•Mission-oriented policy focuses on fixing “directional” failures versus fixing market and systems failures.•One can distinguish Type 1 (centralized) and Type 2 (decentralized) mission-oriented ...policy.•There are different evolutions of mission-oriented policies in the space sector.•The evolutions are triggered by Industry 4.0, New Space and Grand Challenges as drivers for policy reframing.•Space agencies in the US and Europe are reacting to these triggers differently in their policy reframing.
Market creation is moving to the centre of mission-oriented innovation policy. This is particularly visible in the space sector. Agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are developing market-creating innovation policies in response to (a) the increasing emphasis on societal grand challenges, (b) the rise of a new wave of space companies (often referred to as “New Space”) and (c) the global trend towards interconnecting and interlinking of industries (a trend referred to as Industry 4.0). In this paper we explore the changing nature of mission-oriented innovation policies for market creation for two agencies, NASA and ESA. For these agencies, earlier mission-oriented policies focused on clear challenges with identifiable concrete problems and directed by a strong centralized agency. Contrast this with today, with broadly defined grand challenges, decentralized innovation systems with mixed top-down and bottom-up problem definition. We describe the current drivers and pressures that are creating a window for policy change, and we present examples of how NASA and ESA are responding to these pressures and use this exploration to dig deeper into the evolving frames of market-creating innovation policy in the space sector to identify the challenges for such policies and to further articulate a research agenda.
U.S. public activities in space directed via NASA are undergoing change. While NASA has historically been able to drive market creation, through its procurement policy (which is much weaker in ...Europe), the past decade has seen a visible shift in US space policy, away from NASA-directed developments in low-Earth orbit (LEO) towards an ecosystem with a mix of private, not-for-profit, and public actors in LEO. This has fundamentally changed NASA's role from an orchestrating/directing role, to a more ‘facilitating’ one driven by commercialization needs. This shift in mission and approach has ramifications for the LEO ecosystem as well as NASA's innovation policy, which has previously centred on clearly defined “mission-oriented” objectives, such as putting a man on the moon or creating the shuttle fleet. Such objectives required ‘active’ innovation policy whereby NASA both funded and ‘directed’ the innovation, within its walls and with its partners. The emerging multi-actor ecosystem approach has involved a more open-ended objective that does not have a unified nor clearly defined end-game. In this situation, NASA's ability to shape activities in a direction in line with its mission will depend on its relationships with other members in the system. The rise of new actors in the space eco-system, and new relationships between them, presents interesting challenges for innovation policy informed by an Innovation System approach. In this paper, we critique the market failure approach of public intervention in markets and describe further work to be done in the innovation systems literature - more focus on the interactions between agents (and the type of agents) as complimentary to the dominant focus on funding programmes in innovation systems. In this paper, we present the evolving processes of NASA's engagement in building a low-earth orbit economy to draw out case specific insights into a public agency shifting its mission to incorporate approaches to facilitate the market creation policy. The paper focuses on the way that NASA structures its new innovation policy, away from a classical supply side oriented R&D investment through NASA itself, towards a policy of orchestration and combination of instruments rather. We close the paper with a reflection on the ramifications of NASA's approach to building a sustainable low-Earth orbit economic ecosystem.
“New” and “Emerging Science” and “Technologies” (“NESTs”) have tremendous innovation potential. However this must be weighed against enormous uncertainties caused by many unknowns. The authors of ...this paper offer a framework to analyze NESTs to help ascertain likely innovation pathways. We have devised a 10-step framework based on extensive Future-oriented Technology Analyses (“FTA”) experience, enriched by in-depth case analyses. In the paper, we describe our analytical activities in two case studies. The nanobiosensor experience is contrasted with that of deep brain stimulation in relative quantitative and qualitative emphases. We close the paper by reflecting on this systematic FTA framework for emerging science and technologies, for its intended goal, that is to support decision making.
