New Developments in Water Efficiency

1Water LossInitiativesUnaccounted-for water(or unbilled water)has beenreceiving newscrutiny at both the state and nationallevels.For years,water conservationeffortsin Europehave emphasized reduction in water loss to a muchgreater extent thaninthe United S…     

Seismic Hazard Analysis — Quo vadis?

The paper is dedicated to the review of methods of seismic hazard analysis currently in use, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. The review is performed from the perspective of a user of the results of seismic hazard analysis for different applications such as the design of critical and general (non-critical) civil infrastructures, technical and financial risk analysis. A set of criteria is developed for and applied to an objective assessment of the capabilities of different analysis methods. It is demonstrated that traditional probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) methods have significant deficiencies, thus limiting their practical applications. These deficiencies have their roots in the use of inadequate probabilistic models and insufficient understanding of modern concepts of risk analysis, as have been revealed in some recent large scale studies. These deficiencies result in the lack of ability of a correct treatment of dependencies between physical parameters and finally, in an incorrect treatment of uncertainties. As a consequence, results of PSHA studies have been found to be unrealistic in comparison with empirical information from the real world. The attempt to compensate these problems by a systematic use of expert elicitation has, so far, not resulted in any improvement of the situation. It is also shown that scenario-earthquakes developed by disaggregation from the results of a traditional PSHA may not be conservative with respect to energy conservation and should not be used for the design of critical infrastructures without validation. Because the assessment of technical as well as of financial risks associated with potential damages of earthquakes need a risk analysis, current method is based on a probabilistic approach with its unsolved deficiencies.

Traditional deterministic or scenario-based seismic hazard analysis methods provide a reliable and in general robust design basis for applications such as the design of critical infrastructures, especially with systematic sensitivity analyses based on validated phenomenological models. Deterministic seismic hazard analysis incorporates uncertainties in the safety factors. These factors are derived from experience as well as from expert judgment. Deterministic methods associated with high safety factors may lead to too conservative results, especially if applied for generally short-lived civil structures. Scenarios used in deterministic seismic hazard analysis have a clear physical basis. They are related to seismic sources discovered by geological, geomorphologic, geodetic and seismological investigations or derived from historical references. Scenario-based methods can be expanded for risk analysis applications with an extended data analysis providing the frequency of seismic events. Such an extension provides a better informed risk model that is suitable for risk-informed decision making.     

地质单位财务管理咨询刍议

地质单位对自身无力解决的重要财务管理问题应该寻求外部咨询机构的有效帮助，针对地质单位财务管理中存在的主要问题提出需要咨询课题，而咨询机构通过对地质单位的财务状况进行调查分析后，提出科学、合理有效的财务管理改善方案和指导实施方案。     

Placing man in the New West: Masculinities of The Last Picture Show

The Last Picture Show does not fall within the genre of the Western, yet the cinematic narrative mourns the loss of the iconic Westerner — a man — and the passing of his home places that constitute the Old West. This paper is concerned with the ways in which this man and his places are transformed along with the embryonic but inexorable emergence of the New West — and its attendant demand for recognition of hitherto unheard voices (e.g., women, Latinos) — that accompanied significant social, cultural and political shifts that were beginning to emerge within the country as a whole in the represented early 1950s. His represented sites of contestation are found within the frame of the small west Texas town of Anarene, created by Larry McMurtry's novel of the same name as the film, both of which reflect contexts of the era in which they were constructed — the mid 1960s to early 1970s. We suggest that the film shows a great sensitivity to the ways in which particular masculinities are constituted in specific places, to the tensions that arise from the changing nature and definitions of masculinity as they are linked to these places, and with his sense of nostalgia and loss that accompanies his inevitable decline. But there is no clear and empowered place for women in these new places, only a recontextualized form of a patriarchal order which is not relational and which still maintains essentialist assumptions of gender. The Old West has taken new shape, much to the chagrin of man, but it is hardly a New West, with its emerging and representative voices. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

London and Frankfurt in Europe's evolving financial centre network

The launch of the Euro and the location of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt initially was seen as a threat to London's pre-eminent position in European financial geographies. This paper explains why in fact this was not the case. To do this, the paper is divided in two. Firstly, it reviews the literatures that help to explain financial geographies. It is argued that we need to move away from investigating attribute properties such as financial turnover and instead examine the role of networks and interdependencies in producing financial geographies. Secondly, it identifies London's dominance and Frankfurt's growth as a complementary centre through quantitative analysis and then explains how European networks and interdependencies produce this, based on insights from interviews with investment bankers and insurance institution workers in the two cities.     

