Global evidence of rapid urban growth in flood zones since 1985.

Disaster losses are increasing and evidence is mounting that climate change is driving up the probability of extreme natural shocks1-3. Yet it has also proved politically expedient to invoke climate change as an exogenous force that supposedly places disasters beyond the influence of local and national authorities4,5. However, locally determined patterns of urbanization and spatial development are key factors to the exposure and vulnerability of people to climatic shocks6. Using high-resolution annual data, this study shows that, since 1985, human settlements around the world-from villages to megacities-have expanded continuously and rapidly into present-day flood zones. In many regions, growth in the most hazardous flood zones is outpacing growth in non-exposed zones by a large margin, particularly in East Asia, where high-hazard settlements have expanded 60% faster than flood-safe settlements. These results provide systematic evidence of a divergence in the exposure of countries to flood hazards. Instead of adapting their exposure, many countries continue to actively amplify their exposure to increasingly frequent climatic shocks.

A spatiotemporal decay model of human mobility when facing large-scale crises.

A common feature of large-scale extreme events, such as pandemics, wildfires, and major storms is that, despite their differences in etiology and duration, they significantly change routine human movement patterns. Such changes, which can be major or minor in size and duration and which differ across contexts, affect both the consequences of the events and the ability of governments to mount effective responses. Based on naturally tracked, anonymized mobility behavior from over 90 million people in the United States, we document these mobility differences in space and over time in six large-scale crises, including wildfires, major tropical storms, winter freeze and pandemics. We introduce a model that effectively captures the high-dimensional heterogeneity in human mobility changes following large-scale extreme events. Across five different metrics and regardless of spatial resolution, the changes in human mobility behavior exhibit a consistent hyperbolic decline, a pattern we characterize as "spatiotemporal decay." When applied to the case of COVID-19, our model also uncovers significant disparities in mobility changes-individuals from wealthy areas not only reduce their mobility at higher rates at the start of the pandemic but also maintain the change longer. Residents from lower-income regions show a faster and greater hyperbolic decay, which we suggest may help account for different COVID-19 rates. Our model represents a powerful tool to understand and forecast mobility patterns post emergency, and thus to help produce more effective responses.

Probabilistic forecasts of international bilateral migration flows.

We propose a method for forecasting global human migration flows. A Bayesian hierarchical model is used to make probabilistic projections of the 39,800 bilateral migration flows among the 200 most populous countries. We generate out-of-sample forecasts for all bilateral flows for the 2015 to 2020 period, using models fitted to bilateral migration flows for five 5-y periods from 1990 to 1995 through 2010 to 2015. We find that the model produces well-calibrated out-of-sample forecasts of bilateral flows, as well as total country-level inflows, outflows, and net flows. The mean absolute error decreased by 61% using our method, compared to a leading model of international migration. Out-of-sample analysis indicated that simple methods for forecasting migration flows offered accurate projections of bilateral migration flows in the near term. Our method matched or improved on the out-of-sample performance using these simple deterministic alternatives, while also accurately assessing uncertainty. We integrate the migration flow forecasting model into a fully probabilistic population projection model to generate bilateral migration flow forecasts by age and sex for all flows from 2020 to 2025 through 2040 to 2045.

The impact of the caregiver mobility on child HIV care in the Manhiça District, Southern Mozambique: A clinical based study.

