The threat of destitution as a deterrent against asylum seeking in the European Union

The problematization of asylum has detrimentally impacted on the provision of support for asylum seekers in host countries. The threat of destitution has become instrumental in restrictive asylum policies and is increasingly used as a deterrent against asylum seeking. The EU experience reveals acute tensions between the EU asylum agenda and the EU Member States' obligations under international refugee and human rights law. The provision of support for asylum seekers challenges narrow approaches to the realization of socio-economic rights for "others" and to host countries' duties in that respect. The EU Reception Conditions Directive, which aims to set out standards for the reception of asylum seekers across the Union, exemplifies this predicament. Yet international refugee and human rights law provides a legal framework that establishes minimum standards critical to dignified living for asylum seekers and the protection of the right to seek refugee status in the EU and beyond

Public Health Powers in Relation to Tuberculosis in England and France: A Comparison of Approaches

Peer reviewe

The ECHR and the protection of irregular migrants in the social sphere

For more than a decade, the Council of Europe has expressed deep concern over irregular migrants’ poor access to basic social rights. With this mind, I consider the extent to which the European Convention on Human Rights can contribute to protect irregular migrants in the social sphere. To this end, I consider the role of international supervisory bodies in social rights adjudication and discuss the suitability of international adjudication as a means to uphold irregular migrants’ social rights. Having reached the conclusion that international adjudication can help protect irregular migrants’ social rights, I examine the ‘social dimension’ of the European Convention on Human Rights and the significance that the European Court of Human Rights attaches to immigration status. I posit that the importance that the Court attaches to resource and immigration policy considerations in N v. United Kingdom significantly constrains the ability of the European Convention on Human Rights to afford irregular migrants protection in the social sphere

Vulnerability and the right to respect for private life as an autonomous source of protection against expulsion under Article 8 ECHR

This paper focuses on settled migrants and calls for the construction of the right to respect for private life as an autonomous source of protection against expulsion under Article 8 ECHR. I contend that, as a core part of human existence, private life warrants meaningful protection. I posit that the fact that all settled migrants have established private life in the host State brings it to the fore of Article 8 expulsion cases. This argument finds strong support in the concept of belonging and transnational migration theory; both tell us that settled migrants' host State has become their 'own country'. Drawing on earlier work, I reclaim vulnerability as a foundation and tool of International Human Rights Law with a view to recognising migrants within the jurisdiction of ECHR States as fully-fledged ECHR subjects and making the European Court of Human Rights responsive to their vulnerability. I make the case for absolute protection against expulsion for second (and subsequent)-generation migrants and settled migrants who have spent most of their adult life in the host State. In respect of other settled migrants, I argue that the minimum protection standard should be that expulsion is only justifiable in exceptional circumstance

Rethinking the common European asylum system through vulnerability analysis

To date, the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) has failed to offer a comprehensive and coherent refugee protection regime. Subsequent reforms have not addressed its fundamental flaws. I posit that, unless we engage in a fundamental rethink of the CEAS, the current third phase of reform -and future reform –will not produce a CEAS that is ‘fit for purpose’ (COM92017) 820 final, 7.12.2017). It will not establish a stable and future-proof asylum framework’ (COM92017) 820 final)

Augmented reality over maps

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia InformáticaMaps and Geographic Information System (GIS) play a major role in modern society, particularly on tourism, navigation and personal guidance. However, providing geographical information of interest related to individual queries remains a strenuous task. The main constraints are (1) the several information scales available, (2) the large amount of information available on each scale, and (3) difficulty in directly infer a meaningful geographical context from text, pictures, or diagrams that are used by most user-aiding systems. To that extent, and to overcome the aforementioned difficulties, we develop a solution which allows the overlap of visual information over the maps being queried — a method commonly referred to as Augmented Reality (AR). With that in mind, the object of this dissertation is the research and implementation of a method for the delivery of visual cartographic information over physical (analogue) and digital two-dimensional (2D) maps utilizing AR. We review existing state-of-art solutions and outline their limitations across different use cases. Afterwards, we provide a generic modular solution for a multitude of real-life applications, to name a few: museums, fairs, expositions, and public street maps. During the development phase, we take into consideration the trade-off between speed and accuracy in order to develop an accurate and real-time solution. Finally, we demonstrate the feasibility of our methods with an application on a real use case based on a map of the city of Oporto, in Portugal.Mapas e Sistema de Informação Geográfica (GIS) desempenham um papel importante na sociedade, particularmente no turismo, navegação e orientação pessoal. No entanto, fornecer informações geográficas de interesse a consultas dos utilizadores é uma tarefa árdua. Os principais dificuldades são (1) as várias escalas de informações disponíveis, (2) a grande quantidade de informação disponível em cada escala e (3) dificuldade em inferir diretamente um contexto geográfico significativo a partir dos textos, figuras ou diagramas usados. Assim, e para superar as dificuldades mencionadas, desenvolvemos uma solução que permite a sobreposição de informações visuais sobre os mapas que estão a ser consultados - um método geralmente conhecido como Realidade Aumentada (AR). Neste sentido, o objetivo desta dissertação é a pesquisa e implementação de um método para a visualização de informações cartográficas sobre mapas 2D físicos (analógicos) e digitais utilizando AR. Em primeiro lugar, analisamos o estado da arte juntamente com as soluções existentes e também as suas limitações nas diversas utilizações possíveis. Posteriormente, fornecemos uma solução modular genérica para uma várias aplicações reais tais como: museus, feiras, exposições e mapas públicos de ruas. Durante a fase de desenvolvimento, tivemos em consideração o compromisso entre velocidade e precisão, a fim de desenvolver uma solução precisa que funciona em tempo real. Por fim, demonstramos a viabilidade de nossos métodos com uma aplicação num caso de uso real baseado num mapa da cidade do Porto (Portugal)

