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Morphological similarity between an intruder and a native species can hinder the detection of the intruder. The undetected non-native species will thus have more time to affect the local ecosystem and spread. This paper describes an instance of unnoticed introduction of a fish species morphologically resembling a native endemic species. We report on the first established population of the Rhodes minnow, Ladigesocypris ghigii (Actinopterygii: Leuciscidae), endemic to Rhodes Island, which has been recently introduced to a river near Athens, mainland Greece. When it was first noticed, in 2017, the species was misidentified due to its morphological similarity to Pelasgus marathonicus, the only native leuciscid of the streams and rivers around Athens, until it was subject to genetic and detailed morphological examination. Genetic analyses based on both mitochondrial (cytochrome b) and nuclear (recombination activating gene, RAG1) markers unambiguously identified the collected individuals and provided information on the relationships of Ladigesocypris at both the species and generic level. Our investigation supports that L. ghigii was recently established near Athens, and that the population probably originated from Rhodes Island, an eastern Aegean island. In 2021, a high-density thriving mainland population coexisted solely with the native European eel (Anguilla anguilla) along at least 9.7 km of river habitat. It was assessed as being of high invasive risk for the region where it was established by the Aquatic Species Invasiveness Screening Kit (AS-ISK) screening tool. We propose a feasibility study be undertaken to investigate the application of measures that may include actions to exterminate or contain the population. Special attention is required since the species is considered vulnerable in its native range, while the translocated population coexists with native biota within a stream ecosystem of outstanding local conservation value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to disentangle the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on four major Greek bank stocks that were traded in the Athens Stock Exchange during the period the pandemic begun. To this end we employ an event study methodology and estimate Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CARs) that stem from three key announcement dates. These dates include two monetary policy and a major health news announcement. The four banks we focus on are the National Bank of Greece, Eurobank, Alpha Bank and Piraeus Bank. We calculate abnormal stock returns in windows of ±10, ±5, ±2, ±1 and day of the announcements, and report that monetary policy announcements either do not affect stock performance or their effect is only mild, while health news have a positive impact on stock returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses biometric borders in Europe, focusing on the Eurodac database and practises of fingerprinting people on the move in Greece as a politicised attempt to control and limit secondary movement as set out in the Dublin Regulation. The paper presents empirical research to explore one way in which migrants in Athens negotiate Eurodac; where alternative imaginaries informed ideas of 'big' and 'small' fingerprints, shaping interactions with the asylum service as well as secondary movement. I use Autonomy of Migration (AoM) theories to depict borders as places of ongoing conflict, subjectivity and transformation and introduce the work of Castoriadis' social imaginaries and the radical imagination to explore migrants' alternative imaginaries. I argue that these occur at points of friction, within the constraints of, and alongside, a dominant socio-technical imaginary driving the proliferation of biometric border controls. I believe this enables a deeper understanding of the autonomy with AoM theories. Here, autonomy is presented as instances of self-creation, spurred on through the radical imagination and shaping moments of uncontrollability, where the subjective dimension of migration informs both meanings of autonomy as well as alternative imaginaries. Ultimately, I argue that these practices seek to disrupt and challenge the dominance of biometrics as a signifier of control, identity and truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greece was never internationally renowned for its defence industry; in fact, its state-owned industries were usually a source of headaches rather than income for Athens. The Debt Crisis (2008-18) compounded the chronic ills of the Greek defence ecosystem which appeared to decline irreversibly. And yet, in recent years they rebounded and reached new heights. How can this surprising turnaround be explained? And what does it indicate for the future of the Greek defence industry? This paper aspires to examine how the Greek defence ecosystem (state- and private-owned) evolved from a stage of stagnation and decline into a phase of stabilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called refugee crisis of 2015–2017 has accelerated the diversification of frontline actors involved in the field of migration management. Although this shift has been widely acknowledged, its implications remain unclear. Focusing on the capital cities of Athens and Berlin, this paper examines the views and experiences of individual frontline actors from different organizational sectors. The findings suggest that the intensified inter-organizational collaboration at the street-level leads to the emergence of wider communities of practice, composed of diverse "front-liners". Although the front-liners develop a shared community membership, they simultaneously experience internal conflicts due to enduring sectoral divides and competing institutional logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Sails and textile technology played a key role in enabling mobility and thus shaping historical phenomena such as migration, trade, the acquisition and maintenance of imperial power in the ancient Mediterranean. Yet sails are nearly absent from analyses of ancient fleets, even in extensively studied cases like that of Classical Athens. This paper examines the demand and production of sailcloth, including labour and material requirements, and logistics. A consideration of the Athenian navy demonstrates that making sails involved significant amounts of labour and resources. Managing supplies and reserves of sailcloth