This volume of 18 chapters is the work of more than 30 authors, many of whom are natives of the Central Asian region or are researchers who have dedicated a large part of their working lives to studying the development dynamics in this vast and fascinating region. The work focuses on the 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. But it also traces the attitudes of land users to the land dating from before the late 19th century, when Russian conquest and colonization occurred, and through the upheavals caused by Soviet-style collectivization and sedentarization. The book is rich with new data presented in 68 easy to understand charts/graphs (many in color) and 50 Tables. Information was generated for this book by experts working in-country. It presents for the first time in English a digest of plethora of previously inaccessible Russian reports and scientific literature that will be invaluable for development agencies, including UN, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Bank as well as to students of this vast and fascinating region who seek up to date and authoritive information.

'Advances in Tourism Economics' follows his predecessor 'Advances in Modern Tourism Research' (2007) in providing a thorough assessment of state-of-the-art economic research in this rapidly developing field. The authors start by analyzing the recent upsurge of model-based economic research in the field, which builds on powerful tools in quantitative economics, such as discrete choice models, social accounting matrices, data envelopment analyses, impact assessment models or partial computable equilibrium models including environmental externalities. The volume originates from this novel research spirit in the area and aims to offer an attractive collection of operational research tools and approaches. It forms an appealing record of modern tourism economics and positions the field within the strong tradition of quantitative economic research, with due attention for both the demand and supply side of the tourism sector, including technological and logistic advances.

As urbanization progresses at a remarkable pace, policy makers and analysts come to understand and agree on key features that will make this process more efficient and inclusive, leading to gains in the welfare of citizens. Drawing on insights from economic geography and two centuries of experience in developed countries, the World Bank's World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography emphasizes key aspects that are fundamental to ensuring an efficient rural-urban transformation. Critical among these are land, as the most important resource, and well-functioning land markets. Regardless of the stage of urbanization, flexible and forward-looking institu- ons that help the efficient functioning of land markets are the bedrock of succe- ful urbanization strategies. In particular, institutional arrangements for allocating land rights and for managing and regulating land use have significant implica- ons for how cities deliver agglomeration economies and improve the welfare of their residents. Property rights, well-functioning land markets, and the management and servicing of land required to accommodate urban expansion and provide trunk infrastructure are all topics that arise as regions progress from incipient urbani- tion to medium and high density.

This briefs provides foundations of both community wellbeing and community development, and the relationships between the two areas, including both similarities and differences. Community well-being encompasses a large array of concepts and disciplines. Community development, as an established discipline, is one framework that can help further understanding of community well-being, and is an allied concept. The interaction between the two areas is worthy of exploration, as both a new way to think about community development as well as a way to understand what community well-being entails. Beginning with a discussion of the foundations, the first and second chapters provide grounding for conceptions and potential theory applications as well as constructs for moving community wellbeing forward. The remaining chapters provide applications of community well-being in the context of community development, with examples from North America and Asia. Community development focused community wellbeing policies and programs illustrate processes and outcomes.

Intense uplift of the Tibetan Plateau in Late Cenozoic Era is one of the most important events in geological history of the Earth. The plateau offers an ideal region for studying of lithospheric formation and evolution, probing into the mechanism of crustal movement, and understanding of changes in environments and geo-ecosystems in Asia. Intense uplift ofthe plateau resulted in drastic changes of natural environment and apparent regional differentiation on the plateau proper and neighboring regions. The plateau therefore becomes a sensitive area of climate change in Asian monsoon region, which is closely related to the global change. As a special physical unit, its ecosystems occupy a prominent position in the world. Due to its extremely high elevation and great extent, natural types and characteristics of physical landscapes on the plateau are quite different from those in lowlands at comparable latitudes, and environments are also different from those in high latitudinal zones. Consequently, the Tibetan Plateau has been classified as one of three giant physical regions in China and considered as a unique unit on Earth. Scientific surveys and expeditions to the Tibetan Plateau on large scale began from 1950's. Amongst them, a number of comprehensive scientific expeditions to the Xizang (Tibet) Autonomous Region, Hengduan Mts. areas, Karakorum and Kunlun Mts. regions, as well as the Hoh Xii Mts. areas, have been successively carried out by the Integrated Scientific Expedition to Tibetan Plateau, sponsored by Chinese Academy of Sciences since 1973.

