Talking about Internal Migration, Displacement, and Getting by in the City of Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan

Dieses Buch gibt durch eine Zusammenstellung von Interviews Einblicke in die Erzählungen von Menschen, die als Binnenmigranten in die afghanische Stadt Mazar-i Sharif gekommen sind. Mazar-i Sharif ist eine wichtige Metropole im Norden Afghanistans. Die Stadt ist ein wichtiges Handelszentrum. Es gibt dort mehrere private und staatliche Universitäten. Mazar-i Sharif wurde durch die vergleichsweise gute Sicherheitslage zur Zeit dieser Forschung Sitz vieler internationaler Organisationen und NGOs und war ein attraktives Reiseziel mit viele Restaurants, Hotels, Freizeit- und Sporteinrichtungen. Gleichzeitig ist Mazar-i Sharif der Anlaufpunkt für viele arme Binnenmigranten. Die Migration in die Stadt wird durch die schlechten wirtschaftlichen Perspektiven in den ländlichen Regionen Afghanistans aber auch durch die Flucht vor Gewalt, Bedrohung und Unsicherheit verursacht. Doch auch in der Stadt sind viele der meist armen Migranten mit prekären Lebensverhältnissen, Arbeitslosigkeit und Rechtsunsicherheit, Armut und fehlender Unterstützung konfrontiert. Vor diesem Hintergrund zeigen die in diesem Buch vereinten Interviews was die Menschen über ihre Umsiedlung in die Stadt erzählen und wie sie dies tun. Es wird herausgestellt, dass auch das Erzählen selbst eine wichtige Funktion hat und ein Teil der verschiedenen Lebenssicherungsstrategien der Menschen in diesem schwierigen Umfeld wird.As a compilation of interviews this book provides insight into the narrations of internal migrants who have come to the Afghan city Mazar-e Sharif, a metropolis located in the north of the country. Mazar-e Sharif is an important commercial center with lively bazaars. It is home to both private and state universities and, due to a comparatively good security situation, Mazar-e Sharif became the seat of many international organizations and NGOs in the time of research. It was also an attractive travel destination with many restaurants, hotels, and recreational and athletic facilities. At the same time, it is a destination for large numbers of poor internal migrants and returning refugees. Migration to the city is provoked by poor economic prospects in many rural areas of Afghanistan which also suffer from violence, threats, and insecurity. Once they reach this city, however, many of the mostly poor migrants face precarious living conditions, unemployment and legal insecurity, poverty, and a lack of support. Against this background, the interviews in this book show what people say about their relocation to town and how they say it, emphasizing the important function of narrating as one of several livelihood strategies in difficult surroundings

Sparse Probit Linear Mixed Model

Linear Mixed Models (LMMs) are important tools in statistical genetics. When used for feature selection, they allow to find a sparse set of genetic traits that best predict a continuous phenotype of interest, while simultaneously correcting for various confounding factors such as age, ethnicity and population structure. Formulated as models for linear regression, LMMs have been restricted to continuous phenotypes. We introduce the Sparse Probit Linear Mixed Model (Probit-LMM), where we generalize the LMM modeling paradigm to binary phenotypes. As a technical challenge, the model no longer possesses a closed-form likelihood function. In this paper, we present a scalable approximate inference algorithm that lets us fit the model to high-dimensional data sets. We show on three real-world examples from different domains that in the setup of binary labels, our algorithm leads to better prediction accuracies and also selects features which show less correlation with the confounding factors.Comment: Published version, 21 pages, 6 figure

Evaluating the App-Store Model for Enterprise Application Software and Related Services

Spurred by the overwhelming success of mobile “app stores”, enterprise software vendors are increasingly embracing the use of online sales channels. Whereas organizational buying behavior has already been investigated with regard to the acquisition of enterprise software via traditional offline channels, researchers have not yet focused on its provision using an electronic sales channel. In this explorative study, we laid the first bricks to fill this research gap and provided valuable insight to practitioners confronting this marketing innovation. Relying on a qualitative research strategy, we assessed the extent to which an electronic sales channel may support the different phases of a generic software buying process, and the impact of product characteristics on enterprise customers’ channel adoption. We identified a set of adoption drivers and barriers which ought to be taken into account by channel providers, and elicited technological and organizational solutions from the interviews