INTRODUCTION: Manhiça District, in Southern Mozambique harbors high HIV prevalence and a long history of migration. To optimize HIV care, we sought to assess how caregiver's mobility impacts children living with HIV (CLHIV)´s continuation in HIV care and to explore the strategies used by caregivers to maintain their CLHIV on antiretroviral treatment (ART). METHODS: A clinic-based cross-sectional survey conducted at the Manhiça District Hospital between December-2017 and February-2018. We enrolled CLHIV with a self-identified migrant caregiver (moved outside of Manhiça District ≤12 months prior to survey) and non-migrant caregiver, matched by the child age and sex. Survey data were linked to CLHIV clinical records from the HIV care and treatment program. RESULTS: Among the 975 CLHIV screened, 285 (29.2%) were excluded due to absence of an adult at the appointment. A total of 232 CLHIV-caregiver pairs were included. Of the 41 (35%) CLHIV migrating with their caregivers, 38 (92.6%) had access to ART at the destination because either the caregivers travelled with it 24 (63%) or it was sent by a family member 14 (36%). Among the 76 (65%) CLHIV who did not migrate with their caregivers, for the purpose of pharmacy visits, 39% were cared by their grandfather/grandmother, 28% by an aunt/uncle and 16% by an adult brother/sister. CLHIV of migrant caregivers had a non-statistically significant increase in the number of previous reported sickness episodes (OR = 1.38, 95%CI: 0.79-2.42; p = 0.257), ART interruptions (OR = 1.73; 95%CI: 0.82-3.63; p = 0.142) and lost-to-follow-up episodes (OR = 1.53; 95%CI: 0.80-2.94; p = 0.193). CONCLUSIONS: Nearly one third of the children attend their HIV care appointments unaccompanied by an adult. The caregiver mobility was not found to significantly affect child's retention on ART. Migrant caregivers adopted strategies such as the transportation of ART to the mobility destination to avoid impact of mobility on the child's HIV care. However this may have implications on ART stability and effectiveness that should be investigated in rural areas.

The genetic structure of the Turkish population reveals high levels of variation and admixture.

The construction of population-based variomes has contributed substantially to our understanding of the genetic basis of human inherited disease. Here, we investigated the genetic structure of Turkey from 3,362 unrelated subjects whose whole exomes (n = 2,589) or whole genomes (n = 773) were sequenced to generate a Turkish (TR) Variome that should serve to facilitate disease gene discovery in Turkey. Consistent with the history of present-day Turkey as a crossroads between Europe and Asia, we found extensive admixture between Balkan, Caucasus, Middle Eastern, and European populations with a closer genetic relationship of the TR population to Europeans than hitherto appreciated. We determined that 50% of TR individuals had high inbreeding coefficients (≥0.0156) with runs of homozygosity longer than 4 Mb being found exclusively in the TR population when compared to 1000 Genomes Project populations. We also found that 28% of exome and 49% of genome variants in the very rare range (allele frequency < 0.005) are unique to the modern TR population. We annotated these variants based on their functional consequences to establish a TR Variome containing alleles of potential medical relevance, a repository of homozygous loss-of-function variants and a TR reference panel for genotype imputation using high-quality haplotypes, to facilitate genome-wide association studies. In addition to providing information on the genetic structure of the modern TR population, these data provide an invaluable resource for future studies to identify variants that are associated with specific phenotypes as well as establishing the phenotypic consequences of mutations in specific genes.

Con la vida en una valija

Cuando pensamos en las infancias vividas en tiempos de dictadura rara vez reparamos en la experiencia de aquellas niñas y niños que debieron atravesar junto a sus familias el exilio. Relatos que poco a poco -y no sin dificultad-, han ido saliendo a la luz bajo la forma de distintas narrativas autobiográficas o autoficcionales. Nos referimos a novelas, poesías, muestras, instalaciones, performances y documentales producidos por exiliadxs hijxs, que recrean esta experiencia desde su presente adulto. Obras que dan cuenta del profundo impacto del exilio en las subjetividades y que nos invitan a complejizar los discursos sobre el pasado, sumando nuevas voces y miradas. Pero ¿de qué nos hablan estas narrativas en algún punto signadas por el "diferimiento"? ¿Qué resuena en ellas? ¿Por qué resultan extrañas, y al mismo tiempo, cercanas y afines? (AU)

Landscape rules predict optimal superhighways for the first peopling of Sahul.

