Collective action and property rights for poverty reduction: A review of methods and approaches

"While much attention has been given to examining various aspects of poverty, a number of studies have shown that institutional environment in which the poor exist conditions welfare outcomes, thus highlighting the inherently crucial importance of institutions for poverty reduction. The institutions of property rights and collective action are among those identified as playing a major role in the livelihood strategies of the poor. This paper highlights ways to operationalize the conceptual framework developed by Di Gregorio and colleagues (2008), which provides an analytical tool to study poverty through the institutional lens with a special focus on collective action and property rights. By emphasizing the multidimensionality of poverty, the authors advocate the importance of applying various approaches and tools to conceptualizing and measuring it. They also emphasize the crucial role that institutions of collective action and property rights play in poverty reduction and sketch out theoretical nuances and methods of examining such institutions. In addition, power relations and political context are seen to be of outmost importance in poverty-related studies; the authors provide suggestions on how to understand and operationalize various dimensions of power and institutional environment in research. Outcomes are approached from the evaluative standpoint, which moves beyond straightforward empirical measurement of certain indicators to a comprehensive analysis that would involve a range of methods and approaches to both the definition and measurement of criteria that affect the complex reality of the poor." authors' abstractCollective action, Property rights, Poverty reduction, evaluation, Vulnerability, Power, Institutions, Wellbeing,

Corpus-based analysis of the collocational profiles of the terms denoting the mentally challenged

The present study aims to trace the evolution of public attitude towards the mentally challenged by means of the corpus-based analysis. The raw data comes from the two of the BYU corpora: Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) and Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). The former is comprised of 1.8 million web pages from 20 English-speaking countries (Davies/Fuchs 2015: 1) and provides an opportunity to research at a cross-cultural level, whereas the latter, containing 400 million words from more than 100,000 texts ranging from the 1810s to the 2000s (Davies 2012: 121), allows to carry on a diachronic research on the issue. To identify the difference in attitudes the collocational profiles of the terms denoting the mentally challenged were created. Having analysed them in terms of their semantic prosody one might conclude that there are certain semantic shifts that occurred due to the modern usage preferences and gradual change in public perception of everything strange, unusual and unique

Modelling ovarian follicle dynamics within assisted reproductive technology treatments

Infertility affects from 12% to 15% of reproductive couples in Western Europe. Most of infertility cases are related to female endocrinological problems and costs around 1 billion Euro per year. Assisted Reproduction Techniques have made huge improvements on chances of infertile couples. However, the success rate is drastically low. Systems biology is an complex approach to tackle an entire organism, instead of singling out it’s fractions and trying to understand them. The intention of this thesis is to apply systems biology to the problem of infertility. Sufficient amount of research has been done towards design a whole-body model. However, none of them closely deal with endocrinological problems thus, they do not fully covers the problem of infertility. A great deal of work was done specifically oriented on recreating the dynamics of reproductive hormones. Such models have a high complexity and more than 100 parameters to be identified. Despite the ability to simulate concentration of hormones, the problem of identifing values for such a large amount of unknown parameters remains unresolved or highly complex. Whereas models as (Röblitz et al., 2013) oriented on simulating the dynamics of multiple hormones such as Progesterone, Follicle-Stimulating Hormone, Luteinizing Hormone within normal cycle, this thesis oriented on establishing several models designed specifically for Estradiol concentration and follicle dynamics within stimulation treatment. Main aim is to reduce or eliminate number of measurements taken from a patient in order to increase patient comfort and reduce cost of a treatment. This thesis was done within European Project PAEON, as a part of collaboration between Model Checking Group Laboratory (Sapienza University of Rome) and experts in reproductive medicine (University Hospital of Zürich)

Перекладацька інтерпретація етносимволів поетичного мовлення Василя Симоненка (Thedifficulties ofethnicsymbolstranslation in thepoetictextsof Vasyl Symonenko)

Наукову розвідку присвячено труднощам відтворення етносимволів у поетичному мовленні Василя Симоненка англійською мовою. Особливу увагу приділено трактуванню поняття етносимвол.Словотворчі і морфологічні особливості оригінальних досліджуваних одиниць (етносимволів) порівнюються із перекладами з метою виявлення ступеню повноти та еквівалентності відтворення яскравих образних символів з національним компонентом. (The study is dedicated to the difficulties of ethnic symbols translation in the poetic texts of Vasyl Symonenko. In particular the problem of the contents of the term ethnic symbol is traced out in the paper.The proffered examples illustrate the application of diverse translation strategies, of which the end-product has been evaluated in terms of its functional adequacy. The practical results of this paper aim at finding a better solution for interlingual transference of specific original units (ethnic symbols) that are culturally marked taking into consideration the uniqueness and originality of the source texts.

