Success and failure of grassroots innovations for addressing climate change: the case of the Transition Movement

Grassroots innovations emerge as networks generating innovative solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation. However, it is unclear if grassroots innovations can be successful in responding to climate change. Little evidence exists on replication, international comparisons are rare, and research tends to overlook discontinued responses in favour of successful ones. We take the Transition Movement as a case study of a rapidly spreading transnational grassroots network, and include both active and non-active local transition initiatives. We investigate the replication of grassroots innovations in different contexts with the aim to uncover general patterns of success and failure, and identify questions for future research. An online survey was carried out in 23 countries (N=276). The data analysis entailed testing the effect of internal and contextual factors of success as drawn from the existing literature, and the identification of clusters of transition initiatives with similar internal and contextual factor configurations. Most transition initiatives consider themselves successful. Success is defined along the lines of social connectivity and empowerment, and external environmental impact. We find that less successful transition initiatives might underestimate the importance of contextual factors and material resources in influencing success. We also find that their diffusion is linked to the combination of local-global learning processes, and that there is an incubation period during which a transition initiative is consolidated. Transition initiatives seem capable of generalising organisational principles derived from unique local experiences that seem to be effective in other local contexts. However, the geographical locations matter with regard to where transition initiatives take root and the extent of their success, and ‘place attachment’ may have a role in the diffusion of successful initatives. We suggest that longitudinal comparative studies can advance our understanding in this regard, as well as inform the changing nature of the definition of success at different stages of grassroots innovation development, and the dynamic nature of local and global linkages.

Brief communication: a proposed method for the assessment of pubertal stage in human skeletal remains using cervical vertebrae maturation.

The assessment of age-at-death in non-adult skeletal remains is under constant review. However, in many past societies an individual's physical maturation may have been more important in social terms than their exact age, particularly during the period of adolescence. In a recent article (Shapland and Lewis: Am J Phys Anthropol 151 (2013) 302–310) highlighted a set of dental and skeletal indicators that may be useful in mapping the progress of the pubertal growth spurt. This article presents a further skeletal indicator of adolescent development commonly used by modern clinicians: cervical vertebrae maturation (CVM). This method is applied to a collection of 594 adolescents from the medieval cemetery of St. Mary Spital, London. Analysis reveals a potential delay in ages of attainment of the later CVM stages compared with modern adolescents, presumably reflecting negative environmental conditions for growth and development. The data gathered on CVM is compared to other skeletal indicators of pubertal maturity and long bone growth from this site to ascertain the usefulness of this method on archaeological collections.

The supply and movement of Denarii in Roman Britain

Hoards of denarii are common in Britain and the number which have been recorded in detail means that it is now possible to suggest reasonably accurately what a ‘normal’ hoard of a particular date should look like. That being the case, we can then look for variation around that norm and both investigate and speculate what that variation means. A methodology is developed which suggests periods of faster and less rapid coin circulation which has implications for consideration of monetisation. The model also enables us to view where denarii entered circulation; unsurprisingly the army looms large in this picture. The methodology is directly transferable to other provinces and other periods where there are longlived, relatively stable monetary systems.

Novel single trial movement classification based on temporal dynamics of EEG

Various complex oscillatory processes are involved in the generation of the motor command. The temporal dynamics of these processes were studied for movement detection from single trial electroencephalogram (EEG). Autocorrelation analysis was performed on the EEG signals to find robust markers of movement detection. The evolution of the autocorrelation function was characterised via the relaxation time of the autocorrelation by exponential curve fitting. It was observed that the decay constant of the exponential curve increased during movement, indicating that the autocorrelation function decays slowly during motor execution. Significant differences were observed between movement and no moment tasks. Additionally, a linear discriminant analysis (LDA) classifier was used to identify movement trials with a peak accuracy of 74%.

Computational fluid dynamics modelling of the air movement in an environmental test chamber with a respiring manikin

In recent years, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been widely used as a method of simulating airflow and addressing indoor environment problems. The complexity of airflows within the indoor environment would make experimental investigation difficult to undertake and also imposes significant challenges on turbulence modelling for flow prediction. This research examines through CFD visualization how air is distributed within a room. Measurements of air temperature and air velocity have been performed at a number of points in an environmental test chamber with a human occupant. To complement the experimental results, CFD simulations were carried out and the results enabled detailed analysis and visualization of spatial distribution of airflow patterns and the effect of different parameters to be predicted. The results demonstrate the complexity of modelling human exhalation within a ventilated enclosure and shed some light into how to achieve more realistic predictions of the airflow within an occupied enclosure.

The notions of 'restriction' and 'discrimination' in the context of the free movement of persons provisions: from a relationship of interdependence to one of (almost complete) independence

This article aims to analyse how the meaning of the notions of ‘restrictions’ and ‘discrimination’ in EU free movement law has developed through the years, and to explore how the relationship between them has evolved. It is explained that the two concepts under examination had originally been closely intertwined, in the sense that one defined the other, the element holding them together being the aim of the relevant provisions to liberalise the inter-State movement of persons in the EU, as part of the process of establishing an internal market. Yet, more recently, the way that the Court has chosen to delimit their scope, illustrates that each of these notions can now have a life of its own, meaning that ‘discrimination’ can include discriminatory measures which do not lead to restrictions that are contrary to the free movement provisions, and ‘restriction’ can cover national measures that are not discriminatory.

