Social determinants of mental well-being: senses of powerlessness and empowerment among Romani in Ukraine

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore senses of powerlessness and empowerment among Romani in Ukraine in relation to such social circles as the extended family, the Romani local community and the whole Ukrainian society. The main research interest is focused on situations and factors that make people feel powerless or empowered. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted using a semi-structured interview method via telephone. Romani NGO experts approved the interview content. Trained Roma-facilitators were interviewers. Every interview was transcribed for further thematic analysis. Findings The most prominent empowerment factors for Romani people are located within their families and local communities, while the bigger society (Ukrainians themselves and Ukrainian public institutions) is a main source of powerlessness. At the same time, the rigid role of family and community expectations is seen as detrimental for both males and females. Originality/value The paper is original in terms of its topic (senses of powerlessness and empowerment among Romani in Ukraine as social determinants of mental well-being) and research strategy (engagement of Roma-facilitators as interviewers).

‘More Product, Less Process’ (MPLP): An early printed book project

This article addresses the challenge to make printed hidden collections known quickly without sacrificing ultimate quality. It takes as its starting point the archival mantra ‘More product, less process’ and explores its application to printed books, mindful of projects in the United States to catalogue 19th- and 20th-century printed books quickly and cheaply with the help of OCLC. A problem is lack of time or managerial inclination ever to return to ‘quick and dirty’ imports. This article is a case study concerning a collection of 18th-century English imprints, the Graveley Parish Library, at Senate House Library, University of London. Faced with the need to provide metadata as quickly as possible for digitisation purposes, Senate House Library decided, in contrast to its normal treatment of early printed books, to download records from the English Short Title Catalogue and amend them only very minimally before releasing them for public view, and to do this work from catalogue cards rather than the books themselves. The article describes the Graveley Parish collection, the project method’s rationale, and the advantages and disadvantages of sourcing the English Short Title Catalogue for metadata. It discusses the drawbacks of retrospective conversion (cataloguing from cards, not books): insufficient detail in some cases to identify the relevant book, and ignorance of the copy-specific elements of books which can constitute the main research interest. The method is compared against cataloguing similar books from photocopies of title pages, and retrospective conversion using English Short Title Catalogue is compared against retrospective conversion of early printed Continental books from cards using Library Hub Discover or OCLC. The control groups show our method’s effectiveness. The project succeeded by producing records fast that fulfilled their immediate purpose and simultaneously would obviously require revisiting. The uniform nature of the collection enabled the saving of time through global changes.

Experimental Hookworm Infection in Laboratory animals: Parasite behavior, Immune response and Chemotherapeutic Studies

Hookworm disease is known to be caused allergic manifestation and severe anemic pathogenicity in man and canine hosts. Attempts have been made to establish laboratory models of Necator americaus, Ancylostoma duodenale, and Ancylostoma ceylanicum, together with canine parasite, Ancylostoma caninum. The studies include pathophysiological aspects of the host-parasite relationship, and develop to establish patent infection. Immunological approach to selecting antigen for diagnosis and protective immunity purpose using larval and adult worm antigens and their secretions became the focus with the subsequent discovery of cloning in vaccine development as main research interest. Chemotherapy of newer drug screening in laboratory models ultimately selected to use for preventive chemotherapy in hookworm endemic areas using recommended drugs.

Staying and immobility: new concepts in population geography? A literature review

Immobile populations have received academic attention in recent years, following a period of focus on hypermobility and increasing migration as the main research interest. This article analyses the existing stock of literature on the topics of “immobilities” and “staying” to give insight into the importance of these concepts for rethinking contemporary population geography. It considers texts dealing with voluntary and involuntary types of immobility, as well as reasons for and factors influencing the increased observed immobility in the context of internal migration. Common theoretical frameworks used to explain immobilities and consequences for increasingly rooted societies are discussed. The paper also presents open research questions for future research. It draws the conclusion that staying and immobility are meaningful concepts for future research in the context of population and human geography, since they introduce a new perspective for research dedicated to spatial living patterns of populations. These concepts furthermore highlight the importance of different types and forms of (im)mobilities, the interconnectedness of mobile and immobile populations, and changes in aspirations and capabilities of life-course decision-making over time.

