Each year, around 10,000 foreigners obtain a U.S. residence visa after investing half a million dollars or more. Who are the millionaires that acquire these visas and what motivates them to leave ...their home countries? To answer this question, I analyzed an original data set that combines U.S. visa statistics with data on global millionaire populations. The analysis produced three key findings. First, demand for investor visas was led by millionaires from countries that ranked lower in the global hierarchy of citizenship value. Second, most of the visas were acquired by Chinese millionaires, who recorded the world's highest application rate. Third, when the quality of democracy in a country declined, visa applications surged. These findings suggest that investor visas are used by elites in less developed countries to hedge against the risks associated with authoritarian rule. Such elites perceive investor visas as a foothold in a stable and democratic country that can provide an insurance policy or exit option.
The dynamic field of scientific education, particularly in chemistry and biology, demands the implementation of innovative teaching strategies, driving the need for continuous research to enhance ...skills in both educators and students. This systematic literature review (SLR) delves into the evolving landscape of chemistry and biology education research, shedding light on key trends, strategies, and skills. Employing the PRISMA methodology, we scrutinized 81 papers to assess the employment of resources, technologies, and methods conducive to effective learning and research. Searches were conducted in the Scopus and Google Scholar databases, with inclusion criteria spanning English and Spanish studies from the last five years. The analysis reveals a notable shift in recent years, emphasizing the diversification of instructional approaches, integration of sustainable practices, and a heightened focus on fostering essential research skills for both educators and students. The study underscores the significant adaptation to digital tools and virtual environments, potentially influenced by the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Remarkable findings include the growing importance of cognitive, social, and emotional competence in student development. This work provides valuable insights for educators, researchers, and policymakers cross-talking the dynamic intersection of teaching and research in chemistry and biology education. Systematic review registration: Identifier 001-RS-FCIC-PQB-UNACH-2023.
Background
Inclusive research with people with intellectual disabilities is growing internationally but with few studies examining its feasibility.
Methods
In undertaking a national study exploring ...what life was like in Ireland for people with intellectual disabilities, a community of practice was developed involving a core group of co‐researchers: five people with intellectual disabilities, four university researchers and three service support staff. An additional cadre of 15 co‐researchers with intellectual disabilities was recruited to undertake data gathering and analysis with 23 focus groups involving 168 participants. The research experience was documented through oral feedback, progress reports, minutes and a project review.
Results and conclusions
The key learning is documented arising from the setting up of an inclusive advisory group and implementation of each of six research steps. The study demonstrates feasibility and the added value of university co‐researchers recruiting and developing skills together with co‐researchers with intellectual disabilities. Topics for further research and development are identified.
Accessible
This paper tells you about how people with intellectual disabilities worked with a group of university researchers. Both groups were called co‐researchers and together they ran 23 focus groups across Ireland. People with intellectual disabilities talked about their lives and what could make them better. They said they needed to have a good place to live; a job; enough money; relationships; and acceptance as respected citizens.
The university co‐researchers wrote about what it was like doing research together and how people with intellectual disabilities joined the advisory group; decided on the questions; ran focus groups; and presented findings.
Together they grew into a community of researchers where the university co‐researchers shared their research skills and people with intellectual disabilities shared what it was like living with a disability. They both saw great value in working together and plan to work more to make this type of research happen.
How can strategic decision-making be reinforced through reliable forecasts of technological change? Observations of strategic forecasts have shown that they mainly rely upon expert opinions. To turn ...these opinions into consistent knowledge about the future, we need to manage cognitive biases using provable models. Observed forecasting methods provide useful tools for exploiting expert knowledge and data, but management of cognitive bias remains underdeveloped. To improve the situation with cognitive biases in technology forecasting, the Researching Future method (RFm) offers a mixed methods approach. This article introduces RFm, a method that combines a problem-based approach and a logistic function, unified by an applied resources paradigm. A practical case study is described to illustrate and validate RFm, and the results, limitations, and perspectives of RFm are then examined. The article contributes to the technology forecasting methodology and is of interest to copper mining technology R&D specialists, among others.
