The Exceptional Becomes Everyday: Border Control, Attrition and Exclusion from Within

This article examines processes of migration and border control, illustrating the ways by which everyday housing and welfare services function as mechanisms of exclusion in both direct and indirect ways. Using the thesis of crimmigration, the article demonstrates how border controls have become deeply implicated in systems claiming to offer welfare support—and how a global public health emergency has intensified exclusionary processes and normalised restrictive practices. The article compares border controls in two localities—under the UK government’s coercive ‘hostile environment’ policies (based on technologies of surveillance) and a more indirect ‘programme of discouragement’ in The Netherlands (based on technologies of attrition). The study demonstrates the role of contemporary welfare states in entrenching inequality and social exclusion (from within), arguing that the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic have facilitated the differential everyday treatment of migrants, revealing a hierarchy of human worth through strategies of surveillance and attrition

Providing an Authentic Voice? Understanding Migrant Homelessness through Critical Poetic Inquiry

Ethical considerations in social research tend to focus on data collection rather than data interpretation and representation. The tendency of qualitative research to limit ethical concern to confidentiality and anonymity in the representation of data, combined with the academic convention of maintaining an objective distance from the object of study, creates tensions for the reflexive researcher. On the one hand, they must meet academic expectations to communicate findings with demonstrable reliability and validity. At the same time, there are deontological obligations—to protect study participants (and groups they represent) from harm, to honour their contributions accurately and to report with integrity. This article argues for the use of poetic ‘re-presentation’, both as a form of inquiry and unique mode of data representation and as a means of obtaining a deeper understanding of the experience of migration and homelessness. By integrating insights from Critical Race Methodology, the article deploys the concept of ‘counter-storytelling’ through poetic inquiry. The article concludes that this approach enables a nuanced, insightful approach, allowing the authentic voice of migrant groups negotiating the complexities of homelessness to be clearly articulated and heard

Choice, constraint and negotiating housing systems : understanding migrant homelessness in the US and UK

Recently migrant homelessness has emerged as a growing challenge for social policy, particularly in the context of growing migration from Central Eastern Europe to the UK and Central Americans and Caribbean nationals to the US. This thesis sets out to analyse the housing strategies of homeless migrants and explore the intersections between migration and extreme housing need. Using a comparative case study approach, the study provides a qualitative investigation into the causes and consequences of homelessness amongst migrant groups. In analysing the two case studies of Boston, Massachusetts and Edinburgh, Scotland, the thesis provides an interrogation of how these groups negotiate a complex ‘system of systems’ involving housing, welfare and immigration policies. I found that, when faced with multiple competing demands, some households actively de-prioritise housing, to the point of homelessness. By proposing the concept of ‘housing sacrifice’, this research reveals how households forgo the privacy, safety, and security of a home to meet other financial demands and social needs. The case studies illustrate how agency can be deployed when structural and individual forces combine to constrain choice. The thesis argues that homelessness is not a ‘choice’, but the result of a lack of choice, when precarity demands individual sacrifices.James Watt Studentship, Heriot Watt University ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) funded researc

A Pivotal Sponsor in Metabolic Remodeling and an Ally of 3-Mercaptopyruvate Sulfurtransferase (MST) in Cancer

Metabolic remodeling is a critical skill of malignant cells, allowing their survival and spread. The metabolic dynamics and adaptation capacity of cancer cells allow them to escape from damaging stimuli, including breakage or cross-links in DNA strands and increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, promoting resistance to currently available therapies, such as alkylating or oxidative agents. Therefore, it is essential to understand how metabolic pathways and the corresponding enzymatic systems can impact on tumor behavior. Cysteine aminotransferase (CAT) per se, as well as a component of the CAT: 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase (MST) axis, is pivotal for this metabolic rewiring, constituting a central mechanism in amino acid metabolism and fulfilling the metabolic needs of cancer cells, thereby supplying other different pathways. In this review, we explore the current state-of-art on CAT function and its role on cancer cell metabolic rewiring as MST partner, and its relevance in cancer cells' fitness.publishersversionpublishe

