PhD / This thesis explores the lives of key female members of the Bolshevik elite from the revolutionary movement’s beginnings to the time of Stalin’s death. Through analysing the attitudes and contributions of Bolshevik elite women – most particularly the wives of Lenin, Molotov, Voroshilov and Bukharin – it not only provides for a descriptive account of these individual lives, their changing attitudes and activities, but also a more broad-ranging, social handle on the evolution of elite society in the Soviet Union and the changing nature of the Bolshevik elite both physically and ideationally. Chapters one and two focus on the physical and ideological foundations of the Bolshevik marriage. Chapter one traces the ideological approach of the Bolsheviks towards marriage and the family, examining pre-revolutionary socialist positions in relation to women and the family and establishing a benchmark for how the Bolsheviks wished to approach the ‘woman question’. Chapter two examines the nature of the Bolshevik elite marriage from its inception to the coming of the revolution, dwelling particularly on the different pre-revolutionary experiences of Yekaterina Voroshilova and Nadezhda Krupskaya. Chapters three and four then analyse two key areas of wives’ everyday lives during the interwar years. Chapter three looks at the work that Bolshevik wives undertook and how the nature of their employment changed from the 1920s to the 1930s. Chapter four, through examining the writings of wives such as Voroshilova, Larina and Ordzhonikidze, focuses upon how wives viewed themselves, their responsibilities as members of the Bolshevik elite and the position of women in Soviet society. The final two chapters of this thesis explore the changing nature of elite society in this period and its relationship to Soviet society at large. Chapter five investigates the changing composition of the elite and the specific and general effects of the purges upon its nature. Directly, the chapter examines the lives of Zhemchuzhina, Larina and Pyatnitskaya as wives that were repressed during this period, while more broadly it considers the occupation of the House on the Embankment in the 1930s and the changing structure of Bolshevik elite society. Chapter six focuses on the evolution of Soviet society in the interwar period and how the experiences of Bolshevik elite wives differed from those of ‘mainstream’ Russian women. While previous studies of the Bolshevik elite have focussed upon men’s political lives and investigations of Soviet women’s policy and its shifts under Stalin have mainly concentrated upon describing changes in realist terms, this thesis demonstrates that not only is an evaluation of wives’ lives crucial to a fuller understanding of the Bolshevik elite, but that by comprehending the personal attitudes and values of members of the Bolshevik elite society, particularly with regards to women and the family, a more informed perspective on the reasons for changes in Soviet women’s policy during the interwar period may be arrived at.

Nine Australian male cross country ski team members (19.8±2.5 years, (X±SD),76.6±6.4kg, 184.8±4.9cm) completed both an incremental maximal exercise test and a 45 minute time trial performance test using a dryland ski striding technique with poles on a treadmill. Testing occurred at 610m in a chamber that was supplied with either an 02 enriched (p02 = 152mmHg) or an N2 enriched (p02 = 132mmHg) gas mixture to simulate sea level (SL) or 1800m (A) conditions respectively. A 48 hour rest interval was provided between tests and the testing conditions were randomised, counterbalanced and double blind. At maximum effort there were significant differences in V02 max (70.2±4.0 v 61.7±2.9 ml.kg-1.min-1), PaO2 (97.2±12.7 v 77.1±11.2 mmHg) and SaO2 (90.6±4.9 v 77.8±3.9%); but not in HR (194.1±8.1 v 191.7±7.4 bpm), VE (133.1±12.8 v 132.6±11.3 L.min-1 STPD) or [La] (14.2±2.3 v 13.7±3.3 mM) at SL v A. There was a decrease of 7.6% in overall time trial performance between the conditions (4005±378 v 3702±301 m, p = 0.08), although performance was significantly lower at A during the latter period of the test, >25 minutes. During the steady state stage of the time trial performance test, (=75% SL VO2 max) there were no significant differences between SL and A in any of VO2 (52.9±5.9 v 52.1±4.9 ml.kg-'.min-' at 15 minutes for SL and A respectively); HR (173.1±12.8 v 176.1+10.1 bpm); or [La] (3.0±1.0 v 4.8±2.2 mM). However, there was a significant reduction in PaO2 between SL (111.2±25.5 mmHg at 15 minutes) and A (72.6±24.3 mmHg at 15 minutes), resulting in a significant reduction in SaO2 (96.6±1.1 v 84.6±6.8% at 15 minutes) between the conditions. At the end of each lap of the variable workload stage of the time trial performance test there were significant reductions in VO2 (65.3±6.9, 64.2±6.3 and 66.4±5.9 v 54.6±5.6, 56.0±4.6 and 57.9±3.2 ml.kg-'.min-1 at 25, 35 and 45 minutes at SL v A); and HR (190.1 ±9.2, 192.4±8.6 and 195.9±7.6 v 181.8±12.4, 186±8.1 and 189.6±9.2 bpm) under A conditions. There were no significant differences in [La] at the end of each lap of the time trial performance test between SL and A, although [La] did increase over time during the test at both SL and A (6.2±2.0, 8.9±2.8 and 10.6±4.1 v 7.6±2.0, 8.4±2.2 and 9.9± 1.8 mM). At the end of each lap of the time trial performance test, there was a significant reduction in PaO2 (120.9±24.4, 108.8±25.9 and 103.0±23.0 v 86.0±31.4, 94.9±22.3 and 71.1±3.2 mmHg); and SaO2 (94.6±2.4, 94.3±2.4 and 92.3±3.4 v 85.9±5.8, 84.3±6.4 and 81.7±6.1%) and both PaO, and SaO2 decreased over time during the test at both SL and A. This study has indicated that as well as the extent of hypoxia induced by altitude, both exercise intensity and duration may impact on the magnitude of the response to sustained exercise at altitude, such as in cross country ski racing.