constituted a significant challenge, which could be addressed through more intensive exploitation of textile workers, trade, and taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alongside the depressing image of closed shops as visible indicators of the crisis, migrant businesses can be found in many parts of Athens and often play a vital role in local neighbourhood markets. This paper explores the socio-spatial dimensions of Athens’ emerging migrant economies. Drawing from a recent research project combining survey and ethnographic methods on three Athenian neighbourhoods, the paper examines migrant entrepreneurship at the local level and highlights the relevance of place, politics and everyday life. We argue that the spread of immigrant entrepreneurial activity in Athens not only forms an existing part of the urban landscape, but has also become an organic part of the everyday experience of life in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Governmental policies to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) have directly and decisively intervened with literally every facet of people's life transforming the geographies of everyday lives across the Global South and North. In this paper, we explore the shifting relationship of urban dwellers to public space during the COVID-19 pandemic with the aim to unravel the uneven ways lockdown measures and restrictions on movement have impacted the residents of Athens, the capital of Greece. By focusing on the way the relationship of different social groups to public space has been affected by governmental measures, we show how the reconfiguration of the production of urban public space has disproportionately affected people along lines of class, ethnicity and gender. We argue that governmental measures have so far deepened systemic inequality, segregation and social, spatial and environmental injustice in the city and have imposed unprecedented restrictions in people's democratic rights, consolidating a shift towards a more authoritarian version of neoliberal urbanism. By opposing and challenging the possibility of only dystopian futures that has dominated public discourse and collective imagination within this ongoing global public health crisis, we address a call to radical scholars and activists to start envisaging possibilities for a plural use of space and a new undisciplined, radical politics of coexistence in shared, safe spaces along the lines of a geography of togetherness, care and resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resistant performances in Athens have gathered momentum over the last year, transforming the fixed landscape of a city into a platform for negotiation and dialogue. The singular compelling imagery of ‘occupying’ as a form of resistance is its multiplicity of voices—the collective mobilisation of the ‘multitude’. Yet, the force and urgency of a collective resistance lies in the individual untold stories of its proponents. Rather than glorify the movement as a faceless entity, this paper embraces the daily stories, struggles and wounds of occupation, by using photographs. Resistant performances are connected with existing social conditions: austerity measures, mass immigration and ‘crisis’. Such narratives of globalisation and empire building are transforming central areas and traditional notions of Athenian identity, giving birth to a new street-level language that has twisted, innovated and filled in the gaps of a culture's hegemonic discourse. The paper analyses both protests and specific examples of street art as visual markers of the shifting, complex discourses of power struggles, marginality and counter-cultures that establish a new reality that must be seen and heard. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Against the background of the so-called "new immigration" to Greece starting at the beginning of the 1990s, this paper explores the housing experience of immigrants in the city of Athens and reveals housing pathways that have been overlooked or deliberately concealed. Through the processing of data from the Athens Mortgage Office and through interviews with migrant homeowners, it is shown that despite serious difficulties raised against their spatial and social integration, immigrants managed to escape homelessness, gradually upgrade both their housing conditions and occupancy status, and gain access even to homeownership. Special emphasis is given to key factors that allowed immigrants to achieve upward residential mobility and that relate to specific aspects of the local context and to immigrants' individual strategies. Urban space emerges as an "opportunity framework" and immigrants as "active agents" who set up successful housing strategies and reverse the supposedly vicious circle of poverty, delinquency and marginality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling the elasticity modulus of unbound granular pavement materials has attracted significant research interest because of its importance in pavement design particularly in PPP/BOT projects. These efforts have been hampered by three factors: (i) inability to capture the correlations between the asphalt and granular layers and the subgrade, (ii) inadequate modeling of the effects of external factors on the elasticity modulus of unbound materials, and (iii) widespread use of linear statistical relationships to model a complex and non-linear phenomenon. In this paper genetically optimized neural networks and falling weight deflectometer (FWD) back-analysis results from a newly constructed BOT project in Athens, Greece, are employed in order to evaluate pavement section design parameters. It is shown that parameter values adopted during design do not co-inside with those observed from the back-analysis studies. Further, the results indicate that the relative estimation error for the modulus of elasticity of the unbound material does not exceed 25%, while the correlation between actual and predicted values is 86%, both suggesting that the proposed approach models the physical phenomenon adequately, a finding with important practical implications particularly in PPP projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies on equity valuation suggest that security prices should be determined by book value and discounted future abnormal earnings (Ohlson, 1995; Feltham and Ohlson, 1995). This paper examines the empirical validity of these theoretical models for the Greek equity market. More specifically, it uses a panel data methodology to study equity prices for important sectors of the economy. To anticipate the results, these models appear to be reliable price valuation models, for Greek equities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on topics discussed at the XVIth Forum of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS) held on October 20-23, 2010 in Athens, Greece concerning the modern psychoanalysis is presented. Topics include the problem involving the decision by the German Psychoanalytic Society and the Swedish Psychoanalytic Association to leave the IFPS by the end of 2010. The forum featured people from psychoanalytic field including Agnar Berle, Michael Ermann, and Pierre Magistretti.

