematological and physiological parameters.Results and discussion: The results showed a pattern of habituation reflectedby values of hematocrit, hemoglobin, and mean corpuscular volume, indicatinga certain ability of rainbow trout to resist this type of repeated hypoxic events,provided that the fish can have some recovery time between the exposures

Bacterial lipopolysaccharide induces apoptosis in the trout ovary

BACKGROUND: In mammals it is well known that infections can lead to alterations in reproductive function. As part of the innate immune response, a number of cytokines and other immune factors is produced during bacterial infection or after treatment with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and acts on the reproductive system. In fish, LPS can also induce an innate immune response but little is known about the activation of the immune system by LPS on reproduction in fish. Therefore, we conducted studies to examine the in vivo and in vitro effects of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on the reproductive function of sexually mature female trout. METHODS: In saline- and LPS -injected brook trout, we measured the concentration of plasma steroids as well as the in vitro steroidogenic response (testosterone and 17alpha-hydroxyprogesterone) of ovarian follicles to luteinizing hormone (LH), the ability of 17alpha,20beta-dihydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one to induce germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) in vitro, and that of epinephrine to stimulate follicular contraction in vitro. We also examined the direct effects of LPS in vitro on steroid production, GVBD and contraction in brook trout ovarian follicles. The incidence of apoptosis was evaluated by TUNEL analysis. Furthermore, we examined the gene expression pattern in the ovary of saline- and LPS-injected rainbow trout by microarray analysis. RESULTS: LPS treatment in vivo did not affect plasma testosterone concentration or the basal in vitro production of steroids, although a small but significant potentiation of the effects of LH on testosterone production in vitro was observed in ovarian follicles from LPS-treated fish. In addition, LPS increased the plasma concentration of cortisol. LPS treatment in vitro did not affect the basal or LH-stimulated steroid production in brook trout ovarian follicles. In addition, we did not observe any effects of LPS in vivo or in vitro on GVBD or follicular contraction. Therefore, LPS did not appear to impair ovarian steroid production, oocyte final maturation or follicular contraction under the present experimental conditions. Interestingly, LPS administration in vivo induced apoptosis in follicular cells, an observation that correlated with changes in the expression of genes involved in apoptosis, as evidenced by microarray analysis. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that female trout are particularly resistant to an acute administration of LPS in terms of ovarian hormone responsiveness. However, LPS caused a marked increase in apoptosis in follicular cells, suggesting that the trout ovary could be sensitive to the pro-apoptotic effects of LPS-induced inflammatory cytokines

Politicas de conciliación, liderazgo y cultura en 2.200 PYMES españolas

Preprin

Thalamic nuclei changes in early and late onset Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia worldwide. Increasing evidence points to the thalamus as an important hub in the clinical symptomatology of the disease, with the ‘limbic thalamus’ been described as especially vulnerable. In this work, we examined thalamic atrophy in early-onset AD (EOAD) and late-onset AD (LOAD) compared to young and old healthy controls (YHC and OHC, respectively) using a recently developed cutting-edge thalamic nuclei segmentation method. A deep learning variant of Thalamus Optimized Multi Atlas Segmentation (THOMAS) was used to parcellate 11 thalamic nuclei per hemisphere from T1-weighted MRI in 88 biomarker-confirmed AD patients (49 EOAD and 39 LOAD) and 58 healthy controls (41 YHC and 17 OHC) with normal AD biomarkers. Nuclei volumes were compared among groups using MANCOVA. Further, Pearson's correlation coefficient was computed between thalamic nuclear volume and cortical—subcortical regions, CSF tau levels, and neuropsychological scores. The results showed widespread thalamic nuclei atrophy in EOAD and LOAD compared to their respective healthy control groups, with EOAD showing additional atrophy in the centromedian and ventral lateral posterior nuclei compared to YHC. In EOAD, increased thalamic nuclei atrophy was associated with posterior parietal atrophy and worse visuospatial abilities, while LOAD thalamic nuclei atrophy was preferentially associated with medial temporal atrophy and worse episodic memory and executive function. Our findings suggest that thalamic nuclei may be differentially affected in AD according to the age at symptoms onset, associated with specific cortical—subcortical regions, CSF total tau and cognition

A compact integrated system for neural signal acquisition and stimulation

The mechanism by which the neural networks communicate and the understanding of these processes remains the fundamental issue of neuroscience. Long-term brain activity registration and stimulation is the main ally to analyze and interpret data coming from the brain. Several materials and microelectronics techniques have been pursued to obtain reliable and long lasting implantable devices from intracortical electrodes to soft epicortical arrays. Among them, ultra-flexible interfaces result particular appealing for their superior conformability and intimate contact with the brain tissue, especially for epicortical devices, thus achieving higher signals and reducing brain injuries. By other side, also external electronics is important properly to treat the signal, filtering the artifacts and minimizing the noise. In this paper, a novel compact integrated system for both brain stimulation and recording is presented. The device consisted in an ultra-flexible polyimide 32-channel microelectrodes array (8 um thick) connected to a miniaturized PCB able to amplify, filter and digitalize the neural signals. The size of this acquiring board is 60x45 mm and it provides an amplification of 200x with a sampling rate greater than 1 MSamples/s. The system has been successfully tested both in-vivo and in-vitro experiments on Wistar rat demonstrating that it could be a good candidate for a further miniaturization of the measurement equipment

