bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Initial directors of international R&D laboratories
Authors: Zedtwitz Maximilian von
Published: August 2003

Technology intensive companies establish new R&D laboratories in regions of high innovation and near centers of scientific excellence. Identifying the right R&D director to head up such greenfield investments is central to the success or failure of the new lab. Analyzing 162 interviews with senior R&D managers, we identify eight different directorship profiles. Examples of new R&D sites and their directors include IBM, Daimler, Leica, Microsoft, Xerox, Lucent and Ciba. The initial mission and the intraorganizational and intraregional integration of the new lab are principal factors for director selection, determining expatriate or national management, cultural and ethnic familiarity, as well as local or international transfers. The analysis of succeeding R&D directors indicates a trend towards locally rooted yet organizationally competent R&D managers. The paper concludes with desired qualifications of director candidates for newly established international R&D sites.
The developmental path of networking capability of catch‐up players in Korea's semiconductor industry
Authors: Cho Hyun‐Dae , Lee Jae‐Keun
Published: August 2003

With respect to technological learning, networking and globalization, and the subsequent development of technological capability, this study examines the developmental path of catch‐up players in Korea's semiconductor industry. It in particular deals with the important aspects of local and global networking of catch‐up players accumulating technological capability. This paper also argues that networking capability plays a critical role in the development of the technological capability of catch‐up players in developing countries, and that their networking patterns are changed along the global technological trajectory that they face. That is, on the basis of the Korean case analysis, this study reveals that global hierarchical networking with global leaders is provoked in the vertical cooperative phase when global mature technologies are involved in international technology transfer. Next, the quasi‐global networking with overseas sister companies and their professionals is strengthened in the discordant phase when growing technologies are involved. Reciprocal networking with global players is encouraged in the strategic phase when emerging technologies are involved. In addition, this paper addresses the development path of other aspects of technological capability, i.e., production, investment, and innovation capability, of Korea's semiconductor players. Furthermore, it discusses the relevance of Korea's development path to other countries and firms.
Benefits of co‐operation on innovative performance: evidence from integrated circuits and biotechnology firms in the UK and Taiwan
Authors: Chang Yuan‐Chieh
Published: August 2003

The increase of strategic alliance and national or pan‐national government collaborative programmes has highlighted the shifting management and policy focus from inducing in‐house R&D to promoting a joint partnership between firms and knowledge‐generating organisations in the increasingly complex and costly innovation process. Both the ‘dynamic capability’ school and the ‘innovation network’ theorists demonstrate that inter‐organisational co‐operation has become a crucial mechanism for ‘collective innovation’. However, little attempt has been undertaken to examine the relationship between inter‐organisational co‐operation and innovative performance at the firm level. The innovative activities and inter‐organisational co‐operation of integrated circuits and biotechnology sectors across Taiwan and the UK are investigated via a postal questionnaire survey. Multiple logistic regression models are deployed. The result reveals that the types of inter‐organisational co‐operation enhancing a firm's innovative performance vary across sectors and countries. Despite the variation, this paper argues that a firm's networking ability to co‐operate with buyer firms, supplier firms and external organisations is becoming imperative for enhancing innovation in the increasingly distributed innovation process.
Modularity, component outsourcing, and inter‐firm learning
Authors: Mikkola Juliana Hsuan
Published: August 2003

Modularization of product architectures is a strategy for managing complex design activities and production systems, and associated supply chain issues. It has wide‐reaching implications, from design engineering to business strategy. With standardized interface specifications, component outsourcing is possible, both with respect to the division of tasks in functional specification and detailed engineering of a product architecture. However, failure at the system level could still take place if interface compatibility issues of the outsourced component with the rest of the system are not understood. Outsourcing creates a certain degree of supplier‐buyer interdependence and possibilities for inter‐firm learning. A study of Chrysler Jeeps WIPERs suggested that learning‐by‐failure from one product architecture cultivated closer cooperation between the supplier and Chrysler to solve technical problems as well as to be innovative in searching for the best technological solutions for future product architecture designs.
Reconsidering Nordic Party Space1
Authors: Grendstad Gunnar
Published: August 2003

