The influence of the early formation of human and social capital on inventiveness: perspectives from a Swedish case study

Analysing life-history narratives of Swedish inventors, this paper explores how family background influences upon the formation of social and human capital and demonstrates how these capital resources affect the creative abilities of inventors. The main findings of the paper are that the socio-economic position one is born into has important implications for the development of human and social capital, and that the nature and extent of an inventor’s capital assets strongly influences the nature of his or her inventiveness. Inventors who come from higher socio-economic backgrounds have greater endowments of formal human capital than those from more modest backgrounds, and the social networks they use in their inventive work link them to other actors with human capital endowments similar to their own. Therefore, inventors with high human capital endowments will benefit from their social networks, as they constitute important means of gaining access to innovative knowledge and business advice. In contrast, inventors from lower socio-economic backgrounds with limited formal human capital resources are more likely to have actors in their social networks who themselves possess limited formal human capital. However, these inventors may become prosperous inventors if they are endowed with great social capital resources from their formative backgrounds because, for inventors, high endowments of social capital can compensate for a lack of formal human capital.     

The (ir)relevance of geography for school choice: Evidence from a Swedish choice experiment

The increased opportunity to choose one’s school of preference has been raised as a key factor in many countries to promote equal opportunities and a higher quality of education. This has been endorsed by policymakers who assume that students make well-informed rational choices and that students stress only academic quality when deciding which school to attend. If this is true, it will benefit schools of high academic quality, rendering improved school quality overall. To date, little research has examined the validity of these assumptions despite the profound effects they have had for changing the school systems in many countries. This article describes an experiment to investigate the relative importance of factors in school choice. The aim is to test the validity of the theoretical assumptions that guided the school choice reforms in Sweden. Specifically, we draw on experimental data from prospective upper secondary school students in Sweden to contrast the principal school quality attributes behind the policy change (knowledge reputation and program feasibility), with the presence of friends and geographical attributes such as distance, location and accessibility, while controlling for individual characteristics. The results have important policy implications as they show that geographical factors are highly relevant for school choice preferences. In contrast to the reforms’ intentions, geography appears to have become more important than ever before. The findings thus reveal significant flaws in the assumptions that motivated the school choice policy reform.     

Praying for success? Faith schools and school choice in East London

The article discusses research undertaken in East London into perceptions of educational choice amongst a group of middle-class parents drawn from all the main ethnic groups. It focuses on the way in which faith schools are slowly being drawn into the mainstream discourse of choice and how many groups are now beginning to regard such schools as their fall back of choice when it becomes apparent that they are unlikely to get their child into a preferred non-selective secondary school (and increasingly a preferred primary school). This mainstreaming of faith schooling is driven by the attractions to such parents of these schools’ ethos, their perception of them as having a favourable social mix of ‘people like us’ and their generally high record of attainment. It is argued that this increase in demand for faith schools is leading to changes in the recruitment patterns away from primarily faith-based criteria to ones based around a more diffuse (and middle-class) ethos and educational potential. In addition, where such schools once served a wider East London geographical area, there is some evidence that they are now becoming more focused around a local ‘catchment area’ in ways similar to the same popular non-selective schools to which the same group of parents aspired.     

Towards models of strategic spatial choice behaviour: theory and application issues

Models of spatial choice behaviour have been around in geography urban planning for decades to assess the feasibility of planning actions or to predict external (competition) effects on existing destinations. Although these models differ in terms of complexity and key concepts, they all have in common that spatial choice behaviour is predicted as a function of the attributes of the choice alternatives and distance or travel time separation only. None of these models do take into account that the attributes of choice alternatives and travel time may be highly non-stationary and that often the utility that people derive from visiting a particular location also depends on the choice behaviour of other individuals. Under these circumstances, individuals may exhibit strategic choice behaviour. That is, they will choose particular choice options taking into account their expected behaviour of others such as to maximize their own utility. The purpose of the proposed paper is to discuss possible models of strategic choice behaviour for these urban planning problems. Theory will be outlined and some critical issues in the application of such models to problems of spatial choice will be discussed.     

