Business strategies in the context of poorlydelineated land property rights

Purpose – To understand the interconnection between the institutional environment, land conflicts, and business strategy under the lens of the Economic Analysis of Property Rights. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative analysis of academic publications and sustainability reports. Findings – Identification of six categories of pathologies associated with land rights held by forest companies and four categories of strategic mechanisms employed by the same organizations. Originality/value – To evidence through empirical data the interconnection between the institutional environment, land conflicts, and business strategy for land rights protection in Brazil

Modeling and synthesis of multicomputer interconnection networks

The type of interconnection network employed has a profound effect on the performance of a multicomputer and multiprocessor design. Adequate models are needed to aid in the design and development of interconnection networks. A novel modeling approach using statistical and optimization techniques is described. This method represents an attempt to compare diverse interconnection network designs in a way that allows not only the best of existing designs to be identified but to suggest other, perhaps hybrid, networks that may offer better performance. Stepwise linear regression is used to develop a polynomial surface representation of performance in a (k+1) space with a total of k quantitative and qualitative independent variables describing graph-theoretic characteristics such as size, average degree, diameter, radius, girth, node-connectivity, edge-connectivity, minimum dominating set size, and maximum number of prime node and edge cutsets. Dependent variables used to measure performance are average message delay and the ratio of message completion rate to network connection cost. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) optimizes a response variable from a polynomial function of several independent variables. Steepest ascent path may also be used to approach optimum points

Reflections on globalisation, security and 9/11

The study of globalisation carries important conceptual insights into the contemporary security agenda following the events of September 11th 2001 ('9/11'). This article argues that globalisation can be defined in a variety of ways, ranging from liberalisation to Westernisation, and can also be extended into concepts of supra-territorialisation. In combination, these definitions help to explain the generation of 9/11 style-conflict by providing the political-economic motivation for hyper-terrorism, by facilitating the political identities and activities of non-state actors; and by creating an environment for the global reach of terror movements. Additionally, the interconnection between globalisation and security can be seen in the response of the United States to 9/11 and its striving to project military power on a global scale with declining reference to time and geographical distance, and the varied ability of sovereign states to respond to the challenge of trans-sovereign security problems in the future

Expanded-beam backside coupling interface for alignment-tolerant packaging of silicon photonics

We demonstrate an alignment-tolerant backside coupling interface in the O-band for silicon photonics by generating an optimized through-substrate (downward) directionality beam from a TE-mode grating coupler and hybrid integrating the chip with backside silicon microlenses to achieve expanded beam collimation. The key advantage of using such an expanded beam interface is an increased coupling tolerance to lateral and longitudinal misalignment. A 34 mu m beam diameter was achieved over a combined substrate thickness of 630 mu m which was then coupled to a thermally expanded core single-mode fiber to investigate the tolerances. A 1-dB fiber-to-microlens lateral alignment tolerance of 14 mu m and an angular alignment tolerance of 1 degrees was measured at a wavelength of 1310 nm. In addition, a large +/- 2.5 mu m 1-dB backside alignment accuracy was measured for the placement of microlens with respect to the grating. The radius of curvature of Si microlens to achieve a collimated beam was 480 mu m, and a 1-dB longitudinal alignment tolerance of 700 mu m was measured for coupling to a single-mode expanded core fiber. The relaxation in alignment tolerances make the demonstrated coupling interface suitable for chip-to-package or chip-to-board couplin

Cluster Performance reconsidered: Structure, Linkages and Paths in the German Biotechnology Industry, 1996-2003

This paper addresses the evolution of biotechnology clusters in Germany between 1996 and 2003, paying particular attention to their respective composition in terms of venture capital, basic science institutions and biotechnology firms. Drawing upon the significance of co-location of "money and ideas", the literature stressing the importance of a cluster's openness and external linkages, and the path dependency debate, the paper aims to analyse how certain cluster characteristics correspond with its overall performance. After identifying different cluster types, we investigate their internal and external interconnectivity in comparative manner and draw on changes in cluster composition. Our results indicate that the structure, i.e. to which group the cluster belongs, and the openness towards external knowledge flows deliver merely unsystematic indications with regard to a cluster's overall success. Its ability to change composition towards a more balanced ratio of science and capital over time, on the other hand, turns out as a key explanatory factor. Hence, the dynamic perspective proves effective illuminating cluster growth and performance, where our explorative findings provide a promising avenue for further evolutionary research

Bus interconnection networks

AbstractIn bus interconnection networks every bus provides a communication medium between a set of processors. These networks are modeled by hypergraphs where vertices represent the processors and edges represent the buses. We survey the results obtained on the construction methods that connect a large number of processors in a bus network with given maximum processor degree Δ, maximum bus size r, and network diameter D. (In hypergraph terminology this problem is known as the (Δ,D, r)-hypergraph problem.)The problem for point-to-point networks (the case r = 2) has been extensively studied in the literature. As a result, several families of networks have been proposed. Some of these point-to-point networks can be used in the construction of bus networks. One approach is to consider the dual of the network. We survey some families of bus networks obtained in this manner. Another approach is to view the point-to-point networks as a special case of the bus networks and to generalize the known constructions to bus networks. We provide a summary of the tools developed in the theory of hypergraphs and directed hypergraphs to handle this approach