Advances on the investigation of landslides by space-borne synthetic aperture radar interferometry

Landslides are destructive geohazards to people and infrastructure, resulting in hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars of damage every year. Therefore, mapping the rate of deformation of such geohazards and understanding their mechanics is of paramount importance to mitigate the resulting impacts and properly manage the associated risks. In this paper, the main outcomes relevant to the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Dragon-5 initiative cooperation project ID 59,339 “Earth observation for seismic hazard assessment and landslide early warning system” are reported. The primary goals of the project are to further develop advanced SAR/InSAR and optical techniques to investigate seismic hazards and risks, detect potential landslides in wide regions, and demonstrate EO-based landslide early warning system over selected landslides. This work only focuses on the landslide hazard content of the project, and thus, in order to achieve these objectives, the following tasks were developed up to now: a) a procedure for phase unwrapping errors and tropospheric delay correction; b) an improvement of a cross-platform SAR offset tracking method for the retrieval of long-term ground displacements; c) the application of polarimetric SAR interferometry (PolInSAR) to increase the number and quality of monitoring points in landslide-prone areas; d) the semiautomatic mapping and preliminary classification of active displacement areas on wide regions; e) the modeling and identification of landslides in order to identify triggering factors or predict future displacements; and f) the application of an InSAR-based landslide early warning system on a selected site. The achieved results, which mainly focus on specific sensitive regions, provide essential assets for planning present and future scientific activities devoted to identifying, mapping, characterizing, monitoring and predicting landslides, as well as for the implementation of early warning systems.This work was supported by the ESA-MOST China DRAGON-5 project with ref. 59339, by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, the State Agency of Research (AEI), and the European Funds for Regional Development under grant [grant number PID2020-117303GB-C22], by the Conselleria de Innovación, Universidades, Ciencia y Sociedad Digital in the framework of the project CIAICO/2021/335, by the Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 41874005 and 41929001], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University [grant numbers 300102269712 and 300102269303], and China Geological Survey Project [grant numbers DD20190637 and DD20190647]. Xiaojie Liu and Liuru Hu have been funded by Chinese Scholarship Council Grants Ref. [grant number 202006560031] and [grant number 202004180062], respectively

Innovation as a Nonlinear Process, the Scientometric Perspective, and the Specification of an "Innovation Opportunities Explorer"

The process of innovation follows non-linear patterns across the domains of science, technology, and the economy. Novel bibliometric mapping techniques can be used to investigate and represent distinctive, but complementary perspectives on the innovation process (e.g., "demand" and "supply") as well as the interactions among these perspectives. The perspectives can be represented as "continents" of data related to varying extents over time. For example, the different branches of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in the Medline database provide sources of such perspectives (e.g., "Diseases" versus "Drugs and Chemicals"). The multiple-perspective approach enables us to reconstruct facets of the dynamics of innovation, in terms of selection mechanisms shaping localizable trajectories and/or resulting in more globalized regimes. By expanding the data with patents and scholarly publications, we demonstrate the use of this multi-perspective approach in the case of RNA Interference (RNAi). The possibility to develop an "Innovation Opportunities Explorer" is specified.Comment: Technology Analysis and Strategic Management (forthcoming in 2013

Global Ethics and Nanotechnology: A Comparison of the Nanoethics Environments of the EU and China

The following article offers a brief overview of current nanotechnology policy, regulation and ethics in Europe and The People’s Republic of China with the intent of noting (dis)similarities in approach, before focusing on the involvement of the public in science and technology policy (i.e. participatory Technology Assessment). The conclusions of this article are, that (a) in terms of nanosafety as expressed through policy and regulation, China PR and the EU have similar approaches towards, and concerns about, nanotoxicity—the official debate on benefits and risks is not markedly different in the two regions; (b) that there is a similar economic drive behind both regions’ approach to nanodevelopment, the difference being the degree of public concern admitted; and (c) participation in decision-making is fundamentally different in the two regions. Thus in China PR, the focus is on the responsibility of the scientist; in the EU, it is about government accountability to the public. The formulation of a Code of Conduct for scientists in both regions (China PR’s predicted for 2012) reveals both similarity and difference in approach to nanotechnology development. This may change, since individual responsibility alone cannot guide S&T development, and as public participation is increasingly seen globally as integral to governmental decision-making

Assessing the potential for knowledge-based development in transition countries. Bruegel Working Paper 2010/01, May 2010

This Working Paper by Bruegel Senior Fellow Reinhilde Veugelers examines the potential for a knowledge-based growth path in transition countries of central and eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The paper looks closely at how total-factor productivity, a residual growth factor commonly interpreted as reflecting technological progress, drives growth rates in these economies which exhibit a much lower GDP per capita compared to the EU15 or the United States. By analysing the prerequisites for knowledge-based growth, the author explains why transition countries are at a systemic disadvantage relative to the EU15, US and Japan and have limited potential for knowledge-based growth

The last five years of Big Data Research in Economics, Econometrics and Finance: Identification and conceptual analysis

Today, the Big Data term has a multidimensional approach where five main characteristics stand out: volume, velocity, veracity, value and variety. It has changed from being an emerging theme to a growing research area. In this respect, this study analyses the literature on Big Data in the Economics, Econometrics and Finance field. To do that, 1.034 publications from 2015 to 2019 were evaluated using SciMAT as a bibliometric and network analysis software. SciMAT offers a complete approach of the field and evaluates the most cited and productive authors, countries and subject areas related to Big Data. Lastly, a science map is performed to understand the intellectual structure and the main research lines (themes)

Globalization of R&D and China – Empirical Observations and Policy Implications

As one of the world’s largest recipients of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), China is emerging as a key global player in Research and Development (R&D). This rapid increase in R&D investment is mainly attributed to the effort of strengthening the indigenous innovation capacity of domestic actors and, to an increasing extent, to the process of globalization of R&D with multinational enterprises as key driving force. This paper provides a detailed overview of the relative importance of foreign R&D in China based on quantitative mapping in terms of R&D inputs, outputs and local linkages in R&D-related activities, combined with an in-depth description of the nature of foreign R&D activities. Our empirical observation suggests that the growing importance of China in the globalization of R&D is more than a ‘flash-in-the-pan’. On one hand, China is facing new challenges, but at the same time is attempting to seize the “window of opportunity” to compete for knowledge and human resources through structural adjustments and new policy initiatives. On the other hand, multinational enterprises from OECD countries are not only intensifying, but also diversifying their activities in a larger number of R&D intensive sectors in China. In such a rapid and dynamic development, China seems to emerge not only as an important source of R&D but also a key magnet of global R&D operations.China; R&D; Globalization; Multinationals

Nanotechnology Publications and Patents: A Review of Social Science Studies and Search Strategies

This paper provides a comprehensive review of more than 120 social science studies in nanoscience and technology, all of which analyze publication and patent data. We conduct a comparative analysis of bibliometric search strategies that these studies use to harvest publication and patent data related to nanoscience and technology. We implement these strategies on 2006 publication data and find that Mogoutov and Kahane (2007), with their evolutionary lexical query search strategy, extract the highest number of records from the Web of Science. The strategies of Glanzel et al. (2003), Noyons et al. (2003), Porter et al. (2008) and Mogoutov and Kahane (2007) produce very similar ranking tables of the top ten nanotechnology subject areas and the top ten most prolific countries and institutions.nanotechnology, research and development, productivity, publications, patents, bibliometric analysis, search strategy