Multiagent Systems and the Dynamics of a Settlement System

In order to simulate the evolution of a system of settlements with a dynamic model, many processes must be integrated: the spatial aggregation of population, the complexification of urban activities, and the increasing hierarchical differentiation of settlements. The model must also simulate the progressive structuration of the settlement system through a growing variety and enlarged range of interactions between its elements. “Multiagent systems” provides a flexible modeling method for dealing with the multiple spatial interactions of cooperation and competition and relations that generate and regulate the evolution of a settlement system. Its principles are described and applied to building an evolutionary model, including a simulation tool. The model combines economic and spatial rules to produce birth, growth, decline, and functional diversification of the towns. The “urban transition” from an agrarian settlement system toward a hierarchical system of trade- and manufacturing-oriented towns and cities can be simulated.     

Communities in Catchments: Implications for Natural Resource Management

Economic and social considerations in natural resource management include the need for community participation and a greater appreciation of social and economic processes in understanding environmental problems. It is anticipated that new frameworks will guide these inclusions and redirect planning and management activities to achieve environmental sustainability. This paper examines issues of participation and the nature of ‘community’ through an analysis of relevant natural resource management policy documents and a case study of a public drinking water supply catchment in Western Australia. The findings indicate that if NRM strategies are to be successful, then a much wider and more inclusive view of community is needed, one that fully captures the different stakeholder groups beyond farmers, such as town residents, indigenous people, and those involved in other land uses. We need strategies that can accommodate differences within and between communities.     

The Use of Information Theory in the Modeling of Natural Systems

Systems investigated by geographers include components of inert nature, living organisms and social phenomena. The use of information theory makes it possible to overcome some of the problems involved in the modeling of systems consisting of such a diversity of elements, particularly the problem of a single system of units. The building of inductive models of natural systems is designed to identify the programs of behavior of natural complexes, which in the original systems are merged with structure. An example of such an inductive model is the model of the structure of a southern tayga landscape system. It was built by identifying information relationships between 160 elements on the basis of the equation: J_AB = H_A+H_B—H_AB, where J_AB is the amount of transmitted information, and H_A, H_B, H_AB are the entropies of the receiver, of the transmitter and their joint entropy. The model interrelated a number of properties of soils, unconsolidated sediment, groundwater, relief, plant cover and microclimate. An analysis of the model yielded the hierarchical structure of the system, the main information flows, and the location of the nodes that generate and accumulate information. An attempt was made to calculate the information content of particular elements from the point of view of the system as a whole and the mean rates of information transmission between elements.     

Urban Settlement Systems and Rural Sustaining Communities: An Example from Chan Chan's Hinterland

Abstract

The study of prehistoric cities has often been marked by research strategies that focus completely on urban centers and thus preclude the delineation of entire settlement systems by ignoring the interrelationships between cities and their rural sustaining communities. A major focus of recent research in the Moche Valley on the Peruvian North Coast has been on elucidating the nature of urbanrural relations between the prehistoric Chimú city of Chan Chan and contemporaneous sites located in its hinterland. Excavation at the village of Cerro la Virgen together with additional evidence obtained from other sites in Chan Chan's rural sustaining area has provided insights into Chimú lifeways in nonmetropolitan areas, as well as evidence suggesting a multifaceted plan for organizing lands outside the civic center of Chan Chan. The archaeological data indicate that an important aspect of the organization of rural argicultural zones was the restriction of settlement to villages circumscribed by the Chimú state.     

Network Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance: A Case Study of Swiss Landscape Management

Structural characteristics of social networks have been recognized as important factors of effective natural resource governance. However, network analyses of natural resource governance most often remain static, even though governance is an inherently dynamic process. In this article, we investigate the evolution of a social network of organizational actors involved in the governance of natural resources in a regional nature park project in Switzerland. We ask how the maturation of a governance network affects bonding social capital and centralization in the network. Applying separable temporal exponential random graph modeling (STERGM), we test two hypotheses based on the risk hypothesis by Berardo and Scholz (2010) in a longitudinal setting. Results show that network dynamics clearly follow the expected trend toward generating bonding social capital but do not imply a shift toward less hierarchical and more decentralized structures over time. We investigate how these structural processes may contribute to network effectiveness over time.     

National Systems of Innovations and Natural Resources Clusters: Evidence from Copper Mining Industry Patents

While natural resource-based industries are very efficient exploiting the natural endowments in developing countries and having an important participation in world markets (e.g. copper in Chile), most of them have not generated economic development based in knowledge-based resources in their societies. While this article reviews the national system of innovations in which the mining industry in Chile is based, we cannot neglect the importance of an international dimension in terms of its spatial dimension of the system of innovations [Fromhold-Eisebith, M. (2007) Bridging scales in innovation policies: How to link regional, national and international innovation systems, European Planning Studies, 15, pp. 217–233.] given the globalized characteristics of the mining industry. We found that Chile contributes 36% of the total copper production in the world but the investments in research and development are very low compared with the revenues of the industry and there are almost no patents originated in Chile registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) data base, the most important market for knowledge-based innovations. We can conclude that Chile is still depending on comparative advantages rather than constructed advantages [Cooke, P. (2007) To construct regional advantage from innovation systems first build policy platforms, European Planning Studies, 15, pp. 179–194.].     