Data Mining Application for Healthcare Sector: Predictive Analysis of Heart Attacks

Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceCardiovascular diseases are the main cause of the number of deaths in the world, being the heart disease the most killing one affecting more than 75% of individuals living in countries of low and middle earnings. Considering all the consequences, firstly for the individual’s health, but also for the health system and the cost of healthcare (for instance, treatments and medication), specifically for cardiovascular diseases treatment, it has become extremely important the provision of quality services by making use of preventive medicine, whose focus is identifying the disease risk, and then, applying the right action in case of early signs. Therefore, by resorting to DM (Data Mining) and its techniques, there is the ability to uncover patterns and relationships amongst the objects in healthcare data, giving the potential to use it more efficiently, and to produce business intelligence and extract knowledge that will be crucial for future answers about possible diseases and treatments on patients. Nowadays, the concept of DM is already applied in medical information systems for clinical purposes such as diagnosis and treatments, that by making use of predictive models can diagnose some group of diseases, in this case, heart attacks. The focus of this project consists on applying machine learning techniques to develop a predictive model based on a real dataset, in order to detect through the analysis of patient’s data whether a person can have a heart attack or not. At the end, the best model is found by comparing the different algorithms used and assessing its results, and then, selecting the one with the best measures. The correct identification of early cardiovascular problems signs through the analysis of patient data can lead to the possible prevention of heart attacks, to the consequent reduction of complications and secondary effects that the disease may bring, and most importantly, to the decrease on the number of deaths in the future. Making use of Data Mining and analytics in healthcare will allow the analysis of high volumes of data, the development of new predictive models, and the understanding of the factors and variables that have the most influence and contribution for this disease, which people should pay attention. Hence, this practical approach is an example of how predictive analytics can have an important impact in the healthcare sector: through the collection of patient’s data, models learn from it so that in the future they can predict new unknown cases of heart attacks with better accuracies. In this way, it contributes to the creation of new models, to the tracking of patient’s health data, to the improvement of medical decisions, to efficient and faster responses, and to the wellbeing of the population that can be improved if diseases like this can be predicted and avoided. To conclude, this project aims to present and show how Data Mining techniques are applied in healthcare and medicine, and how they contribute for the better knowledge of cardiovascular diseases and for the support of important decisions that will influence the patient’s quality of life

A worldwide mapping and characterization of innovative schools

The traditional school model is subject to growing social pressure. The collective awareness of the need to find new pedagogical and organizational approaches has fuelled the dynamics of school innovation. Over the last two decades, several schools have emerged worldwide bearing innovative models. The present study pursued two objectives: 1st - map the innovative schools worldwide, with students between 10/11 and 17/18 years old, referenced by academic publications; 2nd - identify the dimensions of school innovation that those same academic publications indicate in the referenced schools. A systematic literature review was carried out in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, between 2000 and 2021, in the search engines SCOPUS, Web of Science (WoS), EBSCO, Google Scholar, and RCAAP (Open Access Scientific Repositories of Portugal). There may be an increasingly broad consensus on the need for a change in the current school model, but are those so-called innovative schools more effective in promoting learning? The results obtained may raise further research to answer this question.O modelo escolar tradicional está sujeito a uma crescente pressão social. A consciência coletiva acerca da necessidade de se encontrarem novas abordagens pedagógicas e organizacionais tem alimentado a dinâmica da inovação escolar. Nas últimas duas décadas surgiram várias escolas com modelos inovadores um pouco por todo o mundo. O presente estudo foi desenvolvido com dois objetivos: 1º - mapear a nível mundial as escolas inovadoras referenciadas por publicações académicas com alunos entre os 10/11 e os 17/18 anos de idade; 2º - identificar as dimensões de inovação escolar que essas mesmas publicações assinalam nas escolas que referenciam. Para este efeito fez-se uma revisão sistemática da literatura em inglês, português e espanhol, entre 2000 e 2021, nos motores de busca SCOPUS, Web of Science (WoS), EBSCO, Google Scholar e RCAAP (Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal). Pode haver um consenso cada vez mais amplo sobre a necessidade de mudança do modelo escolar atual, mas as escolas ditas inovadoras são mais eficazes na promoção da aprendizagem? Os resultados obtidos pretendem suscitar outras pesquisas que procurem responder a esta questão

The Immigration Bill's proposals for young migrants in care will lead to a constitutional mess in Scottish policy-making

The focus of this post is about what it means for young migrants in Scotland and more broadly what it suggests about the ability of Westminster legislation to have primacy over Scottish policy and practice