Emerging Global Logistics Networks: Implications for Transport Systems and Policies

ABSTRACT Logistics chains are constantly changing to facilitate increasingly global movements. In qualitative terms, long term trends in logistics services indicate a growing degree of product customization and an increased responsiveness in order delivery. These trends impact on the development of technology and the growth of welfare in different world regions in different ways. This paper drafts a research agenda which will help to improve understanding of the interrelationships between trade, logistics, transport, and regional development at a global scale. Rather than being an exhaustive or detailed inventory of trends, the paper provides a focus on “supply chain by thinking.” The key starting point is the need for more and more efficient transportation and sophisticated logistics processes. Three subjects are treated: First, the strategic implications of borderless supply chain management on the choice of alternative logistics structures in supply chains are considered; second, the possible impacts of the expected changes in supply chain processes upon regional economic activities are examined; third, the impacts of changes in global logistic processes on the transportation system and, in turn, on the environment are explored. This discussion leads to the identification of some new research challenges in the field of transportation and logistics.     

洞庭湖湿地生态系统服务功能效益分析

为了提高人们对洞庭湖湿地生态系统服务功能价值的认识,针对洞庭湖湿地生态功能受到严重破坏与威胁的现状,采用市场价值法、替代市场法等方法对洞庭湖湿地的水文调节、净化、维持物种多样性、碳固定、营养循环、休闲旅游、保护土壤等生态系统服务功能的价值进行了评价。结果表明：洞庭湖湿地生态系统服务功能价值巨大,其货币价值达239.85×108元/年。在整个生态系统服务功能价值中,水文调节功能价值最大,为107.44×108元/年,占总价值的44.79%,说明洞庭湖在调节长江洪水径流方面发挥着重要作用;维持物种多样性功能的价值最小,为4.89×108元/年,低于世界平均水平,说明洞庭湖生态环境已遭到严重破坏。因此,要在充分认识洞庭湖湿地生态功能价值的基础上,充分发挥其作用,促进洞庭湖湿地生态区域经济的协调发展。     

生态系统服务研究进展

通过查阅近年来国际上对生态系统服务的最新研究,在简要概述生态系统服务的产生背景及内涵的基础上,综合分析人类活动、气候变化、生物多样性与生态系统服务功能之间的相互关系,从不同尺度上探讨生态系统服务功能价值评估的研究动态,并根据以往研究工作中的重点做出展望：开展基于生态系统服务功能评价的生态学长期定位监测方法有待进一步研究;生态系统服务功能评价指标仍需进一步完善;开展干旱区的生态系统服务功能研究是新的发展方向。     

Producer Services and Flexible Production: An Exploratory Analysis

While the flexible production literature has become increasingly abundant in recent years, the vast majority of it is narrowly restricted to manufacturing activities, entirely ignoring the role that producer services play in modern systems of production. This paper attempts to explore the conceptual linkages between the growth and the location of producer services, on the one hand, and the rise of flexible forms of production, on the other. After a brief summary of the flexible production approach, the factors underlying the growth and the increasing externalization of producer services are examined. The appropriateness of employing a flexible production framework in the case of producer services, and the significance of flexible production for understanding the location of producer services are then explored. Finally, the labor force effect of flexibility in the production and use of producer services is considered.     

Interregional Trade in Producer Services: Review and Synthesis

This paper reviews some of the past decade's studies of producer or intermediate-services exports from local regions. After a discussion of conceptual and methodological problems and inconsistencies, we present these studies according to the three basic methodologies: surveys, location quotients, and input-output. Overall, our sense is that these studies support limited but important conclusions: (1) If intermediate services are defined broadly, certain of these activities have as their major function interregional or international transfer or trade. By nature, these distributive services have widespread clients, and benefit from locations with substantial physical and communications infrastructure. (2) Among most business-and financial-service activities, most offices are established to serve a local region, but may derive some revenues from beyond this expected zone. (3) The exceptions—the activities and establishments that derive much of their revenue beyond such “normal” zones—are particularly specialized, particularly large, or parts of multiregional enterprises. (4) Such firms tend to locate in larger or more specialized urban places, probably because of the labor force, the corporate connections, and the rapid dissemination of ideas, contacts, and information within and among the largest metropolitan areas. These conclusions lead to some general policy recommendations.     

Innovation and the Growth of Cities

Innovation and the Growth of Cities
Edited by Zoltan J. Acs, Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. 1702. 247 pp. $100.00 (Cloth). ISBN 1‐84064‐936‐4.
Reviewed by Anneliese Vance
Department of Geography
State University of New York     

Cities,Skills, and Inequality

ABSTRACT The surge in U.S. wage inequality over the past several decades is now commonly attributed to an increase in the returns paid to skill. Although theories differ with respect to why, specifically, this increase has come about, many agree that it is strongly tied to the increase in the relative supply of skilled (i.e., highly educated) workers in the U.S. labor market. A greater supply of skilled labor, for example, may have induced skill‐biased technological change or generated greater stratification of workers by skill across firms or jobs. Given that metropolitan areas in the U.S. have long possessed more educated populations than non‐metropolitan areas, these theories suggest that the rise in both the returns to skill and wage inequality should have been particularly pronounced in cities. Evidence from the U.S. Census over the period of 1950 to 1990 supports both implications.     

Museum Functions and Visitors

The plentiful experiences of museum enable the patterns,value and concept of museum change constantly.The relation between museums and their own visitors is continuously improved.For more and more museums it is understood that the visitors are either the customers to serve or the social foundation,the museums depend on.The visitors are the indispensable basic factors for the museum.The studies on the visitors have been the important tasks in the practice of modern museums.In this paper,the psychology and perception psychology of museum visitors are discussed and how;the visitors make a notable impact on the improvement of museum functions is studied.     

