Direct Democracy Practices of Local Authorities in Turkey

Direct democracy, an early form of democracy, which was applied in city states of ancient Athens, is at the agenda of politics again, especially at local levels due to the limitations of the representative democracy. People do not want to voice their ideas about the cities or countries where they live just once in four or five years by casting their votes in the ballot box. They desire to be involved in decision-making mechanisms, at least for relatively more important issues that might have direct effect over their lives. Today, more local governments are applying direct democracy tools in line with the expectations of local residents and as a requirement of the local governance principle of participation. Of course, as it is the case in representative democracy, direct democracy, which aims civic engagement for each significant decision, has some limitations. This chapter will explore the implementation of direct democracy by municipalities in Turkey, with all its variation, sources of motivation, opportunities, and challenges.

Economy and supply

A review of the contribution that the study of London makes to our understanding of the ancient economy. It explores the economic impact of the large-scale movement of goods and supplies required to support military advance, and to meet the expectations of the unusually large garrison stationed in Britain. The underwriting of these food supplies can be treated as an early form of military annona, sharing characteristics with arrangements made for the feeding of larger cities. It is argued that London’s economy and port, revolved around the needs of annona supply embracing military and civilian consumers. The infrastructure developed to support the annona stimulated a wider trade in luxury imports, best evidenced by the pottery carried to and through London (such as Samian and amphorae). This long-distance supply is the most archaeologically evident aspect of London’s Roman economy. The use of coin is another, and this chapter reviews the use of small change within London’s internal economy and local taxes. Coin-based market economies may not have penetrated far into the surrounding countryside, where subsistence and peasant farming was allowed to persist and rent and tax could be obtained through sharecropping and other ‘in kind’ arrangements.

CLINICAL CASE OF ADVERSE OUTCOME OF NEONATAL LYSTERIOSIS

A clinical case of neonatal listeriosis with an unfavorable outcome is presented. The first symptoms of the disease in a newborn appeared on the 3rd day, intrauterine infection was suspected on the 5th day. A evolving clinical picture with death on day 9 is described. The issues of the ongoing antibiotic therapy are discussed. The diagnosis of neonatal listeriosis was confirmed by the results of postmortem and morphological examination of the deceased newborn. The cause of his death was an early form of listeria infection (septicemia) with damage mainly to the lungs and liver. Specialists who provide care for pregnant women, newborns and children should be alert for listeria infection.

Early Form Based Morphological Decomposition in Tagalog: MEG Evidence from Reduplication, Infixation and Circumfixation

Neuro- and psycholinguistic experimentation supports the early decomposition of morphologically complex words within the ventral processing stream, which MEG has localized to the M170 response in the (left) visual word form area (VWFA). Decomposition into an exhaustive parse of visual morpheme forms extends beyond words like “farmer” to those imitating complexity (e.g. “brother”, Lewis et al. 2011), and to “unique” stems occurring in only one word but following the syntax and semantics of their affix (e.g. “vulnerable”, Gwilliams & Marantz 2018). Evidence comes primarily from suffixation; other morphological processes have been under-investigated. This study explores circumfixation, infixation, and reduplication in Tagalog. In addition to investigating whether these are parsed like suffixation, we address an outstanding question concerning semantically empty morphemes. Some words in Tagalog resemble English “winter” as decomposition is not supported (wint-er); these apparently reduplicated pseudoreduplicates lack the syntactic and semantic features of reduplicated forms. However, unlike “winter,” these words exhibit phonological behavior predicted only if they involve a reduplicating morpheme. If these are decomposed, this provides evidence that words are analyzed as complex, like English “vulnerable”, when the grammar demands it. In a lexical decision task with MEG, we find that VWFA activity correlates with stem:word transition probability for circumfixed, infixed and reduplicated words. Furthermore, a Bayesian analysis suggests that pseudoreduplicates with reduplicate-like phonology are also decomposed; other pseudoreduplicates are not. These findings are consistent with an interpretation that decomposition is modulated by phonology in addition to syntax and semantics.

