Value roadmapping: A structured approach for early stage technology investment decisions

Deciding to invest in early stage technologies is one of the most important tasks of technology management and arguably also the most uncertain. It assumes a particular significance in the rise of technology companies in emerging economies, which have to make appropriate investment decisions. Technology managers already have a wide range of methods and tools at their disposal, but these are mostly focussed on quantitative measures such as discounted cash flow and real options techniques. However, in the early stages of technology development there seems to be a lot of dissatisfaction with these techniques as there appears to be a lack of accuracy with respect to the underlying assumptions that these models require. In order to complement these models this paper will discuss an alternative approach that we call value road-mapping. By adapting roadmapping techniques the potential value streams of early stages technologies can be plotted and hence a clearer consensus based picture of the future potential of new technologies emerges. Roadmapping is a workshop-based process bringing together multifunctional perspectives, and supporting communication in particular between technical and commercial groups. The study is work in progress and is based on a growing number of cases. (c) 2006 PICMET.

A philosophical stance on developing industrially relevant strategic technology management toolkits

When considering the potential uptake and utilization of technology management tools by industry, it must be recognized that companies face the difficult challenges of selecting, adopting and integrating individual tools into a toolkit that must be implemented within their current organizational processes and systems. This situation is compounded by the lack of sound advice on integrating well-founded individual tools into a robust toolkit that has the necessary degree of flexibility such that they can be tailored for application to specific problems faced by individual organizations. As an initial stepping stone to offering a toolkit with empirically proven utility, this paper provides a conceptual foundation to the development of toolkits by outlining an underlying philosophical position based on observations from multiple research and commercial collaborations with industry. This stance is underpinned by a set of operationalized principles that can offer guidance to organizations when deciding upon the appropriate form, functions and features that should be embodied by any potential tool/toolkit. For example, a key objective of any tool is to aid decision-making and a core set of powerful, flexible, scaleable and modular tools should be sufficient to allow users to generate, explore, shape and implement possible solutions across a wide array of strategic issues. From our philosophical stance, the preferred mode of engagement is facilitated workshops with a participatory process that enables multiple perspectives and structures the conversation through visual representations in order to manage the cognitive load in the collaborative environment. The generic form of the tools should be configurable for the given context and utilized in a lightweight manner based on the premise of start small and iterate fast. © 2011 IEEE.

Mass culture of marine diatom Skeletonema costatum (Greville) Cleve collected from the Bay of Bengal

The growth of Skeletonema costatum in two artificial nutrient media was studied using various culture vessels. Skeletonema costatum was collected from the Cox's Bazar coast around the Bay of Bengal. Different growths stages i.e. lag phase, exponential phase, prestationary phase, stationary and death phase were observed during the culture period. The number of cells increased during the active division period and decreased after the beginning of the prestationary phase. The average densities of S. costatum in primary and secondary cultures were 0.55 x 10 super(6) cells mlˉ¹ and 0.93x10 super(6) cells mlˉ¹, respectively. In mass culture of S. costatum two, types of media were used. Highest cells densities of S. costatum cement tank culture were recorded 1.23x10 super(6) cell mlˉ¹ and 0.78x10 super(6) cells mlˉ¹ in their respective f/4 medium and commercial fertilizer medium. In the cement tanks culture fertilizer medium was found to be the best medium for mass culture of S. costatum in respect of production efficiency and culture stability.

Key principles for developing industrially relevant strategic technology management toolkits

When considering the potential uptake and utilization of technology management tools by industry, it must be recognized that companies face the difficult challenges of selecting, adopting and integrating individual tools into a toolkit that must be implemented within their current organizational processes and systems. This situation is compounded by the lack of sound advice on integrating well-founded individual tools into a robust toolkit that has the necessary degree of flexibility such that they can be tailored for application to specific problems faced by individual organizations. As an initial stepping stone to offering a toolkit with empirically proven utility, this paper provides a conceptual foundation to the development of toolkits by outlining an underlying philosophical position based on observations from multiple research and commercial collaborations with industry. This stance is underpinned by a set of operationalized principles that can offer guidance to organizations when deciding upon the appropriate form, functions and features that should be embodied by any potential tool/toolkit. For example, a key objective of any tool is to aid decision-making and a core set of powerful, flexible, scaleable and modular tools should be sufficient to allow users to generate, explore, shape and implement possible solutions across a wide array of strategic issues. From our philosophical stance, the preferred mode of engagement is facilitated workshops with a participatory process that enables multiple perspectives and structures the conversation through visual representations in order to manage the cognitive load in the collaborative environment. The generic form of the tools should be configurable for the given context and utilized in a lightweight manner based on the premise of 'start small and iterate fast'. © 2012 Elsevier Inc.

