Defence firms facing liberalization: innovation and export in an agent-based model of the defence industry

The paper presents an agent-based simulation model of the defence industry. The model resembles some of the key characteristics of the European defence sector, and studies how firms in this market will respond to the challenges and opportunities provided by a higher degree of openness and liberalization in the future. The simulation analysis points out that European defence firms will progressively become more efficient, less dependent on public procurement and innovation policy support, and more prone to knowledge sharing and inter-firm collaborations. This firm-level dynamics will in the long-run lead to an increase in the industry’s export propensity and a less concentrated market.Defence industry; liberalization; EU; export; innovation; agent-based simulation model

How to understand and handle divergent views on the need for leadership interventions: a social constructionist approach

This paper addresses the challenge of how to understand and handle divergent views on the need for leadership interventions between managers and subordinates. Recent popular discourses of leadership, such as the authentic leadership perspective, privileges the potential leader himself or herself as the origin of leadership. This perspective thereby neglects the view of the followers and the essentially socially constructed relationship between leaders and followers. Based upon a critique against essentialist views of leadership such as authentic leadership we suggest a model on how to analyse divergent views between leaders and followers and its implications regarding managerial discretion regarding leadership initiatives

Prediction of gene–phenotype associations in humans, mice, and plants using phenologs

All authors are with the Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. -- Ulf Martin Singh-Blom is with the Program in Computational and Applied Mathematics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA, and th Unit of Computational Medicine, Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 171 76, Sweden. -- Kriston L. McGary is with the Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235, USA.Background: Phenotypes and diseases may be related to seemingly dissimilar phenotypes in other species by means of the orthology of underlying genes. Such “orthologous phenotypes,” or “phenologs,” are examples of deep homology, and may be used to predict additional candidate disease genes. Results: In this work, we develop an unsupervised algorithm for ranking phenolog-based candidate disease genes through the integration of predictions from the k nearest neighbor phenologs, comparing classifiers and weighting functions by cross-validation. We also improve upon the original method by extending the theory to paralogous phenotypes. Our algorithm makes use of additional phenotype data — from chicken, zebrafish, and E. coli, as well as new datasets for C. elegans — establishing that several types of annotations may be treated as phenotypes. We demonstrate the use of our algorithm to predict novel candidate genes for human atrial fibrillation (such as HRH2, ATP4A, ATP4B, and HOPX) and epilepsy (e.g., PAX6 and NKX2-1). We suggest gene candidates for pharmacologically-induced seizures in mouse, solely based on orthologous phenotypes from E. coli. We also explore the prediction of plant gene–phenotype associations, as for the Arabidopsis response to vernalization phenotype. Conclusions: We are able to rank gene predictions for a significant portion of the diseases in the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man database. Additionally, our method suggests candidate genes for mammalian seizures based only on bacterial phenotypes and gene orthology. We demonstrate that phenotype information may come from diverse sources, including drug sensitivities, gene ontology biological processes, and in situ hybridization annotations. Finally, we offer testable candidates for a variety of human diseases, plant traits, and other classes of phenotypes across a wide array of species.Center for Systems and Synthetic BiologyInstitute for Cellular and Molecular [email protected]

Low Sense of Coherence (SOC) is a mirror of general anxiety and persistent depressive symptoms in adolescent girls - a cross-sectional study of a clinical and a non-clinical cohort

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Sense of Coherence (SOC) scale is assumed to measure a distinct salutogenic construct separated from measures of anxiety and depression. Our aim was to challenge this concept.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The SOC-scale, Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck's Anxiety Inventory (BAI) , the emotional subscale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-em) and self-assessed health-related and physiological parameters were collected from a sample of non-clinical adolescent females (n = 66, mean age 16.5 years with a range of 15.9-17.7 years) and from female psychiatric patients (n = 73), mean age 16.8 years with a range of 14.5-18.4 years), with diagnoses of major depressive disorders (MDD) and anxiety disorders.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The SOC scores showed high inverse correlations to BDI, BAI and SDQ-em. In the non-clinical sample the correlation coefficient was -0.86 to -0.73 and in the clinical samples -0.74 to -0.53 (p < 0.001). Multiple regression models showed that BDI was the strongest predictor of SOC in the non-clinical (beta coefficient -0.47) and clinical sample (beta coefficient -0.52). The total degree of explanation of self assessed anxiety and depression on the SOC variance estimated by multiple R²= 0.74, adjusted R²= 0.73 in the non-clinical sample and multiple R²= 0.66, adjusted R²= 0.65 in the clinical sample.</p> <p>Multivariate analyses failed to isolate SOC as a separate construct and the SOC-scale, BDI, BAI and SDQ-em showed similar patterns of correlations to self-reported and physiological health parameters in both samples. The SOC-scale was the most stable measure over six months.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The SOC-scale did not appear to be a measure of a distinct salutogenic construct, but an inverse measure of persistent depressive symptoms and generalized social anxiety similar to the diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD), dysthymic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) or generalized social anxiety disorder (SAD) according to DSM-IV. These symptoms were better captured with SOC than by the specialized scales for anxiety and depression. Self-assessment scales that adequately identify MDD, dysthymic disorder, GAD and SAD need to be implemented. Comorbidity of these disorders is common in adolescent females and corresponds to a more severe symptomatology and impaired global function.</p

