̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - ̽��ֱ�� of Maryland

Green tech startups see boost in patents and investment when partnering with government – study

fpjl2 — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 10:02:11 +0000

Latest research on hundreds of new green technology companies in the US shows the patenting activity of a startup climbs by over 73% on average every time they collaborate with a government agency on “cleantech” development – from next-generation solar cells to new energy storage materials.

̽��ֱ��study also found that every time a cleantech startup licensed a technology developed by a government agency, the company secured – on average – more than double the amount of financing deals when compared to similar startups: a 155% increase one year after taking out a licence.

Collaboration with universities and private firms are a familiar path for many startups, yet government partnerships are significantly undervalued when it comes to green technologies, say researchers.

While the role of public-private partnerships in sectors such as biotech and IT is well known, they say that – until now – there has been a lack of data on the effectiveness of these alliances in cleantech. ̽��ֱ��study is published in the journal Research Policy.

“Our findings suggest that some of the signs commonly used to track innovation and business success, such as patents and financing, increase when new cleantech companies partner with US government departments or labs,” said study co-author Laura Diaz Anadon, Professor of Climate Change Policy at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Prof Claudia Doblinger, study first author from the Technical ̽��ֱ�� of Munich, said: “Government research laboratories have a major role to play in the climate challenge but also the growth of small businesses – twin objectives at the heart of many policy discussions, such as the Green New Deal in the United States.”

̽��ֱ��researchers built a new dataset of 657 US cleantech startups and the more than 2,000 partnerships those companies established between 2008 and 2012, to gauge the different outcomes for private and public alliances.

Around 66% of the startups were less than five years old in 2008, with the remaining 34% commencing during the selected study period. ̽��ֱ��research included companies across the sustainable sector: from wind to marine power, and recycling to batteries.

In addition to the benefits seen in patenting and investment, researchers also found that alliances with some of the stronger innovation outcomes were outside of major tech hubs such as Silicon Valley – suggesting the potential for building “regional ecosystems”.

̽��ֱ��National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), for example, part of the US Department of Energy and situated in Colorado, is a “prominent example of government organisations in the US partnering with cleantech startups”, say researchers.

A major player in the development of green technologies, NREL it worked throughout the 2000s with startup companies in “thin film” such as First Solar, which in 2009 became the largest producer of Cadmium Telluride solar technology.

Researchers point out that NREL has granted more than 260 licenses since 2000, and this study shows the value of government agencies such as this have on startups in particular.

̽��ֱ��study’s authors argue that the scale, facilities, and longer-term perspective of state agencies, such as the US Department of Energy and its seventeen national laboratories, naturally complement the nimble startups that can sniff out and adapt technological developments to market opportunities at a faster rate.

“Governments can and should have longer-term perspectives when compared to the private sector, and thus play a critical role in energy innovation,” said study co-author Prof Kavita Surana, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Maryland.

“Beyond grants and supporting the early markets, it is the joint development and transfer of knowledge that government agencies are able to foster with startups that makes a difference.

“As the US Congress and civil society prepare to debate the substance of the policies like the Green New Deal, facilitating public-private partnerships could well be an important, and relatively inexpensive, part of any forward-looking policy package,” said Surana.

Doblinger says that to forge lasting partnerships with emerging businesses, government agencies should test out incentives that support collaborative projects.

“Initiatives such as investing more in technology transfer capabilities, starting entrepreneurs in residence programs, or allowing government scientists to take temporary leave to work with a private firm, could reduce information asymmetry and provide incentives to researchers,” she said.

Anadon believes that the lessons from the study are worth considering in national contexts beyond the US. “For the agencies of any government to successfully work with startups, sufficient and stable funding is vital – along with technology transfer and communication support.”

“Our findings should be taken into consideration whenever funding for public research into sustainable energy is being debated. Cleantech that comes from public-private partnerships will be essential for meeting global climate and sustainability goals,” she said.

