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In the past decade, there has been a dramatic decline in agricultural employment in Bulgaria and several reports have pointed at supply chain modernisation and poor milk quality as the main reasons for the dramatic decline in the number of farms. However, to date the policy debate is been based on ad hoc claims, while there is relatively little micro-level evidence. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the determinants of structural change in the Bulgarian dairy sector in the period 2003-2009.

This paper analyses the determinants of structural change in the Bulgarian dairy sector in the period 2003-2009, using a unique panel survey of 296 farm households in the North and South Central Region of Bulgaria. In order to control for sample attrition bias, the authors use a two-step Heckman model of farm survival and growth model.

The data confirms the rapid outflow of agricultural labour from dairy farming activities: 55 per cent of the farm households supplying milk to a dairy company in 2003 stopped supplying in 2009. The main reasons for quitting are ageing of the household, health problems and an increase in off-farm employment alternatives and not supply chain modernisation and milk quality standards. The institutional innovations which are associated with integration in modern supply chains, such as the provision of farm assistance programmes, have a positive impact on small farms’ growth.

The study is one of the first to use panel data to analyse the impact of standards on the survival and growth of small farms in value chains. The authors analyse the determinants of farm survival and growth in the Bulgarian dairy sector in the period 2003-2009, using panel surveys of 296 dairy farm households in the North and South Central Region of Bulgaria and panel data from interviews with dairy companies. The findings are relevant beyond the Bulgarian dairy sector as supply chain modernisation and changes in quality regulations are taken place in many other transition and developing countries.

Discusses the Human Genome Project, which aims to map the structure and function of approximately 100,000 genes in the human body. Describes some of the ethical and legal problems of genomic research, pointing out that such research presents both promise and problems and that it must be conducted according to well‐defined, rational rules if human rights are to be protected. Calls for a multidisciplinary involvement, both nationally and internationally, in the establishment of the necessary laws; and exhorts Australia and New Zealand, which have hitherto remained largely uninvolved, to make a larger contribution both towards the debate and towards funding for the project.

Reports on the International Workshop on Legal Aspects of the Human Genome Project, held in Bilbao, Spain, on 24‐26 May 1993, and attended by leading scientists, administrators, lawyers and academics, and by James Watson who discovered DNA′s double helix. Briefly outlines contributions by various speakers covering such topics as; the right to confidentiality in the use of genetic information; culpability for criminality; patents and intellectual property; insurance law; legal limits on genetic experimentation; identification by genetic testing; and labour relations.

The aim of the paper is to analyze the process of “germ cell” formation by framing it as an opportunity for promoting organizational learning and transformation. The paper aims to specifically answer two research questions: Why does the “germ cell” have a pivotal role in organization’s transformation? and Which conditions facilitate the formation of the “germ cell” in the management of complex and uncertain problems?

The paper answers the research questions first by presenting the literature related to knowing and learning inside organizations, and second by introducing the concept of “germ cell” and connecting it with the metaphors of “waiting experiment” and “anchoring forward”. Finally, the paper analyzes the steps by which the “germ cell” is shaped, thus owing to the exploration of problematic situations, underpinning the “germ cell’s ” role to open perspectives for multiple applications and development. Two research interventions are presented by focusing on the construction of the “germ cell” moving from the problematic situations to promote organizational learning and change.

The paper describes the formation of the “germ cell” as a process that opens possibilities for subjects to recognize and reflect on the recurrent and taken-for-granted practices and concepts and give sense to them by making the inner contradiction and the ways for managing it visible.

The unfolding and challenging inceptive configuration of the germ cell sheds light on the discursive/conversational/language processes and the activities entangled in socio-material instrumentalities and environments in which people are involved.

This paper presented the learning process of a group of primary mathematics teachers who participated in two iterations of lesson design, enactment and reflection in a Chinese Lesson Study.

An expansive learning theory was employed to examine the teachers’ learning process in lesson study (LS) on representing fractions on a number line. The evolution of a germ cell was utilized to feature the transformation of the object of activity from abstract to concrete through resolving contradictions among LS members. The videos of lesson planning, research lessons (RLs) and debriefing meetings were collected and analyzed to reveal the expansive learning process.

The analysis showed that the teachers expanded their learning through transforming the object from diffuse to concrete and expanded through consciously articulating the germ cell. The outcomes of object-oriented activity include improving the enacted lesson which promoted students’ conceptual understanding.

This study made a unique contribution to understanding the learning process of teachers in Chinese LS from the perspective of expansive learning.

Dynamics of population mutagenesis during 22 consecutive generations of animals, as well as genetic radioadaptation were studied in natural populations of small mammals (bank voles) under chronic low‐intensive irradiation due to the Chernobyl accident. The data obtained point to oppositely directed processes in irradiated populations: accumulation of mutations (genetic load of populations) and formation of genetic radioadaptation. It is suggested that the frequencies of genetic damages in populations could be higher in the absence of radioadaptation process. A relationship between the frequencies of cytogenetic injuries and low doses of radiation was revealed in animal generations studied. The non‐linear dose‐effect curves are most likely to be defined by the complicated microevolutionary processes in populations. The results obtained indicate the absence of genetic effect threshold of low dose radiation. Besides, they show that a dependence of cytogenetic effects on radiation low doses in series of irradiated generations cannot be revealed using linear equations.

Political scientists have taken up behavior genetics (BG) at a momentous time in the science of genetics. Momentous, because the science of genetics is undergoing a paradigm shift [Petronis, A. (2010). Epigenetics as a unifying principle in the aetiology of complex traits and diseases. Nature, 465(7299), 721–727]. This shifting paradigm poses a significant challenge to both the prevailing methodologies of behavior genetics – twin, family, adoption studies – and one of the most noteworthy findings to emerge from such studies, that is, which we can call the principle of minimal parental effects. This is the supposition that the effect of the shared parental rearing environment on the behavioral phenotypes of offspring is statistically equivalent to zero (Plomin & Daniels, 1987). It is not uncommon nowadays to find twin, adoption, and family studies utilized in the study of political behavior (e.g., Alford, J., Funk, C. L., & Hibbing, J. R. (2005). Are political orientations genetically transmitted? American Political Science Review, 99(2), 153–167.); likewise, the principle of minimal parental effects is frequently invoked in such studies (e.g., Mondak, J. J., Hibbing, M. V., Canache, D., Seligson, M. A., & Anderson, M. A. (2010). Personality and civic engagement: An integrative framework for the study of trait effects on political behavior. American Political Science Review, 104(1), 85–110.). As we shall see, the challenge comes from recent discoveries in genetics that are radically transforming our understanding of the genome and its relationship to environment.

Outlines some basic human embryological facts and considers several myths such as “the immediate product of fertilization is just a potential human being”. Gives medical facts to clarify these issues and concludes that these have far reaching implications for many areas of research. Argues that these decisions, at present, are based more on myth than science.