"Our Beer": Ethnographic Brands in Postsocialist Georgia

Although Georgia is known for its wines, industrial production of beer far outstrips industrial wine production for local markets: wine consumption occurs in ritual contexts in which new wine, typically purchased from peasant producers, is preferred; bottled, aged wines are primarily for exports. Beer, therefore, is a key area in which industrial production for indigenous consumers has been elaborated. Such goods are packaged and presented as being both ecologically "pure" and following "traditional" methods, often referencing "ethnographic" materials about traditional life in brand images, even as they proclaim their reliance on Western technologies.     

Health in exchange: teachers,doctors, and the strength of informal practices in Russia

This article explores teachers' and doctors' informal medical exchange practices in the context of the transforming health care system in post-Soviet Russia. Despite the advent of a medical marketplace, most Russians have low incomes and cannot buy the goods and services the market offers. Instead, they bypass the formal market mechanisms (such as obtaining cheaper medicine through personal connections) and official procedures (such as obtaining free or cheaper health care services despite the emergence of paid services) by using their social networks. This paper uses a network perspective to investigate how doctors' and teachers' mutual relations are formed and what resources form the basis of these informal exchange practices. Drawing on structured diary data and qualitative interviews with 20 teachers, in addition to interviews with eight doctors in St. Petersburg, the study goes beyond mere statistics on health care and attempts to depict from below the implications health and illness have for survival in contemporary Russia.     

‘An island of socialism in a capitalist country’: Postsocialist Russian science and the culture of the state

Through a comparison of privatization programs in two physics institutes, this article explores the ways in which scientists in the Siberian science city of Akademgorodok adapted to the low levels of state funding available to them in the 1990s. Scientists transformed structures that were available under socialism into hybrid state-private ventures. Rather than ‘freeing’ Russian science from its former dependence on the state, however, these changes have reconfigured, and in some cases even strengthened, the relationship between state power and the production of knowledge. Seeing ‘the state’ as it is constituted in Russian scientists' discourse challenges Western models of the autonomy of science.     

"Change yourself and the whole world will become kinder": Russian activists for reproductive health and the limits of claims making for women

This article views reproductive health activism as a fruitful site for analyzing the cultural logics through which legitimate claims for women's needs become expressed and circumscribed. It begins from the observation that in the United States and Britain, reproductive health has been a key arena for feminist political claims and struggles for women's rights, bodily integrity, access to health care, and demands for authority in relations with experts. These concerns and struggles have not, however, emerged in all postsocialist contexts, and new activism in Russia reveals strikingly different agendas. Innovative groups of health providers seeking to increase women's access to birth control methods and safe sex, home birth opportunities, and improved health services work outside of feminist perspectives and reject political paths for change. By examining the ideological inspirations, cultural logics, and political-economic constraints shaping the outreach work of Russian health practitioners, the article explains how and why health activism became a site for personal "spiritual" revival and the strengthening of nuclear families. It also explores how conditions following the collapse of socialism have further legitimized activists' rejection of political agendas for change.     

Gendering unemployment in postsocialist Germany: ‘what I do is work,even if it's not paid’

This article uses feminist theories of the family to examine women's unemployment in the early years of German postsocialism. It is based on qualitative fieldwork, including 80 in-depth interviews, conducted in three cities in the formerly socialist region of Germany. In this article, three cases of couples coping with a wife's unemployment are analyzed in terms of micro-processes of negotiating work-family balance, redefining employment and domesticity, and reconstructing gendered identities. The central argument is that a couple's stance on emerging market institutions shaped how they re-negotiated their gender division of labor during postsocialism.     

Portraiture and Proximity: ‘Official’ Artists and the State-ization of the Market in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan

This article traces the production and circulation of state officials' portraits in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, as visual artists engaged in the cultivation of an art market after the dismantling of socialist-era state sponsorship. I argue that these portraits of the president and other high-ranking officials should be considered as an instance of commercialisation of art. Portraiture invoked proximity of artists to their powerful sitters, government officials, and consequently made artists' work more attractive to a particular kind of domestic buyer. Furthermore, I argue that these practices of commodification enable an understanding of how socialist-era legacies of state sponsorship have converted into the logics of proximity to power. The Soviet-era personalistic connections to bureaucrats have transformed into the means for representation of artwork's market value in contemporary Kazakhstan. As such, Soviet legacies of clientelism have rendered state icons as significant authenticators of commercial value and therefore central to the emerging market.     

