How to Create an Innovation Accelerator

Too many policy failures are fundamentally failures of knowledge. This has become particularly apparent during the recent financial and economic crisis, which is questioning the validity of mainstream scholarly paradigms. We propose to pursue a multi-disciplinary approach and to establish new institutional settings which remove or reduce obstacles impeding efficient knowledge creation. We provided suggestions on (i) how to modernize and improve the academic publication system, and (ii) how to support scientific coordination, communication, and co-creation in large-scale multi-disciplinary projects. Both constitute important elements of what we envision to be a novel ICT infrastructure called "Innovation Accelerator" or "Knowledge Accelerator".Comment: 32 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

How to create an innovation accelerator

Abstract.: The purpose of this White Paper of the EU Support Action "Visioneer” (see www.visioneer.ethz.ch) is to address the following goals: 1. Identify new ways of publishing, evaluating, and reporting scientific progress. 2. Promote ICT solutions to increase the awareness of new emerging trends. 3. Invent tools to enhance Europe's innovation potential. 4. Develop new strategies to support a sustainable technological development. 5. Lay the foundations for new ways to reach societal benefits and respond to industrial needs using IC

A revenue generation model for adoption of voice telephony applications

Amongst various Voice Telephony Applications discovered, IBM India has developed the Spoken Web which enables voice commerce capabilities that are ideally suitable for underprivileged rural communities. Admittedly, these communities are barred from fully utilising ICT enabled electronic commerce services such as the Internet for business marketing processes as a consequence of poor literacy and financial constraints. The advent of Voice Telephony Applications aids accessibility and participation of the underprivileged rural communities to the ICT world. It should be noted that users are not compelled to be computer savvy to make voice calls, but high voice call costs are the deterrent. Therefore, devising an appropriate Revenue Generation Model would enhance the accessibility and participation of the underprivileged rural communities to the ICT world. As guided by the Design Science Approach, and the Diffusion of Innovations and Social Exchange theories, this research project has discovered and applied five models such as the Freemium, Affiliation, Advertising, Incentives-driven and Subsidy within each development stage of Spoken Web. This research project is of the idea that reimbursing content providers through supporting the proposed Revenue Generation Model as a de facto solution will help in reducing voice call costs to the users of Voice Telephony Applications in future.Thesis (MCom) -- Faculty of Management and Commerce, 201

A revenue generation model for adoption of voice telephony applications

Amongst various Voice Telephony Applications discovered, IBM India has developed the Spoken Web which enables voice commerce capabilities that are ideally suitable for underprivileged rural communities. Admittedly, these communities are barred from fully utilising ICT enabled electronic commerce services such as the Internet for business marketing processes as a consequence of poor literacy and financial constraints. The advent of Voice Telephony Applications aids accessibility and participation of the underprivileged rural communities to the ICT world. It should be noted that users are not compelled to be computer savvy to make voice calls, but high voice call costs are the deterrent. Therefore, devising an appropriate Revenue Generation Model would enhance the accessibility and participation of the underprivileged rural communities to the ICT world. As guided by the Design Science Approach, and the Diffusion of Innovations and Social Exchange theories, this research project has discovered and applied five models such as the Freemium, Affiliation, Advertising, Incentives-driven and Subsidy within each development stage of Spoken Web. This research project is of the idea that reimbursing content providers through supporting the proposed Revenue Generation Model as a de facto solution will help in reducing voice call costs to the users of Voice Telephony Applications in future.Thesis (MCom) -- Faculty of Management and Commerce, 201

Strategic corporate responsibility orientation for sustainable global health governance: pharmaceutical value co-protection in transitioning economies

siirretty Doriast

Understanding and Responding to Climate Change: An Analysis of the Sundarbans World Heritage Area

