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Abstract This paper explores the socio-economic conditions that produce the lack of affordable housing in cities along the U.S.-Mexico border and describes various efforts to tackle this issue. Specifically, the paper evaluates publicly funded initiatives such as Casas Urbi and Homex, privately funded projects, as well as community based initiatives such as the work of the non-profit organization Fundación Esperanza de Mexico in the city of Tijuana. The paper interrogates the use of self-build construction systems, volunteer support, community empowerment, ecological programs, and affordable financing as a framework for future affordable housing developments in the area. Highlights • In border cities manufacturing plants attract workers in need of affordable housing. • Private self-build and large-scale public projects have not been successful. • Community participation strategies have shown to be successful at small scales. • Esperanza de Mexico is building high-quality affordable housing in Tijuana. • This represents a new and promising strategy for affordable housing in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper explores mothers' experiences of masculinity in the context of child obesity in Mexico. The paper draws on face to face interviews with 10 medical staff working at the child obesity clinic at Federico Gómez Children's Hospital in Mexico City and on interviews with 16 mothers and 1 grandmother of children diagnosed with obesity and morbid obesity. Through an analysis of medical discourses and practices the paper identifies a tendency to underestimate the extent to which fathers are involved in shaping the family diet and other health related practices. The paper argues that mothers' experiences of masculinity reflect ways of resisting the increased blame placed on them. Through their voices, mothers expose silenced family dynamics of food and other health-related habits and patterns. The invisibility of fathers in medical and academic discourse works to feed mother blaming and misleads medical practices and policies designed to address child obesity in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the experiences of adolescents from mixed migratory status families affected by deportation. We analyze the impacts on their mental and emotional health when they are separated from one parent in the United States, forcibly displaced with another to Oaxaca, and experience the consequences of their deportation in Mexico. We use a qualitative and ethnographic methodology. This paper focuses on data from semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 15 parents who had been deported from the United States and 53 adolescents who moved with them to Mexico. The data was collected between 2018 and 2020. The main findings show the existence of emotions that are sustained in the transnational flow and acquire new nuances upon return. They also show the emergence of new conditions related to family separation, all of which have an impact on the adolescents' well-being and on important areas of their lives, such as education. The research contributes to knowledge in two main ways: 1) it addresses the impacts of parental deportation on the well-being of adolescents in mixed-status families, which have typically focused on children; 2) it studies how parental deportation affects the mental and emotional health of adolescents de facto deported to Mexico, a field still little studied. • De facto deportation has mental health consequences among adolescents. • The forced nature of de facto deportation produces helplessness, aggression and anger. • The code of silence associated with deportation generates fear, stress, anxiety. • Ambiguous loss is accentuated at important moments in academic and developmental life. • Family separation and de facto deportation affect school performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Latinx and Indigenous Mexican populations in the United States Southwest live in unincorporated communities in the US-Mexico borderlands called colonias. These environmental justice communities often lack basic infrastructure, including healthcare services, prompting many to seek services across the border. However, due to geopolitical factors more vulnerable caregivers are limited to utilize healthcare services in the US. This paper reports the experiences and healthcare decision-making of caregivers living in colonias in the US-Mexico border region who care for children with respiratory health conditions. This study was carried out from September to December 2020. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with Latinx and Indigenous Mexican caregivers of children with asthma or respiratory distress. Qualitative interviews elicited caregivers' perspectives on the environmental factors affecting children's chronic health conditions and use of healthcare services. The analysis employed the concept of structure vulnerability to theorize geography as a structural determinant of health for caregivers faced with making healthcare decisions for their suffering from respiratory health conditions. A survey was administered to collect basic sociodemographic information. A total of 36 caregivers participated in the study. Structural factors including unincorporated community status and government inaction intersected with social determinants of health to prompt caregivers to cross the US-Mexico border to access healthcare services in Mexico for their children. Yet, more vulnerable caregivers (i.e., those without documentation status in the US) and their children, accessing healthcare services in the US was not an option limiting caregivers' ability to meet their children's healthcare needs. In such cases, geography acts as a structural determinant of health. This study shows the importance of geography in health. Rural unincorporated colonias located in the borderlands are precariously located and lack basic critical infrastructure including healthcare access. Within such places, historically and socially marginalized populations become invisible, are subject to the health effects of environmental hazards, and are limited depending on their positionality and thus vulnerability to healthcare services. • Municipal unincorporation contributes to health disparities among Latinx families in US-Mexico borderlands. • Latinx children in colonias are disproportionately exposed to environmental toxins. • Geography acts as a structural determinant of health for Latinx families in colonias. • A binational approach to health services should be prioritized for families in the borderlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographic Information Science (GIScience) technology has been used to document, investigate, and predict patterns that may be of utility in both forensic academic research and applied practice. In examining spatial and temporal trends of the mass disaster that is occurring along the U.S.