bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Gründungsforschung im und über das Ruhrgebiet
Authors: Welter Friederike , Bergmann Heiko
Published: January 2016

Entrepreneurship research in and on the Ruhr area - taking stock. The paper takes stock of structures, actors, themes and results of entrepreneurship research in the Ruhr region. Our analysis demonstrates a broad variety of actors, but little contact amongst them. Selected research results indicate low venture creation rates and more necessity-based enterprises compared to Germany. In general, entrepreneurship research in the Ruhr area needs to pay more attention to analysing the sustainability and growth potential of new ventures.
Die Gestaltung des Wandels – Regionalwirtschaft und Demographie im Ruhrgebiet
Authors: Lehner Franz
Published: January 2016

Shaping the change. Regional economy and demography in the Ruhr area. Against the background of the current debate in Germany on problems of demographic change and an ageing society, the present article addresses the possibilities to shape demographic change and its impact on regional development. The main argument is, that on a regional level, both demographic change itself and its social and economic impacts, can be influenced even in the short term. Demographic change itself may be influenced by migration, more precisely by attracting families with children and improving integration of immigrants. Its social and economic impacts may be influenced by using ageing as a stimulus for innovation and business development. Conditions in the Ruhr area for these strategies are generally quite favourable. However, present institutional structures in the region constitute a strong impediment against an effective management of demographic chance.
Wer regiert Kolumbien?
Authors: Mertins Günter
Published: January 2016

Who governs Colombia? Socio-economic and social-structural consequences of the economies of violence. An enormous number of publications about the different types of organized violence in Colombia already exists (drug-mafia, guerilla, paramilitaries). This article focuses on the macro- and microeconomic consequences of these criminal organizations in rural and urban areas as well as in the corresponding spatial-structural components, especially in the regional and local interaction fields/“controlled” areas. For a long time the aims of the guerilla-organizations have been oriented by Marxist ideologies. Meanwhile they can be interpreted in the sense of the “new” war economies.
Geographien der Gewalt
Authors: Korf Benedikt , Engeler Michelle
Published: January 2016

Geographies of violence. In his Hettner-lecture, Michael Watts asserted that violence might be understood as ‘struggle over geography’. Surprisingly, geography is largely missing in the contemporary debates on the incidence of civil wars, the dynamics of war economies and “new” wars. These debates have produced universalistic, nomothetical statements about the causes and dynamics of contemporary war economies and have focused on analyzing the economic incentives of combatants and fighters, thereby neglecting the spatial contextualities and institutional ambiguities of war economies. In this paper, we suggest to bring geography back in focus and develop a conceptual framework that studies geographies of violence using three analytical concepts: governable spaces, spaces of agency and subjectivities. These categories are linked with the politics of scale. We illustrate this framework with examples from the Sri Lankan and Sierra Leonean civil wars. Our studies suggest that geographies of violence produce complex entanglements of survival and war economies that are manifested in the spatio-temporal dynamics of different actors’ vulnerabilities and agencies.
Denkstile in der deutschen Wirtschaftsgeographie
Authors: Schamp Eike W.
Published: January 2016

Styles of scientific thought in German economic geography. Current changes since 1970. In the recent history of economic geography in Germany since 1970, there have been periods of heterogenous and competing styles of thought and one extended period characterised by a dominant style, i.e. a particularly German version of the spatial approach (Raumwirtschaftslehre). This paper begins with an attempt to view these shifts in the context of changes in society and the generations of scholars. Today, German economic geography is shaped by the increasingly dominant impact of ideas from sociology, although important stimuli for economic geography are also coming from the field of economics. The author argues in favour of retaining the economic aspects of economic geographical thought while remaining open to other styles of thought.
Ansatzpunkte einer relationalen Regionalpolitik und Clusterförderung
Authors: Bathelt Harald , Dewald Ulrich
Published: January 2016

Relational aspects of regional economic support and cluster policy. The recent debate about the application and interpretation of cluster concepts is characterized by increasing skepticism. The literature has particularly criticized the fact that policy formulation is often only vaguely related to the academic discussion and evidence regarding clusters. Part of this confusion can be traced back to the fuzziness of the original cluster concept developed by Michael Porter which claims to be applicable to the competitiveness of both national industry bundles and inter-linked regional industry networks. As a consequence, policies which are declared as cluster policies can be quite heterogeneous. In this paper, we argue for a closer link between cluster conception and cluster policy. It is shown that an understanding of clusters as multidimensional industry configurations is advantageous in developing and advancing a relational cluster policy. A multidimensional cluster approach, which highlights the role of agency in economic interaction, focuses on the action space of cluster agents, and goes beyond the regional and national scale. It avoids simplifications and deterministic interpretations that can result from using aggregated data or from treating regions as if they were agents. Instead, the approach recognizes that external relations of cluster actors are core in understanding and explaining the success of clusters. We will emphasize this by laying out elements of a relational cluster policy.
Finanzmärkte, Unternehmensfinanzierung und die aktuelle Finanzkrise
Authors: Klagge Britta
Published: January 2016