In social science terms, the `Arctic' is a relative, not an absolute concept, relating to several dimensions, such as constitutional and geographic status, remoteness, socioeconomic status, and demographic/anthropological factors. There is only one sovereign state with all its territory situated in the Arctic (Iceland), but many other areas of the globe have shared characteristics (Alaska, Yukon, Northwest Territories, areas of Norway, Sweden and Finland north of the Polar Circle, Greenland, the Faroes). Remoteness has to do with distance from the centre as well as accessibility, transportation and communication. Socioeconomically, the Arctic is characterised by a low population density, a fragile natural environment, and overwhelming economic dependence on one or a few resources, often coupled with income transfer. Demographically, the region has a large number of indigenous peoples, heavy immigration from the South (albeit only seasonal), minority problems, immigrant majorities, high infant mortality, low expected lifespan. The present book is the first to present a large number of articles on the contemporary social, economic and political development in the Arctic, written by social scientists from Russia and the western world, many of whom live and conduct their research in the region. The book thus presents a much more complete picture of the modern world of the Arctic, offering a unique opportunity to compare what is happening in the different parts of the region.

This book investigates the EU's regional growth dynamics and, in particular, the reasons why peripheral and socio-economically disadvantaged areas have persistently failed to catch up with the rest of the Union. It shows that the capability of the knowledge-based growth model to deliver its expected benefits to these areas crucially depends on tackling a specific set of socio-institutional factors which prevents innovation from being effectively translated into economic growth. The book takes an eclectic approach to the territorial genesis of innovation and regional growth by combining different theoretical strands into one model of empirical analysis covering the whole EU-25. An in-depth comparative analysis with the United States is also included, providing significant insights into the distinctive features of the European process of innovation and its territorial determinants. The evidence produced in the book is extensively applied to the analysis of EU development policies.

The evaluation of public policies is of paramount importance for modern policy making, especially in a period of severe budget constraints. The literature has proposed several methods to deal with the issue of causality and counterfactual evaluation in a variety of contexts, with an increasing attention to the local dimension. The book aims to present the state-of-the-art of evaluation techniques with a special focus on the consideration of geographical and spatial effects into existing methodologies (such as propensity score matching, regression discontinuity, difference-in-difference). Furthermore, the volume highlights how strict the identification conditions for models with spatial effects are and proposes instrumental variables as a technique able to circumvent the issue. Finally, some insights into the emerging literature on ex ante evaluation are offered with respect to EU Cohesion Policy.

Industrial and technology parks are commonly regarded as a policy panacea. They tend to be considered as the ideal instrument to alleviate an assortment of institutional, political, economic, social and ultimately, technological weaknesses and often form the centrepiece of development strategies. Yet, the real impact of industrial and technology parks, especially in emerging countries is still poorly understood. Focusing on examples from Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the book represents a first approach to understand the potential and reality of industrial and technology parks in emerging countries. It is argued that although some parks have been successful in addressing a range of key problems, including underdevelopment, unemployment and a lack of investment, the majority have failed to deliver, rendering the promise of many parks little more than a pipedream.

Population ageing has been going on for many decades, but population shrinking is a rather new phenomenon. The population of Germany, as in many other countries, has passed a plateau and is currently shrinking. Demographic change is a challenge for infrastructure planning due to the longevity of infrastructure capital and the need to match supply and demand in order to ensure cost-efficiency. This book summarises the findings of the INFRADEM project team, a multidisciplinary research group that worked together to estimate the effects of demographic change on infrastructure demand. Economists, engineers and geographers present studies from top-down and bottom-up perspectives, focusing on Germany and two selected regions: Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The contributors employed a broad range of methods, including an overlapping-generations model for Germany, regional input-output models, an energy systems model, and a spatial model of the transportation infrastructure.

Islands face one of the most pressing issues of our time: how to balance ecological integrity with economic development and collective quality of life, including the need for social and conservation space. Islands are sites of rich and varied human and ecological diversity, but they are also often characterized by narrow resource bases and dependency on links to the outside world, and by their limited ability to determine the actual character of those links. This volume reviews the challenges of island development and conservation in the Asia Pacific region. With emphasis on nature reserves and UNESCO World Heritage sites, chapters describe the benefits, barriers, and potential pitfalls in preserving such sites, managing biota, and attracting and controlling tourism. The book also provides a provocative challenge to move beyond the typical concerns of sustainability to the more holistic concept of futurability, or future potential for convivial human environmental interactions."

