Growing green?: co-creating an evidence-based model of SME engagement

Topic: This paper reports on our experiences in running a pilot ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) project that addresses the issue of ‘sustainable growth’ by engaging SME owners and managers in facilitated workshop discussions on this important, yet highly contested topic. If the UK and other countries are to meet their carbon reduction obligations, it is clear that SMEs will need to make significant, and in some cases radical changes, not only in terms of their day-to-day operational practices but also in their longer-term trajectories. However, policymakers face substantial obstacles in communicating with this audience, including: the scale and diversity of the SME population, competing priorities, competitive pressures and resource constraints. This project combines published research on SMEs, their growth processes and environmental behaviours, with specialist expertise in SME engagement and climate change communication. Aim: The multi-partner collaboration is designed to co-create new knowledge on environmentally sustainable growth in SMEs. Its primary aim is to help SMEs and intermediaries gain a better understanding of sustainable growth and its implications for their businesses. The team designed and trialled an innovative approach engagement, based on facilitated workshop discussions, creating an initial evidence base that will be coupled with a set of practical recommendations. The project builds on the academic and external partners’ complementary research insights into SMEs, organisational growth, climate change communication, energy use and associated policy-making. By incorporating the expertise of the practical insights of practitioners and intermediary organisations, the project seeks to initiate a vigorous knowledge exchange about the conceptualisation and practical application of sustainable growth. Methodology: Prior to engaging with SMEs, the team conducted a review of the literature on sustainable growth, which informed the engagement phase of the project. We also conducted a small survey of SME owners and managers and engaged in an informal consultation with stakeholders that informed the design and contents of the pilot workshops. Two half-day workshops were organised with SME owner and manager participants, facilitated by the communications specialists, Climate Outreach, and drawing on previous engagement projects with hard to reach groups. The workshops provided a forum for participants to engage in grounded, ‘peer to peer’ discussion about sustainable growth, expressed in their own terms and drawing on their own values and narratives. Audio recording of the workshops provided the basis for a thematic analysis, which has been combined with the other sources to construct this working paper. Contribution: The project is generating new insights into SME perspectives on sustainable growth that are grounded in relevant theory and evidence, coupled with practical tools that will be of value to practitioners and policymakers. The project team has also developed audio-visual resources, which will be used to raise awareness and help to provide the foundations for future engagement activity. The aim of the next phase of the project is to further refine this approach to engagement in the form of a more fully developed ‘toolkit’ and associated resources

Portfolio Methods for Optimal Planning: an Empirical Analysis

Combining the complementary strengths of several algorithms through portfolio approaches has been demonstrated to be effective in solving a wide range of AI problems. Notably, portfolio techniques have been prominently applied to suboptimal (satisficing) AI planning. Here, we consider the construction of sequential planner portfolios for (domain- independent) optimal planning. Specifically, we introduce four techniques (three of which are dynamic) for per-instance planner schedule generation using problem instance features, and investigate the usefulness of a range of static and dynamic techniques for combining planners. Our extensive experimental analysis demonstrates the benefits of using static and dynamic sequential portfolios for optimal planning, and provides insights on the most suitable conditions for their fruitful exploitation

Why Jenny Can’t Figure Out Which Of These Messages Is A Covert Information Operation

We view foreign interference in US and UK elections via social manipulation through the lens of usable security. Our goal is to provide advice on what interventions on the socio-technical election system are likely to work, and which are likely to fail. Strategies that the usable security literature indicates are likely to work are those that (1) avoid overloading the user's primary task; (2) help people understand negative consequences of their actions; and (3) support the long-term education of users with analytic reasoning skills and adequate background knowledge. Several of the responses to election interference proposed by governments and technology companies so far do not abide by these recommendations and are likely to be ineffective

Static and Dynamic Portfolio Methods for Optimal Planning: An Empirical Analysis

Combining the complementary strengths of several algorithms through portfolio approaches has been demonstrated to be effective in solving a wide range of AI problems. Notably, portfolio techniques have been prominently applied to suboptimal (satisficing) AI planning. Here, we consider the construction of sequential planner portfolios for domainindependent optimal planning. Specifically, we introduce four techniques (three of which are dynamic) for per-instance planner schedule generation using problem instance features, and investigate the usefulness of a range of static and dynamic techniques for combining planners. Our extensive empirical analysis demonstrates the benefits of using static and dynamic sequential portfolios for optimal planning, and provides insights on the most suitable conditions for their fruitful exploitation

Reviews of theoretical frameworks: challenges and judging the quality of theory application.

