Suchergebnisse

In December of 2016, the CIA announced that Russian actors had hacked into US servers in an effort to assist then-candidate Donald Trump in his 2016 bid for the US presidency. This revelation, amidst increasing political polarization in the US and the common use of phrases like 'fake news' and 'alternative facts', contributed to a controversial election landscape that combined elements of US-Russian relations, journalistic ethics, and technological advancement. This thesis uses a case study to examine if and how conservative American media shifted its discursive tendencies on the topic of Russia after the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. In observing the shifting of discourse, we may both observe how conceptions of identity, security and power constituted and were constituted by media, and how journalistic ethical change and media developments may have enabled these types of shifts. By exploring transcripts of Fox News Television programs, this study has been conducted in effort to simultaneously provide broad insight into modern developments in geopolitics and media and specific investigation into a unique chapter in American history and in US-Russian relations. ; M-IR

For the purposes of strength, military equipment camouflage, and protecting the health of organisms, electromagnetic wave absorbing materials have received a lot of attention and are widely studied. In addition to having a strong absorption intensity and a wide effective absorption bandwidth, materials that are lightweight, thermally stable, and antioxidative are also highly desirable. In this study, we fabricated core–shell structured NiS(2)@MoS(2) nanospheres anchored on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheets (NiS(2)@MoS(2)/rGO) by a simple two-step hydrothermal method. The combination ratio was adjusted to achieve proper impedance matching. The electromagnetic parameters and the absorption performance were investigated in detail. A composite loaded with 30 wt.% of the sample achieved a minimum reflection loss (RL) value of −29.75 dB and the effective bandwidth (RL value of less than −10 dB) ranged from 4.95 GHz to 18.00 GHz (13.05 GHz), with a thickness ranging from 1.5 mm to 4.0 mm. This study proved that the generated significant interfacial polarization and synergetic interaction between components can result in NiS(2)@MoS(2)/rGO composites with enhanced electromagnetic absorption performance.

How do the members of parliament use hecklings and other intermediate reactions in the Baden-Württemberg state parliament? Does the AfD as a new party in parliament differ from the other political groups? An automatic analysis of all interruptive actions recorded in the plenary protocols of the current and the previous legislative period as well as a manual content analysis of the hecklings used in 20 current debates (ten debates per legislative period) shows that the use of hecklings as well as other interruptive actions like applause or laughter mirrors the conflict between government and opposition parties . In the current legislative period, the AfD falls out of the ordinary in that the party is isolated from all other political groups by various means . For example, the other parties avoid applauding for AfD speakers and criticize them sharply through hecklings . The AfD and its members of parliament also distance themselves from the other parties by heckling and laughing maliciously about them . Thus, we can identify a clear polarization between the AfD and the other parties in the federal state parliament in Baden-Württemberg .

El semanario en lengua francesa Le Jeudi (1933), editado primero en Palma y después en Barcelona, evolucionó desde sus inicios estrechamente vinculados al desarrollo del turismo hacia una publicación más cultural. Sin embargo, no pudo escapar a la progresiva polarización política que se apoderó tanto de España como de Francia en los años treinta del siglo XX. ; The weekly paper in french language Le Jeudi (1933), published firstly in Palma and later on in Barcelona, evolved from having a very close connection with the development of tourism to becoming a publication with a larger focus on culture. Nonetheless, it could not avoid the progressive political polarization that overtook both Spain and France in the 1930s. ; L'hebdomadaire en langue française Le Jeudi (1933), publié premièrement à Palma et après à Barcelone, a évolué depuis ses débuts, étroitement lié au développement du tourisme, vers une publication plus culturelle. Cependant, il n'a pas pu échapper à la polarisation politique progressive qui s'est emparée de l'Espagne et de la France dans les années trente du XX e siècle.

For the purposes of strength, military equipment camouflage, and protecting the health of organisms, electromagnetic wave absorbing materials have received a lot of attention and are widely studied. In addition to having a strong absorption intensity and a wide effective absorption bandwidth, materials that are lightweight, thermally stable, and antioxidative are also highly desirable. In this study, we fabricated core&ndash ; shell structured NiS2@MoS2 nanospheres anchored on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheets (NiS2@MoS2/rGO) by a simple two-step hydrothermal method. The combination ratio was adjusted to achieve proper impedance matching. The electromagnetic parameters and the absorption performance were investigated in detail. A composite loaded with 30 wt.% of the sample achieved a minimum reflection loss (RL) value of &minus ; 29.75 dB and the effective bandwidth (RL value of less than &minus ; 10 dB) ranged from 4.95 GHz to 18.00 GHz (13.05 GHz), with a thickness ranging from 1.5 mm to 4.0 mm. This study proved that the generated significant interfacial polarization and synergetic interaction between components can result in NiS2@MoS2/rGO composites with enhanced electromagnetic absorption performance.

