Breadth Of Scope Research Articles

The Transparency Register: A European vanguard of strong lobby regulation?

A recent comparative analysis of the content of lobby regulation schemes published in this journal casts measures developed at European Union (EU) level as the vanguard of a ‘new wave’ of strong lobby regulation across Europe. Other assessments characterise EU lobby regulation as weak, primarily based on the voluntary nature of a succession of registers of lobbyists, as well as the quality of data within them. We examine these competing perspectives through a focus upon the EU Transparency Register (TR), now exceeding 5500 individual entries. We set the scheme within a ‘transparency for legitimacy’ pathway and note its differentiation from predecessor instruments by its breadth of scope. We assess the extent of coverage of its core targets through a comparison of the entries in two of its categories (business related and NGOs) with other information sources; we estimate its coverage of the intended population to be approximately three-quarters of business-related organisations and around 60 per cent of NGOs. These are sizeable proportions for a voluntary (albeit incentivised) register, but not sufficient yet to justify the ‘de-facto mandatory’ claim for it made at its launch in 2011. We then assess the structure of the Register, the incentives to join it and its population in detail. The quality of the data in the TR has progressively improved from the starting point of its predecessor schemes. Nonetheless, there are one-third of all entries in the Register that did not choose ‘European’ as one of the interests they represent, but instead another territorial level. Although some data quality problems remain, with a fringe of questionable entries, the reliance upon those in the Register to monitor it has driven up standards of data entry among the main lobbying players. Nonetheless, there are faults of design and nomenclature. A key juncture during the registration process involves a choice of category to appear in the Register, affecting the disclosure and presentation of public information. We identify 15 per cent of entries in the NGO category, which could better be re-assigned to other categories. We identify the boundary points from which the data can be put to research use, involving the identification of a ‘European interest’ represented and use of a Brussels address, which makes the data less prone to outliers. Nonetheless even after this operation there remain problems in aggregating data on some indicators (particularly head counts of lobbyists) because of the extent of the extreme cases. However, some clear pictures emerge from the data; after removing duplicated entries from the Register, and discounting a small number of inappropriate outliers, we present the first such results from it. A key finding is that the differences in reported resources are less than might be expected between business-related organisations and NGOs. One area where there is substantial difference concerns the receipt of European Union (EU) funding for civil society organisations. The EU political system has long had substantial funding regimes in place for NGOs. We are able to provide the most accurate information yet available about the extent of NGO reliance upon EU political institutions. NGOs with a Brussels base representing a European interest and that receive a grant from EU institutions draw an average of 43 per cent of their budget from such sources. Finally, we place the TR within traditions of comparative lobby regulation. This analysis comes ahead of a scheduled review of the scheme by the European Commission and European Parliament during 2013, and at a time when most EU member states have established regulatory instruments or currently have them under active consideration.

Understanding and navigating industrial emergence

Industrial emergence is a broad and complex domain, with relevant perspectives ranging in scale from the individual entrepreneur and firm with the business decisions and actions they make to the policies of nations and global patterns of industrialisation. The research described in this article has adopted a holistic approach, based on structured mapping methods, in an attempt to depict and understand the dynamics and patterns of industrial emergence across a broad spectrum from early scientific discovery to large-scale industrialisation. The breadth of scope and application has enabled a framework and set of four tools to be developed that have wide applicability. The utility of the approaches has been demonstrated through case studies and trials in a diverse range of industrial contexts. The adoption of such a broad scope also presents substantial challenges and limitations, with these providing an opportunity for further research.

The Psychology of Eating

SPECIALTY GRAND CHALLENGE article Front. Psychol., 25 April 2013Sec. Eating Behavior Volume 4 - 2013 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00215

Thirteen years (2000–2012) at the helm of information technology and management: a retrospective

