Border Station Research Articles

FACTORS IN CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT BUILDING IN INDRA IN THE 1920-30s

The region of Latgale, which borders the big, expansive neighbour Russia, Poland, Belorussia and Lithuania, has survived the most difficult years of subjection to foreign states. An almost 300-year-long administrative isolation from the other regions of Latvian culture has caused a specific development of language and social traditions in a multinational area. In 2007, the project „Field studies in the rural municipality of Indra in the region of Kraslava – traditions, language, cultural environment” was developed at Rēzekne University College for the research of this topic. It was based on ethnolinguistic data obtained through interviews with the population of Indra municipality. This article addresses the following questions: 1) What are the historic origins of this population, and when and from where did these people come to this rural municipality to settle permanently? 2) How did the newcomers influence the formation of a cultural environment in Indra and why was that important? The objective of the paper is to reveal the specifics and the typical features of the cultural environment of Indra in the context of Latgale. According to historical data and the memories of Benita Drozdova, the Latvian language was already in the 1930s the link that brought together different nationalities for common public work in Indra municipality. State policies in the field of education, local training of Latgalian specialists in Rezekne and Daugavpils, and the migration of specialists from other regions with no official language problems were some of the reasons which contributed to a better education of society and an increase in prosperity, which made Latgale move closer to the other regions of Latvia. This is illuminated by the visual materials attached to the analysis, which show that the border station of Indra was a vibrant cultural environment in the end of the 30’s where a local intelligentsia representing different professions had been formed.

Product quality and over‐efficient business processes...

One of the ‘blessings of modern times’ that many of us have; without any doubt, increasingly experienced over the last decade is the fact that companies increasingly make use of specialized call centers. The reason, many companies claim, why they are using these call centers is that they, on the one hand, reduce the costs of their after-care process and on the other hand, allow them to concentrate on their core-business. And efficient these call centers certainly are! A large part of their processes is automated via menus where users, via entering pre-selected numbers, hopefully arrive at the solution/call agent of their choice. And, unfortunately, this is not always the case. I recently experienced this when I wanted to buy a train ticket for a colleague who was traveling to a railway station directly across the German border. It was a border station served by a Dutch regional train and in the menu structure I got stuck between the international call agent who told me that, since this was about a Dutch regional train, I needed to select the numbers corresponding to national rail service; at the call agent for national rail services I was told that I needed to select the numbers that correspond to international trains since the destination station was not in the Netherlands. And, however hard I tried, there was no escape hatch in the system; I either landed at A referring me to B or at B referring me to A. You can imagine that I was not entirely pleased with the quality of service. As a last resort I went to the local railway station where, at an extra cost of €3.50, I could buy a ticket from a person employed by the railway company and with knowledge of the system. He told me that you can buy local national train tickets also for the major railway station across the border. With this example I do not want to raise a negative image of the Dutch railway system; I use it often and, generally speaking, I am a happy customer. The case presented earlier is just an example how many large companies chop their main business process into individually very efficient pieces in the expectation that the efficiency of the overall business process will improve. With respect to costs, this is probably the case; I have visited, professionally, these call centers quite often and it is impressive how fast they are in handling calls for a wide range of, often very diverse, companies. Their core-business, however, is handling a maximum number of calls at a minimum cost. You can see therefore that many call agents handling phone calls from country A are often located in, far more cheaper, country B. I recently even came across people in India who were fluent in various western-European languages because they were working in call centers, in India, handling calls as if they were in western Europe. What many companies may not realize is the crucial role that especially these back-end processes have in their quality control system. I wonder, given the example above, whether the fact that I got stuck in a feedback system was by any means noticed by the quality system of the Dutch railroad. The likelihood that this will re-occur is therefore considerable. I expect that quality problems, such as the example mentioned above, will strongly increase in the future. One reason is that, especially for modern high-tech products, the service provided by the product is becoming more important than the product itself; products such as GSM phones, PDAs and modern entertainment products are more an enabler for services provided than traditional products. As a result the likelihood of problems, such as the one mentioned above, will increase. Especially with services provided by complex dynamic networks there is an increasing chance that there will be unforeseen quality issues that do not easily fit in the system. If companies, on the other hand, will continue to drive for (financial) efficiency I predict that it is likely that we will see not only very interesting new classes of quality problems in the future but also that companies will lose a considerable amount of customers because they are too efficient.