FORMS OF RELIGIOUS ASCETICISM IN EGYPT: TRIGGERS IN THE HISTORY OF WORLDVIEWS

Целью статьи является рассмотрение последовательно сменявших друг друга форм аскетического идеала в Египте, способствовавших переходу от античных социокультурных ориентиров к новой системе христианских общественно значимых ценностей и норм. Во II в. до н.э. парадоксы крайних воплощений религиозной аскезы, чуждые традиционной египетской ментальности, вызывали негативную реакцию со стороны приверженцев общепринятых мировоззренческих стереотипов, которая проявлялась в актах варварской агрессии. По мере смещения мировоззренческих парадигм к христианству смещался и вектор агрессии: в III–IV вв. ее объектами становились уже сторонники прежних стереотипов. Являясь, с одной стороны, выражением экзистенциального кризиса своего времени, египетские аскезы в то же время несли в себе мощный цивилизационный потенциал, включивший механизм перехода общественного сознания от Поздней Античности к Раннему Средневековью. Инверсия варварства и цивилизации в оценках этих исторических процессов современниками и последующими поколениями была неизбежна. В сплаве идей, представлений, общественных ориентиров и ценностей выкристаллизовывался вектор развития будущего христианского культурного сообщества, породившего в качестве своего стержня явление монашества с его социальной ролью «патрона», «заступника» и «посредника», характерной для позднеантичного сознания и перепереосмысленной в рамках новой системы ценностей. Однако без ранней формы аскезы катохов, воплотивших первоначальный аскетический идеал, эволюционный скачок в истории мировоззрений был бы невозможен. Ни в российской ни в зарубежной научной литературе не освещалась историческая роль катохов и не рассматривались египетские аскезы в аспекте их взаимосвязи. The purpose of the article is to consider the successive forms of the ascetic ideal in Egypt, which contributed to the transition from ancient socio-cultural guidelines to a new system of Christian socially significant values and norms. In the second century BC, the paradoxes of extreme embodiments of religious asceticism, alien to the traditional Egyptian mentality, caused a negative reaction from adherents of generally accepted ideological stereotypes, which was manifested in acts of barbaric aggression. As the worldview paradigms shifted to Christianity, the vector of aggression also shifted: in the III–IV centuries its objects were already supporters of the previous stereotypes. Being, on the one hand, an expression of the existential crisis of their time, Egyptian asceticism at the same time carried a powerful civilizational potential, which included a mechanism for the transition of public consciousness from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. The inversion of barbarism and civilization in the assessments of these historical processes by contemporaries and subsequent generations was inevitable. In the fusion of ideas, ideas, social guidelines and values, the vector of development of the future Christian cultural community was crystallized, which gave rise to the phenomenon of monasticism as its core, with its social role of “patron”, “intercessor” and “mediator”, characteristic of the late Antique consciousness and reinterpreted within the framework of a new system of values. However, without the early form of asceticism of the Catholics, who embodied the original ascetic ideal, an evolutionary leap in the history of worldviews would have been impossible. Neither Russian nor foreign scientific literature has covered the historical role of the Catholics and has not considered Egyptian asceticism in the aspect of their relationship.

Magic as Technological Dominion: John Dee’s Hydragogy and the Draining of the Fens in Ben Jonson’s The Devil is an Ass

This paper explores the ambiguous role of magic in the controversy over the draining of the fens, the last bastion of wilderness in seventeenth-century England. In what now looks like an early form of environmentalist resistance to the destruction of these wetlands, opponents of the drainage accused the undertakers of invoking diabolical aid in their audacious efforts to tamper with God’s creation. Evidence of this mentality can be found in both William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Ben Jonson’s The Devil is an Ass. Via a close reading of Jonson’s comedy, this paper navigates the confluence of magic, technology, and “projection” in the ideological debate surrounding the fens. Just as the traditional Vice figures (Iniquity and Pug) find themselves out-devilled by Jacobean Londoners, the play dramatizes the appropriation and displacement of a residual poetics of enchantment by the emergent discourses of economics and applied engineering. A tendency to equate magic with hydro-engineering technology may have been encouraged by John Dee’s involvement in the project. Drawing on an unpublished manuscript in the Ashmole collection at the Bodleian Library, this paper seeks to uncover the extent and impact of Dee’s role in the drainage. Advocates of the drainage, however, not only denied any supernatural involvement but also counterattacked by accusing their opponents of credulity and magical thinking. They characterized the native fen-dwellers as superstitious heathens and cast a scathing eye on local folklore depicting the fens as a demon-haunted wasteland. In pro-drainage documents, the proposed draining of the fenlands becomes tantamount to an exorcism, purging the rural backwaters of paganism and witchcraft. Wetlands management will now be conducted through applied engineering rather than magical incantations. A little known Jacobean ballad, “The Powte’s Complaint” (c. 1619) revives these animistic tropes to protest the fen’s destruction. Jonson’s play may explain why this tactic was doomed to fail and why this poem has been forgotten. As the credibility of magic eroded in the mid-seventeenth century, opponents of the drainage instead sought to stir up public resentment against the foreignness of the Dutch under-takers rather than their supposed collusion with supernatural forces. Jonson’s own projection that the drainage was an impossible con (like alchemy) would prove inaccurate. Nevertheless, The Devil is an Ass stands as the one of the most ecologically-engaged texts in the canon of early modern English drama.

