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"Economic development Europe Computer network resources."
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Austerities and Aspirations
This monograph provides an analysis of the economic performance and living standard in Czechoslovakia and its successor states, Hungary, and Poland since 1945. The novelty of the book lies in its broad comparative perspective: it places East Central Europe in a wider European framework that underlines the themes of regional disparities and European commonalities. Going beyond the traditional growth paradigm, the author systematically studies the historical patterns of consumption, leisure, and quality of life-aspects that Tomka argues can best be considered in relation to one other. By adopting this \"triple approach,\" he undertakes a truly interdisciplinary research drawing from history, economics, sociology, and demography.
As a result of Tomka's three-pillar comparative analysis, the book makes a major contribution to the debates on the dynamics of economic growth in communist and postcommunist East Central Europe, on the socialist consumer culture along with its transformation after 1990, and on how the accounts on East Central Europe can be integrated into the emerging field of historical quality of life research.
eBook
A Blood Bank Network Design Problem with Integrated Facility Location, Inventory and Routing Decisions
We aim to design an effective supply chain network for a blood distribution system to satisfy the needs of hospitals in a certain region. In the analyzed current system, each hospital keeps a certain level of inventory, received at certain time periods by the shipments from a main blood bank. We propose an alternative system, in which some of the hospitals are selected as local blood banks (LBB) and all other hospitals will be assigned to an LBB. More frequent shipments will be made from LBBs to these hospitals, leading to lower inventory levels to be kept at each hospital. The inventories kept separately at the hospitals in the current system will be pooled at the selected LBBs in the proposed system. We develop a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model to determine the optimal selection of LBBs, assignment of hospitals to LBBs, optimal inventory levels at each LBB and routing decisions among the facilities in order to minimize total system costs. We also propose a piecewise linear approximation method and a simulated annealing heuristic approach to find the solution of this problem. The proposed model and the solution techniques are applied on a real life case study for the blood distribution network in Istanbul. It is observed that significant improvements can be obtained by the proposed system when compared to the current design. Performances of the solution methods are also compared and a sensitivity analysis related to system parameters is presented via detailed numerical experiments.
Journal Article
Renewable futures and industrial legacies: Wind and solar sectors in China, Germany, and the United States
This article develops an explanation for patterns of industrial specialization in emerging high-technology industries through a comparative analysis of wind and solar sectors in China, Germany, and the United States. Although governments have held similar industrial policy goals in the support of renewable energy industries, firms in all three economies have established distinct innovative capabilities in response to the policies of the state. This article shows that firms utilize both legacy institutions and engage in relational learning in global networks to carve out distinct niches in emerging industries. Based on an original dataset of more than 200 firm-level interviews, the article suggests that the rise of global value chains has widened the space for national diversity in industrial specialization. Firms no longer have to establish the full range of skills required to bring an idea from lab to market, but can specialize and collaborate with others. In this context, firms respond to industrial policy by incrementally building on existing industrial capabilities and by relying on familiar public resources and institutions, even in emerging industries. These findings point to the role of industrial legacies in shaping firms' positions in global value chains and show that firms are active agents in maintaining distinct industrial specializations and domestic institutions under conditions of globalization.
Journal Article
Classification of patients with chronic disease by activation level using machine learning methods
Patient Activation Measure (PAM) measures the activation level of patients with chronic conditions and correlates well with patient adherence behavior, health outcomes, and healthcare costs. PAM is increasingly used in practice to identify patients needing more support from the care team. We define PAM levels 1 and 2 as low PAM and investigate the performance of eight machine learning methods (Logistic Regression, Lasso Regression, Ridge Regression, Random Forest, Gradient Boosted Trees, Support Vector Machines, Decision Trees, Neural Networks) to classify patients. Primary data collected from adult patients (n=431) with Diabetes Mellitus (DM) or Hypertension (HT) attending Family Health Centers in Istanbul, Turkey, is used to test the methods. 44.5% of patients in the dataset have a low PAM level. Classification performance with several feature sets was analyzed to understand the relative importance of different types of information and provide insights. The most important features are found as whether the patient performs self-monitoring, smoking and exercise habits, education, and socio-economic status. The best performance was achieved with the Logistic Regression algorithm, with Area Under the Curve (AUC)=0.72 with the best performing feature set. Alternative feature sets with similar prediction performance are also presented. The prediction performance was inferior with an automated feature selection method, supporting the importance of using domain knowledge in machine learning.
