Distributed Resources Shift Paradigms on Power System Design, Planning, and Operation: An Application of the GAP Model

Power systems have evolved following a century-old paradigm of planning and operating a grid based on large central generation plants connected to load centers through a transmission grid and distribution lines with radial flows. This paradigm is being challenged by the development and diffusion of modular generation and storage technologies. We use a novel approach to assess the sequencing and pacing of centralized, distributed, and off-grid electrification strategies by developing and employing the grid and access planning (GAP) model. GAP is a capacity expansion model to jointly assess operation and investment in utility-scale generation, transmission, distribution, and demand-side resources. This paper conceptually studies the investment and operation decisions for a power system with and without distributed resources. Contrary to the current practice, we find hybrid systems that pair grid connections with distributed energy resources (DERs) are the preferred mode of electricity supply for greenfield expansion under conservative reductions in photovoltaic panel (PV) and energy storage prices. We also find that when distributed PV and storage are employed in power system expansion, there are savings of 15%-20% mostly in capital deferment and reduced diesel use. Results show that enhanced financing mechanisms for DER PV and storage could enable 50%-60% of additional deployment and save 15 /MWh in system costs. These results have important implications to reform current utility business models in developed power systems and to guide the development of electrification strategies in underdeveloped grids

Integal futures based on the paradigm approach

The study discusses the interpretation of integral futures in the context of paradigm. The dynamic matrix model of futures paradigm has been developed for carrying out meta-analysis of futures. As a result of meta-analysis integral futures and its new paradigms are defined by way of reconstructing futures paradigm history as responses to changing societal needs and through the outcomes of dynamic and comparative analysis of futures paradigms. The study sets the argument that integral futures: a) is entering a new phase in development of futures that responses to societal demands for sustainability, democratic participation and continuous knowledge production and integration, b) it is the phase of cooperation building between theoretical and practical futures, c) it is the complementary development of co-evolutionary and participatory paradigms, d) it unfolds further research perspectives for futures

Africa's changing agricultural development strategies: past and present paradigms as a guide to the future

In this paper, Christopher L. Delgado, of IFPRI's senior research staff, takes a critical look at the changing paradigms of agricultural development that have influenced agricultural policy in Africa since the colonial era. The review shows how current approaches to meeting Africa's agricultural challenges to the year 2020 developed. It concludes that Africans have had relatively little input into the intellectual bases of strategies affecting their rural areas, a situation that must be changed if future strategies are to be effective in dealing with Africa's problems of development.Agricultural policy Africa., Agricultural economics and policies, agricultural development,

What Do We Know about the Internationalization of Central and Eastern European Countries and Firms?

This article is the first comprehensive literature review concerning the internationalization of countries and firms from Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). The study covers 42articles published during the years 1989-2010, both in leading world journals on international business and management and in regional journals concentrating on the CEECs. The purpose of the study is classification of the research topics undertaken, defining the differences in internationalization between CEECs, and verification whether the studies on outward FDI from CEECs has made an important contribution to international business theory.Artykuł jest pierwszym przeglądem literatury dotyczącej internacjonalizacji przedsiębiorstw z państw Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej. Badanie objęło w sumie 42 artykuły opublikowane w latach 1989-2010 zarówno w wiodących światowych czasopismach ekonomicznych, jak i w czasopismach, które koncentrują swoje badania jedynie na Europyie Środkowej i Wschodniej. Celem przeprowadzonej analizy była klasyfikacja dotychczas przeprowadzonych badań nad internacjonalizacją przedsiębiorstw z tej części Europy, zidentyfikowanie różnic występujących pomiędzy poszczególnymi krajami, a także weryfikacja, czy badania nad internacjonalizacją przedsiębiorstw i państw z Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej wniosły istotny wkład w rozwój teoriiekonomii

The New Age of Hybridity and Clash of Norms: China, BRICS and Challenges of Global Governance in a Post-liberal International Order

This article sketches an analytical framework to account for new patterns of global governance. We characterize the emergent post-liberal international order as a new age of hybridity, which signifies that no overriding set of paradigms dominate global governance. Instead we have a complex web of competing norms, which creates new opportunities as well as major elements of instability, uncertainty and anxiety. In the age of hybridity, non-Western great powers (led by China) play an increasingly counter-hegemonic role in shaping new style multilateralism – ontologically fragmented, normatively inconsistent, and institutionally incoherent. We argue that democracy paradox constitutes the fundamental issue at stake in this new age of hybridity. On the one hand, global power transitions seem to enable ‘democratization of globalization’ by opening more space to the hitherto excluded non-Western states to make their voices heard. On the other hand, emerging pluralism in global governance is accompanied by the regression of liberal democracy and spread of illiberalism that enfeeble ‘globalization of democratization.

Crossing Disciplinary Borders: Latino/a Studies and Latin American Studies in the 1990s

Over the 30 years of their existence, studies of Latinos/as in the U.S. and the field of Latin American Studies have emerged largely as divided disciplines. That is, despite what would appear to be similar sensibilities including comparable criticisms of Western hegemony and the neocolonial practices of the U.S., as well as the political, economic, and cultural displacement of similar populations, the two areas of study have more often regarded each other as competitive colleagues rather than complimentary practices. In the following study, I examine the nature of the two disciplines paying particular attention to the political context surrounding their formations and the foundations of their discursive frameworks. I examine changes to these disciplines in the methodological and ideological shifts surrounding the emergence of empirical and postmodern studies, and the relationship between these theoretical shifts and the expansion of globalization. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of the emerging field of transnational and bi-national studies and the opportunities for crossing the disciplinary borders between Latino/as studies in the U.S. and Latin American Studies presented in this literature

Cities on and off the map: A bibliometric assessment of urban globalisation research

Growing out of writings on Global (North) cities, urban globalisation research (UGR) has expanded its canon to engage with an increasing diversity of cities and locations. Yet, this broadening has been uneven and controversial in its theoretical horizons and empirical universe. Focusing on the latter, this paper combines bibliometric, demographic, economic and georeferenced data to assess how UGR maps onto internationally documented cities ( n : 1692). Our study analyses city-themed publications by city location, demographic size and home-country income (2000–2014). Drawing on social science publications indexed in English (Scopus database), our results provide grounds for cautious optimism: recent publications offer broader, though still uneven coverage. The moving spatial average of publication counts also implies that the topical centre of published research gravity is shifting away from Euro-America. Yet, UGR lags in its coverage of the urban geographical universe, failing to keep pace with the economic/demographic trends that are resulting in southward/eastward shifts in worldwide urbanisation. Furthermore, while smaller cities and those in lower-income countries are still sidelined, cities in upper-middle income countries exhibit the largest gaps between observed and expected publication values. In our conclusion, we contend that urban bibliometrics could be further mobilised to identify publication foci and lacunae. Applied to cities on and off the map and a broader universe of urban knowledges, bibliometrics could help move contentious debates forward, identifying newer paradigms that may be engaging the world of cities beyond the globalisation umbrella and charting out multiple and complex topical relations across variegated worlds of urbanism

Latin America's Emerging Environmental Democracy

Latin American Studie