Examining the understandings of and responses to anthropogenic climate change is important to help climatically vulnerable communities enhance their resilience. Lack of climate change understanding is an obstacle to appropriate climate response. Social understandings of climate change consist of general awareness, knowledge, and risk perceptions. Responses to climate change are derived from the understandings of the members of a society about the impacts and risks of climate change. The typical strategies in response to climate change are mitigation, adaptation, and resilience building. Responding to climate change is necessary at every scale to enhance the resilience of social and ecological systems. Climate change responses driven by management agencies are often helpful for vulnerable marginal communities, but not all the management interventions contribute to resilience equally. This research addresses the highly climatically vulnerable UNESCO World Heritage Sundarbans mangrove forest area (Bangladesh and India) as the study context. The mangroves biodiversity of the Sundarbans is important for buffering climate events, as well as for forest resource collection and tourism. The existing literature about the understandings of climate change of different key stakeholder groups of the Sundarbans is very limited. The available literature informs that awareness of climate change is low in the vulnerable Sundarbans area. The effectiveness of existing response strategies, particularly for adaptation to climate change, needs to be understood in relation to the efficient use of limited resources of those developing countries. It is also unknown how the Sundarbans World Heritage helps local people to think about and act in response to climate change. To fill these knowledge gaps, the aim of this thesis is to examine the social understandings of climate change and responses of management agencies to climate change in the Bangladesh Sundarbans including how the Sundarbans World Heritage Area is managed by Bangladesh and India. In doing so, a constructivist research paradigm is adopted aligning with a relativist ontology, subjectivist epistemology and qualitative methodology to explore understandings of and responses to climate change in the Sundarbans. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 42 stakeholders including community people, conservation and management agencies, tourism management organisations, tourism business operators, and tourists. Thematic analysis was utilised to analyse the qualitative materials of the interview programme. A range of documents including policy papers is analysed to validate and enrich the empirical materials. The findings of this research indicate that the stakeholders of the Bangladesh Sundarbans believe that climate change is anthropogenic, they have the first-hand experience of changes in the weather system. The degree of climate risk perceptions of the stakeholders can be defined by their relative vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity. The core response to climate change in the Bangladesh Sundarbans is adaptation where sustainability depends on how the adaptation interventions contribute to resilience. In the cross-border comparative analysis, this research finds that both Bangladesh and India focus on conserving the forest ecosystem in response to climate change, but legal enforcement systems, politics, and governance systems are shaping the success of conservation management. Overall, the thesis argues that the social resilience and ecological resilience of the Sundarbans are highly related, and tourism can be utilised for resilience building in the vulnerable World Heritage area. This thesis addresses several theoretical and empirical knowledge gaps in the current literature in the context of developing nations. Firstly, it expands the theoretical components (awareness, knowledge, and risk perceptions) with related attributes of the social understandings of climate change. Secondly, it examines the effectiveness of climate adaptation functions based on their relative contribution to building resilience. Thirdly, it utilises a cross-border analysis between Bangladesh and India to critically examine the climate change management actions by the management agencies of the Sundarbans in terms of local vulnerabilities, forest biodiversity, World Heritage and tourism; and proposes three dimensions – community, forest, wildlife - of biodiversity conservation for resilience. These contributions have implications beyond the Bangladesh and Indian contexts, with application to a range of scenarios where researchers are seeking greater insights into understandings of and responses to climate change

Proceedings of the International Conference on Human and Economic Resources

This volume consists of papers presented at First Coonference in Economics co-organized by Izmir Univeristy of Economics and the State University of New York at Cortland on May 24-25, 2006 in Izmir, Turkey. The theme of the conference is "Human and Economic Resources".Human and Economic Resources are high on the economic agenda of most leading economies. No doubt, this is due to the strong relationship between Human and Economic Resources and growth and welfare. Papers presented cover issues such as quality of basic education, improvement of labor market information and analysis, enhancing skills in key sectors including small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), mobility of skilled persons, enhancing quality, productivity, efficiency of the labor force and the workplace, strengthening cooperation to support trade and investment liberalization.Globalization, international trade, developing countries