The interrelationship between travel behavior and life choices in adapting to flood disasters

Disasters resulting from climate change are shown to be important determinants of people’s life choice decisions. In the literature, travel behavior choice and life choices are usually addressed separately under disasters such as flood and cyclone. However, travel behavior may be interdependent with other life choices, jointly shaping people’s adaptation decisions. To this end, the paper advances the literature by exploring the interrelationship between changes in travel behavior and job and residential location under flood disasters, while separating coastal and inland observations. For this purpose, a stated preference survey was conducted in 14 cities of Bangladesh in early 2013. An analysis approach based on structural equation modeling was developed to investigate the correlations between travel behavior change and job and residential location changes. Model estimation results suggest that flood impacts have significant influences on inland people’s life choices, while coastal people’s life choices are mainly affected by flood adaptation responses and attitudes. Significant correlations between travel behavior change and job and residential location changes are found for both observations. Moreover, both coastal and inland people tend not to change residential locations if changes in job location and travel behavior are made. Inland people may not change travel behavior if their job and/or residential locations are changed, but coastal people’s job and residential location changes are associated with changes in travel behavior. Travel behavior change is found to have more of an effect on residential location change than job location change in both regions. These findings conclude that the two-way relationship between travel behavior and life choices should be taken into account in future analyses, and thus adaptation policies to climate change disasters could be better linked with people’s behavioral responses.     

School vulnerability to disaster: examination of school closure,demographic, and exposure factors in Hurricane Ike’s wind swath

Damage and destruction to schools from climate-related disasters can have significant and lasting impacts on curriculum and educational programs, educational attainment, and future income-earning potential of affected students. As such, assessing the potential impact of hazards is crucial to the ability of individuals, households, and communities to respond to natural disasters, extreme events, and economic crises. Yet, few studies have focused on assessing the vulnerability of schools in coastal regions of the USA. Using Hurricane Ike’s tropical storm wind swath in the State of Texas as our study area, we: (1) assessed the spatial distribution patterns of school closures and (2) tested the relationship between school closure and vulnerability factors (namely physical exposure and school demographics) using zero-inflated negative binomial regression models. The regression results show that higher probabilities of hurricane strikes, more urbanized school districts, and school districts located in coastal counties on the right side of Ike’s path have significant positive associations with an increase in the number of school closure days. Socioeconomic characteristics were not significantly associated with the number of days closed, with the exception of proportion of Hispanic youth in schools, a result which is not supported by the social vulnerability literature. At a practical level, understanding how hurricanes may adversely impact schools is important for developing appropriate preparedness, mitigation, recovery, and adaptation strategies. For example, school districts on the right side of the hurricane track can plan in advance for potential damage and destruction. The ability of a community to respond to future natural disasters, extreme events, and economic crises depends in part on mitigating these adverse effects.     

气候变化与人类活动对水文影响的研究进展

气候变化与人类活动对水文过程产生了重大影响,估计和区分二者的影响是水科学研究中的热点问题。针对气候变化和人类活动(土地利用/覆盖变化)两个驱动因素,分别综述了气候变化、人类活动和两者综合对水文影响的研究进展;介绍了未来的气候情景和人类活动情景;阐述了区分气候变化和人类活动对水文要素过去和未来影响的研究方法,并总结了方法中常用的分布式水文模型。提出当前研究中存在气候和人类活动情景重复交叉、缺乏两者对水文极值事件的影响研究等问题。     

Publication bias in the neighbourhood effects literature

There is a strong belief amongst policy makers regarding the existence of neighbourhood effects, i.e., that above and beyond other influence, the neighbourhood in which they live influences individuals’ life chances. The evidence from scientific reviews leans towards the idea that it is likely that neighbourhoods indeed affect life chances of their residents. Yet, amongst scientists there is no consensus about the neighbourhood effects hypothesis because of differences in methodological and theoretical approaches. I ask why, when there is no consensus, the evidence leans towards supporting the neighbourhood effects hypothesis within policy circles. To test whether the scientific evidence for the neighbourhood effects hypothesis is driven by publication bias, I employ a meta-analysis over all studies that test for a relation between neighbourhood characteristics and educational outcomes. The results show that around the arbitrary boundary for statistical significance (p-value is less than 0.05), there is an unlikely large share of studies that are significant compared to the share of studies that are insignificant. This finding strongly suggests that there is publication bias in the neighbourhood effects literature.     

