This book is unique in that it is the first multidisciplinary attempt to critically evaluate the oft-quoted arc of instability both conceptually and in terms of a series of themes and case studies from regional experts. It is of particular interest to specialists in foreign affairs, international relations and political geography, especially in Southeast Asia and Australia and the Southwest Pacific. The aim of this book is to describe, discuss and evaluate the causes and likely implications of the contested notion of an emergent arc of instability for Australia and its region. The increasing...

The lectures in this volume were given as part of a NATO Advanced Study Institute From finite to infinite dimensional dynamical systems held at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, U. K., between 21 August and 1 September 1995. The NATO ASI brought together over sixty young scientists and mathematicians from all over the world to listen to expository talks from leading experts in the field, and also gave them the opportunity to present some of their own results as posters or as lectures. We hope that what they learned both formally and in informal conversations,...

This book contains selected contributions from the Sixth Meeting of the International Geographical Union's Commission on Land Degradation and Desertification, held in Perth, Australia, in September 1999. Collectively, these contributions explicitly seek to understand not only the mechanisms responsible for the problem of land degradation but their social and economic implications, the means of overcoming the problems, and the policy instruments whereby remedial measures may be implemented. This breadth of approach is both distinctive and essential if the problems are to be tackled...

Much of the scholarly and professional literature on development focuses either on the 'macro' level of national policies and politics or on the 'micro' level of devel- ment projects and household or community socio-economic dynamics. By contrast, this collection pitches itself at the 'meso' level with a comparative exploration of the ways in which local institutions - municipalities, local governments, city authorities, civil society networks and others - have demanded, and taken on, a greater role in planning and managing development in the Latin American region. The book's rich empirical...

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the second workshop on Evaluation and Planning held at Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Mediterraneennes (CIHEAM) in Valenzano (Bari) in November 1993. The workshop was financially and otherwise supported by the School of Engineering, Bari Polytechnic; the School of Agriculture, University of Bari; and CIHEAM. The publication of this book was made possible by to the efforts of the contributing authors. Several other persons have provided invaluable support for the workshop or the preparation of this volume. One of these...

In August 1989, a Summer Institute was held at the Academie van Bouwkunst, the seventeenth century home of Amsterdam's School of Architecture, Town Planning and Landscape. The meeting brought together experts in Geographical Information Systems from throughout the world to address an international audience of planners. The contents of this book reflect many of the themes that were presented and discussed at the conference. The Summer Institute, let alone this volume, would not have been possible without the support of the International Association for the Development and Management of...

Belgium is a small country, but its planning traditions are rooted in a heritage which has been greatly enriched by its central location in the West European community of nations. Medieval, Renaissance and industrial age planning and urban design gave Belgium many examples of architectural masterpieces especially in the city centers. During the post World War II period, Belgian planners and politicians legislated national planning laws that divided the country into 48 planning regions (also called sub-regions and sectors) and empowered the municipalities (communes) with potent legal...

This book is about an art in which the Netherlands excels: strategic planning. Foreign observers will need little convincing of the merits of Dutch planning. They will want to know whether routine explanations (small country, industrious, disciplined people hardened by the perennial fight against the sea) hold any water, and they will want to know where to look for the bag of tricks of Dutch planners. Dutch readers need to be convinced first that planning in the Netherlands is indeed effective before contemplating how this has come about. Our message for both is that, to the extent that Dutch...

Corporate Geography examines the spatial structures and behaviour of large business organizations. Corporations are key operational units of economies. Each corporation has several locations and connections to suppliers and customers who also operate in geographical space. The effectiveness of corporate spatial organizations is of importance for their well-being and for the health of the national and local economies in which they operate. This volume discusses where and why firms locate units of production, sales and control and how these interact with each other, with suppliers and...

and processes which are exclusive to humans in their encoding, storing, decoding and retrieving spatial knowledge for various tasks. The authors present and discuss connectionist models of cognitive maps which are based on local representation, versus models which are based on distributed representation, as well as connectionist models concerning language and spatial relations. As is well known, Gibson's (1979) ecological approach suggests a view on cognition which is diametrically different from the classical main stream view: perception (and thus cognition) is direct, immediate and needs no...