Conservadorismo contábil em empresas complexas

O estudo busca averiguar a influência da complexidade de empresas nos níveis de conservadorismo contábil. O tema de análise, conservadorismo contábil em empresas complexas, pode ser considerado relevante porque analisa as práticas de conservadorismo levando em conta o contexto organizacional das empresas, fato ignorado em outros estudos que investigam os incentivos ou determinantes do conservadorismo contábil, pelo menos quanto à complexidade empresarial. A pesquisa apresenta evidências estatísticas de que o conservadorismo contábil varia de forma positiva com a assimetria da informação ocasionada por características específicas de ambientes complexos. Em contrapartida, quando estas apresentam, em conjunto, diversas características complexas, então a tendência é de pouca adoção do conservadorismo. Além disso, a presente pesquisa reúne evidências que visam a contribuir para a ciência contábil pela análise de empresas complexas e conservadorismo, e não práticas oportunistas observadas em estudos prévios. A amostra refere-se a 110 empresas de capital aberto no período de 2010 a 2016. A coleta de dados foi realizada por meio de relatórios das empresas, como formulários de referência, dados cadastrais e notas explicativas, bem como da base de dados Economatica®. A análise dos dados foi realizada por meio de regressão linear múltipla e regressão quantílica. Evidências obtidas na pesquisa indicam que o conservadorismo contábil varia conforme a assimetria de informação ocasionada por ambientes complexos em que pode apresentar uma relação positiva em empresas com poucas características de complexidade ou relação negativa se a empresa tem complexidade em diversas características ao mesmo tempo. Lança luz, então, sobre os diferentes níveis de conservadorismo observados nas empresas que muitas vezes podem ser atribuídos a mecanismos de governança, cultura organizacional, padrões contábeis, entre outros fatores, resultados que podem estar enviesados por não considerar o fator complexidade de empresas.This study seeks to investigate the influence of the complexity of companies on levels of accounting conservatism. The subject of analysis, accounting conservatism in complex companies, can be considered relevant because it analyzes conservative practices taking into account the organizational context of companies; something that is ignored in other studies that investigate the incentives or determinants of accounting conservatism, at least as far as firm complexity is concerned. The research presents statistical evidence that accounting conservatism varies positively with the information asymmetry caused by specific characteristics of complex environments. On the other hand, when companies present several complex characteristics together, then the trend is one of little adoption of conservatism. In addition, this research brings together evidence that aims to contribute to accounting science by analyzing complex companies and conservatism and not the opportunistic practices observed in previous studies. The sample refers to 110 publicly traded companies from 2010 to 2016. The data collection was carried out using company reports, such as reference forms, registration data, and explanatory notes, as well as the Economatica® database. The data analysis was performed using multiple linear regression and quantile regression. The evidence obtained in the research indicates that accounting conservatism varies according to the information asymmetry caused by complex environments, in which it can present a positive relationship in companies with few characteristics of complexity, or a negative relationship if the company has complexity in several characteristics at the same time. It throws light on the different levels of conservatism observed in companies, which can often be attributed to mechanisms of governance, organizational culture, and accounting standards, among other factors, which are results that may be biased if the company complexity factor is not considered

Key factors controlling the post-fire hydrological and erosive response at micro-plot scale in a recently burned Mediterranean forest

The impacts of wildfires on the hydrological and erosive response of forest ecosystems have been extensively studied worldwide. Nevertheless, few studies have measured post-fire runoff and erosion over large time scales in Mediterranean-climate type environments and even fewer studies considered the effects of pre-fire land management practices on post-fire hydrological and erosive processes. In a previous study in the Colmeal study area, Vieira et al. (2016) revealed that post-fire runoff and erosion may not follow the classic window of disturbance model, since the peak of post-fire response occurred in the second and third years after fire. This previous study also showed that pre-fire land management can substantially influence the post-fire response, since annual runoff and erosion were lower in pre-fire unplowed than plowed sites. In this follow-up work, a multiple regression model (MRM) analysis was performed to understand how several key factors influence the hydrological and erosive response of a burned Mediterranean forest, taking into account the wildfire; pre-fire land management practices (unplowed, downslope plowed, and contour plowed) and soil moisture conditions. Based on the results of the present study, post-fire runoff was largely explained by rainfall amounts and soil water repellency (SWR)-related variables, whereas erosion processes were better explained by rainfall intensity and ground cover variables. Fewer factors were found to control the hydrological response of plowed sites when compared to the unplowed site. Aside from rainfall intensity, which was the major factor controlling sediment losses, bare soil cover also seems to have been important for erosion processes at the unplowed site, whereas at the plowed sites stone cover was the second most relevant factor. Rainfall-related variables (rainfall and maximum 30-min rainfall intensity) were more important for explaining runoff and erosion under dry conditions than under wet conditions. The results of the MRM analysis are an important contribution to understand the dynamics of burned forest areas and should be considered when adapting hydrological and erosion models to post-fire environments.publishe

Management oriented mathematical modelling of Ria Formosa (South Portugal)

