Caucasian Society Research Articles

УСТНОЕ НАРОДНОЕ ТВОРЧЕСТВО В СИСТЕМЕ ЭСТЕТИЧЕСКОГО ВОСПИТАНИЯ ШКОЛЬНИКОВ СЕВЕРНОГО КАВКАЗА

Today, the spiritual and emotional development of North Caucasian students is closely linked with the system of aesthetic education. We consider it as the formation of a specific aesthetic and artistic pattern of an individual to the realities of objective reality. The regional component of aesthetic education is included in the system of complex formation of the ethno-cultural personality of the North Caucasus, which have close ties with their language, traditions, culture, and history. It is aimed at developing individual guidelines in the continuum of aesthetic and moral values in a clear equivalence with the established ethno-cultural ideas about oneself in the world civilization, which creates parity of regional and universal values in the Caucasian society. In parallel, aesthetic and artistic education penetrates into the archetypal depths of the personality of the North Caucasian junior school student, involving him in his studies as a continuous game with himself and the world, taking into account the nature of selectivity, individual personality qualities, including emotional intelligence. Oral folk art focuses on the priority of targeted impact of North Caucasian aesthetics on the formation of background knowledge in the personality structure of each Caucasian student. Folklore is a storehouse of background knowledge, since it contains aesthetic and moral constants of ethnic autostereotypes, demonstrating aesthetic and artistic priorities in the ethno-cultural picture of the world, indicating the rarity of the Caucasian locus in language, subject matter, time, and geography. Coloristics the language of North Caucasian folklore methodically cultivates respect for the ethno-cultural practices of its people among Caucasian schoolchildren, forming a whole mentally preserved personality of a person of the North Caucasus who is resistant to the aggression of the surrounding world.

Dysphagia: Thinking outside the box.

Dysphagia is a common symptom that is important to recognise and appropriately manage, given that causes include life threatening oesophageal neoplasia, oropharyngeal dysfunction, the risk of aspiration, as well as chronic disabling gastroesophageal reflux (GORD). The predominant causes of dysphagia varies between cohorts depending on the interplay between genetic predisposition and environmental risk factors, and is changing with time. Currently in white Caucasian societies adopting a western lifestyle, obesity is common and thus associated gastroesophageal reflux disease is increasingly diagnosed. Similarly, food allergies are increasing in the west, and eosinophilic oesophagitis is increasingly found as a cause. Other regions where cigarette smoking is still prevalent, or where access to medical care and antisecretory agents such as proton pump inhibitors are less available, benign oesophageal peptic strictures, Barrett’s oesophagus, adeno- as well as squamous cell carcinoma are endemic. The evaluation should consider the severity of symptoms, as well as the pre-test probability of a given condition. In young white Caucasian males who are atopic or describe heartburn, eosinophilic esophagitis and gastroesophageal reflux disease will predominate and a proton pump inhibitor could be commenced prior to further investigation. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy remains a valid first line investigation for patients with suspected oesophageal dysphagia. Barium swallow is particularly useful for oropharyngeal dysphagia, and oesophageal manometry mandatory to diagnose motility disorders.

Facial profile preferences: a cross-sectional survey

The aim of this study is to identify facial profile preferences among Lebanese orthodontists, general dentists and laypersons. A lateral photograph of a young man and young woman with a class I skeletal relationship was used. Each photograph was manipulated, using Dolphin Imaging System®, to produce six other photographs in which anteroposterior variations in the position of the maxilla and/or the mandible were made. A total of 120 participants were asked to rank the photographs of each gender from most to least attractive. The straight profile was the most favored in men and women; however more lip protrusion for women and maxillary retrusion for men are tolerated. Our results represent the mean evaluation of a Caucasian society, this does not mean that every straight profile will be perceived as an attractive one. Hence the importance of an individualized treatment planning for a successful orthodontic treatment.

