农村山区和边远地区的居民消费劳动就业和生产技术的推广应用.docx

1、农村山区和边远地区的居民消费劳动就业和生产技术的推广应用Weaving new retail and consumer landscapes in the Scottish BordersNew retail locations and formats and changing consumer capabilities and behaviours (including “switching”) have encouraged “outshopping” from rural to urban areas. Rural areas have been suffering from a dec

2、line in the provision of services, including retailing. One “solution” has been the strengthening of market towns in rural areas by the development of new major retail stores. The effects of this are perhaps not fully understood, particularly where the rural area comprises a network of towns rather

3、than a single centre. Three comparable consumer surveys (1988, 1998, 2004) of shopping behaviour in the Scottish Borders are analysed. Consumer place and store switching data are used to examine the impact of new retail opportunities on shopping patterns. Two different switching strands are identifi

4、ed: clawback and redistribution. Redistribution within the rural network is a new finding.Life histories in cyberspace: life writing as a development tool for rural womenIncreasingly, information and communication technology (ICT) is being used as a development tool. For example, a recent innovative

5、 experiment by the FIDAMERICA development cybernetwork (sponsored by IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development) in Latin America used an electronic network to collect, post and discuss rural womens life histories, intending to support gender mainstreaming in IFAD projects. However, c

6、ybernetworking processes can also reflect contradictory agendas and power relations that ultimately make them a site of contestation. In the FIDAMERICA case, the authors did not participate in the electronic conference, nor were there any subsequent efforts to connect them or to develop this process

7、 further. In this paper, I argue that the analysis of increasingly complex cybernetworked development efforts must incorporate a correspondingly sophisticated technique that can uncover the nuanced relations of transnational cyber communication; and I propose that an actor-network approach should be

8、 investigated as an analytical framework in these cases. I then apply this approach to the case study, using field research conducted with the participants of the FIDAMERICA electronic life history project in Central America. I conclude that an actor-network approach is a fruitful means by which the

9、se processes can be both understood and improved.GramyaVikas: A distributed collaboration model for rural development planningIn the context of rural India, planning is mainly prescriptive (through mandated schemes) and topdown (by extension community from the line departments). Realizing the above

10、mode of planning and the increasing demand for Geographical-Information & Communication Technology (Geo-ICT) applications in the rural systems in India, a prototype distributed collaboration tool, called GramyaVikas (rural development), has been developed to assist the rural extension community in t

11、heir own decision-making processes in a more interactive, integrated and coordinated manner. GramyaVikas, evolved out of the needs assessment of the user community, is a secure and cost-effective system developed for defined users with open source (a) content management system and (b) Geographical I

12、nformation Systems. This web-based tool will help the users to share and retrieve data/information; communicate for taking mutual decisions; make useful queries on spatial and nonspatial database to identify candidate villages/entities; and generate various views or scenarios for different rural dev

13、elopment schemes. Presently, this Geo-ICT tool is being developed in an Intranet environment. The resulting system is intended to assist the remote users in analyzing rural-informatics for rural development planning decisions online, with customized GIS tools to suit the requirements of a few line d

14、epartments for decision-making.Reluctant rural regionalistsRecently, scholars have begun to explore questions of regionalism and regionalization in rural contexts. Regionalism is often understood and presented as a pragmatic solution to intractable problems of fragmentation, inefficiency, accountabi

15、lity, spillover and neglect in the face of economic restructuring and other external threats. These arguments have long been deployed in the top-down restructuring of rural public administration; for example, the amalgamation of service districts to keep schools, hospitals and other facilities open

16、in the face of declining population. At the same time, regionalization may be understood as a means or process of becoming through the formation of new and shared regional identities, “structures of expectation” and institutions. Between 1996 and 2004 the number of municipalities in the Canadian Pro

17、vince of Ontario was reduced by more than 40 percent from 815 to 445. Evidence suggests that many of these amalgamations were undertaken reluctantly. In this paper we examine the issue of regionalism from the perspective of one rural municipalitythe former silver mining centre of Cobalt, Ontariothat

18、 has resisted amalgamation. We argue that its resistance to amalgamation is a consequence of the conflictual social relationships that have been inscribed into the landscape over the past century. Using documentary and archival materials, supplemented by contemporary survey and ethnographic data, we

19、 trace how successive generations of miners, mine-owners, government officials, politicians and residents have constructed Cobalt as a distinct place. We show that this oppositional identity belies the extent to which the town and its citizens are embedded in regional housing, labour and consumer ma

20、rkets.Commodification of rural places: A narrative of social fields, rural development, and footballOne of the most significant recent elements of restructuring in rural areas is the transition from an economy based on agricultural production to an economy based on the countryside as a form of commo

21、dity. In this transition process, different narratives or images of an area are produced to promote villages and other places in the countryside as commodities. Much of the literature takes it for granted that outsiders control the processes of branding rural areas, but our case study demonstrates t

22、hat the producers (as well as potential consumers) of the countryside as a commodity can be insiders within a community. In this paper, we demonstrate how a local football club can take a leading role in the process of commodification of rural places in the post-modern era. Football clubs are presen

23、ted as commodities to attract investors, sponsors, and expertise from private businesses. In both commodification of rural places and football, the challenge is to construct narratives or images that correspond to the pre-existing expectations of consumers, whoever they might be. Our theory-informed

24、 empirical analyses illustrate the way in which the Norwegian football club Sogndal Football has been instrumental in the restructuring of the Sogndal community.Electrification co-operatives bring new light to rural TanzaniaOne possibility to accelerate the progress of rural electrification in devel

25、oping countries could be to form independent electrification co-operatives that are allowed to generate and distribute electric power and set their own tariffs. This approach has been successfully tried in the village Urambo, located about 80km west of Tabora in Tanzania. The co-operative was formed

26、 in 1993 and started regular operation in 1994 with 67 consumers. The co-operative received initial financial support for rehabilitation of a diesel power plant and some other investments. The national utility TANESCO has provided technical support and training for operators and an accountant. Despi

27、te a tariff more than 15 times higher than in the nearby town Tabora that is served by TANESCO, the number of consumers in Urambo has been growing and reached 241 in October 2002. About 70% of the supplied electricity in 2002 was used by households, 15% in businesses, 12% in institutions and public

28、buildings and approximately 3% for street lighting. The reliability of the supply has improved from 80% in 1994, to 97% during 2002. The experiences must be considered as very promising. Several more electrification co-operatives have been formed in Tanzania and are looking for financing for the nec

29、essary initial investments.model for evaluating the effectiveness of remote engineering laboratories and simulations in educationEconomic pressures on universities and the emergence of new technologies have spurred the creation of new systems for delivering engineering laboratories in education, in

30、particular simulations and remote-access laboratory systems. Advocates of simulation argue that physical labs needlessly consume university space and students time. However, proponents of hands-on laboratories argue that student engineers should be exposed to real environments. Remote laboratories h

31、ave appeared as a third option. These laboratories are similar to simulation techniques in that they require minimal space and time, because the experiments can be rapidly configured and run over the Internet. But unlike simulations, they provide real data. Studying the relative effectiveness of the

32、se modes of delivering student laboratories is complex, for the underlying technology of the laboratory is just one of many possible factors that could influence effectiveness. For example, the interface to the equipment may be of importance, as might the discussions students have among themselves.

33、This paper presents a model for testing the relative effectiveness of engineering laboratories in education that takes account of these and other factors. The results are presented for an assessment study comparing versions of remote labs versus hands-on labs in a junior-level mechanical engineering course on machine dynamics and mec