On the 11th November 2011, Mavili Collective – a group of artists and theatre makers – occupied the disused theatre building of Embros, in Athens, Greece. The occupancy installed itself as a “re-activation” and proposed an intense twelve-day programme of activities bringing together artists, theoreticians, dance/theatre makers, architects and the general public. The activities were devised out of the “current lacks and shortfalls of our system” and attempted “to interrogate the global changing landscape at this moment in time” as Mavili Collective stated in the opening document. Due to the precarity of the political and cultural situation and its non-hierarchical modes of working Embros Occupancy produced an alternative circuit in the local cultural market; a questioning of the “modi operandi” of the cultural sector, and a questioning of the cultural imagination - of what culture is and what it can do today. This paper operates as a diary of the twelve-day occupancy in Embros and a mapping of the cultural landscape of Greece. Through a reading of Embros re-activation as an incomplete cultural proposal this paper will attempt to bring together the possibilities and impossibilities of the periphery in order examine the role of the contemporary flexible worker. Consideration will be given to the potential of the seemingly ephemeral practices of the precariat to produce new alternatives, imperceptible moments of social activity that bear the potential to become the starting point for re-formation and re-evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of global change on the status and qualities of the Greek national capital, Athens, focusing on how they affect the development of cultural tourism in the city. Although Athens constituted one of the most significant destinations for Greek tourism in the past, in recent years it started to weaken. Athens is characterised by a series of problems, among them are the degradation of its environment and quality of life and traffic congestion. However, in terms of tourism development, the Olympic Games helped in re-imaging the city and upgrading its infrastructure. This study based on semi-structured interviews with top officials reveals how global change has affected Athens’ socio-cultural/economic status, identity and image. Despite the tourism policy/planning responses to global changes, Athens’ tourism continues to decline leaving unexplored potential such as its rich cultural heritage, new multicultural identity and the New Acropolis Museum. The paper suggests that cultural elements of capital cities must be multidimensional including a variety of attractions and amenities. The use of cultural heritage assets needs to be in line with global developments in order for cities to effectively leverage heritage for cultural tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The need for dependable and flexible models of transit vehicle maintenance has been well established in the literature as a means for improving daily operations, capital planning and service quality. Stemming from the practical need to predict the duration of maintenance activities and active service time for buses, this paper uses the principles of duration modeling to address two important questions: what is the duration of vehicle maintenance activities and, given that a bus is in active service, how long will it take? We extend previous work by including exogenous factors directly affecting maintenance duration and active service time in fully parametric duration models and examine such activities for the transit system in Athens (Greece). Results indicate that vehicle age, kilometers travelled and repair type are amongst the most important determinants of maintenance duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of athletes with a disability within the mainstream of sport has been an issue within the Paralympic Movement since its inception. Prior research pertaining to inclusion of athletes with a disability into mainstream sport is reviewed, with particular note being made of the absence of any substantial body of knowledge derived from relevant academic study related to inclusion in the Olympic Games. This paper then examines from a historical perspective, using archival documents and interviews with key stakeholders, how athletes with a disability have been included within the Olympic Games under the auspices of exhibition events from the 1984 Winter and Summer Olympic Games in Sarajevo and Los Angeles until the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens. This historical review uses the Organizational Continuum for the Inclusion of Identify Groups in Sport developed by Fay to identify changes during the twenty-year period. Lastly, the authors lay the groundwork for future academic inquiry by using Fay's model to provide a series of alternatives of how future inclusion of athletes with a disability within the Olympic Games could be structured to better serve the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2004 Olympic Games showcased Greece on a global stage, with Athens and its hinterland benefiting from massive infrastructure projects. Stringent attempts were made to develop culture, tourism and agriculture, but many urban and rural areas experienced de-industrialisation, not unlike that found in Western Europe. The rural/urban divide within Greece is particularly acute as the Greek islands and farming communities benefited more from Euro-funds than some of their semi-urbanised counterparts. The cases examined in this paper (Kastoria's beaver industry, Lavrion's mining, and textiles and fruit in Naoussa) suffered the loss of markets, poor investment and a shrinking employment base. All three localities