A Methodology for Neural Spatial Interaction Modeling

This paper attempts to develop a mathematically rigid and unified framework for neural spatial interaction modeling. Families of classical neural network models, but also less classical ones such as product unit neural network ones are considered for the cases of unconstrained and singly constrained spatial interaction flows. Current practice appears to suffer from least squares and normality assumptions that ignore the true integer nature of the flows and approximate a discrete‐valued process by an almost certainly misrepresentative continuous distribution. To overcome this deficiency we suggest a more suitable estimation approach, maximum likelihood estimation under more realistic distributional assumptions of Poisson processes, and utilize a global search procedure, called Alopex, to solve the maximum likelihood estimation problem. To identify the transition from underfitting to overfitting we split the data into training, internal validation, and test sets. The bootstrapping pairs approach with replacement is adopted to combine the purity of data splitting with the power of a resampling procedure to overcome the generally neglected issue of fixed data splitting and the problem of scarce data. In addition, the approach has power to provide a better statistical picture of the prediction variability. Finally, a benchmark comparison against the classical gravity models illustrates the superiority of both, the unconstrained and the origin constrained neural network model versions in terms of generalization performance measured by Kullback and Leibler's information criterion.     

Beyond the Genome: Genetically Modified Crops in Africa and the Implications for Genome Editing

Genome editing — a plant-breeding technology that facilitates the manipulation of genetic traits within living organisms — has captured the imagination of scholars and professionals working on agricultural development in Africa. Echoing the arrival of genetically modified (GM) crops decades ago, genome editing is being heralded as a technology with the potential to revolutionize breeding based on enhanced precision, reduced cost and increased speed. This article makes two interventions. First, it identifies the discursive continuity linking genome editing and the earlier technology of genetic modification. Second, it offers a suite of recommendations regarding how lessons learned from GM crops might be integrated into future breeding programmes focused on genome editing. Ultimately, the authors argue that donors, policy makers and scientists should move beyond the genome towards systems-level thinking by prioritizing the co-development of technologies with farmers; using plant material that is unencumbered by intellectual property restrictions and therefore accessible to resource-poor farmers; and acknowledging that seeds are components of complex and dynamic agroecological production systems. If these lessons are not heeded, genome-editing projects are in danger of repeating mistakes of the past.     

Design paths of federal intergovernmental cooperation

Actors rarely approach institutional design choices with a blank slate but are influenced by design choices made at earlier stages. How does institutional design evolve over time and are there specific paths to deepening cooperation? We investigate the institutional design paths of subnational cooperation that are chosen to address increasingly complex and interconnected policy problems. We theorize that besides the substantive problem, earlier choices matter to explain what institutional design mechanism is chosen; that is, the design of existing institutions between two subnational governance units, called substates, influences the design of subsequent institutions. Using a semi-parametric Cox proportional hazards model, we show that the design paths of subnational cooperation in the Swiss water governance sector correlate with earlier design choices. Our results indicate that not all cooperation is self-reinforcing and path-dependent, but they show which specific design choices are more likely to follow each other in repeated formal federal intergovernmental cooperation.     

Claiming Commerce,Quality and Credit: Raisons d’être of the Antwerp and Brussels tapissierspanden (Sixteenth–Eighteenth Centuries)

Literature on the Antwerp and Brussels tapissierspanden tends to give a one-dimensional account of the institutions as very similar commercial enterprises that were embraced wholeheartedly by everyone involved in the Antwerp and Brussels tapestry worlds since they all shared the same concerns and a single goal — namely, to develop and secure a central meeting point and marketplace. This essay, however, adopts a different vantage point. It discusses the tapissierspanden from the viewpoint of the conflicting business conduct and strategies developed by Antwerp city council and tapestry entrepreneurs on the one hand, and Brussels tapestry entrepreneurs on the other. This essay argues that those who founded the institutions in Antwerp and Brussels established and used them to further completely different objectives — and that their strategies, which both manifested themselves and crystallised in the panden, present tapestry scholarship with a fundamental methodological problem, the magnitude of which has yet to be appreciated.     

From rebellion to democracy: The many lives of Túpac Katari

In Bolivia, public discourse often focuses on historical personalities in terms of their importance for national identity and agency, one example being the eighteenth-century Aymara leader Túpac Katari, a declared icon of resistance. This article examines the preconditions of the historic figure's incorporation into indigenous cultural memory and how the connotations he evoked have unfolded over time. It reveals how the representation linked with him was redefined and adapted at different points of time due to the prevailing modes of reception.     