Financial markets, business financing and the recent financial crisis. Financial markets and business financing are a neglected topic in economic geography. The recent financial crisis highlights the importance of these topics for understanding economic development and points to the complex relationship between structures and processes at various geographical scales. This introduction to the financial geography special issue provides background information on the development and the functioning of financial markets. The most prominent change of Germany’s financial system is a growing capital market orientation resulting from internationalisation while the country at the same time is sustaining a distinctly regionalised financial structure - thus highlighting the importance of multilevel analyses in financial geography. The contributions to the special issue are positioned and discussed against this background. The paper concludes with outlining challenges and opportunities for economic and financial geography.
Wie Phönix aus der Asche?
Authors: Heeg Susanne
Published: January 2016

Real estate research in geography. The article focuses on changes in the research on real estate and property issues in geography. It is argued that the deregulation of financial markets has triggered transformations in the way property markets and the real estate industry work. This is reflected in the research about it: the analytical focus has shifted from local property markets and local real estate industry to international property markets and global real estate industry.
Das brasilianische Biodieselprogramm
Authors: Laabs Esther , Gröteke Friedrich
Published: January 2016

The Brazilian biodiesel-program - a socially acceptable approach? The biofuel production is often supposed to cause social problems. It contributes to the rise of food prices which disadvantages the poor. The Brazilian government tries to mitigate this problem. The Brazilian biodiesel program aimes especially at the socially weakest persons, the small farmers. Several instruments favour this inclusion. However, until now the social aim of the biodiesel program is not gained because the government itself has no interest in enforcing its instruments credibly.
Mainport und Hinterland unter Druck
Authors: Hesse Markus
Published: January 2016

Mainport and hinterland under pressure: Competitive dynamics and port regionalization - the case of Antwerp/Belgium. This paper sheds light on the process of decentralisation of port related activities, a phenomenon that had already been conceptualised as „port regionalization“ by NOTTEBOOM/ RODRIGUE (2005). This concept analyses the relocation of services or facilities out of core port areas and the emergence of wider network relations, in order to overcome negative externalities of agglomeration as a result of increased port competition and related concentration effects. Here it is applied in the case of Antwerp/Belgium, the second largest port in Europe based on commodity-throughput.Antwerp represents a particular case in this respect, since it deploys the issue of concentration versus de-concentration quite significantly. It also has a strong tradition as a concentrated mainport based on maritime services, industry and logistics. The paper follows different perspectives on this issue, i.e. a port- and a hinterland-related view. It contends that the port of Antwerp is seeking to improve the spatial development conditions and to maintain its competitive position by pursuing a strategy of moderate rather than excessive regionalization.
Heureka oder Phoenix aus der Asche?
Authors: Mossig Ivo , Fornahl Dirk , Schröder Heike
Published: January 2016

Eureka or phoenix from the ashes? The developmental trajectory of offshore wind energy in Northwestern Germany. After the crisis in the shipbuilding industry the hopes for new regional developmental impulses are based upon the boom in offshore wind energy production. The paper examines whether there exist direct or indirect links between the new and the old regional industrial trajectory. The results indicate that these links are only of indirect nature. The core stimuli for the development were the ports in which seagoing vessels are able to land and a strong market pull effect. The crisis in contrast only generated an indirect push effect and the shipbuilding industry provided human capital and specialized infrastructure from which the new industry could benefit, but which could have been created elsewhere as well.
Finanzkrise in der Weltwirtschaft – Theoriekrise in der Wirtschaftsgeographie
Authors: Schamp Eike W.
Published: January 2016

Financial crisis in the world economy - theory crisis in economic geography? A comment on current crisis research in economic geography. Although some economic geographers have responded quickly to the recent world financial crisis, this paper identifies some major weaknesses in current theoretical thinking in economic geography. It differentiates between the understanding of the causes of a crisis and empirical research on its consequences. Deficits in the analysis of causes relate to a systemic view of the coherence of territories in the world economy, the macroperspective necessary to understand the world economy, the interconnectedness of the financial and real economy, and, finally, different dimensions of historical time as seen by Braudel and Wallerstein. Three recent theoretical concepts are discussed which seem to offer some understanding of the historical processes leading to crisis, i.e., neoschumpeterian innovation theory, evolutionary economic geography, and regulation theory. Finally, the paper offers two options for the current economic geographical analysis of the crisis which are not necessarily mutually exclusive: Either focusing on a macro-perspective of the world economy with the concept of regulation theory and/or strengthening the “traditional” competences of economic geography in a deeper analysis of the impacts of the crisis.
Abgrenzung und Analyse von Software-Clustern am Beispiel der Region Rhein-Main-Neckar
Authors: Hahn Markus , Kaiser Jasmin , Ostwald Dennis , Buxmann Peter
Published: January 2016

