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Background: Currently, more than 30,200,000 COVID-19 cases have been diagnosed in Germany alone. However, data regarding prevalence of COVID-19 in children, both in Germany and internationally, are sparse. We sought to evaluate the number of infected children by measuring IgG antibodies. Methods: Oropharyngeal swabs were collected between December 2020 and August 2021 to measure SARS-CoV-2, and capillary blood for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (by rapid test NADAL® and filter paper test Euroimmun® ELISA); venous blood was taken for validation (Roche® ECLIA and recomLine Blot) in 365 German children aged 3–16 years from 30 schools and preschools. We used multiple serological tests because the filter paper test Euroimmun® ELISA performs better in terms of sensitivity and specificity than the rapid test NADAL®. The Roche® ECLIA test is used to detect SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and the recomLine Blot test is used to rule out the possibility of infection by seasonal SARS-viruses and to test for specific SARS-CoV-2 proteins (NP, RBD and S1). In addition, one parent each (n = 336), and 4–5 teachers/caregivers (n = 90) per institution were tested for IgG antibodies from capillary blood samples. The total study duration was 4 months per child, including the first follow-up after 2 months and the second after 4 months. Results: Of 364 children tested at baseline, 3.6% (n = 13) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies using Euroimmun® ELISA. Seven children reported previously testing positive for SARS-CoV-2; each of these was confirmed by the Roche® Anti-SARS-CoV-2-ECLIA (antibody to spike protein 1) test. SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies persisted over a 4-month period, but levels decreased significantly (p = 0.004) within this timeframe. The median IgG values were 192.0 BAU/ml [127.2; 288.2], 123.6 BAU/ml [76.6; 187.7] and 89.9 BAU/ml [57.4; 144.2] at baseline, 2 months and 4 months after baseline, respectively. During the study period, no child tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by oropharyngeal swab. A total of 4.3% of all parents and 3.7% of teachers/caregivers tested positive for IgG antibodies by Euroimmun® ELISA at baseline. Conclusion: We noted a rather low seroprevalence in children despite an under-reporting of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Measurement of IgG antibodies derived from capillary blood appears to be a valid tool to detect asymptomatic infections in children. However, no asymptomatic active infection was detected during the study period of 4 months in the whole cohort. Further data on SARS-CoV-2 infections in children are needed, especially in the group of <5-year-olds, as there is currently no licensed vaccine for this age group in Germany. The Robert Koch Institute's Standing Commission on Vaccination (STIKO) recommended COVID-19 vaccination for 12–17 and 5–11 year olds in August 2021 and May 2022 respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The children have a right to live in a family unit with their parents, and in this aspect, they are provided all the rights that come out of the parenting relations. However, not all children are given the chance to grow up in a healthy and safe family, which represents a misfortune throughout history and is still evident in modern times. Acknowledging that not all children are equally fortunate, we recognize the plight of those who, through circumstances unrelated to their own actions, are excluded from family life. This paper provides fundamental data proving that through the institution of adoption, these children are provided with security, familial love, and parental care. This paper analyzes all the facts that result in the conclusion that the adoption, as a legal institution, makes it possible that the adopted children are provided a family life that in absence of biological parents, is given to them by the adoptive parents. Parents are not only those who give birth to the child, parents are also the people that give the adoptive children family love and care, as well as help them in all the stages of their lives. The paper emphasizes that the adoption has a multidimensional importance and purposes: for the adopted children, for the parents who adopt, and for the society as well as for the biological parents that do not have means to take care of their children or for another reason abandon their children.. Knowing the genetic background is also raised as an important issue in the paper. The child's right to know their identity is emphasized in cases of adoption, artificial reproduction, when fertilization is done with donated genetic material, and in cases of children born out of wedlock. In these situations, the child's biological status does not match their legal status because the child is not genetically related to their legal parents. Related to this, the paper examines several court cases from the European Court of Human Rights, which has frequently ruled on violations of the right to privacy and family life in the context of the child's right to know their biological origin. The paper also highlights the legal barriers and gaps in the Republic of North Macedonia that prevent adopted children from obtaining information about their genetic identity. These barriers are inconsistent with international documents ratified by the Republic of North Macedonia. Additionally, the paper emphasizes the need to remove from the Family legislation the institution of incomplete adoption, which has been shown in legal practice to be ineffective in establishing a family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the rights of same sex parents and their adopted children to get equal protection in the light of birth certificates. Topics discussed include rights of same-sex adoptive parents to have equal protection of law, the role of government policy of Louisiana in violating equal protection of law, and the importance of birth certificates in regulating the parent-child relationship.

Background: At the beginning of the 21st century, international adoptions of children with cleft lip and/or palate increased dramatically in Sweden. Many children arrived partially or totally unoperated, despite being at an age when palatoplasty has usually been performed. To date, the speech development of internationally adopted (IA) children has been described up to age 7–8 years, but later development remains unstudied. Aims: To investigate speech development between ages 5 and 10 years in children born with cleft lip and palate (CLP) adopted from China and to compare them with non‐adopted (NA) children with CLP. A secondary aim was to compare the frequencies of secondary palatal surgery and number of visits to a speech and language pathologist (SLP) between the groups. Methods & Procedures: In a longitudinal study, 23 IA children from China were included and matched with 23 NA children born in Sweden. Experienced SLPs blindly reassessed audio recordings from routine follow‐ups at ages 5 and 10 years. Velopharyngeal function (VPF) was assessed with the composite score for velopharyngeal competence (VPC‐Sum) for single words and rated on a three‐point scale (VPC‐Rate) in sentence repetition. Target sounds in words and sentences were phonetically transcribed. Per cent correct consonants (PCC) were calculated at word and sentence levels. For in‐depth analyses, articulation errors were divided into cleft speech characteristics (CSCs), developmental speech characteristics (DSCs) and s‐errors. Information on secondary palatal surgery and number of visits to an SLP was collected. Outcomes & Results: VPF differed significantly between the groups at both ages when assessed with VPC‐Sum, but not with VPC‐Rate. Regardless of the method for assessing VPF, a similar proportion in both groups had incompetent VPF but fewer IA than NA children had competent VPF at both ages. IA children had lower PCC at both ages at both word and sentence levels. More IA children had CSCs, DSCs and s‐errors at age 5 years, and CSCs and s‐errors at age 10. The development of PCC was significant in both groups between ages 5 and 10 years. The proportion of children receiving secondary palatal surgery did not differ significantly between the groups, nor did number of SLP visits. Conclusions & Implications: CSCs were more persistent in IA children than in NA children at age 10 years. Interventions should target both cleft and DSCs, be comprehensive and continue past the pre‐school years. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject: At the beginning of the 21st century, IA children with cleft lip and/or palate arrived in Sweden partially or totally unoperated, despite being at an age when palatoplasty has usually been performed. Studies up to age 7–8 years show that adopted children, compared with NA peers, have poorer articulation skills, demonstrate both cleft‐related and developmental articulation errors, and are more likely to have velopharyngeal incompetence. Several studies also report that adopted children more often require secondary palatal surgery due to fistulas, dehiscence or velopharyngeal incompetence compared with NA peers. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: This longitudinal study provides additional knowledge based on longer follow‐ups than previous studies. It shows that the proportion of children assessed to have incompetent VPF was similar among IA and NA children. It was no significant difference between the groups regarding the proportion that received secondary palatal surgery. However, fewer IA children were assessed to have a competent VPF. Developmental articulation errors have ceased in most IA and all NA children at age 10 years, but significantly more adopted children than NA children still have cleft‐related articulation errors. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Speech and language therapy should target both cleft‐related and developmental articulation errors. When needed, treatment must be initiated early, comprehensive, and continued past the pre‐school years, not least for adopted children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transnational adoption process includes a child assessment programme that evaluates children's mental and physical health to select and produce adoptable children. Based on ethnographic research conducted in 2015 and 2016, this paper describes in detail this assessment programme, which compares children to their global peers. Adoption agencies and Chinese social welfare institutions rank children by their likelihood of being adopted. The closer a child is to what is considered normal, the easier it will be for the child to be adopted. This socially and spatially shifting ranking of the children's normality enables the flow of children from societies that exclude children from families to societies that re‐include them in families. In addition to ranking the children, the process also involves further normalising them. This paper contributes to the geography of adoption by focusing on the normalisation process implemented to produce adoptable children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Prosocial behavior during childhood has been associated with numerous positive developmental and behavioral outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. Prosocial behavior, which includes cooperation and helping others, develops within a bioecological context. Considering it through such a lens enhances the understanding of the roles of different bioecological factors in its development. Methods: Using data from a longitudinal study of adopted children and children reared with their biological parents, this paper examined if positive aspects of a child's bioecological system at age 7 predict prosocial behavior in early adolescence (age 11), and whether these bioecological factors could offset risk due to biological family psychopathology and/or maternal prenatal substance use. The analyses incorporated variables from different levels of Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model (the individual, microsystem, exosystem, and macrosystem) and examined the promotive, and potentially protective, effect of each contextual factor, while also considering their interplay with biological family psychopathology and prenatal substance use. Results: Results from linear regression models indicated that the microsystem variable of parental warmth at age 7 had a promotive effect on age 11 prosocial behavior. Further, in addition to its main effect, parental warmth was protective against maternal substance use during pregnancy when children were raised with their biological parent (s). Household type (biological family) and biological family internalizing psychopathology were the only other significant predictors in the model, with each associated with lower prosocial behavior at age 11. Discussion: Study results extend prior work on the benefits of parental warmth on child outcomes by employing a strength-based, bioecological approach to the development of prosocial behavior during early adolescence and examining "for whom" the effects of parental warmth are most protective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the growth of educational informatization, the integrated adoption of the Internet in classroom teaching has facilitated the change of instructional pattern from the conventional instructional pattern to a novel information-based instructional pattern. Based on the background of "Internet+," a variety of new information-based classroom teaching models have emerged. However, in practice, there are still many deficiencies due to the immature application of the model. This paper proposes to use the design-based research paradigm to construct and optimize the teaching mode, and to clarify the design principles of the teaching mode. This paper analyses and designs the English lesson instruction pattern in the distributed information convergence condition from five dimensions: theoretical foundation, online instructional setting, instructional targets, instructional events, and instructional assessment, which construct an instructional pattern. It adopts the method of combining quantitative research with qualitative research and combines the experimental method, questionnaire survey method, classroom observation method, and interview method to assist the research. Through the investigation of 122 valid data, it is shown that the overall amount of classroom codes before the experiment is 57, and the overall amount of classroom codes after the experiment is 150. There is a big difference between the two. It validates the effectiveness of the English lesson instruction pattern in distributed information integration terms in improving students' English achievement, cooperative learning ability, information literacy, and problem-solving ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green areas such as natural and periurban parks provide support to biodiversity and landscape preservation while boosting local economic growth in their hosting territories, thanks to the establishment of eco-tourism activities. Smart management and promotion actions are vital for the sustainable exploitation of such benefits for citizens and visitors. These tasks may be hindered by a lack of economic resources and digital skills of public authorities but also by fragmented local political contexts to which these areas may be subjected. The parks in the Insubria region (between Southern Switzerland and Northern Italy) represent a relevant example of the above. The INSUBRIPARKS project aims at the harmonisation of management and promotion practices for the Insubria parks. The project activities encompass multiple actions, from the establishment of unified territorial marketing strategies to the development of supporting IT tools. Accordingly, this paper provides an overview of the IT tools ecosystem which was designed and developed within the project and an outlook on its role in empowering smart monitoring and promotion for these parks. Tools include a Web portal (enriched with Web mapping components) for a unified presentation of the tourism offers, an analysis framework for social media data exploitation in park visitors' fluxes assessment, and a mobile tool for users' engagement in the park areas monitoring. Alongside technical descriptions, lessons learned and residual challenges for the operative adoption of the tools are discussed as to their future improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Circular Economy is usually seen as achieving 'zero waste' and closing the material flow loops. However, multiple governance, economic, legal, socio-spatial, cultural, and behavioural barriers may easily hamper the transition. This study summarises the lessons learned from the waste flow analysis and living lab (LL) of a case study from the H2020 REPAiR project. It shows how the results of a waste flow analysis created for an urban area can help decision-makers to co-create new place-based eco-innovative solutions and hence shift the city towards circularity. At the same time, during the living lab process, it became clear that the decision support method alone is not enough to co-create or co-design new innovations, in addition the regulatory environment and the peculiarities of governance may also present multiple obstacles. The centralised governance in Hungary and the centralisation tendency in waste management and secondary resource use hamper efficient local resource management. The work in the LL showed that a centralised governance structure hinders not only the co-creation of new solutions but also the transfer of good practices from other peri-urban areas. This is important because a society that is generally less