Living on the Border

Living On the Border María Pilar Aquino (bio) This past November, the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature (AAR/SBL) annual meeting took place in San Diego. In the wake of that event, I want to reflect with readers of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion (JFSR) on the political-religious situation of the borderlands.1 The term borderlands not only refers to the liminal areas that mark a divide between nations but has also become a widespread metaphor for doing feminist work. Such symbolic use often overlooks the harsh realities of the former use of the term. Tijuana, Mexico, is across the U.S.–Mexico border just a few miles south of San Diego, where I live and work. Comparing San Diego to Tijuana exposes the many hardships people endure along the border due to poverty and marginalization, not to mention desert conditions and often blazing heat. At the same time the AAR was happening, wildfires had surrounded the San Diego–Tijuana region, leading to the evacuation of over a half-million people, including members of my own family and friends. The firestorms left in their wake vast amounts of property destruction, damaged lands and resources, a toxic breathing environment, hundreds of injured and some dead, and thousands of homeless families. This situation was so alarming that I had wondered if the AAR could even happen in San Diego. Taking a closer look at the context for this meeting, the San Diego–Tijuana border has developed into a unique, dynamic, and luring geopolitical location in which, literally, one can touch, sense, and experience the deep inequalities between the dominant first world/North and the subordinate two-thirds world/ South. As a distinctive feature of this border region, migration has fashioned bi-national communities that must learn to recognize and integrate the complex dynamics of sociocultural interactions as a means to bettering our shared living conditions. Diverse peoples, cultures, and languages gather together in this [End Page 121] border region, but the interdependent and often uneven relationship between the two countries continues to be a predominant issue of concern. The nearly two-thousand-mile-long U.S.–Mexico border has separated people since 1842. Mexicans and U.S. communities have been closely related geographically, economically, linguistically, and even culturally along this border, but operate as divided societies, fostered especially in recent years by the unilateral link the U.S. government has made between controlling migration and U.S. national security. This region includes the desert mountain area known as “the corridor of death,” in which hundreds of undocumented border crossers have died unnecessarily searching for work in el Norte. Along this bi-national border, the San Diego–Tijuana region has become the largest population center, with an estimated six million inhabitants. The San Ysidro port of entry is the busiest terrestrial border crossing in the world. Located fewer than twenty miles south of downtown San Diego, this border station processes more than 150,000 crossings of people daily, including nearly 50,000 vehicles.2 Although U.S. residents travel to Mexico for employment, shopping, and entertainment, Mexican residents traveling for work comprise nearly 60 percent of crossings from Tijuana into the larger San Diego. The constant flow of people and services between the two countries both strengthens borderlands interactions and raises issues that affect the living conditions of those who share this common space. In addition to migration, other distinctive situations affecting this region include violence related to drug trafficking; smuggling of goods, drugs, and people; and kidnapping for ransom. Tijuana is known for increased levels of human insecurity and for its weak response to the widespread sexual exploitation of women and children. Among the many situations affecting women, I highlight three here to provide a quick look into our particular context: maquiladoras, HIV/AIDS, and women’s work for peace and justice. Maquiladoras are factories typically but not exclusively located immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. Arguably, the significant growth of maquiladoras in this region stemmed from Canada, Mexico, and the United States’ adoption in 1994 of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which created the largest free-trade zone in the world. Largely owned...

