Emergence as a process of resources flowing in supply chain system

To accurately describe the resource values that agents possess in the complex supply chain system which is a result of the interaction among the agents and to make correct decisions regarding quantity, time and place of the resources, the characteristics of the resource values in the supply chain are analyzed. ＂Chromosome＂ is used to express a resource value in the supply chain, and eight random numbers are used to integrate the resources. The if-then rules and correlation chance constrained programming in the resource supply-distribution model are set up and they are used in a three-tiered-echo model which can describe the kinds of interactive behavior of the agents in the supply chain system. Simulation is done in the platform of Swarm with a genetic algorithm. The results show that the resources in the supply chain complex adaptive system are an organic whole that cannot be separated. The three-tiered-echo model can accurately describe the interaction of resource flows of agents in the supply chain system. The system can attain optimization by utilizing the resources in the supply chain if the agents in the system cooperate, compete and distribute resources according to this model.

Resources Flow and Its Environmental Impacts

21世纪,中国的人口和经济的持续增长面临着资源短缺和生态脆弱的限制。提高资源利用效率和消减资源利用引起的环境影响是学术界和决策者面临的新课题。本文从资源流动的视角研究资源利用过程及其引起的环境影响。我们把资源流动过程分解为开采、加工、转化、消费等几个关键环节,评价其资源利用效率和环境影响,并寻求改善的途径。因其资源消耗量大、生态环境影响严重,我们选取了林木、煤炭及石油研究其资源与产品流动及其环境影响。林木产品的产量、进出口量和消费量数据来自中国森林统计年鉴(1949-2001)。煤炭、石油的开采量、进出口量和消费量来自中国能源统计年鉴(1980-2006)。研究表明:过去几十年,中国的资源利用效率有所提高,资源消费结构逐步改善,但资源消费总量居高不下,对生态环境构成极大的压力。

Resource Flows of Villages with Contrasting Lifestyles in Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, Central Himalaya, India

Resource use efficiency analyses of village ecosystem are necessary for effective and efficient planning of resource utilization. This paper deals with economic and energy input-output analyses of different components of village ecosystem in representative buffer zone villages, which are practicing transhumance and settled way of lifestyles in Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve （NDBR） of Garhwal Himalaya. While the villages practicing transhumance used various natural resources spatially segregated,the villages practicing settled way of lifestyle have to manage resources from a limited spatial area through rotation and varied extraction intensities. Forests subsidized the production activity in both type of villages and the per capita resource extractions were found to be greater in tran^humance village than settled village. Though crops provided maximum energy, in terms of economic criteria, animal husbandry played important role in both settled and transhumance villages. As villages representing both the situations showed different ways of adjustments to the conservation oriented land use changes, management authority needs to address the eco-development plans fulfilling the aspirations of all people traditionally using the resources of the Reserve to reduce the conflicts and encourage their participation in the conservation of the area.

Centrality measure of complex networks based on resource flow

A new centrality measure for complex networks, called resource flow centrality, is pro- posed in this paper. This centrality measure is based on the concept of the resource flow in net- works. It not only can be applied to the connected networks, but also the disconnected networks. Moreover, it overcomes some disadvantages of several common centrality measures. The perform- ance of the proposed measure is compared with some standard centrality measures using a classic dataset and the results indicate the proposed measure performs more reasonably. The statistical dis- tribution of the proposed centrality is investigated by experiments on large scale computer generated graphs and two networks from the real world.

Multi-Mode Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Models for Progress and Equal Time Interval Payments

This study utilizes a time-precedence network technique to construct two models of multi-mode resource constrained project scheduling problem with discounted cash flows （MRCPSPDCF）, individually including the progress payment （PP） and the payment at an equal time interval （ETI）. The objective of each model is to maximize the net present value （NPV） for all cash flows in the project, subject to the related operational constraints. The models are characterized as NP-hard. A heuristic algorithm, coupled with two upper bound solutions, is proposed to efficiently solve the models and evaluate the heuristic algorithm performance which was not performed in past studies. The results show that the performance of proposed models and heuristic algorithm is good.

Interregional coal flow and its environmental loads transfer in Shanxi Province

For the low price of coal and ineffective environmental management in mining area, China is in the dilemma of the increasing coal demand and the serious environmental issues in mining area. The more coal that is exported from a region, the more heavily it suffers from the environmental impacts of coal export. In this paper, the temporal and spatial process of exporting coal from Shanxi to other provinces of China is traced between 1975 and 2005. The coal net export of Shanxi increased to 370.69 million tonnes in 2005, representing an average annual growth rate of 7.5% from 1975 to 2005. With the increase of the amount of coal export from Shanxi, the Environmental Loads Transfer （ELT） that import provinces input to mining areas of Shanxi are rising. Effective means of internalizing the environmental externality of ELT lie in： 1） setting up a coal sustainable development fund to restore environment of coal mining area; 2） enforcing environment tax, financial transfer payment and transferring advantage technology of pollution reduction to coal export area; and 3） reducing coal regional flow by reducing coal demand from power generation and heating and other industries.