Motives behind retailers’ post-entry expansion - Evidence from the Chinese luxury fashion market

This study aims to examine the motives behind retailers’ post-entry expansion in foreign markets. Through case studies of eleven participating luxury fashion retailers in China, qualitative data was collected from twenty-two executive interviews. Although their initial market entry was driven by both reactive (push) and proactive (pull) factors, the motives behind their post-entry expansion have become predominantly proactive, especially long-term growth strategies, the ambition to extend their brands and retail formats to more cities, and the experiences gained in entry markets. The desire to optimize the retail store portfolio through multiple channel strategies have slowed down the expansions of physical stores.     

Technologies in caregiving: professionals’ strategies for engaging with new technology

This article explores the adoption of new technology in organisations that provide senior citizen care. Inspired by Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, we study how technology reduces complexity by identifying client needs and ensuring predictability in service delivery. However, how technologies are adopted in practice is not determined by technology since it is also structured by care-workers' continuous decision-making. Against this backdrop, we explore how technologies alter the conditions for decision-making in two settings of elderly care, and we describe how care workers seek to adapt technologies to their practical needs as well as conception of care ethics. Developing a systems theory approach, the article eschews a priori assumptions of technological constraint on care-workers’ professional autonomy, offering a more open-ended exploration of diversified strategies for coping with new technology. Our case studies show that employees develop diversified strategies for technology adoption, including both non-usage, heated resistance, excessive embrace, and creative adaption.     

Optimal investment with vintage capital: Equilibrium distributions

The paper concerns the study of equilibrium points, or steady states, of economic systems arising in modeling optimal investment with vintage capital, namely, systems where all key variables (capitals, investments, prices) are indexed not only by time but also by age. Capital accumulation is hence described as a partial differential equation (briefly, PDE), and equilibrium points are in fact equilibrium distributions in the variable of ages. A general method is developed to compute and study equilibrium points of a wide range of infinite dimensional, infinite horizon, optimal control problems. We apply the method to optimal investment with vintage capital, for a variety of data, deriving existence and uniqueness of equilibrium distribution, as well as analytic formulas for optimal controls and trajectories in the long run. The examples suggest that the same method can be applied to other economic problems displaying heterogeneity. This shows how effective the theoretical machinery of optimal control in infinite dimension is in computing explicitly equilibrium distributions. To this extent, the results of this work constitute a first crucial step towards a thorough understanding of the behavior of optimal paths in the long run.     

The social process of internet appropriation: Living in a digitally advanced country benefits less well-educated Europeans

We generalize and extend the sequential model proposed by the resources and appropriation theory to explain the digital divide in the European Union plus the United Kingdom (EU27+UK). We measure the theoretical constructs of the model with data provided by the EU and test the theoretical predictions using a partial least squares structural equation model. We find support for the hypothesized relationships but find that the effects vary depending on the digital development level of countries. While education overall is the primary determinant of the social production of digital inequalities, a country's digital development level is crucial for less well-educated Europeans. These findings have theoretical and practical implications: (1) they call into question the homogeneity of the effect of causal relationships and the assumption that individuals differ only in terms of motivation, access, and digital skills, and (2) they indicate that socially disadvantaged Europeans benefit from living in more digitally developed countries.     

城市科学20年的发展历程--祝贺中国城市科学研究会成立20周年

回顾北京市城市科学研究会的发展历程,分为多学科协同研究城市问题阶段;城市发展多学科综合研究阶段;城市发展综合研究向重点领域开展阶段.概括了北京城科会的主要学术成果.     

基于MATLAB的风能自校正自调整PID模糊控制器仿真研究

为了提高风力发电系统综合系统性能,在传统风力发电技术的基础上,对变速风力发电机组的自校正自调整PID模糊控制进行了详细的分析和研究,从而利用模糊控制和PID控制相结合的技术,取得了很好的效果。从MATLAB仿真结果看出系统精度及效率很高而稳态误差较小,鲁棒性较好。     

乡镇供水工程设计中应注意的若干问题

乡镇供水作为水利开发建设中的一个新领域，设计工作是龙头，有许多技术问题需要研究和探索，阐述了乡镇供水工程设计应注意的若干问题，并对设计中存在的一些具体问题进行了分析和探讨。     

重庆市城市土地经济效益评价

从产出和投入两方面构建城市土地经济效益评价的指标体系,采用层次分析法对重庆城市土地的经济效益进行评价,可知:重庆城市土地的经济效益总体水平较低、波动较大,重庆城市近年来投入偏高影响了土地经济效益,而且重庆城市土地利用的集约化水平不高.     

海河流域河道外生态需水研究

水土流失是海河流域较为突出的生态环境问题之一。经对比研究发现，植被覆盖度的变化会通过影响洪充量，土壤侵蚀量等因子，进而改变水土流失的状况。从提高植被覆盖度尤其是低覆盖度草地植被的角度出发，定量研究了为改善流域水土流失状况河道外生态需水的具体数额，得出海河流域现状年河道外生态耗水（降水）385亿m^3。另外，为改善河道外生态环境状况将低覆盖度草地提高地提高至中等覆盖度水平，则需要增加生态需水12．5亿m^3。     

需水胁迫下的流域"三生"用水系统演化分析

生态用水和社会经济用水的竞争状况使得研究水资源短缺地区流域“三生”用水系统演化状况,以及有效进行流域“三生”用水系统的调控十分必要。从宏观角度出发,本文提出了构建流域主要指标为状态变量下的“三生”用水系统演化模拟模型,并利用模型进行演化趋势预测的分析思路。以蓟运河流域为例,构建了人口数量、人均GDP、生态系统指数以及生态用水比例为状态变量的“三生”用水系统演化模型。通过定量模拟,表明若不加以调控,该流域最终将走向生态失衡、经济停滞的恶性局面。由参数设置对调控方案进行分析,提出了提高生态用水比例、控制经济增长速度、提高用水效率和积极进行生态建设对策,为实现蓟运河流域的“三生”用水系统可持续发展服务。