Securing international society: Towards an English School discourse of security

English School approaches to international politics, which focus on the idea of an international society of states bound together by shared rules and norms, have not paid significant explicit attention to the study of security in international relations. This is curious given the centrality of security to the study of world politics and the recent resurgence of English School scholarship in general. This article attempts to redress this gap by locating and explicating an English School discourse of security. We argue here that there is indeed an English School discourse of security, although an important internal distinction exists here between pluralist and solidarist accounts, which focus on questions of order and justice in international society respectively. In making this argument, we also seek to explore the extent to which emerging solidarist accounts of security serve to redress the insecurity of security in international relations: the tendency of traditional security praxes to privilege the state in ways that renders individuals insecure.

Trend analysis in scientometrics

The thesis investigates the properties of two trends or time series which formed a:part of the Co-Citation bibliometric model "X~Ray Crystallography and Protein Determination in 1978, 1980 and 1982". This model was one of several created for the 1983 ABRC Science Policy Study which aimed to test the utility of bibliometric models in a national science policy context. The outcome of the validation part of that study proved to be especially favourable concerning the utility of trend data, which purport to model the development of speciality areas in science over time. This assessment could have important implications for the use of such data in policy formulation. However one possible problem with the Science Policy Study's conclusions was that insufficient time was available in the study for an in-depth analysis of the data. The thesis aims to continue the validation begun in the ABRC study by providing a detailed.examination of the characteristics of the data contained in the Trends numbered 11 and 44 in the model. A novel methodology for the analysis of the properties of the trends with respect to their literature content is presented. This is followed by an assessment based on questionnaire and interview data, of the ability of Trend 44 to realistically model the historical development of the field of mobile genetic elements research over time, with respect to its scientific content and the activities of its community of researchers. The results of these various analyses are then used to evaluate the strenghts and weaknesses of a trend or time series approach to the modelling of the activities of scientifiic fields. A critical evaluation of the origins of the discovered strengths and weaknesses.in the assumptions underlying the techniques used to generate trends from co-citation data is provided. Possible improvements. to the modelling techniques are discussed.

Improving sustainability of aquaculture in Europe : Stakeholder dialogues on Integrated Multi-trophic Aquaculture

Peer reviewed

Improving sustainability of aquaculture in Europe : Stakeholder dialogues on Integrated Multi-trophic Aquaculture

Peer reviewed

2000 NHGRI e-mail request for HGP sequencing center information, and corresponding aggregate data from NHGRI, compiled by Kris Wetterstrand

Email exchange in 2013 between Kathryn Maxson (Duke) and Kris Wetterstrand (NHGRI), regarding country funding and other data for the HGP sequencing centers. Also includes the email request for such information, from NHGRI to the centers, in 2000, and the aggregate data collected.

2012 09 February Jean Weissenbach interview

Jean Weissenbach, telephone interview by Kathryn Maxson and Robert Cook-Deegan, conducted from Durham, NC 09 February 2012. Jean Weissenbach, a leader in French genetic mapping, directed the French national sequencing center, Généthon, during the HGP and was instrumental in helping to build agreement to the Bermuda Principles in France.

2011 18 August Mark Guyer-Jane Peterson interview

Mark Guyer and Jane Peterson, in-person interview with Kathryn Maxson and Robert Cook-Deegan, conducted in Rockville, MD (NIH campus), 18 August 2011. Mark Guyer and Jane Peterson were grants program officers at the NIH during the HGP, and were some of the longest-standing employees in the HGP administrative structure. Both witnessed the transformation of the Office of Genome Research into the National Center for Human Genome Research and, finally, the National Human Genome Research Institute. They were close participants in the history of the Bermuda Principles within the NIH.

1997 Delegates to the Second International Strategy Meeting on Human Genome Sequencing in Bermuda from Gert-Jan van Ommen

Photographs from the February 1997 Bermuda meeting. Courtesy of Gert-Jan van Ommen.

Setting priorities for private land conservation in fire-prone landscapes: Are fire risk reduction and biodiversity conservation competing or compatible objectives?

