Orthodox Identity as Traditionalism: Construction of Political Meaning in the Current Public Discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church

This article reviews the articulation of traditional political values in the contemporary discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). As an empirical basis, the article takes the ROC’s official documents reflecting its position on social and political issues, the statements of various Synodal departments and Church hierarchs, as well as the statements of those representatives of the Orthodox intelligentsia, who promote an alternative agenda for Church-state dialogue. The author analyses the discursive forms deployed for the use of two key concepts, related to two markers of traditionalist worldview (opinions about liberalism, and positions taken with regard to the rights of sexual minorities), and studies the context in which these confessional ethical norms are politicized. This allows the author to move from interpreting Orthodox identity as merely a confessional/religious affiliation, expressing itself in a range of practices (attending services, etc), to an interpretation of Orthodox identity as traditionalist in the political sense of that word, involving the formation of a distinctive political theology and the politicization of confessional ideas of morality.     

Citizen Satisfaction: A Multicriteria Satisfaction Analysis

Governments across Europe face the challenge of responding to public demand for more valuable, responsive, and efficient and effective services. In this article we will evaluate the public services in Greece. More specifically, this article refers to a citizen's satisfaction web survey for Citizens’ Service Centers. The analysis of the data is based on the MUSA (Multicriteria Satisfaction Analysis) method. MUSA is an ordinal regression model which is based on the principles of multicriteria decision analysis. The method is an instrument to evaluate quantitative global and partial satisfaction levels and to determine the weak and strong points of citizens Service Centers. Furthermore the results of this study will help the Citizens Service Centers to develop more effective services.     

Dépendance et luttes politiques au Kenya, 1975–1977: Ia bourgeoisie nationale à l'assaut du pouvoir d'État

Rural West Africans confront a challenging array of circumstances in pursuit of their livelihoods, which are negotiated through repertoires of knowledge, skill, wisdom and information that are held individually, communally or as the prerogative of experts. Of some significance is timing: finding the most effective or propitious moment for action. On the farm, anticipating the beginning and progress of the rains is crucial and sought through the empirical observation of natural phenomena, or as in northwest Nigeria additionally through agricultural star calendars and almanacs by Muslim clerics. Furthermore, some clerics use divination to identify propitious moments for their clients whereby they may achieve success in non-farm jobs and businesses that are an integral part of rural livelihoods. Taking action to achieve particular outcomes on and off the farm raises issues about local people's understanding of the physical world and their place within it, and the power of religion and the supernatural. An appreciation of such matters would appear to be crucial for those from the scientific and technological North who may be attempting to transform African societies.     

Pregnancy,Cesarean, and Pheochromocytoma: A Case Report and Literature Review

A 43‐year‐old full‐term pregnant woman (gravida 2, para 1, medical history of gestational diabetes mellitus) developed a sudden and malignant hypertension with hemoptysis, sweat, and tachycardia during a scheduled C‐section. A dead newborn was delivered and was successfully resuscitated. The mother died after resistant cardiac arrest. Autopsy and pathological analyses revealed an acute pulmonary edema and a necrotic and hemorrhagic voluminous tumor of the left adrenal gland, which was a pheochromocytoma. Pheochromocytoma is a rare tumor of the adrenal glands which secretes catecholamines. In pregnant women, its symptoms can mimic gestational hypertension, preeclampsia or eclampsia, and gestational diabetes mellitus. The gestational diabetes mellitus was presumed to be a symptom of the pheochromocytoma, and cardiopulmonary failure the result from the necrosis of the tumor provoked by gravid uterus compression. From a medico‐legal point of view, the tumor could not have been suspected during the pregnancy.     

Bruise dating using deep learning

The bruise dating can have important medicolegal implications in family violence and violence against women cases. However, studies show that the medical specialist has 50% accuracy in classifying a bruise by age, mainly due to the variability of the images and the color of the bruise. This research proposes a model, based on deep convolutional neural networks, for bruise dating using only images, by age ranges, ranging from 0–2 days to 17–30 days, and images of healthy skin. A 2140 experimental bruise photograph dataset was constructed, for which a data capture protocol and a preprocessing procedure are proposed. Similarly, 20 classification models were trained with the Inception V3, Resnet50, MobileNet, and MnasNet architectures, where combinations of learning transfer, cross‐validation, and data augmentation were used. Numerical experiments show that classification models based on MnasNet have better results, reaching 97.00% precision and sensitivity, and 99.50% specificity, exceeding 40% precision reported in the literature. Also, it was observed that the precision of the model decreases with the age of the bruise.     

The Russian March: Investigating the Symbolic Dimension of Political Performance in Modern Russia

In this study I analyse the Russian March—a political performance which emerged in 2005 and which has developed from a protest ritual into one of the most important public and visible events organised by the Russian ultranationalist movement. The focus of the current analysis is the symbolic structure of the march, which is examined at three levels—cognitive, emotive and archetypal. The case study of the development of the Russian March highlights the paradoxes of the politics of performativity in Russia as well as the interaction between ideological codes and discursive frames in the Russian nationalist movement.