Past Innovations Research Articles

Innovation trends in electricity storage: What drives global innovation?

Using patent data from 1978 to 2019 across 1881 regions, we estimate the main determinants of innovation in energy storage. Our results highlight the role of energy prices and past innovation in shaping innovation. Specifically, a one-unit increase in electricity prices leads to a 15.54% reduction in the ratio of storage to electricity generation patents. We also find evidence on the significance of past innovation in shaping the direction of current innovation. These results imply the need for a combination of energy policies and innovation policies to boost innovation in energy storage.

Intentional Innovation in Educational Technology and Media to Promote Students’ Holistic Development

We consider how educational technology might promote students’ holistic development. Based on a new edited book in the Methods in Physiology series, we contextualize how far technology has taken bioscience education, and also speculate on where technology needs to go. Technology, in conjunction with innovations in pedagogy, has profoundly influenced the experience of teaching and learning biology, and examples are provided, some familiar (e.g., video lectures in flipped classroom), and some emerging. Compared to the personal changes technology has wrought in students' experiences, past innovations in technology and pedagogy have led to group outcomes more weighted toward inclusivity, opportunities, and participation rates. This is welcome progress. For the future, we propose an intentional development of educational technology and media that supports holistic development of students as individuals. This goes beyond design‐centered or market‐driven research and focuses on student competencies and skills known to play a role in learning and professional maturity: social, metacognitive, and non‐cognitive competencies such as team work skills, social behaviors, empathy, emotional regulation, and professionalism. The challenge is to use intentional innovation to achieve student learning of competencies, by leveraging what computers are particularly good at: timing, repetition, and vigilance. The expected result will probably involve learning with repetition, deeper learning with models, collaborative and cooperative learning, and self‐regulated learning. We engage in serious discussion on the challenges and obstacles inherent in re‐focusing media creation and educational technology innovation. We propose that intention should be the guiding approach toward a cohesive narrative of future developments.

Innovations in Coastline Management With Natural and Nature-Based Features (NNBF): Lessons Learned From Three Case Studies

Coastal communities around the world are facing increased coastal flooding and shoreline erosion from factors such as sea-level rise and unsustainable development practices. Coastal engineers and managers often rely on gray infrastructure such as seawalls, levees and breakwaters, but are increasingly seeking to incorporate more sustainable natural and nature-based features (NNBF). While coastal restoration projects have been happening for decades, NNBF projects go above and beyond coastal restoration. They seek to provide communities with coastal protection from storms, erosion, and/or flooding while also providing some of the other natural benefits that restored habitats provide. Yet there remain many unknowns about how to design and implement these projects. This study examines three innovative coastal resilience projects that use NNBF approaches to improve coastal community resilience to flooding while providing a host of other benefits: 1) Living Breakwaters in New York Harbor; 2) the Coastal Texas Protection and Restoration Study; and 3) the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project in San Francisco Bay. We synthesize findings from these case studies to report areas of progress and illustrate remaining challenges. All three case studies began with innovative project funding and framing that enabled expansion beyond a sole focus on flood risk reduction to include multiple functions and benefits. Each project involved stakeholder engagement and incorporated feedback into the design process. In the Texas case study this dramatically shifted one part of the project design from a more traditional, gray approach to a more natural hybrid solution. We also identified common challenges related to permitting and funding, which often arise as a consequence of uncertainties in performance and long-term sustainability for diverse NNBF approaches. The Living Breakwaters project is helping to address these uncertainties by using detailed computational and physical modeling and a variety of experimental morphologies to help facilitate learning while monitoring future performance. This paper informs and improves future sustainable coastal resilience projects by learning from these past innovations, highlighting the need for integrated and robust monitoring plans for projects after implementation, and emphasizing the critical role of stakeholder engagement.