Demarcation and analysis of software-clusters. The example of the Rhine-Main-Neckar region. In this paper we present an approach to demarcate and analyze spatial clusters in the software industry using qualitative as well as quantitative methods. Our approach is based on economic data regarding entrepreneurship, gross value added and spatial agglomeration of enterprises and employees. We apply this method on the Rhine-Main-Neckar area, one of Germany’s most prominent regions for software companies. Subsequently, we conduct a qualitative follow-up study to gain deeper insights and to verify prior results from the quantitative study. Our results indicate the existence of a software-cluster with two centers in the Rhine-Main area as well as in the Rhine-Neckar district.Among the analyzed indicators, the concentration of employees in software companies shows the highest amplitude, although entrepreneurship, concentration of businesses as well as gross value added are all significantly above the German average.
Kapitalistische Raumproduktionen und ökonomische Krise
Authors: Belina Bernd
Published: January 2016

Capitalist productions of space and economic crisis. David Harvey’s notion of the spatial fix. David Harvey’s contribution to an understanding of the space-economy of capitalism is largely absent from German economic geography. In engaging with his work in this article, the focus lies with a reconstruction of the precise meaning of the notions spatial fix and spatio-temporal fix as deployed by Harvey. It also discusses his concepts of structured coherence, the secondary circuit of capital and the circulation of fixed capital through the built environment. Central spatial aspects of the financial and economic crisis of 2008/09, and the neoliberal answers to the crisis of Fordism that preceded it, are used to illustrate how these notions are able to illuminate complex economic and political relations and their spatiality.
Dealing with insecurity
Authors: Keck Markus , Bohle Hans-Georg , Zingel Wolfgang-Peter
Published: January 2016

The article investigates underlying social mechanisms that contribute to the remarkable resilience of Dhaka’s food system with a special focus on wholesalers and their informal business networks. A relational approach to the subject matter is elaborated that understands informality as a specific governance mode of business relations that is coined by horizontal power relations, and by the implicit codification, endogenous imposition, and personalized implementation of procedural rules. Empirical evidence is presented from recent fieldwork with rice and fish wholesalers that suggests that informality, in the form of trustworthy relations and social capital, has the potential to foster the traders’ adaptive capacities and thus not only their individual business performance, but also the overall robustness of the urban food system.
Workplace quality and labour turnover in the electronics industry of the Pearl River Delta, China
Authors: Kilian Pamela Hartmann , Schiller Daniel , Kraas Frauke
Published: January 2016

Export-oriented manufacturing firms in developing countries need to be highly flexible in order to respond to demand changes in volatile global markets. By using a modified version of Atkinson’s flexible firm concept as a framework, it is the aim of this paper (i) to describe the impact of workplace quality on labour turnover and (ii) to derive implications of this relationship for upgrading processes. Empirical data are combined from two surveys of migrant workers and electronics firms in the Pearl River Delta, China.
Regionales Wissen und die räumliche Evolution der westdeutschen Lasersystembranche
Authors: Bünstorf Guido , Fritsch Michael , Medrano Luis F.
Published: January 2016

Regional knowledge and spatial evolution of the West German laser systems industry.We analyze the regional evolution of the German laser systems industry in West Germany in the 1975- 2005 period. We find that regional knowledge in the related field of laser source production and the presence of laser-relevant universities and public research organization were conducive to the first emergence of laser systems producers. Upstream laser source producers influence entry into the downstream laser systems industry primarily through their own diversification moves. Public research was less important in the submarket of materials processing laser systems, which is less directly science based than other parts of the laser systems industry. While spatial proximity to Munich, the early center of laser research in Germany, had a slightly increasing effect on regional entry into the new industry, we do not find any evidence for spillovers between neighbouring regions.
Rejuvenating old industries in new contexts
Authors: Liu Zhi-gao , Dunford Michael
Published: January 2016

Most research into the formation and development of industrial clusters focuses on hightech clusters or on the upgrading of traditional industries, with little attention to long-term historical perspectives on the revival of old industries in new contexts. Although evolutionary economic geography offers a set of useful concepts for explaining the revival of old industries, it generally concentrates on local factors, neglecting the role of larger scale drivers. To help fill these lacunae, a revised theoretical framework is developed, and used to examine the evolution of the Tonghua traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) industry. Starting from this industry’s late-nineteenth century roots, the relationship between the rejuvenation of old industries in particular areas and largerscale systemic changes is examined, paying particular attention to the evolution of this sector during China’s transition from a planned to a market economy.
The heterogeneity of internationalisation in knowledge intensive business services
Authors: Peiker Wolfdietrich , Pflanz Kai , Kujath Hans Joachim , Kulke Elmar
Published: January 2016