What is the role of political leadership in the mechanisms that bind general masses and political elites behind a certain policy program? And what factors account for the changes in political leadership? The mechanisms connecting citizens and elites are crucial for regime stability. The malfunction of such mechanisms, for instance, the absence of citizen-elite agreement on policy issues, or low levels of public trust in elites, undermines political support and legitimacy of the existing regime. Focusing on rural communities in China, this dissertation attempts to examine how leader-follower relations in the grassroots communities influence mass-elite interactions, and how the community contextual factors shape those leader-follower relations. Existing studies tend to focus on the patron-client connections between peasant villagers and local officials, but largely to the neglect of other kinds of social relations. Based on fieldwork interviews and panel survey data from China, I show that informal social relations, like leadership, have a significant impact on mass-elite opinion connections and public trust in local elites. By leadership or leadership relations, I refer to the mutuality of leader-follower connection that is based on either authoritative or non-authoritative, but largely non-coercive influence by both sides. An element of non-authoritative quality that binds a group of people (i.e. followers) behind a leader is especially important. For this reason, leadership tends to be significant in a local community setting, such as in a village, that is thick with interpersonal relations. My study finds how formal elections and leadership relations in local communities co-determine the direction of opinion influence between the local elite and ordinary citizens, and how leadership facilitates citizens’ belief that their local leaders are trustworthy. Further, my analysis shows that as market activities and state control penetrate into village communities, leadership relations themselves undergo changes in that the contextual factors of the rural community have tremendous predictive power on human networks within the community. These changes imply that the political and economic reforms in the Chinese countryside have important consequences regarding local political leadership as well as mechanisms that bind masses and elites together.

