bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sourcing
Authors: Lair Craig D.
Published: March 2012

In the business context, sourcing is the process by which companies seek to procure needed goods, services, and/or supplies. Since there are normally many locations (i.e., sources) from which these goods, services, and supplies can be obtained, businesses often have some choice from where to acquire them. Common sources include a company's own internal (in‐house) resources; those of an outside company (outsourcing); a combination of internal and external resources, including a combination of multiple external providers (multisourcing); or the members of a community of users (crowdsourcing). Companies could even choose to take over functions generally performed by other companies (insourcing). The selection of which supplier to use can also be made by a variety of criteria including, but certainly not limited to, price, quality, speed (that is, how quickly a good, service, or supply can be delivered), and reputation (that is, does this product come from a reputable and reliable source). In cases where external suppliers are involved, sourcing relationships can also vary in terms of extensiveness of the relationship, ranging from one‐time transactions all the way to long‐term partnerships with preferred contractors (Lacity et al. 1996: 18). Variation also exists in terms of how integral the sourced activity is to a business's operations, ranging from more core elements (e.g., the forming of a strategic partnership with an external provider to help in research and development activities) to very peripheral elements (e.g., office supplies).
Spatiality
Authors: Featherstone David
Published: March 2012

Globalization has been associated with claims of the annihilation of space by time and the erasure of the importance and distinctiveness of place. The many claims that globalization has fundamentally reworked experiences of spatiality is a testament to the importance of understanding globalization in spatial terms. Spatiality is defined here as the diverse connections, relations, and territorial formations that structure, and are generated through, social, political, and cultural life. Recent scholarship, however, has increasingly problematized claims that globalization has entailed such a fundamental shift in spatial relations. It has argued for the persistence of place in shaping social relations and has foregrounded the diverse spatialities through which globalizing processes are generated, negotiated, and contested. This entry reviews key ways in which the spatialities of globalization have been theorized and considers what is at stake in thinking globalization spatially.
Spectacles
Authors: Ieven Bram
Published: March 2012

Introduced by French theorist Guy Debord, the spectacle stands for a specific moment in modern capitalism in which the image becomes the most important commodity. The spectacle in its entirety does not only designate the excess of images to which our world is subject today, but more importantly expresses the social relations between individuals in contemporary society that explains why images have become so dominant. The spectacle is therefore the central concept in a theory that describes the rise of modern media, but also addresses the political issues of the latter half of the twentieth century and the transformation of the economy that went along with it.
Starbucks
Authors: Simon Bryant
Published: March 2012

Starbucks has always been a global company, really a global presence with a global sense of itself. Opened in Seattle in 1971, Starbucks seemed, and felt, at first more local than global. In its early years, it sold whole‐bean, freshly roasted coffee out of one store with the owners often standing behind the counter in aprons. Even when the company opened a second, and then a third store, it still seemed like a small mom and pop kind of place. But as much as Starbucks looked and acted local, it was already enmeshed in the global. All the beans it sold came from some place else, places like Sumatra or Ethiopia or Guatemala located on the economic fringes of the developed world. Indeed it was this physical, cultural, and economic distance that enhanced what Starbucks sold – the reworking of an ordinary everyday commodity – coffee – into a slightly exotic, affordable luxury from a far‐off place – a grande latte.
Supermarket Revolution
Authors: Humphery Kim
Published: March 2012

Supermarkets can be broadly defined as self‐service grocery stores, offering a range of food and household goods that are organized and displayed according to product category. While supermarkets differ widely in floor size and product selection – with the largest classified as hypermarkets and superstores – they are historically differentiated from “traditional” counter‐service grocery outlets. Although now the dominant form of grocery and household goods retailing in Western and other affluent nations (and increasingly evident in developing economies), supermarkets are a relatively recent phenomenon, emerging in the United States in 1916.
Sweatshops
Authors: Wetterberg Anna
Published: March 2012

A sweatshop is a workplace where laborers are exploited, abused, forced to work under unsafe conditions for excessive lengths of time, and/or denied opportunities to organize improvements. The labor standards that are ignored in sweatshops may be national laws or internationally recognized norms, such as the International Labour Organization's (ILO) core conventions, addressing forced labor, child labor, free association and collective bargaining, and discrimination. The term originated in nineteenth‐century England where unskilled garment and footwear workers were described as “sweated trades,” subject to sub‐contracting, sub‐division of labor, and outwork, resulting in reduced wages, unsafe working conditions, and impeded unionization.
Terror
Authors: McDonald Kevin
Published: March 2012

