Leaving Rurality Behind. Re-orientation of spatial policies in Sweden.

The paper will address the changing status of rural regions in policy formation in Sweden. Two basic processes are at work. First, decades of out-migration have given many rural regions a demographic structure, which is causing a self-propelling de-population. Secondly, the internationalisation of the economy and of politics has drawn the attention from the idea of nationwide welfare towards efforts to increase economic growth on a national basis. Regional policy is gradually shifting focus towards concepts and measures that are aiming at supporting dynamic growth regions. The new economic geography forms the basis for an "urbanised" regional policy: economies of scale, regional specialisation and the enlargement of labour market regions are key concepts in the spatial policies. Hence, the problems of marginalisation and decline in the periphery as well as the specific opportunities of vital rural areas are vanishing in politics and planning as the "rural development system" and the "rural dimension" is being phased-out from the conception of space.rural regions; regional policy

Modes of re-territorialisation. Spatial implications of regional competition politics in Sweden.

Traditional welfare states have gradually become more involved in competition politics. In order to sustain economic growth in a globalising economy these states get increasingly supply oriented and act to promote technological change, innovations and entrepreneurship. In Sweden, efforts to develop knowledge based niches have become key elements in an increasingly growth oriented regional/industrial policy. This paper will address the spatial implications of these changes. Two territorial approaches can be fruitfully identified. First, the growth policy is based on an economic geography in which the promotion of regional specialisation and industrial clusters are vital parts. Thus, focus is turning from the periphery towards the centre as aims and means are directed towards international competitiveness. Second, the decentralisation of regional policy and the orientation towards partnerships, networks and cross sector co-operations is driving towards a spatial fragmentation where time and space specific regions are created on a project basis. The contours of a development system of regions partly over-lapping each others can be identified.re-territorialisation

Understanding rural change - demography as a key to the future

The last decades have seen a rapidly growing interest in foresight methodology. Methods have been developed in corporate and governmental communication exercises often labelled technology foresight. In reality, these foresights have often drifted into processes of social change, since technological change is hard to foresee beyond what is already in the pipe-line. Forecasting of social change, however, must be based on solid knowledge about the mechanisms of continuity and change. Virtually nothing can be said about the future without relating to the past; foresights and futures studies are about revealing the hidden pulse of history. Hence, the answer to forecasting the future is empirical research within the social sciences. Demographic change has been recognised as a key determinant for explaining social change. Population changes are fairly predictable and the age transition can explain a wide range of socio-economic changes. For rural futures, demographic change is a key issue, since age structure in rural areas is often uneven and also unstable due to migration patterns. A number of policy related questions as well as research challenges are raised as a consequence.demographic change; rural futures

Event Detection and Predictive Maintenance using Component Echo State Networks

With a growing number of sensors collecting information about systems in indus- try and infrastructure, one wants to extract useful information from this data. The goal of this project is to investigate the applicability of Echo State Net- work techniques to time-varying classification of multivariate time series from primarily mechanical and electrical systems. Two relevant technical problems are predicting impending failure of systems (predictive maintenance), and clas- sifying a common event related to the system (event detection). In this project, they are formulated as a supervised machine learning problem on a multivariate time series. For this problem, Echo State Networks (ESN) have proven effective. However, applying these algorithms to new data sets involves a lot of guesswork as to how the algorithm should be configured to model the data effectively. In this work, a modification of the Echo State Network (ESN) model is presented, that helps to remove some of this guesswork. The new algorithm uses specifically structured components in order to facilitate the generation of relevant features by the ESN. The algorithm is tested on two easy event detection data sets, and one hard predictive maintenance data set. The results are compared to Support Vector Machine and Multilayer Perceptron classifiers, as well as to a basic ESN, which is also implemented as a reference. The component ESN successfully generates promising features, and outperforms the minimum complexity ESN as well as the standard classifiers

Food production and gender relations in multifunctional landscapes: a literature review

High expectations are put to multifunctional land use systems that they can provide solutions to the increasing global demand for land and food. In this literature review, we ask whether multifunctional landscapes hold specific opportunities for women in enhancing food production and security in a context of gender inequality guided by a framework of access to productive resources and commercialisation. We review 104 scientific articles dealing with food production and security in a range of multifunctional land use systems across Africa, Asia and Latin America, including agroforestry, homegardens, livestock systems and urban agriculture. We find that the specific role of a landscape’s multifunctionality for women’s opportunities to enhance food security, is rarely explicitly examined in scientific literature. Our review shows that in a multifunctional setting, the products controlled by women are often secondary and far from markets, and therefore they risk being ignored in decision-making or by policy makers. Further, efforts to increase the value of traditionally “female products” risk having adverse effects on women’s empowerment, in cases where powerful actors take over all or parts of the value chain, or appropriate the benefits. To remove these barriers traditional gender roles have to change. However, the instability of gender relations can also work in women’s favour in a multifunctional landscape where several products and production systems exist, providing opportunities to claim new roles or resources, especially in the context of changing external circumstances, such as urbanization, a shift from pastoralism to sedentary livelihoods, or an expansion of the monetary economy

Mit eDemocracy zu deliberativer Politik? Zur Praxis und Anschlussfähigkeit eines neuen Mediums ]Is eDemocracy leading to a deliberative policy? On practice and connectivity of a new medium]

Information and communication technologies are increasingly used for supporting citizens' participation. With reference to the model of deliberative policy shown at the example of an online consultation and other eDemocracy tools, this contribution investigates whether the use of new technologies can improve democratic procedures so that the communication among the people concerned and thus the rational discourse before decision-making is positively influenced. As an important prerequisite for the use of new technologies in citizen participation processes, the term "connectivity" is introduced which means that these technologies may not only be evaluated from the technical point of view; in consideration of legal, organisational, cultural and political criteria, it has to be checked if they fit into the provided environment. -- Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik wird in zunehmendem Maße auch zur Unterstützung von Bürgerbeteiligung verwendet. Der Beitrag untersucht unter Bezugnahme auf das Modell deliberativer Politik beispielhaft an einer Online-Konsultation und anderen eDemocracy-Tools, ob der Einsatz neuer Technik demokratische Verfahren dahingehend verbessern kann, dass die Kommunikation unter den Beteiligten und damit der rationale Diskurs vor der Entscheidung positiv beeinflusst wird. Als wesentliche Voraussetzung für den Einsatz neuer Technik in Bürgerbeteiligungsprozessen wird der Begriff der „Anschlussfähigkeit“ eingeführt, wonach diese Techniken nicht nur aus technischem Blickwinkel beurteilt werden dürfen, sondern zudem unter rechtlichen, organisatorischen, ökonomischen, kulturellen und politischen Gesichtspunkten zu prüfen ist, ob sie in die vorgesehene Umgebung „passen“.Politische Partizipation, deliberative Politik, Bürgerbeteiligung, digitale Demokratie, eDemocracy, Anschlussfähigkeit, Internet, Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik