Közvetítő kereskedelem, migráció és az etnicitás politikája. Az erdélyi gábor romák megélhetési stratégiái

Az alábbi tanulmány a gábor romák között ma elterjedt megélhetési stratégiákkal kapcsolatos tapasztalataim egy részét foglalja össze. Példák sorával szemlélteti, hogy a gábor kereskedők hogyan alkalmazkodtak – többnyire sikeresen – a rendszerváltás utáni gazdasági és társadalmi átalakulás kontextusában megjelenő új kihívásokhoz, és részletesen elemzi, hogy milyen szerephez jut az etnicitás politikája a megélhetési stratégiák megtervezése és alkalmazása során. A tanulmány célja egyrészt az, hogy „láthatóbbá” tegye azon gazdasági gyakorlatokat, amelyek révén a gáborok jövedelemre tesznek szert, ily módon demisztifikálja a „termelés” folyamatát, valamint ellensúlyozza és kiegészítse a gábor roma presztízstárgy-gazdaság elemzésére fókuszáló, korábbi kutatói érdeklődésem fogyasztás-centrikusságát. Emellett a tanulmány elősegítheti a többségi társadalom tagjai által a romákhoz gyakran társított, munkával és munkaetikával kapcsolatos, olyan negatív sztereotípiák dekonstruálását, amelyek a romákat „munkakerülőkként” stb. mutatják be, ezen keresztül pedig hozzájárulhat a hétköznapi (média- és egyéb) diskurzusok romaképének destigmatizálásához. | The study summarizes the author’s field experience regarding the most widespread strategies of subsistence among the Romanian Gabor Roma. Through a series of examples, it demonstrates how Gabor traders adapt themselves – most, successfully – to the new economic and social challenges that have emerged in the post socialist transformation. The study also delineates and analyzes how the politics of ethnicity is employed in their strategies of subsistence. It aims to make the economic practices through which the Gabors earn their living more “visible” (thereby demystifying the process of “production”) and counterbalancing and complimenting the dominance of “consumption” which characterized the author’s earlier studies concerning of the prestige economy of the Gabor Roma. Furthermore, the study may help to deconstruct negative ethnic stereotypes regarding the strategies of subsistence and work ethic of the Roma, such as “Roma are lazy”, and, as a result, it may contribute to the destigmatization of Roma in everyday – media and other – discourses

Comparison of Self-reported and Observed Road Safety Performance Indicators

The first concept of road safety performance indicators was published by European Transport Safety Council, Brussels in 2001. Hungary has long and reliable time series of safety belt wearing and child safety seat usage rates in passenger cars. These rates are based on real roadside observations and representative sample, meeting the requirements of international road accident databases. The methodology of the data collection has been further developed during the recent years, but we paid attention to the possibility of comparison with the earlier data and consistent analysis of time series. Although the roadside observations could not have been organized in each year, the trends can be seen relatively well. Our initial hypothesis was that the self-reported data always show a bit "better" picture about the driving behaviour than the observed ones, since the people are not sure that their data will be handled in an anonym way. Based on these results we can say that the ESRA results are relatively good estimations of the real safety belt wearing rates

ELECTROSTATIC CHARGING OF PLASTIC BIOIMPLANTS

The development of medical techniques and wide use of new materials for bioimplantation were induced by the industrial application of the results of organic chemistry. Nowadays these new materials showing good chemical stability and good biocompatibility are used in routine microsurgery operations. However, after frequent ophthalmologic operations, the implantation of intraocular lenses (I0Ls), mild or rarely serious cellular reactions were observed around the I0L. This postoperative reaction called the author's attention to the electrostatic attitudes of intraocular lenses and other instruments. In order to determine the procedure how non-toxic implants made of highly insulating materials carry harmful contamination to the eye on their surface the electrostatic properties of the implant materials and the charging level of the implants were examined. Mathematical and physical models were created in order to examine both the charging phenomena and the precipitation

Dynamic Length Scale and Weakest Link Behavior in Crystal Plasticity

Plastic deformation of heterogeneous solid structures is often characterized by random intermittent local plastic events. On the mesoscale this feature can be represented by a spatially fluctuating local yield threshold. Here we study the validity of such an approach and the ideal choice for the size of the representative volume element for crystal plasticity in terms of a discrete dislocation model. We find that the number of links representing possible sources of plastic activity exhibits anomalous (super-extensive) scaling which tends to extensive scaling (often assumed in weakest-link models) if quenched short-range interactions are introduced. The reason is that the interplay between long-range dislocation interactions and short-range quenched disorder destroys scale-free dynamical correlations leading to event localization with a characteristic length-scale. Several methods are presented to determine the dynamic length-scale that can be generalized to other types of heterogeneous materials