What is terrorism and who is a terrorist are subjects of intense dispute, reflecting the extent that naming an actor or form of violence as terrorist involves declaring that actor or action as illegitimate. Such determinations often find themselves part of conflicts where labeling one's opponent a terrorist becomes part of ideological warfare. The question is further complicated by the question of state violence. Influential government definitions of terrorism, such as that of the United States Department of State, define terrorism as the violence of ‘sub‐national' groups, meaning that by definition states cannot engage in terrorism. This view is increasingly contested as states engage in actions ranging from supporting death squads, assassinations, or remote killings through drones – killings outside judicial frameworks and military confrontation historically constituting war. For these reasons, some argue that the term “terrorism” is better replaced by more neutral terms such as “political violence.” However not all forms of political violence can be analyzed as terrorism (for example riots, insurgency, etc), while not all forms of terrorism can be explained politically (such as the violence of religious sects).
Terrorism
Authors: Bergesen Albert
Published: March 2012

Terrorism is a distinctive form of human violence that has been employed throughout history. It can be used by
individual terrorists
, such as the twentieth century radical leftist Carlos the Jackal, or the nineteenth century French anarchists Ravanchol and Emile Henri (who threw a bomb in a Parisian café), or twenty‐first century Islamist terrorists, such as Osama Bin Laden. It can also be used by
terrorist groups
, such as the Jewish Sciari or Zealots in first century Palestine (who stabbed and poisoned Romans), or the twelfth century Muslim Assassins in Syria/Persia, along with twenty‐first century Jihadist organizations al‐Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, or Hamas. Finally, there is
state terrorism
, perpetrated by governments against their own citizens, such as the 1790s Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and the twentieth century Stalinist Purges/Trials. States also terrorize other citizens, such as the RAF incendiary bombing of Dresden, the German bombing of London, and the American bombing of Japanese cities, all during World War II.
Terrorist cells
Authors: Jackson Brian A.
Published: March 2012

Clandestine criminal and terrorist organizations generally operate under the constant threat of discovery and disruption by the law enforcement and security organizations. The term “terrorist cell” refers to one of the strategies which terrorist groups have used to address this risk: by subdividing a larger terrorist organization or movement into many semi‐independent or even entirely separate small units, the group limits the effect that discovery or disruption of one unit will have on the group overall. Such small independent units are called
cells
within the larger group, parallel to biological systems where complex animals or plants are made up of many simpler – and much smaller – distinct cells. Terrorist organizations from across the political spectrum focused on very different goals have adopted cellular structures to protect themselves from the risk of infiltration by intelligence agents, compromise by informers already inside the organization, and the collection of intelligence on the group's activities or membership from the outside.
Time‐Space Compression
Authors: Kivisto Peter
Published: March 2012

Time‐space compression is a concept developed by the Marxist geographer David Harvey to describe contemporary developments in capitalism which have led to the speeding up of the circulation of capital and with it a speeding up of social life in general while simultaneously reducing the significance of place. Harvey's concept derives from his consideration of Marx's claim that capitalism leads to the annihilation of space by time, and from Heidegger's foreboding about the implications of the shrinking of both time and space. For Heidegger (1971: 165), this shrinking produces a “uniform distancelessness” which he views as both unsettling and terrifying because it does not promote what he refers to as “nearness,” by which he means a sense of identity rooted in the particularities associated with specific places – which he considers to be “the locale of the truth of Being.” Harvey appropriates this general orientation while rejecting the reactionary political implications of Heidegger's anti‐cosmopolitanism. He sees in Heidegger's thought a convincing articulation of the dislocation of identity from place that is a consequence of the penetration of the modern capitalist economy predicated on the ceaseless expansion of industrialization and ever‐changing technological developments.
Tobin Tax
Authors: Patomäki Heikki
Published: March 2012

The currency transaction tax (CTT) – better known as the Tobin tax – is a simple idea, a tax levied on every currency exchange, set at a level enough low not to hinder transactions needed to finance trade in goods and services or long‐term capital investments. Economist James Tobin adapted the idea from John Maynard Keynes's classicGeneral Theory, where Keynes suggested that “the introduction of a substantial government transfer tax on all transactions might prove the most serviceable reform available, with a view to mitigating the predominance of speculation over enterprise…” (Keynes 1961/1936: 159–160). Following Keynes, Tobin argued in the 1970s that over‐liquid and “efficient” finance is tantamount to short‐termism and thus irrational investment. Furthermore, powerful financial flows reduce the autonomy of states in determining economic policy, while misallocating resources. Thus the need to “throw some sand in the wheels of our excessively efficient international money markets” (Tobin 1978: 154).
Agency
Authors: Loyal Steven
Published: March 2012

