•We focus on ICT clusters performance in terms of innovation but also and above all of socially sustainable development.•We analyze ICT clusters within the specialized town program in Dongguan city, ...Southern China.•Educated local population and foreign linkages improve ICT clusters’ innovation.•Social sustainability can be improved in ICT clusters by long experience of public actors in building collective action.
Information and communication technologies (ICT) are acknowledged as a powerful tool used to foster development and to broaden people’s agency. This being so, ICT are also the results of specific production processes. And, little attention has been given to the degree of sustainability that the places that are currently in charge of producing ICT attain. In this framework, we investigate under what conditions specializing in ICT products rewards a territory in terms of technological innovation and socially sustainable development. Our analysis focuses on the case of Dongguan city, China, which is a core area in the global production of ICT. Industrialization in this area has been mainly FDI-led and framed within a Province-level industrial specialization policy – the Specialized Towns program. We perform an empirical analysis based upon a unique township-level dataset covering several years (2000–2016). We then integrate the quantitative data with qualitative fieldwork information on Dongguan ICT-specialized townships. Our findings suggest that (1) specializing in ICT can pay in terms of innovative performances, provided it is supported by an institutional setting aimed at collectively promoting innovation, a sufficient degree of extra-cluster relations and a sufficiently high level of education of the population. (2) Social sustainability can be improved in ICT clusters by long experience in public involvement towards building collective action. Since many of these areas do not currently show to have reached such social and economic conditions, they risk being captured in a middle income-low development trap. Governments targeting ICT specialization should then focus also on devoting specific policy initiatives towards social inclusion.
Innovation-driven, energy consumption structure optimisation is crucial in developing countries. China, as a typical developing country, has been shifting its economic development model from a ...traditional approach to innovation-driven, high-quality development. We select nine resource-based regions in China as our research subject and employ a varying coefficient panel model and a Hansen panel threshold model to quantify the marginal and threshold effects of innovation capacity in optimising energy consumption structure. The results indicate that the overall energy consumption structure index for the analysed regions is 0.563, revealing that the structure is rather low and regional economic development relies mainly on low-ranked energy. Astonishingly, the marginal effect reflects obvious heterogeneity: a positive effect in Sichuan (−0.208), Yunnan (−0.207), and Xinjiang (−0.431); nearly no effect in Chongqing, Gansu, and Qinghai; and a negative effect in Guangxi (0.104), Shaanxi (0.244), and Ningxia (1.282). In previous studies, such negative effects have been totally ignored. Further, there are double thresholds and a unique driving mechanism, namely, ‘negative driving → strong positive driving → weak positive driving’. Interestingly, below the first threshold, improvement in innovation will lead to energy consumption structure degradation. Current policies, such as introducing extensive talent, are not feasible for all resource-based regions. The concerns of policy making for the three different threshold intervals should be: upgrading industrial structures, optimising the structure of human resources, and preventing ‘brain drain’, respectively.
•The marginal effects of regional innovation on energy consumption structure.•Underlying reasons of heterogenous marginal effect, especially the negative effects.•Investigate the double threshold effects and a unique driving mechanism.•Corresponding suggestions of policy making for the three threshold intervals.
Wood development is strictly regulated by various phytohormones and auxin plays a central regulatory role in this process. However, how the auxin signaling is transducted in developing secondary ...xylem during wood formation in tree species remains unclear.
Here, we identified an Aux/INDOLE-3-ACETIC ACID 9 (IAA9)-AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR 5 (ARF5) module in Populus tomentosa as a key mediator of auxin signaling to control early developing xylem development.
PtoIAA9, a canonical Aux/IAA gene, is predominantly expressed in vascular cambium and developing secondary xylem and induced by exogenous auxin. Overexpression of PtoIAA9m encoding a stabilized IAA9 protein significantly represses secondary xylem development in transgenic poplar. We further showed that PtoIAA9 interacts with PtoARF5 homologs via the C-terminal III/IV domains. The truncated PtoARF5.1 protein without the III/IV domains rescued defective phenotypes caused by PtoIAA9m. Expression analysis showed that the PtoIAA9-PtoARF5 module regulated the expression of genes associated with secondary vascular development in PtoIAA9m- and PtoARF5.1-overexpressing plants. Furthermore, PtoARF5.1 could bind to the promoters of two Class III homeodomain-leucine zipper (HD-ZIP III) genes, PtoHB7 and PtoHB8, to modulate secondary xylem formation.
Taken together, our results suggest that the Aux/IAA9-ARF5 module is required for auxin signaling to regulate wood formation via orchestrating the expression of HD-ZIP III transcription factors in poplar.
This book argues that there is no way to make progress in building a sustainable future without extensive participation of non-state actors.
The volume explores the contribution of non-state actors ...to a sustainable transition, starting with citizens and communities of different kinds and ending with cities and city-networks. The authors analyse social, cultural, political and economic drivers and barriers for this transition, from individual behaviour to structural restraints, and investigate the interplay between the two. Through a series of wide-ranging case studies from the UK, Australia, Germany, Italy and Denmark, and a number of comparative case studies, the volume provides an empirically and theoretically robust argument that highlights the need to develop, widen and scale-up collective action and community-based engagement if the transition to sustainability is to be successful.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, sustainability and environmental policy.
