Research Workshop Research Articles

Promoting sustainability training in future teachers through research workshops in the University Ecological Garden

The current planetary crisis and the changes in the Spanish curriculum of Early Childhood Education require teacher training that enables future teachers to respond to these situations. This paper describes a constructivist teaching-learning sequence framed within the University Ecological Garden through an enquiry-based strategy. This educational intervention was carried out with thirdyear students of the degree in Early Childhood Education at the Universidad de Cádiz (Spain). Its outcome was a science dissemination event in which research workshops related to one or several sustainable development goals were organised. The validity of using real contexts like the garden space to achieve sustainability in the curriculum and of contributing to the scientific training of future teachers for them to be able to transfer educational interventions within the framework of sustainability was verified. Future proposals for improvement for a second implementation in the classroom were analysed.

‘Ideactionaries’: Those Who Imagine Anything and Create the Impossible

The purpose of this paper is to make the reader reflect on the transition from working to ideating. Working leads people to forget themselves and bury their heads in the sand, wrote the humanist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) in 1928. In 1936, the writer and poet Cesare Pavese (1908-1950) advised in his collection of poems Lavorare stanca (Hard Labor) to take a closer look at the representations of men at work. Huxley and Pavese have led us forward to when ideactionaries will succeed workers. These translate ideas into action, devising revolutionary ways of designing and operating to deliver products and services and seeing the world. Theirs is meant to be a liveable, collective, co-creative (they transfer thoughts from one mind to another), constructive, transdisciplinary human experience. It must enrich the culture of intuition and imagination, of empathy towards society and the planet. It must educate young people to be guided by the good and to incorporate communication into action through vision, design of lived experience, mental models and meaningful metaphors.It is up to scholars to take charge of this vision, even critically, so that the new generations can attend classrooms and research workshops modelled as a Renaissance Bottega (workshop). There, pupils were co-creators rather than mere executors of tasks assigned from above and generators of cognitive conflicts that do much to abrogate entrenched rules.

Scientific research as a professional competency in accounting students

This paper aims to describe the role of scientific research as professional competence in the training of accounting students, emphasizing the relevance of acquiring this competence in the labor and social context. To this end, a literature review was conducted in the Scopus and SciELO databases to analyze the existing literature on the subject. This analysis identified the importance of competency-based training in accounting careers and the attempts to implement research competency in their curricula. Finally, the results show that one way to motivate accounting students is through congresses or research workshops and publications in impact journals, which will awaken their research interests.

2023 CUMES Undergraduate Research Workshop and Poster Presentation

For ten years, the Committee for Undergraduate Middle East Studies (CUMES) has organized the Undergraduate Research Workshop and Poster Session, creating a space where undergraduate students can present their work, receive feedback, and learn more about career paths related to Middle East studies. In 2016, I was fortunate enough to participate in the session, an experience that not only marked my entry into MESA but also showed me what generative scholarly engagement can look like. From the care that faculty participants took in their comments to the engagement during the poster presentations, my experience with the workshop has guided my own approach to providing student feedback, and it is an honor to have the space to reflect on this past experience and engage with the work of current undergraduates at the 2023 workshop.

The opportunities of the resilience measurement in the family and child protection system in Hungary

This paper provides insight into the Hungarian research results of resilience among children, carried out in the research workshop of Rubeus Association and Gál Ferenc University. Our objective by communicating the research results published in the study was to exhibit the process and areas of applicability of measure instrument developments completed between 2018-2021, in the public and civil society sectors of the Hungarian Family and Child Protective System. We measuered the child resilience and the parental attitudes among the different targetgroups in Hungary. The children and their parents consist of the sample who are in very difficult lifepositions, dispite of they able to live with the help of the innovative model program wich in they are supported by professionals to able to live.

Pharmacogenetics Clinical Decision Support Systems for Primary Care in England: Co-Design Study.

