The role of social media and network capital in assisting migrants in search of a less precarious existence in Saudi Arabia

Precarity is a consequence of the shift from Fordism, which was linked to lasting and secure employment, to post-Fordism underpinned by flexible labour with provisional, casual, unstable, low-paying jobs. Globalization and widening inequalities around the world have driven people to migrate in search of a better life. This paper aims to explore the extent to which migrants in Saudi Arabia use social media sites to facilitate their migration process in search of a better life. We found that social media strengthens social networks, which play an important role in influencing individuals’ decision to migrate. Their social network helped migrants during the planning and the actual migration to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, migrants used social media to persuade or assist relatives and friends ‘back home’ to migrate to Saudi Arabia

Career mobility in a global era: advances in managing expatriation and repatriation

The surge of interest in expatriation and repatriation within the broader discourse on labor mobility of professionals and high-skilled labor, human capital development and the theory and practice of people management, serves as the backdrop to this paper. We propose that expatriation and repatriation be framed in the context of global careers and embedded in the wider social-economic environment of globalization through the lens of a career ecosystem theory. We chart the evolution of scholarly publications on career mobility over the past four decades and highlight current trends, in particular the emergence of self-initiated expatriation as a pivotal change in the direction of expatriation studies and derived practice. We assess the rigor of empirical findings, weigh theoretical underpinnings, offer a research agenda for future research and outline managerial implications

From Nuevo León to the USA and Back Again: Transnational Students in Mexico

The movement of Mexicans to the United States is both longstanding and long studied and from that study we know that for many newcomers the attachment to the receiving community is fraught and tentative. The experience of immigrant children in U.S. schools is also relatively well studied and reveals challenges of intercultural communication as well as concurrent and contradictory features of welcome and unwelcome. What is less well known, in the study of migration generally and of transnational students in particular, is how students moving in a less common direction — from the U.S. to Mexico — experience that movement. Based on visits to 173 randomly selected classrooms in the state of Nuevo León Mexico, this study shares survey and interview data from 208 of the 242 students encountered who had previous experience attending school in the United States

Maternal exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls and the secondary sex ratio: an occupational cohort study

Though commercial production of polychlorinated biphenyls was banned in the United States in 1977, exposure continues due to their environmental persistence. Several studies have examined the association between environmental polychlorinated biphenyl exposure and modulations of the secondary sex ratio, with conflicting results. Our objective was to evaluate the association between maternal preconceptional occupational polychlorinated biphenyl exposure and the secondary sex ratio. We examined primipara singleton births of 2595 women, who worked in three capacitor plants at least one year during the period polychlorinated biphenyls were used. Cumulative estimated maternal occupational polychlorinated biphenyl exposure at the time of the infant's conception was calculated from plant-specific job-exposure matrices. A logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the association between maternal polychlorinated biphenyl exposure and male sex at birth (yes/no). Maternal body mass index at age 20, smoking status, and race did not vary between those occupationally exposed and those unexposed before the child's conception. Polychlorinated biphenyl-exposed mothers were, however, more likely to have used oral contraceptives and to have been older at the birth of their first child than non-occupationally exposed women. Among 1506 infants liveborn to polychlorinated biphenyl-exposed primiparous women, 49.8% were male; compared to 49.9% among those not exposed (n = 1089). Multivariate analyses controlling for mother's age and year of birth found no significant association between the odds of a male birth and mother's cumulative estimated polychlorinated biphenyl exposure to time of conception. Based on these data, we find no evidence of altered sex ratio among children born to primiparous polychlorinated biphenyl-exposed female workers

Cold case : the disappearance of Egypt bee virus, a fourth distinct master strain of deformed wing virus linked to honeybee mortality in 1970’s Egypt

In 1977, a sample of diseased adult honeybees (Apis mellifera) from Egypt was found to contain large amounts of a previously unknown virus, Egypt bee virus, which was subsequently shown to be serologically related to deformed wing virus (DWV). By sequencing the original isolate, we demonstrate that Egypt bee virus is in fact a fourth unique, major variant of DWV (DWV-D): more closely related to DWV-C than to either DWV-A or DWV-B. DWV-A and DWV-B are the most common DWV variants worldwide due to their close relationship and transmission by Varroa destructor. However, we could not find any trace of DWV-D in several hundred RNA sequencing libraries from a worldwide selection of honeybee, varroa and bumblebee samples. This means that DWV-D has either become extinct, been replaced by other DWV variants better adapted to varroa-mediated transmission, or persists only in a narrow geographic or host range, isolated from common bee and beekeeping trade routes

Effect of angiotensin II-induced changes in perfusion flow rate on chlorothiazide transport in the isolated perfused rat kidney

Angiotensin II was used as a probe to study the effect of changes in perfusate flow rate on the renal clearance parameters of chlorothiazide in the isolated perfused rat kidney. Perfusion studies were performed in five rats with no angiotensin II present in the perfusate and in five rats with a 1–4 ng/min infusion of angiotensin II into the perfusate. Angiotensin II had a dramatic effect on the renal hemodynamics, resulting in a 43% decrease in perfusate flow, a 16% decrease in glomerular filtration rate (GFR), and a 45% increase in filtration fraction. Values for the fractional excretion of glucose were low and consistent, with or without angiotensin II. Although the unbound fraction (fu) of chlorothiazide was unchanged between treatments, the renal (CL r ) and the secretion clearances were reduced by about 50% in the presence of angiotensin II; the excretion ratio [ER=CL r /(fu·GFR)] was reduced by 38% with angiotensin II present in the perfusate. Analysis of the data was complicated by the presence of a capacity-limited transport for renal tubular secretion. Transport parameters (±SD) were obtained and the corrected intrinsic secretory clearance [(V max /GFR)/K m ] of chlorothiazide was 123 ± 18 without angiotensin II vs. 72.8 ± 30.0 with angiotensin II. These results demonstrate that alterations in organ perfusion can significantly reduce the clearance parameters of chlorothiazide in the rat IPK. These flow-induced changes in intrinsic secretory transport may reflect perturbations other than that of perfusion flow rate alone .Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45047/1/10928_2005_Article_BF01071001.pd

Mapping the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) Generic Core Scales onto the Child Health Utility Index–9 Dimension (CHU-9D) Score for Economic Evaluation in Children

Background: The Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) questionnaire is a widely used, generic instrument designed for measuring health-related quality of life (HRQoL); however, it is not preference-based and therefore not suitable for cost–utility analysis. The Child Health Utility Index–9 Dimension (CHU-9D), however, is a preference-based instrument that has been primarily developed to support cost–utility analysis. Objective: This paper presents a method for estimating CHU-9D index scores from responses to the PedsQL™ using data from a randomised controlled trial of prednisolone therapy for treatment of childhood corticosteroid-sensitive nephrotic syndrome. Methods: HRQoL data were collected from children at randomisation, week 16, and months 12, 18, 24, 36 and 48. Observations on children aged 5 years and older were pooled across all data collection timepoints and were then randomised into an estimation (n = 279) and validation (n = 284) sample. A number of models were developed using the estimation data before internal validation. The best model was chosen using multi-stage selection criteria. Results: Most of the models developed accurately predicted the CHU-9D mean index score. The best performing model was a generalised linear model (mean absolute error = 0.0408; mean square error = 0.0035). The proportion of index scores deviating from the observed scores by 13 years) or patient groups with particularly poor quality of life. ISRCTN Registry No: 1664524