Interregional Networks Research Articles

Mapping collaborative knowledge production in China using patent co-inventorships

Only a few cases of systematic empirical research have been reported investigating collaborative knowledge production in China and its implications for China’s national and regional innovation system. Using Chinese patent data in the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), this paper examines the geographic variations in intraregional, inter-regional and international knowledge exchanges of China from 1985 to 2007. Degree centrality reveals that intraregional and international collaborations are the main channels of knowledge exchange for the provinces and municipalities of China while inter-regional knowledge exchange is relatively weak. Besides, over the two decades, the knowledge exchange network has been expanding (connecting an increasing number of provinces and countries), becoming more decentralized (increasing number of hubs) and more cohesive (more linkages). A blockmodel analysis further reveals that the inter-regional network of China begins to show characteristics of a core-periphery structure. The most active knowledge exchange occurs between members of the core block composed by the most advanced provinces while the members of the peripheral block from less favored regions have few or no local and extra-local knowledge exchange. Building a strong knowledge transfer network would much improve the innovation capacities in less favored regions and help them break out from their “locked-in” development trajectories.

Cross-border health care represents a key issue in the field of rare diseases

The Veneto Region, north-east of Italy, 4.7 million inhabitants, is interested by this phenomenon, both for its geographical position, a hinge between Eastern and Western European countries, and for the presence of specialised health care services, most of which are specifically addressed to RD patients. The aim of the study is to analyse patients’ mobility in Veneto Region, especially from Eastern European countries, describe the established RD care network, and how it was successfully extended to other Italian Regions and its possible scalability to other neighbouring countries. In 2009, 17,769 RD patients were cared for in our Region, 16% coming from other Italian Regions. Foreign RD patients were 766, 3.7% of all the patients coming from abroad and 4.3% of all RD patients followed in the area. Comparing these patients to Italian RD patients, the paediatric component is more represented (44% vs 30.3%). Congenital malformations are the most frequent diagnoses (16.5%), followed by metabolic diseases (9.2%). Foreign RD patients move to undergo very specialised interventions, i.e. heart surgery (n=52), organ transplantations (n=36), or to obtain second opinions. 67.5% come from European countries, in particular 49.2% from Eastern countries, both EU and non-EU. These patients are referred to Centres of Expertise, officially identified, which are part of a wider interregional network, based on the collaboration between specialised Centres and primary care services. The continuity of the care process is supported by the use of shareable patients’ electronic records in neighbouring Regions and by the elaboration of common management protocols for specific RD. RD patients’ mobility should lead to the development of common policies and services addressed to these patients involving neighbouring Regions/countries. Preliminary intercourses already occurred with Slovenia in order to share best practices in the complex field of RD patients’ care.

The Limits of Place Branding for Local Development: The Case of Tuscany and the Arnovalley Brand

Place branding is increasingly part of the agenda of numerous public authorities, being deemed a tool for place management. Nations, regions, cities and inter-regional networks brand their developmental initiatives in order to attract and retain resources. In the light of the contemporary debate on regional and local development, this paper discusses the capacity of place branding to support an endogenous development, by legitimizing emerging social groups and by reinforcing their sense of place. The research analyzes the added value derived from the interplay of local actors who interact with the place brand. The aim is thus to understand the extent to which place branding boosts the crucial processes that lead to an endogenous development i.e. identity-building involving multiple local communities, social learning, and institutional changes. The investigation focuses on an attempt to brand the Tuscan innovative milieu, specifically the Arno Valley in Tuscan. Empirical evidence proves that the Arnovalley brand triggered limited social learning, fairly weak community-building, and left little room for institutional change.

