Normalization and Charter 77 : Violence, Commitment and Resistance in Czechoslovakia

In Czechoslovakia, the occupation of 1968 denoted the beginning of normalization , a political and societal stagnation that lasted two decades. Dissident initiative Charter 77 emerged in 1977, demanding that the leaders of the country respect human rights. The Helsinki process provided a macro-level framework that influenced opposition and dissident activities throughout Eastern Europe. The study contributes a focused empirical analysis of the period of normalization and the dissident movement Charter 77. Dissent in general is seen as an existential attitude; it can be encapsulated as a morally rationalized critical stance as derived from shared experience or interpretation of injustice, which serves as a basis for a shared collective identity comprising oppositional consciousness as one unifying factor. The study suggests that normalization can be understood as a fundamentally violent process and discusses the structural and cultural manifestations of violence with relation to Charter 77. In general, the aim of the system was to passivize the society to such an extent that it would not constitute a potential threat to the hegemonic rule of the regime. Normalization caused societal stagnation and apoliticization, but it also benefited those who accepted the new political reality. The study, however, questions the image of Czechoslovakia s allegedly highly repressive rule by showing that there was also quite considerable tolerance of Charter 77 and consideration before severe repression was brought to bear against dissidents. Furthermore, the study provides understanding of the motives and impetuses behind dissent, the strategic shifts in Charter 77 activities, and the changes in the regime s policies toward Charter 77. The study also adds new perspective on the common image of Charter 77 as a non political initiative and suggests that Charter 77 was, in fact, a political entity, an actively political one in the latter half of the 1980s. Charter 77 was a de facto hybrid of a traditional dissident initiative and an oppositional actor. Charter 77 adopted a two-dimension approach: firstly, it still emphasized its role as a citizens initiative supporting human rights, but, secondly, at the same time, it was a directly political actor supporting and furthering the development of political opposition against the ruling power.

Tasa-arvo ja muutoksen rajat : Sukupuolten tasa-arvo poliittisena ongelmana Ranskan parité- ja Suomen kiintiökeskusteluissa

The study looks at the debates on gender equality in political decision-making in Finland and France in the 1990s and 2000s by analysing the argumentation for parité and quotas and the ways in which gender equality was constructed as a political problem. The focus of the study is on the parliamentary debates on the amendment of the electoral law in France in 2000 and the introduction of quota regulations into the Act on Equality in Finland in 1994 - 1995. The debates ended in the adoption of quota regulations in the electoral lists (France) and in the executive and preparatory bodies at the national and the local level (Finland). Apart from the analysis of the parliamentary debates, the study explores the political processes preceding the adoption of legislation as well as the debates on quotas and parity in Finnish and French societies in the 1980s and 1990s. The debates on gender equality are analysed as the sites of struggle and change with regard to the normative boundaries of gender equality, as well as of politics and citizenship. The cross-cultural perspective gives room to explore the ways in which gender equality and change can be imagined in different national contexts, and which kinds of discursive resources are available for the politicization of gender equality. Specific attention is paid to the discursive frames and agenda settings in the debates and how these set the limits of the imaginable and the possible in the promotion of gender equality. In both Finland and France, the promotion of equality was constructed as a national project, in which the main beneficiary was the society or the nation as a whole. In France, gender equality was an inherent part of the promotion of French democracy; in Finland, gender equality was regarded as a means to bring the expertise of both women and men to the benefit of the whole society. Furthermore, in both countries the promotion of gender equality was based on the harmonious cooperation of women and men and the temporal dimension of "nearly achieved" gender equality. In this kind of a context, gender equality served as a means towards the wider national ends, and there was little room to discuss the aspects of power and agency with regard to gender equality. However, the internationalisation of equality politics, as well as the conflicting interpretations of gender equality in the national political arenas, calls into question the existence of clearly defined and immutable boundaries of "Finnish" and "French" gender equality. At the same time, the rules of the game in politics, including the meaning of French republicanism and Finnish "expert oriented" politics were contested. In this way, the new equality legislation and the preceding political processes played a part in the transformation of the limits of gender equality, politics and citizenship.

