In One\u27s Own Right: Party Competition and Ideological Control in Post-Communist Hungary and Poland

In their 1997 paper “Are Transitions Transitory?”, Milada Vachudova and Timothy Snyder predicted that the ethnically homogenous states of post-communist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) would experience an uncomplicated democratic transition. In their formulation, three such states – Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic – would encounter success in this process as a result of three factors: their ethnic homogeneity, their relatively strong economies, and their successful breakages from communist rule. At once the scholars predicted that three other states, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, would fail to democratize, particularly because they were not characterized by these three factors. The key differentiating factor in the paper, and in turn what the three factors were expected to correlate with, was the degree of ethnic nationalism in each state’s respective politics. By contrast, the situation in 2017 looks decidedly different. Hungary under Viktor Orbán has sunk to Romania- and Bulgaria- levels of democracy, and Poland’s recent re-election of the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party seems to signal the emergence of an analogous trend in that state. Further, both of these parties have at once mobilized ethnic nationalist rhetoric in order to legitimize their own political ambitions. The aim of this paper, then, is to answer two questions relating to Vachudova and Snyder’s 1997 formulations. The first question concerns why, contrary to the expectations of these scholars, Hungary and Poland have seen the emergence of ethnic nationalist politics. The second question concerns why Hungary, though seemingly identical to Poland in its initial democratic conditions, has seen the mobilization of ethnic nationalism to a far more extreme and anti-democratic degree

Government-Assisted Rental Accommodations: Should They Accommodate Homeowners with Unmet Needs?

Stephen Golant, a national expert on elderly housing concerns, describes the types and seriousness of housing problems facing elders nationally and in Maine. Although older adults are predominantly homeowners, national policymakers often downplay the needs of this group and hand over responsibility to state and local governments. The author reviews arguments that cynics have offered for deemphasizing older homeowners’ needs, and discusses various solutions to meet those needs. He poses the question: Do we unrealistically romanticize aging in place? As the title of the article suggests, Golant proposes that a good solution to the needs of older homeowners is to increase the availability of government-assisted rental accommodations, ideally accompanied by supportive services

X-band microwave generation caused by plasma-sheath instability

It is well known that oscillations at the electron plasma frequency may appear due to instability of the plasma sheath near a positively biased electrode immersed in plasma. This instability is caused by transit-time effects when electrons, collected by this electrode, pass through the sheath. Such oscillations appear as low-power short spikes due to additional ionization of a neutral gas in the electrode vicinity. Herein we present first results obtained when the additional ionization was eliminated. We succeeded to prolong the oscillations during the whole time a positive bias was applied to the electrode. These oscillations could be obtained at much higher frequency than previously reported (tens of GHz compared to few hundreds of MHz) and power of tens of mW. These results in combination with presented theoretical estimations may be useful, e.g., for plasma diagnostics.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Experimental studies of lower hybrid wave propagation

Experimental measurement of the dispersion and damping of externally excited lower hybrid waves are presented. A multiple-ring slow-wave antenna, having 2pi/kz=23 cm, is used to excite these waves in the Princeton L3 or L4 linear devices (B=0.5–2.8 kG uniform to ±1% for 1.6 m, n[approximate]1010 cm^–3, Te[approximate]3–5 eV, Ti<~0.1 eV, He gas, plasma diameter approximately equal to 10 cm). The waves are localized in a spatial wave packet that propagates into the plasma along a conical trajectory which makes a small angle with respect to the confining magnetic field. Measurements of the dependence of wavelength on frequency are in good agreement with the cold plasma dispersion relation. Measured values of the wave damping are in good agreement with Landau damping by the combination of the main body of the electron distribution and an approximately 30% high energy (Te[approximate]15–30 eV) electron tail

Generation of near-equipartition magnetic fields in turbulent collisionless plasmas

The mechanisms that generate "seed" magnetic fields in our Universe and that amplify them throughout cosmic time remain poorly understood. By means of fully-kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of turbulent, initially unmagnetized plasmas, we study the genesis of magnetic fields via the Weibel instability and follow their dynamo growth up to near-equipartition levels. In the kinematic stage of the dynamo, we find that the rms magnetic field strength grows exponentially with rate $\gamma_B \simeq 0.4\,u_{\rm rms}/L$, where $L/2 \pi$ is the driving scale and $u_{\rm rms}$ is the rms turbulent velocity. In the saturated stage, the magnetic field energy reaches about half of the turbulent kinetic energy. Here, magnetic field growth is balanced by dissipation via reconnection, as revealed by the appearance of plasmoid chains. At saturation, the integral-scale wavenumber of the magnetic spectrum approaches $k_{\rm int}\simeq 12\pi/L$. Our results show that turbulence -- induced by, e.g., the gravitational build-up of galaxies and galaxy clusters -- can magnetize collisionless plasmas with large-scale near-equipartition fields.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, PRL in pres

Assisted living : a potential solution to Canada\u27s long-term care crisis

By 2020, 29% of Canada\u27s seniors will be in the 75-84 age bracket, and 13% will be aged 85 and over. How they live and who will look after them will become increasingly urgent problems. While Canada has primarily depended on extended family and nursing homes to care for their elderly, Dr. Stephen Golant, a U.S.-Canada senior Fulbright scholar, suggests there is another way. Over a five-month period spent at Simon Fraser University\u27s Gerontology Research Centre, Dr. Golant evaluated the current state of Canada\u27s housing policy for the elderly and urged all levels of government to look at new strategies to provide for this growing group of elderly seniors. In particular, Dr. Golant suggests the establishment of Assisted Living Facilities, a more resort-like setting targeted at upper-middle and high income seniors