Looking for the critical geographer, or why bodies and geographies matter to the emergence of critical geographies of Latin America

This paper argues that critical geographies of Latin America begin with an analysis of how and why the bodies and geographies of geographers themselves matter. To focus on the geographer as a producer of knowledge is not to advocate the kind of navel gazing so abhorrent to many scholars. Rather, it is an effort to call attention to and critically assess how the geographer's embodied social position and geographic location inform the production of knowledge about and representations of Latin American people and nature. To illustrate how and why bodies and geographies matter, I draw from feminist and post-colonial theory and include examples from my own experiences and those of other researchers doing fieldwork in Latin American countries. I conclude by exploring the notion of situated knowledge as a tactic that writes bodies and geographies into academic texts. Ultimately, situating knowledge represents a political intervention and contribution to the broader goals of emancipatory politics shared by critical human geographers.     

Multi-scalar inequality: Structured mobility and the narrative construction of scale in translocal Cambodia

Focusing on three neighbouring villages in Cambodia, this paper argues the need for a multi-scalar interpretation of the relationship between mobility and wealth. It analyses migrant livelihoods in both sender and receiving areas to show that single scale measurements of mobility are inappropriate in the context of translocal livelihoods because livelihoods enacted across multiple places may possess multiple values of scale and mobility, each co-existing within the same migrant lifeworld. In seeking an improved conception of these complexities, the paper has combined spatial and qualitative analysis of translocal livelihoods to highlight the linkages between mobility in multiple places. On this basis, it posits that the mobility of translocal livelihoods must be assessed at least three scales: the scale appropriate to the sending environment, the scale appropriate to the receiving environment, and the scale on which potential migrations are judged. Making use of this framework allows clear relationships to be observed between mobility and inequality in both the narratives and structures of the communities under investigation.     

中国银行业基层网点的空间演化机制

中国银行业改革持续深化,不同类型银行的业务限制和地域限制逐步取消,银行间竞争日益激烈,重新调整网点布局已成为各家银行应对措施之一。重点关注2007—2016年中国银行业基层网点的空间演化路径,在借鉴演化经济地理研究中产业关联思想的基础上,提出地方产业基础的金融关联度和区域间投资的金融关联度两个重要变量,以此构建解释框架。考虑到中国银行业渐进式的改革历程,按银行所有制及银行规模分组进行比较分析。研究发现：① 地方银行市场竞争越激烈会显著提升产业基础、投资流向的金融关联度在银行网点布局决策中的重要性,银行网点会向金融关联度高的地区集聚;② 各影响因素的作用机制随地方银行市场环境和银行成长过程发生变化,表现出阶段性特征;③ 银行的个体异质性也是影响银行网点空间演化路径的因素之一。     

从全球生产网络到全球金融网络：理解全球-地方经济联系的新框架

全球化带来的新国际劳动分工使全球生产网络(Global Production Network, GPN)成为研究全球经济与区域发展的重要框架。与此同时,金融在现代社会经济运行中的地位日益提升,经济金融化在全球不同尺度下深刻影响着经济活动的空间分布和网络。因此,金融已经成为GPN研究不能忽略的重要环节。更重要的是,金融化带来的逻辑也日益深刻地影响到GPN的演化和运行。尽管GPN研究日益重视金融的作用,并开始研究金融业的全球生产网络,但是随着越来越多的企业通过获得国际股权投资或者在境外资本市场上市等方式融入全球资本市场,主要从生产角度理解地方经济融入全球过程的GPN难以对该现象深入分析。全球金融网络(Global Financial Network, GFN)为刻画和分析这个过程提供了新的框架。在这个分析框架中,地方经济体通过高级商业服务业(Advanced Business Service, ABS)企业与世界城市(国际金融中心)和离岸管辖区产生联系,从而融入GFN。论文介绍了GFN的基本结构,探讨了地方经济融入GFN的主要方式及其产生的影响。最后,提出GFN未来在理论和实证方面可继续深入研究的方向。     

Does geographic distance have a significant impact on enterprise financing costs?

Journal of Geographical Sciences - As information technology has been applied more broadly and transportation infrastructure has improved, persistent debate has existed as to the question of...