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This author uses regionalism as a theoretical framework for analyzing the foreign policy of the Russian Federation towards the Republic of Estonia. Regionalism is interpreted as a situation, when a political leader's beliefs change depending on what region of the world is considered. Leaders of great powers often assume that, for example, small European countries are subject to a treatment different from that of small Middle Eastern countries. The method of operational coding is employed to identify the impact of the regional approach on the beliefs of political leaders. The author comes to the conclusion that Russia's policy towards Estonia largely depends on Russia's policy towards the regions which the Russian elite relate Estonia to the Baltic States, Northern Europe, and Europe as a whole. The results of the study can further the understanding of Russia's policy towards Estonia both in Russia and abroad. Lack of understanding sometimes results in sharing the views of radical Estonian politicians who claim that Russia's policy towards Estonia is unpredictable and thus poses a threat to security and stability in Europe.

В статье рассматривается актуальная проблема архаизации политического процесса России в постсоветский период. Автор на примере формирования новой многопартийной системы показывает, что в современной политической действительности России соединяются черты архаики и модерна. Он видит причины неэффективности партийной системы России в особенностях российской модернизации. Опираясь на мнение известных политологов, автор доказывает, что Россия имеет все черты переходного общества. Он приходит к выводам, что современная ситуация ориентирована на возврат к дореволюционным ценностям разных периодов. ; The article deals with the features of archaic style the political process gains in the post-Soviet Russia. By the example of the new multi-party system establishment the author explains how the new political reality of Russia combines modern and archaic features. The inefficient party system in Russia is rooted in specifics of the national modernization (democracy transit), amorphism of the society, and mentality factors. Basing upon views of the famous political scientists the author proves the fact that Russia has all features of the transitional society. It is concluded, that the current political situation is focused on the return to the pre-Revolutionary values of various epochs.

[EN] We study the solvability of a normal subgroup N of a finite group G having exactly three G-conjugacy class sizes. We show that if the set of G-class sizes of N is {1, m, mpa }, with p a prime not dividing m, then N is solvable. Thus, we get a partial extension for normal subgroups on N. Itˆo's theorem on the solvability of groups having exactly three class sizes. ; This research is supported by the Valencian Government, Proyecto PROMETEO/2011/30, by the Spanish Government, Proyecto MTM2010-19938-C03-02 and the first author is also supported by grant Fundaci´o Bancaixa P11B2010-47. The second author would like to thank the members of the Institute of Mathematics at the University of Aberdeen for their warm hospitality and for many helpful discussions during her visit to this University. ; Beltrán, A.; Felipe Román, MJ. (2013). Solvability of normal subgroups and G-class sizes. Publicationes Mathematicae Debrecen. 83(4):1-12. https://doi.org/10.5486/PMD.2013.5548 ; S ; 1 ; 12 ; 83 ; 4

The aim of the article is introduce the research design of families affected by migration. The author argues that multidimensional family study from the perspective of family and kin resources, memory discourses, family doing and displaying practices, as well as coping with hardships requires mixed methods research. Research paradigm and theoretical model are discussed, methodological decisions are introduced, it is explained that triangulation is treated as one of the leading methodological decisions of the research design. The author discloses the possibilities of pragmatic approach and discusses triangulation of theories, methods, as well as data. Symbolic interactionism constitutes the main theoretical perspective of the research study, while Reuben Hill's family change model is treated as conceptual axis of research. The aim of methodological solutions discussed in the article is to theorize family change by means of ideas of symbolic interactionism, theoretical construct of solidarity, personal networks and conceptions of family practices. The working concept of family and analytical model of family research, as well as the guidelines of family-state relations are delineated.

This author uses regionalism as a theoretical framework for analyzing the foreign policy of the Russian Federation towards the Republic of Estonia. Regionalism is interpreted as a situation, when a political leader's beliefs change depending on what region of the world is considered. Leaders of great powers often assume that, for example, small European countries are subject to a treatment different from that of small Middle Eastern countries. The method of operational coding is employed to identify the impact of the regional approach on the beliefs of political leaders. The author comes to the conclusion that Russia's policy towards Estonia largely depends on Russia's policy towards the regions which the Russian elite relate Estonia to — the Baltic States, Northern Europe, and Europe as a whole. The results of the study can further the understanding of Russia's policy towards Estonia both in Russia and abroad. Lack of understanding sometimes results in sharing the views of radical Estonian politicians who claim that Russia's policy towards Estonia is unpredictable and thus poses a threat to security and stability in Europe.

