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Ukrainian officials continue to engage in direct, back-channel discussions with their Russian counterparts, with "tough" and "unpleasant" in-person meetings happening along the border between the two countries and in Istanbul, according to a new report from the Washington Post.The reported topics of conversation are far more limited than the early days of the conflict, when a ceasefire or even a peace deal appeared possible. The officials focus instead on practical issues like prisoner swaps, and the return of Ukrainian children who have been taken to Russia.The report sheds useful light on the status of diplomatic efforts related to the war, including the role of international intermediaries and mediators. Turkey, Qatar, the UAE, the Vatican, and Saudi Arabia are the main state-level players in this regard, and the International Committee of the Red Cross has also played a role.One notable area in which Ukrainian and Russian officials have never engaged in one-on-one meetings is the question of Ukrainian grain exports, which largely flowed via the Black Sea prior to the war. According to the Post, the talks "took place in a four-sided format: Turkey; the United Nations; Ukraine and Russia, which was represented by Defense Ministry officials."These discussions resulted in one of the only positive diplomatic signs since the war began: the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which created corridors for shipping much-needed foodstuffs through the Russian blockade. Rustem Umerov, who has since become Ukraine's defense minister, helped lead the Istanbul-based talks, a role made easier by Umerov's fluency in Turkish, the Post notes.But Russia killed the deal earlier this year over allegations that the West had not upheld its side of the bargain, which Moscow says included a relaxation of sanctions on fertilizers and related chemicals.When it comes to prisoner swaps, Ukraine views Turkey and Saudi Arabia as key players whose role "ensured that Russia was less likely to back out, to avoid angering two of Moscow's important partners," the Post writes.The report also reveals the complex role played by the Vatican, which has led on efforts to return noncombatants like military cooks and medics. The Holy See, under Pope Francis, has attempted to rebuild ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, led by Patriarch Kirill.While the war has put a strain on those efforts, some aspects of the rapprochement between the Christian denominations are paying off, according to the Post. Ukraine reportedly passes lists of prisoners to the pope's envoy in the country, who then sends the names to the Holy See. Next, Vatican officials forward the documents to the Russian Orthodox Church, and Kirill himself brings them to the Kremlin's attention.The most positive revelation in the Post's reporting is the news that "groups of children have come back to Ukraine on a semiregular basis" following direct negotiations with Russia, which has quietly felt the pressure of the International Criminal Court warrant against President Vladimir Putin for alleged unlawful transfers of Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied areas.Groups of Ukrainian children "have been dropped off at a far western part of the Ukraine-Belarus border, cross over by foot, and are met in Ukraine by Save Ukraine, a nongovernmental organization," the Post writes.In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:— Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan moved forward a parliamentary proposal to ratify Sweden's accession to NATO, putting Stockholm one step closer to joining the alliance, according to AP News. But another obstacle remains: Hungary, whose ruling party has accused Swedish officials of telling "blatant lies" about the state of the country's democracy, pushed back a vote on the issue until at least next month. One ruling party lawmaker said there was "little chance" that Hungary would ratify Sweden's accession to NATO this year. — With dwindling support for Ukraine aid at home, U.S. President Joe Biden has started making the argument that its massive new funding proposal will be a boon for the American economy, according to Politico. The new line, which is a far cry from previous arguments about defending democracies and the rules-based order, is in large part aimed at Republicans who see Ukraine as a distraction from other priorities and are intent on expanding the U.S. defense industrial base. This angle will likely draw fire from progressives, who often note that military spending is far less effective at creating new jobs than other kinds of government investment.— Russia withdrew its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on Wednesday, opening the door to a new era of nuclear weapons testing amid increased tensions between Washington and Moscow, according to Reuters. Putin framed the decision as an effort to "mirror" the U.S. position on the treaty, which it signed but never ratified. While Russia claims it will only resume testing if the U.S. does so first, new reporting from CNN shows that both countries have expanded their nuclear testing facilities in recent years.— The Biden administration's public support for alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza has led to charges of hypocrisy from many leaders in the Global South who have bristled at Western claims of moral clarity regarding the war in Ukraine, according to the Washington Post:"When the war in Ukraine first broke out, Palestinians were elated by the tough stance taken by Western capitals against one country occupying another's land, said Nour Odeh, a Ramallah-based Palestinian political commentator. 'But it seems that occupation is only bad if the guys who are not on your side are doing it.' (...)There is a perception that the West 'cares more about Ukrainian refugees, about Ukrainian civilians suffering, than we do when they are suffering in Yemen, in Gaza, in Sudan, in Syria,' said Hanna Notte, a Berlin-based Eurasia analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.That helps illustrate why the West has failed to woo countries like India and Turkey into supporting sanctions against Russia. Given the situation in Gaza, that effort is unlikely to succeed any time soon."U.S. State Department news:In a Monday press conference, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the U.S. is "deeply concerned" about Russia's ongoing detention of an American-Russian journalist for Radio Free Europe, who faces charges of failing to register as a foreign agent and has been in Russian custody since June. "We have requested consular access; so far it has not been granted. We will continue to press for it," Miller said, adding that "we have not even been officially notified of her arrest by the Russian Government."
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An open letter released Wednesday signed by more than 100 veterans of the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations, ex-military officers, and former Republican lawmakers and activists called for fellow conservatives and congressional Republicans to support increased military aid to Ukraine and criticized President Biden for "seem[ing] more concerned about the prospects of a Russian defeat than of a Russian victory."The letter, initiated by the "nonpartisan" Vandenberg Coalition, a "network" of hawkish foreign policy think tankers and former officials convened by long-time neo-conservative Elliott Abrams, was directed primarily at "conservative" lawmakers and their constituents who have appeared increasingly resistant to providing more aid to Kyiv."Abandoning America's friends while they are falling victim to aggression is a pattern associated with the American left, from Vietnam to Afghanistan," according to the letter."Conservatives should not be rushing to lock arms with progressive isolationists. The security of Asia and of Europe are linked, which is why the elected leaders of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia have all sent aid to Ukraine. We support urgent, robust additional American aid to Ukraine," it concluded.Published in The National Review, the letter comes in the immediate aftermath of "the House GOP's decision not to include further funding to support Kyiv and its war effort" in the stopgap government funding bill that was passed last weekend and the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had allegedly quietly agreed with the Biden administration to push for additional funding for Ukraine in the coming weeks.According to a September 7-18 poll released Tuesday by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll, about 50% of self-identified Republicans nationwide support continued military aid to Ukraine, while 45% or Republican respondents said the aid to date "has not been worth the cost." Overall, Republican respondents were significantly more skeptical of U.S. support for Ukraine than self-identified Democrats or independents.The Vandenberg Coalition was created by Abrams — who served as "special representative" for both Venezuela and Iran under Trump and deputy national security adviser with particular responsibility for Middle East policy under Bush — in April, 2021 with the evident intention of reuniting predominantly neoconservative "Never Trumpers" with other hawkish Republicans who had served under or otherwise supported the former president behind a policy of confrontation with Russia, China, Iran, and other perceived U.S. adversaries. The initiative took its name from Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, a conservative Michigan Republican who, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, worked with the Truman administration to gain congressional backing for the Marshall Plan and NATO after World War II.The Coalition appears to model itself in part on the Project for the New American Century (1997-2006) and its successor, the Foreign Policy Initiative (2009-2017), as a mainly neoconservative network for hawks of various ideological backgrounds, including primacists, aggressive nationalists, such as Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton and prominent leaders of the Christian Right, to exchange information and analysis and publish "open letters" signed by dozens of former senior national security officials, retired military brass, Republican lawmakers, and analysts from various think tanks.In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, PNAC's letters and their signatories based in key think tanks — notably the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Hudson Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Foundation for Defending of Democracies (FDD), and the Center for Security Policy — played key roles in building public and elite support for the Bush administration's "war on terror," especially in the Middle East.The new Vandenberg letter appears to follow that playbook, although it is directed more at "conservatives" and Republicans rather than a more general audience.Among the more than 100 signatories, many of whom were identified by their former official positions in the Bush and Trump administrations rather than their past or current non-governmental affiliations, a number of individuals based at several of the same think tanks that played such a prominent role in promoting the Iraq war, including Danielle Pletka, Gary Schmitt, and Michael Rubin at AEI; Clifford May and at FDD, and Kenneth Weinstein at Hudson, not to mention Abrams himself, who is currently based at the Council on Foreign Relations, stood out.Remarkably, the list also included Randy Scheunemann, who directed the high-powered White House-sponsored Committee for the Liberation of Iraq in the run-up to the war at the same time that he headed a public relations and lobbying firm that promoted Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, a major source of fabricated intelligence and disinformation that the Bush administration used to rally public opinion in favor of the invasion.In the letter, its signatories stressed the likelihood of disastrous outcomes across the world if Ukraine did not receive more U.S. military assistance and stressed that Kyiv is "not asking for American troops, only American weapons and equipment.""Efforts to stop our aid to Ukraine could lead to a Russian battlefield victory, with catastrophic effects for American security," it warned. "Putin would eye the next stage of the Russian empire's restoration, and China would have a green light to take Taiwan."The Coalition has published two other letters signed by multiple individuals. In February 2022, it published an open letter signed by more than three dozen mainly neoconservative former Bush administration officials and think tankers that called a major Amnesty International report that concluded that Israel was practicing a form of apartheid in its treatment of Palestinians "untruthful, deceptive, and antisemitic."In January, it published a letter directed to the "editors, authors, and contributors to major scientific, medical and journalistic publications worldwide" that called for "accountability for those scientific and news publications that actively sought to censor voices investigating the origins of COVID-19."The Coalition's most recent letter and its focus on "conservative" reservations about supporting Ukraine recalls to some extent a 1996 Foreign Affairs article, "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy," by leading neoconservatives William Kristol and Robert Kagan who were concerned that conservatives would be unable to "resist the combined assault of [then-presidential candidate Pat] Buchanan's 'isolationism of the heart" and the Republican budget hawks on Capitol Hill." The article argued in favor of a U.S. foreign policy designed to maintain a "benevolent global hegemony."One year later, the two authors jointly founded PNAC with a Statement of Principles signed by, among others, key architects of the Iraq invasion and its aftermath, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Abrams.
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Last week's edition of Diplomacy Watch focused on how politics in Poland and Slovakia were threatening Western unity over Ukraine. A spat between Warsaw and Kyiv over grain imports led Polish President Andrzej Duda to compare Ukraine to a "drowning person … capable of pulling you down to the depths ," while upcoming elections in Slovakia could bring to power a new leader who has pledged to halt weapons sales to Ukraine. As Connor Echols wrote last week, "the West will soon face far greater challenges in maintaining unity on Ukraine than at any time since the war began." A piece in Politico this week outlining the challenges facing the incoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff C.Q. Brown as he prepares to take over from Gen. Mark Milley suggests that the divisions may be even more widespread. "As Ukrainian forces push for a breakthrough before winter sets in, there is a growing sense in Washington and Europe that the West may be weary of the fight," wrote Lara Seligman. "On Capitol Hill, hardline Republicans oppose sending additional aid; across the Atlantic, Poland recently said it could not send any more weapons to Ukraine in the short term, and French officials recently hinted the country would soon reach that point as well." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been busy trying to win over skeptics around the world, but there is not much evidence that his audience in the Global South or the GOP caucus in Washington has been particularly receptive to his message. In the U.S. Congress, future funding for the war in Ukraine has taken an outsized role in the ongoing battle for government funding, and little progress has been made this week. A small but growing (and increasingly vocal) group of Republicans in both the House and Senate have vowed to hold up government spending legislation if it includes more aid for Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal indicated that others are watching these fights closely. "Intertwined with those contentious negotiations in Washington are rising concerns in European capitals about the war, particularly if Washington's support shows signs of flagging," the Journal reported. "While European backing for Ukraine generally remains solid, cracks are starting to surface as weapons stockpiles from some allies dwindle and others hesitate to fill the gaps." This infighting in various capitals around the world comes at what Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies described to Politico as a turning point in the war. "If the counteroffensive fails, or if the counteroffensive does not get through the Russian defensive zone in a major way, I think that fears of a forever war will get stronger," said Cancian. From the perspective of the incoming U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman, it will likely become increasingly difficult to navigate both the domestic political and battlefield realities. "Milley was in the enviable position of having a lot of stuff and a lot of political support so that makes it easy," Cancian told Politico. "Brown is in the position of having less stuff and less political support." In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine: —Some Western politicians are pushing the government in Kyiv to hold elections, despite the ongoing war and the imposition of martial law. Visiting Ukraine's capital last month, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that it was"time for Ukraine to take the next step" in the "development of democracy, namely to hold elections in 2024." But Ukrainian officials have expressed serious skepticism that new elections would be prudent, or even possible. "Ukrainian officials say that in order to hold a major vote during wartime, considerable financial, logistical and legal hurdles must be overcome," the Washington Post reported. "In private, some say that the prospect is outright impossible, and could provide Moscow's security forces with a means to infiltrate and weaken Ukraine from within." The Biden administration has maintained that the timing for a new election will be Ukraine's decision. —Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky met with defense ministers from France and Britain, as well as NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg ahead of an arms production forum in Kyiv. The forum, according to Ukraine's foreign minister, will bring together representatives of 165 military contractors from 26 nations. "It will be an important opportunity for Ukrainian companies to forge new partnerships with the industry across the alliance and beyond," Stoltenberg said at a news conference with Zelensky on Thursday. "The stronger Ukraine becomes, the closer we come to ending Russia's aggression." —Significant territorial gains have been hard to come by for either side this year, according to a new study by the New York Times. "Despite nine months of bloody fighting, less than 500 square miles of territory have changed hands since the start of the year. A prolonged stalemate could weaken Western support for Ukraine," the Times reported. The Times' analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War showed that August 2023 was the month in which the least territory changed hands since the invasion last year. —Ukraine is continuing to search for safe alternatives for its grain exports following Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea grain initiative in July. Last week, Ukraine successfully tested a new route, and a second ship made it through this week. Three more vessels have safely entered Ukrainian waters in recent days, officials told the New York Times. In the past week, the Times reported, "it appears that Russia has made no public attempt to impede the progress of commercial vessels along the new route." U.S. State Department news: In a press briefing on Tuesday, State Department spokesman Mattew Miller spoke about the state of Ukraine support amid the ongoing disputes on Capitol Hill."We have been encouraged by the bipartisan support that we have gotten from Congress since the beginning of this war. I think it is quite clear, if you look at the debate in Congress, that there are bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress that support continued aid to Ukraine," Miller said. "Now, look, there's a process that we have to go through in working with Congress. I think it was important that President Zelenskyy was able to travel to the Hill last week and communicate directly with members of Congress about what is happening on the ground. We have been able to talk to Congress about accountability mechanisms that we have in place for the aid that we've provided. We've heard them say we want to hear accountability; we've made clear we have accountability mechanisms and we're happy to talk to you more about what those look like."
