"People are Crying, but I Can’t Stop Laughing": Protest Reaction of the Deportees of Tomsk region to Joseph Stalin’s Death

The research featured special reports from the Tomsk Department of State Security about the “anti-Soviet” protest movement of Tomsk deportees in the first months after Joseph Stalin's death. The analysis revealed how the deportees adapted to the authority demands and imitated their loyalty to the system, even when the regime positions was clearly weakened. The author analyzed the sanctions imposed on the deportees and the behavior of the local punitive officials, who received no instructions from Moscow. Most likely, the “anti-Soviet” behavior was not so much a purposeful protest as an irrational reaction to such an extraordinary event as Joseph Stalin's death. The responsive actions of the Regional Department of State Security did not follow the new course of Soviet policy but rather the behavioral patterns formed during the Stalin era: violators were identified and punished severely and demonstratively.

National nuclear forensics libraries: a case study on benefits and possibilities for identification of sealed radioactive sources

A National Nuclear Forensic Library (NNFL) is a useful nuclear forensics tool which consists of information and subject matter expertise on radioactive and nuclear (RN) materials produced, used or stored within a State. If RN material is found out of regulatory control the NNFL can be used as part of a nuclear forensics investigation to help identify whether or not the material is consistent with a country’s national holdings. In previous work, a number of signatures which can be useful to identify sealed sources of 241Am were investigated. To validate the measurement results, an official query concerning information about two of the previously investigated 241Am sources was sent to the United States Department of State, the international point-of-contact (POC) for the U.S. NNFL. The aim of this work is to show how data obtained in a characterization of a radioactive source can be used in conjunction with an NNFL to investigate the history of a source out of regulatory control.

Entomological Investigation Following a Zika Outbreak in Brownsville, Texas

ABSTRACT In November and December 2016, an outbreak of locally transmitted Zika occurred in Brownsville, TX. The Texas Department of State Health Services requested for a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Epi Aid, and as part of that Epi Aid a team of CDC entomologists was deployed in January 2017. The mission was to improve mosquito-based arbovirus surveillance and evaluate the possibility of continuing local Zika virus (ZIKV) transmission in the city. The mosquito-based arbovirus surveillance program was expanded from 4 to 40 BG-Sentinel traps evenly distributed throughout the city. Over a 2-wk period, 15 mosquito species were detected; the most abundant species were Culex quinquefasciatus, Aedes aegypti, and Ae. albopictus, which accounted for 66.7%, 16.2%, and 5.7% of the total mosquito collection, respectively. The relative abundance of Ae. aegypti (1.0 mosquitoes/trap/day) and Ae. albopictus (0.4 mosquitoes/trap/day) was very low and unlikely to initiate and/or sustain ZIKV transmission. Zika virus was not detected in the mosquitoes collected, suggesting no or extremely low ZIKV transmission at that time.

Beyond Services in the United States of America: Fulbright U.S. Scholar Experience in Vietnam

Purpose: This article addresses my experience as a speech-language pathologist in a cultural exchange and global outreach program in Vietnam. The importance and various types of cultural exchange and global outreach programs available through the U.S. Department of State, the current status of educational speech-language pathology programs in Vietnam, and a brief introduction of the country as well as its unique cultural characteristics are also discussed. Conclusions: As a Fulbright U.S. scholar, I resided 6 months in Hue, Vietnam, to provide education and consultation services to children who needed speech-language pathology services and their families. The speech pathology profession in Vietnam is significantly underdeveloped. However, several international nongovernmental organizations and foreign universities have assisted Vietnam in developing speech pathology and audiology professions. Among many opportunities to serve the needs of speech pathology and audiology preprofessional education and service delivery in Vietnam, one of the most prestigious opportunities is the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. It is my hope that my personal and professional experiences can encourage fellow speech-language pathology and audiology professors and practitioners to apply for a Fulbright scholarship to pursue a rich volunteer experience in a foreign country as well as to improve their cultural competency upon return to their own academic institutions.

ORIGINS OF FORMATION OF KYIV SOCIAL AND HYGIENIC SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL: FROM THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE, MEDICAL POLICE AND SANITARY STATISTICS TO SOCIAL MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