South America's Tri-Borders Region

South America’s Tri-Borders Region Randall Wood Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. These days, not everyone who visits the leafy tropical splendor of the Iguazú Falls in southern Brazil is a tourist. For many visitors, the illicit trade in arms, consumer goods and contraband is more attractive than the stunning scenery. Just downstream from the famous waterfall, the cities of Foz do Iguazú, Puerto Iguazu and Ciudad del Este face each other across the confluence of the Paraná and Iguazú Rivers in the midst of what is known as the Tri-Border Area (TBA), a lawless jungle expanse that straddles the national boundaries of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. Long a haven for black marketeers bringing cigarettes into Brazil and shoes into Argentina, the TBA is today an increasingly useful area for drug smugglers and nascent terrorist cells. Billions of dollars in laundered money, arms, drugs, counterfeit currency, falsified documents, and other contraband pass through the TBA annually. Ciudad del Este, with a population of only 300,000 people, boasts 55 banks, through which an estimated $6 billion per year--half of Paraguay's GDP--is laundered. [End Page 105] As the war against terrorism expands over the next decade, growing hotspots like the TBA will come under increasing international scrutiny. The TBA provides an environment in which terrorist cells can thrive: it provides sources of potential financing, access to illegal weapons and advanced technologies, and offers freedom of movement in a geographic area ideal for camouflage and concealment. It is no wonder that terrorist operatives from al Qaeda and Hezbollah met in the TBA in 2002 to plan attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets. While the Arab and Muslim communities living in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil vehemently deny links to radical groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah, officials from the Argentine and U.S. governments believe local businesses channel funds to the Middle East to support terrorist activities. In August and October 2004, the U.S. State Department invested a total of $2.5 million in programs designed to combat terrorist activities, including training programs for state institutions operating in the TBA. At about the same time, Brazil announced a major investment in its police infrastructure in Foz do Iguazú, including the development of an advanced police border station and the purchase of airplanes, cameras and radar systems to protect the Itaipu Hydroelectric dam and monitor the nearly 90 points of entry used for smuggling and drug running in the area. Despite increased monitoring and policing, illicit activities continue to thrive in the TBA. In May 2004, the Argentine judiciary investigated the alleged import of three surface-to-air missiles through northern Argentina into the TBA. Although terrorist finance cells raising funds through drug smuggling and other illicit activities pose the primary threat in the region, money is not the only thing raising eyebrows. Sources "Argentina: Alleged shipment of missiles to the Tri-Border area being checked," BBC Monitoring Reports, May 26, 2004. Google Scholar Kevin Gray, "US concerned about terror fund-raising in South America’s infamous triborder smuggler’s haven," AP, Oct. 3, 2004. Google Scholar Philip K. Abbot, "Terrorist Threat in the Tri-Border Area: Myth or Reality?" Military Review, September–October 2004, 51–55. [End Page 106] Google Scholar Copyright © 2005 The Johns Hopkins University Press

Records of Bursaphelenchus spp. (Nematoda, Parasitaphelenchidae) in coniferous timber imported from the Asian part of Russia

Coniferous wood imported from the Asian part of Russia was surveyed in Germany (Mukran ferry terminal, highway and railway border station in Frankfurt/Oder) and Austria (railway in Marchegg, Retz and Wr. Neustadt, Lower Austria). The consignments consisted of mixed timber of Pinus/Picea or Pinus/Larix. Out of 625 samples investigated, 51 samples (8.5%) yielded eight Bursaphelenchus species. Bursaphelenchus mucronatus was found 42 times in Pinus, Picea and Larix wood, Bursaphelenchus hylobianum and Bursaphelenchus fraudulentus were detected twice, in Pinus/Larix and in Larix, respectively. The following species were each found once: Bursaphelenchus leoni in mixed timber of Pinus/Picea, Bursaphelenchus ‘borealis’ in Pinus, Bursaphelenchus hellenicus and Bursaphelenchus paracorneolus in Larix. One sample of Larix wood from Krasnoyarsk region contained a few specimens corresponding to Bursaphelenchus xylophilus. Bursaphelenchus mucronatus was present in about 30% of the samples showing signs of insect attack. A Monochamus species was found in a sample from Irkutsk. Most of the B. mucronatus isolates found belonged to the European genotype, whereas the East Asian genotype was found in three instances. This is the first report of B. fraudulentus, B. hellenicus, B. leoni, B. paracorneolus and the East Asian genotype of B. mucronatus in Russia. Bursaphelenchus hylobianum is the only species found in Russian wood and not in Europe so far. The species were identified morphologically and by internal transcribed spacer (ITS)‐restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) technique. Species‐specific ITS‐RFLP patterns were established for B. hylobianum. In the case of the isolate morphologically corresponding to B. xylophilus, DNA extraction from the available low number of specimens failed to yield sufficient rDNA for ITS‐RFLP analysis.

