This book provides an up-to-date analysis of state-of-the-art concentrating solar power (CSP) generation. It focuses on the economic analysis of CSP generation technologies as well as the policies that have been and are being used around the globe to support it. The book describes the industrial sectors whose products make up the solar field, including the traditional manufacturers of turbines and generators.The authors provide the main theoretical tools needed to comprehend the costs of CSP technologies compared to other competing technologies (both conventional and renewable) and discuss the conceptual rationale behind creating public support for these technologies and the costs of various promotional techniques. Further, the book examines the concepts from different disciplinary traditions in economics (including environmental, innovation, industrial and public), which are then combined and integrated for an analysis of the costs and policies of CSP electricity.Addressing the main findings and the challenges for future CSP, the book is a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners. It is also of use to industrial engineers, as it identifies the features of the sector's supply chain value, rooted in and supported by an industrial economics approach.

This is the sixth volume of a sub series on Road Vehicle Automation published within the Lecture Notes in Mobility. The contents have been provided by researchers, engineers and analysts from all around the world. Topics covered include public sector activities, human factors and challenges, ethical, legal, energy and technology perspectives, vehicle systems development, as well as transportation infrastructure and planning. The book is based on the Automated Vehicles Symposium held on July 9-12, 2018 in San Francisco, CA (USA).

This book gathers the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Management Science and Engineering Management (ICMSEM 2019), which was held at Brock University, Ontario, Canada on August 5-8, 2019. Exploring the latest ideas and pioneering research achievements in management science and engineering management, the respective contributions highlight both theoretical and practical studies on management science and computing methodologies, and present advanced management concepts and computing technologies for decision-making problems involving large, uncertain and unstructured data. Accordingly, the proceedings offer researchers and practitioners in related fields an essential update, as well as a source of new research directions.

This book gathers the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Management Science and Engineering Management (ICMSEM 2019), which was held at Brock University, Ontario, Canada on August 5-8, 2019. Exploring the latest ideas and pioneering research achievements in management science and engineering management, the respective contributions highlight both theoretical and practical studies on management science and computing methodologies, and present advanced management concepts and computing technologies for decision-making problems involving large, uncertain and unstructured data. Accordingly, the proceedings offer researchers and practitioners in related fields an essential update, as well as a source of new research directions.

This book presents the proceedings of the 2nd EAI International Conference on Technology, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Education (TIE' 2018), which took place at Ravensbourne University London, London, UK, on September 4, 2018. The central theme of the conference is emerging technologies in relation to business, education, social and political needs that make modern society flourish. The proceedings feature papers from a cross-disciplinary audience that explore the process of creativity and innovation. The goal is that the various disciplines can learn from each other and see how they might benefit from the cross-fertilization of practices.

This edited book examines the relationship between the materiality of artefacts and managerial techniques, combining the recent scholarly interest on socio-materiality with a focus on management. Exploring managerial techniques, the social and material tools used by actors to guide or facilitate collective activities, topics include their socio-materiality, performative dimension, role in managerial control, relationship to organisational space and relationship to organisational legitimacy. This volume particularly explores the valuation and legitimation practices or processes involving managerial techniques, their modalities, specificities and involvement in collective activity within organisations. The overall aim of the chapters is to explore in different ways and instances the way in which material artefacts are able to inscribe and enforce managerial action which affects daily work practices.

This book makes an important contribution to the recent evolution in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that are human-centred and socially desirable, environmentally sustainable, and ethically acceptable. It introduces the concept of moral, equitable and environmental limits in the ICT domain and proposes a Slow Tech approach to face the challenges of these limits, laying out a set of principles that can be applied in real-life business settings. With the launch of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the growing interest in the circular economy, Slow Tech and ICT - A Responsible, Sustainable and Ethical Approach is a timely tool for forward-thinking businesses.

This book investigates the birth and evolution of craft breweries around the world. Microbrewery, brewpub, artisanal brewery, henceforth craft brewery, are terms referred to a new kind of production in the brewing industry contraposed to the mass production of beer, which has started and diffused in almost all industrialized countries in the last decades. This project provides an explanation of the entrepreneurial dynamics behind these new firms from an economic perspective. The product standardization of large producers, the emergence of a new more sophisticated demand and set of consumers, the effect of contagion, and technology aspects are analyzed as the main determinants behind this 'revolution'. The worldwide perspective makes the project distinctive, presenting cases from many relevant countries, including the USA, Australia, Japan, China, UK, Belgium, Italy and many other EU countries.

This book is the second volume reflecting the shift in the design paradigm in automobile industry. It presents contributions to the second and third workshop on Automotive Systems Engineering held in March 2013 and Sept. 2014, respectively. It describes major innovations in the field of driver assistance systems and automated vehicles as well as fundamental changes in the architecture of the vehicles.