Property rights for poverty reduction:

Property rights, Poverty reduction, Hunger, Poverty dynamics, Food policy, food security, Pro-poor growth, Capacity building, Vulnerability, Gender, Multiple use, Devolution,

Methods of prophylaxis of separatism in the economic sphere in modern Russia

Экономический фактор обуславливает рост сепаратистских настроений, прежде всего, в странах, для которых характерно неравномерное экономическое развитие. В настоящее время все большую актуальность приобретает профилактика и предупреждение развития сепаратизма на ранних стадиях, в том числе и в экономической сфере.Economic factor causes growth of separatist sentiments, first of all, in the countries of which uneven economic development is characteristic. Now the increasing relevance is acquired by prevention and the prevention of development of separatism at early stages including in the economic sphere

Assessment Of Money Illusion Impact On Individuals’ Economic Behaviour In Lithuania

Behavioural economics was in a process of rapid development in the last century. One of behavioural phenomenon discovered by economists is money illusion – an inclination to make biased decisions based on nominal rather than real monetary values. This illusion influences individuals’ perception of money-related processes and, hence, their economic behaviour. Euro illusion concept, which represents money illusion in countries that adopted the euro, became commonly used after money illusion has been identified and studied in a number of Euro zone countries. Money illusion has not been deeply discussed in Lithuania. The euro introduction in 2015 provides an additional reason to study its impact on Lithuanian citizens. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate money illusion impact on individuals’ economic behaviour in Lithuania after assessment whether Lithuanians experience it. Analysis of scientific literature, experimental study and statistical methods were applied. It was found that citizens are prone to money illusion, which causes irrational economic behaviour. Despite difficult adaptation to the euro, Lithuanians do not experience euro illusion. Newly collected data on money illusion in Lithuania suggests critical evaluation of individuals’ economic behaviour. Performance of such experiment has some limitations as problems presented in a survey are hypothetical and decisions made by participant may not extend to real world. In addition participants may bear in mind their own assumptions like personal experience (e.g. income, savings, debts etc.) which could affect their decisions

Analytical Solution for Bending and Free Vibrations of an Orthotropic Nanoplate based on the New Modified Couple Stress Theory and the Third-order Plate Theory

In the present work, the equations of motion of a thin orthotropic nanoplate were obtained based on the new modified couple stress theory and the third-order shear deformation plate theory. The nanoplate was considered as a size-dependent orthotropic plate. The governing equations were derived using the dynamic version of Hamilton’s principle and natural boundary conditions were formulated. An analytical solution in the form of a double Fourier series was obtained for a simply supported rectangular nanoplate. The eigenvalue problem was set and solved. It was analytically shown that the displacements of the median surface points in the plane of the plate do not depend on the material length scale parameters in the same directions; these in-plane directional displacements depend on the material length scale parameter in the out-of-plane direction only. On the other hand, the out-of-plane directional displacement depends on the length scale parameter in the plane directions only. The cross-section rotation angles depend on all length scale parameters. It was shown that the size-dependent parameters only have a noticeable effect on the deformed state of the plate if their order is not less than the order (plate height)-1

Interpretation of redox potential and assessment of oxyanion (As, Sb, Cr) mobility during oxic-anoxic oscillations

