Abstract Through a study of the impact of the war in Israel/Palestine on non-citizen workers, this article contributes to a new area of research: the impact of a political crisis on labour migration policies. It considers key developments around the replacement of Palestinian workers with migrant workers and the adoption of problematic recruitment mechanisms discarded in the past. These developments reflect a tension between three logics underlying the political economy of non-citizen labour in Israel/Palestine: a capitalist, an ethno-nationalist, and a colonial logic. They show how events since October 2023 have shaped the relationship between the three logics. Conflicts around the use of national security rhetoric following the 7 October attack to promote a far-right political ideology and around domestic and international checks and balances that used to offer (limited) protection of workers’ rights demonstrate these tensions.
Abstract This paper explores the profiles, motivations, and methods of human traffickers incarcerated in Romania, based on 20 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2018 at Jilava Prison. The study addresses the research question: "How do traffickers rationalize their involvement in human trafficking?" By developing typologies of traffickers and analyzing mechanisms of justification and motivation, the research highlights both the external socio-economic contexts and individual personal characteristics in which traffickers operate. It places these findings in the broader context of labor market imbalances and irregular migration routes that create favorable conditions for trafficking. This paper challenges simplistic portrayals of traffickers as a homogeneous group. These insights are useful not only in academic debates but also have important policy implications. This paper calls for further research and a stronger connection between migration, labor exploitation, and human trafficking.
Kif Augustine-Adams, Jane Lilly López, Hayley Pierce
et al.
Abstract Border policing and enforcement produce “spectacles” foregrounding the “illegality” of migrants of all ages. These practices reinforce policies that racialize meanings of citizenship. The United States government’s detention of unaccompanied migrant children qualifies as one such “spectacle,” yet little research has examined the disparate treatment children receive based on their region of origin. We use a complete census of all unaccompanied migrant children admitted into Office of Refugee Resettlement custody between October 1, 2014, and March 1, 2023, to compare the experiences of 794 African unaccompanied children with those of their non-African peers. Our results suggest that US government detention of unaccompanied migrant children reflects racialized notions of citizenship and belonging. Children from African countries experienced greater suspicion, surveillance, and punishment compared to non-African children. They spent far longer in ORR custody, in more restrictive settings, and were more likely to lose the protections afforded children as they aged out or underwent an age redetermination. At the same time, African children experienced the positive outcome of immigration relief while in ORR custody at a rate far exceeding other children. These comparative findings make visible for the first time the unique experiences of unaccompanied African children in US immigration detention, experiences that enable further racialization of citizenship inequalities.
ABSTRACT Migration policy in the United Kingdom continues to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable forms of migration, using increasingly punitive policy provisions designed to make life unliveable for those outside narrowing frames of acceptability. Part of this policy involves broadening and deepening precarious forms of status while denying routes to permanence to those considered less desirable. This includes many families with children. Although existing quantitative studies have established links between precarious immigration status, post‐migration stressors and poor mental health outcomes for children and for parents, these studies lack insight into everyday life within a hostile immigration environment, including how people actively encounter and navigate life in precarity. This paper presents new qualitative research exploring the impacts of precarious and uncertain immigration status on the wellbeing of children in the United Kingdom. It uses a novel theoretical framework combining the concept of ontological security with Bourdieu's theory of practice to determine how policies of precaritisation result in the denial of access to resources that contribute to crucial elements of wellbeing. It also provides insight into how people actively navigate these challenges to resist the pressures of exclusionary policy.
The ninth AI City Challenge continues to advance real-world applications of computer vision and AI in transportation, industrial automation, and public safety. The 2025 edition featured four tracks and saw a 17% increase in participation, with 245 teams from 15 countries registered on the evaluation server. Public release of challenge datasets led to over 30,000 downloads to date. Track 1 focused on multi-class 3D multi-camera tracking, involving people, humanoids, autonomous mobile robots, and forklifts, using detailed calibration and 3D bounding box annotations. Track 2 tackled video question answering in traffic safety, with multi-camera incident understanding enriched by 3D gaze labels. Track 3 addressed fine-grained spatial reasoning in dynamic warehouse environments, requiring AI systems to interpret RGB-D inputs and answer spatial questions that combine perception, geometry, and language. Both Track 1 and Track 3 datasets were generated in NVIDIA Omniverse. Track 4 emphasized efficient road object detection from fisheye cameras, supporting lightweight, real-time deployment on edge devices. The evaluation framework enforced submission limits and used a partially held-out test set to ensure fair benchmarking. Final rankings were revealed after the competition concluded, fostering reproducibility and mitigating overfitting. Several teams achieved top-tier results, setting new benchmarks in multiple tasks.