Nunneries,Communities and the Revaluation of Domesticity

This is a review of three books: a collection of essays edited by Diane Watt on medieval women in their communities, and two monographs, by Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Marilyn Oliva, on nunneries in late medieval Germany and England. All three suggest in different ways that women's activities are regularly undervalued by the assumption that women try to do the same things as men, and fail. Hamburger argues that the artistic production of late fifteenth‐century nuns has been dismissed because it does not satisfy the criteria of (male) ‘high’ art. He shows that ‘nuns' work’ is in fact the product of a complex symbolic visual and textual culture. Oliva argues that the study of nunneries has been neglected because it is assumed that, since they were not rich and powerful like the monasteries, there is no evidence about them. She shows that it is possible to undertake a detailed prosopographical study of a group of nunneries from a single diocese. I argue that when in this context we talk about ‘women’, we are often in fact talking about the domestic sphere, with which women were so strongly associated. A revaluation of women's activities entails a revaluation of domesticity and the home.     

Study of the Shape of Rural Communities

Recent research on the configuration of populated communities is found to suffer from the fact that it seeks to isolate shape from size and orientation. The authors dispute the view, underlying central-place theory, that minimum-distance or minimum-energy concepts are fundamental to spatial relations. An equally basic tendency in geographic phenomena, it is suggested, is a disregard for efficiency criteria at various stages of development. Shape, size, and spatial orientation are viewed as representing a unity that reflects the interaction of these two opposed tendencies. Accordingly a technique is proposed for the analysis of community shapes, seeking to establish the magnitude of deviation from an equal-area circle. The method is applied to 203 communities in Ukrainian and Siberian areas, representing different physical and economic conditions. In both situations a predominant tendency toward southward expansion of communities is observed, and configurational deviations from the equal-area circle are found to increase in middle and upper size classes. (The senior author, A. M. Smirnov, died in July, 1969.)     

Alternative Population Dynamics in Selected HIV/AIDS Modeling Systems: Some Cross-National Comparisons

This paper examines how demographic representations for the different risk populations influence the epidemic outputs of a simple process-based HIV/AIDS model. Alternative demographic specifications are presented in conjunction with transmission rules for both community and regional settings. Then, the existence, or nonexistence, of equilibrium solutions to these various models is determined to evaluate whether the forecast AIDS series will persist indefinitely or eventually terminate. Last, simulations for countries with distinctive birth and death rates are used to summarize the effect of this variation on the timing and size of the epidemic. All the results assume an epidemic that is unaffected by the practice of safer sex.     

美国华人新移民与华人社会

华人移居美国始于19世纪30年代,初期移居美国的华人主要来自中国的广东。1965年美国修改移民法后,移居美国的华人数量迅速增加。新移民的到来改变了美国华人社会以粤侨为主的状况,并导致了传统华人社会的变迁。     

旅游社区研究的若干基本问题

旅游社区问题近年来逐渐成为研究的热点,但是一些基本概念,如"旅游社区"、"社区旅游"等概念还没有明确的界定.此外,社区参与旅游发展方面也出现了令人困惑的现象,即作为"主人"的社区却往往是"弱势群体".本文就这些问题作初步研究.     

论城区志街道社区的记述

城区志是传统方志中的一个新志种,街道社区的记述是一个重要内容。城区志中街道篇目可设置一级篇目,社区一般不宜设置一级篇目;篇目序次,街道与社区不宜并列,以街道居前、社区居后为好。对街道和社区的记述,街道要重自然属性内容的记载,即重点记清街道基本情况;社区要重社会属性内容的记载,即重点记清社区建设情况。街道宜设置专篇专章,主要街道可逐一列名列目详记,详记街道区域范围、历史源流、现状。社区宜作为一个类型或一个整体研究、记述,记其共性内容、基本特点,切忌逐个社区列名列目详记;对于每一社区自然属性的内容,如地域范围、历史源流、现状可省略不记。     

试论人类学在归国华侨群体研究中的运用

论文从人类学的田野调查实践观、文化整体观、跨文化比较法等三个维度对归国华侨群体进行研究。认为田野调查实践是归国华侨群体研究的基础;文化整体是归国华侨群体研究的内容;跨文化比较是归国华侨群体研究的动力。人类学和归国华侨群体研究相交融,不仅认识"大传统"中的华侨华人,而且也关注"小传统"下的归国华侨群体,这就形成"和而不同、多元共存"的华侨华人研究局面,拓展了华侨华人研究的学术空间。归国华侨群体研究的人类学转向,必将带来多方面的实践和理论意义。     

Concealed Communities: The People at the Margins

The “concealed communities” of our title are the people archaeologists have often labeled as “marginal.” Archaeologists writing about both prehistoric and historic periods have commonly made a range of assumptions about margins and marginality, and their discussions have often categorized marginality as ecological, economic, or socio-political. Whilst it has been common to privilege one or other of these categories in order to explain how societies worked, they are rarely mutually exclusive. In addition, since marginality is relative, virtually any group might be made marginal depending on people’s perspectives in the past or present. Sometimes marginality can be imposed (economically or politically), and sometimes even actively chosen. Defining the “margin” is a complex business, and the term needs sensitive, context-orientated use to make it useful for archaeologists.