had (limited) national policy interventions that ultimately failed, whereas Athens, where the 2004 Olympics were hosted, had massive investment. This paper is framed within global, EU and local policy contexts, to examine specific areas in Greece, and shows that despite numerous EU-driven partnerships for culture, tourism and agriculture across the mainland and Hellenic islands, clientelism, especially within political parties, remains prevalent at all governance levels. The success or otherwise of regeneration efforts was significantly affected by the ways in which elite actors were involved. In summary, the cases illustrate uneven development across Greece by highlighting the role of national and local elites in shaping growth or decline; the significance of political parties and clientelism; different types of partnerships; and levels of intervention and non-intervention. The dynamic interplay of a constellation of factors reveals how regeneration and economic development are played out in specific localities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the reasons for enrolment demand in higher education in Greece through data collected from 400 students enrolled in the final year of post-secondary education in the Athens area. Results showed that Greek students choose to follow higher studies for a number of reasons but mainly because higher education offers high-level knowledge that creates career opportunities. Family monthly income appeared to be an influential factor in the demand for higher education in Greece since, among those students from families with a greater monthly income, those who had not passed the entrance exams for Greek universities had more opportunities to pursue higher studies abroad. This paper identifies that a more appropriate response, on the part of higher education, to the needs and demands of the labour market could help prevent employment mismatches and so minimise graduate unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses two internationally mediated events to begin an enquiry into the character of contemporary political discourse, particularly those utterances that might be regarded as "acts of governance". The two events are the appearance of Scimitar armoured vehicles at Heathrow Airport in February 2003 (described by the BBC as "a public relations disaster", 14 March 2003), and the installation of US Patriot missiles around Athens in July 2004. The perspective taken in this study is that such occurrences represent armed demonstrations, a type of dramatised response produced by states that, although presented as measures designed to counter a "global" terrorist threat, may actually represent a calculated reaction to internal political dissent or other forms of domestic disorder. So, for example, the mobilisation of the Household Cavalry's armoured units took place four days before the United Kingdom's largest peace demonstration (called on 15 February 2003 to protest against the threat of a US-led attack on Iraq), while a series of minor explosions in the Athenian suburb of Kallithea on 4 May 2004 (G. Alexander, Independent, 5 August 2004) provided an important point of reference for those who argued for increased security during the Athens Olympics. The contention of this paper is that displays of military power in the United Kingdom and Greece were made in the name of security and were thus presented within the wider discursive context of the "war on terror", depending for their political impact upon the attempt to create symbolic resonance through media forms. Such displays represented not only the determination of two sovereign states, but also the intentions of powerful external actors, most particularly NATO and the US Government, which provided the missiles to Greece on the basis of "invitation" (Agence France-Presse, 10 May 2004). This study argues that these acts constituted an intervention in the globalised representation of terrorism, imposing temporarily "militarised" zones within the cities concerned. It also contends that they represent the creation of an uncomfortable tension between the pursuit of state and human security. Parallel examples of reference to "threats" are used to reinforce the paper's perspective, including the use of "globalisation" as an important device in the delivery of the economic strand of the "neo-liberal" agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Review of History is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article provides a comparative analysis of core executive adaptation to engagement with the European Union in three states: Ireland, Greece and Finland. To date, the substantive focus of the literature on executive adaptation has been on the question of convergence or continuing divergence of national responses. The dominant conclusion points to the continuing divergence of national responses. The analytical framework that guided the empirical work in this paper was divided into two inter-related institutional components: structures and processes, and the agents who actively engage with the EU's governance structures. The comparative analysis provides evidence of both convergence and continuing diversity. In managing Europe from home, states appear to choose from a menu of possible models, prime ministerial-led or foreign ministry-led systems. Two variables stand out in explaining variation across the three states, the level of institutionalisation and the relationship between formal and informal processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extension of the European Community has led to the application of policies and strategies (and their underlying concepts and assumptions) generated in one set of national and historical contexts to quite other situations. This paper examines the idea of 'sustainability'--and especially social sustainability--arguing that it is an imperative which has been first de-socialized and then re-socialized. It is de-socialized in that the pursuit of equality is replaced as the central force by the need to make peace with nature. It is re-socialized through an argument that social inclusion is a necessary condition for making this peace with nature. The paper goes on to demonstrate the timeliness of the sustainability concept for the social democratic parties of Europe, seeking a new basis for legitimation in the post-fordist period. It ends with a detailed analysis of the failure of this idea to take root effectively in Greece--notably in Athens--where many features of culture, history and social relations have created a context in which it cannot mobilize effective change without 'serious analysis and the development of a wider social awareness'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article invites readers to submit their papers for the conference titled "Intercultural Education: Paideia, Polity, Demoi," to be held in Athens, Greece from June 22 to June 26, 2009.

