scholarly journals Narrating Europe's Migration and Refugee ‘Crisis’

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Collyer ◽  
Russell King
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Security Controls ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Physical Barriers ◽  
Introductory Paper ◽  
And Control

It is very clear – as many journalists covering the unfolding migration and refugee crisis have pointed out – that geography lies at the heart of the events taking place in Europe and the Mediterranean. It is a story of borders and routes, of distance and proximity, and of location and accessibility. The role of (re-) bordering has been fundamental in states’ attempts to ‘manage’ and ‘control’ the refugee and migrant flows and, in this respect, we observe a return to the more traditional practices of bordering – physical barriers and personnel-heavy security controls – rather than the previous processes of ‘externalizing’ and ‘internalizing’ border management. In the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans the external border of the European ‘fortress’ has been prised open, whilst the free-movement ethos of the Schengen area has been compromized by EU states’ reactions to the large-scale movement of migrants and refugees and recent acts of terrorism. In this introductory paper we bring a critical geopolitical lens into play in order to understand the European, regional and global power geometries at work, and we critically examine the political and media rhetoric around the various discursive constructions of the migrant/refugee ‘crisis’, including both the negative and the Islamophobic utterances of some European leaders and the game-changing iconicity of certain media images.

Sharing Stories, Sharing Bias: How Descriptions of Context Shape Negative Stereotype Use in Response to Accounts of Economic Adversity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
M B Fallin Hunzaker ◽  
Marcus Mann
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Economic Hardship ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Situational Characteristics ◽  
Context Shape ◽  
And Control

Abstract Research shows that observers use negative stereotypes to construe victims of misfortune as responsible for their own fate. In two experiments, we test three situational characteristics’ (injustice, scale, and control) effects on observers’ tendency to use negative stereotypes when communicating stories about others’ economic hardship. Study 1 examines predictions, based on social psychological theories of equity and justice, that stereotype use should increase in response to accounts of misfortune that are the result of unjust under-reward. Contrary to predictions, Study 1 found that participants used more stereotypes when retelling accounts in which the protagonist’s misfortune was not the result of unjust rewards. Study 2 investigates competing predictions to Study 1, based on research regarding how portrayals of scale (whether the misfortune affects one vs. many) and control (whether another actor has control over the misfortune of another) affect perceptions of misfortune. Study 2 results indicate that stereotype use increases in response to accounts of large-scale, uncontrollable misfortune. Together, these studies suggest that qualities of portrayals (such as scale and control) are crucial in understanding stereotype transmission processes above and beyond the role of perceptions of injustice (i.e., the unequal distribution of rewards).

scholarly journals CHNS Modeling for Study and Management of Human–Water Interactions at Multiple Scales

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumaraswamy Ponnambalam ◽  
S. Jamshid Mousavi
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Integrated Water Resources Management ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Institutional Issues ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Global Hydrology

This paper presents basic definitions and challenges/opportunities from different perspectives to study and control water cycle impacts on society and vice versa. The wider and increased interactions and their consequences such as global warming and climate change, and the role of complex institutional- and governance-related socioeconomic-environmental issues bring forth new challenges. Hydrology and integrated water resources management (IWRM from the viewpoint of an engineering planner) do not exclude in their scopes the study of the impact of changes in global hydrology from societal actions and their feedback effects on the local/global hydrology. However, it is useful to have unique emphasis through specialized fields such as hydrosociology (including the society in planning water projects, from the viewpoint of the humanities) and sociohydrology (recognizing the large-scale impacts society has on hydrology, from the viewpoint of science). Global hydrological models have been developed for large-scale hydrology with few parameters to calibrate at local scale, and integrated assessment models have been developed for multiple sectors including water. It is important not to do these studies with a silo mindset, as problems in water and society require highly interdisciplinary skills, but flexibility and acceptance of diverse views will progress these studies and their usefulness to society. To deal with complexities in water and society, systems modeling is likely the only practical approach and is the viewpoint of researchers using coupled human–natural systems (CHNS) models. The focus and the novelty in this paper is to clarify some of these challenges faced in CHNS modeling, such as spatiotemporal scale variations, scaling issues, institutional issues, and suggestions for appropriate mathematical tools for dealing with these issues.