Extreme sensitivity of graphene photoconductivity to environmental gases.

Graphene is a single layer of covalently bonded carbon atoms, which was discovered only 8 years ago and yet has already attracted intense research and commercial interest. Initial research focused on its remarkable electronic properties, such as the observation of massless Dirac fermions and the half-integer quantum Hall effect. Now graphene is finding application in touch-screen displays, as channels in high-frequency transistors and in graphene-based integrated circuits. The potential for using the unique properties of graphene in terahertz-frequency electronics is particularly exciting; however, initial experiments probing the terahertz-frequency response of graphene are only just emerging. Here we show that the photoconductivity of graphene at terahertz frequencies is dramatically altered by the adsorption of atmospheric gases, such as nitrogen and oxygen. Furthermore, we observe the signature of terahertz stimulated emission from gas-adsorbed graphene. Our findings highlight the importance of environmental conditions on the design and fabrication of high-speed, graphene-based devices.

Applications of homemade kit in mutation detection of genes

Several methods of mutation detection, such as single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP), tandem SSCP/heteroduplex analysis and SNaPshot analysis were developed using homemade kit on ABI 310 genetic analyzer, and were successfully applied to mutation detection of 31 colorectal tumor samples. The sieving capability of homemade kit and commercial kit were compared, results demonstrate that homemade kit has higher resolution and shorter analysis time. In clinical tumor samples, 26% K-ras (exon 1) and 24% p53 (exons 7-8) were found to have mutations, and all mutations were single point variations. A majority of mutations occurred in one gene, only 1 tumor contained alterations in the two genes, which indicates that development of colorectal cancer lies on alternate pathways, and may correlate with different gene mutations.

Towards manipulation of post-biosynthetic events in secondary metabolism of plant cell cultures

Plant cell cultures have been suggested as a feasible technology for the production of a myriad of plant-derived metabolites. However, commercial application of plant cell culture has met limited success with only a handful of metabolites produced at the pilot- and commercial-scales. To improve the production of secondary metabolites in plant cell cultures, efforts have been devoted predominantly to the optimization of biosynthetic pathways by both process and genetic engineering approaches. Given that secondary metabolism includes-the synthesis. metabolism and catabolism of endogenous compounds by the specialized proteins, this review intends to draw attention to the manipulation and optimization of post-biosynthetic events that follow the formation of core metabolite structures in biosynthetic pathways. These post-biosynthetic events-the chemical and enzymatic modifications, transport, storage/secretion and catabolism/degradation have been largely unexplored in the past. Potential areas are identified where further research is needed to answer fundamental questions that have implications for advanced bioprocess design. Anthocyanin production by plant cell cultures is used as a case study for this discussion, as it presents a good example of compounds for which there are extensive research publications but still no commercial bioprocess. It is perceived that research on post-biosynthetic processes may lead to future opportunities for significant advances in commercial plant cell cultures. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

Phthalocyanato tin(IV) dichloride: An air-stable, high-performance, n-type organic semiconductor with a high field-effect electron mobility

Phthalocyanato tin(IV) dichloride, an axially dichloriniated MPc, is an air-stable high performance n-type organic semiconductor with a field-effect electron mobility of up to 0.30 cm(2) V-1 s(-1). This high mobility together with good device stability and commercial availability makes it a most suitable n-type material for future organic thin-film transistor applications.