The first issue of Information Technology and Management was published by Baltzer Science Publishers in November 1999. Our goal was to make the journal a broad spectrum information technology journal. This goal was laid out in the introduction to the first issue (Pirkul and Jacob [1]) in which we stated, ‘‘..it is important to have a journal where the readers will be exposed not only to different technologies but also to their impact on information system design, functionality, operations and management. It should be emphasized that information systems include not only machines but also humans; therefore, the journal will be an outlet of studies dealing with man/machine interface, human factors and organizational issues. Furthermore, both managerial and strategic issues arising from and dealing with management of information technology are included in the domain of coverage.’’ Over the years we have worked to ensure this broad spectrum appeal continued to hold both with a mix of special issues guest edited by experts in specific domains as well as regular issues containing papers that were submitted and went through a rigorous review process. The special issues covered a broad array of topics, the first volume had three special issues. The first issue guest edited by Jacob and Whinston [2] focused on Electronic commerce this was followed by a special issue with selected papers from the 1998 Workshop on Information Technology and Systems focusing on IT in support of business process guest edited by March and Bubenko [3] the conference co-chairs. The first volume was rounded off by Holsapple [3] who guest edited a special issue on technology in business education. Since then the journal has generated 30 special issues including the current issue, on diverse topics, with several of these issues showcasing selected papers from various conferences. The first regular issue appeared as the first issue of volume 2 in year 2001. The breadth in scope of the journal was established right at the beginning with each of the five articles addressing a different topic with a different methodology. The first article by Agarwal et al. [4] looked at a classification decision context using Neural Networks. The second article by Orman [5] looked at the database audit problem and strategies for performing it efficiently and effectively. The third paper by Robey et al. [6] proposes a component based paradigm for software development and uses a social analysis framework to analyze the approach with traditional approaches. The next paper in the issue by De et al. [7], performs an empirical investigation of the different approaches to object oriented database querying. They conducted an experiment to analyze a graphical object oriented database schema with a textual one. The final paper in that issue by Benamati and Lederer [8] uses the results from a survey they conducted to understand the coping mechanisms IT managers use to handle rapidly changing IT. Since then the journal has published twenty regular issues and we have attempted to maintain this diversity. At this juncture the journal has a strong pipeline of special issues and regular papers, therefore, we felt it is time to hand over the reins of the journal to the younger generation. We are very pleased that Raymond Patterson and Erik Rolland have agreed to step in as the new editors of the journal. We believe they have the right mind set and the energy to take the journal to the next level. As we hand over the reins to Ray and Erik we wanted to highlight the current status of the journal, the journal for V. Jacob (&) H. Pirkul Naveen Jindal School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080-3021, USA e-mail: vjacob@utdallas.edu

Book review: Everything changes – especially on islands

news and update book review Everything changes – especially on islands Island Environments in a Changing World, by Lawrence R. Walker & Peter Bellingham, 2011, Cambridge University Press, 324 pp. £70 (Hardback) / £30 (Paperback) ISBN: 9780521519601 / 9780521732475; http://www.cambridge.org/ ‘Fog in Channel – continent cut off’ Are we not all islanders, after all, holding our own off-continent perspective of the world? Whether it is the Earth in the cosmos or Africa between the oceans, or even a tiny islet where a lonely shepherd attends his goats, humans are everywhere surrounded by non-inhabitable territories. It is thus not surprising that islands exert a special allure to us all. At the same time, typical islands, i.e. relatively small bodies of land surrounded by water, provide a huge set of natural laboratories for the study of numerous biological and physical phenomena. This is mostly because they are relatively small, simple and well- delimited open systems. The story of MacArthur and Wilson’s (1967) clever choice of islands as model systems for their theory is definite evidence in support of this. After an early start through Wallace’s seminal book, Island Life (Wallace 1881), the ecological literature on islands grew tremendously but has been mainly of a rather technical flavour, focusing on island biogeography, evolutionary dynamics and invasions of alien species (see Losos and Ricklefs 2010). A recent attempt of almost monumental dimensions, the Encyclopedia of Islands (Gillespie and Clague 2009), tried to bring the ecological view of islands closer to the lay person, but its very size and breadth of scope may also be its weak point. At the same time, there are several other books accessible to the public that examine island life from an evolutionary perspective or at a local geographical scale (e.g., Grant 1997, Quammen 1997, Samways et al. 2010). The special properties of islands, i.e. finiteness and small size, act as timeline intensifiers, enabling a perception of the constantly changing environment which may be more difficult to grasp in the vast expanses of continental areas. This Heraclitean view of nature is the main theme of this recent book on island environments by two plant ecologists, L.R. Walker (Univ. of Nevada, USA) and P. Bellingham (Landcare Research, New Zealand). These authors present a concise account of almost all the important aspects of insular environments, using simple language without loss of scientific rigour. Nearly 150 figures including diagrams and photos (unfortunately most in black and white, while those in colour plates could have been printed in better quality) are inserted in the text, assisting the reader in capturing concepts, processes and visualising examples. The scope of the book might have merited a larger volume, but the authors aimed for a much shorter text, adopting a clever strategy that helps them keep the length within the readable limit of around 300 pages. Out of the thousands of insular systems around the globe, they select nine island groups that exhibit a good sample of crucial insular features. These groups exemplify all three categories of islands identified by biogeographers, namely oceanic, continental fragments and continental shelf islands, as well as a variety of geographical zones, from tropical to temperate, even subarctic. This way, the authors are able to examine a vast array of insular features with concrete examples from each island group. They also use the nine island groups to provide a vivid account of major causes of ‘natural disturbances’, such as volcanic activity, earthquakes, erosion, fire, floods and so forth, affecting different island systems at varying rates. Processes affecting the biota of islands, most importantly dispersal and extinction, are offered a chapter of their own, with a short discussion on general richness and endemicity patterns. Here again, selected examples are inserted in text boxes giving a solid form to abstract concepts. Almost half of the book explores the role played by humans in changing the environment of islands, placed in a historical framework, from first human colonisation, through gradually intensified effects, up to the present day. The complexity of human interactions with insular environments is revealed through a balanced examination of the often contradictory effects of activities like tourism and agriculture. Sustainability comes up again as the holy grail of management and frontiers of biogeography 4.1, 2012 — © 2012 the authors; journal compilation © 2012 The International Biogeography Society

The War on Terror as a Metaphor for Immigration Regulation: A Critical View of a Distorted Debate

The “war on terror” represents a powerful metaphor reaching into the everyday lives of millions of non-U.S. citizens and citizens alike, both domestically and abroad. The “war” has skewed the debate, specifically regarding immigration regulation and reform. It is especially pernicious because it operates, on an unconscious level, on our unstated assumptions about immigrants and immigrant populations. In this Article, the authors begin with a discussion of the so-called “anchor” babies, now transmogrified into a new, scarier concept, “terror” babies. This is a good starting point for the discussion because it illustrates quite poignantly the ways in which the rhetoric has driven the debate to the point of absurdity and hyperbole. We then address the proliferation of terror-related grounds of inadmissibility and deportability. The issues which have come up in proceedings center around the malleability of the term “material support,” the exceedingly large breadth of scope in the term “terrorist activity,” as well as the difficulties which follow from allowing for the incorporation of the inadmissibility grounds into the parallel ground of deportability in section 237 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”). Equally disturbing are the misunderstandings surrounding the term “illegal immigrant.” We argue for a more nuanced approach which takes into account the range of available relief depending on the nature and history of one’s undocumented status. Throughout the discussion, there is the recognition that governmental actors have latitude, sometimes enormously wide latitude, to interpret the laws. It is often in these interstices where abuse occurs. We next discuss the fugitive disentitlement doctrine, and the trend to apply the doctrine outside of its normal confines in the context of criminal defendants and to deprive the courts of jurisdiction to hear the appeals of immigrants. We point out the infirmities with applying the fugitive disentitlement doctrine in the context of immigration. In the Real ID Act, among other legislation, there are severe jurisdiction-stripping provisions which have deprived federal district courts, in habeas proceedings, of the power to review final orders of removal, and modified the jurisdiction of the federal courts of appeals to hear immigrants’ appeals in other important ways. We argue that in these provisions the Real ID Act violates the Suspension Clause. In our conclusion we argue that metaphors certainly help us to interpret the world by making connections between disparate concepts. However, metaphors are not merely “figures of speech” but can result in tools of powerful persuasion. The danger of equating terrorists with immigrants and vice versa through the metaphor of the war on terror has become a very real threat to immigrants’ rights, and by extension, to all our rights, citizens and non-citizens alike.

Differences in the approval process for interventional devices in Europe and USA: IN MEDIO STAT VIRTUS

Europe and USA: different answers to the same questions The current process of approval of medical devices is profoundly different in Europe and in the United States. In Europe, a company manufacturing a new device is free to choose one of the 72 Notified Bodies, private organisations monitored by the National Health Authorities, to receive CE mark and seek subsequent approval by the National Health Authority which remains ultimately responsible for the surveillance of clinical application of the approved device. In the USA the process is centrally regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) following uniform schemes and starting from the very first, the identification of the intended use, the population of intended use, and the appropriate clinical trial design to ensure “reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness.” There are some similarities to the drug evaluation processes, including pilot safety/feasibility trials (on actual patients rather than normal volunteers), mechanistic Phase 2 trials compared to standard therapies (instead of dosing studies), pivotal Phase 3 trials generally randomised against controls, and post-approval Phase IV surveillance processes for additional undetected safety issues. However, device evaluation must accommodate unique differences from drugs, including the rapid pace of device innovation and the interdependence of device performance with operator experience and skills. In all, the goals of evaluation include a hope to avoid widespread use of a therapy that is later found to have significant problems, leading to worldwide recalls, headline-oriented attention of the general media and shaking the stock market. If you have a chance to visit the beautiful gated citadel where several high rise building provide the new home of the FDA, just outside Washington, and compare it with the scattered offices of EMA in Canary Wharf, London, the device regulations agency still host in the Industry and Enterprises Department in Brussels, you can immediately understand the different breadth of scope of the US and European organisation, the first aiming at tight control of all steps of the approval process, the second offering more advice and orientation on the achievement of basic standards which will be supplemented by national approval.