El libro que presentamos parte de un prólogo del Presidente de la Junta de Extremadura, don Guillermo Fernández Vara, que al aceptar nuestra petición de prologar este trabajo, da una vez más, muestra de la cercanía de su acción política e institucional a la realidad social de nuestra tierra. En "La sociedad de Extremadura desde la sociología", se analizan los modelos socioeconómicos de la región en la segunda mitad del siglo XX, desde la visión sociológica del "atraso" regional, por José Antonio Pérez Rubio. También se estudia la pandemia de COVID-19, con una mirada desde la perspectiva sociológica, por parte de José Ignacio Urquijo Valdivielso, estudioso de la "sociología de las religiones" y preocupado por la lógica de la creación de los sistemas de valores en la sociedad actual, un ejemplo de esto es el capítulo sobre el impacto de COVID-19. El libro incluye dos capítulos del Tomás Calvo Buezas. El profesor Calvo, en este libro, realiza dos transcendentales aportaciones, la primera de ella relativa a los valores y opiniones de los jóvenes de España y de Extremadura, sobre la inmigración y el racismo. La segunda, como buen conocedor que es del sistema educativo de Cuba, los estrechos vínculos de España con el país caribeño. El capítulo del profesor Francisco Javier Monago Lozano, es una de las contribuciones más destacadas, ya que hoy nadie habla de movilidad social en Extremadura; mientras a nivel nacional e internacional, bajo la denominación de "ascensor social", todos se refieren al declive de las clases medias. El historiador y sociólogo Guillermo León Cáceres, profesional comprometido con la lucha por la recuperación de la memoria histórica, ofrece un análisis de la conformación de ese movimiento en Extremadura, así como su activismo y el impacto de este en la esfera pública. Los sociólogos y antropólogos Juan Manuel Caso Mateos y Martín Gómez-Ullate, mediante el método del caso aplicado al estudio de la "movida cacereña", abordan las bases de la cultura e identidad social en ese periodo histórico. La profesora Rocío Blanco Gregory, lleva a cabo una novedosa investigación relativa a la emigración joven cualificada, que tiene un alcance internacional y comparativo con dos regiones del sur de Europa como son Extremadura en España y La Campania en Italia. El capítulo muestra los factores estructurales y las razones individuales que predisponen a la movilidad territorial entre los jóvenes más cualificados. La profesora, y decana del Colegio de Sociólogos y Politólogos de Extremadura, Eva María Flores Guerrero, hace un balance de las variables que están determinado el problema demográfico de Extremadura. Finalmente, el profesor Marcelo Sánchez-Oro Sánchez, presidente de la Asociación de Sociología de Extremadura (ACISE) explica, con datos, que la Extremadura de hoy, es la historia de un éxito colectivo, basado en la equidad social y en niveles, inusitados para la región, de igualdad y bienestar, soportado todo ello en una amplia clase media. Esto significa que el cambio experimentado por Extremadura, en los últimos decenios, no tienen referencia en toda nuestra historia. ; The book we are presenting is based on a prologue by the President of the Regional Government of Extremadura, Mr. Guillermo Fernández Vara, who by accepting our request to write the prologue to this work, once again demonstrates the closeness of his political and institutional action to the social reality of our land. In "La sociedad de Extremadura desde la sociología", José Antonio Pérez Rubio analyses the socio-economic models of the region in the second half of the 20th century, from the sociological viewpoint of regional "backwardness". The COVID-19 pandemic is also studied from a sociological perspective by José Ignacio Urquijo Valdivielso, a scholar of the "sociology of religions" and concerned with the logic of the creation of value systems in today's society, an example of which is the chapter on the impact of COVID-19. The book includes two chapters by Tomás Calvo Buezas. Professor Calvo, in this book, makes two transcendental contributions, the first concerning the values and opinions of young people in Spain and Extremadura on immigration and racism. The second, as a connoisseur of Cuba's educational system, the close ties between Spain and the Caribbean country. The chapter by Professor Francisco Javier Monago Lozano is one of the most outstanding contributions, since today no one talks about social mobility in Extremadura, while at the national and international level, under the term "social lift", everyone refers to the decline of the middle classes. The historian and sociologist Guillermo León Cáceres, a professional committed to the struggle for the recovery of historical memory, offers an analysis of the formation of this movement in Extremadura, as well as its activism and its impact on the public sphere. Sociologists and anthropologists Juan Manuel Caso Mateos and Martín Gómez-Ullate, using the case method applied to the study of the "movida cacereña", address the foundations of culture and social identity in this historical period. Professor Rocío Blanco Gregory carries out a novel research project on qualified young emigration, which has an international and comparative scope with two regions in southern Europe, Extremadura in Spain and Campania in Italy. The chapter shows the structural factors and individual reasons that predispose the most qualified young people to territorial mobility. Eva María Flores Guerrero, professor and dean of the College of Sociologists and Political Scientists of Extremadura, takes stock of the variables that are determining the demographic problem in Extremadura. Finally, Professor Marcelo Sánchez-Oro Sánchez, President of the Association of Sociology of Extremadura (ACISE) explains, with data, that the Extremadura of today is the story of a collective success story, based on social equity and levels of equality and well-being, unheard of for the region, all supported by a large middle class. This means that the change experienced by Extremadura in recent decades is unparalleled in our history. ; La presente publicación ha sido posible gracias a la financiación concedida por la Consejería de Economía, Ciencia y Agenda Digital de la Junta de Extremadura y por el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional de la Unión Europea a través de la ayuda de referencia GR21161 ; peerReviewed
Studying Confucian classics is commonly known as core activity in Chinese imperial education – at least for young men who sought a career as government official. When this learning technique reappeared in classrooms of privately-run so-called contemporary "academies" and "study halls", heated debates on the value of traditional education for contemporary Chinese society ensued in academia and society. Children who study the classics in a full-time approach receive education outside of China's system of compulsory education. Given that study halls and academies are usually not registered as schools, they can neither offer an officially recognized diploma nor an official school registration which is, for example, needed for participation in the secondary school and the university entrance examinations. The legal situation of reading the classics today as alternative to public education remains subject of negotiations between headmasters of the newly emerged facilities and local government officials. Nevertheless, parents take the risk to send their children to these facilities to receive education. In addition, parents are taking on a huge financial burden as study fees in these facilities are quite high. Despite all obstacles, many parents decide that their child(ren) should learn from China's ancient masters rather than from today's schoolbooks. In the continued trend of Confucian revival in China since the 1980s and 1990s, classics reading education appears as a project of retraditionalization on the level of the people (minjian). Originally developed by educator and Confucian scholar Wang Caigui, the educational approach of reading the classics has been translated into different forms of practice in individual educational facilities. Even though classics reading activities and initiatives are very diverse and far from forming a coherent movement, educational activists follow the common goal to make Chinese society more moral, civilized, and more Chinese again. Confucian idealism is projected into visions of a better future which highly influence activists in the classics reading movement (dujing yundong). Motivated (or repelled) by perceived lacks and deficiencies in Chinese society today, classics reading activists develop rich imaginaries of a better future; this utopian thought is attempted to be implemented into everyday routines and learners' lives in study halls and academies. Ideals and specific localized practice play key roles in classics reading education: ideals are implemented into daily practice, and daily practice takes place in a carefully designed environment which responds to these abstract ideals with corresponding ideal structures. The embodiment of abstract ideals and visions in locations and people's identities, behaviors and actions is a major concern in grounded utopian movements. The theory of grounded utopian movements is taken over as tool to make results of the study of the classics reading movement better understandable and to take them to another level of abstraction and comparability. Emerging in the research on nativistic movements in North and South America among native groups, grounded utopian movement theory explained what fell out of the grid of established social movement and new social movement theory – movements that could not respond well to the society-state relation assumed in Northern America and Europe in relation to their nation state building processes. Crucial for the introduction of this new theoretical framework is a history of foreign occupation and cultural oppression which influenced nation building processes in these countries. Considering China's turbulent conditions at the beginning of the 20th century, similarities in historical fates appear, especially in China's intellectual world and educational landscape which were both dominated by foreign thought and system for a long time. Different "lacks" in China's current society (inadequate public education, moral decline of society, shifting family values and lack of knowledge in child raising on parent's side) are linked to China's multiple disconnection with its own cultural tradition in the past (from Qing dynasty onwards but at the latest starting with the anti-traditional May Fourth Movement in 1919). Confucian activists take the responsibility for filling or counterbalancing these lacks with a rich cultural and moral education under the patronage of the sages of China's more distant and more glorious past. Interview and participant observation data from ethnographic field research carried out between October 2015 and July 2016 are the basis for this study. In 2015, information on the phenomenon of classics reading education which was taken directly from practice was scarce and largely related to studies which were not mainly concerned with education but, for example, with Confucian revival in general or the religious/ spiritual side of popular Confucian projects. In-depth interviews drew a vivid image of the classics reading world as imagined and lived by classics reading educators and parents. Field observation during the visits in class and naturally occurring talks with involved people revealed how difficult it is to drag such rich ideals into reality. The highest ideal to become a morally upright gentleman (junzi; the term is used gender-neutral and encompasses girls and women) who would influence and improve Chinese society requires time consuming daily recitation of Confucian (and "Western") classics over many years – a practice which is always the same and carried out in the same daily rhythms. Exceedingly few (parents of) children commit to the whole package of 20 years of classics reading education – and considering that the movement only picked up speed at the beginning of the 2000s, there can hardly be students who already went all the way. An assessment of possible outcomes of the movement can only have a preliminary character, but there are activists who critically examine their own actions and routines and see the price paid for sticking to ideals too strictly. In many cases, students' further development in higher education and/ or professional life remains a question mark. Utopia in practice looks less ideal than in theory. Nevertheless, the utopian movement of reading the classics teaches a lot about coping with caesuras in the past, changes in the present, and conceptualizations of the future. Active engagement in realizing these future concepts drives people to explore new paths – even in legally unclarified grey areas – and secure their own participation in (social) matters which are of concern for them. Even though the classics reading movement might be small and operating in the margins, the Chinese government has started to respond to people's own initiatives in their (educational) policies.
Welcome to the fourth issue of volume 42 of the IASSIST Quarterly (IQ 42:4, 2018).
The IASSIST Quarterly presents in this issue three papers. When you know how, cycling is easy. However, data for cycling infrastructure appears to be a messiness of complications, stakeholders and data producers. The exemplary lesson is that whatever your research area there are often many views and types of data possible for your research. And the fuller view does not make your research easier, but it does make it better. The term geospatial data covers many different types of data, and as such presents problems for building access points or portals for these data. The second paper also brings experiences with complicated data, now with a focus on data management and curation. I would say that the third paper on software development in digital humanities is also about complicatedness, but this time the complicatedness was not overcome. Maybe here complexity is a better choice of word than complicatedness. In my book things are complex until we have solved how to deal with them; after that they are only complicated. The word failure is even among the keywords selected for this entry. Again: Read and learn. You might learn more from failure than from success. I find that Sir Winston Churchill is always at hand to keep up the good spirit: 'Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm'.