European experience of land resource potential development in the conditions of globalization

The article analyzes the use of land resources of countries in the context of globalization. Investment-attractive regions have been identified, the socio-economic and political conditions of which contribute to the seizure of land by foreign investors. Sources of food security of countries with developed economies are substantiated. Peculiarities of formation of land and resource space of European neo-colonial countries are determined. One of the most important historical events in the political and socio-economic dimensions of the world was colonialism, associated with the development of capitalism. In the book, Eric Wolfe, "Europe and People Without History", describes in detail the global expansion of the borders of European states in order to control both human and natural resources, as well as to expand global development and promote Christianity. European colonialism became an early form of globalization that shaped most of the world's current political borders. In this way, technologies, food and ideas based on the colonial countries - Britain, Spain, France, Portugal and the Netherlands, etc. were transported. The main goal is to use the limited resources of the colony country and make a profit. This approach is called neocolonialism (corporate colonialism), just as classical European colonialism aims at the comprehensive exploitation of natural resources, labor, and markets for superprofits.

Chiwu shenzhen jing Scrutinized: An Early Form of the Ebb-Flow Therapy from Dunhuang in Early Medieval China

Written in Dunhuang, Chiwu shenzhen jing (赤烏神針經) is a long lost medical work and its contents remain unknown. Based on Dunhuang manuscripts and Japanese collections of ancient Chinese medical classics, this research argues that Chiwu shenzhen jing concerns temporally sensitive needling treatment, which forms an early practice of the midnight-noon ebb-flow (the commonly-used translation of Ziwu liuzhu 子 午流注) therapy, in fact, as early as the 3rd century CE. At the very end of this article, this research emphasizes the role of Dunhuang as a vehicle for promoting the ebb-flow theory through the Sino-Indian medical exchanges.

Humeanismo y leyes de la naturaleza: alcance y límites

Nomological Humeanism has developed into a research program encompassing several variations on a single theme, namely, the view that laws are statements about regularities that we find in nature. After briefly revisiting an early form of nomological Humeanism in Hume’s critique of the idea of necessary connection, this article critically examines Lewis’ two-fold approach based on Humean supervenience and the best system account. We shall point out three limits of nomological Humeanism, which are widely recognized in the literature: its inadequacy in view of physical theories, its explanatory circularity, and its purported anthropomorphism, all of which advocates of nomological Humeanism have attempted to overcome Humeanism (Jaag y Loew 2020, Loewer 2004 y Massimi 2018). Lastly, we will argue that nomological Humeanism fails to provide a suitable notion of modality for laws of nature. This latter issue continues to represent a live challenge for empiricism in the philosophy of physical laws.

Comparative genomics and polyploid dynamics in tetraploid cotton (Gossypium)

Allotetraploid species of cotton (Gossypium) represent a model system for the study of plant polyploidy, molecular evolution and domestication. In this study three high-quality draft assemblies of tetraploid cottons are presented, comprising one early form of domesticated Gossypium hirsutum (AD1-genome, Gh), i.e., Gossypium hirsutum race punctatum (GhP), and two recently described wild species of tetraploid cotton, G. ekmanianum (AD6, Ge) and G. stephensii (AD7, Gs). Using comparative phylogenomics, we confirm a monophyletic origin of tetraploid Gossypium and provide a dated whole-genome level perspective for the evolution of the clade. Recombination and patterns of selection are asymmetric between the two co-resident genomes in the allopolyploid nucleus. Considerable gene structural variation occurs widely within homoeologous genomes and between heterologous genomes during evolution and domestication. Despite few large-scale chromosomal structure variations among tetraploid cotton, frequent homoeologous exchanges between subgenomes in all species have contributed to diversity and asymmetrically between subgenomes. Abiotic and biotic adaptive evolution was driven by various evolutionary forces, leading to transcriptome change and gene family expansion. Our study marks a milestone in modern polyploid crop research, completing genome sequencing for all species of polyploid Gossypium, and will facilitate a better understanding of the genomic landscape and crop improvement dynamics of polyploids.