This article focuses on the process of the decline of the zilu (cotton carpet) hand-weaving industry datting from the 1980s in Meybod, Yazd province, Iran. This study is based primarily on a survey of 32 weavers in the Meybod region and on archival research at the Meybod zilu producers' cooperative.
The zilu weaving industry was one of the success stories in Iranian community-based industry after World War II. At the peak, zilu workshops extended all over the Meybod region and approximately 1, 500 or 2, 000 weavers were weaving zilu at the beginning of the 1970s. But zilu production steadily decreased from the 1970s as a result of competition from machine-made carpets at cheaper prices than zilu. The Meybod zilu producers' cooperative, which was established by zilu weavers and merchants in 1972, became very active after the Islamic revolution and in recent years almost all weavers have worked for their own cooperative.
As a result of analysis of stock books and another resources of the zilu cooperative, the number of zilu weavers was more than 150 at the beginning of the 1990s, but today it is about 50-60. Interviews with weavers show that now full-time zilu weavers are rare. The majority of zilu weavers have multiple occupations whose primary occupation is day laborer in the construction sector and low-wage employment in the service sector. The changing economic situation has thus created new types of employment, but it has transformed zilu weaving into a casualized, low-wage job. In part this has been due to the instability of the zilu industry and the expansion of casualized employment like day laborers in the construction sector, but in part it has been made possible by the presence of the zilu cooperative which is a buffer to adjust the difference between demand and supply and buys weavers' products even though there are few.

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In the 1980s, the number of producer service industries increased rapidly in Tokyo, which was once called a “global city”. They experienced such rapid growth that agglomeration diseconomy became an issue. To tackle this problem, software industries, which are part of the producer service industry, were either dispersed to Tokyo metropolitan suburban centers or to other metropolitan areas on an intermetropolitan scale. In the 1990s, the information technology impacts on the location pattern of producer service industries led to much debate. Several studies reported not dispersion but a concentration of such businesses on several different scales. There is, however, a lack of location analysis that integrates different scales in their approaches. This paper aims to clarify the forces driving software industries' location choices in intrametropolitan areas by integrating two different scales.
The distribution pattern of software industries shows a concentration of firms in both city centers and suburban centers on a regional scale. However, high concentrations of software firms have also been noted around some train stations on a local scale. A nested logit model was performed to analyze the hierarchical location choices. The results revealed that firms focus on market size and office rental cost on a regional scale, but their choices are based on train station accessibility on a local scale. These results indicated that firms appreciated different factors in different spatial scales.
In the 1990s, due to land price decreases and employment loss in inner Tokyo, the situation changed significantly. Hence, software firms could locate more easily in inner Tokyo than in the 1980s. They frequently make face-to-face contact with their customers in the inner city by taking advantage of efficient public transportation networks.
Since the collapse of the bubble economy, Japanese transnational corporations have decreased their foreign direct investment. The demand for global networking information systems, which are provided by software industries, became limited in Tokyo. They now face competition from low-cost software industries in China and India. To survive in the fierce competitive environment, choosing the inner city of Tokyo in terms of office location is one way to revitalize their shrinking market.

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The Loess Plateau in China is a typical summer precipitation region with a rainfall season from May to September. We analyzed the seasonal variations in precipitation and wind systems transferring water vapor into the Loess Plateau using data averaged for 14 years from 1979 to 1992. The monthly average precipitation was analyzed using data provided by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The wind vector, geopotential height, and water vapor transport were calculated from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) reanalysis data.
There are some differences in the wind system during the rainy season, which cause rainfall over the Loess Plateau. Southwesterly winds originating from the Bay of Bengal reach the Loess Plateau due to the large pressure gradient in south and north China in July. This wind system transports a large amount of water vapor into the northeast of the Loess Plateau. In August, water vapor is transported into the Loess Plateau by south easterly winds from the Pacific Ocean anticyclone as the southwesterly wind over china weakens. Thus, the wind system transporting water vapor into the Loess Plateau changes from the southwesterly winds from the Bay of Bengal to the southeasterly winds from the northwest Pacific Ocean between July and August.

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