How high is infant mortality in central and eastern Europe and the commonwealth of independent states?

This paper examines the measurement of infant mortality in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). There are worrying indications that official infant mortality counts, based on administrative data, may understate the true gravity of the problem in 15 countries in the region, including 11 out of 12 CIS countries, and 4 countries in South Eastern Europe. In the case of eight CIS countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia plus Romania, the evidence is strongest, not least because surveys that allow independent estimation of infant mortality have been carried out there. In the case of the remaining six countries, the evidence is more circumstantial, and based on inconsistencies within the official data themselves, combined with information on how live births are defined. However, we find also that surveys are rather blunt instruments, and that the confidence intervals that surround estimates from these surveys are often large.     

Which Neuropsychiatric Disorder Is More Associated With Divorce?

The social disruption experienced by people with neuropsychiatric disorders may be pervasive and manifest in divorce. It has been estimated that 90% of marriages involving a partner with bipolar disorder culminate in divorce. To verify this information we studied the results of the 2004 National Nursing Home Survey. We found that the percentage of divorced residents was 7%. However, “lonesome” status (widowed, divorced, separated, never married, and single) was prevailing in 79% of residents. The rates of divorce were highest among bipolar, paranoid, and schizophrenic residents (18%, 12%, and 12%, respectively). Lonesome status was also highest among bipolar, paranoid, and schizophrenic residents (85%, 84%, and 83%, respectively). Never married status was highest among those with schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive residents, and bipolar patients (12%, 12%, and 11%, respectively). We conclude that shizophrenic and bipolar patients are very likely to never get married or to end up divorced.     

Achieving styles of Bulgarian managers and politicians: a longitudinal perspective

We explore individual and organizational leadership behaviour in a transitional economy context. Through the instruments of the Achieving Styles/Connective Leadership model (AS/CL), we assess the goal-directed behaviour of Bulgarian managers and politicians who are members of the national Parliament. The study adopts a longitudinal approach since we analyse data collected in 2003 and 2005, and compare it with evidence collected in 1988. The quantitative results reveal that there are no significant differences in the ways Bulgarian politicians have accomplished their objectives in 1988 and in 2003, whereas Bulgarian managers reported a shift in four out of nine achieving styles in 2003 and 2005 compared to 1988. We have found a substantial fit between the individual and the organizational scores, which indicate that Bulgarian managers behave in ways rewarded by their organizations. The results are used to analyse the pace of organizational change within the setting of Bulgarian transitional economy.     

The Relationship Among the Material Welfare,Maternity, and Marital Status of Women in the State of Georgia

Childbearing among unmarried women has been the subject of intense public health debate for decades, reflecting concerns about the impact on family structure and the economic security of born children. This report analyzes 2007 data from the OASIS, the website of the Division of Public Health of the Georgia Department of Community Health. Significant inverse correlations were recorded among the counties' median household income on one side and birth rate (r = –.239, p < .01), percentage of all births from unmarried mothers (r = –.679, p < .001), and percentage of all births from mothers with less than a 12th-grade education (r = –.488, p < .001). We believe that creating a network of maternity education and support programs across the state of Georgia that works under centralized supervision from a maternity committee could help alleviate the negative effect of median household income on nonmarital birth and decrease regional disparities related to nonmarital births.     

Gender differences in Russian adolescent mental health from 1999 to 2021

This study examined secular trends in Russian adolescent mental health, the specific effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and associations with country-level indicators. A cross-sectional survey of 12,882 adolescents aged 11–18 years was carried out between 1999 and 2021 using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. The results showed an incline in girls' internalizing problems with a two-fold increase in the gender gap. There was a decline in girls' prosocial behavior and an incline in peer problems, with decreasing gender differences. Conduct problems showed a reversal of gender differences. Changes during the pandemic were not greater than over-time changes, with the exception of inclines in hyperactivity-inattention in both genders. Time trends in adolescent mental health were associated with over-time changes in national indicators of wealth and gender equality. The findings provide a strong basis for further research into the determinants of gender differences in adolescent mental health and for gender-specific interventions.     

