The rise of venture capital centres in China: A spatial and network analysis

Due to the importance of venture capital (VC) firms in spurring regional economic growth, the geography of VC firms and VC investments have attracted a lot of attention. However, the spatial patterns of cross-regional VC flows have rarely been explored, particularly in the context of emerging economies. Drawing on a unique dataset on VC firms and investments related to domestic initial public offerings (IPOs), this study combines location analysis with network analysis to investigate the spatial patterns of VC activities in China. The results confirm that Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai are the leading VC centres in the country. Although Yangtze Delta Area hosts the largest number of investments, Beijing and Shenzhen have a considerable advantage over Shanghai in terms of the number of VC firms, investments, and the number of domestic VC-backed IPOs. Beijing and Shenzhen also appear more central than Shanghai in China’s VC networks, with Beijing-Shenzhen representing the most important city-dyad in terms of VC investment flows. The article explains how the dynamics of the VC centres is embedded in China’s institutional and cultural context, critical to understanding the evolution and geography of China’s VC industry.     

Institutionalised religion: sacred texts and Jewish spatial practice

Institutionalised religion, as a powerful force in the structuring of the daily lives of probably the majority of the world’s population, is a field of social research to which geographers can usefully contribute. This paper examines ancient and contemporary forms of Judaism, exploring the underlying codes and regulations designed to structure every aspect of life. The first part of the paper examines institutionalised uses of space in ancient times, as recorded in the sacred Jewish text of the Talmud. Through the sacred geography of the great Temple in Jerusalem and the legal authority of the religious court to punish offenders, the social system was (in principle at least) highly ordered and regulated. The second part examines the institutionalisation of the religion in contemporary times, which for orthodox Jews involves attempting to practise and maintain these same ancient codes and regulations. Practising ancient ways of life in contemporary (post)modern contexts can be extremely difficult, however, which I discuss with reference to the proposals of the religious authorities in Manchester, England, to construct an eruv; a legalistic device consisting of poles and wires which changes the classification of space, allowing (in particular) the elderly, infirm and parents with young children to travel on the Sabbath. The device faces criticism from secular and religious sources over the rights to ‘claim space’ and the religious legalistic viability of the project.     

中国西南喀斯特山区国土空间利用变化的人文驱动框架构建

喀斯特山区是一种特殊的山地国土空间类型,系统识别其国土空间变化的人文驱动因素及作用机制,对于合理调控喀斯特山区人类活动的空间作用强度具有重要意义。喀斯特山区生态系统抗干扰能力差且高度脆弱,土地利用的空间异质性和尺度关联性强,非理性人类活动导致局部地区人地关系矛盾趋于尖锐化。通过论证,提出了社会经济、文化民俗、政策制度和人口变化是喀斯特山区国土空间利用变化的四大人文驱动因素,解析了喀斯特山区国土空间利用变化的多维人文因素作用方式。从土地管理者和土地使用者博弈的视角,遵循“驱动因素辨识—决策分析过程—行为作用结果—反馈路径环节”的思路,构建了喀斯特山区国土空间利用变化的人文驱动框架,为喀斯特山区国土空间优化和管控研究提供了新的理论视角。      

A paper with an interest in rhythm

This paper is a performative effort to move with and through the expressive and theoretical spaces of an interest in rhythm. This interest emerges initially from the middle of an encounter with the 5 Rhythms™, a contemporary somatic practice that uses rhythm to facilitate and catalyse expressive movement. Rather than seeking to excavate representational meaning from an encounter with the practice or using it to critically diagnose the corporeal politics of contemporary society, this paper apprehends the creative movement emerging from an encounter with/in the non-representational, performative potential of the 5 Rhythms™. By becoming a deliberately playful effort to hold onto the lines of movement emergent from the affective, kinaesthetic territories of this practice, the paper works to avoid either falling back upon a representational ethics that stops this movement dead in its tracks or becoming seduced by an aesthetics of weightless escape. This effort draws particular support from Deleuze and Guattari's writing on the refrain, a concept that provides a vehicle through which the lines of an interest in rhythm gain expressive and theoretical consistency. Because the territories of the refrain open onto lines of movement that are as much figural as discursive, the paper works to animate the lines of movement emerging from an encounter with the 5 Rhythms™ through a series of non-representational diagrammatic interventions. Finally, in drawing the diagrammatic lines of this movement in-between, the paper becomes not so much a series of lines about moving, but a series of lines moving about.     

Where the buffalo roam: Boundaries and the politics of scale in the yellowstone region

For more than twenty years, the state of Montana has pursued a controversial policy of lethal control to manage winter migrations of bison from Yellowstone National Park. In the late 1990s, as the state and a number of federal agencies attempted to cooperatively outline a more palatable scenario for bison management, local environmental groups became active participants in the debate. This paper examines the strategies pursued by these organizations in the course of their attempt to construct a new, ecosystem-level territorial space and jurisdictional scale for bison, and places their struggle within the context of existing work in geography on the politics of scale. Ultimately, the failure of their efforts illustrates some of the important constraints faced by social groups that attempt to create new territorial regimes and new scales of resistance in the interstices of existing political structures.     

