scholarly journals Calculating the ‘Price’ of Infrastructure Reliability in Finland

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
Antti Silvast ◽  
Chris Foulds
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Statistical Modelling ◽  
End Users ◽  
Large Energy ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Electricity Supply ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Energy Research ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Interdisciplinary Projects

AbstractThis final empirical chapter demonstrates how our Science and Technology Studies–inspired line of enquiry is also of use for considering the processes underlying and subsequent outcomes of large energy research projects, which have more conventional, monodisciplinary ambitions, and methodological tools, in comparison to the intentionally interdisciplinary projects discussed in Chaps. 10.1007/978-3-030-88455-0_2 and 10.1007/978-3-030-88455-0_3. Specifically, in this chapter, we explore a Finnish research project that aimed to study how much reliable electricity supply is ‘worth’ to the energy end-users, by assigning this reliability a financial price. Through discussing the experiences and outcomes of this project, we make clear how this reliability ‘price’ was translated and moved between survey studies, statistical modelling, and the needs of the energy industries and market regulatory profession. We conclude with direct discussion of how this chapter connects to the wider, interdisciplinary issues pertinent to this book, including boundary objects, the impacts of funding, epistemic cultures, and the importance of disciplines, and the implications of these for improving the understanding of technical and economic research projects that sit between vital public problems.

scholarly journals Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Antti Silvast ◽  
Chris Foulds
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Energy Research ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
External Stakeholders ◽  
Background Context

AbstractThis chapter provides background context on the calls for doing (more) interdisciplinarity and explains our own positioning as to what interdisciplinarity actually is, as well as what we believe this book contributes to the study of said interdisciplinarity. Specifically, we discuss mainstream arguments for why interdisciplinary research is deemed to be a worthwhile endeavour by many researchers, policymakers, funders, and so on. We build on this by arguing that there is a unique—and currently under-fulfilled—role to be played by Science and Technology Studies (STS) in exploring the sociological dimensions of how large-scale (energy) research projects are actually carried out. Alongside these wider landscape discussions, we explain what this book contributes to the study of interdisciplinarity and to energy research, through our empirics and STS-inspired ideas. We also make clear how we define interdisciplinarity and disciplines and explain how we focus on problem-focused research that may (or may not) involve external stakeholders.

scholarly journals The Popgen Pipeline Platform: A Software Platform for Facilitating Population Genomic Analyses

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Webb ◽  
Jared Knoblauch ◽  
Nitesh Sabankar ◽  
Apeksha Sukesh Kallur ◽  
Jody Hey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Development Time ◽  
End Users ◽  
File Format ◽  
Software Platform ◽  
Format Conversion ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Population Genomic ◽  
Genomic Analyses ◽  
File Format Conversion

AbstractHere we present the Pop-Gen Pipeline Platform (PPP), a software platform with the goal of reducing the computational expertise required for conducting population genomic analyses. The PPP was designed as a collection of scripts that facilitate common population genomic workflows in a consistent and standardized Python environment. Functions were developed to encompass entire workflows, including: input preparation, file format conversion, various population genomic analyses, output generation, and visualization. By facilitating entire workflows, the PPP offers several benefits to prospective end users - it reduces the need of redundant in-house software and scripts that would require development time and may be error-prone, or incorrect. The platform has also been developed with reproducibility and extensibility of analyses in mind. The PPP is an open-source package that is available for download and use at https://ppp.readthedocs.io/en/latest/PPP_pages/install.html

The UniversAAL Platform for AAL (Ambient Assisted Living)

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erina Ferro ◽  
Michele Girolami ◽  
Dario Salvi ◽  
Christopher Mayer ◽  
Joe Gorman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Assisted Living ◽  
Ambient Assisted Living ◽  
Community Support ◽  
End Users ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Funded Research ◽  
Open Platform ◽  
Widespread Adoption ◽  
Development Support

AbstractThis article describes the UniversAAL platform, an open platform intended to facilitate the development, distribution, and deployment of technological solutions for Ambient assisted living (AAL). The platform is intended to benefit end users (i.e., assisted persons, their families, and caregivers), authorities with responsibility for AAL, and organizations involved in the development and deployment of AAL services. It consists of an extensive set of resources (some are software and some are models/architectures) aimed at these different groups. The resources are classified into three main groups: runtime support, development support, and community support. The article presents the benefits that can be expected from the widespread adoption of the platform. The article also describes progress on prototype implementations of some of the software resources, and the results of initial evaluations of the platform. The work is partially based on results from earlier European Union-funded research projects in the area.

scholarly journals Performance Evaluation of Energy Research Projects Using DEA Super-Efficiency

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (20) ◽  
pp. 5318
Author(s):  
Sungsig Bang
Keyword(s):  
Performance Evaluation ◽  
Research Performance ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Performance Score ◽  
Energy Research ◽  
Weighting Method ◽  
Super Efficiency ◽  
Ranking Information ◽  
Research Performance Evaluation

This study proposes super efficiency (SE) as an efficient analytical method for evaluating the performance of energy research projects. Because the SE method is based on data envelopment analysis (DEA), it is free from the difficulty of weighting output, allows for the use of variables with diverse standards of measurement, and is capable of providing ranking information that regular DEA (CCR, BCC) analysis techniques cannot. To analyze the feasibility of the DEA-SE method, an efficiency evaluation was performed for energy research projects using both the weighting method as an existing method and the SE method. When the results were compared and analyzed, skewing toward particular output types was observed in the weighting method, owing to problems inherent in the method itself and in the weighting of subordinate variables that make up the total performance score. Therefore, adopting DEA-SE will redress the known problems of the weighting method by minimizing the problems of weighting and skewing in outputs, enabling use of the input and output variables with diverse units and standards of measurement, and providing ranking information of research performance evaluation that is unobtainable with the existing DEA method.

