A case study in technology utilization: Fracture mechanics

This review of NASA contributions to the technology of fracture mechanics illustrates a fundamental role of the Space Agency in a single technical area. While primarily pursuing its goal of minimizing the weight of flight hardware, NASA engineers have generated innovations having broad impact in nonaerospace communities. A review is given of how these specific NASA innovations are communicated to the technical community outside the Space Agency, and current application areas are outlined

Churn, Baby, Churn: Strategic Dynamics Among Dominant and Fringe Firms in a Segmented Industry

This paper integrates and extends the literatures on industry evolution and dominant firms to develop a dynamic theory of dominant and fringe competitive interaction in a segmented industry. It argues that a dominant firm, seeing contraction of growth in its current segment(s), enters new segments in which it can exploit its technological strengths, but that are sufficiently distant to avoid cannibalization. The dominant firm acts as a low-cost Stackelberg leader, driving down prices and triggering a sales takeoff in the new segment. We identify a “churn” effect associated with dominant firm entry: fringe firms that precede the dominant firm into the segment tend to exit the segment, while new fringe firms enter, causing a net increase in the number of firms in the segment. As the segment matures and sales decline in the segment, the process repeats itself. We examine the predictions of the theory with a study of price, quantity, entry, and exit across 24 product classes in the desktop laser printer industry from 1984 to 1996. Using descriptive statistics, hazard rate models, and panel data methods, we find empirical support for the theoretical predictions

Strengthening China's technological capability

China is increasing its outlay on research and development and seeking to build an innovation system that will deliver quick results not just in absorbing technology but also in pushing the technological envelope. China's spending on R&D rose from 1.1 percent of GDP in 2000 to 1.3 percent of GDP in 2005. On a purchasing power parity basis, China's research outlay was among the world's highest, far greater than that of Brazil, India, or Mexico. Chinese firms are active in the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, alternative energy sources, and nanotechnology. This surge in spending has been parallel by a sharp increase in patent applications in China, with the bulk of the patents registered in the areas of electronics, information technology, and telecoms. However, of the almost 50,000 patents granted in China, nearly two-thirds were to nonresidents. This paper considers two questions that are especially important for China. First, how might China go about accelerating technology development? Second, what measures could most cost-effectively deliver the desired outcomes? It concludes that although the level of financing for R&D is certainly important, technological advance is closely keyed to absorptive capacity which is a function of the volume and quality of talent and the depth as well as the heterogeneity of research experience. It is also a function of how companies maximize the commercial benefits of research and development, and the coordination of research with production and marketing.Technology Industry,Tertiary Education,E-Business,ICT Policy and Strategies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems

The Dynamics of Export Specialisation in the Regions of the Italian Mezzogiorno: Persistence and Change

In the most recent years, the pattern of economic growth of the Italian Mezzogiorno has undergone a significant transformation. Up to the beginning of the 1990s, the whole area was by and large characterised by a single macroeconomic model of income and employment, whose dynamics were strongly based upon State intervention. By the early 1990s, the end of the special public support for the Mezzogiorno - as a consequence, to a large extent, of the completion of the Single European Market in 1992 - was only partially followed by appropriate legislative tools for the support of less favoured areas. Since then, the Italian southern regions as a whole have gone through a worsening of their economic fundamentals, particularly with regard to income growth and unemployment. At the same time, the differentials in the paths of socio-economic development within the southern area have been strengthening, confirming the existence of "many Mezzogiorni" previously noted by the specialised literature. Our current research line aims at providing the basis for devising a policy framework within which trying to identify new directions to untangle regional "vulnerability", with particular reference to the dramatic changes imposed by internationalisation and globalisation processes. The objective of the present paper is to investigate to what extent the evolution of export patterns and performance by Mezzogiorno province fits in the picture of intra-area growing differentiation. The combined significance of cumulativeness and gradual change in specialisation patterns is examined by testing the extent of continuity in the sectoral composition of trade specialisation profiles by province during the period 1985-2000. The export performance and the models of specialisation seem to bear out the view of "many Mezzogiorni" and show that peripheral regions and provinces have adopted rather distinct strategies to adjust to the rapidly increasing economic integration.income growth and unemployment, regional trade specialisation, Italy, export patterns

A comparison of processing techniques for producing prototype injection moulding inserts.

This project involves the investigation of processing techniques for producing low-cost moulding inserts used in the particulate injection moulding (PIM) process. Prototype moulds were made from both additive and subtractive processes as well as a combination of the two. The general motivation for this was to reduce the entry cost of users when considering PIM. PIM cavity inserts were first made by conventional machining from a polymer block using the pocket NC desktop mill. PIM cavity inserts were also made by fused filament deposition modelling using the Tiertime UP plus 3D printer. The injection moulding trials manifested in surface finish and part removal defects. The feedstock was a titanium metal blend which is brittle in comparison to commodity polymers. That in combination with the mesoscale features, small cross-sections and complex geometries were considered the main problems. For both processing methods, fixes were identified and made to test the theory. These consisted of a blended approach that saw a combination of both the additive and subtractive processes being used. The parts produced from the three processing methods are investigated and their respective merits and issues are discussed

Reducing risk in pre-production investigations through undergraduate engineering projects.