Effects of mechanical layering on hydraulic fracturing in shale gas reservoirs based on numerical models

Generally, induced hydraulic fractures are generated by fluid overpressure and are used to increase reservoir permeability through forming interconnected fracture systems. However, in heterogeneous and anisotropic rocks, many hydraulic fractures may become arrested or offset at layer contacts under certain conditions and do not form vertically connected fracture networks. Mechanical layering is an important factor causing anisotropy in sedimentary layers. Hence, in this study, with a shale gas reservoir case study in the Longmaxi Formation in the southeastern Chongqing region, Sichuan Basin, we present results from several numerical models to gain quantitative insights into the effects of mechanical layering on hydraulic fracturing. Results showed that the fractured area caused by hydraulic fracturing indicated a linear relationship with the neighboring layer’s Young’s modulus. An increase of the neighboring layer’s Young’s modulus resulted in better hydraulic fracturing effects. In addition, the contact between two neighboring layers is regarded as a zone with thickness and mechanical properties, which also influences the effects of hydraulic fracturing in reservoirs. The initial hydraulic fracture was unable to propagate into neighboring layers under a relatively low contact’s Young’s modulus. When associated local tensile stresses exceeded the rock strength, hydraulic fractures propagated into neighboring layers. Moreover, with the contact’s Young’s modulus becoming higher, the fractured area increased rapidly first, then slowly and finally became stable.     

Geographical location in the information age: from destiny to opportunity?

This article argues for a possibly new significance of geographical location in the information age, a significance amounting to more than mere spatial anchoring, on the one hand, and to less and different than absolute destiny, on the other. Hence, we show a possible change in the significance of geographical location from destiny in the industrial age to potential opportunity in the information age, a transition which applies to geographical units (i.e. cities, regions) and to individuals. First we discuss geographical location as destiny in the industrial age for both geographical entities and individuals. Second, we highlight a transitional period spanning through the 1970s and 1980s during which geographical location lost much of its absolute nature, becoming more of an anchor. Third, we present a conceptual framework for geographical location possibly turning into opportunity in the information age, again for both geographical units and individuals. We demonstrate that this potential opportunity has only partially materialized by individuals in the international use of online shopping, showing that their adoption is wider in North America, and differentiated in Europe. We further demonstrate a partial dissemination of opportunities for cities and regions by focusing on FDI. Finally, in the fourth and concluding section, we briefly discuss pertaining policy issues for the enhancement of locational opportunities.     

Job access, location decision, and the working poor: A qualitative study in the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area

The critical perspective in job accessibility research argues that access to employment opportunities in an urban area is a complex process. This paper explores the role of individual level location decision-making as it relates to job access. In US metropolitan areas, a worker must consider where to live, where to work, and how they will commute between these locations – the residential–commuting–employment nexus. But limited work has been done to understand how this home-work link influences job access. This research interviews thirty working poor individuals in the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area. One unexpected finding was the spatially transitory nature of these individuals’ lives – frequently changing both jobs and residences. Negotiating the nexus is a process of spatial decision-making determined by their individual urban mobility. Residential choice is made based on mobility options, not work location. They have diverse job commuting experiences as their mobility options change over time, and those mobility options often dictate their capacity to access existing job opportunities. From the experience of these individuals, Columbus has a strong local economy with many low-skilled higher paying jobs, but a weak public transit system. This article also contributes a qualitative based research perspective to a body of literature that historically under utilizes the approach.     

Fish Interactions with a Commercial-Scale Tidal Energy Device in the Natural Environment

Fish are a key part of the marine ecosystem likely to be affected by hydrokinetic tidal turbines, but little is known about their behavior around such obstacles in the natural environment. In September 2010, two DIDSON acoustic cameras were used to observe fish interactions with a commercial-scale turbine in Cobscook Bay, Maine. Twenty-two hours (nearly two tidal cycles) of footage were collected. Behaviors of individual fish and schools were classified (e.g., entering, avoiding, passing, or remaining in the wake of the turbine). We analyzed the effects of turbine motion (rotating or not rotating), diel condition (day or night), and fish size (small, ≤10 cm; large, >10 cm) on individual fish behaviors, and compared behaviors of individual fish to schools of fish. When the turbine was rotating, the probability of fish entering the turbine decreased by over 35 % from when it was not. The probability that fish would enter the turbine was higher at night than during the day, and this difference was greater for small fish than for large fish (probability of small fish entering?=?0.147 day, 0.513 night; large fish?=?0.043 day, 0.333 night). Fish were almost always present in the wake of the turbine. Schools of fish had a 56 % lower probability of entering the turbine than individual fish, and reacted at greater distances from the turbine (median distance of 2.5 m for schools, 1.7 m for individuals). This study indicates that fish behavior in response to tidal turbines appears to be similar to responses to obstacles such as trawls, and highlights the importance of environmental context in determining the effects of a tidal turbine on fish.     

