Calling in the Heavyweights: Why the World Bank Established the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, and What It Might Achieve

The initial key international climate policy and carbon market hub was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Over time several international organizations and networks have been added to the “international carbon market web,” such as several World Bank (WB) initiatives. As to the latter, the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC) was launched in 2015. A key question then becomes: considering an increasingly dense international environment, why was the Coalition formed? Our analysis shows the importance of taking into account institutional pathways in the Bank itself and the character of previous WB-internal initiatives. However, it is particularly important to note interaction with a strong external pull, stemming both from more “systemic” developments such as the collapse of the Clean Development Mechanism system and the explicit request for new initiatives from key actors, such as UN General Secretary Ban-Ki Moon. We suggest seeing entrepreneurship from the bureaucracies of international organizations as conditional on member-state behavior or a conducive institutional environment (or both). We also discuss main prospects ahead, both for the Coalition and the more general organizational set-up in this issue-area. Here we draw attention to the role of the WB as an international “heavyweight” and CPLC and Bank meetings held back to back.acceptedVersio

Technology for large-scale translation of clinical practice guidelines : a pilot study of the performance of a hybrid human and computer-assisted approach

Background: The construction of EBMPracticeNet, a national electronic point-of-care information platform in Belgium, was initiated in 2011 to optimize quality of care by promoting evidence-based decision-making. The project involved, among other tasks, the translation of 940 EBM Guidelines of Duodecim Medical Publications from English into Dutch and French. Considering the scale of the translation process, it was decided to make use of computer-aided translation performed by certificated translators with limited expertise in medical translation. Our consortium used a hybrid approach, involving a human translator supported by a translation memory (using SDL Trados Studio), terminology recognition (using SDL Multiterm termbases) from medical termbases and support from online machine translation. This has resulted in a validated translation memory which is now in use for the translation of new and updated guidelines. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of the hybrid human and computer-assisted approach in comparison with translation unsupported by translation memory and terminology recognition. A comparison was also made with the translation efficiency of an expert medical translator. Methods: We conducted a pilot trial in which two sets of 30 new and 30 updated guidelines were randomized to one of three groups. Comparable guidelines were translated (a) by certificated junior translators without medical specialization using the hybrid method (b) by an experienced medical translator without this support and (c) by the same junior translators without the support of the validated translation memory. A medical proofreader who was blinded for the translation procedure, evaluated the translated guidelines for acceptability and adequacy. Translation speed was measured by recording translation and post-editing time. The Human Translation Edit Rate was calculated as a metric to evaluate the quality of the translation. A further evaluation was made of translation acceptability and adequacy. Results: The average number of words per guideline was 1,195 and the mean total translation time was 100.2 min/1,000 words. No meaningful differences were found in the translation speed for new guidelines. The translation of updated guidelines was 59 min/1,000 words faster (95% CI 2-115; P=.044) in the computer-aided group. Revisions due to terminology accounted for one third of the overall revisions by the medical proofreader. Conclusions: Use of the hybrid human and computer-aided translation by a non-expert translator makes the translation of updates of clinical practice guidelines faster and cheaper because of the benefits of translation memory. For the translation of new guidelines there was no apparent benefit in comparison with the efficiency of translation unsupported by translation memory (whether by an expert or non-expert translator

Patent Reform Should Not Leave Innovation Behind, 8 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 328 (2009)

The most recent push for patent reform established competing groups supporting individual agendas. In view of current economic difficulties, however, the focus on innovation should be ever more important. By enacting the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, the federal government invested in innovation and unlocked American industrial potential through Universities. The current reform has provisions that limit disclosure and facilitate patent challenging which increases costs to inventors and adds responsibilities to an already overloaded patent office. This article addresses a number of the proposed reforms and the effect on University innovation

Social innovation futures: beyond policy panacea and conceptual ambiguity

Social innovation is once more an increasingly popular notion circulating as an apparent means to solve the Grand Challenges of the 21st Century. But this common-sense idea of social innovation is based on a quasi-concept, where processes of innovation are absent. To restore some academic rigour to this important concept, we argue more attention need be paid to these innovation processes in social innovation, and that there is value in using innovation concepts drawn from other areas of innovation studies (disruptive innovation, innovation systems, institutional innovation and socio-technical transitions) in highlighting how small-scale social experiments can ultimately lead to the solution of pressing societal problems. Through a subtle critique of the current policy conception of social innovation, it is possible for the field of Innovation Studies in general to help provide better insights into social innovation processes and ultimately to lead to better support frameworks and interventions for promoting solutions to these Grand Challenges.We would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Eu-SPRI Forum for our exploratory project “Social innovation futures: beyond policy panacea and conceptual ambiguity” for developing the ideas in this paper.Peer reviewe

