Climate Change and the US Security Sector: the Securitization of Climate Change

This preliminary study traces how climate change came to be viewed as a security issue in the United States through a review of policy documents and reports prepared for and by the US security sector. The paper draws upon the ideas of constructivist schools of security studies to provide an analytical framework for understanding the meaning of the securitization process as it has occurred in the United States. It then refl ects upon the adequacy of those frameworks to interpret the securitization of climate change. In the US, new knowledge of the phenomenon of climate change was fi rst constructed in the research sector, in the fi elds of meteorology and atmospheric science. Environmental and Earth sciences then became a locus of research, and climate change fi rst entered security discourse as a topic of environmental protection. As the implications of climate change and its potential impact on water resources, food production, diseases, infrastructure, and human migration came to the attention of the security sector, this knowledge stimulated an internal discourse, where each new document functioned both as a new securitization statement and as a policy response to prior documents in a chain of discourse. Actors in this securitization process included not only “speakers” making a securitization claim (knowledge claim) and “audiences” that accept or reject a claim. Importantly, it also included actors who were instrumental in translating knowledge between research and security sectors. This brief consideration suggests that social science theories that center on practice are more robust than those that center on discourse for interpreting the securitization of climate change. Improved analytic frameworks need to better account for actors whose role is to transfer and translate knowledge from one sector to another.     

Extraction of DNA from decomposed human tissue. An evaluation of five extraction methods for short tandem repeat typing

Hyperpolymorphic short tandem repetitive DNA sequences, STRs or microsatellites, have become widely used in human identification, particularly in criminal cases and in mass disasters. In such cases the substrates for the analyses may be decomposed biological material, a fact that has to be taken into account when choosing the appropriate casework methods. In this paper we report the evaluation of five different DNA extraction methods, namely the phenol-chloroform, the silica based, the InstaGene Matrix (BioTest), the glass fiber filter, and the Chelex based methods. The substrates for the analyses are decomposed human liver tissue specimens from forensic autopsy cases. Extracted DNA was quantified and DNA profiled by a set of seven STRs. We have compared laboratory time consumption and costs of the five methods, showing that the Chelex method is the more rapid and less expensive of the methods, the phenol-chlorophorm and silica extractions being the most time consuming and resource demanding ones. A full profile was obtained by the silica method in nine out of ten cases and this method failed to give a reliable type in four out of 70 STR analyses. The phenol-chlorophorm and the glass fiber filter methods failed in 16 analyses, the InstaGene Matrix (BioTest) in 25 and the Chelex extracts in 56 of the 70 STR analyses. By multiple logistic regression we show that the difference between the silica procedure and the other methods are statistically significant. In our hands, the silica gel extraction procedure is an obvious choice when the biological material available is decomposed human tissue--even if this procedure is one of the more laborious ones.     

Marriage,residence, and occupational choices of senior and junior siblings in the english past

The aim of this study is to throw light on the importance of social networks by examining the choice of godparents and witnesses to marriage in early nineteenth-century Iceland. The article analyzes parish records concerning two communities representative of different socio-economic environments in southwestern Iceland. The results show that godparents were chosen predominantly among people of standing in the neighborhood, such as communal directors, church wardens, merchants, and midwives. Grandparents figured only rarely as godparents. In the case of marriage, however, close kin played a markedly more important role as witnesses, particularly in the upland community that had a more stable population than the coastal one. Observed local variations in this respect can be explained in light of different socio-economic settings.     

Reform of International Monetary System andConstruction of Global Monetary SecurityMechanism: Connections and Problems

The international monetary system is the basis to establishing acomprehensive global financial safety mechanism. To understand the internalconnections between the reform of the international monetary system and the globalsafety mechanism has important policy implications. The reform of the internationalmonetary system and the construction of the global safety network are inherentlyrelated to each other. Risk management and crisis response are the functions ofthe international monetary system and serve to ensure the safety of the globalfi nancial system; liquidity management and international exchange rate coordinationare conducive to the maintenance of the stability of the global financial system.International exchange rate coordination, the control of spillover effect of US monetarypolicies and the reform of governance structures of the international monetary systemcontribute to global fi nancial safety. However, the reform of the international monetarysystem and the establishment of the global fi nancial safety mechanism are faced withproblems such as Triffin Dilemma, the technical shortcomings of global financialsystem, the ill coordination of global and regional fi nancial security network and thegrowing number of political issues involved. In order to build a sound global fi nancialsafety system, cooperation should be enhanced in the following fi ve aspects: to promotethe reform of the Bretton Woods institutions; to build the global financial safetynetwork; to establish the liquidity management system; to facilitate the construction ofthe super sovereign currency; and to deepen regional monetary cooperation.     