The effects of intensity of exercise on excess postexercise oxygen consumption and energy expenditure in moderately trained men and women

This experiment investigated the effects of intensity of exercise on excess postexercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) in eight trained men and eight women. Three exercise intensities were employed 40%, 50%, and 70% of the predetermined maximal oxygen consumption (VO_2max). All ventilation measured was undertaken with a standard, calibrated, open circuit spirometry system. No differences in the 40%, 50% and 70% VO_2max trials were observed among resting levels of oxygen consumption (V0₂) for either the men or the women. The men had significantly higher resting VO₂ values being 0.31 (SEM 0.01) 1·min^–1 than did the women, 0.26 (SEM 0.01) 1·min^–1 (P < 0.05). The results indicated that there were highly significant EPOC for both the men and the women during the 3-h postexercise period when compared with resting levels and that these were dependent upon the exercise intensity employed. The duration of EPOC differed between the men and the women but increased with exercise intensity: for the men 40% – 31.2 min; 50% – 42.1 min; and 70% – 47.6 min and for the women, 40% – 26.9 min; 50% – 35.6 min; and 70% – 39.1 min. The highest EPOC, in terms of both time and energy utilised was at 70% VO_2max. The regression equation for the men, where y=O₂ in litres, and x=exercise intensity as a percentage of maximum was y=0.380x + 1.9 (r ²=0.968) and for the women is y=0.374x–0.857 (r ²=0.825). These findings would indicate that the men and the women had to exercise at the same percentage of their VO_2max to achieve the maximal benefits in terms of energy expenditure and hence body mass loss. However, it was shown that a significant EPOC can be achieved at moderate to low exercise intensities but without the same body mass loss and energy expenditure.     

Two wrongs don't make a right: the initial viability of different assessment rules in the evolution of indirect reciprocity

Indirect reciprocity models are meant to correspond to simple moral systems, in which individuals assess the interactions of third parties in order to condition their cooperative behavior. Despite the staggering number of possible assessment rules in even the simplest of these models, previous research suggests that only a handful are evolutionarily stable against invasion by free riders. These successful assessment rules fall into two categories, one which positively judges miscreants when they refuse to help other miscreants, the other which does not. Previous research has not, however, demonstrated that all of these rules can invade an asocial population—a requirement for a complete theory of social evolution. Here, I present a general analytical model of indirect reciprocity and show that the class of assessment rules which positively judges a refusal to help scofflaws cannot invade a population of defectors, whereas the other class can. When rare, assessment rules which positively judge a refusal to help bad people produce a poor correlation between reputation and behavior. It is this correlation that generates the assortment crucial in sustaining cooperation through indirect reciprocity. Only assessment rules that require good deeds to achieve a good reputation guarantee a strong correlation between behavior and reputation.     

梨枣花果期耗水规律及其与茎直径变化的相关分析

设置4个水分处理,研究了4年生梨枣2010年及2011年花果期不同供水条件下土壤水分动态和耗水规律,分析了梨枣日耗水量与茎直径变化间的相关性,建立回归模型.结果表明:(1)2a内各处理梨枣耗水量随土壤供水量的增加而增大,其日耗水量最大值均出现在灌水后1周内;各处理果实膨大期日耗水强度大于开花坐果期.(2)2a内各处理茎直径日变化平均值(MTD)、茎直径日最大值(MXTD)均符合Logistic函数关系,MXTD与MTD在表征梨枣茎秆生长规律方面效果一致,各处理茎直径变化指标(MTD、MXTD)增长率因水分处理的不同而存在差异.(3)高水分(T1处理)条件下茎直径变化指标(MTD、MXTD、MDS(茎直径日最大收缩量)、DG(茎直径日生长量))在表征枣树耗水状况方面不敏感;在低水分(T4处理)条件下,日耗水量与茎直径日最大收缩量(MDS)相关系数较其他3个茎直径变化指标(MTD、MXTD、DG)高且达极显著水平,说明MDS能够更好的表征低水分处理的梨枣耗水规律.在此基础上建立耗水量与茎直径变化回归模型,为评价梨枣耗水状况提供依据.     

Can biology make ethics objective?

A familiar position regarding the evolution of ethics is that biology can explain the origin of morals but that in doing so it removes the possibility of their having objective justification. This position is set fourth in detail in the writings of Michael Ruse (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990a, 1990b) but it is also taken by many others, notably, Jeffrie Murphy (1982), Andrew Oldenquist (1990), and Allan Gibbard (1990), I argue the contrary view that biology provides a justification of the existence of morals which is objective in the sense of being independent of people's moral views and their particular desires and preferences. Ironically, my argument builds on the very premises which are supposed to undermine the objectivity of morals. But my argument stops short of claiming that biology can give us a basis for justifying some particular system of morals. Drawing on an analogy with social contract theory, I offer a general reason why this more ambitious project cannot be expected to succeed if the argument is pursued along the same lines. Finally, I give reasons why the possibility of objective justification for a particular morality cannot be ruled out in general on evolutionary grounds.     

