Vietnam

In the 16th century, the first Spanish and Portuguese Dominican missionaries arrived in Southeast Asia, included Vietnam, but only after the first decades of the seventeenth century, Christianity began to take hold and lived through different episodes of the Proclamation of the Christian faith: first it was tolerated and then abandoned by the dynasties, supported by the colonialists, declined in the north by the communists, it expanded in the south under the Republic of Vietnam and stabilized until now after the reunification of the country followed by a long breakage due to political change. Along with this story, sacred architecture was interpreted in various ways to define identities in religious life and faith. However, the most difficult period of religious architecture is not only in the political conflict of the past, but also until now, the time of the economic boom. The change of values as well as the aesthetic system make sacred art and architecture remain a giant wheel stuck in mud.

Między sprawczością a wykorzenieniem. Etniczne reakcje na obrzeżach chińskiej hegemonii

Artykuł recenzyjny dotyczący książek: Hann Chris, Bellér-Hann Ildikó 2020, Great Dispossession. Uyghurs between Civilizations, Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia, LIT Verlag, Berlin, Münster. Sulek Emilia Roza 2019, Trading Caterpillar Fungus in Tibet. When Economic Boom Hits Rural Area, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam.

On the economic impact of droughts in Central Europe. The decade from 1531 to 1540 from the Polish perspective

The period from around 1450 to 1550 in Europe is extremely interesting from the perspective of research on extreme weather events. It was a period of events that strongly influenced the societies and economies of the Old Continent. So far, the literature has been more focused on Western and Northern Europe, while as regards the region of Central Europe, the greatest attention was paid to the Czech Republic or Hungary. This article revolves around the Polish lands, which experienced their greatest economic boom in the 16th century. We consider whether and how the droughts of the decade from 1531 to 1540 might have affected the country’s economic development. We analyze a number of written sources which are the product of the treasury apparatus of the time (tax registers, data from water customs, tax exemptions, inventories of land estates etc.), but also information on fluctuations in product prices in the most important cities in this part of Europe. The work not only provides a detailed account of economic data, but also attempts to reflect on the relevance of linking information on fires in urban centres in the period characterized by weather extremes.

Cybersecurity in Israel

The long-standing pillars in the grand strategy of Israel—namely, the qualitative edge principle and self-reliance in defence—enabled considerable cybersecurity achievements. Israel, the sole developed nation facing existential threats, has carried out audacious cyberspace operations yet never suffered material damage from cyberattacks. ‘Made in Israel’ inventions have long been embedded in building blocks of the global digital technologies, and drive much of the economic boom. As high-technology innovation flourishes, strategic choices taken over many decades created the foundations of Israel’s vibrant innovation ecosystem. Power, the currency of international relations, undergoes technology-driven change. Innovation capacity grows in importance in periods of profound change. Cyber power must be smart, integrating hard and soft power. The official Israel now shares sensitive cybersecurity expertise with foreign stakeholders, aiming to advance a range of foreign policy goals from counterterrorism to sustainable development. The milestones in Israel’s national cybersecurity evolution include the 2002 state-guided Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP); the 2011 official national cybersecurity strategy with ambitious goals and comprehensive scope; and the most recent developments in the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). However, Israel’s cybersecurity journey is far from complete. Harnessing digital transformation, in particular narrow artificial intelligence and intelligent systems, requires further profound innovation in national security. This chapter outlines four guiding principles and forces shaping Israel’s cybersecurity, and sketches three long-term policy challenges for Israel. As long as a coherent strategy guides innovation, Israel as well as other small nations can gain and utilize ample cyber power.

The Political Economy of the Profitability Crisis in Britain

This chapter provides a historical overview of the profitability crisis that undermined the postwar economic boom, gave rise to the phenomenon of stagflation, and ultimately drove the financial liberalizations explored in this book. This chapter puts forward a novel historical categorization of British stagflation, by identifying two distinct phases within Britain’s experience of the global profitability crisis. The first, from 1967 to 1977, was characterized by low rates of profit, rising inflation, and repeated current account imbalances that resulted in currency crises. The second, from 1977 to 1983, still saw low profitability and high inflation, but the rising price of sterling ensured that there were no sterling crises. The chapter then details how governments combined governing strategies of depoliticized discipline and palliation in different ways during these two periods of acute crisis in order to navigate the contradictory imperatives of global competitiveness and domestic legitimacy. Policies of financial liberalization constituted attempts to support these strategies.

Property Valuation Using Linear Regression and Random Forest Algorithm

The economic boom over the recent past and the quest to further develop, has made several nation states the business hubs in their regions. Along with the investments, there has been growth in the number of property sales. Social media has become convenient platform of choice for advertising property sales after the introduction of Web 2.0. This article utilizes social media platforms like Facebook to scrape data from user groups advertising properties and then using data mining techniques and approaches to determine true valuation of properties. This methodology is based on set attributes, in the urban areas by looking at the property sales of the recent past within the same area. This enables investors interested in these properties and provides a fair idea of price of properties based on the key attributes associated with the respective property.