National scientific capabilities and technological performance: An exploration of emerging industrial relevant research domains.

Today's theories and models on innovation stress the importance of scientific capabilities and science-technology proximity, especially in new emerging fields of economic activity. In this contribution we examine the relationship between national scientific capabilities, the science intensity of technology and technological performance within six promising industrial fields. Our findings reveal that national technological performance is positively associated with scientific capabilities. Countries performing better on a technological level are characterized both by larger numbers of publications and by numbers of involved institutions that exceed average expected values. The latter observation holds for both companies and knowledge generating institutes actively involved in scientific activities. As such, our findings seem to suggest beneficial effects of scientific capabilities shouldered by a multitude of organizations. In addition, higher numbers of patent activity coincide with higher levels of science intensity pointing out the relevance of science 'proximity' when developing technology in newer, emerging fields. Limitations and directions for further research are discussed.Performance; Research; Theory; Models; Model; Innovation; Field; Science; Intensity; Technology; Country; Expected; Value; Companies; Knowledge; Effects;

How do venture capitalists inform their investors on the investment portfolio? An empirical investigation of the Belgian private equity market.

Venture capital investments are valued for a variety of reasons. In particular, venture capital managers periodically need to reconsider the valuation of the investment portfolio in view of their proper corporate disclosure activities. After all, investors in venture capital funds require such valuation information to assess the value of their investment in the venture capital fund and to appraise the performance of the venture capital fund's management. How the valuation is determined as well as what information disclosing the valuation process is reported remains obviously a controversial subject. Nonetheless, one can identify two distinct levels of guidance regarding the valuation and reporting problem with which venture capitalists are confronted. On the one hand, they are subject, just as any other company, to the accounting and corporate regulation. On the other hand, a set of more detailed and specific guidelines was issued by the industry itself. Whereas an earlier study (Thoen, 2002) discussed in detail the precise consequences following from this double set of prescriptions and recommendations for practitioners, the objective of the present study was to examine the actual business practice. In fact, we were interested in testing the extent to which Belgian venture capitalists comply with both sets of requirements and guidelines. Therefore, an empirical study was carried out by means of a survey, the main results of which are discussed here.Accounting; Companies; Disclosure; Empirical study; Industry; Information; Investment; Investment portfolio; Investments; Management; Managers; Market; Performance; Portfolio; Processes; Recommendations; Regulation; Reporting; Requirements; Studies; Valuation; Value; Venture capital;

Measuring industry-science links through inventor-author relations: A profiling method

In this pilot study we examine the performance of text-based profiling in recovering a set of validated inventor-author links. In a first step we match patents and publications solely based on their similarity in content. Next, we compare inventor and author names on the highest ranked matches for the occurrence of name matches. Finally, we compare these candidate matches with the names listed in a validated set of inventor-author names. Our text-based profile methodology performs significantly better than a random matching of patents and publications, suggesting that text-based profiling is a valuable complementary tool to the name searches used in previous studies.innovation; industry-science links; text-based profiling;

Large Scale Deployment of Renewables for Electricity Generation

Comparisons of resource assessments suggest resource constraints are not an obstacle to the large-scale deployment of renewable energy technologies. Economic analysis identifies barriers to the adoption of renewable energy sources resulting from market structure, competition in an uneven playing field and various non-market place barriers. However, even if these barriers are removed, the problem of ‘technology lock-out’ remains. The key policy response is strategic deployment coupled with increased R&D support to accelerate the pace of improvement through market experience. The paper suggests significant contributions from various technologies, but does not assess their optimal or maximal market share

Forecasting the Spreading of Technologies in Research Communities

Technologies such as algorithms, applications and formats are an important part of the knowledge produced and reused in the research process. Typically, a technology is expected to originate in the context of a research area and then spread and contribute to several other fields. For example, Semantic Web technologies have been successfully adopted by a variety of fields, e.g., Information Retrieval, Human Computer Interaction, Biology, and many others. Unfortunately, the spreading of technologies across research areas may be a slow and inefficient process, since it is easy for researchers to be unaware of potentially relevant solutions produced by other research communities. In this paper, we hypothesise that it is possible to learn typical technology propagation patterns from historical data and to exploit this knowledge i) to anticipate where a technology may be adopted next and ii) to alert relevant stakeholders about emerging and relevant technologies in other fields. To do so, we propose the Technology-Topic Framework, a novel approach which uses a semantically enhanced technology-topic model to forecast the propagation of technologies to research areas. A formal evaluation of the approach on a set of technologies in the Semantic Web and Artificial Intelligence areas has produced excellent results, confirming the validity of our solution

Incrementalism of environmental innovations versus paradigmatic change: A comparative study of the automotive and chemical industries

Environmental innovations; technological regime; technological paradigm; environmental regulation; automotive industry; green chemistry

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 355)

This bibliography lists 147 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during October, 1991. Subject coverage includes: aerospace medicine and psychology, life support systems and controlled environments, safety equipment, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, and flight crew behavior and performance

Cellulosic materials as biopolymers and supercritical CO2as a green process: chemistry and applications

In this review, we describe the use of supercritical CO2 (scCO2) in several cellulose applications. The focus is on different technologies that either exist or are expected to emerge in the near future. The applications are wide from the extraction of hazardous wastes to the cleaning and reuse of paper or production of glucose. To put this topic in context, cellulose chemistry and its interactions with scCO2 are described. The aim of this study was to discuss the new emerging technologies and trends concerning cellulosic materials processed in scCO2 such as cellulose drying to obtain aerogels, foams and other microporous materials, impregnation of cellulose, extraction of highly valuable compounds from plants and metallic residues from treated wood. Especially, in the bio-fuel production field, we address the pre-treatment of cellulose in scCO2 to improve fermentation to ethanol by cellulase enzymes. Other reactions of cellulosic materials such as organic inorganic composites fabrication and de-polymerisation have been considered. Cellulose treatment by scCO2 has been discussed as well. Finally, other applications like deacidification of paper and cellulosic membranes fabrication in scCO2 have been reviewed. Examples of the discussed technologies are included as well