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This article offers a discursive analysis of the Conservative green paper for international development, published as part of the closely fought election campaign of 2010 that culminated in a UK coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. The article examines the paper in comparison with the discursive shifts represented by the first Department for International Development (DfID) white paper, published by the outgoing Labour administration in 1997. In contrast with the optimistic and globalist developmentalism that characterised Labour's development discourse, the green paper sounds a more cautious note, using empire to focus on Britain's leadership role in poverty alleviation rather than on global progress, and brings back the full force of developmentalism only at the point where it seeks to legitimate spending on security concerns as a development concern. The article then moves on to examine the green paper's most explicit discursive move, the signalling of a 'post-bureaucratic age'. This move towards increased information provision to promote transparency and accountability is likely to signal greater control by powerful donors in securitised times, albeit with a potential re-scaling of responsibility for poverty alleviation to the poorest local communities. Finally, the article looks briefly at information technologies in relation to the transnational spatiality of civil society, arguing that attention needs to be paid to the more embodied forms of transnational association encouraged by the green paper, and to the selection and impacts of information, which need to be seen in the discursive context of wider Conservative constructions of the 'big society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses military policy in Great Britain. At issue is an examination of a British government report on military matters released during a period of continuing developments in national security. The author urges an expansion of Great Britain's strategic forces and considers aspects of deterrence and coercion in place of more traditional military actions. The article asserts that there is a need for a clear understanding of the motivation of Great Britain's potential adversaries.

In 2000 the Howard government formed a consultative committee to review defence policy and gauge public opinion on defence issues. It concentrated on the impact of budgetary stringency and dramatic strategic change and supported increased defence spending on equipment to cater for high-level threats. Was there a thorough review? Inconsistencies occurred in the reports developed from the review and statements made by senior policy-makers while it was being conducted. The way the review was undertaken points to conceptual tensions in Australia's strategic culture and serious problems with entrenched interests in the services. Unless these challenges are addressed, a thorough review of defence policy cannot be undertaken. The review process itself needs to be reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

Interpreting high‐resolution satellite imagery could be an expensive and time‐consuming task for human eyes. Computer Vision and Deep Learning techniques can help to solve this major problem by applying detection algorithms, which can ease the task of analysing such images for the benefit of humans. It can help in changing the way we comprehend and anticipate the economic activity around the world. Such techniques help us to observe the urban development in high security areas such as national and international borders. Constant progressions in improving and making satellites deployment, a cost‐effective process to strengthen the networks of satellite orbiting the earth is one of the reasons such tasks can be easily solved with the help of high‐resolution images. Current computer vision research works have achieved significant milestones in accuracy and speed but, there are still room for improvements. In this paper, we addressed some of these methods to bring them to a combined pipeline and proposed a set of improvements to further improve the speed and the accuracy of the detections. We proposed a unified framework, which combines several object detection algorithms and the state‐of‐art architecture of YoloV4 along with the TensorFlow object detection API. This framework can detect small and well as large objects with improved speed and accuracy by using two detectors for different scales. Evaluation ran on these high‐resolution images yield mAP of 85.6% F1‐score of 0.84. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemosensing, an interdisciplinary scientific domain, plays a pivotal role ranging from environmental monitoring to healthcare diagnostics and (inter)national security. Metal‐organic gels (MOGs) are recognized for their stability, selectivity, and responsiveness, making them valuable for chemosensing applications. Researchers have explored the development of MOGs based on different metal ions and ligands, allowing for tailored properties and sensitivities, and have even demonstrated their applications as portable sensors such as paper‐based test strips for practical use. Herein, several studies related to MOGs development and their applications in the chemosensing field via UV‐visible or luminance along with electrochemical approach are presented. These papers explored MOGs as versatile materials with their use in sensing bio or environmental analytes. This review provides a foundational understanding of key concepts, methodologies, and recent advancements in this field, fostering the scientific community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper seeks to explain why investment‐recipient countries, like Australia and Canada, reject certain investments in strategic industries and shield some domestic business from foreign acquisitions. Existing studies suggest that the decision to restrict FDI is driven by national security concerns, which are often conceptualized as a catch‐all concept. This paper develops a novel theoretical construct – 'FDI acceptability threshold' (a maximum point of political tolerance for any given foreign investment) – to provide a more nuanced understanding of government decisions to reject FDI. This theoretical construct is based on