scholarly journals Securigera varia (crown vetch).

Author(s):  
Jeanine Vélez-Gavilán

Abstract S. varia is a perennial herbaceous vine from the pea family that has been introduced into various countries as an ornamental, for erosion control, ground cover, soil improvement, as a cover crop and as fodder/forage for livestock (GISD, 2016, US Forest Service, 2016). The species is considered a threat in the USA, for its rapid vegetative growth resulting in monocultures and its detrimental effect on the native vegetation (Molano-Flores, 2014; Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States, 2016). The multi-branched rhizomes can extend up to 3 m long; and the stems can extend up to 2 m long; plants can fully cover 20-30 square metres in four years (Molano-Flores, 2014; US Forest Service, 2016). Luneva (2009) cites it as a dangerous weed that is a problem in rye, oat, summer and winter wheat crops and in vineyards; seeds littering the cereal grains, being hard to separate. There are no invasive behaviour reports for the species in western Europe (Alien Plants of Belgium, 2016). It is reported as invasive in many states of the USA, and in British Columbia in Canada (Molano-Flores, 2014; Casals, 2016; E-Flora of British Columbia, 2016; US Forest Service, 2016). It is included in a list of noxious plants of concern in Mexico, with the recommendation of doing a country assessment for its eradication or containment (Sánchez-Blanco et al., 2012). It is also included in the Global Invasive Species Database of the IUCN (GISD, 2016). An invasiveness assessment carried out for Alaska gave it an invasiveness rank of 68 on a scale of 1-100 (Alaska Natural Heritage Program, 2016).

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Turchin ◽  
Andrey Korotayev

This article revisits the prediction, made in 2010, that the 2010–2020 decade would likely be a period of growing instability in the United States and Western Europe (Turchin 2010). This prediction was based on a computational model that quantified in the USA such structural-demographic forces for instability as popular immiseration, intraelite competition, and state weakness prior to 2010. Using these trends as inputs, the model calculated and projected forward in time the Political Stress Index, which in the past was strongly correlated with socio-political instability. Ortmans et al. (2017) conducted a similar structural-demographic study for the United Kingdom and obtained similar results. Here we use the Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive for the US, UK, and Western European countries to assess these structural-demographic predictions. We find that such measures of socio-political instability as anti-government demonstrations and riots increased dramatically during the 2010–2020 decade in all of these countries.


Author(s):  
Tomáš Meluzín

Funding development of the company through the “Initial Public Offering” has a high representation globally, the Czech Republic unlike, and belongs to traditional methods of raising funds necessary for development of business in the developed capital markets. In the United States of America, Japan and in the Western Europe countries the method of company funding through IPO has been applying for several decades already. The first public stock offerings began to be applied in these markets in higher volumes from the beginning of the 60th of the last century. From that period importance of IPO goes up globally and the initial public stock offerings begin to be applied more and more even in the Central and Eastern European countries. In the conditions of the Czech capital market it is possible to identify only few companies, who attempted to funding through the IPO way at present. Greater part of the Czech companies still undergo the debit funding for financing their further development, namely in the form of bank loans. At the same time it is necessary to take into account, that the debit financing starts, thanks to so-called mortgage crisis in the USA, causing problems and mark up. Admittance of a stakeholder into the company is not convenient for all and thus IPO represents an interesting option of how to acquire a no arrear capital. The aim of this article is to determine the IPO concept, analyse its development at the world stockholder markets, describe the reasons for IPO implementation according to the contemporary professional literature and compare it with the approaches to this particular form of funding with companies that have already implemented IPO at the Czech capital market.


Author(s):  
N.N. Ravochkin ◽  
◽  

The author examines the ideological foundations of political and legal institutional architectonics in Western Europe and the United States and presents its structure. Close attention is paid to the role of social ideas and the development of these issues in modern scientific directions. The author clarifies the principles of synthesis of ideal and institutional and shows three ways of ideological determination of political and legal institutional settings. The mutually conditioned nature of functioning of the system of ideological frameworks and management institutions is substantiated.


