Signs Of Corruption Research Articles

Athens, Thebes and Plataia and the end of the sixth century BCE

AbstractOne of the key events in the relations between the Athenians and Thebans was the Plataian decision to align themselves with the Athenians at the end of the sixth century BCE. This decision shook up the contemporary political landscape and proved to be a source of hostility between the two neighbouring polities throughout the fifth and fourth centuries. The orthodox view holds that the original alignment took place in 519 during the Peisistratid tyranny, based on the date given by Thucydides 3.68.5. This date, in the mind of some scholars, seems contradictory with the story of the Plataian alignment as given by Herodotus (6.108.1–6). This inconsistency resulted in a search for alternatives that fit the Herodotean narrative better. To accommodate this change, they relied on emendating the Thucydidean text, but there is no sign of corruption in this part. Emendation of a text is best avoided, although the controversy merits attention. Therefore, in this article it will be argued that the two narratives – the Thucydidean and the Herodotean – need to be separated. What follows is a renewed chronology of Plataian-Athenian relations. The orthodox date (519) was the date of an original Peisistratid-Plataian alliance that did not lead to hostilities with Thebes. Instead, it is in the context of the foundation of the Athenian democracy and the subsequent clashes with Thebes after 507/6 that the Herodotean narrative should be placed.

JPEG image classification in digital forensic via DCT coefficient analysis

From the digital forensics point of view, image forgery is considered as evidence that could provide a major breakthrough in the investigation process. Additionally, the development of storage device technologies has increased storage space significantly. Thus a digital investigator can be overwhelmed by the amount of data on storage devices that needs to be analysed. In this paper, we propose a model for classifying bulk JPEG images produced by the data carving process or other means into three different classes to solve the problem of identifying forgery quickly and effectively. The first class is JPEG images that contain errors or corrupted data, the second class is JPEG images that contain forged regions, and the third is JPEG images that have no signs of corruption or forgery. To test the proposed model, some experiments were conducted on our own dataset in addition to CASIA V2 image forgery dataset. The experiments covered different types of forgery technique. The results yielded around 88% accuracy rate in the classification process using five different machine learning methods on CASIA V2 dataset. It can be concluded that the proposed model can help investigators to automatically classify JPEG images, which reduce the time needed in the overall digital investigation process.

Polyvalent Philosophy and Soteriology in Early Buddhism

The earliest Buddhist texts in existence, from the Pāli Sutta-Nipāta , display a perplexing diversity in their philosophy and soteriology, most evident in their attitudes toward metaphysical speculation and ideas of the afterlife. Rather than dismissing this picture as a sign of corruption or inconsistency, it may be taken to imply strength and vitality, which allowed practitioners to experiment with the truths of their tradition. This, then, suggests a reality of shifting boundaries not only within Buddhism, but also between it and other religious traditions of ancient India.

Mozambique and Zimbabwe: potentially converging paths

Mozambique, long favoured by Western donors, to their disapproval has recently shown signs of corruption, instability and poor governance and looked to China for help that may not be forthcoming. Zimbabwe, long disfavoured by Western donors, is cooling to China's commercial and political involvement in its national affairs. Both southern African countries may eventually need to reinvigorate appeals for assistance from Western donors, which would come with relatively stringent governance and economic conditions.

Parameters estimation in mechanism design

The paper proposes a procedure to estimate the parameters of experimental manipulator robot samples in a series of tests that allows discarding robot samples with parameters being unsuitable for the constructed mechanism. Features of this approach, providing numerical estimates of the parameters are particularly useful in solving the problems of designing space manipulators that require a higher degree of reliability performance. This procedure can also be used in other practice areas, such as analysis of indirect signs of corruption in the socioeconomic, nancial, military, geopolitical and other structures.

THE MINORS IN PENAL SYSTEMS IN SELECTED COUNTRIES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

In foreign jurisdictions, various models of responsibility for juvenile offenses are adopted. In many countries, like Poland, entirely separate regulations in this field are adopted (England and Wales, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, Sweden). In other countries like (Slovakia, Belarus, Estonia, Greece to 2003, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Russia, Slovenia, Ukraine), there are specific rules of responsibility of minors included in criminal codes and codes of criminal proceedings. Different solutions in this regard are partly due to the different traditions of legal systems, and partly due to various axiomatic justifications formulated in these matters. Review of legislation on minority in selected European countries: Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic shows that in terms of the approach to the problem of minority in all legal systems, specific interaction of children and young people who come into conflict with the criminal law are included, as well as those that show signs of corruption, making their proper personal and social development threatened. Adoption of selected concepts of minors legislation, however, does not mean more or less severe approach to the liability of minors.Both discussed issues the theoretical and practical ones, are the subject of the deliberations beneath, their structure includes: <br/>1. Problems of minors in the European countries <br/>2. Minors in Polish criminal justice system <br/>3. Minors’ responsibility in Slovakian criminal justice system <br/> 4. Czech criminal justice system in relation to a minor

