Adriatic -- Baltic

Cross section of a part of Eastern Europe and the Balkan Peninsula, from Kaliningrad in the north to Dubrovnik in the south.

Magni Mogolis Imperium de novo correctum et divisum

Per F. de Witt.

Eastern Turkistan

specially prepared for the Foreign Department, from India ; published under direction of Colonel F. B. Longe, R. E., Surveyor General of India.

Central Asia, 1908 (Raster Image)

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of the historic paper map entitled: Eastern Turkistan, specially prepared for the Foreign Department, from India ; published under direction of Colonel F. B. Longe, R. E., Surveyor General of India. It was published by Survey of India in Feb. 1908. Scale [1:2,027,520]. Covers a portion of Central Asia including Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (also known as Chinese Turkestan) and portions of Afghanistan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. The image inside the map neatline is georeferenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the a modified 'Asia Lambert Conformal Conic' projection with a central meridian of 84 degrees East projection. All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, index maps, legends, or other information associated with the principal map. This map shows features such as drainage, cities and other human settlements, railroads, territorial boundaries, shoreline features, and more. Relief shown by spot heights. This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps from the Harvard Map Collection as part of the Open Collections Program at Harvard University project: Islamic Heritage Project. Maps selected for the project represent a range of regions, originators, ground condition dates, scales, and purposes. The Islamic Heritage Project consists of over 100,000 digitized pages from Harvard's collections of Islamic manuscripts and published materials. Supported by Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and developed in association with the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University.

The European Union Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia: The Limitations of the Opening towards the East

This article intends to study the evolution of the European Union foreign policy in the Southern Caucasus and Central Area throughout the Post-Cold War era. The aim is to analyze Brussels’ fundamental interests and limitations in the area, the strategies it has implemented in the last few years, and the extent to which the EU has been able to undermine the regional hegemons’ traditional supremacy. As will be highlighted, the Community’s chronic weaknesses, the local determination to preserve sovereignty and an increasing international geopolitical competition undermine any European aspiration to become a pre-eminent actor at the heart of the Eurasian continent in the near future.

Análisis de las tensiones geopolíticas entre Kirguistán y Uzbekistán por el Valle de Fergana y sus recursos energéticos durante el periodo 2001-2010

Las tensiones geopolíticas entre Kirguistán y Uzbekistán por el Valle de Fergana durante el periodo 2001-2010 a partir de un análisis histórico de la formación de la población y la influencia de los diferentes imperios en la región. Adicionalmente, los aspectos relativos a la importancia de los recursos energéticos en el Valle de Fergana como la configuración de las tensiones generadas entre estos dos países, haciendo énfasis en el conflicto étnico latente que se ha generado en la zona. De se utilizarán la teoría constructivista de Alexander Wendt y la teoría de la geopolítica de Yves Lacoste.

Als mars de l'Àsia central

El Grup de Física Ambiental de la Universitat de Girona participa en el programa internacional CLIMSEAS. L’objectiu és crear una xarxa de científics que aportin coneixement al procés de canvi climàtic a través de l’estudi dels mars interiors. Els quatre anys vinents estudiaran els mars de l’Àsia Central

Central Africa: on a scale of 1:10,000,000

by Dr. F. Boas.

Central Asian documents : manuscript, 1558-1804

Various dates (966-1219 [1558-1804]). Addressed to various local rulers in Yarkand and Kashgar.

Central Asian Islamism in the spotlight. EUCAM Commentary No. 13, June 2011

In recent years, terrorist actions have increased in Central Asia, especially in the two weakest states, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and on the Uzbek side of the Ferghana Valley. The killing of Osama bin Laden by US special forces has raised fears of a possible backlash from his supporters and a new wave of terror across a large area surrounding Afghanistan. Now the Taliban have warned Kazakhstan – Central Asia's most successful economy and largest oil producer which has to date avoided the Islamist violence that has affected its Central Asian neighbours – of the dangers of entering the war on Afghanistan after the Kazakh parliament decided to send troops to join the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) war efforts.

Fünfzig Jahre der Landwirthschaft der Provinz Sachsen im Lichte der Thätigkeit des Landwirthschaftlichen Central-Vereins. Festschrift zur Feier des fünfzigjährigen Bestehens des Central-Vereins der Provinz Sachsen, der herzogthümer Anhalt und Gotha, der fürstenthümer Schwarzburg-Sondershausen und- Rudolstadt.

Mode of access: Internet.

The Neolithic of El Niño cave (Ayna, Albacete) in the Sierra del Segura context

Since its excavation in the summer of 1973, El Niño cave has been considered a key site to understand the process of production economy and pottery technology introduction in South-eastern Iberian Peninsula, and especially to approach how such process could have affected people already settled in the Segura mountains. However, data from El Niño cave was very fragmentary, due to the lack of a broad study of Neolithic occupations of the site. In this paper, we present the analysis of pottery, lithic industry and faunal remains, as well as the existing dates from the site´s Holocene levels. The review of different evidence from the site allows suggesting that El Niño cave would have probably acted as a hunting and shepherding station, being a logistical site of larger places. However, limitations due to the fact that we are dealing with a 40- year-old excavation, prevent specifying how the process of Neolithic introduction in the Segura Mountains occurred.