This book introduces readers to additive technology and its application in different business sectors. It explores the fundamental impact additive has on technology, particularly on operations, innovation, supply chains, the environment and customer relations. Subsequently, on the basis of a broad survey of the best technology adopters, it offers advice on how to enhance business value by implementing the technology in different industrial and commercial environments. Additive manufacturing (AM) is a new area of manufacturing that has already brought about phenomenal changes to industry and business models. It affects nearly all aspects of the managerial and organizational thinking that was applied to conventional manufacturing. Currently, the technology is being adopted in manufacturing areas that involve high-value products with complex geometries, and small to medium production volumes. It boosts the productivity of new product development processes by slashing costs, reducing time and promoting creativity and innovativeness. Further, it shrinks supply chains by bringing firms closer to their customers. This unique book offers abundant empirical and practical evidence confirming the value of this new technology.

This book represents a major milestone in the endeavour to understand how communication is impacting on the fashion industry and on societal fashion-related practices and values in the digital age. It presents the proceedings of FACTUM 19, the first in a series of fashion communication conferences that highlights important theoretical and empirical work in the field. Beyond documenting the latest scientific insights, the book is intended to foster the sharing of methodological approaches, expand the dialogue between communications' studies and fashion-related disciplines, help establish an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars, and offer encouragement and fresh ideas to junior researchers. It is of high value to academics and students in the fields of fashion communication, fashion marketing, visual studies in fashion, digital transformation of the fashion industry, and the cultural heritage dimension of fashion. In addition, it is a key resource for professionals seeking sound research on fashion communication and marketing.

This book gathers a diverse range of novel research on modeling innovation policies for sustainable economic development, based on a selection of papers from a conference on modeling innovation systems and technologies (MIST). It aims at encouraging interdisciplinary and comparative approaches, bringing together researchers and professionals interested in sustainable economic, technological development and open innovation, as well as their dissemination and practical application. The respective contributions explore a variety of topics and cases, including regional innovation policy, the effects of open innovation on firms, innovation and sustainability in tourism, and the use of information and communication technologies. All chapters share a strong focus on new research and innovation methodologies, in keeping with the Experimentation and Application Research (EAR) and Open Innovation 2.0 principles.

This book introduces the structure, economic arguments, and business strategies for entrepreneurship in sport. Here, the entrepreneurial process is usually initiated by organizations, people or governments who are embedded in both economic and social contexts. The development of technologies that have enhanced the diffusion of information and the creation of new international markets has impacted sports entrepreneurship activities. The goal of this book is to introduce readers to emerging issues in sport entrepreneurship and management. The book focuses on the role of entrepreneurship in the sports context by examining how to leverage the opportunities that arise from networks and optimize resources by identifying where they can most effectively be put to use. As a unique discipline, sport entrepreneurship helps to identify the conditions under which and the processes in which upcoming business ventures need to be pursued. The book will be useful for sports organizations, athletes and government organizations promoting the use of entrepreneurship to generate competitive advantages on the global marketplace.

This book attempts to capture innovation outcomes. The intent is on a holistic assessment of value creation by innovation - the societal value that it delivers to humanity, the economic value that it has the potential to endow to nations, and the monetary value that it provides to innovating firms. With a range of anecdotal examples and empirical analysis, the book endeavours to answer the question: Have investments in innovation paid off? Big data and analytics underpin the development of the book material. The coverage is truly global, accentuating the economic value created by innovation in the technology and pharmaceutical sectors, the two largest bastions of innovation. In addition, it includes numerous examples of successful innovation in global companies while analyzing its economic/financial impact.

This book describes the water sector as it is structured in Italy, presenting innovative engineering, financial and managerial solutions implemented by the Italian water sector, through the experiences of its major stakeholders. The main themes addressed include water regulation, financing infrastructures, economic performance of the leading companies, abstraction, potabilization, distribution, treatment and purification technologies, energy production, and organizational restructuring. The last part of the work presents company profiles with important financial indicators, as well as future strategic postures. Written by leading Italian experts, the book reflects the remarkable advances that have been made in the field of water governance and environmental management. The book is especially valuable for researchers, water professionals, utility managers, as well as policy makers and foreign investors looking for opportunities. This work has been prepared as part of the research activities of the Observatory on Sustainable Water Industry, one of Agici's Research and Advisory units.

