Human Resources for Health Migration: global policy responses, initiatives, and emerging issues

This report identifies and maps contemporary global policy responses to, and initiatives on, international HRH migration, with particular reference to low‐income source countries. It reports on a systematic review and analysis of the responses and initiatives of twelve multilateral organisations and global fora: European Union; Global Forum on Migration and Development; Global Health Workforce Alliance; International Labour Organization; International Organization for Migration; Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; Pan‐American Health Organization; UN Global Migration Group; UN High‐Level Dialogue on Migration and Development; World Bank; World Health Organization; and the World Trade Organization. The report documents how these global policy actors are presently engaging with the HRH migration field through their activities, initiatives and policy responses. It situates this engagement within global policy initiatives spanning health, migration and development. In addition to reviewing and mapping current initiatives and policy responses and their outcomes, the report identifies emerging issues, upcoming promising initiatives and global policy scenarios

Climate-dependent CO2 emissions from lakes

Inland waters, just as the world's oceans, play an important role in the global carbon cycle. While lakes and reservoirs typically emit CO2, they also bury carbon in their sediment. The net CO2 emission is largely the result of the decomposition or preservation of terrestrially supplied carbon. What regulates the balance between CO2 emission and carbon burial is not known, but climate change and temperature have been hypothesized to influence both processes. We analyzed patterns in carbon dioxide partial pressure (pCO2) in 83 shallow lakes over a large climatic gradient in South America and found a strong, positive correlation with temperature. The higher pCO2 in warmer lakes may be caused by a higher, temperature-dependent mineralization of organic carbon. This pattern suggests that cool lakes may start to emit more CO2 when they warm up because of climate ch

Two new species of Ammothea (Pycnogonida, Ammotheidae) from Antarctic waters

Two new species of the genus Ammothea are described from Elephant Island and the South Shetlands Islands, Antarctica. The material was captured during the Polarstern cruise XXIII/8 to the Antarctic Peninsula area. The main features of Ammothea pseudospinosa n. sp. are a proboscis distinctly trilobulated distally with a constriction at 2/3 of its length and dimorphism between the propodi of the anterior (first and second) and posterior (third and fourth) legs, and a trunk: proboscis length ratio of about 1.5. The main features of Ammothea childi n. sp. are a cylindrical proboscis, longer than trunk length, and adults with functional chelifores. These species are compared with their closest congeners from the Southern Ocean: A. pseudospinosa n. sp. with Ammothea spinosa and Ammothea allopodes;A. childi n. sp. withAmmothea gigantea, Ammothea bicorniculata and Ammothea hesperidensis

Dynamics and Stability of the Two Body Problem with Yukawa Correction

We explore the dynamics and stability of the two body problem by modifying the Newtonian potential with the Yukawa potential. This model may be considered a theory of modified gravity; where the interaction is not simply the kepler solution for large distance. The stability is investigated by deriving the Jacobian of the linearized matrix equation and evaluating the eigenvalues of the various equilibrium points calculated during the analysis. The subcases of a purely Yukawa and purely Newtonian potential are also explored

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Role in International Law

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has played, and continues to play, an important and largely unrecognized role as a lawmaking body. The OECD occupies a unique space in the international lawmaking field, in large part because it was not established with lawmaking as a priority. In a small number of cases, however, it has played a significant role in crafting the emerging architecture of global governance. Case studies of the hazardous waste trade, the Bribery Convention, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are presented to demonstrate a clear pattern. A topic of major concern arises on the international stage, such as hazardous waste trade, bribery, or corporate conduct. Efforts within the United Nations or other international organizations to draft an agreement are unsuccessful. The OECD proceeds on its own and provides an agreement that serves as the basis for future negotiations in fora with wider membership. The keys to this approach are opportunism and path dependence. The OECD serves as an advantageous forum to host negotiations, in part because of its significant technical expertise, in part because of its membership of like-minded countries, and in part because of its closed proceedings. This can be a very effective strategy to provide the tracks on which the train of international agreements proceeds. But it does not always work. A case study on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment explores the OECD’s greatest failure in international lawmaking

Communication: Resonance reaction in diffusion-influenced bimolecular reactions

We investigate the influence of a stochastically fluctuating step-barrier potential on bimolecular reaction rates by exact analytical theory and stochastic simulations. We demonstrate that the system exhibits a new "resonant reaction" behavior with rate enhancement if an appropriately defined fluctuation decay length is of the order of the system size. Importantly, we find that in the proximity of resonance, the standard reciprocal additivity law for diffusion and surface reaction rates is violated due to the dynamical coupling of multiple kinetic processes. Together, these findings may have important repercussions on the correct interpretation of various kinetic reaction problems in complex systems, as, e.g., in biomolecular association or catalysis

Goodness-of-fit criteria for survival data

The definition of an appropriate measure for goodness-of-fit in case of survival data comparable to R^2 in linear regression is difficult due to censored observations. In this paper, a variety of answers based on different residuals and variance of survival curves are presented together with a newly introduced criterion. In univariate simulation studies, the presented criteria are examined with respect to their dependence on the value of the coefficient associated with the covariate; underlying covariate distribution and censoring percentage in the data. Investigation of the relations between the values of the different criteria indicates strong dependencies, although the absolute values show high discrepancies and the criteria building processes differ substantially

The Emergence and Significance of the Palaestra Type in Greek Architecture

Seit ihrem Aufkommen im 4. Jh. v. Chr. bildeten Palästren die typische Bauform griechischer Gymnasien. Der Beitrag diskutiert Funktion und Bedeutung dieser Architekturform aus zwei Perspektiven. Einerseits wird die Identifikation mehrerer Bauten kritisch hinterfragt (Argos, Epidauros, Milet, Paestum, Sikyon). Davon ausgehend wird die Kombination von Peristylhof, Exedra und Waschraum (Lutron) als ein Kriterienkatalog definiert, mit dessen Hilfe sich in aller Regel die typologische Deutung eines Baus als Palästra begründen lässt. Andererseits wird die Bedeutung des Peristylmotivs vor dem weiteren Hintergrund des zeitgenössischen Städtebaus erörtert. Dabei wird deutlich, dass das Peristyl auch im Fall der Gymnasia zur Schaffung funktional sowie sozial exklusiver Räume genutzt wurde

Cooper-pair insulator phase in superconducting amorphous Bi films induced by nanometer-scale thickness variations

Ultrathin films near the quantum insulator-superconductor transition (IST) can exhibit Cooper-pair transport in their insulating state. This Cooper-pair insulator (CPI) state is achieved in amorphous Bi films evaporated onto substrates with a topography varying on lengths slightly greater than the superconducting coherence length. We present evidence that this topography induces film thickness and corresponding superconducting coupling constant variations that promote Cooper-pair island formation. Analyses of many thickness-tuned ISTs show that weak links between superconducting islands dominate the transport. In particular, the IST occurs when the link resistance approaches the resistance quantum for pairs. These results support conjectures that the CPI is an inhomogeneous state of matter