Valtion taiteilijatuki taiteilijan määrittelijänä : Määrittelyvallan ehtoja ja ulottuvuuksia pohjoismaisen tukimallin suomalaisessa muunnelmassa

The dissertation studies state support for artists in the context of the societal process of producing definitions of the artist. It examines the dimensions of and conditions for the power of definition inherent in the Nordic model of artists' support. The dissertation consists of a summary in Finnish and five articles published in English. The theoretical framework is based on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the fields of cultural production and the concept of artistic classification systems introduced by Paul DiMaggio. The framework also makes use of the analyses by Per Mangset and Dag Solhjell of the relationship between Norwegian artistic fields and the state policy of supporting art. The study assumes that an examination of the formulation and content of the policy of support is insufficient, and extends the analysis to the implementation of the policy both at the level of the structures of decision making and at the level of actual decisions and their impacts. The analysis of the economic dimension of the definition power of artists' support uses register-based data on artists' financial situation. Survey data is used in studying the attitudes of Finnish artists toward state support for artists. The analysis of the Nordic policy of supporting artists uses data based on documents and interviews concerning the formulation and implementation of the policy in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The cross-country comparison contributes to identifying the specific features of the Finnish policy of supporting artists from the point of view of its potential power of definition. The study concludes that the legitimating arguments, goals and means of the policy of supporting artists, as well as the structures and actions of the bodies implementing the policy, have an impact on the formulation of definitions of the artist. For example, a relevant factor in this context seems to be the way in which the relationship between various fields of art and the system of support is organized. According to the comparative analysis, the greater the correspondence between the administrative structures of decision making and the organizational structure of artistic fields, the greater the resistance to change regarding the artistic categories produced. By contrast, those structures of decision making which require negotiations and compromises between various interests have produced artistic categories that have been more inclined to change. The development of the Finnish system of artists' support over the past few decades can be described as a slow expansion towards new areas of art. However, the demarcations and hierarchies between various fields of art have not lost their significance, and state support for artists still concentrates on the same areas as it did when the policy of supporting artists was established. State support always contains an element of power. According to the study, the Nordic policy of supporting artists has both the material and symbolic power to participate in the production of societal definitions of the artist. The legitimating arguments, goals and means of the Finnish artists' support, as well as the criteria for granting it, strengthen the symbolic dimension of this power also in terms of the symbolic capital valued by the artistic fields. In this sense, it can be said that the state is one of the actors in the Finnish fields of art. The symbolic dimension of the definition power of artists' support is, however, in the last instance derived from the artistic fields, and reinforces on its part the definition power of these fields.

Sustainable forest management : ecologically sound and socially accepted

This dissertation explored the ecological dimension of ecologically sustainable forest management in boreal forests, and factors of the socio-cultural dimension that affect how the concept of ecologically sustainable forest management is defined. My approach was problem-oriented and generalistic-holistic. I examined associations between the abundances of wildlife groups (grouse, large predators, small predators, ungulates) and Siberian flying squirrels, and their co-occurrence with tree structural characteristics at the regional level. The trade-offs between ecological, social and economic sustainability in forestry were explored at the regional scale. I identified a potential 'shopping basket' of regional indicators for ecologically sustainable forest management, combining the relative abundance of Siberian flying squirrels, a wildlife richness index (WRI) for grouse, diversity indices of saw-timber trees, tree age classes and the proportion of old-growth (> 120 yr) forests. I suggest that the close association between forestry activity, the proportion of young forests (< 40 yr) and a WRI for small predators can be considered as potential 'alarm bells' for regions in which the creation of trade-offs (negative relationships) between economic and ecological components of sustainable forestry is ongoing. Explorative analyses revealed negative relationships between forestry activity and a WRI of 16 game species, the WRI for grouse and tree age diversity. Socially sustainable communities compete less intensively with ecological components of forests than communities where forestry is important. Interestingly, forest ownership types (farmers, other private forest owners, the forestry industry, the State) correlated significantly with the co-occurrence of flying squirrels, grouse and diverse forest structural characteristics rather than, for instance, with the total number of protection areas, suggesting that private forest ownership can lead to increased ecological sustainability. I examined forest actors’ argumentation to identify characteristics that affect the interpretation of ecologically sustainable forest management. Four argumentation frame types were constructed: information, work, experience and own position based. These differed in terms of their emphasis on external experts or own experiences. The closer ecologically sustainable forest management is to the forest actor’s daily life, the more profiled policy tools (counselling, learning through experiences) are needed to guide management behaviour to become more ecologically sound. I illustrated that forest actors interpret, use and understand information through meaningful framing. I analysed the extent to which ecological research information has been perceived in the Forestry Development Centre TAPIO’s recommendations and revised PEFC Finland criteria. We noticed that the political value for decaying wood was much lower in PEFC Finland critera (4 m3) than could be expected as a socially acceptable level (9 m3) or ecologically sound (10-20 m3). I consider it important for scientists to join political discourses and become involved in policy making concerning sustainable forest management to learn to present their results in a way that is reasonable from the user’s perspective.

Effects of environment on surface-wave characteristics of a dielectric-coated conductor .4.

