Human trafficking, sexual exploitation and digital technologies

This is the introduction to the special issue on ‘human trafficking, sexual exploitation and digital technologies’. This special issue contributes to the knowledge base by bringing together four articles that focus on the use of online platforms by human traffickers for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. In doing so, this special issue explores the affordances of online platforms to human traffickers, the challenges faced by law enforcement and other actors seeking to intervene in human trafficking in the digital age, and perhaps pathways towards overcoming these challenges in the future

Police Perception of Migration and Migrants in Greece

The beginning of the 1990s saw a sharp rise in the number of immigrants entering Greece from a variety of contexts. Drawing on notions of ethnicity and immigration, the phenomenon of migration into Greece became a topic of heated debate, and was increasingly identified with a range of “social problems” such as unemployment, national (in)security and, of course, crime. Events such as 9/11 in the US, 7/7 in Britain, and the 2005 riots in the suburbs of Paris and other French cities, although occurring in other contexts, had a global resonance and heightened these debates. The relationship between migrants and crime in particular has been an important issue in the social and political agenda of Greece with some intermissions. “Organised crime” in the country, for example, had been considered to be unknown before the beginning of the 1990s; nowadays the dominant view among social and political commentators, as well as Greek citizens in general, is that it has evolved in parallel with increasing levels of migration. Simultaneously, according to official figures, migrant groups make a significant contribution to official crime rates across a range of offences

Interrelationship between diabetes mellitus and heart failure: the role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors in left ventricle performance

Heart failure (HF) is a common cardiac syndrome, whose pathophysiology involves complex mechanisms, some of which remain unknown. Diabetes mellitus (DM) constitutes not only a glucose metabolic disorder accompanied by insulin resistance but also a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and HF. During the last years though emerging data set up, a bidirectional interrelationship between these two entities. In the case of DM impaired calcium homeostasis, free fatty acid metabolism, redox state, and advance glycation end products may accelerate cardiac dysfunction. On the other hand, when HF exists, hypoperfusion of the liver and pancreas, b-blocker and diuretic treatment, and autonomic nervous system dysfunction may cause impairment of glucose metabolism. These molecular pathways may be used as therapeutic targets for novel antidiabetic agents. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) not only improve insulin resistance and glucose and lipid metabolism but also manifest a diversity of actions directly or indirectly associated with systolic or diastolic performance of left ventricle and symptoms of HF. Interestingly, they may beneficially affect remodeling of the left ventricle, fibrosis, and diastolic performance but they may cause impaired water handing, sodium retention, and decompensation of HF which should be taken into consideration in the management of patients with DM. In this review article, we present the pathophysiological data linking HF with DM and we focus on the molecular mechanisms of PPARs agonists in left ventricle systolic and diastolic performance providing useful insights in the molecular mechanism of this class of metabolically active regiments. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature