Climate Migration: The State of Play on National, International, and Local Response Frameworks

According to government data, 2021 was a year of climate disasters: The U.S. experienced 20 separate billion-dollar disasters, putting the year in second behind 2020, which had a record 22 separate billion-dollar events. The number and cost of weather and climate disasters are increasing across the world, with a dire climate report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Monday, February 28, warning that climate change, and climate disasters, will "redistribute populations on a planetary scale."Despite the increased attention being paid to the phenomenon of climate migration, substantive recommendations and solutions to this growing occurrence are few and far between at the local, national, and international levels. The lack of a dedicated international mechanism for climate migrants as well as local and national solutions has forced many to seek protections under existing international legal mechanisms, such as refugee and asylum laws, which were not designed for this new type of migration. Many of the international initiatives addressing migration more generally are non-binding, meaning that they provide a framework for signatory countries to follow, but do not compel those signatory countries to take specific actions, leaving an international patchwork of responses to a growing global phenomenon

What the Border Looked Like in FY2022

The release of fiscal year 2022 border data was again marked by headlines touting a record-breaking year for encounters. In the following issue brief, we delve into the border data further, analyzing the migration patterns and trends that occurred in FY2022, how Title 8 was used at the border in FY2022, how trends at the northern border and at sea changed this fiscal year, and what process changes were implemented at the border

COMMUNITY STIGMATIZATION OF COMBAT-RELATED PTSD: THE INFLUENCE OF JUST WORLD BELIEFS, VICTIM BLAMING, AND SELF-COMPASSION

The fear of stigmatization by community members outside of the military has been identified as a significant barrier to care for military members seeking mental health services (Mittal et al., 2013). Research exploring the constructs that contribute to the stigmatizing views of military specific mental health issues is absent from current literature. This study examined variables, including just world beliefs, victim blaming, and self-compassion, and their predictive value regarding specific types of attitudes (i.e., mental health ideology, social restriction, benevolence) toward individuals with combat-related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Hierarchical regression models for each of the stigmatizing attitude scales showed different predictive patterns. However, self-compassion was not found to be a significant predictor of any of the stigmatizing attitudes scales. The findings provide guidance regarding the development of anti-stigma interventions and educational campaigns that may reduce levels of stigmatization by community members, with the long-term goal of diminishing military members’ fear of community stigmatization as a barrier to seeking mental health services. Keywords: combat-related PTSD, stigma, just world perspective, self-compassio

In Numbers We Trust? A History of the US Department of Agriculture and its Agricultural Surveys during the 1920s

Since the nineteenth century, governments have used censuses to observe markets. In the 1920s, surveys were added to their agricultural data collection toolkits, kickstarting a revolution. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was among the most successful agencies to employ such methods. Since 1862, it has become the world’s most prominent collector and disseminator of agricultural statistics, informing US farmers, businesses, scientific institutions, and more. This paper explores the first decade of the USDA’s development into an international statistical clearing house. It highlights how the USDA collected foreign statistics and used surveys to generate the estimates of foreign markets needed to combat low prices and reduce the US agricultural surplus in the 1920s.Depuis le xixe siècle, les gouvernements utilisent des recensements comme outils de collecte de données pour observer le cours des marchés. Dans les années 1920, les enquêtes viennent compléter ces outils pour faciliter la collecte de données agricoles, amorçant une révolution dans ce secteur. Le ministère de l’Agriculture des États-Unis (USDA) est l’une des institutions à la pointe dans l’usage de ces méthodes. À partir de 1862, il devient le plus important collecteur de données et diffuseur de statistiques agricoles au monde, informant les agriculteurs, les entreprises et les institutions scientifiques états-uniennes, entre autres. Cet article explore la première décennie d’existence de l’USDA et son évolution en un centre d’échange de statistiques. L’objectif est de mettre en évidence la manière dont l’USDA a collecté des statistiques étrangères et utilisé des enquêtes pour générer les estimations des marchés étrangers