Archaeological data and demographic modelling suggest that the peopling of Sahul required substantial populations, occurred rapidly within a few thousand years and encompassed environments ranging from hyper-arid deserts to temperate uplands and tropical rainforests. How this migration occurred and how humans responded to the physical environments they encountered have, however, remained largely speculative. By constructing a high-resolution digital elevation model for Sahul and coupling it with fine-scale viewshed analysis of landscape prominence, least-cost pedestrian travel modelling and high-performance computing, we create over 125 billion potential migratory pathways, whereby the most parsimonious routes traversed emerge. Our analysis revealed several major pathways-superhighways-transecting the continent, that we evaluated using archaeological data. These results suggest that the earliest Australian ancestors adopted a set of fundamental rules shaped by physiological capacity, attraction to visually prominent landscape features and freshwater distribution to maximize survival, even without previous experience of the landscapes they encountered.

Unsupervised learning of Swiss population spatial distribution.

The paper deals with the analysis of spatial distribution of Swiss population using fractal concepts and unsupervised learning algorithms. The research methodology is based on the development of a high dimensional feature space by calculating local growth curves, widely used in fractal dimension estimation and on the application of clustering algorithms in order to reveal the patterns of spatial population distribution. The notion "unsupervised" also means, that only some general criteria-density, dimensionality, homogeneity, are used to construct an input feature space, without adding any supervised/expert knowledge. The approach is very powerful and provides a comprehensive local information about density and homogeneity/fractality of spatially distributed point patterns.

La inmigración internacional reciente en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires / Recent international immigration in the City of Buenos Aires

En un nuevo contexto de la migración en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, el presente informe tiene como objetivo analizar las características sociodemográficas de los principales orígenes que integran el conjunto de inmigrantes externos y que, como se mencionó, presentan particularidades en su composición y antigüedad de residencia en la Ciudad, considerando asimismo desde una perspectiva comparativa a los residentes nacidos en el país. Para este informe se explotaron los datos de la última Encuesta Anual de Hogares disponible correspondiente a 2019 que releva la Dirección General de Estadística y Censos sobre la base de una muestra probabilística de viviendas y hogares residentes en CABA y que contiene preguntas específicas sobre el lugar de nacimiento y el año desde que la persona reside en forma continua, que permiten identificar la antigüedad y cohortes de inmigrantes. (AU)

Association of Geographic Differences in Prevalence of Uncontrolled Chronic Conditions With Changes in Individuals' Likelihood of Uncontrolled Chronic Conditions.

Importance: The prevalence of leading risk factors for morbidity and mortality in the US significantly varies across regions, states, and neighborhoods, but the extent these differences are associated with a person's place of residence vs the characteristics of the people who live in different places remains unclear. Objective: To estimate the degree to which geographic differences in leading risk factors are associated with a person's place of residence by comparing trends in health outcomes among individuals who moved to different areas or did not move. Design, Setting, and Participants: This retrospective cohort study estimated the association between the differences in the prevalence of uncontrolled chronic conditions across movers' destination and origin zip codes and changes in individuals' likelihood of uncontrolled chronic conditions after moving, adjusting for person-specific fixed effects, the duration of time since the move, and secular trends among movers and those who did not move. Electronic health records from the Veterans Health Administration were analyzed. The primary analysis included 5 342 207 individuals with at least 1 Veterans Health Administration outpatient encounter between 2008 and 2018 who moved zip codes exactly once or never moved. Exposures: The difference in the prevalence of uncontrolled chronic conditions between a person's origin zip code and destination zip code (excluding the individual mover's outcomes). Main Outcomes and Measures: Prevalence of uncontrolled blood pressure (systolic blood pressure level >140 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure level >90 mm Hg), uncontrolled diabetes (hemoglobin A1c level >8%), obesity (body mass index >30), and depressive symptoms (2-item Patient Health Questionnaire score ≥2) per quarter-year during the 3 years before and the 3 years after individuals moved. Results: The study population included 5 342 207 individuals (mean age, 57.6 [SD, 17.4] years, 93.9% men, 72.5% White individuals, and 12.7% Black individuals), of whom 1 095 608 moved exactly once and 4 246 599 never moved during the study period. Among the movers, the change after moving in the prevalence of uncontrolled blood pressure was 27.5% (95% CI, 23.8%-31.3%) of the between-area difference in the prevalence of uncontrolled blood pressure. Similarly, the change after moving in the prevalence of uncontrolled diabetes was 5.0% (95% CI, 2.7%-7.2%) of the between-area difference in the prevalence of uncontrolled diabetes; the change after moving in the prevalence of obesity was 3.1% (95% CI, 2.0%-4.2%) of the between-area difference in the prevalence of obesity; and the change after moving in the prevalence of depressive symptoms was 15.2% (95% CI, 13.1%-17.2%) of the between-area difference in the prevalence of depressive symptoms. Conclusions and Relevance: In this retrospective cohort study of individuals receiving care at Veterans Health Administration facilities, geographic differences in prevalence were associated with a substantial percentage of the change in individuals' likelihood of poor blood pressure control or depressive symptoms, and a smaller percentage of the change in individuals' likelihood of poor diabetes control and obesity. Further research is needed to understand the source of these associations with a person's place of residence.