企业维持原则在解散公司之诉中的体现——以《新公司法司法解释二》为视角

通过对《新公司法司法解释二》中股东请求解散公司诉讼具体规定的分析,揭示企业维持原则在股东请求解散公司之诉的立法和法律适用中的体现,继而在对企业维持原则更深层次理解之基础上分析这种指导思想得以贯彻的原因。可以说,企业维持原则已成为股东和利益之间维持利益平衡的一个支点。     

‘The earrings:’ friendship across ethnic and gendered boundaries in the American West

How were relationships negotiated across ethnic, racial, and gendered boundaries in the American West in the 1920s and 1930s? Were friendships possible? What limits shaped them? In 1927, four Kiowa students enrolled at Oklahoma University as students of Swedish-born Professor of Fine Arts Oscar B. Jacobson. This article investigates the relationship between Jeanette Berry, wife of one of the Kiowa artists, and Sophie Brousse, Jacobson’s French wife. It focuses on an incident when Berry presented Brousse with a gift of earrings. Placing this gift within a discussion of friendships between strangers illuminates the lines of culture, meaning, and power that separated these women. This relationship had individual ramifications but also formed part of their respective attempts to establish positions and maintain culture within Oklahoma where both American Indians and immigrants faced changing and volatile conditions. Their encounter highlights issues of class as well as ethnicity and culture.     

Microsatellite stability in human post-mortem tissues

Human identification and forensic criminal casework may involve DNA profiling of decomposed material. Somatic microsatellite (STR) instability may lead to false exclusions and theoretically to false inclusions, both in criminal cases and in human identification. Hence, the somatic and postmortal stability of the actual sequences is crucial to the reliability of such analyses. Somatic STR stability in human tissues has been documented in small series only and the effect of postmortal tissue decomposition on microsatellite stability remains to be elucidated. On this basis, we have systematically searched for somatic STR mutations in 26 deceased humans without signs of decomposition at autopsy and 25 autopsy cases with obvious signs of postmortal decomposition. A blood sample and six tissue samples were collected from each case.Seven STRs were chosen for study, the tetranucleotides HUMVWA31/A, HUMTH01, HUMF13A1, and HUMFES/FPS, and the hyperpolymorphic markers HUMAPOAI1, D11S554 and HUMACTBP2. Denaturing gel electrophoresis was performed on an ABD Prism 377 gene sequencer with Genescan 672 software (Applied Biosystems, Inc.).The bone DNA profile of each case was chosen as the standard DNA profile. All cases gave profiles from additional tissues. By intraindividual comparison of DNA profiles in the cases without signs of degradation we find that the short repetitive sequences under study are stable, that is without evidence of somatic mutations. The cases with varying degree of decomposition display postmortal microsatellite stability, we detect no somatic mutations or other possible postmortal changes that could lead to between-organ non-matches.In conclusion, PCR-based STR analyses are suitable in human identification and forensic casework dealing with different tissues, even when the substrate is heavily decomposed.     

On Value Security and the Overall National Security System

The universality of human nature determines the universality of values and its particularity determines the diversity and plurality of values that is the fundamental determinant of security problems among different value systems. In a narrow sense, value security refers to a situation in which value concepts of a state, region, or a nation, social class are not under threat from the external adversaries, which is called conceptual value security. In a broad sense, value security refers to the consistency between the system of realistic value security and that of conceptual value security. National value security encompasses both value security in a nation-state and security of national values, in which the former is featured by the recognition and acceptance of a prevailing value in a nation-state, and the latter is characterized by the sovereignty of national values. Due to the fact that the issue of value system is a meta-theoretical one and the security of conceptual value system is part of cultural security, value security holds a core position in cultural security and is an important component of overall national security system. Additionally, value security embodies the security of value pursuits and value criteria in different spheres of the overall national security system and therefore, it is also an indispensable and flexible support to the overall national security.