The problem of excitation of 11zultilayercd-graded-dielectric-coatedc onductor by a magnetic ring source is fornzulated in the ,form of a contour integrul which is rolved by using the method of steepest descent. Numerical evaluation of launching efiiency shows that high value of about 90 percent can be attained by choosing proper dimensions of the launcher with respect to the dimension of the surface wave line.

iPSL: Enabling rehabilitation of deaf community in Pakistan

This paper presents an initiative taken in Pakistan for the rehabilitation of the deaf community, enabled by the use of technology. iPSL is a system that primarily aims at facilitating communication between the hearing and the deaf community in Pakistan. There is a twofold approach to achieve this. The first dimension is to implement a system that can translate signs made by deaf into natural language sentences. The second dimension is to implement tools that enable hearing people to understand and learn sign language by converting natural language sentences into sign language. This paper presents the progress made in the project so far in terms of design, implementation and evaluation. © ACM 2009.

Acetylation of Transition Protein 2 (TP2) by KAT3B (p300) Alters Its DNA Condensation Property and Interaction with Putative Histone Chaperone NPM3

The hallmark of mammalian spermiogenesis is the dramatic chromatin remodeling process wherein the nucleosomal histones are replaced by the transition proteins TP1, TP2, and TP4. Subsequently these transition proteins are replaced by the protamines P1 and P2. Hyperacetylation of histone H4 is linked to their replacement by transition proteins. Here we report that TP2 is acetylated in vivo as detected by anti-acetylated lysine antibody and mass spectrometric analysis. Further, recombinant TP2 is acetylated in vitro by acetyltransferase KAT3B (p300) more efficiently than by KAT2B (PCAF). In vivo p300 was demonstrated to acetylate TP2. p300 acetylates TP2 in its C-terminal domain, which is highly basic in nature and possesses chromatin-condensing properties. Mass spectrometric analysis showed that p300 acetylates four lysine residues in the C-terminal domain of TP2. Acetylation of TP2 by p300 leads to significant reduction in its DNA condensation property as studied by circular dichroism and atomic force microscopy analysis. TP2 also interacts with a putative histone chaperone, NPM3, wherein expression is elevated in haploid spermatids.Interestingly, acetylation of TP2 impedes its interaction with NPM3. Thus, acetylation of TP2 adds a new dimension to its role in the dynamic reorganization of chromatin during mammalian spermiogenesis.

A note on fractal dimensions of biomedical waveforms

In this paper, we study performance of Katz method of computing fractal dimension of waveforms, and its estimation accuracy is compared with Higuchi's method. The study is performed on four synthetic parametric fractal waveforms for which true fractal dimensions can be calculated, and real sleep electroencephalogram. The dependence of Katz's fractal dimension on amplitude, frequency and sampling frequency of waveforms is noted. Even though the Higuchi's method has given more accurate estimation of fractal dimensions, the study suggests that the results of Katz's based fractal dimension analysis of biomedical waveforms have to be carefully interpreted.

Entire Solutions of Hydrodynamical Equations with Exponential Dissipation

We consider a modification of the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations and other hydrodynamical evolution equations with space-periodic initial conditions in which the usual Laplacian of the dissipation operator is replaced by an operator whose Fourier symbol grows exponentially as e(vertical bar k vertical bar/kd) at high wavenumbers vertical bar k vertical bar. Using estimates in suitable classes of analytic functions, we show that the solutions with initially finite energy become immediately entire in the space variables and that the Fourier coefficients decay faster than e-(C(k/kd) ln(vertical bar k vertical bar/kd)) for any C < 1/(2 ln 2). The same result holds for the one-dimensional Burgers equation with exponential dissipation but can be improved: heuristic arguments and very precise simulations, analyzed by the method of asymptotic extrapolation of van der Hoeven, indicate that the leading-order asymptotics is precisely of the above form with C = C-* = 1/ ln 2. The same behavior with a universal constant C-* is conjectured for the Navier-Stokes equations with exponential dissipation in any space dimension. This universality prevents the strong growth of intermittency in the far dissipation range which is obtained for ordinary Navier-Stokes turbulence. Possible applications to improved spectral simulations are briefly discussed.

1,2,3-Trifluorobenzene

In the title compound, C6H3F3, weak electrostatic and dispersive forces between C(delta+)-F(delta-) and H(delta+)-C(delta-) groups are at the borderline of the hydrogen-bond phenomenon and are poorly directional and further deformed in the presence of pi-pi stacking interactions. The molecule lies on a twofold rotation axis. In the crystal structure, one-dimensional tapes are formed via two antidromic C-H center dot center dot center dot F hydrogen bonds. These tapes are, in turn, connected into corrugated two-dimensional sheets by bifurcated C-H center dot center dot center dot F hydrogen bonds. Packing in the third dimension is furnished by pi-pi stacking interactions with a centroid-centroid distance of 3.6362 (14) angstrom.