This book presents emerging technology management approaches and applied cases from leading infrastructure sectors such as energy, healthcare, transportation and education. Featuring timely topics such as fracking technology, electric cars, Google's eco-friendly mobile technology and Amazon Prime Air, the volume's contributions explore the current management challenges that have resulted from the development of new technologies, and present tools, applications and frameworks that can be utilized to overcome these challenges. Emerging technologies make us rethink how our infrastructure will look in the future. Solar and wind generation, for example, have already changed the dynamics of the power sector. While they have helped to reduce the use of fossil fuels, they have created management complications due to their intermittent natures. Meanwhile, information technologies have changed how we manage healthcare, making it safer and more accessible, but not without implications for cost and administration. Autonomous cars are around the corner. On-line education is no longer a myth but still a largely unfulfilled opportunity. Digitization of car ownership is achievable thanks to emerging business models leveraging new communication technologies. The major challenge is how to evaluate the relative costs and benefits of these technologies. This book offers insights from both researchers and industry practitioners to address this challenge and anticipate the impact of new technologies on infrastructure now and in the future.

The purpose of this contributed volume is to consider how global consumption patterns will develop in the next few decades, and what the consequences of that development will be for the economy, policymakers, and society at large. In the long run, the extent to which economic growth translates into better living conditions strongly depends on how rising affluence and new technologies shape consumer preferences. The ongoing rise in household income in developing countries raises some important questions: Will consumption patterns always continue to expand in the same manner as we have witnessed in the previous two centuries? If not, how might things evolve differently? And what implications would such changes hold for not only our understanding of consumption behavior but also our pursuit of more sustainable societies?

What can a WWII-era tank teach us about design? What does a small, blue flower tell us about audiences? What do drunk, French marathon-runners show us about software? In 40+ chapters and stories, you will learn the ways in which UX has influenced history and vice versa, and how it continues to change our daily lives. This book enables you to participate fully in discussions about UX, as you discover the fundamentals of user experience design and research. Rather than grasp concepts through a barrage of facts and figures, you will learn through stories. Poisonous blowfish, Russian playwrights, tiny angels, Texas sharpshooters, and wilderness wildfires all make an appearance. From Chinese rail workers to UFOs, you will cover a lot of territory, because the experiences that surround you are as broad and varied as every age, culture, and occupation. You will start by covering the principles of UX before going into more diverse topics, including: being human, the art of persuasion, and the murky waters of process. Every day, people gather around conference tables, jump onto phone calls, draw on whiteboards, stare at computer monitors, and try to build things - we all create. Increasingly, what we create is something digital. From apps to web sites, and from emails to video games, often the sole evidence of an experience appears on an illuminated screen. We design tiny worlds that thrive or perish at the whim of a device's on/off button. With this book you will be ready. What You'll Learn Master the fundamentals of UX Acquire the skills to participate intelligently in discussions about UX design and research Understand how UX impacts business, including product, pricing, placement, and promotion as well as security, speed, and privacy Who This Book Is For Professionals who work alongside UX designers and researchers, including but not limited to: project managers, graphic designers, copyeditors, developers, and human resource professionals; and business, marketing, and computer science students seeking to understand how UX affects human cognition and memory, product pricing and promotion, and software security and privacy.

This book will expand the body of literature on capacity-building in science and improve public understanding of the issues regarding geographical concentration of federal research funding. The federal government has been the primary sponsor of academic research in the U.S., and the peer-review system has been the primary mechanism for distributing federal government funding for research among universities. The peer-review system ensures the production of the best science by funding the most capable researchers in the country. As a result, federal research funding has been concentrated in high-capacity states where many of the most capable researchers reside. Despite official action - such as the implementation of the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), which targets low capacity jurisdictions for federal funding - the amount of resources going to each state for research is highly uneven. This book provides recommendations on how to improve policy design and program implementation for better research capacity-building outcomes. The book lends itself to a wide audience, as it does not focus entirely on high-level statistical analysis, but will have specific appeal to researchers in science policy, federal budgeting and higher education policy.

Sustainable entrepreneurship focuses on how the environment is embedded within business practices. This book examines collaboration strategies and initiatives for sustainable entrepreneurs with a wide variety of partners, and demonstrates how they can be used to increase overall performance and achieve global competitiveness. Based on the latest empirical evidence from emerging economies, the book's respective chapters address sustainability issues in connection with knowledge creation and learning, outsourcing, and the roles of universities, consultants, and the public sector.

This book examines education in entrepreneurship through an action-learning environment that uses educational innovation tools. It explores various education tools, technology tools and pedagogical methods being implemented into university curriculums around the world. Entrepreneurship in society is rapidly gaining popularity as entrepreneurial activities aimed to create social value are fundamental in the development of an innovative, sustainable economy. This notion has been encouraging universities to incorporate entrepreneurship-related competencies into the curriculums of almost all subjects. Thus, developing an action-learning environment with educational innovation tools, technology tools and pedagogical methods is becoming increasingly important to universities. Students must be fully prepared to face the many challenges in the world and to help develop an innovative and sustainable economy. Universities should therefore promote active learning through innovation so that students can become active participants in their learning. Featuring contributions and case studies from academics, researchers and practitioners from around the world, the is book provides international perspective into entrepreneurship education and innovation.