This book directly helps decision-makers and change agents in companies, NGOs, and government bodies become more proficient in transformative, collaborative change in realizing the SDGs. This ...practitioner’s handbook translates a systemic – and enlivening – approach to collaboration into day-to-day work and management. It connects the emerging practice of multi-stakeholder collaboration to easily understandable models, tools, and cases. Numerous, concrete cases not only bring this methodology to life, but also help identify the challenges and avoid common mistakes. The book can be used as a guide to apply a breakthrough approach for navigating the complexity of stakeholder systems, designing results-oriented process architectures, ensuring the success of cross-sector change initiatives, and enlivening collaboration ecosystems for SDG implementation. It is designed to enhance high quality stakeholder engagement, dialogue, and collaboration. A must-read, the book sets a new standard for the collaborative implementation of Agenda 2030 and is a foundational guide for leading sustainability transformations collectively to achieve climate change mitigation, social integration, equitable value chains, and broad sustainability challenges.
Health and income are strongly correlated both within and across countries, yet the extent to which improvements in income have a causal effect on health status remains controversial. We investigate ...whether short-term fluctuations in aggregate income affect infant mortality using an unusually large data set of 1.7 million births in 59 developing countries. We show a large, negative association between per capita GDP and infant mortality. Female infant mortality is more sensitive than male infant mortality to negative economic shocks, suggesting that policies that protect the health status of female infants may be especially important during economic downturns.
Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) remains a popular policy with many international funding institutions, in spite of growing evidence of its disappointing outcomes. It is ...underpinned by theoretically justified benefits which serve to reproduce and market it. The paper explores approaches to understand and rectify these failures. The conclusion is that explanatory effort should be expanded from the “facilitating characteristics” of potentially successful CBNRM sites to include two sets of interfaces—those between donors and recipient states, and between the state (especially the local state) and CBNRMs at the local level. Illustrative examples in Botswana and Malawi are given throughout the discussion.
We estimate the causal effect of a large development program on conflict in the Philippines through a regression discontinuity design that exploits an arbitrary poverty threshold used to assign ...eligibility for the program. We find that barely eligible municipalities experienced a large increase in conflict casualties compared to barely ineligible ones. This increase is mostly due to insurgent-initiated incidents in the early stages of program preparation. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that insurgents try to sabotage the program because its success would weaken their support in the population.
Plant shoot organs arise from initial cells that are recruited from meristematic tissues. Previous studies have shown that members of the WUSCHEL-related HOMEOBOX (WOX) gene family function to ...organize various initial cell populations during plant development. The function of the WOX4 gene is previously undescribed in any plant species. Comparative analyses of WOX4 transcription and function are presented in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), a simple-leafed plant with collateral vasculature, and in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), a dissected-leafed species with bicollateral venation. WOX4 is transcribed in the developing vascular bundles of root and shoot lateral organs in both Arabidopsis and tomato. RNA interference-induced down-regulation of WOX4 in Arabidopsis generated small plants whose vascular bundles accumulated undifferentiated ground tissue and exhibited severe reductions in differentiated xylem and phloem. In situ hybridization analyses of Atwox4-RNA interference plants revealed delayed and reduced expression of both the phloem developmental marker ALTERED PHLOEM1 and HOMEOBOX GENE8, a marker of the vascular procambium. Overexpression of SlWOX4 correlated with overproliferation of xylem and phloem in transgenic tomato seedlings. The cumulative data suggest that the conserved WOX4 function is to promote differentiation and/or maintenance of the vascular procambium, the initial cells of the developing vasculature.
This paper aims to present a narrative of the outcome of an extensive historical literature review of global policy development and processes concerning the emergence, efficacy, and eminence of ...sustainable development, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Sustainable Development Goals SDGs) inception to date. It starts by presenting the emergence, efficacy, and eminence of the concept and term “sustainable development” (which is integral to ESD) in terms of its historical definition, dimensions, understanding, interpretations, and challenges. It also highlights the take‐up of sustainable development in terms of green growth, human development, and human agency. It then presents an overview of ESD, accompanied by a discussion of its key characteristics, approaches, and significances. The paper then highlights a semantic analysis of the development of ESD, with a special focus on some converging processes, events, concepts, discourses, and declarations that have supported the rise of ESD and shaped its status to date. Considerable emphasis is placed on the significance and nexus between environmental education and ESD. The paper analyses the crucial interconnection between education, sustainable development, ESD, the SDGs, and human development. Furthermore, the paper discusses the centrality of ESD to the global education discourse and the nexus, role, and relevance of education and particularly ESD in relation to the achievement of all the SDGs. The paper concludes by critically reflecting on the above, vis‐à‐vis the author's previous empirical research on higher ESD, making recommendations on the future of ESD research and practice.
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