The rise of Coastal China and inter-regional relations among core economic regions of East Asia

This paper examines the changing industrial landscape of East Asia by focusing on the eight core economic regions (Kanto, Kinki and Chubu of Japan, Zhujiang, Changjiang and Jing-Jin-Ji of China, and Korea’s Seoul capital and Yeongnam region). The three Japanese regions have been leading the formation of industrial geography of East Asia in the past three decades. Since the reform and opening of China in the 1980s, the industrial landscape has significantly changed from a unipolar structure to a multipolar structure. Three Chinese coastal regions advanced successfully in manufacturing production and they became a substantial force in shifting economic balance towards China away from Japan and Korea. Obviously, the rise of the three Chinese coastal regions has expanded trade and investment relations with other economic regions and they are now becoming centers of expanding inter-regional trading networks of East Asia. The three Japanese core regions, however, seem to retain their influence over other regions perhaps due to Japan’s investment and production networks built over the past decades. The continued growth of Chinese coastal regions suggests a different configuration of inter-regional relations in the future, posing an important question of whether the rise of coastal China will make inter-regional relations complementary or competitive in the future.

A Mito-Style Structure at Chavín De Huántar: Dating and Implications

AbstractExcavations west of the monumental core at Chavín de Huántar, Peru in 2005 revealed a well-preserved plastered structure with a central circular hearth, in the style of the Mito Architectural Tradition. This find challenges standard definitions of both the Mito Tradition and Chavín itself. I discuss the material remains and associated radiocarbon dates from this feature, and use these new data to re-assess Chavín’s involvement in interregional networks and its relationship to earlier ceremonial centers in the Central Andean highlands.

Unternehmensfinanzierung durch Business Angels

Corporate financing through business angels. Spatial organisation patterns of the informal venture capital market in Germany. Business angels play an important role in the financing of high-growth ventures. As informal investors they support entrepreneurs not only with money but also bring added value to their companies. The article examines the investment behaviour of business angels and traces the spatial diffusion of informal venture capital by considering different forms of proximity (spatial, organisational, cognitive, institutional and social). The findings are based on a large set of quantitative and qualitative empirical data collected from angel investors in Germany.Analysis of the data suggests interrelations between investment industries, social networks and the spatial mobility of informal venture capital. Altogether the spatial organisation of the business angel market in Germany can be described as an interregional network with financial and technology clusters as central nodes.

Technology, Innovation, and Southern Industrialization: From the Antebellum Era to the Computer Age (review)

Reviewed by: Technology, Innovation, and Southern Industrialization: From the Antebellum Era to the Computer Age Bruce Eelman (bio) Technology, Innovation, and Southern Industrialization: From the Antebellum Era to the Computer Age. Edited by Susanna Delfino and Michele Gillespie. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2008. Pp. xiii+215. $24.95. Over the past decade, scholarship on commercial and industrial change in the American South has been particularly vibrant. This collection of essays represents the fertile nature of this research and suggests opportunities for wider study. A foreword by noted economic historian Gavin Wright focuses [End Page 930] on the importance of these case studies for getting beyond the “theoretical abstractions” that often consume debates about the extent of southern industrialization (p. ix). Editors Susanna Delfino and Michele Gillespie offer a contextually rich introduction focusing on the importance of comparative advantage in southern technological development. And the essays, despite differences in place and time, together make clear that industry has a long heritage in the South at the same time that cultural and geographical distinctions have offered important challenges to industrialization. Robert Gudmestad’s essay on the antebellum steamboat industry provides a rich look at the successes and limitations of this technology for the southern economy. First introduced on the Mississippi River by northern companies, Gudmestad finds that steamboat production and transport “provided a measure of economic diversification even as they reinforced the hegemony of the plantation system” (p. 40). However, by viewing investment in steamboat operations as ancillary to staple crop production, planters missed opportunities to expand beyond regional transport and thus limited profits. While steamboats found quick application on the lower reaches of the Mississippi River, Sean Patrick Adams’s essay shows that efforts to transfer coal mining technology from Britain failed. Around Richmond, Virginia, the slave-based plantation economy prevented successful replication of the British system. Planter culture also affected technological development in Louisiana sugar production. Richard Follett finds that although sugar planters were eager to adapt steam-grinding machinery, their reluctance to form associations limited the capital necessary for technological innovations such as vacuum evaporation. Although southern industrialists faced many obstacles in the antebellum era, Michele Gillespie’s study of Henry Merrell reveals the possibilities for the profitability of textile factories. A transplanted northerner, Merrell enjoyed his greatest success in Arkansas by “building networks of knowledge” with both northern and southern mill owners (p. 99). This knowledge sharing enabled Merrell to incorporate the latest technology into his operations. Gillespie argues that he faced crises only when he ignored his networks of knowledge. Intraregional and interregional networks were also important in post–Civil War industrial success. By examining three different postwar textile mill ventures in three different southern communities, Pamela Edwards finds “multiple paths to community industrial development” (p. 128). A Columbia, South Carolina, company began locally, but the dependence on northern technologies ultimately led to a takeover by the northern-based Pacific Mills. In Spartanburg, the Chamber of Commerce lured Pacific Mills with tax incentives and a promise of antiunionism. Finally, the Durham Hosiery Company succeeded by means of the influence exercised by the politically and socially connected Carr family. Importantly, all three firms would be controlled by Pacific Mills by 1920. [End Page 931] The final two essays in the collection take the story of southern industry and technology into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Stephen Taylor writes that the Tennessee Valley Authority became an important promoter of technology and reflected the federal government’s role in industrializing the rural South. Yoneyuki Sugita’s essay on telemedicine in Arizona—though it certainly stretches the bounds of the South as traditionally defined—finds important modern networks of knowledge through broadband, but also concludes that these networks remain uneven in distribution based on regional wealth. Each of these case studies contributes to the rich complexity of our picture of southern economic and technological history and bolsters the recent trend in historiography toward stressing continuity in southern industrial and technological activity and in regional challenges to that activity. The challenge ahead is to produce a synthesis of this valuable scholarship. Bruce Eelman Dr. Eelman is associate professor of history at Siena College in Loudonville, New York. Copyright © 2009 Society...

