bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Representativeness of point‐wise phenological Betula data collected in different parts of Europe
Authors: Siljamo Pilvi , Sofiev Mikhail , Ranta Hanna , Linkosalo Tapio , Kubin Eero , Ahas Rein , Genikhovich Eugene , Jatczak Katarzyna , Jato Victoria , Nekovář Jiří , Minin Alexander , Severova Elena , Shalaboda Valentina 
Published: March 2008

ABSTRACTAim  We examine issues of uncertainty regarding the spatial and temporal representativeness of phenological observations using a newly compiled Europe‐wide data base of phenological observations for Betula species.Location  Europe.Methods  A new data base was compiled from national phenological observations covering 15 European countries, with the longest observational periods exceeding several decades for some sites. From this, the spatial and temporal representativeness of phenological observations were evaluated via statistical analysis.Results  The results showed that there was a significant and irreducible uncertainty related to the use of data of a single station, which varied from 3 to 8 days depending on the station location. In more continental and northern climatic zones the uncertainty was lower, probably due to faster spring‐time weather developments. In mild climatic conditions, the uncertainty of dates of the phenological phases registered by a single station exceeded 1 week. The considerable number of data allowed us to preliminarily estimate the features of some stations, marking them as ‘late’, ‘early’, ‘representative’ or ‘random’, depending on the dates reported by these sites and the corresponding regional means.Main conclusions  The uncertainties discovered in single‐site phenological observations are significant for virtually any potential application. Possible approaches for handling the uncertainty problem are station pre‐averaging and spatial regularization of the data set, pre‐selection (down‐sampling) or changing the description of the phenomena from deterministic to probabilistic.
Regional variation in the historical components of global avian species richness
Authors: Thomas Gavin H. , Orme C. David L. , Davies Richard G. , Olson Valerie A. , Bennett Peter M. , Gaston Kevin J. , Owens Ian P. F. , Blackburn Tim M. 
Published: March 2008

ABSTRACTAim  Using a global data base of the distribution of extant bird species, we examine the evidence for spatial variation in the evolutionary origins of contemporary avian diversity. In particular, we assess the possible role of the timing of mountain uplift in promoting diversification in different regions.Location  Global.Methods  We mapped the distribution of avian richness at four taxonomic levels on an equal‐area 1° grid. We examined the relationships between richness at successive taxonomic levels (e.g. species richness vs. genus richness). We mapped the residuals from linear regressions of these relationships to identify areas that are exceptional in the number of lower taxa relative to the number of higher taxa. We use generalized least squares models to test the influence of elevation range and temperature on lower‐taxon richness relative to higher‐taxon richness.Results  Peaks of species richness in the Neotropics were congruent with patterns of generic richness, whilst peaks in Australia and the Himalayas were congruent with patterns of both genus and family richness. Hotspots in the Afrotropics did not reflect higher‐taxon patterns. Regional differences in the relationship between richness at successive taxonomic levels revealed variation in patterns of taxon co‐occurrence. Species and genus co‐occurrence was positively associated with elevational range across much of the world. Taxon occurrence in the Neotropics was associated with a positive interaction between elevational range and temperature.Conclusions  These results demonstrate that contemporary patterns of richness show different associations with higher‐taxon richness in different regions, which implies that the timing of historical effects on these contemporary patterns varies across regions. We suggest that this is due to dispersal limitation and phylogenetic constraints on physiological tolerance limits promoting diversification. We speculate that diversification rates respond to long‐term changes in the Earth's topography, and that the role of tropical mountain ranges is implicated as a correlate of contemporary diversity, and a source of diversification across avian evolutionary history.
The changing demand for skills Evidence from the transition1
Authors: Commander Simon , Kollo Janos 
Published: March 2008

AbstractTransition has involved major job destruction and creation. This paper examines the skill content of these changes using a detailed three country firm survey. It shows that transition has exerted a strong bias against unskilled labour that has lost employment disproportionately. The skill content of blue collar work has shifted upwards. Shifts away from low‐skilled labour were accelerated by technological change. By 2000, the actual and desired levels of employment were close to each other but we find some evidence that technological changes had given rise to shortages of skilled blue collar workers. Although there is variation across the sampled countries, this appears to be explained by differences in the timing of reforms. The observed changes will have major longer run implications for the level and structure of employment and for inequality through the distribution of earnings.
From transition to competition Dynamic efficiency analysis of Polish electricity distribution companies1
Authors: Cullmann Astrid , Von Hirschhausen Christian 
Published: March 2008

