CENTER POINTS, EQUILIBRIUM POSITIONS, AND THE OBNOXIOUS LOCATION PROBLEM

ABSTRACT. Real variable analysis has een used to great benefit in a variety of classical problems in location theory. In this paper we explore basic complex variable techniques in one formulation of the obnoxious location problem. A general definition of center points is first given and used to formulate several alternate versions of the obnoxious location problem. A logarithmic transformation is then used to demonstrate some equivalences between these families of distinct location problems (defined via center points). A prototype logarithmic potential function which results from this formulation is then investigated, and it is demonstrated that the extremal solutions with this objective reside on the boundary of its domain of definition. An application using zero- and one-dimensional centers is discussed, and a generalization to the spatial obnoxious problem is also briefly examined. We define a zero-dimensional center as a critical point of the logarithmic potential function, and it is shown that these centers are equivalent to the solutions of the Complex Moment Problem.     

The Respectable Politics of Climate Change: The Epistemic Communities and NGOs

Climate change is unusual compared with most environmental issues in the extent to which it has become accepted among orthodox policy institutions and public-and private-sector organizations. The authors explore the conditions that have led to the establishment of an epistemic community that brings together a broad array of actors, including the various NGOs, and the operational dimensions that define the participation of NGOs within the community. An epistemic community does not imply conformity of opinion or approach but allows for differentiation in terms of how its members construct the problem, and their objectives, core beliefs and favoured responses to climate change. Three broad styles of engagement through which NGOs contribute to this debate are identified: developing creative policy solutions, knowledge construction, and lobbying or campaigning. It should be noted that the authors refer primarily to development or environmental NGOs (ENGOs), though they do discuss business NGOs at a few points.     

走近“文化遗产学”:问题与对策——贺云翱教授专访

近年来文化遗产学的学科建设颇为学术界关注。南京大学贺云翱教授认为:虽然文化遗产事业因为兴起时间及学科建设时间短暂、实践积累不足、原有学科存在一定的阻碍作用等原因,学术界不可避免地会对学科建设产生一些疑虑,但文化遗产学具有强烈的现代性、社会性、跨学科等特点,与考古学、文物学及博物馆学等相近学科有明显的差异,其学科建设具备符合国家现代化建设和中国国情发展需求的优势以及应对全球化的对策优势,教育主管部门、国家有关部委和高校应紧密结合,高校、科研机构与博物馆等应通力合作,充分借鉴先进国家特别是日韩等邻国的经验并勇于建设和创新,学术刊物积极发挥引领与平台作用,共同推进文化遗产学学科建设;并且,随着文化遗产学进入教育部学科名录,成熟的文化遗产学的大学科体系的建设将会得到有效推动。     

Critical and scarce: the remarkable career of limestone 1850–1914

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, the notion of ‘critical raw materials’ has appeared as a political concept. The reliance on these raw materials is characterized by the ambivalence of enabling future development and indicating vulnerability posed by the risks of potential scarcity. In this paper, Haumann argues that the concept of ‘criticality’ can be extended to historical research on resource scarcity. It highlights the importance of the construction of value added chains, analysed as dynamic technological systems, as a background for the social reflection on scarcity. As an example, the paper analyses how the use of limestone became ‘critical’ when it was adopted as flux in iron- and steel-making during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, enabling unprecedented economic growth. It stresses the interrelation of the reflection on vulnerability and scarcity on the one hand and the dynamic (re-)construction of the technological system attuned to this material on the other.     

基于信息权力论的智慧城市建设刍议

基于信息权力论视角,智慧城市的建设可以理解为面向信息权力争夺的城市竞争力提升战略。本文将信息权力分解为信息生产、信息获取和信息控制三个权力维度,并对其测算方法进行了讨论和定义;在此基础上,对我国现有23个"智慧城市"的信息权力进行了测度,并将之与城市竞争力评价结果进行了比较。分析结论显示,我国城市信息权力个体差异明显,尤其表现在信息生产和信息控制方面;城市信息权力和城市竞争力之间的多种组合类型,亦可为进一步的智慧城市建设因地制宜提供借鉴。根据分析结论,特别强调对于信息权力培育的重视,以及信息生产、信息获取和信息控制能力三者的协调发展。     

User-controlled Housing: Desirability and Feasibility

User-controlled housing is defined as a process in which the residents—not only professionals and developers—make significant decisions regarding the design and the construction or renovation of their homes. This paper argues that it is relevant to and should be commonly used in formal systems of housing in the developed countries. It draws support for its arguments from empirical evidence, primarily from Israel and the Netherlands. Much of the evidence is related to housing upgrading by moderate-income and middle-income households, which was found to be highly desirable from individual and public points of view. The paper recommends to decision-makers and planners to facilitate user-controlled housing and to make it an ordinary part of developing new neighbourhoods and renovating old ones.     

