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\"This book makes two central claims: first, that mineral-rich states are cursed not by their wealth but, rather, by the ownership structure they choose to manage their mineral wealth and second, that weak institutions are not inevitable in mineral-rich states. Each represents a significant departure from the conventional resource curse literature, which has treated ownership structure as a constant across time and space and has presumed that mineral-rich countries are incapable of either building or sustaining strong institutions - particularly fiscal regimes. The experience of the five petroleum-rich Soviet successor states (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) provides a clear challenge to both of these assumptions. Their respective developmental trajectories since independence demonstrate not only that ownership structure can vary even across countries that share the same institutional legacy but also that this variation helps to explain the divergence in their subsequent fiscal regimes\"--Provided by publisher.

The year 2016 marks the 25th anniversary of the official inauguration of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a free association of sovereign states comprised of Russia and 11 other republics that were formerly part of the Soviet Union (The CIS--Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine; the South Caucasus--Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia plus disconnected Abkhazia and South Ossetia; and Central Asia--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Although this loose association of states may not exist as a fixed-entity on the globe, it is believed that this bloc of countries will continue to build upon the various separate regions in the former Soviet space in the coming decade. Despite major differences country-to-country, groups within each state share many common economic, political, and cultural characteristics, which many hope will fade with the passing of those generations that remember the common state. In this context, the Russian Federation holds a unique position in the Euro-Pacific area. Separate, distinct, but still bordering these regions and related to all of them to differing degrees, in the 2010s Russia will step up efforts to become an independent center of gravity in Northern Eurasia. Leaning on its CIS allies and partners, Moscow is willing to fortify its stance vis-à-vis its geopolitical competitors--the European Union in the west, and China in the east. Nevertheless, the combination of factors that determined the plunge in the economy of the CIS since the second quarter of 2015 persists today. These factors included the sharp fall in commodities prices, restrictions on access to international capital markets due to sanctions against Russia and a deceleration in China, which is the region's main trading partner. Although economic conditions in most of the CIS economies are challenging, differences in growth dynamics persist. Oil and gas exporting countries, namely Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan, are seeing economic conditions deteriorating rapidly because of the sharp fall in energy prices. Meanwhile, most of the labor-exporting countries (Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Tajikistan) are seeing the deterioration in growth rates, mainly due to strong production in the agricultural sector and, in some cases, increased activity in the extractive sector. This book provides a regional analysis, as well as country scan, of the CIS regional block economies. We will examine their history since the breakup of the formal Soviet Union and the formation of the CIS bloc, including creation of regional agreements such as the CIS Free Trade Area and the Eurasian Economic Union, a single economic market which now represents more than 180 million people. As a whole, our text attempts to better understand current, and future, prospects for economic growth in the region, as well as their individual national challenges.

The war in Ukraine and the direct and indirect political, economic and financial involvement of many countries worldwide in this conflict demonstrates the difficult process of developing the new world order. Over 10,000 sanctions have already been imposed on Russia by the United States, the European Union and their allies. Many countries are significantly affected by sanctions regardless of whether they are imposing them, being targeted by them, or have economic and trade partnerships with either-or both-of the sides. Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries have been significantly affected by sanctions related to the Russian-Ukrainian war. Seasonally adjusted real quarterly time series, including gross domestic product and external trade, monthly nominal exchange rate time series, exogenous dummy variables for sanctions, and a combination of the vector autoregressive model and the Granger causality test were used in the estimations. We demonstrate how sanctions have affected the Russian economy and foreign exchange market and how their impact may spill over to the economies and foreign exchange markets of other CIS countries. Based on the research findings and contemporary political and economic conditions in the region and the world, we make suggestions helpful for improving the international economic and trade policies of the CIS countries.