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the ̽��ֱ��’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

Collaboration between government and startups could help meet the climate challenge while growing small businesses. Findings could inform discussions on Green New Deal or any “forward-looking policy package” say researchers.

Cleantech that comes from public-private partnerships will be essential for meeting global climate and sustainability goals

Laura Diaz Anadon

NREL

Photovoltaic array at the National Wind Technology Center near Boulder, Colorado

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Yes

High ozone levels in tropical Pacific caused by fires burning in Africa and Asia

sc604 — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 10:00:31 +0000

While efforts to limit emissions of greenhouse gases, including ozone, tend to focus on industrial activities and the burning of fossil fuels, a new study suggests that future regulations may need to address the burning of forests and vegetation. ̽��ֱ��study, published in the journal Nature Communications, indicates that ‘biomass burning’ may play a larger role in climate change than previously realised.

Based on observations from two aircraft missions, satellite data and a variety of models, an international research team showed that fires burning in tropical Africa and Southeast Asia caused pockets of high ozone and low water in the lower atmosphere above Guam – a remote island in the Pacific Ocean 1,700 miles east of Taiwan.

“We were very surprised to find high concentrations of ozone and chemicals that we know are only emitted by fires in the air around Guam,” said the study’s lead author Daniel Anderson, a graduate student at the ̽��ֱ�� of Maryland. “We didn’t make specific flights to target high-ozone areas – they were so omnipresent that no matter where we flew, we found them.”

For the study, two research planes on complementary missions flew over Guam measuring the levels of dozens of chemicals in the atmosphere in January and February 2014. One aircraft flew up to 24,000 feet above the ocean surface during the UK Natural Environment Research Council’s Coordinated Airborne Studies in the Tropics (CAST) mission. ̽��ֱ��other flew up to 48,000 feet above the ocean surface during the CONvective Transport of Active Species in the Tropics (CONTRAST) mission.

“International collaboration is essential for studying global environmental issues these days,” said CAST Principal Investigator Neil Harris, of Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry. “This US/UK-led campaign over the western Pacific was the first of its kind in this region and collected a unique data set. ̽��ֱ��measurements are now starting to produce insight into how the composition of the remote tropical atmosphere is affected by human activities occurring nearly halfway around the world.”

Researchers examined 17 CAST and 11 CONTRAST flights and compiled over 3,000 samples from high-ozone, low-water air parcels for the study. In the samples, the team detected high concentrations of chemicals associated with biomass burning—hydrogen cyanide, acetonitrile, benzene and ethyne.

“Hydrogen cyanide and acetonitrile were the smoking guns because they are emitted almost exclusively by biomass burning. High levels of the other chemicals simply added further weight to the findings,” said study co-author Julie Nicely, a graduate student from the ̽��ֱ�� of Maryland.

Next, the researchers traced the polluted air parcels backward 10 days, using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model and precipitation data, to determine where they came from. Overlaying fire data from NASA’s moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Terra satellite, the researchers connected nearly all of the high-ozone, low-water structures to tropical regions with active biomass burning in tropical Africa and Southeast Asia.

“ ̽��ֱ��investigation utilised a variety of models, including the NCAR CAM-Chem model to forecast and later analyse chemical and dynamical conditions near Guam, as well as satellite data from numerous instruments that augmented the interpretation of the aircraft observations,” said study co-author Douglas Kinnison, a project scientist at the ̽��ֱ�� Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

In the paper, the researchers also offer a new explanation for the dry nature of the polluted air parcels.

“Our results challenge the explanation atmospheric scientists commonly offer for pockets of high ozone and low water: that these zones result from the air having descended from the stratosphere where air is colder and dryer than elsewhere,” said ̽��ֱ�� of Maryland Professor Ross Salawitch, the study’s senior author and principal investigator of CONTRAST.