1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-68
Author(s):  
William A. Durbin ◽  
John L. Sullivan

Introduction Virtually all humans become infected with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). The vast majority of these infections are inapparent, occur early in life, and are associated with lifelong latent infection and persistent shedding of virus. Epidemiology The prevalence of antibody to EBV has been determined in many age groups throughout the world. In developing and tropical areas, infection takes place early in life and is inapparent, with most children demonstrating antibody by age 6 years. Infection is believed to be related to hygiene and crowding as well as to cultural patterns that lead to exposure to saliva (eg, prechewing of food). In contrast, infection in Western Europe and the United States in childhood is less common, with only 35% to 50% of 5-year-olds demonstrating antibody. Infectious mononucleosis (IM) emerges as a significant clinical entity only in populations where a sizable percentage of young adults lack immunity to EBV. Thus, IM is unknown among college freshman in Thailand or the Philippines, virtually all of whom have antibody to EBV at the time of admission. On the other hand, in schools in the USA and England, where the susceptibility percentage is in the range of 35% to 50%, infection is seen commonly. In such university settings, approximately 12% of susceptible students become infected with EBV during the freshman year.


2020 ◽  
pp. 73-92
Author(s):  
Dmytro Lakishyk

The article examines US policy towards West Germany after World War II, covering a historical span from the second half of the 1940s to the 1980s. It was US policy in Europe, and in West Germany in particular, that determined the dynamics and nature of US-German relations that arose on a long-term basis after the formation of Germany in September 1949. One of the peculiarities of US-German relations was the fact that both partners found themselves embroiled in a rapidly escalating international situation after 1945. The Cold War, which broke out after the seemingly inviolable Potsdam Accords, forced the United States and Germany to be on one side of the conflict. Despite the fact that both states were yesterday’s opponents and came out of the war with completely different, at that time, incomparable, statuses. A characteristic feature of US policy on the German question in the postwar years was its controversial evolution. The American leadership had neither a conceptual plan for development, nor a clear idea of Germany’s place in the world, nor an idea of how to plan the country’s future. However, the deterioration of relations between the USA and the USSR and the birth of the two blocs forced the US government to resort to economic revival (the Marshall Plan) and military-political consolidation of Western Europe and Germany (NATO creation). US policy toward Germany has been at the heart of its wider European policy. The United States favored a strong and united Western Europe over American hegemony, trying to prevent the spread of Soviet influence. Joint participation in the suppression of communism, however, could not prevent the periodic exacerbation of relations between the United States and Germany, and at the same time did not lead to an unconditional follow-up of the West Germans in the fairway of American foreign policy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 200-210
Author(s):  
A. V. Smirnov ◽  
Mona A. Khalil

This paper is an interview with Andrey V. Smirnov, Director of the Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences. The interview was dedicated to the broad set of issues that can all be characterized as relative to the umbrella topic of cultural patterns, the indispensability of cultural difference between nations and civilizations and the roots of such phenomena. Expressing the idea of specific mindsets and inherent value orientations, Andrey V. Smirnov adheres to the theoretical approach designed to underline these elements. The panhuman (vsechelovecheskoye) serves for these ends as well as the collective cognitive unconscious. The visions of panhuman oppose to the universalist paradigm (obshechelovecheskoye) and express concern about the drawbacks of cultural unification. Each culture shares one of these two approaches to a certain extent, and the viability of such cultures can be accessed with the view to the interests, goals and projects such cultures or nations nurture. All such phenomena stem from collective cognitive unconscious. Language as its signifier illustrates innate logical structures that also vary: while, for instance, the Arab thought runs on process-based logic that focuses on actions, European one represents substantial logic — that of the existential feeling. In this way all intercultural communication should take others’ visions and adopt to them, which is important not only for translators and interpreters, but also in the political sphere. Advocates of globalism and supranationalism are driven by ideas generated in the West and remain ignorant of the practices that are actually relevant in localities other than the USA or Western Europe. Many examples can be found in the societal shifts that Russia faces. The seemingly non-alternative modernisationalist initiatives that fall within the universalist liberal model are inadequate for the thought style and the corresponding institutional, authority and educational system. The most obvious examples of this deal with the digital sphere, but the cyber transformations as such are not imposing the universalist vision. Rather, it is the underlying culturally-rooted effects of the leverage the United States as the IT leader have and make use of. The questions on how these intercultural communications function now, what form should they take and the very transformations that burden self-sufficient cultures should be analyzed by philosophers. The realities of modern civilizations suggest that those who are set aside in the periphery raise voices and realize national subjectivity.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Flores ◽  
Emily Haire

