Resistance and dissent under communism: the case of Romania

'Obwohl es auch in Rumänien Dissidenten gab, beförderten deren Aktivitäten weder die Revolution von 1989, noch stellten sie während des frühen Postkommunismus eine Alternative zum Neo-Kommunismus bereit. Der vorliegende Aufsatz betrachtet die bemerkenswertesten Resistenz-Handlungen von Persönlichkeiten aus dem intellektuellen Milieu wie solche der Arbeiterschaft, um die Besonderheiten der politischen Subkulturen des mit Polen oder der Tschechoslowakei nicht vergleichbaren Widerstandes in Rumänien herauszuarbeiten. Wichtig ist, dass es solche Resistenzbewegungen auch hier überhaupt gab, obwohl eine Tradition der Teilhabe an der politischen Kultur völlig fehlte. Aus dieser Perspektive dienten im Dezember 1989 kritische Intellektuelle der großen Mehrheit dann doch als Beispiel.' (Autorenreferat

Continuity, Legitimacy and Identity: Understanding the Romanian August of 1968

This paper argues that in order to explain why communist Romania did not take part to the crushing of the Prague Spring one should examine the developments in Romanian communism over the years 1956-1968. Second, the present paper examines the legitimacy issue and focuses on perceptions from below of RCP policies in the post-1964 period. The political actions taken by the Romanian communists during the period 1964-1968 resulted in positive actions expressing consent from the part of large segments of the Romanian society. Third, this paper addresses the issue of identity politics under Romanian communism and demonstrates that the year 1968 marked the transition to a comprehensive nation-building project aiming at constructing an ethnically homogenous Romanian “socialist” nation.El artículo sostiene que para comprender por qué la Rumanía comunista no tomó parte en el aplastamiento de la primavera de Praga han de examinarse los hechos ocurridos durante los años 1956-1968. En segundo lugar, el estudio examina los problemas de legitimidad y se centra en las percepciones desde debajo de las políticas del la República Popular Rumana. Las acciones políticas de los comunistas rumanos durante el período 1964-1968 resultaron en acciones que expresaban un consenso positivo de parte de grandes sectores de la sociedad rumana. En tercer lugar, el artículo se refiere a la política de identidad durante el comunismo rumano, demostrando que el año 1968 marcó la transición a un amplio proyecto de construcción nacional dirigido a la construcción de una nación “socialista” rumana étnicamente homogénea

Concurrent engineering in designing a system for sensing gas leaks in harsh space environment

Leak monitoring is an essential operation that must be taken into consideration while making the design of a spatial vehicle. In order to make these vehicles function correctly in space and to avoid disasters, one needs to integrate multiple sensors to determine the exact concentrations of fuels such as hydrogen, hydrazine, hydrocarbon or oxygen which are frequently used while launching a space vehicle. These concentrations are important, as hydrogen-oxygen mixtures can ignite with a very small amount of energy. Moreover, it is almost impossible for people to sense the presence of hydrogen, as this gas is odorless and colorless. In the propulsion industry, hydrogen leaks generated several disasters. In 1990 such an error affected the propulsion system while workers were on the launching platform. They were forced to abort all the current processes until the source of leakage could be identified. Another example is the APOLLO 13 mission that took place in 1970 when N.A.S.A aimed to land on the Moon. Two days after the launch there has been a malfunction of the electrical system which caused an explosion leading to the loss of oxygen in both tanks. The crew used a module called lifeboat on their way back to Earth where they completed the landing. The goal of this paper is the describe the concept of an intelligent system that will monitor the presence of oxygen, hydrogen gas in harsh space environments such as vacuum, temperature variations and also beta and gamma radiations. Therefore, some aspects such as the weight of the device or environmental conditions must be taken into consideration when doing concurrent engineering. Micro and nanotechnologies allow the presence of multiple sensors without increasing the size, the weight or the energy consumption. Also, they must resist harsh conditions from space

Public Acceptability in the UK and USA of Nudging to Reduce Obesity: The Example of Reducing Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Consumption.

