This paper proposes a framework based on which innovations in wind power technologies can be evaluated from the standpoint of their contribution to diffusion expansion. The framework helps build up a missing link between the technical literature on innovations and policy-oriented contributions concerned with the diffusion potential of wind power in national energy systems. The ideas are applied...

Background This article conducts a comparative national and subnational government analysis of the political, economic, and ideational constructivist contextual factors facilitating the adoption of obesity and diabetes policy.   Methods We adopt a nested analytical approach to policy analysis, which combines cross-national statistical analysis with subnational case study comparisons to examine...

Over the years, we covered the globe with cities then linked them with railroads, highways, telephone lines, power grids, canals, and so forth. We are now deploying the Internet, and several organizations and projects are tracking this global diffusion [4]. This column describes one such project, the MOSAIC Group (www.agsd.com/ mosaicgroup.html) study of the global diffusion of the Internet. Th...

This paper outlines the preliminary findings of the empirical stage of the research to establish the reasons that in 2003 some English local authorities decided to trial e-voting and others did not. The key findings demonstrate that central and local governments have different agendas and there is little momentum from central government to increase the number of pilot schemes. The central gover...

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) has been recognized by many actors as the appropriate approach to respond to challenges in water resources management in a sustainable way. The main players in developing and diffusing the IWRM concept have included expert groups, international organizations, and multistakeholder platforms, which cooperated in various activities promoting the IWRM co...

Social scientists have sketched four distinct theories to explain a phenomenon that appears to have ramped up in recent years, the diffusion of policies across countries. Constructivists trace policy norms to expert epistemic communities and international organizations, who define economic progress and human rights. Coercion theorists point to powerful nation-states, and international financial...

The diffusion of technology in the US has taken place in an environment of both regulation and free enterprise. Each has been subject to manipulation by doctors and medical administrators that has fostered unprecedented ethical dilemmas and legal challenges. Understanding these developments and historical precedents may allow a more rational diffusion policy for medical technology in the future.

The aim of this chapter is to analyze the worldwide diffusion of e-parliament and the role played by the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament (GCIP), within the framework of policy transfer. There are two main reasons why it is necessary to focus on the role of GCIP in the diffusion of e-parliament: 1) The GCIP is one of the most active actors in this process; and 2) Activities undertaken by the...

We consider a GI/GI/1 queue with impatient customers in heavy traffic. We use the solution of an approximating singular diffusion control problem to construct an admission control policy for the queue. The approximating control problem does not admit a so-called pathwise solution. Hence, the resulting admission control policy depends on second-moment data. We prove asymptotic optimality of the ...

Technological change drives long-term economic growth, productivity and improvement in living standards. At the same time, the emergence and diffusion of new ideas, products and production techniques throughout the economy entails a process of " creative destruction ". New technologies destroy jobs in some industries, especially among the low-skilled, while creating jobs which are often in diff...