Creating a culture for radical innovation in a small mature business

This article describes an approach in organizational development to develop an innovation culture for radical product development in a small mature engineering company. The research took place in a business based in the United Kingdom that designed and manufactured instrumentation and specialized packing machines. An initial study within the company’s new product development team identified key aspects that influenced a radical innovation culture. Nine key themes were found to be pertinent, following an iterative process with the development team. These themes were triangulated using the established Organization Culture Assessment Instrument and the Creative Climate Assessment Tool. A third assessment was developed that gauged the development team culture proximity to an ideal position. Seven interventions were developed in conjunction with the company development team, senior managers, the analysis of previous empirical case research and dialogue with UK companies that promote discontinuous innovation. The results of the interventions were evaluated 4 years after implementation. The culture was re-assessed using the same assessment tools and the changes were identified. The outcomes are described and they indicate the success of the company’s attempt to embed a sustainable radical innovation culture into the product development area

Something in the Water? Testing for Groundwater Quality Information in the Housing Market

I test the level of information regarding possible groundwater contamination in the residential real estate market in Washington County, Minnesota. An approximately seven square-mile trichloroethylene plume has affected hundreds of households’ water supplies since at least 1988 in the region. I find that homeowners were initially well-informed by market forces, but were later somewhat misinformed by government actions regarding the potential of water contamination from the plume. A disclosure law passed in 2003 may have added new, low-cost, and imperfect information to the market that could explain the change in informational awareness.disclosure law, environmental disamenity, groundwater, groundwater contamination, hedonic model, incomplete information, water quality, real estate, Consumer/Household Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Common Table

Describes Common Table approach to increasing awareness and assistance to community members experiencing hunger and related economic stresses

Inching—or Sliding—Towards Charter Universities: What Price Freedom ?

Inching - or Sliding - Towards Charter Universities: What Price Freedom ? examines the issue of reduced state funding of public institutions

Three Essays on Environmental Economics and International Trade

ABSTRACT This dissertation addresses the broad topic of appropriate metrics, proxies, and estimation methods in environmental economics and international trade research, presented as three separate studies. The first, entitled, \u27Something in the Water? Testing for Groundwater Quality Information in the Housing Market,\u27 examines how informed real estate markets are with respect to groundwater quality by using a couple of different proxies for groundwater quality in a hedonic framework. This research topic has potentially suffered from imperfect proxies and incomplete information, which I test. In the second, entitled, \u27Do Economic Integration Agreements Actually Work? Issues in Understanding the Causes and Consequences of the Growth in Regionalism,\u27 I address a topic in international trade that has consistently suffered from endogeneity biases in estimations: the effect of economic integration agreements on bilateral trade flows. The third study, called \u27Trade Flow Consequences of the European Union\u27s Regionalization of Environmental Regulations,\u27 synthesizes the fields of environmental economics and international trade. I introduce a new proxy - survey data - that does not rely on environmental outcomes and thus hopefully avoids endogeneity. Controlling for any possible interaction effect between environmental regulation stringency and European Union membership, I estimate the effect of increasing environmental regulation stringency on trade flows to and from three groups of countries: high income countries, low income countries, and all countries

DNA recovery from handwritten documents using a novel vacuum technique

Investigations of many crimes such as robberies, kidnappings, and terrorism are often associated with the recovery of a paper document which has been written by the perpetrator. Paper can provide a variety of forensic evidence such as DNA, latent fingermarks, and indented writing. The focus of this study was the collection of probative DNA profiles from the text region of a handwritten note through a vacuum suction device without altering or destroying the document. Collection of DNA evidence was carried out in two separate groups. The first group involved 11 volunteers providing a handwritten note sample with unwashed hands. The second group of DNA collection involved six volunteers providing handwritten notes before and immediately after a period of mild aerobic activity. After the collection of DNA evidence, 10 volunteers provided sebaceous and eccrine latent fingermarks placed onto separate paper documents and developed with magnetic fingerprint developer or 1,2 indanedione to observe any effects of the vacuum swabbing technique. A final step to the study was performed to observe the effects of the vacuum swab technique on indented writing which may be developed using Electrostatic Detection Apparatus (ESDA). Ten simulated robbery notes were impressed with overlay sheets and processed with the vacuum swab before being developed using the ESDA process. Approximately 80% of processed DNA samples produced potentially probative profiles. Quantities of recovered DNA in the single collection series ranged from 0.6-54.3 pg/µL. DNA quantities in the active series prior to the aerobic activity ranged from 3.1-55.8 pg/µL. DNA quantities in the active series post-activity ranged from 1.9 to 221.6 pg/µL. The vacuum swab technique did not destroy nor alter any of the observed fingermarks. Additionally, the vacuum swab technique did not interfere with any indented writing as observed through ESDA

Theological Foundations for an Ethics of Cosmocentric Transfiguration: Navigating the Eco-Theological Poles of Conservation, Transfiguration, Anthropocentrism, and Cosmocentrism with Regard to the Relationship Between Humans and Individual Nonhuman Animals

In the past forty years, there has been an unprecedented explosion of theological writings regarding the place of the nonhuman creation in ethics. The purpose of this dissertation is to propose a taxonomy of four paradigms of eco-theological thought that will categorize these writings and facilitate the identification, situation, and constructive development of the paradigm of cosmocentric transfiguration. This taxonomy takes shape within the tensions of three theological foundations: cosmology, anthropology, and eschatology. These tensions establish two categorical distinctions between, on the one hand, conservation and transfiguration, and, on the other, anthropocentrism and cosmocentrism. The variations within these poles yield the four paradigms. The first paradigm is anthropocentric conservation, represented by Thomas Aquinas. It maintains that humanity bears an essentially unique dignity and eschatological telos that renders the nonhuman creation resources for human use in via toward that telos. The second is cosmocentric conservation, represented by Thomas Berry. It maintains that humanity is part of a cosmic community of intrinsic worth that demands protection and preservation, not human manipulation or eschatological redemption. The third is anthropocentric transfiguration, represented by Orthodox theologians such as Dumitru Staniloae. It maintains that humans are priests of creation charged with the task of recognizing the cosmos as the eternal sacrament of divine love and using it to facilitate communion among themselves and with God. The fourth is cosmocentric transfiguration, represented by both Jürgen Moltmann and Andrew Linzey. It maintains that humans are called to become proleptic witnesses to an eschatological hope for peace that includes the intrinsically valuable members of the cosmic community. Cosmocentric transfiguration, while under-represented and underdeveloped, provides a unique opportunity to affirm both scientific claims about the nature of the cosmos and the theological hope for redemption. In addition, it offers a powerful vision to address the current ecological crisis with regard to humanity\u27s relationship to both individual nonhuman life forms and the cosmos at large. This vision calls for humans to protest the mechanisms of death, suffering, and predation by living at peace, to whatever extent context permits, with all individual creatures while at the same time preserving the very system they protest by protecting the integrity of species, eco-systems, and the environment at large. These findings warrant further research regarding the viability of cosmocentric transfiguration, in particular its exegetical warrant in scripture, its foundations in traditional voices of Christian thought, its interdisciplinary potential for integration of the sciences, and its internal coherency