Narratives of grassroots innovations: a comparison of voluntary simplicity and the transition movement in Italy

Grassroots innovations (GI) are promising examples of deliberate transformation of socio-technical systems towards resilience and sustainability. However, evidence is needed on the factors that limit or enable their success. This paper set out to study how GI use narratives to empower innovation in the face of incumbent socio-technical regimes. Institutional documents were comparatively analyzed to assess how the narratives influence the structure, form of action and external interactions of two Italian grassroots networks, Bilanci di Giustizia and Transition Network Italy. The paper finds an internal consistency between narratives and strategies for each of the two networks. The paper also highlights core similarities, but also significant differences in the ethical basis of the two narratives, and in the organizations and strategies. Such differences determine different forms of innovation empowerment and expose the niche to different potentials to transform incumbent regimes, or to the risk of being co-opted by them.

Obstacle avoidance routing scheme through optimal sink movement for home monitoring and mobile robotic consumer devices

In recent years, ZigBee has been proven to be an excellent solution to create scalable and flexible home automation networks. In a home automation network, consumer devices typically collect data from a home monitoring environment and then transmit the data to an end user through multi-hop communication without the need for any human intervention. However, due to the presence of typical obstacles in a home environment, error-free reception may not be possible, particularly for power constrained devices. A mobile sink based data transmission scheme can be one solution but obstacles create significant complexities for the sink movement path determination process. Therefore, an obstacle avoidance data routing scheme is of vital importance to the design of an efficient home automation system. This paper presents a mobile sink based obstacle avoidance routing scheme for a home monitoring system. The mobile sink collects data by traversing through the obstacle avoidance path. Through ZigBee based hardware implementation and verification, the proposed scheme successfully transmits data through the obstacle avoidance path to improve network performance in terms of life span, energy consumption and reliability. The application of this work can be applied to a wide range of intelligent pervasive consumer products and services including robotic vacuum cleaners and personal security robots1.

Changes in music tempo entrain movement related brain activity

The neural mechanisms of music listening and appreciation are not yet completely understood. Based on the apparent relationship between the beats per minute (tempo) of music and the desire to move (for example feet tapping) induced while listening to that music it is hypothesised that musical tempo may evoke movement related activity in the brain. Participants are instructed to listen, without moving, to a large range of musical pieces spanning a range of styles and tempos during an electroencephalogram (EEG) experiment. Event-related desynchronisation (ERD) in the EEG is observed to correlate significantly with the variance of the tempo of the musical stimuli. This suggests that the dynamics of the beat of the music may induce movement related brain activity in the motor cortex. Furthermore, significant correlations are observed between EEG activity in the alpha band over the motor cortex and the bandpower of the music in the same frequency band over time. This relationship is observed to correlate with the strength of the ERD, suggesting entrainment of motor cortical activity relates to increased ERD strength

Movement intention detection from autocorrelation of EEG for BCI

Movement intention detection is important for development of intuitive movement based Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI). Various complex oscillatory processes are involved in producing voluntary movement intention. In this paper, temporal dynamics of electroencephalography (EEG) associated with movement intention and execution were studied using autocorrelation. It was observed that the trend of decay of autocorrelation of EEG changes before and during the voluntary movement. A novel feature for movement intention detection was developed based on relaxation time of autocorrelation obtained by fitting exponential decay curve to the autocorrelation. This new single trial feature was used to classify voluntary finger tapping trials from resting state trials with peak accuracy of 76.7%. The performance of autocorrelation analysis was compared with Motor-Related Cortical Potentials (MRCP).

Using E-Z Reader to examine the concurrent development of eye-movement control and reading skill

Compared to skilled adult readers, children typically make more fixations that are longer in duration, shorter saccades, and more regressions, thus reading more slowly (Blythe & Joseph, 2011). Recent attempts to understand the reasons for these differences have discovered some similarities (e.g., children and adults target their saccades similarly; Joseph, Liversedge, Blythe, White, & Rayner, 2009) and some differences (e.g., children’s fixation durations are more affected by lexical variables; Blythe, Liversedge, Joseph, White, & Rayner, 2009) that have yet to be explained. In this article, the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control in reading (Reichle, 2011; Reichle, Pollatsek, Fisher, & Rayner, 1998) is used to simulate various eye-movement phenomena in adults versus children in order to evaluate hypotheses about the concurrent development of reading skill and eye-movement behavior. These simulations suggest that the primary difference between children and adults is their rate of lexical processing, and that different rates of (post-lexical) language processing may also contribute to some phenomena (e.g., children’s slower detection of semantic anomalies; Joseph et al., 2008). The theoretical implications of this hypothesis are discussed, including possible alternative accounts of these developmental changes, how reading skill and eye movements change across the entire lifespan (e.g., college-aged vs. elderly readers), and individual differences in reading ability.

Pseudopod growth and evolution during cell movement is controlled through SCAR/WAVE dephosphorylation

Regulated dephosphorylation of a fraction of the cellular SCAR pool is a key step in SCAR activation during pseudopod growth. Phosphorylation increases autoinhibition of the intact complex. Dephosphorylation weakens this interaction and facilitates SCAR activation but also destabilizes the protein. We show that SCAR is specifically dephosphorylated in pseudopods, increasing activation by Rac and lipids and supporting positive feedback of pseudopod growth.

EU free movement law and the legal recognition of same-sex relationships: the case for mutual recognition

This article seeks to examine the cross-border legal recognition of same-sex relationships in the EU. Although the Member States maintain an exclusive competence in the field of family law and, thus, it is up to them to determine whether they will provide a legal status to same-sex couples within their territory, they need to exercise their powers in that field in a way that does not violate EU law. This, it is suggested, requires that Member States mutually recognize the legal status of same-sex couples and do not treat same-sex couples worse than opposite-sex couples, if the basis of the differentiation is, merely, the (homosexual) sexual orientation of the two spouses/partners. Nonetheless, the current legal framework does not make it clear that Member States are under such an obligation. The main argument of the article, therefore, is that the EU must adopt a more hands-on approach towards this issue.