Article
Environmental Sciences
Barbara Koole
Summary: Trust is crucial for sustainability transitions and must be gradually built under a common vision. Generating trust in conditions of uncertainty is a key challenge, with system level vulnerabilities and uncertainties interfering with trust construction.
ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION AND SOCIETAL TRANSITIONS
(2022)
Article
Business, Finance
Xiaoran Jia, Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo
Summary: Using international IPO firms and country-level measures of financial literacy, this study finds strong evidence of a negative association between financial literacy and IPO underpricing. The effect of financial literacy in reducing IPO underpricing is more pronounced when the information environment is less transparent. Information friction, firm transparency, and stock market participation are mechanisms that mediate this relationship.
JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
(2023)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Van Anh Truong, Bodo Lang, Denise M. Conroy
Summary: This study examines consumer trust in different food certification schemes and their perception of the trustworthiness of the food system and its actors, finding a negative correlation between the level of trust in certification and the need for trust in food actors. The study reveals that food chain governance mechanisms are crucial in increasing consumer trust in certified food.
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Yin Li, Tiansen Liu, Yazhi Song, Zhongfei Li, Xin Guo
Summary: This paper proposes a new prediction method incorporating a set of measuring models applicable to the financing efficiency of China's carbon market to quantify such market's maturity, trading risk coefficient, and financing income. The empirical findings suggest that China's emissions trading scheme pilots can be divided into growth-oriented, balance-oriented, and risk-oriented markets, with different financing effects explained by the maturity level and quota price volatility of the carbon market. Expanding the coverage of quota trading parties, stabilizing carbon price, and promoting carbon asset management are key factors in improving the financing efficiency of carbon market.
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
(2021)
Article
Business, Finance
Xue Chen, Le Ma
Summary: This study investigates the influence of professional lead investors on crowd investment in investor-led equity crowdfunding. The findings suggest that concentrated insider ownership by lead investors reduces subsequent crowd investment. However, the level of trust moderates the negative impact. On the other hand, capital contribution from early peers attracts follow-on crowd investment.
PACIFIC-BASIN FINANCE JOURNAL
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Leland L. Glenna
Summary: Growing research shows that intellectual property policies for agricultural biotechnologies hinder research and limit technology use. Public resistance to these technologies is fueled by concerns over intellectual property restrictions. Changing these policies can reduce resistance and enhance research diffusion.
PLANTS PEOPLE PLANET
(2023)
Article
Ethics
Sarah-Louise Ruder, Milind Kandlikar
Summary: This paper examines the role and responsibilities of agricultural genomics experts in governing gene editing for food and agriculture, using the frameworks of technological determinism and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Through interviews with Canadian agricultural genomics experts, the study explores their views on the risks, benefits, and regulatory challenges of gene-edited crops, as well as their adherence to RRI principles. The resistance of agricultural genomics experts to RRI principles and their exercise of discursive closure pose challenges for responsible governance of gene-edited crops. The study contributes empirically and theoretically to Science and Technology Studies and food systems research.
JOURNAL OF RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION
(2023)
Article
Business, Finance
Viput Ongsakul, Pattanaporn Chatjuthamard, Pornsit Jiraporn
Summary: This study examines the impact of the takeover market on corporate innovation using two novel measures of innovation efficiency and takeover vulnerability. The findings suggest that a more active takeover market significantly hinders innovation, consistent with the view that managers tend to prioritize short-term gains over long-term projects that lead to innovation when facing hostile takeover threats. Robustness checks, including various statistical methods, confirm the results and rule out endogeneity.
FINANCE RESEARCH LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Lily M. van Eeden, Carol Bogezi, Danyan Leng, John M. Marzluff, Aaron J. Wirsing, Sergey Rabotyagov
Summary: Financial tools can be a solution to conservation conflicts, but must address the underlying drivers of conflict. A latent financial opportunity from public support for large predator restoration can help maintain a wolf-livestock coexistence program. The survey revealed support for a publicly funded program and mixed preferences for funding mechanisms.
BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
(2021)
Review
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Pikria Doinjashvili, Philippe Meral, Fano Andriamahefazafy
Summary: This article examines the unknown role of Conservation Trust Funds (CTF) by reviewing literature and a database of 89 CTFs globally. It highlights the lack of scientific interest in CTFs despite their extensive use, and discusses the importance of CTFs in sustaining protected areas for achieving SDGs 14 and 15. The article aims to provide an analysis of literature, typology of CTFs, mapping of global CTFs, and discussion on the risks associated with their usage, particularly in relation to stock market fluctuations.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND WORLD ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Health Care Sciences & Services
Taryn Vian, Rachel M. Fong, Jeanette L. Kaiser, Misheck Bwalya, Viviane I. R. Sakanga, Thandiwe Ngoma, Nancy A. Scott
Summary: Community-led governance is crucial for ensuring accountability and strengthening maternal health systems. Open meetings and elections have the potential to enhance good governance at the community level. However, continuous training and mentoring are needed to improve the capacity and sustainability of governance committees.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH POLICY AND MANAGEMENT
(2022)
Article
Economics
Thi Bich Tran, Hai Anh La
Summary: Cynicism about governments has led to administrative reforms in various countries, with outcomes depending on the administrative context and cultural factors. This study in Vietnam shows that trust is a key determinant of public participation, and transparency does not always indicate participation. Trust also plays a significant role in explaining the inverse relationship between participation and transparency, contributing to the understanding of administrative reform outcomes in transitional countries.
POST-COMMUNIST ECONOMIES
(2022)
Article
Economics
Yiling Chen, Guanju Chen
Summary: The study found that industrial support policy can significantly promote firm innovation, and executive equity incentive and product market competition have significant moderating effects on policy effectiveness, with a complementary relationship at low competition levels. The tests on the boundary conditions of policy incentive effectiveness and the complementary nature of internal and external governance have interesting implications for research on innovation policy and corporate governance.
Article
Business
Deepak Jaiswal, Ashutosh Mohan, Arun Kumar Deshmukh
Summary: Given the increasing importance of the Fintech-led-Mobile-Payment (FMP) platform, understanding causal relationships is crucial for practitioners and scholars. This research focuses on user classification and profiling in the emerging mobile-based digital payment market, using the benefits-trust-behavioral linkage model. Through data analysis and clustering techniques, three distinct segments of FMP platform users are identified, namely 'The Fintech Dubious,' 'The Cash Conservatives,' and 'The Fintech Enthusiasts.' Additionally, this study advances the theoretical understanding of the trust-based UTAUT model by incorporating perceived trust, perceived price value, and socio-demographic factors.
TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGE
(2023)
Article
Communication
Rodrigo Zamith
Summary: This study examines the use of GitHub by 124 prominent news outlets and finds that while not widely used, some outlets actively use it to open-source technologies and journalistic materials. The study also reveals limited collaboration and a decline in the use of GitHub and collaboration features in recent years. It extends transparency literature and provides empirical evidence on the innovativeness and collaboration surrounding open-source technologies in news organizations.
DIGITAL JOURNALISM
(2023)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Khara Grieger, Sebastian Zarate, Sarah Kathleen Barnhill-Dilling, Shelly Hunt, Daniela Jones, Jennifer Kuzma
Summary: Stakeholder and community engagement is critical for the successful development of new technologies in sustainable agriculture. This study demonstrates a simple and low-cost approach to understand the preferences and needs of sweetpotato stakeholders in North Carolina. The findings highlight the importance of detecting sweetpotato characteristics and using smartphones in the field, as well as the inclusion of environmental parameters and a Spanish language module. Most participants were willing to share data for the benefit of the industry but were concerned about sharing with competitors.
Review
Public Administration
Teshanee T. Williams, Jennifer Kuzma
Summary: This study utilizes the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) and cultural theory to analyze the use of policy narratives by coalitions and the institutional uptake. The findings reveal significant relationships between policy-stance, the cultural disposition of a policy narrative, the narrative strategies being used, and policy uptake. Final government documents referred more to narratives that contained the scope to science-only and expressed hierarchical or individualistic dispositions.
PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Jie Gao, Yuyue Huang, Yue Zhi, Jingmei Yao, Fang Wang, Wei Yang, Le Han, Dunmei Lin, Qiang He, Bing Wei, Khara Grieger
Summary: Rapid urbanization has significant impacts on freshwater systems, particularly in terms of litter decomposition and nutrient uptake. This study found that litter decomposition rates were lower in urban streams compared to forest streams, and macroinvertebrates played a lesser role in the decomposition process in urban streams. Additionally, nutrient uptake rates were higher in urban streams, with phosphorus uptake being significantly higher and nitrogen uptake being significantly lower.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2022)
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Nicholas R. Jordan, Jennifer Kuzma, Deepak K. Ray, Kirsten Foot, Madison Snider, Keith Miller, Ethan Wilensky-Lanford, Gifty Amarteifio
Summary: Continuous-living-cover (CLC) agriculture, which involves integrating multiple crops to continuously cover soils with living plants, has the potential to improve various ecosystem services. Gene editing (GE) could be a powerful tool for developing crops suitable for CLC agriculture, but there are risks and management issues that need to be addressed. Responsible innovation and scaling methods could help manage these issues and improve outcomes of GE crops for CLC agriculture.
FRONTIERS IN BIOENGINEERING AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Social Issues
Jennifer Kuzma
Summary: This article analyzes the history of US biotechnology oversight for genetically modified plants, using policy process theories to provide insights for contemporary governance of gene-edited plants. The Advocacy Coalition Framework explains how opposing coalitions with different policy beliefs struggled to influence oversight, while coalition disputes over the scope of issues in regulatory policy-making were also observed. The Multiple Streams Approach and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory highlight how focusing events from these struggles created opportunities for changes in oversight. Non-governmental organizations played a significant role in bringing legal challenges and raising awareness of risk issues, prompting advances in federal regulations and risk-mitigation practices. However, recent biotech regulations do not require public disclosure or tracking for gene-edited crops, which undermines transparency and public legitimacy, as well as inhibits adaptability to future biotech products and emerging risks.
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY & HUMAN VALUES
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Ashton W. Merck, Khara D. Grieger, Jennifer Kuzma
Summary: The use of nanotechnology and engineered nanomaterials in food and agriculture (nano-agrifoods) can have benefits but also risks. Responsible innovation (RI) is an emerging best practice that helps align research with societal needs. This article discusses the need for RI in nano-agrifoods and how it can be institutionalized more effectively in the United States.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & POLICY
(2022)
Letter
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Riley I. Taitingfong, Cynthia Triplett, Valeri N. Vasquez, Ramya M. Rajagopalan, Robyn Raban, Aaron Roberts, Gerard Terradas, Bridget Baumgartner, Claudia Emerson, Fred Gould, Fredros Okumu, Cynthia E. Schairer, Herve C. Bossin, Leah Buchman, Karl J. Campbell, Anna Clark, Jason Delborne, Kevin Esvelt, Joshua Fisher, Robert M. Friedman, Gigi Gronvall, Nikos Gurfield, Elizabeth Heitman, Natalie Kofler, Todd Kuiken, Jennifer Kuzma, Pablo Manrique-Saide, John M. Marshall, Michael Montague, Amy C. Morrison, Chris C. Opesen, Ryan Phelan, Antoinette Piaggio, Hector Quemada, Larisa Rudenko, Natewinde Sawadogo, Robert Smith, Holly Tuten, Anika Ullah, Adam Vorsino, Nikolai Windbichler, Omar S. Akbari, Kanya Long, James V. Lavery, Sam Weiss Evans, Karen Tountas, Cinnamon S. Bloss
NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
David B. Resnik, Raul F. Medina, Fred Gould, George Church, Jennifer Kuzma
Summary: The bioethical debate on using gene drives to manipulate or eradicate wild populations has mainly focused on short-term risks, governance, and public engagement, rather than considering the bigger picture. This article examines a specific type of slippery slope argument against using gene drives and discusses its relevance in ethical and policy debates. While the argument does not strongly support a ban on gene drives in wild pest populations, it serves as a cautionary narrative to encourage clearer thinking on appropriate use, long-term risks, and risk management strategies, such as protecting wilderness areas from genetic engineering.