-Mexico border, other researchers have highlighted predictive patterns for search and recovery efforts as well as water station placement. The purpose of this paper is to use previously collected spatial data of migrant deaths from Arizona to address issues of data uncertainty and data accuracy that affect our understanding of this phenomenon, including local and federal policies that impact the U.S.-Mexico border. The main objective of our study was to explore how the locations of migrant deaths have varied over time. Our results confirm patterns such as a lack of relationship between Border Patrol apprehensions and migrant deaths, as well as highlight new patterns such as the increased positional accuracy of migrant deaths recorded closer to the border. This paper highlights the importance of using positionally accurate data to detect spatio-temporal trends in forensic investigations of mass disasters: without qualitative and quantitative information concerning the accuracy of the data collected, the reliability of the results obtained remains questionable. We conclude by providing a set of guidelines for standardizing the collection and documentation of migrant remains at the U.S.-Mexico border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Tactical infrastructure transforms the geography of unauthorized migration routes. • The location of tactical infrastructure correlates to the distribution of human remains over time. • The United States' ultimate objective on the border is not to cause death but to deter behavior. • The logic of deterrence shares a genealogy with U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine and practice. • Deterrence logic materializes state violence through the fabric of the built environment. In public statements and archival documents U.S. officials have repeatedly made explicit their intention that the deployment of tactical infrastructure along the Mexico/United States border will contribute to the "funneling" of unauthorized migration toward increasingly remote and difficult routes of travel. By amplifying the suffering, risk and uncertainty to which migrants are exposed, it is intended that others in the future will be deterred from considering a similar journey. In this paper, we use the phrase "corral apparatus" to name how heterogeneous elements like walls, checkpoints and surveillance towers combine to form a common architecture of deterrence. We then undertake geospatial modeling of the relationship between this apparatus and the spatiotemporal distribution of human mortality across two major unauthorized migration corridors in southern Arizona. Our analysis identifies a meaningful relationship between the location of these infrastructures and patterns of mortality observed over time. Yet it bears emphasis that the United States government's ultimate objective is not to kill people, but to manipulate their behavior. To reflect on this point, we explore the relationship between deterrence theory and counterinsurgency as a particular framework of governance, one that emphasizes the targeting of coercive action against a population in order to immobilize an adversary. We discuss how an elaboration on this framework provides clear analytic purchase for understanding connections between those infrastructures of deterrence deployed in remote desert areas and a number of more recent carceral practices and enforcement initiatives undertaken by the United States along its border with Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper utilizes eighteen months of ethnographic and interview research undertaken in 2003 and 2004 as well as follow-up fieldwork from 2005 to 2007 to explore the sociocultural factors affecting the interactions and barriers between U.S. biomedical professionals and their unauthorized Mexican migrant patients. The participants include unauthorized indigenous Triqui migrants along a transnational circuit from the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, to central California, to northwest Washington State and the physicians and nurses staffing the clinics serving Triqui people in these locations. The data show that social and economic structures in health care and subtle cultural factors in biomedicine keep medical professionals from seeing the social determinants of suffering of their unauthorized migrant patients. These barriers lead clinicians inadvertently to blame their patients – specifically their biology or behavior – for their suffering. This paper challenges the focus of mainstream cultural competency training by showing that it is not the culture of the patient, but rather the structure and culture of biomedicine that form the primary barriers to effective multicultural health care. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper advances understanding of how unequal risks to environmental hazards are generated. Marginalization is the best known explanation for the production of risk. The concept of marginalization was elaborated through studies of hazards in the global South and connotes how social inequalities constrain livelihood options of less powerful social groups. Thus, marginal groups are pressured to degrade landscapes and occupy hazardous environments while they experience decreased capacities to cope with environmental change. This paper directs analytical attention beyond the material to include the discursive realm and demonstrates that the production of unequal risk is contingent upon how hazards are differentially perceived, represented, and contested in social spaces. Findings from a flood disaster case study in the El Paso (US)–Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) border metropolis highlight how hegemonic discourses reinforce material processes of marginalization in flood-prone social spaces. Findings also reveal how socially-powerful geographical groups of people have harnessed institutional resources in their efforts to externalize risks and capitalize on environmental opportunities in some flood-prone areas. The concept of facilitation is used to explain the material-discursive production of socially-elite, flood-prone spaces. Facilitation clarifies how powerful groups are provided privileged access to institutional resources in their pursuit of environmental rewards, contributing to unjust socioenvironmental outcomes. In conclusion, I outline key aspects of how unequal risks are materially and discursively (re)produced within hazardscapes through relational processes of marginalization/facilitation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper is a sympathetic critique of the current view of the state and state restructuring in the literature on geographical political economy. We contend that although this literature has developed a view of the state that is far more complex than a crudely determinist or economistic reading, it nevertheless remains limited. The literature analyzes the imperatives that shape state restructuring in a way that ultimately always refers back to the need to preserve capitalist accumulation and maintain the legitimacy of capitalist social relations. We suggest that an effective strategy for moving beyond these limits is a more explicit methodological focus on imperatives beyond capitalist accumulation. To illustrate this strategy, we focus on one such imperative: the need to reproduce a relationship of political legitimacy between state and citizens. We present a case study that examines the significant build-up of U.S.–Mexico boundary enforcement in the 1990s. The case highlights the importance of the political–geographical relation between state and citizen for shaping state policy choices. We find that a critical impetus for the boundary build-up in the 1990s was a complex set of concerns about security that grew dialectically out of interactions between particular state actors and particular groups of citizens. While the build-up could be analyzed insofar as it helped reproduce the relations of capital, such an approach cannot capture the whole story. We conclude the paper by calling for an analysis of the state and state restructuring that extends the current focus on accumulation and capitalist social relations to include a much wider range of imperatives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper investigates the industrial organization of the international drug trade. From the mid 1970s through the early 2000s, a few large-scale and hierarchically organized cartels dominated the market. Since 2006, dozens of smaller and more-specialized units have emerged. We notice that the prohibition efforts of federal governments (primarily Mexico and the U.S.) imposed costs asymmetrically across differently sized drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). Under president Calderon (office held from 2006–2012), efforts were arranged as “kingpin” or “decapitation” strategies and were primarily focused on arresting key leaders of the largest and most infamous operations. This asymmetric enforcement structure evoked unique strategic responses from differently sized DTOs. Larger DTOs splintered into smaller units. Smaller outfits remained small and sought more specialized roles in the more decentralized and competitive supply chain. Furthermore, we argue that subsequent changes in operating costs amidst this less concentrated environment, tended to exaggerate the asymmetric cost structure across differently sized DTOs. Larger DTOs in a more competitive illicit market cannot exploit economies of scale to maintain internal coordination and loyalty as easily as they once could with fewer rival DTOs. In result, the seemingly persistent industrial organization of the international drug trade has remained less concentrated than in previous decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much attention has been given to the effects of migration and remittances on agricultural activities in the communities of origin, the relationship between remittances and rural households' use of natural resources remains understudied. This paper contributes in filling this gap by using a Mexican data set that contains detailed information on both remittances and use of natural resources at the household level. The data set is representative of the rural population of Mexico at the national level, which allows us to move beyond case studies overcoming one of the main challenges for understanding the relationship between livelihoods and the environment. Results show that remittances have significant effects on the use of natural resources by the receiving households. We find that a) remittances decrease the likelihood that a household will participate in natural resource extraction, and b) households that receive remittances and extract natural resources have lower environmental income and lower environmental reliance than households not receiving remittances. By reducing participation in extraction as well as reliance on natural resources, remittances reduce the pressure that local populations put on the natural resource base that surrounds them. This could mean good news for the conservation of natural resources. However, it also shows the vulnerability of Mexico's natural resource to periods of low or negative economic growth in the United States inasmuch as they affect the amount of remittances that migrants send back home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Users of International Land Ports of Entries (LPOEs) at the US – Mexico border experience excessive wait times on a daily basis. This contributes to the increased transportation costs, and also generates health and environmental problems in border regions. Traffic