The concept of agency refers to the ability of an actor to act freely in the social world. It is usually contrasted with the concept of social structure wherefrom it derives its meaning relationally. “Agency” stands for the freedom of the contingently acting subject over and against the constraints that are thought to derive from enduring social structures. To the extent that human beings have agency, they may act independently of and in opposition to structural constraints, and/or may (re)constitute social structures through their freely chosen actions. To the extent that they lack agency, human beings are conceived of as automata, following the dictates of social structures and exercising no choice in what they do. Although he did not use the concept explicitly or systematically, Talcott Parsons (1937), with his “voluntaristic theory of action,” perhaps set the scene for many modern sociological discussions of agency. However, Anthony Giddens (1976), in his theory of structuration, provided perhaps the most comprehensive recent account of the concept. In attempting to transcend what he saw as the determinism inherent in a large body of Marxist and functionist analysis, Giddens insisted upon “the freedom of the acting subject.” The actor is an embodied unit and, as such, a possessor of causal powers that she may choose to employ to intervene (or not) in the ongoing sequence of events in the world. This makes her an agent. “I shall define action or agency as the stream of actual or contemplated causal interventions of corporeal beings in the ongoing process of events‐in‐the‐world” (Giddens 1976: 75). Furthermore, and this is crucial to Giddens' whole argument, it is antithetical to the concept of agency that a person (i.e., an agent) “could have acted otherwise” (1976: 75). This conception in which an actor can “act otherwise” ties agency to power and it is precisely according to this criterion of being able to “act otherwise” (and thereby make a difference) that Giddens distinguished humans from nature. Giddens' work, though influential, has been rightly criticized for over‐extending and exaggerating the concept of agency, particularly as a result of the left‐liberal conception of politics that underpinned and animated his sociology (Loyal 2003).
Domination
Authors: Langman Lauren
Published: March 2012

One of the most important and enduring issues of modern sociology has been the concern with domination, the condition in which one social actor has power over another, the ability to get the other, usually a subordinate, to act in ways that she might not have otherwise chosen – and may actually be contrary to her desires or best interests. The nature of domination in the globalized world has been a crucial question ever since Marx first noted how the rapid spread of capitalism transformed both nature and societies. The courses of rivers were changed, national and cultural barriers to capitalism were broken down. Marxism has always been a critique of capitalist economic domination, how the bourgeoisie, the owners of private property, secure and maintain domination over the proletariat through control of wages, ideology and ultimately force. Various neo‐Marxisms, from critical theory to structural Marxism as critiques of domination, have examined the ways culture, consciousness, and subjectivity have been used to shape understandings, values and insinuate domination within the person to secure “willing” assent to the political‐economic domination by the few. For Weber, domination and its legitimacy, e.g., traditional, rational‐legal (bureaucratic), and charismatic authority were central concerns. Simmel charted the many different kinds and dynamics of superordination and subordination, e.g., the power of a person, group or principle, over another person. Although domination is clearly evident in the organization of the economy and governance, it is present in families, organizations, indeed in most groups with a hierarchical structure.
Globalization: Alternative Perspectives
Authors: Veltmeyer Henry
Published: March 2012

Academic discourse in diverse fields over the past two decades has been dominated by a new lexicon surrounding the notion of “globalization,” understood generally as the integration of societies and economies across the world into one system, and by a new globalist approach to analysis. The defining features of this approach is that it takes the “world” rather than “society” bound within the nation‐state, or a sub‐unit of this “society” (local communities, for example), as the fundamental unit of analysis, as the setting and context for analysis. This approach has been particularly popular in development economics and political economy, with a focus on the structure and dynamics of capitalist development and international relations. The globalist approach has also been the prevailing trend in the study of development in its many diverse permutations and dimensions – economic, social, political, cultural, and ecological. In effect, the globalist approach has provided for new forms of analysis of processes that transcend the nation‐state – that unfold on a global scale – processes that have been analyzed and theorized in terms of ‘globalization’.
Human trafficking
Authors: Jakobi Anja P.
Published: March 2012

Human trafficking (also: trafficking in human beings) is the movement of people and their subsequent exploitation in the labor market (e.g., child labor, prostitution, construction sites) or other contexts (e.g., forced marriage, adoption, war, removal of organs). In the context of trafficking operations, humans are conceived as a “product” to be selected, transported and sold, the underlying criminal business logic of traffickers is comparable to those related to other illicit goods. Human trafficking can take place within and across countries. This entry focuses on cross‐border trafficking, which has been facilitated by globalization processes, particularly by modern means of communication and transportation, growing disparities in living conditions, and governance gaps with regard to transnational organized crime groups.
Oil (Petroleum)
Authors: Labban Mazen
Published: March 2012

