The problems of weak state structures, including state territoriality, in the South Caucasus has highly influenced political developments and the building of a democratic state. This paper explains the difficulty of recovering statehood in the cases of Armenia and Georgia, both in the context of post–Soviet state transformation and post–conflict state-rebuilding. It argues that recovering state...

We study the importance of the local elite as a determinant of the e¤ectiveness of foreign aid in developing countries. An "extractive" elite will misuse aid ‡ows, an issue that is probably as old as foreign aid itself. We proxy for the existence of an "extractive" elite by using an historically determined variable: the percentage of European settlers in colonial times. Our econometric results ...

the aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between personality traits and incidence of injury in iranian elite wrestlers. 60iranian elite athletes participated in this study. data were collected with injury report form and neo personality questionnaire. the descriptive statistics and pearson correlation coefficient at a significance level of 95% were used for data analysis...

Elite controllers suppress human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viremia to below the limit of detection in the absence of antiretroviral therapy (ART). However, precise frequencies of CD4(+) T cells carrying replication-competent HIV and/or the dynamics of the infectious viral reservoirs in response to initiation and discontinuation of ART in elite controllers are unknown. We show that the size o...

Elite overhead athletes are at risk of vascular injury due to repetitive abduction and external rotation of the dominant arm. The posterior circumflex humeral artery (PCHA) is prone to degeneration, aneurysm formation, and thrombosis in elite volleyball players and baseball pitchers. The prevalence of PCHA-related thromboembolic complications is unknown in this population. However, the prevalen...

Exotic germplasm refers to crop varieties unadapted to a breeder’s target environment, and is an important resource for crop improvement. Because genetic diversity within elite cultivars of a crop is limited compared to the variability within the species and its relatives worldwide, genes from exotic germplasm can protect the crop against new biotic and abiotic stresses, and may represent uniqu...

Abstract: The Social Spider Optimization algorithm (SSO) is a novel metaheuristic optimization algorithm. To enhance the convergence speed and computational accuracy of the algorithm, in this paper, an elite opposition-based Social Spider Optimization algorithm (EOSSO) is proposed; we use an elite opposition-based learning strategy to enhance the convergence speed and computational accuracy of ...

The aim of this study was to compare the physical performance profile among young soccer players of different competitive levels. Two teams of elite (n = 22) and sub-elite (n = 22) soccer players at national (highly skilled) and regional (moderately skilled) level were recruited in the study. All participants were tested using a modified Illinois change of direction speed test, a T-drill with a...

The relationship between organisations' value system and their human resource management (HRM) system is investigated surveying human resource managers in 443 Australian organisations. Organisations were grouped into four main value types Elite, Leadership, Meritocratic and Collegial, according to a typological theory of organisational values (Kabanoff, 1991a,b, 1993). MANOVA and discriminant a...