The nationality question in present-day Transcaucasia

Cover title"The remarks which follow represent not so much firm conclusions as suggestions and hypotheses derived from the study of generally unsatisfactory printed sources and rather inadequate personal observation."At head of title: Soviet Bloc Program"693"--handwritten on cove

Propiedad privada, libertad y Estado de derecho

¿Se puede tener libertad y Estado de Derecho en una sociedad sin propiedad privada? En este breve, pero bien logrado, artículo el autor analiza la dimensión política del derecho de propiedad y el rol que juega en la consecución del Estado Moderno.Así, tomando como ejemplos contrapuestos a Rusia e Inglaterra, el autor desarrolla la importancia de la propiedad privada para la afirmación de los derechos civiles comprendiendo cómo los procesos de colectivización de tierras implican su supresión y vulneración.Finalmente, el autor llegará a la conclusión que el principal enemigo de la libertad no es la tiranía sino la búsqueda de la igualdad de resultados

Demographic and ethnographic changes in Transcaucasia, 1897-1956

"These papers are not for publication and should not be quoted without the permission of the author."At head of title: Soviet Bloc ProgramEach technical report has its own separate title-page"1511"--handwritten on coverIncludes bibliographical referencesThe nationality question in present-day Transcaucasia / by Richard Pipes. May 1958. (C/58-13) -- Demographic and ethnographic changes in Transcaucasia, 1897-1956 / by Richard Pipes. April 1958. (C/58-8

La “intelligentsia”

Nacido en Cieszyn (Polonia) y nacionalizado en los Estados Unidos, este historiador es considerado una autoridad mundial en la historia de la Revolución Rusa. Fue director del Russian Research Center de la Universidad de Harvard y ha publicado varias obras fundamentales para la comprensión de esa experiencia política. Este artículo es el cuarto capítulo de la primera parte de su historia de La Revolución Rusa, publicada riginalmente en el año 1990 en lengua inglesa. Para propósitos académicos se ha tomado aquí la traducción hecha por Horacio Pons para Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, publicada en el año 2016, dado que este concepto de la “intelligentsia” universitaria es de la mayor importancia para la comprensión de los proyectos revolucionarios formulados en la experiencia política colombiana de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, bajo el influjo de esta revolución y la de la Revolución Cubana de 1959

Natural selection shaped the rise and fall of passenger pigeon genomic diversity.

The extinct passenger pigeon was once the most abundant bird in North America, and possibly the world. Although theory predicts that large populations will be more genetically diverse, passenger pigeon genetic diversity was surprisingly low. To investigate this disconnect, we analyzed 41 mitochondrial and 4 nuclear genomes from passenger pigeons and 2 genomes from band-tailed pigeons, which are passenger pigeons' closest living relatives. Passenger pigeons' large population size appears to have allowed for faster adaptive evolution and removal of harmful mutations, driving a huge loss in their neutral genetic diversity. These results demonstrate the effect that selection can have on a vertebrate genome and contradict results that suggested that population instability contributed to this species's surprisingly rapid extinction

The Vicious Circle of Post-Soviet Neopatrimonialism in Russia

Published online: 10 Aug 2015, journal issue (vol.32, N5) appeared in 2016Since the collapse of Communism, Russia and some other post-Soviet states have attempted to pursue socio-economic reforms while relying upon the political institutions of neopatrimonialism. This politico-economic order was established to serve the interests of ruling groups and establish the major features of states, political regimes, and market economies. It provided numerous negative incentives for governing the economy and the state due to the unconstrained rent seeking behavior of major actors. Policy reform programs discovered these institutions to be incompatible with the priorities of modernization, and efforts to resolve these contradictions through a number of partial and compromise solutions often worsened the situation vis-à-vis preservation of the status quo. The ruling groups lack incentives for institutional changes, which could undermine their political and economic dominance, and are caught in a vicious circle: reforms often result in minor returns or cause unintended and undesired consequences. What are the possible domestic and international incentives to reject the political institutions of neopatrimonialism in post-Soviet states and replace them with inclusive economic and political ones?Peer reviewe

Sooty Mangabey Genome Sequence Provides Insight into AIDS Resistance in a Natural SIV Host

In contrast to infections with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in humans and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in macaques, SIV infection of a natural host, sooty mangabeys (Cercocebus atys), is non-pathogenic despite high viraemia. Here we sequenced and assembled the genome of a captive sooty mangabey. We conducted genome-wide comparative analyses of transcript assemblies from C. atys and AIDS-susceptible species, such as humans and macaques, to identify candidates for host genetic factors that influence susceptibility. We identified several immune-related genes in the genome of C. atys that show substantial sequence divergence from macaques or humans. One of these sequence divergences, a C-terminal frameshift in the toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4) gene of C. atys, is associated with a blunted in vitro response to TLR-4 ligands. In addition, we found a major structural change in exons 3-4 of the immune-regulatory protein intercellular adhesion molecule 2 (ICAM-2); expression of this variant leads to reduced cell surface expression of ICAM-2. These data provide a resource for comparative genomic studies of HIV and/or SIV pathogenesis and may help to elucidate the mechanisms by which SIV-infected sooty mangabeys avoid AIDS