From blind spots to hotspots: How knowledge services clusters develop and attract foreign investment

This paper explores local and global dynamics underlying the development of knowledge services clusters, which we define as new geographic concentrations of technical talent and service providers offering upstream technical and knowledge-intensive business services to regional and global clients. Taking a co-evolutionary perspective on the development of knowledge services clusters in Latin America, based on data from the Offshoring Research Network (ORN), we find that cluster growth results from intersecting trajectories: the emergence of local talent pools and capabilities initially serving local and regional demand; broadening global search for talent and expertise by multinational corporations; and internationalization strategies of service providers competing to serve global clients. Findings suggest that increasing commoditization of knowledge services opens up windows of opportunity for new clusters, but also involves challenges for sustainable growth. Results may stimulate future research on global sourcing and cluster development.     

Global Englishes, Rip Slyme, and performativity

In this article I suggest that while recent sociolinguistic work focusing on crossing, styling the Other or language boundaries is raising significant questions concerning how we relate language, identity and popular culture, these insights have largely passed by the sociolinguistics of world Englishes. This latter work is still caught between arguments about homogeneity and heterogeneity, between arguments based on liberal accommodationism, linguistic imperialism or linguistic hybridity that do not allow for sufficiently complex understandings of what is currently happening with global Englishes. Focusing particularly on rap music, I suggest that we need, at the very least, a critical understanding of globalization, a focus on popular cultural flows, and a way of taking up performance and performativity in relationship to identity and culture.     

Global Hakka: a case study

This paper is based on a case study of a small group of Hakkas who have left the village-town of Beruas in the state of Perak on the west coast of the Malaysian Peninsula to make their homes overseas – mostly in cultures which are very different from the Hakka environment in which they grew up. It looks at: the reasons why they left their hometown; how they identify themselves in their new place of residence; who they married; their offspring in relation to the their mother tongue (Hakka) and traditions; how they see the future of ‘Hakka culture’ and the social and cultural costs of living overseas and marrying outside the dialect.     

Prague,Present Meets Past

In the first, socio-historical part of the study, the main periods of Prague's twentieth century history are described and explained, i.e. the period of Hapsburg monarchy, the period of the interwar Czechoslovak Republic, the Second World War years and Nazi occupation, the 41 years of the communist regime and the years after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. It was a century of unprecedented discontinuities and the city and its people went through seven different political and economic orders. This kind of history makes legitimate the following question: how were the city and its residents able to retain identity and stability. Different mechanisms were used, e.g. separating culture from politics, inventing civic identity, identity linked to the locality as well as to its history and to the local ways of life, and to stress monument protection. The study hints also at the risks of such defensive mechanisms. The last part tries to exploit the experience of Prague and similar cities for stimulating the interest in urban theory.     

一种Volterra方程的极限环问题

中科院数学所井竹筠同志研究过方程的情况,本文进一步研究一般情况．通过定性分析,研究该系统极限环的存在性、唯一性．     

Global activism and new media: A study of transnational NGOs’ online public relations

This study examines how transnational nongovernmental organizations make use of new media tools in their public relation activities and what factors influence their online public relations. A survey of communication representatives at 75 transnational NGOs based in the United States found that promoting the organization's image and fund-raising were the two most important functions of new media for the NGOs. Organizational capacity and main objective of the organization were significant predictors of NGOs’ new media use in their public relations. However, organizational efficiency and revenue did not significantly predict NGOs’ use of new media.     

《财富》带来的财富——1999《财富》全球论坛世界500强的启示

所有的竞争都需要实力 ,所有的实力都来自经济。在全球经济一体化的国际市场上 ,作为融经济实力和国际竞争力于一体的世界 50 0强企业 ,已被潜力巨大、商机无限的中国市场所吸引。 1 999《财富》全球论坛在中国举办充分显示了中国在未来世界经济中的重要地位。这是世界给中国的机遇 ,也是中国给世界的机遇。但在欣喜之余 ,更大的感受是压力。本文介绍了中国企业与世界 50 0强企业的优势与差距 ,机遇与挑战 ,明确提出中国企业要借鉴 50 0强经验 ,力争跻身世界诸强 ,参与全球竞争     

Adaptive evolutionary Monte Carlo algorithm for optimization with applications to sensor placement problems

In this paper, we present an adaptive evolutionary Monte Carlo algorithm (AEMC), which combines a tree-based predictive model with an evolutionary Monte Carlo sampling procedure for the purpose of global optimization. Our development is motivated by sensor placement applications in engineering, which requires optimizing certain complicated “black-box” objective function. The proposed method is able to enhance the optimization efficiency and effectiveness as compared to a few alternative strategies. AEMC falls into the category of adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms and is the first adaptive MCMC algorithm that simulates multiple Markov chains in parallel. A theorem about the ergodicity property of the AEMC algorithm is stated and proven. We demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method by applying it to a sensor placement problem in a manufacturing process, as well as to a standard Griewank test function.     

Implementation of ridge analysis on quadratic response surfaces

A computer program that performs ridge analysis on quadratic response surfaces is presented in this paper, the primary goal of which is to seek the estimated optimum operating conditions inside a spherical region of experimentation during the stage of process optimization. The computational algorithm is developed based upon the trust-region methods in nonlinear optimization and guarantees the resulting operating conditions to be globally optimal without any priori assumption on the structure of response functions. Under a particular condition termed the "hard case" arising from the trust region literature, the conventional ridge analysis procedure fails to provide a set of acceptable optimum operating settings, yet the proposed algorithm has the capability of locating a pair of non-unique global solutions achieved on an identical estimated response value. Two illustrative examples taken from the response surface methodology (RSM) literature are given to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the method addressed in the paper.     

The global “war for talent”

In this paper we examine the “global war for talent,” the factors that impact it, and organizations' responses to it. Using a comprehensive search of more than 400 contemporary academic and business press articles, the paper reviews relevant research and reassesses the “talent war.” We posit that the dominant approaches to the “talent war” based on a scarcity state of mind and action, often characterized by a tactical and exclusive top talent or “star” focus, are being challenged by the emergence of a more evolutionary paradigm. This new paradigm adopts more strategic, innovative, cooperative and generative approaches which we describe as creative ‘talent solutions.’ The paper also highlights implications for future research, teaching and development in the field.