Formal Alliances, 1816-1965: an Extension of the Basic Data

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69121/2/10.1177_002234336900600305.pd

Recent developments on the STAR detector system at RHIC

The STAR detector system is designed to provide tracking, momentum analysis and particle identification for many of the mid-rapidity charged particles produced in collisions at the RHIC collider. A silicon vertex detector (SVT) provides three layers of tracking near the interaction point. This is followed by the main time projection chamber (TPC), which continues tracking out to 200 cm radial distance from the interaction region. The detector design also includes an electromagnetic calorimeter, various trigger detectors, and radial TPCs in the forward region. The entire system is enclosed in a 0.5 T solenoid magnet. A progress report is given for the various components of the STAR detector system. The authors report on the recent developments in the detector proto-typing and construction, with an emphasis on the main TPC, recent TPC cosmic ray testing and shipping to Brookhaven National Laboratory

Integrating Marine Protected Areas in fisheries management systems: some criteria for ecological efficiency

Through a review of the scientific literature and a more in-depth qualitative meta-analysis of 16 case studies distributed worldwide, this article aims to study impacts of MPAs on marine living resources, ecosystems and related fisheries and to highlight their criteria of efficiency as management tools for a sustainable exploitation. MPAs are efficient for conservation purposes and resource restoration, especially inside their borders. MPAs can also be part of fisheries management systems, but there is a lack of knowledge about their wider scale impacts on fish stocks, ecosystem and fisheries. Adjacent fisheries can increase their catches near closed areas, but such effects are delayed until after MPA establishment and are often limited over distance. Even though local specificities in ecosystems and fishing resources lead to high variability in MPA effects, four major criteria modulate the efficiency of MPAs for fisheries management: (1) the size of the closed area; (2) the level of protection of essential habitats for exploited resources; (3) MPA integration as part of wider integrated fisheries management plans; and (4) efficient monitoring and regulation systems, including participative decision making, to ensure that restrictive measures are respected

Margarita de Sossa, Sixteenth-Century Puebla de los Ángeles, New Spain (Mexico)

Margarita de Sossa’s freedom journey was defiant and entrepreneurial. In her early twenties, still enslaved in Portugal, she took possession of her body; after refusing to endure her owner’s sexual demands, he sold her, and she was transported to Mexico. There, she purchased her freedom with money earned as a healer and then conducted an enviable business as an innkeeper. Sossa’s biography provides striking insights into how she conceptualized freedom in terms that included – but was not limited to – legal manumission. Her transatlantic biography offers a rare insight into the life of a free black woman (and former slave) in late sixteenth-century Puebla, who sought to establish various degrees of freedom for herself. Whether she was refusing to acquiesce to an abusive owner, embracing entrepreneurship, marrying, purchasing her own slave property, or later using the courts to petition for divorce. Sossa continued to advocate on her own behalf. Her biography shows that obtaining legal manumission was not always equivalent to independence and autonomy, particularly if married to an abusive husband, or if financial successes inspired the envy of neighbors

Religious communities, immigration, and social cohesion in rural areas: Evidence from England

Religious communities are important sources of bridging and bonding social capital that have varying implications for perceptions of social cohesion in rural areas. In particular, as well as cultivating cohesiveness more broadly, the bridging social capital associated within mainline religious communities may represent an especially important source of support for the social integration of new immigrant groups. Although the bonding social capital associated with evangelical communities is arguably less conducive to wider social cohesion, it may prompt outreach work by those communities, which can enhance immigrant integration. This article examines these assumptions by exploring the relationship between mainline and evangelical religious communities, immigration, and residents' perceptions of social cohesion in rural areas in England. I model the separate and combined effects of religious communities and economic in-migration on social cohesion using multivariate statistical techniques. The analysis suggests that mainline Protestant communities enhance social cohesion in rural Englwhile evangelical communities do not. The social integration of immigrants appears to be more likely where mainline Protestant and Catholic communities are strong, but is unaffected by the strength of evangelical ones