¿Hay lugar para las familias en la educación secundaria? Percepciones y propuestas para una transformación del programa institucional de los centros educativos

Las respuestas a un cuestionario realizado al inicio de una investigación-acción en diferentes institutos de secundaria, nos muestran las opiniones que el profesorado de estos centros tiene acerca de la relación con las familias. Se trataba no sólo de conocer los puntos de vista de los y las docentes sino de utilizarlos en el claustro de los centros implicados para abrir un proceso de reflexión y de implementación de propuestas pedagógicas dirigidas a modificar aspectos de la cultura escolar. Todo ello en beneficio de una relación más fluida y, a la vez, más profunda, con las familias. Precisamente, el papel y el lugar de las familias en los institutos supone una de las claves para avanzar hacia un nuevo programa institucional en los centros de secundaria, unareinstitucionalización que tendría que situar en el centro de las preocupaciones docentes, la vinculación con las familias y la comunidad, aspecto indispensable para la mejora de los aprendizajes de todo el alumnado

Von kriminell bis willkommen. Wie die Herkunft über das mediale Framing von Einwanderern entscheidet

Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, ob Einwanderer in der Berichterstattung je nach Herkunft unterschiedlich dargestellt werden. Dazu wurden Artikel der Tageszeitungen Welt, FAZ, SZ und taz aus dem Jahr 2014 inhaltsanalytisch untersucht. Mittels hierarchischer Clusteranalyse auf Akteursebene (n = 596) lassen sich fünf Frames von Einwanderern ermitteln: Kriminelle, Nützliche, Kostenintensive, Integrationswillige und Willkommene. Einige dieser Frames korrespondieren stark mit bestimmten Nationalitäten. Einwanderer aus Herkunftsländern, die eine größere kulturelle Nähe zu Deutschland aufweisen (z. B. Südosteuropa), werden tendenziell negativer geframed als Einwanderer aus kulturell ferneren Ländern (z. B. Asien/Naher Osten und Afrika). Politisch eher konservativ orientierte Zeitungen verwenden im Verhältnis mehr negative Frames

La acogida educativa en los centros escolares : más allá de los Espacios de Bienvenida Educativa (EBE)

*Dicha investigación ha contado con financiación de la Generalitat de Cataluña: Del Departamento de Educación durante el curso 2008-2009 y con una ayuda de la Convocatoria ARAFI 2008 (Expediente: ARAFI 2008 00042) durante el curso 2009-2010.Las formas de incorporación del alumnado recién llegado a las escuelas e institutos se han situado en el centro del debate en la mayor parte de países de la OCDE en los últimos años. En España, el conjunto de medidas desarrolladas para la acogida del alumnado de origen inmigrante en las diversas Comunidades Autónomas ha sido motivo también de investigación específica, señalándose las coincidencias y contradicciones entre los discursos pedagógicos y las prácticas escolares. Este artículo tiene en cuenta dichas aportaciones y expone las reflexiones en torno a la acogida de los centros a partir de los resultados obtenidos en una investigación* realizada durante los cursos 2008-2010 centrada en un dispositivo creado en Cataluña para la acogida del alumnado de nueva incorporación, tras haber iniciado el curso académico. Se trata de los Espacios de Bienvenida Educativa (EBE) una experiencia piloto que se llevó a cabo en Vic (Barcelona) y en Reus (Tarragona) durante dos cursos. La evaluación del EBE ha posibilitado establecer relaciones entre la valoración educativa que los centros hacen de dicho recurso y los procesos de acogida de los centros. Las conclusiones que surgen de dicho análisis nos permiten afirmar que el marco conceptual y educativo de referencia en el que los centros sitúan la práctica de la acogida da lugar a tres modelos distintos de acogida.The ways of incorporating newcoming students into schools and colleges have been at the center of debate in most OECD countries in recent years. In Spain, the set of measures developed for the reception of immigrant pupils in different Autonomous Communities has also been the subject of specific research, pointing out the similarities and contradictions between pedagogic discourses and school practices. This article takes into account these considerations and presents the reflections from the results of research on the Educational Welcome Facilities (and specifically the EBE) conducted during the school years 2008-2010. This device was created in Catalonia to attend newcomers before enrolling them in the school. It was a pilot project which took place in Vic and Reus for two consecutive years. The research of the EBE has enabled us to explain the relationship between educational assessment that schools made about this facility and reception processes that schools were implementing. The conclusions that emerge from this analysis allowed us to establish relationships between educational host practices of the seven centers analyzed with three different conceptual and educational frameworks of reception