Suchergebnisse

In the paper performs the SWOT-analysis of innovative business in Ukraine. The major indicators of innovative activity in Ukraine are analyzed. The factors, that inhibit the activation of the functioning of small and medium enterprises in innovation, are investigated, among which: insufficient infrastructure to support innovative entrepreneurship; insufficient budgetary funds for scientific and technical sphere; the lack of venture capital and the underestimation of the stock and mechanisms; insufficiently stable financial condition of enterprises; a weak stimulation of the development of innovative financing of non-state (lack of venture financing); administrative barriers (according to foreign experts, to 8% of revenue spent by entrepreneurs on overcoming administrative barriers); lack of an integrated legal support of innovative entrepreneurship; lack of motivation on the part of entrepreneurs for using the results of scientific research budget in innovation; lack of effective development of innovative entrepreneurial environment; insufficient level of innovation culture; limited access to information innovation environment; lack of support for small innovative businesses at regional level.The results of this research suggest the need to address the major challenges for the development of innovative business in Ukraine in the contemporary economy. Among them: creating an enabling institutional, structural, legal and other condition for the development of innovative entrepreneurship in the industrial sector and the service sector, including through the extensive use of technology «single window»; formation of an effective competitive sector of innovative business based on strategic relations with big business, synergy with governments at the regional and local levels; the accelerated growth and sustainability of innovative entrepreneurship by improving the development and support of small and medium-sized enterprises, strengthening the role of innovative entrepreneurship in the gross regional product in terms of intensification of regional development in Ukraine, improving the quality of life in cities and regions.The proposals to enhance the development of innovative entrepreneurship as the effective form of public-private partnership in Ukraine are developed. To improve the situation in the innovative business in the short term expedient implementation of a number of the following activities: analysis of the actual state of development of innovative business; increase in the number of small enterprises in innovation, as close to the standards of building an innovative economy (60-80%); creating the conditions for small businesses to reduce costs by introducing new products to improve competitiveness; ensure access of small innovative businesses to various sources of funding in order to reduce the costs of the introduction of innovative products; implementation of the selection of projects that require subsidies; formation of a system of training for the innovation sphere, which in the future should be gradually integrated into the international system; the creation of the state of scientific and methodological center of a multi-level system of training specialists in the field of innovation; formation of innovative infrastructure objects, for example, a consortium whose main task should be to find and implementation of large innovative projects related, usually with the use of new technologies.

The paper substantiates conceptual approaches to forming a strategy of innovation-based development of the national coal industry, which consist in defining the basis for using a portfolio approach to the management of innovation projects at the enterprise; consideration of uncertainty and risk factors when evaluating innovation projects; government regulation of market mechanisms in the implementation of innovation-based development of the coal industry; prove of coal-mining enterprises' capitalization by production modernization; boosting innovative activities in the coal mines; institutional changes in the innovation-based development of the coal industry; improvement of the organizational and economic mechanism for managing the innovation-based development of the coal industry. It was determined that the strategy of innovation-based development of the coal industry should be based on the implementation of the following priority directions: technical re-equipment of coal production, including the development of underground mining technologies with preferential use of mechanized complexes of a new technological level in the stopes, the industrial utilization of coal mine methane; implementation of measures to enhance the role of the sectoral science for scientific and technological, academic and experimental purposes; renewal of the material and technical base of the sectoral science and training highly-qualified scientific personnel.

This paper develops an endogenous yardstick competition approach to examine the effects of government anti-smoking campaigns. It finds that government anti-smoking campaigns can benefit the government in political bargaining with the tobacco industry by reducing the tobacco lobby's alternative welfare. Anti-smoking campaigns not only push up the equilibrium taxation on tobacco but also force the tobacco lobby to increase its political contributions because the bargaining position of the industry becomes weaker. The paper also finds that when the effectiveness of campaign spending on the expected vote share increases, the incumbent government / politicians will increase their effort in anti-smoking campaigns, and as a result, extract more political contributions.

A political-economy model is developed to show that government anti-smoking campaigns can benefit the government in the political bargaining with the tobacco industry by reducing the latter's alternative welfare. Although the equilibrium regulation on the tobacco industry increases as a result of government anti-smoking campaign, the political contribution from the tobacco industry will not necessarily be reduced. Antismoking campaigns reduce welfare of the tobacco industry but its potential loss of not lobbying increases. An incumbent government/politician will increase its effort in anti-smoking campaigns when it becomes more hungry for political contribution, and this could indeed bring more political contributions from the tobacco industry under plausible conditions.