空间电流体系地磁反演及理论研究

The space currents definitely take effects on electromagnetic environment and also are scientific highlight in the space research. Space currents as a momentum and energy provider to Geospace Storm, disturb the varied part of geomagnetic field, distort magnetospheric configuration and furthermore take control of the coupling between magnetosphere and ionosphere. Due to both academic and commercial objectives above, we carry on geomagnetic inverse and theoretical studies about the space currents by using geomagnetic data from INTERMAGNET. At first, we apply a method of Natural Orthogonal Components (NOC) to decomposition the solar daily variation, especially for (solar quiet variation). NOC is just one of eign mode analysis, the most advantage of this method is that the basic functions (BFs) were not previously designated, but naturally came from the original data so that there are several BFs usually corresponding to the process really happened and have more physical meaning than the traditional spectrum analysis with the fixed BFs like Fourier trigonometric functions. The first two eign modes are corresponding to the and daily variation and their amplitudes both have the seasonal and day-to-day trend, that will be useful for evaluating geomagnetic activity indices. Because of the too strict constraints of orthogonality, we try to extend orthogonal contraints to the non-orthogonal ones in order to give more suitable and appropriate decomposition of the real processes when the most components did not satisfy orthogonality. We introduce a mapping matrix which can transform the real physical space to a new mathematical space, after that process, the modified components which associated with the physical processes have satisfied the orthogonality in the new mathematical space, furthermore, we can continue to use the NOC decomposition in the new mathematical space, and then all the components inversely transform back to original physical space, so that we would have finished the non-orthogonal decomposition which more generally in the real world. Secondly, geomagnetic inverse of the ring current’s topology is conducted. Configurational changes of the ring current in the magnetosphere lead to different patterns of disturbed ground field, so that the global configuration of ring current can be inferred from its geomagnetic perturbations. We took advantages of worldwide geomagnetic observatories network to investigate the disturbed geomagnetic field which produced by ring current. It was found that the ring current was not always centered at geomagnetic equator, and significantly deviated off the equator during several intense magnetic storms. The deviation owing to the tilting and latitudinal shifting of the ring current with respect to the earth’s dipole can be estimated from global geomagnetic survey. Furthermore those two configurational factors which gave a quantitative description of the ring current configuration, will be helpful to improve the Dst calibration and understand the dependence of ring current’s configuration on the plasma sheet location relative to the equator when magnetotail field warped. Thirdly, the energization and physical acceleration process of ring current during magnetic storm has been proposed. When IMF Bz component increase, the enhanced convection electric field drive the plasma injection into the inner magnetosphere. During the transport process, a dynamic heating is happened which make the particles more ‘hot’ when the injection is more deeply inward. The energy gradient along the injection path is equivalent to a kind of force, which resist the plasma more earthward injection, as a diamagnetic effect of the magnetosphere anti and repellent action to the exotically injected plasma. The acceleration efficiency has a power law form. We use analytical way to quantitatively describe the dynamical process by introducing a physical parameter: energization index, which will be useful to understand how the particle is heated. At the end, we give a scheme of how to get the from storm time geomagnetic data. During intense magnetic storms, the lognormal trend of geomagnetic Dst decreases depend on the heating dynamic of magnetosphere controlling ring current. The descending pattern of main phase is governed by the magnetospheric configuration, which can be describled by the energization index. The amplitude of Dst correlated with convection electric field or south component of the solar wind. Finally, the Dst index is predicted by upstream solar wind parameter. As we known space weather have posed many chanllenges and impacts on techinal system, the geomagnetic index for evaluating the activity space weather. We review the most popular Dst prediction method and repeat the Dst forecasting model works. A concise and convnient Key Points model of the polar region is also introduced to space weather. In summary, this paper contains some new quantitative and physical description of the space currents with special focus on the ring current. Whatever we do is just to gain a better understanding of the natural world, particularly the space environment around Earth through analytical deduction, algorithm designing and physical analysis, to quantitative interpretation. Applications of theoretical physics in conjunction with data analysis help us to understand the basic physical process govering the universe.