Although wildfire plays an important role in maintaining biodiversity in many ecosystems, fire management to protect human assets is often carried out by different agencies than those tasked for conserving biodiversity. In fact, fire risk reduction and biodiversity conservation are often viewed as competing objectives. Here we explored the role of management through private land conservation and asked whether we could identify private land acquisition strategies that fulfill the mutual objectives of biodiversity conservation and fire risk reduction, or whether the maximization of one objective comes at a detriment to the other. Using a fixed budget and number of homes slated for development, we simulated 20 years of housing growth under alternative conservation selection strategies, and then projected the mean risk of fires destroying structures and the area and configuration of important habitat types in San Diego County, California, USA. We found clear differences in both fire risk projections and biodiversity impacts based on the way conservation lands are prioritized for selection, but these differences were split between two distinct groupings. If no conservation lands were purchased, or if purchases were prioritized based on cost or likelihood of development, both the projected fire risk and biodiversity impacts were much higher than if conservation lands were purchased in areas with high fire hazard or high species richness. Thus, conserving land focused on either of the two objectives resulted in nearly equivalent mutual benefits for both. These benefits not only resulted from preventing development in sensitive areas, but they were also due to the different housing patterns and arrangements that occurred as development was displaced from those areas. Although biodiversity conflicts may still arise using other fire management strategies, this study shows that mutual objectives can be attained through land-use planning in this region. These results likely generalize to any place where high species richness overlaps with hazardous wildland vegetation.

Institutional entrepreneurship and techniques of inclusiveness in the creation of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

This article contributes to understanding the conditions of social-ecological change by focusing on the agency of individuals in the pathways to institutionalization. Drawing on the case of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), it addresses institutional entrepreneurship in an emerging environmental science-policy institution (ESPI) at a global scale. Drawing on ethnographic observations, semistructured interviews, and document analysis, we propose a detailed chronology of the genesis of the IPBES before focusing on the final phase of the negotiations toward the creation of the institution. We analyze the techniques and skills deployed by the chairman during the conference to handle the tensions at play both to prevent participants from deserting the negotiations arena and to prevent a lack of inclusiveness from discrediting the future institution. We stress that creating a new global environmental institution requires the situated exercise of an art of “having everybody on board” through techniques of inclusiveness that we characterize. Our results emphazise the major challenge of handling the fragmentation and plasticity of the groups of interest involved in the institutionalization process, thus adding to the theory of transformative agency of institutional entrepreneurs. Although inclusiveness might remain partly unattainable, such techniques of inclusiveness appear to be a major condition of the legitimacy and success of the institutionalization of a new global ESPI. Our results also add to the literature on boundary making within ESPIs by emphasizing the multiplicity and plasticity of the groups actually at stake.

Interaction and cooperative effort among scientific societies. Twelve years of COSCE

The evolution of knowledge and technology in recent decades has brought profound changes in science policy, not only in the countries but also in the supranational organizations. It has been necessary, therefore, to adapt the scientific institutions to new models in order to achieve a greater and better communication between them and the political counterparts responsible for defining the general framework of relations between science and society. The Federationon of Scientific Societies of Spain (COSCE, Confederación de Sociedades Científicas de España) was founded in October 2003 to respond to the urgent need to interact with the political institutions and foster a better orientation in the process of making decisions about the science policy. Currently COSCE consists of over 70 Spanish scientific societies and more than 40,000 scientists. During its twelve years of active life, COSCE has developed an intense work of awareness of the real situation of science in Spain by launching several initiatives (some of which have joined other organizations) or by joining initiatives proposed from other groups related to science both at the Spanish level and at the European and non-European scenarios.