Virtual Logistics and Its Development

The research of virtual logistics is a front task in the field of logistics management research. This paper explains the meaning of the virtual logistics and virtual logistics organization in detail based on the analysis on various existing concepts of them, introduces the actuality of the research concerning virtual logistics. Then a three dimensionality research framework and major research contents of virtual logistics are proposed. Four development directions of virtual logistics research and corresponding research emphases are pointed out.     

Cities,transport and agglomeration: Addressing the urban mobility challenges in India

Cities are the drivers of economic growth and structural transformation in developing countries. Transport makes or mars a city. It connects people to opportunity and business to prosperity. Urban transport acts as a catalyst of growth through direct, indirect and induced effects, including those linked to agglomeration and networking externalities. Yet policy makers and planners in developing countries like India continue to neglect the economics of urban public transport. Hardly has there been any attempt to study relationships between city externalities, spatial planning, public transport infrastructure, economic growth and value capture financing. This paper delves into these aspects and presents lessons from theory for the strategies of development and financing of urban public transport in India. It is focused on the implications of urban externalities for transit‐oriented development, transport land use integration, strategic densification of growth nodes and public transport financing based on a value creation, capture and recycling paradigm.     

Bank Restructuring and Access to Financial Services: The Spanish Case

The Spanish bank sector has restructured extensively since the crisis erupted in 2008 in an attempt to correct the imbalances accumulated during the preceding boom years. Thanks to this restructuring effort, Spain's branch network has been pared back by 32 percent, prompting questions about potential ramifications for the population's access to financial services. Against this backdrop, this paper quantifies, at the municipal level, the segment of the population without access to a bank branch in their home town between 2008 and 2015, paving the way for analysis of the impact of the restructuring effort. It also analyses the role played by the three kinds of deposit institutions in Spain in providing access to financial services via their branch networks. The results show that although the percentage of the Spanish population without access to a branch in their home town has risen, the increase has been small, albeit marked by significant differences from one province to the next. The savings banks (including the former cajas that have converted to banks) are still the most important financial institutions in terms of facilitating branch access to financial services.     

一氧化碳(CO)在植物体内的生理生化作用研究进展

为了促进一氧化碳(CO)在植物生理生化方面的研究,本文归纳了CO在植物体中的生物合成途径,CO作为信号分子对植物各种生理功能的调控,以及CO与其他信号分子之间的相互作用。经过分析得出,CO在植物生物胁迫过程中的作用及其作用机制方面的研究还很少,因此,CO在这方面的研究将会成为今后的研究重点。     

Global Integration and Local Identities: Engendering the Singaporean Chinese

Forces of global integration and local autonomy have impacted on debates over the definition and redefinition of gendered ethnic identities among the Chinese in Singapore. These discourses are examined in two historical contexts: contemporary government policy­making on gender issues; and the Chinese cultural reform movement at the turn of the century. Linking contemporary and historical discourses are themes of gendered identity formation in response to tense interactions between globalising forces and moves to assert local autonomy. Striking parallels are shown between gender constructions in the two periods in which engendering discourses were central to redefinitions of Chinese ethnic identities.     

Logistics Strategy and Transport Service Choices: An Adaptive Stated Preference Experiment

ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of a microanalysis of freight transport demand in a logistics context. Current research concentrates, with few exceptions, on shippers’ choice of a transport mode. However, in a global context, shippers’ behavior has to be conceived as a complex decision, which considers transport mode choice as only a part of a firm's logistics strategy. Since no data exist to directly estimate the marginal values for different qualities of transport and logistics services, a stated preference approach is applied. Adaptive stated preference experiments were performed for twenty‐two firms in Italy and in Switzerland. The experimental results—forty hypothetical binary choices per firm—were completed by background information on the firms’ long‐term logistics strategies. The results confirm the relevance of the logistics context (e.g., JIT strategies on the supplier's or customer's side) for transport demand. The calculated marginal values of time and characteristics (reliability, frequency, etc.) provide important insights and permit generalized costs in freight transport models to be recalibrated.     

Covariance Risk and Employment Growth in Canadian Cities

ABSTRACT The Capital Asset Pricing Model is used to examine the relationship between covariance risk in employment and growth in employment for Canadian census metropolitan areas. A new version of location quotient (LQ) is presented that is based on covariance risk. This risk quotient is shown to be a better predictor of employment growth than the simple LQ. The portfolio theoretic model and covariance risk are shown to be useful in predicting growth in addition to studying the regional stability of employment.     

Transnational Corporations,Global Production Networks,and Urban and Regional Development: A Geographer's Perspective on Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy

This paper offers an economic‐geographical interpretation of the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in urban and regional development that is grounded in Dunning and Lundan's (2008 ) Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy. I argue that TNCs and their activity are indisputably one of the keys to understanding urban and regional development in today's globalizing world economy. To support this perspective, I will deploy the recently developed analytical framework of global production networks (GPNs) to unpack the complex and mutually dependent relationships between TNCs and urban and regional development. The paper first provides a critique of several recent influential theories of urban and regional growth and identifies the omitted components in such important actors as TNCs. It then offers an analysis of TNCs as key agents of urban and regional development on the basis of ideas on TNC strategies, networks, and regional institutions expressed in Multinational Enterprises. Finally, I draw upon a relational view of TNCs in GPNs to illustrate how urban and regional development is increasingly a “globalizing” phenomenon. Situated in recent work in economic geography, I elaborate on the concept of strategic coupling as an interfacing mechanism bringing together TNCs and development at the urban and regional scales.