The Social Embeddedness of Industrial Networks in the Age of the Internet: A Tale of Two Regions In China

In this article we examine the extent to which theoretical views of social embeddedness of economic development that were developed from the study of regional industrial networks continue to be relevant in cases of entrepreneurial networks that are formed in developing countries through the use of internet-based platforms and business services. We frame our research against the background of current libertarian discourse regarding the internet as an enabler of social networking which changes the institutional bearings of production and economic activity of modernity. We draw data from two cases of industrial networks of micro-entrepreneurs in China. Our research shows that although important relationships of the industrial network are virtual, conducted through the electronic tools and services, the networks are strongly socially embedded, sustained through close relationships with the corporation that provides the internet platform as well as the governmen

Exploring the socio-economic structures of internet-enabled development: a study of grassroots netpreneurs in China

types: ArticleThis is an open access article that is freely available in ORE or from the publisher's web site. Please cite the published version.There is increasing interest in the potential of internet platforms for networking and collaboration - often referred to as web 2.0 - to open up unprecedented prospects for individuals to come together and engage in economic and political activities, bypassing and indeed subverting the corporate structures of the market economy and state control. The prevailing discourse on this technology-driven transformative potential focuses on networks of individuals interacting through technology tools with little, if at all, attention to the social context that gives rise and sustains their networked economic or political activities. In this paper we study the social embeddedness of the empowering potential of internet-enabled economic activity. We present and discuss a case of intense entrepreneurial activity in a Chinese community, engaging in e-commerce trading conducted on a platform of internet tools. Our analysis of this case juxtaposes the emerging views on web2.0 business activities with views drawn from a long established literature on entrepreneurship as a networked activity. We found that internet-based entrepreneurial activity at this case of grassroots development enacts online social networking mechanisms of peer-to-peer and vendor-customer interactions and heavily depends on a corporate service provider, as well as the historically developed community infrastructure for commerce. Overall, our research explores whether economic activity enabled by web 2.0 is an individualistic phenomenon, or it relies on institutional bearings and if so what is their nature

COMPARISONS OF PRE-LANDING AND EARLY LANDING KNEE FLEXION ANGLES BETWEEN SEXES AND LANDING TASKS

The purpose was to compare pre-landing and early landing knee biomechanics between males and females and between double-leg and single-leg landings. Sixteen males and sixteen females participated in this study. The single-leg landings generally resulted in less time to minimal knee flexion angles prior to initial landing, decreased minimal knee flexion angles and average knee flexion velocities prior to initial landing, knee flexion angles at initial landing. The sex difference was only observed for knee flexion angles 50ms after initial landing in single-leg landings. These differences in the timing of minimal flexion angle and minimal knee angle prior to landing might be related to a small knee flexion angle at initial contact. Preparing for landing with greater knee flexion help mitigate the ACL injury risk in single-leg landings and women

Regional clustering through internet networks: the case of web-enabled entrepreneurial cluster in China

This research examines the rationale of geographic co-location of entrepreneurs who do business on internet platforms. Prior research has shown that entrepreneurs gain valuable synergy benefits from being embedded in industrial networks. Nevertheless, the advantages of geographic clustering when business is conducted via the internet are still to be understood. This research aims to understand how internet-based economic activity interacts with local social relations and structures, thus seeking to explain the phenomenon of industrial clustering of internet-enabled entrepreneurial activity. Guided by theories of relational and institutional embeddedness, we examine the way social relations are formed online, trace the rationale of local social relations while business is conducted online, and study the role of major institutional actors that support the economic activities of the entrepreneurs. Empirically, this thesis examines two regional clusters of Chinese microentrepreneurs who conduct their business on an e-commerce platform and form dynamic interpersonal ties with business partners and customers both online and offline. The method of ethnographic case study is adopted to gain in depth understanding of the ways various internet networking tools have been appropriated in business practice in these two cases and the ways local microentrepreneurs build up collaborative networks in geographic place as well as cyberspace. The study of Chinese micro-entrepreneurs reveals and substantiates the formation of a hybrid sociality, whereby economic exchange via the internet and business conducted by electronic tools are complemented by local social relations and actively supported by local government and the IT service corporation. This research also contributes to development policy considerations; it shows that regions that are usually unattractive to capital and knowledge/talent flows can gain economic development momentum by entangling the conduct of business on web platforms with local social institutions

JUMP-LANDING KINETIC ASYMMETRIES PERSISTED DESPITE SYMMETRIC SQUAT KINETICS IN COLLEGIATE ATHLETES FOLLOWING ACL RECONSTRUCTION

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) re-injury rates are high in collegiate athletes. Squats and countermovement jumps (CMJ) are commonly used for assessments and training after ACL reconstruction (ACLR). The purpose was to quantify the differences and correlations in kinetic asymmetries between squats and CMJs in collegiate athletes following ACLR. Fourteen athletes performed 1-2 squats and CMJs within 24-month following ACLR for a total of 25 assessments. Greater kinetic asymmetries showed in CMJs than squats. Kinetic asymmetries strongly correlated between the ascending and descending phases in squats and moderately between the jumping and landing phases in CMJs. Two phases of squats moderately correlated with the jumping phase of CMJs but the landing phase. CMJ kinetic asymmetries should be directly assessed and trained for mitigating ACL re-injury risk

LLM-grounded Diffusion: Enhancing Prompt Understanding of Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Large Language Models

Recent advancements in text-to-image generation with diffusion models have yielded remarkable results synthesizing highly realistic and diverse images. However, these models still encounter difficulties when generating images from prompts that demand spatial or common sense reasoning. We propose to equip diffusion models with enhanced reasoning capabilities by using off-the-shelf pretrained large language models (LLMs) in a novel two-stage generation process. First, we adapt an LLM to be a text-guided layout generator through in-context learning. When provided with an image prompt, an LLM outputs a scene layout in the form of bounding boxes along with corresponding individual descriptions. Second, we steer a diffusion model with a novel controller to generate images conditioned on the layout. Both stages utilize frozen pretrained models without any LLM or diffusion model parameter optimization. We validate the superiority of our design by demonstrating its ability to outperform the base diffusion model in accurately generating images according to prompts that necessitate both language and spatial reasoning. Additionally, our method naturally allows dialog-based scene specification and is able to handle prompts in a language that is not well-supported by the underlying diffusion model.Comment: Work in progres