Living Landscape: The European Landscape Convention in Research Perspective

This special issue reports some of the highlights of the conference Living Landscape – The European Landscape Convention in Research Perspective, organised jointly by UNISCAPE and Landscape Europe (UNISCAPE, 2010). Starting questions for this conference were: what has science contributed to the implementation of the European Landscape Convention (CoE, 2000) and what are the topics for the future of European landscape? The 10th anniversary of the Florence Convention in October 2010 was an opportunity to discuss the merits of landscape science in integrated research of a rapidly changing environment. Many interdisciplinary contributions presented referred to the Landscape Convention. The conference focused on cutting-edge research results at the crossroads of sciences and humanities, design and empiricism. Not by chance, the conference was also the occasion to launch a new ESF-COST Science-Policy Briefing on Landscape Research (Bloemers, Daniels, Fairclough, Pedroli, & Stiles, 2010 Bloemers, T., Daniels, S., Fairclough, G., Pedroli, B., & Stiles, R. (Eds.) (2010) Landscape in a changing world. Bridging Divides, integrating disciplines, serving society. Science Policy Briefing nr 41. Strasbourg and Brussels: ESF-COST. ): ‘Landscape in a Changing World – Bridging Divides, Integrating Disciplines, Serving Society’. It emphasises the importance of four interdisciplinary themes: Universal commons: securing landscape as a common good. Roots and routes: coming to terms with mobility and evolving lifestyles. Reactions and resilience: long-term landscape transformations. Road maps: landscape as baseline and context for future change. The papers in this special issue largely reflect these themes.

No evidence of transmission of grapevine leafroll-associated viruses by phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae).

Abstract Grapevine leafroll disease is associated with several species of phloem-limited grapevine leafrollassociated viruses (GLRaV), some of which are transmitted by mealybugs and scale insects. The grape phylloxera, Daktulosphaira vitifoliae (Fitch) Biotype A (Hemiptera: Phylloxeridae), is a common vineyard pest that feeds on the phloem of vine roots. There is concern that these insects may transmit one or more GLRaV species, particularly GLRaV-2, a species in the genus Closterovirus. A field survey was performed in vineyards with a high incidence of grapevine leafroll disease and D. vitifoliae was assessed for acquisition of GLRaV. In greenhouse experiments, the ability of D. vitifoliae to transmit GLRaV from infected root sections or vines to co-planted virus-free recipient vines was tested. There were no GLRaV-positive D. vitifoliae in the field survey, nor did D. vitifoliae transmit GLRaV- 1, ?2, ?3, or -4LV in greenhouse transmission experiments. Some insects tested positive for GLRaV after feeding on infected source vines in the greenhouse, however there was no evidence of virus transmission to healthy plants. These findings, in combination with the sedentary behaviour of the soil biotype of D. vitifoliae, make it unlikely that D. vitifoliae is a vector of any GLRaV.

Highlights of drought policy and related science in Australia and the USA

Patterns of water supply and use in Australia and the U.S.A. differ in many ways. This results in different perceptions concerning the nature of drought and policy approaches to its management. This paper discusses the differences and similarities and explores lessons that policy makers in both countries can learn from one another. A key difference between the two countries is that whereas drought is perceived in Australia essentially in terms of its impact on agriculture, in the U.S. both perceptions and policy are also heavily influenced by the impact of drought on urban communities. This has led to different policy emphases. In 1992 Australia established its National Drought Policy; the U.S. is presently considering the adoption of a national drought policy. These policies highlight drought being accepted as part of natural climate variability, rather than as a natural disaster. They also emphasize the protection of the natural resource base.

«Corruption» and social and economic criminal law: criminology, criminal policy, political science and law&economics - a new idea about criminal liability of legal entities

Abstract: If we think there is a significant number of legal offshore in the globalized world, then there is not even a global consensus about what «corruption» is. The «illegal corruption» in a country may be legal in another. Moreover, the great global corruption is above the law or above democratic States. And not all democratic States are «Rule of Law». Therefore, the solution is global earlier in time and space law, democratic, free and true law. While the human being does not reach a consensus of what «corruption» really is, the discussion will not go further than a caricature. One of the other problems about «corruption» is that it is very difficult to establish the imputation of crimes, including «corruption» (v.g. Portugal) on some «companies», corporations. We have a juridical problem in the composition of the art. 11. of the Portuguese Penal Code.