The potential influence of climate change on migratory behaviour - a study of drought, hurricanes and migration in Mexico

This thesis develops a conceptual and methodological approach to understanding how future climate change is likely to affect migration, and then applies this approach to explore the likely effects of climate change on different migration flows in and from Mexico. Scientific and policy interest in the climate change-migration nexus has been growing over the last decade, yet empirical results remain inconclusive. Existing approaches are often conceptually and methodologically unconvincing as they assume a linear relationship between climate change and migration, or try to separate climate stressors from other factors involved in migration decisions. Furthermore, most current research into the climate-migration nexus has focused on a relatively simple framing of localised environmental pressures forcing people to migrate. In contrast, this thesis acknowledges the complexity of migration and suggests that climate change is likely to affect factors involved in migration decisions at the local and the global level. It develops a more realistic understanding of the potential effect of climate change on migration by examining the impact of the local and global consequences of climate change on livelihood stressors and other factors involved in migration decisions. This thesis adopts a qualitative and comparative approach to illustrate this concept, based on fieldwork in Zacatecas and Veracruz, two Mexican states with different migration profiles and different local climate stressors. It analyses the factors involved in migration decisions, which include livelihood stressors but also networks, recruiters and individual agency. A risk matrix is then developed to explore the climate sensitivity of the various factors that influence internal and international migration flows. It analyses the extent to which each factor is likely to be affected by climate change in combination with the relevance of this factor for the migration decision-making process. This approach allows identifying those factors that, affected by future climate change, have the highest potential to impact on existing migration patterns. It also allows a comparison between different migration flows. Results suggest that climate change is likely to have moderate effects on migration, mainly on internal rural flows. Alarmist predictions of large numbers of 'climate change refugees' are thus inappropriate and policies should instead focus on the factors projected to impact most on migration under scenarios of future climate change. Policies should also aim at mitigating the negative effects of climate change on people's livelihoods and at protecting migrants and non-migrant

The Visual Callosal Connection: A Connection Like Any Other?

Recent work about the role of visual callosal connections in ferrets and cats is reviewed, and morphological and functional homologies between the lateral intrinsic and callosal network in early visual areas are discussed. Both networks selectively link distributed neuronal groups with similar response properties, and the actions exerted by callosal input reflect the functional topography of those networks. This supports the notion that callosal connections perpetuate the function of the lateral intrahemispheric circuit onto the other hemisphere. Reversible deactivation studies indicate that the main action of visual callosal input is amultiplicative shift of responses rather than a changing response selectivity. Both the gain of that action and its excitatoryinhibitory balance seem to be dynamically adapted to the feedforward drive by the visual stimulus onto primary visual cortex. Taken together anatomical and functional evidence from corticocortical and lateral circuits further leads to the conclusion that visual callosal connections share more features with lateral intrahemispheric connections on the same hierarchical level and less with feedback connections. I propose that experimental results about the callosal circuit in early visual areas can be interpreted with respect to lateral connectivity in general

Sulfo-SMCC Prevents Annealing of Taxol-Stabilized Microtubules In Vitro

Microtubule structure and functions have been widely studied in vitro and in cells. Research has shown that cysteines on tubulin play a crucial role in the polymerization of microtubules. Here, we show that blocking sulfhydryl groups of cysteines in taxol-stabilized polymerized microtubules with a commonly used chemical crosslinker prevents temporal end-to-end annealing of microtubules in vitro. This can dramatically affect the length distribution of the microtubules. The crosslinker sulfosuccinimidyl 4-(N-maleimidomethyl)cyclohexane-1-carboxylate, sulfo-SMCC, consists of a maleimide and an N-hydroxysuccinimide ester group to bind to sulfhydryl groups and primary amines, respectively. Interestingly, addition of a maleimide dye alone does not show the same interference with annealing in stabilized microtubules. This study shows that the sulfhydryl groups of cysteines of tubulin that are vital for the polymerization are also important for the subsequent annealing of microtubules.Comment: 3 figure