innovative and less developed at the beginning of sustainability transition is innovating for the first time via the transfer of eco-innovative solutions. Our paper shows that the governance structure of a given spatial unit (i.e. a city region) may be a significant factor in the successful or unsuccessful adoption of good practices and for the circular transition, as may system adaptability, the level of local technological development, the level of integration of actors, strategies, interests, and policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses my work with Sunaya, an adopted adolescent girl who asked to return for a second phase of therapy. This happened several months after her first phase of treatment had abruptly been brought to an end, due to unsolicited organisational changes. Sunaya's search for identity was severely compromised by her having been abandoned at birth by her biological parents to a foreign orphanage, and subsequently being adopted at five months of age. In this second phase of therapy, I was struck by the extent to which Sunaya was now so suddenly driven to make sense of her origins in open discussion, managing to process and integrate the biological and adopted parts of herself in a way which had not seemed possible in our earlier work. This enabled her to make considered decisions about the next stages of her life post 18. I suggest that the original ending of Sunaya's therapy, followed by our therapeutic reunion, represented in her mind a reunion with her biological parents; within the therapy Sunaya's curiosity and ambivalence about such a reunion could be safely worked through. I link Sunaya's request for 'something more' than one phase of treatment with Stern's ideas about offering 'something more' to some of the most deprived patients in therapy. I further suggest that Henry's ideas about some fostered and adopted children being 'doubly deprived' helped me understand Sunaya's need for a 'double dose' of therapy, in order to redress how she had internalised multiple experiences of deprivation. This further helps us understand the need for looked after children to develop stronger attachments in multiple contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The adoption of knowledge management (KM) to steer new skills and capabilities among people provides evidence that KM not only offers competitive advantages but also provides a means for organisational survival, by improvising core capabilities or generate new ones that can drive people in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) era. This paperaim to identify critical new skills and capabilities among people within an organisation to stay competitive, innovative and relevant. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents the findings on new skills assessment for Fourth Industrial Revolution. The study was carried out through an interview with a focus group discussion technique to gather data on the role of KM in creating new set of skills or capabilities in Fourth Industrial Revolution's landscape. The study also reports a bibliographic study of critical skills based on more than a decade of related academic and industry publications to portray research trends and future directions. Findings: There is a demand in "must-have" skills related to Industry 4.0 such as capability for complex decision-making, complex problem-solving, collaborative innovation, project management, creativity and critical thinking, social skill and social responsibility. While these skills are critical enablers to aiding individuals in the scenarios of plausible 4IR futures, several important new research trends that emerge have also not been adequately explored including KM and Industry 4.0 skill gap, skill evolution, machine knowledge, intuitive decision-making, rational decision-making, technostress, digital fluency, collaborative innovation, industrial policies, human–machine interaction and societal systems. Research limitations/implications: This research provides a roadmap for the next research trends and topics in the area of Fourth Industrial Revolution and new skills requirements. The study discusses some of the essential issues and challenges with upskilling required for Industry 4.0. It also focuses on how upskilling learning initiatives influence new knowledge creation. This primarily contributes to the educational field in deciding how and when to adopt appropriate strategies and identify which initiatives to best meet the needs of its community. Practical implications: KM enables individuals to utilise their existing core capabilities or generate new ones for immediate investment in upskilling to meet current and future skills needs required by an organisation. Simply put, KM will improve the organisation's talent-driven learning strategy and increase individuals' ability to learn faster and attain sustainable competitive advantage in a fast-paced ever changing environment. Originality/value: This paper is useful to academics, practitioners and policymakers in the fields of KM. The research provides initial insight into new skills mapping in the context of Fourth Industrial Revolution and the needs for researchers to understand the recent research trends in KM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study forms part of a major longitudinal research project collaboration between the Anna Freud Centre, Coram and Great Ormond Street Hospital, which set out to explore adopted children's and adoptive parents' outcomes and experiences from middle childhood through to adolescence. In this paper, 17 adoptive mothers of late adopted children, currently in early adolescence (aged 12 to 15 years), were interviewed. The focus of the study draws upon their worries and fears regarding their children during adolescence and as they approach adulthood. The Parent Development Interviews (PDI) were analysed using thematic analysis and generated five overarching themes: Vulnerability, Violence, Derailing opportunities, Autonomy and Anxieties about the birth family. This qualitative exploration provides strong evidence for how these parents reflected upon very concrete challenges and anxieties about their child's journey, including both their current context and anticipated outcomes. The overwhelming majority of research to date on this population examines negative outcomes quantitatively; this study adds an important qualitative layer of the parents' own perspectives. Plain Language Summary: This study draws upon the experiences of adoptive parents, all of whom were mothers, of late-adopted children, currently in early adolescence (aged 12 to 15 years). The study focused on their worries and fears regarding their children during adolescence and as they approach adulthood. Seventeen adoptive parents were interviewed using the Parent Development Interview (PDI) and the data were analysed using thematic analysis and generated five overarching themes: Vulnerability, Violence, Derailing opportunities, Autonomy and Anxieties about the birth family. This study provides strong evidence for how these parents identified and reflected upon very real challenges and anxieties about their child's journey including both their current lives and anticipated futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its nature, art psychotherapy can offer adopted children the capacity and opportunity to face problems that might occur at a young age. This paper examines what adoption means to children and how it impacts their mental, social, and emotional well-being. It goes on to provide an insight into how art psychotherapy can address emotional conflict, foster coping mechanisms, reduce anxiety, improve problems solving skills, and integrate traumatic experiences in ways that are not feasible through verbal therapy. A series of guidelines and activities are proposed in order to stimulate the creative therapeutic process. The conclusion is that art psychotherapy, together with the safety of a stable home and caring family, can allow adopted children to face past problems and live a more balanced life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous automated compliance checking (ACC) approaches have been developed over the last half of the twentieth century. However, little is known as to how well the ACC technology has served the off-site manufacturing (OSM) industry from the end users' perspective. This paper aims to measure the New Zealand (NZ) OSM industry's awareness and readiness for ACC and explore a pathway toward wider ACC adoption. It first reports on a survey study in NZ with 44 valid survey responses. It then proposes a high-level roadmap with key actions that can facilitate wider ACC adoption through 16 interviews with international ACC experts and a focus group with nine local OSM stakeholders. The results show that although there is a high demand for automating compliance processes, the OSM industry, especially small