Organic Electronics — From Materials to Applications

This Organic Electronics Special Issue of Advanced Materials is dedicated to reviewing the current status of the science underpinning the main and emerging applications for this exciting technology. It contains a comprehensive series of invited reviews, progress reports, and research news articles that highlight the breadth in scope of this multidisciplinary area. Contributions from world class research groups spanning the globe showcase the spectrum of research and development in this field, from initial research phases through to the most recent advances in applications and opportunities for future exploitation. Advances in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) continue at an accelerating pace. There are now many highperformance OLED displays in products from televisions to mobile phones, while several companies are poised to launch organic lighting products. Although most of these OLED products are currently fabricated from vacuum or vapor deposition techniques, solution deposition based on higher throughput printing is also making serious advances in both displays and lighting. Central to these advances are a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms responsible for degradation in luminescence over continued operation. This is discussed in detail in the progress report of So et al. Active matrix electrophoretic displays for ebook and handheld mobile applications, driven by organic transistors, have been demonstrated by several organizations recently, with the first commercial ebook product by Plastic Logic soon available through advanced orders. Advances in transistor performance have been facilitated by significant leaps in semiconductor physics and chemistry. Insights into the nature of charge transport physics at the semiconductor-dielectric interface provide guidance for both materials design and device architecture, and are described in the research news article by Sirringhaus et al. Until very recently, the charge carrier mobilities of electron transport materials have significantly lagged behind their hole-transporting counterparts. This has impeded development of organic CMOS logic circuitry and the lack of development in this area has restricted the range of acceptor materials available for organic bulk heterojunction solar cells. There are, however, many promising new materials classes that have recently demonstrated high potential, and these are reviewed in the article by Anthony, Facchetti, Heeney, Marder, and Zhan. Improvements in thin film semiconductor performance can be not only attributed to advances in molecular design concepts, but also to improved understanding of material assembly into highly ordered microstructures on deposition. Although solution deposition is typically a kinetically driven, chaotic process, there are many underpinning thermodynamic principles that can be used to optimize surface energies, crystallization processes, and thermal behavior. These are reviewed, along with small molecule vapor deposition, with an emphasis on their impact on fabricating optimally organized and aligned semiconductor thin films, in the article by Bao, Stingelin, et al. Accurate characterization of the thin film morphology is crucial in developing the structure/property relationships that advance molecular design and validate the material science employed to optimally fabricate the semiconductor films used in devices. The correlation of charge transport with thin film microstructure and the impact of processing conditions can be elucidated through spectroscopic techniques, and is reviewed in the article by Salleo et al. The applied nature of organic electronics is well represented in this special edition. With the impending launch of the first application utilizing organic transistors, it is timely that the article by Anthopoulos et al. reviews the latest developments of organic-transistor-driven active matrix backplanes for both electrophoretic and OLED displays. This review also covers advances in organic circuitry for microelectronics, demonstrating that we are primed for a new wave of impending applications with widespread utility. Following closely behind, is the development of organic solar cells. Photovoltaic devices have made large improvements in performance recently, now reaching over 8% power conversion efficiencies for a poly mer light-absorbing donor, fullerene electron acceptor bulk heterojunction device. In the article by Brabec, Gowrisanker, Halls, et al., a review of materials development, device optimization and lifetime studies has been undertaken, with a strong industrial focus. Finally, an exciting attribute of organic electronics is that with the creative science that is possible, new applications and opportunities will inevitably arise. One promising such application is in the field of sensing. Although this area is not as advanced as others described in this issue, there is considerable scope to detect not only molecules, but also sense environmental conditions and light. These concepts are reviewed in detail in the article by Katz et al.

Forensic science, genetics and wildlife biology: getting the right mix for a wildlife DNA forensics lab

Wildlife DNA forensics is receiving increasing coverage in the popular press and has begun to appear in the scientific literature in relation to several different fields. Recognized as an applied subject, it rests on top of very diverse scientific pillars ranging from biochemistry through to evolutionary genetics, all embedded within the context of modern forensic science. This breadth of scope, combined with typically limited resources, has often left wildlife DNA forensics hanging precariously between human DNA forensics and academics keen to seek novel applications for biological research. How best to bridge this gap is a matter for regular debate among the relatively few full-time practitioners in the field. The decisions involved in establishing forensic genetic services to investigate wildlife crime can be complex, particularly where crimes involve a wide range of species and evidential questions. This paper examines some of the issues relevant to setting up a wildlife DNA forensics laboratory based on experiences of working in this area over the past 7 years. It includes a discussion of various models for operating individual laboratories as well as options for organizing forensic testing at higher national and international levels.

Linking Genetically Defined Neurons to Behavior through a Broadly Applicable Silencing Allele

Tools for suppressing synaptic transmission gain power when able to target highly selective neuron subtypes, thereby sharpening attainable links between neuron type, behavior, and disease; and when able to silence most any neuron subtype, thereby offering broad applicability. Here, we present such a tool, RC::PFtox, that harnesses breadth in scope along with high cell-type selection via combinatorial gene expression to deliver tetanus toxin light chain (tox), an inhibitor of vesicular neurotransmission. When applied in mice, we observed cell-type-specific disruption of vesicle exocytosis accompanied by loss of excitatory postsynaptic currents and commensurately perturbed behaviors. Among various test populations, we applied RC::PFtox to silence serotonergic neurons, en masse or a subset defined combinatorially. Of the behavioral phenotypes observed upon en masse serotonergic silencing, only one mapped to the combinatorially defined subset. These findings provide evidence for separability by genetic lineage of serotonin-modulated behaviors; collectively, these findings demonstrate broad utility of RC::PFtox for dissecting neuron functions.

Scholarship on India’s International Relations

An assessment of scholarship on India’s International Relations (IIR) shows some significant weaknesses. At the global level, the discipline has not kept pace with rising interest in India. There is an appreciable degree of theoretical content in IIR, but it is relatively narrow in range. At the Asian level, interest in IIR is weak and, with exceptions, lacks engagement with theory as well as breadth of scope. In India, the discipline exhibits a wider spread but low-level theoretical content and relative isolation. Taken as a whole, the field needs greater creativity, theoretical depth and breadth of scope. The article concludes with a brief assessment of the reasons for these shortcomings and identifies the pathway to develop IR in India as a more vibrant discipline.

Gaining Ground? ‘Rights’ and ‘Property’ in South African Land Reform (review)

Reviewed by: Gaining Ground? ‘Rights’ and ‘Property’ in South African Land Reform Cherryl Walker (bio) Deborah James (2007) Gaining Ground? ‘Rights’ and ‘Property’ in South African and Reform. London and Johannesburg: Routledge-Cavendish and Wits University Press. This is an ambitious study of land reform in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, which draws on a long history of field work by the author in the area, stretching back to the early 1980s. A major strength of the book is that it is a regional study – not simply a single case study, nor a high-level national overview but, rather, a series of case studies and associated analyses of what they mean in combination. This allows James to bring to the fore and explore the complex range of categories of land ownership and rights, past and present, that characterises land relationships in the province (focusing in particular on the former white countryside rather than the former bantustans), as well as the way in which they overlap, intersect, cross-cut and compete. The different types of rights in land include freehold title, labour tenancy and various forms of communal and informal tenure, all of which are mediated through relationships to legal institutions, state bureaucrats, traditional leaders, private landowners (black and white), and other local power brokers. James also highlights rural-urban linkages and their significance for understanding relationships to land, and is critical of analysts who conceptualize land reform as targeting a distinct rural sphere, rather than appreciating the extent of the interdependence between urban and rural livelihoods for most ostensibly ‘rural’ people. It is thus a highly complex terrain which James presents, one which she is at pains neither to simplify nor romanticise. Had she located Mpumalanga more clearly in relation to other regional contexts within South Africa, she might have been even more successful in demonstrating not just complexity [End Page 173] but also delineating the regional specificity of Mpumalanga and what this means for the larger analysis of land reform that is also an important concern for her. This province is an important locus for land reform but it is not fully representative of South Africa’s rural areas in their entirety, nor of the more highly urbanized provinces. A major challenge for land reform, therefore, is that it is a national endeavour that has to take regional differences into account in the development and implementation of policy. For poor black rural households, land provides a form of social insurance in a world where employment is no longer assured and the state’s capacity to provide social security is itself not certain. While recognising that, James also explores land as a symbol of citizenship and the challenges facing a bureaucratically-driven process of land reform that ‘represents an attempt seamlessly to combine political priorities with material ones’ (253). She thus identifies the importance of land not only materially, for livelihoods, but also politically and symbolically, the latter driven by its centrality in denying black South Africans citizenship and rights in the past. Along with others, she is of the view that this has placed unrealistic expectations on the programme. Land reform, perhaps more than other policies in the new South Africa, has provided fertile grounds for the forming of such expectations. Failing to nourish these adequately has made the subsequent disappointment inevitable. Land reform has been a social experiment ambitious in its breadth of scope but ultimately unrealistic given the material and other human resources on which it has had to rely. As James puts it: . . . An eagerly-anticipated future is built upon unrealized ambitions in the present and fuelled by longer memories of injustice which demand redress. If the future fails to materialize as expected, the past provides a fall-back position. (2007:2) Missing, however, is an account of what a more realistic programme could or should look like – especially given not only the political but also the economic context in which it is necessarily embedded. An important focus in this study is the role of ‘middlemen and brokers’ (James 2007:13), in particular lawyers, planners, and NGO activists in shaping the land reform policy and mediating between its beneficiaries’ and the state. Because the study...

Strabo's Cultural Geography: The Making of a Kolossourgia (review)