scholarly journals The Role of Information and Communication Technology in the EU Response to the 2015 Refugee Crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2 (176)) ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Wasilewski
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technology ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Individual Member ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Role Of Information

The 2015 refugee crisis – as the mass influx of migrants from the Middle East is commonly dubbed – tested the European Union’s ability to react to large-scale humanitarian emergencies. Apart from various organizational, social and political changes that the 2015 refugee crisis has brought to the European Union, it has also marked the growing role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the EU’s asylum and migration policies. Drawing from the critical perspective of international relations and such concepts as securitization of migration, the paper aims to analyse the engagement of ICT by EU institutions and individual Member States during the refugee crisis in 2015.

Information Communications in the Higher School Educational Space

10.12737/5419 ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 26-29
Author(s):  
Захаров ◽  
A. Zakharov
Keyword(s):  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Higher Educational Institutions ◽  
Innovation Development ◽  
Higher Educational ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Control

Within the Federal Target Programme on the Development of Education in Russia strategic projects on introduction of new models for managing education and arranging educational process are being implemented in all higher educational institutions of this country. This transformation is going on in the context of large-scale use of information and telecommunication technologies, which are aimed to ensure the individual approach to education on the basis of merging educational process with technologies and also to reduce costs for the shift towards innovation development of higher educational institutions. The significant role of self-guided work, stipulated within the third generation educational standards, emphasizes top priority issues both on effective arrangement and control of students’ learning outcomes and on helping to reduce teachers’ efforts for functions to deliver knowledge to learners.

Inside and Outside of Hillforts

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Harding
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Public Funding ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Implicit Assumption ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
Surface Survey ◽  
The 1960S

By the 1960s, a greater interest in the social and economic role of hillforts demanded more extensive excavation of their interiors. Whilst fieldwork was still dependent on volunteer labour and limited research funds, the expense of large-scale stripping by hand would have been prohibitive, and only with public funding of ‘rescue’ or ‘salvage’ excavation in advance of development was it practical to contemplate large-scale area excavation. Hillforts that were extensively excavated included Balksbury (Wainwright 1969; Wainwright and Davies 1995; Ellis and Rawlings 2001) and Winklebury (Smith 1977; Robertson-Mackay 1977; Fisher 1985) in Hampshire. Whilst large-scale examination of hillfort interiors is plainly essential to an understanding of their economic and social functions, there is a high probability that ephemeral features, the foundations of which did not penetrate into subsoil or bedrock, will be destroyed by mechanical stripping, if they have not already been damaged beyond retrieval by ploughing. So the question remains: how partial and therefore potentially misleading are the surviving plans of hillfort interiors thus exposed? Hillfort exteriors, arguably equally important to an understanding of the role of the enclosure as its interior, have been even more neglected, first because of an implicit assumption that the earthworks defined the area of the ‘site’, and second, because the logistical problems of excavating outside the limits of the ramparts increased exponentially with distance from the enclosure. The possibility, indeed probability, of activity contemporary with the occupation of the hillfort having extended beyond the limits of the rampart need not necessarily imply a social division between acropolis and polis on the eastern Mediterranean model. It simply requires a redefinition of the concept of what constituted the ‘site’ in which the enclosure earthworks are not the definitive criterion. The issue was identified more than thirty years ago (Harding 1979; Hingley 1980), and excavation and survey at Battlesbury Camp, Wiltshire (Ellis and Powell 2008) and Castle Hill, Little Wittenham (Allen et al. 2011), has shown its importance for future research. There are three principal, non-intrusive ways of investigating hillfort interiors and immediate exteriors. The first is by surface survey, not in itself as simple as may appear at first sight, since detecting and meaningfully depicting the highly fugitive traces of prehistoric occupation requires an experienced eye, sensitive to the residual surface signs of constructional activity.