Knowing people are willing to protect wildlife when they feel connected with nature, we used owls as a case study to review owl symbolism in Greek history (2900 BC - 2000 AD). For five millennia, Greek civilization thrived and used owls as a dominant symbol in major cultural expressions. Consequently, a broad spectrum of social beliefs evolved towards owls. Until 1500 BC, they were mainly used as decorative attributes. During the Mycenaean era, though, owls began to be worshipped as eerie creatures in funeral rituals, inducing fear and respect. When Greek civilization peaked during the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods, an important shift is noticed in social perceptions. Owls are transformed into major symbols of wisdom, power, justice and divinity, connected to the goddess Athena and the city of Athens. Their significance faded in the subsequent Roman period and was absent throughout the Byzantine era, for 1500 years. When owls reappeared after 1800 AD in cultural aspects of modern Greece, society again considered them fearsome creatures. We finalize our historical review with a recent survey in Greece, capturing up-to-date trends. Our survey indicates that today: (i) owls are mostly considered beneficial and deserving of protection, but part of the population still perceives owls as bad omens, powerful and scary; (ii) elementary concepts of raptors' importance in ecosystems are still unknown to many; (iii) a small but impactful percentage still deliberately kill house-nesting owls, outlining the need to educate and provide nest-boxes as a relocation solution. By performing a thorough review of historical perceptions toward owls, important insights are offered on how to positively connect people with their wildlife and cultural heritage. We claim that people who understand how nature was related to their country in the past are inspired and more inclined to protect it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores potential links between the project of emancipating autonomy and urban commoning by tracing the development of experiences connected to the creation of common spaces in crisis-ridden Athens. It is maintained that for commoning to remain an active force against social and urban enclosures, commoning has to remain ‘infectious’ and to expand by overspilling the boundaries of any defined community. Threshold spatiality shapes common spaces which support expanding commoning. Moreover, institutions of expanding commoning remain correspondingly open and osmotic by ensuring that collective actions become comparable, translatable to each other and controlled by mechanisms which obstruct any form of accumulation of power. City space, thus, is not only transformed and reclaimed through practices of expanding commoning but also actively contributes to the shaping of commoning institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Greek crisis deepens and ‘recovery’ is constantly postponed to an unknown future, a dominant discourse seems to consolidate which focuses almost exclusively on macro-economic arguments and concerns. Other aspects of the crisis, among which are its gendered facets and unequal effects on women and men, rarely permeate the allegedly ‘central’ understandings. With the possible exception of unemployment which fares high among left-wing analysts, gender is thought to pertain to a ‘special’, that is, less important, matter which may detract from the ‘main problem’. The paper draws together a series of stories of ordinary women who have experienced deep changes in their everyday lives as a result of austerity policies (unemployment, precarity, salary and pension cuts, shrinking social rights, mounting everyday violence). It argues that emphasis on this scale ‘closest in’, linked in multiple ways to many other scales (local, national, European, international), reveals areas of knowledge that would otherwise remain in the dark; and that connecting concrete bodies with global processes enriches our understandings with more complex and more flexible variables and informs the ‘big pictures’ (in this case about the Greek crisis)—and not only the reverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates pedestrians' traffic gap acceptance for mid-block street crossing in urban areas. A field survey was carried out at an uncontrolled mid-block location in Athens, Greece. Pedestrians' decisions and traffic conditions were videotaped in terms of the size of traffic gaps rejected or accepted, waiting times and crossing attempts and vehicle speeds. A lognormal regression model was developed to examine pedestrian gap acceptance. It was found that gap acceptance was better explained by the distance from the incoming vehicle, rather than its speed. Other significant effects included illegal parking, presence of other pedestrians and incoming vehicles’ size. A binary logistic regression model was developed to examine the effect of traffic gaps and other parameters on pedestrians' decisions to cross the street or not. The results reveal that this decision is affected by the distance from the incoming vehicles and the waiting times of pedestrians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for the analytical potentials of the concept of spontaneity in our effort to understand critically the socio-spatial dynamics of Athens, but especially the contemporary collective protest actions in the city. Such critical understanding emerges as a significant task given the current urgency to grasp the capitalist crisis and the collective reactions to it. However, taking into account the re-configuration of extreme-Right violence in the streets of Athens, the article attempts to revisit the Marxist dichotomy between spontaneity and non-spontaneity. Via an anthropological critique of this distinction, the paper suggests an additional point of focus beyond spontaneity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores representations of the athletic body in classical Athenian literature (c.480–336 bce) and their implications for understanding the role of sport in ancient Athens during the period in question. In Greek epinician literature and plastic arts the male athletic body was frequently stereotyped as a token of physical and moral superiority and as a central attribute of manliness. On a civic level, in Athens masculinity was also enacted through group displays of physical fitness and co-ordination performed at the Panathenaea festival. But there also existed a different strand, visible in genres such as comedy and medical literature, which viewed the athletic body as food-devouring, over-trained and muscularly disfigured. It is argued that in Athens this deviant image of the athletic body can be perceived as part of a wider discourse that contrasts professional athletes and their bodies to the model of the adequately trained, militarily efficient and politically involved body of the ideal citizen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parent–toddler groups constitute a primary intervention programme whose target is to support and encourage the parent–toddler relationship. Toddlerhood is a developmental period when major, crucial changes take place regarding how children function, as well as their relationship to their parents (especially to their mother). The present paper introduces a particular model of parent–toddler groups that was developed at the Anna Freud Centre, in London, and which has been adapted for a community health setting in Athens, Greece. We describe the model of the groups and examine them in terms of the meaning of the experience of separation per se, and the way it is experienced (by both the parent and the toddler) in relation to the developmental phase that the participants are going through. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In conversation with Croesus, Herodotus' Solon makes two important points about human happiness: a) any human life is filled with change, so a person's happiness cannot be evaluated properly until he or she has died; b) the rich and powerful are as subject to change as anyone else. This paper explores, first, how often and in what ways rich and powerful barbarians and Greeks fail to achieve happiness in the Histories and, secondly, the ways in which the conditions of human life for everyone, rich and poor, slave and free, male and female, as H. depicts them, really do fall far short of the seven kinds of happiness achieved, Solon says, by the otherwise unknown Tellus of Athens. Five of these kinds of happiness are ‘Odyssean’ and involve adequate health and prosperity, with surviving descendants, in a flourishing city. Two might rather be called ‘Iliadic,’ because they involve gaining kleos through a glorious death. Herodotus, however, redefines that kleos so that it comes not only from death in battle but from any death when honored and memorialized in community. An important part of Herodotus' own task as an investigator and recorder of erga megala te kai thômasta is to give recognition, and so something of this kleos (Tellus' seventh and most enduring kind of happiness) to all of the many individuals who appear on the wide and generous canvas of his Histories' narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the implications that ancient Athens had for modern representative democracies and the links that can be made to the philosophical principles that form the essence of intercultural education. Such an exploration shows that modern democratic societies have ignored many key aspects of the important legacy left to us by these early experiments in democracy. It also shows how ancient Greece was a society deeply and profoundly shaped by the multicultural environment in which it existed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an ethnographic account of jazz music in Athens. The small scene under scrutiny is mainly populated by professional session instrumentalists of the Greek popular music scene who perform jazz as a side activity for their own pleasure. In the process, they construct a conceptual dichotomy between 'work' and 'play'. Drawing on the author's extended involvement in this scene, and focusing on private interviews with musicians, this article unveils the discourses of cosmopolitanism invoked through local jazz music-making. The ethnographic material presented aims to illustrate how even a small subculture can serve as a terrain for contesting cosmopolitan imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to evaluate the ways in which the bid and then the organising committee of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games (OG) assessed and communicated the event's intended and achieved impacts to various audiences during the respective organisational lifecycles. It draws on data on impacts that have been reported from the two committees, and comments on the timing of their communication, the themes under which impacts have been reported, the rationale for these communication activities and the selectivity of the evalaution indicators used. Relevant literature that allows the consideration of organisational communication activity as seeking to create certain meaning(s) as well as brand management literature has aided the interpretation of the findings, and the communication on impacts of the Athens 2004 OG is seen to be part of the image building exercises undertaken... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the principal features of the Athenian democracy in the fifth century BC and of the Delian League, the fifth-century alliance which became an Athenian empire, and asks how it was that at the same time the Athenians built up an unprecedented degree of democracy in their internal affairs and an unprecedented degree of rule over other Greek states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in information and communications technologies (ICTs) have strategic implications for a wide range of industries. Tourism and hospitality have been dramatically changed by the ICTs and the Internet and have gradually emerged as the leading industry in online expenditure. The Internet revolutionized traditional distribution models, enabled new entries, propelled both disintermediation and reintermediation and altered the sources of competitive advantage. This paper explores the strategic implications of ICTs and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of Internet distribution for small and medium-sized hospitality