On the Verge of History : Rupture and Continuity in Women’s Life Narratives from Hungary, Romania and Serbia

After 1989, with the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, narratives about rupture and change during a turbulent twentieth century have been told in many different forms, genres, and media alongside narratives of basic social and political continuities. Rupture and continuity emerged as two different narrative strategies that have sought to create coherence in these larger histories. Published histories and private narratives about the twentieth century in Central Europe share this characteristic: they both create cohesion between a multiplicity of processes and events by combining the two narrative strategies of emplotment. That is what this dissertation is about. Based on an extensive source material of narrative life interviews from the border regions of Romania (Northern Transylvania), Northern Serbia (Vojvodina), and Southern Hungary, I investigate how ordinary women in Central Europe, see the turbulent century which they have lived through. I analyze the different ways that they speak of historical transformation and how they place themselves into a sequence of change while maintaining their sense of integrity: how they talk at the end of their life about childhood in the Interwar era, their maturing during the Second World War, starting married life and work in socialism, and their retirement years after 1989. Throughout the analysis I address the forms that tropes of rupture and continuity take through the words of women who lived through several regime changes in the course of the twentieth century. The dissertation examines the relationship of personal life narratives to public narratives of history: how interviewees incorporate and appropriate public narratives and where they diverge from them in order to create their versions of historical narrative

On the Verge of History : Rupture and Continuity in Women’s Life Narratives from Hungary, Romania and Serbia

After 1989, with the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, narratives about rupture and change during a turbulent twentieth century have been told in many different forms, genres, and media alongside narratives of basic social and political continuities. Rupture and continuity emerged as two different narrative strategies that have sought to create coherence in these larger histories. Published histories and private narratives about the twentieth century in Central Europe share this characteristic: they both create cohesion between a multiplicity of processes and events by combining the two narrative strategies of emplotment. That is what this dissertation is about. Based on an extensive source material of narrative life interviews from the border regions of Romania (Northern Transylvania), Northern Serbia (Vojvodina), and Southern Hungary, I investigate how ordinary women in Central Europe, see the turbulent century which they have lived through. I analyze the different ways that they speak of historical transformation and how they place themselves into a sequence of change while maintaining their sense of integrity: how they talk at the end of their life about childhood in the Interwar era, their maturing during the Second World War, starting married life and work in socialism, and their retirement years after 1989. Throughout the analysis I address the forms that tropes of rupture and continuity take through the words of women who lived through several regime changes in the course of the twentieth century. The dissertation examines the relationship of personal life narratives to public narratives of history: how interviewees incorporate and appropriate public narratives and where they diverge from them in order to create their versions of historical narrative

Effectiveness of European Atlanto-Mediterranean MPAs: Do they accomplish the expected effects on populations, communities and ecosystems?

The success of MPAs in conserving fishing resources and protecting marine biodiversity relies strongly on how well they meet their planned (or implicit) management goals. From a review of empirical studies aiming at assessing the ecological effects of Mediterranean and Macaronesian MPAs, we conclude that establishing an MPA is successful for (i) increasing the abundance/biomass, (ii) increasing the proportion of larger/older individuals, and (iii) enhancing the fecundity of commercially harvested populations; also, MPAs demonstrated to be effective for (iv) augmenting local fishery yields through biomass exportation from the protected area, and (v) inducing shifts in fish assemblage structure by increasing the dominance of large predator species. However, the attraction for tourism and diving due to ecological benefits of protection can cause damages likely to reverse some of the MPA effects. Other expected effects are more subject to uncertainty, and hence need more research, such as (vi) causing density-dependent changes in life history traits and (vii) protecting the recruitment of commercially important species, (viii) protecting marine biodiversity (including genetic diversity), (ix) causing ecosystem-wide effects such as trophic cascades, and (x) increasing community and ecosystem stability, thus promoting resilience and faster recovery from disturbance. Meta-analysis of data arising from these case studies are used to establish the overall effect of MPAs, and its relationship to MPA features, such as size of no-take area or time since protection. Based on the review and the meta-analyses, specific recommendations are provided for MPA management, regarding the establishment of goals and objectives, site selection, MPA design and zoning, planning, and monitoring. Finally, a series of recommendations for MPA research are offered to drive future research in MPA issues in the Mediterranean and Macaronesia.Publicado

Rivaroxaban with or without aspirin in stable cardiovascular disease

BACKGROUND: We evaluated whether rivaroxaban alone or in combination with aspirin would be more effective than aspirin alone for secondary cardiovascular prevention. METHODS: In this double-blind trial, we randomly assigned 27,395 participants with stable atherosclerotic vascular disease to receive rivaroxaban (2.5 mg twice daily) plus aspirin (100 mg once daily), rivaroxaban (5 mg twice daily), or aspirin (100 mg once daily). The primary outcome was a composite of cardiovascular death, stroke, or myocardial infarction. The study was stopped for superiority of the rivaroxaban-plus-aspirin group after a mean follow-up of 23 months. RESULTS: The primary outcome occurred in fewer patients in the rivaroxaban-plus-aspirin group than in the aspirin-alone group (379 patients [4.1%] vs. 496 patients [5.4%]; hazard ratio, 0.76; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.66 to 0.86; P<0.001; z=−4.126), but major bleeding events occurred in more patients in the rivaroxaban-plus-aspirin group (288 patients [3.1%] vs. 170 patients [1.9%]; hazard ratio, 1.70; 95% CI, 1.40 to 2.05; P<0.001). There was no significant difference in intracranial or fatal bleeding between these two groups. There were 313 deaths (3.4%) in the rivaroxaban-plus-aspirin group as compared with 378 (4.1%) in the aspirin-alone group (hazard ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.71 to 0.96; P=0.01; threshold P value for significance, 0.0025). The primary outcome did not occur in significantly fewer patients in the rivaroxaban-alone group than in the aspirin-alone group, but major bleeding events occurred in more patients in the rivaroxaban-alone group. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with stable atherosclerotic vascular disease, those assigned to rivaroxaban (2.5 mg twice daily) plus aspirin had better cardiovascular outcomes and more major bleeding events than those assigned to aspirin alone. Rivaroxaban (5 mg twice daily) alone did not result in better cardiovascular outcomes than aspirin alone and resulted in more major bleeding events