Symmetric matrix of the relationships between technologies and predicted evolutionary pathways followed in two-technologies-interactive systems in response to natural selection in markets for ...minimization of negative effects from parasitism (starting state) to symbiosis (final state). Note. The notions of positive, negative and neutral benefit to technologies Ti and Tj from interaction in a system S are represented with following symbols of logic: +, −, 0 (zero); + + is a strong positive benefit to technologies Ti and Tj in S from long-run mutual-symbiotic interaction (i.e., coevolution of Ti and Tj in S, ∀i = 1,…,n; ∀j = 1,…,m). The interaction of technological systems generates: competition (−, −), amensalism (0, −), parasitism and predation (+, −), commensalism (+, 0), mutualism (+,+) and symbiosis (++,++). Continuous arrows indicate the most probable evolutionary trajectories of interactive technologies in which parasitic technologies reduce the impact on host (or master) technology, becoming commensal, mutualist and then symbiotic in the long run. Dotted arrows show alternative evolutionary pathways of interactive technologies. Both evolutionary pathways of technology converge towards a state of technological symbiosis in the long run
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•Theory of technological parasitism explains relationships between technologies underlying the evolution of complex systems of technology.•Host or master technologies with many inter-related parasitic technologies advance rapidly.•Host or master technologies with fewer parasitic technologies improve slowly.•Technological parasitism suggests a new direction for explaining the evolution of technology and designing innovation strategies.•Technological parasitism explains parasite-host relationships between technologies that foster long-run coevolution of technologies in complex systems.
How do technologies develop? This study proposes the theory of technological parasitism that is based on the idea that parasite-host relationships between technologies and technologies with a high number of technological parasites have an accelerated evolution driven by long-run mutualistic symbioses, providing the basis for extensive macroevolution and adaptive behavior of systems of interactive technologies in markets. This theory may be useful for bringing a new perspective to explain and generalize the evolution of technology directed to sustain competitive advantage of firms and nations. In particular, technological parasitism explains the relationship of mutualistic symbiosis between a host (or master) technology and inter-related technologies to satisfy needs and/or to solve consequential problems of socioeconomic subjects over time. To explore the potential of adopting a theory of technological parasitism and to predict which technologies are likeliest to evolve rapidly, this study implements a theoretical test based on a computational agent-based model developed from these concepts and a empirical test based on historical data on the evolution of four example technologies (aircraft, tractor, locomotive and bicycle technology). Computational and empirical evidence are broadly consistent with the theoretical expectation that host (or master) technologies with many associated parasitic technologies advance rapidly, whereas master technologies with fewer parasitic technologies improve slowly. The proposed theory has a demonstrated capacity to explain relationships between technologies in complex systems that clarify the driving forces of the evolution of technology in markets. The finding of this study could aid management of firms and innovation strategy of nations to implement best practices of product/process design and development for supporting R&D of technologies that are likely to evolve rapidly, sustaining and safeguarding competitive advantage. Overall, then, this study, for the first time to our knowledge, begins the process of clarifying and generalizing, as far as possible, the role of long-run coevolution between host and parasitic technologies in complex systems, suggesting fruitful implications for innovation management. markets. This conceptual scheme here is especially relevant in Schumpeterian markets with innovation-based competition to explain a major source of technological evolution and success, the parasite-host relationships between technologies. Finally, this theory here suggests a new direction for the development of more sophisticated concepts and theoretical frameworks to explain technological and industrial change in economic systems.
Academic institutions are starting to recognize the growing public interest in digital humanities research, and there is an increasing demand from students for formal training in its methods. Despite ...the pressure on practitioners to develop innovative courses, scholarship in this area has tended to focus on research methods, theories and results rather than critical pedagogy and the actual practice of teaching. The essays in this collection offer a timely intervention in digital humanities scholarship, bringing together established and emerging scholars from a variety of humanities disciplines across the world. The first section offers views on the practical realities of teaching digital humanities at undergraduate and graduate levels, presenting case studies and snapshots of the authors’ experiences alongside models for future courses and reflections on pedagogical successes and failures. The next section proposes strategies for teaching foundational digital humanities methods across a variety of scholarly disciplines, and the book concludes with wider debates about the place of digital humanities in the academy, from the field’s cultural assumptions and social obligations to its political visions. Digital Humanities Pedagogy broadens the ways in which both scholars and practitioners can think about this emerging discipline, ensuring its ongoing development, vitality and long-term sustainability.
