the Swedish sustainable development strategy and the national environmental quality objectives

This paper compares the respective contributions of the Swedish sustainable development strategy (SDS) and the country’s National Environmental Quality Objectives (NEQOs) in establishing what Steurer and Martinuzzi (2005) refer to as “strategic public management”, an ideal model of what an effective governance framework for promoting sustainable development might look like. Key elements of strategic public management that are considered are the facilitation of policy learning, horizontal and vertical policy integration and the meaningful engagement of relevant non-governmental stakeholders. The paper identifies the central achievements and challenges of the SDS and the NEQOs in establishing these central elements of strategic public management in practice. In this context, it also addresses how these two governance instruments have faired in tackling some of the past shortcomings of sustainable development strategies in delivering an effective framework for strategic public management, resulting in the “administered strategies” described in Steurer (2008). It argues that the NEQOs’ relative success in influencing policy making processes in Sweden is linked to its strong political and institutional foundation as compared to the comparatively weak political mandate and low level of institutionalization of the SDS. Among other things, it relates this to the different political processes leading to the establishment of the two instruments. Despite the achievements of the NEQOs, however, the paper also identifies important challenges for leveraging the NEQOs' strong monitoring system for shaping concrete policy making processes and engaging stakeholders. Based on these insights, the paper concludes with a discussion on the future potential of the NEQOs and the SDS as frameworks for strategic public management in Sweden and draws more general lessons for the establishment of more effective governance frameworks for sustainable development

Multi-level reinforcement in European climate and energy governance: mobilizing economic interests at the sub-national levels

This article explains the relatively successful performance of the European Union (EU) in climate and energy governance by two factors: (1) multi-level reinforcement and (2) the mobilization of economic interests at different levels of governance through low-carbon industrial policy. The article adds to the literature by further developing existing arguments on multi-level reinforcement in climate and energy policy. We stress the point that economic co-benefits of climate protection have been successfully mobilized at all levels of governance, including the sub-national level, in recent times. This is illustrated by examples from pioneer countries as well as laggards and waverers in terms of national climate and energy policy. While it is far from certain whether the EU will indeed deliver the needed CO2 reductions to reach its internationally agreed targets, this paper, nevertheless, highlights why the EU system of climate governance remains relatively robust in light of the various challenges it currently faces

Exploring a search for long-duration transient gravitational waves associated with magnetar bursts

Soft gamma repeaters and anomalous X-ray pulsars are thought to be magnetars, neutron stars with strong magnetic fields of order $\mathord{\sim} 10^{13}$--$10^{15} \, \mathrm{gauss}$. These objects emit intermittent bursts of hard X-rays and soft gamma rays. Quasiperiodic oscillations in the X-ray tails of giant flares imply the existence of neutron star oscillation modes which could emit gravitational waves powered by the magnetar's magnetic energy reservoir. We describe a method to search for transient gravitational-wave signals associated with magnetar bursts with durations of 10s to 1000s of seconds. The sensitivity of this method is estimated by adding simulated waveforms to data from the sixth science run of Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). We find a search sensitivity in terms of the root sum square strain amplitude of $h_{\mathrm{rss}} = 1.3 \times 10^{-21} \, \mathrm{Hz}^{-1/2}$ for a half sine-Gaussian waveform with a central frequency $f_0 = 150 \, \mathrm{Hz}$ and a characteristic time $\tau = 400 \, \mathrm{s}$. This corresponds to a gravitational wave energy of $E_{\mathrm{GW}} = 4.3 \times 10^{46} \, \mathrm{erg}$, the same order of magnitude as the 2004 giant flare which had an estimated electromagnetic energy of $E_{\mathrm{EM}} = \mathord{\sim} 1.7 \times 10^{46} (d/ 8.7 \, \mathrm{kpc})^2 \, \mathrm{erg}$, where $d$ is the distance to SGR 1806-20. We present an extrapolation of these results to Advanced LIGO, estimating a sensitivity to a gravitational wave energy of $E_{\mathrm{GW}} = 3.2 \times 10^{43} \, \mathrm{erg}$ for a magnetar at a distance of $1.6 \, \mathrm{kpc}$. These results suggest this search method can probe significantly below the energy budgets for magnetar burst emission mechanisms such as crust cracking and hydrodynamic deformation

A Dynamic Analysis of Technological Innovation Systems for Solar Photovoltaics in Germany and China

