Although Kenya is often considered an African success story, its political climate became increasingly repressive under its second president, Daniel arap Moi. Widner charts the transformation of the ...Kenya African National Union (KANU) from a weak, loosely organized political party under Jomo Kenyatta into an arm of the president's office, with "watchdog" youth wings and strong surveillance and control functions, under Moi. She suggests that single-party systems have an inherent tendency to become "party-states," or single-party regimes in which the head of state uses the party as a means of control. The speed and extent of these changes depend on the countervailing power of independent interest groups, such as business associations, farmers, or professionals. Widner's study offers important insights into the dynamics of party systems in Africa.
In May 2009, the Sri Lankan army overwhelmed the last stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam-better known as the Tamil Tigers-officially bringing an end to nearly three decades of civil ...war. Although the war has ended, the place of minorities in Sri Lanka remains uncertain, not least because the lengthy conflict drove entire populations from their homes. The figures are jarring: for example, all of the roughly 80,000 Muslims in northern Sri Lanka were expelled from the Tamil Tiger-controlled north, and nearly half of all Sri Lankan Tamils were displaced during the course of the civil war. Sharika Thiranagama'sIn My Mother's Houseprovides ethnographic insight into two important groups of internally displaced people: northern Sri Lankan Tamils and Sri Lankan Muslims. Through detailed engagement with ordinary people struggling to find a home in the world, Thiranagama explores the dynamics within and between these two minority communities, describing how these relations were reshaped by violence, displacement, and authoritarianism. In doing so, she illuminates an often overlooked intraminority relationship and new social forms created through protracted war.In My Mother's Houserevolves around three major themes: ideas of home in the midst of profound displacement; transformations of familial experience; and the impact of the political violence-carried out by both the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan state-on ordinary lives and public speech. Her rare focus on the effects and responses to LTTE political regulation and violence demonstrates that envisioning a peaceful future for post-conflict Sri Lanka requires taking stock of the new Tamil and Muslim identities forged by the civil war. These identities cannot simply be cast away with the end of the war but must be negotiated anew.
Socioeconomic Status and Macroeconomic Expectations Das, Sreyoshi; Kuhnen, Camelia M.; Nagel, Stefan
Review of financial studies/The Review of financial studies,
01/2020, Letnik:
33, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We show that individuals’ macroeconomic expectations are influenced by their socioeconomic status (SES). People with higher income or higher education are more optimistic about future macroeconomic ...developments, including business conditions, the national unemployment rate, and stock market returns. The spread in beliefs between highand low-SES individuals diminishes significantly during recessions. A comparison with professional forecasters and historical data reveals that the beliefs wedge reflects excessive pessimism on the part of low-SES individuals. SES-driven expectations help explain why higher-SES individuals are more inclined to invest in the stock market and more likely to consider purchasing homes, durable goods, or cars.
It is now well established that globular clusters (GCs) exhibit star-to-star light-element abundance variations (known as multiple populations, MPs). Such chemical anomalies have been found in ...(nearly) all the ancient GCs (more than 10 Gyr old) of our Galaxy and its close companions, but so far no model for the origin of MPs is able to reproduce all the relevant observations. To gain new insights into this phenomenon, we have undertaken a photometric Hubble Space Telescope survey to study clusters with masses comparable to that of old GCs, where MPs have been identified, but with significantly younger ages. Nine clusters in the Magellanic Clouds with ages between similar to 1.5 and 11 Gyr have been targeted in this survey. We confirm the presence of MPs in all clusters older than 6 Gyr and we add NGC 1978 to the group of clusters for which MPs have been identified. With an age of similar to 2 Gyr, NGC 1978 is the youngest cluster known to host chemical abundance spreads found to date. We do not detect evident star-to-star variations for slightly younger massive clusters (similar to 1.7 Gyr), thus pointing towards an unexpected age dependence for the onset of MPs. This discovery suggests that the formation of MPs is not restricted to the early Universe and that GCs and young massive clusters share common formation and evolutionary processes.
