This book presents the theory and practical applications of the Master equation approach, which provides a powerful general framework for model building in a variety of disciplines. The aim of the book is to not only highlight different mathematical solution methods, but also reveal their potential by means of practical examples. Part I of the book, which can be used as a toolbox, introduces selected statistical fundamentals and solution methods for the Master equation. In Part II and Part III, the Master equation approach is applied to important applications in the natural and social sciences. The case studies presented mainly hail from the social sciences, including urban and regional dynamics, population dynamics, dynamic decision theory, opinion formation and traffic dynamics; however, some applications from physics and chemistry are treated as well, underlining the interdisciplinary modelling potential of the Master equation approach. Drawing upon the author's extensive teaching and research experience and consulting work, the book offers a valuable guide for researchers, graduate students and professionals alike.

The Volume and Dynamics of International Migration provides a theoretical account of the causes, nature, and extent of the movement of international South-North migrants between affluent and poorer countries. The puzzle is: why are there so few international migrants out of most places? And why are there so many out of so few places? Only once migration out of a few places has started, do we see relatively more people moving. Mass mobility proceeds only when migrant networks turn local assets into transnational ones. The book also examines the reasons why many immigrants continue to keep ties to their places of origin, and why these ties do not hinder the adaptation of newcomers to immigration countries. These ties span immigration and emigration countries and form transnational social spaces, ranging from border-crossing families to refuges diasporas. Transnational social formations carry far-reaching implications for immigration adaptation, dual citizenship, and transnationalizing civil societites. The author provides an empirical grounding for his arguments by analysing the Turkish-German example.

The Irish Famine of 1845-49 was a major modern catastrophe. The return of the potato blight in 1846 triggered a huge exodus of destitute Irish seeking refuge in British towns and 1847 witnessed an unprecedented inflow of Irish refugees into Britain. This book examines the scale of that refugee immigration, the conditions under which the refugees were carried to Britain, the relief operations mounted, the horrors of the typhus epidemic in Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, South Wales and the North-East, and the financial cost to the British ratepayers.

While the dream of moving to a small town in a beautiful rural area is common among many Americans, that dream often turns into a nightmare for those who decide to follow it. More than half of the people who move to small towns in recreational places will move away in less than five years, and their rapid successive moves are often marked by anger and frustration as they encounter the realities of poor job possibilities, an impersonal life, and a deteriorating natural environment. Jobes describes the experiences of newcomers, and oldtimers, to Bozeman, Montana, a small Rocky Mountain town Jobes has observed and researched since the early 1970s. Through interviews and observations, Jobes has found that newcomers arrive with unrealistic illusions about life in a small town and that life in such places is simultaneously complex and dynamic.

According to Jobes, people who make the move to small towns surrounded by a beautiful natural environment tend to experience a short period of euphoria followed by disillusionment and the decision to move away, while those who stay accommodate to the inevitable transformations of the local community and the surrounding natural environment that they and other newcomers have created. Jobes examines the changes that take place in these areas as development and growth cause the natural environment to rapidly develop and as the influx and constant turnover of new residents gradually undermine the personal and familiar foundations for the social community. The demographic and environmental changes, Jobes concludes, impose dynamic adjustments within the community, and the slower patterns of small town life give way to the faster and disjointed styles of the city.

In contrast to the dispersion of slaves across the Atlantic, African movement to Asia has received scant attention. However, Britain's commemoration in 2007 of the bicentennial of its abolishing the trans-Atlantic slave trade has now stimulated interest in other African migrations.In a book that encompasses the strong military impact made by even first-generation African migrants in Asia, as well as the descendants of the royal Africans who governed Sachin and Janjira (India), Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya further demonstrates that African music and dance have not only survived the brutalities of forced migration but have also contributed to the local Middle Eastern and South Asian arts scene. Combining historical accounts, both documented and oral, this groundbreaking work explores - through case studies, and through the processes of assimilation, social mobility, and marginalization - the silent history and conflicting identity of Asia's Africans.

This book is intended for researchers, practitioners and students who are interested in the current trends and want to make their GI applications and research dynamic. Time is the key element of contemporary GIS: mobile and wearable electronics, sensor networks, UAVs and other mobile snoopers, the IoT and many other resources produce a massive amount of data every minute, which is naturally located in space as well as in time. Time series data is transformed into almost (from the human perspective) continuous data streams, which require changes to the concept of spatial data recording, storage and manipulation. This book collects the latest innovative research presented at the GIS Ostrava 2017 conference held in 2017 in Ostrava, Czech Republic, under the auspices of EuroSDR and EuroGEO. The accepted papers cover various aspects of dynamics in GIscience, including spatiotemporal data analysis and modelling; spatial mobility data and trajectories; real-time geodata and real-time applications; dynamics in land use, land cover and urban development; visualisation of dynamics; open spatiotemporal data; crowdsourcing for spatiotemporal data and big spatiotemporal data.

A thorough overview of the populations and social forces that have shaped the character of racial and ethnic diversity in the United States. Racial and Ethnic Diversity in America: A Reference Handbook documents how diversity as part of the social fabric of American society has changed its character over time. Adalberto Aguirre, an expert on race and ethnic relations, provides a descriptive presentation of racial and ethnic populations in America, with special focus on the latter part of the 20th century. Aguirre traces population shifts through time, explores the changing character of diversity in the United States, and addresses the impact of these changes on social institutions in 21st-century America. Social and demographic data identify the size of racial and ethnic populations, document educational, economic, and occupational characteristics, and illustrate the relative status of each racial and ethnic group. This up to date reference work also features biographical profiles and detailed listings of organizations and resources. A chronology of major social events and legislative decisions associated with racial and ethnic populations in America, from the emergence of the colonies to the 21st century Biographical sketches of racial and ethnic minority individuals who have made notable contributions to American society

Survivors of the Holocaust accounted for fully one-half of the wave of immigration into Israel in the aftermath of World War II. These survivors were among the first to enter the gates of the new state following its founding in 1948.

In this important addition to our understanding of the social integration of Holocaust survivors into postwar society, Hanna Yablonka draws on a wealth of primary materials such as recently released archival material, letters, newspapers, internal army magazines, and personal interviews, to examine, from all sides, the charged encounters between survivors of the Holocaust and the veteran Jewish population in Israel.

Yablonka details the role the new immigrants played in the War of Independence, their settlement of towns and villages abandoned by Arabs during the war, and the ways in which Israeli society accepted-and often did not accept-them into the armed forces, the kibbutz movements, and the trade unions.

Survivors of the Holocaust illuminates the ways in which Israeli society grew and developed through its emotional and sometimes contentious relations with the arriving survivors and how, against all odds, the survivors of the Holocaust and their offspring became pillars of modern Israeli society.

Within the ever-changing global map of migrations, Southern Europe has come to occupy a strategic position. As Europe struggles to control immigration from the developing world, the EU's southern flank is perceived as the weak flank of Fortress Europe. This book examines the many facets of Southern Europe's new immigration - the diverse roles played by immigrants in the labour market, issues of social and spatial exclusion, the slow evolution of policy, and wider strategic concerns of security and geopolitics.

This contributed volume applies cliometric methods to the study of family and households in order to derive global patterns and determine their impact on economic development. Family and households are a fundamental feature of societies and economies. They are found throughout history and are the place where key decisions on fertility, labour force participation, education, consumption are made. This is especially relevant for the position of women. The book gathers key insights from a variety of fields - economics, history, demography, anthropology, biology - to shed light on the relation between family organisation and the long-term process of economic development.

Immigrants and their American-born children represent about one quarter of the United States population. Drawing on rich, in-depth ethnographic research, the fascinating case studies in Across Generations examine the intricacies of relations between the generations in a broad range of immigrant groups--from Latin America, Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa--and give a sense of what everyday life is like in immigrant families.

Moving beyond the cliche of the children of immigrants engaging in pitched battles against tradition-bound parents from the old country, these vivid essays offer a nuanced view that brings out the ties that bind the generations as well as the tensions that divide them. Tackling key issues like parental discipline, marriage choices, educational and occupational expectations, legal status, and transnational family ties, Across Generations brings crucial insights to our understanding of the United States as a nation of immigrants.

Contributors: Leisy Abrego, JoAnn D'Alisera, Joanna Dreby, Yen Le Espiritu, Greta Gilbertson, Nazli Kibria, Cecilia Menjivar, Jennifer E. Sykes, Mary C. Waters, and Min Zhou."

This book explores the reasons why adult ESL learners drop out of their language classes and suggests explicit strategies for keeping students engaged. The most effective strategies may be personal rather than technical or curricular. Based on a study of a group of Mexican immigrants to the US, the author proposes that superacion or 'self-actualization' is crucial to understanding the relative success of adult ESL learners. Learners' decisions to drop out were not hasty or superficial but were based on a commonsense assessment concerning how the class might improve the quality of their lives. Those involved in delivering ESL to adult learners should stress the tangible, practical advantages that accrue with learning English, and at the same time strive to make instruction relevant.

Moving away from state categorizations on irregular migration, this Research Handbook critically examines processes and dynamics that generate and reproduce irregularity, and discusses who may count as an irregular migrant. Acknowledging that irregular migration is not just a South-North issue, chapters investigate the many different pathways into irregularity, demonstrating the benefits of understanding dynamics behind irregular migration over statistics. Organised into six thematic parts covering key issues such as approaches and perspectives for research, informal labour and the challenges faced by migrant families, global contributors from a variety of disciplines provide an expert review of geographical and historical paths into irregular migration. Offering their background knowledge and highlighting tools to better understand how irregular migration is linked to geopolitics and migration policies, the Research Handbook on Irregular Migration guides readers through the complex issues facing migrants worldwide. Written in a comprehensive yet accessible style, this Research Handbook will be an excellent resource for undergraduate and graduate students as well researchers and academics interested in migration, policy, law, security, border crossing, informal labour, crime and civil support to migrants.