Applying Storytelling Approach to Analyze Kojima Jeans District Based on Slow Fashion Perspectives

This study conducted a case study of Kojima district in Japan, which underwent a rise and fall through the past booms, disruptive innovation, international politics, and changes in government policy. Today, the district has successfully regenerated, and the regeneration is linked to fashion localism. This study aimed to explore how the Kojima district sustained community-based fashion business and analyzed the factors that contributed to its regeneration from the slow fashion viewpoint. This study employed a case study analysis, using the storytelling approach, and established an analytical framework based on keywords derived from slow fashion, namely localism, quality, and value. The results indicate that the strategies of business leadership, improvement in quality, a willingness to address new challenges, success in authenticating strategies, clustering fashion business, path dependency, and maintaining workers and the fashion business community contributed to promoting a series of industrial structural adjustments in Kojima and sustaining the community-based fashion business.

Hierarchical maximum likelihood generalized extended stochastic gradient algorithms for bilinear‐in‐parameter systems

AbstractIn this article, we use the maximum likelihood principle and the multi‐innovation identification theory to study the identification issue of a bilinear‐in‐parameter system with autoregressive moving average noise. A maximum likelihood multi‐innovation stochastic gradient algorithm is derived to estimate the model parameters, which uses not only the current innovation but also the past innovations to improve the parameter estimation accuracy. The maximum likelihood multi‐innovation stochastic gradient algorithm has higher parameter estimation accuracy than the stochastic gradient algorithm. The simulation examples indicate that the proposed methods work well.

Trickle down innovation? Creativity and innovation at the margins

ABSTRACT This paper explores the entanglement of the innovation discourse with discourses of power. Innovation is a frequent topic of archaeological research, but its implications for how we understand flows of power between individuals, groups, and regions has seen little attention. Here, we argue that our innovation narratives often blindly reproduce hierarchical relations which place dynamic cores in positions of power over their more passive peripheries and margins. In doing so, they obscure the complex and creative processes which occur in these marginal zones. We illustrate this discussion with an exploration of southwestern Britain and the resilience of people living at the margins of the Roman world. We argue that more attentiveness to these creative margins allows us to challenge the flattening hierarchies embedded in traditional innovation narratives, creating space for more complex and multi-layered stories of past innovation.

Making sense of heterogeneous innovative social action: co-constructing the past and imagining the future

ABSTRACT Currently, countries, organizations and individual actors are increasingly pushed towards an ‘innovation imperative’ that presents innovation as an unequivocal promoter of multi-level success. However, it remains to be addressed whether innovation actors have homogenously incorporated this narrative, or rather, attribute divergent meanings to previous innovative social action. Inspired by critical innovation studies and sensemaking research, this paper addresses whether specific contextual aspects translate into heterogeneous sensemaking processes, and shape actors’ expectations for the future. For this purpose, focusing on the Information and Communication Technology sector and having the organizational unit as the level of analysis, it addresses top managers’ discourses through their perceptions on past innovation. Cluster analysis identified two profiles, mostly discriminated by actors’ perceptions of their firms’ role in previous innovation. These profiles were associated with innovation performance with firms with more outputs presenting themselves as the ‘builders of their success’, while the ones with less successful trajectories expressing their powerlessness. Logistic regression analysis revealed that such discourses mediate the impact of firms’ empowerment culture and assets on confidence in the future. This study adds to previous literature a first comparative analysis of heterogeneous sensemaking discourses through which actors contextualize previous innovative social action and co-construct futures’ expectations.

Persistent innovation underperformance and firms' R&D internationalization: The moderating effects of multidimensional TMT human capital

The antecedents of firms' R&D internationalization have attracted the attention and discussion of scholars. However, the manner and circumstances in which a firm's past innovation performance affects its R&D internationalization decisions have not yet been discussed. Based on the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF), we propose that persistent innovation underperformance might serve as a motivating factor to trigger R&D internationalization and that the top management team (TMT) determines how responsive to persistent innovation underperformance the firm is likely to be. Results from empirical analyses of panel data from 1323 listed Chinese manufacturing companies over a 9-year period indicate that a longer duration of persistent innovation underperformance increases the likelihood that firms will implement R&D internationalization. Integrating the moderating roles of multidimensional TMT human capital, we further find that TMT education level and technical background strengthen the abovementioned relationship, while TMT international experience weakens the abovementioned relationship. The contributions, implications, and limitations of this study are fully discussed.

