Weiterbildungsbeteiligung 2010

Aus- und Weiterbildung

Weiterbildungsbeteiligung 2010     

INDEX 2010

SPECIAL COLUMN
The Dalai Lama Should Change His Tune Again and Alter His Path- An Interview with Mr. Zhu Weiqun by Focus Magazine of Germany 1：04
The Dalai Lama Should Change His Tune Again and Alter His Path- An Interview with Mr. Zhu Weiqun by Focus Magazine of Germany 2：04     

The p‐Compact‐regions Problem

The p‐compact‐regions problem involves the search for an aggregation of n atomic spatial units into p‐compact, contiguous regions. This article reports our efforts in designing a heuristic framework—MERGE (memory‐based randomized greedy and edge reassignment)—to solve this problem through phases of dealing, randomized greedy, and edge reassignment. This MERGE heuristic is able to memorize (ME of MERGE) the potential best moves toward an optimal solution at each phase of the procedure such that the search efficiency can be greatly improved. A dealing phase grows seeded regions into a viable size. A randomized greedy (RG of MERGE) approach completes the regions' growth and generates a feasible set of p‐regions. The edge‐reassigning local search (E of MERGE) fine‐tunes the results toward better objectives. In addition, a normalized moment of inertia (NMI) is introduced as the method of choice in computing the compactness of each region. We discuss in detail how MERGE works and how this new compactness measure can be seamlessly integrated into different phases of the proposed regionalization procedure. The performance of MERGE is evaluated through the use of both a small and a large p‐compact‐regions problem motivated by modeling the regional economy of Southern California. We expect this work to contribute to the regionalization theory and practice literature. Theoretically, we formulate a new model for the family of p‐compact‐regions problems. The novel NMI introduced in the model provides an accurate, robust, and efficient measure of compactness, which is a key objective for p‐compact‐regions problems. Practically, we developed the MERGE heuristic, proven to be effective and efficient in solving this nonlinear optimization problem to near optimality. El problema de regiones compactas tipo p (p‐compact regions) consiste en la búsqueda de la agregación de n unidades espaciales atómicas que produzca regiones contiguas de tipo p‐compacto. Este artículo reporta los esfuerzos de los autores en el diseño de un marco heurístico MERGE (memory‐based randomized greedy and edge‐reassignment) el cual resuelve este problema a través de las fases de la negociación (dealing), codicia aleatorizada (randomized greedy), y la reasignación de bordes (edge reassignment). El heurístico MERGE es capaz de memorizar ( ME de MERGE) los mejo)res desplazamientos posibles hacia una solución óptima en cada fase del procedimiento de tal manera que la eficiencia de la búsqueda puede ser mejorada en gran medida. La fase de negociación crea regiones “sembradas” aleatoriamente y las hace crecer en diferentes tamaños . El componente de codicia aleatorio (RG de MERGE) completa la fase de crecimiento de las regiones y genera un conjunto factible de regiones tipo p. La reasignación de bordes se realiza vía una búsqueda local (E de MERGE) que afina los resultados con el fin the alcanzar los objetivos. Además, el enfoque propuesto aquí utiliza el momento de inercia normalizado (normalized momento of inertia‐NMI) como método para el cálculo de la compacidad de cada región. El artículo discute en detalle el funcionamiento de MERGE y cómo esta nueva medida compacidad puede integrarse perfectamente en las diferentes fases del procedimiento de regionalización propuesto. Para ilustrar y evaluar el desempeño de MERGE, el metodo es aplicado a dos problemas de p‐compact regions, uno grande y uno pequeño, basados en el modelado de la economía regional del sur de California. Los autores esperan que este trabajo contribuya a la literatura teórica y práctica de la regionalización. En términos teóricos, se formula un nuevo modelo de la familia de problemas de p‐compact regions. El NMI equipa al modelo con una novedosa forma de obtener una medida exacta, robusta y eficiente de compacidad, que es un objetivo clave para los problemas región compacta tipo p. En términos prácticos, se desarrolla MERGE, un procedimiento heurístico que ha demostrado ser eficaz y eficiente en la solución de este problema de optimización no lineal de manera casi óptima. p紧凑区域问题包含寻找一种聚集方法,将n个不可分割的空间单元集合成p紧凑的邻近区域。本文阐述了一种启发式架构MERGE(基于记忆的随机贪婪和边界再赋值算法),通过处理、随机贪婪和边界再分配这几个阶段解决p紧凑问题。MERGE启发式框架能存储 处理过程每个阶段中,向一个最优解的潜在最佳移动方式,从而可极大地提升搜索效率。一个处理阶段可将种子区域生长到可行大小。而一个随机贪婪阶段能完成区域增长并生成p区域的可行集。在边界再分配的局部搜索阶段对结果进行微调以达到更好的目标。此外,引入标准化的惯性矩作为每个区域紧凑度计算的选择方法。本文详细讨论了MERGE的工作原理,以及这种新的紧凑度测算方法如何能无缝地整合到所提出的区域化流程的不同阶段。通过在南部加州区域经济建模中一小一大两个p紧凑区域问题的应用,对MERGE的性能进行评估,期望该工作能够对区域化理论和实践作出贡献。理论上,提出了可解决p紧凑区域这类问题的新模型。在模型中引入新颖的标准化惯性矩这一精确的、鲁棒的和有效的紧凑度度量方法,是解决p紧凑区域问题的关键目标;实践上,本文发展了MERGE启发式框架,并证明了它在解决这种非线性优化问题近优性的有效性和高效性。     

