Sources of Competitiveness in Tourist Local Systems

At the end of the XIX Century, Marshall described the existence of some concentrations of small and medium enterprises specialised in a specific production activity in certain districts of some industrial English cities. Starting from his contribute, Italian scholars have paid particular attention to this local system of production coined by Marshall under the term industrial district. In other countries, different but related territorial models have played a central role as the milieu or the geographical industrial clusters. Recently, these models have been extended to non-industrial fields like culture, rural activities and tourism. In this text, we explore the extension of these territorial models to the study of tourist activities in Italy, using a framework that can be easily applied to other countries or regions. The paper is divided in five sections. In the first one, we propose a review of the territorial models applied to tourism industry. In the second part, we construct a tourist filiere and we apply a methodology for the identification of local systems through GIS tools. Thus, taxonomy of the Italian Tourist Local Systems is presented. In the third part, we discuss about the sources of competitiveness of these Tourist Local Systems. In the forth section, we test a spatial econometrics model regarding different kinds of Italian Tourist Local Systems (rural systems, arts cities, tourist districts) in order to measure external economies and territorial networks. Finally, conclusions and policy implications are exposed.

Knowledge, networks of cities and growth in regional urban systems

The objective of this paper is to measure the impact of different kinds of knowledge and external economies on urban growth in an intraregional context. The main hypothesis is that knowledge leads to growth, and that this knowledge is related to the existence of agglomeration and network externalities in cities. We develop a three-tage methodology: first, we measure the amount and growth of knowledge in cities using the OCDE (2003) classification and employment data; second, we identify the spatial structure of the area of analysis (networks of cities); third, we combine the Glaeser - Henderson - De Lucio models with spatial econometric specifications in order to contrast the existence of spatially static (agglomeration) and spatially dynamic (network) external economies in an urban growth model. Results suggest that higher growth rates are associated to higher levels of technology and knowledge. The growth of the different kinds of knowledge is related to local and spatial factors (agglomeration and network externalities) and each knowledge intensity shows a particular response to these factors. These results have implications for policy design, since we can forecast and intervene on local knowledge development paths.

Weak systems of Gandy, Jensen and Devlin

In Part I, we formulate and examine some systems that have arisen in the study of the constructible hierarchy; we find numerous transitive models for them, among which are supertransitive models containing all ordinals that show that Devlin's system BS lies strictly between Gandy's systems PZ and BST'; and we use our models to show that BS fails to handle even the simplest rudimentary functions, and is thus inadequate for the use intended for it in Devlin's treatise. In Part II we propose and study an enhancement of the underlying logic of these systems, build further models to show where the previous hierarchy of systems is preserved by our enhancement; and consider three systems that might serve for Devlin's purposes: one the enhancement of a version of BS, one a formulation of Gandy-Jensen set theory, and the third a subsystem common to those two. In Part III we give new proofs of results of Boffa by constructing three models in which, respectively, TCo, AxPair and AxSing fail; we give some sufficient conditions for a set not to belong to the rudimentary closure of another set, and thus answer a question of McAloon; and we comment on Gandy's numerals and correct and sharpen other of his observations.

Reduction, Linearization and stability of relative equilibria for mechanical systems on riemannian manifolds

Consider a Riemannian manifold equipped with an infinitesimal isometry. For this setup, a unified treatment is provided, solely in the language of Riemannian geometry, of techniques in reduction, linearization, and stability of relative equilibria. In particular, for mechanical control systems, an explicit characterization is given for the manner in which reduction by an infinitesimal isometry, and linearization along a controlled trajectory "commute." As part of the development, relationships are derived between the Jacobi equation of geodesic variation and concepts from reduction theory, such as the curvature of the mechanical connection and the effective potential. As an application of our techniques, fiber and base stability of relative equilibria are studied. The paper also serves as a tutorial of Riemannian geometric methods applicable in the intersection of mechanics and control theory.

Limit cycles for cubic systems with a symmetry of order 4 and without in nite critical points

"Vegeu el resum a l'inici del document del fitxer adjunt."

