Gravity-Type Interactive Markov Models—Part II: Lyapunov Stability of Steady States

In Part I of this paper (Smith and Hsieh, 1997) a programming formulation of steady states was developed for gravity-type interactive Markov chains in terms of their associated spatial-flow chains. These results are here applied to analyze the stability properties of interactive Markov chains. In particular, the objective function for this programming formulation is shown to constitute a Lyapunov function for an appropriately defined continuous-time version of spatial-flow chains. The Lyapunov stability properties of these spatial flows are then shown to yield corresponding stability properties for the continuous-time versions of interactive Markov chains. In particular, these processes always exhibit global convergence to steady states. Finally, it is shown that when steady states are unique, these convergence results are inherited by those interactive Markov chains that are 'sufficiently close' to their continuous-time versions.     

Sunflowers,youthful protestors and political achievements: lessons from Taiwan

ABSTRACT

In 2014, an interesting youth movement collective started small p political and big P Political action and resistance in Taiwan. Their protest was against the way a major trade agreement proposed between China and Taiwan was being non-democratically pushed through the Taiwanese legislature. In this article, we provide an analysis of the activities of the Sunflower Student Movement (SSM) as a means to record a relatively little-known youthful and youth-centric successful uprising. It serves to place the SSM, and other East Asian-based protests, on the map of young people’s political geographies, and explores the paradoxical political and spatial practices pursued by young Taiwanese. This case study makes visible the interconnectedness of big P/small p politics of everyday youth geographies within an Asian context.     

The significance of subtle ways: navigating femininities in high schools of Taiwan

Children’s geographers have contributed to the theorisation of school space as a ‘geographical accomplishment’. The crucial role of school space in (re)producing social identities such as gender in the Global North has been discussed. However, empirical research which explores young femininities in East Asia is scant. This paper demonstrates that the contestation of femininities in high schools of Taiwan is manifested in subtle ways. This research examines qualitatively the forms of contested femininities, the significance of peer culture, and the flexible nature of school space. The analysis demonstrates that singular understanding of the spatiality of school cannot fully explain the complicated web of entwined micro spaces involved in the shaping of young femininities. In conclusion, this research highlights the dynamics between school space and young femininities, and emphasises the value of studying East Asians’ contextualised experiences for better understanding of young femininities.     

Knowledge-Intensive Business Services as Knowledge Intermediaries in Industrial Regions: A Comparison of the Hsinchu and Tainan Metropolitan Areas

Abstract

The literature repeatedly stresses the role of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) as a provider of knowledge and information to other businesses and organizations. KIBS simultaneously promotes, mediates and enables client innovation. This investigation mainly seeks to link KIBS to the analytical structure of concepts, including regional innovation systems, knowledge exchanges and innovation patterns. This investigation interprets the role of KIBS as that of a knowledge intermediary that mediates and transmits knowledge among actors. This study also clarifies the mechanism of knowledge exchanges in different geographic innovation systems. The analytical results obtained by this investigation are applied to analyse the intermediary functions of KIBS in various metropolitan areas in southern and northern Taiwan. This investigation demonstrates variations in how KIBS act as knowledge intermediaries, and that these variations depend mostly on industrial cluster patterns, the dominant innovation patterns at their locations and the birth of sustainable KIBS. KIBS in large/core metropolitan regions, thus, are initially based on science, technology and innovation industrial activities, and further closely resemble doing, using and interaction industrial activities. Consequently, more informal learning processes, such as local buzz and discussion/competition relations, tend to develop in such regions.     

The market in concubines in Jiangnan during Ming-Qing China

The traffic in concubines flourished in Ming-Qing Jiangnan as a result of large scale interactions of political and socioeconomic contexts. How women were situated within the system is central to this study, which revolves around two major arguments. First, the traffic in concubines as a means for disaster relief during difficult times was legitimized as a benevolent policy. Second, women were not necessarily the victims of the commercialized market in concubines. To study concubinage in general and individual concubines in the market system in Jiangnan, the following issues command attention: the political and socioeconomic conditions fostering concubinage, the market system of women, the roles of brokers, the value indicators and resultant prices, the transaction procedures for the sale of women with specific contents of contracts, the effects of the market system on the concubines' lives, and the regulations of law and the judicial practice in penal cases.     

Gravity-Type Interactive Markov Models—Part I: A Programming Formulation of Steady States

An important class of interactive Markov migration models is characterized by gravity-type transition kernels, in which migration flows in each time period are postulated to vary inversely with some symmetric measure of migration costs and directly with some population-dependent measure of attractiveness. This two-part study analyzes the uniqueness and stability properties of steady states for such processes. In this first part, it is shown that a flow version of the steady-state problem can be given a programming formulation which permits global analysis of steady-state behavior. Within this programming framework, it is shown that when attractiveness is diminished by increased population congestion, the steady states for such processes are unique. The second part of the study will employ these results to analyze the stability properties of such steady states.