and medium enterprises, are not ready to adopt the ACC technology. Suggestions to address this include (1) establish the foundation for broad ACC adoption; (2) boost the development of the ACC technology to expedite its maturity, (3) test the ACC technology under different scenarios and customize it for the NZ context; (4) encourage the government to provide funding and policy support; and (5) promote education and training of both building information modeling (BIM) and ACC to OSM stakeholders. The results can provide software vendors with valuable information about user expectations and requirements to develop ACC products that can better serve NZ OSM projects, and help OSM stakeholders in NZ and countries with similar economic and regulatory structures to understand the technological and nontechnological gaps to better prepare for the ACC technology adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transfer of development rights (TDR) programs shift development intensity between land parcels. Jurisdictions, most commonly local municipal or county governments, employ TDR to protect resources such as farmland or historical properties and to encourage infill and redevelopment where deemed appropriate. However, while championed by economists and others seeking to reduce conflicts between land development and preservation, TDR program adoption has varied widely across the US. What demographic, economic, or environmental factors are associated with TDR program establishment? This paper describes a census of 375 TDR programs in the United States, documenting primary program attributes and adoption year and categorizing their functions and typology. Using logistic regression, we analyze program spatial patterns and factors predicting program implementation. We find that areas that are coastal, more liberal, have higher home values, in home-rule states, and in states with state-wide growth management programs, are all significantly more likely to implement TDR programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how an introduction of paid parental leave (PPL) affects maternal labor market outcomes in the short run. Using a reform in Australia, the PPL scheme, that gave the primary caregiver of a child born or adopted on or after January 1 2011, $672.70 a week for a maximum of 18 weeks, this paper develops theoretical predictions of the effect of PPL on maternal labor market outcomes, and tests these predictions using confidential data from the Australian Pregnancy and Employment Transitions Survey. The theoretical results imply that after the introduction of PPL, hours of work in the pre-birth period should decrease for mothers who will qualify for PPL, and increase for mothers who are attempting to qualify for PPL. Post birth, the theoretical results imply that more mothers are out of work and on leave than would have been in the absence of PPL. The empirical results suggest that the PPL scheme had no significant effect on labor market outcomes pre birth or post birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how an introduction of paid parental leave (PPL) affects maternal labor market outcomes in the short run. Using a reform in Australia, the PPL scheme, that gave the primary caregiver of a child born or adopted on or after January 1 2011, $672.70 a week for a maximum of 18 weeks, this paper develops theoretical predictions of the effect of PPL on maternal labor market outcomes, and tests these predictions using confidential data from the Australian Pregnancy and Employment Transitions Survey. The theoretical results imply that after the introduction of PPL, hours of work in the pre-birth period should decrease for mothers who will qualify for PPL, and increase for mothers who are attempting to qualify for PPL. Post birth, the theoretical results imply that more mothers are out of work and on leave than would have been in the absence of PPL. The empirical results suggest that the PPL scheme had no significant effect on labor market outcomes pre birth or post birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper looks at Sikh educational thought along with the development of the religion since 15th century. The emphasis on distinct Sikh identity and its diversity has been written about in detail. The paper argues that the Sikhs viewed education as a key source of marking a distinct identity for the community. In carving their identity as 'Sikhs' during colonial times and a minority after Independence, the community imagined its educational institutions as serving the purpose of schooling 'Sikh' children into adopting the 'ideal' identity. This emphasis has been revived in the post-modern era under changing socio-political circumstances in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The e-health Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has succeeded in providing valuable wellness services that aid users in achieving lifestyles of higher quality. On the other hand, the adoption of these healthcare applications associates with some challenges and barriers that need to be further addressed by the academic community to be well managed. The current paper aims to build an inclusive framework for assessing the most important barriers when implementing the IoMT in the health system. To this end, a survey was conducted, literature was reviewed comprehensively, and experts were interviewed to identify the adoption barriers of IoMT. In total, 20 barriers were identified using the literature review and classified based on five main categories with the help of the experts. Specifically, this study developed an extended hesitant fuzzy generalized TODIM method to find the optimum solution to general MCGDM problems. Some novel operational laws and distance measures based on the least common multiple principle are employed in this course. The proposed framework comprises both qualitative and quantitative criteria including benefit, cost, or target. According to the obtained results, the most important barriers to the IoMT adoption are regulatory affairs, vendor lock-in, liability, trust management system, installation, etc. Additionally, the proposed method was found capable of efficiently and effectively analyzing the IoMT adoption barriers in the health care context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Timber construction is considered a main strategy towards a more sustainable built environment. Industrialized manufacturing methods have advanced the realization of multi-storey timber buildings generating enthusiasm about their implementation in urban areas, and the expectation of their further completion. These are still pilot projects, so there is a lack of specific literature and guidelines, including common understanding, standard procedures and holistic considerations. This paper aims to assess the current situation of design and construction processes of timber buildings in Austria, highlighting barriers and opportunities and formulating recommendations for its further adoption. The methodology used is based on an extended literature review and a qualitative analysis from expert interviews. Different disciplines were involved to approach the topic holistically. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and inductive coded within several iterative rounds. Excerpts were organized into codes, sub-codes and categories to identify and classify themes and patterns and build the case. The findings are structured into the categories of Acquisition, Design and Production and Assembly, and further identified as Barriers and Opportunities. Upon the analysis of results, a selective range of recommendations are formulated and summarized in a catalogue, serving as a guide for further research and actions to widespread the adoption of timber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues concerning personal identity have not been discussed at European Union level given the limited competence of the Union in this area. Our paper provides an overview of the issue of fundamental rights related to identity. Some of these rights, such as the right to a name, were mainly claimed as parental rights, however the approach could be easily transposed to children as well, given the implications for their own rights. Our research aims to identify some essential aspects regarding the right to a personal identity, the right to know the origins falls within the scope of the child's right to private life, establishing paternity requires the careful establishment of the balance between the child's interest in knowing the identity and interest of the father presumed or claimed, as well as with the general interest. Also an adopted child has the right of access to information about his or her origin, and biological parents may be granted the legal right not to disclose their identity, but this does not amount to an absolute right of veto. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2021, the residential sector had an electricity consumption of around 39% in México. Householders influence the quantity of energy they manage in a home due to their preferences, culture, and economy. Hence, profiling the householders' behavior in communities allows designers or engineers to build strategies that promote energy reductions. The household socially connected products ease routine tasks and help profile the householder. Furthermore, gamification strategies model householders' habits by enhancing services through ludic experiences. Therefore, a gamified smart community concept emerged during this research as an understanding that this type of community does not need a physical location but has similar characteristics. Thus, this paper proposes a three-step framework to tailor interfaces. During the first step, the householder type and consumption level were analyzed using available online databases for Mexico. Then, two artificial neural networks were built, trained, and deployed during the second step to tailor an interactive interface. Thus, the third step deploys an interactive and tailored dashboard. Moreover, the research analysis reflected the predominant personality traits. Besides, some locations have more electricity consumption than others associated with the relative humidity, the outdoor temperature, or the poverty level. The interactive dashboard provides insights about the game elements needed depending on the personality traits, location, and electricity bill. Therefore, this proposal considers all householders (typical and non-typical users) to deploy tailored interfaces designed for smart communities. Currently, the game elements proposed during this research are reported by the literature, so their adoption is assured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovations in buildings help to reduce energy consumption and promote environmental protection and as well as the use of renewable energy technology. However, there is a conflict when the need for an innovation clashes with the financial burden and the complex adoption processes. As a result, the negative impacts of buildings remain, and the low adoption of strategic innovations remains unaddressed. This study aims to explore this challenge, the various sides of this debate and provide a practical guide which promotes energy and building-related innovations driven by policy. This paper is an extract from a recent doctoral study conducted using an exploratory qualitative model and interviews with eighty-six residents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) was selected as a case study energy innovation and the thematic analysis of the data collected suggests that BIPV adoption is limited by multiple barriers. The debate arising from the findings highlights two opposing viewpoints. One view claims that mandatory policies are necessary to promote innovation adoption. The other view argues that the merits of mandatory policy are lost since multiple barriers significantly discourage adoption in the first place. The study takes a proactive step towards resolving the debate using a systematic approach that recommends specific drivers backed by supporting policies to guide human-centered, stakeholder-driven renewable energy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When young children confront a vast array of adults' testimonial claims, they should decide which testimony to endorse. If they are unable to immediately verify the content of testimonial assertions, children adopt or reject their informants' statements on the basis of forming trust in the sources of testimony. This kind of trust needs to be based on some underlying reasons. The rational choice theory, which currently dominates the social, cognitive, and psychological sciences, posits that trust should be formed on a rational basis, as a result of probabilistic assessments and utility‐maximizing calculations. In this paper, the predictions stemming from the rational choice approach to trust are systematically compared with the empirical evidence from the field of developmental psychology on how children establish their trust in testimonial statements. The results of this comparison demonstrate an obvious inadequacy of the rational choice explanation of the emergence and development of children's testimonial trust, regardless of which form of trust rationality—weighting, threshold, or ordering—is examined. As none of the three forms of rationality of children's trust in testimony squares with the empirical data, this paper introduces a new version of trust rationality, adaptively rational trust. It explores the compatibility of the concept of adaptively rational trust with the recent empirical findings in the area of developmental psychology and addresses some avenues for future research on the rationality of testimonial trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Care-experienced youth are more likely than their peers to present with earlier, more severe and more chronic mental health difficulties. This case study presents the development of a Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) group for young people who do not live with their birth families due to an early history of abuse and neglect, delivered by psychologists in a social care service. Eight adolescent girls (aged 12–16), who lived in foster, adoptive or kinship care, attended eight face-to-face weekly sessions of a 'Building Your Self-Confidence' group. Most of them attended all sessions, found the group 'enjoyable' and 'interesting', and reported finding it helpful to improve their self-confidence at least to some extent ('a little' or 'yes'). On standardised measures, half of the caregivers reported improvements in their child's mental health but none of the adolescents did themselves. These initial data pave the way to further optimise the application of group CFT for care-experienced youth and inform psychological treatment innovation in youth more generally. Plain Language Summary: Young people who grow up with significant trauma such as abuse and neglect, are often taken into the care of the local authority at some point in their lives when they cannot remain at home. These young people tend to experience high levels of mental health difficulties such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. Innovative approaches to improve mental health in this population are therefore crucial. In this paper, we describe a therapy group called 'Building Your Self-Confidence', based on a therapy model called Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT). This group was attended by eight adolescent girls aged between 12 and 16 who lived in foster, adoptive or kinship care. There were eight weekly face-to-face sessions in total, delivered by psychologists within a social care service in the UK. We found that most of the adolescents attended all the sessions and commented that they found the group 'enjoyable' and 'interesting', and that their self-confidence was somehow improved. On questionnaires measuring mental health difficulties, half of the caregivers reported that their adolescents' mental health improved. However, adolescents themselves did not report improvements in mental health in these questionnaires. Overall, this therapeutic group is promising but needs to be refined so that its benefits can be maximised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social robots have increasingly been entering children's daily lives and their domestic environment. Whereas various studies have shown children's enthusiasm towards social robots in, for example, an educational context, little is known about children's acceptance—or rejection—of domestic social robots. This paper aimed at filling this research gap by developing a model of children's intention to adopt a social robot at home, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. Relying on data from a survey among 570 children aged eight to nine, we found that, before having ever interacted with the robot in real life, 82% of the children were willing to adopt the robot at home. Children's adoption intention was mainly predicted by hedonic attitudes and social norms, as well as by their general attitude towards robots, which was linked to adoption both directly and indirectly through hedonic attitudes and social norms. Our findings suggest that entertainment-related and normative considerations drive children's intention to adopt a domestic social robot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to assess young farmers' willingness to adopt sustainable agriculture (SA) by implementing the expanded theory of planned behavior (TPB) within the northern region of Bangladesh. The outcomes attained specified that attitudes toward SA, perceived behavior control and perceived self-identity have progressive and fundamental impacts on adoption behavior and affect farmers' intentions to adopt SA's particular