Brave New Hospital (Apologies to Aldous Huxley)

The migration to Mater Dei Hospital, our state of the art healthcare facility, has been completed. On the 19th of November 2007 the first acutely ill patients were admitted through the emergency department at Mater Dei Hospital! Those involved in the planning and execution of the migration deserve thanks and recognition for their hard work and endeavours in ensuring as smooth a migration as possible.peer-reviewe

Detecting Invasive Insects with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

A key aspect to controlling and reducing the effects invasive insect species have on agriculture is to obtain knowledge about the migration patterns of these species. Current state-of-the-art methods of studying these migration patterns involve a mark-release-recapture technique, in which insects are released after being marked and researchers attempt to recapture them later. However, this approach involves a human researcher manually searching for these insects in large fields and results in very low recapture rates. In this paper, we propose an automated system for detecting released insects using an unmanned aerial vehicle. This system utilizes ultraviolet lighting technology, digital cameras, and lightweight computer vision algorithms to more quickly and accurately detect insects compared to the current state of the art. The efficiency and accuracy that this system provides will allow for a more comprehensive understanding of invasive insect species migration patterns. Our experimental results demonstrate that our system can detect real target insects in field conditions with high precision and recall rates.Comment: IEEE ICRA 2019. 7 page

Inter-regional migration modelling - a review and assessment

Population migration involves the relocation of individuals, households or moving groups between geographical locations. Aggregate spatial patterns of movement reflect complex combinations of motivation that influence migration behaviour and determine destination choice. Consequently there is a huge literature on modelling different types of migration at various spatial scales. This paper, which originates from a study for EUROSTAT to find a generally applicable migration model, endeavours to review the state of the art by exploiting the distinction between explanatory and projection models. Whilst the review inevitably lacks comprehensiveness, it demonstrates the difference between mathematical and statistical approaches, highlights a recent two-stage model developed for use in a policy context in the UK, and contrasts these methods with models developed in the context of multi-state demography and used for migration projection in the European Union.

Taking Stock of Research on Regional Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study reviews a host of issues related to international migration in Sub-Saharan Africa and presents an overview of the state of the art of research and knowl-edge. Its aim is to identify policies and research areas that will improve understanding and management of migration in Sub-Sahara Africa and help maximize the potential benefits of migration, especially for poor people, while minimizing its risks and costs. The study covers a broad range of issues in the migration literature, but is not exhaustive. This report first provides a historical overview of migration in Sub-Saharan Af-rica and then examines the scale and regional trends of migration. It explores the intersec-tions between migration and labor market and the links between migration and develop-ment. It also looks at institutions and policies and investigates issues related to politics, ethics, and migration before exploring implications for further investigation.Migration; Remittance; Economic development; Sub-Saharan Africa

The Criminalisation of Migration in Europe: A State-of-the-Art of the Academic Literature and Research. CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe No. 61, October 2013

In the last 30 years, a clear trend has come to define modern immigration law and policy. A set of seemingly disparate developments concerning the constant reinforcement of border controls, tightening of conditions of entry, expanding capacities for detention and deportation and the proliferation of criminal sanctions for migration offences, accompanied by an anxiety on the part of the press, public and political establishment regarding migrant criminality can now be seen to form a definitive shift in the European Union towards the so-called ‘criminalisation of migration’. This paper aims to provide an overview of the ‘state-of-the-art’ in the academic literature and EU research on criminalisation of migration in Europe. It analyses three key manifestations of the so-called ‘crimmigration’ trend: discursive criminalisation; the use of criminal law for migration management; and immigrant detention, focusing both on developments in domestic legislation of EU member states but also the increasing conflation of mobility, crime and security which has accompanied EU integration. By identifying the trends, synergies and gaps in the scholarly approaches dealing with the criminalisation of migration, the paper seeks to provide a framework for on-going research under Work Package 8 of the FIDUCIA project

Travel light:State shedding for efficient operator migration

Operator migration is a crucial concept to adapt event processing systems to dynamic changes. When the placement of a stateful operator changes, the operator state must be migrated to the new host. However, operator state size and time constraints can make it impossible to migrate the operator without severe Quality of Service (QoS) degradation. As a relief, we propose to perform state shedding in such a situation. The core idea of state shedding is to partition the operator state, assign a utility to each partial state, and use the utility and size of each partial state to identify the most useful partial states that can be migrated in a given time frame. Thus, state shedding can maintain a substantially higher QoS with a lower impact on query results than state-of-the-art solutions targeting consistent state at the old and new host. In this paper, we define this novel approach and in a simulation environment evaluate state shedding in migration scenarios with pattern-matching queries

The dynamics of international migration and settlement in Europe: a state of the art

A fundamental issue in society today, migration has been undergoing a new dynamic transformation, calling for new policy approaches. This new dynamic is not yet understood clearly, let alone that adequate policy answers for 'the managing' of these new migration processes and the consequences for receiving and sending societies are within. This comprehensive overview of migration research conducted throughout the IMISCoe network of European research analyses the influx of various types of immigrants in Western Europe post World War II, mostly to large cities, as well as the reactions of the native populations and governments to the changes and pressures brought about by immigration