In recent years, the Forecasting Innovation Pathway approach (FIP) has shown to be a promising set of tools to capture potential developments in emerging fields through capturing indications of ...endogenous futures. However, the FIP approach is reliant on a clear demarcated area to study, a challenge for emerging technology fields where uncertainty and rhetoric abound. This paper presents an addition to the FIP toolbox that helps characterise and demarcate boundaries of emerging fields to allow for deeper analysis through other FIP methods. We illustrate this approach through an exercise for 3D printing technology (also known as Additive Manufacturing). We show that 3D printing can be represented by a dominant design: a tri-partite configuration of printer, material and digital design software. In the past decade we have seen significant branching from applications in rapid-prototyping to medical, fashion, aeronautics and supply chain management with a variety of elements coming together in tri-partite configurations. The paper adds to the current FTA literature an approach building on evolutionary theories of technical change to help with such situations – emerging, evolving and branching ‘innovation pathways’. Moreover, we developed a methodology to construct these innovation paths.
•New technology fields can be represented as paths that build momentum, fork and evolve.•Forecasting Innovation Pathways (FIP) require a further developed theory of path emergence and evolution.•3D printing can be represented by a dominant design: a tri-partite configuration that is filled in a variety of ways.•3D printing is a field which evolved first around prototyping applications and has branched out to new applications.•The interplay of foreseen applications and the filling of the tri-partite schema motivate branching from rapid prototyping.
•The struggle in connecting futures intelligence to policy making can be read as a basic challenge in foresight.•Policy lenses are proposed to interpret futures intelligence from the perspective of a ...policy maker.•Lenses can focus on, for example, priorities such a mission-oriented policies, forms of Europeanisation or the variety of policy formation and implementation spaces•An experiment is presented in developing and applying tailored lenses for European research and innovation policy.
The rich and complex outcomes of foresight activities are often difficult to translate into policy relevant intelligence. The struggle in connecting futures intelligence to policy making can be read as a basic challenge in foresight: working on futures intelligence has emerged as a way to improve policy, but once it is delegated to professional foresight practitioners with attendant quality and quality control, however, it also introduces a distance to policy making. Whilst independence and methodological rigour is desirable for high quality futures intelligence, bridging this intelligence with the policy context is essential for its use. Experiencing this challenge during a scenario exercise on the future European research and innovation system, the authors of this paper embarked on an experiment to go beyond evaluating the robustness of the scenarios, produced in a foresight exercise, by developing and applying “policy lenses” to translate the scenarios into policy tailored intelligence. This paper describes the experiment, which saw the development and application of three types of policy lenses: (1) a lens based on the layered processes of European policy making, (2) a lens based on three research and innovation policy priorities and (3) a lens on alternative geo-political situations of the European continent. The paper describes the logic behind the lenses, the interpretation of the original scenarios when viewed through these lenses, and then concludes by reflecting on how such an experiment could be generalised to other settings of policy-oriented foresight.
Cell-shape changes associated with processes like cytokinesis and motility proceed on several-second timescales but are derived from molecular events, including protein-protein interactions, filament ...assembly, and force generation by molecular motors, all of which occur much faster 1–4. Therefore, defining the dynamics of such molecular machinery is critical for understanding cell-shape regulation. In addition to signaling pathways, mechanical stresses also direct cytoskeletal protein accumulation 5–7. A myosin-II-based mechanosensory system controls cellular contractility and shape during cytokinesis and under applied stress 6, 8. In Dictyostelium, this system tunes myosin II accumulation by feedback through the actin network, particularly through the crosslinker cortexillin I. Cortexillin-binding IQGAPs are major regulators of this system. Here, we defined the short timescale dynamics of key cytoskeletal proteins during cytokinesis and under mechanical stress, using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, to examine the dynamic interplay between these proteins. Equatorially enriched proteins including cortexillin I, IQGAP2, and myosin II recovered much more slowly than actin and polar crosslinkers. The mobility of equatorial proteins was greatly reduced at the furrow compared to the interphase cortex, suggesting their stabilization during cytokinesis. This mobility shift did not arise from a single biochemical event, but rather from a global inhibition of protein dynamics by mechanical-stress-associated changes in the cytoskeletal structure. Mechanical tuning of contractile protein dynamics provides robustness to the cytoskeletal framework responsible for regulating cell shape and contributes to cytokinesis fidelity.
•Equatorially enriched proteins have reduced mobility at the cleavage furrow•Mechanical stress felt by the cytoskeleton inhibits equatorial protein dynamics•Structural changes in cytoskeletal network are sufficient to alter protein dynamics•Cortical protein dynamics are robust to genetic and mechanical perturbations
Srivastava and Robinson examine how protein dynamics can explain spatiotemporal changes in protein localization during cytokinesis. The reduced cleavage furrow mobility of many mechanoresponsive, equatorially enriched proteins is dependent on mechanical stress and cytoskeletal structure and is robust to genetic and mechanical perturbations.
