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During the past decade, the states situated on the territory of the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe have made newspaper headlines around the world for topics on gender and sexuality: it seems that each step towards gender equality and inclusive sexual citizenship in the region has been accompanied by counter-actions on different scales. In what way is the present day of appropriate legislation and recent backlash connected to the legacies of regulations of gender relationships, intimacies, and sexualities under state socialism? What role do economic, political, and educational changes that took place in the region in the 1990s play in these developments? And finally, can we speak about certain similarities between discourses on sexuality and intimacy in the “West,” on the one hand, and in post-Soviet and East European countries, on the other? Reflecting on current changes in post-socialist societies, the authors of this special issue give their own answers to these questions.

This article introduces the Assyrian and Babylonian sources relevant to the Old Testament historical books. The corpus of Assyrian sources consists mainly of royal inscriptions between the mid-ninth and mid-seventh centuries bce, pertaining to the period narrated in 1 Kgs. 16 to 2 Kgs. 21. In general, when the same events are described, the biblical accounts appear to be in basic agreement with the Assyrian sources, even though some episodes mentioned in the Assyrian sources are not included in the biblical texts and vice versa. It is plausible that the writers of 2 Kings had source-based knowledge of past events. In both cases, the historical information must be filtered through the ideological purposes of the Assyrian scribes as well as the deuteronomistic editors. The Babylonian sources confirm the conquest of Jerusalem in 597 bce and the forced migration of the Judeans, including King Jehoiachin and his entourage. Otherwise, there are no direct links between the Babylonian sources and the Old Testament historical books. Nevertheless, the Babylonian sources, especially those from Al-Yahudu, contain important information on the social environment and living conditions of the Judean population in a certain part of Babylonia in the sixth to fifth centuries bce.

Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA)-derived phase angle (PhA) is a valuable parameter to assess physical health. However, the genetic and environmental aspects of PhA are not yet well understood. The present study aimed to estimate the heritability of PhA and investigate the relationships between PhA and anthropometric measurements. PhA and skeletal muscle mass index (SMI) were examined using multi-frequency BIA in 168 Japanese twin volunteers (54 males and 114 females, mean age = 61.0 &plusmn, 16.5 years). We estimated the narrow-sense heritability of these parameters and the genetic and environmental relationships between them using a genetic twin modeling. For the PhA, 51% (95% confidence interval: 0.33, 0.64) of the variance was explained by additive genetic effects, and 49% (95% confidence interval: 0.36, 0.67) was explained by unique environmental effects. The heritability of PhA was lower than the height, body weight, and body mass index. PhA shared almost no genetic variation with anthropometric measurements and SMI but shared an environmental variation (14%) with SMI. These findings suggest that the genes affecting PhA are different than those affecting anthropometric measurements and SMI. The correlation between PhA and SMI is caused by common environmental factors.

Contemporary social and health care services exhibit a significant movement toward increasing client involvement in their own care and in the development of services. This major cultural change represents a marked shift in the client&rsquo, s role from a passive patient to an active empowered agent. We draw on interaction-oriented focus group research and conversation analysis to study workshop conversations in which social and health care clients and professionals discussed &ldquo, client involvement&rdquo, Our analysis focuses on the participants&rsquo, mutually congruent or discrepant views on the topic. The professionals and clients both saw client involvement as an ideal that should be promoted. Although both participant groups considered the clients&rsquo, experience of being heard a prerequisite of client involvement, the clients deviated from the professionals in that they also highlighted the need for actual decision-making power. However, when the professionals invoked the clients&rsquo, responsibility for their own treatment, the clients were not eager to agree with their view. In addition, in analyzing problems of client involvement during the clients&rsquo, and professionals&rsquo, meta-talk about client involvement, the paper also shows how the &ldquo, rhetoric itself may, paradoxically, sometimes serve to hinder here-and-now client involvement.

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