BACKGROUND: "Nudging"-modifying environments to change people's behavior, often without their conscious awareness-can improve health, but public acceptability of nudging is largely unknown. METHODS: We compared acceptability, in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA), of government interventions to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. Three nudge interventions were assessed: i. reducing portion Size, ii. changing the Shape of the drink containers, iii. changing their shelf Location; alongside two traditional interventions: iv. Taxation and v. Education. We also tested the hypothesis that describing interventions as working through non-conscious processes decreases their acceptability. Predictors of acceptability, including perceived intervention effectiveness, were also assessed. Participants (n = 1093 UK and n = 1082 USA) received a description of each of the five interventions which varied, by randomisation, in how the interventions were said to affect behaviour: (a) via conscious processes; (b) via non-conscious processes; or (c) no process stated. Acceptability was derived from responses to three items. RESULTS: Levels of acceptability for four of the five interventions did not differ significantly between the UK and US samples; reducing portion size was less accepted by the US sample. Within each country, Education was rated as most acceptable and Taxation the least, with the three nudge-type interventions rated between these. There was no evidence to support the study hypothesis: i.e. stating that interventions worked via non-conscious processes did not decrease their acceptability in either the UK or US samples. Perceived effectiveness was the strongest predictor of acceptability for all interventions across the two samples. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, nudge interventions to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages seem similarly acceptable in the UK and USA, being more acceptable than taxation, but less acceptable than education. Contrary to prediction, we found no evidence that highlighting the non-conscious processes by which nudge interventions may work decreases their acceptability. However, highlighting the effectiveness of all interventions has the potential to increase their acceptability.The study was funded by the UK Department of Health Policy Research Programme (Policy Research Unit in Behaviour and Health) (Grant ID: PRUN-0409-10109)This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the Public Library of Science via http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.015599

Moral emotions as antecedents of political attitudes

The main objective of this thesis was to investigate the proposition that moral emotions act as antecedents of political attitudes. My approach (Chapter 1) stems from moral foundations theory, which proposes that liberals and conservatives have different moral values (Graham, Haidt, &amp; Nosek, 2009). Chapter 2 presents Study 1, an experimental test of the hypothesis that induced disgust leads participants to adopt more left-wing economic attitudes in comparison to a control condition (sadness). Results supported this hypothesis. Chapter 3 reviews emotion-regulation theories, and presents Study 2, which investigated whether emotion-regulation strategies, disgust sensitivity (DS-R), and private body consciousness (PBC) moderate the effects found in Study 1. As predicted, disgust led to more left-wing economic attitudes, but this was only the case for high-PBC and high-DS-R participants. Chapter 4 presents Study 3, which replicated Study 2, and showed dissociations between the effects of disgust on economic and social attitudes. Chapter 5 presents a cross-sectional investigation (Study 4) that tested for associations between the predisposition to experience disgust and both social and economic attitudes. As predicted, core disgust and pathogen disgust were associated with left-wing economic attitudes and these effects applied only to British participants, and not non-British participants. Chapter 6 presents Study 5 – an experiment investigating the relationship between disgust and prejudiced attitudes towards outgroups. Induced disgust led to more prejudiced attitudes towards a novel group than both sadness and neutral emotion. Chapter 7 is focused on two self-conscious moral emotions: guilt and shame. Study 6, presented in this chapter, found a positive association between guilt proneness and left-wing economic attitudes, and a relationship between shame proneness and social-conservative attitudes. Study 7 failed to reveal causal relationships between incidental guilt and shame and political attitudes. Chapter 8 presents the general discussion addressing limitations, implications, and future research directions.</p

Moral emotions as antecedents of political attitudes

The main objective of this thesis was to investigate the proposition that moral emotions act as antecedents of political attitudes. My approach (Chapter 1) stems from moral foundations theory, which proposes that liberals and conservatives have different moral values (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009). Chapter 2 presents Study 1, an experimental test of the hypothesis that induced disgust leads participants to adopt more left-wing economic attitudes in comparison to a control condition (sadness). Results supported this hypothesis. Chapter 3 reviews emotion-regulation theories, and presents Study 2, which investigated whether emotion-regulation strategies, disgust sensitivity (DS-R), and private body consciousness (PBC) moderate the effects found in Study 1. As predicted, disgust led to more left-wing economic attitudes, but this was only the case for high-PBC and high-DS-R participants. Chapter 4 presents Study 3, which replicated Study 2, and showed dissociations between the effects of disgust on economic and social attitudes. Chapter 5 presents a cross-sectional investigation (Study 4) that tested for associations between the predisposition to experience disgust and both social and economic attitudes. As predicted, core disgust and pathogen disgust were associated with left-wing economic attitudes and these effects applied only to British participants, and not non-British participants. Chapter 6 presents Study 5 – an experiment investigating the relationship between disgust and prejudiced attitudes towards outgroups. Induced disgust led to more prejudiced attitudes towards a novel group than both sadness and neutral emotion. Chapter 7 is focused on two self-conscious moral emotions: guilt and shame. Study 6, presented in this chapter, found a positive association between guilt proneness and left-wing economic attitudes, and a relationship between shame proneness and social-conservative attitudes. Study 7 failed to reveal causal relationships between incidental guilt and shame and political attitudes. Chapter 8 presents the general discussion addressing limitations, implications, and future research directions.This thesis is not currently available on ORA