Housing Choice in a Regulated Market: A Nested Multinomial Logit Analysis

The paper integrates several important elements of the institutionalized and regulated nature of the housing market and analyzes the relationship between household type and housing choice in Vienna within a nested multinomial logit framework. In particular, the concept of household specific choice sets is used to account for institutional, informational and income-based constraints of the choice process. Government subsidies (such as housing and rent allowances, non-interest-bearing state loans) are explicitly taken into account in the definition of variables. Housing choice is considered in three stages: the choice of a dwelling unit given dwelling type and residential zone, the choice of a dwelling type given residential zone, and the marginal choice of a residential zone. The coefficients are derived by means of a sequential ML-procedure. The empirical results clearly indicate that demographic variables have significant impacts on housing choice behavior. Income as a single explanatory variable as well as its interacting with size measures and the quality of the house are found to be important criteria for dwelling unit choice, as housing cost variables for dwelling type choice behavior. The dwelling unit and dwelling type choice submodels fit reasonably well, whereas the residential zone model is less successful.     

Book reviews

Traditionelle und moderne Formen der Landwirtschaft in Iran: Siedlung, Wirtschaft und Agrarsozialstruktur in nördlichen Khuzistan seit dem Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts. [Traditional and Modern Forms of Agriculture in Iran: Settlement, Economics, and Agrarian Social Structure in Northern Khuzistan since the End of the Nineteenth Century.] By Eckhart Ehlers. With a contribution by Grace Goodell, “Agricultural Production in a Traditional Village of Northern Khuzistan.” A publication of the Geographical Institute of Marburg University in the series, Marburger geographische Schriften, Vol. 64, 1975. x + 289 pp., 12 charts, DM33.

Unity in the Ghazals of Hafez. By Michael C. Hillmann. Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976. 181 pp.

Afghanistan in the 1970s. Edited by Louis Dupree and Linette Albert. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974.     

Book reviews

Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. Edited by Michael E. Bonine and Nikki R. Keddie. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981. x, 464 pp. $34.00.

IRANIAN SOCIETY. An Anthology of Writings by Jalal Al‐e Ahmad. Compiled and Edited by Michael C. Hillmann. Lexington, Kentucky: Mazda Publishers, 1982. 157 pp.

Modern Persian Short Stories. Trans. Minoo S. Southgate. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1980. xvi + 228 pp.

Moderne Erzähler der Welt—Iran (Modern Storytellers of the World—Iran). Selected and edited by Faramarz Behzad, Johann Christoph Burgel, Gottfried Herrmann. Volume LVII Series on Cultural Encounters of the Institute for Foreign Relations, Stuttgart. Tubingen and Basel: Horst Erdmann Publishers for International Cultural Exchange, 1978.

La poésie persane après la seconde guerre mondiale. By Franciszek Machalski. Krakow: Polish Academy of Sciences, 1980. 133 pp.

Ja‐ye Khali‐ye Soluch. By Mahmud Dowlatabadi. Tehran: Agah, 1979. 497 pp.

History of Persian Literature from the Beginning of the Islamic Period to the Present Day. With contributions by George Morrison, Julian Baldick, and (Mohammad Reza) Sha‐fi'i Kadkani. Edited by George Morrison. Leiden‐Koln: E. J. Brill, 1981. 226 pp.     

Book reviews

The Agguyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire. A Study in 15th/9th Century Turko‐Iranian Politics. By John E. Woods. (Studies in Middle Eastern History, No. 3), xv + 348 pp. Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976.

A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism. By Mary Boyce. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. 284 pp. $19.95.

The Crowned Cannibals: Writings on Repression in Iran. By Reza Baraheni. With an introduction by E. L. Doctorow. New York: Random House/Vintage Books, 1977. 279 pp. $3.95.

Tarikh: Bulletin of the Department of History, Faculty of Letters and Humanities. Tehran: University of Tehran. Vol. 1, Nos. 1–2 (1976–77).

Middle East Economies in the 1970's: A Comparative Approach. By Hossein Askari and John Thomas Cummings. New York: Praeger Publishers (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development). 1976. xxxiii + 581pp.

The Caspian Circle: A Novel. By Donné Raffat. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978. 350 pp. $10.

The Agricultural Development of Iran. By Oddvar Aresvik. New York: Praeger, 1976. 271 pp.

Dschalaluddin Rumi, Licht und Reigen: Gedichte aus dem Divan des grössten mystischen Dichters persischer Zunge. Selected, translated and explained by Johann Cristoph Burgel. UNESCO Collection of Representative Works. Masterpieces of Persian Literature Series, No. 26. Bern, Herbert Lang, and Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1974. 191 pp.