Understanding the failure to understand New Product Development failures: mitigating the uncertainty associated with innovating new products by combining scenario planning and forecasting

In this paper we show that New Product Development (NPD) is subject to fundamental uncertainty that is both epistemic and ontic in nature. We argue that this uncertainty cannot be mitigated using forecasting techniques exclusively, because these are most useful in circumstances characteristic of probabilistic risk, as distinct from non-probabilistic uncertainty. We show that the mitigation of uncertainty in relation to NPD requires techniques able to take account of the socio-economic factors that can combine to cause present assumptions about future demand conditions to be incorrect. This can be achieved through an Intuitive Logics (IL) scenario planning process designed specifically to mitigate uncertainty associated with NPD by incorporating insights from both quantitative modelling alongside consideration of political, social, technological and legal factors, as-well-as stakeholder motivations that are central to successful NPD. In this paper we therefore achieve three objectives: 1) identify the aspects of the current IL process salient to mitigating the uncertainty of NPD 2) show how advances in diffusion modelling can be used to identify the social-network and contagion effects that lead to a product’s full diffusion 3) show how the IL process can be further enhanced to facilitate detailed consideration of the factors enabling and inhibiting initial market-acceptance, and then the forecasted full diffusion of a considered new product. We provide a step-by-step guide to the implementation of this adapted IL scenario planning process designed specifically to mitigate uncertainty in relation to NPD. Keywords: new product development; fundamental uncertainty; scenario planning; forecastin

The quantum optical Josephson interferometer

The interplay between coherent tunnel coupling and on-site interactions in dissipation-free bosonic systems has lead to many spectacular observations, ranging from the demonstration of number-phase uncertainty relation to quantum phase transitions. To explore the effect of dissipation and coherent drive on tunnel coupled interacting bosonic systems, we propose a device that is the quantum optical analog of a Josephson interferometer. It consists of two coherently driven linear optical cavities connected via a central cavity with a single-photon nonlinearity. The Josephson-like oscillations in the light emitted from the central cavity as a function of the phase difference between two pumping fields can be suppressed by increasing the strength of the nonlinear coupling. Remarkably, we find that in the limit of ultra-strong interactions in the center-cavity, the coupled system maps on to an effective Jaynes-Cummings system with a nonlinearity determined by the tunnel coupling strength. In the limit of a single nonlinear cavity coupled to two linear waveguides, the degree of photon antibunching from the nonlinear cavity provides an excellent measure of the transition to the nonlinear regime where Josephson oscillations are suppressed.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Matrix Product State representation for Slater Determinants and Configuration Interaction States

Slater determinants are product states of filled quantum fermionic orbitals. When they are expressed in a configuration space basis chosen a priori, their entanglement is bound and controlled. This suggests that an exact representation of Slater determinants as finitely-correlated states is possible. In this paper we analyze this issue and provide an exact Matrix Product representation for Slater determinant states. We also argue possible meaningful extensions that embed more complex configuration interaction states into the description.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Published in IJMPB, focus issue on "Classical vs. Quantum Correlations in Composite Systems

The quantum optical Josephson interferometer

The interplay between coherent tunnel coupling and on-site interactions in dissipation-free bosonic systems has lead to many spectacular observations, ranging from the demonstration of number-phase uncertainty relation to quantum phase transitions. To explore the effect of dissipation and coherent drive on tunnel coupled interacting bosonic systems, we propose a device that is the quantum optical analog of a Josephson interferometer. It consists of two coherently driven linear optical cavities connected via a central cavity with a single-photon nonlinearity. The Josephson-like oscillations in the light emitted from the central cavity as a function of the phase difference between two pumping fields can be suppressed by increasing the strength of the nonlinear coupling. Remarkably, we find that in the limit of ultra-strong interactions in the center-cavity, the coupled system maps on to an effective Jaynes-Cummings system with a nonlinearity determined by the tunnel coupling strength. In the limit of a single nonlinear cavity coupled to two linear waveguides, the degree of photon antibunching from the nonlinear cavity provides an excellent measure of the transition to the nonlinear regime where Josephson oscillations are suppressed.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Spatial Mismatch and Mobility Involvements: a Common Approach for the Urban Sprawl Parma-Bologna

An economic growth which is wide-area scattered is one of the most important indicator of social well-being and is such a strong factor that can induce long-range demographic dynamics. Incoming migration fluxes are scattered across the national territory following patterns that appear mostly relational rather than economically driven. The resulting effect can be the well-known problem of Spatial Mismatch, SM. The institutionalist approaches permits to use different scaled units of analysis, with different levels of integration but coexistent under the very same historical-social pattern-determining context. This work will try to explain the relationship between SM and the more general Transaction Costs. With this hypothesis it will be possible to read from a (neo)institutionalist perspective the whole, empirical and theoretical, body of Spatial Mismatch. Trough the introduction of the temporal perspective the present work propose a theoretical framework that shows that the increasing degree of spatial mismatch discussed in the case study has appeared only when the redistributive action so important for the initial development, and operated mainly trough the increasing of social capital stock, has declined. Therefore upgrade policies of public goods are considered constantly needed in order to promote growth itself

The time as an emergent property of quantum mechanics, a synthetic description of a first experimental approach

The "problem of time" in present physics substantially consists in the fact that a straightforward quantization of the general relativistic evolution equation and constraints generates for the Universe wave function the Wheeler-De Witt equation, which describes a static Universe. Page and Wootters considered the fact that there exist states of a system composed by entangled subsystems that are stationary, but one can interpret the component subsystems as evolving: this leads them to suppose that the global state of the universe can be envisaged as one of this static entangled state, whereas the state of the subsystems can evolve. Here we synthetically present an experiment, based on PDC polarization entangled photons, that allows showing with a practical example a situation where this idea works, i.e. a subsystem of an entangled state works as a "clock" of another subsystem

A Lorentz-invariant look at quantum clock synchronization protocols based on distributed entanglement

Recent work has raised the possibility that quantum information theory techniques can be used to synchronize atomic clocks nonlocally. One of the proposed algorithms for quantum clock synchronization (QCS) requires distribution of entangled pure singlets to the synchronizing parties. Such remote entanglement distribution normally creates a relative phase error in the distributed singlet state which then needs to be purified asynchronously. We present a fully relativistic analysis of the QCS protocol which shows that asynchronous entanglement purification is not possible, and, therefore, that the proposed QCS scheme remains incomplete. We discuss possible directions of research in quantum information theory which may lead to a complete, working QCS protocol.Comment: 5 pages; typeset in RevTe

Photon losses depending on polarization mixedness

We introduce a quantum channel describing photon losses depending on the degree of polarization mixedness. This can be regarded as a model of quantum channel with correlated errors between discrete and continuous degrees of freedom. We consider classical information over a continuous alphabet encoded on weak coherent states as well as classical information over a discrete alphabet encoded on single photons using dual rail representation. In both cases we study the one-shot capacity of the channel and its behaviour in terms of correlation between losses and polarization mixedness