Abstract The Canadian immigration system is unique in that subnational governments play a significant role in selecting immigrants through Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs), which empower nine provinces and two territories to actively select (“nominate”) economic immigrants. Collectively, PNPs have become the country’s largest economic immigration program, but they are also the least studied, leading to a lack of understanding, transparency, and accountability. Using a subnational comparative method, this study examines 78 active subnational immigration programs (policy outputs), investigating policy design, requirements, and distribution of nominations in 2021–2022. We assess whether PNPs contribute to broader changes in the Canadian immigration regime. First, our analysis reveals the prevalence of employment-based streams and prearranged work as a selection criterion. Second, we show nuanced policy outputs in the progression toward a two-step system, with provincial variation in requirements for prior Canadian experience. Third, while PNPs are open to low-skilled workers, programs tailored exclusively to this group remain relatively limited. This comparative analysis reveals significant inter-provincial variation, and highlights the importance of a “disaggregated” evaluation of the migration state at the subnational level.
Francesco Marzolla, Matteo Bruno, Hygor Piaget Monteiro Melo
et al.
The 15-minute city concept, which advocates for cities where essential services are accessible within a 15-minute walk or bike ride, has gained significant attention in recent years. However, despite being celebrated for promoting sustainability, large-scale empirical evaluations of the effectiveness of the 15-minute concept in reducing emissions are lacking. To address this gap, we investigate whether cities with better walking accessibility, like 15-minute cities, are associated with lower transportation emissions. Comparing 664 cities worldwide, we find that cities with better walking accessibility to services emit less CO$_2$ per capita for transport. Moreover, we observe that among cities with similar average accessibility, those that span larger areas tend to emit more. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of decentralised urban planning, especially the proximity-based 15-minute city, in promoting sustainable mobility. However, they also emphasise the need to integrate local accessibility with urban compactness and efficient public transit, which are vital in large cities.
This study investigates city dynamics employing a nonextensive diffusion equation suited for addressing diffusion within a fractal medium, where the nonadditive parameter, $q$, plays a relevant role. The findings demonstrate the efficacy of this approach in determining the relation between the fractal dimension of the city, the allometric exponent and $q$, and elucidating the stationary phase of urban evolution. The dynamic methodology facilitates the correlation of the fractal dimension with both the entropic index and the urban scaling exponent identified in data analyses. The results reveal that the scaling behaviour observed in cities aligns with the fractal dimension measured through independent methods. Moreover, the interpretation of these findings underscores the intimate connection between the fractal dimension and social interactions within the urban context. This research contributes to a deeper comprehension of the intricate interplay between human behaviour, urban dynamics, and the underlying fractal nature of cities.
Violence is commonly linked with large urban areas, and as a social phenomenon, it is presumed to scale super-linearly with population size. This study explores the hypothesis that smaller, isolated cities in Africa may experience a heightened intensity of violence against civilians. It aims to investigate the correlation between the risk of experiencing violence with a city's size and its geographical isolation. Over a 20-year period, the incidence of civilian casualties has been analysed to assess lethality in relation to varying degrees of isolation and city sizes. African cities are categorised by isolation (number of highway connections) and centrality (the estimated frequency of journeys). Findings suggest that violence against civilians exhibits a sub-linear pattern, with larger cities witnessing fewer casualties per 100,000 inhabitants. Remarkably, individuals in isolated cities face a quadrupled risk of a casualty compared to those in more connected cities.