Classroom responses of New Zealand school teachers following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake

Following a damaging magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand on February 22, 2011, an unprecedented number of displaced school children were enrolled temporarily or permanently in new schools throughout New Zealand. This study utilized accounts from primary school teachers in New Zealand, derived from focus groups scheduled in March and April 2011 for an evaluation of a disaster preparedness teaching resource, to examine how these disasters impacted individuals and schools outside of Christchurch. The educators’ focus group accounts provide an illustration of classroom responses including providing emotional support to displaced children, informal classroom discussions, curricular responses, addressing disaster rumors, and information seeking through peers. Some recommendations are provided on ways to support teachers’ important roles in disaster recovery, including targeting evidence-based guidance and teaching resources to schools enrolling displaced children, dispelling disaster rumors through schools and facilitating peer mentoring among teachers. An overarching lesson is that communities would benefit from teachers being better equipped to provide emotional support and responsive disaster education to children after disasters.     

Analytical study of ground responses induced by the excavation of quasirectangular tunnels at shallow depths

The construction of quasirectangular tunnels at shallow depths is becoming increasingly common in urban areas to efficiently utilize underground space and reduce the need for backfilling. To clarify the mechanical mechanism of the stresses and displacements around the tunnels, this study proposes analytical solutions that precisely account for quasirectangular tunnel shapes, the ground surface, the tunnel depth, and the ground's elastic/viscoelastic properties. The Schwarz alternating method combined with complex variable theory is employed to derive the elastic solution, and convergent and highly accurate solutions are obtained by superposing the solutions in the alternating iterations. Based on the solution and the extended corresponding principle for the viscoelastic problem, the time-dependent analytical solutions for the displacement are obtained for the ground assuming any viscoelastic model. The analytical solutions agree well with the finite element method (FEM) numerical results for models that are completely consistent, and qualitatively agree with field data. Furthermore, based on the stress solution combined with the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, the predicted initial plastic zone and propagation directions around the tunnels are qualitatively consistent with those determined by the limit analysis. A parametric study is performed to investigate the influences of the rectangular/quasirectangular tunnel shape, burial depth, and supporting pressure on the ground stresses and displacements.     

Exploring the gap of the digital divide

While much of the literature related to the digital divide focuses on either technology penetration in developed countries or the introduction of new technology to the poor and disadvantaged in the developing world, this paper pays attention to the middle-classes in a developing country which is connected to the Internet but under poor conditions. The digital divide is examined by investigating how the uneven distribution of Internet connection influences distance education students’ participation in higher education. Empirically, the paper is informed by a qualitative study of distance education in Indonesia. The main conclusion is that while in more peripheral areas students may not gain much from the use of new technology, the use of this technology may be useful for the further development of such regions. In central areas the new technology seems to contribute to students’ study situations more effectively and the daily environment empowers the students’ study activities, rather than vice versa.     

Agglomeration and location choice of foreign financial institutions in China

In the midst of global economic and financial integration, there are increasing cross-border capital flows between China and the rest of the world. Foreign financial businesses also start to play more important roles in the nation’s market after waves of financial reforms. Within such a background, this study aims to investigate the agglomeration and location choice of overseas financial institutions in Chinese cities. Data from the 2004 China Economic Census show that foreign financial establishments, including banks, insurance companies, and other financial service businesses, were mainly agglomerated in coastal cities. In particular, three major urban areas, Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou, concentrated a majority of overseas financial institutions. Results from regression models show that foreign businesses’ location choice is greatly influenced by a city’s urban economy, involvement in the global market, and telecommunication infrastructure. However, we do not find a significant link between foreign financial institutions’ market entry and the size of domestic financial centers in China.     

Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) Earthquake Behaviour Coding Methodology: analysis of Christchurch Public Hospital video data from the 22 February Christchurch earthquake event

Earthquake epidemiological research indicates that the behavioural response influences the nature and severity of injuries sustained. However, there is no observational evidence of the actions individuals engage in during and immediately following earthquake shaking, and the context in which earthquake injuries and deaths are caused. Closed Circuit Television Earthquake Behaviour Coding Methodology has been developed as a tool to classify human behaviour during and immediately following earthquake shaking using real event video data. The coding methodology was applied to security video data captured during the 22 February 2011 M_w6.3 ‘Christchurch’ earthquake event from the Christchurch Public Hospital which experienced shaking intensity of MM9 lasting approximately 12–15 s. We applied this coding methodology to determine: demography, trans-event behavioural responses, post-event behavioural responses, influence of social context on behaviour, and influence of behaviour on injuries. A total of 213 individuals from 31 different camera views were analysed. Sixty-six per cent of the individuals were adult-aged females. The primary trans-event responses were to hold (26%) onto furniture, walls, and/or other people close to them and to look around (30%). No individuals were observed to perform all ‘Drop, Cover, Hold’ actions, the recommended action during strong earthquake shaking in New Zealand. Post-event behaviour included: running, walking, providing assistance, moving towards others, visual communication, and some individuals gave instructions. Social contextual behaviour varied depending on the role of the adult. There were no serious injuries linked to behaviour. The results of this initial study indicate the coding methodology can record the distribution of and variation in human behaviours. Therefore, objective observation of earthquake video data can provide a useful quantitative measure of human behaviour. Significantly, the process will enable researchers to look more closely at behaviours, as well as the social and physical contexts associated with injury risk during and immediately following earthquake shaking.     