Increasingly, Australia s agriculturalists are looking to the nation s north to escape the decline in southern Australia s water and soil resources. Booming mineral and gas development is also helping to drive the nation s economic success. At the same time, the south s conservation sector would like to see much of the north preserved as iconic wilderness. Both conservation and resource development interests alike are often at odds with the interests of the north s traditional owners, many of whom remain trapped in welfare dependency and poverty. Indeed, to the ire of north Australians, the past four decades of north Australian history have indeed been characterized by these national-scale conflicts being played out in regional and local communities.

This book explores these conflicts as well as the many emerging opportunities facing the development of the north, suggesting that a strong cultural divide between northern and southern Australia exists; one that needs to be reconciled if the nation as a whole is to benefit from northern development. The authorfirst explores where these historical conflicts could take us without a clear forward agenda. A story-based personal narrative from my long and diverse experience in the north gives life to these themes. Finally, the book then draws on these stories to help shape a cohesive agenda for the north s future."

The subject of this book is the methodology and results of integrated geophysical investigations in the Caucasian region, mainly interpretation of magnetic and gravity anomalies with utilization of a huge petrophysical database for the evaluation of geological structure and mineral resources. Relative voluminous geophysical data are useful for the Earth Sciences researchers interested in the Caucasian region (and adjacent and similar regions) characterized by complicated geological structure, inclined magnetization (polarization), uneven topography and mountain/sea transition. Examination of geophysical fields verified by super-deep wells drilling indicates that magmatic rocks of the Lesser Caucasus are extended northward under thick sedimentary cover of the Kura Depression up to the Greater Caucasus. These rocks form hidden petroleum-bearing traps of a newly identified type. On the basis of geophysical studies (mainly inexpensive magnetic and electric methods), a new copper-polymetallic province in the Greater Caucasus has been revealed. a newly developed integrated approach and special information-statistical techniques for processing and interpretation of geophysical data facilitate detection of important geological features, e.g. hidden intersections of linear structures that control location of large commercial ore and oil-and-gas deposits, as well as focuses of dangerous geodynamic events at a depth. Numerous illustrations (including colour) elucidate different problems and solutions on various scales and in diverse geological-geophysical environments. Many aspects of this book have been presented at the teaching courses for bachelors, masters and doctors at the Tel-Aviv University (Tel Aviv, Israel) and Ben-Gurion University (Be'er-Sheva, Israel). Benefits to readers are predetermined by the combination of the authors many-years personal experience in the geophysical studies of Azerbaijan and other regions of the Caucasus with the authors' knowledge of the modern level of geophysics in the world.

This volume provides a collection of theoretical articles and empirical studies on innovation and location by focusing on the institutions and systems that mediate knowledge spillovers. The objective is to provide an international comparison using a variety of approaches. The volume is organized around the three themes. The first focuses on theoretical work that attempts to advance our understanding of knowledge externalities and systems on innovation. The second section provides empirical studies that attempt to measure these impacts. The final section considers future challenges to regional economic development policy in the face of economic integration and globalization.

The social dynamics of innovation networks captures the important role of trust, social capital, institutions and norms and values in the creation of knowledge in innovation networks. In doing so, this book connects to a long-standing debate on the socio-spatial context of innovation in economic geography, which is usually referred to as the Territorial Models of Innovation (TIMs) literature. This present volume breaks with the TIM literature in several important ways. In the first place, this book emphasizes the role of individual agency because individuals and their networks are increasingly recognized as the principal agents of knowledge creation. Secondly, this volume looks at space as a continuous field of opportunity rather than as bounded territory with a set of endowments, such as knowledge base and social capital. Although individually these elements are not new to the TIM literature, it has thus far failed to grasp their critical implication for studying the social dynamics of innovation networks. The approach to the socio-spatial context of innovation in this volume is summarized as Knowledge Economy 2.0. It emphasizes that human creativity is now the main source of economic value and that human creativity and knowledge creation is not an organized process within organizations, but happens bottom up in formal and informal professional and social networks of individuals that cut across multiple organizations.

This book provides insights into important trends and future scenarios in the global tourism and travel industry. It analyses today's challenges in the aviation and hospitality industry, in destination management, and in marketing and distribution management. New empirical data on general travel behaviour and the latest consumer trends are also presented. The contributors to this book are well-known individuals from important tourism, travel and consulting firms (e.g. BCD Travel, OEger Tours, Booz and Company, GfK, IPK International) and researchers from universities in Switzerland, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany. In addition institutes specializing in future research highlight important travel trends. Corporate social responsibility is one of the top themes to-be and therefore a focus of this book, offering insights into the concept of CSR, empirical data on consumer requests, corporate strategy issues and financial investment implications.

The effective planning of residential location choices is one of the great challenges of contemporary societies and requires forecasting capabilities and the consideration of complex interdependencies which can only be handled by complex computer models. This book presents a range of approaches used to model residential locations within the context of developing land-use and transport models. These approaches illustrate the range of choices that modellers have to make in order to represent residential choice behaviour. The models presented in this book represent the state-of-the-art and are valuable both as key building blocks for general urban models, and as representative examples of complexity science.

During the last two centuries, the political map of Europe has changed considerably. More recently, there are remarkably contrasting tendencies concerning the functions and densities of borders. The borders inside the European Union lost their importance, whereas Central and Eastern Europe saw the birth of a multitude of new state borders. The long-term study of border regions, therefore, is a fascinating subject for geographers, historians, social scientists, and political scientists. The main thesis of this book is that the rise of the modern nation-state reinforced the separating function of state borders by nationalising the people on both sides of it. This process gained strength in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was challenged in the second half of this century by processes of supra-national integration, globalisation and the revolution in communication and transport, as the case studies from different parts of Europe of this book will show. Audience: This book will be of interest to academics, researchers and practitioners in geography, history, political sciences, European studies and East-European studies.

In the global information society, innovation is a highly pervasive process that influences all facets of human life: cultural, economic, political, and institutional. A desire to comprehend the impacts of innovative change on so many areas of urban life prompted the research project that has resulted in the publication of this volume. Our research confirms that we are presently in the midst of an era of rapid and explosive change. The primary engine driving this latest transformation of the post-industrial society is generally thought to be technological. But such an explanation is too narrow. Broadly speaking, the age in which we find ourselves could be more aptly described as a global, knowledge-intensive age. Many of today's knowledge-intensive activities, like research and development (R&D) programs, are being conducted with relative ease on a multinational scale. As well as science having an increasing impact on processes of innovation, R&D activities also have become more complex. We can observe a growing sophistication of learning-by-doing among creative economic agents. This more sophisticated era of global knowledge exchange is facilitated by major advances in our infrastructure networks. In this highly interactive world, many innovations are by-products of collective exchanges between cities far apart, simplified by the ease of transport and communication. Thus, there is a need for us to look more closely at various collective sequences of learning, knowledge exchange and innovation in a spatial setting. This is the primary purpose of this book.

The term 'transnationalism' has gained considerable academic and popular currency despite a lack of clear definitions, in part because its overall form changes as its influence incorporates additional spheres of daily life on a variety of scales and contexts. The purpose of this volume is to bring together different perspectives on this phenomenon, using case studies that represent some of the most current thinking on 'transnationalism' in a wide range of disciplines. Central themes which this book explores include legal and economic reactions to transnational migration; the (re)negotiation of identities in the context of changing national, social and cultural identities; and the emergence of new imaginings of home and social space in transnational communities. Approaching Transnationalisms: Studies on Transnational Societies, Multicultural Contacts and Imaginings of Home foregrounds powerful transnational forces crossing the boundaries of nation-states, and at the same time, gives attention to the continued significance of the nation-state and the diversity of localized reactions to transnational challenges.

This publication is devoted to the natural feature the Black Sea andits littoral states. At the same time the Azov Sea is also considered here. This region is the focus of many geopolitical, economic, social and environmental issues that involve not only the countries coming out to the Black and Azov Seas, but other world countries, too.

This publication contains over 1500 articles and terms providing descriptions of geographical and oceanographic features, cities, ports, transport routes, marinebiological resources, international treaties, national and international programs, research institutions, historical and archaeological monuments, activities of prominent scientists, researchers, travelers, military commanders, etc. who had relation to the Black Sea.

It includes a multi-century chronology of the events that became the outstanding milestones in the history of development of the Black Sea Azov Sea region."