English

This paper examines the connections between love relationships and self-identity development of two selected heroines belonging to two different minority groups in America -- the Indian and the Chinese. For this purpose, two chick lit novels, Tanuja Desai Hidier’s Born Confused (2002) and Kim Wong Keltner’s The Dim Sum of All Things (2004) are selected. By employing a conceptualised framework, influenced by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems of development and Berry’s model of acculturation, the present paper focuses on the ethnic community and the American society in which the individuals are set. Comparing the love relationships as represented within both novels indicates how the connections and interactions between the selected heroines’ and their self-identity development influence the ways they acculturate with the mainstream culture as well as retain their own ethnicity. Although the theme of love has always dominated the chick lit genre, the present paper aims to fuse the notion of romance with culture and diaspora. This investigation shows how the selected theme is significant in the identity development process of the female protagonists. Therefore, this paper explicates the different aspects of a love relationship with regards to the heroines’ interactions with the ethnic community and the American society. The findings show different cultural orientations between choosing a love target who belongs to the same minority group of the selected heroine and that of the mainstream Caucasian society. Furthermore, the findings indicate the influential role of a love relationship on identity development as represented within the selected novels. DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2016-1602-10

Dehumanization, Racial Minority and Female Leadership: An Analysis of Global Trends

Purpose: The use of dehumanization, directed toward racial minorities, impresses as a global trend of significance, spanning from broad generalisations with regards to black community members holding a lower status through to Russian politicians terming Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as mammalian apes (or, monkeys). This report analyses the use of dehumanization and the validity of racial degradation. Female leadership is also analysed. Methods: A comparative analysis was performed assessing the achievements of African Americans in comparison with white (including caucasian) society, with a gender comparison to assess for consistency across genders. The categorisation of racial minorities based on the satisfying of criteria for conscious being recognition was also considered. Results: African Americans have held positions, and achieved success, equally respectable with that of the white (including caucasian) community. These members of society also satisfy the criteria for conscious beings. There appears to be no validity to support black or Asian people as representative of a being less than that of a human being. Conclusion: There appears to be no validity behind categorisation of certain races as lesser members of society. Furthermore, there appears no validity behind the use of dehumanization.

CULTURAL IDENTITY AS ONE OF THE STATEHOOD FOUNDATIONS: RUSSIAN EXPERIENCE IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS

The article examines the role and place of Muslim ethnic groups of the North Caucasus in the process of addition of single Russian nation, strengthening its statehood, the formation of civil society institutions. Value of the religious sphere in the life of the Russian society, the state and confessional relations in the conditions of modern realities taking into account an inevitable globalization factor is analyzed. As important factors to the North Caucasian society is the question of human security, economic well-being, quality of education and health, preservation of native languages and cultures.

Cultural Identification Processes in the Modernizing North Caucasus

The article analyzes the sociocultural space of the Russian North Caucasian community, which is a complex open system. In the context of strengthening of the Russian (national) identity in the North Caucasus, we aimed to rethink the features of formation and functioning of the modernizing North Caucasian society. Addressing this problem is due to the need to identify the inconsistencies in the identification space of the North Caucasian society, which will allow detecting the possibility of harmonious relationships between the national, regional, and ethno-cultural identities. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s1p335

Base level changes, river avulsions and Holocene human settlement dynamics in the Caspian Sea area (middle Kura valley, South Caucasus)

Geomorphological, geochronological and geoarchaeological analysis focusing on six tributaries of the Kura River provide valuable data concerning sedimentation rhythmicity and Holocene human settlement distribution at a regional scale. Seven new radiocarbon dates from the upstream part of these hydrosystems complemented the existing radiocarbon dataset (n = 32) obtained downstream. These data seem to indicate that upstream hydrosystems also reacted to marine regressions by powerful riverbed incisions and to transgression phases by thick valley infillings from at least as early as the Upper Pleistocene. The retroactive morphogenic effects were also perceived in intra-mountainous areas far from the Caspian shoreline. The land use patterns of the Caucasian societies dwelling in the valley of the Kura hydrosystem were affected by temporary river avulsions resulting in silty fans over the high terraces during the Neolithic–Chalcolithic periods. These river avulsions seem to be governed by local climate and base level changes linked to fluctuations of the Caspian Sea level over time. This is spatially and diachronically evidenced in settlement distribution, with almost exclusive localization on perched silty fans and river runoff from the key period of Neolithic development in the region. These new data must be considered in future geoarchaeological analyses concerning the Caspian Sea Basin and will contribute to the enhancement of the relative Caspian Sea level curve for the past 40 ka.