THE WEBER PROBLEM: FREQUENCY OF DIFFERENT SOLUTION TYPES AND EXTENSION TO REPULSIVE FORCES AND DYNAMIC PROCESSES*

ABSTRACT. The frequency of occurrence of the different types of solutions to the Weber problem is studied. These solutions are: a location at an attraction point due to a dominant force, to incompatible angles, or to concavity; a location at infinity; a location inside the polygon; and a location outside the polygon. Situations involving both attraction and repulsion points are examined in the triangle and in the more-than-three-sided polygon context, and methods for solving the corresponding problems are compared. A trigonometric solution is proposed for the triangle case involving one repulsion and two attraction points. The variation in the frequency of a location at an attraction point when the number of attraction points increases while the number of repulsion points remains the same is observed as well. Implications of the results are studied for the analysis of dynamic location processes.     

小森阳-关子《浮云》的新阐释

日本当代著名文学理论家、社会活动家小森阳一的文学理论、批评能融东西方文化精髓,紧密结合日本文学理论实际,锐意创新,不仅对日本近代文学,当代文学的研究具有开拓性,对我国文艺理论建设也极富借鉴意义。小森阳一对二叶亭四迷《浮云》的新阐释紧密结合文本,灵活运用所接受的批评方法,让人耳目一新。     

三江源生态移民生存发展问题研究

生存环境是一个民族赖以生存发展的基本条件。站在民族发展进步的视阈,青海三江源生态保护和建设工程无疑是生活在这一区域的各民族,特别是藏民族发展进程中的重大事项,它对千百年沿袭下来的生产和生活方式的改变将产生十分重大的影响。工程实施以来,各级政府按照“实现保护和恢复生态功能、促进人与自然和谐和可持续发展、农牧民达到小康生活”三大目标的要求积极开展工作,取得了阶段性成果。同时,面临的困难也相当大。本文根据笔者的调研,就三江源生态移民生存发展面临的困难和问题及其解决的思路提出粗浅的看法。     

关于当代大学生诚信缺失问题的思考与对策

诚信是公民道德基本要求,也是中华民族的优良传统,然而,诚信缺失的现象在当前大学生当中还是比较多。本文分析了当前大学生诚信缺失的现状,指出了诚信缺失的原因,并有针对性的提出了解决当前大学生诚信缺失原因的一些策略。     

我国中西部地区乡村城市化问题与对策探讨——以中西部地区第一个乡村城市化试点县市巩义为例

文章以我国中西部地区第一个国家级乡村城市化试点县市巩义为例,剖析了中西部地区乡村城市化的理论背景、制约因素以及面临的主要问题,并提出了促进乡村城市化的若干对策。     

Notes on Contributors

The purpose of this paper is twofold. It aims first to provide a critical overview of the literature on the history of technology as it relates to colonialism, decolonization and development in the extra‐European world during the 20th century. Second, it seeks to identify changing perspectives and emerging research issues in the history of technology in the European colonies and ex‐colonies of Asia and Africa, and thus to trace a move away from earlier ‘diffusionist’ arguments and discussion of polarization and conflict between ‘Western’ and ‘indigenous’ technologies, toward a more interactive, culturally‐nuanced, multi‐sited debate about how technology functions within specific parameters of time, place and culture. Body, land and state are identified as major ‘triangulation’ points for the critical investigation and contextualization of these issues.     

National identity and the limits of constructivism in international relations theory: a case study of the Suez Canal

Constructivism in most of its variants emphasises the creation of circumstances and the social construction of reality. In international relations theory (IR), it also emphasises the establishment of international regimes. The Suez Canal and its governing regime, established at a high point of European nationalism and imperialism in the nineteenth century, are explored as a test case. I argue that, while the early history of the Canal is illuminated by a constructivist approach, maintenance of the regime to govern it involved military intervention and debt restructuring. Military force, balance of power considerations and economic interests all have to be invoked to explain the later history of the Canal, that is, factors usually stressed by the realist school. A combination of realist and constructivist approaches is recommended. The paper is also critical of certain constructivist concepts of national identity.     

宁夏南部回族社区人地关系及可持续发展研究

本文运用区域可持续发展基本理论,全面分析了宁夏南部回族社区人地关系由掠夺式向互为报复式演进的过程、原由及危害,剖析了回族社区可持续发展的四大制约因子,即:生活贫困及生产方式的落后性,人类自身生产及人口素质的低层次性,区域文化的封闭性,生态环境的逆展性。并针对上述因子,提出了改善人地关系,实现可持续发展的举措是:加快区域经济建设,深化生态环境建设,加强地域文化建设,积极进行社区建设。     

Cutting Power Lines within the Palace? Countering Paternity and Eurocentrism in the 'Geographical Tradition'

This paper attempts to combine critical feminist and post-colonial approaches to suggest how more inclusive histories of geography may be written. Drawing on the specific example of women travellers in West Africa during the late nineteenth century, the paper proposes strategies to disrupt the masculinist and eurocentric construction of 'the geographical tradition'. These strategies include moving beyond a disciplinary focus, disrupting essentialisms, interrogating whiteness and authority, and attempting to reveal the historical agency and resistance of colonized others. The problematic and antagonist relationship between the recovery of the agency of white women and the recovery of non-Western agency and resistance is recognized, and it is suggested that countering eurocentrism requires a rethinking of current forms of countering paternity.     

