D1.1 Interview report and service provision needs and gap analysis

This report has been submitted by UAB as Deliverable 1.1 within the framework of the H2020 project "SO-CLOSE Enhancing Social Cohesion through sharing the cultural heritage of forced migrations" (Grant No.870939)This report presents all the main results of the fieldwork conducted with all major stakeholders: refugee and asylum seeker communities, policymakers, cultural institutions, NGOs, and academics. In total, 196 semi-structured individual interviews were conducted across the following four EU member states (Italy, Spain, Poland, and Greece). All these countries have a history of having witnessed exile and forced migration themselves, even though the number of refugees hosted by them varies and they are not all affected in the same way by requests for asylum. Based on the experiences and perceptions of participants, the report attempts to assess needs and identify challenges in the sharing of the experience of forced displacement between refugees and the local communities in Europe where they have resettled

D5.6-Policy Paper 1. Recommendations on policies to promote mutual understanding between refugees and the local communities in Europe

Based on the experiences and perceptions of selected stakeholders, this policy paper assesses the needs, identifies the challenges, and draws policy-relevant recommendations about the sharing of the experience of forced displacement between refugees and the local communities in Europe where they have resettled, in the larger context of enhancing the access to cultural heritage and promoting social cohesion

Implementing and Evaluating a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

We are examining the impact of a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) at a land-grant, Hispanic-serving institution in the southwestern United States. Students in our CURE completed one or two extended research projects over a single semester. Our CURE enrolled a high proportion of underrepresented minority students (70.3%), including 60.2% Hispanic students. One year after CURE completion, 31.5% of CURE students had graduated with a STEM degree, and 54.3% were enrolled in a STEM major. Pre- and postcourse surveys of indicators of persistence including scientific self-efficacy, scientific identity, valuing scientific community objectives, and intention to persist showed positive shifts. Impacts on STEM persistence have implications for the role of our CURE in diversifying the STEM pipeline, particularly for students historically underrepresented in STEM

Direct Picosecond Measurement of Photoinduced Cooper Pair Breaking in Lead

We report on a direct kinetic measurement of Cooper-pair breaking in superconducting lead. A 100-fs pulse of visible light was used to excite a thin-film lead sample, while the Cooper-pair density was optically probed using an ultrashort pulse of broadband far-infrared radiation. Subsequent to the absorption of the visible light, a rapid (ps) change in the far-infrared optical transmission was observed, corresponding to the breaking of Cooper pairs and the collapse of the superconducting gap

A Neural Circuit Arbitrates between Persistence and Withdrawal in Hungry Drosophila

In pursuit of food, hungry animals mobilize significant energy resources and overcome exhaustion and fear. How need and motivation control the decision to continue or change behavior is not understood. Using a single fly treadmill, we show that hungry flies persistently track a food odor and increase their effort over repeated trials in the absence of reward suggesting that need dominates negative experience. We further show that odor tracking is regulated by two mushroom body output neurons (MBONs) connecting the MB to the lateral horn. These MBONs, together with dopaminergic neurons and Dop1R2 signaling, control behavioral persistence. Conversely, an octopaminergic neuron, VPM4, which directly innervates one of the MBONs, acts as a brake on odor tracking by connecting feeding and olfaction. Together, our data suggest a function for the MB in internal state-dependent expression of behavior that can be suppressed by external inputs conveying a competing behavioral drive

The recovery movement and its implications for policy, commissioning and practice

While a recovery approach is widespread and relatively unquestioned in the USA, its implementation in the UK and to a lesser extent in Australia has provoked a number of questions about what this means in practice and what some of the implications are for treatment. This is particularly important as there is growing interest in recovery in Western Europe with policy recognition in Belgium and the Netherlands, and increased interest in research issues around recovery. What this article sets out to do is to discuss the implications of a recovery model for commissioning and treatment systems, with a focus on where recovery approaches sit and what they can offer in terms of added value to treatment approaches

Application of AFLP molecular marker for genetic analysis of black pomfret Parastromateus niger from the Persian Gulf

Black pomfret Parastromateus niger is a commercially important fishery resource in the Persian Gulf but harvesting its stocks lacks genetic identification of populations. AFLP technique was applied to analyze genetic diversity and population structure of 32 fish from coastal waters of Bandar Abbas, Bushehr and Abadan with 7 EcoRI/MseI primer pair combinations. In total, 381 bands were produced of which, 46 were polymorphic (12.07%). Percentage of polymorphic bands was higher in Bushehr samples (91.30%) than in Abadan (84.78%) and Bandar Abbas (73.91%) samples. The highest level of heterozygosity based on Nei’s coefficient and Shannon’s index was observed in Bushehr fish (0.38±0.16 and 0.54±0.21). Observed and effective alleles ranged from 1.73±0.44 and 1.53±0.40 in Bandar Abbas samples to 1.91±0.28 and 1.70±0.34 in Bushehr samples. The average Fst was 0.19 indicating high genetic differentiation among the three locations. Gene flow with mean of 1.93 was the lowest level between Bandar Abbas and Abadan (1.24). Nei's genetic identity revealed the least genetic similarity between the samples of Bandar Abbas and Abadan (0.77). AMOVA analysis demonstrated 81% of the genetic variation within populations and 19% among populations. The UPGMA dendrogram clustered all 32 individuals into 3 groups. In some cases individuals from the same region were grouped together but in most cases, gene exchange was observed to be common among the groups. Analyses provided evidence for genetic differentiation among the three locations, indicating separate populations of black pomfret in the northern Persian Gulf

