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AbstractOne of the epic national narratives of modernization and development in China is the story of Beidahuang ('Great Northern Wilderness') in the country's northeast. The term 'Beidahuang' refers originally to state-sponsored campaigns, starting in the 1950s, that involved the enlistment of tens of thousands of People's Liberation Army soldiers, educated youth, and Communist Party cadres. Their task was to transform the vast northeast 'wasteland' into productive farmland that would feed the nation while securing the nation's borders with Russia. This article examines the significance of Beidahuang as a feature of the environmental discourse in China's northeast borderlands, focusing on the first decade of the twenty-first century when the Chinese state was establishing more systematic measures for addressing environmental concerns. In the context of the northeast borderland, the massive deforestation that resulted from the socialist campaigns to transform 'wasteland' into productive farmland has left a controversial legacy for regional elites grappling with the Party leadership's turn towards environmental conservation as an emerging political priority. This article suggests that the ongoing importance of the 'Great Northern Wilderness' in the Chinese cultural imagination has shaped the ways in which regional elites frame environmental issues in relation to economic development, nationalism, and border relations with Russia.

The paper examines how the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) used social activism, usually perceived as a force for social change which was adopted by a radical party. The examination of the NSDAP is due to the lack of conversation about the NSDAP during the 1920s. In this paper, it will examine this growth of the NSDAP, by analyzing primary sources of Nazi propaganda, agendas, and the Beer Hall Putsch as well as its subsequent trial due to its failure. The NSDAP became the stage of Nazism in Germany, over time becoming the Nazi Party society knows today; furthermore, they used social activist tactics, and revolution to gain public support eventually seized power of the government in 1933. The importance of this research is to show how a political party can use social activism as a force of change but not necessarily as a force for good. Furthermore, it is to give an understanding to why the Germans in the 1920s were slowing be persuaded to support the NSDAP overtime, by evaluating how people may be persuaded to join a radical party due to economical and national problems with their state. Therefore, when we see political parties in our day, we need to evaluate their motives and agenda.

For decades sociologists have been interested in the labor movement's attempts to rebound. Most research, however, focuses on revitalization within the service industry, ignoring important efforts in other sectors, like construction. As recent scholars argue, revitalization within the building trades is unique because organizing workers is not the same as organizing work. Locals must simultaneously increase membership and market capacity. Unfortunately, existing theories ignore many obstacles that building trade unions face in market expansion efforts. These obstacles include macro-economic conditions, like the Great Recession, which limit work opportunities; inter-union competition which allows one Local to expand market share by poaching work from another; and cost differentials which continue to prevent unions from breaking into new markets. Relying on the case of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 58, these obstacles are explored and used to reformulate current theories on revitalization and market recovery within the building trades.

Daniel 8:9-14 constitutes the climax of the vision report in Dan 8, and is arguably one of the most difficult Danielic passages. This dissertation investigates the Masoretic Text of Dan 8:9-14 by means of a detailed and comprehensive text-oriented analysis that utilizes linguistic, literary, and intertextual procedures. In chapter 1, an overview of modern text-oriented approaches and the review of recent literature on Dan 8 pave the way for a description of this study's methodology, which consists of a combination of linguistic (syntax, semantics, and text-grammar), literary (style and structure), and intertextual approaches (textual relations within the book of Daniel), using them as a threefold avenue to the understanding of the text, while at the same time demonstrating their interdependence. The linguistic analysis in chapter 2 analyzes the syntactic and semantic features of each clause, as well as significant terms and expressions in Dan 8:9-14. A text-grammatical analysis identifies the interclausal relations in the passage. The literary analysis in chapter 3 examines the rhetorical and stylistic devices and their function in Dan 8:9-14, and describes the literary structure and dynamics of the passage. Stylistic and structural devices include poetic-like language in vs. 11, verbal gender shifts in vss. 9-12, the use of the key word gadel in a "hubris-fall" pattern, and spatial imagery. The investigation of terminological fields and their distribution observes the interplay of military, royal, cultic, creation, and judgment terminology, showing how these themes characterize the role of the horn figure and convey the text's theological message. The intertextual analysis in chapter 4 explores the lexical and thematic links of Dan 8:9-14 with other texts in the book of Daniel---particularly with 8:23-25 and chaps. 7, 9, and 10--12---and how these texts contribute to the interpretation of Dan 8:9-14. The summary and conclusions in chapter 5 highlight the results of each of the three avenues of the text-oriented approach to Dan 8:9-14. The climax of the vision report with its accompanying audition, against the general opinion, is linguistically well-composed and an extremely artistic literary piece that combines significant theological themes. The Day of Atonement serves as a macrotheme and typifies the divine reaction to the cosmic challenge created by the cultic war of the horn. By its complex textual relations, Dan 8:9-14 constitutes a central passage in the book of Daniel.

Over the past 20 years, there has been a great deal of interest from academic economists and policymakers in the UK in the contribution of the housing market to regional disparities in unemployment. However, despite a considerable body of research, there remains a great deal of uncertainty concerning the role played by different features of the housing market in shaping the regional pattern of unemployment. In this study, we aim to gain a deeper understanding of this issue by examining the relationship between housing market variables and the flows into and out of regional unemployment. Our findings indicate that both the level of regional house prices and the housing tenure mix have significant effects on the rate of flows into and out of regional unemployment and hence upon the equilibrium rate of unemployment in a region. In particular, we find that regions with a relatively high level of house prices and/or a low proportion of social rented housing will tend to have a relatively low equilibrium rate of unemployment, other things equal.

Needle exchange programs (NEPs) to prevent HIV transmission among injection drug users are accepted in many countries but remain at the center of heated debate in the US. In 1997, the author published a study of injection drug users in Vancouver showing an explosive outbreak of HIV. An incidental finding was higher HIV rates among frequent attendees of the local NEP. While this was expected, because NEPs attract users at highest risk, opponents of needle exchange applied an unsupportable causal interpretation to this finding. If frequent NEP attendees had higher HIV rates, so the interpretation went, NEPs must be responsible for promoting the spread of HIV. Despite the author's admonitions against this misinterpretation of the data, it was used as part of a successful campaign to oppose US federal funding of needle exchange. Regrettably, biased or even misleading interpretations often occur in the volatile interface of imperfect science & ideological debate. 21 References. [Copyright 2002 Sage Publications, Inc.]