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Technological innovation is a dynamic process that spans the lifecycle of an idea, from scientific research to production. Within this process, there are few key innovations that significantly impact a technology’s development, and the ability to identify and trace the development of these key innovations comes with a great payoff for researchers and technology managers. In this paper, we present a framework for identifying the technology’s main evolutionary pathway of a technology. What is unique about this framework is that we introduce new indicators that reflect the connectivity and the modularity in the interior citation network to distinguish between the stages of a technology’s development. We also show how information about a family of patents can be used to build a comprehensive patent citation network. Last, we apply integrated approaches of main path analysis (MPA) -- namely global main path analysis and global key-route main analysis -- for extracting technological trajectories at different technological stages. We illustrate this approach with Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs), a low-cost solar cell belonging to the group of thin film solar cells, contributing to the remarkable growth in the renewable energy industry. The results show how this approach can trace the main development trajectory of a research field and distinguish key technologies to help decision-makers manage the technological stages of their innovation processes more effectively. 

Global climate change is expected to both increase average temperatures as well as temperature variability.

Increased average temperatures have led to earlier breeding in many spring‐breeding organisms. However, individuals breeding earlier will also face increased temperature fluctuations, including exposure to potentially harmful cold‐temperature regimes during early developmental stages.

Using a model spring‐breeding amphibian, we investigated how embryonic exposure to different cold‐temperature regimes (control, cold‐pulse, and cold‐press) affected (a) compensatory larval development and growth, (b) larval susceptibility to a common contaminant, and (c) larval susceptibility to parasites.

We found: (a) no evidence of compensatory development or growth, (b) larvae exposed to the cold‐press treatment were more susceptible to NaCl at 4‐days post‐hatching but recovered by 17‐days post‐hatching, and (c) larvae exposed to both cold treatments were less susceptible to parasites.

These results demonstrate that variation in cold‐temperature regimes can lead to unique direct and indirect effects on larval growth, development, and response to stressors. This underscores the importance of considering cold‐temperature variability and not just increased average temperatures when examining the impacts of climate disruption.