Local elites are usually the controller of local powers, especially for those local political elites who can make an authoritative allotment for social values and also have a certain influence on the decision-making process of public policies. Even though Taiwan has experienced political democratization and liberalization and most of political, economic and social systems and structures imitate the West, it is worthy of further observations if the law-related cognition, the most important for democracy, has been established, if the concept of Confucianism is still deeply rooted in the mind of citizenry, if parts of Confucianism are preserved and the concept of law-related cognition is existed, and what kind of influence it will have on current political developments. This research is designed to study the relation between the personal characteristics and the values of democracy (the concepts of conflict, local authority limit, honest, minority benefit and political participation) and the relation between the concept of Confucian culture and the law-related cognition. This research assumed the law-related cognition of local elites shall depend on the relation between such concepts and law-related cognitions. This research finds that the relations between the democratic values of local elites and the personal factors are not really all existed. For the democratic values and the Confucian culture concept of local elites, the educational background of local elites and the level of interviewees are most important and their party supports, ages and statuses are second. Those local elites with different characteristics have significant differences in their values of democracy and concepts of Confucian culture, which is from the viewpoint of Micro. This research also finds that the democratic values of local elites appear negative correlation between: 1. the concept of conflict and the concept of local authority limit; 2. the concept of local authority limit & the concept of honest and the concept of political participation & the law-related cognition respectively; 3. the concept of minority benefit and the concept of political participation; and 4. the law-related cognition and the concept of Confucian culture; but present lower positive correlation between: 1. the law-related cognition, the concept of conflict and the concept of political participation, 2. the concept of local authority limit, the concept of minority benefit and the concept of Confucian culture. In future, we can make further operations to build a more perfect model with the style of scales. The whole model shows that the limit of central and local authorities, the concept of political participation and the concept of Confucian culture are commonly significant parts in these three models. The model will not reduce its significance because of increasing variables. The age is also significant for the anticipation of local elites but the educational background is not, which is possible because the interviewee with higher education attainments tends to be younger in our survey data. Actually, the study on domestically local elites is seldom seen and most of studies target at public general. That¡¦s because the study expends much time and many efforts. This survey data is really rare. However, the survey time is far remote from today and the public and social trends have been changed substantially. It is worthy of continuous observations for this issue.

The purpose of this thesis was to study the injury characteristics in elite football, and risk factors for injury with special emphasis on anterior cruciate ligament injury. All five papers followed a prospective design using a standardised methodology. Individual training and match exposure was recorded for all players participating as well as all injuries resulting in time loss. Severe injury was defined as absence from play longer than 4 weeks. In Paper I, all 14 teams in the Swedish men’s elite league were studied during the 2001 season. In this paper, all tissue damage regardless of subsequent time loss was also recorded. There were no differences in injury incidence between the two injury definitions during match play (27.2 vs. 25.9 injuries per 1000 hours, p=0.66) or training (5.7 vs. 5.2 injuries per 1000 hours, p=0.65). Significantly higher injury incidences for training injury, overuse injury and re-injury were found during the pre-season compared to the competitive season. Thigh strain was the single most common injury (14%). In Paper II, 8% of all players in the Swedish men’s elite league 2001 had a history of previous ACL injury at the start of the study period. These players had a higher incidence of new knee injury during the season than players without previous ACL injury (4.2 vs. 1.0 injuries per 1000 hours, p=0.02). The higher incidence of new knee injury was seen both when using the player (relative risk 3.4, 95% CI 1.8-6.3) and the knee (relative risk 4.5, 95% CI 2.3-8.8) as the unit of analysis. In Paper III, eleven clubs in the men’s elite leagues of five European countries were studied during the 2001-2002 season. The incidence of match injury was higher for the English and Dutch teams compared to the Mediterranean teams (41.8 vs. 24.0 injuries per 1000 hours, p=0.008) as well as the incidence of severe injury (2.0 vs. 1.1 injuries per 1000 hours, p=0.04). Players having international duty had a higher match exposure (42 vs. 28 matches, p<0.001), but a tendency to a lower training injury incidence (4.1 vs. 6.2 injuries per 1000 hours, p=0.051). Thigh strain was the most common injury (16%) with posterior strains being more frequent than anterior ones (67 vs. 36, p<0.0001). In Paper IV, the national teams of all 32 countries that qualified for the men’s European Championship 2004, the women’s European Championship 2005 and the men’s Under-19 European Championship 2005 were studied during the tournaments. There were no differences in match and training injury incidences between the championships. Teams eliminated after the group stage in the women’s championship had a significantly higher match injury incidence compared to teams going to the semi-finals (65.4 vs. 5.0 injuries per 1000 hours, p=0.02). Non-contact mechanisms were ascribed for 41% of the match injuries and these injuries were more common in the second half. In Paper V, all 12 clubs in the Swedish women’s elite league and 11 of 14 clubs in the men’s elite league were studied during the 2005 season. The prevalence of a history of previous ACL injury at the start of the study was three times higher among the female players (15% vs. 5%, p=0.0002). During the season, 16 new ACL injuries were recorded. There was a tendency to a lower mean age at injury among the women (20 vs. 24 years, p=0.069). Adjusted for age, no gender-related difference in the incidence of ACL injury was seen (relative risk 0.99, 95% CI 0.37-2.6). Age was associated with ACL injury incidence in women where the risk decreased by 24% for each year increase in age (relative risk 0.76, 95% CI 0.59-0.96).

