Innovating for the Poor

This chapter introduces the inclusive innovation system in China by showing the roles of bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) entrepreneurs, institutions for inclusive innovation, infrastructures supporting inclusive innovation, and emerging governance of inclusive innovation. Based on an integrative review of the literature about the innovation that led to inclusive growth in developing economies, this chapter proposes the conceptual framework of the process toward inclusive innovation by integrating the dynamic inclusive growth with the current static view. Then, considering the Chinese context, especially the turning from formal institutions to the interpenetration of both formal and informal institutions, this chapter finally summarizes some challenges for inclusive innovation and its implications on economic and social growth.

Applying a Pedestrian Level of Service in the Context of Social Distancing: The Case of the City of Madrid

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a lot of discussion about keeping interpersonal distance to prevent the virus from spreading. To keep this interpersonal distance, authorities at different levels have taken measures to reduce people’s interactions, such as reducing capacities, curfews, pop-up cycle lanes, temporary pedestrianisation, and lockdowns. Many of these temporary measures have been perceived from a static view. Nevertheless, in a scenario of “new normality” or in the face of a possible new pandemic, the amount of data (big data) generated by different sources, such as sensors, in large cities has extraordinary potential to be used together with tactical urbanism for quick adaptation. The aim of this study was to gain insight into the aforementioned issues by analysing spatio-temporal patterns of pedestrian mobility and developing a variation of the pedestrian level of service measure; the pandemic pedestrian level of service (P-PLOS). This measure provides a dynamic view of pavement capacities according to the interpersonal distance recommendations during the pandemic. P-PLOS was tested in the city of Madrid based on the pedestrian counter data that was provided by the local government through its open data website. We found that the application of P-PLOS, together with street design, allows for knowing where and when it is necessary to take tactical urbanism measures in order to maintain or improve the level of service, as well as where it is necessary to take measures to reduce pedestrian flow.

Changes in the economic status of neighbourhoods in US metropolitan areas from 1980 to 2010: Stability, growth and polarisation

In this paper we move away from a static view of neighbourhood inequality and investigate the dynamics of neighbourhood economic status, which ties together spatial income inequality at different moments in time. Using census data from three decades (1980–2010) in 294 metropolitan statistical areas, we use a statistical decomposition method to unpack the aggregate spatiotemporal income dynamic into its contributing components: stability, growth and polarisation, providing a new look at the economic fortunes of diverse neighbourhoods. We examine the relative strength of each component in driving the overall pattern, in addition to whether, how, and why these forces wax and wane across space and over time. Our results show that over the long run, growth is a dominant form of change across all metros, but there is a very clear decline in its prominence over time. Further, we find a growing positive relationship between the components of dispersion and growth, in a reversal of prior trends. Looking across metro areas, we find temporal heterogeneity has been driven by different socioeconomic factors over time (such as sectoral growth in certain decades), and that these relationships vary enormously with geography and time. Together these findings suggest a high level of temporal heterogeneity in neighbourhood income dynamics, a phenomenon which remains largely unexplored in the current literature. There is no universal law governing the changing economic status of neighbourhoods in the US over the last 40 years, and our work demonstrates the importance of considering shifting dynamics over multiple spatial and temporal scales.

Islam and Modernity in Crosshairs of History

Static view of religion is a cause of concern in all religious communities because it not only gnaws at their dynamism, more often it tends to swing history back to the old life patterns which have lost their validity and moral force. On the other hand history moves forward and seeks its direction intuitively. So, traditional view of religion collides with the forces of history in futile effort to cease the torrential stream of time. Resultantly, time or history crush them or throw them in the yokes of slavery of others who entertain ever fresh and dynamic view of history and religion. Same went with Islam. With an advent of modernity after European renaissance when Europe collided horns with Islam, once all the Muslim world submerged in European colonialism.it forced Muslim intelligentsia on serious soul search and brought forth three schools of thought the traditionalist who strictly cling to tradition even if it had relevance to the emerging realities of history or not; the revivalists who seek assuage in pristine Islam and turn the tide of history back while modernists sensing new realities harness materieux of history for moral cause and go hand in hand with history. Modernity is also a departure from mythos to the rationale so the most crucial question of todays’ scholarship is whether Islam and modernity are compatible or poles apart in context of history.