The erosion of the social and economic bases underlying traditional party systems has led analysts to search for new cleavage structures undergirding the present party systems. Meanwhile, analysts have identified a range of issue dimensions that also bear on voters’ party preferences. This article studies the degree to which grid‐group theory's four political biases of hierarchy, egalitarianism, individualism, and fatalism can make inroads into the left–right dimension's stronghold in accounting for voters’ party preference. The analysis draws on a 1999 survey in the five Nordic countries (N= 4,832). The method combines voters’ party preferences with their scores on issue dimensions, or political dimensions. Analyses show that conventional party families, with one exception, are not identified along any of the five political orientations. Only the five conservative parties are exclusively identified as a party family on the left–right dimension. Party preference is more closely associated with the left–right dimension than the political biases. Sweden has the purest and simplest party cleavage, whereas Denmark has the most composite one. Across the Nordic countries, the green party family is most dissimilar, whereas the progress siblings are most alike. The left–right dimension accounts well for differences between parties within polities, whereas political biases, and egalitarianism in particular, account well for differences between parties of similar origin across polities.
The Rising Power of the Prime Minister in Finland
Authors: Paloheimo Heikki
Published: August 2003

During the past two decades, the Finnish political system has gradually changed from a semi‐presidential to a nearly parliamentary one. This process was finalized with the drafting of the new constitution in 2000. Four factors in particular contributed to the parliamentarization of the Finnish constitution. Firstly, the breakdown of the Soviet Union also broke down the tradition of highly personalized, presidential rule in Finnish–Soviet relations. Secondly, Finnish membership of the European Union increased the need to integrate the Finnish cabinet in decision making on foreign affairs. Thirdly, because of the stabilization of cabinets, based on the increased coalition elasticity and coalition capacity of the political parties, there was not as much need, or room, for presidential intervention as in earlier decades. Fourthly, after the highly personalized tenure of President Urho Kekkonen, there was, among the political parties, a reaction against personalized presidential rule. The new constitution is to a large extent based on cabinet‐centred governance, although steps towards ministerial governance have also been taken. There are, however, many non‐constitutional factors giving rise to a new kind of prime‐ministerial governance. Among these are: (1) internationalization of politics, (2) growth of the public sector, (3) convergence of party ideologies, and (4) a new kind of personalized political publicity.
Political Ethics and Public Policy: Homosexuals between Moral Dilemmas and Political Considerations in Danish Parliamentary Debates
Authors: Albæk Erik
Published: August 2003

Political science has abundantly proved that politics involves power, conflict, and self‐serving interests. Much less frequently does political science deal with ethics in public policymaking. This article analyses the appeal to moral principles in the political process of drafting three bills, all concerning homosexuals, in which the Danish parliamentary parties, in contrast to normal practice, allowed their members to deviate from the party line and vote in accordance with their ‘conscience’. Analysis of the cases indicates that moral considerations are capable of structuring and constraining arguments and that they are decisive for some politicians’ positions in some situations. The cases also raise doubts concerning the widely held view that decisions based on votes of conscience, because they are informed by ‘ethical’ rather than ‘political’ considerations, are qualitatively superior to ordinary political decisions.

MANKIND

Men, said the Devil,

Are good to their brothers:

They don’t want to mend

Their own ways, but each other’s.

– grook by Piet Hein
A Case of Strange Bedfellows in the EU: An Institutional Perspective on the French–Swedish Cooperation on Alcohol Control
Authors: Ugland Trygve
Published: August 2003

Some relationships in modern politics may intuitively be more difficult to understand than others. This article deals with what might be referred to as a case of strange bedfellows, i.e. the French–Swedish cooperation on alcohol control in the European Union (EU). The French government has actively supported the Swedish government on several occasions in discussions and disputes over alcohol control policy issues at the EU level, and this article presents and discusses three different interpretations of this support. It is concluded that, rather than reflecting current economic calculations or matching policies, the French support should be viewed in relation to an institutional perspective emphasising the importance of historical paths and inefficient histories.
‘Radical blueprint for social change’? Media representations of New Labour's policies on public health
Authors: Davidson Rosemary , Hunt Kate , Kitzinger Jenny
Published: August 2003

Abstract For almost two decades prior to the election of the New Labour government in 1997, inequalities in health were largely absent from the political debate in Britain. New Labour sought to bring inequalities, and the role of poverty as a ‘root cause’ of ill‐health, back on to the public agenda. This paper analyses four key documents (Green and White Papers) laying out their proposals for public health. We explore the shifting emphasis on health inequalities between the four official documents, and between the documents and their associated press release. The paper also analyses how this translated into media coverage. It identifies common themes across the press coverage – such as criticisms about lack of targets – but also shows how coverage varied (e.g. between UK ‘national’ and ‘Scottish’ press). Finally, the study highlights the crucial issue of political context and news timing, illustrating how the English White Paper was overshadowed by other health stories which formed the basis for attacks on the Labour government in general and the Health Minister in particular.
Narrativity and the mediation of health reform agendas
Authors: Hodgetts Darrin , Chamberlain Kerry
Published: August 2003

