America's Protégé in the East? The Emergence of Poland as a Regional Leader

Following the events of September 11 Poland has emerged as one of the key allies of the United States—arguably its protégé in east-central Europe. The close affinity of interests on security matters between the two states became even more apparent in Afghanistan and then more recently over Iraq, where Warsaw has proved to be a strong and highly vocal supporter of Washington's stance. The overall context to this is provided by the growing divergences between the US and Europe, but especially within Europe, towards the situation in Iraq, which has prompted endless commentary based around notions of 'old Europe' and 'new Europe' and 'American power and European weakness'. This article will reflect upon these debates and explore Poland's position within them by addressing the notion that Poland is becoming a regional leader. The 'instinctive' Atlanticism within Poland's strategic culture drives Warsaw's security policies and is evident across a range of examples. Focusing on the missile defence initiative and ESDP as key issues where there has been a clear set of interests between Poland and the US, it will be demonstrated that Warsaw has always opted for Atlantic as opposed to European solutions and institutions to meet its security needs. A question remains, however, as to whether Poland can continue to be America's protégé and whether Warsaw has the political will and capacity to assume the role required of it by the US, or a regional provider of security in the longer term. This article proposes that to assure this, Poland's eastern policies require not only a more focused and consistent line but also that its security thinking needs to be 'modernized' and should be led by a 'security' rather than a 'traditional defence' rationale reminiscent of the pre-1989 era.     

Do Urban Agglomeration Effects and Household Amenities have a Skill Bias?*

There are several hypotheses why urban scale affects wages. Most focus on agglomeration economies that increase labor demand, especially for high‐skilled workers (e.g., dynamic externalities stress knowledge transfers, and imply the urban wage gap favors skilled workers). Others stress urban amenities that increase labor supply and decrease wages. Amenities should have a stronger influence on affluent households if they are normal goods. By examining whether urban‐scale affects net returns to education, it can be determined whether skilled workers are influenced more by urban productivity or amenities. Empirical results suggest net returns to education decline with urban scale, implying a key role for urban amenities in affecting skilled workers.     

Earthquake Faulting Effects on Buried Pipelines – Case History and Centrifuge Study

Permanent ground deformation (PGD) is one of the most damaging hazards for continuous buried lifelines. This hazard is especially severe when the PGD results in net compression in the pipe. In that case, buckling of pipe material can occur. If buckling is moderate, deformation of the pipe cross-section can lead to flow restriction and high friction losses, and eventually require line replacement. If buckling is severe, high localized strains can lead to pipe rupture, loss of contents, and possible pollution of surrounding soil. In this article, centrifuge tests of buried pipelines subject to abrupt ground failure in the form of surface faulting are presented. The fault movement results in mostly compression in the pipe. The test results are compared with a case history of pipe failure in the 1999 Izmit, Turkey earthquake and also with the results from the centrifuge tests which result in net tension in the pipe. The experimental setup, procedures, and instrumentation are described in detail. Suggestions for design practice are offered based on the analysis of results from both the 1999 Izmit case history and the centrifuge modeling.     

The Effects of the Scientific Survey On the Tibetan Plateau for 50 Years

TheauthorisanAcademicianofCAS.HonoraryPresidentofChina'sSocietyontheTbetanPlaleau.ThefiftyyearsforscientificsurveyontheTibetanPlateauisthataccompaniedwiththefoundationandgroWthofthePeople'sRepublicofChina,andthatrepresentedscientificproaresses,nationalunityandeconomicdeveIopmentin1ibetanareas.ItisthemostpraiseworthyscientificpracticeinChina'sscienceresearchduringthefiftyyears.Manyofus,fromyouthtooldage,havebeenworkingforitfornearlyfiftyyears.WenotonIycontributedOuryouthstagebutalsoallt…     

(Un)Informed Voting? A Test of Compulsory Voting Feedback Effects

Compulsory voting is known to increase turnout and produce a more representative electorate, but there is considerable debate about whether it stimulates political learning. Analyses of political knowledge using cross‐national and intranational observational data arrive at mixed conclusions. Experimental research is similarly inconclusive. We attempt to reconcile these disparate results by employing a novel experiment that tracks political learning during real elections and randomly assigns some people to receive a punitive threat for failure to cast an in‐person vote. We demonstrate that compelled voter participation can increase voter participation and political learning, but also prompts anger.     