With rapid advances and diversifications in new fields of science and technology, new journals are emerging as a location for the exchange of research methods and findings in these burgeoning ...communities. These new journals are large in number and, in their early years, it is unclear how central these journals will be in the fields of science and technology. On one hand, these new journals offer valuable data sources for bibliometric scholars to understand and analyze emerging fields; on the other hand, how to identify important peer-reviewed journals remains a challenge—and one that is essential for funders, key opinion leaders, and evaluators to overcome. To fulfill growing demand, the Web of Science platform, as the world’s most trusted research publication and citation index, launched the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) in November 2015 to extend the universe of journals already included in the Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index. This paper profiles ESCI, drawing some comparisons against these three established indexes in terms of two questions: (1) Does ESCI cover more regional journals of significant importance and provide a more balanced distribution of journals? (2) Does ESCI offer earlier visibility of emerging fields and trends through upgraded science overlay maps? The results show that the ESCI has a positive effect on research assessment and it accelerates communication in the scientific community. However, ESCI brings little impact to promoting the inferior role of non-English countries and regions. In addition, medical science, education research, social sciences, and humanities are emerging fields in recent research, reflected by the lower proportion of traditional fundamental disciplines and applied science journals included in ESCI. Furthermore, balancing the selection of journals across different research domains to facilitate cross-disciplinary research still needs further effort.
The role of the T cell in asthma Robinson, Douglas S., MD, FRCP
Journal of allergy and clinical immunology,
12/2010, Letnik:
126, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Since the initial detection of TH 2 cytokines in asthmatic airways, our understanding of the complexity of T-cell subtypes and flexibility and of the potential role of airway structural cells in the ...immunopathology of asthma has increased. Cytokines derived from airway epithelium, including IL-25, IL-33, and thymic stromal lymphopoietin, might be important drivers of TH 2-type inflammation in asthma. The balance between effector TH 2 cells and suppressive regulatory T cells is skewed toward a proinflammatory TH 2 response in atopy and asthma, and there is much interest in how to redress this equilibrium. Novel T-cell subsets, including TH 17, TH 9, and TH 22, have been described, although their role in asthma remains unclear. Other T cells, including natural killer T cells, γδ T cells, and CD8 T cells, have also been implicated in asthma, although their importance remains to be confirmed. Therapeutic strategies aimed at TH 2 cytokines are beginning to bear fruit in patients with asthma, although like many biologic agents, these might need specific targeting at subgroups of patients. Strategies directed specifically at the T cells are currently being evaluated, including novel forms of allergen immunotherapy. T cells remain an exciting potential target for new treatments in patients with asthma.
Mechanical forces direct a host of cellular and tissue processes. Although much emphasis has been placed on cell-adhesion complexes as force sensors, the forces must nevertheless be transmitted ...through the cortical cytoskeleton. Yet how the actin cortex senses and transmits forces and how cytoskeletal proteins interact in response to the forces is poorly understood. Here, by combining molecular and mechanical experimental perturbations with theoretical multiscale modelling, we decipher cortical mechanosensing from molecular to cellular scales. We show that forces are shared between myosin II and different actin crosslinkers, with myosin having potentiating or inhibitory effects on certain crosslinkers. Different types of cell deformation elicit distinct responses, with myosin and α-actinin responding to dilation, and filamin mainly reacting to shear. Our observations show that the accumulation kinetics of each protein may be explained by its molecular mechanisms, and that protein accumulation and the cell's viscoelastic state can explain cell contraction against mechanical load.
Kobus Marais’s monograph Translation Theory and Development Studies: A Complexity Theory Approach carves out new territory in translation studies, namely what might be called translational ...development studies – but it also seeks to fuse that new subdiscipline with an invigorated complexity- theoretical framework. This article seeks to promote and advance Marais’s project by offering correctives to two areas where his own theoretical framework remains somewhat blurry – in fact, undeveloped – namely the translator’s agency and social constructivism. The article explores an emergentist theory of “icosis” (somatic plausibilization) as a solution that, like Marais’s own approach, is steeped in Peircean semeiotic.
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