AbstractIn this paper, we test the hypothesis that the economic transition toward a market economy increases the efficiency of firms. We study 32 Polish electricity distribution companies between 1997 and 2002, by applying common benchmarking methods to the panel: the non‐parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA), the free disposal hull (FDH), and, as a parametric approach, the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). We then measure and decompose productivity change with Malmquist indices. We find that the technical efficiency of the companies has indeed increased during the transition, while allocative efficiency has deteriorated. We also find significantly increasing returns to scale, suggesting that the regulatory authority should allow companies to merge into larger units.
Similarity in trade structures, integration and catching‐up1
Authors: De Benedictis Luca , Tajoli Lucia 
Published: March 2008

AbstractIn this paper, we look at the role of export composition in the growth process, considering how increased similarity in trade structure among countries can induce catching‐up in income levels in a group of countries in transition. We analyze the sectoral export patterns of the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) by comparing them to those of the current members of the European Union (EU), focusing on countries’ specialization as suppliers for the EU market, and we assess whether similar export patterns foster the catching‐up process of the CEECs. Our main result is that similarity in export composition has a positive, significant and non‐linear impact on catching‐up, and seems to be driven by the growth of the main export market and delocalization of production more than by other factors.
Foreign direct investment and exports  The experiences of Vietnam1
Authors: Xuan Nguyen Thanh , Xing Yuqing 
Published: March 2008

AbstractWe examined the implementation statuses of a total of 5,919 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects approved by the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment since 1988, and compiled a database of actually disbursed FDI in Vietnam. The database covers FDI flows into Vietnam from 23 countries from 1990 to 2004. Using the data, we analyzed the impact of FDI on the exports of Vietnam with gravity equations. The empirical results demonstrate that FDI is one of the major factors driving the rapid export growth of Vietnam. It has significantly facilitated the expansion of Vietnam's exports to FDI source countries. In particular, the empirical analysis shows that a 1 percent increase in FDI inflows will be expected to give rise to a 0.13 percent increase in Vietnam's exports to these countries.
MEMORY, AMNESIA AND IDENTITY IN HERMANN BROCH'S SCHLAFWANDLER TRILOGY
Authors: Bartram Graham 
Published: March 2008

ABSTRACTThrough its three novels, set in 1888, 1903 and 1918, Broch's Schlafwandler trilogy traces a progressive fragmentation of social values in late modernity. This article investigates a key marker of this fragmentation: the figuration of individual and collective memory, which undergoes a radical shift between Part I and Part III. In Part I the depiction of memory engages the reader with the protagonist's psychological and moral conflicts and the formation of his individual identity. In Part II memory features as abstract and collective, in allegorical meditations on man's existence in time; in Part III the theme of remembering is largely displaced by that of amnesia, emphasising the isolation of the individual in the era of ‘Wertzerfall’.This depiction of cultural disintegration is, however, counterbalanced by the symbolic unity of Die Schlafwandler, whose aesthetic structures play an essential part in what Broch saw as the novel's ‘cognitive’ task. Here memory features within the reading process itself. To conclude we examine some of the trilogy's densely intersecting leitmotifs that activate the reader's memory in defiance of disintegration and amnesia, and thereby contribute a vital element to the realisation of the ‘cognitive novel’.
THE LIMITS OF TRAVEL: YOKO TAWADA'S FICTIONAL TRAVELOGUES
Authors: Kraenzle Christina 
Published: March 2008

ABSTRACTThe article argues that many of Yoko Tawada's writings are best understood as forms of travel writing. An analysis of Talisman, ‘Wo Europa anfängt’, and Überseezungen demonstrates how they explore diverse experiences of mobility, from migration, to colonial expansion, to more cosmopolitan forms of leisure travel and tourism. In their emphasis on various forms of travel, Tawada's writings avoid the careless celebration of dislocation and instead display ambivalence towards the effects of displacement. They highlight how travel can disrupt the universalist pretensions of one's own point of view and render meaningless identities based on notions of nation or territory. However, they also question whether travel, especially in its more contemporary forms, can offer the sort of radical change of environment that might facilitate such a disturbance of subjectivity. Talisman and ‘Wo Europa anfängt’ both show how travel may in fact reinforce notions of essential cultural identities, while Überseezungen illustrates how the increasing uniformity of modern‐day travel can make movement between locations less distinct, thus offering no alternatives of perspective or identification. These three works thus cast doubt on the subversive potential of displacement that is often posited by cultural studies.
Mumbai's Development Mafias: Globalization, Organized Crime and Land Development
Authors: WEINSTEIN LIZA 
Published: March 2008