“We know that the polluted air did not mix with air in the stratosphere to dry out because we found combined elevated levels of carbon monoxide, nitric oxide and ozone in our air samples, but air in the higher stratosphere does not contain much naturally occurring carbon monoxide,” said Anderson.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that the polluted air that reached Guam never entered the stratosphere and instead simply dried out during its descent within the lower atmosphere. While textbooks show air moving upward in the tropics, according to Salawitch, this represents the net motion of air. Because this upward motion happens mostly within small storm systems, it must be balanced by air slowly descending, such as with these polluted parcels released from fires.

Based on the results of this study, global climate models may need to be reassessed to include and correctly represent the impacts of biomass burning, deforestation and reforestation, according to Salawitch. Also, future studies such as NASA’s upcoming Atmospheric Tomography Mission will add to the data collected by CAST and CONTRAST to help obtain a clearer picture of our changing environment.

In addition to those mentioned above, the study’s authors included UMD Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Professor Russell Dickerson and Assistant Research Professor Timothy Canty; CAST co-principal investigator James Lee of the ̽��ֱ�� of York; CONTRAST co-principal investigator Elliott Atlas of the ̽��ֱ�� of Miami; and additional researchers from NASA; NOAA; the ̽��ֱ�� of California, Irvine; the California Institute of Technology; the ̽��ֱ�� of Manchester; the Institute of Physical Chemistry Rocasolano; and the National Research Council in Argentina.

This research was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council, National Science Foundation, NASA, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Reference:
Daniel C. Anderson et al. ‘A pervasive role for biomass burning in tropical high ozone/low water structures’ Nature Communications (2016). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10267.

Inset image: Air Tracking. Credit: Daniel Anderson

Adapted from a ̽��ֱ�� of Maryland press release.

Study indicates ‘biomass burning’ may play a larger role in climate change than previously realised.

̽��ֱ��measurements are now starting to produce insight into how the composition of the remote tropical atmosphere is affected by human activities occurring nearly halfway around the world.

Neil Harris

Loretta Kuo/Shawn Honomichl

CONTRAST and CAST Mission Planes

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Clear skies on exo-Neptune

sc604 — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 17:00:00 +0000

Astronomers have discovered clear skies and steamy water vapour on a gaseous planet outside our solar system. ̽��ֱ��planet, known as HAT-P-11b, is about the size of Neptune, making it the smallest-ever planet for which water vapour has been detected.

Using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Kepler Space Telescope, an international team including astronomers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge found that HAT-P-11b is blanketed in water vapour, hydrogen gas, and other yet-to-be-identified molecules. ̽��ֱ��results are published today (24 September) in the online version of the journal Nature.

“This discovery is milepost on the road to eventually searching for molecules in the atmospheres of smaller, rocky planets more like Earth,” said John Grunsfeld, assistant administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Such achievements are only possible when we combine the capabilities of these unique and powerful observatories.”

Clouds in the atmospheres of planets can block the view to underlying molecules that reveal information about the planets’ compositions and histories. Finding clear skies on a Neptune-size planet is a good sign that smaller planets might have similarly good visibility.

“When astronomers go observing at night with telescopes, they say ‘clear skies’ to mean good luck,” said Jonathan Fraine of the ̽��ֱ�� of Maryland, the study’s lead author. “In this case, we found clear skies on a distant planet. That's lucky for us because it means clouds didn't block our view of water molecules.”

HAT-P-11b is a so-called exo-Neptune — a Neptune-sized planet that orbits another star. It is located 120 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus ( ̽��ֱ��Swan). Unlike Neptune, this planet orbits closer to its star, making one lap roughly every five days. It is a warm world thought to have a rocky core, a mantle of fluid and ice, and a thick gaseous atmosphere. Not much else was known about the composition of the planet, or other exo-Neptunes like it, until now.

Part of the challenge in analysing the atmospheres of planets like this is their size. Larger Jupiter-like planets are easier to observe and researchers have already been able to detect water vapour in the atmospheres of some of these giant planets. Smaller planets are more difficult to probe — and all the smaller ones observed to date have appeared to be cloudy.