Climate Change, Migration, and Civil Strife.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: In this article, we examine the intersection of human migration and climate change. Growing evidence that changing environmental and climate conditions are triggers for displacement, whether voluntary or forced, adds a powerful argument for profound anticipatory engagement. RECENT FINDINGS: Climate change is expected to displace vast populations from rural to urban areas, and when life in the urban centers becomes untenable, many will continue their onward migration elsewhere (Wennersten and Robbins 2017; Rigaud et al. 2018). It is now accepted that the changing climate will be a threat multiplier, will exacerbate the need or decision to migrate, and will disproportionately affect large already vulnerable sections of humanity. Worst-case scenario models that assume business-as-usual approaches to climate change predict that nearly one-third of the global population will live in extremely hot (uninhabitable) climates, currently found in less than 1% of the earth's surface mainly in the Sahara. We find that the post-World War II regime designed to receive European migrants has failed to address population movement in the latter half of the twentieth century fueled by economic want, globalization, opening (and then closing) borders, civil strife, and war. Key stakeholders are in favor of using existing instruments to support a series of local, regional, and international arrangements to protect environmental migrants, most of whom will not cross international borders. The proposal for a dedicated UN agency and a new Convention has largely come from academia and NGOs. Migration is now recognized not only as a consequence of instability but as an adaptation strategy to the changing climate. Migration must be anticipated as a certainty, and thereby planned for and supported.

Les groupes anti migrants de Calais: le spectacle de la vigilance / The anti-migrants groups of Calais: the spectacle of vigilance / Los grupos antimigrantes de Calais: el espectáculo de la vigilancia

Depuis le début des années 2000, la ville de Calais est devenue un important point de passage pour les personnes qui souhaitent migrer en Grande-Bretagne. À partir de 2013, des groupes anti-migrants militent pour l'expulsion de tous les migrants. Ils mêlent manifestations classiques et vigilantisme plus dur pour mettre en avant leurs revendications. Dans cet article, nous allons étudier la dimension spectaculaire du vigilantisme de ces groupes ainsi que leur rapport agonistique à la figure du migrant. (AU)

Since the early 2000s, the city of Calais has become an important crossing point for people wishing to migrate to the UK. Since 2013, anti-migrant groups have been campaigning for the expulsion of all migrants. Their repertory of action mingles classical demonstration and harsher vigilantism. In this paper, we will study the spectacular dimension of their vigilantism as well as their agonistic relationship to the figure of the migrant. (AU)

Desde principios de la década de 2000, la ciudad de Calais se ha convertido en un importante punto de cruce para las personas que desean emigrar al Reino Unido. Desde 2013, los grupos anti-migrantes han estado haciendo campaña por la expulsión de todos los migrantes. Su repertorio de acción mezcla la demostración clásica y el vigilantismo más severo. En este artículo estudiaremos la dimensión espectacular de su vigilantismo así como su relación agonística con la figura del migrante. (AU)

Competitive intelligence and its impact on innovations in tourism industry of China: An empirical research.