This book focuses on the process of creating and educating innovation leaders through specialized programs, which are offered by leading academic schools. Accordingly, the book is divided into two parts. While the first part provides the theoretical foundations of why and how innovation leaders should be created, the second part presents evidence that these foundations can already be found in the programs of ten top-level universities. Part one consists of six chapters following a rigorous plan of content development, addressing topics ranging from (1) innovation, to (2) the settings where innovation occurs, (3) innovation leadership, (4) the need to change education, (5) a taxonomy of advanced educational experiences, and (6) cases of positive vs negative innovation leadership in the context of complex problems. Here the authors show that a new kind of innovation leadership is urgently needed, how it can be created, and how it is put into action. The second part is a collection of invited chapters that describe in detail ten leading academic programs: their objectives, curricular organization, enrollment procedures, and impact on students. Selected programs include four North American institutions (Stanford's d.school, Harvard's Multidisciplinary Engineering Faculty, Philadelphia University, OCAD's Master of Design on Strategic Foresight & Innovation), five European institutions (Alta Scuola Politecnica of Milano and Torino, the EIT Master Program, Paris' d.school, Brighton's Interdisciplinary Design Program, Aalto University) and the Mission D program at Tongji University in China. The book is dedicated to all those who recognize the need to provide stimuli regarding innovation and innovation leadership, primarily but not exclusively in academia. These include, but are not limited to, professors, deans and provosts of academic institutions, managers at private organizations and government policy-makers - in short, anyone who is engaged in promoting innovation within their own organization, and who feels the need to expand the intellectual and practical toolbox they use in this demanding and exciting endeavor.

This book presents a new management model that has evolved in Silicon Valley. The future will favor companies that can migrate to a management model, better suited for the times. The abilities to remain entrepreneurial and innovate constantly will be essential for all companies in an innovation economy. However, most firms still use industrial-age management models that are not suited to attracting and energizing entrepreneurial talent. This book imbibes latest results from a year-long study of Google's approaches to management, and finds similar principles being applied at companies including, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tesla Motors, and Apigee. By distilling on the aspects that work across a variety of innovative firms, the authors present a synthesis that could have profound implications for managers everywhere.

The Internet and related technologies have dramatically changed the way we live, work, socialize, and even topple national governments. As the Internet becomes increasingly pervasive across societies, we find more often that governments adopt Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) as part of their toolbox for facilitating efficient and citizen-oriented service delivery at all levels of government. Local governments across the major industrialized democracies have not been an exception to this trend and have set sail into the age of digital government. Closest to their citizens, towns and cities have adopted ICTs to facilitate electronic government (e-government). While research on local e-government functionality in terms of information dissemination, service delivery, and citizen engagement continues at an impressive empirical and methodological pace, gaps in our knowledge remain. Cross-national comparative research on local e-government that covers a wide range of municipalities in combination with in-depth case study analyses is lacking. Informed by a comparative case study approach, this book seeks to narrow that gap and offer practical policy solutions to facilitate local e-government. We do so by pursuing both a macro and micro perspective of e-government functionality in the federal republics of Germany and the United States and unitary France and Japan. The macro perspective focuses on the state and scope of e-government functionality across a large number of randomly selected municipalities of all sizes in these advanced industrialized countries. Based on a small sample of case studies, the micro perspective analyzes the successful implementation of e-government in Seattle (United States), Nuremberg (Germany), Bordeaux (France), and Shizuoka City (Japan).

This textbook addresses the conceptual and practical aspects of the various phases of the lifecycle of service systems, ranging from service ideation, design, implementation, analysis, improvement and trading associated with service systems engineering. Written by leading experts in the field, this indispensable textbook will enable a new wave of future professionals to think in a service-focused way with the right balance of competencies in computer science, engineering, and management. Fundamentals of Service Systems is a centerpiece for a course syllabus on service systems. Each chapter includes a summary, a list of learning objectives, an opening case, and a review section with questions, a project description, a list of key terms, and a list of further reading bibliography. All these elements enable students to learn at a faster and more comfortable peace. For researchers, teachers, and students who want to learn about this new emerging science, Fundamentals of Service Systems provides an overview of the core disciplines underlying the study of service systems. It is aimed at students of information systems, information technology, and business and economics. It also targets business and IT practitioners, especially those who are looking for better ways of innovating, designing, modeling, analyzing, and optimizing service systems.