Abstract
We have recently shown that the ∼2 Gyr old Large Magellanic Cloud star cluster NGC 1978 hosts multiple populations in terms of star-to-star abundance variations in N/Fe. These can be seen as ...a splitting or spread in the subgiant and red giant branches (SGB and RGB) when certain photometric filter combinations are used. Because of its relative youth, NGC 1978 can be used to place stringent limits on whether multiple bursts of star formation have taken place within the cluster, as predicted by some models for the origin of multiple populations. We carry out two distinct analyses to test whether multiple star formation epochs have occurred within NGC 1978. First, we use ultraviolet colour--magnitude diagrams (CMDs) to select stars from the first and second population along the SGB, and then compare their positions in optical CMDs, where the morphology is dominantly controlled by age as opposed to multiple population effects. We find that the two populations are indistinguishable, with age differences of 1 ± 20 Myr between them. This is in tension with predictions from the asymptotic giant branch scenario for the origin of multiple populations. Second, we estimate the broadness of the main-sequence turn-off (MSTO) of NGC 1978 and we report that it is consistent with the observational errors. We find an upper limit of ∼65 Myr on the age spread in the MSTO of NGC 1978. This finding is in conflict with the age spread scenario as origin of the extended MSTO in intermediate-age clusters, while it fully supports predictions from the stellar rotation model.
We use over 20 yrs (1996–2017) of the European Space Agency's (ESA) radar interferometry (InSAR) observations to investigate the postseismic deformation of the Tabas fold segment following the 1978 ...Mw 7.3 Tabas-e-Golshan earthquake in eastern Iran. We generated maps of satellite line-of-sight (LOS) velocity using two ERS descending tracks (1996–1999), one Envisat descending track (2003–2010), one Sentinel-1A descending track (2014–2017) and one Sentinel-1A ascending track (2014–2017). The LOS velocity shows afterslip continuing for at least 40 yrs after the earthquake. Elastic dislocation modelling based on the InSAR measurements reveals a decrease in postseismic velocities from 5.0 ± 0.8 mm/yr in 1996–1999 to 3.9 ± 0.6 mm/yr in 2003–2005, 3.0 ± 0.4 mm/yr in 2006–2010, and a present rate of 2.3 ± 0.6 mm/yr in 2014–2017. The rates decay with time, t, as 1/t, consistent with the predictions of a simple block-slider model. We then combine the InSAR rates and our previous estimates of the total earthquake slip derived from optical image matching and DEM differencing to explore the frictional behaviour of the Tabas fold. We obtained a rate-and-state parameter a−b≈0.003, indicating rate-strengthening frictional behaviour of the Tabas fault. We also inferred a minimum coseismic slip of 4.7 m, which might have driven bedding-plane shear at shallow depth, resulting in distributed fold growth and secondary faulting observed in the field. The results imply that both coseismic slip and afterslip have occurred in the same location. One possible mechanism to explain such a phenomenon is that the frictional parameter a−b is small enough to allow dynamic ruptures to propagate into rate-strengthening regions.
•We measured postseismic slip 40 years after the 1978 Tabas earthquake using InSAR.•Sentinel-1 measurements show a mean afterslip rate of 2.3 ± 0.6 mm/yr in 2014–2017.•The rates of afterslip decay with time, t, as 1/t.•We obtained a rate-and-state parameter a−b≈0.003, i.e. rate-strengthening behaviour.•Small frictional parameters allow seismic ruptures in rate-strengthening regions.
De Gruyter Contemporary Social Sciences provides a platform for disseminating topical analyses of current events, showcasing new theoretical, empirical or applied research across the social sciences ...and related fields. Through engaging storytelling and in-depth analysis, it presents new work that appeals to a wide audience, and engages with issues of major public interest, highlighting the implications for both policy and professional practice.
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