Michael Moran, 1946–2018: An Intellectual Memoir

Michael Moran's intellectual journey is a remarkable one. Starting from quite a narrow focus on industrial relations in the 1970s, he switched his main research interest to the politics of banking and to changes in financial regulation during the 1980s. In the 1990s he extended this interest in regulation to write about the emergence of the British regulatory state, which culminated in his major publication, The British Regulatory State: High Modernism and Hyper-Innovation (Moran 2003). After 2008 he turned his attention to the nature of contemporary capitalism and how it might be reformed. A subsidiary but important second theme was his broad interest in British politics, which led through various publications to a major single-authored textbook, Politics and Governance in the UK (Moran 2011), as well as the very successful co-authored text Politics UK (Jones et al. 1990) and what turned out to be his valedictory work, The End of British Politics? (Moran 2017).

Spatial Parameters for the development of Floating Wind Farms in Greece

The interest in offshore wind farm markets has recently turned to the use of the strong wind power that can be found in deep-sea marine areas with the use of innovative technology in floating wind farms. This activity attracts the interest of economic actors globally, with prevention still necessary to avoid potential conflicts with other maritime activities and protect sensitive local marine ecosystems. The main research interest of this study focuses on the role that the particular characteristics of the local legal framework can have on the spatial planning of activities. The steps taken in this gradual approach include current spatial planning practice, case law and the country’s experience in related projects. Concluding, an example of the possible spatial planning of FWFs, based on the current tools available in the country’s spatial planning system, is provided.

Early Japanese Trade, Administration and Interactions with the West

Throughout his academic career Louis Cullen’s main research interest has been foreign trade - originally that of England, Ireland and France, but from the mid-1990s, his focus turned to Japanese history resulting in his critically acclaimed A history of Japan 1582–1941: Internal and External Worlds. Subsequently, he concentrated on the analysis of archival sources and of the problems they pose for the interpretation of Japanese history: papers on some of these themes and their associated statistical dimensions have appeared in Nichibunken’s Japan Review and are republished here together with a collection of other papers including interpreting Tokugawa history and the knowledge and the use of Japanese by the Dutch on Dejima island.

Metoda analizy wizualnej dzieł Brunona Schulza w pracach Paola Caneppelego „La Repubblica dei Sogni” i „I Capelli della Cometa”

The reception of the works of Bruno Schulz in Italy has been growing wider and more diversified in the last few years. Among the examples of such a reception there are two essays by Paolo Caneppele: La Repubblica dei Sogni Bruno Schulz, Cinema e Arti Figurative tra Galizia e Vienna (The Republic of Dreams: Bruno Schulz, Cinema and Figurative Arts between Galicia and Vienna, 2004) and I Capelli della Cometa. Di Esseri in Fiamme, Catastrofi Varie e Donne in Bicicletta (The Hair of the Comet. Of Beings on Fire, Various Catastrophes and Women on the Bicycle, 2008). Caneppele, whose main research interest is in cinema, analyzes Schulz’s work through the lens of the visual, thus providing a theory according to which everything produced by him (prose and paintings) is influenced by the aspect of vision, color, and movement. The aim of this essay is not only to acknowledge this particular reception of Schulz in Italy (and in Austria as well, as Caneppele is the head of the film related material collection of the Austrian Film Museum in Vienna), but also to retrace the visual path embodying cinema, plastic arts, and fiction in his work, which is a strand of studies that can be furtherly expanded and explored.

How the Concepts of Folk Music Emerge

The article examines the terminology of folk/traditional music in the context of folk music festivals. The main research interest is in the development of the ethnomusicological vocabulary, especially in relation to contemporary folk music festivals. The research focuses on the author’s fieldwork materials from the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival in Finland and the Viljandi Folk Music Festival in Estonia during 2004–2018. The theoretical framework is based on academic approaches to folk/traditional music terminology in the European and American folkloristics and (ethno)musicology from the 18th century to the present day. The comparative analysis of fieldwork materials from the Estonia’s and Finland’s largest folk music festivals over the last 15 years indicates that the active role of folk music festivals generates new musical genres and relevant vocabulary.

NESCoM Research Report (2019)

The NESCoM is a multidisciplinary research center formed by musicians, engineers and computer scientists. The main research interest lies with sonology, audiotacticle musical analysis, ubiquitous music, interactive multimedia installations, and the design of computer music technology in general. Overall, the common ground for the NESCoM projects lies with the human-aspects, both cognitive and motor, behind a musical activity. This can come, for instance, in the shape of an audiotactile analysis of musical interaction applied to a new digital musical interface designed to overcome human physical constraints or the composition of a cinema soundtrack based on perceptual models of the audience. In this paper, it is reported a short description of the ongoing projects of the NESCoM and the future works.