four factors – nature of the domestic firm/industry, nature of the acquirer, external opposition, and domestic backlash. Drawing on two cases of Chinese SOEs' investment in the energy sector in Australia and Canada, this paper demonstrates that investment‐recipient countries are more likely to protect a domestic business where foreign ownership threatens domestic industry by exceeding FDI acceptability thresholds. Given that these thresholds are often not directly identified in the host country's policies, this paper proposes that host countries should clarify these conditions to ensure that they continue to attract FDI. The theory of 'FDI acceptability thresholds', developed in this paper, can be used to explain which companies or industries may be eligible for protection from the home government. In broader terms, these thresholds explain the theoretical link between national security concerns and FDI protectionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SIMON is one of the lightweight block ciphers designed by the National Security Agency in 2013, and a technical report including security analysis was published by the design team nearly 4 years later. As for the linear attack, it is claimed that 'the single‐path probabilities (and linear correlations) dip below 2−block size for 12, 16, 20, 29, and 38 rounds for SIMON32, 48, 64, 96, and 128, respectively'. However, the design team does not show details on how to get the result and there are also no published papers verified the result yet. In the present paper, an upper bound of squared correlation of SIMON‐like functions is given. As an important application of this bound, how to find optimal linear characteristics of SIMON and SIMECK under the Markov assumption with Matsui's branch‐and‐bound algorithm is shown. The authors' results confirm the claim of the design team. Furthermore, the best‐known linear‐hull distinguishers for SIMON and SIMECK is also given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the ratification of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013, the Indian state digitized its food rationing infrastructure, replacing paper‐based ration cards with digital rationing documents and other technologies of authentication. The shift from analog to digital documentary practices has rematerialized documents and devices to enable closer monitoring of the exchange of food entitlements in ration shops. Making biopolitics digital has enabled the state to exert greater control over rationing practices by rendering them more transparent. However, the state's obsession with preventing practices of corruption has hindered, rather than facilitated, access to entitlements for some rightful beneficiaries of the NFSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the New Industrial Policy Observatory (NIPO) data set and documents emergent patterns of policy intervention during 2023 associated with the return of industrial policy. The data show that the recent wave of new industrial policy activity is primarily driven by advanced economies and that subsidies are the most employed instrument. Trade restrictions on imports and exports are more frequently used by emerging market and developing economies. Strategic competitiveness is the dominant motive governments give for these measures, but other objectives such as climate change, resilience and national security are on the rise. In exploratory regressions, we find that implemented measures are correlated with the past use of measures by other governments in the same sector, pointing to the tit‐for‐tat nature of industrial policy. Furthermore, domestic political economy factors and macroeconomic conditions correlate with the use of industrial policy measures. We intend for the NIPO to be a publicly available resource to help monitor the evolution and effects of industrial policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

This paper discusses options to manage spillovers of unilateral trade policies motivated by national security and other non‐economic objectives on global trade and investment. Within the WTO framework, we argue a 'specific trade concern' mechanism is likely to be more effective than dispute settlement to address national security‐motivated trade intervention. More broadly, we propose creation of a platform for governments, supported by relevant international organisations, to enhance transparency and assess the effectiveness and magnitude of the spillover effects of trade/related policies of systemic import. This would serve to help identify efficient instruments to achieve economic and non‐economic goals and inform WTO reform discussions on subsidies and discriminatory trade policies. Plurilateral cooperation among like‐minded nations offers a pragmatic pathway to address spillover effects of policies to achieve security and other non‐economic objectives but requires a stronger governance framework to ensure consistency with an open multilateral trading system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Asia's security environment is changing rapidly. Over the past five years or so, the security order has become increasingly unsettled as it is buffeted by a complex array of forces. The region is entering a period of growing rivalry and animosity states are uncertain over the strategic intentions of great and rising powers, nationalism is an increasingly pervasive force, and military spending has been ramping up in many countries over the past decade. That the security environment is changing is unarguable. But what is the extent of these changes? And what are the implications of these shifts for regional states? This paper introduces the special issue "East Asia's Contested Security Order". It begins by discussing the broad contours of the changing East Asian security order and what is at stake for regional powers. It then introduces the seven articles in this edition that challenge existing conceptualisations of the East Asian security order, articulate diverse perspectives on that order held by regional, middle and smaller powers, examine their complex and different security strategies that contribute to shaping the regional order, and consider the extent to which the regional security order may be said to be "contested". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Asia's security order is experiencing significant change as it moves from a stable and peaceful geopolitical setting into one of increasingly open contestation. There is no scholarly consensus about the core character of East Asia's old security order, thus making analysis of this period of change especially challenging. The aim of this paper is two‐fold. Firstly, it seeks to provide some order to the broader debate about East Asia's regional security environment. Secondly, it provides a novel account of East Asia's security order that better captures the key dynamics at play in the region than the literature currently does. The paper's first part discusses the different types of security orders identified by scholars and analysts. The second examines the ways in which scholars have attempted to explain East Asia's security order and explores the key forces that they have argued shaped their form. The third part develops a distinctive account of Asia's security order which focuses on the interplay of domestic and international factors and argues that it was the political consensus that existed across the region about its structure and purpose that made the region stable and it is the breakdown of that consensus that is destabilising East Asia today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to a Special Issue provides a conceptual framework connecting the themes of human security, well-being and human development, and sustainability. Inter-connections between each of these three themes are possible. The connecting concepts are freedoms, rights, responsibilities, and deliberative processes. The main arguments of the five papers in this Special Issue are introduced in the context of this framework. Some potential criticisms and possible synergies are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect of terrorism financing and recruitment on attacks. I exploit a Sharia‐compliant institution in Pakistan, which induces unintended and quasi‐experimental variation in the funding of terrorist groups through their religious affiliation. The results indicate that higher terrorism financing, in a given location and period, generate more attacks in the same location and period. Financing exhibits a complementarity in producing attacks with terrorist recruitment, measured through data from Jihadist‐friendly online fora and machine learning. A higher supply of terror is responsible for the increase in attacks and is identified by studying groups with different affiliations operating in multiple cities. These findings are consistent with terrorist organizations facing financial frictions to their internal capital market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China and the United States host the world's largest digital platforms. Platforms are multisided markets that facilitate value‐creating exchanges among users, such as social media, e‐commerce, software QJ;application downloads, search, email, and cloud services. Internet access and the purely digital nature of many of the products and services make digital platforms potentially global in scope. This means that the rules and restrictions governing the flow of capital and information services among national markets strongly influence the economic and social potential of digital platforms. The paper conducts a sequential analysis of the rise of barriers to the United States–China trade in ICT and digital platform markets from 2000 to 2021. We find that China's thriving platform economy was relatively open, competitive and market‐driven in its early stages, and benefited from U.S. capital and the entry of U.S. firms. Since 2009, both countries have progressively restricted access to each other's domestic information services markets. In both cases, the primary stated rationale involved national security claims rather than trade policy concerns. Drawing on International Political Economy theory, we label the United States–China interaction pattern digital neo‐mercantilism. Digital neo‐mercantilism fuses the power and security of the national state with economic development in the digital economy. Policymakers represent information flows and digital technologies in domestic policy discourse as critical to the security and relative power of the state, and pursue various forms of industrial policy, data localization, trade protectionism, or exclusion of foreigners as a result. Both the United States and China are following this policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on existing research on the merging of development and security following 9/11. Whilst much of the current literature focuses on the development policy of the US, this paper examines the UK. Investigating arguments that the UK's coordination of security and development policy is concerned with security at home rather than in the developing world, the policy discourse of UK's Department for International Development (DfID), Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence is examined through its major policy documents for the period from the late 1990s to 2011. Two levels of analysis are used: a content analysis and a discourse analysis. In addition, this research draws on interviews with key informants within the DfID. This paper argues that since 9/11 and the War on Terror, the UK has increasingly coordinated its foreign policy, development and security actors. As a result, the DfID has given progressively greater attention to issues of national security in its policy. This action is justified through a series of claims of common interest between actors across government and between the interests of developing countries and the UK. This merging of interests opens up space for development to be focused on ensuring UK's national security. Whilst drawing on a paradigm of broader security, this instead reverses the principal of human security where national security is now a development problem. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

The authors present a discussion of the introductory article "Sociolinguistics and everyday (in)securitization" and the round table papers in the current issue. They mention the need for sociolinguists to consider the issue of both political and psychological insecurity, and the role of insecurity in language education, public surveillance, and sexuality.