Migrant support initiatives and young mobile people's needs: outcomes of the YMOBILITY project

Intra-EU mobility has become increasingly important over the past years. While there are no legal barriers preventing young intra-EU migrants from studying or working in another EU country, many of them face obstacles with respect to their integration into the destination country. Likewise, those who return to their origin countries after having spent some time abroad are also often confronted with diverse challenges. Support measures provided by the EU or national governments and by civil society organisations play an important role in overcoming those obstacles, which might not always match with migrants’ and returnees’ needs. Drawing on the outcomes of the collaborative project YMOBILITY, which investigated the relationship between young-peoples’ transition from youth to adulthood and their mobility between EU Member States from an international and interdisciplinary perspective, three general findings can be highlighted. First, (re)integration support should include language training and labour market integration measures, but also address other aspects, such as access to housing and cultural integration. Most importantly, efficient support measures need to be tailored to the particular needs of young intra-EU migrants and returnees. Second, support in integration that targets to overcome acculturation issues in the sphere of everyday life is generally offered by civil society, including organisations created by and for migrants and returnees. However, these organisations tend to be underfunded and understaffed, because they are often based on voluntary work, leading to a limited scope and the underuse of their potential. Third, a large group of migrants and returnees are unaware of, or unwilling to use, social support measures, indicating the particular need to provide measures that improve the communication between providers of support and migrants and returnees

Mobilities in Asian-German transnational spaces: Temporary migrants' experiences, perceptions and motivations

Temporary migration has become an increasingly important phenomenon, also within the German migratory context. This report identifies the qualitative characteristics of temporary transnational migration in the German-Asian transnational space. It concentrates on temporary migrants from Asia in Germany and to a lesser degree on German return migrants from Asia in the categories international students, professionals, family members, asylum seekers/refugees, as well as lifestyle migrants. The presented findings are the result of qualitative interviews, in which temporary migrants were asked about their perceptions, experiences and aspirations related to their stays. Based on these results, the report aims to provide an overview about the interviewees’ motivations to migrate, their feelings of acceptance and belonging in the society of destination, the forms and intensity of their transnational links and activities, as well as their future plans. These aspects are separately addressed for the politico-legal, socio-economic and socio-cultural realms and in the conclusion brought together and related to aspects of temporariness

Technology and (Post-)Sociality in the Financial Market

The article takes issue with recent influential work on the paradigmatic relevancy of technologically induced modes of communication and sociality on the financial markets. According to Karin Knorr Cetina and Urs Bruegger, the technological infrastructure of the global financial markets engenders novel forms of sociality and social integration: intersubjectivity with non-present others and (post)sociality with (imagined) objects. The article differentiates these hypotheses by way of confronting them with results from interviews conducted with financial market professionals such as asset managers and financial analysts. They reveal that financial professionals attribute the role of technology a varying meaning and engage in divergent technological practices depending on their market positionality: while, for instance, intraday traders report on an intimate and quasi-social relationship with the technologically institutionalized "object" of the market, equity analysts display a more distanced stance toward the market and attribute the technological nature of mass communication (especially the real-time circulation of information) paramount importance. In conclusion the paper calls for a nuanced and contextualized understanding of the impact of technology upon changing social relations

Best practices of open source mechanical hardware : a guide with practical advice for sharing product-related documentation

What makes a software program “open source” is that its source code is publicly available. What is pretty clear for software is less clear for hardware—especially for mechanical hardware. What does the term "source" refer to in "open source hardware"? According to the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA): "Open source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design." What does it mean to "make a design publicly available"? What are the documents that enable others to study, distribute, make or sell a design? This short guide provides practical answers to these questions and is dedicated to those who want to make a piece of mechanical hardware open source.DFG, 283849106, OPEN! Methoden und IT-Werkzeuge zur Community-basierten und Open-Source-Entwicklung von physischen ProduktenAgence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR