The decade-long cryptocurrencies and the blockchain rollercoaster: Mapping the intellectual structure and charting future directions

Recent advances in science mapping allowed to analyze the entire intellectual structure of blockchain and cryptocurrencies in business-related disciplines to identify 174 academic articles as well as 1482 practitioner-oriented articles published since the inception of cryptocurrencies in 2008 to highlight key trends of the published outputs. The results demonstrate academic research done by 389 authors in 296 organizations based in 50 countries that only just initiated the conversation on four major streams of the literature—Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies; blockchain adoption; cryptocurrency and blockchain environment; and business model innovations. When comparing academic scholarship to practitioner-oriented literature, the results demonstrate that practitioners discussed investor-related themes, cryptocurrency intrinsic value, political-economic sphere, and the impact of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies on the wider society in greater detail. As a result, a number of themes are identified and discussed that could align academic and practitioner interests and provide guidance for further research in this important field.     

政府质量、科技创新与绿色GDP——中国省际空间溢出效应及区域差异对比

通过构建嵌入政府质量和科技创新因素的经济增长模型，利用中国30个省份2004~2017年的平衡面板数据，实证检验政府质量、科技创新对绿色GDP发展的影响。研究发现：中国绿色GDP存在显著的空间集聚性及明显的区域差异性。在经济权重矩阵影响下，不同地区的政府效率、市场化程度、公平程度和腐败程度对绿色GDP的影响不同，其中政府效率、公平程度能有效促进经济发展较好地区的绿色GDP增长，却会抑制比较落后地区绿色GDP的增长；市场化程度对大部分地区绿色GDP呈现促进作用；腐败程度对地区绿色GDP增长呈阻碍作用。科技创新对各地区绿色GDP均起到积极的促进作用。因此，提升绿色GDP发展水平不仅需要提高地方政府质量，为绿色GDP发展提供符合实际的政策指导意见，还需激活企业科技创新能力，为绿色GDP发展提供有力科技保障。     

Coproduction of ecosystem services as human–nature interactions—An analytical framework

There seems to be widespread consensus in the ecosystem services literature that benefits from ecosystems are not produced by ecosystems independently of humans, but arise because of people’s interactions with an ecosystem. Yet, these interactions are hardly ever explicitly investigated in a way that directly contributes to the ecosystem services debate. Here, we empirically examine the role of humans in the generation of ecosystem services, and the factors that might help us to understand diversity in these processes.We analyzed 47 qualitative interviews with people using a mixed woodland–farmland–upland ecosystem in Fife, Scotland, for a variety of activities. Interviewees mentioned a wide range of ecosystem services, especially provisioning and cultural services, which were closely connected to human activities in the place. We term the interactions between people and place that lead to ecosystem services here ‘co-production’, and distinguish between: (a) the co-production of ecosystem structures; (b) the co-production of the services proper and (c) the attribution, i.e., construction, of meaning to these structures and services. All three processes could be carried out by individuals or jointly, by groups of people, and the social nature of the interaction often added meaning and value to the co-production process. Two sets of factors, clustered under the headings of ‘identities’ and ‘capabilities’, shaped these interactions, and helped us to understand variation in people’s engagement with the ecosystem as well as their views on ecosystem disservices.While further research is needed to explore the usefulness of our analytical framework in other contexts, our findings suggest that identities and capabilities of people have to be considered much more strongly than is currently the case in standard ecosystem services assessments, as these influence which ecosystem structures are eventually turned into benefits, and give important insights into the environmental justice related to the distribution of ecosystem benefits.     

Tourism at Costalegre,Mexico: An ecosystem services-based exploration of current challenges and alternative futures

Tourism, as all human activities, is dependent on the natural environment and its respective ecosystem services (ES). Different user groups manage and consume these touristic ES differently, resulting in discrepancies and potential conflicts. Despite the urgency to find inclusive local approaches for sustainable development, tourism studies still analyze socio-economic and ecological impacts separately and lack integrated social–ecological approaches to improve foresight in tourism planning. Based on a growing concern regarding the future of Costalegre on the Jalisco coast of Western Mexico, we analyze through interviews, surveys, and participant observation the dependence of tourism on specific ecosystem services and conduct a scenario analysis which shows present and future implications for the social–ecological system. Furthermore, this analysis shows in detail how different scenarios change ES provision and people's livelihoods. Key findings include identifying freshwater provision and cultural ES as the most important touristic ES. At a regional scale, peasants in ejidos are the main ES stewards, whereas high-class tourism facilities constitute important local stewards. Benefits, mainly access to freshwater and the beach, are unequally distributed, provoking conflicts among different ES user groups that may escalate in the near future. Improved communication between all user groups and strengthening of key political actors seem to be the most immediate recommendations to ensure the long term sustainability of this particular region. This work may contribute to improved planning and decision-making as our ES based scenarios are a first step to integrate social–ecological knowledge into improved decision-making. At a local scale, the study reveals the most likely future development options and their social and ecological consequences. It could also serve as a baseline for informed policy making.     

