From Researching Regions at a Distance to Participatory Network Building: Integrating Action Research and Economic Geography

This paper describes the change in a researcher's practices from one of studying regional industrial development at a distance to one of working closely with a network of agri-food managers. This is accompanied by a discussion of the methodological and theoretical possibilities for an action research inspired economic geography. Some of the core characteristics of a pragmatic conceptualization of action research are revised. It is argued that theoretical developments within economic geography make possible a dialogue between researchers and local actors and that economic geography is challenged to accept that knowledge is generated through such a dialogue. Attempts to create a dialogue between action research and economic geography in a specific Norwegian industrial and geographical context are described. These attempts indicate that the researcher's methodological approach has been transformed from a narrow one relying solely on conventional social science methods to a broader one including participatory action research.     

The Self-Organization of Time and Causality: Steps Towards Understanding the Ultimate Origin

Possibly the most fundamental scientific problem is the origin of time and causality. The inherent difficulty is that all scientific theories of origins and evolution consider the existence of time and causality as given. We tackle this problem by starting from the concept of self-organization, which is seen as the spontaneous emergence of order out of primordial chaos. Self-organization can be explained by the selective retention of invariant or consistent variations, implying a breaking of the initial symmetry exhibited by randomness. In the case of time, we start from a random graph connecting primitive “events”. Selection on the basis of consistency eliminates cyclic parts of the graph, so that transitive closure can transform it into a partial order relation of precedence. Causality is assumed to be carried by causal “agents” which undergo a more traditional variation and selection, giving rise to causal laws that are partly contingent, partly necessary.     

And Yet It Moves: The Observability of the Rotation of the Earth

A central point of controversy in the time of the Copernican Revolution was the motion, or not, of the earth. We now take it for granted that Copernicus and Galileo were right; the earth really does move. But to what extent is this conclusion based on observation? This paper explores the meaning and observability of the rotation of the earth and shows that the phenomenon was not observable at the time of Galileo, and it is not observable now.     

Scale Relativity and Fractal Space-Time: Theory and Applications

In the first part of this contribution, we review the development of the theory of scale relativity and its geometric framework constructed in terms of a fractal and nondifferentiable continuous space-time. This theory leads (i) to a generalization of possible physically relevant fractal laws, written as partial differential equation acting in the space of scales, and (ii) to a new geometric foundation of quantum mechanics and gauge field theories and their possible generalisations. In the second part, we discuss some examples of application of the theory to various sciences, in particular in cases when the theoretical predictions have been validated by new or updated observational and experimental data. This includes predictions in physics and cosmology (value of the QCD coupling and of the cosmological constant), to astrophysics and gravitational structure formation (distances of extrasolar planets to their stars, of Kuiper belt objects, value of solar and solar-like star cycles), to sciences of life (log-periodic law for species punctuated evolution, human development and society evolution), to Earth sciences (log-periodic deceleration of the rate of California earthquakes and of Sichuan earthquake replicas, critical law for the arctic sea ice extent) and tentative applications to systems biology.     

Informational Branching Universe

This paper suggests an epistemic interpretation of Belnap’s branching space-times theory based on Everett’s relative state formulation of the measurement operation in quantum mechanics. The informational branching models of the universe are evolving structures defined from a partial ordering relation on the set of memory states of the impersonal observer. The totally ordered set of their information contents defines a linear “time” scale to which the decoherent alternative histories of the informational universe can be referred—which is quite necessary for assigning them a probability distribution. The “historical” state of a physical system is represented in an appropriate extended Hilbert space and an algebra of multi-branch operators is developed. An age operator computes the informational depth of historical states and its standard deviation can be used to provide a universal information/energy uncertainty relation. An information operator computes the encoding complexity of historical states, the rate of change of its average value accounting for the process of correlation destruction inherent to the branching dynamics. In the informational branching models of the universe, the asymmetry of phenomena in nature appears as a mere consequence of the subject’s activity of measuring, which defines the flow of time-information.     

AN EXTENSION OF TOPSIS FOR FUZZY MCDM BASED ON VAGUE SET THEORY

1.Introduction The multicriteria decision-making problem(Kickert1978)is a kind of problem that all the alternatives in the choice set can be evaluated according to a number of criteria.A MCDM problem can be concisely expressed in matrix format as C1C2C n11112122122212nnm m m mnA x x xMA x x xA x x x=W={w1,w2,,wn}where A1,A2,,Am are possible alternatives among which decision-makers have to choose,C1,C2,,C n are the criteria with which alternative performance are measured,xi j is the rati…     

A HEURISTIC PATH-PLANNING METHOD FOR ENHANCING MACHINE-TOOL CONTOUR-FOLLOWING

Nomenclature ki integral action coefficient[s-1]kp speed proportional gain[s-1]kv position proportional gain[s-1]kf feed forward factor of the speed loop[%]M axis mass[kg]V speed[m/s]F driving effort[N]Rc radius of curvature[m]d distance to the apex[m]o lateral offset[m]εcontouring error[m]ωm lowest mechanical resonant frequency[s-1]ζdamping coefficient[-]r inertia ratio[-]μmembership function[-]αcorner angle[rad]x,y horizontal and vertical coordinates[m]?angle to the normal line[rad]1.I…     

FINITE TIME TRACKING CONTROL FOR RIGID ROBOTIC MANIPULATORS WITH FRICTION AND EXTERNAL DISTURBANCES

1.Introduction Variable structure control is well known for its robustness to system uncertainties and external disturbances and has been successfully applied to the rigid robotic manipulator systems(Utkin(1992),Zinober(1990)).Generally,a linear sliding mode is firstly designed to describe the desired system error dynamics,a robust controller drives the switching plane variables to reach the sliding mode,and the error dynamics will asymptotically converge to zero on the linear sliding mode.Si…     

MERGING OPTIMALITY CONDITIONS WITH GENETIC ALGORITHM OPERATORS TO SOLVE SINGLE MACHINE TOTAL WEIGHTED TARDINESS PROBLEM

1.Introduction Production sequencing and scheduling is one of the most important activities in production planning and control.Sequencing is defined as the order in which the jobs are processed through the machines.The allocation of machines over time to process a collection of jobs is defined as Scheduling.Several methods have been developed to solve the scheduling problem which can be classified as follows:1)efficient optimal methods,2)implicit and explicit,or complete enumerative methods,a…     

MODELING JUMPS IN RETURNS OF FINANCIAL ASSETS AS M4 PROCESSES： MEASURED EXCHANGE RATE EXPOSURE OF ASIAN EQUITY PORTFOLIO

1. Introduction An early analysis of exchange rate changes and share prices found that the general stock market index tended to move up (down) immediately after a devaluation (revaluation) of the local currency (Giddy 1974). It is surprising that previous researches (Jorion 1990; Amihud 1993; Bodnar and Gentry 1993) find that no contemporaneous relationship between exchange rate changes and excess equity market returns of largest U.S. exporting firms. Recently, it has argued that there is a…