"For more than eighty years, Dutch security services perceived communism as the ultimate threat to national security. From its inception, the anticommunist threat perceptions contained references to foreign, possible, potential, and ideological elements of the communist threat. This put the activities of Dutch communists in a different light. Although for a long time there were well-grounded reasons to do so, the author finds that there were periods when the actual threatening character of Dutch communism decreased. However, the security services did not decrease their surveillance activities vis-a-vis this 'red menace'. To account for this discrepancy, he uses insights from securitization theory, organizational studies, and intelligence studies to deconstruct threat perceptions. The author finds that whenever actually threatening events, such as the revolutionary threat of 1918 or the World Wars, became part of a distant Aast, the security services emphasized the symbolic and potential nature of the communist threat. The symbolic character of the threat institutionalized and continually reinforced by processes of cognitive bias, thus accounted for its unchanging threatening character. Only through external intervention have these perceptions changed." (author's abstract)

This article intervenes in video game studies' recent turn to (and enthusiasm for) player-centered approaches to understanding video games' social, cultural, political, and economic implications. Such approaches repudiate ostensibly formalist or 'structural' game studies and insist that analyses of gaming situations emphasize ways in which gaming subjects' playful acts of appropriation or subversion allow those subjects to resist complete determination by game-structures and act ultimately as arbiters of a video game's meaning, utility, or effectivity. The author demonstrates how player-centered discourses in video game studies participate in a rich history of 'active audience' research in media and cultural studies. Arguing that research on player practices does not completely escape the forms of reductionism it sets out to avoid, the author offers additional conceptual tools for engaging the complexity of contemporary gaming situations. The article concludes with a discussion of ways in which one such situation − gold farming − might be examined as an assemblage through an approach that responds to this complexity and avoids a particularly constraining model of agency inherent in player-centric game studies.

Contemplate the nature, relevance, and limitations of traditional systems analysis in understanding virtual systems as work communities. Considering herself from the perspective of a system personified, the author, herself a member of many virtual teams, feels drawn to augmenting the body of virtual team knowledge by reflecting on some foundational systems thinkers and relating their ideas to such organizations. She selects a few points from the writings of Durkheim, Parsons, Blau and Scott, and Wilber and tries to apply them to virtual communities. The primary focus originates with Blau and Scott's Formal Organizations, its content, some concerns, and how it might be relevant on a point-by-point basis to organizations in a virtual world. It is acknowledged that there are many types of virtual groups with different organizational attributes, and any inferences must be made with that in mind. The discussion covers social and formal organizations, psychological processes, organizational attributes, communications, and leadership. Where appropriate, the author proposes some virtual team extensions to the thoughts of Blau and Scott and suggests some ideas for empirical investigations to produce data in support of those modifications.

In August 2011, England experienced widespread public disorders in sixty-six locations following a protest at the shooting dead of a black man in north London by the police. The author examines, inter alia, reports from the Metropolitan Police Service, academics Steve Reicher and Cliff Stott, Tottenham MP David Lammy, the Guardian/London School of Economics, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and the Ministry of Justice to analyse the riots in London and other cities. He looks at the shooting of Mark Duggan, the immediate trigger, the riots' deeper causes and the arrests that followed. Instead of a formal inquiry, the government set up the Riots Communities and Victims Panel, which has now reported, blaming the breakdown of families and lack of character in the young, rather than structural issues. While it asks for the community to work out, with the police, ways to reduce the impact of stop and search, the Metropolitan Police Service asks that stops be linked to its intelligence gathering; a sure way, argues the author, not to deal with the alienation of the young.

This article uses a nontraditional form to provide insight into the experiences of students and mentors during work integrated learning, through poetry pieces. Mentors play a pivotal role during the period of experiential learning, during which student exposure to the world of work has to be nurtured, thereby ensuring that the experience is mutually beneficial to both the student and the mentor. The author is one of the mentors for students engaged in work integrated learning for three months in their final year of study toward a national diploma in public management. Students and mentors reflect on their experiences through feedback reports, which constitute an important part of reviewing the work integrated learning experience. With these resources, the author explores the experiences of students and mentors through poetry. Such a qualitative approach provides valuable insight into their experiences, which underscores the impact of work integrated learning on student preparation for the world of work. Further, the poetry pieces are employed to highlight the roles and responsibilities of students and mentors in the work integrated learning relationship.