Integrative Approach to the Evaluation of Implementation Research Projects: Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 28-41
Author(s):  
Галина Унтура ◽  
Galina Untura ◽  
Татьяна Новикова ◽  
Tatyana Novikova ◽  
Наталья Горбачева ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Scientific Center ◽  
Education Production ◽  
Project Analysis ◽  
Integrative Assessment ◽  
Scientific Results ◽  
Interdisciplinary Projects

The article is devoted to the methodological foundations of an integrative approach to managing and evaluating the effectiveness of interdisciplinary projects with many participants. The aim of the study is to assess the effectiveness of interdisciplinary projects of the Novosibirsk Scientific Center in accordance with the methodology of the integrative approach, which takes into account the multi-purpose use of the results of research and development of a specific scientific direction in different fields (science, education, production). The essence of the integrative assessment of projects consists in the integrated application of the methods of the typology of scientific results and methods of project analysis, which allows to take into account the totality of the obtained results of an interdisciplinary project, starting from the stage of basic research and ending with the development stages of product prototypes or new technologies of high readiness. The analysis of the characteristics and effects of the projects that we use in the assessment methodology is carried out from the standpoint of different criteria: the attainability of world-class scientific results; increase the level of technology readiness, the use of scientific results in education and production. Innovative opportunities of projects can be additionally economically evaluated by methods of project analysis. The examples of the success of projects in terms of their high applicability for the development of priority areas of science and technology, improving the quality of education are shown. The findings can be used to develop a strategy for the development of regional research centers where research institutes of different profiles are located and in the management of research projects with many participants.

scholarly journals A Contagious Living Fluid

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 107-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joost van Loon
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Pathogen Virulence ◽  
Medical Discourses ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Petri Dishes ◽  
Separate Discipline

This article deals with the birth of `the virus' as an object of technoscientific analysis. The aim is to discuss the process of objectification of pathogen virulence in virological and medical discourses. Through a short excursion into the history of modern virology, it will be argued that far from being a matter of fact, pathogen virulence had to be `produced', for example in petri-dishes, test-kits and hyper-real signification-practices. The now commonly accepted objective status of `the virus' has been an accomplishment of a complex ensemble of actors. Indeed, this illustrates why objectification rather than objectivity has become the main focus of science and technology studies. The objectification of `the' virus was by no means a smooth process. It involved more than five decades of highly speculative and fragmented research projects before it became actualized as a separate discipline under the heading of virology. The specific objectification of viruses took place through an inter-disciplinary de-differentiation of research questions, methodologies, techniques and technologies. The main argument of this article is that viruses only became intelligible after the establishment of a virology-assemblage. Its inauguration in the early 1950s was radical and sudden because only then could the various substrands of virological technoscience affect each other through deliberate enrolment, and engender a universal intelligibility.

scholarly journals COVID-19 vs. stakeholder engagement: the impact of coronavirus containment measures on stakeholder involvement in European energy research projects

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Diana Süsser ◽  
Andrzej Ceglarz ◽  
Vassilis Stavrakas ◽  
Johan Lilliestam
Keyword(s):  
Stakeholder Engagement ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Stakeholder Involvement ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Energy Research ◽  
Containment Measures ◽  
The Impact

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected societies and economies around the world, and the scientific community is no exception. Whereas the importance of stakeholder engagement in research has grown quickly the consequences of the pandemic on this has so far not been empirically studied. In this paper, we investigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on European energy research, in particular the stakeholder work, during the first wave of the coronavirus in spring and summer 2020. We pose the research questions: (i) How much of a problem are the coronavirus containment measures for stakeholder engagement? (ii) How have researchers coped with the situation, and (iii) How do they evaluate alternative stakeholder activities implemented? We conducted an online survey among European energy research projects with stakeholder engagement between June and August 2020. We found that only one of six engagement activities could be implemented as planned, whereas almost half were cancelled or delayed. The most common coping strategies were changing involvement formats – mainly to webinars or online workshops – or postponement. Whereas respondents are largely satisfied with one-to-one and unidirectional online formats, such as webinars, online interviews, and online surveys, they see interactive group activities as less suitable for online engagement. Most respondents plan to continue using online formats to complement, but not to replace, physical meetings in future research. All long-term effects remain to be seen, but given the postponement of many stakeholder involvement activities, many projects may face problems at later stages of their realisation. These findings suggest that the pandemic may have catalysed a rapid introduction of specific online formats in academic stakeholder interaction processes.

scholarly journals Understanding the Performance of the Electric Power Industry in China

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Liu ◽  
Liang Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Electric Power ◽  
Electric Power Industry ◽  
Power Industry ◽  
End Users ◽  
Electricity Sector ◽  
Electricity Supply ◽  
The West ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Current Plan

Despite three decades of reform, China's electricity sector is still organized by a “new reformed plan” where capacity investment has been liberalized but prices and production remain controlled. This paper examines the impact of the current plan prices on end-users with reference to the OECD and how the plan price of electricity supply is formed. We argue that the plan price is set in an attempt to balance the interests of the public and the power industry. We find that China's industries do not pay a cheaper price for electricity than the West, and the plan price is formed through bargain between the firm and the state, which allows the firm to have a soft price constraint on its costs.

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