In recent years, maritime sovereignty disputes have become highly visible microcosms of broader contests between security orders in East Asia. Escalating tensions over seas provoke questions about how historical and territorial conceptions of sovereignty map onto maritime areas, and the continuing effectiveness of the so‐called "rules‐based order" in maintaining regimes for deciding jurisdiction of islands, rocks and other maritime land features. The paper examines sovereignty claims and the international law of the sea across various cases, including the contested claims over Dokdo/Takeshima, Senkaku/Diaoyu Dao and China's nine‐dash line. These case studies reveal the tensions between two legal regimes: territorial rules of acquisition (sovereignty) and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This article concludes by considering the ways that the symbolic nature of these disputes has implications for the capacities of UNCLOS and other legal instruments in the US‐led "rules‐based order" to establish orderly relations among states in the maritime arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article questions why Japan has taken a neutral position in the Sino‐American trade tensions in 2018, despite its political rivalry with Beijing. It claims that the Japanese strategy towards China between 2012 and 2018 has moved from confrontational competition to competitive cooperation over third‐country markets; this is because of their shared beliefs and methodology regarding regional development. The paper undertakes three major tasks. Firstly, it compares Chinese and Japanese academic discussions regarding East Asia. It finds that experts on both sides admit the significant implications of the politico‐economic divide in the regional system. However, the realistic Chinese tend to consider the divide as a problem to be solved through power, whereas the more liberal Japanese expect it to provide a coordinating function for the regional order as a whole. Secondly, the article reviews the shifts in the Japanese government's behaviours toward China in recent years. It argues that Japan has moved for collaboration with China to maintain the liberal rule‐based order in the region. Finally, founded on the estimate of China's economic leverage over its neighbours, the paper claims that Japan will expand its responsibility in order formation in East Asia in future, becoming more independent from American influences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

The core responsibility of governments is the security of their citizens, and this means inter alia protecting their safety, nutrition and health. Microbiology and microbial biotechnology have key roles to play in improving supply security of essential resources. In this paper, we discuss the urgent need to fully and immediately exploit existing microbial biotechnologies to maximize supply security of energy, food and medical supplies, and of waste management, and to invest in new research specifically targetting supply security of essential resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study gives definitions of information war (information warfare) and related terms, such as cyberwar and others, indicates the purposes, objects, subject matter, and subjects of the concepts under consideration. The author also considers the features of strategic information warfare conducted by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the stages in the development of information war, and the classification of its types and methods. The approaches of scientists who studied certain aspects of information warfare were analyzed, based on their work relevant conclusions were drawn and the conceptual basis of the paper was formed. Independently, the definition and characteristics of the concept of cyber warfare inextricably linked with information warfare are given. Methods for solving the problems arising during the information war are introduced, ways of ensuring the information security of the state are provided. Information war in this study is considered as methods and means of presenting information to form the point of view needed by the organizers of information propaganda and the corresponding public opinion in a certain group of people. The author made an in‐depth analysis of the regulatory and legal instruments in force for counterfeiting information warfare and protecting the Ukrainian people from it, pointed out the deficiencies of such documents, and gave recommendations for their further advancement. Recommendations are given to improve the current information awareness among Ukrainians, the directions of the state policy in this field are suggested and ways to ensure the stability of the national information security system of Ukraine are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