Electron transfer (redox) reactions are key processes in the biogeochemical functioning of natural systems. Redox reactions control the speciation and mobility of major elements (e.g., carbon, nitrogen, iron, and manganese) and environmentally important contaminants such as arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), and chromium (Cr). Nonetheless, the characterization of redox conditions and their effects on biogeochemical cycling and contaminant fate remain incompletely understood. The first part of this thesis focused on the interpretation of redox potential (Eh) measurements using results obtained in synthetic biogeochemical systems of increasing complexity under dynamic, redox-oscillating conditions. By progressively combining inorganic solutes, an organic electron donor (lactate), an aqueous electron acceptor (nitrate), a metabolically versatile heterotrophic bacterium (Shewanella oneidensis), and a solid-state electron acceptor (goethite), a full redox cascade from +500 to -350 mV (pH ∼7.4) was reproduced in the laboratory. The experimental results revealed that a conventional Pt redox electrode responds to a variety of physical, chemical, and microbial factors. In particular, the presence of the bacteria always led to lower Eh readings. In contrast, measurements of Eh in argillaceous suspensions were insensitive to changes in chemical ratios of the redox-sensitive, but non-electroactive, couples, including O2/H2O, CrO42-/Cr(OH)3, NO3-/NO2-/NH4+, HAsO42-/H3AsO3, and Sb(OH)6-/Sb2O3. Therefore, Eh measurements are shown to have limited usefulness in the natural systems depleted in electroactive redox couples, such as α-FeOOH(s)/Fe2+(aq). The second part of the thesis focused on the behavior of oxyanion contaminants under redox-oscillating conditions in the argillaceous subsoil suspensions. Successive cycles of oxic and anoxic conditions were imposed on the argillaceous suspensions amended with a mixture of oxidized Cr(VI), As(V), Sb(V), and N(V). Oxyanion mobility was investigated under sterile conditions, with the addition of labile organic carbon (ethanol), and with the addition of a topsoil microbial inoculum. Speciation analyses revealed irreversible reduction: freshly reduced As(III), Sb(III), Cr(III), and N(III) were not re-oxidized during subsequent oxic periods. Microbially induced reduction transformations decreased aqueous concentrations of Sb and Cr via mineral precipitation, removed N via volatilization, but retained As in solution. Microorganisms exhibited two distinct strategies of contaminant reduction. The first strategy involved the simultaneous reduction of CrO42-, HAsO42-, and Sb(OH)6- under aerobic and denitrifying conditions, as observed in the non-inoculated argillaceous suspensions. The second strategy involved respiratory reduction and followed the predicted thermodynamic order from highest to lowest energy production. In the argillaceous subsoil suspension enriched with topsoil inoculum, the reduction of terminal electron acceptors proceeded in the following order: O2, CrO42-, NO3-, HAsO42-, and Sb(OH)6-. In the third part of the thesis, the oxyanion mobility observed in the argillaceous suspensions (representative of a saturated, clay-rich subsurface environment from depths > 20 m) was further compared to oxyanion mobility in topsoil suspensions (representative of a near-surface soil < 0.01 m enriched in (hydr)oxide phases). The key differences between the topsoil and subsoil systems were the abundance of oxyhydroxide Fe and Mn minerals and the range of Eh values developed during redox cycles. The results indicated that in the topsoil suspensions, strong redox cycling of Fe and Mn correlated closely with the observed oscillating mobility of As and Sb. This correlation suggests a crucial role of oxyhydroxide minerals acting not only as major sorbents, but also as oxidants ultimately controlling the reversibility of contaminant sequestration. Overall, the argillaceous matrix, in contrast to the topsoil matrix, is shown to provide a more suitable environment for contaminant sequestration, as it can withstand periodical redox oscillations without releasing contaminants back to the aqueous phase, at least at the time-scale of the experiments

Analytical Solution for Bending and Free Vibrations of an Orthotropic Nanoplate based on the New Modified Couple Stress Theory and the Third-order Plate Theory

In the present work, the equations of motion of a thin orthotropic nanoplate were obtained based on the new modified couple stress theory and the third-order shear deformation plate theory. The nanoplate was considered as a size-dependent orthotropic plate. The governing equations were derived using the dynamic version of Hamilton’s principle and natural boundary conditions were formulated. An analytical solution in the form of a double Fourier series was obtained for a simply supported rectangular nanoplate. The eigenvalue problem was set and solved. It was analytically shown that the displacements of the median surface points in the plane of the plate do not depend on the material length scale parameters in the same directions; these in-plane directional displacements depend on the material length scale parameter in the out-of-plane direction only. On the other hand, the out-of-plane directional displacement depends on the length scale parameter in the plane directions only. The cross-section rotation angles depend on all length scale parameters. It was shown that the size-dependent parameters only have a noticeable effect on the deformed state of the plate if their order is not less than the order (plate height)-1