Elastic geobarometry for host-inclusion systems can provide new constraints to assess the pressure and temperature conditions attained during metamorphism. Current experimental approaches and theory are developed only for crystals immersed in a hydrostatic stress field, whereas inclusions experience deviatoric stress. We have developed a method to determine the strains in quartz inclusions from Raman spectroscopy using the concept of the phonon-mode Gruneisen tensor. We used ab initio Hartree-Fock/Density Functional Theory to calculate the wavenumbers of the Raman-active modes as a function of different strain conditions. Least-squares fits of the phonon-wavenumber shifts against strains have been used to obtain the components of the mode Gruneisen tensor of quartz (γ1m and γ3m) that can be used to calculate the strains in inclusions directly from the measured Raman shifts. The concept is demonstrated with the example of a natural quartz inclusion in eclogitic garnet from Mir kimberlite and has been validated against direct X-ray diffraction measurement of the strains in the same inclusion.

The paper aims to identify the priorities for cardiovascular health promotion research in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the region with the highest cardiovascular diseases (CVD) burden in the world. This narrative review covered peer-reviewed publications and online databases using a nonsystematic purposive approach. In despite of a steady decrease in CVD burden in the region, the East-West disparities are still significant. There is minimal continuity in the past and current CVD prevention efforts in the region. Many challenges still exist, including an opportunity gap in research funding, surveillance and population-based preventive interventions. A comprehensive approach focusing on multisectoral cooperation, quality and accessibility of healthcare and equity-oriented public policies and supported by well-designed epidemiologic studies is needed to overcome these challenges. The current level of effort is not adequate to address the magnitude of the CVD epidemic in CEE. It is imperative to strengthen the epidemiological base concerning cardiovascular health in the region, to foster surveillance and progress in implementation of CVD preventive strategies in the most affected populations of Europe.

A large proportion of ores in magmatic sulfide deposits consist of mixtures of cumulus silicate minerals, sulfide liquid, and silicate melt, with characteristic textural relationships that provide essential clues to their origin. Within silicate-sulfide cumulates, there is a range of sulfide abundance in magmatic-textured silicate-sulfide ores between ores with up to about five modal percent sulfides, called \"disseminated ores,\" and \"net-textured\" (or \"matrix\") ores containing about 30 to 70 modal percent sulfide forming continuous networks enclosing cumulus silicates. Disseminated ores in cumulates have various textural types relating to the presence or absence of trapped interstitial silicate melt and (rarely) vapor bubbles. Spherical or oblate spherical globules with smooth menisci, as in the Black Swan disseminated ores, are associated with silicate-filled cavities interpreted as amygdales or segregation vesicles. More irregular globules lacking internal differentiation and having partially facetted margins are interpreted as entrainment of previously segregated, partially solidified sulfide. There is a textural continuum between various types of disseminated and net-textured ores, intermediate types commonly taking the form of \"patchy net-textured ores\" containing sulfide-rich and sulfide-poor domains at centimeter to decimeter scale. These textures are ascribed primarily to the process of sulfide percolation, itself triggered by the process of competitive wetting whereby the silicate melt preferentially wets silicate crystal surfaces. The process is self-reinforcing as sulfide migration causes sulfide networks to grow by coalescence, with a larger rise height and hence a greater gravitational driving force for percolation and silicate melt displacement. Many of the textural variants catalogued here, including poikilitic or leopard-textured ores, can be explained in these terms. Additional complexity is added by factors such as the presence of oikocrysts and segregation of sulfide liquid during strain-rate dependent thixotropic behavior of partially consolidated cumulates. Integrated textural and geochemical studies are critical to full understanding of ore-forming systems.