Pharmacogenetics can impact patient care and outcomes through personalizing the selection of medicines, resulting in improved efficacy and a reduction in harmful side effects. Despite the existence of compelling clinical evidence and international guidelines highlighting the benefits of pharmacogenetics in clinical practice, implementation within the National Health Service in the United Kingdom is limited. An important barrier to overcome is the development of IT solutions that support the integration of pharmacogenetic data into health care systems. This necessitates a better understanding of the role of electronic health records (EHRs) and the design of clinical decision support systems that are acceptable to clinicians, particularly those in primary care. Explore the needs and requirements of a pharmacogenetic service from the perspective of primary care clinicians with a view to co-design a prototype solution. We used ethnographic and think-aloud observations, user research workshops, and prototyping. The participants for this study included general practitioners and pharmacists. In total, we undertook 5 sessions of ethnographic observation to understand current practices and workflows. This was followed by 3 user research workshops, each with its own topic guide starting with personas and early ideation, through to exploring the potential of clinical decision support systems and prototype design. We subsequently analyzed workshop data using affinity diagramming and refined the key requirements for the solution collaboratively as a multidisciplinary project team. User research results identified that pharmacogenetic data must be incorporated within existing EHRs rather than through a stand-alone portal. The information presented through clinical decision support systems must be clear, accessible, and user-friendly as the service will be used by a range of end users. Critically, the information should be displayed within the prescribing workflow, rather than discrete results stored statically in the EHR. Finally, the prescribing recommendations should be authoritative to provide confidence in the validity of the results. Based on these findings we co-designed an interactive prototype, demonstrating pharmacogenetic clinical decision support integrated within the prescribing workflow of an EHR. This study marks a significant step forward in the design of systems that support pharmacogenetic-guided prescribing in primary care settings. Clinical decision support systems have the potential to enhance the personalization of medicines, provided they are effectively implemented within EHRs and present pharmacogenetic data in a user-friendly, actionable, and standardized format. Achieving this requires the development of a decoupled, standards-based architecture that allows for the separation of data from application, facilitating integration across various EHRs through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs). More globally, this study demonstrates the role of health informatics and user-centered design in realizing the potential of personalized medicine at scale and ensuring that the benefits of genomic innovation reach patients and populations effectively.

Helping Language Teachers in Lithuania take their First Action Research Steps During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Online Strategy

This paper reports on the experiences of the authors teaching action research workshops as professional development for language teachers in Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic. It describes work carried out for Action Research Communities for Language Teachers, which is funded under the Training and Consultancies programme of the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe as part of its aim to promote quality language education in Europe. The paper focuses on the necessary pivot from face-to-face to online action research workshops and project development in a difficult global context for a group of teachers in Lithuania. It outlines the challenges experienced by the authors and teacher participants, the lessons learned in online teaching of action research, and the positive outcomes for language teachers in setting out on their action research journeys. The paper contributes to the literature on action research in language education and professional development during Covid-19.

Experience of the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal

This presentation to the Integrity and Ethics in Scientific Research Workshop will focus on some areas of articulation of the issue of scientific integrity and the activities of a funding agency, in particular, the Foundation for Science and Technology. In a first part, a framework of scientific integrity and a set of its sub-areas in the European panorama will be carried out, taking as main object the EU reference document, the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, produced by ALLEA in 2017 In a second part, three of the areas referred to there will be highlighted in the ways in which they are envisaged and operationalized at the level of science policy as well as in the various FCT funding instruments: (i) self- and hetero-assessment of ethical issues within the scope of submission of applications, (ii) peer review, and (iii) the area of ​​open science.

Comparison of Forensic Tools on Social Media Services Using the Digital Forensic Research Workshop Method (DFRWS)

Social media applications currently play a role and become part of various human activities, on the other hand social media is also very vulnerable to various crimes. Some crimes on social media can be in the form of hate speech, defamation, fraud, gambling, pornography, and other harmful actions. This research applies the Digital Forensic Research Workshop (DFRWS) method to search for all data on twitter social media services running on the Android operating system using MOBILedit Forensic Express and Belkasoft Evidence Center tools. Twitter social media services in this research are used for activities by utilizing all the features in it. Activities carried out by twitter users become evidence that will be acquired using MOBILedit Forensic Express and Belkasoft Evidence Center tools. From the two tools used, a comparison was obtained that MOBILedit Forensic Express found more data on twitter social media than Belkasoft Evidence Center, the findings in these two tools made several contributions to social media investigations that run on the android operating system

Research gaps and opportunities in autoimmune hepatitis-Results of the international autoimmune hepatitis group research workshop 2022.

Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a rare autoimmune liver disease that is characterised by a chronic inflammatory immune reaction directed against hepatocytes. The disease results in a substantial reduction in quality of life and potentially leads to liver-related complications or death. The International Autoimmune Hepatitis Group (IAIHG) initiated a series of research workshops to uncover the scientific gaps and opportunities in AIH. This review summarises the results of the latest workshop in Maastricht in 2022 and reviews the current challenges in adult AIH, particularly in relation to four important aspects of AIH: diagnostics; new immunomodulatory therapies; clinical trial design; and unmet clinical needs. This review also summarises the progress made since the AIH workshop in 2017. Patients and patient representatives were actively involved in the parallel working groups alongside clinicians and researchers. Despite 40 years of experience with diagnosing and treating AIH, false diagnoses occur and treatment is still based on nonselective immunosuppression. In addition to the need for more specific diagnostic tests, prognostic markers and tailor-based treatments, a major unmet clinical need was identified in areas of care delivery and health-related quality of life.

Sex tech entrepreneurs: Governing intimate data in start-up culture

Sextech is currently experiencing a golden age, promising technological innovation to improve sexual health and well-being. However, the privacy and security vulnerabilities of smart sex toys have been the subject of media attention. Dating apps, menstrual trackers and sex toy companies have paid millions in compensation for non-consensually collecting or sharing intimate data. In this article, we share findings from a research workshop with prospective sextech industry professionals about how they approach data governance. The conversations reveal disconnections between the emancipatory, collective and rights-based possibilities offered by feminist and queer tech cultures, broader public interest in data commons and the technosolutionist narratives of start-up cultures. We conclude that there is a need for collaborations between industry, community and researchers to develop approaches to governance that reorganise, redistribute and decentralise the data economy of sex tech.

Co-designing an Integrated Health and Social Care Hub With and for Families Experiencing Adversity.

Integrated care research often fails to adequately describe co-design methods. This article outlines the process, principles and tools to co-design an integrated health and social care Hub for families experiencing adversity. The Child and Family Hub was co-designed in four stages: (1) partnership building and stakeholder engagement, (2) formative research, (3) persona development and (4) co-design workshops and consultations. Local families, community members and intersectoral practitioners were engaged at each stage. The co-design workshops employed a human-centred design process and were evaluated using the Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool (PEET). 121 family participants and 80 practitioners were engaged in the Hub's co-design. The PEET highlighted the co-design team's satisfaction achieved by community members working alongside practitioners to generate mutual learning. Resourcing was a key challenge. Human-centred design offered a systematic process and tools for integrating formative evidence with lived and professional experience in the Hub's co-design. Applying community engagement principles meant that a diverse range of stakeholders were engaged across all stages of the project which built trust in and local ownership of the Hub model. Co-design research with families experiencing adversity should attend to language, engagement methods, team composition and resourcing decisions.

Advances in developmental biology using next-generation sequencing (NGS): Workshop for next-generation researchers.

This is a meeting report of "The workshop of research and techniques using next-generation sequencing (NGS) for developmental biology 2022." About 20 researchers attended the workshop. We discuss their NGS studies and techniques.

Your flight has been cancelled: Stock vector landscape as a digital non-place

This article will present and analyse the results of a research workshop conducted during and after the 2022 Transitus symposium at Falmouth University. The article aims to explore our visions of physical space, travel and migration through stock landscape illustration. The workshop invited illustrators to draw a five-step sequence of images customizing a stock landscape by turning it into a view out of their window, thus exploring how a visual digital ‘airport’, a utopian hub of a stock landscape, disintegrates into particularities of individual experiences. The resulting sequences of images were put together in an online magazine about illustration, Slonvboa.ru, and are available here: http://slonvboa.ru/nonlandscape, accessed 10 June 2023. This webpage collects 30-minute drawings from fourteen illustrators based in ten countries: Armenia, Dubai, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, with ten of the participants being based outside of their home country. Building upon the idea of the ‘nomadic illustration’ suggested by Catrin Morgan and Marc Augé’s notion of ‘non-place’, this article will explore further similarities between nomadism and the circulation of stock imagery. It will thus use the term ‘nomadic’ not only as a metaphor, but also as a direct link to migration studies and studies of digital nomadism, which often describes the precarious occupation of a migrating illustrator. This project will aim to highlight the unlikely possibilities that stock illustration may offer as a point of connection, rather than an alienating utopian abstraction. It will also analyse how individual authorial strategies deal with the notion of space, and how artistic means shape our visions of private and public spaces.