AbstractFor over a decade, researchers have analyzed the effects of liberalization and globalization on urban development, considering the local political implications of shifts at the national and global scales. Taking the case of Mumbai, this article examines how the past 15 years of political reforms in India have reshaped property markets and the politics of land development. Among the newly empowered actors, local criminal syndicates, often with global connections, have seized political opportunities created by these shifts to gain influence over land development. The rise of Mumbai's organized criminal activity in the 1950s was closely linked to India's macroeconomic policies, with strict regulation of imports fuelling the growth of black market smuggling. Liberalization and deregulation since the early 1990s have diminished demand for smuggled consumer goods and criminal syndicates have since diversified their operations. With skyrocketing real estate prices in the 1990s, bolstered by global land speculation, the mafia began investing in property development. Supported by an illicit nexus of politicians, bureaucrats and the police, the mafia has emerged as a central figure in Mumbai's land development politics. The article examines the structural shifts that facilitated the criminalization of land development and the implications of mafia involvement in local politics.Résumé Depuis plus d'une décennie, les chercheurs ont analysé les effets de la libéralisation et de la mondialisation sur l'aménagement urbain en étudiant les implications politiques locales de transformations effectuées à l'échelle nationale et planétaire. Prenant le cas de Mumbai, cet article examine comment les réformes politiques des quinze dernières années en Inde ont reconfiguré les marchés immobiliers et les politiques d'aménagement foncier. Parmi les nouveaux acteurs, les syndicats du crime locaux, opérant souvent dans des réseaux internationaux, ont saisi les occasions politiques créées par ces changements pour gagner en influence sur l'aménagement foncier. A Mumbai, l'activité accrue du crime organisé dans les années 1950 était étroitement liée aux politiques macroéconomiques de l'Inde, une réglementation stricte des importations alimentant l'essor de la contrebande sur le marché noir. Depuis le début des années 1990, libéralisation et déréglementation ont réduit la demande pour les biens de consommation de contrebande, poussant les syndicats du crime à diversifier leurs opérations. Face à la montée en flèche des prix de l'immobilier dans les années 1990, aidée par la spéculation foncière mondiale, la mafia a investi dans la promotion immobilière. Soutenue par un réseau illégal de politiciens, bureaucrates et policiers, elle est donc devenue un personnage central des politiques d'urbanisme à Mumbai. L'article étudie les transformations structurelles qui ont facilité la criminalisation du secteur foncier, et les implications de la présence de la mafia dans la politique locale.
Gentrification ‘Research’ and the Academic Nobility: A Different Class?
Authors: ALLEN CHRIS 
Published: March 2008

AbstractThis essay is a response to Tom Slater's article ‘The eviction of critical perspectives from gentrification research’. My essay addresses two issues. First, I consider the issue of why gentrification research appears to be losing its critical edge. I argue that social position infects understanding and, inevitably therefore, academic knowledge production. Thus the social proximity of the academic nobility to gentrifiers (and social distance between the academic nobility and the displaced) has epistemological consequences, notably, the lack of critical perspectives in gentrification research. Second, Slater's paper appears to be an appeal for more ‘critical’ research from the academic nobility. Perhaps we should go even further. We should actually question the epistemic authority of the academic nobility, which claims its legitimacy to speak about gentrification on the grounds that it undertakes ‘research’ into the phenomenon. There are strong and sound epistemological reasons for also listening to the marginalized voices of people that have ‘first hand’ (albeit not ‘research’) experience of the negative effects of gentrification.Résumé Ce texte est une réponse à l'article de Tom Slater sur ‘l’éviction' des perspectives critiques des études sur la ‘gentrification’. Il aborde deux points. En premier lieu, il traite des raisons pour lesquelles ces études semblent perdre leur acuité critique. La position sociale entache la compréhension et, donc inévitablement, la production de savoir académique. Ainsi, la proximité sociale entre la noblesse académique et les nouveaux propriétaires aisés (et la distance sociale entre la noblesse académique et les déplacés) a des conséquences au plan épistémologique, notamment l'absence de points de vue critiques dans la recherche sur la ‘gentrification’. En second lieu, le texte de Slater apparaît comme un appel à des études plus critiques de la part de la noblesse académique. Peut‐être faudrait‐il aller plus loin, jusqu'à une réelle remise en cause de l'autoritéépistémique de la noblesse académique, laquelle revendique sa légitimité pour parler de la ‘gentrification’ en arguant qu'elle mène des ‘recherches’ sur un phénomène. Il existe des raisons épistémologiques solides et sensées pour écouter les voix marginalisées des gens qui ont une expérience de ‘l’intérieur' (pas de ‘recherche’) sur les effets néfastes de la ‘gentrification’.
Relocating Gentrification: The Working Class, Science and the State in Recent Urban Research
Authors: WACQUANT LOÏC 
Published: March 2008