The ‘Peculiar Case’ of Betsey Stockton: Gender, Race and the Role of an Assistant Missionary to the Sandwich Islands (1822–1825)

Betsey Stockton was a missionary to the Sandwich Islands from 1822 to 1825, serving under the ABCFM. As the first single woman and the first African American to serve with the American Board, she provides a unique nexus of gender and race within a Caucasian missionary society. Betsey's relationship with the Board was a ‘peculiar case’ that was regulated by an ambiguous contract, which claimed, on the one hand, that she was ‘like any other missionary’, yet on the other hand, was to be ‘treated neither as an equal nor as a servant, but as a humble Christian friend’. With regard to her race, Betsey experienced both acceptance by fellow missionaries and racial prejudice. As a single woman, Betsey contributed to the mission endeavour through domestic help for the Charles Stewart family and through teaching native Hawaiians, both commoners and nobles. She fulfilled ministries commensurate to gender-specific expectations, similar to her other female missionary colleagues.

Bloody Verses: Rereading Pushkin’s Prisoner of the Caucasus

Pushkin's 1822 narrative poem, Prisoner of the Caucasus (Kavkazskii plennik), is frequently pointed as Russia's first literary introduction the Caucasus and its peoples. Belinsky praised it both for its accurate representation of the region and for the beauty of its verses. (1) One section of the poem, the so-called ethnographic section in which the Circassian customs and way of life are described in some detail, was reprinted six times in Pushkin's life alone. (2) Yet, for all of its popularity, critics and readers alike have continued struggle with the poem's epilogue and its relation the first two parts of the story. This epilogue, written approximately three months after Pushkin finished the first two parts of the poem, differs both stylistically and thematically from the remainder of the work. Resembling first the elegy, then the epic narrative, and finally the ceremonial ode, as Harsha Ram points out, the form of the epilogue is as discordant as its apparent new message: the celebration of imperial might and the outright conquest of the Caucasus. (3) And, in fact, the epilogue does express a clearer political message than the remainder of the poem by celebrating the destruction of the Caucasian tribes and the expansion of the Russian Empire: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (4) And I will celebrate that glorious hour, When, having felt the bloody attack, Upon the indignant Caucasus Our double-headed eagle raised itself [...] You I glorify, hero, O Kotliarevskii, the scourge of the Caucasus! Wherever you rushed, a terror-- Your speed, like a black plague, Destroyed, annihilated tribes. [...] And the violent cry of war fell silent: All is subject the Russian sword. Proud sons of the Caucasus, You have fought, you have perished terribly. (5) In this article I will offer a new interpretation of Pushkin's epilogue and its relationship the remainder of the poem. Pushkin succeeds in problematizing Russian imperial expansion precisely through the addition of such a nationalistic ending what at first appears be a Romantic work about an exotic people. In the first two parts of the poem, Pushkin plays on his readers' expectations, largely based on European literature, in particular Byron, as well as on their own unspoken, sometimes unconscious, desires experience vicariously the danger and excitement of the still mythical Caucasus. (6) He then describes the bloody consequences of this fascination with the region and its peoples: total conquest by Russia and the destruction of Caucasian society. Pushkin's poem reveals the double-edged sword of imperialistic expansionism: on the one hand, there is an idealization of the Other and its way of life, while on the other, contact between the empire and the Other leads the destruction of that way of life. From this conclusion, I will then reread Pushkin's poem with this end in mind and show how the body of the work leads more organically the epilogue than it first appears. Reaction the Epilogue Upon publication, Pushkin's epilogue inspired little no commentary. In fact, in the majority of reviews of the poem, literary critics simply chose not address it. (7) Susan Layton suggests that critics were unwilling speak out against the epilogue due the political climate of the time. (8) In private, though, the epilogue caused some degree of discomfort for at least one of Pushkin's contemporaries, Prince Viazemsky. It grieves me, that Pushkin stained with blood the last verses of his tale, he writes Alexander Turgenev in a letter from September 1822. kind of hero is Kotliarevsky, Yermolov? What here is good, that he, 'like a black plague, / Destroyed, annihilated tribes?' From such praise, one's blood freezes and one's hair stands on end. (9) He goes on complain that it was impossible even to allude (nameknut ) his displeasure with the epilogue in his review of the poem due the censor. …