From Canada comes the paper 'Cycling Infrastructure in the Ottawa-Gatineau Area: A Complex Assemblage of Data' that some readers might have seen in the form of a poster at the IASSIST 2018 conference in Montreal. The authors are Sylvie Lafortune, Social Sciences Librarian at Carleton University in Ottawa, and Joël Rivard, Geography and GIS Librarian at the University of Ottawa. The article is a commendable example of how to encompass and illuminate an area of research not only though data but also by including the data producers and stakeholders, and the relationships between them. The article is based upon a study conducted in 2017-2018 that explored the data story behind the cycling infrastructure in Ottawa, Canada's capital city; or to be precise, the infrastructure of the cycling network of over 1,000 km which spans both sides of the Ontario and Quebec provincial boundary known as the Ottawa-Gatineau National Capital Region. The municipalities invest in cycling infrastructure including expanded and improved bike lanes and paths, traffic calming measures, parking facilities, bike-transit integration, bike sharing and training programs to promote cycling and increased cycling safety. The research included many types of data among which were data from telephone interviews concerning 'who, where, why, when, and how' in an Origin-Destination survey, data generated by mobile apps tracking fitness activities, collision data, and bike counters placed in the area. The study shows how a narrow subject topic such as cycling infrastructure is embedded in complicated data and many relationships.
Ningning Nicole Kong is the author of 'One Store has All? – the Backend Story of Managing Geospatial Information Toward an Easy Discovery'. Many libraries are handling geographical information and my shortened version of the abstract from the article promises: GeoBlacklight and OpenGeoportal are two open-source projects that initiated from academic institutions, which have been adopted by many universities and libraries for geospatial data discovery. The paper provides a summary of geospatial data management strategies by reviewing related projects, and focuses on best management practices when curating geospatial data. The paper starts with a historical introduction to geospatial datasets in academic libraries in the United States and also presents the complicatedness involved in geospatial data. The paper mentions geoportals and related projects in both the United States and Europe with a focus on OpenGeoportal. Nicole Kong is an assistant professor and GIS specialist at Purdue University Libraries.
Sophie 1.0 was an attempt to create a multimedia editing, reading, and publishing platform. Based at the University of Southern California with national and international collaboration, Sophie 2.0 was a project to rewrite Sophie 1.0 in the Java programming language. The author Jasmine S. Kirby gives the rationale for the article 'How NOT to Create a Digital Media Scholarship Platform: The History of the Sophie 2.0 Project' in the sentence: 'Understanding what went wrong with Sophie 2.0 can help us understand how to create better digital media scholarship tools'. For the first time we now have failure among the keywords used for a paper in IQ. The Institute of the Future of the Book (IFB) was a central collaborator in the development of the Sophie versions. The IFB describes itself as a think-and-do tank and it is doing many projects. The Kirby paper gives us a brief insight into the future of reading, starting from basic e-books in the 1960s. When you read through the article you will note caveats like lack of focus on usability and changing of the underneath software language. The article ends with good questions for evaluating digital scholarship tools.
Submissions of papers for the IASSIST Quarterly are always very welcome. We welcome input from IASSIST conferences or other conferences and workshops, from local presentations or papers especially written for the IQ. When you are preparing such a presentation, give a thought to turning your one-time presentation into a lasting contribution. Doing that after the event also gives you the opportunity of improving your work after feedback. We encourage you to login or create an author login to https://www.iassistquarterly.com (our Open Journal System application). We permit authors 'deep links' into the IQ as well as deposition of the paper in your local repository. Chairing a conference session with the purpose of aggregating and integrating papers for a special issue IQ is also much appreciated as the information reaches many more people than the limited number of session participants and will be readily available on the IASSIST Quarterly website at https://www.iassistquarterly.com. Authors are very welcome to take a look at the instructions and layout:
https://www.iassistquarterly.com/index.php/iassist/about/submissions
Authors can also contact me directly via e-mail: kbr@sam.sdu.dk. Should you be interested in compiling a special issue for the IQ as guest editor(s) I will also be delighted to hear from you.
Karsten Boye Rasmussen - February 2019
Проведено системний аналіз тенденцій розвитку органічної продукції в Україні та Польщі, який показав, що загальна площа сертифікованих екологічних земель в Україні за досліджуваний період (2006–2016 роки) зросла в 1,7 раза, а в Польщі з 2004 до 2014 року зросла в 12 разів.Встановлено, що найсуттєвіший вплив на якісні структурні зміни в економічному секторі має адаптація до європейських стандартів, які встановлюють сприятливу систему регулювання агровиробництва, маркування та інспекцію органічної продукції. Саме тому Польща, перебуваючи в Європейському Союзі, має значну перевагу над Україною. Узагальнено систему контролю і сертифікації уповноваженими органами, а також механізм фінансової підтримки органічного агровиробництва. Наголошено на необхідності використання досвіду Польщі з метою екологізації сільського господарства й розвитку органічного агровиробництва в Україні.Ключові слова: органічне виробництво, агровиробництво, якість, сільське господарство, контроль, сертифікація, фінансова підтримка ; Today, in Ukraine, perhaps the most important brake factor for the development of organic production and the cultivation of organic agricultural products is the demand for the domestic food market. And also the development of organic production constrains the incompleteness of the legislative and regulatory framework, which would clearly outline the state policy in this area.The development of ecological agriculture in Poland is a complex ecological system of farming, which is an example of the correct implementation of the concept of balanced development, which has ecological and social significance. The dynamic development of ecological agriculture in this country during the last decade is due, first of all, to the increased interest of rural commodity producers to produce organic products, and consumers - to buy environmentally sound food products on the domestic market and markets of other EU countries.The positive experience with organic agriculture accumulated in this country is of scientific interest and requires proper analysis with a view to its borrowing and introduction into the Ukrainian black soil, taking into account the peculiarities of the agrarian sector of the Ukrainian economy.Favorable climatic conditions open up wide opportunities for Ukraine to switch to organic farming, which could ensure the growth of production of high-quality food products for their own needs and for perspective segments of the external market.The analysis of the research results shows that in the organic agriculture of Ukraine, the total area of agricultural land of agricultural enterprises is about 1%. At the same time, Ukraine occupies the first place in the Eastern European region regarding the certified area of organic arable land, specializing mainly in the production of cereals, leguminous plants and oilseeds. In addition, 530 thousand hectares of wildlife are certified in our country.In 2016, the area of certified organic land is 179166 hectares, which is much less than in neighboring Poland, where there are already about 800 thousand hectares. An annual Organic Marketing Forum in Warsaw is an important initiative for the development of the Polish internal market. Its purpose is to support closer cooperation in the enlarged European Union and the creation of internal organic markets in central and eastern Europe through business meetings between entrepreneurs.According to the structure of certified organic agricultural land 76.4% is arable land, 21.3% - pastures, 0.5% - perennials. It should be noted that Ukraine is the world leader in the production of organic honey and holds leading positions in the area of certified land: grain - the fourth place; sunflower - the fifth; oil crops - the fifth; vegetables - the ninth place.Every year, an increase in demand for organic products is attracting market expansion, as well as an increase in the number of farms. So in 2006, 80 enterprises were certified on the territory of Ukraine, when in 2016 their number was 390 - increased by 310 enterprises.The average certified organic farming is over 2000 hectares, which puts Ukraine above Poland - only 25 hectares. In the southern and western parts of Ukraine, as well as in the Poltava region, there is the largest number of enterprises engaged in the production of organic products.According to the Polish legislation, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development grants powers to the certification authorities, and the inspection of the quality of agricultural commodities is supervised both by the certifying authorities and by the holdings that have been accredited at the Polish Center of Accreditation.Producers of organic products in Poland receive state aid immediately after several indicators. First, the participation of farmers in food quality control systems, which, through continuous monitoring of state bodies, checks the conformity of products with EU standards.Participation in the Quality Control Program brings to the farmer income in the amount of 255 euros per year. Second, help is allocated to advertising and information activities. Compensation for up to 70% of advertising and distribution costs for organic products is foreseen. Thirdly, the costs associated with the transition from the usual method of farming to organic are compensated. In this case, the maximum subsidy during the transition period, which reaches 461 euros per 1 ha per year, is received by gardeners of Poland. The smallest amount of subsidies (66 euros per 1 ha per year) is provided for long-term large-scale pastures certified as organic. Depending on the type of farming and its specialization, the direct subsidization of farms engaged in the production of organic produce is an average of EUR 240 per 1 ha per year.That is why in Ukraine it is possible to increase the number of producers of organic products through state support (subsidizing, preferential lending, subsidies) of this activity, especially in the first three years. An important tool for realizing the potential of organic production is the introduction of certification marks for organic labeling, promotion of the culture of consumption of organic products, and raising the standard of living of the population.For our state, which has significant areas of high-yielding land, this opens up the possibility in the near future to become one of the European leaders in the production of environmentally friendly food products.The dynamic development of organic farming in Poland is an example of the implementation of the concept of balanced agricultural development, rural areas and environmental protection.The accumulated positive experience in conducting organic agriculture in Poland is of scientific and practical interest for its use in order to ecologies the domestic agrarian sector, the development of organic farming in Ukraine.Equally important stimulus factor is targeted financial support in the form of grants of organic producers from the national budget of the country.