Is There Change on the B-Theory of Time?

The purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between change and the B-theory of time, sometimes also called the Scientific view of time, according to which reality is a four-dimensional spacetime manifold, where past, present and future things equally exist, and the present time and non-present times are metaphysically the same. I argue in favour of a novel response to the much-vexed question of whether there is change on the B-theory or not. In fact, B-theorists are often said to hold a ‘static’ view of time. But this far from being innocent label: if the B-theory of time presents a model of temporal reality that is static, then there is no change on the B-theory. From this, one can reasonably think as follows: of course, there is change, so the B-theory must be false. What I plan to do in this paper is to argue that in some sense there is change on the B-theory, but in some other sense, there is no change on the B-theory. To do so, I present three instances of change: Existential Change, namely the view that things change with respect to their existence over time; Qualitative Change, the view that things change with respect to how they are over time; Propositional Change, namely the view that things (i.e. propositions) change with respect to truth value over time. I argue that while there is a reading of these three instances of change that is true on the B-theory, and so there is change on the B-theory in this sense, there is a B-theoretical reading of each of them that is not true on the B-theory, and therefore there is no change on the B-theory in this other sense.

A DYNAMIC AND STATIC VIEW OF THE FINANCIAL SECURITY OF DAIRY COOPERATIVES

The aim of the research was to identify and assess the dynamic and static dimension of the financial security of dairy cooperatives in the area of liquidity. Cooperatives with a higher equity value than average and with a cash flow statement were purposively selected. The final research sample included 20 dairy cooperatives. The research period covered the period from 2017 to 2019. Statistically speaking, dairy cooperatives are generally financially secure as a result of the specific nature of their business, which is geared towards benefiting their members – milk suppliers – through timely payments for raw material delivered. Most of the entities studied were characterised by over-liquidity in static terms, which should be assessed favourably from the perspective of the cooperative form of management. In dynamic terms, however, not all entities were characterised by favourable values of cash productivity ratios. Static liquidity measures do not provide a complete and transparent picture of the financial security of dairy cooperatives and should be considered both static and dynamic. Only an interpretation of the two dimensions of liquidity indicators will allow an effective interpretation of this issue in relation to dairy cooperatives. Moreover, when assessing liquidity, account should be taken of the specificities of cooperative management activities, where static measures in this area are above literature standards, while dynamic liquidity measures do not always reach satisfactory volumes.

Cantor’s paradise from the perspective of non‐revisionist Wittgensteinianism

Cantor’s paradise from the perspective of non‐revisionist Wittgensteinianism: Ludwig Wittgenstein is known for his criticism of transfinite set theory. He forwards the claim that we tend to conceptualise infinity as an object due to the systematic confusion of extension with in‐ tension. There can be no mathematical symbol that directly refers to infinity: a rule is the only form by which the latter can appear in our symbolic operations. In consequence, Wittgenstein rejects such ideas as infinite cardinals, the Cantorian understanding of non‐denumerability, and the view of real numbers as a continuous sequence of points on a number line. Moreover, as he understands mathematics to be an anthropological phenomenon, he rejects set theory due to its lack of application. As I argue here, it is possible to defend Georg Cantor’s theory by taking a standpoint I call quietistic conventionalism. The standpoint broadly resembles Wittgenstein’s formalist middle period and allows us to view transfinite set theory as a result of a series of definitions established by arbitrary decisions that have no ontological consequences. I point to the fact that we are inclined to accept such definitions because of certain psycho‐ logical mechanisms such as the hypothetical Basic Metaphor of Infinity proposed by George Lakoff and Rafael E. Núñez. Regarding Wittgenstein’s criterion of applicability, I argue that it presupposes a static view of science. Therefore, we should not rely on it because we are unable to foresee what will turn out to be useful in the future.