The diaspora as a nation's capital: crowdsourcing strategies for the Caucasus

Caucasian societies suffer from a tremendous brain drain to so-called more advanced societies. Against this background, the paper discusses crowdsourcing, a recent trend in open innovation, as a means of reducing or even inverting the brain drain of Caucasian societies.

REPRODUCTIVE TOXICOLOGY: Study Associates PFOS and PFOA with Impaired Fertility

Recent decades have seen a substantial decline in the number of children being born to women in developed countries. Much of this decline is likely attributable to sociocultural changes and increased access to birth control. But some studies suggest that exposure to environmental pollutants may play a role, perhaps by impairing fecundity, the ability to bear live children. Now a study by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has found that women who took longer to become pregnant were more likely to have higher blood levels of two common perfluorinated chemicals, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA). PFOS and PFOA are persistent manmade pollutants widely found in fabrics, carpets, food packaging, shampoo, nonstick cookware, insecticides, fire‐fighting foam, and other household products, as well as in industrial surfactants and emulsifiers. Potential major sources of PFOA in the environment include the degradation of fluorinated alcohols used in these products. Animal studies have associated both PFOS and PFOA with increased pregnancy losses and disruption in sex hormone homeo‐stasis and sexual maturation. Although previous studies have linked pollutants such as pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls with delayed time to pregnancy, the UCLA study is the first to demonstrate a similar relationship with perfluorinated chemicals. In the current study, the researchers measured maternal blood concentrations of PFOA and PFOS in 1,240 pregnant women who participated in the Danish National Birth Cohort from 1996 to 2002. Blood samples were drawn from weeks 4 through 14 of pregnancy, and women were asked at approximately week 12 how long it had taken to conceive and whether the pregnancy was planned. Median maternal blood levels of PFOA and PFOS were 5.3 ng/mL and 33.7 ng/mL, respectively. Women were assigned to four quartiles of exposure, with the lowest quartile serving as the reference group. Women in the three higher quartiles were about twice as likely to have taken longer than 12 months to achieve pregnancy or to have required infertility treatments to become pregnant, compared with the reference group. They were also slightly more likely to report irregular menstrual periods. The results, which are slated to appear in the May 2009 issue of Human Reproduction, were published online 28 January 2009. The blood concentrations measured in the Danish women were similar to those found in other Western populations, “so the findings probably [are applicable to] other affluent Caucasian societies,” says study leader Jorn Olsen, chairman of the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health. However, “it’s important for someone else to replicate the study in another group of women,” he notes. It’s unknown how PFOS and PFOA may contribute to infertility; it is possible the chemicals interfere with sex hormones, delay ovulation, or contribute to unrecognized miscarriage (the authors of the 2004 text Clinical Gynecologic Endocrinology and Infertility, 7th Edition estimate that 20–40% of women miscarry before they even realize they are pregnant). The UCLA study “is the first study ever in humans on this topic, to the best of my knowledge,” says David Savitz, director of the Disease Prevention and Public Health Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. The study “gives a limited first look at the issue,” Savitz says, “but does encourage continued evaluation of the reproductive toxicity of PFOA and PFOS.” In 2006 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked manufacturers to voluntarily reduce PFOA emissions and product content by 95% no later than 2010 and to eliminate the chemical by 2015. Olsen says the new data could help strengthen arguments to eventually regulate PFOA and PFOS or phase them out. Meanwhile, a study by Antonia M. Calafat and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in the November 2007 issue of EHP, found significant reductions in human blood levels of PFOA and PFOS (25% and 32%, respectively) from 2003 and 2004 compared with data for 1999 through 2000. The authors of that study suggested that successful efforts by government and industry to reduce usage and emissions of these chemicals are the most likely reason for the downward trends.