production mechanism. On the other hand, the social interface view toward SA is not significantly associated with the Bangladeshi farmer's adoption intention. The results also show that interconnections between social and familial pressure are not significant for sustainable farming practice adoption intentions. However, the interconnections among the psychosocial factors have a crucial role in formulating the TPB to forecast the intentional behavior for adopting SA practices. Thus, the government should highlight the advantages of several sustainable agricultural practices and circulate more detailed information regarding SA tactics to improve the knowledge gap of smallholder farmers. Furthermore, training facilities should be extended to improve the attitude and perceived self-identity of young farmers. Moreover, the formulation of structural information sharing platforms and agricultural value chain facilities should also help shape young farmers' interpersonal behavior in adopting SA practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a context where receptive multilingualism represents a communicative strategy of adjustment in a context of second language acquisition is discussed. The traditional scope of receptive multilingualism has been extended to multilingual environments resulting from an experience of mobility, namely transnational adoptive families. Similar to other contexts of receptive multilingualism, this scenario involves asymmetrical language competences, but in this case language contact evolves quite rapidly in the acquisition of one of the languages involved. By means of 29 h of interactional data and discourse analyses, we investigated the family communication of three Italian families, one of them adopting in Russia and two of them in Chile. Unlikely for a lexically and structurally more distant language (Russian), in a framework of intelligible languages (Spanish-Italian), the adoption of receptive multilingualism leads adopted children to rely on a longer 'receptive stage'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that commodities such as blinds, flooring materials, and food supplies are valuable historical sources for understanding the power of Heian and Kamakura royal women. Vases and bowls excavated from the Noto Peninsula, for example, show that Premier Royal Lady Kōkamon-in (1122–1181) played an important role during the twelfth century in starting Suzu stoneware production at her Wakayama Estate and stimulated interregional commerce. From this growing industry, she gained economic benefits and strengthened her political networks. Another contemporary female landlord, Senyōmon-in (1181–1252), implemented a due-collection plan for obtaining material objects that maintained the livelihood of her palace. Mundane items including household furnishing articles supported her economic well being while buttressing her political and cultural influence over the course of her life. By collecting various items from her estates, such as blinds, curtains, and mats, she supported her adopted children and widened her human networks. With the effective use of such material goods, she could seek political allies and align with leading courtiers who participated in decision-making meetings at court. As a whole, the above case studies show that series of innocuous data such as excavated ceramic pieces and recorded object types can be used to reveal a level of significant cultural, political, and religious influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vital services provided by social workers to children in care or on the edge of care were largely delivered "online" during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores the potential impact of these changes on vulnerable children and their families. Relationship-based practice is integral to social work and the shift to digital communication during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to accelerated practice changes and implications for relationship building both with and between service users. Going forward, social workers and other professionals are likely to move to an increasingly hybrid model of communication, combining both digital and face-to-face methods. This article identifies the impact of digital communication on relationships in professional practice, drawing on three studies of digital communication in the UK carried out at the University of East Anglia. The first considered how child protection social workers responded to the challenges of COVID-19, the second looked at how children in care were keeping in touch with their birth families and the third focused on the approaches being taken to moving children from foster care to adoptive families. Five themes related to relationships were identified across all three studies: the significance of the age and developmental stage of the child; the frequency of contact and communication; digital literacy/exclusion; the impact of the lack of sensory experience; and the importance of the relationship history. The article concludes with implications for utilising digital methods in building and maintaining relationships in practice and highlights the need to consider both the inner and outer worlds of those involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iran accepts temporary marriage to facilitate and sanctify sexual relationships. The concession of temporary marriage has, however, been the subject of controversy in the past four decades. One significant refutation of temporary marriage is related to its attempted usage in the case of child-adoption, sanctioned by both the state and some Shiʿi mujtahid s. The explicated rationale is that an adopted child does not benefit from mahramiyat and is, therefore, non- mahram to members of the adoptive family after reaching puberty. To establish mahramiyat , Shiʿi jurisprudence allows for temporary marriage between the adoptee and a member of the adoptive family. By performing a temporary marriage, new familial ties are established, and mahramiyat limitations are lifted. This proposed solution, however, can lead to other significant legal and social complications. This paper investigates Shiʿi jurisprudence allowing temporary marriage in child-adoption scenarios in contemporary Twelver Shiʿa by exploring relevant fiqh / ijtihad and legal perspectives in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 2021, cases of rare adverse events were observed in individuals who had received the Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Countries around the world differed radically in their policy responses to these observations. In this paper, we outline the ethical justification for different policy approaches for managing the emerging risks of novel vaccines in a pandemic. We begin by detailing the precautionary approach that some countries adopted, and distinguishing ethical questions regarding the management of known and unknown risks. We go on to outline the harms of adopting a highly precautionary approach in a pandemic context, and explain why an appropriate policy approach should accommodate the benefits as well as the risks of vaccination. In the final section, we outline three policy approaches that can accommodate the different benefits of vaccination, whilst taking into account the harms of precaution. Whilst we do not set out to defend one particular policy approach, we explain how different moral theories lend different degrees of support to each of these different approaches. Our analysis elucidates how fundamental value conflicts in public health ethics played out on the global stage of vaccine policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Control of static posture is constrained by multiple sensory inputs, motor ability, and task constraints. Development of static postural control across the lifespan can be analyzed effectively using nonlinear analyses of center of pressure (CoP) time series, including approximate and sample entropy. In this paper, the key findings from studies using nonlinear analysis tools are reviewed to describe the development of postural control. Preschool children learn to adopt relatively unstable postures (e.g., standing) in which the regularity of CoP initially increases as a consequence of restricting mechanical degrees of freedom. As children age, CoP regularity decreases as degrees of freedom are released, thus enabling a more functional, adaptable type of postural control. Changes to sensory inputs or task constraints also affect the regularity of CoP sway. For example, removing vision, adding vibration, or imposing dual-task conditions affect performer's CoP regularity differently. One limitation of approximate and sample entropy analysis is the influence of different input parameters on the output and subsequent interpretation. Ongoing refinement to entropy analysis tools concern determining appropriate values for the length of sequence to