The general process of internationalisation of knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) is widely recognised, but knowledge of the forms, motivations and spatial patterns of this type of internationalisation remains limited. This article addresses this gap by comparing the sectors of legal services and engineering consulting, which differ in their specific service characteristics. Based on an analysis of the office networks of international firms, we attempt to identify typical patterns of international expansion and examine the heterogeneity among the firms in both sectors. We reveal that the specific service characteristics, especially in terms of knowledge and client relationship, influence significantly the spatial outcome of international expansion. Also the country of origin with its particular institutional environment may affect the opportunities of, and targets for, expansion.
Going Green
Authors: Reps Nicole , Braun Boris
Published: January 2016

Going green - environmental upgrading and value chain coordination in the Indian automotive industry. Previous debates have linked environmental upgrading processes in global value chains above all to the influence of powerful lead firms from developed countries. In this paper, we argue that the Indian automobile sector, too, shows a growing tendency for more environmental protection. However, the decisive impetus is often not given by international lead firms.Applying the concept of global value chains, this paper aims to identify both the dominating coordination mechanisms in the Indian automobile chain, and the strategies of different actors for environmental upgrading. The empirical section draws on findings from 130 qualitative interviews with eight vehicle manufactures, 54 component suppliers and several industry experts held between 2009 and 2011. Our results indicate that Indian vehicle manufacturers are presently more pivotal to driving “green” supply chains than international players. Our findings suggest that especially the strong technical and organizational support provided by Indian lead firms is the crucial factor to push component suppliers to improve their environmental performance. On this account, the recent debate on greening of supply chains seems to be led too much from a western perspective. Rather, it appears that many environmental upgrading processes in automobile supply chains occur independently of western lead firms. In fact, they are mostly initiated and implemented by local lead firms.
The balance of change and continuity in the German construction sector’s development path
Authors: Butzin Anna , Rehfeld Dieter
Published: January 2016

Major deficits, known as innovation gap or renewal paradox, related to the project-based production structures in construction, result in high knowledge waste and efficiency loss. Current innovation dynamics aim at overcoming these structural disadvantages by designing products and services set apart from the one-off project logic. They are heavily influenced by cross-sectoral knowledge combinations coming from the automotive industry, the service sector, engineering or information and communication technology (ICT), as well as by knowledge combinations which stem from integrating different trades into the planning process of a construction project. This paper argues that different kinds of knowledge combinations initiate various degrees of change within the existing sectoral structures. They indicate the sector’s path plasticity.
Großhandelskooperationen für den kleinflächigen Einzelhandel in ländlichen Räumen am Beispiel Mittelhessen
Authors: Trebbin Anika , Franz Martin , Hassler Markus
Published: January 2016

Wholesale cooperations for small supermarkets in rural areas - the example of Central Hesse, Germany. Food retailing in the rural regions of Germany is undergoing dynamic changes. The growth of average sales area and the consolidation of shops result in an increase of those areas where supermarkets can only be reached through long car drives. Here, food deserts might be developing. However, a new system of collaboration between regional wholesale companies and the big German retail cooperatives Edeka and Rewe prevents the development of such areas of undersupply and opens new perspectives for the small supermarkets in the case study region of Central Hesse.
Internationalisation of research and development activities of small and medium-sized enterprises in Austria: Strategic drivers for spatial organisation
Authors: Meyer Susanne , Berger Martin
Published: January 2016

Research and development (R & D) activities of firms are becoming increasingly internationally organised, with a growing number of new locations in emerging economies and an increasing number of small and medium-sized enterprises tapping into internationalisation. The aim of this paper is to link international R & D strategies of small and medium-sized enterprises to the spatial organisation of R & D activities. A survey of Austrian firms forms the basis of the analysis. The findings show a clear spatial concentration of foreign R & D activities of Austrian firms in Western and Eastern Europe, especially Germany. However, this general distance decay function is distorted by regions’ evolutionary trajectories and their peculiarities, such as cultural and cognitive proximity, and by the scope of R & D envisaged by the firm. The analysis reveals that knowledge-exploiting strategies are more common for activities in emerging economies, whereas knowledge-gaining and learning strategies drive the establishment of activities in countries with an advanced national innovation system. Furthermore, small and medium-sized firms tend to internationalise via international cooperation rather than via the establishment of own subsidiaries abroad. Plans for future activities show only limited change in this respect.
The economics of protected areas – a European perspective
Authors: Mayer Marius , Job Hubert
Published: January 2016

This review article argues that the economic consequences of protected areas (PA) represent a growing field of research for economic geographers, which is related to the rising share of land area covered by PA in recent decades. In a theoretical section concepts and ideas of the economics of PA like the public good character of PA benefits or the total economic value concept are presented. The specific characteristics of European PA situated in cultural landscapes strongly shaped by human land use require a comprehensive overview of existing economic valuation studies. Their achievements and gaps are shown and discussed taking the German-speaking countries as an example.
Tourism labor market impacts of national parks
Authors: Byström Joakim , Müller Dieter K.
Published: January 2016

