From nuclear physics to semiconductor manufacturing: the making of ion implantation

This article examines the emergence of ion implantation as a major semiconductor manufacturing process from the early 1960s through the late 1970s. Ion implantation techniques originated in nuclear physics research and were first employed to make solar cells for military satellites at the Ion Physics Corporation (IPC). This work at IPC inspired a research group at Sprague Electric to use ion implantation techniques to make transistors. Sprague's process development work, and its key finding that ion implantation enabled the control of critical transistor characteristics, were both exploited by Mostek, a semiconductor start‐up funded by Sprague. Mostek's engineers incorporated ion implantation into their manufacturing process to produce a string of integrated circuits that other firms could not make. Mostek's market success encouraged semiconductor firms to embrace ion implantation in the early and mid 1970s. By the end of the decade, ion implantation was used in the manufacture of virtually all advanced integrated circuits. This article improves our understanding of the development and adoption of semiconductor, and more generally high technology, manufacturing processes. It also advances our knowledge of the ways in which new technologies developed in the Cold War context made their way into the manufacturing economy.     

Firefighters in the UK and the US: Risk perception of local and organic foods

Abstract

Recent health scares such as BSE have contributed to the growth of local farmers' markets and consumption of organics sourced globally (Morgan et al., 2006 Morgan, K., Marsden, T. and Murdoch, J. 2006. Worlds of Food: Place, Power and Provenance in the Food Chain, Oxford: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]). Yet a central question about alternative agro-food networks (AAFNs) is whether they supply undemocratic diets chiefly for elites (Goodman, 2004 Goodman, D. 2004. Rural Europe redux? Reflections on alternative agro-food networks and paradigm change. Sociologia Ruralis, 44(1): 3–16. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This is relevant to government campaigns such as ‘Generation Scotland’ and ‘5 A Day’ in the UK, and ‘Food Pyramids’ in the US, which promote better diets for their entire populations. Firefighting is risky work and because firefighters inhabit middle rungs on the socioeconomic ladder, and food is seen as key to morale and fitness, they are suitable consumers to query on food and risk. This firefighter survey presents evidence that alternative foods are gaining value in the UK and US study areas used here. Though Newcastle, UK, lags behind Seattle, US, on a continuum from conventional to alternative food systems, consumption of alternative foods by Newcastle firefighters is greater than that of workers surveyed in Edinburgh a decade before (Tregear, 1994 Tregear, A., Dent, J. B. and McGregor, M. J. 1994. The demand for organically-grown produce. British Food Journal, 96(4): 21–25. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), implying that northern UK diets could turn greener if availability and prices improve. Reasons why organic preference seems stronger among firefighters in northwestern US, than in northern UK where local preference appears stronger, are discussed, as well as theorisation of consumer response to a variety of risks over time.     

文本与权力:清至民国时期江西万载地方志分析

As the main literature of socio-economic history, local gazetteers display the dynamic process of local socio-economic structuring and reflect local conflicts among various interest groups. Focusing on local gazetteers in Wanzai County of Jiangxi Province from the Qing to the Republic, this essay shows how local literati played an active role in constructing their local community. These gazetteers reflected the complicated power relations, especially the conflict between the natives and immigrants, and they themselves became the important part of the process of local power reproduction and culture construction. __________ Translated by Luo Hui from Shixue Yuekan 史学月刊 (Journal of Historical Science), 2008, (9): 70–81     

Inventing traditions: interests,parables and nostalgia in the history of nuclear energy

Abstract

From the late 1960s on, light-water designs dominated the market for nuclear reactors in most Western countries. Up to that point in time, many national governments, scientists and industrialists had favoured the rival concepts of heavy-water and graphite-moderated plants. The article focuses on Sweden and West Germany, where central actors only reluctantly gave up their support for domestically developed heavy-water solutions. Studying new archival material and adopting Hobsbawm and Ranger’s concept of the ‘invention of tradition’, the authors analyze how contemporary actors mobilized both the nation and the past when arguing for plants using natural uranium and heavy water. The paper documents how autarkic arguments were superseded by nostalgic sentiments, and how-subsequently-historians have come to perpetuate apologetic parables like ‘Swedish line’ and ‘tradition’, respectively.     

Managing flood risk in the UK: towards an integration of social and technical perspectives

In recent years, an apparent increase in the frequency and severity of floods in the UK has led to growing concerns about societal exposure and vulnerability to flooding, particularly in the context of climate change, floodplain development and changing insurance practices. Despite the important link between assessments of exposure to flooding (hazard assessments) and issues of societal vulnerability, this link has rarely been explored in detail and has often been reflected in policy terms by a highly technocratic approach to flood risk management. Indeed, more comprehensive studies have usually favoured rigid and deterministic definitions of vulnerability, in keeping with the wider technocratic paradigm pervading management institutions. In an attempt to redress the balance, this paper considers the role of hazard assessment and issues of societal vulnerability as mutually informative debates and advocates a movement away from the technocratic ideals currently favoured in the UK.     