The Amsterdam energy transition roadmap – introducing the City-zen methodology

Purpose – City-zen is an EU-funded interdisciplinary project that aims to develop and demonstrate energy-efficient cities and to build methods and tools for cities, industries and citizens to achieve ambitious sustainability targets. As part of the project, an Urban Energy Transition Methodology is developed, elaborated and used to create Roadmaps, which indicate the interventions needed to get from the current situation to the desired sustainable future state of a city. For one of the partner cities, Amsterdam, such a Roadmap was developed. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This paper discusses the approach and methodology behind the City-zen Urban Energy Transition Methodology, with its six steps from the initial energy analysis to the roadmap towards a desired future state. The paper will illustrate this by results from the Amsterdam Roadmap study, in numbers and figures. Findings – The Roadmap study of Amsterdam revealed that the city can become energy neutral in its heat demand, but not in the production of sufficient electricity from renewables. Research limitations/implications – Although as yet only applied to the City of Amsterdam, the methodology behind the roadmap can be applied by cities across the world. Practical implications – An enormous effort is required in order to transform, renovate and adapt parts of the city. It was calculated, for instance, how many energy renovation projects, district heating pipes and photovoltaic panels will be annually needed in order to timely become carbon neutral, energy neutral and “fossil free”. Social implications – The technical-spatial content of the Roadmap was presented to stakeholders of the Dutch capital city, such as politicians, energy companies, commercial enterprises, and not least citizens themselves. Although informed by scientific work, the Roadmap appealed too many, demonstrated by the extensive media coverage. Originality/value – The City-zen Methodology builds upon earlier urban energy approaches such as REAP (Tillie et al., 2009), LES (Dobbelsteen et al., 2011) and Energy Potential Mapping (Broersma et al., 2013), but creates a stepped approach that has not been presented and applied to a city as a whole yet. As far as the authors know, so far, an energy transition roadmap has never been developed for an entire city

Kan borgerne motiveres til at samproducere ved hjælp af information om performance?

Samproduktion fører ofte til bedre offentlige ydelser. Men hvordan kan man motivere borgerne til at øge samproduktionen? Vi opstiller en generel model for borgernes motivation for at samproducere, som vi efterprøver med data fra en spørgeskemaundersøgelse. For at gøre analysen policy-relevant har vi særligt fokus på performanceinformation, som er en faktor, der kan påvirkes på kortere sigt. Endogenitetsproblemer i målingen af effekten af performanceinformation håndteres med et survey-eksperiment. Analysen viser, at der næppe er nogen nem vej til at øge motivationen til at samproducere. Performanceinformation har ingen direkte effekt, men synes dog at kunne påvirke motivation indirekte gennem borgernes holdningsdannelse

High-quality draft genome sequence of pseudomonas wadenswilerensis CCOS 864T

Pseudomonas wadenswilerensis CCOS 864T was isolated in 2014 from forest soil. The organism belongs taxonomically to the Pseudomonas putida group, members of which have been well studied for their potential in biotechnological applications. We present here the draft genome sequence of P. wadenswilerensis CCOS 864T

A subset of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus fails to degrade DNA from multiple clinically relevant sources

Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have a decreased ability to clear cell remnants and multiple deficiencies in the ability to degrade cellular chromatin have been linked to the disease. Since the discovery of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), a renewed interest has been sparked in this field of research with multiple studies reporting a decreased ability of patients with SLE to degrade NETs. In this study we extend these findings by investigating the ability of patients with SLE to degrade chromatin from multiple clinically relevant sources

The Trade-off between Innovation and Defence Industrial Policy: A Simulation Model Analysis of the Norwegian Defence Industry

The paper investigates the trade-off between innovation and defence industrial policy. It presents an agent-based simulation model calibrated for the Norwegian defence industry that compares different policy scenarios and examines the effects of a pending EU market liberalization process. The paper points to two main results. (1) It finds that a pure scenario where national authorities focus on, and provide support exclusively for, either a) international competitiveness or b) national defence and security objectives, is more Pareto efficient than a corresponding mixed strategy where policy makers simultaneously pursue both international competitiveness and defence and security objectives. (2) Under the conditions of the new EU liberalization regime, a stronger and more visible trade-off will emerge between international competitiveness and national defence and security objectives. Policy makers will have to choose which to prioritise, and set a clear agenda focusing on one of the two objectives