enterprises (SMEs). Primary research in Athens' hotels demonstrates the effects of the Internet and ICTs for secondary markets, where there is lower penetration and ICT adoption. Interviews and questionnaires identified a number of strategies in order to optimize distribution. The analysis illustrates the strategic role of ICTs and the Internet for hospitality organizations and small and medium-sized organizations in general. Most hotels employ a distribution mix that determines the level and employment of the Internet. The paper demonstrates that only organizations that use ICTs strategically will be able to develop their electronic distribution and achieve competitive advantages in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the hedging effectiveness of the FTSE/ATHEX-20 and FTSE/ATHEX Mid-40 stock index futures contracts in the relatively new and fairly unresearched futures market of Greece. Both in-sample and out-of-sample hedging performances using weekly and daily data are examined, considering both constant and time-varying hedge ratios. Results indicate that time-varying hedging strategies provide incremental risk-reduction benefits in-sample, but under-perform simple constant hedging strategies out-of-sample. Moreover, futures contracts serve effectively their risk management role and compare favourably with results in other international stock index futures markets. Estimation of investor utility functions and corresponding optimal utility maximising hedge ratios yields similar results, in terms of model selection. For the FTSE/ATHEX Mid-40 contracts we identify the existence of speculative components, which lead to utility-maximising hedge ratios, that are different to the minimum variance hedge ratio solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport operations constitute a critical prerequisite for the successful staging of a special event. Operations are more challenging to manage for those events that are infrequent and last for several days. In this case, the requirements for unconditional success, coupled with the uncertainties involved, necessitate robust contingency planning. The paper presents a methodological process for developing the transport-related contingency plans to address pre-identified emergencies in major events, such as the Olympic Games. War games are proposed to test the resulting contingency plans and train the staff involved in plan implementation. The application of the methodological process to the Athens 2004 Olympic Games is presented in which transport services were offered to over 50 000 members of the Olympic Family, 150 000 staff and volunteers, and 3.8 million spectators over a period of more than two weeks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper uses census data to investigate educational inequality in different types of residential areas in Athens, focusing on drop‐out rates from secondary education, access to higher education and to particular degrees within it. The unequal socio‐spatial distribution of educational attainment is linked to antagonistic middle class education strategies centred on school choice. Different forms of such strategies are identified broadly corresponding to different groups within the middle class hierarchy. Each form of school choice strategy has a particular relation to residential segregation. The latter is growing as a result, but under various forms and spatial scales that sometimes challenge the usual assumptions for the evaluation of neighbourhood effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme Value Theory (EVT) methods are used to investigate the asymptotic distribution of the lower tail for daily returns in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) over the period 1986 to 2001. Overall, the Generalised Logistic (GL) distribution is found to provide adequate descriptions of the stochastic behaviour of the ASE index extreme minima over the period studied. However, using moving windows techniques we show that the parameters of this distribution appear to vary with a tendency to become less fat tailed over time. This paper argues that market risk measurement models that are able to exploit this time varying behaviour could lead to more accurate risk estimates and therefore, have potentially important implications for risk assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at shedding some light, by contrasting the discourses and practices of shelter-providers and welfare agencies which manage the homeless in Athens, on the ways in which culture and power combine to produce segmented responses to homelessness in the European South. It is argued that central state, local state, church and voluntary agencies resort to different understandings of pity in order to acknowledge responsibility for different groups of homeless people and shape action in a variety of local settings. Official rhetoric addresses visible homelessness but conceals exclusions, selecting deserving from non-deserving clients and ’cleanups’ of public spaces. Radical voices aim at revealing hidden homelessness and sustain inclusive practices such as street or community work, but they fail to secure access for the homeless to housing, income and good quality of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued that the study of the correct specification of returns distributions has attractive implications in financial economics. This study estimates Levy-stable (fractal) distributions that can accurately account for skewness, kurtosis, and fat tails. The Levy-stable family distributions are parametrized by the Levy index (α), 0 < α ≤ 2, and include the normal distribution as a special case (α = 2). The Levy index, α, is the fractal dimension of the probability space. The unique feature of Levy-stable family distributions is the existence of a relationship between the fractal dimension of the probability space andthe fractal dimensionof the time series. This relationshipis simply expressed in terms of Hurst exponent (H), i.e. α = 1/H. In addition, Hurst exponent is related to long-memory effects. Thus, estimating the Levy index allows us to determine long-memory effects. The immediate practical implication of the present work is that on the one hand we estimate the shape of returns distributions and on the other hand we investigate the fractal dimensions. Overall, then, the Levy-stable family distributions methodology appears to be useful for analysing the returns distribution, for