The aim of the work is to study the stages of formation of the Kyiv social and hygienic scientific school, the contribution of its founders to the development of medical and social scientific direction. Materials and methods. The source base consisted of published scientific papers and archive materials. The historical-bibliographic method has been used in this work. Results. The formation and development of the Kyiv social and hygienic school has deep historical roots, beginning with the scientific achievements of many generations of researchers, which were generalized and transformed into the discipline of "state medicine" and began to be taught at the department of state medicine at St. Vladimir's University in Kyiv, and later – at the department of hygiene, medical police, medical geography and statistics. Teaching of medical and social issues continued for a long time at multidisciplinary departments. Prominent hygienists contributed to the formation of the socio-hygienic scientific direction, including professors Subbotin V.A. and Orlov V.D., who highly appreciated the importance of statistics, epidemiology and organization of health work, contributed to their teaching within the training programs for future doctors. A decisive role in the formation of the Kyiv social and hygienic scientific School was played by Professor Korchak-Chepurkivsky O.V., who is considered to be its founder. The course on epidemiology and sanitary statistics developed by him in 1903 and the course "Fundamentals of Social Hygiene and Public Medicine" in 1906 laid a solid foundation for the progressive development of social and hygienic science in Ukraine, helped to establish its theoretical principles, substantiate its content, and improve methodology. Consistent advocacy by scientists of scientifically sound results of socio-hygienic research has often led to his persecution and harassment by the authorities. Insistence of Korchak-Chepurkivsky O.V. on the differentiation of the social and hygienic direction and the creation of a separate department, the mandatory teaching of social hygiene in higher medical education has been crucial for further establishment of departments of social medicine, training of scientific personnel and health professionals. Conclusion. The path of formation of the Kyiv social and hygienic scientific school, which was long, difficult and sometimes tragic, constitutes evidence of the progressive development of social hygiene in Ukraine, highlights the trajectory of the medical and social direction, the role of prominent personalities, especially Korchak-Chepurkivsky O.V. in the formation of conceptual principles and content of social hygiene, training of scientific and pedagogical staff, who continued the work that he started.

A note on native and non-native accentedness judgements

Talkers in a second language can readily be identified as speaking with a foreign accent, characterized by both specific and more general deviations from the phonology of a target language. In this study, we examined the identifications of native and non-native talkers by listeners with various amounts of knowledge of the target language. Native and non-native speakers of Latvian provided materials. All the non-native talkers spoke Russian as their first language and were long-term residents of Latvia. We used Latvian as the target second language and speech samples produced either by native speakers or by ethnic Russians for whom Latvian is a second language. The text for reading was identical, talkers could not be distinguished by lexical selection or morphological and syntactic errors. A listening test, consisting of identical sentences excerpted from a short recorded passage, was presented to three groups of listeners: native speakers of Latvian, Russians for whom Latvian was a second language, and Americans with no knowledge of either language. The listeners were asked to judge whether each utterance was produced by a native or non-native talker and then evaluate the talker’s proficiency. The Latvians identified the non-native talkers accurately (88%) while the Russians were somewhat less accurate (79%). The American listeners were least accurate but still identified the non-native talkers at above chance levels, 63%. Sentence durations correlated with the judgments provided by the American listeners but not with the judgments provided by the native or L2 listeners. Interesting that there were no significant correlations between utterance duration and correct identification for Russian and Latvian listeners. Because these listeners knew the target language, they had many sources of information available to them rather than a relatively obvious characteristic such as fluency or speech rate. Research for portions of this project was provided by a grant from the International Research & Exchanges Board, with funds provided by the US Department of State (Title VII program) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The final conclusions of the study, organisation and publication of the article were supported by the National Research Programme “Latvian language” Nr. VPP-IZM-2018/2-0002.

Jacksonian Consular Reform and the Forging of America’s First Global Bureaucracy

As revolutions swept across Central and South America in the 1820s and 1830s, Andrew Jackson’s administration undertook a landmark reform that transformed the US foreign policy apparatus into the nation’s first global bureaucracy. With the introduction of Edward Livingston’s 1833 consular reform bill to Congress, the nation embarked on a long path toward the modernization of its consular service in line with the powers of Europe and the new American republics. Despite the popularity of Livingston’s plan to turn a dated US consular service comprised of mercantile elites into a salaried professional bureaucracy, the Jacksonian consular reform dragged on for more than two decades before the passing of a consular bill in 1856. Contrary to Weberian models positing a straightforward path toward bureaucratization, the trajectory of Jacksonian consular reform demonstrates the power of mercantile elites to resist central government regulation just as much as it highlights how petty partisans—the protégé consuls appointed via the Jacksonian “spoils system”—powerfully shaped government policy to achieve personal advantages. In the constant tug-of-war between merchant-consuls and Jacksonian protégés, both groups mobilized competing visions of the “national character” in their correspondence with the Department of State and in the national press. Ultimately, the Jacksonian reform vision of an egalitarian and loyal consular officialdom prevailed over the old mercantile model of consulship as a promoter of national prestige and commercial expertise, but only after protégé consuls successfully exploited merchant-consuls’ perceived inability to compete with the salaried European officials across the sister-republics of the southwestern hemisphere.