A. Brian Murphy, The Russian Civil War

The access to Russian archives for the Soviet period produced a qualitative shift in the historiography. Over the last decade, many collections of documents from Soviet archives have likewise been published – mainly in Russian, but also in English, French, Italian and other languages. By tradition, documentary collections are recommended of materials that are difficult to access or read in the original place or style, and that are of particular interest, e.g. diaries or correspondences. There..

Molecular structure and genetic mapping of the mouse gastrin gene

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/117035/1/feb20014579396004309.pd

TECHNICAL REPORT: Rapid confirmation of gene targeting in embryonic stem cells using two long-range PCR techniques

Gene targeting in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells generally includes the analysis of numerous colonies to identify a few with mutations resulting from homologous recombination with a targeting vector. Thus, simple and efficient screening methods are needed to identify targeted clones. Optimal screening approaches require probes from outside of the region included in the targeting vector to avoid detection of the more common random insertions. However, the use of large genomic fragments in targeting vectors can limit the availability of cloned DNA, thus necessitating a strategy to obtain unique flanking sequences. We describe a rapid method to identify sequences adjacent to cloned DNA using long-range polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification from a genomic DNA library, followed by direct nucleotide sequencing of the amplified fragment. We have used this technique in two independent gene targeting experiments to obtain genomic DNA sequences flanking the mouse cholecystokinin (CCK) and gastrin genes. The sequences were then used to design primers to characterize ES cell lines with CCK or gastrin targeted gene mutations, employing a second long-range PCR approach. Our results show that these two long-range PCR methods are generally useful to rapidly and accurately characterize allele structures in ES cellsPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43859/1/11248_2004_Article_172516.pd

Allocation under dictatorship : research in Stalin’s archives

We survey recent research on the Soviet economy in the state, party, and military archives of the Stalin era. The archives have provided rich new evidence on the economic arrangements of a command system under a powerful dictator including Stalin’s role in the making of the economic system and economic policy, Stalin’s accumulation objectives and the constraints that limited his power to achieve them, the limits to administrative allocation, the information flows and incentives that governed the behavior of economic managers, the scope and significance of corruption and market-oriented behavior, and the prospects for economic reform