Crustal structure of the Carpathian Orogen in Romania from receiver functions and ambient noise tomography: how craton collision, subduction and detachment affect the crust

The structure and processes of collisional orogens at the edges of cratons are complex and the extent to which the crust is affected by subduction of cratonic material, slab break-off and post- collisional magmatism is poorly constrained. The Carpathian arc is an Alpine orogenic system, involving the collision and subduction of the East European Craton and the closure of the Tethys ocean. Unusual Neogene backarc magmatism developed after subduction ended ∼9 Ma ago and upper-mantle Mw>7 earthquakes are associated with a relic slab actively breaking-off in the Vrancea Zone. To investigate the crustal and uppermost mantle structure, we analyse teleseismic earthquakes recorded at 56 broad-band seismic stations in Romania and Moldova. Using phase-weighted H − κ stacking of receiver functions, we estimate the bulk crustal thickness and Vp/Vs ratio, a good discriminant of crustal composition. This technique was used on all stations and assumes a single-layer crust with a discontinuity at its base. Additionally, by jointly inverting receiver functions and ambient noise we obtain shear wavespeed (Vs) models to ∼60 km depth beneath 34 stations and provide another independent measure of the Moho depth and its apparent seismic sharpness. Crustal thickness estimates from the two methods are inconsistent in regions where the Moho is gradational or an intracrustal discontinuity is more dominant. We support this interpretation with a range of synthetic tests. Above the actively detaching Vrancea slab, multiple intracrustal discontinuities and a gradational Moho are identified on Vs profiles, and high Vp/Vs (>1.83) are consistent with magmatic underplating. On the backarc side of the slab, magmatism-pervaded crust has low Vp/Vs signature (1.8), indicating a high fluid-pressure regime. Finally, Precambrian units in the foreland are seismically heterogenous, with Moho depths of 30–50 km, and extend ∼100 km beneath the South and Southeast Carpathians, implying that the Vrancea slab underlies Precambrian-aged crust.Published163–1781T. Struttura della TerraJCR Journa

A New Tissue Doppler Index to Predict Cardiac Death in Patients with Heart Failure

Fundamento: Foi demonstrado que um novo índice de Doppler Tecidual, E/(E'×S'), incluindo a proporção entre a velocidade diastólica precoce transmitral e a do anel mitral (E/E'), e a velocidade sistólica do anel mitral (S'), tem uma boa precisão como preditor da pressão de enchimento do ventrículo esquerdo. Objetivo: Investigar o valor de E/(E'×S') para prever a morte cardíaca em pacientes com insuficiência cardíaca. Métodos: Foi realizado sucessivamente o ecocardiograma em 339 pacientes hospitalizados com insuficiência cardíaca, em ritmo sinusal, após tratamento médico adequado, no momento e um mês depois da alta. O agravamento de E/(E'×S') foi definido como um aumento do valor padrão. O ponto final foi a morte cardíaca. Resultados: Durante o período de acompanhamento (35,2 ± 8,8 meses), ocorreu a morte cardíaca em 51 pacientes (15%). O melhor valor mínimo para E/(E'× S') inicial na previsão da morte cardíaca foi de 2,83 (76% de sensibilidade, 85% de especificidade). No momento da alta, 252 pacientes (74,3%) apresentaram E/(E'×S') ≤ 2,83 (grupo I), e 87 (25,7%) apresentaram E/(E'×S') > 2,83 (grupo II), respectivamente. A morte cardíaca foi significativamente maior no grupo II em relação ao grupo I (38 mortes, 43,7% contra 13 mortes, 5,15%, p < 0,001). Através da análise de regressão multivariada de Cox, incluindo as variáveis que afetaram os resultados na análise univariada, a relação E/(E'×S') no momento da alta mostrou-se o melhor preditor independente da morte cardíaca (taxa de risco = 3,09, 95% intervalo de confiança = 1,81-5,31, p = 0,001). Pacientes com E/(E'×S') > 2,83 no momento da alta e com um agravamento após um mês apresentaram o pior prognóstico (todos p < 0,05). Conclusão: Em pacientes com insuficiência cardíaca a relação E/(E'×S') é um poderoso preditor da morte cardíaca, especialmente quando esta estiver associada com o seu agravamento