Abstract Over the last two decades the repositioning of state‐funded health systems and the increased use of private services have been the focus of extensive public debate. This paper explores the ways in which media coverage of healthcare reform is made sense of by lower socio‐economic status (SES) audiences. We presented television documentaries to participants and analysed their accounts from focus group discussions following the viewing. We explore these discussions as shared social spaces within which participants work through the dilemmas posed by the reforms. In exploring reception as a storytelling process, we link audience and lay beliefs research and investigate how aspects of television coverage are appropriated by viewers to make sense of the causes and implications of healthcare reform.
Going public: references to the news media in NHS contract negotiations
Authors: Hughes David , Griffiths Lesley
Published: August 2003

Abstract This paper considers how middle‐level managers in British Health Authorities and hospital Trusts orient to media reportage in the process of negotiating and monitoring contracts for clinical services. Although they sometimes produce media representations aimed at influencing the general public, local policy actors on both sides of the purchaser/provider split also use media messages as part of their negotiations with each other. We examine how they seek to manage negative publicity, and what happens when one side threatens to ‘go public’. Managers must strike a balance between negotiating advantage and maintaining organisational relationships. Thus the powerful, but potentially double‐edged, weapon of public disclosure was usually broached in indirect terms, and approached with some ambivalence. In rare cases, parties resorted to hostile press releases as relationships deteriorated. Arguably, these interactions reflect more general tensions that arise when managerial discourses, emphasising concepts such as adversarial contracting, markets and competition, are imported into professional organisations with a public service mission.
‘Ignorance is bliss sometimes’: constraints on the emergence of the ‘informed patient’ in the changing landscapes of health information
Authors: Henwood Flis , Wyatt Sally , Hart Angie , Smith Julie
Published: August 2003

Abstract In this paper we describe and analyse results from an empirical study designed to provide insight into factors facilitating and/or inhibiting the emergence of the much‐heralded ‘informed patient’ and its sociological equivalent, the ‘reflexive patient’ or ‘reflexive consumer’. In particular, we seek to examine the relationship between information and empowerment in a healthcare context and assess the significance of the Internet in mediating this relationship. The paper draws on data from interviews with 32 mid‐life women concerned to know about HRT for the relief of menopausal symptoms. Having analysed these women's ‘information practices’, we conclude that constraints on the emergence of the informed patient identity exist within both patient and practitioner communities and within the space occupied by both in the medical encounter. In particular, in this paper we identify a tension caused by the emphasis on ‘information for choice’ in the informed patient discourse which itself obscures the potential conflict between lay and expert/medical knowledges in the clinical encounter.
Media activism and Internet use by people with HIV/AIDS
Authors: Gillett James
Published: August 2003

Abstract This paper seeks to understand better the media practices of people who are directly affected by an illness or health problem. Internet sites that have been created by people with HIV/AIDS are examined as a strategy for self‐representation. This analysis identifies four prominent ‘organising themes’ in Internet sites: autobiography; expertise; self promotion; and dissent. It is argued that there is a connection between media activism within the contemporary AIDS movement and Internet use among people with HIV/AIDS. This paper discusses the potential of the Internet, as a form of media activism, to raise the private troubles of people with health problems as public issues through a revitalisation of the public sphere in contemporary post‐industrial societies.
Popular media and ‘excessive daytime sleepiness’: a study of rhetorical authority in medical sociology
Authors: Kroll‐Smith Steve
Published: August 2003

Abstract Problem sleepiness is emerging as a medical problem in the US and Britain. Though an increasingly salient complaint, clinical medicine is only peripherally involved in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep troubles. Paramount in shaping public perceptions and experiences of sleep are the popular media. The apparent chasm between self‐reported sleep troubles and the routine medical gaze is the point of departure for this inquiry. Aided by the idea of rhetorical authority, a case is made for the conspicuous influence of newspapers, magazines and the Internet in shaping a persuasive cultural directive to become conscious of soporific states and their possible deleterious consequences. Attending to this cultural directive, a growing number of people are self‐diagnosing with a novel sleep disorder, excessive daytime sleepiness. The increasing significance of popular culture in the creation of medical troubles summons an alternative version of medical sociology. A limited case for this claim is made by revisiting two key ideas in this field: naming diseases and the classic distinction between illness and disease.
Bio‐phobias/techno‐philias: virtual reality exposure as treatment for phobias of ‘nature’
Authors: Davidson Joyce , Smith Mick
Published: August 2003

