Council of the Baltic Sea States: The Role of a Sustainable and Prosperous Region in Bringing Science Diplomacy Forward. EL-CSID Working Paper Issue 2018/19 • July 2018

2017 has been a year full of promising major milestones for the future EU Science Diplomacy Strategy. At the beginning of 2017, the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) of the European Commission released a thought-provoking report Tools for an EU science diplomacy (Van Langenhove, 2017). This publication was accompanied with a recognition among some parts of the academic circles and practitioners that the "Union is in process of reinforcing its diplomacy for science (the classical international S&T cooperation), while developing a genuine science for diplomacy" (López de San Román & Schunz, 2018, p. 262). Later on others have called the subsequent developments a worldwide "jump on the “science diplomacy” bandwagon" (Penca, 2018, p. 1). In the Baltic Sea Region setting, on 20 June 2017, the Reykjavík Ministerial of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) took place and resulted in a Declaration on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the CBSS (CBSS, 2017), as well as the endorsement of Realizing the Vision: Baltic 2030 Action Plan (CBSS Secretariat, 2017), which serves as "a solid basis for concrete CBSS action to meet the Sustainable Development Goals at regional level" (CBSS, 2017, p. 2). The report Tools for an EU science diplomacy outlines promising recommendations for further assembly of cases, which might serve as reference points or potential sources of inspiration once crafting the main structures and guidance enshrined in the upcoming 'EU Science Diplomacy Strategy'. As it will be outlined in subsequent paragraphs, the CBSS-endorsed multilateral cooperation initiatives have spurred various macro-regional dynamics of implicit science diplomacy,1 which might serve as a source of inspiration in the crafting of certain elements for the forthcoming strategy

Forgotten voices: reflections on Latvia during World War Two

The occasion of the 90th anniversary of Latvia’s declaration of independence seemed a suitable occasion to reflect on this author’s decade long commitment to studying the history of Latvia during the Second World War. In 2003 Routledge published Between Stalin and Hitler: Class War and Race War on the Dvina, 1940-46, a detailed case study of Latgale under Soviet and Nazi rule. Since then, two articles have appeared on the National Partisans: “Divided We Fall: Divisions within the National Partisans of Vidzeme and Latgale, Fall 1945”, Journal of Baltic Studies 38/2 2007 and “Latvia’s Democratic Resistance: a Forgotten Episode from the Second World War”, European History Quarterly 39/2 2009. Prior to that, in January 2004, there was also a short paper to the XIII Scientific Readings of the Humanities Faculty, Daugavpils University, on the subject “From Source to Person: the Case of Jānis Niedre”, published in Proceedings of the 13th International Scientific Readings of the Faculty of Humanities. History VII (Saule, Daugavpils 2004). These studies all focus on the power of the great ideologies of the twentieth century and the way those ideologies could justify the abandonment of accepted morality. Yet they also say something else about ideology: the years of Soviet and now post-Soviet historiography have drowned out the voices of those who did not quite fit in with the dominant ideologies of the time. The aim of this short paper, therefore, is to restore to the historical record the voices of some of those who have been marginalised or forgotten. Three examples are taken: the case of Jānis Niedre; the demands of Latvia’s former Red Partisans; and the decisions taken by many, possibly a majority of Latvia

Ohustatud Euroopa naaritsa (Mustela lutreola) sigimine ja käitumine tehiskeskkonnas