Multivariate Garch Analysis of Selected Nigerian Economic Data

Aims: The aim of this study is to examine multivariate GARCH modeling of selected Nigerian economic data.
 Study Design: The study used monthly data of Nigerian crude oil prices (dollar Per Barrel), consumer price Index rural, maximum lending rate and prime lending rate.
 Methodology: This work covers time series data on crude oil prices, consumer price Index rural, maximum lending rate and prime lending rate extracted from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from 2000 to 2019. In attempt to achieve the aim of the study, quadrivariate VECH and DCC model were applied. 
 Results: The results confirmed that returns on economic data were correlated. Also, diagonal multivariate VECH model confirmed one of the properties that it must be ‘positive semi-definite’,
 And the DCC confirmed also the positive-definite conditional-variance.
 Conclusion: From the results obtained, it was confirmed that there exists a strong confirmation of a time-varying conditional covariance and interdependence among Nigeria economic data. As for cross-volatility effects, past innovations in crude oil price have utmost control on future volatility of returns on economic data. It was also confirmed that time varying covariance displays among these economic data and lower degree of persistence and based on Model selection criteria using the Akaike information criteria (AIC) has 17.485 for diagonal VECH while for DCC has 17.509 AIC which makes VECH model better fitted.

The relationship between profit-sharing schemes and R&D activities: evidence from German firm-level data

ABSTRACT We study the determinants of the use of profit sharing schemes (PSS) by private companies, exploiting a firm-level dataset for Germany. First, our results from static regression models replicate studies for the U.S. which report a positive correlation between R&D activity and PSS use. Similar to those studies, we find that a firm’s turnover is strongly associated with PSS use, whereas this does not hold for the age of a firm. Firms with an unionised or more qualified workforce are also associated with PSS use. By exploiting the panel structure of our data, we also provide a novel set of tests by means of dynamic models estimation. The analysis sheds light on the relation between R&D activity, past innovation and PSS use.

Modeling of Economic Data using Bivariate MGARCH Models

Aims: The aim of this study is to examine Economic data using the multivariate GARCH model.
 Study design: The study used monthly data of Nigerian crude oil prices (dollar Per Barrel) and Consumer price Index
 Methodology: This work covers time series data on crude oil price and consumer price Index rural obtained from Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) from 2000 to 2019. To achieve the aim of the study, bivariate VECH and BEKK model were applied.
 Results: The results confirmed that returns on economic data were correlated. Also, diagonal multivariate VECH model confirmed one of the properties that it must be ‘positive semi-definite’ and the BEKK also confirmed the volatility spillover effects among the economic data.
 Conclusion: From the results obtained, it was confirmed that conditional variances depends only on own lags and own lagged square returns and conditional covariances depends only on own lags and own lagged cross products of returns. As for cross-volatility effects, past innovations in crude oil price have greatest influence on future volatility of returns on economic data. It was also confirmed that time varying covariance displays among these economic data and lower degree of persistence and based on Model selection criteria using the Akaike information criteria (AIC) diagonal VECH model is better fitted than the BEKK model.

Asymmetric vector moving average models: estimation and testing

We propose the class of asymmetric vector moving average (asVMA) models. The asymmetry of these models is characterized by different MA filters applied to the components of vectors of lagged positive and negative innovations. This allows for a detailed investigation of the interrelationships among past model innovations of different sign. We derive some covariance matrix properties of an asVMA model under the assumption of Gaussianity. Related to this, we investigate the global invertibility condition of the proposed model. The paper also introduces a maximum likelihood estimation procedure and a multivariate Wald-type test statistic for symmetry versus the alternative of asymmetry. The finite-sample performance of the proposed multivariate test is studied by simulation. Furthermore, we devise an exploratory test statistic based on lagged sample cross-bicovariance estimates. The estimation and testing procedures are used to uncover asymmetric effects in two US growth rates, and in three US industrial prices.

The use of social forms to increase lesson effectiveness

The Internet time powers every one of us to manage a regularly baffling and constant arrangement of innovation incited changes. At the point when a foundation of incredible computational and specialized apparatuses is coordinated with a pervasive correspondence organization, the stage is set for quick advancement. A portion of these advancements are maintaining and assist us with conveying, play, and learn all the more adequately utilizing recognizable thoughts and practices. Different advancements are problematic constraining clients to go external the monetary and social limits set by past innovations and instructional methods to utilize them successfully. Learning, be that as it may, is widespread, and consequently people develop means and applications to utilize both problematic and supporting advancements to upgrade their lives and those of others in the world.

