Developing the meat grab

‘Meat grabbing’ describes actually existing land deals undertaken for industrial meat production, either directly in the form of animal housing and stocking (confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs), or indirectly in the form of monocrop grain and oilseed production for livestock feed. Meat grabbing is also a concept for analyzing the relationships between industrial meat regimes, food security politics and the global land rush, relationships which have not yet been sufficiently considered in research or in policy. Using China's reform-era meat revolution as an analytical case, this paper proposes meat grabbing as a concept with three broad goals: (1) to show how industrial meat complicates notions of food security and of food security land grabs, (2) to incorporate social inequalities and environmental injustices into the conceptualization and measurement of land deals and (3) to expand dispossession's domain to include relationships between people and agroecosystems. This is an initial exploration of the content and framing of meat grabs, intended to synthesize its core features and raise questions for further study.     

新冠肺炎疫情期间公安法医应当加强尸体甄别和个体防护

因鉴定体制特点,公安法医除参与尸体有关的现场勘查工作外,还需进行尸体检验工作。在此过程中,可能面对很多风险,受伤和中毒等事件时有发生。然而,国内公安法医对新冠肺炎等传染病流行期间死亡的尸体如何甄别进行尸体检验鉴定,对现场勘查及尸体检验工作的防护只有少量规定,且内容不够详尽。本文对法医在现场勘查中遇到的尸体及尸体检验中实验室建设、职业现状、风险评估及防范措施等进行了论述。最后,建议出台相关的制度规定等具体约束规范措施,以保障公安法医现场勘查及尸体检验工作的顺利进行,以解除基层鉴定机构和鉴定人的后顾之忧。     

Does fertiliser use improve household welfare? Evidence from Ghana’s cocoa industry

This article analyses welfare impacts of fertiliser adoption using data collected from 838 cocoa farm households in the four key cocoa-producing regions in Ghana. Using propensity score matching (PSM), the study indicates that application of fertiliser leads to significant gains in farm yields, farm income, consumption expenditure, consumption expenditure per capita, and value of productive farm assets. The article concludes that cocoa-specific programmes such as Cocoa High Technology (Cocoa Hi-tech), initiated to intensify the application of improved farm technologies such as fertiliser, should be strengthened through effective and efficient management systems.     

Terrorist violence and the enrollment of psychology in predicting Muslim extremism: critical terrorism studies meets critical algorithm studies

Discourse on terrorist violence has long facilitated an especially liberal form of securitisation. Originally evoked in reference to anarchists and communists, a rational consideration of terrorist violence, inaugurated by the concept, asks for deferred judgement about the nature of, or reasons behind, violence related to terror on the premise that state and international legal norms governing the legitimate use of violence fail to circumscribe the proper capacities of the state to regulate and explain terrorism. Where sovereign powers along with their military and civilian instruments of coercion are deemed unable to regulate violence effectively, analysts of terrorist violence and their readership are invited to consider and cultivate new sensibilities. Beginning in the 1980s, studies by psychologists found renewed urgency among a growing cadre of interdisciplinary terror experts who found religion, Islam especially, a key variable of analysis. I situate their contributions in a longer history of secular and racialising discourse about terrorist violence. Central to this history are practices of reading, translating, interpreting and archiving texts. Evidence for the argument is based on the analysis of an algorithm that allegedly predicts the likelihood of terrorist strikes by counting words spoken by al-Qa?ida leaders and correlating their frequency with over 30 psychological categories.     

Adoption model to assess the user acceptance of smart card technology

Smart card technology is one of the most recent computer revolutions, making its way world-wide into the hands and wallets of everyone. Today smart cards are used all over the world as personal identification cards for corporate building security systems and personal computer equipment access control. Governments, financial services, transportation, telecommunications, healthcare, education, retail and many other industries are planning to or already using smart cards as a means of providing better security and improved services to its customers and users. Understanding the factors that influence user acceptance of information technology is of interest both to researchers in a variety of fields as well as procurers of technology for large organizations. The purpose of this study is to develop an acceptance model and evaluate the user acceptance of smart card in Iran. A pilot study is conducted and a total of 46 questionnaires were distributed among the master students in field of computer science （information security and software engineering） at University Technology Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. The measurement items in the questionnaire asked about their awareness and acceptance of smart cards, and the initial findings are presented and discussed.     