Abstract For over 100 years, the US Forest Service (USFS) has developed initiatives to improve safety outcomes. Herein we discuss the engineered solutions used from 1910 through 1994, when the agency relied on physical science to address the hazards of wildland fire suppression. We then interpret safety initiatives of the subsequent 25 years, as the USFS incorporated social science perspectives both into its understanding of emergency fire incidents and its mitigation of vulnerabilities across all fields of work. Tracing the safety programs using a historical sociology approach, we identify, within the agency’s narrative, three recent developments in its organizational safety culture: cultural awareness, cultural management, and cultural reorganization. This article describes how the development of top-down safety initiatives are questioned and shaped by employees who actively influence the trajectory of a safety culture in the USFS. Study Implications: Safety is a core value of the US Forest Service (USFS), and several safety initiatives, along with employee feedback over the years, have shaped the organizational culture of the agency. To build a robust and world-renowned safety culture in high-risk industries, managers require an understanding of the origins of their organization’s current safety culture. Using a critical social science analytical lens, we discuss how safety initiatives and the development of a safety culture position organizations such as the USFS to move away from reactionary safety initiatives and anchor to employee safety as a core value in order to absorb external shocks, such as rapidly changing ecosystems, development in the wildland urban interface, and larger and more intense wildfires.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Gassmann ◽  
Chris Parker

Abstract L. vulgaris is a perennial flowering plant with a spreading root system. It forms dense mats which can compete with crops and suppress native vegetation, reducing pasture productivity and/or biodiversity (ISSG, 2015). Native to temperate areas of Europe and Asia, it has been widely introduced to North America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and is regarded as noxious in many of these countries. By inclusion in indexes of invasive species it is regarded as invasive widely in Canada and in the USA (Alberta Invasive Species Council, 2014; Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States, 2015). L. vulgaris received an invasive index of 69 (out of a maximum of 100) in Alaska, USA (ANHP, 2011). It is also regarded as invasive within its native range in Serbia (Dzigurski and Nikolic, 2014).


Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
Barbara Baraibar ◽  
Charles M. White ◽  
Mitchell C. Hunter ◽  
Denise M. Finney ◽  
Mary E. Barbercheck ◽  
...  

Cover crops are increasingly being adopted to provide multiple ecosystem services such as improving soil health, managing nutrients, and decreasing soil erosion. It is not uncommon for weeds to emerge in and become a part of a cover crop plant community. Since the role of cover cropping is to supplement ecosystem service provisioning, we were interested in assessing the impacts of weeds on such provisioning. To our knowledge, no research has examined how weeds in cover crops may impact the provision of ecosystem services and disservices. Here, we review services and disservices associated with weeds in annual agroecosystems and present two case studies from the United States to illustrate how weeds growing in fall-planted cover crops can provide ground cover, decrease potential soil losses, and effectively manage nitrogen. We argue that in certain circumstances, weeds in cover crops can enhance ecosystem service provisioning. In other circumstances, such as in the case of herbicide-resistant weeds, cover crops should be managed to limit weed biomass and fecundity. Based on our case studies and review of the current literature, we conclude that the extent to which weeds should be allowed to grow in a cover crop is largely context-dependent.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942097474
Author(s):  
Laura Ciglioni

The article proposes an analysis of atomic culture in the United States and Western Europe, during the first 20 years of the Cold War, in the light of George L. Mosse’s work and approach. It shows how ‘habits of mind’ and the ‘general mood’ concerning the atomic bomb and risk of nuclear war were profoundly intertwined with deep-seated representations of the nation. It also exemplifies how the romantic attitudes toward life analyzed by Mosse – the longing for ‘shelter’ felt by men and women the more the world demythologized, and their need for symbols, especially connecting man with nature and its permanence – played an extremely relevant role in shaping attitudes about the ‘atomic age’. The nuclear question is thus ‘framed’ within longer term attitudes and cultural responses to modern war, as well as put in context with Western postwar culture, as investigated by Mosse: a culture marked by a renewed fear of technology, nihilism and widespread fears of alienation, as well as the continued relevance of nationalism and respectability. The article mainly examines two national cases: the USA and France. In the final section, comparison with other European countries is proposed and some general conclusions advanced.


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