Hopes and Realities in Relations Between Russia and Japan: Is a Breakthrough Possible?

During the last 5 years, Russia and Japan have been able to widen and deepen bilateral ties in many spheres, including politics, economics, and culture. At the same time, the further qualitative improvement of bilateral relations is hampered by strong influence of an enduring negative historic memory of Japanese society toward Russia mostly due to the so-called Northern Territories syndrome. The formation of Russia’s image in Japan is also strongly influenced by a number of time-limited factors, such as the state leader’s popularity, single-moment events, empiric experience, and others (Streltsov 43). In this paper, the author traces the recent history of the territorial dispute between two countries and then attempts to evaluate the influence exerted by four time-limited factors: the triple disaster in Japan (as an example of the implications of natural disasters), the two leaders’ political aspirations, mutual trust, and popularity at home (as related to the personal features of President Putin and Prime Minister Abe), on the two countries’ approach toward signing a peace treaty and solving the territorial dispute. According to the author’s hypothesis, the strategic vision of Putin and Abe and their trustworthy relationship are playing the key role in improving ties between the two countries. Moreover, due to its importance for these ties, this paper considers the geopolitical environment of the Russo–Japan relations and the current state and perspective for bilateral energy cooperation. Finally, the author turns to an evaluation of whether a long-overdue compromise on the territorial dispute could be reached anytime soon.     

The urban household in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1900–2000: Patterns of family formation in a turbulent century

Starting from census data on co-residence and household composition, the authors analyse principles of family organisation and family formation in twentieth-century urban Russia and the Soviet Union. The article uses an adapted version of the classification of households developed by Peter Laslett and Eugene Hammel to study variation in household structure for successive population censuses. Changes in this variation between cross-sections are explained with the help of additional quantitative and qualitative data and are linked to the fundamental demographic, social and economic shifts which took place in Russian society in the course of the twentieth century. The article finds a family system characterised by a tendency towards nuclear family formation, but incorporating a fairly stable element of household extension. Co-residence of three generations was both an answer to a perennial housing problem and offered important advantages in the sphere of childcare and care for the elderly. Variation and fluctuation in household structure are found to be most pronounced during the turbulent first half of the century. After a period of stability during the post-war decades of Soviet rule, post-Soviet transformations provoke new changes.     

Criminal Sex Trade: System Aspects and Tendencies

Trafficking in human beings has become the centre of worldwide attention. This phenomenon should be understood not merely as a matter of organized criminal activity, but as an aspect of the global sex industry. The global sex industry can be defined sociologically as a social system with subsystems in which organized criminal activity represents one subsystem. The overall industry takes place in a context of economic globalization, international migration, and other factors. Using Israel as an example, it is possible to see how the local sex trade is linked to the global phenomenon. To be effective, national responses need to take into account international aspects.     

The More Assertive and Pragmatic New Energy Policy in Putin’s Russia: Security Implications for Northeast Asia

The article examines Russia’s New Energy Policy (NEP) and its impact on Northeast Asian security and the development of the Russian Far East. In contrast to analyses highlighting competition between China and Japan for Russian resources, to the contrary it is argued here that greater cooperation among consumer states in Northeast Asia would be beneficial for Russia. Although the NEP has resulted in changes in the composition of foreign investors in Russian energy projects, the author suggests that Moscow is interested in multinational cooperation in the energy sector because it would help diversify the regional energy market and contribute to the development of the Russian Far East and eastern Siberia.

大高加索的危机与俄罗斯——"五日战争"之结果及影响

以俄罗斯与格鲁吉亚间的"五日战争"和阿布哈兹与南奥塞梯独立为标志,南高加索日益成为国际关系中倍受关注的热点地区之一.该地区三个前苏联加盟共和国的领土已经沦为.了主要大国地政治和地经济竞争的舞台,俄罗斯的"维稳方案"、美国的"大中东战略"以及欧盟的"欧洲化"政策在此相互博弈.大高加索地区正在彻底地"国际化".格鲁吉亚和南奥塞梯之间长期酝酿的冲突在2008年8月导致俄罗斯的深度卷入并升级为"五日战争",引发了俄罗斯从维持现状到公开支持分离政权的立场转变.这不仅从政治和法律上改变了独联体两个热点地区的面貌,改变了力量结构,还严重影响了整个欧亚地区民族一政治形势."五日战争"证明了共同规则、标准和准则已经失效,世界政治的主要行为体面临着设计世界秩序新模式的问题.梅德韦杰夫提出的新安全构想引发了不同观点和评论.促进有效合作,形成共同准则已经成为当务之急.     

Sensitive Method for the Confident Identification of Genetically Variant Peptides in Human Hair Keratin

Recent reports have demonstrated that genetically variant peptides derived from human hair shaft proteins can be used to differentiate individuals of different biogeographic origins. We report a method involving direct extraction of hair shaft proteins more sensitive than previously published methods regarding GVP detection. It involves one step for protein extraction and was found to provide reproducible results. A detailed proteomic analysis of this data is presented that led to the following four results: (i) A peptide spectral library was created and made available for download. It contains all identified peptides from this work, including GVPs that, when appropriately expanded with diverse hair-derived peptides, can provide a routine, reliable, and sensitive means of analyzing hair digests; (ii) an analysis of artifact peptides arising from side reactions is also made using a new method for finding unexpected modifications; (iii) detailed analysis of the gel-based method employed clearly shows the high degree of cross-linking or protein association involved in hair digestion, with major GVPs eluting over a wide range of high molecular weights while others apparently arise from distinct non-cross-linked proteins; and (v) finally, we show that some of the specific GVP identifications depend on the sample preparation method.     

Knowledge-Sharing Subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper investigates reverse knowledge transfer of foreign multinational subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary) in the light of the current political and economic transformations of these former communist countries. The study examines whether foreign subsidiaries in the region share their knowledge base with their sister-subsidiaries and parent company, and the role of various factors in this knowledge sharing. These factors include subsidiary initiative, subsidiary autonomy, local dynamism and corporate embeddedness. A proprietary dataset is used for statistical analysis.