Definition of Climate Regions in the Northern Plains Using an Objective Cluster Modification Technique

Spatially homogeneous climate regions were developed from long-term monthly temperature and precipitation data for a subset of the U.S. Northern Plains. Climate regions were initially defined using the “best” of three agglomerative and hierarchical clustering methodologies, then the clusters were objectively modified using a “pseudohierarchical” iterative improvement technique. Under the premise of hierarchical cluster analysis, once an object has been assigned to a cluster, it cannot later he reassigned to a different cluster, even if it is statistically desirable. The objective modification technique used herein is employed to compensate for this problem. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce a 147-station dataset, consisting of 24 climatic variables averaged over the 1931–1990 period, to three orthogonal components. The new standardized mars, which explain 93% of the original dataset variance, were then subjected to the Ward's, average linkage, and complete linkage clustering methods. The average linkage method produced the most representative statistical results in identifying the climate regions. An iterative improvement technique was then utilized to test “border station” membership and to modify the climate region houses. Fifteen climate regions resulted from the clustering (with two single-station clusters in the Black Hills alone), although they age just one possible partitioning of the data. The within-cluster variability is generally the same for the 15 climate regions and the corresponding 21 National Climatic Data Center (NCM) climate divisions. However, since data within-cluster variability tends to decrease with increasing cluster number, this result favors the new climate regions. Additionally, the new climate regions am shown to be superior to the NCDC climate, divisions in wont of between-cluster variability. These results suggest that the NCDC climate divisions could be redefined, improving their climatic homogeneity.

Thorium-Rich Veins of Hall Mountain in Northernmost Idaho

Thorium-rich veins occur in an area of about a half square mile about 3 miles east of the border station of Porthill, Idaho. Some of these veins are of particular interest because they have more thorium, coarser grain size, and less iron oxides than other known thorium veins in the United States. The veins on Hall Mountain cut Precambrian quartzite and quartz diorite. The quartz diorite is one of several Purcell sills that intrude Belt rocks. Most of the veins occur adjacent to the upper contact of the thickest sill on Hall Mountain. The veins strike from N. 42 degrees W. to N. 30 degrees E. and dip steeply. They range in known length from 6 to 700 feet and in thickness from thin seams to 13 feet. The thorium content of 23 samples from 11 veins ranged from 0.0095 to 21.0 percent. Twelve samples had a thorium content greater than 1 percent. The thorium and the mineral content of the veins are erratic, varying both among the veins and within an individual vein. Quartz and calcite are the principal gangue minerals and thorite is the principal thorium mineral. Chlorite, magnetite, limonite, pyrite, and biotite occur in many samples of these veins. In addition the following minerals in general order of abundance were found in a few of the samples: goethite, sphene, zircon, apatite, plagioclase, allanite, chalcopyrite, rutile, actinolite, pyrrhotite, muscovite, hematite, epidote, ilmenite, malachite, chrysocolla, monazite, cenosite, jarosite, dolomite, fluorite, and an unknown brown thorium mineral. Mineralogically these veins differ considerably from most thorium veins. A comparison of the veins of Hall Mountain with those at Lemhi Pass on the Idaho-Montana border indicates the following differences: (1) at Hall Mountain veins contain only sparse limonite or hematite, but at Lemhi Pass these minerals are both widespread and abundant; (2) at Hall Mountain plagioclase was the only feldspar identified and it is rather sparse, whereas at Lemhi Pass microcline is one of the common gangue minerals, and plagioclase was not noted; (3) at Hall Mountain allanite is the second most common thorium and rare-earth mineral, and monazite and cenosite were found in one sample each, whereas at Lemhi Pass monazite is the second most common thorium and rare-earth mineral, brockite is common, and allanite is rare; (4) at Hall Mountain sphene, zircon, and ilmenite are present, but are absent from Lemhi Pass; and (5) barite is absent from Hall Mountain but common at Lemhi Pass.

Carbon monoxide uptake by inspectors at a United States-Mexico border station.

Collection of expired-air carbon monoxide (CO) samples was utilized to examine inspectors on the United States-Mexican border to determine if significant increases in carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) occur. Twenty-six border inspectors were categorized as to smoking habits and work shift CO exposures. Employees not actively engaged in car inspection duties constituted the control group. Following shifts when particularly high ambient CO levels persisted, significant increases in COHb were noted in both smokers and non- smokers. Controls did not exhibit significant alterations in COHb levels. The hazards of such COHb elevations to exposed individuals are discussed in light of recent evidence of a lack of threshold for cardiovascular and central nervous system effects.