̽��ֱ��team used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and a technique called transmission spectroscopy, in which a planet is observed as it crosses in front of its parent star. Starlight filters through the rim of the planet’s atmosphere and into a telescope. If molecules like water vapour are present, they absorb some of the starlight, leaving distinct signatures in the light that reaches our telescopes.

“We set out to look at the atmosphere of HAT-P-11b without knowing if its weather would be cloudy or not,” said Dr Nikku Madhusudhan, from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, who was part of the study team. “By using transmission spectroscopy, we could use Hubble to detect water vapour in the planet. This told us that the planet didn’t have thick clouds blocking the view and is a very hopeful sign that we can find and analyse more cloudless, smaller, planets in the future. It is ground-breaking!”

Before the team could celebrate they had to be sure that the water vapour was from the planet and not from cool starspots — “freckles” on the face of stars — on the parent star. Luckily, Kepler had been observing the patch of sky in which HAT-P-11b happens to lie for years. Those visible-light data were combined with targeted infrared Spitzer observations. By comparing the datasets the astronomers could confirm that the starspots were too hot to contain any water vapour, and so it must belong to the planet.

̽��ֱ��results from all three telescopes demonstrate that HAT-P-11b is blanketed in water vapour, hydrogen gas, and other yet-to-be-identified molecules. So in fact it is not only the smallest planet to have water vapour found in its atmosphere but is also the smallest planet for which molecules of any kind have been directly detected using spectroscopy. Theorists will be drawing up new models to explain the planet’s makeup and origins.

Although HAT-P-11b is dubbed as an exo-Neptune it is actually quite unlike any planet in our Solar System. It is thought that exo-Neptunes may have diverse compositions that reflect their formation histories. New findings such as this can help astronomers to piece together a theory for the origin of these distant worlds.

“We are working our way down the line, from hot Jupiters to exo-Neptunes,” said Drake Deming, a co-author of the study also from ̽��ֱ�� of Maryland. “We want to expand our knowledge to a diverse range of exoplanets.”

̽��ֱ��astronomers plan to examine more exo-Neptunes in the future, and hope to apply the same method to smaller super-Earths — massive, rocky cousins to our home world with up to ten times the mass of Earth. Our solar system does not contain a super-Earth, but NASA’s Kepler mission is finding them around other stars in droves, and the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, will search super-Earths for signs of water vapour and other molecules. However, finding signs of oceans and potentially habitable worlds is likely a way off.

This work is important for future studies of super-Earths and even smaller planets. It could allow astronomers to pick out in advance the planets with atmospheres clear enough for molecules to be detected. Once again, astronomers will be crossing their fingers for clear skies.

Smallest exoplanet ever found to have water vapour

This is a very hopeful sign that we can find and analyse more cloudless, smaller, planets in the future

Nikku Madhusudhan

NASA/JPL-Caltech

A Neptune-size planet with a clear atmosphere is shown crossing in front of its star in this artist's depiction

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Yes

Mandatory arrest in domestic violence call-outs causes early death in victims

fpjl2 — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 09:56:56 +0000

New research from a major ‘randomised’ US crime study conducted 23 years ago finds that domestic violence victims whose partners were arrested on common assault charges – mostly without causing injury – were 64% more likely to have died early, compared to victims whose partners were warned but not removed by police.

Among African-American victims, arrest increased early mortality by a staggering 98% – as opposed to white victims, whose mortality was increased from arrest by just 9%.

̽��ֱ��research also found that employed victims suffered the worst effects of their partners’ arrests. Employed black victims with arrested partners suffered a death rate over four times higher than those whose partner received a warning, which is given at the scene and does not create a criminal record. No such link was found in white victims.

̽��ֱ��vast majority of victim deaths following the Milwaukee Domestic Violence Experiment were not murders, accidents or suicides. ̽��ֱ��victims died from common causes of death such as heart disease, cancer and other internal illnesses.

