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AbstractA succinct but comprehensive survey is given on what we know on women in ancient Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria (with an occasional remark on Syria), covering the time span of roughly 3000-300 B.C. Thanks to the rich archival material we are well informed about her social position, in particular the status of a married or widowed wife. Marriage is the most important topic in this article. Attention is also paid to women at work and in religion. Differences in region and time are pointed out.

Intro -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- Map -- 1 Her outward appearance -- 1.1 Phases of life -- 1.2 The girl -- 1.3 The virgin -- 1.4 Women's clothing -- 1.5 Cosmetics and beauty -- 1.6 The language of women -- 1.7 Women's names -- 2 Marriage -- 2.1 Preparations -- 2.2 Age for marrying -- 2.3 Regulations -- 2.4 The betrothal -- 2.5 The wedding -- 2.6 Marriage and magic -- 3 The marriage gifts -- 3.1 General remarks -- 3.2 The bride-price -- 3.3 The dowry -- 3.4 Gifts from the man -- 4 The family -- 4.1 Impotence -- 4.2 Children -- 4.3 The mother -- 4.4 Bereavement -- 4.5 Childlessness -- 4.6 Repudiation of a childless wife -- 5 A second wife -- 5.1 A slave-girl -- 5.2 Initiating the transaction -- 5.3 The second wife in the Old Assyrian period -- 5.4 The second wife in later periods -- 5.5 The position of the second wife when the first wife is ill -- 6 Concubines -- 7 Marriage between equals -- 8 Marriage to a slave -- 9 Divorce -- 9.1 In Babylonia -- 9.2 In Assyria -- 9.3 In the Neo-Babylonian period -- 9.4 In Syria -- 9.5 Motives for divorce -- 9.6 Predictions -- 9.7 Reconciliation -- 10 Adultery -- 10.1 Women who initiate adultery -- 10.2 Were both lovers treated equally? -- 10.3 Caught in the act -- 10.4 Punishment -- 10.5 Accusations of adultery -- 10.6 The Mother of Sin -- 10.7 An adulterous princess? -- 11 Rape -- 11.1 Slave-girl -- 11.2 Unmarried girl -- 11.3 Married woman -- 11.4 The locations -- 11.5 In myths -- 11.6 The right of the first night -- 12 Incest -- 12.1 Promiscuity -- 12.2 Incest -- 13 The widow -- 13.1 Poor widows -- 13.2 Arrangements made for widows in wills -- 13.3 Powerful widows -- 13.4 Remarrying -- 13.5 Cohabiting -- 13.6 Widows with children -- 14 Levirate marriage -- 15 Women's rights of inheritance -- 16 Women-trafficking under the guise of adoption -- 16.1 The Old Babylonian period -- 16.2 Nuzi.

Why did the Dutch hold on to Western New Guinea, one of the many territories that constituted the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), when the colony became independent in 1949? This thesis argues against the traditional explanation that it was due to a singular Dutch 'decolonization trauma': an inability to let go of the glorious colonial past, combined with resentment against Indonesian nationalist leaders such as Sukarno. It shows that historians have overstated the importance of emotions in Dutch colonial policy-making and diplomacy after 1949, mainly because of their narrow scope of analysis, which has traditionally been restricted to trilateral relations between the Netherlands, independent Indonesia (which wanted to incorporate Western New Guinea, if need be with military means) and the allegedly 'anti-colonial' United States. This thesis situates Dutch decision-making in the Western New Guinea Crisis in a much wider network, incorporating the colonial policy, diplomacy and perception of other Western powers such as Britain, France, Australia, Belgium and Portugal between 1930 and 1962. It is argued that, when viewed within this network and its discourse, the Dutch decision to retain Western New Guinea is best explained with rational actor theory. The decision was inspired not so much by emotions as by cost-benefit analyses, which included the possibility of transferring the territory to a new Indonesian regime—which the Dutch expected to be more forthcoming to the interests of the Papuans, the native inhabitants of Western New Guinea, and the Dutch (economic) interests in Indonesia than the regime headed by Sukarno. Research into hitherto neglected French, Belgian, British and Dutch archives also shows that the Netherlands could count on much more support for its New Guinea policy from its Western allies—including the US—than traditional historiography suggests. It remains true that the United States forced the Netherlands to hand over Western New Guinea to Indonesia in 1962, but the Kennedy ...

The article examines the factors of professional burnout of teachers in Russia and Bashkortostan, including on the basis of a survey conducted by the working group of the Institute for Strategic Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus to discuss the optimization of the load on teachers of general education organizations at the Parliamentary hearings of the State Assembly - Kurultai of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Burnout factors are considered: features of the teaching profession, uncontrollable and increased workload, quality of feedback (support from the administration, relations with parents), lack of clarity of roles (changes in requirements) and freedom in decision-making, work experience, age, gender factor. It is concluded the problem of professional burnout is associated with the management system in the field of education, the level of wages, non-standardized and uncontrolled workload, lack of prevention and timely assistance, as well as, to a small extent, the gender factor. This means that the solution of the issue should be systemic and complex.

A factor in the health of the population is a sober lifestyle, free from addictive behavior. To assess the scale of addictions, their causes, ways to reduce the problem, a sociological survey of teachers from the Republic of Bashkortostan, who observe and fix the dynamics in the motives, roles and practices of a sober lifestyle. A sober lifestyle has become a social norm. Stressful situations, lack of support, dissatisfaction with life, difficult life situation, heredity and a tendency to addiction contribute to addictions. The main motives for choosing a sober healthy lifestyle are health as a value for a person, family traditions and education, sobriety as a principled position in life. Among the measures to expand the practice of a sober lifestyle, supplement anti-alcohol and anti-drug policies, are conditions for sports and other types of leisure creation, strengthen restrictive measures, promote healthy lifestyles, solve employment problems and improve the welfare of the population.

SummaryMixing of sand layers on top of peat soils is achieved by soil improvement machines. The result of the mixing process is studied by taking samples from a vertical cross‐section of the profile. The samples will have various values of the sand to peat volume‐ratio. These values can be plotted in emperical cumulative frequency distributions. The distributions for two types of machines were found to be quite different due to differences of mixing intensities. A method is proposed for the evaluation of the mixing effect expressed in the parameters of theoretical probability distributions of two‐component soil samples. The probability distribution of the volume‐ratios in the sample are derived and their properties are discussed. Moment estimators of the parameters are derived. The theoretical distributions are compared with two experimental results obtained with a mixing rooter and a rotary mixer respectively.

The role that computers and computer technology are playing in our lives is growing. Western society is digitising rapidly. This trend offers convenience, but it also has its drawbacks, because new kinds of crime have emerged with the advent of computer technology: cybercrime and digitised crime. When combined these two are known as digital crime or, in the words of the legislator, computer crime. This is what this book is about. But it is also about the social context and social mechanisms, and legislation that is being used to deal with these new kinds of crime. So this book sheds light on the subject from alternating points of view, namely from the perspectives of traditional law, sociology of law, criminology and the philosophy of law.0This book is written for master's degree law students who are interested in the effect that digitalisation has on criminal law. These would be law students with a broad interest in society, because the subject covers not only criminal law, but also sociology of law, criminology and the philosophy of law. That said, this book will also be of interest to master's degree students in social sciences who are interested in the issues related to digitisation and criminal justice (deviant behaviour and formal social control)