Competitive intelligence (CI) has attracted much attention in innovation research, but most of existing literature studies CI in technological innovations in manufacturing industry, with little empirical research in context of service businesses. This paper first analyzes CI of service businesses and then uses covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) on a data of 333 got from the survey in tourism enterprises of east China to test the effect of customer CI, opponent CI, and supplier CI on service innovations in China's service industry. Results show that opponent CI and supplier CI have positive influence on both exploratory and exploitative service innovation. Customer CI has more obvious positive influence on exploratory service innovation than on exploitative service innovation.

Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study.

BACKGROUND: Understanding potential patterns in future population levels is crucial for anticipating and planning for changing age structures, resource and health-care needs, and environmental and economic landscapes. Future fertility patterns are a key input to estimation of future population size, but they are surrounded by substantial uncertainty and diverging methodologies of estimation and forecasting, leading to important differences in global population projections. Changing population size and age structure might have profound economic, social, and geopolitical impacts in many countries. In this study, we developed novel methods for forecasting mortality, fertility, migration, and population. We also assessed potential economic and geopolitical effects of future demographic shifts. METHODS: We modelled future population in reference and alternative scenarios as a function of fertility, migration, and mortality rates. We developed statistical models for completed cohort fertility at age 50 years (CCF50). Completed cohort fertility is much more stable over time than the period measure of the total fertility rate (TFR). We modelled CCF50 as a time-series random walk function of educational attainment and contraceptive met need. Age-specific fertility rates were modelled as a function of CCF50 and covariates. We modelled age-specific mortality to 2100 using underlying mortality, a risk factor scalar, and an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model. Net migration was modelled as a function of the Socio-demographic Index, crude population growth rate, and deaths from war and natural disasters; and use of an ARIMA model. The model framework was used to develop a reference scenario and alternative scenarios based on the pace of change in educational attainment and contraceptive met need. We estimated the size of gross domestic product for each country and territory in the reference scenario. Forecast uncertainty intervals (UIs) incorporated uncertainty propagated from past data inputs, model estimation, and forecast data distributions. FINDINGS: The global TFR in the reference scenario was forecasted to be 1·66 (95% UI 1·33-2·08) in 2100. In the reference scenario, the global population was projected to peak in 2064 at 9·73 billion (8·84-10·9) people and decline to 8·79 billion (6·83-11·8) in 2100. The reference projections for the five largest countries in 2100 were India (1·09 billion [0·72-1·71], Nigeria (791 million [594-1056]), China (732 million [456-1499]), the USA (336 million [248-456]), and Pakistan (248 million [151-427]). Findings also suggest a shifting age structure in many parts of the world, with 2·37 billion (1·91-2·87) individuals older than 65 years and 1·70 billion (1·11-2·81) individuals younger than 20 years, forecasted globally in 2100. By 2050, 151 countries were forecasted to have a TFR lower than the replacement level (TFR <2·1), and 183 were forecasted to have a TFR lower than replacement by 2100. 23 countries in the reference scenario, including Japan, Thailand, and Spain, were forecasted to have population declines greater than 50% from 2017 to 2100; China's population was forecasted to decline by 48·0% (-6·1 to 68·4). China was forecasted to become the largest economy by 2035 but in the reference scenario, the USA was forecasted to once again become the largest economy in 2098. Our alternative scenarios suggest that meeting the Sustainable Development Goals targets for education and contraceptive met need would result in a global population of 6·29 billion (4·82-8·73) in 2100 and a population of 6·88 billion (5·27-9·51) when assuming 99th percentile rates of change in these drivers. INTERPRETATION: Our findings suggest that continued trends in female educational attainment and access to contraception will hasten declines in fertility and slow population growth. A sustained TFR lower than the replacement level in many countries, including China and India, would have economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical consequences. Policy options to adapt to continued low fertility, while sustaining and enhancing female reproductive health, will be crucial in the years to come. FUNDING: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Latest trends in archaeogenetic research of west Eurasians.

