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Setting contextual conditions to resolve grand challenges through responsible innovation: a comparative patent analysis in the circular economy
Get PDFThis article draws on responsible innovation (RI) undertaken by hybrid organizations, institutional rigidity, and national innovation systems (NISs) to assess and contextualize the innovation performance of for-profit firms seeking to resolve grand challenges (GCs). The extant research on RI lacks the theoretical underpinnings to profile the unique characteristics of RI firms and the contextual conditions behind the resolution of GCs through RI. This study aims to fill this important gap by focusing on a specific type of RI firm—a firm seeking to reduce climate change through implementation of a circular economy model. By studying a multi-country sample of 1153 manufacturing firms, we implemented propensity score matching (PSM) and the Heckman selection model to compare the patent productivity of RI and non-RI firms. Our evidence demonstrates that RI firms display lower likelihood of patenting and lower patent productivity than non-RI firms when they do engage in patenting. Furthermore, we found that a stronger national R&D environment can be conducive to aligning public interests and private incentives by enabling RI firms to enhance their patent productivity. Additionally, RI firms in industries with lower levels of technological complexity capture more value from improvements in R&D environments than RI firms in industries with higher levels of technological complexity. Our argument as a whole contributes to the GC and RI literature streams by considering both the innovation barriers faced by RI-oriented firms and the macro/industry boundary conditions that enable such organizations to overcome them
Anthropogenic influence on decadal changes of concurrent hot and dry events over China around the mid-1990s
Get PDFThe frequency and duration of observed concurrent hot and dry events (HDEs) over China during the growing season (April-September) exhibit significant decadal changes across the mid-1990s. These changes are characterized by increases in HDE frequency and duration over most of China, with relatively large increases over Southeastern China (SEC), Northern China (NC), and Northeastern China (NEC). The frequency of HDEs averaged over China in the present day (PD, 1994-2011) is double that in the early period (EP, 1964-1981); the duration of HDEs increases by 60%. Climate experiments with the Met Office Unified Model (MetUM-GOML2) are used to estimate the contributions of anthropogenic forcing to HDE decadal changes over China. Anthropogenic forcing changes can explain 60%-70% of the observed decadal changes, suggesting an important anthropogenic influence on HDE changes over China across the mid-1990s. Single-forcing experiments indicate that the increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations dominates the simulated decadal changes, increasing the frequency and duration of HDEs throughout China. The change in anthropogenic aerosol (AA) emissions significantly decreases the frequency and duration of HDEs over SEC and NC, but the magnitude of the decrease is much smaller than the increase induced by GHGs. The changes of HDEs in response to anthropogenic forcing are mainly due to the response of climatological mean surface air temperatures. The contributions from changes in variability and changes in climatological mean soil moisture and evapotranspiration are relatively small. The physical processes associated with the response of HDEs to GHG and AA changes are also revealed
Place promotion, place branding and social media communication around entrepreneurial ecosystems: a Twitter analysis
No full textWe discuss the use of social media communication for place promotion and place branding of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). As places resting on the advantages of co-location for entrepreneurial activity, EEs offer a novel testbed for the co-creation of a place image in the virtual space of social media. By exploring almost 370,000 tweets from Twitter across 20 European EEs, we observe virtual spaces of EEs being broadly used to share positive messages about the place. However, no EE stands out with a unique image evoking symbolic associations with the place in target audiences. Our results suggest the presence of place promotion more than place branding
Strong surface winds in Storm Eunice. Part 2: airstream analysis
Get PDFStorm Eunice caused severe wind impacts on the UK on 18 February 2022. This
article contains the second of a two-part study and consists of a detailed analysis of
Eunice’s airstream structure, confirming the presence of sting-jet (SJ) activity during
its lifecycle. By the time Eunice crossed Wales and Southern England, several other
airstreams, including a cold conveyor belt and a dry intrusion, interacted in generating
the observed damaging winds. These results illustrate the wind-damage potential of
multiple airstreams, including SJs, in intense cyclones like Eunice, highlighting the
importance of accurate airstream forecasts
Analyses for graphical records for a total solar eclipse in May 1230: a possible reference for the “Medieval Grand Maximum”
Get PDFDatable graphical records of total solar eclipses allow us to assess contemporaneous variability of Earth's rotation speed, solar coronal structure, and solar-wind conditions. Such records are known back to the early 18th century. Here, we examine Matthew Paris’ medieval manuscript, an eyewitness account of a total solar eclipse just after local sunrise, and analyse his eclipse drawings on 14 May 1230. We philologically identify his observational site as St. Albans and compute local eclipse visibility. To locate St. Albans in the totality path, our analysis requires ΔT in 555 s < ΔT < 923 s (loose scenario), consistent with the latest published ΔT spline curve, which indicates that only the upper part of the eclipsed Sun should have been visible in this case. The eclipsed Sun sould have been entirely visible over the local horizon if we set the ΔT margins to 555 s < ΔT < 571 s (strict scenario), which requires slightly modifying the latest ΔT spline curve. Matthew Paris’ drawing of the total solar eclipse showed streamer-like structures similar to solar-minimum-type coronal streamers, consistent with the local tilt of the apparent solar equator. This is morphologically consistent with the minimum-type solar coronal streamers predicted from the open solar flux reconstructed from the 14C dataset. This record potentially demonstrates a similarity in solar cycles between the ‘Medieval Grand Maximum’ and modern solar cycles. Collectively, historical eclipse records could be used to assess Earth's rotation speed, solar coronal dynamics, and background solar dynamo activity on a millennial timescale
Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national‐scale monitoring data
Get PDFInsects are key components of food chains, and monitoring data provides new opportunities to identify trophic relationships at broad spatial and temporal scales. Here, combining two monitoring datasets from Great Britain, we reveal how the population dynamics of the blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus are inf luenced by the abundance of moths – a core component of their breeding diet. We find that years with increased population growth for blue tits correlate strongly with high moth abundance, but population growth in moths and birds is less well correlated; suggesting moth abundance directly affects bird population change. Next, we identify moths that are important components of blue tit diet, recovering associations to species previously identified as key food sources such as the winter moth Operoptera brumata. Our work provides new evidence that insect abundance impacts bird population dynamics in natural communities and provides insight into spatial diet turnover at a national-scale
Enhanced impacts of ENSO on the Southeast Asian summer monsoon under global warming and associated mechanisms
Get PDFBased on outputs of 28 coupled models from the Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), we show that the response of the Southeast Asian summer monsoon to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) during post-ENSO summer will likely strengthen in a warmer climate, which can be attributed to concurrently weakened sea-surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in the western equatorial Pacific (WEP). The weakened WEP SSTAs are primarily caused by enhanced latent heat damping due to increased surface wind speed anomalies, which are associated with the eastward shift of the El Niño-induced anomalous Walker circulation due to El Niño-like sea surface temperature change in the tropical Pacific under global warming. Besides, the climatological zonal ocean currents will slow down due to the weakening of climatological Walker circulation, which also acts to weaken the WEP SSTAs via reducing the advection of anomalous temperature by the mean current
Satellite observations reveal a decreasing albedo trend of global urban cities over the past 35 years
Get PDFUrban surface albedo is an essential biophysical variable in the surface energy balance across all scales, from micro-scale (materials) to the globe, changing with land covers and three-dimensional structures over urban areas. Urban albedos are dynamic over space and time but have not yet been quantified over global scales due to the lack of high-resolution albedo datasets. Here, we combined the direct estimation approach and Landsat surface reflectance product to generate a 30-m-resolution annual surface albedo dataset for 3037 large cities (area > 50 km2) worldwide for the period from 1986 to 2020, allowing spatial patterns and long-term temporal trends to be explored with possible causal drivers, and quantification of the surface radiative forcing from these albedo changes. Evaluation of this new albedo dataset using global urban flux tower-based measurements demonstrates its high accuracy with an overall bias and root-mean-square-error (RMSE) of 0.005 and 0.025, respectively. Analysis of the dataset reveals an overall decreasing trend of albedo during the 35-year evaluation period (1986–2020), which is robust accounting for uncertainties from training sample representativeness, Landsat data uncertainty, seasonal variation, and snow-cover contamination. Our results reveal that urban greening (measured by the positive Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) trend) can well explain the total variances in the albedo trend for the 35-year period through two different pathways of tree planting and urban warming-enhanced vegetation growth. The decrease in urban albedo caused a warming effect indicated by positive surface radiative forcing, with a global city-level average surface radiative forcing of 2.76 W·m−2. These findings enhance our understanding of urbanization's impacts on albedo-related biophysical processes and can provide information to quantify urban surface radiation energy and design effective mitigation strategies to reduce urban warming
Probing a major DNA weakness: resolving the groove and sequence selectivity of the diimine complex Λ‐[Ru(phen)2phi]2+
Get PDFThe grooves of DNA provide recognition sites for many nucleic acid binding proteins and anticancer drugs such as the covalently binding cisplatin. Here we report a crystal structure showing, for the first time, groove selectivity by an intercalating ruthenium complex. The complex Λ‐[Ru(phen)2phi]2+, where phi = 9,10‐phenanthrenediimine, is bound to the DNA decamer duplex d(CCGGTACCGG)2. The structure shows that the metal complex is symmetrically bound in the major groove at the central TA/TA step, and asymmetrically bound in the minor groove at the adjacent GG/CC steps. A third type of binding links the strands, in which each terminal cytosine base stacks with one phen ligand. The overall binding stoichiometry is four Ru complexes per duplex. Complementary biophysical measurements confirm the binding preference for the Λ‐enantiomer and show a high affinity for TA/TA steps and, more generally, TA‐rich sequences. A striking enantiospecific elevation of melting temperatures is found for oligonucleotides which include the TATA box sequence