Reviewed by: Strabo's Cultural Geography: The Making of a Kolossourgia James Romm Daniela Dueck, Hugh Lindsay, and Sarah Pothecary (eds.). Strabo's Cultural Geography: The Making of a Kolossourgia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xvi, 286. $85.00. ISBN 978-0-521-85306-4. This volume is the first-ever anthology of articles on Strabo published in English and thus marks yet another landmark in the revival of interest in the long-obscure author of the Geographica. The papers included derive for the most part from a 2001 conference held at Bar-Ilan University, but two were solicited from scholars not involved in the conference. Given that the editors have assembled a wide-ranging array of contributors from around the globe, it is surprising that some of the leading names in recent Strabo scholarship, such as Katherine Clark and Stefan Radt, are not included here. Indeed several of those whose work does appear here have had only a recent [End Page 107] or tangential connection to the field, to judge by the works cited under their names in the bibliography, and the lack of depth in their analyses makes this an uneven though often enlightening collection. The title of the volume does not well represent its contents: Strabo called his Geographica a kolossourgia as a way of characterizing its breadth of scope and monumentality, but most of these papers deal with small or localized elements rather than with the work as a whole. Perhaps the most far-reaching is Sarah Pothecary's opening essay on the meaning of kolossourgia itself and what this choice of terminology says about Strabo's perspective on Greek culture in an increasingly Roman world. Similarly broad in their approaches are Christina Roseman's chapter on Strabo's relationship to contemporary philosophic and scientific movements; Denise McCoskey's, on Strabo's portrayals of women; Daniela Dueck's paper on Strabo's use of poetry; and Eran Almagor's discussion of the category "barbarian" in the Geographies. These last two papers, however, do not do justice to the topics they address, and both offer only weak conclusions, stating only that Strabo writes or thinks differently at different points in his work. When Almagor, for example, claims to have produced an "outline of the diversity in the attitudes of Strabo towards the 'others'. . . [that] would hopefully shed some further light on the varied nature of the Geography," we feel we are more at the outset of an analysis than at its endpoint. Dueck's concluding paragraph shows the same lack of point: "Strabo had several reasons to include poetic citations in his Geography. His particular choice of poets was determined by several factors. . . ." Partly this problem of inconclusiveness results from the immensity of Strabo's text; compassing its many diverse stratagems and methods with a single thesis is a formidable task, yet that is what we hope for from contributors to a volume of this kind. The majority of the papers collected here attempt more limited goals, by examining only a single book of the Geographies or a very circumscribed theme, though even in these cases conclusions are often unusually tentative. Nikos Litinas, in a surprisingly short paper, has the ingenious idea of tracing a single story retold by Strabo (that of the courtesan Rhodopis) back to its sources in an effort to understand the geographer's methodology, but quickly reaches a point at which his efforts are stymied. Yuval Shahar, by contrast, conducts an elaborate comparison of Strabo's text with the writings of Josephus, in order to demonstrate that "Josephus . . . actually knew the Geography . . . as early as the 70's C.E., when he was writing his Jewish War" (248f.), but succeeds in illuminating Josephus far more fully than Strabo. Other authors, including David Braund, Silvia Panichi, and the volume's co-editors Sarah Pothecary and Hugh Lindsay, deal separately with various regions of the oikoumene as represented by Strabo, with varying degrees of success. One of the most interesting papers in the volume is Johannes Engels' discussion of the political and intellectual elite of the eastern empire who formed Strabo's principal intended audience, and whom Strabo refers to repreatedly as ἄνδρεϛ ἔνδοξοι; this carefully...

The Family Farm Business? Insights into Family, Business and Ownership Dimensions of Open‐Farms

Research into tourism and hospitality businesses, because of its breadth of scope, has been unable to provide specific insights into visitor attraction businesses. On the contrary, visitor attraction research, while defining ownership as an important variable, has yet to explore the motivations or characteristics of small business owners. Gersick et al.’s (1997) family business development model, devised around the three axes of family, business and ownership, was used to examine the population of open‐farm businesses in Northern Ireland. Following a general survey of 12 farm attractions, detailed interviews were conducted with owners of seven open‐farm attractions. The findings indicated that there was a wide degree of variation in terms of the scale and success of open‐farms. In terms of the family and business axes they shared many similarities with other small family tourism businesses such as rural location, the provision of a multi‐product experience and a strong emphasis on lifestyle needs. However, the involvement of children from an early age is unique to the family dimension and integral to the finding that lifestyle issues took precedence over business growth. The model also emphasised a generational progression in terms of ownership control that was not as relevant to these businesses where succession is generally not a consideration. Open‐farms operate on a pragmatic basis and in addition to family needs, various factors such as insurance, increasing costs, the need to re‐invest and update the product are currently affecting their competitiveness in the marketplace. A revised model of family business development is proposed reflecting these differences.

Economic drought management index to evaluate water institutions’ performance under uncertainty*

Reservoir management and intertemporal water allocation are critical issues in semiarid regions where agriculture has to confront highly variable rainfall patterns. In this paper, we derive and propose an economic drought management index (EDMI) to evaluate water institutions’ performance to cope with drought risk. The EDMI is based on the optimal conditions of a stochastic dynamic optimisation problem that characterises reservoir management. The index's main advantages are its ease of interpretation and breadth of scope, as it incorporates information on hydrological processes, structural constraints, water institutions’ rules, and the economic benefits of water use. An empirical application is developed to assess the institutional rules governing water allocation in two different supply systems in Andalusia (southern Spain).

Faculty and Staff Teams: A Tool for Unifying the Academic Health Center and Improving Mission Performance

The organizational structure of the academic health center (AHC) may present significant barriers to deep and lasting organizational change. The insular nature and structure often seen in academic departments and other units at AHCs result in competition for scarce resources, rather than in working together to add value to one another or to the organization as a whole. Successful unification around organizational performance goals is needed more than ever by AHCs as they struggle to meet their challenges. Over a five-year period (2000-2005) at the Penn State College of Medicine and Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, organizational inner cohesiveness was created through the use of teams that unified the clinical, academic, and research enterprises. Barriers that typically separate academic departments, such as a lack of understanding of the impact of organizational funds flow on each of the missions, were broken down. Traditional barriers between employees and management (e.g., poor communication, lack of clarity on organizational goals, and claims that neither side understood the other) were reduced. Problems that seemed to be intractable in the past such as an inequitable distribution of resources, responsibilities, and rewards, were solved through the implementation of a teams approach across departments and missions. The authors describe the creation and operation of these AHC-wide teams. The rationale for using teams is elucidated, the difference between teams and committees is defined, and data on five years of team performance are presented. The authors argue that the breadth of scope and comprehensiveness of the teams approach represents an effective model for implementing AHC-wide transformational change.

