Suchergebnisse

The 2014 disturbances in the Ukraine occasioned renewed discussion of the 2008 Russo- Georgian War. As the situation continued to worsen in eastern Ukraine, US President Obama announced on a visit to Poland at the start of June that the US and NATO would strengthen ties even with the non-NATO-member-states of the Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. This last has aspirations of membership, even though it does not control the republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which most of the world nevertheless regards as integral parts of Georgia. As long as the Georgian-Abkhazian dispute remains unresolved, there will be problems regarding inter-state relations with/for western Transcaucasia. And there can be no resolution of the Abkhazian issue without a proper understanding of Abkhazia's history (both ancient and more recent); it was to try to ensure that the debate is not based on misconceptions, unsubstantiated assertions or even plain errors that this article was written. It is grounded on a consideration of a range of materials (from Agathias' Greek text through relevant discussions in Georgian, Russian and English). The toppling of Abkhazia's democratically elected president (Aleksandr Ankvab) at the end of May 2014 makes the question of Abkhazia even more topical.

None of the conventional explanations why American penal policies became so severe — rising crime rates, harsh public attitudes and cynical electoral politics — are persuasive. Nor are various `conditions of late modernity' such as the limited capacities of governments, increasing population diversity or increasing insecurity and risk aversion. All these things characterized every developed country in much of the period 1975—2000 and most did not adopt drastically harsher policies. Nor are such amorphous and over-generalized notions as `populist punitiveness', `penal populism' and neo-liberalism of much use. Some things do have explanatory power cross-nationally. Moderate penal policies and low imprisonment rates are associated with low levels of income inequality, high levels of trust and legitimacy, strong welfare states, professionalized as opposed to politicized criminal justice systems and consensual rather than conflictual political cultures. For each of those factors, the United States falls at the wrong end of the distribution. The question is, Why? Four answers stand out: the `paranoid style' in American politics; a Manichean moralism associated with fundamentalist religious views; the obsolescence of the American constitution; and the history of race relations in the USA.

The thesis explores what it deems are some of the most perceptible humanistic features in Cuban history, politics, and culture, less specified, or highlighted, or generally not presented in a cohesive body of knowledge in the western scholarly world. In the context of its subject, the thesis embraces rational-critical thinking and supports the custom of non-violent dispute. Insofar as the Cuban Constitution incorporates a range of goals structured on socialist principles, the thesis sets out to scrutinise manifestations in Cuban thinking emblematic of the Marxist-humanist and/or anti-Stalinist philosophical traditions of revolutionary praxis. The thesis' main body investigates, illustrates, and analyses the presence of such features, focussing predominantly on the period 1959 to the late 1960s. Where the thesis does delve into timeframes beyond this era, it endeavours to show the continuity of relevant facets previously identified. Preceding the main examination, the thesis looks into what is widely perceived as the main roots of the country's humanist tradition, the moral ideas and standpoints of Jose Marti, the country's national hero. A further objective of this thesis lies in the belief that aspects of Cuba's national cultural policy in large measure addresses historical issues post-Apartheid South Africa confronts today.

The Sri Lankan rural economy has long been categorized into a plantation sector producing tea, rubber and some coconuts for export, and a smallholder sector producing mainly food, especially rice, for domestic consumption. While incomplete, this dichotomy is still usable. One of the significant features of Sri Lankan rural history over the past half century has been a partial transfer of tea and rubber production from the plantation sector to the smallholder sector. In this and in related respects the traditional plantation-smallholder dichotomy has been weakening. Yet in another important respect there has been no convergence between the two sectors. The plantation sector has remained fully capitalist in the commonsense meaning of that term, while capitalist relations of production appear to have made few further inroads into the smallholder sector. True that a great deal of the labour used in smallholder production is hired. But that has long been the case. The evidence suggests that since World War Two the small family farm has at least held its own as the dominant form under which land is owned and managed. This has happened despite rapid population growth on a terrain already densely populated.

This study is concerned with the effectiveness of individual user performance for an extended self-tutoring task in a time-shared computing facility. The investigation is an experimental case history of one individual (the author) following the TINT self-tutoring user manual from beginning to end in the SDC Q-32 Time-Sharing System at a Teletype console. (TINT is a user-oriented dialect of JOVIAL, an interpretive language adapted to time-sharing with many self-teaching features.) The methodology featured measurement of natural user behavior in which the user served as his own control in successive console sessions. The sample included 1,861 user input commands collected over 18 hours at the teletypewriter terminal. The quantitative results revealed some evidence for systematic learning and reinforcement effects; there were progressive tendencies toward higher productivity and lower error rates with increasing TINT experience. The qualitative findings revealed that the numerous and diversified exercises facilitated familiarity with the elements and the varied services of the TINT system. The chief drawback was exclusive reliance of the tutoring method on literal reproduction of the text by the user at his console. The paper concludes with recommendations for more genuine interactive involvement between the user, the central system, and self-tutoring aids.

The map and the territory -- Villages, frontiers, and pasts -- Thinking unlike a mountain: Environment, pasts, and presents -- Girdling Dracula's trees and sprucing up the Carpathians -- Unintended alliances -- Missing the forest for the trees: Environment and the servitudes dispute -- Environment and economy -- Rivers: Black, White, Brown, and Tan -- Household, property, and economy -- Thick description of thin soils.

"This project examines the Service Employee International Union (SEIU), long considered the best hope of a future for American organized labor. A union that has catered to a diverse body of workers outside the traditional factory-industrial stream--service workers, domestic workers, immigrant workers--the SEIU has developed particular strategies and tactics and built connections between U.S. and non-U.S. workers to create a vibrant source of agency for historically unrepresented or under-represented members of the workforce. This volume aims to provide a multifaceted examination of the SEIU's innovative organizing strategies, its international reach, its place in the wider labor movement, and its potential impact in the midst of the worst economic downtown since the Great Depression. The volume analyzes the recent history of the SEIU from the development of its famous J4J (Justice for Janitors) model, through its gains in the health care sector and its breakaway from the AFl-CIO, to its most recent controversies with the UNITE-HERE merger and its solidarities with migrant communities across the United States and Canada. Contributors consider openings and opportunities the current economic crisis is creating for organized labour and especially the SEIU; how the SEIU is reinventing itself to adapt to workers' needs; what role the SEIU plays in allying with community organizations to enable improvements in citizens' social and living conditions; the extent to which the SEIU is addressing contemporary challenges in a reasonable, productive, and progressive way; and how its diversity marks this union for progressive change for the twenty-first century. Chartered in 1921, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a worldwide organization that represents more than two million workers in occupations from healthcare and government service to custodians and taxi drivers. Women form more than half the membership while people in minority groups make up approximately forty percent"--