We consider the different types of rent-seeking practices in emerging oil economies, and discuss how they contribute to social conflict and a local resource curse in the Albertine Graben region of Uganda. The rent-seeking activities have contributed to speculative behavior, competition for limited social services, land grabbing, land scarcity, land fragmentation, food insecurity, corruption, and ethnic polarization. Local people have interpreted the experience of the consequent social impacts as a local resource curse. The impacts have led to social conflicts among the affected communities. Our research used a range of methods, including 40 in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation, and document analysis. We argue there is an urgent need by all stakeholders&mdash ; including local and central governments, oil companies, local communities, and civil society organizations&mdash ; to address the challenges before the construction of oil infrastructure. Stakeholders must work hard to create the conditions that are needed to avoid the resource curse ; otherwise, Uganda could end up suffering from the Dutch Disease and Nigerian Disease, as has befallen other African countries.

In South America, the 1970s began with ardent sociopolitical crises leading to a wave of repressive military regimes. In Chile, most professional bodies suffered profound structural and functional modifications resulting from internal political polarization as well as state intervention. Nurses saw the same fate befall them, which created both a historical blackout and abrupt changes in power dynamics. Given the prominence of this process in the reconfiguration of modern nursing's identity, this article traces the association's political process during the short-lived 1970s Marxist-inspired government and the response of nurses collectively to the rapid shift into a repressive regime leading to a profound internal crisis and an identity break-up within nursing. By using archival sources and oral testimonies1 of 1970s and 1980s nurses, we reconstruct a historical account of a key period in the history of the country that for the nurses meant a progression of discord and division along with a self-imposed silence on the past. In so doing, the article adds to a growing literature on the participation of women in political life.

We consider the different types of rent-seeking practices in emerging oil economies, and discuss how they contribute to social conflict and a local resource curse in the Albertine Graben region of Uganda. The rent-seeking activities have contributed to speculative behavior, competition for limited social services, land grabbing, land scarcity, land fragmentation, food insecurity, corruption, and ethnic polarization. Local people have interpreted the experience of the consequent social impacts as a local resource curse. The impacts have led to social conflicts among the affected communities. Our research used a range of methods, including 40 in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation, and document analysis. We argue there is an urgent need by all stakeholdersincluding local and central governments, oil companies, local communities, and civil society organizationsto address the challenges before the construction of oil infrastructure. Stakeholders must work hard to create the conditions that are needed to avoid the resource curse; otherwise, Uganda could end up suffering from the Dutch Disease and Nigerian Disease, as has befallen other African countries.

Gated bilayer graphene exhibits spin-degenerate gapless states with a topological character localized at stacking domain walls. These states allow for one-dimensional currents along the domain walls. We herein demonstrate that these topologically protected currents are spin-polarized and locked in a single layer when bilayer graphene contains stacking domain walls decorated with magnetic defects. The magnetic defects, which we model as π-vacancies, perturb the topological states but also lift their spin degeneracy. One gapless state survives the perturbation of these defects, and its spin polarization is largely localized in one layer. The spin-polarized current in the topological state flows in a single layer, and this finding suggests the possibility of effectively exploiting these states in spintronic applications. ; This work was partially supported by project FIS2016-76617-P of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness MINECO, the Basque Government under the ELKARTEK project (SUPER), and the Gobierno Vasco-UPV/EHU (Grant No. IT1246- 19). AA and WJ acknowledge the hospitality of the Institute of Physics at Nicolaus Copernicus University and the Donostia International Physics Center, respectively.

International audience ; We propose a structural approach to investigate total factor productivity (TFP) and economic growth of 58 provinces and municipalities of Vietnam (known as one of the most dynamic emerging economies in the last few years). The analysis is applied to the provincial data that are available to us for the period 2000–2007. TFP is composed of three components: an autonomous technological change, an observed deterministic part depending on external factors, and an unobserved stochastic part. Estimation results do not show any evidence regarding the impacts of national and local public spending on TFP and economic growth of Vietnam's provinces. On the contrary, human capital and industry share (compared to shares of agriculture and services) significantly increase the provincial TFP, helping to explain the cross-province differences in terms of productivity. Finally, TFP of Vietnam's provinces does not converge in the long run as it displays a polarization feature around two main groups of provinces, a large group with low TFP levels and a much smaller group with high TFP levels. This bipolar pattern of TFP distribution supports the competitiveness disparity among the Vietnam's provinces.

