Human-planted alder trees as a protection against debris flows (a dendrochronological study from the Moxi Basin, Southwestern China)

Large debris flows have destroyed the infrastructure and caused the death of people living in the Moxi Basin (Sichuan Province, Southwestern China). Inhabitants of the Moxi Basin live on the flat surfaces of debris-flow fans, which are also attractive for farming. During the monsoon season debris flows are being formed above the fans. Debris flows can destroy the houses of any people living within the fan surfaces. In order to prevent the adverse effects of flows, people plant alder trees (Alnus nepalensis) at the mouths of debris flow gullies running above debris flow fans. Alders are able to capture the debris transported during flow events. Trees are well adapted to surviving in conditions of environmental stress connected with abrupt transport and deposition of sediment from debris flows. Numerous wounds, tilting and bending of alder trees caused by debris flows only very rarely cause the death of trees. By dating scars and dating the time of alder tilting (through the analysis of annual rings), we have determined the frequency of debris flows occurring at the mouth of the Daozhao valley. In 1980–2012 within the studied debris-flow fan and the Daozhao gully, 2 large debris flow events occurred (1996, 2005) and some smaller events were probably recorded every 2–3 years.     

The municipal elections of March 2001

This article analyses Algeria's ongoing 'civil war' through the lens of contemporary Algerian theatre. Specifically, it examines the relationship between Algeria's unsuccessful transition to democratic, religious pluralism and Alek Baylee Toumi's 1996 play, Madah-Sartre . Among the prominent themes covered are the issues of gender equality as represented in the efforts of Khalida Messaoudi (Toumi's sister) to resist the 1984 Algerian Family Code; the rise of Islamic radicalism; the legacy of the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir within contemporary Algerian intellectual and political communities; the problem of Islamic and state-sponsored terrorism; and the effects of the Islamic radicals' policies of assassinating Algerian intellectuals on the Algerian community in the diaspora.     

THE “RUSSIFICATION” OF ETHNIC MINORITIES IN THE USSR

Among the avowed social policies of the Soviet Union are modernization and industrialization, which may be combined under the label of Sovietization, and the spread of Russian language and culture within the USSR, which may be termed Russianization. But there is also a third process at work in which non-Russians lose their ethnic identity in favor of identification with Russian culture. This process, which may be called "Russification," can be measured by the number of non-Russians who declare Russian to be their first language in the census. The authors use correlation analysis and principal components analysis to identify the factors that promote or hinder the Russification process.     

民族文化奇葩世界文学经典——蒙文版《尹湛纳希全集》编撰的思考

本文重点阐述了尹湛纳希经典作品再生产进程中的思考.尹湛纳希是蒙古文学的开创者,他以母语写作,多种版本流传于世.蒙文版<尹湛纳希>第一次推出,负载着经典作品的现实立场与历史想象,也在于编撰者的积极介入、参与文化建构的成果.     

Armenian women of Istanbul: notes on their role in the survival of the Armenian community

This article argues that the Armenian women living in Istanbul are confined to domestic and communal spaces, and that the roles of symbolizing collective territory and identity, and of cultural reproduction of the community, are mostly associated with women. The data and observations we explore here are based on a field survey of Turkey's Armenian community that was conducted in Istanbul between November 2004 and May 2005. Evaluation of this survey based on both quantitative and qualitative methods allows us to draw some conclusions about the roles of Armenian women in the reproduction of Armenian culture. Women's roles indirectly influence Armenian identity, creating the conditions for its survival.     

A new map of Qâni’ (Yemen)

Qâni’, the main seaport for the export of goods from South Arabia, was founded by the Hadramawt kingdom in the first century BC. A geomorphological survey and a general surface reconnaissance of Qâni’ have revealed a new image of the site. Originally a royal entrepôt in a fortress on an ancient island, separated from the mainland by a silted channel lined with a mangrove forest, Qâni’ gradually grew and spread around the beach fronting the mooring place of the trade ships that arrived by sea. Sacred spaces, cemeteries, dwellings and trade quarters appear to be well‐defined areas forming a real town within the limits imposed by the surrounding sea.     

The experiments of Ramón M. Termeyer SJ on the electric eel in the River Plate region (c. 1760) and other early accounts of Electrophorus electricus

This paper focuses on Ramón M. Termeyer SJ (1737-1814?), a naturalist who experimented with the electric eel in the River Plate region during the 1760s. After going through an enumeration of the chroniclers that since the sixteenth century noticed the benumbing discharge of Electrophorus electricus, the article summarizes the work that immediately preceded Termeyer's and considers as a term of comparison the experiments on the electric eel performed by Bertrand Bajon (fl. 1751-1778) in the French Guyanne. It ends by discussing the meaning of Termeyer's 1781 and 1810 articles in the light of contemporary ideas of animal electricity.