La cabane no 5 du site paléolithique de Gontsy (Ukraine)

The dwelling 5 is the largest of the six mammoth bone dwellings in the Gontsy Mezinian settlement (Poltava region, Ukraine). The dwelling 5 is a complex structure, consisting of a circular outer perimeter about 8 meters in diameter and a central oval structure of 4.5 × 3.5 m² dimensions, separated by an intermediate area. After quickly presenting the Gontsy site, the history of the excavations, the settlement and its spatial organization, and finally the six huts, the paper develops the particular method that is the excavation of mammoth bone swelling, or rather the structure it presents, totally different from stripping a thin occupation level. It has been shown that this structure is a dwelling collapse structure, with an external and inner stratigraphy showing from bottom to top: level of occupancy/level of loess giving flowed from the walls/level bones of the walls having tipped outwards and the inside/level of fragmented bones. The outer edge is a collapsed wall built on a circle of foundation skulls, alveoli planted in the ground, mounted with large bones different depending on the location: wall skulls, mandibles, pelvis, scapulae and long bones, and consolidated by lœss extracted from adjacent pits. The central structure is an oval dwelling, about 15 m² in area, with an accumulation of burnt bones in the center. Its walls are made up of skulls, tusks, pelvis, scapulae and long bones. In the centre, tusks and reindeer antlers come from the hut's roofing system. The intermediate area, which separates the outer edge from the central area, delivered whole or broken bones, which fell from the outer edge and the central structure. It is also a circulation area with two areas of activity marked by a concentration of stones, flint, dye, rodent bones and mammoth rib fragments. The dwelling 5 also delivered the remains of rodents (hare, marmot) and furry carnivores (polar fox, wolf). Some remains of bison and reindeer are also present. The lithic industry, by its knapping, tooling and raw materials, is no different here from other parts of the settlement and corresponds to an industry of the Mezinian. Stones, in the form of granite and shale slabs or pebbles, are significantly present and are associated with activity areas. A bone industry and adornment elements complete the inventory. The study concludes that the dwelling 5 is a structure consisting of a circular protective enclosure, an intermediate area that is a place of varied activity and a central structure, which is a collapsed swelling. The hypothesis of a ritual structure is totally contradicted by the data.     

Variabilité de l’industrie lithique entre les structures de l’habitation no 1 de Mezhyrich,site du Paléolithique supérieur d’Ukraine

The investigation of the lithic assemblages from three archaeological structures of the Upper Palaeolithic Mezhyrich site, mammoth bone dwelling no. 1, nearby located pit no. 7 and workshop with a portion of cultural layer situated on the border of the pit, exhibits a sufficient diversity of the main indexes of flint assemblages. According to the latter, the main flint resources, cores and large pieces of flint, as well as blades and several tools (scrapers), were kept just in the dwelling. At the same time, the remains of “debitage” and the modification products of several tools (burin spalls) are more numerous in the pit and the workshop. The higher percentages of backed microliths, included the forms with diagnostic projectile impact fracture, and burins with several working edges are also observed in the assemblages of the last two archaeological structures.     

What challenges does the humanitarian crisis and large number of refugees from Ukraine pose for Polish oncology?

The war in Ukraine has led to a massive influx of refugees into Poland, posing a major challenge for the health care system. The large number of refugees will undoubtedly lead to a substantial increase in the number of patients requiring treatment for a wide range of conditions, including cancer. In the present article, we describe and discuss the many difficulties faced by cancer treatment centres in Poland due to these circumstances. Key issues include the lack of proper diagnostic testing in this population and differences in oncological practices between Poland and Ukraine. Other problems include difficulties in obtaining patients’ medical records and communication issues caused by the language barrier. In addition, in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the low vaccination rate among Ukrainian refugees is also a significant risk factor. Addressing these challenges will require a comprehensive approach involving the national health care agency and individual cancer centres. This is especially important in oncology due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field, which requires the contribution of specialists from many different fields as well as appropriate funding.     

New gall midges of the subfamily Lestremiinae (Diptera, Cecidomyiidae) from the Rovno amber

Two new genera and eight new species of the gall midges subfamily Lestremiinae, viz. Berestella insuperabilis gen. et sp. nov., Monardia impellucida sp. nov., Xylopriona aristata sp. nov. (Micromyini), Aprionus improvisus sp. nov., A.? vlaskini sp. nov. (Aprionini), Vicemyia immediata gen. et sp. nov. (Peromyiini), Cordylomyia cauta sp. nov. (Campylomyzini) and Bryomyia necessaria sp. nov. (Bryomyiini) from the Late Eocene Rovno amber are described. New combinations, i.e., Cordylomyia declinata (Fedotova, 2004), comb. nov. and Cordylomyia magnifica (Nel et Prokop, 2006), comb. nov. (both are transferred from Neurolyga) are proposed. No species in common with the fauna from the Baltic amber are recorded.