In a Nordic context, economic impacts of tourism in national parks remained largely unknown due to lacking implementation of standardized comparative measurements. For this reason, we want to investigate the economic impacts of national parks in a peripheral Scandinavian context by analyzing employment in tourism. Theoretically, the paper addresses the idea of nature protection as a tool for regional development. The scientific literature suggests that nature can be considered a commodity that can be used for the production of tourism experiences in peripheries. In this context nature protection is applied as a label for signifying attractive places for tourists leading to increased tourist numbers and employment. This argument follows mainly North American experiences pointing at a positive impact of protected areas on regional development. Meanwhile European studies are more skeptical regarding desired economic benefits. A major challenge is the assessment of tourism’s economic impacts. This paper suggests an approach that reveals the impacts on the labor market. This is particularly applicable since data is readily available and, moreover from a public perspective, employment and tax incomes are of uppermost importance in order to sustain population figures and local demand for public services. At the same time accessibility and low visitor numbers form major challenges for tourism stakeholders and complicate the assessment of economic impacts through questionnaires and interviews. The paper shows that the assumption that nature protection promotes positive economic development through tourism is not applicable in a northern Swedish context. Hence, it rejects the often suggested positive relationship between nature protection and tourism labor market development.
Biosphere reserves and their contribution to sustainable development
Authors: Kraus Felix , Merlin Cornelius , Job Hubert
Published: January 2016

The regional labeling scheme Dachmarke Rhön is an approach of the Rhön Biosphere Reserve to foster sustainable economic development through the intensification of regional value chains. The study compares the members of the Dachmarke Rhön with a random sample, both consisting of small rural enterprises in the economic sectors of tourism and food processing. Based on face-to-face interviews with 99 managers, a comparison of the two groups regarding their integration into regional value chains is elaborated: the two groups mainly coincide with regard to the reasons for choosing local suppliers. However, members of the Dachmarke Rhön are putting more emphasis on regional buying and the relationship to their suppliers. The share of total value added within the enterprises is higher in the random sample. This on the other hand explains higher expenses for supplies and a lower direct regional economic impact within the group of enterprises of the Dachmarke Rhön. Nevertheless the analysis shows, that the expenses for buying goods stay to a greater proportion within the region and facilitate a more diverse economic structure. Thus indirect regional economic effects are maximized fostering multifunctionality at the same time. The Dachmarke Rhön therefore can be seen as a market-based tool for fostering sustainable economic development, although the need for improvement regarding logistics and education for sustainable development exists.
Innovation and creativity labs in Berlin
Authors: Schmidt Suntje , Brinks Verena , Brinkhoff Sascha
Published: January 2016

We define innovation and creativity labs as physical spaces for testing innovative ideas, alternative business models, new economic practices or flexible cooperation structures. As such, they are fields of experimentation and crystallization points for temporary practices that generate product, process, and organizational innovations. In these places, processes of interdisciplinary collaboration, and open innovation embrace and combine knowledge from multiple fields of expertise, most prominently from the creative and technology intensive sectors. This paper discusses the results of a research project that compiled an inventory of the dynamic spatial and organization development of innovation and creativity labs in Berlin. The empirical evidence highlights the variety of temporary spatial configurations ranging from grassroots labs, different forms of coworking, design and research and development (R & D)-oriented studios, to incubation and acceleration models. This diversity epitomizes distinct temporary social settings in an economic environment characterized by diverse modes of democratization, flexibility, commercialization and decentralization of innovation processes.
Zur Diskussion. Deutsches Organisationstalent
Authors: Leonhardt Holm Arno
Published: January 2016

German organizational skill – economic-historical roots of a national stereotype. Foreigners often identify Germans as born organizers. Cultural psychologists derive the asserted characteristic from history: small territories, the trauma of Thirty Years’ War, enlightenment, Prussian discipline. But stereotype building needs strong impressions. Proven is the spectacular economic success the Germans had during Kaiserreich and Nazi regime, which was due to nonliberal organizational methods like cartels. After World War II, cartels were banned, and the nonliberal organizational tradition is mostly forgotten due to negative remembrance policy.
Standards als Steuerungsinstrumente
Authors: Witting Hannah
Published: January 2016

Standards as a controlling mechanism: Methods and effects of carbon footprinting in the logistic sector. Carbon footprints describe the greenhouse gas emissions of predefined objects, such as products, companies, persons or transport units. Corresponding emission calculation standards have been developed and their application increased over the past decade. The article discusses this development, the current state of implementation and open questions regarding application and harmonization using the example of the logistic sector. Additionally, the author explores the question, how carbon footprints contribute to CO2 reduction targets and what effects might occur within supply chains.
El concepto de violencia en el pensamiento político revolucionario
Authors: Zeledón Jorge , Jiménez Javier
Published: January 2016

