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According to the attachment theory, early experiences with primary caregivers are the foundation of the expectations and beliefs about the self, others, and the world. It becomes particularly relevant in youth living in Residential Care (RC) settings, due to their past adversities. In this context, care workers can provide emotional healing experiences by acting as secure base figures and fostering conditions for youth's revision of their internal working models. The main aim of the present study was to explore the relationship between youth attachment dimensions and satisfaction with the residential caregiving environment, as well as, to analyze the potential mediator effect of the relationship quality with care workers in RC settings in the prior association. The sample was composed of youth, aged 12 to 18 (M = 15.54; SD = 1.66) living in RC settings in Porto district, Portugal (N = 248), that responded to three self-report measures. Results showed that attachment dimensions were associated with youth satisfaction with their caregiving environment, being this association mediated by the relationship quality with care workers. This study highlights the importance of investing in good relational experiences for youth satisfaction with the RC caregiving environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geophysical experts aimed to establish a method to identify contamination by landfill leakage without chemically analyzing subsoil samples, which is time-consuming and expensive. To that end, researchers developed a software package that let the experts create 3D visualizations of geophysical data acquired around the landfill and apply statistical analysis to detect anomalous values. The data used, electrical resistivity, are typically sparse. So, the application employs kriging to interpolate the data and provide a volumetric representation of the subsoil resistivity. To avoid invalid conclusions, the visualization also represents uncertainty. The application enabled the experts to better understand the phenomenon and to develop and validate their method. Their evaluation of the application indicated that it helped them throughout the method's development and significantly eased their workload. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]