SciTech News Volume 71, No. 2 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 5 Chemistry Division 8 Engineering Division 9 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 12 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction and Design Section of the Engineering Division 14 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 16 Advertisements IEEE

Blade Runner economics: will innovation lead the economic recovery?

According to Schumpeterian theories, economic expansions are associated with the introduction of successful new products, processes and services while depressions are linked to stagnant periods with few innovations. Can the economic crisis set in motion in 2008 be explained by the inability to innovate and upgrade production? And, conversely, will an economic recovery require a new stream of innovations? Drawing on the debate which emerged after the 1970s economic crisis, this discussion paper tries to assess whether it is likely that the next long-term expansion will be linked to a new stream of innovations. While most evidence suggests that ICTs continue to provide the back-bone of economic activities, there is the prospect that biotechnology will eventually start to fulfil the promise envisaged over 30 years ago in the film Blade Runner

Navigating Complexity in an Internet of Things Era: A Case Study of Entrepreneurial Leadership in a Silicon Valley IoT Startup

Research into the inner-workings of high-tech startups in the field of leadership within the United States is needed. The accelerating impact of technology on society is clear. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a primary technology of an emergent era, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). Silicon Valley startups germinate many of these Industry 4.0 IoT technologies. The current understanding of leadership in IoT startups is often based on media reports. recounting villains and heroes. This is not that. This is a qualitative, normative case study based on the researcher’s insider status at an IoT startup. Insider case study research into leadership of this type is sparse. Based on a review of the literature, multiple one-on-one interviews were conducted with leaders in an IoT startup. An additional 12 interviews were conducted with leaders in the IoT startup field. This study asks: What does it take to lead an IoT startup in Silicon Valley? The data supported the use of Goffman’s (1959b) dramaturgy as an analytical tool for leadership. The leadership at IoT Inc. took on prescribed roles in formal and informal settings. Bourdieu’s (2020) social capital, habitus, and field concepts are also supported for analyzing IoT startups. The individuals at IoT Inc. used social capital, and exhibited habitus based on experiences and expertise while interacting with the IoT field. Chia’s (2013) process-orientation and application of knowledge types like techne, metis, and phronesis is supported. Leaders in the case study exhibited complexity-based leadership when pursuing opportunities in an environment of constrained resources. The data demonstrated that entrepreneurial leaders with accumulated social capital and habitus, who understand the dramaturgical context of an emergent technology field, can use forms of expert pragmatic knowledge to navigate the complexity in pursuit of a vision

Revisiting De Solla Price: growth dynamics studies of various subjects over last one hundred years

17-35The stalwart historian of science, Derek J. De Solla Price delivered a series of lectures at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1962, which was dedicated to discussing science and its interaction with society. The collection of these lectures was published in 1963 as a book entitled Little Science, Big Science. Here, Price empirically established that the initial exponential growth pattern of literature reaches a ceiling after a certain time span, which results a logistic growth pattern. This paper analyses Price's empirical theory on the basis of 198 articles that presented growth of literature of variant subjects published since 1913 to 2018. In all, 214 growth models were reported by the 198 articles that analysed growth of literature of more than 50 subjects. It is found that growth patterns reported by nearly 50% articles followed Price's empirical theory, i.e., exponential and logistic growth pattern while remaining 50% articles followed other growth patterns, viz., power model, linear model, etc. All growth models reported by the 198 articles were broadly categorised into five groups on the basis of statistical characteristics, viz., (exponential + logistic), growing without definite pattern (GWDP), linear, non-linear and decaying models. The null hypothesis formulated states that 214 growth models observed by different subjects described in 198 articles will follow either of the five patterns that will be guided by Bradford's Law of Bibliographic Scattering. The null hypothesis is accepted by Chi-square test. It is inferred that the distribution of different models of growth of literature is guided by Bradford's Law where the core or nucleus zone is occupied by the logistic and exponential model, i.e. Price's empirical model prevails in Bradford's nuclear (core) zone

An exploration of innovation in the Australian minerals industry : an innovation systems approach

Comparatively little attention has been given to the role of innovation in Australia's minerals industry. Historical accounts of Australian development acknowledge the major economic and social advances derived from exploitation of mineral resources. However, a capacity for innovation is not seen as a factor in this success. Indeed, Australia's continued exploitation of its mineral endowment is typically seen as a handicap to broader economic diversification, particularly through the creation of knowledge-based industries and Australian engagement in the knowledge economy. This exploratory case study of innovation in Australia's minerals industry is based upon an innovation systems theoretical framework, and uses the innovation systems approach as a heuristic to guide the collection and analysis of empirical information. Its research design organises this exploration around three levels of analysis or analytical lenses, each with a distinct focus upon minerals innovation. In each level of analysis, empirically derived evidence is presented in case study subunits of minerals innovation that provide the base of evidence required for studies of innovation systems. The role of innovation in the minerals industry is explored in terms of its systemic nature, namely, a minerals innovation system (MinIS) . The first level of analysis, an historical view of innovation in the minerals industry, maps the origins, characteristics and performance of a minerals innovation system. World-leading capabilities in radical processing innovations existed in the Australian minerals industry at the end of the nineteenth century. An early MinIS evolved during this period but lacked key public sector components characteristic of successful innovation systems. Access to international sources of knowledge and expertise, particularly in the USA, supported Australian advances in processing innovation and professionalisation of the industry. Systemic limitations in the public sector of the early MinIS restricted further growth and development of the minerals industry, and resource-led industrialisation. By the 1980s the MinIS was domestically complete, and a continuity of innovative capacity existed throughout the industry. The second level of analysis examines more precisely how innovation takes place in the Australian minerals industry. Distinct characteristics and trends within the MinIS were identified for four of the key the minerals industry activities, including exploration, extraction, processing and environmental management. Case study subunits demonstrate that the MinIS holds considerable capacity for technological innovation, and features long­ term collaboration, international technology transfer and commercialisation of radical process innovation. A general trend across minerals firms recently is to improve productivity and safety through the incorporation of critical enabling technologies. The resulting conditions of demand for high-tech services and products has created a new innovative knowledge-based industry, the Mining Technology Services Sector