Challenging the myth of an "epidemic" of common mental disorders : trends in the global prevalence of anxiety and depression between 1990 and 2010

Background Anxiety disorders and major depressive disorder (MDD) are common and disabling mental disorders. This paper aims to test the hypothesis that common mental disorders have become more prevalent over the past two decades. Methods We conducted a systematic review of prevalence, remission, duration, and excess mortality studies for anxiety disorders and MDD and then used a Bayesian meta-regression approach to estimate point prevalence for 1990, 2005, and 2010. We also conducted a post-hoc search for studies that used the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) as a measure of psychological distress and tested for trends to present a qualitative comparison of study findings. Results This study found no evidence for an increased prevalence of anxiety disorders or MDD. While the crude number of cases increased by 36%, this was explained by population growth and changing age structures. Point prevalence of anxiety disorders was estimated at 3.8% (3.6-4.1%) in 1990 and 4.0% (3.7-4.2%) in 2010. The prevalence of MDD was unchanged at 4.4% in 1990 (4.2-4.7%) and 2010 (4.1-4.7%). However, 8 of the 11 GHQ studies found a significant increase in psychological distress over time. Conclusions The perceived "epidemic" of common mental disorders is most likely explained by the increasing numbers of affected patients driven by increasing population sizes. Additional factors that may explain this perception include the higher rates of psychological distress as measured using symptom checklists, greater public awareness, and the use of terms such as anxiety and depression in a context where they do not represent clinical disorders.

中国西部大气和雪冰黑碳及其传输过程研究

Glaciers in west China are the sources of the major great rivers in Asia, and the solid water resources are crucial to China and South Asia. Black carbon (BC) results in very complex climate effects not only in the atmosphere, but accelerates the melting after its deposit on the surface of snow/ice. As the main distributed area of glaciers in China, the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and Xinjiang region are abutted by South Asia, Central Asia, and Russia, and east China, and the atmospheric environment would be influenced by the BC emitted from these regions. Whereas, the BC’s temporal and spatial distributions for concentration in the mid and top troposphere in west China, its transport, and its radiative forcing after deposited on the snow/ice surface are not well understood at the present. In the field, we collected samples from surface snow, snow pits, ice core, and aerosol in the glaciers, analyzed BC content mainly by the thermo-oxidized method in the laboratory, and discussed temporal and spatial distributions for BC concentrations in glaciers, the transport, and its impacts on the environment. Several conclusions were derived as follows: 1_Spatial distribution and the impact on albedos for BC concentrations in snow/ice: the BC concentrations in the surface snow for the investigated glaciers could be placed in areas, the Tianshan Mountains ＞ the central TP ＞ the Pamirs ＞ the Qilian Mountians ＞ the Himalayas. This distribution could be attributed to the elevation of the glaciers, the topography of the TP, and more regional emissions. Probably significant impacts on the albedos of the glacier surface could be caused by BC deposits, and the estimated reduced albedos on the glaciers are 9.8% (the Zhadang glacier), 8.7% (the Miao’ergou Riverhead No.3 glacier), and 6.8% (the Kuitun River Haxilegen No.48 glacier), and 6.2% (the Dongkemadi glacier), and 5.3% (the La’nong glacier), and 4.2% (the Muztagata glacier), etc. 2_The temporal variance of BC concentrations in ice of the East Rongbuk Glacier (ERG) and its climatic implications: major cations and anions (e.g., SO42- and Ca2+) concentrations in aerosols during summer monsoon seasons showed their close relationships with the sources of air masses, in which the variance of SO42- concentrations suggested the atmospheric environment over the ERG was significantly influenced by the aerosols from South Asia. BC record based on an ice core suggested its deposit was dominantly transported by monsoons in summers and by westerlies in other seasons, and the BC from South Asia in summers dominated the varying trend of its concentrations in the ice core and caused higher concentrations in summers than those in other seasons. In the past 50 yrs, BC concentrations showed fluctuations, whereas showed an increasing tread in the most recent decade, and exceeded 50 μg kg-1 in the summer of 2001; correspondingly, the radiative forcing caused by BC showed an increasing trend since 1990s, and exceeded 4.5 W m-2 in the summer of 2001. 3_Cabonaceous aerosols in the Nam Co region: organic carbon (OC) concentration accounted for ～95% and BC for ～5% in the total carbonaceous aerosol concentration, which was significantly influenced by summer precipitations. OC was dominantly derived from fossil fuel burning and BC from both fossil fuel and biomass burning. Trajectory analysis and aerosol optical depth suggested the atmospheric environment in the Nam Co region was most probably influenced by the emissions from South Asia. The potential source regions of air pollutants in the Nam Co regions in summers might be Bangladesh and east India, and in winters might be the Indo-gangetic basin. The scavenging ratio of atmospheric BC by rainfalls was less than those at other sites. West China is a less-developed region for industry, where BC concentrations in the atmosphere and snow/ice could be significantly influenced by the emissions from the abutted regions with rising industries (South Asia, Central Asia, and Russia). For example, snow/ice BC concentrations in the glaciers of the Parmirs, the Tianshan Mountains, and the Qilian Mountains in the northeast margin of the TP might be more influenced by the emissions from Centrial Asia (transported by the westerlies), those in the glaciers of the Himalayas might be more influenced by the emissions from South Asia (transported by the monsoons and the westerlies), and atmospheric carbonaceous aerosols might also be more influenced by the emissions from South Asia (transported by the monsoons and the westerlies). The BC concentrations in some glaciers might cause significant impacts on the albedos for the glaciers, and therefore enhanced the radiative forcings, for example, the ERG. The research on the relationships among atmospheric and snow/ice BC and its radiative forcing, variance of snow cover, mass balance of glaciers, and climate forcing would be needed in future.

La importancia de Chechenia para los intereses geopolíticos de la Federación Rusa

La importancia de Chechenia para la Federación Rusa radica en una serie de elementos históricos, religiosos, económicos. Tiene una posición privilegiada en el Cáucaso como zona de paso de recursos estratégicos provenientes del Asia Central. A nivel geopolítico tiene una importancia en el Cáucaso y sus zonas adyacentes.