Protestant women in the late Soviet era: gender,authority, and dissent

At the peak of the anti-religious campaigns under Nikita Khrushchev, communist propaganda depicted women believers as either naïve dupes, tricked by the clergy, or as depraved fanatics; the Protestant “sektantka” (female sectarian) was a particularly prominent folk-devil. In fact, as this article shows, women’s position within Protestant communities was far more complex than either of these mythical figures would have one believe. The authors explore four important, but contested, female roles: women as leaders of worship, particularly in remote congregations where female believers vastly outnumbered their male counterparts; women as unofficial prophetesses, primarily within Pentecostal groups; women as mothers, replenishing congregations through high birth rates and commitment to their children’s religious upbringing; and women as political actors in the defence of religious rights. Using a wide range of sources, which include reports written by state officials, articles in the church journal, letters from church members to their ecclesiastical leaders in Moscow, samizdat texts, and oral history accounts, the authors probe women’s relationship with authority, in terms of both the authority of the (male) ministry within the church, and the authority of the Soviet state.     

A vendor–purchaser economic lot size problem with remanufacturing

In this paper, we study a closed-loop supply chain in which a single purchaser orders a particular product from a single vendor and sells it on the market. A certain fraction of used items return from the market back to the purchaser, who is responsible for collecting and returning them to the vendor. In addition to manufacturing new items, the vendor is able to remanufacture the returns into as-good-as-new items which are subsequently used to serve market demand. Our framework features the conventional joint economic lot size (JELS) model extended to include the return flow of the used items. In line with the assumptions of the JELS model, we assume a deterministic constant demand for the product. The fraction of used items returning from the market is assumed to depend on the purchaser’s collection effort. To stimulate the returns, the vendor may offer the purchaser a transfer payment per item returned. The questions addressed by this study pertain to the optimal centralised control of this closed-loop supply chain, to the individually optimal policies of its members, and to the coordination within this supply chain under a decentralised control. In particular, we show that the transfer payment alone cannot coordinate the supply chain under consideration and may even fail to do so when combined with a two-part tariff—which is otherwise known to coordinate the corresponding forward supply chain. Our numerical study, though, has revealed that the combined contract is capable of substantially reducing the coordination deficit. We also introduce a novel three-part tariff which is shown to enable supply chain coordination in combination with the transfer payment.     

The established and the outsiders: legitimacy and economic niches of the four generations of Saint Petersburg cultural organizations

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the post-Soviet evolution of the sector of cultural organizations in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The study relies on a combination of qualitative (semi-structured interviews with employees of 34 cultural organizations of St. Petersburg) and quantitative (pile sorting) methods of data treatment, as well as synthesizes approaches from theories of organizations (organizational ecology, neo-institutionalism) and cultural studies and sociology of culture (Bourdieu, DiMaggio) to analyse the successively emerging waves of organizations. We show that the organizations can be divided into four waves, with the oldest ones existing from Soviet (and sometimes Imperial) times and the newest emerging during the economic boom of the early 2000s. The waves differ primarily in the degree of legitimacy resulting from their abstaining from or participating in a wide range of market activities. The aristocratic establishment extracting resources from ‘pure’ sources enjoys much greater prestige and, ultimately, economic security, than those who have to use less approved sources. Our general conclusion is that the ‘birth order’ is primarily responsible for the ability of an organization to occupy a desirable economic niche. Thus, the oldest wave occupies the most favourable niche, possessing the greatest legitimacy and receiving generous support from public and private foundations, while later waves had either to restrict their economic activities to prove their belonging to artistic field (second and, partially, third waves) or to combine different artistic (exhibitions, performances, and film screening), academic (lectures and seminars) and commercial (café and shops) activities within one public space, which, however, greatly undermines their legitimacy and deprives them of most sources of public funding. Ironically, the newer organizations embrace and translate the opposition between ‘pure art’ and ‘commerce’, which dooms them to suffering in a vicious circle of illegitimacy.