THE ORIGIN,DESTRUCTION AND RESTORATION OF COLOUR IN EGYPTIAN TRAVERTINE*

Travertine was one of ancient Egypt's most popular ornamental stones. Upon prolonged exposure to sunlight, the rock's translucent brownish calcite is bleached to nearly white. Ultraviolet and gamma irradiation experiments were undertaken to investigate the source of the brownish colour and the process by which it fades. It was found that the coloration results from the activation of colour centres by natural radioactivity within the rock, and that these colour centres are deactivated by the ultraviolet component of sunlight. The results also demonstrate that the original brownish colour of sun‐bleached, travertine objects can be restored by artificial gamma irradiation.     

Return to reason: reviving political realism in western foreign policy

Twenty‐first‐century political crises stretching from Europe to the Middle East and the Asia–Pacific have undermined the worldview that governed post‐Cold War western thinking about a liberal end of history. This worldview assumed that shared norms and transnational institutions would transform the state based‐order. In this context, the use of force is considered appropriate only for humanitarian ends meeting a set of predetermined axioms laid down in chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Yet for any strategy to be effective—in an international order subject to change—a clear political aim is required, which might deviate from the general rule. Preoccupied with universal postulates, legal normativism has lost sight of the particular. The argument put forth in this article is that the failure of contemporary western foreign policy in the twenty‐first century to address this limitation or to prioritize political ends has led to strategic confusion from Afghanistan to Syria and Ukraine. In this context, it might be useful to reappraise the utility of abstract rationalist approaches to global governance and return instead to an earlier understanding of statecraft that avoided premature generalizations and treated norms as maxims of prudence rather than axioms requiring universal application.     

India's ‘non‐alignment’ conundrum: a twentieth‐century policy in a changing world

The idea of non‐alignment has remained a central component of Indian identity in global politics that is manifest in continuities: since independence in 1947 India has been in pursuit of strategic autonomy, a quest that in practice has led to semi‐alliances fashioned under the cover of non‐alignment and shaped by regional dynamics. In this setting, the rise of China now raises an interesting conundrum for Indian policy‐makers as New Delhi seeks to balance the benefits and risks of an increasingly assertive neighbour and a network of alliances with like‐minded countries. This article approaches this enigma by delineating continuities of non‐alignment from the early roots of the policy, through the Cold War‐era and into the modern‐day international system. Though domestic factors have had a significant influence on the trajectory of Indian foreign policy, the continuities of non‐alignment have prevailed through changes in leadership and domestic vicissitudes. By exploring the foundation of non‐alignment and how India has operationalized the policy, this article maintains that to some extent continuity will persist: India will likely continue its rhetoric in favour of strategic autonomy while moving closer to the West and its allies in practice. Yet in order to effectively balance China's growing influence, India will need to be more assertive in building these alliances, as the success of its modern‐day pursuit of strategic autonomy may well rest on a strong foundation of strategic partnerships. The coming to office in May 2014 of the National Democratic Alliance government led by Narendra Modi has signalled a move away from even the rhetoric of non‐alignment, with significant implications for the future of Indian foreign policy.     

Visible and Invisible Cultures of Parliamentary Ethics: The 'Sports Rorts' Affair Revisited

A growing body of research has examined the ethical cultures of liberal democratic legislatures via interview studies of parliamentarians. Mancuso's recent study of British parliamentarians distinguishes between four ethical types-Puritans, Entrepreneurs, Servants and Muddlers. Such studies, while valuable, appear to have two shortcomings when applied to Australia. First, they underestimate the centrality of political parties in most parliamentarians' ethical perspectives. A fifth ethical type, the Party Servant, is needed to remedy this deficiency. Second, the studies risk overestimating the diversity of ethical views effectively operating in parliaments because of their methodological focus on individual interview responses. Parliamentarians' individual responses form invisible cultures of legislative ethics. The visible cultures found in the everyday discourse of legislatures contain considerably less ethical variety. Here parliamentarians generally appear limited to Puritan and Party Servant perspectives. These arguments are explored through a systematic investigation of parliamentary discourse on the 'sports rorts' affair.     

METROPOLITAN DOMINANCE AND FOREIGN OWNERSHIP IN THE CANADIAN URBAN SYSTEM

This paper examines the concept of metropolitan dominance as measured by the concentration of corporate activity in large urban centres in the Canadian urban system. Specifically, it explores the extent of corporate concentration in various sectors of the economy; isolates those urban centres in which that concentration occurs; and identifies the extent and location of international penetration of the Canadian economy.
Dans cette étude, nous examinons le concept de l'importance des métropoles en fonction de la concentration des diverses entreprises dans le systeme urbain du Canada. Plus spécifiquement, nous examinons le degré de cette concentration dans divers secteurs économiques; nous isolons les centres urbain ou a lieu cette concentration; nous identifions l'étendue et les points de pénetration internationale dans l'économie du Canada.