The Great Reconfiguration
The Great Reconfiguration

Author: Frank W. Geels

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-05-12

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1009198327

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This book is intended for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners interested in the dynamics and governance of low-carbon transitions. Drawing on the Multi-Level Perspective, it develops a whole system reconfiguration approach that explains how the incorporation of multiple innovations can cumulatively reconfigure existing systems. The book focuses on UK electricity, heat, and mobility systems, and it systematically analyses interactions between radical niche-innovations and existing (sub)systems across techno-economic, policy, and actor dimensions in the past three decades. Comparative analysis explains why the unfolding low-carbon transitions in these three systems vary in speed, scope, and depth. It evaluates to what degree these transitions qualify as Great Reconfigurations and assesses the future potential for, and barriers to, deeper low-carbon system transitions. Generalising across these systems, broader lessons are developed about the roles of incumbent firms, governance and politics, user engagement, wider public, and civil society organisations. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Resource Peripheries in the Global Economy
Resource Peripheries in the Global Economy

Author: Felipe Irarrázaval

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-10-11

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 3030846067

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This book discusses the conditions that underpin configuration of specific places as resource peripheries and the consequences that such a socio-spatial formation involves for those places. The book thereby provides an interdisciplinary approach underpinned by economic geography, political ecology, resource geography, development studies and political geography. It also discusses the different technological, political and economic changes that make the ongoing production of resource peripheries a distinctive socio-spatial formation under the global economy. Through a global and interdisciplinary perspective that uncovers ongoing political processes, socio-economic changes and socio-ecological dynamics at resource peripheries, this book argues that it is critical to take a more profound appraisal about the socio-spatial processes behind the contemporary way in which capitalism is appropriating and transforming nature.

LNG Markets in Transition
LNG Markets in Transition

Author: Anne-Sophie Corbeau

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780198783268

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The present situation in the LNG market should be seen as a 'crossroads' for the industry. The LNG industry has not been static over the past 5 decades and has already experienced many changes, but still the model of long-term contracts prevails and the majority of LNG is still bought at oil-indexed gas prices. There have however been considerable changes: an increase in short-term trading of LNG, buyer contractual flexibility and FOB contracts which have lead to around a quarter of the LNG is being traded under spot and short-term contracts, with aggregators play a far more significant role. All these factors have influenced project business structures. The industry has now embarked on a period of further change, with 180 bcm of new LNG export capacity (equivalent to more than 50% of LNG trade in 2014) under construction at a time when the assumed rapid LNG demand growth in Asia appears to be slowing. The absorption of this new supply will affect, not only trade-flow patterns, but also pricing dynamics, competition with other gas supply channels and (in the power sector) potentially other fuels. Key to this change is US LNG, with buyers becoming more selective about the price and delivery terms they are ready to accept. Sellers however are facing high costs and are reluctant to abandon a business model in which they have confidence. Oil indexation is under further attack with US LNG selling at HH indexed prices (plus costs), and other sellers and buyers have been pressured to adopt different pricing policies and secure more contractual flexibility. This volume examines the development of the LNG business over the past 50 years and examines how the industry will change over the coming 15 years, faced by unprecedented challenges to its historic business model.

The Rise of Digital Management
The Rise of Digital Management

Author: François-Xavier de Vaujany

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-06-03

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 1040033873

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This book analyzes the history of management, placing it in perspective with both American history and the genealogy of digital technology. Focusing on the years of industrial mobilization in the United States (from 1937 to 1945) and their extension into the Cold War, it shows particularly how "scientific management" was reconfigured and re-legitimized in favor of a new profoundly American geopolitics. In a context where the future was at a standstill, this research also explains what became of the managerial processes at the heart of capitalism from the 40s onwards: the shift from a managerial capitalism of calculation to a narrative capitalism made up of "desiring machines". This digital management no longer simply contributes, along with others, to unveiling and revealing the future. Aligned with the American obsession with novelty, it is the very process of revelation and unveiling, with managers and consumers alike becoming the intersecting subjects of desires borne of managerial apocalypses. To explore this period of American history, the author has combined a triple narrative anchored in three types of archives: an intimate history of this reconfiguration from the presence in New York of Saint-Exupéry, Burnham and Wiener; a description of the great historical moment of industrial mobilization; and a philosophical speculation about reconfiguration and its links to American history.

The New Politics of Energy Security in the European Union and Beyond
The New Politics of Energy Security in the European Union and Beyond

Author: Andrea Prontera

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-05-18

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1317022688

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Combining theoretical reflections and empirical insights from paradigmatic case studies in the area of external energy governance, pipeline politics, Liquefied Natural Gas development and offshore petroleum policy and politics, this ground-breaking study demonstrates that a distinctive and new politics of energy security is definitively emerging in the European Union. Innovative not only in regard to the case studies presented (which include the Caspian region, the Baltic, Mediterrean countries, Central Asia and EU-Russia relations), but also in regard to the analytical framework adopted – an International Political Economy approach informed by an historical institutional perspective – the book challenges the common view of the ‘de-politicisation’ of energy security supported by the mainstream market approach and the power politics and ‘zero-sum game’ view supported by the geopolitical perspective. This book places the study of EU energy politics in the broader, evolving context of global energy markets and explores the complex interactions between EU and national political dynamics and between energy security and environmental concerns at the local level.