Offshore detention and bilateral free trade constitute hallmarks of Australia's international policy. This paper explores how these policy directions were originally justified in the Pacific Solution and the Australia‐US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). In the literature both policies are theorised as security offerings but whilst the Pacific Solution is obviously exclusionary, AUSFTA aimed at including Australia in the US's orbit. This suggests that security as a justification for policy is flexible, complex, and warrants closer observation of its practical articulations. Reviewing the speeches with which the relevant Ministers introduced their legislation, I argue that offshore detention and bilateral free trade derive from a specific language of security in which policy‐makers view individual actors as the basis of national threats. The language of security invokes a threatening international environment by focussing on the selfish and amoral components of human behaviour whilst diminishing social institutions and collective structures. Vague anarchy and simplified individualism position the state as a righteous protector rather than a rational policy‐maker. I conclude by questioning whether this is a sound basis for policy and canvass options for escaping the language of security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes as a point of departure a notion of reorganization as a way of managing risk. It examines the reorganization process in the Norwegian central administration for homeland security. As a central theme the paper explores why the proposal to radically reorganize the administration by replacing a network model with a hierarchical model resulted in a much more modest change to a hybrid agency model. The descriptive part of the paper traces the reorganization process, starting with the initiative taken by the Ministry of Justice in 1999 to establish a public commission and ending with the final parliamentary resolution in 2002. Despite the 9/11 terrorist attack that occurred in the middle of the process and its implications for security, only minor changes were made to existing arrangements. A striking feature of the process was negative coordination, indicating that the wish to coordinate was greater than the willingness to be coordinated. To understand why this was so, we look at bureaucratic politics and bargaining between different interests, at institutional identities and strong cultures and traditions within different governmental bodies. We focus especially on framing processes within and between organizational fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a gradual consolidation of interparliamentary cooperation over EU foreign and security policies (CFSP/CSDP). This has culminated in the setting up of a dedicated interparliamentary conference (IPC) on the CFSP/CSDP. This paper considers whether IPC gatherings in their current form help foster the creation of a transnational epistemic community of parliamentarians in foreign and security affairs and thereby aid the empowerment of parliamentary actors in the EU. To this end, IPC attendance patterns are analysed. The article finds that attendance at IPCs' diverges between EU parliaments. This and the fact that few parliamentarians choose to participate again reduces the IPC's utility to facilitate regular interparliamentary contacts. The article then explores structural and individual determinants of these patterns. The findings are relevant for the larger literature on parliamentary participation, as well as on interparliamentary cooperation in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

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

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

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

Swarms of police drones, fleets of overhead delivery bots, and flocks of private security drones are set to multiply the complex interfaces between state, capital, and sense. This paper explores the military and economic enclosure of the atmosphere by drones. For centuries, capitalist enclosure has privatized and secured common spaces: territorializing new power relations into the soil. Enclosure now operates through an increasingly atmospheric spatiality . The birth of airpower enabled new vertical regimes of state power, capital accumulation, and violence. Now, drones are materializing both intimate and pervasive colonizations of local, national, and international airspace. Crucially, this discloses new morphologies and ontologies of urban (in)security, in which an atmospheric state polices deterritorialized aerial circulations. Such a reenchanted atmosphere collapses the geopolitical and geoeconomic in uncertain robotic orbits. This paper, which connects past and present, is driven by a deeper concern for the existential dimensions of dronified skyscapes, subjects, and violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Neil Smith's American Empire (2003, University of California Press), he makes the case that the current moment of US global ambition is characterized by a network of imperial power that is 'exercised in the first place through the world market and only secondarily, when and if necessary, in geopolitical terms'. For Smith, it was crucial that in the din of US geopolitics in the post-9/11 period we did not lose sight of 'the deeper geo-economic aspiration for global control', in a 'war on terror' that is really a war to 'fill in the interstices of globalization' (p xiv). In American Empire, Smith identified three moments of US global ambition over the last century. In this paper, I extend back the starting point for Smith's third moment to a period in the 1990s when United States Central Command (CENTCOM) became fully operational in the military-economic securitization of the most pivotal region on earth, what it terms the 'Central Region'. By drawing on the concept of 'geoeconomics', which Smith increasingly used in his later writing, I show how CENTCOM's mission from the outset can be most aptly