PATHOGENS AND GLOBAL HEALTH
(2022)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Madison D. Horgan, H. Alex Hsain, Jacob L. Jones, Khara D. Grieger
Summary: Analysis of the environmental, health, and societal impacts of lead-free piezoelectrics is crucial for materials development. The screening-level EMRA approach proposed in this paper is used to compare mining and processing routes for hafnia, a potential replacement for PZT, and identify the more sustainable route.
SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGIES
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Qiang He, Zheng Yan, Shenhua Qian, Tiantian Xiong, Khara D. Grieger, Xiaoming Wang, Caihong Liu, Yue Zhi
Summary: Phytoextraction is a promising technology for remediation of contaminated soil, but its potential and the influence of PFAS properties and plant traits on efficacy are still unclear. This study evaluated the potential of weeds for phytoextraction of PFAS and investigated the effects of PFAS properties and plant traits on uptake using correlation analyses and imaging techniques. The findings suggest that phytoextraction can remove PFAS from soil, with short-chain PFAS being preferentially extracted by weeds. PFAS molecular size and hydrophilicity determine plant uptake, while plant morphological traits, especially root protein and lipid content, influence accumulation and translocation. Furthermore, short-chain PFAS are transported quickly upwards in the plant, while uptake of long-chain PFOS is restricted.
JOURNAL OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
(2023)
Article
Agronomy
Sandra R. Ethridge, Khara Grieger, Anna M. Locke, Wesley J. Everman, David L. Jordan, Ramon G. Leon
Summary: Public concern about herbicide use in urban areas is growing, leading to a need for safe and effective alternatives for weed control. Molecular tools like RNA interference (RNAi) have the potential to meet these requirements, but understanding stakeholder perceptions is crucial for adoption and regulation. A survey of turfgrass managers, such as golf course superintendents and lawn care providers, revealed that cost and time spent managing weeds are the main challenges they face. They are most concerned about cost, efficacy, and efficiency when considering new weed management tools. Despite some concerns, managers are optimistic about using RNAi for weed management and believe their clientele will accept it.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Wei Wei, Khara Grieger, Christopher L. Cummings, Nick Loschin, Jennifer Kuzma
Summary: This paper proposes a set of parameters to evaluate the sustainability of genetically engineered food and agriculture products and discusses mechanisms to improve their governance and oversight. By conducting comprehensive evaluations, genetic engineering applications that are beneficial to sustainable agriculture can be identified to promote sustainability. To achieve international sustainable development goals, food and agricultural production need to rely on sustainable and resilient practices.
PLANTS PEOPLE PLANET
(2023)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Ashton W. Merck, Khara D. Grieger, Alison Deviney, Anna-Maria Marshall
Summary: Phosphorus is crucial for life on Earth but its current management is unsustainable. Stakeholder engagement is urgently needed to address the challenges, yet there is limited research on stakeholder views. In this opinion, the authors use a mass flow diagram to understand the complex challenges and incorporate human factors at a national scale. The approach can be generalized to other mass flows and areas, and the authors suggest ways for researchers to identify knowledge gaps and research needs in stakeholder engagement.
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Yue Zhi, Hongying Lu, Khara D. Grieger, Gabriel Munoz, Wei Li, Xiaoming Wang, Qiang He, Shenhua Qian
Summary: Limited information is available on the bioaccumulation potential of polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in urban vegetation. This study investigated the bioaccumulation and translocation of select PFAS in four common urban spontaneous plants using a controlled greenhouse exposure setting. The results show that different PFAS compounds have varying bioaccumulation factors in roots and shoots, and Phyllanthus urinaria has the highest bioaccumulation capacity among the four weed species. Leaf area and average root diameter were found to be the most correlated traits with PFAS bioaccumulation factors.
ACS ES&T ENGINEERING
(2022)
