Transnational families and return in the age of deportation: The case of indigenous Ecuadorian migrants

Recent social science research has highlighted the chaos imposed by detention and deportation policies on migrant families and communities. This paper expands on these discussions by examining the role of transnational family dynamics as people experience detention, deportation, reintegration and/or remigration. Analysing five exemplary cases of indigenous Ecuadorian families drawn from a larger sample, we highlight the reconfigurations of transnational social relations resulting from these cycles of (im)mobility. We argue that transnational family support structures play a crucial role in the reconfiguration of families affected by deportation by combining material and emotional support and healing with social control. Our findings suggest that the social, emotional, and economic effects of deportation over time are shaped both by family and community contexts of reception and by migrants’ own gender, class, life-course stage, time spent in the United States, and migration experiences. These findings allow us to conclude that deportation is a heterogeneous social and temporal process that does not impact families uniformly but in fact unfolds in diverse ways within family situations where social relationships, gender roles, care arrangements, and social expectations for the most part are already profoundly transnationalised and reconfigured by migration.     

Counting the Population or Describing Society? A Comparison of English and Welsh and French Censuses

Data collected at household level in censuses are used for a wide range of purposes including practical planning and academic analysis of changing social conditions. Comparability is a core demographic value, and to understand the limits of the comparability of census data across time and space, it is important to recognise if, how and why, concepts and definitions change between censuses. This paper examines definitions of the household in censuses in England and Wales (E&W) and France from 1960 to 2012 in order to investigate how census definitions have changed and to examine the drivers of such changes. Two research methods were used: (1) longitudinal analyses of census documentation since the 1960s and (2) in-depth interviews with key informants oriented around respondents’ roles in the collection and/or use of household data from censuses and surveys. We identify two contrasting national approaches to the data collection exercise that is called a census, which reflect political and institutional differences. These differences call into question the comparability of some aspects of census data across national boundaries, despite increased harmonisation of approaches to data collection. By comparing the evolution of the definitions of the “household” in censuses, we develop insight into the diversity of the priorities of census commissioners and designers, and consider the broader implications of this for producing comparable data.     

A comparative study on production ramp-up: state-of-the-art and new challenges

In the context of globalisation, the companies are urged to innovate the products and the services they provide to their customers, in order to keep their competitive edge. New product introduction in an already existing production environment generates numerous perturbations to handle in the supply chain and operations management during the production ramp-up. The purpose of this article is to present a thorough state of the art on the production ramp-up. Different overviews of the research body are given: comparing definitions, characteristics and problems of the ramp-up phase, classifying research papers according to their industrial context and organising them in different classifications (by keywords, focus extent …). Interesting issues that could be addressed in future research about the production ramp-up phase are identified.     

Getting tuned in to those who are different: The role of empathy as mediator between diversity and performance

We present a theoretical model on the processes that mediate and moderate the diversity-performance relationship. Past research on this topic—for example the categorization elaboration model (van Knippenberg et al. 2004)—has often focused on information elaboration as mediator. Complementing this cognitive perspective, we propose that group diversity can also stimulate group members to engage with each other emotionally, resulting in higher levels of empathy—an emotional state which arises from the comprehension and apprehension of fellow group members’ emotional state. Empathy, in turn, is likely to enhance performance through processes within a single group member and through processes between group members. At the core of the model lies the proposition that group- as well as individual-level empathy mediate the relationship between diversity of organizational units and the performance of individual members and groups at large (multilevel mediation). Furthermore, we specify moderating conditions for the relationship between diversity and empathy. Diversity beliefs and diversity climates are introduced as second-order moderators.     

Shrinking into the big city: influence of genetic and environmental factors on urban dragon lizard morphology and performance capacity

Urban Ecosystems - Urban wildlife faces a novel set of challenges resulting in selective pressure that can lead to population-level changes. We studied Australian water dragons (Intellagama...     

Behavioral biases and the representative agent

In this article, we show that behavioral features can be obtained at a group level even if they do not appear at the individual level. Starting from a standard model of Pareto optimal allocations, with expected utility maximizers but allowing for heterogeneity among individual beliefs, we show in particular that the representative agent has an inverse S-shaped probability distortion function as in Cumulative prospect theory.     

On some effects of variability in the westss epidemic model

The Weiss carrier-borne epidemic model is extended to incorporate random initial susceptible and carrier population sizes and general independent distributions for the infectious periods of the carriers. The qualitative effects of these variability factors on the spread of the disease are examined using different partial orderings for distribution functions.     

The Contribution of Irish Immigrants to the Quebec (Canada) Gene Pool: An Estimation Using Data from Deep-Rooted Genealogies

European settlement in Quebec (Canada) began in the early 17th century, with the arrival of French pioneers. After the British Conquest in 1760, immigrants from the British Isles began to settle in some parts of Quebec. Many of these immigrants were Irish Catholics. Historians and genealogists have identified several names of Irish origin in the French Canadian population, and many scholars have wondered about the importance of the integration of Irish migrants and their descendants within this population. The purposes of this study are to identify and characterize the founders of Irish origin to estimate the importance of their genetic contribution to the contemporary Quebec population, and to measure the variability of this contribution according to the founders’ period of arrival and county of origin in Ireland. Data was obtained from a set of 2,223 ascending genealogies going back as far as the early 17th century. The average genealogical depth is a little more than 9 generations, with many branches reaching 16 or 17 generations. Although Irish founders explain less than 1% of the total Quebec gene pool, results show that nearly 21% of the genealogies contain at least one Irish founder. These founders contributed to the peopling of all regions of Quebec, but there are some important variations from one region to another. A majority of the Irish founders immigrated during the 19th century, and most of them came from the counties of Southern Ireland.     

The Impact of Health-Related Emotions on Belief Formation and Behavior

We present a theoretical model of health beliefs and behaviors that explicitly takes into account the emotional impact of possible bad news (i.e., illness), ex-ante in the form of anxiety and ex-post in the form of disappointment. Our model makes it possible to explain (simultaneously) a number of anomalies such as ’low’ testing rates, heterogeneous perceptions of risk levels, underestimation of health risk, ostriches and hypochondriacs, over-use and under-use of health services, patient preference for information when relatively certain of not being ill, yet avoiding information when relatively certain of being ill, etc. Our model matches observed patterns both in health beliefs and health behaviors and irrational health beliefs and behaviors can be characterized as the optimal response under a given structure of emotions and preferences.     

Gambling Problems Among Community Cocaine Users

Cocaine use is highly prevalent and a major public health problem. While some studies have reported frequent comorbidity problems among cocaine users, few studies have included evaluation of gambling problems. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of gambling problems and compare those who were at-risk gamblers with non-problem gamblers in terms of mental health problems, substance use problems, and some risk factors (i.e. family antecedents, erroneous perceptions and coping strategies) among individuals who smoke or inject cocaine. A total of 424 smoked or injected cocaine users recruited through community-based programs in Montreal (Quebec) completed the questionnaire, including the Canadian Pathological Gambling Index, the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, the CAGE, and the Severity Dependence Scale. Of the sample, 18.4 % were considered at-risk gamblers, of whom 7.8 % had problems gambling and 10.6 % were moderate-risk gamblers. The at-risk group was more likely to have experienced a recent phobic disorder and alcohol problems than the non-problem group. A multivariate analysis showed that, compared to those who were non-problem gamblers, the at-risk ones were more likely to have lost a large sum of money when they first started gambling, believed that their luck would turn, and gambled in reaction to painful life events. These results indicate the need to include routines for screening to identify gambling problem among cocaine users.