Prezydent w systemie politycznym Rosji. Rozwiązania prawne i praktyka polityczna

The president’s strong position in Russia’s political system results from two important factors. First of all, these are constitutional and legal solutions that equip the president with a range of powers of his own and those of other authorities, making the head of state office almost hegemonic. Secondly, these are extra-legal factors, the so-called personality factors, assigned to individual Russian presidents who exercised power under almost on the same legal regulations and very similar competences. However, the presidencies of Yeltsin, Medvedev, and Putin were very different. The article analyzes the thesis that until March 2020, the strong position of the Russian president was not only legal, but also “personal.” The announced amendment of the Constitution in 2020 in terms of counting the president’s new term of office means Putin’s attempt to give priority to legal regulations, which in consequence will allow the extension of his rule in the majesty of the law and will not allow a system of “two powers.”

All Politics Is Local

Each senator is responsible for developing an approach to his job that he believes satisfies his goals and future political success, and many senators pursue a style of representation that is based on relationships with constituents at home. This chapter looks more closely at how senators constrain their rhetorical agenda to prioritize constituent service—such as advertising state office hours and promoting town hall meetings—and examines how electoral incentives influence senators’ choice to adopt a constituent servant style of communication. This chapter explains how pressures from local constituents or the state’s political environment incentivize another group of senators to prioritize state-specific information for their geographic constituency. For constituent servants, the pressures that a senator faces from the party or the institution come second to the expectations of a senator’s constituency and the relationships maintained by constraining the message to localized issues.

Institute of human rights commissioners: yesterday, today, tomorrow

The article is devoted to the issues of the role and meta of the Russian institute of human rights commissioners in the system of state bodies, its formation and development, the legal status of the state office of the Commissioner. The author comes to the conclusion about the unity of the two-level system of state human rights activity of the human rights commissioners; expresses his position on the ways of its further development.

Up the Political Ladder: Gender Parity in the Effects of Electoral Defeats

This paper investigates whether an electoral defeat has different effects on the subsequent political involvement of male and female candidates for state office. Using US state legislative election returns from 1972 to 2010 and a regression discontinuity design, I find that there is no gender difference in the effects of an electoral defeat on the propensity to run again for state legislature. I discuss possible explanations for why the gender gap in persistence documented among novice local politicians disappears among state politicians, focusing on the role of prior office-holding experience.

Distance and Trust: An Examination of the Two Opposing Factors Impacting Adoption of Postal Voting Among Citizens Living Abroad

Postal voting intends to provide citizens residing abroad with a convenient voting technique to influence political representation in their country of origin. However, its adoption among individuals is dependent on two opposing factors. On the one hand, voting via post helps to overcome the increasing distance between a voter’s residency abroad and the nearest polling station organized by a diplomatic mission (mostly at an embassy or a consulate). On the other hand, this way of voting also requires enough trust that the postal service and designated state office will successfully deliver one’s vote to the ballot box because the result cannot be effectively verified without violation of the ballot secrecy. We examine the interaction of these two factors in an originally conducted survey among Finnish citizens residing abroad fielded shortly after the 2019 Parliamentary elections—the first occasion after Finland put postal voting into effect. Altogether, 664 respondents responded to all questions required for our specification of binomial logistic regression models controlling for various potential confounders. The results demonstrate that trust in postal voting moderates the impact of distance on one’s probability to adopt postal voting. While low-trusting emigrant voters remain largely indifferent regardless of the distance to the nearest polling station, medium-trusting non-resident citizens increasingly mail their ballots when the nearest polling station is more than 100 km away. High-trusting individuals begin to increasingly do so when they are ten to 30 km away.

Reviewer Acknowledgements

International Journal of English and Cultural Studies (IJECS) would like to acknowledge the following reviewers for their assistance with peer review of manuscripts for this issue. Many authors, regardless of whether IJECS publishes their work, appreciate the helpful feedback provided by the reviewers. Their comments and suggestions were of great help to the authors in improving the quality of their papers. Each of the reviewers listed below returned at least one review for this issue. Reviewers for Volume 4, Number 1Gillian Steinberg, SAR High School, USAKeeley Megan Buehler Hunter, Southern New Hampshire University, SwitzerlandAna Costa Lopes, Higher School of Education of Viseu, Viseu Polytechnic Institute, PortugalNicolau Nkiawete Manuel, Agostinho Neto University, AngolaFatma Benelhadj, University of Sfax, TunisiaEllie Boyadzhieva, South-West University, Blagoevgrad, BulgariaEmmanuel Chibuzor Okereke, National Examinations Council, Enugu State Office, Enugu, NigeriaShashi Naidu, Ball State University, United StatesJelena Timotijevic, University of Brighton, United KingdomJânderson Coswosk, Instituto Federal do Espírito Santo, BrazilHerman, University of HKBP Nommensen, Indonesia Nina HowardEditorial AssistantInternational Journal of English and Cultural StudiesRedfame Publishing9450 SW Gemini Dr. #99416Beaverton, OR 97006-6018, USAWebsite: http://ijecs.redfame.com

