On the Minimization of Handover Decision Instability in Wireless Local Area Networks

This paper addresses handover decision instability which impacts negatively on both user perception and network performances. To this aim, a new technique called The HandOver Decision STAbility Technique (HODSTAT) is proposed for horizontal handover in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) based on IEEE 802.11standard. HODSTAT is based on a hysteresis margin analysis that, combined with a utilitybased function, evaluates the need for the handover and determines if the handover is needed or avoided. Indeed, if a Mobile Terminal (MT) only transiently hands over to a better network, the gain from using this new network may be diminished by the handover overhead and short usage duration. The approach that we adopt throughout this article aims at reducing the minimum handover occurrence that leads to the interruption of network connectivity (this is due to the nature of handover in WLAN which is a break before make which causes additional delay and packet loss). To this end, MT rather performs a handover only if the connectivity of the current network is threatened or if the performance of a neighboring network is really better comparing the current one with a hysteresis margin. This hysteresis should make a tradeoff between handover occurrence and the necessity to change the current network of attachment. Our extensive simulation results show that our proposed algorithm outperforms other decision stability approaches for handover decision algorithm.Comment: 13 Pages, IJWM

Collaborative and collective! Reflexive coordination and the dynamics of open innovation in clusters

Economic geography increasingly conceptualises "innovation as a collective action" (Storper, 1996). However, cluster literature often reduces the collective dimension to the circulation of knowledge between local-regional organisations based on various forms of (market, organisational, social, institutional or cognitive) coordination. This paper departs from this grass-roots perspective by discussing the role of collective actions in clusters, i.e. actions developed by a large number of cluster members acting as a group. Empirical evidence drawing on a study of three digital clusters in the Paris region shows that the cluster as a collective entity holds agency and - thanks to reflexive coordination - can contribute to open innovation - including innovation-seeking partnerships in the early stages of cluster lifecycles.open innovation; reflexive coordination; collaborative / collective actions; territory

Institutions and the Management of Human Resources: Incentive Pay Systems in France and Great Britain

Using data from large-scale establishment surveys in Britain and France, we show that incentive pay for non-managers is more widespread in France than in Britain. We explain this finding in terms of the 'beneficial constraint' arising from stronger employment protection in France, which provides an impulse to develop incentive pay; employer networking activities in France, which facilitate joint learning about its development and operation; and government fiscal incentives for profit-sharing, which reduces the cost of its operation.incentive systems, merit pay, profit-sharing, employer networks

Inequality in new global governance arrangements: the North South Divide in city networks for global environmental governance

Networks are often portrayed as more equal governance arrangements. Their horizontal character easily leads to the assumption that they go beyond traditional divides. Power relations within networks are neglected because the collaborative activities receive the bulk of attention. However, from a critical reading of the network and flows literature we know that networks are not free of power relations, and that they create new inequalities and sometimes even intensify existing ones. Increasingly, city governments pursue innovative policies by exchanging knowledge and best practices in city networks. The revolution in communication technologies has facilitated the development and maintenance of such networks and some operate at a global scale, including cities from both the Global North and the Global South. It is believed that these governance arrangements empower cities because they (1) provide them with resources (access to information, financial and technical assistance etc.), (2) strengthen cities’ capacities to deal with complex (environmental) problems, (3) make that cities establish relationships with actors that would otherwise be inaccessible and (4) voice cities’ concerns at the international level. Despite the potential for empowerment, I argue that the inclusion of cities from the Global South in global city networks does not assure equal voices and positions for cities from the Global North and the Global South. In response to the critique that literature on the network society has silenced power, Manuel Castells (2009) has distinguished four types of power in networks. Using Castells’s conceptual framework, this paper addresses power relations in two city networks for global environmental governance: the World Association of the Major Metropolises and the C40 Climate Leadership Group. A large number of interviews and direct observations of network meetings have provided the author with significant empirical evidence on the day-to-day reality of network interactions. Power relations that result from informational, ideational and financial flows are at the core of attention. The paper reveals contributor/receiver linkages and their consequences for the networks’ functioning. The conclusions are framed by theoretical considerations on the significance of cities from the Global South in processes of political globalization

Re-structuring competetive metropolitan regions: on territory, institutions and governance. RheinRuhr compared with London, Paris and the Randstad Holland

Currently social and political constructed urban regions are about to approach a threefold role regarding their functional, economic and political function. At first they constitute a basis for economic and social life. What is next is their role as a vital relational asset to refine competitive advantages and thirdly they exemplify the significance of a new era of reflexive capitalism. One underlying consequence of the "new" interest concerning the de- and re-territorialisation of political economic activity is to consider the regional scale as a functional space for economic planning and political governance. Our intended contribution for the ERSA-Conference deals with the role of selected European Metropolitan Regions as "driving forces" for national and Europe`s competitiveness and the involved challenges for such urban regions to pool their resources and potentials in order to cerate some kind of "appropriate organising capacities". To do so, the authors would draw on the ongoing debate about the adequate analysis of regional political economies and on the empirical results produced within two recently finished international research projects (named as EURBANET and GEMACA II: both were executed under the umbrella of the INTERREG IIC operational programme for the North Western Metropolitan Area). Whilst GEMACA II focussed on the competitiveness of metropolitan regions, the EURBANET project took on board the possible contribution of polynuclear urban regions, such as RheinRuhr and the Delta Metropolis, in order to strengthen the regional competitiveness and quality of life. Additionally, their potential roles in transnational planning processes were under study. The planned paper would start with the observation that a great number of examinations on urban or city-regional economies reduce these "spatialities" to empirical given administrative bounded cities and simultaneously to a "container" for socio-economic processes. However, a "region" is comprehended as a historical contingent process and its emergence needs to be understood as a part of socio-spatial structure and collective consciousness of society. Questions of spatial scales, territorial shapes, institutional formations and cultural identities are thus given preference by a number of social scientists and human geographers. In order to respond to this perspective, the authors want to discuss three key factors of the economic development exemplified by four metropolitan regions (as named in the headline). 1. the territorial shape of comparable functional urban regions including the specific questions of the internal spatial shape (rather monocentric or polycentric configurations without a dominant core); 2. the present "economic performance" of the selected regions embedded in the discourse of "regional competitiveness"; 3. the importance of "appropriate" institutional and policy-making frameworks for effective metropolitan governance and governments by bringing together the mutual interests of various city-regional stakeholders.

Reconsidering Cohesion Policy : the Contested debate on Territorial Cohesion

The incorporation of territorial cohesion as a regional policy objective has focused attention on the potential role of territorial cooperation in pursuing this goal. However, the broad agreement on the positive effects of territorial cooperation is not always matched by the same enthusiasm when funds are being allocated. The concrete impact of territorial cooperation is often difficult to identify. At the same time, in terms of the qualitative impacts of territorial cooperation, the added value of INTERREG for territorial cohesion is difficult to dispute

French investment banking at Belle Époque: the legacy of the 19th century Haute Banque

The research program about the history of investment banking assesses through this text the legacy transmitted by the merchant banks (Haute Banque) to the Paris banking market. It first delimited the foibles which hindered them in the last quarter of the 19th century, but précised how they succeeded in renewing themselves and in absorbing fresh forces of initiative and creativeness. It draws the strong lines of the strategic deployment of the private bankers, of their portfolio of banking skills and their aptitude to insert themselves in banking in the wake of “modern” banks or even to create one, the Banque de l’union parisienne (Bup) in 1904.Bank, merchant banking; Paris banking market; banking strategy; portfolio of strategic activities; firms’ portfolio of skills