Building Localized Interactions Between Universities and Cities Through University Spatial Development

Universities are important players in the global development of knowledge economy, alongside being significant contributors to the economic development of their host cities. They are both significant knowledge enterprises and the suppliers of the human and intellectual capital on which the knowledge-based economy depends. What seems under-explored is how deliberative partnerships between universities and city authorities can develop around projects of mutual benefit, especially based on campus development. In this paper, with the help of five case studies (QUT, MIT, Harvard, Twente and Newcastle universities), we investigate how the spatial development of universities can be one of the main meeting points between the city and university and how it can be used for stimulating economic development and managing growth. These cases show that university—city collaborative initiatives focused on the university properties represent a desire to produce creative and competitive new urban spaces, which reinforce the position of the university and the city in global economy. They also show that these developments need to be jointly managed to avoid undesirable impacts on either side.     

Measuring the Creativity of a City: A Proposal and an Application

Cities are considered to be the major drivers of the global economy for many reasons, including their creative and innovative potential in generating sustainable economic growth. Istanbul is one of the global cities searching for a long-term growth strategy. This paper starts with a modest effort of composing an index to be used in the evaluation of the creative potential of cities. Our proposed index, “global creative index”, consists of five main criteria: (1) creativeness, (2) innovativeness, (3) intellectual development, (4) global network connectivity and (5) world cityness emphasizing multinational corporate economy, international division of labour and high intensity of producer and financial services. The use of the index is illustrated through the comparison of nine cities: Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, New York, Shanghai, Singapore and Toronto. The analysis of these nine cities shows that Istanbul is building an innovation environment, but it still lacks research and development infrastructure, technical support and investment in higher education. This comparison offers guidelines for policy-makers to sketch the growth of Istanbul along the lines of creativity and innovativeness.     

Investigations of Byzantine glass bracelets from Nufăru,Romania using external PIXE–PIGE methods

The chemical composition of twenty glass bracelet fragments found in Nuf?ru, a Byzantine site from 10th–13th centuries A.D., nowadays located on Romania's territory, has been determined using Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) and Particle Induced Gamma-ray Emission (PIGE) in external beam mode. Most of the Byzantine bracelet fragments were identified as “mixed natron-plant ash” soda-lime-silica glasses. The obtained chemical compositions indicated that the manufacturing of these finery items was performed using similar raw materials and techniques, in most of the cases involving colored glass recycling. PIXE–PIGE results highlighted the glass chromophores (cobalt, manganese, copper and iron ions) and provided hints about the mineral pigments used to paint the external surface of some bracelets.