Japan post-9/11: security policy,executive power and political change in an ‘un-normal’ country

This article argues that in contrast to the USA, United Kingdom, and Australia, the impact of 9/11 on Japanese executive power largely has been restricted to the realm of Japan's foreign policy and relations, with comparatively little effect on domestic policy. Indeed, the 9/11 attacks and ensuing War on Terror served mostly to augment an already existing trend in Japan towards constitutional reform and away from the duopoly on political power and policy traditionally shared between the Japanese bureaucracy and the Liberal Democratic Party factions.     

An Early Bronze Age Logboat from Degersee, Southern Germany

In 2004 the remains of a logboat were discovered in Degersee, a small lake near Lake Constance, southern Germany. Dating to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, it is an important find from a period with scarce archaeological evidence and only a few previously-known logboats. The vessel was situated in lake sediment and documented in situ . Our investigations can be linked to palaeo-environmental studies carried out at Degersee and adjacent lakes, and to palaeo-climatic research in the northern Alpine region. After investigation by underwater archaeologists the boat was moved to a sheltered place in deeper water.
© 2008 The Author     

Establishing collagen quality criteria for sulphur isotope analysis of archaeological bone collagen

Sulphur isotope measurements of bone collagen from archaeological sites are beginning to be applied more often, yet there are no clear criteria to assess the quality of the collagen and therefore the validity of the sulphur isotope values. We provide elemental data from different methods (DNA sequences, amino acid sequences and mass spectrometric measurements) which are used to establish a reliable system of quality criteria for sulphur isotope analyses of bone collagen. The difference in the amount of sulphur from fish and mammalian collagen type I led to the suggestion to use different criteria to assess the in vivo character of the collagen between these two categories. For establishing quality ranges, the bone collagen of 140 modern animals were analysed. The amount of sulphur in fish and mammalian bone collagen is 0.63 ± 0.08% and 0.28 ± 0.07%, respectively. Based on these results we define for mammalian bone collagen an atomic C:S ratio of 600 ± 300 and an atomic N:S ratio of 200 ± 100, and for fish bone an atomic C:S ratio of 175 ± 50 and an atomic N:S ratio of 60 ± 20. These quality criteria were then applied to 305 specimens from different archaeological contexts.     

Does my bomb look big in this? Britain's nuclear choices after Trident

The United Kingdom's present strategic nuclear deterrent, the Trident submarine-based system, has been in full operation for less than four years. But the government will have to consider questions about the follow-on to this system before the end of this parliament and its successor government will almost certainly have to start taking, and implementing, decisions before 2008–9. In the past, political and public debates about the UK's nuclear weapons tended to flow forward on their own technical momentum, backed by the strategic imperatives of the Cold War. The next successor decisions, however, will be made in an era where both the technical questions and the strategic environment will be radically different. There may or may not be another vigorous public debate, but the present, and next, government will face some fundamental     

'Globalizing' regional development: a global production networks perspective

Recent literature concerning regional development has placed significant emphasis on local institutional structures and their capacity to 'hold down' the global. Conversely, work on inter-firm networks – such as the global commodity chain approach – has highlighted the significance of the organizational structures of global firms' production systems and their relation to industrial upgrading. In this paper, drawing upon a global production networks perspective, we conceptualize the connections between 'globalizing' processes, as embodied in the production networks of transnational corporations, and regional development in specific territorial formations. We delimit the 'strategic coupling' of the global production networks of firms and regional economies which ultimately drives regional development through the processes of value creation, enhancement and capture. In doing so, we stress the multi-scalarity of the forces and processes underlying regional development, and thus do not privilege one particular geographical scale. By way of illustration, we introduce an example drawn from recent research into global production networks in East Asia and Europe. The example profiles the investments of car manufacturer BMW in Eastern Bavaria, Germany and Rayong, Thailand, and considers their implications for regional development.     

Household growth,housing demand and new settlements in Scotland

The question of how and where to accommodate the increasing number of households in Scotland represents a major challenge for policy makers and planners at the beginning of the twenty‐first century. The present research identifies the projected level and geographical incidence of household growth and housing demand in Scotland, identifies the principal alternative options for urban development and, within the context of the current policy and planning environment, assesses the potential contribution of a new settlement strategy to meet the challenge of urban development in contemporary Scotland.     

Screw Threads on the SS Xantho Engine: a Case of Standardisation in 19th Century Britain

A former RN gunboat horizontal trunk engine taken from the SS Xantho (1848–1872) in 1985 was totally disassembled by May 2004. All the threads on the engine were examined and the majority were found to be British Standard Whitworth (BSW). This provides material evidence of the spread of standardisation at a time when the Royal Navy commissioned the first mass-produced marine engines and fitted them to the 'Crimean War Gunboat' types. The study also provides a pointer to the use of screw threads as a diagnostic tool in maritime archaeology.
© 2004 The Nautical Archaeology Society