Urban sustainability transitions have been increasingly imperative to address global environmental challenges, and local governments are expected to play a critical role. There is a pressing need to explore local governments' underlying motivations and their impacts on governing practices. Taking China as an example, this paper builds an incentive matrix to distinguish the levels of local governments' economic interest and environmental interest in specific low-carbon innovations and investigates how different incentive typologies affect their governing practices. By comparing four Chinese municipal governments' incentives and governing practices in promoting solar water heater adoption, this paper finds that Chinese local governments' environmental incentive is still not compelling or stable enough, while governments that are motivated by economic interests would resort to more substantial governance practices to promote the low-carbon innovations. These results indicate potential in latecomer cities in developing both economic and environmental incentives towards low-carbon innovations because green activities could also be favored if they are well aligned with local economic development.

Abstract. This study applied the two-dimensional AdH (adaptive hydraulics) hydrodynamic model to a river reach to analyze flood hydraulics on complex floodplains. Using the AdH model combined with bathymetry and topographic data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) seamless server and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), we intended to examine the interactions between the channel and floodplain of a 10 km stretch at McCarran Ranch, which is located at the lower Truckee River in Nevada. After calibrating the model, we tested the dependence of the modeling results on mesh density, input parameters, and time steps and compared the modeling results to the existing gauged data (both the discharge and water stage heights). Results show that the accuracy of prediction from the AdH model may decline slightly at higher discharges and water levels. The modeling results are more sensitive to the roughness coefficient of the main channel, which suggests that the model calibration should give priority to the main channel roughness. A detailed analysis of the floodwater dynamics was then conducted using the modeling approach to examine the hydraulic linkage between the main channel and floodplains. We found that large flood events could lead to a significantly higher proportion of total flow being routed through the floodplains. During peak discharges, a river channel diverted as much as 65 % of the total discharge into the floodplain. During the periods of overbank flow, the transboundary flux ratio was approximately 5 to 45 % of the total river discharge, which indicates substantial exchange between the main channel and floodplains. The results also showed that both the relations of the inundation area and volume versus the discharge exhibit an apparent looped curve form, which suggests that flood routing has an areal hysteresis effect on floodplains.

How to balance the central government and local governments' political authority relating to environmental governance has long been a topic of intense debate in China. Since both environmental and economic regulations are regulatory tools of governments, political authority and systems must be considered in deciding to what extent to empower local governments. Central government needs to find a tradeoff point when being placed under the dual pressure of environmental protection and maintaining the economic growth rate. Based on a two-level principal–agent model, our research compares the effects of centralized and decentralized governance on the efficiency of environmental regulation. Our results suggest that under decentralized environmental governance, the local governments' incentives increase, which results in either "race to the top" or "race to the bottom" competition in environmental regulation. Moreover, such governance prompts local governments to reduce their investment in economic development and environmental protection. However, decentralization in environmental governance will become more beneficial to the central government if the benefits of reducing information asymmetry surpass enhanced agency costs; otherwise, centralized environmental governance is preferred. Our research proposes a hybrid model of centralized and decentralized environmental governance to help cushion firms against high agency costs and local government–firm collusion.

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. Ruminant husbandry is a major source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG). Filling knowledge gaps and providing expert recommendation are important for defining future research priorities, improving methodologies and establishing science-based GHG mitigation solutions to government and non-governmental organisations, advisory/extension networks, and the ruminant livestock sector. The objectives of this review is to summarize published literature to provide a detailed assessment of the methodologies currently in use for measuring enteric methane (CH4) emission from individual animals under specific conditions, and give recommendations regarding their application. The methods described include respiration chambers and enclosures, sulphur hexafluoride tracer (SF6) technique, and techniques based on short-term measurements of gas concentrations in samples of exhaled air. This includes automated head chambers (e.g. the GreenFeed system), the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a marker, and (handheld) laser CH4detection. Each of the techniques are compared and assessed on their capability and limitations, followed by methodology recommendations. It is concluded that there is no 'one size fits all' method for measuring CH4emission by individual animals. Ultimately, the decision as to which method to use should be based on the experimental objectives and resources available. However, the need for high throughput methodology e.g. for screening large numbers of animals for genomic studies, does not justify the use of methods that are inaccurate. All CH4measurement techniques are subject to experimental variation and random errors. Many sources of variation must be considered when measuring CH4concentration in exhaled air samples without a quantitative or at least regular collection rate, or use of a marker to indicate (or adjust) for the proportion of exhaled CH4sampled. Consideration of the number and timing of measurements relative to diurnal patterns of CH4emission and respiratory exchange are important, as well as consideration of feeding patterns and associated patterns of rumen fermentation rate and other aspects of animal behaviour. Regardless of the method chosen, appropriate calibrations and recovery tests are required for both method establishment and routine operation. Successful and correct use of methods requires careful attention to detail, rigour, and routine self-assessment of the quality of the data they provide.