A review on technology based on wave energy conversion

Ocean waves are a vast, mostly untapped energy resource, and the potential for collecting energy from waves is enormous. Research in this field is motivated by the need to fulfil renewable energy goals, but is relatively immature compared to other renewable energy technologies. This study presents the overall state of wave energy and analyzes the device types that reflect current wave energy converter (WEC) technology, especially concentrating on work being done inside the United Kingdom. The potential power take-off systems are defined, followed by a study of some of the control methods to improve the efficiency of point absorber-type WECs. There is a lack of consensus on the optimum technique of collecting energy from the waves and, while past innovation has typically concentrated on the idea and design of the main interface, issues emerge about how best to optimize the power train. This essay ends with some recommendations of future advancements.

Archaeomaterials, Innovation, and Technological Change

The field of archaeomaterials research has enormous potential to shed light on past innovation processes. However, this potential has been only partially recognized outside its immediate practitioners, despite the fact that innovation and technology change are topics of enduring interest in archaeology and the broader social sciences. This review explores the relationship between archaeomaterials research and the interdisciplinary study of innovation, and maps out a path toward greater integration of materials analysis into these discussions.To foster this integration, this review has three aims. First, I sketch the theoretical landscape of approaches to the study of innovation in archaeology and neighboring disciplines. I trace how theoretical traditions like evolutionary archaeology have influenced archaeomaterials approaches to questions of technological change while also highlighting cases where work by archaeomaterials researchers anticipated trends in the anthropology of technology. Next, I distill a series of core concerns that crosscut these different theoretical perspectives. Finally, I describe examples where archaeomaterials research has deepened scholarly understanding of innovation processes and addressed these core questions. The future of archaeomaterials research lies in engagement with these broader discussions and effective communication of the contributions that materials analysis can make to building a comparative understanding of innovation processes.

Past world economic production constrains current energy demands: Persistent scaling with implications for economic growth and climate change mitigation.

Climate change has become intertwined with the global economy. Here, we describe the contribution of inertia to future trends. Drawing from thermodynamic principles, and using 38 years of available statistics between 1980 to 2017, we find a constant scaling between current rates of world primary energy consumption [Formula: see text] and the historical time integral W of past world inflation-adjusted economic production Y, or [Formula: see text]. In each year, over a period during which both [Formula: see text] and W more than doubled, the ratio of the two remained nearly unchanged, that is [Formula: see text] Gigawatts per trillion 2010 US dollars. What this near constant implies is that current growth trends in energy consumption, population, and standard of living, perhaps counterintuitively, are determined by past innovations that have improved the economic production efficiency, or enabled use of less energy to transform raw materials into the makeup of civilization. Current observed growth rates agree well with predictions derived from available historical data. Future efforts to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions are likely also to be constrained by the contributions of past innovation to growth. Assuming no further efficiency gains, options look limited to rapid decarbonization of energy consumption through sustained implementation of at least one Gigawatt of renewable or nuclear power capacity per day. Alternatively, with continued reliance on fossil fuels, civilization could shift to a steady-state economy, one that devotes economic production exclusively to maintining ongoing metabolic needs rather than to material expansion. Even if such actions could be achieved immediately, energy consumption would continue at its current level, and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations would only begin to balance natural sinks at concentrations exceeding 500 ppmv.

COVID-19 Outbreak and Hospital Air Quality: A Systematic Review of Evidence on Air Filtration and Recirculation.