Oil has occupied center stage in global politics and economics, as well as everyday social life and cultural imaginaries, for more than a century. There is hardly any facet of modern social life that is not touched by oil, and its significance for modern globalization is emphasized by its intimate connections with the development of the modern corporation, monopoly capital, and the world market; imperialism, geopolitics, war, and questions of national security; economic development, human rights, and political ecology. From the early beginnings of its use, oil became synonymous with power, economic development, and modernization, but also with misery, destitution, and destruction; effortless, intoxicating wealth but also toxic waste: at once “black gold” and the “devil's excrement,” in the words of Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso, former Venezuelan oil minister and founder of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The historical geography of oil is a historical geography of relentless expansion and fierce rivalry: pioneering forms of corporate organization, financial management, and technological innovation, but also intrigue, corruption and countless forms of physical and symbolic violence. There is perhaps no other industry that demonstrates the violence inherent in the global expansion of capitalism as does the oil industry.
Tax Evasion, Global
Authors: Guerrero Alejandro
Published: March 2012

Tax evasion was traditionally a domestic phenomenon, as individuals tried to escape from the fiscal burden imposed by government by legally avoiding some taxable practices, or by resorting to illegal activities in the underground economy. The degree of domestic tax evasion was thus determined by the actual enforcement capacity of the tax administration, and by the perceived legitimacy and trustworthiness of government, which determined the effort individuals will put into avoiding taxation.
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
Authors: Jachertz Ruth
Published: March 2012

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is one of the United Nations' specialized agencies. FAO's mandate is to raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations, and contribute to the growth of the world economy. Presently, FAO has 192 member nations and one member organization, the European Union (EU). It is governed by the Conference consisting of delegates of all member nations who meet biennially. The Conference elects the 49 members of the FAO Council, which supervises the work of the FAO Secretariat. The FAO Secretariat has 1736 professional members and 1905 support staff. Roughly two‐thirds of staff work in the headquarters in Rome. FAO has five regional offices, 10 subregional offices and 74 country offices.
Tourism and The Media
Authors: Tzanelli Rodanthi
Published: March 2012

Tourism is inextricably linked to the historical development of diverse forms of media and of mediations as such. “Media” is a concept inclusive of communicative intermediary products that come in the form of print (such as books and magazines), visual (paintings, photographs) and audiovisual (film, the Internet). If the media act as vehicles of socio‐cultural messages, “mediations” refer to the ways these messages are communicated and the very act of their communication (such as transmission). To understand how this communication takes place in relation to tourism we need to examine its context and the actors involved in the production and consumption of messages. An increasing globalization of the media diffused tourist‐orientated messages beyond national boundaries, ultimately assisting in the globalization of tourist service provision.
Washington Consensus
Authors: Montecinos Verónica
Published: March 2012

The core precepts of the Washington Consensus – trade liberalization, privatization, macroeconomic stability – played an unequalled role in the worldwide expansion of the “free‐market revolution” of the late twentieth century. The economic orthodoxy of the Washington Consensus is widely associated with the encompassing phenomenon of neoliberalism, which spread globally at an uneven pace and scale (Babb & Fourcade‐Gourinchas 2002). National variability in economic and institutional structures affected the degree of support and resistance to market strategies as well as the extent to which the free‐market paradigm was applied, and yet there was considerable cross‐national uniformity in the reconfiguration of state–market interactions. The relative transnational convergence of the reform process was anchored in the competitive pressures of globalization, in the practices of influential Washington‐based institutions, and in contemporary patterns within the economics profession. In its original version, the Washington Consensus codified a set of 10 economic policy reforms that emphasized free markets as the royal road to economic prosperity; 20 years later, it remains central to economic policy debates and very much a part of the global political lexicon.
Water
Authors: Hoekstra Arjen Y.
Published: March 2012

Protecting freshwater resources can no longer be regarded as an issue for individual countries or regions. Consider Australia as an example. Australia is currently using a substantial amount of its water resources in making export products. Freshwater scarcity in Australia cannot thus be understood as being related to demands from Australian consumers alone. The total volume of water consumed in Australia within the various economic sectors amounts to about 90 billion cubic meters per year. The water footprint of Australian consumers amounts to no more than one‐third of that (Hoekstra & Chapagain 2008). By exporting huge volumes of water‐intensive commodities, Australia and the Americas are the big “water suppliers” to the rest of the world, especially Europe and Japan.
Weak States
Authors: Tyagi Juhi
Published: March 2012