During the past ten years, archaeogenetic research has exponentially grown to study the genetic history of human populations, using genome-wide data from large numbers of ancient individuals. Of the entire globe, Europe and the Near East are the regions where ancient DNA data is by far most abundant with over 2500 genomes published at present. In this review, we focus on archaeological contexts that have received less attention in the literature, specifically those associated with west Eurasian hunter-gatherers as well as populations from the Iron Age and later historical periods. In addition, we emphasize a recent shift from continent-wide to regional and even site-specific studies, which is starting to provide novel insights into sociocultural aspects of past societies.

Migración internacional y fecundidad: el caso de la migración boliviana, paraguaya y peruana en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires en el período reciente / International migration and fertility: the case of the bolivian, paraguayan and peruvian migration in the City of Buenos Aires in the recent period

Este trabajo analiza la fecundidad de mujeres migrantes nacidas en Bolivia, Paraguay y Perú, residentes en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires durante la primera década del siglo XXI. A través de un análisis de período (2001 y 2010) y de cohorte de mujeres que han concluido su ciclo reproductivo (1951-1955 y 1961-1965), se examinan indicadores de nivel, estructura por edad e intensidad de este componente. Se establece una comparación con la fecundidad de la población nativa argentina y de los respectivos países de origen de las migrantes, tomando como referencia conceptual cuatro modelos que intentan explicar la interacción entre la migración internacional y la fecundidad. En congruencia con los antecedentes en la materia, los resultados muestran que la fecundidad de las migrantes es mayor que la de las mujeres autóctonas y posee una estructura precoz en relación con estas. Asimismo,la fecundidad de los distintos colectivos analizados es menor y posee una estructura por edad más envejecida en comparación con la población femenina de origen. (AU)

Native American admixture recapitulates population-specific migration and settlement of the continental United States.

European and African descendants settled the continental US during the 17th-19th centuries, coming into contact with established Native American populations. The resulting admixture among these groups yielded a significant reservoir of Native American ancestry in the modern US population. We analyzed the patterns of Native American admixture seen for the three largest genetic ancestry groups in the US population: African descendants, Western European descendants, and Spanish descendants. The three groups show distinct Native American ancestry profiles, which are indicative of their historical patterns of migration and settlement across the country. Native American ancestry in the modern African descendant population does not coincide with local geography, instead forming a single group with origins in the southeastern US, consistent with the Great Migration of the early 20th century. Western European descendants show Native American ancestry that tracks their geographic origins across the US, indicative of ongoing contact during westward expansion, and Native American ancestry can resolve Spanish descendant individuals into distinct local groups formed by more recent migration from Mexico and Puerto Rico. We found an anomalous pattern of Native American ancestry from the US southwest, which most likely corresponds to the Nuevomexicano descendants of early Spanish settlers to the region. We addressed a number of controversies surrounding this population, including the extent of Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Nuevomexicanos are less admixed than nearby Mexican-American individuals, with more European and less Native American and African ancestry, and while they do show demonstrable Sephardic Jewish ancestry, the fraction is no greater than seen for other New World Spanish descendant populations.

Trails, footprints, hoofprints.

This paper takes issue with the notion behind some genetic sampling of populations that there are autochthonous groups (designated tribal) in India, and that to give a group, its 'anthropological name' [sic] is valid. The archaeological and textual evidence of the earliest known Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians is given in bare outline. Possible trails of the Indo-Aryans of Iron-age South Asia are detected in archaeological records, immigration through mountains in the northwest with horses and two-humped camels, and also incursions of small groups of horse-riders, from Vidarbha all the way south to the Tamil country.