̽��ֱ��study’s authors say that causes are currently unknown but such health impacts are consistent with chronic stress that could have been amplified by partner arrest. They call for a “robust review” of UK and US mandatory arrest policies in domestic violence cases.

“It remains to be seen whether democracies can accept these facts as they are, rather than as we might wish them to be,” said Professor Lawrence Sherman from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Institute of Criminology, who authored the study with his colleague Heather M. Harris from ̽��ֱ�� of Maryland.

“ ̽��ֱ��fact that there has never been a fair test of the benefits and harms of so-called ‘positive action’ policy in the UK means that British police can only be guided by US evidence. That evidence clearly indicates more death than life results in at least one large sample.”

“If the current policy is to be continued in the UK, the moral burden of proof now lies with those who wish to continue this mass arrest policy.”

̽��ֱ��findings will be announced in the US today and presented in the UK this Wednesday at the winter meeting of the Society of Evidence-Based Policing. They will be published in a forthcoming edition of the Journal of Experimental Criminology.

Previous studies have shown post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) to be prevalent in victims of domestic violence, and that low but chronic PTSS has been linked to premature death from coronary heart disease and other health problems. ̽��ֱ��authors observed that the impact of seeing a partner arrested could create a traumatic event for the victim, one that raises their risk of death. An arrest may cause more trauma in concentrated black poverty areas than in white working-class neighbourhoods, for reasons not yet understood.

̽��ֱ��exact cause of these surprising results still remains a ‘medical mystery,’ say the study’s authors . But, whatever the explanation, the harmful effects of mandatory arrest poses a challenge to policies that have “been on the books” in most US states and across the UK for decades, they say.

“ ̽��ֱ��evidence shows that black women are dying at a much higher rate than white women from a policy that was intended to protect all victims of domestic violence, regardless of race,” said Sherman. “It is now clear that a pro-arrest policy has failed to protect all victims, and that a robust review of these policies is urgently needed.”

“Because all the victims had an equal chance of having their partners arrested by random assignment, there is no other likely explanation for this difference except that it was caused by seeing their partners arrested.”

̽��ֱ��Milwaukee Domestic Violence Experiment took place between 1987 and 1988, with support from the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the US Department of Justice. Sherman, who led the study, described it as “arguably the most rigorous test ever conducted of the effects of arrest”.

̽��ֱ��experiment enrolled 1,125 victims of domestic violence whose average age was 30 years. Each case was the subject of an equal probability ‘lottery’ of random assignment. Two-thirds of the suspects were arrested with immediate jailing. One-third received a warning at the scene with no arrest. In 2012-13, Sherman and Harris searched state and national records for the names of every one of the victims.

̽��ֱ��record search showed that a total of 91 victims had died. Of these, 70 had been in the group whose partners were arrested, compared to 21 whose partners had been warned. This translated into 93 deaths per 1,000 victims in the arrest group, versus 57 deaths per 1000 in the warned group. For the 791 black victims (who were 70% of the sample), the rates were 98 per 1,000 for arrest, versus 50 per 1,000 for the warned group.

“These differences are too large to be due to chance,” Sherman said. “They are also too large to be ignored.”

Over 100,000 arrests are made each year in England and Wales for domestic abuse, with most cases not proceeding to prosecution. ̽��ֱ��cost is substantial, at fifteen to twenty per cent of all arrests police make. Sherman, who has long-campaigned for ‘evidence-based’ policing, said that the “only way proof can be attained is for one or more UK police agencies, or perhaps the College of Policing, to conduct the same experiment that the Milwaukee Police undertook in 1987-88”.

Cambridge criminologist follows up on landmark US domestic violence arrest experiment and finds that black victims who had partners arrested rather than warned were twice as likely to die young. Researchers call for UK police to conduct similar experiments so that arrest policy can be based on evidence.

It remains to be seen whether democracies can accept these facts as they are, rather than as we might wish them to be

Lawrence Sherman

Screenshots from TV report on the original Milwaukee Domestic Violence Experiment that took place in 1987-88

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Yes