Better a Warm Hug than a Cold Bath: Nationalist Memory and the Failures of Iranian Historiography

This paper assesses the extent to which the modern historiography of Iran is indebted to a nationalist construction of Iran’s past, rather than proceeding from impartial and critical historical research. The paper pursues this aim by applying the distinction between history (as a scholarly discipline) and memory (as a nationalist construct) to one of the central tropes of the country’s historiography. According to that trope, Iranian history can be summarized as a succession of violent invasions by foreign “races,” which never stamped out Iran’s separate ethnic identity. This resilience is attributed to Iranian civilization’s inherent superiority, which Iranianized the invaders and thus ensured Iran’s survival as a primordial nation. The analysis shows that—counter-intuitively—twentieth-century Iranian historians, instead of subjecting this narrative to critical assessment, have in fact played a central role in developing it into a self-serving historiography. Special attention is given to Zarrinkub’s seminal Two Centuries of Silence.     

Variable Resolution Spatial Interpolation Using the Simple Recursive Point Voronoi Diagram

This article introduces a procedure for progressively increasing the density of an initial point set that can be used as a basis for interpolating surfaces of variable resolution from sparse samples of data sites. The procedure uses the Simple Recursive Point Voronoi Diagram in which Voronoi concepts are used to tessellate space with respect to a given set of generator points. The construction is repeated every time with a new generator set, which comprises members selected from the previous generator set plus features of the current tessellation. We show how this procedure can be implemented in Arc/Info and present an illustration of its application using three known surfaces and alternative generator point configurations. Initial results suggest that the procedure has considerable potential and we discuss further methods for evaluating and extending it.     

Seismic History of the Church of San Pietro Di Coppito in L’Aquila

After the terrible 18th-century earthquakes—in L’Aquila in 1703, Lisbon in 1755, and Reggio Calabria in 1783—specific anti-seismic precepts were introduced in the rules of the art of masonry construction. Scrupulously adhered to in the first years after the earthquake, those precepts gradually ceased to be used until they were almost completely forgotten, centuries later, by which time the earthquake had become a distant memory. The church of San Pietro di Coppito, one of the most important churches of L’Aquila, is emblematic of this singular process. Deeply transformed in accordance with new anti-seismic construction techniques after it was particularly badly damaged in the terrible 1703 earthquake, the church was subjected, in the 1970s, to drastic alterations by the Commissioner Mario Moretti, who demolished all the baroque additions and redesigned it in the “medieval Abruzzo” style, eliminating in the process the intelligent anti-seismic provisions introduced in the 18th century. In addition to documentary purposes, this work aims to underline the effectiveness of this early 18th-century example of anti-seismic engineering in the belief that the constructive solutions it employed could still form a valid architectural and structural model in view of the massive restoration task for which, unfortunately, L’Aquila is still waiting today.     

Solutions and frictions in civic hacking: collaboratively designing and building wait time predictions for an immigration office

Smart and data-driven technologies seek to create urban environments and systems that can operate efficiently and effortlessly. Yet, the design and implementation of such technical solutions are full of frictions, producing unanticipated consequences and generating turbulence that foreclose the creation of friction-free city solutions. In this paper, we examine the development of solutions for wait time predictions in the context of civic hacking to argue that a focus on frictions is important for establishing a critical understanding of innovation for urban everyday life. The empirical study adopted an ethnographically informed mobile methods approach to follow how frictions emerge and linger in the design and production of queue predictions developed through the civic hacking initiative, Code for Ireland. In so doing, the paper charts how solutions have to be worked up and strategies re-negotiated when a shared motivation meets different data sources, technical expertise, frames of understanding, urban imaginaries and organisational practices; and how solutions are contingently stabilised in technological, motivational, spatiotemporal and organisational specificities rather than unfolding in a smooth, linear, progressive trajectory.     

对格尔木市城乡经济社会一体化建设的思考

本文结合格尔木市城乡一体化过程中的实践与探索,就格尔木市城乡经济一体化建设中存在的差距、格尔木城乡一体化建设的侧重点以及存在的主要问题进行了深入的分析,并对格尔木市城乡经济社会一体化建设提出了原则性的建议。