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a reliable tool in ensuring the environmental sustainability of trans-boundary basins. Directive 2001/42/EU defines the obligations of the government (or those of private organizations that provide public services) to identify and assess potentially significant environ-mental effects of the proposed plans and programs (not politicians), including cross-border cooperation, view to easing or avoiding a potentially significant negative impact on the environment prior to approval of such a plan or program. The Dnieper river is one of the largest rivers of Europe, the swimming pool of which is 511 thousand km2 and is located within three states — the Russian Federation (19.8% of the total area of the pool), Belarus (22.9%), and Ukraine (57.3%). Taking into account the socio-economic situation of cross-border the environmental situation in the Dnieper basin is constantly unstable. Therefore, to solve the environmental problems of trans-boundary River, the most promising is a practical evidence-based implementation of basin principle of nature, which involves the use of an integrated approach to land- and water conservation measures on the basis of the systematic research. The basis of the research objectives is entrusted with the implementation of SEA of space-time transformation of landscape of the ecosystems of the Dnieper river catchment area on the basis of river basin approach. Strategic environmental assessment and spatial clustering was carried out on six indicators of agrogenic transformation of structural and functional state of landscape ecosystems of the Dnieper river basin: forest cover, plowing, squares slopes more 1°, squares slopes of southern exposure, the area cultivated slopes, eroded areas of arable land. As a result, SEA and geo-modeling determined that more than 50% of the Dnieper basin has high agrogenic transformation of the structural and functional status of the landscape ecosystems. The main criterion for the destabilization of agricultural landscapes is a high level of tillage, in this case the most effective tool for improving the ecological balance of the territory of the trans-boundary basin study is the reduction of arable land for other land or environmental fund 470 sub-basin boundaries with a total area of ~ 346.3 thousand km (~ 67.8). Rational land use in accordance with the strategic environmental assessment should take into account the characteristics and features of the landscape, promote the protection and reproduction of soil, vegetation and other natural components in a single agreement between the countries of trans-boundary basin ; Стратегическая экологическая оценка (СЭО) является надежным инструментом в обеспечении устойчивости окружающей среды стран трансграничных бассейнов. Директива 2001/42/ЕС определяет обязательства органов государственного управления (или частных организаций, предоставляющих публичные услуги) по определению и оценке потенциально значимых экологических последствий предлагаемых планов и программ (не политики), в т.ч. в сфере трансграничного сотрудничества, с целью ослабления или предотвращения потенциально значимого негативного влияния на окружающую среду еще до принятия такого плана или программы. Река Днепр является одной из крупнейших рек Европы, бассейн которой имеет 511 тыс. км2 и расположен в пределах трех государств — Российской Федерации (19,8% от общей площади бассейна), Республики Беларусь (22,9) и Украины (57,3%). Учитывая социально-экономическое положение трансграничных стран, экологическая ситуация в бассейне Днепра остается стабильно неустойчивой. Установлено, что для решения экологических проблем трансграничной реки наиболее перспективным является практическое научно обоснованное внедрение бассейновых принципов природопользования, которое предусматривает использование комплексного подхода к организации земле- и водоохранных мероприятий, с учетом системности исследований. В основу задачи исследования положено осуществление СЭО пространственно-временной трансформации ландшафтных экосистем водосборной территории р. Днепр на основе принципов бассейнового подхода. Стратегическая экологическая оценка и пространственная группировка осуществлены по шести показателям агрогенной трансформации структурно-функционального состояния ландшафтных экосистем бассейна Днепра: лесистость, распашка, площадь склонов более 1°, площадь склонов южной экспозиции, площадь распаханных склонов, площадь эродированных пахотных земель. По результатам СЭО и геомоделирования определено, что более 50% территории бассейна Днепра имеет высокую агрогенную трансформацию структурно-функционального состояния ландшафтных экосистем. Главным критерием дестабилизации агроландшафтов является высокая распашка, для решения вопроса эффективным инструментом улучшения экологического баланса территории трансграничного бассейна является сокращение пахотных земель в пользу других угодий или экологического фонда в пределах 470 суббасейнов с общей площадью ~ 346,3 тыс. км2 (~ 67,8). Рациональное землепользование в соответствии с СЭО должно учитывать свойства и особенности ландшафта, способствовать охране и восстановлению почвенного, растительного покрова и других природных компонентов в согласовании между государствами трансграничного бассейна ; Стратегічна екологічна оцінка (СЕО) є надійним інструментом у забезпеченні стійкості навколишнього середовища країн транскордонних басейнів. Директива 2001/42/ЄC визначає зобов'язання органів державного управління (або тих приватних організацій, що надають публічні послуги) щодо визначення та оцінки потенційно значущих екологічних наслідків пропонованих планів та програм (не політики), у т.ч. у сфері транскордонного співробітництва, з метою послаблення або уникнення потенційно значущого негативного впливу на навколишнє природне середовище ще до ухвалення такого плану або програми. Річка Дніпро є однією із найбільших річок Європи, басейн якої має 511 тис. кмоо2гг22 і розташований у межах трьох держав — Російської Федерації (19,8 % від загальної площі басейну), Республіки Білорусь (22,9) та України (57,3 %). З огляду на соціально-економічний стан транскордонних країн, екологічна ситуація в басейні Дніпра є стабільно нестійкою. Встановлено, що для розв'язання екологічних проблем транскордонної річки найбільш перспективним є практичне науково обґрунтоване впровадження басейнових принципів природокористування, яке передбачає використання комплексного підходу до організації земле- та водоохоронних заходів, з урахуванням системності досліджень. В основу завдання дослідження покладено здійснення СЕО просторово-часової трансформації ландшафтних екосистем водозбірної території р. Дніпро на основі принципів басейнового підходу. Стратегічна екологічна оцінка і просторове групування здійснено за шістьма показниками агрогенної трансформації структурно-функціонального стану ландшафтних екосистем басейну Дніпра: лісистість, розораність, площі схилів понад 1о, площі схилів південної експозиції, площі розораних схилів, площі еродованих орних земель. За результатами СЕО і геомоделювання визначено, що понад 50% території басейну Дніпра має високу агрогенну трансформацію структурно-функціонального стану ландшафтних екосистем. Головним критерієм дестабілізації агроландшафтів є висока розораність, для вирішення питання найефективнішим інструментом покращення екологічного балансу території транскордонного басейну є скорочення орних земель на користь інших угідь або екологічного фонду в межах 470 суббасейнів із загальною площею ~ 346,3 тис. кмдд 2ь ь (~ 67,8). Раціональне землекористування відповідно до СЕО повинно враховувати властивості і особливості ландшафту, сприяти охороні і відтворенню ґрунтового, рослинного покриву та інших природних компонентів у співробітництві і узгодженні між державами транскордонного басейну
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a reliable tool in ensuring the environmental sustainability of trans-boundary basins. Directive 2001/42/EU defines the obligations of the government (or those of private organizations that provide public services) to identify and assess potentially significant environ-mental effects of the proposed plans and programs (not politicians), including cross-border cooperation, view to easing or avoiding a potentially significant negative impact on the environment prior to approval of such a plan or program. The Dnieper river is one of the largest rivers of Europe, the swimming pool of which is 511 thousand km2 and is located within three states — the Russian Federation (19.8% of the total area of the pool), Belarus (22.9%), and Ukraine (57.3%). Taking into account the socio-economic situation of cross-border the environmental situation in the Dnieper basin is constantly unstable. Therefore, to solve the environmental problems of trans-boundary River, the most promising is a practical evidence-based implementation of basin principle of nature, which involves the use of an integrated approach to land- and water conservation measures on the basis of the systematic research. The basis of the research objectives is entrusted with the implementation of SEA of space-time transformation of landscape of the ecosystems of the Dnieper river catchment area on the basis of river basin approach. Strategic environmental assessment and spatial clustering was carried out on six indicators of agrogenic transformation of structural and functional state of landscape ecosystems of the Dnieper river basin: forest cover, plowing, squares slopes more 1°, squares slopes of southern exposure, the area cultivated slopes, eroded areas of arable land. As a result, SEA and geo-modeling determined that more than 50% of the Dnieper basin has high agrogenic transformation of the structural and functional status of the landscape ecosystems. The main criterion for the destabilization of agricultural landscapes is a high level of tillage, in this case the most effective tool for improving the ecological balance of the territory of the trans-boundary basin study is the reduction of arable land for other land or environmental fund 470 sub-basin boundaries with a total area of ~ 346.3 thousand km (~ 67.8). Rational land use in accordance with the strategic environmental assessment should take into account the characteristics and features of the landscape, promote the protection and reproduction of soil, vegetation and other natural components in a single agreement between the countries of trans-boundary basin ; Стратегическая экологическая оценка (СЭО) является надежным инструментом в обеспечении устойчивости окружающей среды стран трансграничных бассейнов. Директива 2001/42/ЕС определяет обязательства органов государственного управления (или частных организаций, предоставляющих публичные услуги) по определению и оценке потенциально значимых экологических последствий предлагаемых планов и программ (не политики), в т.ч. в сфере трансграничного сотрудничества, с целью ослабления или предотвращения потенциально значимого негативного влияния на окружающую среду еще до принятия такого плана или программы. Река Днепр является одной из крупнейших рек Европы, бассейн которой имеет 511 тыс. км2 и расположен в пределах трех государств — Российской Федерации (19,8% от общей площади бассейна), Республики Беларусь (22,9) и Украины (57,3%). Учитывая социально-экономическое положение трансграничных стран, экологическая ситуация в бассейне Днепра остается стабильно неустойчивой. Установлено, что для решения экологических проблем трансграничной реки наиболее перспективным является практическое научно обоснованное внедрение бассейновых принципов природопользования, которое предусматривает использование комплексного подхода к организации земле- и водоохранных мероприятий, с учетом системности исследований. В основу задачи исследования положено осуществление СЭО пространственно-временной трансформации ландшафтных экосистем водосборной территории р. Днепр на основе принципов бассейнового подхода. Стратегическая экологическая оценка и пространственная группировка осуществлены по шести показателям агрогенной трансформации структурно-функционального состояния ландшафтных экосистем бассейна Днепра: лесистость, распашка, площадь склонов более 1°, площадь склонов южной экспозиции, площадь распаханных склонов, площадь эродированных пахотных земель. По результатам СЭО и геомоделирования определено, что более 50% территории бассейна Днепра имеет высокую агрогенную трансформацию структурно-функционального состояния ландшафтных экосистем. Главным критерием дестабилизации агроландшафтов является высокая распашка, для решения вопроса эффективным инструментом улучшения экологического баланса территории трансграничного бассейна является сокращение пахотных земель в пользу других угодий или экологического фонда в пределах 470 суббасейнов с общей площадью ~ 346,3 тыс. км2 (~ 67,8). Рациональное землепользование в соответствии с СЭО должно учитывать свойства и особенности ландшафта, способствовать охране и восстановлению почвенного, растительного покрова и других природных компонентов в согласовании между государствами трансграничного бассейна ; Стратегічна екологічна оцінка (СЕО) є надійним інструментом у забезпеченні стійкості навколишнього середовища країн транскордонних басейнів. Директива 2001/42/ЄC визначає зобов'язання органів державного управління (або тих приватних організацій, що надають публічні послуги) щодо визначення та оцінки потенційно значущих екологічних наслідків пропонованих планів та програм (не політики), у т.ч. у сфері транскордонного співробітництва, з метою послаблення або уникнення потенційно значущого негативного впливу на навколишнє природне середовище ще до ухвалення такого плану або програми. Річка Дніпро є однією із найбільших річок Європи, басейн якої має 511 тис. кмоо2гг22 і розташований у межах трьох держав — Російської Федерації (19,8 % від загальної площі басейну), Республіки Білорусь (22,9) та України (57,3 %). З огляду на соціально-економічний стан транскордонних країн, екологічна ситуація в басейні Дніпра є стабільно нестійкою. Встановлено, що для розв'язання екологічних проблем транскордонної річки найбільш перспективним є практичне науково обґрунтоване впровадження басейнових принципів природокористування, яке передбачає використання комплексного підходу до організації земле- та водоохоронних заходів, з урахуванням системності досліджень. В основу завдання дослідження покладено здійснення СЕО просторово-часової трансформації ландшафтних екосистем водозбірної території р. Дніпро на основі принципів басейнового підходу. Стратегічна екологічна оцінка і просторове групування здійснено за шістьма показниками агрогенної трансформації структурно-функціонального стану ландшафтних екосистем басейну Дніпра: лісистість, розораність, площі схилів понад 1о, площі схилів південної експозиції, площі розораних схилів, площі еродованих орних земель. За результатами СЕО і геомоделювання визначено, що понад 50% території басейну Дніпра має високу агрогенну трансформацію структурно-функціонального стану ландшафтних екосистем. Головним критерієм дестабілізації агроландшафтів є висока розораність, для вирішення питання найефективнішим інструментом покращення екологічного балансу території транскордонного басейну є скорочення орних земель на користь інших угідь або екологічного фонду в межах 470 суббасейнів із загальною площею ~ 346,3 тис. кмдд 2ь ь (~ 67,8). Раціональне землекористування відповідно до СЕО повинно враховувати властивості і особливості ландшафту, сприяти охороні і відтворенню ґрунтового, рослинного покриву та інших природних компонентів у співробітництві і узгодженні між державами транскордонного басейну