Depth diversity gradients of macrophytes: shape, drivers and recent shifts

Investigating diversity gradients helps to understand biodiversity drivers and threats. However, one diversity gradient is seldomly assessed, namely how plant species distribute along the depth gradient of lakes. Here, we provide the first in-depth characterization of depth diversity gradients (DDG) of submerged macrophytes across different lakes. We characterize the DDG for additive richness components (alpha, beta, gamma), assess environmental drivers and address temporal change over recent years. We take advantage of yet the largest dataset of macrophyte occurrence along lake depth (274 depth transects across 28 deep lakes) as well as of physio-chemical measurements (12 deep lakes from 2006 to 2017 across Bavaria), provided publicly online by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment. We found a high variability in DDG shapes across the study lakes. The DDG for alpha and gamma richness are predominantly hump-shaped, while beta richness shows a decreasing DDG. Generalized additive mixed-effect models indicate that the maximum alpha richness within the depth transect (R) is significantly influenced by lake area only, whereas for the corresponding depth (D) are influenced by light quality, light quantity and layering depth. Most observed DDGs seem generally stable over recent years. However, for single lakes we found significant linear trends for Rmax and Dmax going into different directions. The observed hump-shaped DDGs agree with three competing hypotheses: the mid-domain effect, the mean-disturbance hypothesis, and the mean-productivity hypothesis. The DDG amplitude seems driven by lake area (thus following known species-area relationships), whereas skewness depended on physio-chemical factors, mainly water transparency and layering depth. Our results provide insights for conservation strategies and for mechanistic frameworks to disentangle competing explanatory hypotheses for the DDG.

Managing Sustainability and Carbon-Neutrality in the Public Administration—Case Report of a German State Institution

Since 2017, the State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection of North Rhine-Westphalia (LANUV) has established an operational environmental and sustainability management and set specific objectives to reach operational carbon neutrality. In this context, central questions aim at the availability of financial and human resources, the competition with other duties as well as the necessary involvement of the staff. Based on the practical example of LANUV, this article presents concrete activities, e.g., in context of mobility or human resources, as well as the challenges connected to them. While single measures do have a positive impact, a structural approach, like the set-up of an environmental management system (e.g., EMAS—Eco-Management and Audit Scheme), is found to be more effective. In addition, success factors are identified such as distinct structures and responsibilities, a capable person in charge of the process, and commitment on the management level, as well as challenges like the lack of governmental objectives and obligations or limited human and financial resources. This article follows the idea of a case report in a transdisciplinary manner, presenting ideas for enhancement and shedding a light on a possible spread of sustainability endeavors to other national institutions.

Simulation of the Super Critical Water Loop Using ATHLET Code During an Abnormal Scenario

Supercritical water (SCW) has advantages like high thermal efficiency and can operate at high temperature and pressure. At the same time, however, these properties bring up related issues, such as material compatibility and corrosion resistance. In an effort to fully investigate the operating conditions, and solutions to these issues, test facilities are being built by many research organizations. One such organization, the Research Center Řež (CVR) located in the Czech Republic, has developed an experimental supercritical water loop (SCWL). The purpose of this loop is to provide experimental data from material testing in various conditions, including operating under the neutron field. This will be achieved by inserting a test channel into the existing experimental reactor light water reactor 15 (LVR-15), which will require a license from the state nuclear regulator (State Office for Nuclear Safety (SUJB)). Part of the licensing documentation is the safety analysis, which combines results from developed models using the thermohydraulic code ATHLET 3.1 A patch 1, as well as the experimental out of pile data. Among the postulated scenarios, an abnormal sequence (labeled A2—Loss of power in the loop) was analyzed in order to provide a preliminary benchmark. This scenario is similar to the postulated in-pile A2 and it was used for the benchmark activity. The aim of this paper is to present this activity including the adopted assumptions in the model. In particular, the paper presents, how these assumptions influenced the results indicating the discrepancies obtained in the first part of the transient.

Prevalence and pattern of paediatric neurological disorders managed in outpatient physiotherapy clinics in Kano

Neurological disorders are among the major causes of physical disability in children. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and pattern of Paediatric Neurological Disorders (PNDs) managed in outpatient Physiotherapy clinics in Kano. The 10-year retrospective descriptive study collected relevant data on PNDs from case files of the children who have been managed in Physiotherapy clinics of the 5 major referral hospitals in Kano using a data capture form. The population of children in Kano State based on the 2006 Census and the projected population for 2017 was obtained from the National Population Commission, Kano State office. The data obtained was analysed with descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage. Dataanalysis was done using Microsoft excel and SPSS version 20. Results showed that 1927paediatric cases were analysed out of which PNDs accounted for 1618 (83.96%). The mean age of the children at the time of their first treatment visit was 3.13 years ± 3.04years (range =33days-12years). Most of the children with PNDs are males 1101(57.1%), with male to female ratio of 1.3:1. The Prevalence of PNDs in Kano was 0.257/1000 (i.e.25.7/100,000). The most common PND that was managed by physiotherapists in KanoState was cerebral palsy which has a prevalence of 0.106/1000 (i.e.10.6/100,000),(proportion = 41.16%). It was concluded that PNDs are the most common paediatric cases managed by physiotherapists in Kano State with cerebral palsy having higherprevalence