大城市内部商业环境满意度评价与消费区位决策研究-以北京市西城区和海淀区为例

Since 1990s, commercial conditions in China including commercial environment, retail types, scale of retail enterprises, spatial structure of retail and shopping decision making factors have changed. In order to keep up with these changes, commercial geography should set up new perspectives, theories and methods to analyze its internal mechanism and changing rules, and thus provide reasonable and practical scientific basis to commercial planning, location decision of retail enterprises and commercial environment construction. Taking Xicheng and Haidian District of Beijing as research case, which is a sector region from city center to rural region, this paper selects 12 commercial centers as most important study objects of this sector. This paper mainly makes use of the methods of Modeling, Pearson Bivaiiate Correlations Analysis, Factor Analysis and Logit model. Based on 1300 questionnaires and fieldwork, this paper focuses on modeling of Consumer Satisfaction of Commercial Environment (CSCE), evaluation of commercial environment and driving factors of consumers' shopping location decision. Firstly, this paper discusses the development of commercial geography and commercial environment evaluation, the new characteristics and trends of commercial development in Beijing and physical commercial environment of Xicheng and Haidian District of Beijing from chapter 1 to chapter 4. Secondly, this paper summarizes characteristics of residents' shopping behavior in chapter 5. Thirdly, this paper sets up an evaluative model of CSCE, and analyzes consumer satisfaction indexes of commercial environment and their spatial features in chapter 6. Fourthly, this paper infers how residents' attributes and shopping behaviors affect their preferences of shopping location and what are residents' shopping location decisions and their influencing factors in chapter 7. Fifthly, this paper constructs a significant index model and a pyramidal framework of CSCE, and further analyzes the diversity and competitive advantage of commercial environment in chapter 8. Finally, some conclusions are drawn as follows: 1. Characteristics of residents' shopping behavior mostly embody residents' time distance preference, commodity consumption preference, shopping time distribution and shopping activity characteristics. The important factors that influence shopping location choice of residents are distance, transportation, commodity price, commodity types and commodity quality. However, the important factors, which influence shopping location re-choice of residents, are commodity price, commodity quality, commodity types and transportation. 2. CSCE indexes of 12 commercial centers show us significant spatial characteristics, such as spatial differences of "Center-fringe region", spatial characteristics of axes, spatial diversity of ring roads and so on. 3. Influencing factors including factor endowments, relative establishment factor and location and transportation factor of commercial environment are of importance for CSCE. 4. Logit model 1 indicates that shopping behavior of residents is significantly and positively related to working in high-tech companies, high income and by car and positively related to high school diploma, by bus and subway. 5. Logit model 2 indicates that residents' shopping location decision is significantly and positively related to leisure establishment and relative restaurant and entertainment establishment and negatively related to commercial location, commodity price, service quality, parking site. 6. The significant index model and the pyramidal framework of CSCE indicate competitive advantages are crucial to attractive capability of commercial center, and competitive weakness limits development of commercial centers, in particular the weakness of service quality and parking site now is the chief factors restricting development of commercial centers

Toxicity of manufactured nano-ZnO to Lemna minor

The rapid development of nanotechnology has led to a rise in the large-scale production and commercial use of engineered nano-ZnO. Engineered/manufactured nano-ZnO are applied in a broad range of products such as drugs, paints, cosmetics, abrasive agents and insulators. This can result in the unintended exposure of human beings to nano-ZnO and will inevitably result in the release of nano-ZnO in to the environment. Thus, it is necessary to assess the risk of nano-ZnO to the environment. In this thesis the toxicity of nano-ZnO was analysed using the aquatic, primary producer lesser duckweed (Lemna minor), and the mechanism of toxicity was analysed. Both short-term (one week) and long-term (six weeks) toxicity of nano-ZnO (uncoated) were determined. Results show that the toxicity of nano-ZnO added to the aquatic growth medium increases with increasing concentration and that toxicity accumulates with exposure time. A study of nano-ZnO dissolution reveals that the main reason for nano-ZnO toxicity on Lemna minor is the release of Zn ions. Nano-ZnO dissolution is pH dependent, and toxicity matches the release of Zn2+. Functional coating materials are commonly added to nano-ZnO particles to improve specific industrial applications. To test if coating materials contribute to nano-ZnO toxicity on lesser duckweed, the effect of silane coupling agent (KH550) coated nano-ZnO on Lemma minor was investigated. Results show that coating can decrease the release of Zn ions, which reduces toxicity to Lemna minor, in contrast to uncoated particles. Another commonly hypothesized reason for nano-ZnO toxicity is the formation of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) on the particles surface. As part of this thesis, the ROS formation induced by nano-ZnO was studied. Results show that nano-ZnO catalyse ROS formation and this can negatively affect duckweed growth. In conclusion, this work has detailed potentially toxic effects of nano-ZnO on Lemna minor. This study has also provides references for future research, and informs regulatory testing for nanoparticle toxicity. Specifically, the outcomes of this study emphasize the importance of exposure time, environmental parameters and coating material when analysing NPs toxicity. Firstly, impacts of longer exposure time should be studied. Secondly, environmental parameters such as pH and medium-composition need to be considered when investigating NPs toxicity. Lastly, coating of NPs should always be considered in the context of NPs toxicity, and similar NPs with different coatings require separate toxicity tests.