Abstract The study of international migration and responses to it has experienced rapid growth in the last three decades: an institutionalisation of migration studies. This paper identifies and specifies infrastructural and semantic elements of institutionalisation by establishing a global Directory of Migration Research Institutions identifying 282 institutes focused on migration research that were operative between 1945 and 2020. We observe a clear geographical concentration in the Americas and Europe and find that most institutes are in countries with higher economic development (GDP) and net immigration (not emigration). Using this evidence, we suggest that the institutionalisation of migration studies is driven by concerns and ideas produced in high-income ‘destination’ countries. We thus show that uneven knowledge production in migration studies is not only caused by exclusive categories, language, or journal policies, but also by a structural problem at an earlier stage: because of fewer resources invested in the creation of institutionalised academic knowledge structures, lower income countries have fewer possibilities to shape the semantic features of the field of migration studies, by which we mean the identification of subjects of interest, concepts, narratives, and priorities.
Erfira Ramadhanty, Retno Tri Wulandari, Munaisra Tri Tirtaningsih
This study aims to develop an Abhinaya Circuit video game media suitable for training gross motor skills in early childhood. This research uses Research and Development research. The method applied in this research refers to the Borg and Gall method, which consists of 10 research steps. In this study, only eight steps were applied; (1) conducting a needs analysis, (2) planning, (3) developing a product design at the beginning, (4) validating the developed product design, (5) revising the product design, (6) conduct trials, (7) revise the product (8) Production. The collected data in this study using observation, interview, and documentation techniques. Data analysis in the form of descriptive quantitative. The results of this study were obtained: (1) the feasibility test results of the Abhinaya Circuit video media were carried out by two validators, namely media expert lecturers and early childhood physical-motoric lecturers. The media expert validator research results are 83.6% with valid criteria and can be used with a little revision. The results of the instrument validation of children's motor physicists were 94.6%, with very valid criteria so that they could be used without revision. (2) The results of product trials in terms of 3 aspects of safety, convenience, and attractiveness (zig-zag running, crawling, throwing balls, cranks, shuttle runs) obtained a total percentage of 94.6%, which was included in the feasible category. Based on the results of the research that has been done, it can be concluded that the Abhinaya circuit media is safe, easy and interesting and can be used as an alternative to stimulate gross motor skills in early childhood, especially children aged 4-6 years.
Education, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Anita Kit Wa Chan, Lewis T. O. Cheung, Eric King-man Chong
et al.
Abstract With a recent surge in the outward movement of the population, a new wave of emigration has been suggested to have started in Hong Kong. It is speculated that recent socio-political changes in Hong Kong may have contributed to this phenomenon. Therefore, five socio-political variables—mobility, sense of place, trust and confidence in the law and the legal system, global citizenship, and perception of inequality—are employed in this study as proposed determinants to investigate the intention of Hong Kong residents to migrate to mainland China and to other international destinations. A random telephone questionnaire survey representative of the local population was conducted, with a total of 801 valid samples collected. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was carried out. The results showed that all five proposed socio-political variables successfully predicted people’s migration intention to mainland China and to foreign countries, with important variations between the two choices. Our results carry strong implications for understanding people’s concerns behind their intention to emigrate. Further, our findings present a challenge for Hong Kong; society may gradually be failing to accommodate individuals with diverse perceptions and values, particularly in terms of trust and confidence in the law and the legal system, and individuals’ sense of global citizenship.
Agnieszka Trąbka, Luka Klimavičiūtė, Olga Czeranowska
et al.
Abstract The reintegration of return migrants has been an important issue in migration studies for several decades. While much research has been done to identify returnees’ strategies and their labour market situation in their country of origin, little attention has been devoted to their attachment, especially in quantitative studies. This paper seeks to address this gap, analysing predictors of place attachment and belonging among Polish and Lithuanian returnees from the United Kingdom. We consider autobiographical factors connected to migration history and time spent in a place; relational factors linked to social networks, bonds and contacts; cultural factors connected to feeling “at home”; and economic and welfare factors primarily linked to economic stability and job opportunities. Our analysis is based on a web survey of Polish and Lithuanian returnees conducted in 2020 (n = 740). The results reveal that the influence of autobiographical, cultural and relational determinants on returnees’ attachment is greater than the influence of their labour market position.
