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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of regulations, perceptions, and promotions on the emergence of an innovation system for wood-framed multi-storey buildings in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom (UK). Design/methodology/approach – This descriptive paper made a qualitative analysis of information collected mainly from secondary sources such as reports, newspapers, journal publications, conference proceedings and general internet search. Findings – Results showed that the conditions for market growth of multi-storey construction seemed to be the most favourable in Sweden followed by the UK and Germany. The regulations are stringent in Germany, followed by the UK and Sweden. In all countries, the construction professionals seemed to have negative perceptions regarding engineering properties of wood. Similar negative perceptions exist among the general public in Germany and the UK, but not in Sweden. The wood construction promotional activities in Germany and the UK are directed to all types of houses, while in Sweden multi-storey buildings are targeted. Research limitations/implications – An important implication of this paper was that it highlighted the usefulness of cross-country surveys at the European level, in order to better understand observed differences in the adoption of innovative systems. However, there might be shortcomings in the comparability of the information across the countries analysed because it was difficult to make an objective assessment of the claims made in some of the information sources. Also, there was varying and limited information about the survey methodologies used in some of the reviewed studies. Practical implications – The study showed that market intervention is needed to promote radical or really new innovations such as wood construction. The variations in the promotional measures undertaken partly explained the variations in growth of wood construction system in the three countries. Originality/value – The paper applied a theoretical framework on technology transition to analyse emergence of wood construction system in Germany, Sweden and the UK. The framework can be applied to analyse the development of wood construction system in other countries also. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant populations growing at the margin of their range may exhibit traits that indicate genetic differentiation and adaptation to their local abiotic environment. Here, it was investigated whether geographically separated marginal populations of Arabidopsis lyrata ssp. petraea have distinct metabolic phenotypes within the plant foliage. Seeds of A. petraea were obtained from populations along a latitudinal gradient (49-64 N), namely Germany, Wales, Sweden and Iceland and grown in a controlled cabinet environment. Targeted metabolic profiles and fingerprints were obtained at the same initial developmental stage. The free amino acid compositions were population specific, with fold differences in arginine, aspartic acid, asparagines, glycine, phenylalanine, alanine, threonine, histidine, serine and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentrations. Sucrose, mannose and fructose concentrations were also different between populations but polyhydric alcohol concentrations were not. Principal component analysis (PCA) of metabolite fingerprints revealed metabolic phenotypes for each population. It is suggested that glucosinolates were responsible for discriminating populations within the PCA. Metabolite fingerprinting and profiling has proved to be sufficiently sensitive to identify metabolic differences between plant populations. These findings show that there is significant natural variation in metabolism among populations of A. petraea.