Constitutionalizing Connectivity: The Constitutional Grid of World Society

Global law settings are characterized by a structural pre-eminence of connectivity norms, a type of norm which differs from coherency or possibility norms. The centrality of connectivity norms emerges from the function of global law, which is to increase the probability of transfers of condensed social components, such as economic capital and products, religious doctrines, and scientific knowledge, from one legally structured context to another within world society. This was the case from colonialism and colonial law to contemporary global supply chains and human rights. Both colonial law and human rights can be understood as serving a constitutionalizing function aimed at stabiliz- ing and facilitating connectivity. This allows for an understanding of colonialism and contemporary global governance as functional, but not as normative, equivalents

Pathways of change : shifting connectivities in the world city network, 2000-08

This is an empirical paper that measures and interprets changes in intercity relations at the global scale in the period 2000-08. It draws on the network model devised by the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research group to measure global connectivities for 132 cities across the world in 2000 and 2008. The measurements for both years are adjusted so that a coherent set of services/cities is used. A range of statistical techniques is used to explore these changes at the city level and the regional scale. The most notable changes are: the general rise of connectivity in the world city network; the loss of global connectivity of US and sub-Saharan African cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami in particular); and, the gain in global connectivity of south Asian, Chinese and eastern European cities (Shanghai, Beijing and Moscow in particular)

International sport federations in the world city network

In this article, we analyze the transnational urban geographies produced by international sport federations (ISFs) through their global, regional, and national headquarter locations. Data on the global urban presence of 35 major ISFs are examined through connectivity analysis and principal component analysis. The connectivity analysis reveals the relative dominance of cities in Europe and Pacific Asia, whereby Seoul, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Cairo, and Lausanne stand out. The principal component analysis reveals the main subnetworks produced through ISF location decisions, which includes inter alia a "winter sports subnetwork" centered on Ankara, Belgrade, Helsinki, and Stockholm; an "Olympic subnetwork" centered on Lausanne; and a decentered subnetwork with truly "global sports."

Local and global gestalt laws: A neurally based spectral approach

A mathematical model of figure-ground articulation is presented, taking into account both local and global gestalt laws. The model is compatible with the functional architecture of the primary visual cortex (V1). Particularly the local gestalt law of good continuity is described by means of suitable connectivity kernels, that are derived from Lie group theory and are neurally implemented in long range connectivity in V1. Different kernels are compatible with the geometric structure of cortical connectivity and they are derived as the fundamental solutions of the Fokker Planck, the Sub-Riemannian Laplacian and the isotropic Laplacian equations. The kernels are used to construct matrices of connectivity among the features present in a visual stimulus. Global gestalt constraints are then introduced in terms of spectral analysis of the connectivity matrix, showing that this processing can be cortically implemented in V1 by mean field neural equations. This analysis performs grouping of local features and individuates perceptual units with the highest saliency. Numerical simulations are performed and results are obtained applying the technique to a number of stimuli.Comment: submitted to Neural Computatio