The competitive landscape of China’s telecommunications industry: Is there a need for further regulatory reform?

This paper evaluates the current regulatory status of China’s telecommunications industry in relation to China’s antimonopoly enforcement. It analyzes the difference of telecoms reform models in OECD countries and China, and highlights the important role of independent regulation, in particular given the concern about administrative monopolies in China’s telecoms industry. It questions the effectiveness of the new antimonopoly law alone in promoting telecoms competition by addressing three major issues in the sector: administrative monopoly, market competition and ownership. In conclusion, it suggests the need for further regulatory reform and calls for formal empirical research to provide more compelling evidence.     

Institutions and telecommunications infrastructure in low and middle-income countries: The case of mobile telephony

This paper studies the relationship between regulation and performance in the mobile telecommunications sector. The analysis takes account of the economic impact of telecommunications infrastructure on aggregate income and of the role of country institutions in promoting economic growth. More specifically, we try to separate the impact of regulation from the potential indirect effects due to country institutions. We address these questions by estimating a system of equations for a panel of 30 low and middle-income countries over the period 1990–2004. In summary, the evidence we present confirms the positive effect of regulatory institutions on mobile telecom penetration and also highlights the contribution of a more widespread mobile telecoms infrastructure to higher levels of per capita GDP.     

Computerized reference sources in the construction industry

The 1980s have been described as the beginning of the information age, and justly so. Advances in microprocessor design, information storage systems and telecommunications have all combined to make access to accurate and up to date information a prerequisite for any successful business or research project. No longer is it necessary to laboriously scan printed abstracts, seeking out information via a limited indexof keywords, when today's communication networks allow an almost instantaneous access with a user-defined mix of search parameters. Correspondingly, this shift towards computer-based search procedures has resulted in many of the traditional scientific, business and professional abstracting services, that the construction industry has relied upon in the past, offering these bibliographic databases via commercial information retrieval systems. This paper reviews the range of information services that are currently available; discusses how they work and what equipment is required; examines the typical search features; comments on the estimated cost of using on-line search methods; and, finally, describes a typical on-line search session.     

基于因子分析的建筑业细分产业竞争力评价

选取代表建筑业细分产业规模水平、效率与效益水平、技术水平的15项指标,运用因子分析法,对建筑业细分产业竞争力进行评价。结果表明,各细分产业综合竞争力水平差异明显:房屋建筑业是建筑业发展的主要推动力,但效益、效率与技术水平薄弱;土木工程建筑业综合竞争力水平强,未来应注重发展产业效益;建筑安装与建筑装饰业效益水平优势明显,但综合竞争力水平居于末位。     

Developing world class construction companies in Singapore

The construction industry in Singapore is under pressure to improve its performance and the quality of its products and services. The Government is looking to see Singapore develop into a knowledge-based economy, and construction cannot be left behind. A recently published report about re-inventing construction has called on the industry to become a world-class industry. This study examines the attitudes and views of contractors, operating in Singapore, on how and where developments should be focused to bring about such a transformation. The results show that local contractors are not overly enthusiastic about becoming worldclass. The study found also that contractors expect the development to be Government led, with policies and incentives to support such an effort. At the same time there is a feeling that current Government policies are not effective in enabling the industry to become world-class.     

Offshore development of electronic products

The existence of a local electronics industry is widely considered in both the developed and developing nations to be an essential contributor to prosperity and growth. This is not only on account of the scale of the world market for electronics products, but also because of the radical effect that the application of electronics goods and services has on the competitiveness of other sectors of the economy. This article considers how electronics product development activities are being established in the offshore sites of major multinationals. It begins with a synopsis of how countries attract foreign direct investment and the associated benefits such investments can bring to the indigenous electronics industry of the host country, and then considers how some of the successful electronics-based economies in the Far East have used strategic initiatives to further develop their industry into higher value-added activities     

Customer experience and product leadership

Commercial success is often measured by the growth of a company's value to its shareholders, management and employees and is founded on the achievement of three core capabilities or 'value vectors': products or service offering leadership; customer and market focus; and operational excellence. The article brings together customer and market focus with leadership in products and services and describes methods and tools that are being used by various electronics, engineering and telecoms companies. The VP model, experiential value proposition, and the steps and associated tools for the successful implementation of customer and user experience management.     

