A lesson from Bass Strait on connectivity conservation

Isolation effects on the distributions of plant species in fragmented forests appear to be weak over tens to hundreds of years and strong over geological eras. The 250 km wide, 6.5 millennia old Bass Strait, and other millennium-scale disjunctions in the range of Eucalyptus regnans forests, were used to determine the effects of intermediate periods of isolation on plant species occurrence and composition. Three of six floristic communities were found on both sides of Bass Strait. The residuals from multiple regression models using climatic variables on the latitude vector were not explained by latitude, indicating negligible isolation effects from Bass Strait. However, there was a lesser compositional effect of disjunctions within land masses than between land masses, suggesting some effect of the larger barrier. No species that commonly occurred with E. regnans and were largely confined to wet forest exhibited absences from any region where the climate and soils were within their range. If areas isolated from each other for millennia can maintain their vascular plant biota, the expenditure of conservation funds on creating corridors to connect large areas separated by anthropogenic landscape modification might require more justification than it is currently afforded.     

基于快递物流测度的区域流动空间特征——以江苏省为例

在信息技术推动下,流动空间作为新时期的新空间形式在带来时空压缩效应的同时不断地强化着区域城市间联系,推动着社会经济资源的城际流通。快递物流是互联网交易的虚拟流与快速交通实体流交互产生的物质流动,其代表了流动空间的虚实二元性,是研究流动空间网络特征的有效切入点。以江苏十三个城市为研究区域,以六家物流公司的网站数据为数据来源,采用权重分析法和重力模型方法建立起区域城市的快递物流水平、城市间流动空间连接度及城市快递物流总体评价等三项指标,结合区域流动空间的指标分析发现区域流动空间具有网络一体化、去中心化、扁平化、等级化及点轴式等五大特征,基于流动空间的可视化研究发现江苏省区域城市间关系显示出了一个具有等级特征的多中心扁平化点轴网络,围绕南京、苏州、徐州的都市圈一体化发展态势成为提高区域流动空间流动能力的重要突破方向。     

A connectivity model as a potential tool for smart specialization strategies

The article contributes to the smart specialization literature by presenting a new approach, connectivity analysis, where Triple Helix (TH) relations (involving universities, companies and government) are at the centre of the entrepreneurial discovery process. Relations between helices may be seen, from the point of departure of proximity, as preconditions of connectivity, or interaction, measured through expectations and experiences. This offers potential solution to two limitations of proximity approach: its static nature and narrow focus on dyadic relationships. The connectivity analysis reveals the extent of mutual expectations, as well as tensions, or gaps. Based on this analysis, the article presents a policy model that is used to map structures of networks and gaps between TH actors. It may also identify strengths, weaknesses and problems. This analysis is used as input to structured dialogues between actors in leading positions in the TH and in smart specialization policy-making and implementation. This approach may lead to policy interventions supporting entrepreneurial discoveries. The model has been developed in partnership with researchers and the Regional Council of Ostrobothnia. The article also presents this case study and demonstrates the use of the connectivity model in practice.     

经济欠发达地区旅游公路网络发展对策研究--以陕北黄土高原旅游公路网络的分析为例

本文通过对陕北黄土高原地区区内旅游公路网络的平均通达度和相对连通性的分析发现：陕北黄土高原地区旅游公路交通的平均通达度和相对连通性地区差异较大;旅游公路网络存在支线公路建设滞后、通达深度不够、知名景点的通达度差、各景点间联系不够紧密等问题。针对上述问题,本文提出了加强该区旅游公路交通网络建设的对策。     

An Assessment of the Influence of the Inter-Tropical Discontinuity on Inter-Annual Rainfall Characteristics in Nigeria