Epidemiological Aspects of Visceral Leishmaniasis in Baft District, Kerman Province, Southeast of Iran

Background: Visceral leishmaniasis (kala-azar) is an endemic disease in some areas of Iran. A cross- sectional study was conducted for sero-epidemiological survey of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Baft district from Kerman Province, southeast of Iran.Methods: Blood samples were collected from children up to 12 years old and 10% of adult population from Baft villages with a multi-stage randomized cluster sampling. In addition, blood samples were collected from 30 domestic dogs from the same areas. All the collected blood sam­ples were tested by direct agglutination test (DAT) for the detection of anti-Leishmania antibod­ies in both human and dog using the cut-off value of ≥1:3200 and ≥ 1:320, respectively. Parasitologi­cal, molecular, and pathological were performed on infected dogs. Chi-square and Fisher exact tests were used to compare sero-prevalence values.Results: From 1476 collected human serum samples, 23 (1.55%) showed anti-Leishmania antibod­ies at titers of 1:800 and 1:1600 whereas 14 (0.95%) showed anti-Leishmania infantum antibodies at titers of ≤ 1:3200. No statistically significant difference was found between male (1.18 %) and female (0.69%) sero-prevalence (P=0.330). Children of 5-8 years showed the high­est sero-prevalence rate (3.22%). Seven out of 30 domestic dogs (23%) showed anti-Leishmania antibodies at titers ≤1:320. Leishmania infantum was identified in five infected dogs by nested - PCR assay.Conclusion: It seems that visceral leishmaniasis is being endemic in southern villages of Baft district, southeast of Iran

Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in Bam: A Comparative Evaluation of Pre- and Post- Earthquake Years (1999-2008)

Background: The recent devastating earthquake of December 26 in Bam, 2003 created various risk factors; caused a sharp increase in incidence of anthroponotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL) cases and reached to an epidemic proportion. The objective of this study was to evaluate the status of ACL cases five years before the earthquake compared to the cases occurred five years after the earthquake (1999-2008). Methods: Status of disease was assessed retrospectively for the five years before the earthquake and prospectively for the five years after the earthquake. Identification was confirmed by smear and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results: The mean annual incidence of ACL for the period from 1999 to 2003 was 1.9 per 1000 comparing to post earthquake period, which was 7.6 per 1000. Most of the infection was in individuals of <20 years, more frequently in females before the earthquake, whilst in contrast, there was a progressive rise in the number of cases, significantly in male individuals of >20 years (P< 0.0001) in post earthquake era. The anatomical distribution of lesions considerably changed during the two periods. Most of the cases were limited to three zones within the city prior to the earthquake, whereas it was spread throughout different zones after the earthquake. PCR indicated that the CL was due to Leishmania tropica in the city. Conclusion: The results strongly suggest that in natural disasters such as earthquakes various precipitating factors in favor of disease will be created, which in turn provide a suitable condition for propagation of the vector and the transmission of the parasite

Crossovers in the thermal decay of metastable states in discrete systems

The thermal decay of linear chains from a metastable state is investigated. A crossover from rigid to elastic decay occurs when the number of particles, the single particle energy barrier or the coupling strength between the particles is varied. In the rigid regime, the single particle energy barrier is small compared to the coupling strength and the decay occurs via a uniform saddlepoint solution, with all degrees of freedom decaying instantly. Increasing the barrier one enters the elastic regime, where the decay is due to bent saddlepoint configurations using the elasticity of the chain to lower their activation energy. Close to the rigid-to-elastic crossover, nucleation occurs at the boundaries of the system. However, in large systems, a second crossover from boundary to bulk nucleation can be found within the elastic regime, when the single particle energy barrier is further increased. We compute the decay rate in the rigid and in the elastic regimes within the Gaussian approximation. Around the rigid-to-elastic crossover, the calculations are performed beyond the steepest descent approximation. In this region, the prefactor exhibits a scaling property. The theoretical results are discussed in the context of discrete Josephson transmission lines and pancake vortex stacks that are pinned by columnar defects.Comment: 13 pages, RevTeX, 7 PS-figure