Based on a system of innovation (SI) perspective, this paper provides a dynamic analysis of innovation and industrial development in the emerging global solar energy sector. It focuses on developments in China and Germany within the context of an evolving international technological innovation system (TIS) for solar photovoltaics. The TIS approach is the most suitable for analyzing innovation systems in emergent technology fields, as it explicitly captures the dynamics of change in the system (Jacobsson & Bergek 2011). However, to date, the approach has been applied to analyze national TIS, largely ignoring international influences (Coenen et al. 2012). To fill this gap in the literature, the paper adapts and applies the TIS framework for the analysis of a co-evolving TIS. This is different from a purely international perspective, as manifested in the sectoral system of innovation (SSI) approach. The SSI approach may be appropriate for the analysis of more established innovation systems, where structures, actors and institutions are more stable (Coenen & Díaz López 2010). An emergent global TIS, however, remains highly susceptible to (policy) developments occurring in individual countries. To capture these dynamics, the concept of a multi-level TIS is proposed. This acknowledges that a global TIS is composed of a number of sub- systems (i.e. TIS) at the national and sub-national levels, which retain a certain degree of autonomy. At the same time, actors and networks are frequently not limited to a single geographic scale, as has been acknowledged in relational approaches to economic geography (Bathelt & Gluckler 2003; Yeung 2005). They may entertain linkages across multiple scales, often drawing on a physical presence in different localities. Such linkages allow developments in national (or sub-national) TIS to exert influences upon each other. The paper draws on this adapted version of the TIS concept to frame the empirical analysis of an evolving global TIS in solar photovoltaics. Building on a slightly expanded version of the system functions outlined by Bergek et al. (2008), the paper then traces the dynamic inter-linkages between Germany and China, as they have represented the most important drivers of change during the most dynamic period of TIS development. It sheds new light on the process of industry development and technological change in the emergent TIS for solar photovoltaics and highlights how different system functions have been provided throughout this process (considering third countries where appropriate) and how they have shifted geographically as the international TIS has matured

NNETFIX: An artificial neural network-based denoising engine for gravitational-wave signals

Instrumental and environmental transient noise bursts in gravitational-wave detectors, or glitches, may impair astrophysical observations by adversely affecting the sky localization and the parameter estimation of gravitational-wave signals. Denoising of detector data is especially relevant during low-latency operations because electromagnetic follow-up of candidate detections requires accurate, rapid sky localization and inference of astrophysical sources. NNETFIX is a machine learning-based algorithm designed to remove glitches detected in coincidence with transient gravitational-wave signals. NNETFIX uses artificial neural networks to estimate the portion of the data lost due to the presence of the glitch, which allows the recalculation of the sky localization of the astrophysical signal. The sky localization of the denoised data may be significantly more accurate than the sky localization obtained from the original data or by removing the portion of the data impacted by the glitch. We test NNETFIX in simulated scenarios of binary black hole coalescence signals and discuss the potential for its use in future low-latency LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA searches. In the majority of cases for signals with a high signal-to-noise ratio, we find that the overlap of the sky maps obtained with the denoised data and the original data is better than the overlap of the sky maps obtained with the original data and the data with the glitch removed.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures, 10 table

Search for Long-Duration Transient Gravitational Waves Associated with Magnetar Bursts during LIGO’s Sixth Science Run

Soft gamma repeaters (SGRs) and anomalous X-ray pulsars are thought to be neutron stars with strong magnetic fields, called magnetars, which emit intermittent bursts of hard X-rays and soft gamma rays. Three highly energetic bursts, known as giant flares, have been observed originating from three different SGRs, the latest and most energetic of which occurred on December 27, 2004, from the SGR with the largest estimated magnetic field, SGR 1806-20. Modulations in the X-ray tails of giant flares may be caused by global seismic oscillations. Non-radial oscillations of the dense neutron star matter could emit gravitational waves powered by the magnetar's magnetic energy reservoir. This analysis searched for long-duration transient gravitational waves associated with three magnetar bursts that occurred during LIGO's sixth science run, from July 7, 2009 to October 20, 2010. The search results were consistent with the calculated background, and 90% confidence upper limits on the possible undetected gravitational wave energy were found

A Tale of Two Paces

After decades of economic expansion, largely at the expense of environmental quality, new trends in environmental governance are taking shape in Asia. This paper analyses these developments in China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. It finds that environmental governance within a “traditional” agenda of environmental protection remains severely hampered by capacity constraints. Simultaneously, all four countries have embarked on ambitious policy initiatives to address climate change and promote clean technologies, signaling an important shift in national priorities. The paper discusses possible implications of these trends, sketching possible scenarios for the further development of environmental governance