described as one of 'geoeconomic deterrence'. I highlight in particular how enabling commercial markets has been a key element of grand strategy in what CENTCOM calls its 'long war' in the Middle East and Central Asia. In addition, I outline recent calls for the US military to become further and more broadly involved in what some commentators have called 'messy capitalism'. I ask the question what kind of capitalism and in whose interests, before concluding by reflecting upon Neil Smith's assessment of the fated contradictions of contemporary US imperial ambition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Science, especially experimental science, has always depended on the careful capture of plans, actions, raw and processed data and conclusions. With scientific research now so inextricably dependent on computers, the use of an electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) is almost essential. The meticulous notebooks of Michael Faraday and other scientists of his era remain as role models for the recording that is necessary, but they cannot provide the essential support for discussion, sharing, collaboration and formal verification. A blog (a contraction of Web log) can form the basis for implementing an electronic notebook but does not suffice to meet all the needs of an ELN. This paper describes the LabTrove ELN, which is blog based but provides numerous additional features, such as version control, security policies and a flexible metadata scheme, and facilities for interchanging objects with other systems. The MyExperimentalScience project links LabTrove with myExperiment, a repository for workflows in a collaborative environment, thereby making LabTrove templates available for discovery and reuse. Collaboration, sharing and reuse are essential for scientific progress, which depends on individual scientists building on the results already produced by others. Open-source ELNs such as LabTrove are ideal vehicles to support the growth of Open Notebook Science. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a key academic support of US geopolitics overseas, which I term the 'military-strategic studies complex'. The paper begins by outlining the development of Strategic Studies in the US since the early 1980s. It then uses the example of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments to work through a discussion of the palpable agency of the military-strategic studies complex in advancing a dual military-economic securitization strategy for what it calls the contemporary American 'leasehold empire'. This strategy is focused especially on the Persian Gulf and involves both an enduring US military presence and long-term neoliberal designs for the region. Finally, consideration is given to alternative military-strategic visions before attention is turned to the task of Geography in countering US geopolitical and geoeconomic scriptings of the Middle East, all expedited under a vernacular of 'national security'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Haiti is routinely characterised as an archetypical fragile state. In spite of considerable donor investment in security promotion, real and perceived safety have proven frustratingly elusive. In the years before the devastating earthquake of 12 January 2010, the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, was also the site of considerable experimentation to promote security and stability. T his paper reviews the discourse, practice and outcomes associated with three parallel stabilisation initiatives undertaken in Haiti between 2007 and 2009. Although they shared many similar objectives, the paper describes how these separate interventions mobilised very different approaches. The specific focus is on United States, United Nations and combined Brazilian, Canadian and Norwegian stabilisation efforts and their implications for humanitarian actors, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières. The paper concludes with some reflections on the implications of stabilisation before and after the country's most recent natural disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims: In 2013, Uruguay became the first country in the world to fully regulate its marijuana market. This ambitious policy was also an unexpected one: none of the usual explanations for legalization of marijuana in other contexts was present in the Uruguayan case. This paper offers an explanation of why Uruguay legalized marijuana. Drawing on Kingdon's theoretical approach, we argue that a window of opportunity opened in mid‐2012, making it both necessary and possible for the government to move towards legalization. Methods: A congruence case study using evidence from a series of interviews with political actors and policy makers, media reports and official documents. Results: There is evidence that marijuana legalization was possible in Uruguay because of the coincidence of a demand for more public safety (problem stream) with the presence of pro‐legalization leaders in strategic political positions (policy stream) and a favorable political environment (political stream) Conclusions: Applying Kingdon's theory of windows of opportunity, Uruguay may have moved towards full regulation of its marijuana market in 2013 because of the convergence of a specific set of problem, policy and political circumstances in May 2012. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the logic of the ongoing debate in the United States over its China policy. Scholarly assessments of China's power and intentions are more diverse than ever before, so it is no wonder that the United States is faced with an array of policy options, including continuing engagement, accommodation, competition and containment. This makes it more difficult for US policy makers to forge a consensus regarding the course of engagement with China. This paper provides an analytic framework for explaining the logic of US policy choices within the debate and examines the implications for the Trump administration. It is hoped that it can help US policy makers interpret China's rise, and act as a baseline from which they can formulate an optimal approach towards dealing with the PRC. With the debate over the United States' China policy yet to be settled, the future of US–China relations, as well as the wellbeing of the entire Asia‐Pacific region, remains uncertain. In particular, President Trump's erratic attitude toward Beijing is puzzling to outside observers and is undermining US credibility. It is creating instability in the Asia Pacific where Washington had previously been a stabilizing force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has North Korea been unable to implement serious economic reforms like those of China? By tracing the process of economic reform in China, this paper argues that the improvement of national security, especially as a result of diplomatic normalization with the United States, was an essential precondition for successful economic reform and growth. It reduced the fear of an open‐door policy and eased domestic control as well as reallocation of resources from the military to economic development. Furthermore, diplomatic normalization with the United States lifted economic sanctions, and allowed access to global markets, foreign direct investments, and membership in major international economic organizations. However, North Korea has technically been at war with the United States for the last 66 years. Therefore, it maintains very tight control of its population and spends a substantial portion of its GDP on the military. It has also been under severe economic sanctions and does not have access to the global economy. The possibility of any meaningful economic reforms in North Korea will depend on its success in improving national security by resolving the nuclear issue and normalizing diplomatic relations with the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the roles of policing and security in the geographies of everyday public and semi-public space. We contend that while security is concerned with territory, policing relates to place. We consider the relationship between security and territory before examining the relationship between policing and place. In the final section, we argue that a relational view of space is needed to understand how practices of policing and security shape space and, in turn, the lives of people using it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. exporters of high-technology, 'dual-use' products are competitively disadvantaged in global markets by the complexity, range, and stringency of U.S. national security export controls. This paper demonstrates that fungibility of high technology and lax interpretation of multilateral export control agreements by other advanced countries have made the existing control regime ineffective. It further shows that persistent U.S. restrictiveness of exports in non-critical, widely available goods and technologies may needlessly and permanently erode U.S. firms' competitive position in existing as well as rapidly-opening markets worldwide. The need to revise the notion of national security to include not only military security, but also its complement, economic security, is discussed. The pivotal issue of enforceability of multilateral controls is explored, and corporate strategies for U. S. high-tech firms to achieve export control policy change are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical examination of the development of border management in Finland and the Schengen Area, the point of departure being that contemporary performances of border enforcement and security cannot be understood as distinct from the process of neoliberalization. The particular case which is examined is that of the Finnish Border Guard (FBG) service. Border management in Finland provides an interesting case not only because Finland is responsible for controlling the Schengen, European Union-Russian border but also because since Finnish state reforms in the early 1990s, neoliberal rationales have increasingly provided the guidelines for how to calculate and optimize border security. This paper emphasizes that the rationales of border management should be made transparent and opened for public debate. The analysis is structured around the themes of internationalization, competitiveness, risk prevention and the functioning of society, all of which are regarded as the key rationales of neoliberalized border governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid the soured bilateral relations with South Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has taken swift steps toward transforming Japan into a more active player in East Asian power politics. This is in response to North Korea's military threat and China's maritime expansionism. These intensifying security challenges prompted Tokyo to promote