Risk Governance of Emerging Technologies Demonstrated in Terms of its Applicability to Nanomaterials

Nanotechnologies have reached maturity and market penetration that require nano‐specific changes in legislation and harmonization among legislation domains, such as the amendments to REACH for nanomaterials (NMs) which came into force in 2020. Thus, an assessment of the components and regulatory boundaries of NMs risk governance is timely, alongside related methods and tools, as part of the global efforts to optimise nanosafety and integrate it into product design processes, via Safe(r)‐by‐Design (SbD) concepts. This paper provides an overview of the state‐of‐the‐art regarding risk governance of NMs and lays out the theoretical basis for the development and implementation of an effective, trustworthy and transparent risk governance framework for NMs. The proposed framework enables continuous integration of the evolving state of the science, leverages best practice from contiguous disciplines and facilitates responsive re‐thinking of nanosafety governance to meet future needs. To achieve and operationalise such framework, a science‐based Risk Governance Council (RGC) for NMs is being developed. The framework will provide a toolkit for independent NMs' risk governance and integrates needs and views of stakeholders. An extension of this framework to relevant advanced materials and emerging technologies is also envisaged, in view of future foundations of risk research in Europe and globally.     

Designing a Telephone-Based Interface for a Home Automation System

User-interface design lacks expertise in designing nonvisual user interfaces. This is surprising as there are various domains where auditory interfaces have already been proved to be helpful, such as railway information services and reading support for blind persons.

We present a case study concerning the design of a telephone-based interface (TBI). It was realized within the development process of an interaction concept for a modular home automation system. The design was based on requirements gathered in user focus groups and on general guidelines for the design of TBIs. The TBI's evaluation revealed some minor (i.e., easily solved) usability problems. Questionnaires showed a positive ergonomic quality as well as a positive overall appeal. Interestingly, the evaluation indicates a potential to improve hedonic quality (i.e., non-task-related quality aspects). It may be induced by the addition of nonspeech sounds, thereby enriching user experience.     

Ambient bloom: new business, content, design and models to increase the semantic ambient media experience

Semantic ambient media are the novel trend in the world of media reaching from the pioneering subareas such as ambient advertising to the new and emerging subareas such as ambient assisted living. They will likely shape the upcoming years in terms of modeling smart environments and also media consumption and interaction. This work analyzes semantic ambient media by considering business models, content and media, interaction design and consumer experience, and methods and techniques that are important to create this new form of media. Discussion is led using the state-of-the-art event of the semantic ambient media, which is the annual international workshop on Semantic Ambient Media Experience (SAME). The study also creates a vision for how ambient media will evolve and how they will look like in the future decade.     

Performance of infiltration swales with regard to operation in winter times in an Alpine region

In cold climate regions winter conditions significantly influence the performance of stormwater infiltration devices. Frozen soil and water storage by snow changes their operation. In this paper winter operation of a grassed infiltration swale was investigated using on-site and laboratory measurements. The field investigation of a grassed swale at a parking place in an Alpine region showed that the swale fulfilled its function properly. Although the top layer was frozen for some time, the storage capacity of the swale was sufficient to store the precipitation until the conditions improved. The soil attenuated the air temperature, at 20 cm below ground surface the soil was only frozen for one week. winter maintenance proved to be a problem, together with the snow from the parking place a lot of gravel and fine particles were deposited at one end of the swale. This decreased the hydraulic conductivity at that point significantly. The laboratory tests with soil columns showed an increase of flow time through the soil column with decreasing soil moisture content. For soil temperatures below 0 degrees C the hydraulic conductivity was reduced for increasing initial soil moisture contents. All in all the hydraulic conductivity was best around 0 degrees C for all soil water contents. However, also at minus 5 degrees C the coefficient of hydraulic conductivity was always at least above 10(-6) m/s, thus within the range of tolerated hydraulic conductivity specified in the national guidelines. Nevertheless, the handling of the soil was found to have high influence on the results. The results indicate that in the Alpine region infiltration swales operate sufficiently under winter conditions although with decreased performance.     

Innovation Culture,Collaboration with External Partners and NPD Performance

Researchers and managers have found that the use of external knowledge in the process of new product development (NPD) helps to sustain a firm's competitiveness by strengthening its innovative performance. However, little is known about why some firms use external knowledge sources for NPD in an extensive manner while others hardly ever use them. In addition, there is disagreement about which external partners significantly contribute to the innovative performance of a firm as valuable knowledge sources. Based on the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm and Kitchell's innovation adoption model, this paper expects a firm's innovation culture to have a significant impact on its openness to external knowledge – measured in terms of its collaborative behaviour with five different external partners – and for that behaviour to influence the firm's NPD performance. A sample of 254 technology‐based firms across several industries is used to empirically test the research model with covariance‐based structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings deepen our understanding of the discrepancies between successful pioneering firms active in technology and knowledge sourcing and others being less successful.     

Web 2.0: Inherent tensions and evident challenges for education

In upper tertiary educational programmes around the world, the new Web-mediated communication practices termed Web 2.0 are introduced as learning activities with the goal of facilitating learning through collaborative knowledge construction. The aim of this paper is to point to discrepancies in the views of learning, knowledge, and the goals of the practice implicit in Web 2.0 and educational practices and to argue that these discrepancies lead to theoretical tensions and practical challenges when Web 2.0 practices are utilized for educational purposes. The article is structured into four main parts: First, Web 2.0 is characterized from a practice perspective. Second, some conceptual discrepancies between the “practice logics” of Web 2.0 and educational practices are identified. Third, the question of transcending the discrepancies is raised through a discussion of related pedagogical strategies. Fourth, it is argued that the conceptual discrepancies bear out in practice as concrete challenges concerning collaboration, evaluation, and the general aim and status of the material produced by students. These challenges are illustrated with examples from the author’s practical experience with Web 2.0-mediated learning activities in eight courses at the BA and MA levels.     

Approximating geodesic tree distance

Billera, Holmes, and Vogtmann introduced an intriguing new phylogenetic tree metric for weighted trees with useful properties related to statistical analysis. However, the best known algorithm for calculating this distance is exponential in the number of leaves of the trees compared. We point out that lower and upper bounds for this distance, which can be calculated in linear time, can differ by at most a multiplicative factor of .     

Oxidative stability of mayonnaise containing structured lipids produced from sunflower oil and caprylic acid

Mayonnaise based on enzymatically produced specific structured lipid (SL) from sunflower oil and caprylic acid was compared with mayonnaise based on traditional sunflower oil (SO) or chemically randomized lipid (RL) with respect to their oxidative stability, sensory and rheological properties. Furthermore, the potential antioxidative effect of adding lactoferrin, propyl gallate or EDTA to the mayonnaise with SL was also investigated. Mayonnaise based on SL oxidized faster than mayonnaise based on RL or SO. The reduced oxidative stability in the SL mayonnaise could not be ascribed to a single factor, but was most likely influenced by the structure of the lipid, the lower tocopherol content and the higher initial levels of lipid hydroperoxides and secondary volatile oxidation compounds in the SL itself compared with the RL and traditional sunflower oil employed. EDTA was a strong antioxidant, while propyl gallate and lactoferrin did not exert any antioxidative effect in the SL mayonnaise.