A new procedure to best-fit earthquake magnitude probability distributions: including an example for Taiwan

Since the year 1973, more than 54,000 M _w ≥ 3.0 earthquakes have occurred around Taiwan, and their magnitude–frequency relationship was found following with the Gutenberg–Richter recurrence law with b value equal to 0.923 from the least-square calculation. However, using this b value with the McGuire–Arabasz algorithm results in some disagreement between observations and expectations in magnitude probability. This study introduces a simple approach to optimize the b value for better modeling of the magnitude probability, and its effectiveness is demonstrated in this paper. The result shows that the optimal b value can better model the observed magnitude distribution, compared with two customary methods. For example, given magnitude threshold = 5.0 and maximum magnitude = 8.0, the optimal b value of 0.835 is better than 0.923 from the least-square calculation and 0.913 from maximum likelihood estimation for simulating the earthquake’s magnitude probability distribution around Taiwan.     

Responsible adults-in-the-making: Intergenerational impact of parental migration on Indonesian young women’s aspirational capacity

In the developing economies in Southeast Asia, labour migration is increasingly seen not simply to generate income to meet short-term livelihood needs but to secure the family’s future, often by investing in children’s education. While much work has been done studying the impact of parents’ remittances on children’s wellbeing including education access, the impact of parental migration on children’s (educational) aspirations has received less attention. Viewing youth as social actors, this paper interrogates how they make meaning of their parents’ migration, and how this consequently influences their decisions to activate, delay or reshape their hopes and plans for their own educational and work trajectories. With the increasing feminisation of labour migration in Southeast Asia where gendered regimes in care and domestic work make it easier for women to work overseas, this paper focuses attention on the aspirations of young women at the cusp of adulthood from a migrant-sending area in rural East Java, Indonesia. These young women’s ‘navigational capacity’ (Appadurai, 2004) is not only shaped by tangible obstacles such as the lack of sufficient resources, but is also more subtly moulded by an emerging discourse of self-responsibilisation in the making of ‘dutiful daughters’. Drawing on conceptualisations of multiple ‘logics of aspiring’ operating within spatial contexts (Zipin et al., 2015), we show how young women unsettle, inflect and challenge the normative linear education-work transitions by expressing their desire to replace their parents in accessing labour migration as a livelihood option, and reflect on the dialectical relationship between agency and aspirations.     

中国沉积学发展战略:沉积学教育现状与展望

通过调研国内主要地质高校涉及沉积学领域的专业设置、课程设置、野外教学和研究生毕业论文等情况,对中国沉积学相关的人才培养模式进行分析,从而讨论了中国沉积学教育现状及发展趋势。调研结果显示:1）中国地质类院校中涉及沉积学的本科专业设置基本统一,而研究生专业设置则存在较大的差异,各大高校的传统优势研究领域各具特色;2）通过统计近15年沉积学相关专业研究生毕业论文情况,揭示沉积学相关专业学位论文数量占地质学科总数的32%,其中油气地质学学科又占沉积学论文总数的77.1%,可见油气地质学是近15年来沉积学领域发展最快的学科,说明我国的经济增长和石油与天然气勘探开发与对人才的需求息息相关;3）通过研究生学位论文与我国国内生产总值（GDP）增长率对比,我国沉积学教育与国民经济是同步发展的,一方面国民经济发展和社会进步不断向沉积学领域提出新的课题,促进沉积学和沉积学教育的发展,另一方面沉积学领域和沉积学教育取得的成果反过来又推动国民经济发展和社会进步。对沉积学人才培养需要确定正确的目标和模式,将素质教育和创新能力培养贯穿于人才培养的全过程,协调统一本科地质学基础教育和研究生沉积学专门教育,构建终生教育体系,才能真正满足社会发展的需求,使沉积学各研究领域的接续力量源源不断,使中国的沉积学蓬勃发展。