An Analysis on the Dynamics of Interregional Network among Cities, Counties, and Districts within Chungcheong Jurisdiction

An Analysis on the Dynamics of Interregional Network among Cities, Counties, and Districts within Chungcheong Jurisdiction

Descriptive Analysis of the Inequalities of Health Information Resources between Alberta's Rural and Urban Health Regions

In an effort to understand the extent of the inequalities in health information resources across Alberta, SEARCH Custom, HKN (Health Knowledge Network) and IRREN (Inter-Regional Research and Evaluation Network) conducted a survey in December 2007 to determine what library resources currently existed in Alberta's seven rural health regions and the two urban health regions. Although anecdotal evidence indicated that these gaps existed, the analysis was undertaken to provide empirical evidence of the exact nature of these gaps. The results, coupled with the published literature on the impact, effectiveness and value of information on clinical practice and administrative decisions in healthcare management, will be used to build momentum among relevant stakeholders to support a vision of equitably funded health information for all healthcare practitioners across the province of Alberta.

Grain & Graze: an innovative triple bottom line approach to collaborative and multidisciplinary mixed-farming systems research, development and extension

The Grain & Graze program attempted to improve the ‘triple bottom line’ of mixed-farming systems in Australia through a major program of research, development and extension (RD&E) that operated across nine regions, with a total budget of A$31million provided by four R&D corporations and over 60 regional partners. Regional activities were complemented by a series of national projects and management and governance arrangements were organised at both regional and national levels with significant producer input. While the two-tiered management structure resulted in both tensions and opportunities the outputs of the program were substantial including 278 demonstration and trial sites, 180 training courses, over 200 publications, tools and manuals, over 100 research papers and a database of national and regional data. Over 8000 producers participated in program events, over 5000 actively trialled new activities and around 3200 adopted recommended practices despite severely unfavourable seasonal conditions over the 5 years of the program. A return on investment of 3.4 : 1 for the core funders was comparable to some other agricultural RD&E programs if lower than others. The program expanded the scope of farming systems RD&E in Australia through explicit recognition of the triple bottom line and development of formal and informal approaches to integration across these dimensions. It established regional and inter-regional networks of producers and scientists that can be expected to have ongoing significance. The papers that follow in this special issue reflect the magnitude of the program’s achievements.