Subkliniczna przebudowa lewego przedsionka u chorego z częstymi przedwczesnymi skurczami komorowymi

Background: Premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) may cause subtle changes in left atrium (LA) structure and function which may not be readily detected by conventional parameters.Aim: To explore the relationship between PVCs and LA shape and size remodelling in patients without known structural heart disease.Methods: PVC frequency per 24 h was divided into tertiles. Echocardiographic measurements included left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and volume, LA volume (LAV), mid-LA transverse diameter (LAt), and basal LA maximal transverse diameter (LAb). Trapezoidal LA shape was defined by LAt less than LAb. The association between PVCs and LA shape was explored bymultivariable adjusted logistic regression.Results: The 121 patients had a mean age of 43.1 years (63% male) and mean LVEF of 56%. Mean LAV was 57.7 mL in the lowest PVC tertile, 70.9 mL in the middle, and 87.1 mL in the highest PVC tertile (p &lt; 0.001). Trapezoidal LA shape was documented in 32 patients. Five per cent of patients in the lowest and 65% in the highest PVC tertile had trapezoidal LA shape (p &lt; 0.001). PVC frequency correlated with LAV (r = 0.87, p &lt; 0.001) and LAb (r = 0.56, p &lt; 0.001). Each 10% increase in PVCs was significantly associated with trapezoidal LA shape (OR = 1.32, 95% CI 1.17–1.48), after adjustment for age, sex, mean blood pressure, LVEF, and LV end-diastolic diameter.Conclusions: Frequent PVCs are associated with larger LAV and trapezoidal LA shape in otherwise healthy patients, suggesting LA remodelling in response to increased LV filling pressure. Wstęp: Przedwczesne skurcze komorowe (PVCs) mogą powodować subtelne zmiany w strukturze i czynności lewego przedsionka (LA), które mogą być trudne do wykrycia na podstawie analizy konwencjonalnych parametrów.Cel: Celem pracy była ocena zależności między występowaniem PVC a zmianą kształtu i wielkości LA u pacjentów bez stwierdzonej strukturalnej choroby serca.Metody: Częstość występowania PVC w ciągu 24 h podzielono na tercyle. Zmierzone parametry echokardiograficzne obejmowały frakcję wyrzutową lewej komory (LVEF), objętość lewej komory, objętość lewego przedsionka (LAV), wymiar poprzeczny LA w połowie wysokości (LAt, mid-LA transverse diameter) i maksymalny wymiar poprzeczny LA mierzony u jego podstawy (LAb, basal LA maximal transverse diameter). Trapezoidalny kształt LA definiowano jako wartość LAt mniejszą niż wartość LAb. Zależności między występowaniem PVC a kształtem LA analizowano, stosując wieloczynnikową regresję logistyczną (dane skorygowane).Wyniki: W badaniu uczestniczyło 121 chorych, których średnia wieku wynosiła 43,1 roku (63% mężczyzn), a średnia LVEF— 56%. Średnia LAV wynosiła 57,7 ml w najniższym tercylu PVC, 70,9 ml w środkowym tercylu i 87,1 ml w najwyższym tercylu (p &lt; 0,001). Trapezoidalny kształt LA stwierdzono u 32 osób. U 5% chorych w najniższym tercylu i u 65% chorych w najwyższym tercylu kształt LA był trapezoidalny (p &lt; 0,001). Częstość PVC wiązała się z LAV (r = 0,87; p &lt; 0,001) i LAb(r = 0,56; p &lt; 0,001). Każde zwiększenie PVC o 10% istotnie korelowało z trapezoidalnym kształtem LA (OR = 1,32; 95% CI 1,17–1,48) po skorygowaniu względem wieku, płci, średniego ciśnienia tętniczego, LVEF i wymiaru końcowo rozkurczowego LV.Wnioski: Częste przedwczesne PVC wiążą się z większymi wartościami LAV i trapezoidalnym kształtem LA u pacjentów bez żadnych innych chorób, co sugeruje przebudowę LA w odpowiedzi na zwiększone ciśnienie napełniania LV