English Language Learning and Technology (review)

Reviewed by: English language learning and technology by Carol A. Chapelle Caroline M. L. Ho English language learning and technology. By Carol A. Chapelle. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2003. Pp. 211. ISBN 1588114481. $39.95. Carol Chapelle’s book, drawing on selected lectures over the past several years, provides a welcome contribution to the field of language learning and teaching with a central focus on the impact and influence of technology on the English language. C’s exploration of the close nexus between technology and applied linguistics is impressive in both breadth in scope of coverage and depth in specificity and attention to detail. C considers fundamental issues that concern how a multiplicity of research designs and theoretical underpinnings inform and affect technology-based language learning practices. Ch. 1, ‘The changing world of English language teaching’ (1–33), maps out various perspectives—of the technologist, the social pragmatist, and the critical analyst, respectively—as to how technological changes influence language teaching and research. Ch. 2, ‘The potential of technology for language learning’ (35–68), considers implications of research on second language acquisition for technology-mediated learning tasks. Examples of research cited reflect the significance of an understanding of second language acquisition theories. These enable a more critical and analytical perspective on technology-based language learning tasks. Ch. 3, ‘Evaluating language learning’ (69–96), discusses approaches to research on CALL, particularly methods and results benefiting language learning. Audience and the purpose of research are acknowledged as critical motivations that drive this research. Ch. 4, ‘Investigating learners’ use of technology’ (97–126), focuses on methodological issues in data arising from analysis of computer-mediated interactions with a focus on processes involved in CALL. Research in applied linguistics, covering topics from interaction and discourse to conversation analysis, offers useful perspectives for studies on these processes. Both Ch. 5 (127–50) and Ch. 6 (151–72) on advancing applied linguistics extend the discussion to two key areas in second language learning, namely, how technology influences language learning tasks and assessment, respectively. Ch. 7, ‘The imperative for applied linguistics and technology’ (173–81), concludes with a clarion call to address theoretical issues underlying applied linguistics with technology. The value of technology as a tool when used for applied linguistics research cannot be overestimated. The need for considering theoretical issues of language use, acquisition, and assessment with technology underscores the underlying theme running through the book, that theory-focused research complements practice-focused research. C’s synthesis of insights carefully balances practical realities and perspectives drawn from personal experience with salient theoretical underpinnings. These insights provide a useful platform for charting out future directions in the field. The result is a scholarly offering that is skillfully presented in a lucid style and is a timely reminder to consider the multiple perspectives on technological changes affecting language teaching and research. At the heart of all the studies, research, and examples is the recurring theme of how technology and applied linguistics are inextricably linked, and the need to see the two not as disparate fields but as a unified whole, one complementing the other. Caroline M. L. Ho Nanyang Technological University Copyright © 2006 Linguistic Society of America

Clinical Work with Substance—Abusing Clients. Edited by S. L. A. Straussner, 2nd edn. Fuilford Press, New York, 2004. £40. 494pgs. HB. ISBN 1 59385 067 0

It is a universally acknowledged truth that treatment of substance misuse entails more than medication. The present volume, written by social workers for social workers, outlines the wide range of options available to therapists and their clients. The outstanding feature of the text is the number of psychosocial aspects that are described as aiding the assessment and therapy of clients. They include physical and psychiatric considerations, attention to family and friends, employment and housing needs. A similar breadth of scope is given by the range of problems that the authors consider. They include the needs of families (including children), legal matters, the particular requirements in …

Obscure Objects of Desire: Surrealism, Fetishism, and Politics by Johanna Malt (review)