Climate Change and Biodiversity Synergies: A Scientometric Analysis in the Context of UNFCCC and CBD

Two major multilateral environmental agreements–the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)–were negotiated in 1992 to tackle the global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. However, the interlinkages between these two concerns were less recognized and structured which impaired the development of streamlined policies to tackle both simultaneously. Over the last nearly 20 years, increased scientific output on their interlinkages seems to have galvanized the world towards synergistic approaches aimed at transformation instead of business-as-usual effort. The Paris Climate Agreement to the UNFCCC characterizes this synergy by recognizing the importance of conservation and biodiversity protection and ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems. To understand to what extent, scientific output helped reach such synergistic decisions, we studied the temporal distribution of publications on the interlinkages between climate and biodiversity, vis-à-vis important decisions and approaches recognized by the UNFCCC and CBD. The research is based on scientometric meta-analysis of publications, assessing the trends, geographic distribution, key authors, journals, and funding organizations from 1992 to 2021. This information is simultaneously mapped for its significance for major decisions of the two conventions. The later part of the paper sheds light on the science-policy interface by taking cues from outputs of this research and recent workshops and meetings on climate- and biodiversity-related topics.

An objective test to measure evidence-based practice knowledge and skill competency of acute care nurses: Apsychometric validation study.

Few objective measures of evidence-based practice (EBP) knowledge/skill exist. The Fresno Test, one objective method, was validated first with medicine, followed by versions for physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, social workers, dietitians, pediatric nurses, and health care students. The Fresno Test was adapted and tested with cohorts of acute care nurses. Six of the 14 items required revision to achieve acceptable psychometrics. The aim of this second validation study was to revise and validate a new version of the test, The Modified Fresno Test-Acute Care Nursing (MFT-ACN), to determine if it could distinguish EBP knowledge/skills among acute care nurses. A panel of eight EBP experts were engaged in multiple Delphi rounds to revise items. Individual-content validity indices (CVI) ranged from 0.83 to 1.0, with scale-CVI 0.92. Using a cohort design, a cross-sectional sample of 90 novice, master, and expert nurses were recruited via national listservs or snowball sampling to complete the revised test. Two doctorally prepared EBP experts independently scored tests using the standardized rubric. The MFT-ACN yielded strong psychometric properties (intra-class correlation coefficients > 0.80; item discrimination indices > 0.20; item-total correlations > 0.30). One poorly performing item was dropped per a priori cut-off values. The final test included 13 items, with a Cronbach's alpha=0.77. Item difficulty was moderate to high. Most items discriminated well between cohorts. Mean total scores were positively correlated with age, years since graduation, years of acute care experience, and formal EBP or research workshops or conferences or courses or immersions. Perceived level of EBP expertise was not associated with mean scores. Further research is recommended with a larger sample to assess the tests' responsiveness to change in EBP knowledge/skills over time and enhance its acceptability and feasibility. Additional research should further evaluate construct and concurrent validity against other objective assessments of EBP knowledge/skills. The validated 13-item MFT-ACN can be used to evaluate EBP competencies of acute care nurses in academic and practice settings. It can also be used by nurse scientists to build a stronger evidence base on types of educational programs that excel in advancing the critical competency of EBP among our nursing workforce.