The term “weak state” is a contentious one. It is generally used to define a state that is weak in its core functions of providing security to its citizens (security gap), providing basic services to its citizens (capacity gap), and having legitimacy among its people (legitimacy gap). Though used after the Cold War, the idea of weak states became salient post 2001, after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Since, several governments and international organizations dominated by bureaucrats and experts from a handful of countries have involved themselves in the task of recognizing states that are weak or failing. From 1992 to today, over 40 quantitative indexes have been generated to measure state failure/fragility (Woodward 2008). The immediacy of recognizing and intervening in weak or failed states comes from the apparent, though undertested, link between state weakness and terrorism. Weak states have come to be considered a security threat because they are seen as more susceptible to organized crime, privatized violence, arms proliferation, the spread of infectious diseases, environmental degradation, and civil war. Within a globalized world, such states are considered a threat to all nations, having spillover effects, especially on stable states. Weak states have low or stagnant economic growth and weak governing institutions that are unable to implement policies or maintain autonomy due to corruption or conflict. Weak states are distinguished from failed states by degree. Failed states are said to be nonfunctional and characterized by a complete lack of legitimacy of the government. For example, Somalia consistently topped the list of failed state indexes on the grounds of having an illegitimate government, civil war, and lack of economic or personal security. The term “rogue state” can also be distinguished from “weak state.” Rogue states, in contrast to weak ones, can have strong governance institutions, but are said to disregard international law and violate international treaties.
Women and Economic Development
Authors: Heger Boyle Elizabeth
Published: March 2012

Since the era of decolonization in the mid twentieth century, international actors have committed themselves to promoting economic development within former colonies. In recent decades, scholars have begun to study how these various strategies affect women and gender relations within countries. Even if strategies create economic growth at the national level – an outcome that cannot be taken for granted – the growth may not benefit all individuals within countries.
Women's Movement(s), Transnational
Authors: Berkovitch Nitza
Published: March 2012

With the advance of globalization to the forefront of social scientific writing, transnational aspects of contemporary as well as early women's movements have attracted the attention of an increasing number of scholars from a variety of disciplines. It has become clear that the history of ties and connections among groups and individuals from various regions of the world – women especially, in our case – constitutes an important element in the history of globalization, contributing further to the growing interconnectedness of the world.
World Social Forum
Authors: Kohler Kristopher
Published: March 2012

The World Social Forum (WSF), also referred to as the “Movement of Movements,” is the world's preeminent gathering of anti‐neoliberal globalization forces, arrayed since 2001 under the banner “Another World is Possible.” The WSF and its regional, national and subnational counterparts have provided hundreds of thousands of participants with a space for networking, discussion, learning, and sharing strategies to resist the cultural, economic, social, and political threats of neoliberalism.
World Summit on the Information Society
Authors: Zehle Soenke
Published: March 2012

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was the highest and broadest platform for global negotiations on communications in the history of the United Nations. Hosted by the oldest UN agency, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) responsible for the international regulation of the radio spectrum and telecommunications, the multiyear process‐event included two intergovernmental summits (Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005). Adopting a multi‐stakeholder model as its consultative strategy, WSIS invited formal participation from other UN bodies and international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and civil society. While WSIS fell short of creating a global framework to deal with the challenges posed by the information society, its outcomes included a Declaration of Principles promoting “a people‐centered, inclusive and development‐oriented information society” (Panel of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development 2006), various monitoring initiatives to implement a plan of action, and an Internet Governance Forum created to sustain a multi‐stakeholder policy dialogue.
World Values Survey
Authors: Minkov Michael
Published: March 2012

The World Values Survey (WVS) is an international academic project studying human values, beliefs, norms, self‐descriptions, and other elements of national culture, as well as political attitudes and opinions, across the globe. The scholars who lead the project are mainly interested in the relationships between economic development, cultural change, and political life on all continents. The WVS data have also been widely used by cross‐cultural psychologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists.
Zapatistas
Authors: Dinerstein Ana Cecilia
Published: March 2012

The Zapatistas are an armed revolutionary movement that represents the voice of indigenous people of Chiapas, Southeast Mexico. The “Zapatistas” came to light on January 1, 1994, when the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) occupied several counties of Chiapas, an economic strategic area where abundant natural resources (biodiversity, oil, waterfalls) coexist with extreme poverty and social exclusion. The entrance of the Mexican state to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) demanded a reform of Article 27 of the National Constitution – which would facilitate the opening up of indigenous lands (
ejidos
) to large agro‐business. On January 1, 1994, the first day of NAFTA, the Chiapas peasants, represented by the EZLN ski‐masked leaders, exclaimed “Enough is enough!” (
Ya basta
!), declaring war on the Mexican state and characterizing globalization as “a war against humanity.”
Transcultural Media Studies
Authors: Zehle Soenke
Published: March 2012

The condition, state, or process of being or becoming
transcultural
refers to the processual dimensions of contemporary and historical forms of culture and the respective constitutions that sustain them as frames of reference for individual and collective practice. Media research with a transcultural emphasis explores media practices from within a process‐oriented conceptual horizon.
Transnational Environmental Activism
Authors: Ignatow Gabe
Published: March 2012

