Exploring Returnee Migrant Women, COVID-19 and Sustainability in Spain

The COVID-19 pandemic has signified an historical change in human mobility. By transforming the patterns of people on the move, it has highlighted gender-based inequalities and women’s vulnerabilities. The link between COVID-19 and return migration shapes returnees’ readaptation process in their home countries, as returnees are embedded in a limbo between the pandemic’s pressure on the policy and socio-economic setting, on one hand, and their efforts for reintegration, on the other. Due to the pandemic, the gender-based imbalance has increased existing gender gaps both in migration and return, exacerbating women’s vulnerability. Thus, personal aspirations and professional expectations of highly educated women are caught in a system of socio-economic and geographical (im)mobility, which represents the principal outcome in their relocation and readaptation process. Based on a qualitative methodology through the analysis of ten life histories of highly educated returnee migrant women, this paper sheds light on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on their migratory trajectories, providing a typology of them. Findings stress the necessity for more sustainable measures and resources for life–work balance and gender-sensitive policies, to promote a better integration process into the local labour market; to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on returnee women, and to prevent the proliferation of mental health problems among returnee women

Post-Traumatic Growth in Cancer Survivors: Narrative Markers and Functions of The Experience\u27s Transformation

The concept that a traumatic experience, such as a cancer, can lead to a positive change and transformation of self, life and relationships was named as post-traumatic growth (PTG). A large amount of research measured PTG in cancer survivors arguing an interpretation of the construct as an outcome. Recently, qualitative research shows different types of narrative of PTG, but the narrative markers and their functions of transformation remain still unclear. Within a mixed-method, we aim to highlight the narrative markers and their transformative functions, underlying the PTG, within 12 cancer survivors’ narratives with medium/high and medium/low level of PTG. A redemptive sequence analysis was carried out. In the narratives with high/medium PTG we find a specific transformative function on-thinking focused transformation founded on the change/expansion of the own internal criteria to interpret the relationship with the world centralizing the self in the present and future; in the narratives with medium/low PTG we find an on-acting focused transformation, founded on the change of the operational procedures aimed to live centered on the present and on its moments

Sviluppo, analisi delle prestazioni e casi d'uso di un repository di dati di uso web

Realizzazione e sperimentazione di un framework per la memorizzazione e l’analisi efficiente di dati relativi al web usage. Il framework fornisce funzionalità per l’accesso, il preprocessing e l’analisi tramite algoritmi di data mining di dati provenienti da log di web server. Infine, viene fornita una analisi comparativa delle performance nonche’ due casi di uso, uno relativo alle sessioni di query di un motore di ricerca e l’altro all’analisi del traffico di un sito web commerciale

Systematic review and meta-analysis on the utility of Interferon-gamma release assays for the diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in children: A 2013 update

BACKGROUND: Previous meta-analyses regarding the performance of interferon-gamma release assays (IGRAs) for tuberculosis diagnosis in children yielded contrasting results, probably due to different inclusion/exclusion criteria. METHODS: We systematically searched PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane databases and calculated pooled estimates of sensitivities and specificities of QuantiFERON-TB Gold In Tube (QFT-G-IT), T-SPOT.TB, and tuberculin skin test (TST). Several sub-analysis were performed: stratification by background (low income vs. high income countries); including only microbiological confirmed TB cases; including only studies performing a simultaneous three-way comparison of the three tests, and including immunocompromised children. RESULTS: Overall, 31 studies (6183 children) for QFT-G-IT, 14 studies (2518 children) for T-SPOT.TB and 34 studies (6439 children) for TST were included in the analyses. In high income countries QFT-G-IT sensitivity was 0.79 (95%IC: 0.75-0.82) considering all the studies, 0.78 (95%CI:0.70-0.84) including only studies performing a simultaneous three-way comparison and 0.86 (95%IC 0.81-0.90) considering only microbiologically confirmed studies. In the same analyses T-SPOT.TB sensitivity was 0.67 (95%IC 0.62-0.73); 0.76 (95%CI: 0.68 to 0.83); and 0.79 (95%IC 0.69-0.87), respectively. In low income countries QFT-G-IT pooled sensitivity was significantly lower: 0.57 (95%IC:0.52-0.61), considering all the studies, and 0.66 (95%IC 0.55-0.76) considering only microbiologically confirmed cases; while T-SPOT.TB sensitivity was 0.61 (95%IC 0.57-0.65) overall, but reached 0.80 (95%IC 0.73-0.86) in microbiologically confirmed cases. In microbiologically confirmed cases TST sensitivity was similar: 0.86 (95%IC 0.79-0.91) in high income countries, and 0.74 (95%IC 0.68-0.80) in low income countries. Higher IGRAs specificity with respect to TST was observed in high income countries (97-98% vs. 92%) but not in low income countries (85-93% vs. 90%). CONCLUSIONS: Both IGRAs showed no better performance than TST in low income countries

Highly Educated Women: Exploring Barriers and Strategies for Labour Integration in an Emotional Migratory Process

This article explores the barriers and the strategies of a group of highly educated foreign women to obtain a job–-education matching situation in the Basque Country (Spain) where they all permanently settled following a binational heterosexual marriage. Drawing on 21 biographical interviews with women from Latin America and Europe, we examine new perspectives on the complexity and fluidity between their professional pathways and family projects. For that, we apply an intersec-tional lens to analyse their life experience. Our results show that respondents involved in a feminised labour market (education and health) have fewer difficulties to find athe job– education match. In other cases, becoming self-employed is a way to gain independence and flexibility by running an open market-oriented business. Interviewees identified language, lack of personal networks, family reconciliation, traditional gender roles and the transferring of cultural capital as the main barriers for their incorporation into the labour market. The study finds that marriage support is not enough to overcome the barriers. We argue that for a more comprehen-sive un-derstanding of labour integration of highly educated migrant women, motivation and agency, linked to family support, should be considered factors to cope with structural inequalities

Vaccine against tuberculosis: what's new?

BACKGROUND: one of the World Health Organization Millennium Development Goal is to reduce tuberculosis incidence by 2015. However, more of 8.5 million tuberculosis cases have been reported in 2011, with an increase of multidrug-resistant strains. Therefore, the World Health Organization target cannot be reach without the help of a vaccine able to limit the spread of tuberculosis. Nowadays, bacille Calmette-Guérin is the only vaccine available against tuberculosis. It prevents against meningeal and disseminated tuberculosis in children, but its effectiveness against pulmonary form in adolescents and adults is argued. METHOD: a systematic review was performed by searches of Pubmed, references of the relevant articles and Aeras and ClinicalTrial.gov websites. RESULTS: 100 articles were included in this review. Three viral vectored booster vaccines, five protein adjuvant booster vaccines, two priming vaccines and two therapeutic vaccines have been analyzed. CONCLUSIONS: Several vaccines are in the pipeline, but further studies on basic research, clinical trial and mass vaccination campaigns are needed to achieve the TB eradication target by 2050

Geometry to Build Models, Models to Visualize Geometry

In the seventeenth century, Guarino Guarini, mathematician and architect, affirmed that architecture, a discipline that primarily deals with measures, relies on geometry: therefore, the architect needs to know at least its basic principles. On behalf of Guarini’s words, we designed a set of interdisciplinary teaching experiences, between mathematics (via a calculus course) and drawing (via our Architectural Drawing and Survey Laboratory courses) that we proposed to first-year under graduate students studying for an Architecture degree. The tasks concern mathematical and representational issues about vaulted roofing systems and are based on the use of physical models in conjunction with digital tools, in order to make the cognitive geometric process more effective, thus following a consolidated tradition of both disciplines