Eastern Mediterranean Drying: Projected Changes in Dynamics and Thermodynamics and Their Relation to Large-Scale Processes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eilat Elbaum ◽  
Chaim Garfinkel ◽  
Ori Adam ◽  
Efrat Morin
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Coupled Model ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Intercomparison Project ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Projected Changes ◽  
Precipitation Changes

<p>Observations from the past century and projections for the end of this century exhibit a decrease in precipitation over the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and surrounding land areas, but the magnitude of the expected drying is unknown. Changes in precipitation are controlled by both thermodynamic (moist) and dynamic (dry) processes, but the relative contributions of these processes, in particular on regional scales, is not well understood. Previous studies have analyzed the ability of the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) multi-model mean to represent the spatial and seasonal patterns of the Mediterranean hydroclimate. A wide spread exists among the individual models, which can be exploited to better understand the factors controlling future climate. Garfinkel et al. (2020)<sup>[i]</sup> found that large-scale mechanisms contribute about 50% of the model spread in Eastern Mediterranean drying. This study further explores the variance across models in projected changes of the moisture budget by decomposing them into mean dynamic, mean thermodynamic and transient components. These components are then related to the variance across models in projected large-scale processes. Through these analyses, uncertainties regarding future changes in precipitation can be reduced.</p><p><sup>[i]</sup> Garfinkel, C. I. et al. (2020) ‘The role of zonally averaged climate change in contributing to inter-model spread in CMIP5 predicted local precipitation changes’, Journal of Climate, 33, pp. 1141–1154. doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0232.1.</p>

scholarly journals Does Sand Beach Nourishment Enhance the Dispersion of Non-Indigenous Species?—The Case of the Common Moon Crab, Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1781), in the Southeastern Mediterranean

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 911
Author(s):  
Dov Zviely ◽  
Dror Zurel ◽  
Dor Edelist ◽  
Menashe Bitan ◽  
Ehud Spanier
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Indirect Evidence ◽  
Beach Nourishment ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Indigenous Species ◽  
Sand Beach ◽  
Non Indigenous Species

Sand beach nourishment (BN) is one of the commonest “soft solutions” for shore protection and restoration. Yet it may have ecological consequences. Can this practice enhance the introduction and dispersal of non-indigenous species (NIS)? There has been little research on the impacts of nourishment on NIS, especially in the southeastern Mediterranean, a region considered most affected by invading biota. However, so far only one study referred to the possible interaction between BN and the success of invading species. It reports increasing numbers and densities of the aggressive, omnivorous Indo-Pacific moon crab, Matuta victor (Fabricius, 1781) in Haifa Bay (northern Israel) between 2011 and 2017. This research suggests a possible role of anthropogenic disturbance in the outbreak of M. victor and blames the Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection for authorizing a (rather small scale) BN in Haifa Bay in 2011 as an alleged cause for this outbreak. Circumstantial indirect evidence is not sufficient to establish the role of nourishment in promoting the establishment and dispersal of NIS. There are plenty of examples of successful settlement and rapid and large-scale distribution of NIS (including another member of the genus Matuta), especially in the eastern Mediterranean, without any BN in the region. Furthermore, the location where the M. victor specimens were sampled was exposed to more prevailing and frequent anthropogenic marine stressors than BN, such as eutrophication, pollution, fishing activities and particularly port construction. To firmly establish an assumed role of nourishment in the invasion of NIS, assessments must be based on solid and orderly planned scientific research to be designed well before the beginning of any BN. It is suggested that direct communication between environmental regulators and scientists is crucial for improving both scientific research and environmental management policies.

scholarly journals OFP1 Interaction with ATH1 Regulates Stem Growth, Flowering Time and Flower Basal Boundary Formation in Arabidopsis

Genes ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liguo Zhang ◽  
Lili Sun ◽  
Xiaofei Zhang ◽  
Shuquan Zhang ◽  
Dongwei Xie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Flowering Time ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Stem Elongation ◽  
Stem Growth ◽  
Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation ◽  
Yeast Two Hybrid ◽  
Protein Protein Interaction ◽  
And Control ◽  
Two Hybrid

Ovate Family Protein1 (OFP1) is a regulator, and it is suspected to be involved in plant growth and development. Meanwhile, Arabidopsis Thaliana Homeobox (ATH1), a BEL1-like homeodomain (HD) transcription factor, is known to be involved in regulating stem growth, flowering time and flower basal boundary development in Arabidopsis. Previous large-scale yeast two-hybrid studies suggest that ATH1 possibly interact with OFP1, but this interaction is yet unverified. In our study, the interaction of OFP1 with ATH1 was verified using a directional yeast two-hybrid system and bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC). Our results also demonstrated that the OFP1-ATH1 interaction is mainly controlled by the HD domain of ATH1. Meanwhile, we found that ATH1 plays the role of transcriptional repressor to regulate plant development and that OFP1 can enhance ATH1 repression function. Regardless of the mechanism, a putative functional role of ATH1-OFP1 may be to regulate the expression of the both the GA20ox1 gene, which is involved in gibberellin (GA) biosynthesis and control of stem elongation, and the Flowering Locus C (FLC) gene, which inhibits transition to flowering. Ultimately, the regulatory functional mechanism of OFP1-ATH1 may be complicated and diverse according to our results, and this work lays groundwork for further understanding of a unique and important protein–protein interaction that influences flowering time, stem development, and flower basal boundary development in plants.

scholarly journals Enhanced Humoral Immune Responses against Toxin A and B of Clostridium difficile is Associated with a Milder Disease Manifestation

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 3241
Author(s):  
Wasef Na’amnih ◽  
Yehuda Carmeli ◽  
Valeria Asato ◽  
Sophy Goren ◽  
Amos Adler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clostridium Difficile ◽  
Immune Responses ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Immunoglobulin A ◽  
Toxin A ◽  
Disease Manifestation ◽  
Humoral Immune ◽  
Humoral Immune Responses ◽  
And Control

The role of the humoral immune response to Clostridium difficile in modulating the severity of C. difficile infection (CDI) is unclear. We compared the levels of serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) and immunoglobulin A (IgA) against toxin A (TcdA) and toxin B (TcdB) of C. difficile between CDI and control patients and according to disease severity. The levels of IgG and IgA antibodies against TcdA and TcdB were measured in sera from patients with CDI (n = 50; 19 had severe CDI) and control patients (n = 52), using ELISA. Patients with CDI had higher levels of IgG antibodies against TcdA and TcdB than controls (p = 0.001 and p = 0.04, respectively). Higher IgG levels against TcdA and TcdB were found in patients with mild vs. severe CDI 7–14 days after the diagnosis (p = 0.004 and 0.036, respectively). A factor analysis included both IgA and IgG levels against both toxins into one composite variable, which was of higher values in patients with mild vs. severe CDI (p = 0.026). In conclusion, the systemic humoral immune responses against TcdA and TcdB might modulate the severity of CDI. These preliminary findings provide a basis for future large-scale studies and support the development and evaluation of active and passive immunotherapies for CDI management.

FEATURES AND ROLE OF STATE FINANCIAL CONTROL AS PART OF THE RUSSIAN LEGAL SYSTEM

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-101
Author(s):  
DINA SHEPELEVA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Financial Control ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Priority Task ◽  
Specific Object ◽  
Economic Nature ◽  
And Control

In the modern Russian state, a large-scale reform of supervisory and control activities is being carried out. The priority task here is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of control and supervision, as well as the revision and updating of legislation. In recent years, the reform of updating and improving legislation in the field of financial control has been carried out and continues to be carried out. Indeed, to date, a huge array of acts has accumulated, including those of the early 90s with a noticeably outdated system of bodies and an outdated concept of financial control. Therefore, they are recognized as invalid and new strategic documents of a national, informational, and economic nature, approved by Decrees of the President of our state and containing priority goals, take their place. Therefore the research trends and impact of control activities and effectiveness through the implementation of these activities is of particular relevance that derives, including the purpose of the article, which aims to explore issues of financial control and oversight, in both practical and theoretical aspects. It is important to analyze the role of financial control, its main directions at different stages of this control mechanism, the list of key features of state financial control, the sources on which control activities are based, the methods by which its subjects implement financial control and carry out control measures. And also to characterize it as part of public administration, the institution of financial law and the control relationship, since it is through the legal relationship with its inherent features that control is implemented. A your authorized subject is able to influence other participants of legal relations through mandatory regulations to oblige to a legitimate implementation of the law, and its specific object as the second party to legal relations which are not simply the specific benefit and a specific person (natural, legal), and public law, are obliged to observe the norms of financial law

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