CONVEX RISK MEASURES FOR GOOD DEAL BOUNDS

We study convex risk measures describing the upper and lower bounds of a good deal bound, which is a subinterval of a no‐arbitrage pricing bound. We call such a convex risk measure a good deal valuation and give a set of equivalent conditions for its existence in terms of market. A good deal valuation is characterized by several equivalent properties and in particular, we see that a convex risk measure is a good deal valuation only if it is given as a risk indifference price. An application to shortfall risk measure is given. In addition, we show that the no‐free‐lunch (NFL) condition is equivalent to the existence of a relevant convex risk measure, which is a good deal valuation. The relevance turns out to be a condition for a good deal valuation to be reasonable. Further, we investigate conditions under which any good deal valuation is relevant.     

Incorporating activity space and trip chaining into facility siting for accessibility maximization

Location models have been widely used to support locational decisions for various service provision. One common objective of location models has been to ensure maximal accessibility of sited facilities to demand populations. Accessibility evaluation in location models often assumes that trips originate from fixed locations (usually home) and are single purpose. These assumptions contradict the empirical evidence that suggests trips also commonly originate from non-home locations and may involve multiple stops. In this study, a new multi-objective location model is developed that extents the classic p-median problem (PMP) to account for a more realistic assessment of accessibility. Based on the individual accessibility assessment, notions of trip chaining and activity space are incorporated into the model development. In addition to fixed home locations, stops along chained trips are allowed for potential service site visits, and activity space is introduced as an additional dimension to evaluate accessibility of alternative opportunities. The effectiveness of the new model is demonstrated using an application in Tucson, AZ.     

Is more better? The relationship between meeting space capacity and hotel operating performance

This study examines the effect of meeting space capacity on hotel operating performance. We use Resource-Based View (RBV) of the firm as the theoretical foundation. We employ a national-level dataset with more than 20,000 hotels in the United States for the 2007–2012 period. We find that meeting space has a non-linear effect on hotel operating performance. That is, at low levels of meeting space, meeting space capacity is negatively related to hotel operating performance. At high levels of meeting space, meeting space capacity has a positive influence on operating performance. These findings provide insights for hotel owners, developers and practitioners in planning hotel meeting space capacity.     

当代博物馆交往空间设计发展趋势探析

社会交往是当代博物馆公共活动的核心内容。公共交往空间的设计在新建博物馆设计中的地位越来越重要。本文对在这种趋势下的博物馆公共交往空间设计进行案例分析和研究,试图归纳出其发展规律。     

When was the U.S. housing downturn predictable? A comparison of univariate forecasting methods

This paper uses three classes of univariate time series techniques (ARIMA type models, switching regression models, and state-space/structural time series models) to forecast, on an ex post basis, the downturn in U.S. housing prices starting around 2006. The performance of the techniques is compared within each class and across classes by out-of-sample forecasts for a number of different forecast points prior to and during the downturn. Most forecasting models are able to predict a downturn in future home prices by mid 2006. Some state-space models can predict an impending downturn as early as June 2005. State-space/structural time series models tend to produce the most accurate forecasts, although they are not necessarily the models with the best in-sample fit.     

The Primacy of Space in Politics: Bargaining Rights,Freedom and Power in an İstanbul Neighborhood

This article explores and theorizes the ways in which urban space and political contestations are mapped onto each other. The ethnography illustrates the multifaceted transformations in a notoriously secularist neighborhood of ?stanbul, Te?vikiye, as it first turns into a high‐consumption locality in the post‐1980s, then into a high‐conflict urban space in the new millennium on the arrival of Muslim high‐spenders, particularly headscarved women. Aiming to fill the gap left by the absence of spatial analysis from political science and political sociology, I argue that the urban neighborhood becomes central for political contestation when both government and opposition fail to protect and secure liberties and rights. Now that devout Muslims are integrated into highly contested urban sites and share bourgeois lifestyles, ordinary people act in defense of their ‘sphere’ of freedom and privacy. This new territoriality is largely symptomatic of increasing fears of losing freedom, privacy and social status. This spatial defensiveness is reinforced by people's decreasing trust in, and increasing demands from, the state for the protection and security of their rights and liberties. My overarching argument is that exclusive attention to the bipolar clash between devout Muslims and secularists under the rubric of ‘neighborhood wars’ obscures multipolar conflicts around the discontents stemming from authoritarianism and democratization.