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This chapter looks at technological networks, the physical infrastructure networks that have grown up over the last century or so and form the backbone of modern technological societies. These include the Internet, the telephone network, power grids, transportation networks, and delivery and distribution networks.

This chapter considers networks in which links differ from each other. The links are made individual by ascribing a positive number (a weight) to each of them. The chapter explains how these weighted networks represent processes and flows in real-world networks, from various transportation and information nets to social ones. It discusses the worldwide airport network, which is a typical example of a weighted network, and presents a few basic models of these networks.

This chapter analyses the objectives and methodology of the Pan-Pearl River Delta (Pan-PRD) regional transportation strategy. It also recommends four strategic measures in regional transportation development: a regional infrastructure network, an integrated transportation system, a regional common transportation market, and a regional transportation information network.

This chapter presents a proposal for a new urban and suburban landscape for a more sustainable transportation system. The proposed plan is a dual-mode transportation network: two universally accessible but completely separate travel networks—one for LLMs (lightweight modes), the other for FHVs (fast, heavy vehicles). The chapter discusses general advantages of this proposal and reviews similar plans. It also examines the impact of the LLM network on transportation problems and then explores the economics of this dual LLM-FHV infrastructure.

Does the shape or strength of the trade networks that link rural and urban areas affect the employment of violence? This chapter attempts to answer this question employing a statistical model based on GIS-derived variables, and using the case of the Maoist insurgency in rural India. It argues that (1) strong rural–urban linkages do in fact lower the intensity of violence employed by the rural Maoist insurgency against civilian people (but not against government targets or property); and (2) highly interconnected areas experience lower levels of violence against people (but not against government targets). The conclusion suggests that network structure affects bargaining power differentials between the Maoists and traders serving the area. Towns redundantly to urban areas simultaneously decrease traders’ monopoly power, while increasing the cost of Maoist capture. These two factors promote a trading relationship between Maoists and redundantly connected towns.

In this chapter, we focus on the rise of the United States as a two-stage process. In the first stage the United States acquired dominance in mass-production industries that were contingent on not only technological innovation but also an unusually rich resource endowment and an equally distinctive domestic market. U.S. economic growth emulated Britain’s coal-centric trajectory and outdid it by the end of the nineteenth century. As electricity and petroleum began to be utilized in the latter part of the nineteenth century, they reshaped the nature of American industry, heating, and transportation, pushing the nation ahead of the rest of the world. Technological innovation and power-driven machinery increasingly provided the intermittent stimuli needed for the United States to fully embrace carbon-based energy sources that initially were relatively inexpensive. At the same time the large domestic market made increases in the scale of production possible, and the nature of United States’ resource endowment ensured that raw materials were inexpensive. The combination of innovation, cheap raw materials (including energy), and a very large domestic market pushed the United States into an economic leadership position by World War I. But the second stage of the process, the rise to world technological leadership, did not begin until after World War II because it was based on science, and it took longer for the United States to acquire the lead in scientific research. Centrality in technology innovation, science, and world economic growth followed.

From continental macroclimate to microalluvial salt crusts, geology is a dominant factor that influences patterns and processes in the Alaskan boreal forest. In this chapter, we outline important geologic processes as a foundation for subsequent chapters that discuss the soil, hydrology, climate, and biota of the Alaskan boreal forest. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of interior Alaska from a regional perspective. Alaska can be divided into four major physiographic regions. The arctic coastal plain is part of the Interior Plains physiographic division of North America, analogous to the great plains east of the Rocky Mountains. The arctic coastal plain is predominantly alluvium underlaid by hundreds of meters of permafrost, resulting in many thaw lakes and ice wedges. South of the arctic coastal plain lies the Northern Cordillera, an extension of the Rocky Mountain system dominated by the Arctic Foothills, Brooks Range, Baird Mountains, and Delong Mountains. These mountains were glaciated during the Pleistocene. South of the Brooks Range lies interior Alaska, which is an intermontane plateau region analogous to the Great Basin/Colorado Plateau regions. This extensive region is characterized by wide alluvium-covered lowlands such as the Yukon Flats, Tanana Valley, and Yukon Delta, as well as moderate upland hills, domes, and mountains. Largely unglaciated, this region served as a refugium for biota during glacial periods. With the Northern and Southern Cordilleras acting as barriers, the major rivers of this region have long, meandering paths to the Bering Sea. The Southern Cordillera is composed of two mountain ranges: the Alaska Range to the north and the Kenai/Chugach/Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains to the south. The lowland belt between these mountains includes the Susitna and Copper River lowlands. The entire Southern Cordillera was glaciated during the Pleistocene and today has extensive mountain glaciers. Much of Alaska is made up of multiple geologic fragments that have been rafted together by the movements of the major plates called tectonic terranes (Thorson 1986, Connor and O’Haire 1988). Plate-tectonic theory explains such observations as the changing distribution of fossils with geologic time, the deep Aleutian Trench, high Alaskan mountain barriers, and mountain glaciers.