Search results for "INNOVATION"
showing 10 items of 1927 documents
Assessing the indirect and long-term ecological impacts of innovation in agriculture is a real challenge: the GM example
2003
All innovation in agriculture constitutes a significant and complex ecological disturbance, even if limited to a single and simple action. Indeed, whatever the nature and objective of the action, a large number of ecological processes are affected and numerous discontinuities may occur within the agro-ecosystem, in both time and space. As the GMO example illustrates, it is not sufficient to focus on direct effect of innovation, it is necessary to forecast mid- and long-term impacts of innovation with respect to the environment. Modelling phenomena appear then to be a key element to achieve this goal.
Regulating blockchain for sustainability? The critical relationship between digital innovation, regulation, and electricity governance
2021
Abstract Blockchain technology has found several innovative applications in the electricity industry. However, its potential has still to be discovered. This is partly due to the role that regulation plays in electricity markets. To be introduced, experimented with, and eventually adopted on a commercial scale, blockchain-supported innovations need to fit the existing regulatory framework or the rules to be reshaped or updated. We focus on energy regulators' possible responses to the blockchain-enhanced market operations (both from the incumbents and potential newcomers), suggesting a monitoring mechanism that can support innovation.
The adoption of green energy technologies: The role of policies in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland
2017
We contribute to the existing research about policy-induced technology adoption in several ways. First, we suggest a new survey design to measure the energy-related policy environment. Second, we simultaneously estimate the policy effects for the adoption propensity and the adoption intensity simultaneously and, third, we compare the policy effects in the three countries, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Based on a representative sample of firms for all three countries we find that policies essentially promote the adoption of technologies and they are practically ineffective for the intensity, which poses a great challenge to future policy designs. Voluntary agreements or demand-related f…
Uncovering the knowledge flows and intellectual structures of research in Technological Forecasting and Social Change: A journey through history
2020
Abstract Technological Forecasting and Social Change (TF&SC) celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year. The anniversary represents an appropriate time for an introspective analysis of the journal's history and impact. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of TF&SC in terms of how often TF&SC is cited by other journals (citation outflow), how often other journals are cited by TF&SC (citation inflow), citations by Web of Science and SCImago disciplinary categories, most-cited articles in TF&SC, co-citation of journals, and co-occurrence of author keywords. Analysis is conducted by using the Web of Science (WOS) database and Visualization of Similarities (VOS) viewer software. The in…
Exploring how social interactions influence regulators and innovators: The case of regulatory sandboxes
2020
Like incubators, regulatory sandboxes constitute a prominent mechanism to enable entrepreneurial activities that guide financial technology (FinTech) firms through regulatory frameworks in the financial industry. Because they are new, there is a lack of research on regulatory sandboxes; most studies have investigated legal aspects while overlooking the management perspective. To address this gap, this paper builds on incubation research studies to explore how social interactions within regulatory sandboxes influence the practices of regulators and regulatees, using social capital theory. An exploratory-abductive approach is adopted, using data collected from 16 semi-structured interviews. T…
Soft Innovation Resources: Enabler for reversal in GDP Growth in the Digital Economy
2018
While Finland and Singapore have been maintaining world digital leaders position, they demonstrate interlaced contrast: high welfare with low GDP growth in Finland and higher GDP growth with lower welfare in Singapore. This provokes an uncaptured GDP postulate that Finnish wellbeing has developed more than one might conclude by GDP. However, a recent reversal in the GDP growth trend suggests the possibility that uncaptured GDP contributes to remove structural impediments in GDP growth.This paper demonstrates this hypothesis. An empirical analysis elucidating the inside the national accountings and institutional systems revealed that soft innovation resources have substituted for service cap…
District heating networks: enhancement of the efficiency
2019
International audience; During the decades the district heating's (DH) advantages (more cost-efficient heat generation and reduced air pollution) overcompensated the additional costs of transmission and distribution of the centrally produced thermal energy to consumers. Rapid increase in the efficiency of low-power heaters, development of separated low heat density areas in cities reduce the competitiveness of the large centralized DH systems in comparison with the distributed cluster-size networks and even local heating. Reduction of transmission costs, enhancement of the network efficiency by optimization of the design of the DH networks become a critical issue. The methodology for determ…
Uncovering Technological and Environmental Potentials of Aluminum Alloy Scraps Recycling Through Friction Stir Consolidation
2020
Conventional metal chips recycling processes are energy-intensive with low efficiency and permanent material losses during re-melting. Solid state recycling allows direct recycling of metal scraps into semi-finished products. It is expected that this process category would lower the environmental performance of metals recycling. Friction Stir Consolidation is a new solid-state technique taking advantage of friction heat generation and severe plastic deformation to consolidate chips into billets. In this research, the feasibility of Friction Stir Consolidation as aluminum chips recycling process is analyzed. Specifically, an experimental campaign has been carried out with varying main proces…
Integrated WAAM-Subtractive Versus Pure Subtractive Manufacturing Approaches: An Energy Efficiency Comparison
2019
Over the last years, additive manufacturing (AM) has been gathering momentum both in the academic and in the industrial world. Besides the obvious benefits in terms of flexibility and process capabilities, the environmental performance of such processes has still to be properly analyzed. Actually, the advantages of additive manufacturing over conventional processes are not obvious. Indeed, different manufacturing approaches result in different amounts of involved material and in different processing energy demands. Environmental comparative analyses are hence crucial to properly characterize AM processes. In this paper, an energetic comparison between the emerging wire arc additive manufact…
Design of a telescopic tower for wind energy production with reduced environmental impact
2019
A prototype of a telescopic pole for wind energy production with low environmental impact and its lifting system for a 60 to 250 kW turbine and a height of 30 m have been designed and manufactured. A telescopic tower, which is raised and lowered by automation or by remote control, allows to differentiate the presence of the generator within the landscape over time. The technology currently available for lifting and lowering wind turbines is made up of telescopic poles of heights of less than 10 meters and with tilting posts of height below 30 m. Without a state of the art to refer to, the telescopic pole and its lifting system have been designed starting from scratch and solving with innova…