Promoting sustainable development through civil society: A case study of the EU’s NSA/LA thematic programme in Kyrgyzstan

The article focuses on the contribution of the European Union (EU) in promoting sustainable development through the involvement of civil society in partner countries. More specifically, it analyses the main features and outcomes of the projects implemented by civil society organizations (CSOs) in Kyrgyzstan under the EU thematic programme Non‐State Actors and Local Authorities in Development (NSA/LA). Despite its importance—this is the only EU programme providing direct support to non‐state actors and local authorities engaged in poverty reduction—to date, there has been very little research on the functioning of this instrument on the ground. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature by examining the EU’s contribution to sustainable development through a case study on Kyrgyzstan. The study is based on primary data: 10 semi‐structured interviews conducted with the EU‐funded organizations implementing the NSA/LA programme. The NSA/LA projects were analysed by considering two major fields of engagement of non‐state actors in the development process: as service providers and as advocates (Banks & Hulme, 2012). Overall, the organizations awarded EU support were not only focused on fulfilling short‐term needs but also sought to introduce new ways of dealing with poverty and inequality, positioning themselves between the “Big‐D” and the “little‐d” approaches to development (Bebbington, Hickey, & Mitlin, 2008). Nonetheless, the EU‐funded projects were too limited and fragmented to be able to sustain long‐term structural change. Therefore, the EU should place new emphasis on creating synergies between new and old structures at the grassroots level and establishing mechanisms and bodies that could merge and co‐ordinate their efforts. In addition, the calls for proposals could highlight the need to share the lessons learnt by “obliging” the beneficiaries to act as multipliers and to pass on their positive experience to neighbouring communities. Finally, the EU could stimulate the funded organizations to experiment with innovative mechanisms of involvement in the policy‐making process, by making this aspect a mandatory requirement of the projects implemented with its support.     

Devolution in a ‘Stateless Nation’: Nation‐building and Social Policy in Scotland

The implications of the 2011 Scottish election and the proposed referendum on Scottish independence for the future of social policy across the devolved UK are profound but far from certain. It is crucial to understand not only the historical nature of this conjuncture but to develop an adequate conceptual understanding of the place of social policy in the dialectic between state and nation in Scotland. To this end, we critically examine theories that depict Scotland as an essentially ‘stateless nation’ in the light of recent developments. In so doing, we examine the implications for social policy of the changing character of statehood in Scotland, the nature of civil nationalism, and the problem of legitimacy in Scotland for the UK as a multinational state. As the architecture of statehood is re‐negotiated, strong centrifugal pressures are being created for a more distinct divergence of social policy in Scotland from the rest of the UK regardless of the outcome of the independence referendum. Policy‐making is ensnared in a series of tensions, not just between Westminster and Holyrood but also, more broadly, tensions between competing principles of social justice and territorial justice, and competing demands between welfare nationalism and competitive nationalism.     

战国四公子风范及其性格探微

战国时期，群雄割据，连年混战，政局动荡。为了达到强大自己并统一天下的目的，各诸侯国对人才的需要极度膨胀，而这一时期，以好客喜士而闻名的四公子，即齐国孟尝君、赵国平原君、魏国信陵君、楚国春申君，为其所处诸侯国的人才储备与供应做了巨大贡献。司马迁在《史记》中对四公子的行径描述详细。在这里，分别从“四公子何以进入《史记》”“四公子之好客”“四公子之疏误…‘从生活环境窥探四公子的性格”和“太史公笔下的四公子”等方面浅显解析战国四公子之异同。     

局部均衡函数及其构造

研究了局部均衡函数,定义了改进的局部变权向量,提出了与之对应的状态局部变权向量和局部均衡函数,证明了两类函数是局部均衡函数;利用局部变权向量建立了企业信用评估模型,并通过实例说明了该理论是有效的和合理的.     

不背乎教 亦不泥乎教——明代回族读书人对回儒文化交流的心态

公元13世纪回回人从灿烂的阿拉伯伊斯兰文化的高峰走来,进入高度发达的中国的汉文化领域。阿拉伯伊斯兰文化是形成发展中的回回民族的一种文化形式,它从真主独一的信仰及其功修、伦理道德、价值观念、生活方式等方面维护着形成中的回回民族的民族的同一性。在汉文化面前如何保存自己固有的阿拉伯伊斯兰文化,使其继续传承,不致中断,这是摆在回回人面前的新问题。同时,为了民族的生存发展,回回人必须学习汉文化,以适应中国传统社会,以被中国传统社会所接纳。而汉文化是一     

Temporal Disaggregation: Methods,Information Loss,and Diagnostics

This research provides a generalized framework to disaggregate lower-frequency time series and evaluate the disaggregation performance. The proposed framework combines two models in separate stages: a linear regression model to exploit related independent variables in the first stage and a state–space model to disaggregate the residual from the regression in the second stage. For the purpose of providing a set of practical criteria for assessing the disaggregation performance, we measure the information loss that occurs during temporal aggregation while examining what effects take place when aggregating data. To validate the proposed framework, we implement Monte Carlo simulations and provide two empirical studies. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

金文"楚化"及其书史意义

作为上古楚人的官书,楚金文的出现是楚人以自己地域文化的审美眼光对宗周金文进行“楚化”的结果。金文的“楚化”不仅表现在用笔、结体及构字法的变化上,而且还表现在楚人对大篆字体的变形、草化和装饰美化方面。“楚化”使金文具有了鲜明的地域性、装饰性、抒情性等特点,也强化了书法的书写意趣和笔致韵味,极大地丰富了金文的表现形态和审美趣味,为汉字走上艺术化道路迈开了决定性的一步。     

部分状态可见的隐马尔可夫模型状态序列的估计方法

本文考虑了部分状态可见的隐马尔可夫模型的状态序列估计问题,在分析了现有算法无法合理估计状态路径之后,以状态转移概率、观测概率和可见状态作为先验信息,通过贝叶斯分析计算可见状态前后向状态的后验概率,并给出初始条件和递推公式,运用动态规划递推得到每个观测值对应的最可能状态以及最可能的状态路径。最后,本文给出一个系统故障识别的应用例子,验证了所设计算法的可行性。     

Indigenous Micro-Ethnicity and Principles of Identification in Southeast Borneo

This article explores the nature of indigenous ethnicity in Borneo and its historical transformation. The principal focus is on Dayak ethnicity beneath the level of generic Dayak identity. Through examples from interior southeast Borneo, I describe a historically dominant pattern of identification with small and localised groups and the emergence of larger ethnic categories. Like elsewhere in Borneo, a condition of pervasive micro-ethnic differentiation was endemic, while larger categories were generally unimportant and mostly evolved only recently. I assess the importance of different underlying principles of collective identification for this pattern—culture, descent, kinship, locality and politics—and examine the importance of state influence for the subsequent development of larger categories. I propose that ethnicity in Borneo, as in most places, is fundamentally political. I discuss how this applies to both past and present forms, and relates to a distinctive significance of locality for collective identification.     

郑国生态环境的变化及原因初探

郑国东迁,以今新郑为其新都,重要的原因在于新郑有作为都城的优越生态环境。而郑国东迁后的生态环境也经历了由早期的良好状况到后期的严重破坏的变化,导致这种变化的原因是多方面的和复杂的。生态环境恶化产生的严峻后果又使郑国的统治者有所醒悟,并采取了一些保护生态环境的措施。这种转变是发人深省的,它对于我们今天正在进行的经济建设很有借鉴价值。