Managing contexts for innovation and renewal : Strategies of incumbent firms in traditional manufacturing industries

Innovation is important for established firms (i.e., incumbents) in traditional manufacturing industries (TMIs) to continuously survive and thrive. While internal factors often receive attention, different factors external to these firms enable and hinder the creation and realisation of novel products and processes. Firms in TMIs thus need to strategically deal with their outer contexts. How they do so in the post-industrial era and why they act in particular ways remain unclear in extant innovation studies. This dissertation offers nuanced explanations of the strategies of incumbents in TMIs, regarding managing contexts for innovation and renewal. This dissertation investigates three cases involving firms in five different TMIs in Sweden. It shows that even firms that are expected to be the most inert display a proactive reorientation by developing radical and sustainable technologies that potentially revolutionise their industries and drive societal change. Innovative firms simultaneously manage multiple external factors such as societal norms and regulations, diverse networks, and place-based (lack of) resources by leveraging, shaping and fostering the alignment of those factors to protect and empower innovations. A core take-away for innovation managers is to “work in but also work out!”Innovation är viktigt för etablerade företag i traditionella tillverkningsindustrier (TMIs) för att fortsätta att överleva och utvecklas. Samtidigt som interna faktorer ofta uppmärksammas, både möjliggörs och hindras förverkligandet av nya produkter och processer av olika externa faktorer. Företag i traditionella tillverkningsindustrier behöver därför hantera sin yttre kontext strategiskt. Inom innovationsforskningen är det fortfarande oklart hur företagen i den postindustriella eran gör detta och varför de gör som de gör. Denna avhandling framför nyanserade förklaringar till de etablerade företagens strategier gällande hantering av kontexter för innovation och förnyelse. Avhandlingen undersöker tre fall som inkluderar företag i fem olika TMIs i Sverige. Den visar att även de företag som förväntas vara mest oföränderliga arbetar proaktivt med omorientering genom att utveckla genomgripande och hållbar teknik med potential att förändra industrin och driva samhällsförändringar. Innovativa företag hanterar samtidigt flera externa faktorer som samhällsnormer och regelverk, olika nätverk och platsbaserade resurser (eller brist på resurser) genom att utnyttja, forma, och sträva efter komplementaritet mellan, faktorerna i syfte att skydda och stärka innovation. En kärnfull take-away för innovationschefer är att “arbeta inåt, men också arbeta utåt!

Structural analysis of free and enzyme-bound amaranth α-amylase inhibitor: classification within the knottin fold superfamily and analysis of its functional flexibility

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Secure Transmission of Terahertz Signals with Multiple Eavesdroppers

The terahertz (THz) band is expected to become a key technology to meet the ever-increasing traffic demand for future 6G wireless communications, and a lot of efforts have been paid to develop its capacity. However, few studies have been concerned with the transmission security of such ultra-high-speed THz wireless links. In this paper, we comprehensively investigate the physical layer security (PLS) of a THz communication system in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers and beam scattering. The method of moments (MoM) was adopted so that the eavesdroppers’ channel influenced by the PEC can be characterized. To establish a secure link, the traditional beamforming and artificial noise (AN) beamforming were considered as transmission schemes for comparison. For both schemes, we analyzed their secrecy transmission probability (STP) and ergodic secrecy capacity (ESC) in non-colluding and colluding cases, respectively. Numerical results show that eavesdroppers can indeed degrade the secrecy performance by changing the size or the location of the PEC, while the AN beamforming technique can be an effective candidate to counterbalance this adverse effect

Solution structure of the major alpha-amylase inhibitor of the crop plant amaranth.

alpha-Amylase inhibitor (AAI), a 32-residue miniprotein from the Mexican crop plant amaranth (Amaranthus hypochondriacus), is the smallest known alpha-amylase inhibitor and is specific for insect alpha-amylases (Chagolla-Lopez, A., Blanco-Labra, A., Patthy, A., Sanchez, R., and Pongor, S. (1994) J. Biol. Chem. 269, 23675-23680). Its disulfide topology was confirmed by Edman degradation, and its three-dimensional solution structure was determined by two-dimensional 1H NMR spectroscopy at 500 MHz. Structural constraints (consisting of 348 nuclear Overhauser effect interproton distances, 8 backbone dihedral constraints, and 9 disulfide distance constraints) were used as an input to the X-PLOR program for simulated annealing and energy minimization calculations. The final set of 10 structures had a mean pairwise root mean square deviation of 0.32 A for the backbone atoms and 1.04 A for all heavy atoms. The structure of AAI consists of a short triple-stranded beta-sheet stabilized by three disulfide bonds, forming a typical knottin or inhibitor cystine knot fold found in miniproteins, which binds various macromolecular ligands. When the first intercystine segment of AAI (sequence IPKWNR) was inserted into a homologous position of the spider toxin Huwentoxin I, the resulting chimera showed a significant inhibitory activity, suggesting that this segment takes part in enzyme binding

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation is a major N-sink in aquifer systems around the world

Global-scale N-oxide contamination of groundwater within aquifers occurs due to the widespread use of N-bearing fertilizers and chemicals, threatening both human and environmental health. However, the conversion of these pollutants in active nitrogen (N) cycling processes in the subsurface biosphere still remains unclear. This study investigates the global occurrence of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) in aquifers, where anammox was found to be turned on and off between saturated and unsaturated soil horizons, and contributed 36.8–79.5% to N loss in saturated soil horizons, the remainder being due to denitrification which has traditionally been considered the main pathway for removal of N-pollutants from aquifers. Although anammox activity was undetectable in the unsaturated soil horizons, it could potentially be activated by contact with ascending groundwater. High-throughput pyrosequencing analysis identified Candidatus Brocadia anammoxidans as being the most abundant anammox bacterium in the saturated soils investigated. However, the anammox bacterial abundance was determined by the relative richness of Candidatus Jettenia asiatica. Isotopic pairing experiments revealed that coupling anammox with ammonium oxidation and respiratory ammonification enabled the formation of a revised N cycle in aquifer systems, in which respiratory ammonification acted as an important coordinator. Anammox can therefore contribute substantially to aquifer N cycling and its role in remediation of aquifers contaminated with N-oxides may be of global importance