In the oil and gas industry, technologies have been developed to address microbial-related issues such as oil field souring, microbiologically influenced corrosion, biofouling, and targeted measures ...for risk assessment and mitigation. Microorganisms have also benefited the oil sector through microbial-enhanced oil recovery and bioremediation of petroleum-contaminated environments. However, during the current transitional phase in the oil and gas industry, the role of the microbiome within the current infrastructure and its potential impact on future systems remains an open question. Petroleum Microbiology: The Role of Microorganisms in the Transition to Net Zero Energy explores technological advances in applied microbiology in the oil and gas sector that can be utilized in its transition to renewable energy systems. • Provides insights on the potential of applying microbiological techniques in oil systems to pave the way to achieving net-zero energy. • Presents the major industrial problems caused by microbes and their beneficial activities from both fundamental and applied perspectives. • Covers such technologies as next-generation sequencing, sampling, and diagnostics. • Offers a solid foundation on the importance of microbes to key aspects of the energy industry. • Seeks to answer the question: what role will microorganisms play in the evolution of energy systems? Featuring chapters from interdisciplinary experts spanning academia and industry, this is an excellent reference for microbial ecologists, molecular biologists, operators, engineers, chemists, and academics involved in the oil and gas sector, working toward energy transition.
Smart home technologies refer to devices that provide some degree of digitally connected, automated, or enhanced services to building occupants. Smart homes have become central in recent technology ...and policy discussions about energy efficiency, climate change, and the sustainability of buildings. Nevertheless, do they truly promote sustainability goals? In addition, what sorts of benefits, risks, and policies do they entail? Based on an extensive original dataset involving expert interviews, site visits to retailers, and a comprehensive review of the literature, this study critically examines the promise and peril of smart home technologies. Drawing on original data collected in the United Kingdom, which has access to European markets, the study first examines definitions of smart homes before offering a new classification involving 13 categories of smart technology covering 267 specific options commercially available from 113 companies. It situates these different technology classes alongside six degrees or levels of smartness, from the basic or traditional home to the fully automated and sentient home. It then elaborates on the 13 distinct benefits smart homes may offer alongside potential 17 risks and barriers, before introducing seven policy recommendations from the material. It lastly suggests three areas of future research on the demographics and behavior of actual smart home adopters, rethinking the duality of “control,” and looking beyond “homes” towards socio-technical systems, practices, and justice.
•Examines definitions of smart homes and classifies 13 categories of technology covering 267 specific options.•Situates smart homes among six degrees or levels of smartness, from basic to automated and sentient homes.•Elaborates on 13 distinct potential benefits smart homes.•Identifies 17 risks and barriers to smart homes and 7 policy recommendations.•Suggests future research areas on adopters, control, and socio-technical systems, practices, and justice.
This paper reviews the technological and economical feasibilities as well as sustainable assessment of approaches (thermochemical and biochemical) applied for sustainable “drop-in” fuel production ...from lignocellulosic sources. The challenges for each pathway to produce “drop-in” fuels are covered. Currently “drop-in” fuel production cost is approximately 2 times (~5–6$/gallon) higher than fossil fuels (3$/gallon), especially with the use of 2nd generation feedstocks. The primary sources of cost with “drop-in” fuel production are feedstock cost (40–60% of the total production cost), syngas cleaning and conditioning to meet Fischer-Tropsch synthesis requirement (12–15% of the total production cost) and bio oil upgrading (14–18% of the total production cost) in the case of pyrolysis and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL). The most influential factors on the life cycle analysis (LCA) were biomass cultivation, harvesting, biomass pre-treatment, and transportation. Therefore, robust processes that can use local waste biomass are far more environmental and economically viable, especially as biofuel from second generation have a greater potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (50–100%) than first generation biofuels (50–90%) when land use changes are omitted in the LCA. The sustainability of biofuels is pre-dominantly dependant on the sustainability of the initial biomass, with 2nd generation feedstocks being more sustainable than 1st generation. Gasification-FTS is considered as the most promising technique for “drop-in” fuel production over pyrolysis and HTL due to its flexibility towards feedstock acceptance and the ability to produced high yields of liquid fuel together with other economically viable biofuels such as electricity and heat. Biochemical routes (i.e.fermentation) to “drop-in” fuels are still in their early development stages, and therefore require more studies and pilot-scale experiments in order to discover an economic and sustainable means of using these methods.