What makes territory important: tangible and intangible dimensions

Conflicts over territory have resulted in innumerable wars and other violent incidents, but the reasons that some territory is more highly valued or volatile than other areas may not be obvious. This paper demonstrates a taxonomy for analyzing international territorial disputes that seeks to capture their tangible and symbolic dimensions and to weigh them as the international community might. Twenty-six territorial disputes, including offshore areas and separatist issues, were examined and scored according to 15 criteria for objective prominence and 7 criteria related to how a country might view the dispute in terms of its national interest. The taxonomy used Saaty’s Analytic Hierarchy Process to identify tangible and intangible properties, measure their interrelations, and produce intermediate and overall ranks. Each dispute was evaluated for prominence by examining intensifying (symbolic) factors, measures of magnitude, and characteristics that retard resolution. The magnitude of a dispute was judged to contribute the most to overall prominence, having twice the weight of the other two factors. The top five disputes in terms of prominence were the Kurdish issue, Kashmir, Tibet, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Xinjiang. The second hierarchy evaluated the disputes from the perspective of an international actor, in this case the United States. When judged by U.S. national interest, the most important factors were the deployment of U.S. forces in the claimant countries and if one of the claimants were a U.S. ally. Finally, the results from the two hierarchies were compared.     

积极推行队务公开促进地勘经济发展

推行队务公开,是加强地勘单位民主管理的有效形式.本文从队务公开的必要性、重要性和领导观念的转变以及队务公开应采取的措施等几个方面,较系统地阐述了地勘单位在向市场化转变的过程中如何才能较好的实行队务公开.它有利于地勘单位加快建立现代企业制度.     

Consumer spatial choice strategies: A comparative study of some alternative behavioural spatial shopping models

The purpose of this paper is to outline a conceptual model of consumer spatial decision making and choice behaviour and to investigate the use of various combination rules of consumer's evaluations of attributes of shopping centres to predict spatial choice behaviour.The research findings indicate that the linear combination rules perform as well as the multiplicative rules and that both types of rules perform quite acceptably. The paper concludes by discussing some implications for future research on spatial decision making and choice.     

Women’s use of public space and sense of place in the Raval (Barcelona)

This article deals with women's use of public space and sense of place in El Raval, a neighbourhood located in the historical center of Barcelona. Attention will be paid to discover to what degree the existence of a quality public space fosters the creation of socially meaningful places, thus contributing to the construction of womens sense of place and urban identities. A qualitative approach, based on direct observation and in-depth interviews with women living in the neighbourhood, has allowed us to capture the main aspects of the building of a sense of place and belonging, that is the use of public space and facilities, the attitude towards living in the neighbourhood, etc. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The favelas of Rio de Janeiro: A temporal and spatial analysis

A spatial and temporal analysis, at a city wide scale, is given of the main type of informal housing (favelas) in Rio de Janeiro. Rapid change in the number and distribution of favelas and their inhabitants (favelados) over time is seen as the outcome of two opposing sets of factors. Demand-led housing factors, including population growth and variations in levels of poverty in the city, have constantly outstripped the supply side of the housing equation where inadequate housing policies and investment, together with restricted building land have been characteristic. Added to these factors are a set of more specific developments which shape the favela geography, including the timing and location of urban redevelopment, favela eradication and recognition, transport development and access by the favelados to employment sources. Evidence shows that the contemporary distribution of favelas in the city does not conform to spatial models of this urban form, and that any interpretation of the Rio favelas, including their growth, development and diversity, needs to be space and time specific. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Influence of a low-viscosity layer between rigid inclusion and viscous matrix on inclusion rotation and matrix flow: A numerical study

We have used 2-D finite element modelling to investigate the influence of a permanent low-viscosity layer between matrix and inclusion on matrix flow and inclusion rotation under viscous simple shear flow. Rigid inclusions of different shape (circle, square, ellipse, lozenge, rectangle and skewed rectangles) and aspect ratio (R) were used. The calculated matrix flow pattern is neither bow tie nor eye-shaped. It is a new flow pattern that we call cat eyes-shaped, which is characterized by: (i) straight streamlines that slightly bend inwards at the inclusion's crests; (ii) elongate eye-shaped streamlines on each side of the inclusion; (iii) stagnation points in the centre of the eyes; (iv) absence of closed streamlines surrounding the inclusion; (v) changes in flow configuration with inclusion orientation; the lines of flow reversal bend and tilt, closed streamline circuits may disappear, and streamlines may bend outwards at the inclusion's crests.Concerning inclusion rotation, the numerical results show that: (i) a low-viscosity layer (LVL) makes inclusions with R = 1 rotate synthetically, but the rotation rate depends upon shape (circle or square) and orientation. Therefore, shape matters in the slipping mode. (ii) All studied shapes with R > 1 rotate antithetically when starting with the greatest principal axis (e₁) parallel to the shear direction ( = 0°); (iii) rotation is limited because there is a stable equilibrium orientation (_se) for all studied shapes with R > 1. (iii) There is also an unstable equilibrium orientation (_ue), and both _se and _ue depend upon inclusion's R and shape.The present numerical results closely agree with previous results of analogue experiments with a permanent low viscosity interface. Only minor deviations related with small shape differences were detected.     