be matched and the tolerance level used with CoP data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many child psychotherapists are familiar with the experience of being locked out of the consulting room by child patients, and the peculiar challenges this poses to the clinician's sense of competence and hopefulness in the child's capacity for change. In this paper, I describe how this discomfiting experience developed in my work with David, who had suffered institutional neglect in a foreign orphanage before being adopted by a British couple. I will discuss how my understanding of David persistently locking me out evolved over time, and will suggest that the consulting room, for David, came to represent a maternal object, which he had to take exclusive possession of at all costs. Paradoxically, the door between us became necessary to separate and connect us; this gave me some insight into David's early experience and the institutional doors, both literal and figurative, which had protected his carers from fully confronting his pain. Real psychological development for David, however, only seemed possible after an unsolicited and abrupt move to another building for our work together. I will suggest that our making this transition together enabled me to identify with David's internal sense of homelessness and thus to break through the doors between us, which had been convenient for us both. I will also suggest that the consistency of the analytic frame had hitherto been experienced by David, paradoxically, as an impoverished, unstimulating environment, redolent of his time in the orphanage, which had left him in a state of stupor (A previous version of this paper was presented at the 'Relating to the Other' Association of Child Psychotherapists Conference 2018.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foster and adopted children often experience multiple traumatic and adverse experiences. A growing body of literature indicates the negative impact of trauma on developmental milestones and brain development, which supports the need to address complex trauma among this vulnerable population of foster and adopted youth. This paper presents an overview of the unique needs of children adopted from the foster care system from the perspective of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), complex trauma, and developmental trauma disorder (DTD). There is an increasing number of evidence-based trauma-focused services and interventions for children and youth. However, many adoptive parents have limited trauma-informed training and limited access to trauma-informed and adoption-competent professionals, particularly long-term supports across developmental stages, making them ill-prepared to meet the needs of children in their care. This paper contributes to the understanding of how access to these trauma-focused services can be increased through new technologies, to better prepare and empower adoptive parents to deal effectively with difficult adoption issues when they arise and to improve outcomes for children and youth adopted from the public child welfare system. Several innovative approaches toward this end include harnessing technology to: (1) improve access to suitable adoption resources, (2) improve mechanisms to track critical events, behaviors, emotions, functional abilities, strengths, etc., in order to determine timely, on-demand contextual services, and (3) extend professional, supportive environments beyond the adoptive family context by proposing the use of technology to build interdisciplinary, virtual community partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rousselin henceforth referred to himself as Alexandre-Charles-Rousselin Corbeau de Saint-Albin, consigning his real father, as Horn sharply puts it, "to the dustbin of history" (128). Alexandre Rousselin (1773-1847) was an active participant in the Terror during the French Revolution, but miraculously survived to become the probable lover of Josephine de Beauharnais and a wealthy liberal journalist during the Restoration and July Monarchy. Horn's biography recounts the complicated story of Rousselin's activities, and it returns again and again to consideration of how central for Rousselin was the Revolution and its memory. [Extracted from the article]

Dog fouling is recognised as antisocial, unhealthy and illegal in England, yet it persists. Much action against dog fouling happens in communities and impacts are largely unrecorded. Here, we report an activist project with primary-aged children in Bristol, England that resulted in dog fouling reductions near schools and reflects on the role of children in effecting social change in their local environment. The paper takes a New Materialist turn, de-centring experience from the individual child to the child in assemblages of more-than-human relations. Photos of children's interventions against dog fouling are presented to explore how they have used material resources and creativity to emphasise the health and social risks of faeces from a child's perspective. This provides a focus on child–faeces–environment assemblages where children adopt methods of activist art that comprise matter including the faeces to convey a new relational ontology of dog fouling and a reifying of the 'problem'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the ability of threatening communication to favorably modify children's preventive behavior (8–12 years old) in the context of dental hygiene. It also seeks to identify the type of threat that promotes the most children's persuasion (physical/social threat). Multi-method qualitative study was conducted followed by an experimental study to test the influence of threatening communication (social or physical) on children's emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses. Design/methodology/approach: This study applies a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. First, multi-method qualitative study was used to explore the experience of children's exposure to threatening dental hygiene communications (focus groups, projective technique, individual interviews with dentists, etc.). Then, an experimental study based on a survey data collection to 1496 schoolchildren was conducted to test the influence of threatening communications (social or physical) on children's emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses. Indeed, different experimental situations were created by varying at each time the type of ads to which children were exposed. Findings: Results indicate that using threat communications can be a powerful way to convince children to adopt healthy dental hygiene behaviour, and that physical threats are more effective than social threats. Originality/value: The originality of this study is to focus on children's' affective and cognitive reactions to threatening dental health communication. This by emphasizing the nature of the threat used in communication (physical or social threat). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The overall objective of this study is to holistically analyse the complexities involved in the adoption of sustainable wood supply chain in the Amazon and to develop strategic interventions to improve the system. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses the systems thinking and modelling framework that included problem structuring followed by the development of a systems model. Tumbira and Santa Helena do Inglês, two Amazonian communities, were used as a case. Data were collected by staying inside the Amazon, observing the community members and interacting with them during their activities, including logging inside the forest. Findings: A behaviour over time (BOT) graph developed as a part of problem structuring showed that deforestation of the Amazon is still increasing, despite the creation of protected areas and NGO activities in the region. Developing a sustainable wood supply chain is considered as one of the approaches for sustainable forestry in the Amazon, but its adoption is slow. The systems model captured the underlying structure of this system and explained this counterintuitive behaviour using eleven interacting feedback loops. Research limitations/implications: This study is confined to two Amazonian communities and recognises the limitations of generalisations. Practical implications: This paper illustrates the development of three strategic interventions to improve the adoption of sustainable wood supply chain in the Amazon. Originality/value: This study highlights the real issues faced by real communities living in the Amazon for adopting sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices. It contributes to the literature on sustainable wood supply chain by systemically analysing the challenges in its adoption, not sufficiently discussed in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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U.S. history