Although stakeholder management is seen as one of the main success factors of Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs), to date, limited research has investigated actual stakeholder management in PPPs. ...After positioning PPP in the current stakeholder management theory, a comparative case study analysis of four PPP infrastructure projects demonstrates the relevance and importance of stakeholder inclusion in PPPs. The case study findings indicate that a PPP makes the stakeholder environment more complex to manage, due to the increasing importance of the stakeholder context and dynamics. Hence, allocating stakeholder responsibilities between the public initiator and private consortium becomes problematic as it goes hand in hand with balancing between reactive and proactive responses to stakeholder claims. In order to cope with the PPP specific stakeholder characteristics, the use of a dynamic dual stakeholder management tool is recommended as well as the identification of governance structures that allow the sharing and division of responsibilities between stakeholders.
•One focal organisation for managing SH does not hold for PPPs.•Ownership issues regarding SH management arise across all PPP stages.•Allocating SH responsibilities results in balancing reactive and proactive SH responses.•Dual governed and dynamic stakeholder management is suggested for PPPs.
While public entities are still increasingly interested in Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs), we recently observe increasing reluctance from private partners to engage in PPP-bidding. Up-front costs ...that PPP bidders make, are considered too high compared to the bidding chances, and may result in less bidders in the future. In this paper, we empirically analyze transaction costs of PPPs in the pre-contractual stage and compare these to similar costs borne by private partners for traditional public procurement. Statistical analyses based on sample of 172 public infrastructure projects enable the estimation of the pre-contractual cost burden. Based on the study results, suggestions are made to lower these costs or to improve the cost position of the private sector, in order to safeguard the competitive setting of the PPP market.
•A comparative transaction cost assessment of pubic infrastructure procurement•Proved that PPPs are beset by higher transaction costs than their alternatives•Identified levers to control transaction costs of pubic infrastructure procurement
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to offer a systematic assessment of the magnitude of transaction costs of public infrastructure delivery, based on the three attributes of transaction costs, ...being the asset specificity, uncertainty and frequency of a transaction.
Design/methodology/approach
– Non-parametric tests were used to test the transaction cost differences between different procurement types.
Findings
– The authors find empirical support, based on a sample of 172 public infrastructure projects in Belgium, that construction firms make higher relation specific investments to their transaction partners under a public-private partnership (PPP) than a under a traditional public procurement (TPP). In addition, the authors found that PPP transactions are burdened by a greater uncertainty and a less mature market than TPP transactions.
Research limitations/implications
– Given the complexity of this research, the scope is limited to: a strict distinction between two procurement types, one geographical area, a limited time scope and a focus on the private sector. Hence, the authors suggest that further research broadens the scope of either one of these aspects in order to get a better understanding of the total transaction cost burden of the public infrastructure market.
Practical implications
– This study offers policy makers form a better understanding of the transaction cost implications when evaluating different procurement types.
Originality/value
– This paper serves as one of the first systematic comparative analyses of the magnitude and determinants of transaction costs for the delivery of public infrastructure.
This paper reviews the available life cycle analysis (LCA) literature on organic photovoltaics (OPVs). This branch of OPV research has focused on the environmental impact of single-junction bulk ...heterojunction polymer solar cells using a P3HT/PC
60
BM active layer blend processed on semi-industrial pilot lines in ambient surroundings. The environmental impact was found to be strongly decreasing through continuous innovation of the manufacturing procedures. The current top performing cell regarding environmental performance has a cumulative energy demand of 37.58 MJ
p
m
−2
and an energy payback time in the order of months for cells having 2% efficiency, thereby rendering OPV cells one of the best performing PV technologies from an environmental point of view. Nevertheless, we find that LCA literature is lagging behind on the main body of OPV literature due to the lack of readily available input data. Still, LCA research has led us to believe that in the quest for higher efficiencies, environmental sustainability is being disregarded on the materials' side. Hence, we advise the scientific community to take the progress made on environmental sustainability aspects of OPV preparations into account not only because standard procedures put a bigger strain on the environment, but also because these methods may not be transferrable to an industrial process. Consequently, we recommend policy makers to subsidize research that bridges the gaps between fundamental materials research, stability, and scalability given that these constraints have to be fulfilled simultaneously if OPVs are ever to be successful on the market. Additionally, environmental sustainability will have to keep on being monitored to steer future developments in the right direction.
