Mt. Qomolangma: A barometer for global climate change

After 34-year-long studies,scientists have further justified the Mt. Qomolongma (Mt. Everest) region is sensitive to the global climate change.     

Making knowledge work: five principles for action-oriented knowledge management

Often knowledge management (KM) initiatives are built on an assumption that the relationship between knowledge and action starts with knowledge, that is, we know something and we act upon it. Such an assumption can lead KM initiatives to develop knowledge that is not necessarily useful for the actions that an organization is willing to take. However, if the organization derives knowledge from the actions they are willing to take or they are taking, the knowledge can be much more useful as it will directly facilitate the actions. In this article, we argue that the relationship between knowledge and action is reciprocal and offers two-way learning. As such, KM initiatives are most apt to be successful by considering how to derive knowledge from action as well as how to deliver knowledge. The paper develops five principles for action-oriented KM.     

Making knowledge management work: tactical to practical

Over the past 20 years, many researchers and theorists have generated a significant body of literature in the interrelated fields of knowledge management (KM), organizational learning (OL), and knowledge creation (KC). A large body of work generated by proponents of technology as a primary facilitator of KM, OL, and KC supports the expenditure of billions of dollars in information technology infrastructure and knowledge management systems. A separate body of work generated by behaviourists illustrates how organizational culture is a major determinate in the effectiveness of the technology. Ultimately, corporate executives measure success in terms recognizable to financial markets. Yet, an empirical link connecting the interrelated dots needed to provide practical guidance to practitioners and executives remains elusive. This paper summarizes historical and current perspectives within the field and identifies the need for continue empirical research to build a practical construct.     

Corporate commitment to climate change: The effect of eco-innovation and climate governance

Climate change represents a significant problem to the planet which raises concerns from stakeholder groups about corporate commitment to climate change issues. In this paper, we explore the effect of eco-innovation and climate governance on corporate commitment to climate change. We develop a unique measure for climate change commitment by considering four components, viz. whether a company supports the Sustainable Development Goal 13 on climate action, whether a company is aware that climate change can represent commercial risks or opportunities, whether a company reports Scope 3 CO₂ emissions and whether a company sets a target for emission reduction. We measure eco-innovation by using a score collected from the Eikon database that reflects a company's capacity to reduce environmental costs, eco-innovation intensity measured as environmental expenditures over revenues. We also create an index computed as a composite score by totalling five eco-innovation proxies collected from the Eikon database that reflect companies' efforts to reduce environmental impact. Concerning climate governance, we focus on three proxies, namely the existence of an environmental committee, climate incentives and the existence of sustainability reports. Based on a sample of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange for the period of 2014–2020, we find that corporate eco-innovation is positively associated with climate change commitment. We argue that firms that adopt innovative approaches to efficiently control pollution and resource use and reduce their environmental impact are more committed to climate change. We also find that climate governance is positively associated with climate change commitment. We claim that companies that integrate climate change issues in governance can help address climate change risks and opportunities. Our empirical evidence provides recommendations for managers and policymakers to promote the adoption of eco-innovative technologies and integrate climate change issues in governance, which can contribute to corporate commitment to climate change.     

Making sense of modernity's maladies: health and disease in the Industrial Revolution

The industrialization and urbanization of Britain during the 19th century gave the medical profession something to think about. In particular, were the radical changes taking place in society responsible for the sudden rise in endemic and epidemic disease? This article (part of the Science in the Industrial Revolution series) examines the reactions of two key figures in the history of British public health, James Philips Kay and Thomas Southwood Smith, to this question. Their outlooks typify the tendency of Victorian medical practitioners to construct economies of health that saw disease as a consequence of the violation of natural laws and cycles rather than as a product of industrial modernity.     

The local impact of global climate change: reporting on landscape transformation and threatened identity in the English regional newspaper press

This paper contributes to extant understandings of media representations of climate change by examining the role of the English regional newspaper press in the transformation and dissemination of climate change discourse. Unlike previous accounts, this paper contends that such newspapers shape public understandings of climate change in ways that have yet to be adequately charted. With this in mind, this paper examines the ways in which global climate change is translated into a locally relevant phenomenon. That is, it focuses on its "domestication." Although we acknowledge that there are a number of ways in which this process occurs, specific attention is drawn to stories that highlight the destruction of local landscape features, the transformation of important habitats, and the arrival of "alien" species. The broader significance of such stories is considered in relation to long-standing debates concerning the importance of landscape to notions of national and regional identity.     