Diagnosing protan heterozygosity using the Medmont C‐100 colour vision test

Background: A surprisingly high 15 per cent of women in Caucasian societies are carriers of the genes for abnormal colour vision but there is no clinical method to identify them. It has long been known that heterozygotes for the protan colour vision deficiencies can demonstrate a reduced luminous sensitivity to red light. This is known as Schmidt's sign, which is thought to arise from mosaicism (Lyonisation). The Medmont C‐100 colour vision test measures relative spectral sensitivity using flicker photometry to differentiate protans and deutans. It should be able to diagnose Schmidt's sign.Method: We tested six known protan heterozygotes (four whose sons have a protan colour vision deficiency and two whose fathers are protan) with the Medmont C‐100 test.Results: All six heterozygotes made average settings of ‐1.75 or more negative at the Medmont C‐100 test, settings which are at or beyond the boundary of the distribution of settings made by observers with normal colour vision. There have been two previous cases reported in the literature of protan heterozygotes, who made protan settings on the Medmont C‐100 or its predecessor test, the OSCAR. We also tested six daughters of the known heterozygotes, 50 per cent of whom are likely to be heterozygotes. Four of the six (66 per cent) made protan settings on the Medmont C‐100. The other two made normal 0.0 settings.Conclusion: We conclude that the Medmont C‐100 can be used clinically to diagnose carriers of protan colour vision deficiency.

Changes in Bruch's membrane and related structures with age.

Age-related macular disease is a major and growing public health burden in developed Caucasian societies, accounting for about 50% of blind registration. Evidence exists that this is an emerging problem in Eastern Asia, although the phenotype appears to differ from that seen in Western society. It is likely that several genes are involved, and that the genes or allelic variants conferring are common. Environment plays a major role in its pathogenesis, and it is believed that genetic susceptibility becomes apparent only if there are sufficient environmental pressures. There is no therapy currently available that will have an impact on the prevalence of blindness from age-related macular disease. It has been shown that visual loss occurs as a reaction to ageing changes in Bruch's membrane, which is interposed between the choriocapillaris and the retinal pigment epithelium. The age changes in all three structures have been partly characterised, and as a consequence, multiple putative pathogenic mechanisms have been proposed. Cross-sectional studies of populations with different genetic background and life styles would serve to prove the importance of inheritance and environment. Molecular genetic analysis of blood from affected sibling pairs from these sources may indicate the relevant genes, the prevalence of which may differ in different communities. Enquiries as to life styles may determine important environmental influences. Examination of donor eyes from these communities may reveal distinctive features that may reflect the variation in genetic predisposition and environmental pressures. It is hoped that the findings from such studies will lead to novel and potentially successful management strategies.

The Impact of Publicized Executions on Homicide

Research on the effect of publicized executions on homicide has been marked by a neglect of the concept of audience receptiveness. The present article applies Blumer's concept of differential audience receptivity to racial differences in reactions to publicized executions. It argues that African Americans are less responsive to punishment and labeling because they are already outsiders in a mostly Caucasian society and that they have a lower stake in conformity than Caucasians. Analysis of daily U.S. data found that, for African Americans, publicized executions had no effect on homicide. In contrast, publicized executions resulted in a significant decline in homicide for Caucasians. Little publicized executions had no effect on homicide. Policy and research implications of these results are considered.