1 - Ria Formosa is a large (c.a. 100 km2) mesotidal lagoon system included in a Natural Park, with large intertidal areas and several uses such as fisheries, aquaculture, tourism and nature conservation. Its watersheds cover an area of approximately 864 km2, with a hydrographic network of small and, mostly, ephemeral rivers. 2 - The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT model) has been applied to the catchments in order to simulate water discharges to Ria Formosa, providing forcing to a two-dimensional vertically integrated model, implemented with EcoDynamo – an object oriented modelling software – including hydrodynamics, water column, sediment biogeochemistry and growth models for some important benthic species. 3 - The main objectives of this work are to: (i) Analyse model performance in the light of available data; (ii) Evaluate the effects of dredging operations and changes in biomass densities of cultivated clams, on lagoon biogeochemistry and water quality. 4 - This work is part of a larger project where many possible management scenarios are being analysed following concerns expressed by the project end-users – Ria Formosa Natural Park authority. 5 - Results obtained so far suggest that bivalve rearing areas are probably being exploited close to their carrying capacity. Furthermore, it is apparent that some improvement on water quality could be achieved by reducing bivalve densities, without significant losses of harvest yields

Investigating memory prefetcher performance over parallel applications: from real to simulated

In recent years, there have been significant advances in the performance of processors, exemplified by the reduction of transistor size and the increase in the number of cores in a processor. Conversely, the memory subsystem did not advance as significantly as processors, not being able to deliver data at the required rate, and creating what is known as the memory wall [1]. An example of a technology used to mitigate the memory latency is the prefetcher, a technique that identifies access patterns from each core, creates speculative memory requests, and fetches data that can be potentially useful to the cache beforehand. In High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems, many other problems arise with parallelism. Since HPC applications are highly parallel, with many threads communicating with one another mainly through shared memory, it becomes necessary to keep data coherence in the several cache levels. Moreover, the memory interactions among different threads may also unpredictably change the data path through the memory hierarchy. When considering the memory hierarchy complexity along with prefetcher action, the behavior of the processor’s memory subsystem reaches a new level of complexity. In this work, we seek to shed light on how the prefetcher affects the processing performance of parallel HPC applications, and how accurately state-of-the-art multicore architecture simulators are simulating the execution of such applications, with and without prefetcher. We identify that an L2 cache prefetcher is more efficient in comparison with an L1 prefetcher, since avoiding excessive L3 cache accesses better contributes to performance, when comparing to accessing the L2 cache. Moreover, we show evidence that the prefetchers’ contribution to performance is limited by the memory contention that emerges when the level of parallelism increases

Sistemas de cultivo para as culturas de milho, feijão (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) e algodão em consórcio, no Estado de Sergipe.

Área de abrangênia, sistema de cultivo n.1 (milho x feijão), preparo do solo, adubação, plantio, época, cultivares, arranjo espacial, espaçamento e densidade do plantio, tratos culturais, tratos fitossanitários, colheita e beneficiamento, armazenamento, coeficientes técnicos, sistema de cultivo n.2, (milho x feijão x algodão) .bitstream/item/43933/1/CPATC-DOCUMENTOS-04-SISTEMAS-DE-CULTIVO-PARA-AS-CULTURAS-DE-MILHO-FEIJAO-E-ALGODAO-EM-CONSORCIO-N.pd

O caso do eculizumabe: judicialização e compras pelo Ministério da Saúde

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the purchases of eculizumab, a high-cost monoclonal antibody used in the treatment of rare diseases by Brazilian federal agencies, in terms of purchased quantities, expenditures, and prices. METHODS: Eculizumab purchases made between March 2007 and December 2018 were analyzed, using secondary data extracted from the Federal Government Purchasing System (SIASG in Portuguese). The following aspects were assessed: number of purchases, purchased quantities, number of daily doses defined per 1,000 inhabitants per year, annual expenditures, and prices. The prices were adjusted by the National Broad Consumer Price Index for December 2018. Linear regression was used for trend analysis. RESULTS: All acquisitions by federal agencies were made by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The purchases began in 2009 with tender waiver to comply with legal demand. There was an increasing trend in the number of purchases and quantities acquired over time. Two hundred and eighty-three purchases were made, totaling 116,792 units purchased, 28.2% of them in 2018. The adjusted total expenses summed more than R$2.44 billion. After market approval by the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency, the weighted average price fell approximately 35$ 2,44 bilhões. Após a aprovação do registro pela Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária, o preço médio ponderado caiu aproximadamente 35%, para valores abaixo dos preços estabelecidos pela Câmara de Regulação do Mercado de Medicamentos. CONCLUSÃO: O eculizumabe representou gastos extremamente significativos para o Ministério da Saúde no período. Todas as compras foram feitas para atendimento de demandas judiciais, fora do ambiente competitivo. Seu registro promoveu queda importante nos preços praticados. O estudo aponta a relevância do registro sanitário e da necessidade de monitoramento e auditoria permanentes das compras de medicamentos para atendimento de demandas judiciai