Naturwall: active timber wall for renovation of existent buildings

The renovation of old buildings is actually the challenge to cope with increased effort in order to reduce climate global change, channeling more investment and awareness in this sense, defining more experimentations and find innovative solutions. The difficulty of carrying out an intervention on the existing buildings necessarily arise from the lack of information on the existing structure and the lack of coordinated processes between the multidisciplinary skills involved, as well as a difficulty to optimize the process that would make it even more competitive on the renovation work instead on the new construction. Naturwall is an innovative energy saving system for existent buildings by using wood in multifunctional components able to mitigate the environmental effort in building management. The project meant to introduce an industrialized design method in the renovation of existing build environment that highlights opportunities gave by "off site" production and parametric design approach, without neglecting the aesthetical values and the possibility to change the architectural image of residential and non residential constructions. The project aims to create a representative model of solution that will be promoted in Italy and widespread in other similar contex

Resistant Hypertension

The most common causes of therapeutic failure in hypertensive control are undiscovered secondary causes of hypertension and lack of patient/doctor compliance. In about 10% of cases, it can be attributed to resistant hypertension caused by a hyperactivity of the sympathetic nervous system, condition with a high cardiovascular risk to the patient. Resistant hypertension is failure to diminish blood pressure values to <140/90 mmHg (<140/85 mmHg for diabetic patients) with a lifestyle method and prescription of least three antihypertensive drugs in optimal doses, including a diuretic, or when patients use four or more antihypertensive drugs regardless of blood pressure control. Patients with resistant hypertension are typically presented with a long-standing history of poorly controlled hypertension. Early diagnosis and adequate treatment are needed to avoid end organ damage and to prevent cardiorenovascular remodeling. Cardiorenovascular morbidity and mortality are significantly higher in resistant hypertensive population. The need for the individualization of therapy and the use of the management strategies are also given weight in the treatment of resistant hypertension patients, including optional, innovative therapies, like a renal denervation or baroreflex activation. New innovative device therapies create an additional novel pathway of blood pressure-lowering procedures and should be prescribed by a specialist hypertension clinic

Connected systems in smart cities: use-cases of integration of buildings information with smart systems

Realisation of smart cities is highly dependent on innovative connections between the deployed systems in the cities. This implies that successfully deployment of individual smart systems which meet citizens’ needs, is not sufficient to make a city smart. Indeed, the smart cities require to innovate and connect establish infrastructures for the citizens and organisations. To enable connected systems in smart cities, the possibilities to exchange and integration information between different systems is essential. Construction industry is one of the domains which owns huge amount of valuable information asset. Buildings information can be utilised to create initiatives associated with various domains like, urban and infrastructure planning, maintenance/facility management, and energy monitoring. However, there are some barriers to realise these initiatives. This paper introduces and elaborates the details about three use-cases which need to utilise buildings information to present innovative smart services. The three use cases are: 1) Energy Usage Monitoring for positive energy usage district areas in Smart Cities (a use case from River City-anonymous name of the city); 2) Services for Facility Management Industry (a use-case from Estates office in Quay University); 3) Safety & risk management for buildings in 3D Hack event in Dublin. Each use-case considers various stakeholders’ perspectives. Also they include elaborated details related to the barriers and challenges associated with utilisation and integration of buildings information. This paper concludes by the detailed barriers to benefit from valuable buildings information to create innovative smart services. Further, recommendations are provided to overcome the presented challenges

Regional Innovativeness Strategies And Their Impact On Innovativeness Of Provinces In Poland. A Spatio-temporal Analysis

Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) have existed in Poland for almost ten years and in this period they have been developed, accepted and implemented in all provinces. The basic aim of Regional Innovativeness Strategies is to support regional or local authorities and other regional development organizations in defining and implementing an effective system of supporting innovativeness in the region. The current scope of realizing projects connected with RIS is different in particular provinces. The author of the paper attempts to evaluate the effects of implementation of pro-innovativeness solution included in Regional Innovation Strategies with particular consideration of their influence on the growth of region innovativeness level in Poland

Determinants of cooperation with institutional partners and innovation - performance of Polish manufacturing enterprises. Research outcomes

The aim of this paper is to assess of the influence of institutional cooperation (with research institutes and universities) on the innovation performance of companies as well as determinants of such cooperation. The analysis was based on data from the Polish version of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) for 2008-2010. The sample consists of 7783 medium-sized and large manufacturing enterprises from sections C to E. Based on the results of a structural equation model it has been concluded that there is a statistically significant relation between institutional cooperation and innovation performance of the researched companies, as well as (in the case of cooperation with Polish companies) in the introduction of product innovations new for the country, Europe or the world. The analysis of critical values between parameters enables the establishment of a hierarchy of company features which determines such cooperation. These include the system of employee incentives for the creation of intellectual property, company size and own R&D -department. The application of the employee incentive system better explains the decision to establish cooperation with Polish companies than with foreign ones. However a feature which is not institutional cooperation friendly is belonging to a larger group of companies. Key words: institutional cooperation, innovation -performance, Polish CIS, PolandPreparation and printing funded by the National Agency for Research and Development under project “Kreator Innowacyjności – wparcie dla Przedsiębiorczości akademickiej