This study assessed the influence of the Inter-Tropical Discontinuity (ITD) on inter-annual rainfall characteristics in Nigeria between 1970 and 2000. This involved determining the strength and direction of the relationships between the total annual rainfalls in the extreme southern and northern parts of the country and the total annual rainfalls during the period of the Little Dry Season in southwestern Nigeria, and the surface locations of the ITD over Nigeria and some other factors that may impact ITD characteristics (such as the pressure differences between Azores, Libyan and St. Helena anticyclones and the sea surface temperature of the Gulf of Guinea). Results indicate that although the surface location of the ITD significantly accounts for rainfall inter-annual variability in Nigeria, it does so in the northern part of the country only. Pressure differences between the various anticyclones were observed to be another significant factor influencing inter-annual rainfall variability in the north. However, the influence of the sea surface temperature of the Gulf of Guinea on the rainfall characteristics in the northern region is ill-defined. It was also noted that the only factor influencing inter-annual variability in the Little Dry Season rainfall in the southwest and the total annual rainfalls in the south is the sea surface temperature of the Gulf of Guinea. The results obtained indicate that the total annual rainfalls in the north have significant positive relationships with the surface location of the ITD but significant negative relationships with the pressure differences between the Azores, Libyan and St. Helena anticyclones. The Little Dry Season rainfalls and total annual rainfalls in the south have significant positive relationships with the sea surface temperature of the Gulf of Guinea.     

A WORLD CONNECTING? FROM THE UNITY OF HISTORY TO GLOBAL HISTORY

Global history looms large in current historiography, yet its heuristic design and political functions remain ill‐reflected. My article seeks to uncover the historical origins of the assumption that the “world” has one common history and that it is feasible and desirable to write it. I analyze the epistemic infrastructure underlying this assumption and argue that global history as practiced today is predicated on a specific mode of world‐making that provides its basic template: Global history both grew out of and intellectually sustains the conception of an increasingly connected world. The type of connectedness thereby implied and reinscribed was established by what I call the “world‐historical process,” a cognitive framework that co‐emerged with the early modern and modern European conquest of the world through expansion, discovery, commerce, and culture. The article investigates how this process‐template emerged out of the crisis of universal history that could no longer integrate and reconcile the multiple pasts of the world. The format of the world‐historical process was central to Enlightenment historians' assertion of the secular and scientific prestige of their craft, as much as to its ability to discern global epochs, in particular the modern and the premodern. My article traces the fortunes of this template through historicism up to present‐day global history. Current global history remains structured around the growing connectedness of previously distinct parts of the planet whose pasts are transformed into relevant world history by the very process that makes them increasingly interrelated. Global history may be too much a product of the process of globalization it studies to develop epistemologically and politically tenable alternatives to “connectivity.”     

The role of aviation networks for urban development

City officials are continuously working to attract airlines willing to fly to new destinations. The inherent expectation is that a more extensive aviation network stimulates economic growth. This paper investigates empirically the causal implication of this hypothesis. Using data on nonstop flights by origin and destination over the period 1984–2013, we propose a new measure for a metropolitan area's connectivity to the national aviation network. We then use this measure to investigate its contribution to local economic development, as captured by the growth in population, in total employment, in per-capita income, and new firm entry. To ensure causality, we use instrumental variable methods that exploit geography and destination airports growth as a way to capture the exogenous variation in the likelihood to add new travel routes. Our results suggest that a metropolitan area's air connectivity, resulting from an expansive local aviation network, has a positive effect on population, on employment and on the number of businesses established in that location.     

中国城市间交通流强度的空间格局

以全国321个地级以上行政区为研究对象,基于城市间汽车、火车和航空班次联系测算各城市对外联系强度,通过核密度估计、位序-规模及探索性空间数据分析,对多元交通流视角下城市间交通流强度的空间格局进行提取和解析。研究表明:在整个城市体系中,高位次城市规模凸显,中小规模城市有待于进一步发育。基于公路和铁路联系的城际交通流分别表现为由沿海向内陆逐级减弱、以国家铁路大动脉沿线为中心的核心-边缘结构;基于航空联系的城际交通流表现出高度极化和点状镶嵌特征。     

基于国际酒店集团布局的中国城市网络连接度研究

截至2013年5月,世界酒店业300强中在中国形成网络化经营的20家国际酒店集团已在我国221个城市有布局。不同于以泰勒为代表的基于跨国生产性服务企业布局的城市连接度研究,本文以消费性服务企业中的国际酒店业在华布局为研究切入点,通过城市网络连接度测度发现:第一,我国酒店业城市网络已形成以上海、北京、杭州、西安为中心的层级体系,上海已具备成为国际酒店业首位城市和世界级旅居城市的条件;第二,在环渤海、长三角和珠三角三大经济区域中,基于国际酒店集团服务价值判定的区内和区际城市连接度水平存在较大差异,其中长三角地区连接度总和与均值最高;第三,在酒店业的全球生产网络中,中国城市的酒店业布局具有品牌层次的低端锁定特征,中心性和总部经济效应有待提高。