Above-Average Rise in Immigrant Poverty: Poverty Often Concomitant with Other Types of Deprivation

The years 1998 to 2003 were marked by a deterioration in the economic situation of the German population with an immigrant background as the share of immigrants living below the poverty line increased at an above average rate. The older and younger age groups in this segment of the population are particularly prone to poverty. The Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) survey, which is carried out by the DIW Berlin in collaboration with the Infratest Social Research Institute, shows that 28% of children and young people aged under 20 with an immigrant background were living in precarious circumstances in 2003. The share of native Germans of the same age living in such circumstances was substantially lower, albeit still disturbingly high at 20%. Citizens of Turkish origin, in particular, are frequently found living below the poverty line. Immigrants from Western countries, by contrast, live comparatively rarely in poverty. Naturalised Germans are better off on average than foreign nationals, although this is not true for ethnic Germans. The fact that poverty is not a transitory phenomenon but an enduring condition for many immigrants is particularly alarming. Only improved education and training will solve this problem in the long term. The recruitment of foreign labour, the admission of refugees and the return of ethnic German settlers from former Eastern Bloc countries have culminated in large waves of immigration to Germany over the last 50 years. On official figures, over seven million foreign nationals and over four million ethnic Germans are living in Germany today. Germany still has a net migration surplus, although it has diminished significantly in recent years.

Phase ordering induced by defects in chaotic bistable media

The phase ordering dynamics of coupled chaotic bistable maps on lattices with defects is investigated. The statistical properties of the system are characterized by means of the average normalized size of spatial domains of equivalent spin variables that define the phases. It is found that spatial defects can induce the formation of domains in bistable spatiotemporal systems. The minimum distance between defects acts as parameter for a transition from a homogeneous state to a heterogeneous regime where two phases coexist The critical exponent of this transition also exhibits a transition when the coupling is increased, indicating the presence of a new class of domain where both phases coexist forming a chessboard pattern.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, Accepted in European Physics Journa

Authentic Happiness Theory Supported by Impact of Religion on Life Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Analysis with Data for Germany

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP), this paper assesses the relationship between life satisfaction and religious practice. The main new result here is longitudinal. It is shown that individuals who become more religious over time record long term gains in life satisfaction, while those who become less religious record long term losses. This result holds net of the effects of personality traits, and also in fixed effects panel models. The paper has significant implications for the dominant, paradigm theory in SWB research, namely set-point theory. This theory holds that the long term SWB of adult individuals is stable, because SWB depends on personality traits and other stable genetic factors. It is already clear from the German panel data that about 20% of the population have recorded large long term changes in SWB. New evidence in this paper and elsewhere about the effects of consciously chosen life goals, including religious ones, on SWB is hard to reconcile with set-point theory. It is more in line with authentic happiness theory.SWB, life satisfaction, set-point theory, authentic happiness theory, longitudinal analysis, SOEP

Emergence and persistence of communities in coevolutionary networks

We investigate the emergence and persistence of communities through a recently proposed mechanism of adaptive rewiring in coevolutionary networks. We characterize the topological structures arising in a coevolutionary network subject to an adaptive rewiring process and a node dynamics given by a simple voterlike rule. We find that, for some values of the parameters describing the adaptive rewiring process, a community structure emerges on a connected network. We show that the emergence of communities is associated to a decrease in the number of active links in the system, i.e. links that connect two nodes in different states. The lifetime of the community structure state scales exponentially with the size of the system. Additionally, we find that a small noise in the node dynamics can sustain a diversity of states and a community structure in time in a finite size system. Thus, large system size and/or local noise can explain the persistence of communities and diversity in many real systems.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, Accepted in EPL (2014

Gene-environment interaction influences attachment-like style in mice

Attachment styles are established soon after birth and form the basis for a healthy psychological life during adulthood. Here, we investigated whether genetic background (i.e. isogenic strains: C57BL/6N and BALB/c) and parent-of-origin (i.e. reciprocal hybrids) epigenetic effects influence attachment-like styles in mice. We discovered that a specific genetic and epigenetic assortment exerts a role on the development of a secure or insecure attachment-like style. In particular, when biological mothers raise their pups, the attachment-like style is mainly secure, independently of the genetic background. However, when foster mothers raise pups, the attachment-like style can be either secure or insecure, depending on the particular genetic background, and this effect is paternally transmitted. Finally, we observed that secure attachment-like in mice leads to greater sociability during adulthood, while insecure attachment-like leads to reduced sociability. Our study sheds light on gene-environment interactions that shape the attachment-like style early in development and pave the way for a healthy psychological life

Random global coupling induces synchronization and nontrivial collective behavior in networks of chaotic maps

The phenomena of synchronization and nontrivial collective behavior are studied in a model of coupled chaotic maps with random global coupling. The mean field of the system is coupled to a fraction of elements randomly chosen at any given time. It is shown that the reinjection of the mean field to a fraction of randomly selected elements can induce synchronization and nontrivial collective behavior in the system. The regions where these collective states emerge on the space of parameters of the system are calculated.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figs, accepted in The European Physical Journa

ANALYSIS OF THE FACTORS AFFECTING 3D MODELS RESOLUTION – APPLICATION TO THE RECORDING OF VAULTS IN SANGALLO'S HOUSE

The paper will present the extraction of information from a laser scanning survey aimed to support historical studies on the Sangallo's house in Florence. In order to verify some study's hypothesis related to the building history and constructive techniques, high resolution models were needed. The meaning of "resolution" applied to 3D scanning will be briefly discussed stressing the difference between resolution and accuracy. Starting from the analysis of technical specifications of the used instruments, the expected performance of the model is described. The results obtained from acquired data are shown and the paper will conclude proposing some answers to the historian's questions