Editorial: Dimensions of knowledge-based urban development

This issue marks the beginning of a new editorial cycle. In the seventh volume of the journal the editorial team will continue collating novel scientific and social developments in the broader field of ‘knowledge-based development’ to report to our readers. In this perspective, the first issue of the volume focuses on different dimensions of knowledge-based urban development. As Gabe et al. (2012, p.1179) indicate, “[i]t would be an understatement to suggest that knowledge plays a key role in today’s economy; for much of the developed world, it might be more accurate to assert that knowledge is today’s economy”. Thus, knowledge generation has been a priority for global city administrations, and there is a growing consensus amongst scholars, planners, politicians and industrialists in identifying knowledge-based urban development as a panacea to the burgeoning economic problems (Knight, 1995; Kunzmann, 2009; Yigitcanlar, 2010, 2011; Huggins and Strakova, 2012; Lönnqvist et al., 2014). Although, in the era of global knowledge economy, knowledge-based urban development is a critical factor for economic success (Pratt, 2000; Sheppard, 2002), it is not solely an economic policy. For many, knowledge-based urban development is a policy that targets building an urban setting to form perfect climates for business, people, and governance in an environmentally friendly atmosphere (Carrillo, 2006; Ergazakis et al., 2006; Angelidou et al., 2012). Each of these climates correspond to a dimension or domain of knowledge-based urban development – namely, economy, society, space, and governance (Carrillo et al., 2014). Each paper of this issue corresponds to at least one of these domains, or policy areas.

Novel 3-dimensional sixfold interpenetrating diamondoid networks of copper(I) coordination polymers of polypyridyl ligands - Syntheses,characterization and crystal structures

Two new coordination polymers [Cu(L-1)(2)](n)(ClO4)(n)center dot 2nH(2)O (1), [Cu(L-2)(2)](n)(ClO4)(n)center dot 2nH(2)O (2) of polydentate imine/pyridyl ligands, L-1 and L-2 with Cu(I) ion have been synthesized and characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies, elemental analyses, IR' UV-vis and NMR spectroscopy. They represent 3-dimensional, sixfold interpenetrating diamondoid network structures having large pores of dimension, 35 x 21 angstrom(2) in 1 and 38 x 19 angstrom(2) in 2, respectively.

Search for chaos in neutron star systems: Is Cyg X-3 a black hole?

The accretion disk around a compact object is a nonlinear general relativistic system involving magnetohydrodynamics. Naturally, the question arises whether such a system is chaotic (deterministic) or stochastic (random) which might be related to the associated transport properties whose origin is still not confirmed. Earlier, the black hole system GRS 1915+105 was shown to be low-dimensional chaos in certain temporal classes. However, so far such nonlinear phenomena have not been studied fairly well for neutron stars which are unique for their magnetosphere and kHz quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO). On the other hand, it was argued that the QPO is a result of nonlinear magnetohydrodynamic effects in accretion disks. If a neutron star exhibits chaotic signature, then what is the chaotic/correlation dimension? We analyze RXTE/PCA data of neutron stars Sco X-1 and Cyg X-2, along with the black hole Cyg X-1 and the unknown source Cyg X-3, and show that while Sco X-1 and Cyg X-2 are low dimensional chaotic systems, Cyg X-1 and Cyg X-3 are stochastic sources. Based on our analysis, we argue that Cyg X-3 may be a black hole.

The virial expansion of a classical interacting system

We consider N particles interacting pairwise by an inverse square potential in one dimension (Calogero-Sutherland-Moser model). For a system placed in a harmonic trap, its classical partition function for the repulsive regime is recognised in the literature. We start by presenting a concise re-derivation of this result. The equation of state is then calculated both for the trapped and the homogeneous gas. Finally, the classical limit of Wu's distribution function for fractional exclusion statistics is obtained and we re-derive the classical virial expansion of the homogeneous gas using this distribution function.

The influence of impurities on calcium phosphate floc structure and size in sugar solutions

Settling, dewatering and filtration of flocs are important steps in industry to remove solids and improve subsequent processing. The influence of non-sucrose impurities (Ca2+, Mg2+, phosphate and aconitic acid) on calcium phosphate floc structure (scattering exponent, Sf), size and shape were examined in synthetic and authentic sugar juices using X-ray diffraction techniques. In synthetic juices, Sf decreases with increasing phosphate concentration to values where loosely bound and branched flocs are formed for effective trapping and removal of impurities. Although, Sf did not change with increasing aconitic acid concentration, the floc size significantly decreased reducing the ability of the flocs to remove impurities. In authentic juices, the flocs structures were marginally affected by increasing proportions of non-sucrose impurities. However, optical microscopy indicated the formation of well-formed macro-floc network structures in sugar cane juices containing lower proportions of non-sucrose impurities. These structures are better placed to remove suspended colloidal solids.