Ruminant husbandry is a major source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG). Filling knowledge gaps and providing expert recommendation are important for defining future research priorities, improving methodologies and establishing science-based GHG mitigation solutions to government and non-governmental organisations, advisory/extension networks, and the ruminant livestock sector. The objectives of this review is to summarize published literature to provide a detailed assessment of the methodologies currently in use for measuring enteric methane (CH4) emission from individual animals under specific conditions, and give recommendations regarding their application. The methods described include respiration chambers and enclosures, sulphur hexafluoride tracer (SF6) technique, and techniques based on short-term measurements of gas concentrations in samples of exhaled air. This includes automated head chambers (e.g. the GreenFeed system), the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a marker, and (handheld) laser CH4 detection. Each of the techniques are compared and assessed on their capability and limitations, followed by methodology recommendations. It is concluded that there is no 'one size fits all' method for measuring CH4 emission by individual animals. Ultimately, the decision as to which method to use should be based on the experimental objectives and resources available. However, the need for high throughput methodology e.g. for screening large numbers of animals for genomic studies, does not justify the use of methods that are inaccurate. All CH4 measurement techniques are subject to experimental variation and random errors. Many sources of variation must be considered when measuring CH4 concentration in exhaled air samples without a quantitative or at least regular collection rate, or use of a marker to indicate (or adjust) for the proportion of exhaled CH4 sampled. Consideration of the number and timing of measurements relative to diurnal patterns of CH4 emission and respiratory exchange are important, as well as consideration of feeding patterns and associated patterns of rumen fermentation rate and other aspects of animal behaviour. Regardless of the method chosen, appropriate calibrations and recovery tests are required for both method establishment and routine operation. Successful and correct use of methods requires careful attention to detail, rigour, and routine self-assessment of the quality of the data they provide.

This is the final version. Available on open access from the National Academy of Sciences via the DOI in this record ; Data Availability. The results and peat core data are summarized in Datasets S1–S6. Maps of predicted peatland extent, peat depth, and peat C and N storage (10-km pixels) are archived and freely available for download at https://bolin.su.se/data/hugelius-2020 ; Northern peatlands have accumulated large stocks of organic carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), but their spatial distribution and vulnerability to climate warming remain uncertain. Here, we used machine-learning techniques with extensive peat core data (n > 7,000) to create observation-based maps of northern peatland C and N stocks, and to assess their response to warming and permafrost thaw. We estimate that northern peatlands cover 3.7 ± 0.5 million km2 and store 415 ± 150 Pg C and 10 ± 7 Pg N. Nearly half of the peatland area and peat C stocks are permafrost affected. Using modeled global warming stabilization scenarios (from 1.5 to 6 °C warming), we project that the current sink of atmospheric C (0.10 ± 0.02 Pg C⋅y-1) in northern peatlands will shift to a C source as 0.8 to 1.9 million km2 of permafrost-affected peatlands thaw. The projected thaw would cause peatland greenhouse gas emissions equal to ∼1% of anthropogenic radiative forcing in this century. The main forcing is from methane emissions (0.7 to 3 Pg cumulative CH4-C) with smaller carbon dioxide forcing (1 to 2 Pg CO2-C) and minor nitrous oxide losses. We project that initial CO2-C losses reverse after ∼200 y, as warming strengthens peatland C-sinks. We project substantial, but highly uncertain, additional losses of peat into fluvial systems of 10 to 30 Pg C and 0.4 to 0.9 Pg N. The combined gaseous and fluvial peatland C loss estimated here adds 30 to 50% onto previous estimates of permafrost-thaw C losses, with southern permafrost regions being the most vulnerable. ; Swedish Research Council ; European Union ; European Union Horizon 2020 ; Gordon and Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation ; Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) ; National Science Foundation ; National Natural Science Foundation of China