Background Rigorous reviews of available information, from a range of resources, is required to support medical and health educators in their decision making related to their educational practice. Aim The aim of the paper is to highlight the importance of a review of theoretical frameworks specifically to supplement reviews that focus on a synthesis of the empirical evidence alone. Establishing a shared understanding of theory as a concept is highlighted as a challenge to these types of review and some practical strategies to achieving this are presented. The paper also introduces the concept of theoretical quality to the methodology of literature reviews, arguing that a critique of how theory is applied should complement the methodological appraisal of the literature in a review. Method We illustrate the challenge of establishing a shared meaning of theory through reference to experiences of an on-going review of this kind conducted in the field of interprofessional education (IPE) and use a high scoring paper selected in this review to illustrate how theoretical quality can be assessed. We focus on theories that apply to IPE curriculum design but the findings are transferable to all reviews of theoretical frameworks. Findings In reaching a shared understanding of theory as a concept, practical strategies that promote experiential and practical ways of knowing (e.g. small group work and piloting of all phases of the review protocol) are required in addition to more propositional ways of sharing knowledge. Concepts of parsimony, testability, operational adequacy and empirical adequacy are explored as concepts that establish theoretical quality. Conclusions Reviews of theoretical frameworks used in medical education are required to inform educational practice. Review teams should make time and effort to reach a shared understanding of the term theory. Theory reviews, and reviews more widely, should add an assessment of theory application to the protocol of their review method.

Developmental and computational perspectives on infant social cognition

Adults effortlessly and automatically infer complex pat- terns of goals, beliefs, and other mental states as the causes of others’ actions. Yet before the last decade little was known about the developmental origins of these abilities in early infancy. Our understanding of infant social cognition has now improved dramatically: even preverbal infants appear to perceive goals, preferences (Kushnir, Xu, & Wellman, in press), and even beliefs from sparse observations of inten- tional agents’ behavior. Furthermore, they use these infer- ences to predict others’ behavior in novel contexts and to make social evaluations (Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom, 2007). Keywords: Social cognition; Cognitive Development; Computational Modeling; Theory of Min

Proteomic, functional, and domain-based analysis of in vivo 14-3-3 binding proteins involved in cytoskeletal regulation and cellular organization

(GEF) for the Rho GTPase. 14-3-3 binding to AKAP-Lbc, induced by PKA, suppresses Rho activation in vivo. Conclusion: 14-3-3 proteins can potentially engage around 0.6 % of the human proteome. Domain-based clustering has identified specific subsets of 14-3-3 targets, including numerous proteins involved in the dynamic control of cell architecture. This notion has been 1Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute validated by the broad inhibition of 14-3-3 phosphoryla-Mount Sinai Hospital tion-dependent binding in vivo and by the specific analy-600 University Avenue sis of AKAP-Lbc, a RhoGEF that is controlled by it

The Grizzly, February 24, 1997

Dr. Gaede Receives $28,500 Grant • Organist and Dancer to Perform at Ursinus • Dr. Goetz to Lecture • Greek Life Discussion at Common Hour • Opinion: Things That Make Me Go Hmmm; Letters from Great Britain; A Non-Greek Speaks Back; Go Out and Do Something; Student Ponders Greek Life; Politicians\u27 Greed Outweighs Desires of Constituents • Daniel Pipes to Lecture on the Middle East • Torsone Wins 118-Pound Regional Title • Women\u27s Basketball Drops Two in a Row • Larkin Honored Twice • Gymnastics Place Third at Ithaca Invitational • Buyse Scores 1,000th Pointhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1398/thumbnail.jp