Equality‐led Development and the Demand‐ and Supply‐side Effects

This contribution to the Forum Debate on global development focuses on the dimension of functional income distribution between labour and capital and its demand‐side and supply‐side effects. The article summarizes recent literature that has sought to explain the reasons behind the global fall in the labour share. It then discusses the demand‐side effects of the declining wage share on growth, based on the post‐Keynesian/post‐Kaleckian literature. The author presents an alternative policy scenario for the G20 based on a mix of increasing wage share and public investment, before discussing the supply‐side effects of rising inequality. The article concludes with some policy implications for equality‐led development.     

Urban commons are more‐than‐property

Urban commons are characterised in the literature as collectively shared property in the city shaped by a context of scarce resources, population density, and the interaction of strangers. In the broader commons literature, commons appears as a verb, a noun, and a process made by practices of commoning—albeit still with a focus on property. In this paper, I argue that an understanding of urban commons as more‐than‐property is needed to recognise how present but elusive urban commons are. I use examples from interviews and observations conducted at a Women's Library to discuss how the access, use, benefit, care, responsibility, and ownership of this urban commons bring it into being through particular practices of commoning. By questioning current ways of defining urban commons, urban scholars gain a grounded understanding of the role of property, and other practices, in maintaining an urban commons over time.     

THE MAX‐P‐REGIONS PROBLEM*

ABSTRACT In this paper, we introduce a new spatially constrained clustering problem called the max‐p ‐regions problem. It involves the clustering of a set of geographic areas into the maximum number of homogeneous regions such that the value of a spatially extensive regional attribute is above a predefined threshold value. We formulate the max‐p ‐regions problem as a mixed integer programming (MIP) problem, and propose a heuristic solution.     

Sulfosalt melts and heavy metal (As‐Sb‐Bi‐Sn‐Pb‐Tl) fractionation during volcanic gas expansion: the El Indio (Chile) paleo‐fumarole