Medien als Erziehungsinstanz. Die Presseberichterstattung zum Klimawandel als politischer und gesellschaftlicher Lernprozess

Die deutsche Presse thematisierte im Jahr 2007 besonders stark den Klimawandel. Dabei wurde dieses globale Phänomen in den untersuchten Tageszeitungen und wöchentlichen Nachrichtenmagazinen vor allem unter dem Blickwinkel von Lernprozessen in Politik und Gesellschaft behandelt. Diese konnten sowohl inhaltlich in der Berichterstattung als auch in deren formalen Ausprägungen nachgewiesen werden. Die untersuchten Medienprodukte fungierten als eine Art Erziehungsinstanz. Sie brachten das abstrakte Phänomen Klimawandel ihren Lesern nicht nur inhaltlich näher. Vielmehr thematisierten die Printmedien die politische Auseinandersetzung über den Umgang mit dem Klimawandel sowie die entstehende gesellschaftliche Verantwortung für das Thema. Dabei positionierten sich die untersuchten Medien je nach politischer Ausrichtung und eigenem publizistischem Anspruch in unterschiedlicher Weise. Damit sind die Medien selbst Teil der untersuchten Lernprozesse geworden: Sie haben es erfolgreich verstanden, sich des Themas für ihre Zwecke anzunehmen.EnglishChristoph Wenzel: Media as educational authority. The german press­ reporting on climate change as learning processes in politics and society In 2007, the German press was especially reporting on climate change. This global phenomenon was depicted as learning processes in politics and society by the examined daily newspapers and weekly newsmagazines. These learning processes could be proved in the content as well as in the formal aspects of the press coverage. In this coverage, the press products served as educational authorities. They not only explained climate change for their recipients. They also covered the political debate on how to handle climate change as well as the arising social responsibility for the problem. Depending on their political attitude and their own medial pretension, the press products also chose different ways to fulfil their educational assets. This way, the media themselves became part of learning processes: They successfully managed to use the topic climate change for their own ambitions.

Burden and Needs of Patients with Severe GvHD from the Supportive and Palliative Care Perspective—A Literature Review

Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a frequent, and often life-threatening, complication after an allogeneic, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT). It can appear in an acute or a chronic form and presents different grades of severity. Particularly, the severe forms of GvHD are often responsible for a change of the curative intent for allo-SCT into a palliative goal of care. For this non-systematic review, we conducted a focused literature search in the MEDLINE database via PubMed to examine whether patients with severe forms of GvHD might have special needs and burdens from a supportive and palliative care perspective. To draw a comprehensive picture of this patient group, we included findings on quality of life (QoL) and physical symptoms and function as well as psychological and spiritual well-being. In most domains, patients with severe forms of GvHD showed greater impairment and a higher symptom burden compared to patients with milder forms of GvHD. However, we could not identify any studies that specifically investigated patients with severe forms of GvHD. Further research in this field is necessary to guarantee the highest standard of care for this very special patient group

Automated Generation of User Guidance by Combining Computation and Deduction

Herewith, a fairly old concept is published for the first time and named "Lucas Interpretation". This has been implemented in a prototype, which has been proved useful in educational practice and has gained academic relevance with an emerging generation of educational mathematics assistants (EMA) based on Computer Theorem Proving (CTP). Automated Theorem Proving (ATP), i.e. deduction, is the most reliable technology used to check user input. However ATP is inherently weak in automatically generating solutions for arbitrary problems in applied mathematics. This weakness is crucial for EMAs: when ATP checks user input as incorrect and the learner gets stuck then the system should be able to suggest possible next steps. The key idea of Lucas Interpretation is to compute the steps of a calculation following a program written in a novel CTP-based programming language, i.e. computation provides the next steps. User guidance is generated by combining deduction and computation: the latter is performed by a specific language interpreter, which works like a debugger and hands over control to the learner at breakpoints, i.e. tactics generating the steps of calculation. The interpreter also builds up logical contexts providing ATP with the data required for checking user input, thus combining computation and deduction. The paper describes the concepts underlying Lucas Interpretation so that open questions can adequately be addressed, and prerequisites for further work are provided.Comment: In Proceedings THedu'11, arXiv:1202.453

Oral transmucosal fentanyl citrate analgesia in prehospital trauma care: an observational cohort study.