This study seeks to explore the myriad forms of representation of the French public as a whole, and of specific socio-cultural groups in French society, by means of collectively-shared myths and metaphors. The book also examines visual, linguistic and textual media, and political participation and practice. It considers diametrical questions of belonging or marginality, social struggle or social cohesion, and explores how the various forms of identity are created and maintained. The approach is multidisciplinary, using recent research in various disciplines from contributors in France and the UK. The book aims to provide a coherent and multi-faceted study of socio-cultural identity and citizenship in France.

The Partition of India in 1947 involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and the Punjab, based on district-wise Hindu or Muslim majorities. The Partition displaced between 10 and 12 million people along religious lines. This book provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the resettlement and rehabilitation of Partition refugees in Pakistani Punjab between 1947 and 1962. It weaves a chronological and thematic plot into a single narrative, and focuses on the Punjabi refugee middle and upper-middle class. Emphasising the everyday experience of the state, the author challenges standard interpretations of the resettlement of Partition refugees in the region and calls for a more nuanced understanding of their rehabilitation. The book argues the universality of the so-called 'exercise in human misery', and the heterogeneity of the rehabilitation policies. Refugees' stories and interactions with local institutions reveal the inability of the local bureaucracy to establish its own 'polity' and the viable workability of Pakistan as a state. The use of Pakistani documents, US and British records and a careful survey of both the judicial records and the Urdu and English-language dailies of the time, provides an invaluable window onto the everyday life of a state, its institutions and its citizens. A carefully researched study of both the state and the everyday lives of refugees as they negotiated resettlement, through both personal and official channels, the book offers an important reinterpretation of the first years of Pakistani history. It will be of interest to academics working in the field of refugee resettlement and South Asian History and Politics.

Midway through the eighteenth century, the rate of growth for the world's population was roughly at zero. Immediately after World War II, it was just above 2 percent. Ever since, it has fallen steadily. This new book, the latest offering from a distinguished expert on international economics, tells readers what this stagnation or fall in population will mean--economically, politically, and historically--for the nations of the world.
W. W. Rostow not only traces the whole global arc of this "great population spike"--he looks far beyond it. What he sees will interest anyone curious about what is in store for the world's financial and governmental systems. The Great Population Spike and After: Reflections on the 21st Century contends that, as the decline in population now occurring in the industrialized world spreads to all of the presently developing countries, the global rate of population will fall to the "zero" level circa 2100. (Indeed, with the exception of Africa south of the Sahara, it could reach "zero" long before then.) This being so, how will it be possible to maintain full employment and social services with a decelerating population? What will societies do when the proportion of the working force (as now defined) diminishes radically in relation to the population of poor or elderly dependents? How will the countries of the world confront subsequent decreases in population-related investment?
In answering these queries, this bold study asserts that the United States is not the "last remaining superpower" but the "critical margin" without whose support no constructive action on the world scene can succeed. Rostow takes the view that world peace will depend on ourgovernment's ability to assume responsibly this "critical margin" role. Further, he argues that, over a period of time, the execution of this strategy on the international scene will require a bipartisan, relentless effort to solve the combustible social problems that weaken not only our cities but our whole society.

This unique and well-researched study takes a systematic look at the incredible rise in the life expectancy of the population of Albania, one of the world's poorest countries. Through a careful analysis of newly available archive documents and statistics, Gjon^D,ca examines the social, economic, and political factors behind the success of improving life expectancy at birth from 51 to 71 years in a relatively short period of time and despite extreme poverty and strict isolationist governmental policies. The research, based on data obtained primarily from the Albanian State Archives, which opened in 1994, attempts to explain why the Albanian pattern of mortality, with very high infant and child mortality and very low adult mortality, is so different from that of other East European countries with similar social and economic conditions. Using many tables, figures, and other data to illustrate the trends, the author concludes that lifestyle factors, and to a lesser extent government policies directed at health care, are the most likely determinants of Albania's successful mortality transition. In his attempt to shed new light on the phenomena of Albania's remarkable success in shifting patterns of mortality, the author compares the changes with those experienced by other similar countries in an effort to determine whether the Albanian success was part of an overall improvement among countries that have good health at low cost or if the Albanian way is a novel route to low mortality in developing countries. To support his conclusion that Albania's success largely depended on lifestyle, he carefully examines the changes in disease and infection, dietary patterns and lifestyle, education and urbanization, fertility levels, and regional differences. By providing a brief but detailed background of the country itself, and its policies and programs to promote lower mortality, Gjon^D,ca offers readers an interesting portrait of the transitions that have taken place in this poorest of countries.

Population mobility increases with economic development and globalization. The migration of people affects countries in many ways -- socially, economically and politically. However, there are fundamental tensions in efforts to manage international migration in a globalizing world. On the one hand, business is transnational as it necessitates the unrestricted flow of people internationally. On the other hand, politics is still national. In an integrated world economy, trade, flow of capital, flow of labour, flow of raw materials and technology are inter-related. This study therefore examines international migration in the context of an integrated world economy. Specifically, it looks at the history of migration in modern Southeast Asia; investments, remittances and welfare; the vulnerability of workers; national migration policies; and the problem of irregular migrants.