Transnational environmental activism refers to the actions of nongovernmental groups who work across national borders for environmental causes. The modern environmental movement, which began in the 1960s but grew most dramatically in the 1970s and then again in the 1990s, largely overlaps the “globalization era.” Therefore, the fact that environmental activism has often taken transnational forms is not surprising. Also, many of the most significant environmental problems, such as the ozone hole, species loss, and global warming are not limited to any one nation‐state. They cross national boundaries, and as such are understood to require international cooperation if they are to be effectively addressed.
Transnational Migration
Authors: Faist Thomas
Published: March 2012

“Transnational migration” and the broader term “transnationalism” entered the lexicon of migration studies in the early 1990s, over a century after earlier generations of migration researchers had introduced and made extensive use of the concept of assimilation. It did so in rather different circumstances, for whereas assimilation gained currency with relatively little reflection or debate at the time when migration research was in its early formative period, transnational migration and transnationalism entered a well‐developed sociological subfield dealing with cross‐border movements and migrant incorporation. The concept has undergone substantial revision since its earliest formulations, the consequence of an often‐spirited dialogue (see Levitt & Jaworsky 2007). Over time, the debate around transnationalism in migration has concerned broader issues in the social sciences, such as power, methodological nationalism and essentializing ethno‐cultural groups.
Transparency
Authors: Gupta Aarti
Published: March 2012

Transparency is commonly understood as openness and the “opposite of secrecy” (Florini 1998), to be secured through greater availability and increased flows of information. In our globalizing era, transparency seems to be implicated in every controversy of the moment, from the 2010 WikiLeaks disclosure of United States' diplomatic cables, to the 2009 Copenhagen climate meeting's battles over “monitoring, reporting and verification” of greenhouse gas emissions and the 2008 global financial crisis with its attendant lack of disclosure about questionable business transactions. Transparency is thus linked to the most politically charged debates of our times, those relating to due process and good governance, human security and oversight of markets in an era of globalization.
Tuberculosis
Authors: Hall Jason K.
Published: March 2012

Tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially fatal disease that primarily affects poor populations – particularly young adults – in the developing world. In 2009, 9.4 million new cases of TB were reported and there were 1.7 million deaths resulting from the disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) South‐East Asia, Africa, and Western Pacific regions have the highest rates of incidence, accounting for 85 percent of all cases. TB is the third leading cause of death among women aged 15–44 globally and is a leading cause of death among individuals who are HIV positive. Led by the WHO and the Stop TB Partnership, a global effort is underway to reduce the incidence and mortality rate of the disease.
Twitter Revolution
Authors: Jurgenson Nathan
Published: March 2012

The phraseTwitter Revolutionis a controversial label sometimes applied to a series of recent uprisings, most notably in the Middle East and North Africa in 2010–2011, that utilize social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others. A new concept widely discussed in the wake of recent social uprisings, the phrase has little history in academic scholarship. For the purposes of this entry, the phraseTwitter Revolutionwill refer to any uprising that utilizes social media to some extent.
Union of South American Nations
Authors: Kellogg Paul
Published: March 2012

The Union of South American Nations, known by its acronym UNASUR (based on the SpanishUnion de Naciones Suramericanas), was formally constituted on May 23, 2008 through the South American Union of Nations Constitutive Treaty. It includes all South American countries except French Guiana. In 2009, the combined population of UNASUR countries (389 million) was less than but comparable to that of the countries in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement (458 million). However, the combined Gross Domestic Product of the UNASUR countries, at $2.9 trillion, was considerably smaller than the $16.3 trillion gross domestic product (GDP) of the NAFTA countries. (Compiled from United Nations 2011.)
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Authors: Taylor Ian
Published: March 2012

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was formed in 1964 to generate an institutionalized forum where the developed nations of the United Nations would negotiate demands centered on measures aimed at benefiting the developing world. In short, it is a forum to significantly rework existing norms regarding trade and development. UNCTAD's founding reflected the growth in membership of newly independent states within the United Nations. A large number of the elites of these new entities keenly felt the iniquity of the world order upon which they had been launched. UNCTAD and the later call for a “New International Economic Order” (NIEO) therefore was a rejoinder to problems encountered by developing countries as a result of the creation and operation of the Bretton Woods institutions (BWIs).
United Students Against Sweatshops
Authors: J.S. Ross Robert
Published: March 2012

Officially founded in 1998, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) is a US‐based student organization that campaigns to support workers' organizations on college and university campuses and in the global apparel industry (Featherstone et al. 2002; Ross 2004a; USAS 2010). While the organization sees itself as broadly involved in global and worker justice issues, its original and still most effective focus is on ensuring garments that bear university or college insignia are made in factories where workers' rights are respected. As of 2010 there were approximately 200 USAS affiliates (with varying levels of activity) on US and Canadian campuses. In the course of the group's history there have been chapters on as many as 400 different campuses.
Vagabonds and Tourists
Authors: Ritzer George
Published: March 2012