is rooted in the rationalization of family separation to benefit white supremacy, capitalism and mainstream U.S. values. Because of this dark history, the U.S. history has become the world's leader of legal destruction of families through termination of parental rights. It is the only country in the world that routinely pays people to adopt children whose parents, often women, very much want to be their parent. The Adoption and Safe Families Act, enacted in 1997, wildly changed the legal landscape of the family regulation system. At that time 47% of the children in the system were Black, and the drug war had been targeting Black men for low level offenses, and labeling Black mothers as "crack moms". The result was an extreme attack on Black families, for which we have yet to recover. Abolition teaches us to unroot oppressive structures, disrupt and dismantle them while simultaneously supporting a praxis of imagination, healing, and building. In this paper, we encourage people not only to work to repeal ASFA, but to interrogate the imagination which entrenched the legitimacy of ASFA. Part I centers the discussion in our imaginations--the world we want to build, and the demands we are making. Part II moves into a discussion about the counter imagination, the ideas and mythology that created ASFA--the legal framework. In this section, we isolate ASFA as a target for abolition and organizing. Part III moves into a practical discussion about ethical ways to mobilize around ASFA. This section is intended to invite the reader to learn, and question, together. It invites questions, thinking, and problem solving in lieu of providing a recommendation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its legal inception in 1926, adoption work has been centrally concerned with the matter of the adopted child's 'first' or prior life, whilst also focussed on achieving a new and secure substitute family for that child. Adoptive kinship has been formed through this dual and contradictory concern, a concern that has produced diverse policies and practices over the last 90 years. Drawing on Foucault's concept of technologies of the subject, this paper is an exploration of adoptive kinship within the new context of open adoption, a set of practices that more actively promotes the involvements of the adopted child's former family. These practices both promote a radical reworking of adoptive kinship, as well as confirming its more orthodox moorings. Drawing on an adoption archive study, the paper concludes with an analysis of letterbox contact to explore how far this form of open practice transforms adoptive kinship in the contemporary era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Extant research on adopted children has consistently shown that early adverse experiences confer vulnerability to myriad developmental problems, which may be mitigated by the “natural intervention” of adoption itself and/or by treatment efforts. Narrative Story Stems Techniques (NSSTs) have been used in research and clinical practice to assess adopted children's developmental profiles in middle childhood. However, no study to date has systematically reviewed this body of literature. Objectives: This paper presents a systematic review of research using NSSTs to make sense of adopted children's internal reality (i.e., perceptions, experiences, and representations), in terms of exploring theoretical perspectives as well as critically synthesizing findings and discussing implications. Methods: State-of-the-art PRISMA guidelines were followed throughout, resulting in the identification of 18 records, comprising six qualitative, 10 quantitative, and two mixed-methods primary papers, reporting on seven unique studies. All records were assessed with regard to methodological quality. Data were extracted and synthesized narratively using an integrated design for mixed-methods synthesis. Results: The findings suggest that, although NSST research with adopted children is still in its infancy, there is relatively robust evidence supporting the use of these techniques to assess and track developmental change in adopted children's attachment representations. In this regard, the non-verbal (aside from the verbal) approach to children's complex internal reality, as well as a more fine-grained (aside from a categorical or dimensional) perspective on children's NSST responses, are highlighted as particularly valuable in tailoring treatment to a particular child's needs and vulnerabilities. Moreover, several promising avenues for future research and clinical application of NSSTs, including the extension to affect-regulatory and mentalizing perspectives, may further our knowledge and understanding of, and thus treatment efforts toward, these often vulnerable children. However, these findings should be interpreted with caution, due to the limited number of studies characterized by considerable methodological heterogeneity. Conclusions: In light of the findings of the present review, we strongly advocate future studies using NSSTs in theoretically and empirically consistent ways, in order to gain a better understanding of adopted children's internal reality in terms of attachment representations, affect-regulatory strategies, and mentalizing processes, and to track changes therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity for reflective functioning (RF) or mentalizing of adoptive parents is hypothesized to play an important role in fostering socio-emotional development in adopted children. This paper reports on the development and preliminary validation of the Adoption Expectations Interview (AEI), a semi-structured interview to assess RF in prospective adoptive parents. The AEI was developed based on the Pregnancy Interview, Parent Development Interview, and Working Model of the Child Interview, three interviews that have been used to assess RF in biological parents, to capture RF before child arrival in prospective adoptive parents. In a sample of 96 prospective adoptive parents, the Reflective Functioning Scale, as applied to the AEI (AEI-RFS) showed good reliability, with strong correlations between the different demand items, high internal consistency, and good to excellent inter-rater reliability. A principal component analysis yielded one component, suggesting that the items measured a unidimensional factor. Preliminary evidence for the construct validity of the AEI-RFS was demonstrated by significant associations between the AEI-RFS and well-validated measures of mentalizing, attachment dimensions, and interpersonal functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of TEME: Casopis za Društvene Nauke is the property of TEME: Casopis za Drustvene Nauke and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims to investigate an area previously unexplored by human geographers: the spatial and sociodemographic structure of adoptions in Greece during the economic crisis. The main purpose is twofold: (a) to examine potential inequalities emerging either from the gender and age of the adopted child or from the spatial distribution of the children and (b) to capture agglomeration or dispersion clusters of adoptions in Greece. The study employed panel data across the 13 regions of Greece for the period 2011-2018. To detect inequalities in adoptions, demographic and spatial indicators were used as well as specific inequality measures via statistical computing (R). Through thematic cartography and spatial analysis methods, the proximity effects in child adoption during the economic crisis were examined. The results led to the conclusion that crisis periods dramatically affect the rates of child adoption. Both gender and spatial inequalities were intertemporal and particularly high. Greece is marked by uneven geographies calling for new policy measures. Thus, the present paper could serve as a basis for an 'adoption observatory' in Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of nitrites and nitrates in the living body can lead to the appearance of compounds with major toxic effect. Although in the Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 20 [1], 1989 (published in the Official Monitor no. 109 on November 28, 1990) article 24, paragraph 2 (c) states the obligation of the signatory states to fight diseases, inclusively by assuring an adequate supply of drinking water, acute infantile methemoglobinemia caused by well water still represents a health problem in Romania. For now, cases of acute nitrate poisoning in infants and even deaths are still registered. Nevertheless, several reports focused on the prebiotic potential of the nitrate upon oral health. This paper emphasizes the risks associated with ingestion of substances with a high content of nitrites and nitrates for infants. Information from the Public Health Directorate of Iasi county and reports on literature reports has been analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]