Multilevel Governance and Women's Legislative Representation

Research shows that electoral systems, gender quotas and a country's socio-economic development affect women's legislative representation (WLR). Less attention is paid to the effects of the rise of regional political arenas and multilevel politics on WLR. Due to less costly and competitive electoral campaigns, women can have easier access to regional legislatures. We argue that this relationship is mitigated by the distribution of competences between the different levels of the political system and that decentralization's effect on WLR at the regional level is dependent on the regions’ political power. To test this, we use an original dataset on WLR in 383 regional parliaments in 19 European countries from 1970 to 2018. Results of the three-level models show that more political authority vested into regions leads to a lower level of WLR in the legislatures of the more politically powerful regions in comparison with not only the regions possessing less authority but also with the national parliament. Possible explanations for this effect, such as the attractiveness of these positions to the mostly male political elite and, consequently, increased costs and competitiveness of electoral campaigns, are suggested.Introduction Multilevel governance and women's political representation Data Analysis Conclusion Acknowledgements Supporting information Reference

Long-period cosmic ray variations and their altitude dependence

Long-period variations were studied from the data of ground-based cosmic ray (CR) observations. In spite of a large value of an 2-year variation, it is more difficult to obtain its spectrum than the spectrum of a solar diurnal variation. Serious obstacles are caused by changes in individual detectors and in the whole world wide network of CR detectors, by the absence of continuity and uniformity of data series, by various apparatus variations. In discrimination and investigation of long-period variations an important and determining point is preparation and preliminary analysis of data

Information culture of the mass

The significance of the research is determined by the necessity to improve the quality of information culture of the modern society. In this context, the article refers to the "mass" or "the mass person" that has a certain way of thinking and life style which begin dominating under certain conditions. "The mass person" represents a historically arisen and historically passing phenomenon generated by a certain stage of the development of technology. The research is focused upon a brief outline of philosophical and historical stages which have led to the emergence of the “mass person” who strives only for the benefit and achievement of the personal purposes. He obediently accepts ready-made stamps and stereotypes, without caring for their validity. As a result, despite all the talks of individualization, the original identity is lost and replaced with the average, mass person who is going down the stream, turning into a slave of sociality that once again convinces us that "the mass person" is now a phenomenon which arises quite suddenly, but as a result of those substitutions about which we have spoken above. It is that norm which is characteristic of the society constructed on the ideas of pragmatism and usefulness.peer-reviewe

Mycoviruses are common among different species of endophytic fungi of grasses

8 páginas, 1 tabla, 1 figuraA survey of mycoviruses was made in a collection of 103 isolates belonging to 53 different species of endophytic fungi of grasses. DsRNA elements were detected in isolates of 12 of the species analyzed. The banding characteristics and sizes of some of the dsRNA elements suggest that they might belong to previously described mycovirus families. The observed incidence (22.6%) indicates that the presence of mycoviruses could be common among species of this group of ubiquitous fungi.This research was financed by project AGL2005-02839 granted by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education. We thank Drs. Robert Coutts and Beatríz R. Vázquez de Aldana for reviewing the manuscript.Peer reviewe

Response of CO₂ and H₂O fluxes in a mountainous tropical rainforest in equatorial Indonesia to El Niño events

The possible impact of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events on the main components of CO₂ and H₂O fluxes between the tropical rainforest and the atmosphere is investigated. The fluxes were continuously measured in an old-growth mountainous tropical rainforest in Central Sulawesi in Indonesia using the eddy covariance method for the period from January 2004 to June 2008. During this period, two episodes of El Niño and one episode of La Niña were observed. All these ENSO episodes had moderate intensity and were of the central Pacific type. The temporal variability analysis of the main meteorological parameters and components of CO₂ and H₂O exchange showed a high sensitivity of evapotranspiration (ET) and gross primary production (GPP) of the tropical rainforest to meteorological variations caused by both El Niño and La Niña episodes. Incoming solar radiation is the main governing factor that is responsible for ET and GPP variability. Ecosystem respiration (RE) dynamics depend mainly on the air temperature changes and are almost insensitive to ENSO. Changes in precipitation due to moderate ENSO events did not have any notable effect on ET and GPP, mainly because of sufficient soil moisture conditions even in periods of an anomalous reduction in precipitation in the region

FORMATION OF RESPONSE OF RATS ORGANISM ON SINGLE INFLUENCE OF TERIZIDONE - 250 MG + PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE - 10 MG

The article presents the materials of experimental study of Terizidone in combination with pyridoxine hydrochloride in conditions of single peroral influence on animals in different doses with a view to reveal response of an organism for using in the evaluation of general toxic action of an advanced antituberculous preparation