Data collection in support of the modelling of naval vessels

Evacuation analysis of passenger and commercial shipping can be undertaken using computer-based simulation tools such as maritimeEXODUS. These tools emulate human shipboard behaviour during emergency scenarios; however it is largely based around the behaviour of civilian passengers and fixtures and fittings of merchant vessels. If these tools and procedures are to be applied to naval vessels there is a clear requirement to understand the behaviour of well-trained naval personnel interacting with the fixtures and fittings that are exclusive to warships. Human factor trials using Royal Navy training facilities were recently undertaken to collect data to improve our understanding of the performance of naval personnel in warship environments. The trials were designed and conducted by staff from the Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) of the University of Greenwich on behalf of the Sea Technology Group (STG), Defence Procurement Agency. The trials involved a selection of RN volunteers with sea-going experience in warships, operating and traversing structural components under different angles of heel. This paper describes the trials and some of the collected data.

Using historical data to detect temporal changes in the abundances of intertidal species on Irish shores

An historical data set, collected in 1958 by Southward and Crisp, was used as a baseline for detecting change in the abundances of species in the rocky intertidal of Ireland. In 2003, the abundances of each of 27 species was assessed using the same methodologies (ACFOR [which stands for the categories: abundant, common, frequent, occasional and rare] abundance scales) at 63 shores examined in the historical study. Comparison of the ACFOR data over a 45-year period, between the historical survey and re-survey, showed statistically significant changes in the abundances of 12 of the 27 species examined. Two species (one classed as northern and one introduced) increased significantly in abundance while ten species (five classed as northern, one classed as southern and four broadly distributed) decreased in abundance. The possible reasons for the changes in species abundances were assessed not only in the context of anthropogenic effects, such as climate change and commercial exploitation, but also of operator error. The error or differences recorded among operators (i.e. research scientists) when assessing species abundance using ACFOR categories was quantified on four shores. Significant change detected in three of the 12 species fell within the margin of operator error. This effect of operator may have also contributed to the results of no change in the other 15 species between the two census periods. It was not possible to determine the effect of operator on our results, which can increase the occurrence of a false positive (Type 1) or of a false negative (Type 2) outcome

Globcurrent: Sentinel-3 synergy in action

The ESA Data User Element (DUE) funded GlobCurrent project (http://www.globcurrent.org) aims to: (i) advance the quantitative estimation of ocean surface currents from satellite sensor synergy; and (ii) demonstrate impact in user-led scientific, operational and commercial applications that, in turn, will improve and strengthen the uptake of satellite measurements. Today, a synergetic approach for quantitative analysis can build on high-resolution imaging radar and spectrometer data, infrared radiometer data and radar altimeter measurements. It will further integrate Sentinel-3 in combination with Sentinel-1 SAR data. From existing and past missions, it is often demonstrated that sharp gradients in the sea surface temperature (SST) field and the ocean surface chlorophyll-a distribution are spatially correlated with the sea surface roughness anomaly fields at small spatial scales, in the sub-mesocale (1-10 km) to the mesoscale (30-80 km). At the larger mesoscale range (>50 km), information derived from radar altimeters often depict the presence of coherent structures and eddies. The variability often appears largest in regions where the intense surface current regimes (>100 - 200 km) are found. These 2-dimensional structures manifested in the satellite observations represent evidence of the upper ocean (~100-200 m) dynamics. Whereas the quasi geostrophic assumption is valid for the upper ocean dynamics at the larger scale (>100 km), possible triggering mechanisms for the expressions at the mesoscale-to-submesoscale may include spiraling tracers of inertial motion and the interaction of the wind-driven Ekman layer with the quasi-geostrophic current field. This latter, in turn, produces bands of downwelling (convergence) and upwelling (divergence) near fronts. A regular utilization of the sensor synergy approach with the combination of Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-1 will provide a highly valuable data set for further research and development to better relate the 2-dimensional surface expressions and the upper ocean dynamics.