Public policy is at the heart of US congressional investigations, where private corporations can confront a unique set of rules and mores—in a very public forum, often covered in the news and televised. This article traces the historical precedents to congressional inquiries, highlighting cases such as the 'Teapot Dome' scandal and the ensuing US Supreme Court case, McGrain v. Daugherty, confirming the Legislative Branch's independent investigative authority to compel a witness to testify and produce documents. The article explains the two types of congressional investigations, oversight and legislative, and how their differences could impact the corporations involved. It reviews recent examples of investigations, illuminating how a corporation's public relations and legal rights can both overlap and point to differing interests. Based upon first‐hand experience, the author provides a legal perspective in explaining the investigation procedures, the legal limits to congressional authority, and the steps taken to prepare a witness for testimony. Finally, the author explains how readiness for congressional inquiries is an integral aspect of prudent risk management for any major corporation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper analyses the China-Myanmar 'comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership' in the framework of China's diplomacy in the post-Cold War era and concludes that the partnership has no 'significant negative impact' on regional relations. China pursues its partnerships with Myanmar and other states to create a 'stable' and 'harmonious' surrounding environment, itself a 'major' prerequisite for China's peaceful development. The author argues that China has not focused its diplomacy on Myanmar at the expense of other states; rather, he notes that in fact China established a 'comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership' with three other ASEAN states (Vietnam in 2008, Laos in 2009, and Cambodia in 2010) before it did so with Myanmar in May 2011. The article argues that the scope and depth of China's partnerships with states such as Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia are actually above that of its partnership with Myanmar. It also argues that Myanmar's strong nationalism will prevent China from, for example, building a base on Myanmar's soil. The author also asserts that China does not seek to use Myanmar as an ally to weaken or dilute ASEAN or its unity on the South China Sea issue.

Biofuels development has assumed an important role in integrating Indigenous peoples and other marginalized populations in the production of biofuels for global consumption. By combining the theories of commoditization and the environmental sociology of networks and flows, the author analyzed emerging trends and possible changes in institutions and behaviors brought about by the introduction of biofuels as a development option on ancestral lands. Using the Indonesian oil palm and the Philippine Jatropha experiences, the author argues that although there are efforts to integrate smallholder systems to the global integrated biofuels network, the effects of commoditization continue to undermine the more sustainable, less commoditized agricultural practices of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples and their traditional agricultural practices are at risk of being either phased out from or eventually transformed by the global integrated biofuels network to accommodate large-scale, consolidated biofuel plantation systems. However, there are also indications that persistent criticisms of and enduring reforms in the global integrated biofuels network challenge the future of highly commoditized biofuels. This suggests that the coevolutionary trajectory of both highly commoditized biofuels and noncommoditized Indigenous agricultural practices remains uncertain.

In the summer of 2007, the International Institute of Forecasters (IIF) asked us to organize a workshop on ''Predictability of Financial Markets'', which took place on the 16th and 17th of January, 2009, in the beautiful, historical building of the Institute of Economics and Management (ISEG) in Lisbon. Nine outstanding invited speakers presented papers in the area of time series analysis of financial data, which were then discussed by nine other experts. This special issue provides peerreviewed, corrected and updated versions of seven of these papers, with additional comments by the discussants. Sadly, the paper by the Nobel Laureate Sir Clive Granger could not be finished, as he passed away in May 2009. We will always have the memories of his talk, which has been commented on here by Antonio García-Ferrer. In addition, the paper by Stephen Taylor entitled ''A multi-horizon comparison on density forecasts for the S&P 500 index returns and option prices'' was unfortunately not made available for this special issue. ; Financial support from FCT is acknowledged by the first author and from the Spanish Government project ECO2009-08100 is acknowledged by the second author. ; Publicado

For western tourists Japan is a mysterious country. That mystery was further increased by relatively long-lasting political isolationism, which consequently resulted in tourism isolationism. With tragic events – a 9-magnitude earthquake and a resulting gigantic tsunami, reaching 10 meters in height (11.03.2011) in the background, the author will analyze the geotourist potential of Japan. It can be predicted that, paradoxically, the strong earthquake and tsunami will soon result in an increased inflow of tourists. That might be related to the development of many new forms of geotourism, among which dark tourism became most and most popular. In this highly urbanized country, the geological heritage creates relict landscapes which could be referred to as quasi-natural. There are very interesting from a tourist point of view. The article was based on the author's own observations during her study trip around Japan in May, 2009. The journey around picturesque and to a great extent wild, as for Japan, spots of Shikoku and Honshu, inspired the author to present a few notes regarding the geotourist attractiveness of that country. This is an attempt to assess the environmental potential from the point of view of an European tourist.