En el presente escrito se analiza el tema de la violencia revolucionaria desde la perspectiva estructural y situacional en el pensamiento de Karl Marx, Federico Engels, Vladimir Lenin y George Sorel. La violencia revolucionaria en la concepción de estos pensadores constituye un recurso legítimo de liberación en las sociedades de clases y expresa la reacción a la violencia derivada de la dominación burguesa. En concreto se examinan las obras clásicas de los autores referidos, estas son el Manifiesto del Partido Comunista, El Estado y la revolución y Reflexiones sobre la violencia.
Expansion of the geographic distribution of Faramea nitida Benth. in the restinga of Maranhão state, northeastern Brazil
Authors: Castro Alan R. Ribeiro de , Almeida Jr. Eduardo Bezerra de
Published: January 2016

In this study, we present new records of Faramea nitida that extend the range of this species in Maranhão state, Brazil. The new data were the result of fieldwork by us in restinga areas of São José de Ribamar and Alcântara districts. This report highlights the rediscovery of a species after many years (30 to 70 years) and shows the necessity for more floristic and taxonomic studies on extreme northeastern Brazil.
Carnivores (Mammalia) from areas of Nearctic–Neotropical transition in Puebla, central Mexico: presence, distribution, and conservation
Authors: Ramírez-Bravo Osvaldo Eric , Hernandez-Santin Lorna
Published: January 2016

The Nearctic and Neotropical realms converge in central Mexico, where many areas have not been adequately characterized. Our objective was to revise the distribution and conservation status of carnivores in the state of Puebla, central Mexico. Between September 2008 and January 2011, we conducted interviews and fieldwork on seven previously selected areas. We complemented our data with bibliographical research. We obtained 733 records for 21 species, representing 63% of the carnivores reported for Mexico. We expanded known ranges of three species: Ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), Bobcat (Lynx rufus), and Tropical Ringtail (Bassariscus sumichastrii). Fifty percent of the carnivore species we recorded in Puebla are considered under some risk category. We found that carnivores in our study area are vulnerable to hunting pressure, human-carnivore conflicts that result in lethal control practices, and extensive habitat loss.
MODELAGEM AGROMETEOROLÓGICA PARA ESTIMATIVA DE PRODUTIVIDADE DE SOJA PARA O VALE DO MÉDIO PARANAPANEMA-SP
Authors: Silva-Fuzzo Daniela Fernanda da , Prela-Pantano Angélica , Camargo Marcelo Bento Paes de
Published: January 2016

MODELAGEM AGROMETEOROLÓGICA PARA ESTIMATIVA DE PRODUTIVIDADE DE SOJA PARA O VALE DO MÉDIO PARANAPANEMA-SP  DANIELA FERNANDA DA SILVA-FUZZO¹ ; ANGELICA PRELA-PANTANO² E MARCELO BENTO PAES DE CAMARGO³ 1 Faculdade de Engenharia Agrícola – Feagri UNICAMP (LabGeo) silva.danielaf@gmail.com2, 3 Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento de Ecofisiologia e Biofísica, Instituto Agronômico, Campinas, SP angelica@iac.sp.gov.br, mcamargo@iac.sp.gov.br  1 RESUMO Modelos agrometeorológicos de estimativa de safra utilizam dados climatológicos coletados em estações convencionais de superfície. A precipitação é o elemento meteorológico que apresenta maior variabilidade espacial, e desta forma com o intuito de obter uma maior cobertura e disponibilidade de dados de precipitação pluvial vem sendo utilizados dados estimados por satélite. Com isso melhora a qualidade das estimativas de produtividade da cultura da soja no Estado de São Paulo. O objetivo foi estimar a produtividade da cultura da soja, para a região do Vale do Médio Paranapanema-SP, utilizando dados de temperatura e precipitação de estações meteorológicas convencionais e dados de precipitação estimados pelo satélite TRMM para o período de 1998 a 2008, por meio de modelagem agrometeorológico. O modelo de estimativa de produtividade utilizado levou em consideração tanto deficiência hídrica como o excedente hídrico e apresentou desempenho satisfatório e melhoria significativa com a inserção dos dados do satélite TRMM, com valores de índice de concordância ‘d’ variando de 0,80 a 0,90. Palavras-chave: Precipitação pluvial, variabilidade climática, TRMM.  SILVA-FUZZO,D.F.; PRELA-PANTANO, A.; CAMARGO,M.B.P.AGROMETEOROLOGICAL MODELING TO  ESTIMATE  SOYBEAN YIELD IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIDDLE PARANAPANEMA-SP   2 ABSTRACT Agrometeorological models to estimate harvest use climatological data collected in conventional surface stations. Precipitation is the weather parameter   which presents the highest spatial variability. Therefore,  in order to achieve greater coverage and   rainfall data availability, data estimated by satellite have been used, and consequently, better estimates of soybean crop yield have been found in São Paulo state.     The objective of this study was to estimate crop yield of soybean in  the Valley of the Middle Paranapanema-SP, using data of temperature and precipitation from  conventional meteorological stations and precipitation data estimated by the TRMM satellite in  the period from 1998 to 2008 using agrometeorological modeling.   The estimation model of productivity considered both water stress and water surplus, and using data of the TRMM satellite caused a significant improvement with values of concordance index  ‘d’ of Willmott ranging from 0.80 to 0.90. Keywords: Rainfall, climatic variability, TRMM.
A Software System Development Life Cycle Model for Improved Stakeholders’ Communication and Collaboration
Authors: Cohen Shalom , Dori Dov , De Haan Uzi
Published: January 2016

