Structural and procedural properties important in promoting bio-enterprises as alternative livelihoods to pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods

Alternative livelihoods to pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods are increasingly gaining attention in rural development but few empirical evidence exist on how to go about supporting such initiatives. As pastoral and agro-pastoral production conditions change due to various factors including market conditions, climate variability and change, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists are increasingly faced with the challenge of finding alternative livelihoods. Bio-enterprises offer such alternatives or complementary activities for rural actors to adapt to changing socio-ecological conditions. This study examines the roles of bio-enterprise initiatives from a livelihood perspective and identifies the features important for such initiatives to reduce poverty and improve the adaptive capacities of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. It draws on four different bio-enterprise initiatives on agro-pastoral and pastoral livelihoods and on improved natural resources management (NRM) in the drylands of Kenya. Data were collected through interviews, focus group discussions, informal discussions and the study of reports. Results shows among other factors that diversification into enterprises requires cooperation among the stakeholders with their varying experiences in development, NRM and business development. Other factors such as sustained financial support, capacity development to survive the market introduction phase, as well as quantity and quality of the product, are critical. Mentoring proved to be a driver of success in some initiatives.

Legal Translation and the Bilingual Publication of Roman Imperial Constitutions

The present paper aims at investigating translation techniques and publication methods of Roman imperial constitutions published in Greek in the eastern provinces of the empire, where the official Latin was not well-established. Language, being a tool for normative communication must be comprehensible to the addressees of the norm, therefore publication of a normative text in a multilingual society brings along difficulties related in particular to the translatability of legal terminology. Language problems appear, however, not only in the level of communication, but also in those of implementation and interpretation of norms. Linguistic diversity, which currently afflicts legislators in the EU, has already been a challenge for the legislators in the Roman Empire. Major difficulty was the necessity of expressing Roman legal concepts in Greek language. Centralized translation system and consequent use of terminology helped to adapt Greek for the purposes of Roman legislator creating new technical vocabulary.

Multilingualism, Legal Drafting and Interpretation of Bilingual Law in Italy

The article begins with a short history of the current Italian language, as an example of a dialect evolving and becoming elevated to the status of a national language. Next, an overview of Italy as characterized by multilingualism and of the different minority languages is offered. A third part is devoted to the different legal languages of Italian law and particularly to the consequences of multilingualism in Italy, which refers to the obligation to draft some local laws in two or tree languages. Multilingual drafting concerns institutions – and therefore concepts – of Italian law which are applied within one single legal system, namely the Italian one, and are merely expressed in a legal language which is not only Italian, but German, French or Ladin. This part is discussed more in deep. The article underlines that legal multilingualism in Italy is a rather unexplored research field. As in Europe there is a clear need for studies inquiring the problem of intepretation and application of mulitlingual law, the praxis and the operative reality of the “regional” legal languages in Italy would probably deserve more attention.

[Cervical cancer screening in Switzerland - current practice and future challenges]

At the beginning of the 20th Century, cervical cancer was the leading cause of death from cancer in women. A marked decline in cervical cancer has been observed since the 1960s, in parallel with the introduction of the Papanicolau (Pap) test as a cytological screening method. Today, Pap smear screening is still the most widely used tool for cervical cancer prevention. Testing for human papillomavirus (HPV) in cervical specimens or a combination of Pap and HPV testing are also now available. In this article we compare current guidelines for cervical cancer screening in Switzerland with those in other European countries. In view of the opportunities offered by HPV testing and, since 2008, HPV vaccination, current guidelines for cervical cancer screening should be updated. Both the choice of screening tests and general organization of cervical cancer screening should be reviewed.

Magnitude and frequency: challenges for the assessment of vulnerability to geomorphic hazards

In natural hazard research, risk is defined as a function of (1) the probability of occurrence of a hazardous process, and (2) the assessment of the related extent of damage, defined by the value of elements at risk exposed and their physical vulnerability. Until now, various works have been undertaken to determine vulnerability values for objects exposed to geomorphic hazards such as mountain torrents. Yet, many studies only provide rough estimates for vulnerability values based on proxies for process intensities. However, the deduced vulnerability functions proposed in the literature show a wide range, in particular with respect to medium and high process magnitudes. In our study, we compare vulnerability functions for torrent processes derived from studies in test sites located in the Austrian Alps and in Taiwan. Based on this comparison we expose needs for future research in order to enhance mountain hazard risk management with a particular focus on the question of vulnerability on a catchment scale.