Focal Organisations and Eco–innovation in Consumption and Production Systems

© 2017 This paper explores the role of ‘focal organisations’ in stimulating eco-innovation at the locus of greatest environmental impacts within a consumption and production system (CPS). Focal organisations by definition have considerable power in these systems. We combine insights from the innovation studies literature with the sustainable/green supply chain literature to explore how focal organisations exercise this power in pursuit of system-wide sustainability. Through a case study of the milk CPS in the UK, we illustrate different strategies of the focal organisations to stimulate incremental eco-innovation along existing trajectories. We also show how, despite focal organisation support, radical eco-innovation is inhibited by inherent path dependencies and other institutional dimensions of the CPS. By demonstrating the complementarities of positioning the case study findings within two synergistic literatures, this paper contributes theoretically by extending and elaborating eco-innovation studies. It also has a practical utility for policy makers seeking to chart a path to more sustainable CPS by relying on focal organisations

Institutionalising the organic labelling scheme in China: a legitimacy perspective

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. Transitioning towards organic consumption and production has been widely promoted as a more sustainable alternative for urban and rural food systems. Our paper shows how a focus on legitimacy can shed light on current barriers to deeper institutionalisation of the organic labelling scheme in China. Based upon documentary analysis, personal observations and over 70 qualitative interviews we identify consequential concerns amongst China's small scale farmers, limited support by the Chinese central government, and procedural problems as the main barriers. We discuss strategies to overcome these barriers, for example tighter certification procedures or more participatory arrangements. Our work contributes to the legitimacy, product labelling and food safety literatures as well as bourgeoning discussions on how to facilitate more sustainable consumption and production in China

Applying Game Thinking to Slips, Trips and Falls Prevention

© 2017 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved. Gamification is about the way in which 'game thinking' can engage participants and change behaviours in real, non-game contexts. This paper explores how game thinking can be applied to help prevent slips, trips and falls (STF), which are the largest cause of accidental death in older people across Europe. The paper contributes to the assistive technology, digital health and computer science/human behaviour communities by responding to a gap in the literature for papers detailing the innovation process of developing interventions to improve health and quality of life. The aim of the paper is of interest to the many stakeholders involved in enabling older people to live independent, confident, healthy and safe lives in the community

Analysing the correlation between social network analysis measures and performance of students in social network-based engineering education

Social network-based engineering education (SNEE) is designed and implemented as a model of Education 3.0 paradigm. SNEE represents a new learning methodology, which is based on the concept of social networks and represents an extended model of project-led education. The concept of social networks was applied in the real-life experiment, considering two different dimensions: (1) to organize the education process as a social network-based process; and (2) to analyze the students' interactions in the context of evaluation of the students learning performance. The objective of this paper is to present a new model for students evaluation based on their behavior during the course and its validation in comparison with the traditional model of students' evaluation. The validation of the new evaluation model is made through an analysis of the correlation between social network analysis measures (degree centrality, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and average tie strength) and the grades obtained by students (grades for quality of work, grades for volume of work, grades for diversity of work, and final grades) in a social network-based engineering education. The main finding is that the obtained correlation results can be used to make the process of the students' performance evaluation based on students interactions (behavior) analysis, to make the evaluation partially automatic, increasing the objectivity and productivity of teachers and allowing a more scalable process of evaluation. The results also contribute to the behavioural theory of learning performance evaluation. More specific findings related to the correlation analysis are: (1) the more different interactions a student had (degree centrality) and the more frequently the student was between the interaction paths of other students (betweenness centrality), the better was the quality of the work; (2) all five social network measures had a positive and strong correlation with the grade for volume of work and with the final graThe authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, through the Grants "Projeto Estrategico-UI 252-2011-2012'' reference PEst-OE/EME/UI0252/2011, "Ph.D. Scholarship Grant'' reference SFRH/BD/85672/2012, and the support of Parallel Planes Lda.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Noonops.