High‐sulfidation vein gold deposits such as El Indio, Chile, formed in fracture arrays <1000 m beneath paleo‐solfatara in volcanic terranes. Stable isotope data have confirmed a predominance of magmatic vapor during the deposition of arsenic‐rich sulfide–sulfosalt assemblages in this deposit. These provide a unique opportunity to analyze the processes and products of high‐temperature volcanic gas expansion in fractures that form the otherwise inaccessible infrastructure deep inside equivalent present‐day fumaroles. We provide field emission scanning electron microscope and LA‐ICP‐MS micro‐analytical data for the wide range of heavy, semi‐metals and metalloids (arsenic, antimony, bismuth, tin, silver, gold, tellurium and selenium) in the complex pyrite‐enargite‐Fe‐tennantite assemblages from Copper Stage mineralization in the El Indio deposit. These data document the progressive fractionation of antimony and other heavy metals, such as bismuth, during crystallization from a sulfosalt melt that condensed from expanding vapor at about 15 MPa (150 bars) and >650°C following higher temperature vapor deposition of crystalline pyrite and enargite. The sulfosalt melt aggressively corroded the earlier enargite and pyrite and hosts clusters of distinctive euhedral quartz crystals. The crystallizing sulfosalt melt also trapped an abundance of vugs within which heavy metal sulfide and sulfosalt crystals grew together with K‐Al silicates and fluorapatite. These data and their geologic context suggest that, in high‐temperature fumaroles on modern active volcanoes, over 90% of the arsenic content of the primary magmatic vapor (perhaps 2000 mg kg^?1) was precipitated subsurface as sulfosalt. Subsurface fractionation may also account for the range of exotic Pb‐Sn‐Bi‐Se sulfosalts observed in fumarole sublimates on active volcanoes such as Vulcano, Italy, as well as on extra‐terrestrial volcanoes such as Maxwell Montes, Venus.     

THE 2010 ANTIPODE RGS‐IBG LECTURE Wars of Interpretations

Abstract: Since 2006, when Mexico's President declared war against the drug trade, the people of the northern Mexican border city, Ciudad Juárez, have been living through a record‐breaking escalation of violence, the occupation of their city by federal troops and police forces, unprecedented human and civil rights violations, and a pervasive experience of fear in public space. These events have occurred simultaneous to a devastating economic crisis. This paper asks the question, how can a feminist and Marxist geographer contribute to an analysis of what is happening in Ciudad Juárez? To address this question, I create a dialogue among activists in northern Mexico and post‐structuralist feminist and Marxist positions regarding the meaning of public fear in this city for the city's residents, for Mexico's democracy and for the making of public knowledge about the Mexico–US border.     

Multi‐Type,Multi‐Zone Facility Location

The placement of facilities according to spatial and/or geographic requirements is a popular problem within the domain of location science. Objectives that are typically considered in this class of problems include dispersion, median, center, and covering objectives—and are generally defined in terms of distance or service‐related criteria. With few exceptions, the existing models in the literature for these problems only accommodate one type of facility. Furthermore, the literature on these problems does not allow for the possibility of multiple placement zones within which facilities may be placed. Due to the unique placement requirements of different facility types—such as suitable terrain that may be considered for placement and specific placement objectives for each facility type—it is expected that different suitable placement zones for each facility type, or groups of facility types, may differ. In this article, we introduce a novel mathematical treatment for multi‐type, multi‐zone facility location problems. We derive multi‐type, multi‐zone extensions to the classical integer‐linear programming formulations involving dispersion, centering and maximal covering. The complexity of these formulations leads us to follow a heuristic solution approach, for which a novel multi‐type, multi‐zone variation of the non‐dominated sorting genetic algorithm‐II algorithm is proposed and employed to solve practical examples of multi‐type, multi‐zone facility location problems.     

Area‐to‐Point Prediction Under Boundary Conditions

This article proposes a geostatistical solution for area‐to‐point spatial prediction (downscaling) taking into account boundary effects. Such effects are often poorly considered in downscaling, even though they often have significant impact on the results. The geostatistical approach proposed in this article considers two types of boundary conditions (BC), that is, a Dirichlet‐type condition and a Neumann‐type condition, while satisfying several critical issues in downscaling: the coherence of predictions, the explicit consideration of support differences, and the assessment of uncertainty regarding the point predictions. An updating algorithm is used to reduce the computational cost of area‐to‐point prediction under a given BC. In a case study, area‐to‐point prediction under a Dirichlet‐type BC and a Neumann‐type BC is illustrated using simulated data, and the resulting predictions and error variances are compared with those obtained without considering such conditions.     