Environmentally hazardous industry in South Africa: A spatial view

Akthough issues surrounding the location and relocation of environmentally hazardous industry have attracted international attention, little research has been undertaken in South Africa. The aim is to analyse the geography of dirty industries in South Africa and suggest avenues for future research. The location of environmentally hazardous production in South Africa has not followed the national industrial trend towards polarization reversal.     

High-gradient magnetic separation: A search for a matrix material

The magnetic properties and abrasion resistance of selected low-carbon steels were investigated with respect to their suitability as induction matrix materials. Low-remanent ferromagnetic steels and a paramagnetic steel were used in magnetic separation tests with siderite and hematite ores. It was found that recovery and grade for all ferromagnetic materials were equivalent, while recovery for paramagnetic steel was lower, and increased with increasing magnetic induction. However, all investigated steels are less susceptible to hold highly coercive tramp iron which usually causes matrix clogging. Likewise, all selected stainless steels are more abrasion resistant than currently employed matrix materials.     

Multinational corporate product strategy, spatial diversification and nationalisation: A Guyanese comparison

The imlications of corporate product strategy and spatial structure for nationalisation by developing countries have been neglected. Corporate spatial diversification to reduce the importance of the target field unit in the corporate system is an important pre-requisite of frictionless divestment. But Guyanese nationalisation suggests that even after spatial diversification a vertically integrated, dominant product strategy confers less divestment capacity than a diversified, multi-product strategy. The product strategy classification used here may provide the necessary framework within which to explain the locational behaviour of multinational corporations.     

Ethnic and political identities and territorialities in the post-Soviet space

The author examines some specific features and the post-Soviet changes of ethnic and political identities. He stresses the existence of supranational, mixed, blurred and `hierarchical' identities and of the complicated overlapping of national (political) and ethnic identities. Factors influencing their evolution in the context of nation- and state-building in the Russian Federation and in the other former Soviet republics are analyzed: language policy, creation of the national informational space, invention of national myths and stereotypes, and economic leverages used by ethnic political elites.     

Polynomial expansions in likelihoods for spatial data: A case study

This paper illustrates the computational benefits of polynomial representations for quantities in the likelihood function for the spatial linear model based on the power covariance scheme. These benefits include a comprehensive study of likelihoods and maximum likelihood estimators for data. For simplicity, we focus on a relatively simple covariance scheme and data observed at equal intervals along a transect; we briefly indicate how generalizations to more complicated covariance functions and higher dimensions will operate.     

Ethnicity in Eastern Europe: Historical legacies and prospects for cohesion

Eastern Europe lacks cohesion partly arising from a history of ethnic tension. Ways are now being found to overcome historic conflicts over alternative political structures, as the enlargement of membership for European institutions requires greater equality of rights at the same time as support and security is extended. Thus while ethnicity, as a political, social and cultural entity, persists in Eastern Europe as an essential element at the local level, it is now being seen more positively as cultural diversity and thus more compatible with democracy and a positive asset to national well-being. Multi-ethnic states are proving to be viable and some of the most intractable inter-ethnic problems (linked with the Hungarian minorities) are being addressed constructively. Yet there are signs that the southern part of the region is being marginalised regarding foreign investment. Also there is unease that European values are not being embraced unconditionally in parts of the Balkans. Recent military intervention has created fresh problems, committing the West to continued economic and political support to strengthen its stance on democracy and minority rights. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A general deformation matrix for three-dimensions

A deformation that is obtained by any simultaneous combination of two steady-state progressive deformations: simple shearing and a coaxial progressive deformation, involving or not a volume change, can be expressed by a single transformation, or deformation matrix. In the general situation of simple shearing in a direction non-orthogonal with the principal strains of the coaxial progressive deformation, this deformation matrix is a function of the strain components and the orientation of shearing. In this example, two coordinate systems are defined: one for the coaxial progressive deformation (x_i system), where the principal and intermediate strains are two horizontal coordinate axes, and another for the simple shear (x _i ^t’ system), with any orientation in space. For steady-state progressive deformations, from the direction cosines matrix that defines the orientation of shear strains in the x_i coordinate system, an asymmetric finite-deformation matrix is derived. From this deformation matrix, the orientation and ellipticity of the strain ellipse, or the strain ellipsoid for three-dimensional deformations, can be determined. This deformation matrix also can be described as a combination of a rigid-body rotation and a stretching represented by a general coaxial progressive deformation. The kinematic vorticity number (W _k is derived for the general deformation matrix to characterize the non-coaxiality of the three-dimensional deformation. An application of the deformation matrix concept is given as an example, analyzing the changes in orientation and stretching that variously-oriented passive linear markers undergo after a general two-dimensional deformation. The influence of the kinematic vorticity number, the simple and pure shear strains, and the obliquity between the two deformation components, on the linear marker distribution after deformation is discussed.