48 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm. Part of the oonopid PBI project. Cf. acknowledgments.A new genus, Noonops, is established to contain 23 species of soft-bodied, New World oonopine spiders that differ from those of Oonops Templeton and similar genera in having the male palpal bulb fused to the cymbium, and from those of Wanops Chamberlin and Ivie and Oonopoides Bryant in having shorter legs. Six specific names are transferred from Oonops to Noonops: O. floridanus (Chamberlin and Ivie) from Florida and Georgia (chosen as the type species), O. gertschi Chickering from the Bahama Islands (which is placed as a junior synonym of N. floridanus), O. furtivus Gertsch from Texas and Tamaulipas, O. sonora Gertsch and Davis from Arizona, California, Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, O. puebla Gertsch and Davis from Puebla, and O. chilapensis Chamberlin and Ivie from Guerrero. Males of N. sonora and females of N. furtivus are described for the first time; 18 new species are described: N. ocotillo, N. mortero, N. joshua, N. skinner, N. coachella, and N. californicus from Arizona and southern California and N. willisi, N. mesa, N. naci, N. tarantula, N. miraflores, N. culiacan, N. taxquillo, N. chapul, N. beattyi, N. iviei, N. tonila, and N. minutus from Mexico

Innovation and the circular economy: A systematic literature review

The circular economy emerged as an alternative model to the linear system, which now appears to be reaching its physical limitations. To transition to a circular economy, companies must not only be aware of but also engage in more sustainable practices. For such a transition, companies must rethink and innovate their business models and the ways they propose value to their clients while simultaneously considering environmental and social facets. This systematic literature review sought to map out from the company perspective the key topics interrelated with innovation and the circular economy, describing the internal and external factors to consider in such transition processes. Key lines of research were identified, and suggestions for future research and for facilitating movement toward a circular economy are provided. This work contributes to deepening the literature by identifying the priority areas concerning the circular economy and encouraging future research that meets international standards of excellence.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ElectrochemicalN-demethylation of tropane alkaloids

A practical, efficient, and selective electrochemicalN-demethylation method of tropane alkaloids to their nortropane derivatives is described. Nortropanes, such as noratropine and norscopolamine, are important intermediates for the semi-synthesis of the medicines ipratropium or oxitropium bromide, respectively. Synthesis was performed in a simple home-made electrochemical batch cell using a porous glassy carbon electrode. The reaction proceeds at room temperature in one step in a mixture of ethanol or methanol and water. The method avoids hazardous oxidizing agents such as H(2)O(2)orm-chloroperbenzoic acid (m-CPBA), toxic solvents such as chloroform, as well as metal-based catalysts. Various key parameters were investigated in electrochemical batch or flow cells, and the optimized conditions were used in batch and flow-cells at gram scale to synthesize noratropine in high yield and purity using a convenient liquid-liquid extraction method without any need for chromatographic purification. Mechanistic studies showed that the electrochemicalN-demethylation proceeds by the formation of an iminium intermediate which is converted by water as the nucleophile. The optimized method was further applied to scopolamine, cocaine, benzatropine, homatropine and tropacocaine, showing that this is a generic way ofN-demethylating tropane alkaloids to synthesize valuable precursors for pharmaceutical products

Copper-catalysed selective hydroamination reactions of alkynes

The development of selective reactions that utilize easily available and abundant precursors for the efficient synthesis of amines is a long-standing goal of chemical research. Despite the centrality of amines in a number of important research areas, including medicinal chemistry, total synthesis and materials science, a general, selective and step-efficient synthesis of amines is still needed. Here, we describe a set of mild catalytic conditions utilizing a single copper-based catalyst that enables the direct preparation of three distinct and important amine classes (enamines, α-chiral branched alkylamines and linear alkylamines) from readily available alkyne starting materials with high levels of chemo-, regio- and stereoselectivity. This methodology was applied to the asymmetric synthesis of ​rivastigmine and the formal synthesis of several other pharmaceutical agents, including ​duloxetine, ​atomoxetine, ​fluoxetine and ​tolterodine.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (GM58160