Report on 5th Young Researchers Workshop, The Japan Society of Vacuum and Surface Science

Report on 5th Young Researchers Workshop, The Japan Society of Vacuum and Surface Science

A Transformed Approach for Benchmarking the Performance of ‘Sustainable’ Infrastructure

Environmental sustainability priorities for infrastructure development have traditionally focused on aspects including minimising negative impacts in areas such as water and air quality, erosion control, biodiversity and waste management, both in compliance and voluntary frameworks. Associated project performance priorities have focused on avoiding damage beyond ‘pre-project baselines’. In contrast, ‘best practice’ regenerative performance requires infrastructure project outcomes that not only avoid damage but contribute positively to social and ecological systems. For such best practice to become mainstream, industry frameworks, standards and rating schemes must evolve. However, there is limited knowledge regarding ‘how’ regenerative performance could be encouraged as a business-as-usual infrastructure expectation. This paper therefore explores the potential for a benchmarking methodology called Ecological Performance Standards (EPS) as a transformed approach to facilitate the mainstreaming of regenerative performance expectations. Three research workshops (Phoenix, AZ, USA; Sydney and Brisbane, Australia) were undertaken to investigate the potential for this methodology in infrastructure applications. Mapping was undertaken to align the EPS process steps with associated infrastructure lifecycle phases. Research findings include the synthesis of key opportunities for capturing EPS within infrastructure sustainability rating schemes to leverage current efforts and pivot towards regenerative performance. The authors present a comprehensive matrix mapping 18 ecosystem services against the Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) Rating Scheme credits and categories, summarising where ecosystem services are addressed within the current scheme. The authors conclude the presence of significant opportunities for a new ‘business-as-usual’ for infrastructure through the integration of regenerative performance benchmarking.

How to Advance Palliative Care Research in South America? Findings From a Delphi Study.

Progress in palliative care (PC) necessarily involves scientific development. However, research conducted in South America (SA) needs to be improved. To develop a set of recommendations to advance PC research in SA. Eighteen international PC experts participated in a Delphi study. In round one, items were developed (open-ended questions); in round two, each expert scored the importance of each item (from 0 to 10); in round three, they selected the 20 most relevant items. Throughout the rounds, the five main priority themes for research in SA were defined. In Round three, consensus was defined as an agreement of ≥75%. 60 potential suggestions for overcoming research barriers in PC were developed in round one. Also in Round one, 88.2% (15 of 17) of the experts agreed to define a priority research agenda. In Round two, the 36 most relevant suggestions were defined and a new one added. Potential research priorities were investigated (open-ended). In Round three, from the 37 items, 10 were considered the most important. Regarding research priorities, symptom control, PC in primary care, public policies, education and prognosis were defined as the most relevant. Potential strategies to improve scientific research on PC in SA were defined, including stimulating the formation of collaborative research networks, offering courses and workshops on research, structuring centers with infrastructure resources and trained researchers, and lobbying governmental organizations to convince about the importance of palliative care. In addition, priority research topics were identified in the region.

Comparison of reproductive performance of Gembrong goats and male Boerka goats

<p class="MDPI17abstract"><strong>Objective: </strong>This study aims to compare the reproductive performance of Boerka goats and Gembrong goats.</p><p class="MDPI17abstract"><strong>Methods: </strong>The research was conducted at the Sei Putih Slaughter Goat Research Workshop in Deli Serdang, North Sumatra. In this study, male Boerka (n=3) and Gembrong (n=3) goats, aged 3 years and having the same average Body Condition Score (BCS) of 3.83±0.29, were used. Reproductive performance observed included scrotal circumference, libido score, and semen quality macroscopically (volume, color, odor, and consistency) and microscopically (concentration, motility, viability, and abnormalities). The data collected was tabulated and analyzed by t test.<strong></strong></p><p class="MDPI17abstract"><strong>Results: </strong>Of all the parameters of reproductive performance examined, it is known that only the parameters of semen volume (ml) and sperm concentration (x106 cells/ml) showed a significant difference (P<0.05) between Gembrong goats vs. Boerka goats with values of 0.50±0.0 vs. 1.0±0.20 and 1.557±712 vs. 4.500±317.65, respectively, while the other parameters did not show a significant difference (P>0.05).</p><p class="MDPI17abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> It was concluded that the volume and concentration of Boerka goats were higher than Gembrong goats.<strong></strong></p>