Meta-Narrative Review of PD-L1 by immunotherapy on Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive form of subtype breast cancer and there are currently new treatments being discovered such as the combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy. In immunotherapy against triple-negative breast cancer, checkpoint inhibitors like PD-1/PD-L1 treat TNBC by blocking the “off” signal that prevents T-cells from killing cancer cells. As a group, we conducted a meta-narrative review collecting results from primary sources such as clinical trials and human experimental studies to support our research question on how PD-L1 inhibitor treatments compare to other treatments in patients with TNBC. The review included articles searched from Embase, Pubmed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library for randomized controlled trials, clinical trials, and case studies published within 5 years. The articles relate to PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors combined with chemotherapy or PD-L1 immunotherapy for triple-negative breast cancer. The results found that PD-L1 immunotherapy treatment in combination with other forms of traditional cancer therapy, such as radiation and chemotherapy, had a slightly significant positive response. However, the treatment was overwhelmingly successful in patients who exhibited PD-L1 positive TNBC compared to patients who were PD-L1 negative. Secondly, and a major concern for immunotherapy treatment is the adverse events, potentially developing autoimmune diseases. From the articles pulled, there seemed to be no new adverse events that developed for patients outside the standard toxic effects found from radiation and chemotherapy treatment.https://openworks.mdanderson.org/rmps/1004/thumbnail.jp

Training Shelter Dogs for Service and Therapy Work

Are shelter dogs’ reliable candidates for service work, and what is the best way to utilize the dogs selected to be successful in the field of work? In this research project we were able to broaden our data by temperament testing more dogs in the Putnam County Animal Shelter, using three steps of evaluation. We tested behavioral issues such as fear, fear aggression, food aggression, dog aggression, lack of confidence, etc. With the selected few dogs, we were able to pursue training in the areas or diabetic detection, cancer detection, peanut detection, and therapy work. With these selected dogs, the goal was to remove them from a shelter setting as quickly as possible; to increase chances of success with this project, some of the researchers adopted the dogs to further train in the tasks assigned to the dog. For the full duration of the research project, the team continuously evaluated dogs as they cycled into the shelter. The most important attribute of the dogs was confidence and ability to engage with the handler in new environments. Throughout the entire process of evaluations, the dogs were introduced to new environments slowly to decrease the amount of stress and help with developing communication with the handler. The dogs had to pass through four phases of evaluations. For conditioning dogs to odor and scent discrimination we have investigated designing a scent wall to minimize the contact the handler has with the odor source

Four Corners Exhibit

We chose the location of the “lynching tree” in downtown Columbus as our memorial location. Will Miles and Jesse Slayton were two African Americans who were lynched in Columbus, Georgia in 1896. Will Miles was lynched because of a previous rape of a white woman. Shortly after, Will Miles was lynched. We was brutally shot in the face with a shotgun. Then after he was shot, the mob of angry white southerners heard there was another individual who conducted a heinous act on a white woman and his name was Jesse SLayton. The mob rushed the Columbus jail without any resistance, grabbed Slayton and lynched him on the tree next to Will Miles on present day 11th st. The symbolism of that violence is present in our memorial.https://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/historyfrombelow/1001/thumbnail.jp

Differential regulation of the Drosophila sleep homeostat by circadian and arousal inputs.

One output arm of the sleep homeostat in Drosophila appears to be a group of neurons with projections to the dorsal fan-shaped body (dFB neurons) of the central complex in the brain. However, neurons that regulate the sleep homeostat remain poorly understood. Using neurogenetic approaches combined with Ca2+ imaging, we characterized synaptic connections between dFB neurons and distinct sets of upstream sleep-regulatory neurons. One group of the sleep-promoting upstream neurons is a set of circadian pacemaker neurons that activates dFB neurons via direct glutaminergic excitatory synaptic connections. Opposing this population, a group of arousal-promoting neurons downregulates dFB axonal output with dopamine. Co-activating these two inputs leads to frequent shifts between sleep and wake states. We also show that dFB neurons release the neurotransmitter GABA and inhibit octopaminergic arousal neurons. We propose that dFB neurons integrate synaptic inputs from distinct sets of upstream sleep-promoting circadian clock neurons, and arousal neurons