採餌問題のための確率的探索戦略の設計と最適化

Autonomous robot’s search strategy is the set of rules that it employs while looking for targets in its environment. In this study, the stochastic movement of robots in unknown environments is statistically studied, using a Levy walk method. Biological systems (e.g., foraging animals) provide useful models for designing optimal stochastic search algorithms. Observations of biological systems, ranging from large animals to immune cells, have inspired the design of efficient search strategies that incorporate stochastic movement. In this study, we seek to identify the optimal stochastic strategies for autonomous robots. Given the complexity of interaction between the robot and its environment, optimization must be performed in high-dimensional parameter space. The effect of the explanatory variable on the forger robot movement with the minimum required energy was also studied using experiments done by the response surface methodology (RSM). We analyzed the extent to which search efficiency requires these characteristics, using RSM. Correlation between the involved parameters via a Lévy walk process was examined through designing a setup for the experiments to determine the interaction of the involved variables and the robot movement. The extracted statistical model represents the priority influence of those variables on the robot by developing the statistical model of the mentioned unknown area. The efficiency of a simple strategy was investigated based on Lévy walk search in two-dimensional landscapes with clumped resource distributions. We show how RSM techniques can be used to identify optimal parameter values as well as to describe how sensitive efficiency reacts to the changes in these values. Here, we identified optimal parameter for designing robot by using stochastic search pattern and applying mood-switching criteria on a mixture of speed and sensor and μ to determine how many robots are needed for a solution. Fractal criterion-based robot strategies were more efficient than those based on the resource encounter criterion, and the former was found to be more robust to changes in resource distribution as well.九州工業大学博士学位論文 学位記番号:生工博甲第358号 学位授与年月日:令和元年9月20日1 Introduction|2 Levy Walk|3 Design of Experiment (DOE)|4 Response Surface Methodology|5 Results and Discussions|6 Conclusion九州工業大学令和元年

Historic Resources Study of Pullman National Monument, Illinois

This Historic Resource Study is a Baseline Research Report for Pullman National Monument. This HRS summarizes the historical writings about Pullman, provides context for the significant themes identified in its founding document, collates collections of primary documents and historical resources that are important sources of information on those themes, and recommends questions that will require additional study. These cultural resources include primary historical materials in archives and oral history collections, as well as architectural, archaeological, museum collections, or landscape resources. While this report includes new historical narrative based in original archival research, other sections present synthetic reviews of existing publications. National Park Service staff will use this document and included resources as they make management decisions and design interpretive programming. In addition to this report and its appendices—which are only published digitally—the research team deposited its entire library with the monument staff, including nearly 2,000 references and thousands of pages of digitally-imaged archival documents

Characterising and modeling the co-evolution of transportation networks and territories

The identification of structuring effects of transportation infrastructure on territorial dynamics remains an open research problem. This issue is one of the aspects of approaches on complexity of territorial dynamics, within which territories and networks would be co-evolving. The aim of this thesis is to challenge this view on interactions between networks and territories, both at the conceptual and empirical level, by integrating them in simulation models of territorial systems.Comment: Doctoral dissertation (2017), Universit\'e Paris 7 Denis Diderot. Translated from French. Several papers compose this PhD thesis; overlap with: arXiv:{1605.08888, 1608.00840, 1608.05266, 1612.08504, 1706.07467, 1706.09244, 1708.06743, 1709.08684, 1712.00805, 1803.11457, 1804.09416, 1804.09430, 1805.05195, 1808.07282, 1809.00861, 1811.04270, 1812.01473, 1812.06008, 1908.02034, 2012.13367, 2102.13501, 2106.11996

The Biological Framework for a Mathematical Universe

The mathematical universe hypothesis is a theory that the physical universe is not merely described by mathematics, but is mathematics, specifically a mathematical structure. Our research provides evidence that the mathematical structure of the universe is biological in nature and all systems, processes, and objects within the universe function in harmony with biological patterns. Living organisms are the result of the universe’s biological pattern and are embedded within their physiology the patterns of this biological universe. Therefore physiological patterns in living organisms can be used as models to structurally map analogies from the biological domain to any target domain to reveal and understand the biological nature of the target domain. Our paper explores various analogies, structurally mapping a red blood cell to a cup; proteins produced from ribosomes to music produced from instruments; a beating heart to the melting and freezing of Antartica; cells, tissue, organs and blood, to people, organizations, industries, and money, and; bio-economic concepts in cellular society to socioeconomic concepts in human society. It also discusses how phenomena in cellular mitosis can help explain phenomena in the universe, such as black holes, dark matter, dark energy, and the structure of the universe. Building upon the concept of perennial wisdom, our research has provided evidence that the ideas of a biological universe were expressed across many past cultures and historical periods. The implications of this theory are vast, encompassing fields such as physics, science, philosophy, religion, law, economics, politics, and engineering, thus serving as a unifying theory for all knowledge. Our theory is supported by meta-analysis of scientific, historic, and religious literature, observations and first principles logic