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ABSTRACTDuring the 2000s, millions of Mexicans acquired mortgages to buy homes in the fringes of cities throughout the country. Many such households have faced limited access to services, infrastructure and employment, and have seen their monthly mortgage payments increase while their debt remains virtually unchanged. In parallel, while about a third of Mexicans still live in poor housing conditions, numerous newly built developments have exhibited alarmingly high housing vacancy rates. Such coexistence of housing vacancy and shortages exposes considerable tensions in Mexican housing policy between the social and the economic values of housing. While previous analyses have centred on the financialization of housing policy in Mexico, this paper examines some of the local, political and socioeconomic implications of recent federal housing finance policy and urban development patterns, particularly as they relate to housing access and vacancy. Furthermore, this paper discusses the more recent evolution of Mexico’s housing and urban development policy, as well as the juxtaposition of the institutional and civic responses that have emerged to make front to previous financialization and housing development patterns and their implications.

ABSTRACTThe main aim of this article is to analyze the participation of different government levels and institutions in promoting the financialization of housing in Mexico. Furthermore, it examines some of the implications of following this logic, particularly at the local and household levels, such as surmounting mortgage debt, the clustering of vacant and abandoned housing, and, ultimately, the reproduction of poor housing conditions. Since the late 1990s, millions of households have acquired mortgages to buy homes in the periurban fringes of Mexican cities. Such new sprawling housing developments, however, have offered limited access to economic opportunities, and have imposed a significant burden on local governments to provide infrastructure and services. Many families have also seen their mortgage debt increase, forcing many of them to leave their dwellings behind. By 2010, Mexico had the highest vacancy rate among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and about a third of Mexicans still live in precarious housing conditions. Such paradoxical coexistence, I argue, exposes a tension between the financialization of and the right to housing, and the extent to which the former has trumped the latter.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a security method for various types of accounts that adds an extra layer of verification. This second layer of verification improves the security of user accounts beyond the regular password. Despite its benefits, the adoption of 2FA has remained low amongst users. A consistent finding in the 2FA literature is that adoption has remained low because users prioritize usability over security benefits when choosing a 2FA method. However, this body of research overlooks the influence of perceived account importance on decisions to adopt 2FA. This study bridges this gap in the literature by offering evidence that, contrary to the current belief in the literature that 2FA adoption is based on perceptions of usability, account context also plays a role in users’ choices. This highlights the importance of incorporating users’ account importance perceptions in future research that aims to understand users’ perceptions of 2FA and in the design of 2FA set-up pages. Furthermore, users’ perceptions of 2FA were captured and compared to previous studies that used a similar sample pool (students who are forced to use DUO, a 2FA service). The results show inconsistent findings across studies and reveal that users have a common mental model of 2FA, regardless of the method used. This suggests interfaces can be redesigned to better match user perceptions with the actual needs of various contexts.

The appropriation of the housing sector by global finance has transformed housing policies worldwide while leading to new opportunities for capital accumulation. Financialized models have also become increasingly prevalent in the Global South, promoting mortgage and household debt and stark housing commodification impacting lower-middle-income communities and residents. Yet, despite adversity, housing social movements have worked to challenge some of these trends in struggles for housing justice and de-financialization. This study examines the organizing work of such housing struggles in Mexico and Brazil in the face of varied commodification and financialization processes through the analytical framework of bridging. Bridging as a strategy entails social movements’ dynamic relationships and practices in challenging and altering housing commodification and financialization processes in relation to changing political environments. Housing movements integrate reactive responses to immediate threats with proactive strategies for long-term structural change, emphasizing the importance of multifaceted approaches in addressing housing financialization. Bridging between invented and invited spaces of action showcases how housing movements adjust to evolving circumstances and establish new counter-hegemonic arenas to advance their objectives and ideas. Bridging scales enables further reach of demands and visibility, creating the possibility of challenging the distances inherent to financialization networks. The accomplishments, constraints, and paths of housing organizing for de-financialization provide critical lessons about the co-constitutive nature of social mobilization, housing policies, and the financial market.

Cell–ECM adhesion is regulated by mechanical force. Quantitative imaging and mathematical modeling are used to elucidate how the intracellular adhesion complex of integrin-based adhesions responds to force, revealing the molecular mechanisms that allow the adhesion complex to respond to force to stabilize cell–ECM adhesion over development.

To study the epidemiology of invasive pneumococcal infections in infants and young children in Santiago, Chile, as a representative pediatric population in a newly industrializing country where pneumococcal conjugate vaccines may be used in the future.