The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to examine whether there was an elite on Gotland during Roman Iron Age or not. To explain this focus has been put on the roman goods. The contexts in which the roman artifacts are found indicate that they can be tied to what might have been an elite on Gotland during Roman Iron Age. They might also have been used as means of expressing wealth and prestige. Because the roman artifacts found on Gotland most often are drinking utensils they are also associated with drinking rituals. Drinking rituals are thought to have been very important events in which wealth, political influence, and status could have been expressed. Roman artifacts found in graves also indicate that they might have owned by some kind of elite, because they have been placed together with other status objects. The thesis does not exclude other events or phenomena that took place during the Roman Iron Age. The Iron Age society as a whole is also studied; this is meant to give a broader understanding of the people being researched.

What is the role of political leadership in the mechanisms that bind general masses and political elites behind a certain policy program? And what factors account for the changes in political leadership? The mechanisms connecting citizens and elites are crucial for regime stability. The malfunction of such mechanisms, for instance, the absence of citizen-elite agreement on policy issues, or low levels of public trust in elites, undermines political support and legitimacy of the existing regime. Focusing on rural communities in China, this dissertation attempts to examine how leader-follower relations in the grassroots communities influence mass-elite interactions, and how the community contextual factors shape those leader-follower relations. Existing studies tend to focus on the patron-client connections between peasant villagers and local officials, but largely to the neglect of other kinds of social relations. Based on fieldwork interviews and panel survey data from China, I show that informal social relations, like leadership, have a significant impact on mass-elite opinion connections and public trust in local elites. By leadership or leadership relations, I refer to the mutuality of leader-follower connection that is based on either authoritative or non-authoritative, but largely non-coercive influence by both sides. An element of non-authoritative quality that binds a group of people (i.e. followers) behind a leader is especially important. For this reason, leadership tends to be significant in a local community setting, such as in a village, that is thick with interpersonal relations. My study finds how formal elections and leadership relations in local communities co-determine the direction of opinion influence between the local elite and ordinary citizens, and how leadership facilitates citizens’ belief that their local leaders are trustworthy. Further, my analysis shows that as market activities and state control penetrate into village communities, leadership relations themselves undergo changes in that the contextual factors of the rural community have tremendous predictive power on human networks within the community. These changes imply that the political and economic reforms in the Chinese countryside have important consequences regarding local political leadership as well as mechanisms that bind masses and elites together.

Zugl.: Frankfurt (Main), Univ., Diss., 2008

This paper will explore how track and field athletes are currently using social media, what types of social media attract or repel sponsorship and what barriers and opportunities exist for social media use in the sport of track and field. A variety of different sources will be used including academic papers, interviews with community managers from Saucony and Brooks and social media publications. / text

Many modern democracies have a hard time dealing with religion. The question of how much religious identity should be respected by government is one that America has spent a great deal of time and intellectual effort on. Because this paper looks at Jewish political communities, it first looks at what kind of religiously-rooted political activism is desirable. It finds that both groups of Jews in this study meet Amy Gutmann’s strict criteria for healthy religious and political entanglement. For the empirical part of this study, Jews have long been of interest to political scientists because their partisan ties are stronger and more uniform than most other groups. This paper looks at how Jewish political identity is shaped by Jewish elite messages in the forum of worship. Earlier studies have shown empirically that there are not substantive systematic differences in the political views of Conservative and Reform Jews. This earlier research has not addressed the issue of differences in Jewish denomination and elite political messages. Specifically, this paper explores the differences in the political tenor of the messages of the leaders in a Conservative Congregation and those of leaders in a Reform Congregation in Fort Worth, Texas. Based on the data collected in nine in-depth interviews with Rabbis, board members, Jewish Federation Executive Directors, and other active community members, this paper looks at how elites express their political views in their respective congregational settings. It finds that elites in the Jewish Reform movement in Fort Worth are more overt in their combination of worship and politics, while Jewish Conservative elites feel less comfortable with politicizing the bimah. / text