Software vendors and entrepreneurs, who try to introduce an innovative software product to a specific organization or an entire market, enter a long and tedious process. During this process, the market and various organizations evaluate the product from different perspectives, such as software robustness, manufacturer reliability, and corporate need for the product. The vendors and entrepreneurs engaged in this process encounter decision crossroads for which no relevant guidance exists in the literature.
 The research closely monitored the processes associated with the introduction and assimilation of an innovative off-the-shelf (OTS) software product into five different organizations in different vertical market segments. Observations were carried out to assess organizational and marketing processes and to document and analyze what the software product undergoes before it is accepted for acquisition or full implementation within the organization.
 The research outcomes offer a unified, collaborative multi-tier System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) framework and methodology for packaged OTS software products that greatly improves communication and collaboration among the stakeholders. Each tier addresses a different force or stakeholder involved in the software market: vendor, customer, consultants and integrators. All stakeholders refer to the same time-line thus; tasks of various stakeholders are streamlined. Adherence to the unified time-line brings about an increased amount of stakeholder interaction, communication and collaboration.
 Newly found tasks that improve communication and collaboration among stakeholders include (1) offering of the OTS software product together with personnel as a bundle, (2) an improvisation-intensive iterative task of weaving potential customers’ requirements into the prototype, and (3) a third sale milestone, representing the successful diffusion of the product. The significance of this interdisciplinary research stems from its unique position at a crossroad between software engineering, marketing, and business administration, which has not yet been sufficiently explored or cultivated.
Swarming Models for Facilitating Collaborative Decisions
Authors: Zamfirescu Constantin-Bala , Filip Florin Gheorghe
Published: January 2016

The paper highlights the computational power of swarming models (i.e., stigmergic mechanisms) to build collaborative support systems for complex cognitive tasks such as facilitation of group decision processes (GDP) in e-meetings. Unlike traditional approaches that minimize the cognitive complexity by incorporating the facilitation knowledge into the system, stigmergic coordination mechanisms minimize the complexity by providing the system with emergent functionalities that are shaped by the environment itself through the possibility to structure it in terms of high-level cognitive artefacts. This is illustrated by conducting a socio-simulation experiment for an envisioned collaborative software tool that acts as a stigmergic environment for modelling the GDP. The results show superior results when the users are allowed to increase the representational complexity of a GDP model with cognitive artefacts that support guidance and action in the conceptual problem space.
Environmental Policy and Science Management: Using a Scientometric-specific GIS for E-learning Purposes
Authors: Hasanagas Nikolaos D. , Styliadis Ahanasios D. , Papadopoulou Eleni I.
Published: January 2016

Who is the "good scientist" in rural-environmental policy? This is not so self-evident as in the case of private high-tech industry. Developing e-learning system in environmental science management is a challenging task in the area of forest and general rural development policy. Who determines the most "important" scientific information and who controls it? There are algorithms for measuring centrality in information networks. The concepts of closeness and betweenness centrality are used as basic metadata for categorizing the communication type in the rural-environmental policy networks. This paper discusses the development of a GIS-based model which includes region-based scientometrics, regarding policy field communication.
Objects Detection by Singular Value Decomposition Technique in Hybrid Color Space: Application to Football Images
Authors: Jlassi Mourad Moussa , Douik Ali , Messaoud Hassani
Published: January 2016

In this paper, we present an improvement non-parametric background modeling and foreground segmentation. This method is important; it gives the hand to check many states kept by each background pixel. In other words, generates the historic for each pixel, indeed on certain computer vision applications the background can be dynamic; several intensities were projected on the same pixel. This paper describe a novel approach which integrate both Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) of each image to increase the compactness density distribution and hybrid color space suitable to this case constituted by the three relevant chromatics levels deduced by histogram analysis. In fact the proposed technique presents the efficiency of SVD and color information to subtract background pixels corresponding to shadows pixels. This method has been applied on colour images issued from soccer video. In the other hand to achieve some statistics information about players ongoing of the match (football, handball, volley ball, Rugby...) as well as to refine their strategy coach and leaders need to have a maximum of technical-tactics information. For this reason it is prominent to elaborate an algorithm detecting automatically interests color regions (players) and solve the confusion problem between background and foreground every moment from images sequence.
On the Use of the FuzzyARTMAP Neural Network for Pattern Recognition in Statistical Process Control using a Factorial Design
Authors: Vazquez-Lopez J. A. , Lopez-Juarez I. , Peña-Cabrera M.
Published: January 2016

Time-series statistical pattern recognition is of prime importance in statistics, especially in quality control techniques for manufacturing processes. A frequent problem in this application is the complexity when trying to determine the behaviour (pattern) from sample data. There have been identified standard patterns which are commonly present when using the X chart; its detection depends on human judgement supported by norms and graphical criteria. In the last few years, it has been demonstrated that Artificial Neural Networks (ANN’s) are useful to predict the type of time-series pattern instead of the use of rules. However, the ANN control parameters have to be fixed to values that maximize its performance. This research proposes an experimental design methodology to determine the most appropriate values for the control parameters of the FuzzyARTMAP ANN such as: learning rate (β ) and network vigilance (ρa, ρb, ρab) in order to increment the neural network efficiency during unnatural pattern recognition.
Solving Problems in a DistributedWay in Membrane Computing: dP Systems
Authors: Păun Gheorghe , Pérez-Jiménez Mario J.
Published: January 2016

Although P systems are distributed parallel computing devices, no explicit way of handling the input in a distributed way in this framework was considered so far. This note proposes a distributed architecture (based on cell-like P systems, with their skin membranes communicating through channels as in tissue-like P systems, according to specified rules of the antiport type), where parts of a problem can be introduced as inputs in various components and then processed in parallel. The respective devices are called dP systems, with the case of accepting strings called dP automata. The communication complexity can be evaluated in various ways: statically (counting the communication rules in a dP system which solves a given problem), or dynamically (counting the number of communication steps, of communication rules used in a computation, or the number of objects communicated). For each measure, two notions of “parallelizability" can be introduced. Besides (informal) definitions, some illustrations of these idea are provided for dP automata: each regular language is “weakly parallelizable" (i.e., it can be recognized in this framework, using a constant number of communication steps), and there are languages of various types with respect to Chomsky hierarchy which are “efficiently parallelizable" (they are parallelizable and, moreover, are accepted in a faster way by a dP automaton than by a single P automaton). Several suggestions for further research are made.
Structural variation and content of aboveground living biomass in an area of Atlantic Forest in the State of São Paulo, Brazil
Authors: Medeiros Maria Cláudia Melo Pacheco de , Aidar Marcos Pereira Marinho
Published: January 2016

Knowledge of the vegetation structure in the Atlantic Forest is essential to support studies about its functioning, in view of broad interest issues such as global carbon balance. This study aimed to describe the structural variation in a heterogeneous area at Núcleo Santa Virgínia, Parque Estadual da Serra do Mar and how the aboveground living biomass is distributed in its phytophysiognomies. In each physiognomy studied, blocks of 10 × 10 m plots were allocated, totaling 0.6 ha of sampling. From the 1,046 individuals with PBH > 15 cm sampled, 443 were in riparian forest (RF), 272 in valley forest (VF) and 331 in hill forest (HF), with a total of 119 species. Shannon index was 3.63 and Pielou equability 0.76. Biomass estimated corresponds to 225.45 mg ha-1 (total), 193.6 mg ha-1 (RF), 299.85 mg ha-1 (VF) and 182.9 mg ha-1 (HF). The forest presents similar features to other fragments previously analyzed.
O gênero Cosmarium Corda ex Ralfs (Desmidiaceae) no reservatório de Itaipu, PR, Brasil
Authors: Menezes Viviane Costa de , Bueno Norma Catarina , Bortolini Jascieli Carla , Biolo Stefania , Siqueira Natália Silveira
Published: January 2016

O trabalho objetivou o levantamento florístico do gênero Cosmarium em um tributário do Reservatório de Itaipu, na região Oeste do Paraná. Foram coletadas amostras mensais da comunidade biológica em cinco estações de amostragem na região limnética do tributário rio São Francisco Falso, Santa Helena, Paraná, entre julho de 2003 e junho de 2004. Utilizou-se como critérios de ocorrência dos táxons nas amostras as constâncias acidental, acessória e constante. O inventário resultou na identificação, descrição e ilustração de 23 táxons, sendo 10 em nível específico e 13 em nível infraespecífico, sendo destes, sete variedades típicas de suas espécies, seis variedades não típicas de suas espécies e duas formas taxonômicas. A grande maioria dos táxons inventariados (69,5%) obteve uma constância acidental, sendo o restante das espécies (30,5%) representado pela constância acessória. Não houve a ocorrência de táxons constantes.