Beyond restoration: problems of imperial power in the 1870 famine relief efforts in Zhili

Based on a close examination of the 1870 government famine relief efforts in Zhili, this study reassesses some significant changes in Qing state power in the nineteenth century. Most previous research has sought to explain receding state power as a response to mounting pressures from an activist society. The famine relief efforts of 1870 demonstrate a less well‐known but equally important aspect of the problem. While social pressures had undoubtedly worn away at the 200‐year‐old state machine, they also stimulated responses from it. While local activism had indeed taken over the levers that had slipped from the imperial government's hands, the challenges it presented jump‐started the state machine, tightened its screws and set it on the path to restoration. In 1870, Imperial Commissioner Li Xingrui, under orders from his superior, Governor‐General Zeng Guofan, executed a textbook operation of famine relief in Zhili. Challenges arose as wealthy locals wrestled with Li for control of the relief operation; government officials, too, sought private gain. Nevertheless, the commissioner and his superior conscientiously followed the Qing statutes, warded off these various challenges and completed the relief work. The display of state power during the operation was impressive, and was sweetened by a bureaucratic culture that condoned semi‐legitimate personal gain in public affairs. The pairing of “stick and carrot” redirected the challenges to the operation from wealthy locals into a channel unique to China: an activist elite who sought to fulfill their ambitions by working within the existing system rather than by breaking away from it. Thus, Qing state power not only proved reasonably resilient in times of crisis, but also offered some hope for the successful building of a modern state.     

从八旗驻防到地方行政制度——以清代盛京八旗驻防制度的嬗变为中心

清代承平日久,驻防盛京的旗人逐渐卷入当地的社会生活,由客居变为土著。旗人社会的变化,使以军事防御为主的八旗驻防制度发生了重大变革。本文通过对清代盛京八旗驻防制度的考察,认为驻防旗官从行政、司法、经济诸领域渗入地方社会的管理,八旗驻防的地方政府不断完善,与民官一起,成为区域社会的重要管理者。盛京将军辖区的"城"已成为驻防区约定俗成的政区,拥有治所、幅员、边界、行政组织等,驻防制度逐渐演变为带有八旗制度特征的地方行政制度。     

Living through,living with and living on from breast cancer in the UK: creative cathartic methodologies,cancerous spaces and a politics of compassion

This paper contributes to a growing literature exploring the embodied emotions involved in death studies. It does so through a creative cathartic autobiographical account of living through and on from breast cancer. In presenting this ‘storifying experience’, this UK-based paper has three key aims: first, it attempts to counter the disjuncture between the fleshy and emotional cancer journey I have travelled through and the sometimes abstract, disembodied accounts of cancer circulating in some geographical texts; second, it reveals some geographical insights that are uncovered through the use of creative cathartic methodologies which unsettle commonly held discourses about dying and surviving; and third, it poses some troubling questions for geographers working in this field with respect to the methodologies, politics and emotions of such research. In the paper, I argue that employing a creative cathartic methodology gestures towards ‘an opening into learning’ that provokes emotional enquiries about what it means to be taught by the experience of (traumatised) others. In particular, I advocate for a politicised compassion that both cares for those who are living through, with or living on from life-threatening illnesses and also cares about the complex conditions that shape their experiences, both within and beyond the academy.     

Earthquake Risk Scenarios in Urban Areas: A Review with Applications to the Ciutat Vella District in Barcelona,Spain

ABSTRACT

The vulnerability index and capacity spectrum-based methods used to assess the expected physical damage in dwellings are revisited, and their main advantages and shortcomings are analyzed and discussed. Then, a vulnerability index-based method is used to assess the expected damage in the oldest district of Barcelona, Spain. The risk analysis is performed for earthquake scenarios defined by macroseismic intensities of V, V-VI, VI, VI-VII, and VII to design seismic emergency plans. According to the Spanish Seismic Code, the basic peak ground acceleration for a 475-year return period is 0.04 g, which corresponds to an intensity of VI. Thus, the expected physical damage is quantified and its impact on population and other quantities, such as debris and economic cost, are studied. In spite of the low-to-moderate seismic hazard in Barcelona, the results show that the risk is high, due to the high exposure and vulnerability of the built environment.     

Energy Colonialism and the Role of the Global in Local Responses to New Energy Infrastructures in the UK: A Critical and Exploratory Empirical Analysis

Governments, namely in the global North, are fostering the deployment of large‐scale low carbon and associated energy infrastructures (EIs), such as power lines, to mitigate climate change. However, when infrastructures are to be deployed, opposition is often found. Environmental justice—involving issues of distributive and procedural justice and recognition—and associated inter‐group relations, has been identified as a key aspect for local opposition. However, research has rarely examined local perceptions of environmental justice and associated practices, such as energy colonialism, within a global perspective. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, we examine if and how different‐level intergroup relations and collective narratives shape people's social‐psychological and geographical imaginaries and responses to EIs. Focus groups were conducted with community members affected by proposals to construct high‐voltage power lines in the UK. Analyses suggest that narratives around England's colonial history—within Britain and beyond Britain—shape responses to EIs.