Pyroclastic material in the form of altered volcanic ash or tephra has been reported and described from one or more stratigraphic units from the Proterozoic to the Tertiary. This altered tephra, variously called bentonite or K-bentonite or tonstein depending on the degree of alteration and chemical composition, is often linked to large explosive volcanic eruptions that have occurred repeatedly in the past. K-bentonite and bentonite layers are the key components of a larger group of altered tephras that are useful for stratigraphic correlation and for interpreting the geodynamic evolution of our planet. Bentonites generally form by diagenetic or hydrothermal alteration under the influence of fluids with high-Mg content and that leach alkali elements. Smectite composition is partly controlled by parent rock chemistry. Studies have shown that K-bentonites often display variations in layer charge and mixed-layer clay ratios and that these correlate with physical properties and diagenetic history. The following is a review of known K-bentonite and related occurrences of altered tephra throughout the timescale from Precambrian to Cenozoic.

Non-equigap GM(1,1) model with conformable fractional accumulation (CFNGM(1,1)) is proposed to analyze the relationship between energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. Two cases are used to prove the validity of the model. In this article, energy consumption is used as input and carbon dioxide emissions are used as output. Carbon dioxide emissions of 53 countries and regions in North America, South America, Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific are predicted. The forecast results show that the carbon dioxide emissions of 30 countries and regions have risen to varying degrees. The top three countries with carbon dioxide emissions in the next three years are China, the USA, and India. More attention should be paid to the carbon dioxide emissions of China.

Melt inclusion data from primitive arc basalts from Mexico and Kamchatka show clear positive correlations of \"fluid mobile element\"/H2O ratios with the Cl/H2O ratio, suggesting that the trace element content of subduction zone fluids is strongly enhanced by complexing with chloride. This effect is observed for large-ion lithophile (LILE) elements, (e.g., Rb and Sr), but also for the light rare earth elements (REE, e.g., La and Ce) as well as for U. The correlations of these elements with Cl/H2O cannot be explained by the addition of sediment melts or slab melts to the mantle source, since Cl has no effect on the solubility or partitioning of these elements in silicate melt systems. On the other hand, the observed relationship of trace element abundance with Cl is consistent with a large body of experimental data showing greatly enhanced partitioning into aqueous fluid upon addition of chloride. Accordingly, it appears that a dilute, Cl-bearing aqueous fluid is the main carrier of LILE, light REE, and U from the slab to the source of melting in arcs. Moreover, elevated Ce/H2O ratios clearly correlate with fluid salinity and therefore are not suitable as a \"slab geothermometer\". From a synopsis of experimental and melt inclusion data, it is suggested that the importance of sediment or slab melting in the generation of arc magmas is likely overestimated, while the effects of trace element scavenging from the mantle wedge may be underestimated. Moreover, establishing reliable data sets for the fluid/mineral partition coefficients of trace elements as a function of pressure, temperature, and salinity requires additional efforts, since most of the commonly used experimental strategies have severe drawbacks and potential pitfalls.

The Central Asian Orogenic Belt (c. 1000-250 Ma) formed by accretion of island arcs, ophiolites, oceanic islands, seamounts, accretionary wedges, oceanic plateaux and microcontinents in a manner comparable with that of circum-Pacific Mesozoic-Cenozoic accretionary orogens. Palaeomagnetic and palaeofloral data indicate that early accretion (Vendian-Ordovician) took place when Baltica and Siberia were separated by a wide ocean. Island arcs and Precambrian microcontinents accreted to the active margins of the two continents or amalgamated in an oceanic setting (as in Kazakhstan) by roll-back and collision, forming a huge accretionary collage. The Palaeo-Asian Ocean closed in the Permian with formation of the Solonker suture. We evaluate contrasting tectonic models for the evolution of the orogenic belt. Current information provides little support for the main tenets of the one- or three-arc Kipchak model; current data suggest that an archipelago-type (Indonesian) model is more viable. Some diagnostic features of ridge-trench interaction are present in the Central Asian orogen (e.g. granites, adakites, boninites, near-trench magmatism, Alaskan-type mafic-ultramafic complexes, high-temperature metamorphic belts that prograde rapidly from low-grade belts, rhyolitic ash-fall tuffs). They offer a promising perspective for future investigations.