BACKGROUND Pain is one of the major prehospital symptoms in trauma patients and requires prompt management. Recent studies have reported insufficient analgesia after prehospital treatment in up to 43% of trauma patients, leaving significant room for improvement. Good evidence exists for prehospital use of oral transmucosal fentanyl citrate (OTFC) in the military setting. We hypothesized that the use of OTFC for trauma patients in remote and challenging environment is feasible, efficient, safe, and might be an alternative to nasal and intravenous applications. METHODS This observational cohort study examined 177 patients who were treated with oral transmucosal fentanyl citrate by EMS providers in three ski and bike resorts in Switzerland. All EMS providers had previously been trained in administration of the drug and handling of potential adverse events. RESULTS OTFC caused a statistically significant and clinically relevant decrease in the level of pain by a median of 3 (IQR 2 to 4) in NRS units (P < 0.0001). Multiple linear regression analysis showed a significant absolute reduction in pain, with no differences in all age groups and between genders. No major adverse events were observed. CONCLUSIONS Prehospital administration of OTFC is safe, easy, and efficient for extrication and transport across all age groups, gender, and types of injuries in alpine environments. Side effects were few and mild. This could provide a valuable alternative in trauma patients with severe pain, without the delay of inserting an intravenous line, especially in remote areas, where fast action and easy administration are important

Rumen and Liver Fluke Infections in Sheep and Goats in Northern and Southern Germany

Simple Summary Little is known about the distribution of rumen and liver flukes in sheep and goats in Germany or about the occurring rumen fluke species. These fluke infections can be detected by the parasite's eggs in the host animal's feces. Therefore, fecal samples from 223 sheep farms and 143 goat farms from northern and southern Germany were examined. The eggs of rumen flukes were detected on 2.2% of the samples, the eggs of common liver flukes on 2.7%, and the eggs of small liver flukes on 21.1% of the examined sheep farms. The rumen flukes were identified as the emerging species Calicophoron daubneyi. No rumen fluke eggs were detected on any of the goat farm samples, but common and small liver fluke eggs were detected in 5.6% and 7.0% of the goat herds, respectively. Differences in the geographical distribution of rumen and liver flukes between and within the two regions were identified. Rumen flukes were more frequently found in the north, while the two liver fluke species were more frequently found in the south of Germany. Sheep sharing the pasture with other ruminants were more likely to be infected with rumen flukes. Paramphistomidosis has recently been identified as an emerging parasitosis in Europe. This study estimated the prevalence of rumen flukes, Fasciola hepatica and Dicrocoelium dendriticum, in small ruminants in Germany and identified occurring rumen fluke species and potential predictors for fluke infections. Pooled fecal samples from 223 sheep farms and 143 goat farms in northern and southern Germany were examined by the sedimentation technique, and molecular species identification was performed on rumen-fluke-positive samples. In sheep, a flock prevalence of 2.2% was detected for rumen flukes. Calicophoron daubneyi was identified on four of five positive farms, while species identification failed in one flock. No rumen fluke eggs were detected in the examined goat herds. F. hepatica eggs were detected in 2.7% of the sheep flocks, while the herd prevalence was 5.6% in goats. Higher prevalence values of 21.1% (sheep) and 7.0% (goats) were observed for D. dendriticum. Mixed grazing with other ruminants and previously identified infections with rumen flukes and/or F. hepatica were identified as predictors for paramphistomidosis. The distribution of the three trematode species followed a geographical pattern associated with conditions favoring the relevant intermediate hosts. C. daubneyi is an established parasite in German sheep at a currently low prevalence

New Sales and Buying Models in the Internet: App Store Model for Enterprise Application Software

Whereas electronic marketplaces had been established years ago to distribute different kinds of software, they have become subject of public interest given the success of “app store” models in business-to-consumer (B2C) environment, especially for mobile device software. The expectation of a consumer grade buying experience, cloud deployment models and the disaggregation of software bundles to smaller and more focused offerings are fostering the app store model also for enterprise software. In this article, a classification of buying situations for enterprise application software is introduced reflecting organizational buying processes between the transactional and the consultative sales / buying model. In that context, the article outlines the role of electronic marketplaces and Internet-based sales infrastructures detailed in a practical case example