simulation models are effective tools for evaluating passenger vehicle, pedestrian and commercial traffic operations. These tools can be used to assess various scenarios and visualize current traffic conditions. Results obtained from these tools should be taken into account in congestion relief decision making processes. The research team developed, calibrated and validated three traffic models of the Ysleta-Zaragoza LPOE using three different software packages (i.e., TransModeler, VISSIM, and Aimsun). This paper presents advantages and disadvantages of each tool when modeling international LPOEs. Results presented herein can be used by practitioners to decide which tool should to be used for modeling LPOEs at the U.S. – Mexico border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the trajectory of regional income inequality dynamics for two neighboring national systems. Using data on 3038 US counties and 2418 Mexico municipios, from 2000, 2005, and 2010, we employ recent extensions of spatial Markov chains and space-time mobility measures, to consider the following questions: Are regional inequality dynamics fundamentally distinct between Mexico and the United States? Does the role of spatial context influence the distributional dynamics of the two systems? Finally we examine if there is a distinct international border region that displays inequality dynamics different from those of the internal regions of the two national systems. Strong evidence of spatial heterogeneity in regional income mobility is found between the two national systems, with Mexico having higher mobility relative to the US. The international border region is found to have distinct mobility dynamics from either national system, experiencing the strongest mobility. Extensive evidence of spatial contextual effects are found throughout the US-Mexican pooled data set indicating that a region's transitional dynamics are influenced by incomes of neighboring regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the start of the twenty-first century, two arms of U.S. immigration policy shape the lives of families and children. The first, enforcement practices, lead to the involuntary separation of parents and children—or the fears of this outcome—when the United States government detains and forcibly removes the parents of U.S. citizen children. The second, the policies which restrict migration to the United States, cause children to experience both long and short term separations when their parents migrate without them. In this paper I use interviews collected between the years of 2003–2006 and 2009–2012 with children and their parents or guardians in both the United States and in Mexico to assess the meanings these two types of separations have for families and the potential impacts for children's well-being. I find that enforcement practices create economic and emotional hardship due to feelings of uncertainty, while restrictive immigration policies lead to resentment among children even post-reunification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security and safety are extremely important for travelers and the tourism industry. One construct that has remained largely unexplored in explaining visitors' perceived safety while at the destination is their level of emotional solidarity (positive sentiments one feels for another) with destination residents. The purpose of this paper is to examine tourists' perceived safety in two popular tourism destinations in Texas along the Mexico–U.S. border (i.e., the Lower Rio Grande Valley and the Big Bend area) and investigate the extent to which tourists' emotional solidarity with residents predicts their perceptions of safety. Perceptions of safety were higher among visitors to the Big Bend area than they were among visitors to the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Also, visitors high in emotional solidarity (particularly to a dimension pertaining to feeling welcomed) also perceived the tourism destination as relatively safe. Theoretical and practical implications are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Mexico ranks 9th in the world in crude oil reserves, 4th in natural gas reserves in America and it is also highly rich in renewable energy sources (solar, wind, biomasss, hydropower and geothermal). However, the potential of this type of energy has not been fully exploited. Hydropower is the renewable energy source with the highest installed capacity within the country (11,603MW), while geothermal power capacity (958MW) makes Mexico to be ranked 4th in the use of this energy worldwide. Wind energy potential is concentrated in five different zones, mainly in the state of Oaxaca, and solar energy has a high potential due to Mexico's ideal location in the so called Solar Belt. Biomass energy has the highest potential (2635 to 3771PJ/year) and has been the subject of the highest number of research publications in the country during the last 30 years (1982–2012). Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico has led research publications in hydropower, wind, solar and biomass energy and Instituto de Investigaciones Electricas in geothermal energy during this period. According to the General Law for Climate Change the country has set the goal of generating 35% of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2024. This paper presents an overview of the renewable energy options available in Mexico, current status, main positive results to date and future potential. It also analyses barriers hindering improvements and proposes pertinent solutions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Health is firmly on the economic radar. It is big business. In 2009, the proportion of the Gross Domestic Product spent on health care varied between 6.4% in Mexico and 17.4% in the U.S., with the UK at 9.8% and Germany, Switzerland and Canada ∼11%. These are considerable amounts of money and they are growing. With all projections pointing to a growth in the numbers of older people, the pressure on budgets will only increase. In this paper we will consider the role of dementia in this. Methods: Demographic and economic data were combined and policy implications developed. Results: The costs of dementia dwarf those of the illnesses that are currently prioritized at a national and international level such as HIV, cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Based on simple demographics, the costs of dementia are set to increase by 85% by 2030, with developing countries bearing an increasing share of the economic burden. Conclusions: The data suggest that dementia is a clear and present economic challenge for the world from the macro level down to the individual. Before the crisis, governmental structural primary deficits were generally improving and this would have given time and resource to meet the challenges of ageing in general and dementia in particular. However, increasing government debt over the past 3 years has had the effect of our needing to implement reforms to contain the risks to sovereign budgets sooner rather than later. This is not an issue that can be ignored. Inaction will only lead to further debt accumulation in the medium term and the death of systems of care in the long term. Across the developed world, the main long-term fiscal challenges come from health care costs, and dementia is a major driver of those costs. There is a need for budgetary consolidation and pension reform more generally. But, given that dementia is the highest ticket health and social care item that we have, making up 60% of long term care spending according to some estimates, then targeted investment in early intervention and in research (into causes, cure and care) are likely to be of major value in personal, societal, political, and economic terms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Socio-environmental vulnerable populations are often unrepresented in land-use planning yet have great potential for loss when exposed to changes in ecosystem services. Administrative boundaries, cultural differences, and language barriers increase the disassociation between land-use management and marginalized populations living in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. This paper describes the development of a Modified Socio-Environmental Vulnerability Index (M-SEVI), using determinants from binational census and neighborhood data that describe levels of education, access to resources, migratory status, housing, and number of dependents, to provide a simplified snapshot of the region’s populace that can be used in binational planning efforts. We apply this index at the SCW, located on the border between Arizona, USA and Sonora, Mexico. For comparison, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool is concurrently applied to assess the provision of erosion- and flood control services over a 9-year period. We describe how this coupling of data can form the base for an ecosystem services assessment across political boundaries that can be used by land-use planners. Results reveal potential disparities in environmental risks and burdens throughout the binational watershed in residential districts surrounding and between urban centers. The M-SEVI can be used as an important first step in addressing environmental justice for binational decision-making. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There has been a long and intensive debate within the scientific community about the role of international trade in the development of countries. During the last decades, the focus of attention has moved from the pure economic level to the environmental aspects of international trade. Establishing a simplified system of North–South trade for one reference period (2003), this paper attempts to test empirically the extent of potential asymmetries with regard to extracted material flows, and contrasts the results with the economic benefits from trade (in terms of value-added). The South is thereby represented by a selection of Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico), the North comprises one of their main commercial partners, the United States. At the methodological level, a multi-regional input–output analysis is used as the tool of investigation. Results generally support the hypothesis that the South was feeding the North's societal metabolism. South–North material exports were 1.6 times larger than North–South material exports, resulting in a net deficit for the South of 324 million tons. Moreover, material intensity of exported commodities from the South was twice as high as that from the North. It is worth highlighting, however, that part of the North-South hypothesis fails for the sample of countries since the larger part of the economic surplus has remained in the South, contrarily to what would have been expected. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Over the course of the 20th century, Mexico-U.S. migration has emerged as an important facet of both countries, with far reaching economic and social impacts. The health of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. has been well studied, but relatively less is known about the health of returned migrants to Mexico. The objectives of this paper are twofold. Relying on health data pertaining to two stages of the life course, early life health (pre-migration) and adult health (post-migration) from the Mexican Migration Project gathered between 2007 and 2009, we aim to assess disparities in adult health status between male returned migrants and male non-migrants in Mexico, accounting for their potentially different early life health profiles. While we find evidence that returned migrants had more favorable early life health, the results for adult health are more complex. Returned migrants have a higher prevalence of heart disease, emotional/psychiatric disorders, obesity, and smoking than non-migrants but no differences are found in self-rated health, diabetes, or hypertension. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The international climate change negotiations leading to and including the Copenhagen and Cancun Conferences of the Parties in 2009 and 2010 have shown a very different balance of power from those of the 1997 Kyoto round. This “New World dis(Order)” is characterized by insecurity of the United States in the face of economic and political decline vis-à-vis China; fragmentation of the Group of 77 developing nations negotiating bloc; and weakening of the European Union, which was cut out entirely from the group negotiating the Copenhagen Accord. In addition to old alignments of developing countries based on solidarity, negotiating blocs have fractured along lines of responsibility for climate change, capability to address it, and national vulnerability to climate risks. This paper assesses whether, over the past two decades, negotiations have come closer to meeting basic criteria of international climate justice, and chronicles how environmental negotiations have come to reflect a different and shifting balance of power. Drawing insights from Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly Silver''s analyses of US hegemonic decline and the rise of China, the article argues that the roots of the worst stubbornness by the US in recent climate talks lie in growing insecurity about its ability to provide jobs for its workers in a future where all sorts of work is moving to China and India. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The Mexican Geological Survey (SGM), the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI) and the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi (UASLP) have established a multidisciplinary team with the objective of creating a national program of geochemical mapping of soils in Mexico. This is being done as part of the North American Soil Geochemical Landscapes Project in partnership with the US Geological Survey and the Geological Survey of Canada. As the first step, a pilot study was conducted over a transect that extends from the Mexico–US border near Ciudad Juarez in the north to the Pacific Ocean in the south. This pilot transect was conducted in two phases, and this paper presents results from the first phase, which sampled soils at about a 40-km spacing along a 730-km transect beginning in Central Mexico and ending at the Pacific Coast. Samples were collected from the A and C horizons at each site and 60 elements were analyzed. This pilot study demonstrates that geochemical mapping based on a 40-km spacing is adequate to identify broad-scale geochemical patterns. Geologic influence (i.e., soil parent material) was the most important factor influencing the distribution of elements along the transect, followed by the influence of regional mineralization. The study also showed that influence by human activities over the transect is minimal except possibly in large mining districts. A comparison of element abundance in the A horizon with the environmental soil guidelines in Mexico showed that the natural concentrations of the studied soils were lower than the established threshold for soil restoration with the exception of V and As. The former had a median value (75mg/kg) approximately equal to the value established in Mexico for soil restoration in agricultural and residential lands (78mg/kg), and the latter had three values higher than the 22mg/kg threshold for soil restoration in agricultural and residential lands. These cases demonstrate the importance of knowing the national- and regional-scale geochemistry of Mexican soils as a support for the decision-making process, particularly for the proper formulation and application of soil guidelines designed to protect human and ecosystem health. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Due to its unfavorable rheology, magma with crystallinity exceeding about 50 vol.% and effective viscosity >106 Pa s is generally perceived to stall in the Earth''s crust rather than to erupt. There is, however, irrefutable evidence for colossal eruption of batholithic magma bodies and here we analyze four examples from Spain, Mexico, USA and the Central Andes. These silicic caldera-forming eruptions generated deposits characterized by i) ignimbrites containing crystal-rich pumice, ii) co-ignimbritic lag breccias and iii) the absence of initial fall-out. The field evidence is inconsistent with most caldera-forming deposits, which are underlain by initial fall-out indicating deposition from a sustained eruption column before the actual collapse sequence. In contrast, the documented examples suggest early deep-level fragmentation at the onset of eruption and repeated column collapse generating eruption volumes on the order of hundreds of cubic kilometers almost exclusively in the form of ignimbrites. These examples challenge our understanding of magma eruptability and eruption initiation processes. In this paper, we present an analysis of eruption promoters from geologic, theoretical and experimental considerations. Assessing relevant dynamics and timescales for failure of crystal-melt mush we propose a framework to explain eruption of batholithic magma bodies that primarily involves an external trigger by near-field seismicity and crustal failure. Strain rate analysis for dynamic and static stressing, chamber roof collapse and rapid decompression indicates that large “solid-like” silicic reservoirs may undergo catastrophic failure leading to deep-level fragmentation of batholithic magma at approximately 2 orders of magnitude lower strain rates than those characteristic for failure of crystal-poor magmas or pure melt. Eruption triggers can thus include either amplified pressure transients in the liquid phase during seismic shaking of a crystal-melt mush, decompression by block subsidence or a combination of both. We find that the window of opportunity for the eruption of large silicic bodies may thus extent to crystallinities beyond 50 vol.% for strain rates on the order of >10−3 to 10−4 s−1. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Since 1999, the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of the Biodiversity (CONABIO) in Mexico has been developing and managing the “Operational program for the detection of hot-spots using remote sensing techniques”. This program uses images from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Terra and Aqua satellites and from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA-AVHRR), which are operationally received through the Direct Readout station (DR) at CONABIO. This allows the near-real time monitoring of fire events in Mexico and Central America. In addition to the detection of active fires, the location of hot spots are classified with respect to vegetation types, accessibility, and risk to Nature Protection Areas (NPA). Besides the fast detection of fires, further analysis is necessary due to the considerable effects of forest fires on biodiversity and human life. This fire impact assessment is crucial to support the needs of resource managers and policy makers for adequate fire recovery and restoration actions. CONABIO attempts to meet these requirements, providing post-fire assessment products as part of the management system in particular for satellite-based burnt area mapping. This paper provides an overview of the main components of the operational system and will present an outlook to future activities and system improvements, especially the development of a burnt area product. A special focus will also be placed on the fire occurrence within NPAs of Mexico. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Although language and culture are important contributors to uninsurance among immigrants, one important contributor may have been overlooked – the ability of immigrants to return to their home country for health care. This paper examines the extent to which uninsurance (private insurance and Medicaid) is related to the ability of immigrants to return to Mexico for health care, as measured by spatial proximity. The data for this study are from the Mexican Migration Project. After controlling for household income, acculturation and demographic characteristics, arc distance to the place of origin plays a role in explaining uninsurance rates. Distance within Mexico is quite important, indicating that immigrants from the South of Mexico are more likely to seek care in their communities of origin (hometowns). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Windblown dust is known to impede visibility, deteriorate air quality and modify the radiation budget. Arid and semiarid areas with unpaved and unvegetated land cover are particularly prone to windblown dust, which is often attributed to high particulate matter (PM) pollution in such areas. Yet, windblown dust is poorly represented in existing regulatory air quality models. In a study by the authors on modeling episodic high PM events along the US/Mexico border using the state-of-the-art CMAQ/MM5/SMOKE air quality modeling system [Choi, Y.-J., Hyde, P., Fernando, H.J.S., 2006. Modeling of episodic particulate matter events using a 3D air quality model with fine grid: applications to a pair of cities in the US/Mexico border. Atmospheric Environment 40, 5181–5201], some of the observed PM10 NAAQS exceedances were inferred as due to windblown dust, but the modeling system was incapable of dealing with time-dependent episodic dust entrainment during high wind periods. In this paper, a time-dependent entrainment parameterization for windblown dust is implemented in the CMAQ/MM5/SMOKE modeling system with the hope of improving PM predictions. An approach for realizing windblown dust emission flux for each grid cell over the study domain on an hourly basis, which accounts for the influence of factors such as soil moisture content, atmospheric stability and wind speed, is presented in detail. Comparison of model predictions with observational data taken at a pair of US/Mexico border towns shows a clear improvement of model performance upon implementation of the dust emission flux parameterization. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper describes a web-based multimedia spatial information system used to support a study of the re-invasion of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito vector for dengue fever, in the deserts of the southwest United States/northwest Mexico. The system was developed applying Open Geospatial Consortium and World Wide Web Consortium Open Specifications and using Open Source Software. The system creates a sensory-rich environment, one which allows users to interact with the system to explore connections among data (maps, remotely sensed images, text, graphs, 360° panoramas and photos), visualize information, formulate their own interpretations, generate hypotheses and reach their own conclusions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This is the introductory paper to the special issue on Coastal Management in the Gulf of Mexico large marine ecosystem. The Gulf of Mexico is the largest open water body of internationally protected habitats in the Atlantic Ocean. It is a semi-enclosed sea and is the ninth largest body of water in the world. The Gulf region covers more than 1,942,500km2 including open water areas and coastal wetlands with input from 33 major river systems. There are 207 significant estuarine systems, and extensive barrier-islands with coastal lagoons, both in the United States and Mexico. The Gulf''s drainage system covers more than 60% of the US and more than 40% of Mexico, with a coastline of 2934km in the US and 3200km—including the Caribbean littoral—in Mexico. The Exclusive Economic Zones of three countries, USA, Mexico and Cuba, converge in the Gulf. The Gulf constitutes a “Large Marine Ecosystem” LME that includes freshwater continental drainage from five countries. The Gulf is an international aquatic–terrestrial ecosystem and must be analyzed, protected and used in such a way as to optimize the economic and environmental returns from the exploitation of its resources. The 48 million people in the US and the 15 million people in Mexico who live in the coastal states require stronger cooperation. There is immediate need for cooperation regarding such issues as investment, tourism, agriculture, fishing, health and environment, education and culture, infrastructure, communications, financing, trade, institutional arrangements, and sustainable development. Many of these issues are geographic in nature, whereas some are tied not only to geography but the use of the body of water that links them. Thus, they are water dependent. The Gulf of Mexico is a shared resource at risk, with the following major problems: (a) freshwater use and shortage, (b) pollution, (c) habitat modification, (d) unsustainable exploitation of living resources, (e) global change (sea level rise, temperature increase and change in rainfall patterns), (f) public education, and (g) lack of political interest. However, no plan for the management of the Gulf of Mexico as a whole exists, and integrative studies are still scarce in spite of much study of ecosystems and resources. Because of this, there is a special need for attention to and reinforcement of integrative, collaborative efforts because the Gulf is a bi-national priority region and focus of attention at world level. Currents efforts include the Gulf of Mexico Program (US Environmental Protection Agency) and coastal initiatives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US, and the Management Program ICZM-Gulf/Caribbean (SEMARNAT, INECOL A.C.) in Mexico. The challenge for the future for coastal management in the Gulf of Mexico should be towards a combination of integrated coastal management with large marine ecosystem management. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: For almost three decades, a U.S. government dataset has vetted and recorded all known cocaine trafficking events in the massive Western Hemisphere 'transit zone' (including Central America, the Caribbean, eastern Pacific, and Mexico) and tracked all cocaine seizures reported by counternarcotic forces there. This is the "cocaine module" of the Consolidated Counterdrug Database (CCDB), and by U.S. law it is the exclusive source for performance data on key aspects of the drug interdiction mission, one of the foundations of U.S. supply-side drug policy. Nevertheless, the dataset remains poorly known or used among drug policy researchers despite being unclassified. To make the existence and strengths of this dataset better known, this paper describes its provenance, ongoing production, and analytical utility.Methods: The analysis draws on the archive of reports produced by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent, non-partisan entity that has been tracking U.S. government agencies' drug war accounting for almost 50 years. The analysis also relies on third-party assessments of interdiction, and on correspondence with staff in the Office of National Drug Control Policy.Results: The CCDB emerged in the 1990s following two decades of drug war failures in the transit zone. It is an "all source" product, which curates data from a variety of sources produced by the 26 U.S. agencies and 20 foreign partners involved in transit zone interdiction. There is a high threshold for inclusion of cocaine trafficking events into the CCDB; it therefore offers a highly reliable yet conservative representation of cocaine trafficking and counternarcotic response. Instances of CCDB data in the public record yield several insights: a) the volume of cocaine moving annually through the transit zone has for the past decade well exceeded 1,000 MT/year; b) cocaine seizures in the transit zone are greater than anywhere else, and significantly higher than indicated by the UNODC's World Drug Reports; c) interdiction appears to have little to no effect on cocaine prices in the U.S.; d) interdiction is highly "outcome-ineffective"; in FY2018, for example, the U.S. and partners intercepted only 6% of the cocaine trafficking events known to have occurred in the transit zone that year; e) traffickers respond quickly and constantly to interdiction by shifting their routes and transport strategies.Conclusion: The CCDB deserves greater attention from researchers as a high-quality dataset that: a) challenges the "unknowability" of illicit activities and underscores the need for better sharing of unclassified government data; b) opens up new ways of exploring drug enforcement policies and actions in transit areas; c) contradicts rosy assessments of drug interdiction effectiveness by unequivocally demonstrating interdiction's longstanding and persistent failure and thus the need for fundamentally different approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how nineteen teenagers who, having been raised and educated in the United States and forced to return, adapt and participate to the Mexican school system. This work specifically analyzes their adaptation process in three Mexican public High Schools in the State of Puebla, and how they negotiate the process of participating within a Mexican school setting while negotiating their sense of belonging to the US and Mexico. In this study, we explore different ways in which return students enact their own bilingual and bicultural citizenship through their educational process in Mexico. To a greater extent, we try to convey the idea of looking at multiple forms of participating in, or outside, classrooms settings while constructing and maintaining their communicative repertoires as a way of reclaiming their citizenship in both countries, the US and Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Occurrence of 130 species of decapod crustaceans was compared between the continental slope (200–2500m) and the abyssal plain (2500–3840m) of the Gulf of Mexico. We compiled records of these species from published literature and from the crustacean catalogue of the Marine Invertebrate Collection of Texas A&M University. Each species was scored as present or absent in each of 10 polygons that were defined by physiographic features of the sea floor. Using cluster analysis, we identified inherent patterns of species richness. A distinct faunal assemblage occurred in the Sigsbee Abyssal Plain. This deep plain was a potential “coldspot” in terms of the number of species in the basin, compared to a “hotspot” in the vicinity of De Soto Canyon. Polygons of the eastern upper slopes (i.e. calcareous substrate of western Florida) contained the most species that were not found elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. Using an inductive approach, we identified the following hypotheses: (1) most crustacean species of the deep Sigsbee Abyssal Plain occur in oceans world-wide, (2) overall, almost a quarter of the deep sea species in the Gulf of Mexico range from the western Atlantic (south of Cape Hatteras) to the Caribbean, and (3) the Gulf of Mexico is particularly rich in species of Munidopsis (25 species). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]