The Change of Inter-regional Network Structure in Metropolitan Area in Daejeon, Gwangju, Daegu, Busan·Ulsan

The Change of Inter-regional Network Structure in Metropolitan Area in Daejeon, Gwangju, Daegu, Busan·Ulsan

Softening the Blow of Disturbances

DC Interconnect (DCI) has been developing a concept that takes advantage of both ac and dc technologies to enable the electric power industry to meet future needs in a cost-effective manner. The solution, grid segmentation, involves decomposing existing large inter-regional networks (interconnections) into sets of asynchronously operated sectors interconnected exclusively by dc links.

Identification and classification of hubs in brain networks.

Brain regions in the mammalian cerebral cortex are linked by a complex network of fiber bundles. These inter-regional networks have previously been analyzed in terms of their node degree, structural motif, path length and clustering coefficient distributions. In this paper we focus on the identification and classification of hub regions, which are thought to play pivotal roles in the coordination of information flow. We identify hubs and characterize their network contributions by examining motif fingerprints and centrality indices for all regions within the cerebral cortices of both the cat and the macaque. Motif fingerprints capture the statistics of local connection patterns, while measures of centrality identify regions that lie on many of the shortest paths between parts of the network. Within both cat and macaque networks, we find that a combination of degree, motif participation, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality allows for reliable identification of hub regions, many of which have previously been functionally classified as polysensory or multimodal. We then classify hubs as either provincial (intra-cluster) hubs or connector (inter-cluster) hubs, and proceed to show that lesioning hubs of each type from the network produces opposite effects on the small-world index. Our study presents an approach to the identification and classification of putative hub regions in brain networks on the basis of multiple network attributes and charts potential links between the structural embedding of such regions and their functional roles.

Intrametropolitan Location of Producer-service FDI in Istanbul

For the purpose of increasing the capacity of foreign trade and attracting more foreign capital, Turkey began to modify its relevant economic laws and institutions in the 1980s. This restructural process proved its success, increasing the number of firms with foreign capital operating in Turkey 29 times between 1980 and 1997. However, considering other developing countries on a global scale, this increase rate was less than expected. When the conjuncture of global political systems undergoing dramatic changes since the previous century is regarded carefully, entering the twenty-first century as a country still in the process of developing, it is most probable that Turkey will become a country of significant power in this century with its historical, geographical, ethnic, and economic potentials in the Balkans, Middle Eastern and Caucasian regions. Due to the emergence of new opportunities in the Middle East, the Turkic Republics, Ukraine and the Federation of Russia since the beginning of the 1990s, in order to preserve its external appeal, Turkey has been obliged to adapt to the changes in the goals of this area. With the advantage of being a coastal city positioned at the crossroads of trade routes throughout history, Istanbul has been the centre of commercial control and coordination. Today the advantage of its geographical position makes Istanbul an important centre preferred by global capital for reaching local markets and resources. In other words, Istanbul is a candidate to be the centre of the functions of control and accessibility within these interregional networks. In this respect, the pattern of foreign direct investment (FDI) in producer services has been investigated. This paper represents a portion of the research conducted in Istanbul by Istanbul Technical University.

PRE-ANGKORIAN SETTLEMENT TRENDS IN CAMBODIA'S MEKONG DELTA AND THE LOWER MEKONG ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT

Polities in the Mekong delta played a central role in regional developments between 500 BC and AD 500. Documentary data suggest the delta reached its political apex during the 3rd through 7th centuries. What were the roots of early polities in this region, and what was their organization? Research by the Lower Mekong Archaeological Project seeks to answer these questions through field investigations in southern Cambodia. Excavations at the ancient capital of Angkor Borei suggest a continuous occupation of the area from the 4th century BC onwards; the timing, development and nature of interregional networks are now under study. This presentation describes some results of research at Angkor Borei, and discusses ongoing research on the communication and settlement systems that characterized the northern section of the Mekong delta from 500 BC to AD 500.