Die breite öffentliche Debatte um den Klimawandel und seine Folgen hat die politischen Entscheidungsträger erreicht. Große Unsicherheit herrscht über das tatsächliche Ausmaß und die Auswirkungen des Wandels. Ein besseres Verständnis unseres Klimasystems ist daher dringend notwendig. Um das zukünftige Klima vorhersagen zu können, müssen Klimaänderungen der Vergangenheit verstanden werden. Die Historische Klimatologie bietet erprobte Methoden zur Rekonstruktion des Klimas der letzten ca. 1000 Jahre. Grundlage für qualitativ hochwertige Ergebnisse ist die große Anzahl der in eine Auswertung einbezogenen Quellen. Diese muss in Zukunft deutlich erhöht und auf weitere Regionen der Erde ausgedehnt werden. Viele potentielle Quellen liegen gedruckt oder bereits digital in Bibliotheken vor. Hieraus ergibt sich die Leitfrage dieser Arbeit: Können moderne, softwaregestützte Methoden des Data-Mining auch auf historische Texte angewendet werden? Die Zielstellung ist, dass der einzelne Bearbeiter in der Historischen Klimatologie effizienter arbeiten kann, so dass mehr Quellen in kürzerer Zeit bei gleichbleibender oder besserer Qualität ausgewertet werden können. Mit der entwickelten Software Konkordanz zur halbautomatischen Textextraktion kann der Arbeitsschritt "Quellenzitate extrahieren" deutlich effizienter durchgeführt werden. Im Experiment wurde mit der halbautomatischen Textextraktion nur ¼ der Zeit benötigt – bei einer Genauigkeit von 95%. Es ist zu vermuten, dass bei wachsender Erfahrung mit der neuen Methode diese Werte noch gesteigert werden können. Für die Software Konkordanz wurden neue Such- und Bewertungsalgorithmen entwickelt. Diese basieren auf Ansätzen der Computerlinguistik, Lexikometrie und des Data-Mining. Beim Design der Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion konnte auf etablierte Techniken des Benutzerschnittstellendesigns zurückgegriffen werden. Bei der Auswertung von Reisetagebüchern ergeben sich besondere Herausforderungen durch ständig wechselnde Standorte. Für eine historisch-klimatologische Betrachtung müssen diese lokalisiert werden. Bei den hier untersuchten Tagebüchern wurden vorwiegend arabische Ortsnamen nach Gehör ad-hoc ins Englische transkribiert. Zur Lokalisierung dieser wurde eine phonetische Suche auf Basis des DoubleMetaphone-Algorithmus implementiert. Die Suche wird ergänzt durch eine neu entwickelte phonetische Bewertung. Bei der Entwicklung und dem Testen der Algorithmen konnte auf etablierte Ansätze des Data-Mining und maschinellen Lernens zurückgegriffen werden. Die phonetische Suche findet sowohl mehr relevante als auch weniger nicht-relevante Orte als die vorher verfügbare Suchmethoden. Mit der neu entwickelten Suche konnten fast doppelt so viele von Buckinghams Reiseorten korrekt lokalisiert werden, als mit der besten vorher verfügbaren "fuzzy"-GeoNames Suche. Mit den entwickelten Methoden zum halbautomatischen Auffinden relevanter Textstellen und der Unterstützung bei der Kodierung durch den StatementsManager bleibt die Rekonstruktion der Reiseroute einer der zeitaufwändigsten Arbeitsschritte bei der Analyse von Reisetagebüchern. Es wurde daher ein RouteFinder-Algorithmus entwickelt, der aus einer Liste von Ortsnamen und dem erwarteten mittleren Abstand zwischen den Orten die wahrscheinlichsten Reiserouten errechnet Der Algorithmus erkennt automatisch nicht- oder nur falschlokalisierbare Ortsnamen in der Eingabemenge. Bei der Entwicklung des Algorithmus wurden graphentheoretische Ansätze verfolgt; bei der Optimierung auf Data-Mining, multivariate Datenanalyse und maschinelles Lernen aufgebaut. Die Ergebnisse der automatischen Routenrekonstruktion sind faszinierend. Mit den neu entwickelten Methoden wurden die sechs Reisetagebücher Buckinghams analysiert. Die Tagebücher lagen bereits digital in Online-Archiven vor. Buckingham reiste von Dezember 1815 bis Dezember 1816 von Alexandria in Ägypten über Palästina, Syrien, Mesopotamien und Persien nach Indien. Der Zeitpunkt seiner Reise ist klimatologisch interessant, da sie im Nachgang des Ausbruchs des Tambora (Indonesien) vom Frühjahr 1815 stattfand. In Europa und Nordamerika ging das Jahr 1816 durch die durch den Ausbruch modifizierten Strömungs¬muster der Atmosphäre als "Jahr ohne Sommer" in die Geschichte ein. Die lokalisierten und kodierten Witterungsnotizen Buckinghams wurden in Wettertableaus überführt. Damit sind die witterungsrelevanten Aussagen aus über 3100 Seiten Reisebeschreibung übersichtlich auf drei Seiten zusammengefasst. Während seiner Reise erlebte Buckingham zwei Dürren, eine in der südlichen Levante, die offenbar im Winter 1815/1816 begann, eine weitere in Persien, die je nach Region bereits zwei oder drei Jahre andauerte. Der Vergleich mit einem modernen Klimamodell zeigt, dass dieses nach einem tambora-ähnlichen Ausbruch einen Witterungsverlauf erwarten lässt, der gerade entgegengesetzt zu der von Buckingham gemachten Beobachtung ist. ; The public discussion on climate change and its effects has now reached policymakers. Coupled to this is a great uncertainty concerning the true extent of climate change, and of its consequences. It follows that a better understanding of our climate system is a pressing necessity. For accurate future climate predictions, natural climate changes of the past have to be understood. Instrumental measurement records cover only the last 100 years, and so are not sufficient for this purpose. On the other hand, Historical Climatology provides tried and tested methods for the reconstruction of the climate over the past 1000 years. In order to ensure results of a high calibre, it is crucial to use as many historical sources as possible. Consequently, both the number of accessible sources and their geographical coverage must be considerably increased in the future. Many potential sources are already available in libraries in printed, or indeed digital form. The central question asked in this thesis is therefore: Is it possible to apply modern, software-supported methods of data mining to historical sources? The goal is to enable the analysis of more sources in less time, while maintaining or raising the standards of quality, by increasing the efficiency of historical climatologists. The newly developed software Konkordanz, enabling semi-automatized text extraction, considerably improves the step in which the relevant parts of historical sources are extracted. Experiments show that only a quarter of the time is needed in comparison to manually extracting quotes; the precision is around 95%. Moreover, it can be expected that these figures will increase, once these new methods become more familiar. In order to build Konkordanz, new search and assessment algorithms were developed. These are based on natural language processing, lexicometrics and data mining. The user interface was developed according to the relevant modern design principles. A potentially confounding factor in the textual analysis of a travel diary is the constantly changing roster of locations it contains. Historical climatological studies can only be performed when these locations are pinpointed. In the diaries analysed in this thesis, spoken Arabic location names where transcribed ad-hoc to the English language. In order to pinpoint these locations, a phonetic search based on the DoubleMetaphone algorithm was implemented, together with a newly developed phonetic rating complementing this search. Development and testing was driven by methods of data mining and machine learning. The phonetic search finds more relevant and less non-relevant locations than previously available methods. The newly developed phonetics search enables us to pinpoint nearly as twice as many of Buckingham's travel locations as was possible with the previously best "fuzzy" GeoNames search. With the newly developed method for half-automated text extraction, and the support for coding of quotes, the reconstruction of travel routes remains one of the most time-consuming steps in the analysis of travel diaries. Therefore, a RouteFinder algorithm was developed. It reconstructs, from a list of location names and the expected mean distance between these, the most probable travel routes. Development of the algorithm was driven by graph theory. Optimization was done through data mining, multivariate data analysis and machine learning. The results of automated route reconstruction are fascinating. The newly developed methods where applied to James Silk Buckingham's six travel diaries. The diaries are digitally available on online archives. From December 1815 to December 1816 Buckingham travelled from Alexandria in Egypt through Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia to India. Travel records from this period of time are particularly interesting to climatologists, for in the spring 1815, Mount Tambora erupted in Indonesia. In the aftermath of the event, large parts of Europe and North-America experienced the so-called "year without summer" in 1816. Buckingham's localised and coded weather records were transformed into weather tables. These three pages represent most of the climatically relevant information of over 3100 pages of the travel reports. During his travels, Buckingham experienced two droughts: one was in south Levant, starting in winter 1815/1816, the other was spread all through Persia, and must have started between two and three years earlier, depending on region. In the event of a "Tambora-like" eruption, modern climate models predict weather patterns precisely the opposite of those observed by Buckingham.
Predmet doktorske disertacije je upravljanje zunanjetrgovinske politike države ob upoštevanju delovanja nadnacionalnih entitet, pri čemer je naš osrednji cilj identificirati optimalen način realizacije nacionalnih interesov v okviru nadnacionalne entitete (tj. Evropske unije). Zunanjetrgovinska politika je eno izmed najstarejših ekonomskih področij, o katerem so tekle resne akademske razprave že v Antični Grčiji pred več kot 2000 leti. Vendar o razvoju svetovne trgovine kot sistematičnem globalnem načinu trgovanja govorimo šele od 15. stoletja dalje. Za boljše razumevanje področja v doktorski disertaciji najprej opredelimo teoretska izhodišča, v okviru katerih predstavimo teorije mednarodne menjave ter analiziramo vlogo države in ekonomske diplomacije skozi različna zgodovinska obdobja (merkantilizem, liberalizem, protekcionizem, intervencionizem ter obdobje liberalizacije in globalizacije). Kot najpomembnejše teoretično izhodišče od Davida Ricarda dalje identificiramo ugotovitev, da svet ni ničelna vsota – vse države z zunanjo trgovino pridobivajo. Kljub temu da so države skozi različna zgodovinska obdobja (glede na gospodarske razmere) vodile različne zunanjetrgovinske politike (protekcionistične ali liberalne), teorija in praksa potrjujeta, da liberalna zunanjetrgovinska politika povečuje konkurenčnost gospodarstva. Študije ekonomistov (Sachs in Warner 1995, 35 ; Frey v Pruslecki 2008, 5 ; Krueger 1980, 289) namreč kažejo, da države z liberalno zunanjetrgovinsko politiko dosegajo višjo gospodarsko rast od tistih s protekcionistično. Kot potrditev teze navajamo izsledke analiz, ki kažejo na višje stopnje gospodarske rasti v t. i. hitro rastočih gospodarstvih (državah BRIICS ‒ Braziliji, Rusiji, Indiji, Indoneziji, Kitajski in Južni Afriki). Slednje so na podlagi liberalizacije trgov v zadnjih dvajsetih letih dosegale višje stopnje gospodarske rasti od razvitih gospodarstev. Glede na to da je predmet disertacije zunanjetrgovinska politika v okviru Evropske unije (EU), ki jo Slovenija sooblikuje, se v okviru analize ukrepov osredotočimo na ukrepe zunanjetrgovinske politike EU, vlogo nacionalnih in nadnacionalnih (vladnih in nevladnih) akterjev ter povezavo vsebin z drugimi politikami. Ključni akterji v procesu formalnega delovanja na področju zunanjetrgovinske politike EU so: Evropska komisija (Direktorat za trgovino), Svet EU (Odbor za zunanjetrgovinsko politiko, Coreper in Svet za zunanje zadeve), Evropski parlament ter nevladni akterji (združenja, nevladne organizacije) kot nadnacionalni akterji in (vladni in nevladni) akterji na nacionalni ravni držav članic EU. Prioriteta zunanjetrgovinske politike EU je multilateralna zunanja trgovina, vzporedno pa potekajo pogajanja s številnimi državami oz. regijami za sklenitev preferencialnih trgovinskih sporazumov. Med ukrepi zunanjetrgovinske politike EU je pomembna še Strategija dostopa na trg, v okviru katere se dosegajo sinergije na podlagi okrepljenega partnerstva med Evropsko komisijo, državami članicami in gospodarstvom. Ugotavljamo, da postaja v obdobju globalizacije zunanjetrgovinska politika izrazito večplastna ter da izginjajo meje med zunanjimi in notranjimi politikami. Na primeru pogajanj t. i. Razvojne agende iz Dohe, ki potekajo v okviru Svetovne trgovinske organizacije, potrdimo tezo o prepletanju pogajanj na različnih ravneh (bilateralni, regionalni in multilateralni) in vsebinski povezanosti zunanjetrgovinske politike z drugimi politikami (z razvojno, s kmetijsko ipd.). Slednje potrjujejo tudi strateški dokumenti EU (Strategija Evropa 2020 ; Trgovina, rast in svetovne zadeve ter Globalna Evropa: konkurenčna v svetu), v katere je zunanjetrgovinska politika vključena kot pomemben sestavni del politike konkurenčnosti. ; The doctoral thesis focuses on a country's external trade policy management in relation to the processes witin subnational entities. Our main goal is to identify an optimal approach to realizing national interests in the context of a subnational entity (i.e., the European Union). External trade policy is one of the oldest economic policies. The first discussions on trade issues started among philosophers in Greece 2000 years ago, but global trade as a systematic process emerged in the 15th century. At the beginning of the doctoral thesis, the focus is on the theoretical background ‒ theories of external economic co-operation. We analyse the role of the state and economic diplomacy in different historical periods (mercantilism, liberalism, protectionism, interventionism, liberalisation and globalisation). The most important theoretical finding is (discovered by David Ricardo and confirmed in subsequent theories) that all states, engaged in external trade, gain (we talk about the so called positive sum). Although countries led different external trade policies during various historical periods (liberal or protectionist), theory and experience show that the liberal external trade policy increases competitiveness of an economy. Studies of several economists (Sachs and Warner 1995, 35 ; Frey 1984 ; Pruslecki 2008, 5 ; Krueger 1980, 289) also confirm, that countries with a liberal external trade policy record higher growth rates than those in favour of protectionism. Emerging economies (the so called BRIICS countries ‒ Brasil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, and South Africa) record higher growth rates in the last twenty years – after liberalising their markets. We analyse the European Union (EU) external trade policy measures, the role of national and subnational (state and non-state) actors, and the interconnectedness of the external trade policy and other national policies. The key actors in the formal process of creating EU external trade policy are: European Commission (Directorate General for Trade), Council of the EU (Trade Policy Committee – formerly 133 Committee ; Coreper, Foreign Affairs Council), European Parliament, non-state actors (associations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs)) as well as actors in the member states (state and non state actors: ministries, diplomatic network, business associations, chambers of commerce, NGOs, etc.). The priority of the EU external trade policy is multilateral trade – successful conclusion of the WTO Doha Development Agenda. In parallel, EU is negotiating preferential trade agreements with several countries and regions. One of the most important trade policy measures is also Market Access Partnership, where active involvement of member states and the business sector is expected. Globalisation has changed the patterns of global economic co-operation and global trade. External trade has become more complex (linked to the competition, energy, environment and sustainable development policies) and the number of actors (state and non-state) involved in the policy has increased significantly. The boundaries between external and internal policies disappear as well. We show the interactions between different actors, negotiating levels, and policies on the World Trade Organisation Doha Development Agenda case, where the positions of the negotiations have to be agreed on at different levels: national, bilateral, regional, and multilateral. External trade policy is an important part of the EU strategic documents (Global Europe: competing in the world, EU 2020), and therefore an important element of the competitiveness policy. The thesis also confirms that the role of economic diplomacy in trade issues has gained importance during the last twenty years. Saner and Yiu (2003) argue that the main function of the post-modern economic diplomacy is representation in the international organisations and influence on other countries' policies.
The Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) Prisoners Books for 1905-1908 and 1911-1918 are amongst the most valuable new documents to come to light on the revolutionary decade. They include important information on social and political life in the capital during the last years of the Union, from the period of widespread anticipation of Home Rule, to the advent of the 1913 Lockout, the outbreak of the First World War, the Easter Rising and its aftermath, including the conscription crisis of 1918. They will also be invaluable to those interested in criminology, genealogy, and family history. ; Scope and content: The collection comprises of four large leather bound, double ledger volumes containing hand written entries that record the details of daily charge sheets issued by DMP members to offenders or alleged offenders. Each volume contains the name, age, address, occupation, alleged offence and, in most cases, outcome of cases involving over 30,000 people arrested by the DMP. Each volume also contains an index of prisoners with references to the pages containing details of the charge. ; Scope and content: Three of the four volumes bear the title "Prisoners Book" and each page of arrest records has the running title "Prisoners charged with offences involving dishonesty". Three of the volumes are numbered on the spine - the first volume in the collection as 1, the third as 4, and the fourth as 5. The third volume in the collection is missing the number on the spine, but as the entries in this volume are dated immediately before those in book number 4, it has been assumed that this volume was numbered as 3. There is a gap in the dates between the volume numbered as 1 and this volume, so it is assumed that there was a volume number 2. It is unknown whether this volume survives. Volume 1 records all those arrested from April 1st 1905 to January 1st 1908. The second volume (assumed to be number 3) runs from January 1st 1911 to September 30th 1913. Volume 4 contains the entries from October 1st 1913 to 31st December 1915. Volume 5 records the arrests from January 1st 1916 to September 30th 1918. ; Biographical/historical information: The Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) was established in 1836, along with the Irish Constabulary (later to be known as the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)). The DMP and the RIC replaced the County Constabulary, a uniformed police force formed on a regional basis. Following the War of Independence and the truce of July 1921, the RIC disbanded and a new police force, "The Civic Guard" (renamed the Garda Síochána na hÉireann on 8 August 1923) was formed. The DMP merged with An Garda Síochána in 1925. There were 20 DMP stations located in Dublin City and the southern townships (most of County Dublin fell within the remit of the Royal Irish Constabulary). They were Blackrock, the Bridewell, Chancery Lane, Clarendon Street, Clontarf, College Street, Dalkey, Donnybrook, Fitzgibbon Street, Irishtown, Kevin Street, Kill O the Grange, Kilmainham, Kingstown, Lad Lane, Mountjoy, Newmarket, Rathmines, Store Street and Terenure. It is thought that the station sergeant in the Bridewell, which adjoined the Police Magistrates' Courts, was responsible for collating the records from all the DMP stations. The alleged crimes detailed in the records range from murder to robbing sweet machines, and those arrested range in age from eight to 80. The passing of the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) on August 8th 1914 created an important new series of offences that were used increasingly against political activists. ; Biographical/historical information: Besides describing the type of offences committed, whether ordinary or political crimes, the collection tells us a great deal about the type of people arrested, their gender balance, social problems in the city, sentencing policies of the Police Magistrates, and how events such as the 1913 Lockout and Easter Rising affected different groups in the community. For instance, these records confirm that the majority of people arrested during the 1913 Lockout were workers rather than "the foul reserves of the slums" as alleged by the Irish Catholic and other newspapers owned by William Martin Murphy. They also show a sharp rise in arrests of deserters and absentees from the British armed forces once the First World War broke out, a problem ignored in practically every account of the period. On the other hand, the large scale arrests of women in the aftermath of the Easter Rising for looting in the city centre do conform to the traditional narrative and correlate to areas of the city with widespread deprivation. The increasing incidence of public order offences and arrests under DORA from 1916 onwards often depict people not traditionally associated with criminal behaviour but more representative of the wider community, while the rising incidence of juvenile crime is a common feature across cities in wartime Europe. The information in these volumes serves, therefore, to provide new perspectives on life in Dublin during a time of war and revolution. ; Ownership/custodial history: Volume number 4, covering the latter end of 1913 to the end of 1915, has been in the continuous possession of the DMP and then the Garda Museum and Archives. The other three volumes were probably discarded when the DMP was abolished in 1924 and were held by a private individual or individuals, before being discarded again in 2015. They were retrieved in the north Dublin inner city by a group of community activists who contacted author, journalist, and trade union activist Pádraig Yeates, through Michael Finn, a retired Detective Superintendent of the Garda Síochána. Pádraig Yeates arranged, with the permission of the group, to have all the volumes digitised by Eneclann. The group subsequently agreed to hand the volumes over to SIPTU on two conditions: one was that a donation be made to support a local youth project, and the second was that the information contained in them would go online, free to the public. SIPTU agreed to make a substantial donation to the project and UCD Library undertook to provide an open access, online digital publishing platform for the volumes. ; Acquisition details: SIPTU provided three volumes to UCD Library, already digitised. UCD Library then digitised the volume for 1913 to 1915, held by the Garda Museum and Archives. On completion of the work, SIPTU presented the volumes in its possession to the Garda Museum and Archives. ; Location of original: All four volumes in this collection are now held by the Garda Museum and Archives.
Background: Alzheimer's disease is a common debilitating dementia with known heritability, for which 20 late onset susceptibility loci have been identified, but more remain to be discovered. This study sought to identify new susceptibility genes, using an alternative gene-wide analytical approach which tests for patterns of association within genes, in the powerful genome-wide association dataset of the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project Consortium, comprising over 7 m genotypes from 25,580 Alzheimer's cases and 48,466 controls. Principal Findings: In addition to earlier reported genes, we detected genome-wide significant loci on chromosomes 8 (TP53INP1, p = 1.4×10-6) and 14 (IGHV1-67 p = 7.9×10-8) which indexed novel susceptibility loci. Significance: The additional genes identified in this study, have an array of functions previously implicated in Alzheimer's disease, including aspects of energy metabolism, protein degradation and the immune system and add further weight to these pathways as potential therapeutic targets in Alzheimer's disease ; The i-Select chips was funded by the French National Foundation on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. The French National Fondation on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders supported several I-GAP meetings and communications. Data management involved the Centre National de Génotypage,and was supported by the Institut Pasteur de Lille, Inserm, FRC (fondation pour la recherche sur le cerveau) and Rotary. This work has been developed and supported by the LABEX (laboratory of excellence program investment for the future) DISTALZ grant (Development of Innovative Strategies for a Transdisciplinary approach to ALZheimer's disease) and by the LABEX GENMED grant (Medical Genomics). The French National Foundation on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders and the Alzheimer's Association (Chicago, Illinois) grant supported IGAP in-person meetings, communication and the Alzheimer's Association (Chicago, Illinois) grant provided some funds to each consortium for analyses. EADI The authors thank Dr. Anne Boland (CNG) for her technical help in preparing the DNA samples for analyses. This work was supported by the National Foundation for Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, the Institut Pasteur de Lille and the Centre National de Génotypage. The Three-City Study was performed as part of a collaboration between the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm), the Victor Segalen Bordeaux II University and Sanofi-Synthélabo. The Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale funded the preparation and initiation of the study. The 3C Study was also funded by the Caisse Nationale Maladie des Travailleurs Salariés, Direction Générale de la Santé, MGEN, Institut de la Longévité, Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits de Santé, the Aquitaine and Bourgogne Regional Councils, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR supported the COGINUT and COVADIS projects. Fondation de France and the joint French Ministry of Research/INSERM «Cohortes et collections de données biologiques» programme. Lille Génopôle received an unconditional grant from Eisai. The Three-city biological bank was developed and maintained by the laboratory for genomic analysis LAG-BRC - Institut Pasteur de Lille. Belgium sample collection: The patients were clinically and pathological characterized by the neurologists Sebastiaan Engelborghs, Rik Vandenberghe and Peter P. De Deyn, and in part genetically by Caroline Van Cauwenberghe, Karolien Bettens and Kristel Sleegers. Research at the Antwerp site is funded in part by the Belgian Science Policy Office Interuniversity Attraction Poles program, the Foundation Alzheimer Research (SAO-FRA), the Flemish Government initiated Methusalem Excellence Program, the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and the University of Antwerp Research Fund, Belgium. Karolien Bettens is a postdoctoral fellow of the FWO. The Antwerp site authors thank the personnel of the VIB Genetic Service Facility, the Biobank of the Institute Born-Bunge and the Departments of Neurology and Memory Clinics at the Hospital Network Antwerp and the University Hospitals Leuven. Finish sample collection: Financial support for this project was provided by the Health Research Council of the Academy of Finland, EVO grant 5772708 of Kuopio University Hospital, and the Nordic Centre of Excellence in Neurodegeneration. Italian sample collections: the Bologna site (FL) obtained funds from the Italian Ministry of research and University as well as Carimonte Foundation. The Florence site was supported by grant RF-2010-2319722, grant from the the Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia (Grant 2012) and the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze (Grant 2012). The Milan site was supported by a grant from the «fondazione Monzino». The authors thank the expert contribution of Mr. Carmelo Romano. The Roma site received financial support from Italian Ministry of Health, Grant RF07-08 and RC08-09-10-11-12. The Pisa site is grateful to Dr. Annalisa LoGerfo for her technical assistance in the DNA purification studies. Spanish sample collection: the Madrid site (MB) was supported by grants of the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and the Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), and an institutional grant of the Fundación Ramón Areces to the CBMSO. The authors thank I. Sastre and Dr. A. Martínez-García for the preparation and control of the DNA collection, and Drs. P. Gil and P. Coria for their cooperation in the cases/controls recruitment. The authors are grateful to the Asociación de Familiares de Alzheimer de Madrid (AFAL) for continuous encouragement and help. Swedish sample collection: Financially supported in part by the Swedish Brain Power network, the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council (521-2010-3134), the King Gustaf V and Queen Victoria's Foundation of Freemasons, the Regional Agreement on Medical Training and Clinical Research (ALF) between Stockholm County Council and the Karolinska Institutet, the Swedish Brain Foundation and the Swedish Alzheimer Foundation. CHARGE AGES: The AGES-Reykjavik Study is funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH) contract N01-AG-12100 (National Institute on Aging (NIA) with contributions from the National Eye Institute, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)), the NIA Intramural Research Program, Hjartavernd (the Icelandic Heart Association), and the Althingi (the Icelandic Parliament). ASPS/PRODEM: The Austrian Stroke Prevention Study and The Prospective Dementia Register of the Austrian Alzheimer Society was supported by The Austrian Science Fond (FWF) grant number P20545-P05 (H. Schmidt) and P13180; The Austrian Alzheimer Society; The Medical University of Graz. Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS): This CHS research was supported by NHLBI contracts HHSN268201200036C, HHSN268200800007C, N01HC55222, N01HC85079, N01HC85080, N01HC85081, N01HC85082, N01HC85083, N01HC85086, and HHSN268200960009C; and NHLBI grants HL080295, HL087652, HL105756 with additional contribution from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Additional support was provided through AG023629, AG15928, AG20098, AG027058 and AG033193 (Seshadri) from the NIA. A full list of CHS investigators and institutions can be found at http://www.chs-nhlbi.org/pi. The provision of genotyping data was supported in part by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, CTSI grant UL1TR000124, and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease Diabetes Research Center (DRC) grant DK063491 to the Southern California Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center. Framingham Heart Study (FHS): This work was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study (Contract No. N01-HC-25195) and its contract with A_ymetrix, Inc for genotyping services (Contract No. N02-HL-6-4278). A portion of this research utilized the Linux Cluster for Genetic Analysis (LinGA-II) funded by the Robert Dawson Evans Endowment of the Department of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center. This study as also supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging: AG08122 and AG033193 (Seshadri). Drs. Seshadri and DeStefano were also supported by additional grants from the National Institute on Aging: (R01 AG16495; AG031287, AG033040), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01 NS17950), and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (U01 HL096917, HL093029 and K24HL038444, RC2-HL102419 and UC2 HL103010. Fundació ACE would like to thank patients and controls who participated in this project. This work has been funded by the Fundación Alzheimur (Murcia), the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (PCT-010000-2007-18), (DEX-580000-2008-4), (Gobierno de España), Corporación Tecnológica de Andalucía (08/211) and Agencia IDEA (841318) (Consejería de Innovación, Junta de Andalucía). The authors thank to Ms. Trinitat Port-Carbó and her family for their generous support of Fundació ACE research programs. The Rotterdam Study: The Rotterdam Study was funded by Erasmus Medical Center and Erasmus University, Rotterdam; the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development; the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly; the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sports; the European Commission;and the Municipality of Rotterdam; by grants from the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (014-93-015; RIDE2), Internationale Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek, Hersenstichting Nederland, the Netherlands Genomics Initiative–Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Center for Medical Systems Biology and the Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Aging), the Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013), the ENGAGE project (grant agreement HEALTH-F4-2007-201413), MRACE-grant from the Erasmus Medical Center, the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMW Veni-grant no. 916.13.054). ARIC: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (ARIC) is carried out as a collaborative study supported by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute contracts N01-HC-55015, N01-HC-55016, N01-HC-55018, N01- HC-55019, N01-HC-55020, N01-HC-55021, N01-HC-55022 and grants R01-HL087641, RC2-HL102419 (Boerwinkle, CHARGE-S), UC2 HL103010, U01-HL096917 (Mosley) and R01-HL093029; NHGRI contract U01- HG004402; and NIH contract HHSN268200625226C and NIA: R01 AG033193 (Seshadri). Infrastructure was partly supported by Grant Number UL1RR025005, a component of the National Institutes of Health and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. GERAD Cardiff University was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council (MRC), Alzheimer's Research United Kingdom (ARUK) and the Welsh Government. ARUK supported sample collections at the Kings College London, the South West Dementia Bank, Universities of Cambridge, Nottingham, Manchester and Belfast. The Belfast group acknowledges support from the Alzheimer's Society, Ulster Garden Villages, N. Ireland R & D Office and the Royal College of Physicians/Dunhill Medical Trust. The MRC and Mercer's Institute for Research on Ageing supported the Trinity College group. DCR is a Wellcome Trust Principal Research fellow. The South West Dementia Brain Bank acknowledges support from Bristol Research into Alzheimer's and Care of the Elderly. The Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust supported the OPTIMA group. Washington University was funded by NIH grants, Barnes Jewish Foundation and the Charles and Joanne Knight Alzheimer's Research Initiative. Patient recruitment for the MRC Prion Unit/UCL Department of Neurodegenerative Disease collection was supported by the UCLH/UCL Biomedical Centre and their work was supported by the NIHR Queen Square Dementia BRU. LASER-AD was funded by Lundbeck SA. The Bonn group would like to thank Dr. Heike Koelsch for her scientific support. The Bonn group was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): Competence Network Dementia (CND) grant number 01GI0102, 01GI0711, 01GI0420. The AgeCoDe study group was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research grants 01 GI 0710, 01 GI 0712, 01 GI 0713, 01 GI 0714, 01 GI 0715, 01 GI 0716, 01 GI 0717. The Homburg group was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): German National Genome Research Network (NGFN); Alzheimer's disease Integrated Genome Research Network; AD-IG: 01GS0465. Genotyping of the Bonn case-control sample was funded by the German centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Germany. The GERAD Consortium also used samples ascertained by the NIMH AD Genetics Initiative. Harald Hampel was supported by a grant of the Katharina-Hardt-Foundation, Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany. The KORA F4 studies were financed by Helmholtz Zentrum München; German Research Center for Environmental Health; BMBF; German National Genome Research Network and the Munich Center of Health Sciences. The Heinz Nixdorf Recall cohort was funded by the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation (Dr. Jur. G.Schmidt, Chairman) and BMBF. Coriell Cell Repositories is supported by NINDS and the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Aging. The authors acknowledge use of genotype data from the 1958 Birth Cohort collection, funded by the MRC and the Wellcome Trust which was genotyped by the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium and the Type-1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium, sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. The Nottingham Group (KM) are supported by the Big Lottery. MRC CFAS is part of the consortium and data will be included in future analyses. ADGC The National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging (NIH-NIA) supported this work through the following grants: ADGC, U01 AG032984, RC2 AG036528; NACC, U01 AG016976; NCRAD, U24 AG021886; NIA LOAD, U24 AG026395, R01 AG041797; MIRAGE R01 AG025259; Banner Sun Health Research Institute P30 AG019610; Boston University, P30 AG013846, U01 AG10483, R01 CA129769, R01 MH080295, R01 AG017173, R01AG33193; Columbia University, P50 AG008702, R37 AG015473; Duke University, P30 AG028377, AG05128; Emory University, AG025688; Group Health Research Institute, UO1 AG06781, UO1 HG004610; Indiana University, P30 AG10133; Johns Hopkins University, P50 AG005146, R01 AG020688; Massachusetts General Hospital, P50 AG005134; Mayo Clinic, P50 AG016574; Mount Sinai School of Medicine, P50 AG005138, P01 AG002219; New York University, P30 AG08051, MO1RR00096, and UL1 RR029893; Northwestern University, P30 AG013854; Oregon Health & Science University, P30 AG008017, R01 AG026916; Rush University, P30 AG010161, R01 AG019085, R01 AG15819, R01 AG17917, R01 AG30146; TGen, R01 NS059873; University of Alabama at Birmingham, P50 AG016582, UL1RR02777; University of Arizona, R01 AG031581; University of California, Davis, P30 AG010129; University of California, Irvine, P50 AG016573, P50, P50 AG016575, P50 AG016576, P50 AG016577; University of California, Los Angeles, P50 AG016570; University of California, San Diego, P50 AG005131; University of California, San Francisco, P50 AG023501, P01 AG019724; University of Kentucky, P30 AG028383; University of Michigan, P50 AG008671; University of Pennsylvania, P30 AG010124; University of Pittsburgh, P50 AG005133, AG030653, AG041718; University of Southern California, P50 AG005142; University of Texas Southwestern, P30 AG012300; University of Miami, R01 AG027944, AG010491, AG027944, AG021547, AG019757; University of Washington, P50 AG005136; Vanderbilt University, R01 AG019085; and Washington University, P50 AG005681, P01 AG03991. The Kathleen Price Bryan Brain Bank at Duke University Medical Center is funded by NINDS grant # NS39764, NIMH MH60451 and by Glaxo Smith Kline. Genotyping of the TGEN2 cohort was supported by Kronos Science. The TGen series was also funded by NIA grant AG034504 to AJM, The Banner Alzheimer's Foundation, The Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer's Institute, the Medical Research Council, and the state of Arizona and also includes samples from the following sites: Newcastle Brain Tissue Resource (funding via the Medical Research Council, local NHS trusts and Newcastle University), MRC London Brain Bank for Neurodegenerative Diseases (funding via the Medical Research Council), South West Dementia Brain Bank (funding via numerous sources including the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), Alzheimer's Research Trust (ART), BRACE as well as North Bristol NHS Trust Research and Innovation Department and DeNDRoN), The Netherlands Brain Bank (funding via numerous sources including Stichting MS Research, Brain Net Europe, Hersenstichting Nederland Breinbrekend Werk, International Parkinson Fonds, Internationale Stiching Alzheimer Onderzoek), Institut de Neuropatologia, Servei Anatomia Patologica, Universitat de Barcelona. Marcelle Morrison-Bogorad, PhD., Tony Phelps, PhD and Walter Kukull PhD are thanked for helping to co-ordinate this collection. ADNI Funding for ADNI is through the Northern California Institute for Research and Education by grants from Abbott, AstraZeneca AB, Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eisai Global Clinical Development, Elan Corporation, Genentech, GE Healthcare, Glaxo-SmithKline, Innogenetics, Johnson and Johnson, Eli Lilly and Co., Medpace, Inc., Merck and Co., Inc., Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc, F. Hoffman-La Roche, Schering-Plough, Synarc, Inc., Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, the Dana Foundation, and by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and NIA grants U01 AG024904, RC2 AG036535, K01 AG030514. Data collection and sharing for this project was funded by the ADNI (National Institutes of Health Grant U01 AG024904). ADNI is funded by the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and through generous contributions from the following: Alzheimer's Association; Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation; BioClinica, Inc.; Biogen Idec Inc.; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; Eisai Inc.; Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Eli Lilly and Company; F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd and its affiliated company Genentech, Inc.; GE Healthcare; Innogenetics, N.V.; IXICO Ltd.; Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy Research & Development, LLC.; Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development LLC.; Medpace, Inc.; Merck & Co., Inc.; Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC.; NeuroRx Research; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; Pfizer Inc.; Piramal Imaging; Servier; Synarc Inc.; and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is providing funds to support ADNI clinical sites in Canada. Private sector contributions are facilitated by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (www.fnih.org). The grantee organization is the Northern California Institute for Research and Education, and the study is coordinated by the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California, San Diego. ADNI data are disseminated by the Laboratory for Neuro Imaging at the University of California, Los Angeles. This research was also supported by NIH grants P30 AG010129 and K01 AG030514. The authors thank Drs. D. Stephen Snyder and Marilyn Miller from NIA who are ex-o_cio ADGC members. Support was also from the Alzheimer's Association (LAF, IIRG-08-89720; MP-V, IIRG-05-14147) and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Administration, Office of Research and Development, Biomedical Laboratory Research Program. Peter St George-Hyslop is supported by Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Canadian Institute of Health
PUBLISHED ; BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease is a common debilitating dementia with known heritability, for which 20 late onset susceptibility loci have been identified, but more remain to be discovered. This study sought to identify new susceptibility genes, using an alternative gene-wide analytical approach which tests for patterns of association within genes, in the powerful genome-wide association dataset of the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project Consortium, comprising over 7 m genotypes from 25,580 Alzheimer's cases and 48,466 controls. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In addition to earlier reported genes, we detected genome-wide significant loci on chromosomes 8 (TP53INP1, p?=?1.4?10-6) and 14 (IGHV1-67 p?=?7.9?10-8) which indexed novel susceptibility loci. SIGNIFICANCE: The additional genes identified in this study, have an array of functions previously implicated in Alzheimer's disease, including aspects of energy metabolism, protein degradation and the immune system and add further weight to these pathways as potential therapeutic targets in Alzheimer's disease. ; The i-Select chips was funded by the French National Foundation on Alzheimer?s disease and related disorders. The French National Fondation on Alzheimer?s disease and related disorders supported several I-GAP meetings and communications. Data management involved the Centre National de Ge ? notypage,and was supported by the Institut Pasteur de Lille, Inserm, FRC (fondation pour la recherche sur le cerveau) and Rotary. This work has been developed and supported by the LABEX (laboratory of excellence program investment for the future) DISTALZ grant (Development of Innovative Strateg ies for a Transdisciplinary approach to ALZheimer?s disease) and by the LABEX GENMED grant (Medical Genomics). The French National Foundation on Alzheimer? s disease and related disorders and the Alzheimer?s Association (Chicago, Illinois) grant supported IGAP in-person meetings, communication and the Alzheim er?s Association (Chicago, Illinois) grant provided some funds to each consortium for analyses. EADI The authors thank Dr. Anne Boland (CNG) for her techn ical help in preparing the DNA samples for analyses. This work was supported by the National Foundation for Alzheimer?s disease and related disorders, the Instit ut Pasteur de Lille and the Centre National de Ge ? notypage. The Three-City Study was performed as part of a collaboration between the Institut National de la Sante ? et de la Recherche Me ? dicale (Inserm), the Victor Segalen Bordeaux II University and Sanofi-Synthe ? labo. The Fondation pour la Recherche Me ? dicale funded the preparation and initiation of the study. The 3C Study was also funded by the Caisse Nationale Maladie des Travailleurs Salarie ? s, Direction Ge ? ne ? rale de la Sante ? , MGEN, Institut de la Longe ? vite ? , Agence Franc ?aise de Se ? curite ? Sanitaire des Produits de Sante ? , the Aquitaine and Bourgogne Regional Councils, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR supported the COGINUT and COVADIS projects. Fondation de France and the joint French Ministry of Research/INSERM ?Cohortes et collec tions de donne ? es biologiques? programme. Lille Ge ? nopo ? le received an unconditional grant from Eisai. The Three-city biological bank was developed and maintained by the laboratory for genomic analysis LAG-BRC - Institut Pasteur de Lille. Belgium sample collection: The patients were clinically and pathologica l characterized by the neurologists Sebastiaan Engelborghs, Rik Vandenberghe and Peter P. De Deyn, and in part genetically by Caroline Van Cauwenberghe, Karolien Be ttens and Kristel Sleegers. Research at the Antwerp site is funded in part by the Belgian Science Policy Office Interuniversity Attraction Poles program, t he Foundation Alzheimer Research (SAO-FRA), the Flemish Government initiated Methusalem Excellence Program, the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and the Uni versity of Antwerp Research Fund, Belgium. Karolien Bettens is a postdoctoral fellow of the FWO. The Antwerp site authors thank the personnel of the VIB Genetic S ervice Facility, the Biobank of the Institute Born-Bunge and the Departments of Neurology and Memory Clinics at the Hospital Network Antwerp and the Univers ity Hospitals Leuven. Finish sample collection: Financial support for this project was provided by the Health Research Council of the Academy of Finland , EVO grant 5772708 of Kuopio University Hospital, and the Nordic Centre of Excellence in Neurodegeneration. Italian sample collections: the Bologna site (FL) obtained funds from the Italian Ministry of research and University as well as Carimonte Foundation. The Florence site was supported by grant RF-2010-2319722, gran t from the the Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia (Grant 2012) and the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze (Grant 2010 ?fondazione Monzino?. The authors thank the expert contribution of Mr. Carmelo Romano. The Roma site received financial support from Italian Minist ry of Health, Grant RF07-08 and RC08-09-10-11-12. The Pisa site is grateful to Dr. Annalisa LoGerfo for her technical assistance in the DNA purification st udies. Spanish sample collection: the Madrid site (MB) was supported by grants of the Ministerio de Educacio ? n y Ciencia and the Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), and an institutional grant of the Fundacio ? n Ramo ? n Areces to the CBMSO. The authors thank I. Sastre and Dr. A. Mart? ? nez-Garc? ? afor the preparation and control of the DNA collection, and Drs. P. Gil and P. Coria for their cooperation in the cases/controls recruitment. The authors ar e grateful to the Asociacio ? n de Familiares de Alzheimer de Madrid (AFAL) for continuous encouragement and help. Swedish sample collection: Financially supported in part by the Swedish Brain Power network, the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council (521-2010-3134), the King Gust af V and Queen Victoria?s Foundation of Freemasons, the Regional Agreement on Medical Training and Clinical Research (ALF) between Stockholm County Cou ncil and the Karolinska Institutet, the Swedish Brain Foundation and the Swedish Alzheimer Foundation. CHARGE AGES: The AGES-Reykjavik Study is funded b y National Institutes of Health (NIH) contract N01-AG-12100 (National Institute on Aging (NIA) with contributions from the National Eye Institute, N ational Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)), the NIA Intramural Research Progra m, Hjartavernd (the Icelandic Heart Association), and the Althingi (the Icelandic Parliament). ASPS/PRODEM: The Austrian Stroke Prevention Study an d The Prospective Dementia Register of the Austrian Alzheimer Society was supported by The Austrian Science Fond (FWF) grant number P20545-P05 (H. Schmid t) and P13180; The Austrian Alzheimer Society; The Medical University of Graz. Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS): This CHS research was supported by NH LBI contracts HHSN268201200036C, HHSN268200800007C, N01HC55222, N01HC85079, N01HC85080, N01HC85081, N01HC85082, N01HC85083, N01HC85086, and HHSN268200960009C; and NHLBI grants HL080295, HL087652, HL105756 with additional contribution from the National Institute of Neurological Disor ders and Stroke (NINDS). Additional support was provided through AG023629, AG15928, AG20098, AG027058 and AG033193 (Seshadri) from the NIA. A full list of CH S investigators and institutions can be found at http://www.chs-nhlbi.org/pi. The provision of genotyping data was supported in part by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, CTSI grant UL1TR000124, and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease Diabetes Resear ch Center (DRC) grant DK063491 to the Southern California Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center. Framingham Heart Study (FHS): This work was supported by th e National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute?s Framingham Heart Study (Contract No. N01-HC-25195) and its contract with A_ymetrix, Inc for genotyping s ervices (Contract No. N02-HL-6-4278). A portion of this research utilized the Linux Cluster for Genetic Analysis (LinGA-II) funded by the Robert Dawson Evan s Endowment of the Department of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center. This study as also supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging: AG08122 and AG033193 (Seshadri). Drs. Seshadri and DeStefano were also supported by additional grants from the Nati onal Institute on Aging: (R01 AG16495; AG031287, AG033040), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01 NS17950), and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (U01 HL096917, HL093029 and K24HL038444, RC2-HL102419 and UC2 HL103010. Fundacio ? ACE would like to thank patients and controls who participated in this project. This work has been funded by the Fundacio ? n Alzheimur (Murcia), the Ministerio de Educacio ? n y Ciencia (PCT-010000- 2007-18), (DEX-580000-2008-4), (Gobierno de Espan ? a), Corporacio ? n Tecnolo ? gica de Andaluc? ? a (08/211) and Agencia IDEA (841318) (Consejer? ? a de Innovacio ? n, Junta de Andaluc? ? a). The authors thank to Ms. Trinitat Port-Carbo ? and her family for their generous support of Fundacio ? ACE research programs. The Rotterdam Study: The Rotterdam Study was funded by Erasmus Medical Center and Erasmus University, Rotterdam; the Netherlands Organization for Health Researc h and Development; the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly; the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; the Ministry for Health, Welfare an d Sports; the European Commission;and the Municipality of Rotterdam; by grants from the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (014-93-015; RIDE2), Inte rnationale Stichting Alzheimer Onderzoek, Hersenstichting Nederland, the Netherlands Genomics Initiative?Netherlands Organization for Scientific Resea rch (Center for Medical Systems Biology and the Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Aging), the Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013), the ENGAGE project (gra nt agreement HEALTH-F4-2007-201413), MRACE-grant from the Erasmus Medical Center, the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Developmen t (ZonMW Veni-grant no. 916.13.054). ARIC: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (ARIC) is carried out as a collaborative study supported by N ational Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute contracts N01-HC-55015, N01-HC-55016, N01-HC-55018, N01- HC-55019, N01-HC-55020, N01-HC-55021, N01-HC-55022 and grants R01-HL087641, RC2-HL102419 (Boerwinkle, CHARGE-S), UC2 HL103010, U01-HL096917 (Mosley) and R01-HL093029; NHGRI contract U01- HG004402; and NIH contract HHSN268200625226C and NIA: R01 AG033193 (Seshadri). Infrastructure was partly supported by Grant Number UL1RR025005, a component of the National Institutes of Health and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. GERAD Cardiff University was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Resear ch Council (MRC), Alzheimer?s Research United Kingdom (ARUK) and the Welsh Government. ARUK supported sample collections at the Kings College London, the South West Dementia Bank, Universities of Cambridge, Nottingham, Manchester and Belfast. The Belfast group acknowledges support from the Alzheime r?s Society, Ulster Garden Villages, N. Ireland R & D Office and the Royal College of Physicians/Dunhill Medical Trust. The MRC and Mercer?s Institute for Research on Ageing supported the Trinity College group. DCR is a Wellcome Trust Principal Research fellow. The South West Dementia Brain Bank acknowledges suppo rt from Bristol Research into Alzheimer?s and Care of the Elderly. The Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust supported the OPTIMA group. Washington Univers ity was funded by NIH grants, Barnes Jewish Foundation and the Charles and Joanne Knight Alzheimer?s Research Initiative. Patient recruitment for the MRC Pr ion Unit/ UCL Department of Neurodegenerative Disease collection was supported by the UCLH/UCL Biomedical Centre and their work was supported by the NIHR Queen Square Dementia BRU. LASER-AD was funded by Lundbeck SA. The Bonn group would like to thank Dr. Heike Koelsch for her scientific support. The Bonn group was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): Competence Network Dementia (CND) grant number 01GI0102, 01GI0711, 01GI0420. The AgeCoDe study group was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research grants 01 GI 0710, 01 GI 0712, 01 GI 0713, 01 GI 0714, 01 GI 0715, 01 GI 0716, 01 GI 0717. The Homburg group was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): German National Genome Research Network (NGFN); Alzheimer?s disease Integrated Genome Research Network; AD-IG: 01GS0465. Genotyping of the Bonn case-control sample was funded by the German centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Germany. The GERAD Consortium also used samples ascertained by the NIMH AD Genetics Initiative. Harald Hampel was supported by a grant of the Katharina-Hardt-Foundation, Bad Homburg vor der Ho ? he, Germany. The KORA F4 studies were financed by Helmholtz Zentrum Mu ? nchen; German Research Center for Environmental Health; BMBF; German National Genome Research Network and the Munich Center of Health Sciences. The Heinz Nixdorf Recall cohort was funded by the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation (Dr. Jur. G.Schmidt, Chairman) and BMBF. Coriell Cell Repositories is supported by NINDS and the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Agin g. The authors acknowledge use of genotype data from the 1958 Birth Cohort collection, funded by the MRC and the Wellcome Trust which was genotyped by the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium and the Type-1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium, sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive a nd Kidney Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institute of Child Hea lth and Human Development and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. The Nottingham Group (KM) are supported by the Big Lottery. MRC CFAS is part of the consortium and data will be included in future analyses. ADGC The National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging (NIH-NIA) supported thi s work through the following grants: ADGC, U01 AG032984, RC2 AG036528; NACC, U01 AG016976; NCRAD, U24 AG021886; NIA LOAD, U24 AG026395, R01 AG041797; MIRAGE R01 AG025259; Banner Sun Health Research Institute P30 AG019610; Boston University, P30 AG013846, U01 AG10483, R01 CA129769, R01 MH080295, R01 AG017173, R01AG33193; Columbia University, P50 AG008702, R37 AG015473; Duke University, P30 AG028377, AG05128; Emory University, AG025688; Group Health Research Institute, UO1 AG06781, UO1 HG004610; Indiana University, P30 AG10133; Johns Hopkins University, P50 AG005146, R01 AG020688 ; Massachusetts General Hospital, P50 AG005134; Mayo Clinic, P50 AG016574; Mount Sinai School of Medicine, P50 AG005138, P01 AG002219; New York University, P30 AG08051, MO1RR00096, and UL1 RR029893; Northwestern University, P30 AG013854; Oregon Health & Science University, P30 AG008017, R 01 AG026916; Rush University, P30 AG010161, R01 AG019085, R01 AG15819, R01 AG17917, R01 AG30146; TGen, R01 NS059873; University of Alabama at Birmingham, P50 AG016582, UL1RR02777; University of Arizona, R01 AG031581; University of California, Davis, P30 AG010129; University of Californ ia, Irvine, P50 AG016573, P50, P50 AG016575, P50 AG016576, P50 AG016577; University of California, Los Angeles, P50 AG016570; University of California, San Die go, P50 AG005131; University of California, San Francisco, P50 AG023501, P01 AG019724; University of Kentucky, P30 AG028383; University of Michigan, P50 A G008671; University of Pennsylvania, P30 AG010124; University of Pittsburgh, P50 AG005133, AG030653, AG041718; University of Southern California, P50 AG0 05142; University of Texas Southwestern, P30 AG012300; University of Miami, R01 AG027944, AG010491, AG027944, AG021547, AG019757; University of Washing ton, P50 AG005136; Vanderbilt University, R01 AG019085; and Washington University, P50 AG005681, P01 AG03991. The Kathleen Price Bryan Brain Bank at Duk e University Medical Center is funded by NINDS grant # NS39764, NIMH MH60451 and by Glaxo Smith Kline. Genotyping of the TGEN2 cohort was supported by Kronos Science. The TGen series was also funded by NIA grant AG034504 to AJM, The Banner Alzheimer?s Foundation, The Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer?s Institute, the Medical Research Council, and the state of Arizona and also includes samples from the following sites: Newcastle Brain Tissue Resourc e (funding via the Medical Research Council, local NHS trusts and Newcastle University), MRC London Brain Bank for Neurodegenerative Diseases (funding via the Medical Research Council), South West Dementia Brain Bank (funding via numerous sources including the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) , Alzheimer?s Research Trust (ART), BRACE as well as North Bristol NHS Trust Research and Innovation Department and DeNDRoN), The Netherlands Brain Bank (funding via numerous sources including Stichting MS Research, Brain Net Europe, Hersenstichting Nederland Breinbrekend Werk, International Par kinson Fonds, Internationale Stiching Alzheimer Onderzoek), Institut de Neuropatologia, Servei Anatomia Patologica, Universitat de Barcelona. Marcel le Morrison- Bogorad, PhD., Tony Phelps, PhD and Walter Kukull PhD are thanked for helping to co-ordinate this collection. ADNI Funding for ADNI is through the Nort hern California Institute for Research and Education by grants from Abbott, AstraZeneca AB, Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eisai Globa l Clinical Development, Elan Corporation, Genentech, GE Healthcare, Glaxo-SmithKline, Innogenetics, Johnson and Johnson, Eli Lilly and Co., Medpace, Inc., Merck and Co., Inc., Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc, F. Hoffman-La Roche, Schering-Plough, Synarc, Inc., Alzheimer?s Association, Alzheimer?s Drug Discovery Foun dation, the Dana Foundation, and by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and NIA grants U01 AG024904, RC2 AG036535, K01 AG030514. Data collection and sharing for this project was funded by the ADNI (National Institutes of Health Grant U01 AG024904). ADNI is funded by the National Insti tute on Aging, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and through generous contributions from the following: Alzheimer?s Assoc iation; Alzheimer?s Drug Discovery Foundation; BioClinica, Inc.; Biogen Idec Inc.; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; Eisai Inc.; Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ; Eli Lilly and Company; F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd and its affiliated company Genentech, Inc.; GE Healthcare; Innogenetics, N.V.; IXICO Ltd.; Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy Research & Development, LLC.; Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development LLC.; Medpace, Inc.; Merck & Co., Inc.; Meso Sc ale Diagnostics, LLC.; NeuroRx Research; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; Pfizer Inc.; Piramal Imaging; Servier; Synarc Inc.; and Takeda Pharm aceutical Company. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is providing funds to support ADNI clinical sites in Canada. Private sector contributions are fa cilitated by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (www.fnih.org). The grantee organization is the Northern California Institute for Research an d Education, and the study is coordinated by the Alzheimer?s Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California, San Diego. ADNI data are disseminated by th e Laboratory for Neuro Imaging at the University of California, Los Angeles. This research was also supported by NIH grants P30 AG010129 and K01 AG03051 4. The authors thank Drs. D. Stephen Snyder and Marilyn Miller from NIA who are ex-o_cio ADGC members. Support was also from the Alzheimer?s Association (LAF, IIRG-08-89720; MP-V, IIRG-05-14147) and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Administration, Office of Research and Developmen t, Biomedical Laboratory Research Program. Peter St George-Hyslop is supported by Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Canadian Institute of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.