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•“Drop-in” fuel production cost is currently ~2times higher than fossil fuels with the use of second-generation feedstock.•The most influential factors on the LCA were biomass cultivation, harvesting, biomass pre-treatment, and transportation.•Gasification-FTS shows promises for “drop-in” fuel production for its feedstock tolerance and high selectivity to liquid fuel.•Fermentation to “drop-in” fuels is still in the early development stage.
The modern trends of digitalization have completely transformed and reshaped business practices, whole businesses, and even a number of industries. Blockchain technology is believed to be the latest ...advancement in industries such as the financial sector, where trust is of prime significance. Blockchain technology is a decentralized and coded security system which provides the capability for new digital services and platforms to be created through this emerging technology. This research presents a systematic review of scholarly articles on blockchain technology in the financial sector. We commenced by considering 227 articles and subsequently filtered this list down to 87 articles. From this, we present a classification framework that has three dimensions: blockchain-enabled financial benefits, challenges, and functionality. This research identifies implications for future research and practice within the blockchain paradigm.
•The realization of the digital economy in the Asian nations is due to the need to revamp traditional business processes, extensive technology innovation, supportive government policies for economic ...growth, and the high capacity for digital entrepreneurship.•Research opportunities may be related to the components of “digital economy and society index” (DESI) scores.•New research directions are prompted by big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), platform economy, digital trade, fintech innovation, and societal and economic sustainability.•The recent emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world calls for addressing new research directions that could stay after the pandemic has ended.
By Asian digital economy, we refer to high-tech developments, business and social transformations, and information-driven changes in the region’s growth. We discuss its background and foundations, significance in Asia and contribution to removal of historical barriers in traditional business. We assess how new value chains are transforming country-level involvement in worldwide manufacturing and note “smiling curve theory” predictions about the global value chain in Asia for high-tech firms and their economies. The takeaway is that the digital economy in Asian nations involves revamping business processes through technology innovation, government policies for growth, and digital entrepreneurship. We analyze the “digital economy and society index”, and attributes of nations, societies and economies, as a basis for framing our ideas. We consider research directions prompted by data analytics and AI, the platform economy, digital trade, fintech innovation, and societal and economic sustainability. We further highlight new issues in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The increasing penetration of renewable energy sources (RES) in power systems intensifies the need of enhancing the flexibility in grid operations in order to accommodate the uncertain power output ...of the leading RES such as wind and solar generation. Utilities have been recently showing increasing interest in developing Demand Response (DR) programs in order to match generation and demand in a more efficient way. Incentive- and price-based DR programs aim at enabling the demand side in order to achieve a range of operational and economic advantages, towards developing a more sustainable power system structure. The contribution of the presented study is twofold. First, a complete and up-to-date overview of DR enabling technologies, programs and consumer response types is presented. Furthermore, the benefits and the drivers that have motivated the adoption of DR programs, as well as the barriers that may hinder their further development, are thoroughly discussed. Second, the international DR status quo is identified by extensively reviewing existing programs in different regions.
•Community-led solar energy projects in India are analyzed using the grassroots innovation literature.•The status of community energy projects in the US, Europe and India and presented.•Three case ...studies, namely DURGA, Barefoot College and Rampura solar project, are reviewed.•Case studies are consistent with social justice concerns, such as participation, equitable distribution of benefits and recognition of marginal communities.
Sustainable technologies for social mobilization and community empowerment are contemporary phenomena of grassroots innovation movements. The origins of the grassroots innovations appear in the appropriate technology movement of the 1970s, the People's Science Movement of the 1980s, and more recently, the Social Movement Organization as seen in the cases of the Honey Bee Network in India and the Social Technology Network in Brazil. This paper articulates the community energy movement in India in the framework of ‘grassroots innovations for sustainability’. The paper presents three fine case studies of off-grid community energy initiatives namely, the Dungarpur Renewable Energy Technologies Private Limited, (DURGA), the Barefoot College and the Rampura Community Solar Power Plant (CSPP). The case studies represent three different kind of business models of community energy projects – a private limited company, a market-based model and a village energy committee (VEC) model. Therefore, they are representative of different grassroots innovations in off-grid energy projects. The case studies exemplify how off-grid community energy projects may manifest an embedded character of the grassroots innovations and address energy poverty and social justice concerns, such as community participation, equitable distribution of benefits, representation of marginalized communities. The case studies also demonstrate that the grassroots innovations in off-grid energy projects may enhance social mobilization, community empowerment and sustainability. To conclude, the findings of this research show that grassroots innovations in technology and sustainable development are consistent with each other.
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