MLRy 100.3, 2005 829 and rigorous, and also honest in its appraisal. While it acknowledges that the early verse has little to retain the interest of the general reader, it makes an eloquent case for the later work, and Le Sang d'Atys (1940) in particular, which Mauriac himself considered his best work in any genre. Cooke demonstrates how this poem condenses the atmosphere familiar from the novels into something even more moody, not to say disturbing, as it mingles pagan and Christian myth and symbolism, and draws in many ofthe themes which give Mauriac's work its distinctive edge: sexual ambiguity, tense familial relationships, the conflict of body and soul. In his concluding chapter, Cooke explores the overlap between Mauriac's poetry and his novels, tracing the echoes and similarities between the two at the level of both form and content. His ef? fective discussion ofhow the poetic informs and inflectsMauriac's prose writing gives necessary substance to the frustratinglyimpressionistic, yet oft-repeated, description of Mauriac as 'poetic novelist'. If Cooke is breaking new ground in his study of the poetry, the collection of essays edited by Philippe Baudorre on Mauriac's journalism contributes to what has been the main growth area of Mauriac studies in recent years. Spurred on by the republi? cation of Mauriac's famous Bloc-notes column in 1993, researchers are rediscovering a significant figure of the journalistic landscape of both pre- and post-war France. These essays explore different stages of his career, often with a breadth of scope which makes them relevant to those interested in the history ofthe French press more generally. Marie-Chantal Praicheux focuses on Mauriac's inter-war career, and uses his movements from one newspaper to another as a way of sketching out the politics of the field of the French press in the 1930s, and the right-wing press in particular. She goes on to explore the relationship between the issues with which Mauriac en? gages in his articles, and the newspapers in which he chooses to publish them. Claire Blandin's useful essay offersan account of Mauriac's role in the development of the Figaro litteraire in the post-war years, setting it in the context of his often stormy relationship with Pierre Brisson, the editor of Le Figaro, and his involvement with L'Express. Merryl Moneghetti examines Mauriac's overlooked but nevertheless in? triguing spell as one of France's firsttelevision critics in the later 1950s and early 1960s. Although quite narrow in its focus, investigating as it does his reactions to the current-affairs programme Cinq colonnes a la Une, her article demonstrates the insights to be gleaned from the apparently peripheral dimensions of his work. In pointing to the collision between Mauriac and television, she reminds us of how he became unavoidably caught up, often reluctantly, in the rapid socio-cultural change affectingpost-war France, and acted as a perceptive and suspicious commentator on that change. The final essay by Malcolm Scott offers an excellent overview of the critical challenges posed by Mauriac's journalism (not the least of which is the sheer size of the corpus), as well as a brilliantly concise account of the key themes, styles, and devices he exploits in his journalistic output. Overall, the collection succeeds in giving a good sense of why we should continue to take an interest in Mauriac, and Mauriac the journalist and intellectual especially. University of Durham Edward Welch Obscure Objects of Desire: Surrealism, Fetishism, and Politics. By Johanna Malt. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004. x + 234pp. ?45. ISBN 0-19-925342o . As Johanna Malt notes in her introduction (pp. 2-3), in studies of surrealist art the traditional emphasis on the surrealists' own manifestos and understanding of their movement has steadily been making way for more theoretical and text-based 830 Reviews criticism. In her impressively researched and analytically engaged study of surrealist theory and practice Malt offers a significant contribution to this welcome trend. Her basic starting point is the tension between surrealism's political pretensions as a revolutionary, collective movement and the highly subjective and erotic nature of much of its art. Malt, however, chooses to consider surrealist art...

Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War (review)

Reviewed by: Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War Joe Lunn Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War. By Allen J. Frantzen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. ISBN 0-226-26085-2. Photographs. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xv, 335. $35.00. In his ambitious and far-ranging study, Bloody Good, Alan Frantzen seeks to explore the "enduring power of chivalry to symbolize both prowess and principle in warfare" by examining the links between its origins in the Middle Ages and its continued expressions during the First World War. This book is organized into two major sections. The first focuses on Britain and France and explores the origins of chivalry during the Crusades and the Hundred Years' War. It assesses the tensions between early Christian doctrines of sacrifice and martyrdom (derived from the Passion of Christ) and their transfiguration into a militant warrior code based on concepts of heroic masculinity and antisacrificial/sacrificial theories embodied in the theology of chivalry, which sanctified killing in the name of Christianity. By the thirteenth century, manuals of chivalry—stressing the heroic chevalier's ability to overcome fear of death and thereby to willingly undergo suffering—chronicled idealized knightly behavior. In the second part of his book, Frantzen examines the many ways in which these older medieval ideas and images manifested themselves during the Great War. In so doing, the author elaborates on many themes first raised by other scholars, notably the intellectual and cultural historian George L. Mosse and the literary critic Paul Fussell. This analysis is pursued in a variety of now familiar contexts—the chivalric iconography produced during the war in propaganda posters and postcards, as well as in the ways the dead are commemorated in war memorials and military cemeteries. The plates and figures included in this volume to illustrate these themes are copious and often of the highest quality. Frantzen concludes that the myth of self-sacrifice was expropriated to serve the interests of the state to be sure, but that chivalric behavior—based on Christian concepts of love and self-sacrifice for others—also constituted an essential aspect of the mentality of most combatants. [End Page 977] Because of its breadth of scope, a series of methodological concerns arise which are never specifically addressed by Franzen. The focus of this study is often inconsistent. British and French medieval chivalry is assessed, German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, as well as British and French war posters are examined, and German and British war memorials and cemeteries are compared—all through the prism of their allegedly shared chivalric heritage. Assessment of the First World War artifacts is also restricted to contextual analysis. Indeed, despite the availability of extensive archives housing, for instance, the records of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, with only one exception—Sir Reginald Bloomfield, designer of "The Cross of Sacrifice" for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission—do we ever learn first-hand about the symbolic intent of those crafting the art objects being examined. Finally, Frantzen, whose specialty is literary criticism, is often on more solid ground assessing the iconography of the war than grounding it in its historic context (e.g., Plate 7 shows an Italian, not a British standard, breaking against the Austro-Hungarian knight's shield). Nevertheless, this study is unique in its scope and offers many valuable insights. As such, it makes an important contribution to our understanding of the enduring myths and symbols of Western Culture and how they are reified and continually resurrected to fit new contexts. In this regard, Bloody Good represents a significant achievement. Joe Lunn University of Michigan–Dearborn Dearborn, Michigan Copyright © 2004 Society for Military History