Cities are typical dynamic complex systems that connect people and facilitate interactions. Revealing universal collective patterns behind spatio-temporal interactions between residents is crucial for various urban studies, of which we are still lacking a comprehensive understanding. Massive cellphone data enable us to construct interaction networks based on spatio-temporal co-occurrence of individuals. The rank-size distributions of hourly dynamic population of locations are stable, although people are almost constantly moving in cities and hotspots that attract people are changing over time in a day. A larger city is of a stronger heterogeneity as indicated by a larger scaling exponent. After aggregating spatio-temporal interaction networks over consecutive time windows, we reveal a switching behavior of cities between two states. During the "active" state, the whole city is concentrated in fewer larger communities; while in the "sleeping" state, people are scattered in more smaller communities. Above discoveries are universal over diversified cities across continents. In addition, a city sleeps less, when its population grows larger. And spatio-temporal interaction segregation can be well approximated by residential segregation in smaller cities, but not in larger ones. We propose a temporal-population-weighted-opportunity model by integrating time-dependent departure probability to make dynamic predictions on human mobility, which can reasonably well explain observed patterns of spatio-temporal interactions in cities.
Thomas Beelen, Ella Velner, Roeland Ordelman
et al.
Our research project (CHATTERS) is about designing a conversational robot for children's digital information search. We want to design a robot with a suitable conversation, that fosters a responsible trust relationship between child and robot. In this paper we give: 1) a preliminary view on an empirical study around children's trust in robots that provide information, which was conducted via video call due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2) We also give a preliminary analysis of a co-design workshop we conducted, where the pandemic may have impacted children's design choices. (3) We close by describing the upcoming research activities we are developing.
Characterizing the spatial organization of urban systems is a challenge which points to the more general problem of describing marked point processes in spatial statistics. We propose a non-parametric method that goes beyond standard tools of point pattern analysis and which is based on a mapping between the points and a "dominance tree", constructed from a recursive analysis of their Voronoi tessellation. Using toy models, we show that the height of a node in this tree encodes both its mark and the structure of its neighborhood, reflecting its importance in the system. We use historical population data in France (1876-2018) and the US (1880-2010) and show that the method highlights multiscale urban dynamics experienced by these countries. These include non-monotonous city trajectories in the US, as revealed by the evolution of their height in the tree. We show that the height of a city in the tree is less sensitive to different statistical definitions of cities than its rank in the urban hierarchy. The method also captures the attraction basins of cities at successive scales, and while in both countries these basin sizes become more homogeneous at larger scales, they are also more heterogeneous in France than in the US. Finally, we introduce a simple graphical representation - the height clock - that monitors the evolution of the role of each city in its country.
The percentage of urban areas dedicated to streets and public spaces is a crucial feature of the spatial planning of cities. By 2050 urban mobility will be one of the biggest confronts for global cities. This study has been carried out to assess the ratio of public space allocated to the streets in some cities of Bangladesh. The length, width, area, and number of street crossings have been counted for the city core and its suburban area as an indicator of the form and pattern of the street layout. This exercise does not consider the rest of the public spaces, like gardens and general public spaces for amenities, including sports. The methodology of data collection has been through Google Earth and GIS software. For precise results, other more sophisticated software is essential. Nevertheless, even at these levels of precision, very interesting city patterns emerge. The findings of this study show that Bogra, Rangpur, and Dinajpur are better cities having higher land allocation rates for streets, including sufficient crossings. Nilphamari and Thakurgaon have lower land areas for roads; tend to have lower connectivity and productivity. The rest of the cities have an average land area for roads and an average number of street crossings.
Abstract Most research on international retirement migration has focused on the Western context and the motivations and lifestyle choices of migrants when they are healthy. This paper instead explores how British retirees in Spain and Japanese retirees in Malaysia respond to declining health and increasing care needs through bricolage as they begin to ‘age in place’. The paper combines qualitative interviews, focus groups and observations collected by the authors from 215 British and Japanese international retirement migrants. We focus on two key types of bricolage behaviour: ‘within-system bricolage’ undertaken by migrants to help them access and navigate existing health and care systems; and ‘added-to-system bricolage’ that is enacted to fill gaps in health and care provision. Our analysis suggests that IRMs engage in ‘transnational care bricolage’ by combining multiple economic, social and legal resources across local and transnational spaces to address their health and care needs.