Biodiversity accountability in water utilities: A case study

Caring for biodiversity is a significant challenge for companies worldwide. The role of water utilities in this context is pivotal: as key actors in providing core services while balancing the interests of the many stakeholders interested in their activity, water utilities are adopting different accounting tools to increase their accountability. To understand the motivations and to explore the mechanisms underlying water utilities' biodiversity accountability practices, a case study is developed. Findings reveal how normative isomorphism, and coercive requirements, is driving water utilities accountability. Also, the study reveals the centrality of integrated reporting and alternative accounting practices for disclosing on biodiversity.     

Challenging industry conceptions with provotypes

Design researchers have an important role to play when engaged with user-driven design projects in industry. Design researchers can craft ethnographic material to facilitate transfers of user-knowledge to industry, and demonstrate how this material can be used in the design of new products and services. However, ethnographic findings can reveal issues that are in tension with conceptions of the project members from industry. Instead of brushing these tensions aside, we propose provotyping (provocative prototyping) as an approach to constructively build on them as a resource for change. Provotypes are ethnographically rooted, technically working, robust artefacts that deliberately challenge stakeholder conceptions by reifying and exposing tensions that surround a field of organisational interest. The daily and local experience of provotypes aims to stir dialectical processes of reflection on how conceptions currently are, and fuel the front end of a development process by speculating how conceptions could be different. In this article we start by making explicit the relation between provotypes, practices of critical design and organisational sense-making. We then illustrate, through a multi-stakeholder project concerning the field of indoor climate, how provotypes facilitate transfers of user knowledge to industry, and how they contribute to the development of new products and services. We end by framing the role of the design researcher and discuss the politics that are inherent to design provocations.     

Collective Intelligence in Design

In their introduction to this issue, Christopher Hight and Chris Perry define the idea of collective intelligence in its relationship to design practice and to broader technological and social formations. First they suggest a reformulation of practices around networked communication infrastructures as conduits for the new orchestrations of power that Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt detailed in their books Empire and Multitude. They then describe how such practices are often involved in the development of responsive sensing environments as new sites for manifesting the social organisations and communities made possible via telecommunications and the Internet. Lastly, they address how traditional boundaries of design disciplines and knowledge, from architecture to programming, are opening into complex co-minglings of their respective isolated ‘intelligences’ into collectives capable of engaging these new sites, new briefs and new sorts of projects. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does Compact Development Make People Drive Less?

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Planners commonly recommend compact development in part as a way of getting people to drive less, with the idea that less driving will lead to more sustainable communities. Planners base their recommendations on a substantial body of research that examines the impact of compact development on driving. Different studies, however, have found different outcomes: Some studies find that compact development causes people to drive less, while other studies do not. I use meta-regression analysis to a) explain why different studies on driving and compact development yield different results, and b) combine different findings from many studies into reliable statistics that can better inform planning practice. I address the following questions: Does compact development make people drive less, and if so, how much less? I find that compact development does make people drive less, because most of the compact development features I study have a statistically significant negative influence on driving. The impact, however, is fairly small: Compact development features do not appear to have much influence on driving. My findings are limited to some extent because they are derived from small sample sizes.

Takeaway for practice: Planners should not rely on compact development as their only strategy for reducing driving unless their goals for reduced driving are very modest and can be achieved at a low cost.     

日本的区域经营型绿色观光产业(2)

日本政府将强化农业经营的体系以及充分利用农村、中部落后山村的本地资源,创造新的产业和就业机会作为今后农业政策的重要方向,绿色观光产业的振兴是其中的一个重要课题。从介绍日本的区域经营型绿色观光产业的开展方法着手,着重于探讨绿色景观的社会价值、对其的理解方法以及如何创造绿色景观。最后对农家自主型经营的产业化所带来的区域经济效果结合实例加以评述。     

基于DPSIR-PCA 模型的江苏省建筑业高质量发展评价研究

我国经济由高速增长阶段转为高质量发展阶段,建筑业作为国民经济的支柱产业,探究其高质量发展具有重要意义。界定“创新、协调、绿色、开放、共享”新发展理念和建筑业高质量发展的内涵,筛选建筑业高质量发展评价指标,基于DPSIR 模型从驱动力、压力、状态、影响与响应5 个层面建立建筑业高质量发展评价指标体系,利用PCA（主成分分析）对江苏省2008~2018 年建筑业高质量发展进行实证研究。研究发现,2008~2018 年驱动力、状态、影响各准则层得分均呈上升趋势,压力层得分呈下降趋势。江苏省建筑业高质量发展水平整体呈上升趋势,2014 年之后趋于稳定上升,2018 年达到近几年的最大值,江苏省建筑业高质量发展水平不断提高。本文为建筑业高质量发展提供了评价准则。     