Abstract In modern society natural objects like spiders or snakes have a primary role as the loci of specific phobias. Drawing on interviews with members of the UK National Phobics Society (NPS) and associated service providers, this paper explores the implications of the increasingly significant role played by new media, particularly Virtual Reality technologies, in the treatment of these ‘bio‐phobias’. While advanced technological approaches provide new possibilities for individual sufferers to experiment with and control their phobic responses they also exemplify certain aspects of those specifically modern social relations that are the media within which bio‐phobic behaviours develop. From a critical sociological perspective the techno‐philic move to the medium of cyber‐space may actually exaggerate characteristically modern social relations that seek (but never convincingly manage) to assert complete ‘cultural’ control over the unpredictable ‘natural’ elements threatening our cultural integrity.
Healthy viewing: the reception of medical narratives
Authors: Davin Solange
Published: August 2003

Abstract This paper draws on two reception studies. One focuses on an American medical drama which respondents perceived as entertainment but also as a reliable source of information from which they collected medical and social data by using emotional and ludic strategies. The second compares parallel illness narratives in a soap opera and a documentary. Soap operas were described by informants as good pedagogic tools because they attracted large audiences and promoted identification and repetition which enhance learning. On the other hand, they criticised the documentary for being incomplete and artificial. The conclusion argues that viewers are media‐literate, astute and insightful. They produce sophisticated, subtle interpretations which cannot be predicted by content analyses of programmes alone. More reception research is therefore needed, particularly since television is increasingly omnipresent and provides a considerable portion of the public's medical knowledge.
‘About a year before the breakdown I was having symptoms’: sadness, pathology and the Australian newspaper media
Authors: Rowe Rob , Tilbury Farida , Rapley Mark , O'Ferrall Ilse
Published: August 2003

Abstract Portrayals of mental illness in the media reportedly highlight violence and crime by the ‘mentally ill’. Using a discourse analytic approach we investigated representations of ‘depression’ in the print media in Australia during the year 2000. Unlike other ‘mental illnesses’, in the case of depression the media stress the need for the protection of the sufferer, rather than others. Three key discourses are identified – the biomedical, the psycho‐social and the administrative/managerial – which work to normalise depression by presenting it as beyond the control of the afflicted individual: a consequence of faulty brain chemistry or the product of social conditions. These discourses work together to produce unhappiness as individualised pathology in need of management through biological, psychological or social structural controls.
Equivalence, Personhood and Relationality: Processes of Relatedness Among the Hoti of Venezuelan Guiana
Authors: Storrie Robert
Published: August 2003

The Hoti are a small group of isolated Amerindian hunter‐horticulturalists living in central Venezuelan Guiana. They are arguably amongst the most egalitarian people described in Amazonian ethnography. Hoti place great emphasis on settlement endogamy, and the imperative to marry ‘people of the same kind’ (rather than strangers), coupled with the small size of settlements and the absence of any notion of genealogical relatedness between persons, means that marriages often take place within close genealogical range and in many cases even between siblings. For Hoti neither the notion of ‘incest’ nor its ‘prohibition’ is meaningful, for without genealogy how can there be incest? Rather than focus on the lack of an ‘incest prohibition’, I explore Hoti ways of relating, which are revealed by this intriguing ‘absence’. Hoti relationality is experiential and not genealogical, and rests upon cosmological knowledges that appear to underlie the Hoti's distinctively egalitarian sociality.
Kinning: the Creation of Life Trajectories in Transnational Adoptive Families
Authors: Howell Signe
Published: August 2003

With empirical material obtained from a study of transnational adoption in Norway, an argument is made for the concept of kinning. By this is meant a process by which a foetus, new‐born child, or any previously unconnected person, is brought into a significant and permanent relationship that is expressed in a kin idiom. Through a focus on adoption within a cultural setting that emphasizes the flesh and blood metaphor as central for kinship, the ambiguities and contradictions embedded in the relationship between biological and social relatedness are thrown into sharp relief. Questions of race and ethnicity also become pertinent to the kinning drama of adoptive parents which involves, it is argued, a process of transubstantiation of the adopted child.
Nationalism, Local Histories and the Making of Data in Archaeology
Authors: Tomášková Silvia
Published: August 2003

The last twenty years have witnessed animated debates in archaeology about the influence of context on the production of archaeological knowledge. This article argues that social and historical context affects archaeology not only at the level of interpretation but also at that of basic practice. I illustrate this claim about the historical nature of data through a comparison of two Palaeolithic central European sites, Willendorf and Dolní Věstonice, examining the way in which particularities of each context affected the collection, analysis, and subsequent circulation of their lithic collections in regional reconstructions. Beyond a concern for more overt ideological forms of nationalism, I conclude that we need to pay greater attention to the local histories of archaeology, and their influence in transforming facts into data.
Merchants: An Essay in Historical Ethnography*
Authors: Middleton John
Published: August 2003