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneEuroopa naarits on kriitiliselt ohustatud imetaja, mis on loodusest kadumas. Päästmaks liiki väljasuremisest hakati naaritsaid pidama loomaaedades. Vangistuses on loomade paljundamine keeruline, kuna sealne keskkond erineb looma looduslikust elupaigast. Loomaaias elavatel naaritsatel on täheldatud probleeme sigimisega. Paljud ei saa järglasi, mis võib saada saatuslikuks asurkonna jätkusuutlikkusele. Käesolevas doktoritöös uurisin, miks on naaritsa sigimine loomaaias ebaedukas ja kuidas leida probleemile lahendus. Olukorrast parema ülevaate saamiseks uurisime, mis mõjutab pesakonna suurust ja poegade tõenäosust ellu jääda. Leidsime, et olulised on ema vanus ja kaal, kuid muidu oli emaste sigimisedu sarnane. Lisaks uurisime emase hormonaaltsüklit indlemise ja tiinuse ajal. Tulemused olid ootuspärased, hormonaaltsükkel järgis liigile tüüpilist rada. Me ei leidnud tõendeid, et paaritamiskatsete ebaõnnestumise põhjust tuleks otsida emastest. Leidsime, et ebaedu sigimisel on seotud vangistuses sündinud isastega. Mõni isane on paaritamiskatses emase vastu agressiivne või siis neil puudub indleva emase vastu huvi. Mõistmaks isaste käitumist vaatlesime naaritsate lapsepõlve – uurisime poegade vahelisi suhteid pesakonnas kasvamise ajal. Paljudel imetajatel on tõendatud, et varajane keskkond mõjutab isendi käitumist täiskasvanueas. Me ei leidnud, et naaritsatel oleks pesakonnaperioodil ebanormaalset käitumist. Nagu igati kohane, kulus poegade põhiaeg mängule. Agressiivsust ei olnud palju ja see ei tõusnud ajas. Pesakonnad ei erinenud käitumismustrilt üksteisest, seega ei leidnud me hälbiva poegade käitumisega pesakondi, mis oleksid võinud ebasobiva sigimiskäitumise tekkimist seletada. Töötasime välja metoodika naartisate iseloomutüüpide määramiseks, sest üha enam soovitatakse, et loomadesse tuleks loomaaias suhtuda neist igaühe iseloomu arvestades. Leidsime, et naaritsaid saab eristada julguse, uurivuse ja sotsiaalsuse alusel . Meie töös ilmnes, et probleemid sigimishooajal on seotud eelkõige vangistuses sündinud isastega, nende põhjuseid peaks otsima mujalt kui pesakonnaperioodist, abi võiks olla iga looma iseloomu tundmisest. Saadud tulemused on oluliseks alusteadmisteks töös, mis on suunatud naaritsate tehiskeskkonnas pidamise edukuse tõstmisele.European mink is a critically endangered carnivore which has almost disappeared from nature. To save the species from extinction a captive population was established. Unfortunately, keeping wild animals in captivity always causes problems, just because in a zoo everything is different from the species’ natural habitat. In the case of the European mink, there are problems with breeding in captive conditions. Some animals will fail to produce offspring which may threaten the persistence of the captive population. In this doctorial thesis, I addressed the reasons of breeding failures and how to find solutions to this problem. At first we studied what affects the size and survival of the litter. We found that the weight and age of the mother are most significant. Additionally we studied the hormonal cycle of the females during the mating season and gestation. Results were expectable: the hormonal cycle followed a profile typical of the species. Analysing the diaries kept at Tallinn zoo for 20 years, we did not find that something is wrong on the females’ side. Instead, we found that the breeding problems are caused by males which have been born in captivity. Some males are aggressive toward the female during the mating attempt or remain passive. To understand the reasons for kind of behaviour, we focused on the childhood of the mink: we studied the interactions between the cubs during the litter period. It has often been found that, in mammals, the early environment affects the development of the behaviour of an animal. In our study, however, we did not find abnormalities in cubs’ behaviour during the litter period. As it should be, the most frequent type of behaviour was play. Aggression was low, it did not rise in time and did not differ between the litters. We developed tests to identify personality types in European mink. We found that it is possible to distinguish individual mink in boldness, sociability and exploration. In summary, we found that the main reason why breeding fails in the European mink is in the behaviour of captive born males. The causes of behavioural distortion may not be related to the litter period, an analysis of personality types may help here. The knowledge obtained forms important basis information for the work aimed at improving keeping condition of captive European mink

European Arctic Initiatives Compendium

Julkaistu versi

The 'cultural village' of the Solovki Prison Camp: a case of alternative culture?

revious research concerning Gulag literature has frequently focused on single authors, who published their books after being incarcerated in concentration camps. However, there were also poets, novelists, and writers who had the chance to write from inside the iron curtain of the camps, publishing in journals and magazines controlled by the Chekists.1 Most times, authors wrote hymns and praise for Soviet power. But, in the very early years of the forced labour camp system, exceptions were possible. One of these exceptions occurred in the first Gulag that was situated and run on the Solovki archipelago. There, thanks to some extraordinary conditions, many intellectuals were often able to express themselves freely, and were able to use their wit and culture to oppose the brutal violence of the guards. They were part of a “cultural village,” where poets published poems, actors performed plays, and professors held seminars, while many of their friends and fellow prisoners perished, killed by the tortures of the overseers. Their cultural fight was even more important: the culture they produced was pre-revolutionary, and they produced it at a moment when this culture was eliminated by the newly born Soviet state. Somehow, they managed to create an alternative cultural system inside the camp. But can we really speak of alternative culture in this context, given the particular cultural situation of that period

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume IV, Issue 2

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) – Landing Obligations in EU Fisheries - part 3 (STECF-14-06)

The Expert Working Group meeting of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries EWG-14-01 on Landing obligation in EU fisheries – part 3 - was held from 10-14 February 2014 in Varese, Italy. The report was reviewed and endorsed by the STECF during its plenary meeting held from 24 to 28 March 2014 in Brussels (Belgium).JRC.G.4-Maritime affair

Examining Scientific Writing Styles from the Perspective of Linguistic Complexity

Publishing articles in high-impact English journals is difficult for scholars around the world, especially for non-native English-speaking scholars (NNESs), most of whom struggle with proficiency in English. In order to uncover the differences in English scientific writing between native English-speaking scholars (NESs) and NNESs, we collected a large-scale data set containing more than 150,000 full-text articles published in PLoS between 2006 and 2015. We divided these articles into three groups according to the ethnic backgrounds of the first and corresponding authors, obtained by Ethnea, and examined the scientific writing styles in English from a two-fold perspective of linguistic complexity: (1) syntactic complexity, including measurements of sentence length and sentence complexity; and (2) lexical complexity, including measurements of lexical diversity, lexical density, and lexical sophistication. The observations suggest marginal differences between groups in syntactical and lexical complexity.Comment: 6 figure

History and Contemporary Politics of Poland 1939–2003

The present book “Poland – History, Culture and Society. Selected Readings” is the third edition of a collection of academic texts written with the intention to accompany the module by providing incoming students with teaching materials that will assist them in their studies of the course module and encourage further search for relevant information and data. The papers collected in the book have been authored by academic teachers from the University of Łódź, specialists in such fields as history, geography, literature, sociology, ethnology, cultural studies, and political science. Each author presents one chapter related to a topic included in the module or extending its contents. The book contains the extensive bibliography