A Biased Review of Sociophysics

Various aspects of recent sociophysics research are shortly reviewed: Schelling model as an example for lack of interdisciplinary cooperation, opinion dynamics, combat, and citation statistics as an example for strong interdisciplinarity.Comment: 16 pages for J. Stat. Phys. including 2 figures and numerous reference

Betweenness and Diversity in Journal Citation Networks as Measures of Interdisciplinarity -- A Tribute to Eugene Garfield --

Journals were central to Eugene Garfield's research interests. Among other things, journals are considered as units of analysis for bibliographic databases such as the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus. In addition to disciplinary classifications of journals, journal citation patterns span networks across boundaries to variable extents. Using betweenness centrality (BC) and diversity, we elaborate on the question of how to distinguish and rank journals in terms of interdisciplinarity. Interdisciplinarity, however, is difficult to operationalize in the absence of an operational definition of disciplines, the diversity of a unit of analysis is sample-dependent. BC can be considered as a measure of multi-disciplinarity. Diversity of co-citation in a citing document has been considered as an indicator of knowledge integration, but an author can also generate trans-disciplinary--that is, non-disciplined--variation by citing sources from other disciplines. Diversity in the bibliographic coupling among citing documents can analogously be considered as diffusion of knowledge across disciplines. Because the citation networks in the cited direction reflect both structure and variation, diversity in this direction is perhaps the best available measure of interdisciplinarity at the journal level. Furthermore, diversity is based on a summation and can therefore be decomposed, differences among (sub)sets can be tested for statistical significance. In an appendix, a general-purpose routine for measuring diversity in networks is provided

Creative Economy-Feasible Option for România

The paper’s objective is the scientific foundation of the necessity to implement the topic of creative economy in Romania. The term of creative economy is widely used in the context of the knowledge-based society. Its importance to sustainable development, wealth and prosperity is commonly recognised mostly due to the amplified crisis effects. The creative communities and industries have moved from the fringes to the mainstream. The special needs of creative industries are reflected more in policy development at national, regional and microeconomic levels. The paper presents part of the results obtained within the research project “IDEI 1224”: “The creative economy and knowledge-based society. Challenges and opportunities for Romania” The general perspective of this paper is aimed at presenting our vision regarding the most important challenges and opportunities for Romania on its road towards a knowledge-based society and creative economy. Creative economy is crucial for Romania while it is facing the global crisis. In order to manage the current crisis (its complex nature derives from the fact that it is much more than just an economic crisis) in a competent way we have to seriously take into account the opportunities creative economy can provide. According to the authors’ vision, creative economy is a feasible option for Romania. The creative economy has to foster a holistic vision of development including socio-cultural, economic and environmental dimensions, offering new opportunities for Romania on its road towards a knowledge-based society.creative economy, creative class, creative communities, creative cities

Territorial context in the research on the EU cohesion. One-speed or multi-speed Europe?

Every European Union enlargement has deepened economical divergence between member states and their regions. However, the economic aspect of this issue is only a part of a broad scope of reasons of its internal diversity, including also social, cultural or cognitive dimensions. The history of so called “Lisbon process†and failing in achieving Lisbon aims is one of most clear examples of failures of realization one common strategy for all EU member states. Different rates of economic growth or different level of innovativeness or human capital development has made every attempt to measure and execute this processes with one “best-fit†method virtually impossible. Difficulties in measuring EU convergence, which have economic, social, territorial and other aspects are connected not only in problems emerging from the formal issues but also, or primarily, in differences between incremental processes inside EU. EU regions are repeatedly finding “different routes to the same destinationâ€. It does not mean, however there are better or worse routes, since every one emerges from different spring. In these context, regional science can derive from intellectual heritage of institutionalism, which assumes, inter alia, that historical path of development implies the way economic actors act to achieve their objectives. In a broader context, institutional environment (often shaped in the conditions of spatial proximity), not only constitutes the framework but also can be a source of new ideas and thus – it can contribute to regional competitiveness. Bearing this in mind, one must state that what can really decide about the value of the European Union, it is a variability of institutional contexts of regional development. This thesis can successfully refer to research programs aiming at measuring EU member states’ and regions’ development conditions and achievements. In other words, research program on regional development should be adapted to the specificities of the member countries and regions. The aim of this paper is to verify (referring to the institutional economics framework), to what extent the demand for capturing diversity by research methods in regional science can be reconciled with methodological regime and the need to ensure comparability of results.

Social Energy - A New Form of Perceiving Capital in Postmodern Economy

The presented paper deals with the issue of social creation of knowledge in the postmodern economic order. The concept of beneficients as a core idea of this conception in connection with thermodynamic analogy in interdisciplinary problem leads to the materialistic and intellectual dual analysis of sustainable phenomenon of development and creation of knowledge. The paper discusses the possibility of a new way of development of institutional economy in the direction of knowledge economy and the change in an approach to an organisation from the traditional systemic to a cooperating community. The presented considerations are a germ of intellectual infrastructure and supporting the process of structural learning and sustainable development with artificial intelligence. It has been suggested that social energy should be considered as an alternative way of perceiving development.entropy, social complex systems, postmodern economy, econophbysics, multiagent economy

A BRIEF ASSESSMENT OF ROMANIA’S COMPETITIVE LEVEL

The central issue of this papaer is linked to competitiveness, in the context of integration in European Union. Big economic-social changes linket to: GLOBALISATION, FREE-TRADE, BUSINESS’ INTERNATIONALIZATION, TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION makes today cometitiveness problems to become the problem number one, of surviving, for all leaders and economic and political decission factors.competitiveness, fuzzy clustering, economic performance