Merchants differ from traders in that they act as intermediaries between different producers and consumers. An example discussed here is that of the Swahili merchants of the East African coast, who flourished in the early Modern Era. The several Swahili port towns established control of mercantile exchange between the African interior and the peoples of the western Indian Ocean. Exchange was based on relations of affinity and quasi‐kinship established by the Swahili at the centre. They used locally minted coins as counters of value; exchanges were negotiated in the security and purity of Swahili houses; and the merchants, by adroit use of gifts of luxuries to others along the coast, were able to influence or even control the local system of ranking and power. They were colonized in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the Arabian state of Oman, which established the sultanate of Zanzibar, with a quite a different pattern of exchange. The Swahili are today no more than marginal merchants. Their organization of exchange was similar to that of other mercantile societies of the early colonial period.
Money, Mayhem and the Beast: Narratives of the World's End from New Ireland (PAPUA NEW GUINEA)
Authors: Eves Richard
Published: August 2003

This article discusses the relationship between money, the nation, and new imaginings of apocalypticism in Papua New Guinea. Robert Foster has argued that money played an important role in the Australian administration's efforts to promote a sense of nation at the end of the colonial period. I explore the effects of the new imaginings beyond the nation that are occurring as Christian apocalypticism becomes a dominant framework for interpreting the world. New meanings and values are being attached to money, resulting in the destabilization of the strong link between money and nation that was observed by Foster. I argue that, within this new world‐view, money is losing its symbolic potency, that new forms of identity are emerging, and that people's attachment to the nation is being weakened.
Transnational capitalism and local transformation in Chile
Authors: Gwynne Robert N.
Published: August 2003

This paper explores how transnational corporations can ‘transform’ place and livelihoods within a country that has decided to insert itself forcefully within the evolving world economy. The aim is to explore some of the linkages and flows across space that characterise contemporary global capitalism. More specifically, the paper examines the relationship between transnational corporations and fruit production in Chile through examining the formation of global networks and the regulatory system within Chile. The more precise networks created between fruit transnationals and contract farming are examined before the analysis focuses on how the relationship between local development and transnational capitalism has evolved through time in the Guatulame Valley. Two distinct phases are outlined: an early growth phase and one of consolidation and land concentration. The paper ends by pointing to some key themes of transnational capitalism and local development theory in non‐core economies.
The territorialisation of rural Thailand: between localism, nationalism and globalism
Authors: Buch‐Hansen Mogens
Published: August 2003

This paper shows how the control over land and resources in rural Thailand in the present phase of globalisation is a struggle between economic, social and political powers at the global, national and local level. Ever since Thailand was integrated into the world market by signing the Bowring Treaty in 1855 and especially after it embarked on rapid development in the late 1950s economic growth has changed the rural (and urban) landscapes. Since the mid 1980s, export‐oriented manufacturing industry has led Thailand into the present phase of globalisation by further liberalising its economy and increasingly leaving natural resources open to be exploited. Two socio‐political tendencies have been competing in influencing territorialisation of rural Thailand. However, decentralisation and devolution of power promote local institutions that emphasise various degrees of self‐reliance and sustainable utilisation of natural resources opposed to further liberalisation on the world market as promoted by national and transnational businesses and global institutions like the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. Territorialisation of rural Thailand and management of local natural resources is therefore contested space where institutions at the local level operate in a contextual framework of policies formulated at the global level and implemented through national government agencies. The conflicts inherent in the multi‐layered process of local territorialisation are blurred by the different institutions at different geographical levels having different perceptions of the environment. Political ecology or political environmental geography – promoted by a ‘counter‐coalition’ of potentially like‐minded actors operates on various levels in developing alternative territorialisation premised on socially just and sustainable livelihoods. Such approaches, it is proposed, are crucial to the study of local development in the context of globalisation.
Petrol pumps and economic slumps: rural‐urban linkages in Zimbabwe's globalisation process
Authors: Bryceson Deborah Fahy , Mbara Tatenda
Published: August 2003

The blurring of rural and urban space in Sub‐Saharan Africa has been a topical theme in recent years. Under economic duress, occupational distinctions between the two have tended to disappear. It is often inferred that burgeoning trade and service sector activities have encouraged greater personal mobility and rural‐urban linkages as heightened movement of economic actors bridge the physical distance between town and countryside. Meanwhile, the theme of globalisation applied to Africa has tended to suggest that physical distances are contracting as cyberspace and mobile phones spread. But amid this debate, the fluctuating cost of oil as a key determinant of physical movement and distance perception has largely been overlooked. This paper examines Zimbabwe's rural and urban economies’ vulnerability to international oil price fluctuations. Possible future oil price trends and their effect on African development are probed.
Development geography at the crossroads of livelihood and globalisation
Authors: De Haan Leo , Zoomers Annelies
Published: August 2003