Radiative perturbation due to the eruption of El Chichón: Effects on ozone

The ozone depletion over the Antarctic region is now attributed to processes involving heterogeneous chemistry on polar stratospheric clouds. Similar mechanisms are probably working also in the Northern hemisphere high latitudes [Douglass and Stolarski (1989) Geophys. Res. Lett. 16, 131] and may be important in explaining the secular trend of ozone in the last twenty years above 50° North [Pitari and Visconti (1991) J. geophys. Res. 96, 10,931]. Hofmann and Solomon [(1989) J. geophys. Res. 94, 5029] have shown that the local observed decrease in the ozone amount following the eruption of El Chichón could be explained in terms of heterogeneous chemistry on the volcanic aerosol surface. In this paper we use a two dimensional model to study the effects on ozone introduced by the El Chichón aerosols through a perturbation in the radiation field; both the temperature and the photolysis rates are affected. We show that up to half of the observed decrease may be attributed to radiative effects at mid latitudes.     

For Whom is the Rural Economy Resilient? Initial Effects of Drought in Western Sudan

This discussion piece addresses two recent debates: entitlement theory and the resilience of rural systems. The authors find that in western Sudan entitlement theory provides a specific and useful framework for understanding the nature of the crisis confronting the society. Arguments about the resilience of rural systems, however, need to be more closely examined and will depend on site-specific factors. The rural economy and society of western Sudan were not found to be resilient.     

Effects of mothers’ deaths on children’s schooling in Matlab subdistrict,Bangladesh

This quantitative analysis examines evidence for the impacts of mothers’ death on the schooling of their left-behind children (ages 6–17 years) in the Matlab Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) area of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. The analysis compared the completed levels of primary and junior secondary schooling in 2005 (respectively Class 1 among ages 6–17, Class 5 among ages 12–17 and Class 7 among ages 15–17) of children whose mothers had died during 1982–2005 (from maternal and/or nonmaternal causes, and any cause) with the completed schooling of children of surviving mothers in 2005. The results, after controlling for selected socioeconomic variables, indicate that children whose mothers had died had lower completion of schooling levels, and that those children from poorer households fared worst.     

Reburial and Analyses of Archaeological Remains in the Marine Environment — Investigations into the Effects on Metals

Abstract

The treatment and long-term storage of recovered cultural material from underwater heritage sites is becoming less cost effective, and reburial of archaeological sites and the associated artefacts in the marine environment is becoming increasingly common practice in managing the submerged cultural resource. Following recent large-scale underwater archaeological excavations in Marstrand harbour, Sweden, the majority of recovered finds were reburied in defined trenches in the harbour sediment. Subsequently, the Studio of the Western Sweden Conservators in conjunction with the Bohus County Museum initiated a fifty-year research project to evaluate reburial as an appropriate method of preserving waterlogged archaeological artefacts in the long term. The research project, entitled ‘Reburial and Analyses of Archaeological Remains’, was launched in 2002 and consists of six sub-projects. The main aims of these sub-projects are to analyse the extent of deterioration of the most common material types found on underwater archaeological sites, assess the stability of packing and marking materials used in archaeological documentation, and monitor the reburial environment.

The aim of the metals sub-project is to investigate the short- to long-term corrosion behaviour of metals buried in the marine environment by examining the deterioration of reburied and exposed modern metal coupons and eventually compare these results to the analysis of actual shipwreck artefacts. The environmental monitoring sub-project is designed to complement the other sub-projects by assessing the physico-chemical changes occurring in the reburial environment over time and the effect on the deterioration of the different reburied material types. In comparing the results obtained over the past seven years from both the metals and monitoring sub-projects, it should be possible to more accurately evaluate the effectiveness of reburial as a long-term in situ preservation strategy for metallic archaeological remains.     

How reliable are our published archaeometric analyses? Effects of analytical techniques through time on the elemental analysis of obsidians

To assess the analytical accuracies and precisions of archaeometric elemental analyses by different techniques, a relatively homogeneous material such as obsidian must be studied. An assessment of published elemental concentration data from two Anatolian obsidian sources shows that while in most cases analytical accuracy is as high as is commonly expected, in some cases it is not. It also shows that the dispersions of elemental concentration data (indicators of analytical precisions) coming from modern analytical procedures are akin to the estimated homogeneity of the obsidian. Based on this latter observation, if one has element dispersion data from a single analytical technique, with a single source of obsidian as a control, data sets that contain multiple, but similar sources of obsidian may be differentiated.     