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has made us all think critically about hospital indoor air quality and the approaches to remove, dilute, and disinfect pathogenic organisms from the hospital environment. While specific aspects of the coronavirus infectivity, spread, and routes of transmission are still under rigorous investigation, it seems that a recollection of knowledge from the literature can provide useful lessons to cope with this new situation. As a result, a systematic literature review was conducted on the safety of air filtration and air recirculation in healthcare premises. This review targeted a wide range of evidence from codes and regulations, to peer-reviewed publications, and best practice standards. The literature search resulted in 394 publications, of which 109 documents were included in the final review. Overall, even though solid evidence to support current practice is very scarce, proper filtration remains one important approach to maintain the cleanliness of indoor air in hospitals. Given the rather large physical footprint of the filtration system, a range of short-term and long-term solutions from the literature are collected. Nonetheless, there is a need for a rigorous and feasible line of research in the area of air filtration and recirculation in healthcare facilities. Such efforts can enhance the performance of healthcare facilities under normal conditions or during a pandemic. Past innovations can be adopted for the new outbreak at low-to-minimal cost.

Revisión empírica al modelo de desarrollo endógeno a partir de la innovación empresarial: el caso de Chile

Este trabajo tiene por objetivo identificar en qué medida las fuerzas del desarrollo en­dógeno actúan sinérgicamente en el territorio. Se comienza con una revisión conceptual haciendo énfasis en los aspectos metodológicos para su implementación analítica y en los factores que lo pueden acelerar o retardar. En una segunda parte, con datos de la Encuesta Nacional de Innova­ción en Empresas, aplicada a 5.876 organizaciones, más los datos de Inversión Pública de Decisión Regional y el Índice de Calidad de Vida Urbana, se presentan dos modelos de regresión logística bi­naria para identificar los factores, enmarcados en las fuerzas del desarrollo endógeno, que explican la probabilidad de innovación futura y pasada al nivel de empresas. Las conclusiones principales refuerzan la importancia de la dimensión temporal al momento de identificar los impactos de cada factor y, paralelamente, remarcan lo relevante que resulta el nivel de eficiencia de los actores que participan en el desarrollo endógeno.

Mobilising the Past: Towards a Conceptualisation of Retro‐Innovation

AbstractIn this article we develop a conceptualisation of retro‐innovation, simply defined as the purposeful revival of historic practices, ideas and/or technologies, and apply this conceptualisation to the analysis of the development of the organic farming movement in the Czech Republic. Within the agricultural sector, we argue that retro‐innovation represents a critical practice, undertaken to counter modernisation trends. Retro‐innovation processes are thus often embedded within social movements. We identify four key mechanisms of retro‐innovation: reflexivity, reminiscence, revival, integration and learning. Drawing on 25 key informant interviews, we demonstrate how the growing critique of socialist collective farms in the 1980s coalesced with new policy supports in the 1990s to enable re‐learning and revival of traditional farming practices, situating organic farming approaches as the revitalisation of positive historical practices. However, as the Czech case demonstrates, the numerous options for and social memories of past innovations can lead to fragmentation of efforts and products.

A strategic management perspective of science and technology ventures by China

Objectives: To analyze the primary strategic motives for China venturing into Disruptive Technologies and Innovations R&D at a very rapid pace. China has been galloping the Technology Highway for the past decade, with technological and innovation inroads in almost all the key sectors with the government playing a pivotal role. Method: The apparent drivers for the rapid strides in technology are economic growth, social development and the national aspirations of establishing a powerful and prosperous China. Forays in disruptive technologies has been preceded near-simultaneously by a plethora of strategic geopolitical ventures by China within its land mass, in the various seas, across the Asian, Europe and African continents and also in the space dimension. Thus, the methodology adopted is to study the various strategic initiatives China has implemented in the backdrop of global geopolitics. Thereafter, correlate the disruptive technologies to the various Chinese strategies. Findings: The initiatives to be a world leader in Disruptive Technologies correspond to China\'s other Strategic programs in global geopolitics and expansionist steps in the five dimensions of Land, Air, Sea, Space and Cyber Space. This cannot be dismissed as a mere coincidence. This study establishes that Technology is the common underlying driver of all the geopolitical overtures, viewed as strategic overlays, by China. Further, it is found that China is boosting R&D on dual-use technologies as compared to the single civil-end use technologies to complement its military component in implementation of its strategic manoeuvres. Application: The study will facilitate in mapping the global repercussions of these technologies, especially in the Indian sub-continent, given the stand-off relationship between the two nations. Keywords: Technology management; China\'s science & technology policy; Science & technology road-map; India implications; Strategic management