This paper explores new insights generated by livelihood research with respect to poverty problems in the world and how people deal with global challenges. Through the examination of the changing outlines of livelihood in the present era of globalisation, the authors unravel the fuzzy relationship between globalisation and local development from an actor point of view. First, the paper analyses the historical and theoretical context in which the modern livelihood approach developed, followed by a short explanation of its contemporary definition. Globalisation trends in livelihoods are then considered in order to determine the consequences for local development. The main issues reviewed are the decomposition of households, the increased diversification of livelihoods, and the emergence of multi‐local livelihoods and livelihood networks. In the conclusion it is argued that the future agenda on local development in development geography should include the study of rooted and dispersed livelihoods.
The impact of urban renewal and gentrification on urban fabric: three cases in Turkey
Authors: Uzun C. Nil
Published: August 2003

Since the 1980s, the urban restructuration process has had important effects on cities. One of these is the transformation of urban residential space, which includes processes such as urban renewal and gentrification. The aim of this paper is to briefly examine three urban residential transformation processes in Turkey. Two of these are examples of gentrification of two different neighbourhoods in Istanbul, and the third is an example of urban renewal in a neighbourhood in Ankara. The transformation processes in each of these examples have different structures. Related to the characteristics of the processes, their impacts on the cities are different. These differences are evaluated with respect to their impact on the social and spatial structure in these neighbourhoods.
Geographic patterns of industrial innovation in China during the 1990s
Authors: Sun Yifei
Published: August 2003

This study uses a variety of indicators such as patent grants, new product sales and R&D spending to examine the spatial patterns of industrial innovation in China during the 1990s. It is found that industrial innovation in China has been concentrated in the coastal areas, and the spatial concentration has been increasing in the 1990s, which is contrary to what Sun (2000) found on the patterns of all patent applications in 1985 to 1995. The study also reveals that large and medium‐sized enterprises in China have experienced a switch in their modes of innovative behaviours in the late 1990s: from more spending on imported technologies to more in‐house R&D; though expenditure on absorbing imported technologies has been marginal. Finally, enterprises are not well integrated with independent R&D institutes regarding their R&D efforts, which indicates that the national innovation system in China is still fragmented.
Still not there, but on our way: thinking of urban ICT policies in European cities
Authors: Cohen‐Blankshtain Galit , Nijkamp Peter
Published: August 2003

In the information society, information and communication technology (ICT) is potentially an important policy tool. Especially at local levels, scholars stress the essentiality of active intervention and use of ICT tools. However, since these technologies are still new, little experience exists relative to urban ICT initiatives. This paper therefore aims to examine the way urban front‐liners (both elected politicians and administrative professionals) perceive the opportunities of urban ICT policy. Using a European survey, the authors researched views and beliefs about different aspects of urban ICT policies. Following that, they tested whether there is a relationship between the activity field of the respondents and their views on ICT policies. Significant differences among urban planners and economists were established.
King Pin? A Case Study of a Middle Market Drug Broker
Authors: Pearson Geoffrey , Hobbs Dick
Published: August 2003

Abstract: The article is concerned with ‘middle market’ drug distribution, based on research that involved prison interviews with middle and upper level drug dealers and interviews with a range of enforcement personnel. It offers a preliminary discussion of different definitions of the ‘middle market’, where various forms of drug brokerage connect up different levels of drug markets. It goes on to provide a detailed case study of a single middle market drug distribution network, illustrating the complexity of such operations, the way in which drug brokers work as free trading entrepreneurs, and the often misunderstood role of violence in serious crime networks such as these.
Traffick, Transit and Transaction: A Conceptual Framework for Action Against Drug Supply
Authors: Dorn Nicholas , Bucke Tom , Goulden Chris
Published: August 2003

Using consultations with local police officers, consideration of some international and national case studies from Her Majesty's Customs and Excise and National Crime Squad and review of research literature, three broad sets of potential criteria for effectiveness and prospects for improvement are noted: (i) taking risks and vulnerabilities of particular structures of criminality into account, disruption‐type criteria could be strengthened by further qualitative research; (ii) opportunity reduction‐type criteria could be strengthened by ‘conjunction of criminal opportunity’ research; (iii) criteria such as transaction prices or ‘costs of doing business’ call for further work by economists. Remaining issues include whether these diverse frameworks should be integrated, and the costs of measuring different levels of enforcement impact
Research Briefing: Sizing the Market for Powder Cocaine – is a New Approach Needed?
Authors: Barham Leela , Bramley‐Harker Edward , Hickman Matthew , Hough Mike , Turnbull Paul J.
Published: August 2003

