The mechanical, hydraulic, thermal, and chemical properties of the subsurface can have a significant effect on the long-term performance of an underground facility. Therefore, it is important to accurately estimate the aquifer properties in order to predict the groundwater flow and solute transport and thus ensure the stability and safety of a high-level radioactive waste disposal. Using heat as a tracer has become a popular tool for the subsurface characterization. Recent studies have demonstrated that heat tracing is an effective approach to quantify both hydrogeological and thermal subsurface properties. However, most studies in natural conditions assume the local thermal equilibrium (LTE) between the solid and fluid phases, ignoring heat exchange between them. The LTE assumption has not yet been verified by experiments. This work investigates the validity of the LTE assumption by performing the laboratory tracer tests using both solute and heat in a porous medium under natural groundwater flow velocities (Reynolds number, Re < 0.37). The experimental results showed that the LTE assumption can be violated even under natural groundwater flow conditions. The violation of LTE (LTNE) had a significant impact on mechanical dispersion, whereas its effect on velocity was negligible. These results provide the first experimental evidence for LTNE effects in natural conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to consider LTNE effects especially when the mechanical dispersion is evaluated using heat tracing.

Firms cooperate not only with complementary partners such as their suppliers and customers, but also increasingly with their competitors which can result in a simultaneous pursuit of cooperation and competition – coopetition (Brandenburger and Nalebuff, 2011). Coopetition is a paradox as it involves firms interacting with two contradictory logics – cooperation and competition, which their contradictory, yet interrelated, demands seem logical in isolation, but absurd and irrational when appearing simultaneously (Peng et al., 2017). The extant research on the role of the competitor as an NPD partner also throws conflicting results; positive and negative NPD performance. This variance could be related to the firm’s internal capability to manage the partnership in NPD activities. This research aims to investigate these issues: Part I examines ‘the paradox of coopetition’ by investigating how firm’s experience of coopetitive relationship influence on firm’s coopetition capability. Part II investigates the key antecedents and outcomes of coopetition capability on the competitor partnership for new product development. The findings suggest a balanced-strong coopetition and alliance management capability are useful to build coopetition capability. In turn, coopetition capability has direct and indirect effects on NPD performances.

Companies frequently use luxury or green as a brand extension strategy. The present research suggests that the success of the luxury or green brand extension depends on the parent brand’s core attribute-whether the parent brand is primarily luxury or green. In two experiments involving real brands (BMW, Prius, Chanel, Patagonia) across multiple product categories (automobile and bag), we investigated consumers’ evaluation of luxury green extension products (i.e., multi-attribute products with luxury and green attributes) whose parent brand is luxury (e.g., BMW) or green (e.g., Prius). Study 1 showed that luxury green products with luxury roots (i.e., parent brand is luxury) are evaluated more favorably than those with green roots (i.e., parent brand is green). Study 2 investigated the mechanism of perceived fit. Whereas luxury green product with luxury roots was perceived to have a high level of fit, the luxury green product with green roots was perceived to have a lower level of fit. Our findings encourage the luxury parent brand to extend green whereas discourage the green parent brand to extend luxury.

Our understanding of dust emission, interaction, and evolution, is evolving. In recent years, electric dipole emission by spinning dust has been suggested to explain the anomalous microwave excess (AME), appearing between 10 and 90 Ghz. The observed frequencies suggest that spinning grains should be on the order of 10nm in size, hinting at polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules (PAHs). We present data from the AKARI/Infrared Camera (IRC) due to its high sensitivity to the PAH bands. By inspecting the IRC data for a few AME regions, we nd a preliminary indication that regions well-tted by a spinning- dust model have a higher 9 m than 18 m intensity vs. non-spinning-dust regions. Ongoing eorts to improve the analysis by using DustEM and including data from the AKARI Far Infrared Surveyor (FIS), IRAS, and Planck High Frequency Instrument (HFI) are described.

Our study aims to investigate the mechanisms leading to focal firm’s innovation performance through the coopetitive relationships. Specifically, we argue focal firm’s two capabilities, coopetition capability and NPD capability, play a crucial role as a mediator of interfirm coopetition and its innovation performance. In order to provide new evidence on this subject, we contribute to this stream by developing a conceptual model. We argue that coopetitive behaviors of partners will influence the focal firm’s coopetition capability, which will then influence the focal firm’s NPD capability, although we assume NPD capability will have an impact on coopetition capability as well. We also argue NPD capability will not only lead to new product advantages, NPD process advantages as well, as a result of them, financial performance at the end. This paper reports the development of this model.