Violent Dissent and Rebellion in Africa

This article analyzes how the selection process for the executive affects the risk of rebellion and insurgencies in sub-Saharan Africa between 1971 and 1995. Four executive recruitment processes are distinguished, which are characteristic for the African context: (1) a process without elections, (2) single candidate elections, (3) single party, multiple candidate elections, and (4) multiparty executive elections. The results suggest that single candidate elections and multiparty elections substantially reduce the risk of insurgencies compared to systems without any kind of executive elections. They further show that during times of political instability the risk of large-scale violent dissent increases substantially. The article supports findings of the civil war literature that higher levels of income are associated with a lower risk of intrastate violence, while oil-exporting countries are at a higher risk of rebellion. In short, this article further strengthens the need to use more specific measures of elements of political regimes, which also take into account regional particularities, in order to paint a more informative picture of how political structures influence the risk of internal violence

Outcrossing rate of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) genotypes under the agro climatic conditions of Northern Germany

Safflower oil is considered to be one of the highest quality vegetable oils for human nutrition, containing up to 90% linoleic acid. The cultivation of safflower would enlarge the number of species to increase biodiversity and widen crop rotation. Very little effort on safflower breeding has been done in Germany. The knowledge of the pollination system is a prerequisite of efficiently designing future breeding programmes. The cross pollination rate between and within plots was investigated in Göttingen (Latitude: 51° 32' North and Longitude: 9° 57' East ) in 2004 and 2005. A plot of 10 m2 of non-spiny plants was surrounded by plots of spiny plants. Ten nonspiny plants each of the border rows and of the core were harvested individually. The rate of cross pollination was calculated as the ratio of spiny to non-spiny offsprings. The average cross pollination was 6.5% (core), 9.7% (border no.1) and 18.1% (border no. 2). In a second experiment the rate of cross pollination within plots was estimated from non-spiny plants grown in mixture with spiny plants. The outcrossing rate was about 63% in 2004, but about 30% in 2005. Isolating or covering flowers by bags or cloth should be considered in pedigree breeding

Cognitive Rhythms Reluctantly Revisited

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.In response to the Power (1983) - Beattie (1984) controversy, a more general critique of the construct of cognitive rhythms is presented. It is argued that the term itself is a misnomer, that the relevance of articulation rate has been neglected, that fluent and hesitant phases of cognitive rhythms have been assessed both subjectively and intuitively, that the speech-production model underlying the concept is simplistic, and that the empirical evidence is based on an extraordinarily small corpus which has been described inadequately in the research literature

Global surface-ocean pCO2 and sea–air CO2 flux variability from an observation-driven ocean mixed-layer scheme

A temporally and spatially resolved estimate of the global surface-ocean CO₂ partial pressure field and the sea–air CO₂ flux is presented, obtained by fitting a simple data-driven diagnostic model of ocean mixed-layer biogeochemistry to surface-ocean CO₂ partial pressure data from the SOCAT v1.5 database. Results include seasonal, interannual, and short-term (daily) variations. In most regions, estimated seasonality is well constrained from the data, and compares well to the widely used monthly climatology by Takahashi et al. (2009). Comparison to independent data tentatively supports the slightly higher seasonal variations in our estimates in some areas. We also fitted the diagnostic model to atmospheric CO₂ data. The results of this are less robust, but in those areas where atmospheric signals are not strongly influenced by land flux variability, their seasonality is nevertheless consistent with the results based on surface-ocean data. From a comparison with an independent seasonal climatology of surface-ocean nutrient concentration, the diagnostic model is shown to capture relevant surface-ocean biogeochemical processes reasonably well. Estimated interannual variations will be presented and discussed in a companion paper

Abell 3627: A Nearby, X-ray Bright, and Massive Galaxy Cluster

The cluster A3627 was recently recognized to be a very massive, nearby cluster in a galaxy survey close to the galactic plane. We are reporting on ROSAT PSPC observations of this object which confirm that the cluster is indeed very massive. The X-ray emission detected from the cluster extends over almost 1 degree in radius. The X-ray image is not spherically symmetric and shows indications of an ongoing cluster merger. Due to the strong interstellar absorption the spectral analysis and the gas temperature determination are difficult. The data are consistent with an overall gas temperature in the range 5 to 10 keV. There are signs of temperature variations in the merger region. A mass estimate based on the X-ray data yields values of $0.4 - 2.2 \cdot 10^{15}$ \msu \ if extrapolated to the virial radius of $3 h_{50}^{-1}$ Mpc. In the ROSAT energy band (0.1 - 2.4 keV) the cluster emission yields a flux of about $2 \cdot 10^{-10}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$ which makes A3627 the 6$^{th}$ brightest cluster in the ROSAT All Sky Survey. The cluster was missed in earlier X-ray surveys because it was confused with a neighbouring X-ray bright, galactic X-ray binary (1H1556-605). The large X-ray flux makes A3627 an important target for future studies.Comment: 14 pages, Latex file, including aaspp.sty, 9 postscript figures and 1 table, accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journa

A Word Game With License Plates

This game is for license plates having a 3-letter prefix, as ABC-123.The object is to make a word by adding letters before, between, and after the given letters, which must be kept in their original order. The scoring is as follows:Any word - 1 pointA word formed by adding only vowels or only consonants - points equal to the square of the number of letters addedNo word can be made - subtract 1 point from total

Sight-Reading Substitution Ciphers

The usual procedure when trying one\u27s hand at a new craft is to undergo some kind of indoctrination before taking any action. The purpose of this article is to invite the reader, if he has little or no acquaintance with cryptography, to explore the potential of knowledge already in his possession. Instant linguistic recreation will result

The Amorphous Amoeba

Have we switched from linguistics to biology? No, not at all; we have merely taken a fanciful view of the irregularly shaped crossword puzzle diagram that follows