Abstract: This article discusses approaches to assessing the size of the illicit market for powder cocaine, and the inherent difficulties of this issue. It describes recent attempts to investigate more accurate measures of the prevalence and extent of use than have been available to date. A new approach is suggested in which estimates are derived separately ‐ using separate methodologies for different groups of powder cocaine users, and then summed. The review offers some suggestions that future researchers in the area of sizing the drugs market might consider. It suggests that prevalence and consumption estimates for non‐problem users can be improved by re‐weighting the British Crime Survey for characteristics associated with powder cocaine use. Indirect estimates of the number of problem users derived from arrestee and treatment data should be compared.
Hiding in Plain Sight: An Exploration of the Illegal(?) Activities of a Drugs Newsgroup
Authors: Schneider Jacqueline L.
Published: August 2003

Abstract: The Internet2 is undoubtedly one of the most important communication advances of recent times, with the World Wide Web constituting the part that draws the most attention. Other components such as Usenet and Internet Relay Chat, however, largely remain abstruse. This article provides an examination of a drugs' newsgroup, which revealed that its activities provided a fertile environment to learn how to manufacture and distribute synthetic drugs and their precursors. This adds a new dimension to the way in which drugs are made available to consumers. While existing laws support the possible prosecution of group members, official attention to newsgroups with regard to preventing or reducing drug offending remains largely unknown, at least in the public domain.
COMPOSITIONAL VARIATIONS IN AGED AND HEATED PISTACIA RESIN FOUND IN LATE BRONZE AGE CANAANITE AMPHORAE AND BOWLS FROM AMARNA, EGYPT*
Authors: Stern B. , Heron C. , Corr L. , Serpico M. , Bourriau J.
Published: August 2003

This study examines resinous deposits from the interior surfaces of sherds of imported Canaanite amphorae and locally produced bowls from the 18th Dynasty site of Tell el‐Amarna, Egypt. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Canaanite amphorae were used for resin transport, whilst the bowls are associated with burning resin as incense. A number of characteristic triterpenoids identify all the resinous deposits from both vessel types as Pistacia spp. No other resins were observed and there was no evidence of mixing with oils or fats. The composition of the archaeological resins is more complex than that of modern pistacia resin, due to degradation and generation of new components. Experimental heating alters the relative abundance of the triterpenoid composition of modern pistacia resin. One component, the triterpenoid 28‐norolean‐17‐en‐3‐one, is produced by such heating; however, an increase in its relative abundance in ancient samples is not matched by the archaeological evidence for heating. It is therefore not possible to use this component reliably to identify heated resin. However, additional unidentified components with a mass spectral base peak at m/z 453 have been associated with seven (out of 10) bowls and are not observed in resins associated with Canaanite amphorae. It is proposed that these components are more reliable molecular indicators of heating.
ANTHROPOGENIC IMPACT ON THE LANDSCAPE OF SOUTHERN BADENIA (GERMANY) DURING THE HOLOCENE—DOCUMENTED BY COLLUVIAL AND ALLUVIAL SEDIMENTS*
Authors: Mäckel R. , Schneider R. , Seidel J.
Published: August 2003

In the study area (the Upper Rhine Lowlands and the southern Black Forest), colluvial and alluvial sediments could be dated with the aid of 14C analysis, archaeological finds, pollen analysis and stratigraphic assessments. On the basis of these dated deposits, six different maps have been produced showing the distribution of the colluvial and alluvial sediments for the corresponding archaeological cultural periods. For each of these periods, the intensity of human impact on the environment has been estimated in relation to climatic conditions and different economic activities; for example, woodland clearance and mining activities.
URANIUM‐SERIES AND LUMINESCENCE DATING OF VOLCANIC LITHIC ARTEFACTS*
Authors: Morgenstein M. E. , Luo S. , Ku T.‐L. , Feathers J.
Published: August 2003

U‐series dating was used to determine the growth rate of a feldspar‐to‐clay weathering rind in a mid‐Holocene Cascade–Olcott tradition andesite core, and luminescence dating (last exposure to sunlight) was used to date fine‐grained feldspars scraped from the surfaces of similar buried artefacts from a 14C‐sediment‐dated archaeological site (45KI464) on the wet western slope of the Cascade Mountains of Washington. For U‐series dating, we measured 226Ra excess (226Ra excess =226Ra –230Th) in five stratigraphic depth controlled rind scrapings. 238U, 232Th and 230Th were counted by alpha spectrometry, and 226Ra and 210Pb were counted by gamma spectrometry on each sub‐sample.
Environmental leapfrogging in developing countries: A critical assessment and reconstruction
Authors: Perkins Richard
Published: August 2003

