An Anarchist Foreign Minister?: The Ideological Background of Rudolf Holsti

Former Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rudolf Holsti, ended his professional career as a professor at Stanford University. In spring 1941, he encountered a news article on Alexandra Kropotkina and was encouraged to send her a letter. In this letter, Holsti revealed his admiration for her father, "anarchist prince" Pjotr Kropotkin. Holsti’s letter to Alexandra Kropotkina further related that as foreign minister he had even sent food from the Finnish embassy in Moscow to Kropotkin while he was being held in custody by the Soviet authorities. The notion of an anarchist foreign minister is profoundly paradoxical, but the aim of my research is to find Kropotkin’s influences in Holsti's work and publications. Before entering politics, Holsti defended his thesis for PhD at the University of Helsinki in 1913 with a rather anarchist theme, “The Relation of War to the Origin of the State.” My paper and presentation will attempt to answer: how are Kropotkin's ideas present in Holsti's academic work? In addition, Holsti and Kropotkin are case studies who guide my interests in the co-relation between the scientific revolution and social thinking in the 19th century.

[A mortality databank for international comparison and background information]

This article describes the structure and utilization of a computerized databank system for WHO mortality data. This system makes available "at finger-tips" data which previously were published by WHO in its blue volumes. The data can be handled much more flexible. At the moment the system provides information on age-standardized rates (direct standardization), total number of cases, as well as cover per age-group and year for about a hundred countries. The time period covered is 1950-1985, with exceptions for data which are not available to WHO.

Novel genetic risk markers for ulcerative colitis in the IL2/IL21 region are in epistasis with IL23R and suggest a common genetic background for ulcerative colitis and celiac disease

OBJECTIVES: Recently, a genome-wide association study showed that single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the chromosome 4q27 region containing IL2 and IL21 are associated with celiac disease. Given the increased prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) among celiac disease patients, we investigated the possible involvement of these SNPs in IBD. METHODS: Five SNPs strongly associated with celiac disease within the KIAA1109/TENR/IL2/IL21 linkage disequilibrium block on chromosome 4q27 and one coding SNP within the IL21 gene were analyzed in a large German IBD cohort. The study population comprised a total of 2,948 Caucasian individuals, including 1,461 IBD patients (ulcerative colitis (UC): n=514, Crohn's disease (CD): n=947) and 1,487 healthy unrelated controls. RESULTS: Three of the five celiac disease risk markers had a protective effect on UC susceptibility, and this effect remained significant after correcting for multiple testing: rs6840978: P=0.0082, P(corr)=0.049, odds ratio (OR) 0.77, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.63-0.93; rs6822844: P=0.0028, P(corr)=0.017, OR 0.73, 95% CI 0.59-0.90; rs13119723: P=0.0058, P(corr)=0.035, OR 0.75, 95% CI 0.61-0.92. A haplotype consisting of the six SNPs tested was markedly associated with UC susceptibility (P=0.0025, P(corr)=0.015, OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.58-0.89). Moreover, in UC, epistasis was observed between the IL23R SNP rs1004819 and three SNPs in the KIAA1109/TENR/IL2/IL21 block (rs13151961, rs13119723, and rs6822844). CONCLUSIONS: Similar to other autoimmune diseases such as celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, Graves' disease, and psoriatic arthritis, genetic variation in the chromosome 4q27 region predisposes to UC, suggesting a common genetic background for these diseases.

Winter precipitation trends for two selected European regions over the last 500 years and their possible dynamical background

We analyse winter (DJF) precipitation over the last 500 years on trends using a spatially and temporally highly resolved gridded multi-proxy reconstruction over European land areas. The trends are detected applying trend matrices, and the significance is assessed with the Mann–Kendall-trend test. Results are presented for southwestern Norway and southern Spain/northern Morocco, two regions that show high reconstruction skill over the entire period. The absolute trend values found in the second part of the 20th century are unprecedented over the last 500 years in both regions. During the period 1715–1765, the precipitation trends were most pronounced in southwestern Norway as well as southern Spain/northern Morocco, with first a distinct negative trend followed by a positive countertrend of similar strength. Relating the precipitation time series to variations of the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI) and the solar irradiance using running correlations revealed a couple of instationarities. Nevertheless, it appears that the NAO is responsible in both regions for most of the significant winter precipitation trends during the earlier centuries as well as during recent decades. Some of the significant winter precipitation trends over southwestern Norway and southern Spain/northern Morocco might be related to changes in the solar irradiance.