This article intends to elaborate the significance of a public control on counteracting the legalization of criminal incomes in developing legal democratic country. End of article includes ...suggestions and recommendations. Proper analysis of compliance with criminal law, including criminal procedure and procedural rules, to eliminate all forms of corruption
In the book on Re-theorizing Literacy Practices edited by Bloome, Castanheira, Leung & Rowsell (2019) is the following quotation grounded in the work of Brian Street that represents a critical ...definition of literacy practices central to the papers presented in this special issue of Trabalhos em Linguística Aplicada/Papers in Applied Linguistics focusing on Researching practices in literacies across languages and social domains: International Perspectives.
Despite widespread acceptance of the idea of working across disciplines and methods in climate change research, the interpretive social sciences continue to be relatively neglected in ...interdisciplinary research endeavours. Much greater appreciation across epistemological differences is necessary for inclusive collaborative efforts, which in turn requires explicit discussion of what those differences are. Based on the author's participation in an interdisciplinary research project on climate change in Tibet, this article discusses three conceptual challenges: knowledge, system and ontology.
This commentary article outlines and explores the key problem that faces anyone interested in researching and understanding what might be thought of as a recursive society. It reflects on the problem ...that is posed by the layering of multiple feedback loops as a result of algorithmic sorting and data processes. This article is concerned with the difficulties of understanding the social where recursive algorithmic processes have repeatedly shaped outcomes, practices, relations and actions over time. This is not just about the sinking of algorithms into the everyday, it is about the way that loop-upon-loop of data processes lead to the social world itself being recursive. This repeated looping is described here as a kind of data coiling. The article argues for a focus on recursivity and for an engagement with the conceptual problems and questions that this notion implies.
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•The clinical outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection is largely variable, and with differential age/gender related manifestations.•Some exceptional individuals recover from illness and ...COVID-19 complications in spite of their extreme age (nonagenarians/centenarians).•Studies on genetic and epigenetic factors on longevity trait might characterize the resistance to SARS-CoV-2 infection.•Long-lived Italian people, with multi-omics investigations could identify genetic/epigenetic basis of resistance and pharmacological targets for preventing or reducing viral infection in susceptible individuals.
Like other infectious diseases, COVID-19 shows a clinical outcome enormously variable, ranging from asymptomatic to lethal. In Italy, like in other countries, old male individuals, with one or more comorbidity, are the most susceptible group, and show, consequently, the highest mortality, and morbidity, including lethal respiratory distress syndrome, as the most common complication. In addition, another extraordinary peculiarity, that is a surprising resistance to COVID-19, characterizes some Italian nonagenarians/centenarians. Despite having the typical COVID-19 signs and/or symptoms, such exceptional individuals show a surprising tendency to recover from illness and complications. On the other hand, long-lived people have an optimal performance of immune system related to an overexpression of anti-inflammatory variants in immune/inflammatory genes, as demonstrated by our and other groups. Consequently, we suggest long-lived people as an optimal model for detecting genetic profiles associated with the susceptibility and/or protection to COVID-19, to utilize as potential pharmacological targets for preventing or reducing viral infection in more vulnerable individuals.
Climate change, along with other so-called global challenges, demands that scholars work across disciplines. Drawing on Donna Haraway's idea of situated knowledges, this paper develops an approach to ...mixing disciplines by engaging in epistemological pluralism, or approaching a research problem through more than one way of conceptualising it. The example of climate change adaptation planning in Nepal is used to show how a hybrid methodology research design requires thinking through what can be known and also what cannot be known by using a particular method. The main argument is that it is not possible to prove methodologically which conceptualisation or analytical entry point is better than another. Rather, new insights are gained both by triangulating data from different methods, and by probing the ways that they present contradictory results. An interdisciplinary research design is therefore used as a kind of kaleidoscope wherein plural epistemologies help to reveal new, albeit partial and situated, patterns.