‘Startling; Nay,Almost Repulsive’: Light Effects and Nascent Sensation in John Everett Millais’s The Rescue

Taking Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais’s The Rescue (1855) as a case study of shifting aesthetic and moral frameworks, the essay investigates the ways in which mid-century British debates regarding the proper representation of light effects illuminate anxieties about a physically embodied viewer, one who encountered pictures in individualized ways that required regulation and guidance. Represented light, as an element that had a measurable effect on the senses, clearly stimulated a physical response and therefore brought the body to the fore in the art encounter. Types of painting that forcefully engaged the somatic self could become suspect and consequently subject to a process by which they were designated as ‘sensation’, a category in fraught relation with the disappearing ‘sublime’. Combining close visual analysis, a discussion of The Rescue’s novel subject matter, remarks by its first beholders, and nineteenth-century aesthetic theory, the article reflects on the ways in which discourses of art revealed anxieties about the formation of the modern subject and argues that The Rescue is a node in which the death of the sublime meets the birth of sensation.     

‘Sandplay,Clay and Sticks’: Multi-Sensory Research Methods to Explore the Long-Term Mental Health Effects of Childhood Play Experience

In this contribution we discuss the advantages of using multi-sensory methodologies in our study into the long-term mental health effects of different kinds of childhood play space. Working with a small group of young people aged 16–21 years old; we used a multi-method approach including practical workshops where the young people took part in a day of woodland activities and artwork sessions. We argue that use of such practical methodologies is particularly appropriate in research with teenagers and young adults, helping to overcome their self-consciousness and supporting their need to explore and articulate memories, feelings and ideas.     

Concentration Effects,Spatial Mismatch,or Neighborhood Selection? Exploring Labor Market and Neighborhood Variations in Male Unemployment Risk Using Census Microdata from Great Britain

A classification of census enumeration districts has recently been added to the 1991 British Census 2% Sample of Anonymised Records (SAR). Through the use of multilevel modeling techniques, the area classification information on the SAR is used to investigate geographical differences in unemployment. Previous research has indicated that where a person lives can affect their propensity to unemployment. However, the understanding of these relationships are confounded by the reciprocal nature of the relationship between unemployment, housing, and geographical location. This paper examines the relative importance of the individual, the type of neighborhood of residence, and the local labor market in which one lives in explaining variations in unemployment risk. It also examines the role of housing tenure at an individual and contextual level in mediating this relationship. Two competing hypotheses are evaluated. The first is that local concentrations of unemployment are the result of the process of neighborhood selection. The other suggests there are contextual affects on unemployment risk, which may include access to job opportunities and “concentration effects.” The paper concludes that most neighborhood level variation in unemployment is due to housing market effects, particularly neighborhood selection. As well as offering insights into the relationship between unemployment and geographical location, this paper aims to demonstrate methodological innovations in the analysis of census microdata. In particular it shows how area classifications can be used in conjunction with microdata in a multilevel modeling framework, to get a better understanding of the role of individual and contextual factors in social processes.     

A Microtremor Survey in the Area Shocked by the ML 5.2 Salò Earthquake (North Italy): An Empirical Approach to Determine the Effects of Ground Motions

In this work, the results of a quick microtremor survey performed in the municipalities situated in the epicentre area of the Ml 5.2 2004 Salò earthquake (North Italy) are presented. The aim of this study is to understand if the large amount of damage caused by the event (about 215 million euros only in the areas near to the epicenter) is correlated more to the local surface geology conditions or to the vulnerability of ancient Italian historical centers.

A preliminary seismic zonation was carried out in 5 villages including about 30 measurements of microtremors analyzed by the Nakamura technique (hereinafter HVNR). The points of measurement were carefully selected considering sites located both near damaged buildings and over different local geology conditions (alluvium deposits, fluvial-glacial deposits, debris fans and rock). In order to strengthen the HVNR results and to evaluate the reliability of the Nakamura analysis, a comparison with spectral ratios calculated on earthquakes (hereinafter HVSR) recorded at the strong motion station of Vobarno was made. In general, the outcomes of the survey highlight a possible correlation between local geology conditions and ground motion amplification for different frequency bands. In order to check if this evidence is linked with the damage, a series of macroseismic intensity values were collected for different zones of the investigated area, and a nonparametric correlation approach was used to establish a possible correlation between damage and ground motion amplification for selected frequency bands. The results show, from a statistical point of view, that in the area surrounding the epicenter of the November 24, 2004 mainshock, the damage pattern is not strongly dependent upon the local surface geology but more correlated to the low quality of the civil structures present in the area, including old buildings of the last century.