This poster is the culmination of final year Bachelor of Engineering Technology (B.Eng.Tech) student projects in 2017 and 2018. The B.Eng.Tech is a level seven qualification that aligns with the Sydney accord for a three-year engineering degree and hence is internationally benchmarked. The enabling mechanism of these projects is the industry connectivity that creates real-world projects and highlights the benefits of the investigation of process at the technologist level. The methodologies we use are basic and transparent, with enough depth of technical knowledge to ensure the industry partners gain from the collaboration process. The process we use minimizes the disconnect between the student and the industry supervisor while maintaining the academic freedom of the student and the commercial sensitivities of the supervisor. The general motivation for this approach is the reduction of the entry cost of the industry to enable consideration of new technologies and thereby reducing risk to core business and shareholder profits. The poster presents several images and interpretive dialogue to explain the positive and negative aspects of the student process

The future shape of Hong Kong's economy: why low technology manufacturing in China will remain a sustainable strategy

"In dem vorliegenden Papier wird die aktuelle Diskussion über die Entwicklungspfade junger Industrienationen im asiatischen Raum aufgegriffen. Kritisch setzt sich der Autor mit dem High Tech-Argument auseinander, nachdem internationale Wettbewerbsfähigkeit ausgeprägte Investitionen im Hochtechnologiesektor erfordert. So zeige jedoch das Beispiel Hong Kong eindrucksvoll, dass auch eine Wirtschaft Produktivitätssprünge und Wachstumserfolge erzielen kann, die sich bislang auf arbeitsintensive Produktionsprozesse und geringe F&E-Aufwendungen beschränkt habe. Ermöglicht werden diese durch eine effiziente Kombination von 'high IQ and low technology', deren Charakteristika Kurzfristigkeit, Flexibilität, ein großes Reservoir unqualifizierter Arbeitskräfte, kurze Anlernzeiten und die traditionellen Strukturen asiatischer Familienunternehmen sind. Da die wirtschaftlichen Zuwachsraten Hong Kong's teilweise deutlich über denen anderer Industrienationen im Pazifikraum liegen, kommt der Autor zu dem Schluss, dass die Notwendigkeit einer High Tech-Ausrichtung Südost-Asiens bisher deutlich überschätzt worden ist und eine Orientierung hierauf für Hong Kong möglicherweise in eine Sackgasse führen kann." (Autorenreferat)"Hong Kong's economy has shown impressive improvements in productivity arising from technical progress. This is despite the fact that Hong Kong has spent very little on R&D and that its industry has been concentrated in labour-intensive sectors with limited technological opportunity. Businessmen and government have been critized for decades over their supposed short-sightedness and lack of support for technology. The characteristics of Hong Kong´s economy are short-termism, flexibility, tight control of unskilled labour, use of general assets only, little spendings on training, family business. What the record of productivity performance shows is that this combination of 'high IQ and low technology' can deliver improvements in efficiency which have not been achieved in more 'technophile' Asian economies. This suggests that the need for high technology industry in East Asia has been exaggerated and that policies and business strategies built on the perception of that need are misguided." (author's abstract

Cluster Complexes: A Framework for Understanding the Internationalisation of Innovation Systems

The literature on clustering that has developed over the last two decades or so has given us a wealth of information on the formation and competitiveness of places in the global economy. Similarly, the systems literature on innovation has been valuable in moving the debate around technology from a focus on the entrepreneur to one than encompasses institutions, government, suppliers, customers and universities. However, there remains an important limit to this research; the borders of political jurisdictions, usually nation states, typically delineate the studies. It is argued in this paper that during an era when the international architecture of production relationships is changing, this view of systems is hindering its further development. This paper briefly examines what we have learnt of innovation systems, including clustering and also explores the limitations of this work. From this foundation it is proposed in this paper that a framework which understands clusters as nodes within extra-territorial networks is a promising approach for internationalising the systems of innovation perspective. The advantage of the approach presented here is that it can simultaneously capture regional specialisations and be disaggregated enough to apply on a technology / sectoral basis. Another principle advantage is that such a framework goes someway towards an understanding of interregional and international trade that is consistent with what other studies have shown of the development of innovation within particular geographic locations. The paper draws from extensive data analysis of industrial interdependencies that cross national borders to support the case for cluster complexes that transcend regional and national borders.innovation systems; clusters; internationalisation