The Spatio‐Temporal Ritual Practice of the Fifty‐Two‐Year Calendar in Mesoamerica

Introducing a new theoretical category in religious studies, “ritual practice of time,” this essay constitutes an analysis about rituals of the structure of space and time of the Aztec fifty‐two‐year calendar in Mesoamerica. Time and space, completed and exhausted at the termination of the fifty‐two‐year cycle, had to be symbolically renewed and recreated in a fifty‐two‐year ritual. Challenging the view held by numerous Mesoamericanists, I demonstrate that the ritual practice of time of the related 365‐day calendar (“New Year ritual”) was not spatio‐temporal in a horizontal quadripartite manner. Given that only one world or cardinal direction of the world was ritually observed, a symbolic re‐enactment of the creation myth could not be executed since it would take four consecutive “New Year rituals” of four years to symbolically define the quadripartite earth. Conversely, the fifty‐two‐year ritual (and the 260‐day ritual) could, in principle, have this very significant meaning and function.     

A Behavioral Theory of Policy Feedback in Tobacco Control: Evidence From a Difference‐In‐Difference‐In‐Difference Study

Public policy scholars argue that in highly tangible policies, such as tobacco control, the public learns from the direct experience of the beneficial effects of the policy. Empirical evidence supports this argument, suggesting that in the United States the introduction of tobacco control measures makes people more inclined to further regulation. By relying on a set of cases which allows testing the effects of the introduction of tobacco control measures across European countries on a series of relevant variables, this study confirms that the introduction of tobacco control measures makes the public more inclined to further regulation. Yet, when the effects of these policies are disaggregated between smokers and nonsmokers, results show that these positive effects are driven by smokers. This puzzle suggests that different effects than mass attitudinal policy feedback effects, driven by learning from direct experience, might explain the positive reaction to tobacco control. This study puts forward a behavioral theory of policy feedback, which suggests that smokers react positively to the introduction of tobacco control measures because they see these measures as commitment devices, which can help them quit smoking. Evidence for this argument is found by demonstrating that the introduction of tobacco control measures increases smokers’ welfare.     

Assyrian Attitude Towards Captive Enemies: A 2700‐year‐old Paleo‐forensic Study

The Assyrians, who ruled at the height of their power between Egypt and the Persian Gulf (745–630 BC), are known from historical records to have been cruel and unrelenting towards their enemies. However, osteological evidence for this behavior is scarce. We herein present a case of an adult male skeleton, dated to the Iron Age IIB period (second half of the 8th century BC), who manifests traumatic injuries to the skull, left forearm, vertebrae, and ribs. Using modern forensic methods, the injuries were studied, and the consequences that led to these injuries reconstructed. Three possible scenarios are presented: (i) wounds inflicted during a chaotic battle; (ii) wounds caused by the chasing and capturing of a victim; and (iii) a commonly practiced violent attitude of Assyrian soldiers towards a captive combatant. Combining all the evidence at hand, the latter scenario appears more likely. This skeleton may therefore be one of the sole tangible physical evidence for the veracity of the Assyrians’ post‐battle behavior, as depicted in ancient texts and reliefs. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fracture spacing during hydro‐fracturing of cap‐rocks

Layered low permeability rock units, like shales, represent seals or ‘cap‐rocks’ in a variety of geological settings. A continuous increase in the fluid pressure gradients across a virtually impermeable rock layer will ultimately lead to hydro‐fracturing. Depending on the boundary conditions, such fracturing may lead to the formation of a set of sub‐parallel cracks oriented more or less perpendicular to the cap‐rock layer. In this article, we propose a new numerical model that describes interactions between multiple cross‐cutting fractures in an elastic low permeability rock layer. The width of each fracture and the spacing between them are modeled as a force balance between the fluid pressure and the elastic forces in the cap‐rock and between each fracture. The model indicates that the system of fractures evolves toward a spatially periodic steady‐state distribution with a fixed fracture spacing and aperture. The results are similar for incompressible and compressible fluids. The steady‐state conditions depend on only two dimensionless parameters, and the fracture spacing is only weakly dependent on the cap‐rock thickness. This is in contrast to fracturing produced by simple extension of an elastic rock layer beyond the fracture strength, in which case fracture spacing is proportional to layer thickness.