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Complex Relations (complex + relation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences50%
Medical Sciences33%

Selected Abstracts

Transgenic mosquitoes and malaria transmission

CELLULAR MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 3 2005
George K. Christophides
Summary As the malaria burden persists in most parts of the developing world, the concept of implementation of new strategies such as the use of genetically modified mosquitoes to control the disease continues to gain support. In Africa, which suffers most from malaria, mosquito vector populations are spread almost throughout the entire continent, and the parasite reservoir is big and continuously increasing. Moreover, malaria is transmitted by many species of anophelines with specific seasonal and geographical patterns. Therefore, a well designed, evolutionarily robust and publicly accepted plan aiming at population reduction or replacement is required. The task is twofold: to engineer mosquitoes with a genetic trait that confers resistance to malaria or causes population suppression; and, to drive the new trait through field populations. This review examines these two issues, and describes the groundwork that has been done towards understanding of the complex relation between the parasite and its vector. [source]

Networks, Scale, and Transnational Corporations: The Case of the South Korean Seed Industry

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2006
Sook-Jin Kim
Abstract: In light of recent theoretical scholarship that has incorporated scale with networks perspectives, this article examines the potential of a scalar networks-based approach to understanding the global strategies and activities of transnational corporations (TNCs), through a comparative case study of two TNCs that were involved in the recent transformation of the South Korean seed industry. The comparative study demonstrates that a foreign TNC's mergers and acquisitions (M&As) of major South Korean seed companies in 1998,1999 in the context of structural adjustment (TNC's material politics of scale) was an outcome of complex relations and the intermingling of various actor-networks that were embedded in various scales. A domestic TNC's responses to the M&As, on the other hand, illustrate how the TNC's struggle to reshape power relations through a discursive politics of scale enabled it to extend and enrich its networks and power relations with farmers, politicians, the general public, and the government. Material and discursive uses of scale in the business strategies of TNCs are shaped by complex actor-networks that are embedded in specific sociocultural and institutional contexts and influence new configurations of networks and power relations, and a scalar networks-based approach helps one understand this complexity of TNCs' activities. [source]

Abstract Rule Learning for Visual Sequences in 8- and 11-Month-Olds

INFANCY, Issue 1 2009
Scott P. Johnson
The experiments reported here investigated the development of a fundamental component of cognition: to recognize and generalize abstract relations. Infants were presented with simple rule-governed patterned sequences of visual shapes (ABB, AAB, and ABA) that could be discriminated from differences in the position of the repeated element (late, early, or nonadjacent, respectively). Eight-month-olds were found to distinguish patterns on the basis of the repetition, but appeared insensitive to its position in the sequence; 11-month-olds distinguished patterns over the position of the repetition, but appeared insensitive to the nonadjacent repetition. These results suggest that abstract pattern detection may develop incrementally in a process of constructing complex relations from more primitive components. [source]

Muslim-Christian Relations in Medieval Southern Italy

THE MUSLIM WORLD, Issue 2 2007
Julie Anne Taylor
In response to uprisings in Sicily, the emperor Frederick II transferred an estimated 20,000 Muslims to the city of Lucera in Apulia. Outside the Iberian Peninsula, Lucera came to have the largest Muslim population of any city in western Europe. Although the formation of the colony led to competition for resources between its inhabitants and the local Christian population, the members of the two religious communities often traded and collaborated. Social mobility was possible for the Lucerine Muslims, particularly through military service. Like Christians and Jews living in the dar al-Islam, the Muslims of Lucera had a protected status, and they paid a tax called the jizya. They remained free to practice their religion. The heavy taxes paid by the Muslim colony at Lucera during its almost eighty-year existence made it a valuable asset to the Hohenstaufen and Angevin crowns. Nevertheless, the settlement was dismantled in 1300 on the order of the Angevin king, Charles II, who gave a religious justification. The colony's history provides insight into the complex relations between Muslims and Christians in medieval Mediterranean Europe. [source]

East-Central Europe's changing energy landscapes: a place for geography

AREA, Issue 4 2009
Stefan Bouzarovski
Energy developments in the post-Communist states of Eastern and Central Europe (ECE) have a major impact on global energy security and sustainability, thanks to this region's key geographical position between the energy-exporting states of the former Soviet Union, on the one hand, and the energy-importing states of Western and Southern Europe, on the other. At the same time, post-socialist reforms of energy industries in this region provide unique insights into the complex relations of power, economic transformation and spatial inequality that govern energy production and consumption. This paper therefore aims to provide an initial look at some of the theoretical and policy issues that underpin the emergent ,geographies' of energy reform in ECE, as well as their embeddedness in relations of power stemming from organisational, infrastructural and economic inequalities in the region. It employs an analysis of local news reports, policy papers and statistical data to examine the intricate institutional networks and spatial formations that have governed the energy transformation process. In broader terms, the paper aims to emphasise the important role that human geography can play in making sense of the territorial differences and frictions that have emerged during the post-socialist reform process, while challenging the idea of a ,neat' neoliberal transition from a centrally planned to a market-based mode of energy regulation. [source]

Determinants of quality of life in patients with cancer

CANCER, Issue 5 2005
A South American study
Abstract BACKGROUND Because health-related quality of life (QOL) is an important outcome in cancer management, the authors sought to better understand its determinants. To address this subject, they analyzed QOL, as measured with the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General questionnaire (FACT-G), Spanish Version 4, and depicted the complex relations among physical, psychological, social, and cultural factors, including spirituality. METHODS A cross-sectional study design was used with a sample of 309 patients with cancer. The influence of several possible determinants was first studied by univariate regression analysis. Variables showing an association were included in a forward stepwise multivariate regression model. RESULTS Five regression models were studied, for the FACT-G total score and its four subscales. Five variables explained 32.1% of the variance of the FACT-G total score: tumor stage, spiritual well-being, income, mood disorders, and mode of questionnaire administration. The type and relevance of the explanatory variables differed among the various dimensions of QOL. CONCLUSIONS The authors underlined the entwining of biologic, psychosocial, and spiritual factors as determinants of the QOL of patients with cancer, thus supporting the multidimensional definition and modeling of the construct. Cancer 2005. © 2005 American Cancer Society. [source]