Managing stimulation of regional innovation subjects’ interaction in the digital economy

The reported study was funded by RFBR according to the research project No. 18-01000204_a, No. 16-07-00031_a, No. 18-07-00975_a.Purpose: The article is devoted to solving fundamental scientific problems in the scope of the development of forecasting modeling methods and evaluation of regional company’s innovative development parameters, synthesizing new methods of big data processing and intelligent analysis, as well as methods of knowledge eliciting and forecasting the dynamics of regional innovation developments through benchmarking. Design/Methodology/Approach: For regional economic development, it is required to identify the mechanisms that contribute to (or impede) the innovative economic development of the regions. The synergetic approach to management is based on the fact that there are multiple paths of IS development (scenarios with different probabilities), although it is necessary to reach the required attractor by meeting the management goals. Findings: The present research is focused on obtainment of new knowledge in creating a technique of multi-agent search, collection and processing of data on company’s innovative development indicators, models and methods of intelligent analysis of the collected data. Practical Implications: The author developed recommendations before starting the process of institutional changes in a specific regional innovation system. The article formulates recommendations on the implementation of institutional changes in the region taking into account the sociocultural characteristics of the region’s population. Originality/Value: It is the first time, when a complex of models and methods is based on the use of a convergent model of large data volumes processing is presented.peer-reviewe

Transition UGent: a bottom-up initiative towards a more sustainable university

The vibrant think-tank ‘Transition UGent’ engaged over 250 academics, students and people from the university management in suggesting objectives and actions for the Sustainability Policy of Ghent University (Belgium). Founded in 2012, this bottom-up initiative succeeded to place sustainability high on the policy agenda of our university. Through discussions within 9 working groups and using the transition management method, Transition UGent developed system analyses, sustainability visions and transition paths on 9 fields of Ghent University: mobility, energy, food, waste, nature and green, water, art, education and research. At the moment, many visions and ideas find their way into concrete actions and policies. In our presentation we focused on the broad participative process, on the most remarkable structural results (e.g. a formal and ambitious Sustainability Vision and a student-led Sustainability Office) and on recent actions and experiments (e.g. a sustainability assessment on food supply in student restaurants, artistic COP21 activities, ambitious mobility plans, food leftovers projects, an education network on sustainability controversies, a transdisciplinary platform on Sustainable Cities). We concluded with some recommendations and reflections on this transition approach, on the important role of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ and student involvement, on lock-ins and bottlenecks, and on convincing skeptical leaders

Innovative competitiveness of russian regions

The article analyses the competitive challenges of Russian regional economies and proposes ways of selecting competitive priorities. The author assumes that selection of priorities for improving a region’s innovative competitiveness should involve not only its innovative R&D potential but also the effects that innovative and socio-economic development of the regions have on each other. This is because a region’s innovative competitiveness manifests itself in both its ability to create innovation and its increased resistance based on such innovation, and, therefore, it is closely related to its industrial and technological type from the outset. The analysis of research and innovative potentials of Russian regions shows that their innovative competitiveness has been deteriorating largely for the reason that modern Russia lacks any significant groups of political influence whose interests would be closely related to the development of the engineering industry, high technologies, and restoration of a sound industrial structure. The article shows mutual dependence between the socially required level of support to the regions’ innovative competitiveness and the innovation requirements of the industries with prevailing levels of technological efficiency. The author proposes a methodological approach to the selection of priorities for increasing the innovative competitiveness of Russian regions. Such priorities should take into account maintenance and enhancement of the research and innovative potentials of the country, on the one hand, and the need to improve regions’ sustainability, on the other hand. With the contemporary statistic base in mind, the author has created an integrated development priority index for regional innovation centers intended to increase the resistance of the manufacturers with various research intensity levels. The article rates Russian regions according to the technological complexity (high, mid, low, resource-extracting) required by the innovation centers to be created taking metallurgy as an example. The author suggests ways to increase the innovative competitiveness of Russian regions of various industrial and technological types. The article is intended for experts in theoretical and practical management of innovation.The article has been prepared with the support of the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation, Project 14-02-00331 "Region’s Innovative and Technological Development: Assessment, Projections, and Ways of Progressing.