While creativity plays an important role in the advancement of computer science, great ideas are built on a foundation of practical experience and knowledge. This book presents programming techniques which will be useful in both AI projects and more conventional software engineering endeavors. My primary goal is to enter tain, to introduce new technologies and to provide reusable software modules for the computer programmer who enjoys using programs as models for solutions to hard and interesting problems. If this book succeeds in entertaining, then it will certainly also educate. I selected the example application areas covered here for their difficulty and have provided both program examples for specific applications and (I hope) the method ology and spirit required to master problems for which there is no obvious solution. I developed the example programs on a Macintosh (TM) using the Macintosh Common LISP (TM) development system capturing screen images while the example programs were executing. To ensure portability to all Common LISP environments, I have provided a portable graphics library in Chapter 2. All programs in this book are copyrighted by Mark Watson. They can be freely used in any free or commercial software systems if the following notice appears in the fine print of the program's documentation: "This program contains software written by Mark Watson." No royalties are required. The program miniatures contained in this book may not be distributed by posting in source code form on public information networks, or in printed form without my written permission.

This book assesses India's role as a major power in the Indian Ocean. Many see the Indian Ocean as naturally falling within India's sphere of influence but, as this book demonstrates, India has a long way to go before it could achieve regional dominance. The book outlines the development of Indian thinking on its role in the Indian Ocean and examines India's strategic relationships in the region, including with maritime South Asia, the Indian Ocean islands, East Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Australia. The book then discusses India's ambivalent relationship with the United States and explores its attitude towards China's growing power in the Indian Ocean. It concludes by discussing the region's evolving strategic order - does India have what it takes to become the leading power in the region?

Fewer than 100 people own and control more wealth than 50 per cent of the world's population. The Handbook on Wealth and the Super-Rich is a landmark multidisciplinary evaluation of both the lives and lifestyles of the super-rich, as well as the processes that underpin super-wealth generation and its unequal distribution. Drawing on international case studies, leading experts from across the social sciences offer 22 accessible and coherently organized chapters, which critically analyse a range of topics including: the legitimacy of extreme wealth from a moral economic perspective biographies of illicit super-wealth London's housing markets how the very wealthy fly the environmental consequences of super-rich lives crafting immigration policies to attract the rich. Students and scholars studying a host of topics such as development studies, economics, geography, history, political science and sociology will find this book eminently engaging. It will also be of great interest to public commentators, charitable organizations and NGOs concerned with wealth and income distributions. Contributors: R. Atkinson, J.V. Beaverstock, L. Budd, R. Burrows, L. Crewe, A. Davison, A.D. Dixon, R. Forrest, D.R. Green, S. Hall, T. Hall, I. Hay, I. Kapoor, S.Y. Koh, G. Mangraviti, A. Martin, I.A. Osuoka, A. Owens, R. Palan, C. Paris, D. Rhodes, A. Sayer, P.G. Schervish, S. Schulz, J.R. Short, E. Spence, A. Watson, B. Wissink, M. Woods, A. Zalik

Nestle s Moga factory was set up in 1961 and comprises of the primary milk collection area for Nestle s operations. Since its inception in Moga, Nestle has been working with its milk farmers and ancillary suppliers towards improving quality and productivity. The study presented in this book (carried out by the Third World Centre for Water Management, Mexico) highlights Nestle s way of doing business through its philosophy of "Creating Shared Value" (CSV) and how it contributed to the development of the region over the past 50 years through direct and indirect employment, steady income for milk and other suppliers, and technology transfer.The main objective of the study is to learn to what extent has Nestle contributed to fulfilling the societal aspirations and expectations of the people working in and around its factory in terms of employment generation, poverty alleviation, general improvements in the community s standards of living and environmental conservation. The study also tried to determine to what extent has the company created shared value for itself, milk farmers, ancillary firms, and the community at large. This effort aims at encouraging more research to be carried out to comprehensively and authoritatively look into the impacts private sector can have on and around the area where their factories are located and that way, contribute to our understanding of social-corporate-government interdependency.An important aspect of this pioneering monograph is the methodology that could be used to study how "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR) or "Creating Shared Value "(CSV) of a large multinational company can be properly monitored and objectively evaluated at a region-specific scale, especially as very few studies of this nature have been carried out anywhere in the world. This definitive book is further enriched by a foreword by Prof. Michael Porter of Harvard Business School and an epilogue by Peter Brabeck-Letmathe and Paul Bulcke, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Nestle respectively."