AbstractThis article amplifies Tom Slater's diagnosis of the causes of the gentrification of recent gentrification research. It argues that the shift from the denunciation to the celebration of gentrification, the elision of the displacement of the established residents, and the euphemistic focus on ‘social mixing’ partake of a broader pattern of invisibility of the working class in the public sphere and social inquiry. This effacing of the proletariat in the city is reinforced by the growing heteronomy of urban research, as the latter becomes more tightly tethered to the concerns of city rulers. Both tendencies, in turn, reveal and abet the shifting role of the state from provider of social support for lower‐income populations to supplier of business services and amenities for middle‐ and upper‐class urbanites — among them the cleansing of the built environment and the streets from the physical and human detritus wrought by economic deregulation and welfare retrenchment. To build better models of the changing nexus of class and space in the neoliberal city, we need to relocate gentrification in a broader and sturdier analytic framework by revising class analysis to capture the (de)formation of the postindustrial proletariat, resisting the seductions of the prefabricated problematics of policy, and giving pride of place to the state as producer of sociospatial inequality.Résumé Cet article amplifie le diagnostic de Tom Slater sur les causes de la ‘gentrification’ des études récentes sur la ‘gentrification’ urbaine. Le glissement de la dénonciation à l'éloge de la gentrification, l'élision du déplacement forcé des habitants établis et la focalisation euphémistique sur la ‘mixité sociale’ s'inscrivent dans un schéma plus large d'invisibilisation de la classe ouvrière dans la sphère publique et les investigations sociologiques. Cet effacement du prolétariat des métropoles est renforcé par l'hétéronomie croissante de la recherche urbaine, plus étroitement liée que jamais aux préoccupations des dirigeants de la ville. Ces deux tendances révèlent et facilitent la mutation du rôle de l'État, de fournisseur de soutiens sociaux aux populations démunies en agence de services et d'équipements marchands pour citadins des classes moyennes et supérieures — au premier rang desquels figure le nettoyage de l'environnement bâti et des rues des détritus humains et matériels engendrés par la dérégulation de l'économie et le recul de la protection sociale. Pour construire de meilleurs modèles des rapports changeants entre classe et espace dans la ville néolibérale, il faut replacer la gentrification des quartiers populaires dans un cadre analytique élargi et renforcé en réélaborant l'analyse de classe pour saisir la (dé)formation du prolétariat post‐industriel, en résistant aux séductions des problématiques préfabriquées de politique publique, et en accordant une place centrale à l'État en tant que producteur d'inégalités sociospatiales.
Polish Regions in the Age of a Knowledge‐based Economy
Authors: ZIENTARA PIOTR 
Published: March 2008

AbstractThe shift to a knowledge‐based economy and the resurgence of interest in the region as a scale of economic organization have been a subject of much debate. Such concepts as innovation, learning, and knowledge diffusion have all come to be seen as crucial elements of regional development strategies associated with the new regionalism. Specifically, the learning region — shifting the focus from technological progress to institutional and cultural factors — has been thought of as offering particularly interesting insights into the mechanisms of regional economies. Yet doubts are being cast on whether the processes of development are actually as critical to the spatial workings of the economy as the paradigm assumes. This is of relevance to a post‐Communist country such as Poland, which, having undergone a systemic transformation, seems to be marked by growing core–periphery and urban–rural divides. Thus, the question arises of whether the theories associated with the new regionalism might help Polish regions to transform their economic fortunes. This article, while emphasizing new regionalism's inadequacies and flaws, argues that some of its premises should form part of a comprehensive strategy aiming to address Poland's regional‐level problems. Hence it makes a case for an eclectic approach that combines nationwide economic liberalization with certain precepts of the new regionalism.RésuméLe passage vers une économie fondée sur le savoir et le regain d'intérêt pour la région en tant qu'échelon d'organisation économique ont été bien souvent débattus. Des notions telles que innovation, apprentissage et diffusion du savoir ont toutes fini par être considérées comme essentielles aux stratégies de développement régional liées au nouveau régionalisme. En particulier, on a pensé que la région apprenante – en décalant l'attention du progrès technologique vers des facteurs institutionnels et culturels – offrait des perspectives très intéressantes sur les mécanismes des économies régionales. Pourtant des doutes sont émis sur le fait que les processus de développement soient réellement aussi vitaux pour les mécanismes spatiaux de l'économie que l'affirme le paradigme. C'est notamment le cas d'un pays post‐communiste comme la Pologne qui, ayant vécu une transformation systématique, semble être marquée par une accentuation des divisions centre‐périphérie et urbain‐rural. La question se pose donc de savoir si les théories associées au nouveau régionalisme pourraient aider les régions polonaises à transformer leur destin économique. L'article, tout en soulignant les insuffisances et défauts du nouveau régionalisme, soutient que certaines de ses hypothèses devraient participer à une stratégie d'ensemble visant à résoudre les problèmes de la Pologne au plan régional. Il plaide ainsi pour une approche éclectique associant la libéralisation économique nationale à certains préceptes du nouveau régionalisme.