The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of anti-Brucella antibodies in feral pigs and bovines simpatrics in the Pantanal subregions of Paiaguás and Nhecolândia. The study was conducted in the municipality of Corumbá, Mato Grosso do Sul State, Brazil. A total of 105 feral pigs and 256 cattle were sampled in 12 farms, in all animals blood samples were collected for the serological diagnosis with Rose Bengal Test (RBT) for screening, 2-Mercaptoethanol (2-ME) confirmatory test and comparative test with Fluorescence Polarization Assay (FPA). The prevalence of positive feral pigs were 1% (1/105) in the RBT and FPA and no positive AAT results were confirmed in the 2-ME test. The prevalence of positive cattle sampled was 11.32%, 4.3% and 7.42% in the RBT, 2-ME and FPA tests respectively. The degree of agreement obtained between the serological tests used in cattle was Kappa = 0.506 (p <0.001), 95% CI (0.282 - 0.729). The results of the serological tests demonstrated that brucellosis is widespread in bovine herds of the region studied, but the same type of exposure to the agent did not occur in feral pigs according to the diagnostic tests used.

AbstractThe failed coup of July 15 has shocked the current state apparatus in Turkey. This shock has culminated in the public demand for administrative reform, which would make previous public designs and policy failures a matter of the past. The state crisis has transpired in the middle of a political transition process whereby the ruling party envisioned systemic change in the political system from the parliamentary to a presidential system. The constitutional amendments also imply changes in the administrative order, with further political hold on bureaucratic cadres. The coup attempt and the massive purges in its aftermath brought the state to its breaking point. In light of such deficits and challenges, this paper discusses the ways, means, and prospects for capacity development and institution-building to overcome the state crisis in Turkey. The reform and restructuring process entails cooperation and a level of understanding between the government, opposition, and bureaucracy. Polarization and disenfranchisement are recipes for further fragmentation in Turkish politics. A cooperative model based on a working relationship between the government, opposition, and bureaucracy would facilitate a return to normalcy.

It is the intention in this article to explain the electoral stagnation of the Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) in the light of the 2015 parliamentary elections in Turkey. Drawing on theories of voting behavior, the article uncovers the organizational shortcomings within the party and the problem of credibility that have emerged as significant impediments to the party in addressing long-term historical-structural issues, mainly the division of Turkish society between the religious periphery and the secular center. Furthermore, the strong identification between the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and its partisans have made party-switching difficult, having been achieved, above all, through the provision of economic benefits and public services and the consolidation of party identification through growing polarization and division in Turkish politics. Last but not least, the changes to the political environment between the June 7 and November 1, 2015 elections, pushed stability and security to the top of the agenda, as well as AKP's electoral adjustments in the run-up to the November 1 elections inhibited any possible flow of votes to the CHP.

Abstract
The article focuses on the politicization of Portuguese Labour Code reforms since the early 2000s. More specifically, it looks at the link between mechanisms of politicization and Europeanization from a variety of perspectives, including decision-making processes and agenda setting, political divides and reform coalitions. By adopting a longitudinal approach, the article shows how the economic crisis and troika bailout have affected connections between politicization and Europeanization. Portuguese labour market policies have followed a continuous process of increased flexibility in recent years irrespective of governments' partisan orientations and without any significant variations. It remains that the economic crisis – and the memorandum agreed with the troika and implemented against the backdrop of a sovereign debt crisis – have had a considerable effect on political debate and social protest while deepening the polarization that divides Portuguese trade unions and governing parties. The processes of Europeanization and politicization are addressed from a qualitative perspective that is crucial in the understanding of the politics of labour reforms in Portugal as it sheds light on the political conditions of reforms coalitions and their constraints.

The marginalization of low-income earners, in regard to access to economic activities, is a topical issue in South Africa. The location of residential areas relative to locations of employment plays a large role in determining how accessible employment opportunities are to individuals. This has led to several studies that look at the polarization of growth in places of economic activities in more affluent suburbs within the discourse of social exclusion and transformation. Since South African independence, several policies were drafted to address issues of segregation and social exclusion, among other issues. However, the question remains whether there has been progress in addressing these issues. This research applies landscape metrics to understand the growth trends in the spatial location of residential areas, relative to centers of economic activities, from 1995 (start of democracy) to 2013. The analyses reveal that high- and middle-income residential areas are typically located near commercial land uses. This explains the mixed land-use patterns that are found in middle-income residential areas. On the other hand, low-income residential areas were observed to be, dominantly, in large homogeneous and continuous patches.