Коррупция как негативное социальное явление: сущность и виды

In the article essential signs of corruption as socially-legal
 institute are investigated. Various scientific approaches to development
 of concept “corruption” are analyzed. The author investigated
 station the international and Russian national right on a question
 definition the approach to the specified concept. They offered
 both wide, and the narrow approach to corruption definition.

Uncivil Liberties and Libertines: Empire in Decay

Uncivil Liberties and Libertines: Empire in Decay MARIANNE MCDONALD 1. I’ve been a film nut from the time my parents would park me in a film theatre as their form of baby-sitting . My father invented phone vision, which was an early version of cablevision that allowed us to see newly released movies at home on our round television screen, which looked like an old Bendix washing machine. I wrote one of the earliest books on classics in cinema—and soon after, more books on the topic followed mine.1 I looked forward to seeing the films described in Ancient Rome, many of which I had not seen because I have avoided blood-fest films which invite being described with gore-filled ecstasy. (I have also avoided slasher movies, holocaust movies, and kiddie movies because they disturbed my possibly misguided sensibility .) The choices of films in Elena’s Theodorakopoulos’ book are all the work of interesting directors—some better than others, but the quality is, for the most part, high. The writers for all these film scripts are generally outstanding. Good photography also seems to be a given. As we are told in the conclusion, “Whatever the story, spectacle is never far from Rome.” The key to assessing these treatments lies in the interpretation of the portrayal of violence. Are we, the audience, admiring it? Calling for it, as we call for it in films by Quentin Tarentino, beginning with Reservoir Dogs (1992), or the series called Saw, the seventh version (2010) now in 3-d? Do Elena Theodorakopoulos, Ancient Rome at the Cinema: Story and Spectacle in Hollywood and Rome. Exeter: Bristol Phoenix Press, 2010. 199 pages, $25.00. arion 20.1 spring/summer 2012 we ask whether we moderns have all become Romans rather than Greeks? One remembers that warning in the Aeneid, 6.851–53: “Remember Roman, your art is to govern people: rule justly in peace; spare the defeated, but subdue the proud” (Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento. / Hae tibi erunt artes: pacisque imponere morem, / parcere subiectis et debellare superbos). The Greeks too had their empire , and their slaves. But they carved statues that breathed life, and wrote immortal poetry to musical accompaniment. Theodorakopoulos conveys well some of the ideals in these films as well as their condemnation of the excesses that Rome illustrated, particularly in its blood sports. Rome becomes , as Theodorakopoulos claims, “a symbol or metaphor for power itself” (148). Many of the films on Rome deal with whether power is centered in the hands of one, or shared in a Republic. Is the Pax Romana a shared peace with equality, or simply total domination, which rarely works for long? Social issues were important: how slaves and occupied countries were treated. Decadence is a sign of corruption, which often titillates the viewer and was included not only in “Hollywood” productions of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, but also (here) in Federico Fellini’s Satyricon (1969) and Julie Taymor’s Titus (1999). If there was no sex and violence in a film about Rome, audiences felt betrayed. Needless to say, the representation of women—typically as either powerful bitches controlling weak men, or whores and slaves for their amusement—did not do much to further the cause of equal rights. As usual, there were a few mother and Mother Mary types (like Miriam, Tirzah, and Esther in Ben-Hur, 1959); but if women assumed power, they often fit the Livia, Messalina, Poppaea types, or were wicked, dangerous foreigners, like Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and Tamora , Shakespeare’s fictional queen of the Goths. In my opinion, there should have been more discussion of the representation of women in these chapters. The chronological arrangement is good, not some theoretical arrangement that names muses, and discusses film as an uncivil liberties and libertines: empire in decay 146 afterthought. Theodorakopoulos selects dramas that replicate themes—the good man wronged, for instance, in all but the Satyricon. Slaves and the horror of slavery are the main subjects of the first two films: William Wyler’s Ben-Hur and Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960). In their own way they also deal with fascism and empire. In Ben-Hur, the...