Zygmunt Bauman (1998) has offered a conceptual distinction between tourists and vagabonds that is highly applicable to globalization. The Northern prototype would be
tourists
who move about the world because they
want to
(and because they are “light”), whereas the Southern prototype would be (“heavy”)
vagabonds
who, if they are able to move at all, it is likely to be because they are forced to (e.g., forced to migrate to escape poverty (and to find work) because of war, discrimination, and the like). Moving about the world voluntarily as a tourist is a much more pleasant and rewarding experience than being forced to move about as a vagabond. Further complicating matters for vagabonds is the fact that they are often forced to move many different times. For example, illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States (estimated at 11 million people) are often forced to change jobs and to move home frequently, and may also be forced to return to Mexico, perhaps several times (Archibold 2008). Tourists, on the other hand, are forced to do little if anything – they go just about where they want, when they please, and they stay pretty much as long as their visas (and pocketbooks) permit.
Virtual Communities
Authors: Rutherford Larissa S. , Hoeninger Jr Carl R. , Wiest Dawn
Published: March 2012

A virtual community is a technology‐mediated social group that is organized around common interests, experiences, or convictions. Like physically based communities, virtual communities are characterized by shared norms, rules, values, beliefs, and expectations that are constructed through interaction and shaped by the larger social environment within which they evolve. Examples of virtual communities include the popular social networking web sites Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, as well as virtual communities organized around social movements, neighborhoods, religious or ethnic identities, and professions. The virtualization of social ties has raised questions about fundamental aspects of communal life. Whether participation in virtual communities reinforces the hierarchies and inequalities that characterize social relations anchored in real places; increases an individual's sense of well‐being; enhances social capital; yields new forms of democratic participation; or promotes shifts in the organization of power and social control are prominent questions in the academic research on the subject.
Wal‐Mart(ization)
Authors: Fernie John
Published: March 2012

Wal‐Mart is not only the largest retailer in the world, it is the world's largest company in terms of revenue. In 2009/2010 its sales were $405 billion and its profits $24 billion, with an international business of $100 billion accounting for around 25 percent of sales. Although these figures are impressive, in 1999 Wal‐Mart had planned for international sales of this magnitude (25 percent) from a $700 billion business. Within the last decade Wal‐Mart has experienced considerable competition in both its domestic and overseas operations. As a result, ambitious growth plans have been scaled down significantly, especially with the harsh economic conditions of the last few years.
Pattern Formation in Nature: Physical Constraints and Self‐Organising Characteristics
Authors: Ball Philip
Published: March 2012

Pattern formations are apparent in natural systems ranging from clouds to animal markings, and from sand dunes to shells of microscopic marine organisms. Despite the astonishing range and variety of such structures, many have comparable features. In this article, Philip Ball reviews some of the common patterns found in nature. He explains how they are typically formed through simple, local interactions between many components of a system – a form of physical computation that gives rise to self‐organisation and emergent structures and behaviours. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Evolutionary Architecture? Some Perspectives From Biological Design
Authors: Turner J Scott
Published: March 2012

Architects' view of nature tends to rest on the assumption that it is inherently efficient in its use of materials and energy, and essentially ingenious and elegant in its solutions. This perception in science is one that has been propounded through Darwinism: the notion that refinement of ‘design’ is achieved through repetitive selection, variation and mutation. The renowned biologist J Scott Turner argues here that there is little evidence that living design actually comes about in this way. Instead, looking to Darwin's French contemporary Claude Bernard and his theory of homeostasis, he proposes that living systems converge on effective design much faster and more predictably than a simple regime of natural selection alone would suggest. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bioinspired Directional Surfaces for Adhesion, Wetting, and Transport
Authors: Hancock Matthew J. , Sekeroglu Koray , Demirel Melik C.
Published: March 2012

In Nature, directional surfaces on insect cuticle, animal fur, bird feathers, and plant leaves are composed of dual micro‐nanoscale features that tune roughness and surface energy. Here, experimental and theoretical approaches for the design, synthesis, and characterization of new bioinspired surfaces demonstrating unidirectional surface properties are summarized. The experimental approaches focus on bottom‐up and top‐down synthesis methods of unidirectional micro‐ and nanoscale films to explore and characterize their anomalous features. The theoretical component focuses on computational tools to predict the physicochemical properties of unidirectional surfaces.
Protamine Functionalized Single‐Walled Carbon Nanotubes for Stem Cell Labeling and In Vivo Raman/Magnetic Resonance/Photoacoustic Triple‐Modal Imaging
Authors: Wang Chao , Ma Xinxing , Ye Shuoqi , Cheng Liang , Yang Kai , Guo Liang , Li Changhui , Li Yonggang , Liu Zhuang
Published: March 2012