Brief Commentary: JMEWS Conference at UCLA

Brief CommentaryJMEWS Conference at UCLA Sondra Hale JMEWS sponsored its first conference on the UCLA campus in July 2006 to introduce the journal to UCLA and the surrounding Southern California area, to celebrate its first years, and to acknowledge the intellectual achievements of Middle East women's studies. Aiming to capture the journal's breadth with a broad theme, the conference was titled "JMEWS: Gender and the Transnational Middle East." It was organized by Sondra Hale and Nancy Gallagher with primary support from the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies and help from the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, the UCLA International Institute, and the UCSB Program in Middle Eastern Studies. In an era dominated by communications and technology and characterized by the mass reproduction and transmission of ideas, images, sexualities, commodities, and knowledge, Arabs, the Middle East, and Muslim communities figure prominently in scholarship and politics. In the conference we focused on the Middle East and Muslim and Middle Eastern communities where these transnational transmissions are integrally connected with empire, the gendered nation, citizenship, space, religion, culture, and human rights. The traveling trope of the "Middle Eastern woman" in its cultural and political manifestations served as a keynote for papers that analyzed the new subjectivities emerging from these transnational processes and their relevance to gender power relations. The conference assembled some of the leading figures in the field—JMEWS editors, associate editors, a few editorial board members, and some guests—with the practical goal of charting the next four years of [End Page 131] the journal theoretically, epistemologically, and philosophically. In the final session of the conference, participants joined with editors to chart the new course. Some called on JMEWS not to be imprisoned by area studies, to expand beyond the loosely defined area of the "Middle East," to engage in more comparative studies—especially with regard to dialogues with South Asian, Southeast Asian and Central Asian studies—and to link up with already developing interregional networks. Participants also called on JMEWS to make room for non-normative language and to embrace cultural studies and sexuality studies. Some called for JMEWS to bring the urgency and energy of the web to the print journal, including considering visual and graphic culture, making space for urgent matters, carrying out collaborative work regarding theoretical debates, addressing activist connections, inviting guest editorials, and making JMEWS a place for encounters. Participants called on JMEWS to expand its horizon by hosting intellectual events. This is in line with the JMEWS plan to encourage annual workshops and conferences at various institutions, with the goal of playing a leading intellectual role in Middle East women's studies and beyond. Copyright © 2007 Association for Middle East Women's Studies

Brazilian civil society in and out of focus: Considerations from a local case-study

From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, grassroots civil society in Brazil was seen as the seed-bed for the restoration of formal democracy (which occurred in 1985) and its subsequent ‘deepening’. In a story about democratic restoration and development, then current among activists and social scientists, a range of popular movements, new forms of association, and inter-regional networks at the grassroots, were thought to constitute an ever-expanding, increasingly dense, and vital civil society capable not only of resisting authoritarian rule but nurturing a new, non-clientelist, and more participatory democracy.1 The bright lights signalling a new civil society included the Church Base Communities, the residential movements in the bairros populares and favelas, the health movement of São Paulo's Zona Leste, the new union movement exemplified by Lula's metalúrgicos in the later 70s, and the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) in rural areas.

RETROSPECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF INTER-REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION SERVICE -- NETWORK EXTERNALITY IN LOS IMPROVEMENT --

In Japan, rapid railway lines have been installed and expanded in order to connect regional prime cities to Tokyo, while airlines began to enhance their domestic service after the deregulation of airlines in 1986. In longer term, the influence of competition between railway and airline become more complex, because of network externalities of LOS improvement on networks. This study makes a retrospective assessment of inter-regional transportation services in ODs with their demand by using the Japanese longitudinal data in 1970, and 1995. The inter-regional net passenger traffic, average speed, fare per distance, and least frequency of the link in line-haul route are compared to find the characteristics of inter-regional LOS. Through the analyses, three kinds of inter-regional transportation markets were identified, and the characteristics of those were summarized. The network externality in LOS strongly appeared in railway service and demand. Such modal characteristics should be carefully considered in inter-regional network planning.

Network Structure and Innovation Ambiguity Effects on Diffusion in Dynamic Organizational Fields

Computational modeling simulated innovation diffusion through six prototypical interregional network structures and two distributions of partnering tendencies in dynamic organizational fields. Comp...

NETWORK STRUCTURE AND INNOVATION AMBIGUITY EFFECTS ON DIFFUSION IN DYNAMIC ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS.

Computational modeling simulated innovation diffusion through six prototypical interregional network structures and two distributions of partnering tendencies in dynamic organizational fields. Comp...