Limit Cycles for a class of three dimensional polynomial differential systems

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Polynomial and linearized normal forms for almost periodic differential systems

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Reduction of periodic difference systems to linear or autonomous ones

We extend Floquet theory for reducing nonlinear periodic difference systems to autonomous ones (actually linear) by using normal form theory.

Multiplicity of limit cycles and analytic m-solutions for planar differential systems

"Vegeu el resum a l'inici del document del fitxer adjunt."

Non-hyperbolic boundary equilibrium bifurcations in planar Filippov systems: a case study approach

Boundary equilibrium bifurcations in piecewise smooth discontinuous systems are characterized by the collision of an equilibrium point with the discontinuity surface. Generically, these bifurcations are of codimension one, but there are scenarios where the phenomenon can be of higher codimension. Here, the possible collision of a non-hyperbolic equilibrium with the boundary in a two-parameter framework and the nonlinear phenomena associated with such collision are considered. By dealing with planar discontinuous (Filippov) systems, some of such phenomena are pointed out through specific representative cases. A methodology for obtaining the corresponding bi-parametric bifurcation sets is developed.

Alleviating abiotic and biotic soil constraints by combining Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi with banana and plantain micropropagation systems

The objectives of Participant 4 were: - Establishment and maintenance of a representative collection of AM fungal species in vivo on trap plant cultures. - Study of the effects of early mycorrhizal inoculation in the growth and health of in vitro plantlets and their subsequent behaviour in the nursery. - Effect of the mycorrhization of in vitro produced bananas and plantains on plant growth and health, under biotic stress conditions (nematode and fungi)

Orthogonal systems in finite grahps

To a finite graph there corresponds a free partially commutative group: with the given graph as commutation graph. In this paper we construct an orthogonality theory for graphs and their corresponding free partially commutative groups. The theory developed here provides tools for the study of the structure of partially commutative groups, their universal theory and automorphism groups. In particular the theory is applied in this paper to the centraliser lattice of such groups.

Enabling dCache to use preexistent mass storage systems

A mesura que la investigació depèn cada vegada més dels computadors, l'emmagatzematge de dades comença a convertir-se en un recurs escàs per als projectes, i suposa una gran part del cost total. Alguns projectes intenten resoldre aquest problema emprant emmagatzament distribuït. És doncs necessari que alguns centres proveeixin de grans quantitats d'emmagatzematge massiu de baix cost basat en cintes magnètiques. L'inconvenient d'aquesta solució és que el rendiment disminueix, particularment a l'hora de tractar-se de grans quantitats d'arxius petits. El nostre objectiu és crear un híbrid entre un sistema d'alt cost i rendiment basat en discs, i un de baix cost i rendiment basat en cintes. Per això, unirem dCache, un sistema d'emmagatzematge distribuït, amb Castor, un sistema d'emmagatzematge jeràrquic, creant sistemes de fitxers virtuals que contindran grans quantitats d'arxius petits per millorar el rendiment global del sistema.

Do creative industries cluster? mapping creative local production systems in Italy

An important debate on the role of creativity and culture as factors of local economic development is distinctly emerging. Despite the emphasis put on the theoretical definition of these concepts, it is necessary to strengthen comparative research for the identification and analysis of the kind of creativity embedded in the territory as well as its determinants. Creative local production systems are identified in Italy and Spain departing from local labour markets as territorial units, and focusing on two different kinds of creative

Numerical simulation of combined heat transfer phenomena (conduction, convection, and radiation). Application to he optimisation of thermal systems

Thermal systems interchanging heat and mass by conduction, convection, radiation (solar and thermal ) occur in many engineering applications like energy storage by solar collectors, window glazing in buildings, refrigeration of plastic moulds, air handling units etc. Often these thermal systems are composed of various elements for example a building with wall, windows, rooms, etc. It would be of particular interest to have a modular thermal system which is formed by connecting different modules for the elements, flexibility to use and change models for individual elements, add or remove elements without changing the entire code. A numerical approach to handle the heat transfer and fluid flow in such systems helps in saving the full scale experiment time, cost and also aids optimisation of parameters of the system. In subsequent sections are presented a short summary of the work done until now on the orientation of the thesis in the field of numerical methods for heat transfer and fluid flow applications, the work in process and the future work.