The complexity of Alzheimer's disease: an evolving puzzle

The history of Alzheimer's disease (AD) started in 1907, but we needed to wait until the end of the century to identify the component of pathological hallmarks, genetic subtypes and to formulate the first pathogenic hypothesis. Thanks to biomarkers and new technologies, the concept of AD then rapidly changed from a static view of an amnestic dementia of the presenium to a biological entity that could be clinically manifested as normal cognition or dementia of different types. What is clearly emerging from studies is that AD is heterogeneous in each aspect, such as amyloid composition, tau distribution, relation between amyloid and tau, clinical symptoms, genetic background, and thus it is probably impossible to explain AD with a single pathological process. The scientific approach to AD suffers from chronological mismatches between clinical, pathological and technological data, causing difficulty in conceiving diagnostic gold standards and in creating models for drug discovery and screening. A recent mathematical computer-based approach offers the opportunity to study AD in real life and to provide a new point of view and the final missing pieces of the AD puzzle.

Conceptual Features of a Complex Vision of the World

Today, almost all spheres of human existence are interpreted – directly or indi­rectly – as permanently becoming, interpreted from a processing point of view realities that do not imply either final fixation or predetermined ultimate goals or states. The world appears not so much in the form of difficult composite dy­namic formation in mechanistic sense, but in the form of mobile, continuously becoming environment, which presupposes special technical researches and ways of staying in it. Such techniques and methods lead to the formation of a non-trivial vision of the universe. And such a vision, aimed at comprehending of emerging realities, presupposing conceptual shifts in modern natural science, technology, humanitarian activity, and more broadly in the very perception of na­ture and society, V.I. Arshinov endows with the epithet “complexity”. In the pro­posed text, a small fragment from the creative heritage of one of the most influ­ential philosophers J. Simondon will be considered, allowing to partially reveal the features of such complexitly oriented thinking. The central theme of Simon­don's philosophical strategy is the conceptualization of how the becomings of beings are realized, or how beings (inanimate, living, technical, mental, social) are individuated. Simondon begins the discussion of this plot with criticism of the hylemorphic scheme, which posits the genetic principle of existence in the form-matter dichotomy and, above all, in the interpretation and theoretical use of such a dichotomy by Aristotle, since, according to Simondon, it was this pair that contributed to the formation of a static view on the world, man and society. In different performances, the form-matter dichotomy can be interpreted in the form of mind-body dichotomies, artificial-natural, living-nonliving, etc. Note that Simondon begins his criticism with the technological substantiation of the hylemorphic scheme, referring to the operation of making a parallelepiped brick from clay

The Human embryo : Mapping patients’ ethical decisions in Hungary

When in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments first appeared in Hungarian legislation, the related experiences and the moral dilemmas of couples who go through these procedures were unknown. Couples have to make a great variety of decisions during the IVF process. In our study, we focus on the journey of the human embryo in IVF treatment through the ethical lenses of women. In order to explore the differences between established ethical and legal frameworks and the perspectives of women who have participated in an IVF procedure in Hungary, we conducted semi-structured interviews. In contrast to the static view of embryos typical to a part of the ethics literature, which also characterizes most established legal frameworks, patients’ view of embryos of interviewees was dynamic: they interpreted embryos in a malleable and constantly changing way. Embryos were perceived differently depending on time, place, and biological characteristics, and primarily in relation to how they could contribute to achieving the goals of treatment. In this article, we also demonstrate that the main ethical framework that the participants in our research evoked in relation to the IVF process was related to the ethics of medical treatment. At the end of the paper we also make an attempt to draw some conclusions that may help ameliorate problems with the current normative ethical and legal framework by incorporating the experiences of women who participate in IVF procedures.