Stem cells have shown great potential in regenerative medicine and attracted tremendous interests in recent years. Sensitive and reliable methods for stem cell labeling and in vivo tracking are thus urgently needed. Here, a novel approach to label human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) with single‐walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) for in vivo tracking by triple‐modal imaging is presented. It is shown that polyethylene glycol (PEG) functionalized SWNTs conjugated with protamine (SWNT‐PEG‐PRO) exhibit extremely efficient cell entry into hMSCs, without affecting their proliferation and differentiation. The strong inherent resonance Raman scattering of SWNTs is used for in vitro and in vivo Raman imaging of SWNT‐PEG‐PRO‐labeled hMSCs, enabling ultrasensitive in vivo detection of as few as 500 stem cells administrated into mice. On the other hand, the metallic catalyst nanoparticles attached on nanotubes can be utilized as the T2‐contrast agent in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of SWNT‐labeled hMSCs. Moreover, in vivo photoacoustic imaging of hMSCs in mice is also demonstrated. The work reveals that SWNTs with appropriate surface functionalization have the potential to serve as multifunctional nanoprobes for stem cell labeling and multi‐modal in vivo tracking.
Light‐Driven Chiral Molecular Switches or Motors in Liquid Crystals
Authors: Wang Yan , Li Quan
Published: March 2012

The ability to tune molecular self‐organization with an external stimulus is a main driving force in the bottom‐up nanofabrication of molecular devices. Light‐driven chiral molecular switches or motors in liquid crystals that are capable of self‐organizing into optically tunable helical superstructures undoubtedly represent a striking example, owing to their unique property of selective light reflection and which may lead to applications in the future. In this review, we focus on different classes of light‐driven chiral molecular switches or motors in liquid crystal media for the induction and manipulation of photoresponsive cholesteric liquid crystal systems and their consequent applications. Moreover, the change of helical twisting powers of chiral dopants and their capability of helix inversion in the induced cholesteric phases are highlighted and discussed in the light of their molecular geometric changes.
A Cobalt‐Catalyzed Domino Route to the ABC Tricyclic Core of Strigolactones and Analogues
Authors: Le Floch Camille , Laymand Kévin , Le Gall Erwan , Léonel Eric
Published: March 2012

The cobalt‐catalyzed, one‐step synthesis of fused tricyclic cyclopenta[b]furan‐2‐ones from β‐halo‐α,β‐unsaturated aldehydes and dimethyl itaconate is described. The final compounds contain the ABC tricyclic core of strigolactones or analogues, vegetables hormones involved in various, crucial biological processes.
Platinum on Carbon‐Catalyzed Hydrodefluorination of Fluoroarenes using Isopropyl Alcohol‐Water‐Sodium Carbonate Combination
Authors: Sawama Yoshinari , Yabe Yuki , Shigetsura Masahiro , Yamada Tsuyoshi , Nagata Saori , Fujiwara Yuta , Maegawa Tomohiro , Monguchi Yasunari , Sajiki Hironao
Published: March 2012

We have developed a platinum on carbon‐isopropyl alcohol‐catalyzed and widely applicable defluorination method for fluoroarenes, and the addition of water and sodium carbonate efficiently accelerated the reaction. The defluorination readily occurred under the reaction conditions in comparison with the dehalogenation of other aromatic halides (fluorine>chlorine>bromine≫iodine).
Hydrothermal and Solvothermal Process Towards Development of LiMPO4 (M = Fe, Mn) Nanomaterials for Lithium‐Ion Batteries
Authors: Devaraju Murukanahally Kempaiah , Honma Itaru
Published: March 2012

Positive electrodes such as LiFePO4 and LiMnPO4 nanomaterials with olivine structures are considered as most efficient cathode materials for application in lithium ion batteries. Recently, several methods have been proposed for the preparation of lithium metal phosphates as cathodes for lithium ion batteries and their electrochemical performances have been investigated. Over the last 20 years, several synthetic methods have been proposed for lithium metal phosphate nanomaterials. In this review, hydrothermal and solvothermal syntheses of LiFePO4 and LiMnPO4 nanomaterials at low and high temperatures are discussed, including microwave‐hydrothermal and microwave‐solvothermal methods. The effect of particle size and particle morphology on the electrochemical properties of LiFePO4 and LiMnPO4 cathode materials are also discussed. In addition, the recently emerged supercritical solvothermal and supercritical hydrothermal syntheses of LiFePO4 and LiMnPO4 nanomaterials and their electrochemical property also been addressed.