气候变暖背景下中国西南干旱时空分异特征

基于相对湿润度的干旱指数,应用1958-2012年中国西南89个国家基本气象站逐日气象资料,研究中国西南干旱时域变化、空间分布和次区域时空演变特征。结果表明：1958-2012年西南平均干旱区域占总面积的30%左右,川西高原、川西南山地和云南中北部区域干旱发生频率在60%以上,大部分区域干旱强度呈增加趋势。EOF mode 1反映出西南区域干旱强度振荡的位相相同;云贵高原中部易出现异常干旱、振荡强度大且敏感。EOF mode 2特征向量场北部与南部呈反相位分型特征,其形成机制是南部片区的云南高原和贵州高原偏南地区主要受南亚季风影响,而北部片区的四川、重庆和贵州偏北地区主要受青藏高原季风、东亚季风的影响。依据REOF特征向量场结构类型,将研究区域划分为4个次区域;“川西高原异常型”干旱强度显著减弱,由干变湿的突变点在1987年。“四川北部异常型”干旱强度显著增强,由湿变干的突变点在1968年。“云南高原异常型”和“贵州高原异常型” 干旱指数均呈波动下降趋势,但未通过显著性检验。     

全球变化下资源利用的挑战与展望

近10多年来,全球变化已经成为了地理科学、生态学和环境科学等学科最主要的研究方向之一,而全球变化影响下的资源利用问题对于资源科技工作者而言既是挑战也是机遇。本文阐明了全球变化的多元性和复杂性特征,提出：① 全球变化不仅仅指气候变化,而且涵盖了由自然和人文因素所引起的全球尺度地球系统功能变化,存在极其复杂的经济、社会、资源、环境、技术等多重因素相互作用过程;② 全球尺度上的变化过程已由过去的单一经济格局变动演变成经济、社会、政治、人口、资源、环境、科技等多要素之间耦合或胁迫的复杂过程;③ 全球资源利用面临着七大共同挑战,新的全球资源格局逐渐形成;④ 进入新时代的中国应对全球变化下资源利用挑战,应采取内外并举的双向战略,即对外大力推动“一带一路”倡议在国际上取得重大突破,力图构建新的全球资源治理体系,保障国际资源供给安全;对内积极实施“十三五”创新驱动战略,挖掘资源利用科技创新的新动能,保障国家资源需求安全。     

Sentiment aggregation of targeted features by capturing their dependencies: Making sense from customer reviews

Ideation is an important phase in the new product development process at which product designers innovate and select novel ideas that can be added as features to an existing product. One way to find novel ideas is to transfer uncommon features of products of other domains and integrate them into the product to be improved. However, before incorporating such targeted features into the product, they need to be evaluated against the customers’ acceptance in social media using sentiment aggregation tools. Despite the many studies in sentiment analysis, mapping the customers’ opinions towards both high-level and technical features of a product extracted from social media to their best corresponding component in that product is still a challenge. Furthermore, none of the existing approaches ascertains the sentiment value of a targeted feature by capturing its dependencies on other features. In this paper, to address these drawbacks, we propose the sentiment aggregation framework for targeted features (SA-TF). SA-TF determines the sentiment of a targeted feature by assisting product designers in the tasks of mapping the features discussed in the reviews to the right product components, sentiment aggregation and considering feature dependencies to determine their polarity. The superiority of the different phases of SA-TF is demonstrated with experiments and comparing it with an existing approach.     

Making knowledge: history, literature, and the poetics of science

As a field of study, literature and science has gradually expanded to encompass both the impact of science on literary culture and the literary-linguistic practices intrinsic to the production of scientific knowledge. Such transformations both reinforce and fundamentally recalibrate the detailed attention focused on scientific practice by historians of science since the 1980s. As a result, this essay and the Focus section it introduces suggest that history of science and literature and science are, in fact, interdependent fields. Attention to their convergences will yield better understanding of the performative dimensions of scientific practices and thence of science itself as a form of making of knowledge of things and events in the world of nature. Science as a form of making involves the convergence of things, material practices, and a panoply of meaningful artifacts-instruments of thought and action-that refuse any simple dichotomy between "text" and "action."     

Making sense of the confusing mix of digitalization,pandemics and economics

In this short essay, we engage in a sensemaking exercise to understand the economic forces at play during the pandemic. Our primary emphasis is on the implications for digitalization as countries and states try to balance economic and health interests.     

全球季风与气候的长期变化

<正>当前关于"全球变暖"的争论,实质问题在于如何区分人类活动的影响和自然界本身的变化。只要认识了气候变化的自然趋势,问题也就迎刃而解,但是这方面科学界的意见分歧太大。如,下次冰期什么时候到来,有的认为远在5万     

Joint science academies'' statement:Global response to climate change

Climate change is real There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world's climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring1.