Approccio bioclimatico

La concettualizzazione dell’”approccio bioclimatico” alla progettazione edilizia, nell’ambito della letteratura scientifica, trova una prima e specifica formalizzazione negli anni sessanta, soprattutto conseguentemente alla spinta e all’influenza di innovativi studi condotti da V. Olgyay e B. Givoni , benché specifiche indicazioni circa l’importanza degli approcci progettuali basati sullo studio dell’interazione tra architettura e clima, risalgano all’opera di Vitruvio “De Architectura”, trattato scritto nel II sec. D.C. (libro primo: “la scelta dei luoghi salubri”, “L’orientamento della rete viaria rispetto alla direzione dei venti”; libro sesto: “L’edilizia privata in relazione a climi e latitudini”) e, nel corso del XX secolo, siano state illustrate e sottolineate da architetti quali W. Gropius , F.L. Wright (nelle “Usonian House”, dove ci si basa su un alternativo sistema di sfruttamento dell’energia solare e dei moti convettivi dell’aria per il condizionamento invernale ed estivo dell’edificio) e, in Italia, teorizzate da studiosi come G. Vinaccia e G. Rigotti . Nonostante la formalizzazione di importanti studi tesi a confermare e valorizzare l’importanza dell’approccio bioclimatico nella progettazione architettonica e urbanistica, definendone i principi e le caratteristiche peculiari, per molti anni si è continuato a progettare ed edificare in maniera poco sensibile a tali istanze e approcci: “…nessuno si azzarderebbe soltanto a pensare di costruire un edificio senza il necessario controllo statico. Eppure non si è ancora convinti della utilità di progettare tenendo conto dei parametri del benessere in generale e di quello termico in particolare...Si progetta e si costruisce ancora senza preoccuparsi ad esempio dei rumori e delle vicende climatiche alle quali l’edificio verrà assoggettato. Si ha una fiducia illimitata nello spirito di sopportazione da prova di nevrosi dell’utente medio e si confida nelle capacità risolutive dell’impianto….” (D. Del Bino, 1983). Attualmente, la presa di coscienza delle conseguenze, di ordine ambientale (cambiamenti climatici, esaurimento delle risorse energetiche non rinnovabili, ecc.) alle quali ha progressivamente condotto questo atteggiamento culturale, ha portato alla definizione di normative di livello comunitario (recepite diffusamente dai vari Paesi) che pongono importanti vincoli alla progettazione delle nuove realizzazioni edilizie e degli interventi di ristrutturazione di rigenerazione urbana e dell’edificato preesistente. L’”approccio bioclimatico”, è stato quindi rivalutato e ricaricato di nuove e importanti valenze in funzione degli obiettivi di contrasto ai cambiamenti climatici in corso, al centro dei quali, la tematica energetica riferita al contesto costruito, riveste un ruolo fondamentale e sostanziale, soprattutto in relazione al fatto che “L’energia impiegata nel settore residenziale e terziario, composto per la maggior parte di edifici, rappresenta oltre il 40% del consumo finale di energia della Comunità. Essendo questo un settore in espansione, i suoi consumi di energia e quindi le sue emissioni di biossido di carbonio sono destinati ad aumentare” (premessa alla Direttiva 2002/91 CE del Parlamento Europeo sul rendimento energetico nell’edilizia ).The conceptualization of the "bioclimatic approach" to building design, in the context of scientific literature, finds a first and specific formalization in the sixties, especially as a result of the thrust and influence of innovative studies conducted by V. Olgyay and B. Givoni, although specific indications about the importance of design approaches based on the study of the interaction between architecture and climate, go back to the work of Vitruvius "De Architectura", a treatise written in the second century. A.D. (first book: "the choice of healthy places", "The orientation of the road network with respect to the direction of the winds"; sixth book: "Private building in relation to climates and latitudes") and, during the twentieth century, have been illustrated and underlined by architects such as W. Gropius, FL Wright (in the "Usonian House", where it is based on an alternative system of exploitation of solar energy and convective air motions for the winter and summer conditioning of the building) and, in Italy, theorized by scholars such as G. Vinaccia and G. Rigotti. Despite the formalization of important studies aimed at confirming and enhancing the importance of the bioclimatic approach in architectural and urban planning, defining its principles and peculiar characteristics, for many years we have continued to design and build in a way that is not very sensitive to these requests and approaches: “… no one would just dare to think of building a building without the necessary static control. Yet we are not yet convinced of the usefulness of designing taking into account the parameters of well-being in general and of thermal well-being in particular ... We still design and build without worrying, for example, about the noises and climatic events to which the building will be subjected . You have unlimited confidence in the spirit of neurosis-proof endurance of the average user and trust in the resolving capabilities of the system .... " (D. Del Bino, 1983). Currently, the awareness of the environmental consequences (climate change, depletion of non-renewable energy resources, etc.) to which this cultural attitude has progressively led, has led to the definition of community-level regulations (widely implemented by the various countries ) which place important constraints on the design of new buildings and urban regeneration and pre-existing building renovation interventions. The "bioclimatic approach" has therefore been re-evaluated and reloaded with new and important values ​​in relation to the objectives of contrasting climate change in progress, at the center of which, the energy issue referred to the built context, plays a fundamental and substantial role, above all in relation to the fact that “The energy used in the residential and tertiary sector, composed for the most part of buildings, represents over 40% of the final energy consumption of the Community. As this is an expanding sector, its energy consumption and therefore its carbon dioxide emissions are destined to increase "(introduction to Directive 2002/91 EC of the European Parliament on energy performance in buildings)