It has been suggested in recent years that developing countries need not pass through the dirty stages of industrial growth that marred the past of today's developed countries. Instead, they may be able to bypass these by leapfrogging straight to modern, clean technologies as an integral part of capacity addition. This article critically reviews existing approaches to leapfrogging. It argues that they are not only characterized by considerable ambiguity, but also based on an incomplete understanding of the technological and policy requirements of cleaner industrialization. Consequently, the article goes on to offer a number of suggestions as to how current approaches might be advanced so as to better meet the challenge of leapfrogging. Amongst these suggestions is greater clarification of the specific targets for leapfrogging and policy intervention to accelerate the development of technological capabilities needed to select, absorb and innovate leapfrog technologies.
The Water Poverty Index: Development and application at the community scale
Authors: Sullivan C.A. , Meigh J.R. , Giacomello A.M.
Published: August 2003

The article details the development and uses of the water poverty index (WPI). The index was developed as a holistic tool to measure water stress at the household and community levels, designed to aid national decision makers, at community and central government level, as well as donor agencies, to determine priority needs for interventions in the water sector. The index combines into a single number a cluster of data directly and indirectly relevant to water stress. Subcomponents of the index include measures of: access to water; water quantity, quality and variability; water uses (domestic, food, productive purposes); capacity for water management; and environmental aspects.

The WPI methodology was developed through pilot projects in South Africa, Tanzania and Sri Lanka and involved intensive participation and consultation with all stakeholders, including water users, politicians, water sector professionals, aid agency personnel and others. The article discusses approaches for the further implementation of the water poverty index, including the possibilities of acquiring the necessary data through existing national surveys or by establishing interdisciplinary water modules in school curricula. The article argues that the WPI fills the need for a simple, open and transparent tool, one that will appeal to politicians and decision makers, and at the same time can empower poor people to participate in the better targeting of water sector interventions and development budgets in general.
Past and future sustainability of water policies in Europe
Authors: Barraqué Bernard
Published: August 2003

The article contributes to a discussion on two global issues on water: water resources management, and water supply and sanitation. Focusing on Europe, it traces the legal roots of current systems in history: as a resource, water is considered as a common property, rather than a market good; while as a public service it is usually a commodity. Public water supply and sanitation technologies and engineering have developed under three main paradigms: quantitative and civil engineering; qualitative and chemical/sanitary engineering (both on the supply side); and the most recent one, environmental engineering and integrated management (on the demand side).

The cost of public drinking water is due to rise sharply in view of the two‐fold financial challenge of replacing an ageing infrastructure and keeping up with ever‐rising environmental and sanitary quality standards. Who will pay? Government subsidies, or water users? The author suggests that apparent successes with privatisation may have relied heavily on hidden government subsidies and/or the healthy state of previously installed water infrastructure: past government subsidies are still felt for as long as the lifetime of the infrastructure.

The article stresses the importance of public participation and decentralized local management of water and sanitation services. Informing and involving users in water management decisions is seen as an integral part of the ‘ethics’ side of the crucial three E's (economics, environment, ethics).

The article strongly argues for municipal provision of water services, and hopes that lessons learnt and solutions found in the European experience may serve water services management efforts in other regions of the world.
A new approach to sustainable tourism development: Moving beyond environmental protection
Authors: Neto Frederico
Published: August 2003

Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. It is an increasingly important source of income, employment and wealth in many countries. Its rapid expansion has, however, had detrimental environmental (and socio‐cultural) impacts in many regions. In this article, I examine the main economic benefits and environmental impacts of tourism, and review the development of the international sustainable tourism agenda. While much of international tourism activity takes place within the developed world, this article will focus on the (economic) development of the industry in developing countries I conclude that new approaches to sustainable tourism development in these countries should not only seek to minimize local environmental impact, but also give greater priority to community participation and poverty alleviation. I argue, in particular, that more emphasis should be given to a ‘pro‐poor tourism’ approach at both national and international levels.
Landowner equity in Papua New Guinea's minerals sector: Review and policy issues
Authors: Banks Glenn
Published: August 2003

The involvement of local communities as equity holders in major mineral resource developments dates back over a decade in Papua New Guinea. This article reviews the history and result of landowner equity at two of Papua New Guinea's major mines (Porgera and Lihir), with a particular focus on the contribution of these equity holdings to local sustainable development. It is found that while an equity holding can provide significant returns to a local community, it also exposes them to significant financial risk. A second major area of concern is the structures and instruments by which revenues generated from the equity are distributed and utilized within the local community. Further research and policy redirection is required before local equity holding can be viewed as making a significant contribution to local sustainable development.