From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Responses to the Crisis Constraints to a Rapid Trade Adjustment in East Asia�s Electronics Industry

It has been argued that “… trade adjustment in East Asia…will be rapid and sizable, lifting aggregate growth in these economies even as the domestic non-tradable sectors continue to suffer a decline (as in Mexico)” (World Bank, 1998, p.5). Much hope has been pinned on the electronics industry to come through with rapid growth through expanding exports. Two arguments appear to bolster such an expectation: the severity of the region´s currency depreciations has lowered the cost of much of its electronics supply base relative to its competitors; and the electronics industry´s proven track record as an engine of export-led growth shows that it can be quickly started and accelerated in response to changes in the market. However, no export boom in electronics has (as yet) materialized. The paper analyzes what explains this puzzle. We first introduce a taxonomy of East Asia´s electronics firms and market segments to distinguish different capacities to ride out the crisis. We then discuss three barriers to an East Asian export boom in electronics: i) supply-side constraints that result from limited access to trade finance, and from the cost-increasing impact of local currency depreciations in highly import-dependent countries; ii) demand-related constraints, resulting from deteriorating growth perspectives in East Asia´s electronics export markets; and iii) deflationary pricing pressures, resulting from a narrow specialization in high-tech commodities that are characterized by periodic surplus capacity and price wars. Combined, these barriers have produced a vicious circle: once exports increase, net volume gains are likely to be offset by pricing losses.Crisis; industrial dynamics; specialization; deflation; Asia; electronics industry

PEER Testbed Study on a Laboratory Building: Exercising Seismic Performance Assessment

From 2002 to 2004 (years five and six of a ten-year funding cycle), the PEER Center organized the majority of its research around six testbeds. Two buildings and two bridges, a campus, and a transportation network were selected as case studies to “exercise” the PEER performance-based earthquake engineering methodology. All projects involved interdisciplinary teams of researchers, each producing data to be used by other colleagues in their research. The testbeds demonstrated that it is possible to create the data necessary to populate the PEER performancebased framing equation, linking the hazard analysis, the structural analysis, the development of damage measures, loss analysis, and decision variables. This report describes one of the building testbeds—the UC Science Building. The project was chosen to focus attention on the consequences of losses of laboratory contents, particularly downtime. The UC Science testbed evaluated the earthquake hazard and the structural performance of a well-designed recently built reinforced concrete laboratory building using the OpenSees platform. Researchers conducted shake table tests on samples of critical laboratory contents in order to develop fragility curves used to analyze the probability of losses based on equipment failure. The UC Science testbed undertook an extreme case in performance assessment—linking performance of contents to operational failure. The research shows the interdependence of building structure, systems, and contents in performance assessment, and highlights where further research is needed. The Executive Summary provides a short description of the overall testbed research program, while the main body of the report includes summary chapters from individual researchers. More extensive research reports are cited in the reference section of each chapter

The ‘de-territorialisation of closeness’ - a typology of international successful R&D projects involving cultural and geographic proximity

Although there is a considerable amount of empirical evidence on inter-firm collaborations within technology-based industries, there are only a few works concerned with R&D cooperation by low-tech firms, especially SMEs. Providing further and new evidence based on a recently built database of CRAFT projects, this study analyzes the relationship between technology and proximity in international R&D networks using Homogeneity Analysis by Means of Alternating Least Squares (HOMALS) and statistical cluster techniques. The resulting typology of international cooperative R&D projects highlights that successful international cooperative R&D projects are both culturally/geographically closer and distant. Moreover, and quite interestingly, geographically distant projects are technologically more advanced whereas those located near each other are essentially low tech. Such evidence is likely to reflect the tacit-codified knowledge debate boosted recently by the ICT “revolution” emphasized by the prophets of the “Death of Distance” and the “End of Geography”.Research and Development (R&D); proximity; SMEs

The Concept and Development of Land Value Assessment

Problem in land acquisition increasingly complex, this problem can be related directly to the land acquisition process from planning to project delivery, as well as indirect effects of the reasonableness of the value of the land. Land value is expected to accommodate attributes as physical development and infrastructure projects in a more comprehensive city, thus the value of the land can represent a reasonable condition and can be estimated in accordance with the development that is influenced by multiple attributes (discrete and continuous) as well as the spatial effect of the gradient measured geographical. Based on a review of empirical, conceptual and literature, the value of land is affected by several variables that can be explaned as follows: supply and demand ; highest and best use ; phisic, legal, social and economic. The method can combine the data value of the land and the land characters are more accurate and spatially, it is necessary to use Computer-Assisted Mass Appraisal (CAMA) and Geographic Information System (GIS

Knowledge Spillover Agents and Regional Development: Spatial Distribution and Mobility of Star Scientists

It is widely recognised that knowledge and highly skilled individuals as “carriers” of knowledge (i.e. knowledge spillover agents) play a key role in impelling the development and growth of cities and regions. In this paper we discuss in a conceptual way the relation between spatial movements of talent and knowledge flows and present empirical results on the geography and mobility patterns of star scientists. Our findings show that these phenomena a highly uneven in nature, benefiting only a few countries which are capable to act as magnet for scientific talent.DYNREG

High-Tech Competition Puzzles. How Globalization Affects Firm Behavior and Market Structure in the Electronics Industry

This paper addresses two puzzles related to industrial dynamics and competition. The first of these puzzles is that a high degree of globalization may well go hand in hand with increasing concentration. I show that one of the most globalized sectors of the electronics industry, hard disk drives (HDD), also displays one of the highest degrees of concentration: multinational corporations, after all, may not be such effective “spoilers of concentration”, as claimed by Richard Caves (1982). 4 The second puzzle that I address in this paper is that, despite an extremely high degree of concentration, this industry fails to act like a stable global oligopoly. So far, market share volatility has been restricted to the oligopoly members. There are however indications that this may change and that market contestability may improve. The paper is organized as follows: I start with a discussion of the first puzzle, presenting evidence on globalization and concentration. I then address the second puzzle, linking high concentration to high volatility. Some possible explanations are reviewed in the third part of the paper, building on a conceptual framework introduced by G.B. Richardson ( 1996 and 1997). I analyze how globalization affects competition and distinguish forces that foster concentration and forces that are conducive for market disruption. I conclude with a few observations on what this implies for future research on the determinants of market structure and firm behavior.competition; industrial dynamics; globalization; concentration; firm behavior; contestable markets; entry barriers; capabilities.

Crowd Research at School: Crossing Flows

It has become widely known that when two flows of pedestrians cross stripes emerge spontaneously by which the pedestrians of the two walking directions manage to pass each other in an orderly manner. In this work, we report about the results of an experiment on crossing flows which has been carried out at a German school. These results include that previously reported high flow volumes on the crossing area can be confirmed. The empirical results are furthermore compared to the results of a simulation model which succesfully could be calibrated to catch the specific properties of the population of participants.Comment: contribution to proceedings of Traffic and Granular Flow 2013 held in J\"ulich, German

Recreation, tourism and nature in a changing world : proceedings of the fifth international conference on monitoring and management of visitor flows in recreational and protected areas : Wageningen, the Netherlands, May 30-June 3, 2010

Proceedings of the fifth international conference on monitoring and management of visitor flows in recreational and protected areas : Wageningen, the Netherlands, May 30-June 3, 201