Journal Article
Recommendation system to determine suitable and viable hiking routes: a prototype application in Sierra de las Nieves Nature Reserve (southern Spain)
This paper describes a system for recommending hiking routes to help manage hiking activities in a protected area. The system proposes various routes, based on five criteria that maximize some aspects of hikers’ requirements (by analyzing the viability and difficulty of the trails) and also those of protected areas managers (by proposals to relieve congestion in areas already used for hiking and to promote awareness of new ones, as a contribution to environmental education). The recommendation system uses network analysis, multi-criteria decision analysis and geographic information system by free software tools: PgRouting, PostgreSQL and PostGIS. This system has been tested in Sierra de las Nieves Nature Reserve (Andalusia, Spain). Of the 182 routes obtained by the system, 62 (34%) are considered viable for hikers in Sierra de las Nieves, taking into account the type of user most likely to visit this protected area. Most routes have a high difficulty level, which is coherent with the mountainous character of the protected area.
Journal Article
Exodus 2.0: crowdsourcing geographical and social trails of mass migration
The exodus of displaced populations is a recurring historical phenomenon, and the ongoing Syrian humanitarian crisis is its latest incarnation. During such mass migration events, information is an essential commodity. Of particular importance is geographical (e.g., pathways and refugee camps) and social (e.g., refugee activities and networking) information. Traditionally, such information had been produced and disseminated by authorities, but a new paradigm is emerging: Web 2.0 and mobile computing technologies enable the involved stakeholder communities to produce, access, and consume migration-related information. The purpose of this article is to put forward a new typology for understanding the factors around migration and to examine the potential of crowd-generated data—especially open data and volunteered geographic information—to study such events. Using the recent wave of migration to Europe from the Middle East and northern Africa as a case study, we examine how migration-related information can be dynamically mined and analyzed to study the migrants’ pathways from their home countries to their destination sites, as well as the conditions and activities that evolve during the migration process. These new data sources can provide a deeper and more fine-grained understanding of the migration process, often in real-time, and often through the eyes of the communities affected by it. Nevertheless, this also raises significant methodological and technical challenges for their future use associated with potential biases, data quality issues, and data processing.
Journal Article
Technology Transmission Across National Innovation Systems: The Role of Danish Suppliers in Upgrading the Wind Energy Industry in China
This paper advances our understanding of how technology upgrading in the Chinese wind turbine industry is linked to internationalisation of Danish component suppliers. In order to grasp the interlinkages and implications hereof, the paper combines perspectives of global value chains (GVC), national innovation systems (NIS) and firm-level capabilities. The paper employs a qualitative methodology, drawing on explorative case studies of component suppliers and their links to lead firms in the wind turbine industry. The findings of the paper highlight the new pattern of upgrading by upstream linkages, i.e. linking up with global suppliers in the wind turbine global value chain, and the new role of component suppliers as technology transmitters across national innovation systems into emerging markets. Conceptually, the paper contributes to understanding how technological catching up in value chains links to the intersection between national innovation systems, a process driven by global value chain dynamics.
Journal Article
How do actors shape social networks during the process of new product development?
Recent studies on new-idea generation and development have highlighted the role played by network structure in the genesis of new combinations or the process of selecting ideas. However, less attention has been paid to the factors that entice actors to shape social networks during the process of the development of new ideas. This research was conducted in an R&D facility of a semiconductor company. We analysed the generation of five creative projects and their development over a four-year period. We used a longitudinal approach and collected data through interviews and observations to identify the creative contributions and the actors who were involved at different time periods for each project. We mapped the relationships between actors who contributed to the development of each idea through creative thinking and/or helped it to become accepted both internally and externally over three-year windows. This method generated data on network evolution. We also carried out a qualitative analysis and identified four main factors explaining why actors turn to others during the idea-development process: (1) to gain access to information ; (2) to enhance credibility; (3) to exercise oneOs influence; and (4) to gain access to knowledge through people or objects. We demonstrate that different types of ties or network structures are relied upon to reap different kinds of benefits. This may partially explain network evolution as an idea progresses through different development stages. ª
Paper
The power of peer learning : networks and development cooperation
An ancient Chinese proverb tells us \"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.\" The same can be said for development assistance. Solutions provided by outside \"experts\" are often rejected or politely shelved. However, solutions based on the principle of \"self-help\" are far more likely to take root. This book explores the self-help, peer learning approach of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), comparing it with that of IDRC. It focuses on the importance of networks to development and growth, and demonstrates that network management is fundamentally different from the management of companies, organizations, or other bodies that fall under a single authority. The book will be of interest to planners, policymakers, and researchers in the industrialized and developing worlds, and particularly in the new and emerging democracies of Eastern Europe.
eBook