Spheres Of Semi-Legality: Discourse, Media And Informal Economic Practices In St. Petersburg, Russia (2000-Present)

My dissertation project focuses on how the post-Yeltsin (2000 onwards) market economy actually works and how people define, identify and engage within this newly structured market economy. In order to understand this phenomenon my ethnographic study focuses on business in Russia from two perspectives. First, it discusses how Russian enterprises operate in Russia with the socially embedded informal economic practices inherited from the Soviet system, including trust, personal networks, patron-client relationships, system avoidance, bribery, and corruption. Second, it examines how foreign firms operate under these existing economic conditions in Russia while simultaneously still following FTC regulations and international law. Keeping in mind that the informal economic practices used in Russia are survival strategies which allow Russians to survive in extreme situations, to navigate through the web of the complex bureaucratic rules, and to be able to conduct business with contradictory laws; my research focuses on informal behaviors as a method for entrepreneurs ability to manipulate the formal rules and to be creative under these restraints in their pursuit of economic gains. Further, my project challenges the Western concept of economics belonging either in the `legal\u27 or `illegal\u27 spheres since the Russian market economy is not based on Western models of economic exchange. During my recent fieldwork in St. Petersburg, Russia (2010-2011) I used a variety of different methods to obtain this information; observation at a business organization, attendance at business lectures and seminars, interviews with Russian entrepreneurs, Russian business lawyers, foreign directors of multinational corporations, foreign trade diplomats and foreign lawyers, and data from popular culture and media (jokes, music, movies); to understand the complexity of informal practices in business and its relationship to the broader Russian economy. Through this focus, my dissertation attempts to understand how governmental rules and laws, create informal economic practices. In more conceptual terms, my research project seeks to understand how the market economy is not a product of market forces, but of historically embedded practices that continue and transform within a society

Clinical and histological characteristics of papillary thyroid microcarcinoma: results of a retrospective study in 243 patients

Context: The recognition of thyroid microcarcinoma has increased due to the widespread use of ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsies. Objective: The objective of this study was to describe histol. and clin. characteristics of papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) less than or equal to 1 cm. Design: This study was a retrospective cohort. Setting: This study was conducted at a university hospital endocrine clinic. Patients: Over a 9-yr period, 243 consecutive patients with PTMC were studied. Results: PTMC was an incidental finding at surgery in 21.4% of the PTMC cases. There were no differences in the clin. characteristics between those with incidental PTMC and those with suspected thyroid carcinoma. None of the patients with a cancer less than 8 mm had distant metastases, whereas distant metastases were obsd. in patients with cancers &rt;= 8 mm (P ? 0.05). Disease-related mortality was not obsd. Conclusions: PTMC is prevalent in the population. Among patients with PTMC, tumor size more 8 mm is assocd. with more aggressive diseas

Position paper sulle politiche per la cronicità e sugli interventi per la gestione dello scompenso cardiaco

The work represents a position paper on chronic diseases policies and management models. It is the result of a Consensus Conference with 14 stakeholders that took place between October and November 2018. After an analysis of chronic diseases policies in 10 Italian regions, the paper focuses on management models for one specific chronic disease, heart failure, around which the regional intervention has centred. This paper aims at: 1) ascertain the state of the art of Italian policies on chronic diseases by mapping regional plans, programs and projects; 2) understand the main trends affecting policies on chronic diseases and heart failure, through a compared analysis of the mapped legislation; 3) identify the characteristics of regional projects related to chronic disease management and, where available, to hearth failure management through the selection of those representing regional tendencies. Our findings show that chronic diseases are developing according to some trends including demand management, comorbidity and frailty management and management of service usage. The paper ends with 8 statements representing the point of view of the expert panel group who took part to the Consensus Conference