understanding the fractal dimension of returns and for providing the researcher with direct insights into the long-memory effects of stock returns. A second approach to test the long memory hypothesis is attempted in this paper. This test involves an estimation of the ARFIMA models. A comparative analysis of the two approaches indicates the existence of long-memory in the Athens Stock Exchange. The results of this study are based on a sample of stocks from the Athens Stock Exchange using daily data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the existence of security price anomalies in the Athens Stock Exchange General Index, over an approximate ten year period - 14 October 1986 through 14 August 1996. Three major industry indices are considered: Banking, Insurance and Leasing. Results are somewhat mixed, some evidence for a weekend effect is offered, and it is suggested that the January effect is present for the indices, and becomes stronger through time. Evidence that the holiday effect is, by far, the most significant anomaly in the Athens Stock Exchange is also provided. It appears that following major institutional changes in 1992, the patterns in securities returns began to mirror those of advanced financial markets. To conclude, however, the seasonalities documented would not be able to render potential investors profitable trading strategies net of transaction costs. This is of course entirely consistent with the notion of market efficiency, in that no strategy exists which will consistently yield abnormal returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper points out the inconsistencies in defining Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and presents the strategies that facilitate school inclusion for children with ADHD. Its purpose is to emphasize the ADHD weaknesses revealed by a series of inconsistencies and review the strategies dealing with ADHD in the ordinary classroom, as they appear in current research. For the first, a large amount of literature is reviewed from different perspectives, including psychology, educational science, medicine, sociology and anthropology. Different kinds of difficulty in defining the concept of ADHD are discussed, including defining ADHD, establishing an accurate aetiology and difficulties in comparing research results. All these aspects lead possibly to a negative consequence, namely considering ADHD a scapegoat for many individual and societal dysfunctions. However, in spite of several attempts to transform ADHD into an exonerating construct, there is agreement between researchers that a core of ADHD symptoms exists. The second part of the paper is concerned with providing a short description of some of the school strategies that proved to be helpful for children with ADHD. Two perspectives are discussed: the first suggests a hierarchical approach, from a less structured to a highly structured form of intervention, and the second is concerned with another criterion, namely the varied needs of children with ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies calendar effects in the emerging Athens Stock Exchange. Rather than examining only basket indices, we analyse calendar effects for each of the constituent stocks of the Athens Stock Exchange General Index for the period from October 1986 to April 1997. In accordance with similar studies substantial evidence of 'day-of-the week', 'monthly', 'trading month' and 'holiday' effects are found. The intensity of these effects for various stocks on the basis of capitalization, beta coefficients and company type are examined. The results indicate that the calendar regularities vary significantly across the constituent shares of the General Index and that aggregation introduces a considerable bias in unravelling these regularities. Also, it is found that factors such as the beta coefficient and company type influence significantly the intensity of calendar effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper it is shown that sequential trading in the Athens Stock Exchange prior to 1989 introduces deterministic nonsynchronicity and causes market returns to exhibit first-order serial correlation even though the underlying price generation process may be a martingale. The effect of deterministic nonsynchronicity is analogous to the effect of stochastic nonsynchronicity examined in Scholes and Williams (1977) with the important exception that it pertains only to portfolio returns and not to single security returns. A test of short run martingale behaviour performed on daily market returns prior to 1989 fails to distinguish between spurious time dependence and nonmartingale behaviour. However, additional evidence based on single security returns points to nonmartingale behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades a vast amount of research has been conducted on price movements in capital markets. A problem of continuing interest in financial economics analysis is that of evaluating the efficient capital market hypothesis. Briefly stated, the hypothesis claims that a 'market in which prices fully reflect available information is called efficient'; see Fama (1970, An efficient market is one in which the price always incorporates all the information available to the market. This implies that there are no opportunities to make extraordinary profits by exploiting information contained in past price changes. A large number of empirical studies have been developed supporting this hypothesis. Jensen et al. (1978) calls it the best established empirical fact in economics.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the capital market efficiency in the case of the Athens stock market and to determine to what extent the empirical distribution of monthly returns conforms to the normal distribution. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section II will briefly discuss the methodology and data used. Section III summarizes and reports the results of three tests (autocorrelation coefficients, Ljung-Box statistic and Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic) employed to test the independence of successive stock price changes in the Athens stock market. Section IV presents and discusses the empirical results of runs analysis and the rank version of yon Neumann's ratio test for randomness. The purpose of Section V is to examine the distribution of stock returns in the. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]