Political corruption in Russia and the Soviet Legacy

Signs of corruption in post-SovietRussia are abundant and its immediate cause, the rapidmove towards the market in advance of theestablishment of a legal infrastructure, readilyapparent. But the unqualified use of the term``corruption'' risks substituting liberal judgements ofRussian capitalism for an historically grounded andsociologically informed understanding of Russia'sdeviance from Western standards. Here it is arguedthat ``corruption'' in post-Communist Russia can mostusefully be understood as the extension of Sovietcoping strategies, developed in the command economy,to the opportunities opened up by marketisation. Thisoccurred in circumstances where the bureaucratic andideological constraints of the Soviet state were notreplaced by compensatory institutional and legaldisciplines. Rather than corrupting an establishedsystem of rights and obligations Russian ``corruption''represents the extension of the informal culture andpractices of the Soviet system to the opportunitiespresented by emerging Russian capitalism.

The Platform Versus the Stage: Circuit Chautauqua's Antitheatrical Theatre

The Platform Versus the Stage: The Circuit Chautauqua’s Antitheatrical Theatre* Charlotte Canning (bio) [Chautauqua] is our oasis—our life belt. The music we hear . . . is the music we sing . . . all through the year. The lectures we discuss for months. My husband remembers all the jokes and the politics and I try to remember . . . all the new ideas set forth. . . . Sometime I think we could not endure [our] privations and loneliness . . . if it were not for the Chautauqua. “The Uplift of Chautauqua Week” 1 Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Towns on the Circuit were decorated in anticipation of the coming Chautauqua. Chautauqua Collection, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City. Reprinted with permission. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. A typical Chautauqua tent could seat up to one thousand people. Chautauqua Collection, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City. Reprinted with permission For most rural Americans before World War I, the annual arrival of the Circuit Chautauquas offered the only experience of live performance, a stimulating array of new faces and ideas, and a relief from quotidian labors and isolation. 1924, for example, saw Chautauquas in over ten thousand communities performing to over forty million spectators. Begun in 1904, the Chautauquas were a commercialized, touring version of the institution in upstate New York; they supplied four to seven days of entertainment and enlightenment in the form of lectures (from the serious or informational to the comic or sentimental), music, readings, and (eventually) theatrical performances, all housed in a brown tent. They promised and delivered a spectacle that was both diverting and wholesome, that conformed to the standards, norms, and behaviors of their communities despite the standardized program that toured without variation from town to town. Yet, their evident success aside, the Chautauquas were not quite consistent in their claims. According to Harry Harrison, manager of the Redpath Bureau, the most influential Chautauqua: Nowhere was . . . inconsistency more evident than in the attitude toward theatre and all its works. Many people wanted the thrill of the drama, the fun of make-believe, but none of the trappings of the play. They wanted performers who for a rapturous hour could transport them out of a drab, mud-bound world into fictional far places and other, better times, but they did not want actors. They had seen what they called “actors” in that disreputable free medicine show last year and all the other tawdry outfits that straggled into town to corrupt impressionable youth. 2 [End Page 303] If the tension between the standardized product and centrally planned touring format, on the one hand, and the claim to respond to local, community-specific demands, on the other, could be described as an “inconsistency,” as Harrison had it, then that between the desire for the “thrill of the drama” and the distaste for the “trappings of the play,” or between the appeal of “transport” to “far away places” and the threat of “disreputable . . . tawdry outfits,” can only be described as a contradiction. Audiences wanted dramatic, even theatrical, entertainment but they did not appear to want theatre. The desire for the “thrill of the drama” as against the “trappings of the play,” in other words, for theatrical experience without the label “theatre” presents a seemingly insoluble paradox. The challenge of the Chautauquas was to answer the audience’s demand for “a rapturous hour,” without provoking the abhorrence for “corrupt . . . shows” that usually went hand in hand with rural Protestant Americans’ anti-theatrical prejudice. 3 In order to demonstrate how, despite this anti-theatrical prejudice, theatre eventually became a celebrated part of the Chautauquas, I will show how the tensions between different definitions of theatre that circulated during this period affected not only the history of the circuits but the history and historiography of American theatre more generally. The Chautauquas were able to present theatre, I will argue, because they ingeniously redefined it by separating out reputable dramatic literature from the material attributes of theatrical illusion—costumes, scenery, and particularly make-up—which its audiences regarded as signs of corruption and immorality. In part because of their peculiar negotiation of America’s anti-theatrical prejudice, the Circuit Chautauquas have been marginalized in theatre...