博弈视角下农地流转与农民利益保障机制探析

农地流转制度在巩固存量利益的同时,也带来了可观的增量利益,各个利益主体为分配新增利益势必会展开激烈的竞争和角逐.运用博弈论系统分析利益主体之间的博弈关系,透视现实制度实行中其他利益主体对农民利益的侵害.在策略选择上从宏观、中观和微观角度着力构建三位一体利益保障机制,矫正农地流转利益博弈中的力量失衡状态,促使农民的存量利益能够得到对价支付,确保农民能够公平参与增量利益的分配.     

论农村妇女土地产权的安全性

安全地权由相对权利强度、权利持有持续时间和权利保证性几方面所决定。农民地权常常是不安全的,与农村男性相比,妇女地权更不安全。妇女的土地产权不安全体现在家庭继承、村集体分配和市场交易等三种获得土地途径中。妇女土地产权的安全性一般意义上取决于,在土地产权交易不发达的情况下土地资源位置的固定性和妇女的婚姻流动性、集体土地产权拥挤性与妇女群体的弱势地位、以及影响村社土地制度安排的宏观因素及村社集体特征。     

国家安全领导体制的变革与东北亚地区安全

以国家安全委员会为代表的国家安全领导体制是现代国家安全决策、协调和咨询的最核心机构。从理论上讲,国家安全领导体制关系到国家安全战略的每个环节,可以结合外交政策分析的不同视角,同时又具有比较政治研究的重大意义。从实践上来看,美国、英国、法国等世界上主要大国都已建立起较为完善的国家安全领导体系,而东北亚中、日、韩三国从2013年开始也相继进行了国家安全领导体制的变革,建立了国家安全委员会及其常设机构。尽管从人员构成、战略目标、运行模式等方面来看,三国变革后的国家安全领导体制还有差异,但是国家安全领导体制的变化对东北亚局势还是造成了深远影响。中日关系、朝鲜半岛问题、东北亚地区的安全架构都出现了新的变化;同时,各国国内安全问题,特别是非传统安全问题已成为新的国家安全领导体制的主要涉及领域。东北亚地区国家安全领导体制改革是全球范围内国家安全转化和重构的一部分,未来的国家安全领导体制建设要从理论上探讨如何规避其中的官僚政治特别是小集团思维因素,在理念上要与国家安全观紧密结合起来,在实践上要充分考虑其长期性、复杂性,并为体制变革提供强有力的法律保障。     

Israel's Counter-Terrorism Policy: How Effective?

The percentage of Israelis killed by terrorism is higher than in any other democracy. The article analyzes the threats Israel has faced, the impact terrorism has had on Israel, and the counter-terrorism policies Israel has adopted. Terrorism has had a decisive effect on Israeli elections and national security decisions, but not the economy. Israeli counter-terrorism has often been conducted without a coherent overall policy, has failed to reflect and conflicted with broader objectives, and has greatly undermined Israel's international standing. Conversely, it has enabled Israel to live in relative security and thrive, and provided its leaders with the latitude to pursue various policies, including peace, should they wish to do so.     

Reconsidering the ontological foundations of international energy affairs: realist geopolitics,market liberalism and a politico-economic alternative

Accounts of international energy affairs often present a divergence between geopolitical/realist and liberal market-based approaches. This article suggests that this state of affairs reflects the (often implicit) legacies of realist and rationalist international thought in the study of energy affairs and the corresponding political and economic ontological hierarchies of analytical frameworks employed in different accounts of energy politics. Consequently, this article recommends a greater explicit attention to scientific ontological foundations in studies of energy relations and, in line with the calls of Keating et al. and Strange, suggests an approach based in the literature on I/GPE, which merges political and economic ontological axioms, as most apposite for the study of energy affairs. Building on this framework, and giving particular examples from the context of Eurasian energy politics, this article then outlines a number of politico-economic heuristic models (structural diversity, territorial non-coincidence, milieu-shaping and market-authority bargains) that are particularly useful concepts in helping to explain the intricate interactions of international energy relations.