This paper reviews the available life cycle analysis (LCA) literature on organic photovoltaics (OPVs).
Background:
Serine proteases are believed to play a key role in the origin of abdominal pain in IBD and IBS. We previously demonstrated a reduction of visceral pain in a post-inflammatory IBS rat ...model after a single intraperitoneal or intracolonic administration of a serine protease inhibitor. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of serine protease inhibition on visceral pain in two different animal models involving a colonic insult based either on acute inflammation or on neonatal irritation. Moreover, protease profiling was explored in the acute colitis model.
Methods:
An acute 2,4,6-trinitrobenzenesulphonic acid (TNBS) colitis rat model and a chronic neonatal acetic acid mouse model were used in this study. Visceral sensitivity was quantified by visceromotor responses (VMRs) to colorectal distension, 30 min after intraperitoneal administration of the serine protease inhibitors nafamostat, UAMC-00050 or their vehicles. Colonic samples from acute colitis rats were used to quantify the mRNA expression of a panel of serine proteases and mast cell tryptase by immunohistochemistry. Finally, proteolytic activities in colonic and fecal samples were characterized using fluorogenic substrates.
Key Results:
We showed a significant and pressure-dependent increase in visceral hypersensitivity in acute colitis and neonatal acetic acid models. UAMC-00050 and nafamostat significantly reduced VMRs in both animal models. In acute colitis rats, the administration of a serine protease inhibitor did not affect the inflammatory parameters. Protease profiling of these acute colitis animals revealed an increased tryptase immunoreactivity and a downregulation of matriptase at the mRNA level after inflammation. The administration of UAMC-00050 resulted in a decreased elastase-like activity in the colon associated with a significantly increased elastase-like activity in fecal samples of acute colitis animals.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, our results suggest that serine proteases play an important role in visceral hypersensitivity in an acute TNBS colitis model in rats and a neonatal acetic acid model in mice. Moreover, we hypothesize a potential mechanism of action of UAMC-00050 via the alteration of elastase-like proteolytic activity in acute inflammation. Taken together, we provided fundamental evidence for serine protease inhibitors as a promising new therapeutic strategy for abdominal pain in gastrointestinal diseases.
The number of connected devices has reached 18 billion in 2017 and this will nearly double by 2022, while also new wireless communication technologies become available. Since these modern devices ...support the use of multiple communication technologies, efforts have been made to enable simultaneous usage and handovers between the different technologies for these devices. However, existing solutions are missing the intelligence to decide on fine-grained (e.g. flow or packet level) optimizations that can drastically enhance the network’s performance (e.g., throughput) and user experience. To this extent, we present a multi-technology flow-management load balancing approach for heterogeneous wireless networks that dynamically re-routes traffic through heterogeneous networks, in order to maximize the global throughput. This dynamic approach can be deployed on top of existing solutions and takes into account the specific characteristics of the different technologies, as well as station mobility. We both present a mathematical problem formulation and a heuristic that ensures practical scalability. We demonstrate the heuristic’s ability to increase the network-wide throughput by more than 100% across a variety of scenarios and scalability up to 10,000 devices.
Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is a rare but aggressive subtype of breast cancer, mainly characterized using primary tumor samples. Here, using public datasets, we compared the genomic alterations ...in primary and metastatic samples from patients with metastatic IBC versus patients with metastatic non-IBC. We observed a higher frequency of AURKA amplification in IBC. We further showed that AURKA amplification was associated with increased AURKA mRNA expression, which we demonstrated was higher in IBC. Finally, higher protein expression of AURKA was associated with worse prognosis in patients with IBC. These findings deserve further investigation given the existence of AURKA-inhibitors.
•Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is a rare understudied but aggressive type of breast cancer.•AURKA amplification appeared to be more common in patients with metastatic IBC as compared to non-IBC.•AURKA amplification is associated with AURKA expression.•AURKA protein expression is associated with worse prognosis in patients with IBC.
Wireless devices have a plethora of technologies at their disposal to connect to the Internet and other services. Management and control of each technology are traditionally isolated, and ...coordination between technologies is nearly non-existent. This isolation leads to poor resource usage, which in turn reduces performance and service guarantees. To satisfy growing user demands, we need to leverage the different service guarantees offered by each technology. Additionally, we need to improve orchestration between technologies to increase performance and flexibility while offering a more extensive range of service guarantees and maximizing resource utilization across networks and users. In this work, we present the general challenges one encounters when managing heterogeneous wireless networks. We argue that the primary challenge is the heterogeneity itself, the number of different devices and technologies, the different service requirements, and the increasing complexity as a consequence. However, technology abstraction can overcome these challenges. We provide an overview of state of the art commercial and scientific solutions and show their strengths and weaknesses. Based on this, we discuss the current status and what future challenges still await to provide full seamless heterogeneous wireless network management.
Organic photovoltaics (OPV) have developed into a vast research area. Progress in various directions has made it difficult to monitor the technology's precise development state. We offer a patent ...landscape analysis over all OPV devices, their substrates and encapsulation materials to provide an overview of patenting activity from a historical, organizational, geographical and technological point of view. Such an exercise is instrumental for private companies and research institutes aiming at both internal or external technology creation. We discuss our findings in the context of the Industrial Life Cycle model and find OPV still residing in the fluid technology development phase. Technology development is still following an exponential growth path, with the majority of patents coming from the Asian continent and in general private companies. For devices, the main technological focus can be traced back to the “H01L-031” international patent classification (IPC) main group. For the queried substrates, the most attention has gone to glass, but paper and textile have drawn significant interest too. Finally, encapsulation is found to be a less mature research field given the smaller number of patent families. The latter shows that the technology has not matured to the level where processing is carried out on a commercial scale.
Display omitted
► The majority of patents are coming from Asian, private companies. ► For devices, the focus can be traced back to the H01L-031 main group. ► For substrates, the most attention has been going to glass. ► Encapsulation was found to be a far less mature research field. ► In terms of industry life cycle, OPV is residing in the fluid phase.
Professional road cycling is a very competitive sport, and many factors influence the outcome of the race. These factors can be internal (e.g., psychological preparedness, physiological profile of ...the rider, and the preparedness or fitness of the rider) or external (e.g., the weather or strategy of the team) to the rider, or even completely unpredictable (e.g., crashes or mechanical failure). This variety makes perfectly predicting the outcome of a certain race an impossible task and the sport even more interesting. Nonetheless, before each race, journalists, ex-pro cyclists, websites and cycling fans try to predict the possible top 3, 5, or 10 riders. In this article, we use easily accessible data on road cycling from the past 20 years and the Machine Learning technique Learn-to-Rank (LtR) to predict the top 10 contenders for 1-day road cycling races. We accomplish this by mapping a relevancy weight to the finishing place in the first 10 positions. We assess the performance of this approach on 2018, 2019, and 2021 editions of six spring classic 1-day races. In the end, we compare the output of the framework with a mass fan prediction on the Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG) metric and the number of correct top 10 guesses. We found that our model, on average, has slightly higher performance on both metrics than the mass fan prediction. We also analyze which variables of our model have the most influence on the prediction of each race. This approach can give interesting insights to fans before a race but can also be helpful to sports coaches to predict how a rider might perform compared to other riders outside of the team.
PDF