Epidemiology of coronary heart disease: The Framingham study

Coronary heart disease continues to be the number one cause of death in most Northern European, North American and other industrialized Caucasian societies. By the age of 60, every fifth man and one in 17 women have some form of this disease. One in 15 men and women will eventually have a stroke. Other cardiovascular diseases related to atherosclerosis are also important. Epidemiologic (prospective) studies enable one to predict most of the potential victims of cardiovascular disease, years before they become ill. An increase in total to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio, hypertension, cigarette smoking, excess weight, elevated blood sugar levels, lack of exercise, stress, electrocardiographic abnormalities, and other factors are associated with the development of these diseases. Intervention trials have generally shown that lowering “risk factors” reduces the subsequent rate of coronary heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular disease. Most highly susceptible subjects have problems with several risk factors. Management of one should not interfere with management of another if optimal health is sought.

Russian Rule and Caucasian Society in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century: The Georgian Nobility and the Armenian Bourgeoisie, 1801–1856

In the half century from the Russian annexation of eastern Georgia (Kartli-Kakheti) to the outbreak of the Crimean War, Transcaucasian society underwent a deep and irreversible transformation which, in its effects, was as fundamental a metamorphosis for Armenians and Georgians as were the contemporary political and industrial revolutions for “western Europeans. Whether the move into the Russian orbit was “progressive,” as Soviet historians insist, or a fatal perversion of these nations’ natural development, as some nationalists argue, is not really a historical judgement capable of empirical demonstration. What can be shown, however, is that with the Russian occupation a historical process began which rent the fabric of traditional Georgian and Armenian society and produced both new opportunities and loyalties for some and a persistent, if ultimately futile, resistance to centralized bureaucratic rule by others. Responding to that resistance, the tsarist administration enticed the nobility of Georgia into participation in the new order, and at the end of the first fifty years of Russian rule, the once rebellious, semiindependent dynasts of Georgia had been transformed into a service gentry loyal to their new monarch. At the same time, the Armenian merchants and craftsmen of Caucasia's towns benefited from the new security provided by Russian arms and, while competing with privileged Russian traders, oriented themselves away from the Middle East toward Russian and European commerce. In the process they laid the foundation for their own fortunes and future as the leading economic and political element in Russian Georgia. The peasantry of Transcaucasia was forced in the meantime to submit to new exactions as their status became increasingly more similar to that of Russian peasants. And the respective churches of Georgia and Armenia made fundamental and irreversible accommodations to the new political order.

Introduction to Christian Caucasian History II: States and Dynasties of the Formative Period

Part One of thisIntroductionwas concerned with the historical background of Caucasian Society; it dealt, accordingly, in some detail with the genesis and structure of that society, more particularly of its creative minority, the nobility, and in especial the spearhead of the nobility, the group of the dynastic princes. That study investigated also the ethos of this important and restricted group, a caste in fact, and its juridical status: the sovereign rights of the Princes, who were, under the presidency of kings, the real rulers of Caucasia; their internationally recognized position of minor kings; the ethno-political self-sufficiency and self-determination of their States, of which Armenia and to a large extent also the other Caucasian countries were little more than federative unions; the dependence of the Princes on other and greater monarchs; and the superadding of feudalistic features, resulting from this dependence, to the fundamentally dynasticist régime of Caucasia. Here, in the present study, it is proposed to consider this group in the concrete: to examine it, that is, as so many individual historical-genealogical-geographical (and often also ethnic) units. The preponderant role of the Caucasian dynastic aristocracy in the history of the formative centuries made, especially in Armenia, of this history, and of that of the following centuries as well, largely the history of these princely houses. This fully justifies our interest in this particular aspect of the Caucasian social development.

Dermoid Cyst Case

Abstracts. Review of Obstetric and Gynecological literature: Russian.Sobustianskiy. A case of a dermoid cyst . (Protocol of the Caucasian Society, 1898, No. 2).The author describes a case where he removed two tumors in an 18-year-old woman: a small dermoid cyst of the right testicle with hair and teeth and another, cancerous-degenerated cyst of the left ovary.