military readiness and introduce a force development plan in 2013. On 1 July 2014, Japan's Cabinet passed the decision on exercising collective self-defense, signaling a shift from the old self-imposed restriction on the use of force as a means of dispute settlement. The reinterpretation of Article 9 heralded a more proactive engagement of Japan's military in the regional power balance. Accordingly, Japan revised the US-Japan Defense Guidelines in April 2015, strengthening ties with the United States. South Koreans expressed sharply divided attitudes toward Japan's military empowerment. Marked differences ranged between the watchful eyes of the public on the one hand, and conditional acceptance by the government and security specialists on the other. Referring to regional geopolitics and historical bilateral relations, this paper presents conditions and rationales reconciling these conflicting positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current concerns regarding terrorism and international crime highlight the need for new techniques for detecting unknown and hazardous substances. A novel Raman spectroscopy-based technique, spatially offset Raman spectroscopy ( SORS), was recently devised for noninvasively probing the contents of diffusely scattering and opaque containers. Here, we demonstrate a modified portable SORS sensor for detecting concealed substances in-field under different background lighting conditions. Samples including explosive precursors, drugs, and an organophosphate insecticide (chemical warfare agent surrogate) were concealed inside diffusely scattering packaging including plastic, paper, and cloth. Measurements were carried out under incandescent and fluorescent light as well as under daylight to assess the suitability of the probe for different real-life conditions. In each case, it was possible to identify the substances against their reference Raman spectra in less than 1 min. The developed sensor has potential for rapid detection of concealed hazardous substances in airports, mail distribution centers, and customs checkpoints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contends that the human security/development nexus lies at the heart of contemporary approaches to peace-building and development. The paper addresses not only the consequences of human security policy prioritization as a development objective by Canada and Japan, but also the hypothesis that different understandings or interpretations of human security are reflected differently in the policy domain. Burma/ Myanmar, one of the least developed, and, in terms of human security, most vulnerable states in the world, is used as a case study to address these different policy implementations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates diverse public opinion on the rise of the People's Republic of China through a survey conducted in the tri-state region of Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. In the midst of a global financial crisis, China's financial support to the US economy, as well as its recent modernization of the People's Liberation Army, echoed a serious public anxiety over a potential military and economic security threat to the United States. Will the rise of China create a military as well as an economic security threat to the United States? Is there anticipation that the continuing rapid economic growth in China will overtake the US economy within three decades? Will its successful economic growth lead China to democratization? Introducing scholarly debates on these research questions, the research in this paper examines important empirical research results on the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the regional security implications of China's realpolitik approach in its territorial claim over the South China Sea. It observes that China uses the following power-politics tactics: (i) citing a historic claim; (ii) applying a bilateral approach to weaken ASEAN; (iii) relying on a divide-and-rule stratagem in dealing individually with ASEAN member states and creating a wedge between ASEAN and the USA; and (iv) buttressing its naval capabilities to resolve the territorial dispute according to its own terms. This consequently has driven the small claimant states, like Vietnam and the Philippines, to adopt a balancing strategy that involves the USA in the issue. In conclusion, the paper argues that with China's realpolitik approach, the idea that Europe's (violent) past is becoming East Asia's future is turning into reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over a decade after September 11, American citizens are still asking themselves: 'how much safer are we today?' This question is also pertinent for scholars seeking to understand the post- September 11 homeland security reforms. This paper, drawing on the public administration literature and using Don Kettl's 'contingent coordination' framework, sets out to discuss how well these efforts have addressed the central coordination challenges posed by homeland security. In doing so, it makes two contributions: one methodological (e.g., operationalizing the contingent coordination framework) and one empirical (e.g., assessing the effectiveness of post-9/11 homeland security reforms). The paper concludes with an overall assessment of how to find ways to further strengthen the capacity of the US homeland security system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]