边缘城市的北京案例研究

边缘城市是美国大都市多中心演化过程中产生的一种新城市现象,在欧洲和澳洲也存在类似的现象。本文以丰台科技园作为典型案例,探讨北京的边缘城市现象及其形成背景与机制。丰台科技园各项条件已经满足美国边缘城市的衡量标准,可以认为是一个已经形成的边缘城市。它是在我国生产性服务业快速发展背景下,在北京生产性服务业空间重构过程中依托位于城市郊区的科技园而发展起来的。地方政府与房地产开发商联合形成的"增长联盟"是推动丰台边缘城市形成的主导力量。未来一段时间,类似的边缘城市还将会在北京、上海、广州等超大城市陆续出现。     

日本的区域经营型绿色观光产业(1)

日本政府将强化农业经营的体系以及充分利用农村、中部落后山村的本地资源，创造新的产业和就业机会作为今后农业政策的重要方向，绿色观光产业的振兴是其中的一个重要课题。从介绍日本的区域经营型绿色观光产业的开展方法着手，着重于探讨绿色景观的社会价值、对其的理解方法以及如何创造绿色景观。最后对农家自主型经营的产业化所带来的区域经济效果结合实例加以评述。     

Transportation and telecommunications costs

The decreasing costs of telecommunications and the often increasing costs of transportation have given rise to claims that information-intensive activities are becoming footloose. One of the assumptions underlying these claims is that the cost of distance in telecommunications is negligible or very low. This paper examines the relationship between distance and interaction (telecommunications and transportation) costs and rates, with particular emphasis on the effects of geographical scale. Focusing on data from Israel, it demonstrates that the costs of distance are persistent even in telecommunications systems; that for short distances or small regions, transportation costs are not necessarily higher than telecommunications costs; and that pricing of telecommunications services by governments (or PTT's) often does not reflect the costs of providing the services. This creates a cost distribution which differs from Euclidean geographical distances: discontinuities in the rate structure of telecommunications distort the distance-cost schedules and, by creating barriers, may affect location decisions.The paper also demonstrates that actual interaction costs are context specific and therefore no general model has been formulated. Instead, an accounting procedure, which can be used by decision-makers considering (re)location in specific contexts, is suggested.     

浅谈建筑独创性

建筑是具有独特表现形式的艺术品,除了要满足实用功能之外,还需要具有一定的审美要求。如何做出让人欣赏的建筑,就需要有自己的再创造,也就是所谓的独创。当今建筑行业的发展快速,建筑的独创性受很多条件的制约,其发展空间有限。何为独创性,如何在有限的空间进行创新,如何解决建筑所谓的创新,建筑设计者如何创新才能做到适量,将是本文论述重点。     

基于HBase的BIM模型存储技术研究

随着计算机互联网技术的飞速发展,建筑信息模型技术(BIM)应运而生。BIM作为一种新兴的建筑技术理念,推动着建筑行业发生巨大的变革,同时,大数据、云计算技术也成为当下热门话题。将大数据云计算与BIM技术相结合,将是未来建筑行业的发展趋势。本文研究如何将BIM模型存储在基于大数据平台的开源HBase数据库中。通过对BIM模型的开放性标准IFC的内部结构进行研究及解析,设计出基于IFC的HBase数据库的格式,然后开发基于IFC格式的HBase JAVA API总体类库。最后通过运用HBaseJAVA API存储示例说明存储的技术方法。     

浅谈房屋建筑施工企业建筑业总产值的统计核算

建筑业总产值是指以货币表现的建筑业企业在一定时期内生产的建筑业产品和服务的总和,正确的统计方法要克服统计中重报、漏报、混淆概念等造成的总产值统计失真,通过进一步的分析,提出应当从认真读解报表制度、加强对原始数据的归集、整理、及时掌握工程进展、理清工程进度款与建筑业总产值的关系等方面入手,提高建筑业总产值统计的水平。     

How engineering consultancies can become more market oriented

Consultancy is a major growth industry in Singapore, but local companies largely lack the ability to market themselves effectively. These consultancies recognise the need to adopt a client oriented approach to promoting their services. To ensure survival and prosperity in the changing environment, consultancies must apply marketing. It is up to each individual consultancy to plan its own marketing strategy with its own pace and style. Successful implementation of the strategy requires the support of suitable organisational structure and culture as well as information, planning and control systems. The most important factor of market orientation is the systemisation of management thinking in planning the business development well in advance. Management must be prepared to drive the whole organisation towards greater sophistication, while coping with the constraints in resources. It is this management philosophy that ultimately makes the whole difference between business growth or stagnation in an engineering consultancy