Social innovation as institutional innovation

Trabajo presentado a la Annual Conference of the EU-SPRI Forum: "Innovation policies for economic and social transitions: Developing strategies for knowledge, practices and organizations" celebrada en Helsinki (Finlandia) del 9 al 12 de junio de 2015.Common understanding of Social Innovation (SI) as an essential component in policy discourses to solve the so-called Grand Challenges of the 21st Century confronts the need to answer the remaining ‘desperate quest for a definition’ (Djellal & Gallouj, 2012: p. 121). SI has become ‘overdetermined’ that is, associated with a variety of meanings and interpretations rooted in a diversity of disciplines and faces the risk of having its validity challenged (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985). From the theoretical perspectives of science, technology and innovation studies, the EU-SPRI Exploratory study on Social Innovation Futures aspires to open academic debate to overcome current concerns surrounding ‘policy and chaotic’ views on the SI concept. Being the ‘innovation problem’ to understanding what affects innovation processes and how that shapes the change trajectories, the project aims to the nuclear question: How can SI be understood and interpreted as innovation process? (Benneworth et al., 2015). SI processes take parts of an emergent paradigm that needs to explicitly address the issue of purpose and direction of change where the social and technological components of innovation should not be seen as contradictory, but as inherently connected (Howaldt et al., 2014). This paradigm shift claims for a theory of socio-technological innovation and new answers on the nature and purposes of innovation in society (Edwards-Schachter et al., 2012; Benneworth & Cuhna, 2014). It is also intrinsic to policy orientations to deal with global ‘intractable problems’ or ‘global challenges’ which dates back several decades ago, like in the references in the Club of Rome report Limits to Growth (1972), which likewise explicitly names social innovation, in parallel to technical change, to change political processes and structures to favour a sustainable development. In this framework, this paper reviews the burgeoning literature that has developed in recent years a diversity of approaches on the role of institutions and institutional dynamic in innovation processes and explores their possible contributions and research avenues to SI1. The critical review attempts to examine important aspects and characteristics, which have so far remained rather latent, like institutional changes and legitimisation of SIs.Peer Reviewe

Lower Back Injuries in National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Players: A 5-Season Epidemiological Study

Background: Low back injuries are common in collegiate football players and can frequently lead to persistent pain, reinjuries, and time lost from participation. Purpose: To describe the epidemiology of back injuries in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) football players during the 2009/2010 through 2013/2014 academic years utilizing the NCAA Injury Surveillance Program (ISP) database. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: A convenience sample of NCAA varsity football teams was utilized to determine the rates and patterns of back injuries as well as to generate national injury estimates. The rates and distribution of back injuries were identified within the context of mechanism of injury, injury chronicity, and time lost from sport. Injury rates were calculated as the number of injuries divided by the total number of athlete-exposures (AEs). Incidence rate ratios were calculated to compare the rates of injury between season, event type, mechanism of injury, injury chronicity, and time lost from sport. Results: Nationally, there were 267 low back injuries reported in the database. These were used to estimate 7076 back injuries over the 5-year period, approximately 82% of which were new injuries. The injuries occurred at a rate of 2.70 per 10,000 AEs. Overall, injuries were 3.12 times more likely to occur in competitions than in practices. Athletes were 4.67 times more likely to sustain a back injury during the preseason compared with the postseason but were 1.41 times more likely to sustain a low back injury during the preseason compared with the regular season. Both contact and noncontact were reported equally as the mechanism of injury (37.8% and 38.3%, respectively), and unspecified low back pain was the most common injury (64.2%). Only 1.6% of patients required surgery for their injury, and the majority of athletes (59.6%) returned to play within 24 hours. Conclusion: There was a relatively high rate of lumbar back injuries at the collegiate level (2.70/10,000 AEs), the majority of which were new injuries. About 18% of reported injuries were reinjuries. Although very few required surgery, a careful examination and work-up should be conducted to evaluate each injury. Regimented physical therapy and reconditioning programs are recommended to avert reinjuries.NCAAOpen access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

System size and centrality dependence of charged hadron transverse momentum spectra in Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions at sqrt(s) = 62.4 and 200 GeV

We present transverse momentum distributions of charged hadrons produced in Cu+Cu collisions at sqrt(s) = 62.4 and 200 GeV. The spectra are measured for transverse momenta of 0.25 < p_T < 5.0 GeV/c at sqrt(s) = 62.4 GeV and 0.25 < p_T < 7.0 GeV/c at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV, in a pseudo-rapidity range of 0.2 < eta < 1.4. The nuclear modification factor R_AA is calculated relative to p+p data at both collision energies as a function of collision centrality. At a given collision energy and fractional cross-section, R_AA is observed to be systematically larger in Cu+Cu collisions compared to Au+Au. However, for the same number of participating nucleons, R_AA is essentially the same in both systems over the measured range of p_T, in spite of the significantly different geometries of the Cu+Cu and Au+Au systems.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let