Software Engineering and Algorithms in Intelligent Systems
Software Engineering and Algorithms in Intelligent Systems

Author: Radek Silhavy

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-05-16

Total Pages: 501

ISBN-13: 3319911864

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This book presents new software engineering approaches and methods, discussing real-world problems and exploratory research that describes novel approaches, modern design techniques, hybrid algorithms and empirical methods. This book constitutes part of the refereed proceedings of the Software Engineering and Algorithms in Intelligent Systems Section of the 7th Computer Science On-line Conference 2018 (CSOC 2018), held in April 2018.

Work-Life Bloom
Work-Life Bloom

Author: Dan Pontefract

Publisher: Figure 1 Publishing

Published: 2023-10-24

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1773272233

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A thought-provoking and empowering book that will inspire leaders to take a fresh look at a new coalescence between work and life. In Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes, award-winning author Dan Pontefract takes a fresh look at integrating our professional and personal lives. Just as a flower needs the right mix of sunlight, water, and nutrients to grow and thrive, team members need the right mix of work-life factors to create a fulfilling and harmonious existence. Through primary global research, interviews, and personal experience, Pontefract delves into the current state of work and life, offering practical solutions for leaders and organizations to create environments where teams can flourish. Pontefract argues that there really is no such thing as work-life balance: our rigid attempts to achieve it don't reflect current realities, and are in fact leading us to further burnout, stress, and unhappiness. Instead, he encourages a more holistic approach, promoting the idea of "blooming" in both work and life. Pontefract stresses that for people to succeed, they must reach fulfillment through the integration of work and the personal aspects of life. After all, people bring their work into their lives and their lives into their work; an improved integration is necessary. Pontefract introduces six key work factors — trust, belonging, feeling valued, purpose, strategy, and norms —and six life factors —relationships, skills, well-being, meaning, agency, and respect — essential for creating an integrated work-life ecosystem that genuinely blooms. The 12 factors contain practical solutions and strategies for leaders who want to nurture Work-Life Bloom environments for their team members, and achieve this mindset for themselves. With a unique approach and vivid writing, Work-Life Bloom is a must-read for anyone looking to improve their impact as a leader.

Competition's New Clothes
Competition's New Clothes

Author: François Lévêque

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-02-07

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1108620523

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Lévêque recounts twenty revealing tales of real-life rivalry between firms across diverse industries, including wine, skiing, opera, video games and cruise liners. These entertaining and insightful narratives are informed by recent advances in economics, factoring in the many forces driving competition, including globalization and innovation. Divided into four sections, the book covers competition and the market; competition and variety; competition through innovation; and competition and equality. Read together, these stories also serve as building blocks to address the issue of whether competition between firms has entered a new era of increased intensity. This book will appeal to anyone, from company executives to consumers, who are interested in the economics of contemporary industry and want to incorporate a grasp of competition into their everyday decision-making. This book can also be used as a supplementary text in courses in microeconomics, business economics and industrial organisation.

Roma Felix – Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome
Roma Felix – Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome

Author: Éamonn Ó Carragáin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 671

ISBN-13: 1351902628

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After the Roman empire fell, medieval Europe continued to be fascinated by Rome itself, the 'chief of cities'. Once the hub of empire, in the early medieval period Rome became an important centre for western Christianity, first of all as the place where Peter, Paul and many other important early Christian saints were martyred: their deaths for the Christian faith gave the city the appellation 'Roma Felix', 'Happy Rome'. But in Rome the history of the faith, embodied in the shrines of the martyrs, coexisted with the living centre of the western Latin church. Because Peter had been recognised by Christ as chief among the apostles and was understood to have been the first bishop of Rome, his successors were acknowledged as patriarchs of the West and Rome became the focal point around which the western Latin church came to be organised. This book explores ways in which Rome itself was preserved, envisioned, and transformed by its residents, and also by the many pilgrims who flocked to the shrines of the martyrs. It considers how northern European cultures (in particular, the Irish and English) imagined and imitated the city as they understood it. The fourteen articles presented here range from the fourth to the twelfth century and span the fields of history, art history, urban topography, liturgical studies and numismatics. They provide an introduction to current thinking about the ways in which medieval people responded to the material remains of Rome's classical and early Christian past, and to the associations of centrality, spirituality, and authority which the city of Rome embodied for the earlier Middle Ages. Acknowledgements for grants in aid of publication are due to the Publication Fund of the College of Arts, Humanities, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences at University College Cork; to the Publication Fund of the National University of Ireland, Dublin; and to the Office of the Provost, Ohio Wesleyan University.