National innovation systems, developing countries, and the role of intermediaries: a critical review of the literature

Developed over the past three decades, the national innovation system concept (NIS) has been widely used by both scholars and policy makers to explain how interactions between a set of distinct, nationally bounded institutions supports and facilitates technological change and the emergence and diffusion of new innovations. This concept provides a framework by which developing countries can adopt for purposes of catching up. Initially conceived on structures and interactions identified in economically advanced countries, the application of the NIS concept to developing countries has been gradual and has coincided – in the NIS literature – with a move away from overly macro-interpretations to an emphasis on micro-level interactions and processes, with much of this work questioning the nation state as the most appropriate level of analysis, as well as the emergence of certain intermediary actors thought to facilitate knowledge exchange between actors and institutions. This paper reviews the NIS literature chronologically, showing how this shift in emphasis has diminished somewhat the importance of both institutions, particularly governments, and the process of institutional capacity building. In doing so, the paper suggests that more recent literature on intermediaries such as industry associations may offer valuable insights to how institutional capacity building occurs and how it might be directed, particularly in the context of developing countries where governance capacities are often lacking, contributing to less effective innovation systems, stagnant economies, and unequal development

Characterization of the Esp signalosome: Two hybrid histidine kinases utilize a novel signaling mechanism to regulate developmental progression in Myxococcus xanthus.

Histidine-aspartate signaling systems are used by bacteria, archaea and eukarya to integrate stimuli over time and space generating coordinated, fine-tuned cellular responses. A hallmark feature is the high modularity of the signaling protein modules which can form simple ’two-component‘ systems, and also sophisticated ’multi-component’ systems. The deltaproteobacterium Myxococcus xanthus contains a large repertoire of signaling proteins, many of which regulate its complex multicellular developmental program. In this respect, one important systems is the Esp signaling system, consisting of the hybrid histidine protein kinase, EspA, two serine/threonine protein kinases (PktA5 and PktB8), and a putative transport protein (EspB). In the presented study, I assign an orphan hybrid histidine protein kinase, EspC, to the Esp signaling system which negatively regulates progression through the M. xanthus developmental program. The genetic analysis revealed that EspC is an essential component of this system, because ΔespA, ΔespC, and ΔespAΔespC double mutants shared an identical early developmental phenotype. Surprisingly, disruption of EspC’s auto-phosphorylation in vivo did not produce a mutant developmental phenotype, whereas substitution of its phospho-accepting residue within the receiver domain resulted in the null phenotype. Furthermore, it is shown that although the EspC histidine kinase could efficiently autophosphorylate in vitro, it did not act as a phospho-donor to its own receiver domain. Instead, both, in vitro and in vivo analyses elucidated that the phospho-donor instead is EspA’s histidine kinase. Therefore, EspA and EspC participate in a novel hybrid histidine protein kinase signaling mechanism involving both inter- and intraprotein phosphotransfer. This inter- and intraprotein phosphotransfer results in the combined phosphorylation of EspA’s and EspC’s receiver domains which represents the output of the Esp signaling system. Further genetic analyses suggested that this Esp system is regulated on the level of its phosphatase activity, likely involving the sensing domains of EspC for regulation. Finally, I uncovered that the Esp system stimulates the proteolytic turnover of MrpC, a crucial transcription factor of the developmental program, via as yet unidentified serine protease. Altogether, these data unravel a novel signaling mechanism of His-Asp signaling systems, and thus expand the knowledge about the complexity and plasticity of these crucial signal transduction systems

Marine Biotechnology: A New Vision and Strategy for Europe

Marine Board-ESF The Marine Board provides a pan-European platform for its member organisations to develop common priorities, to advance marine research, and to bridge the gap between science and policy in order to meet future marine science challenges and opportunities. The Marine Board was established in 1995 to facilitate enhanced cooperation between European marine science organisations (both research institutes and research funding agencies) towards the development of a common vision on the research priorities and strategies for marine science in Europe. In 2010, the Marine Board represents 30 Member Organisations from 19 countries. The Marine Board provides the essential components for transferring knowledge for leadership in marine research in Europe. Adopting a strategic role, the Marine Board serves its Member Organisations by providing a forum within which marine research policy advice to national agencies and to the European Commission is developed, with the objective of promoting the establishment of the European Marine Research Area

Leo: Lagrange Elementary Optimization

Global optimization problems are frequently solved using the practical and efficient method of evolutionary sophistication. But as the original problem becomes more complex, so does its efficacy and expandability. Thus, the purpose of this research is to introduce the Lagrange Elementary Optimization (Leo) as an evolutionary method, which is self-adaptive inspired by the remarkable accuracy of vaccinations using the albumin quotient of human blood. They develop intelligent agents using their fitness function value after gene crossing. These genes direct the search agents during both exploration and exploitation. The main objective of the Leo algorithm is presented in this paper along with the inspiration and motivation for the concept. To demonstrate its precision, the proposed algorithm is validated against a variety of test functions, including 19 traditional benchmark functions and the CECC06 2019 test functions. The results of Leo for 19 classic benchmark test functions are evaluated against DA, PSO, and GA separately, and then two other recent algorithms such as FDO and LPB are also included in the evaluation. In addition, the Leo is tested by ten functions on CECC06 2019 with DA, WOA, SSA, FDO, LPB, and FOX algorithms distinctly. The cumulative outcomes demonstrate Leo's capacity to increase the starting population and move toward the global optimum. Different standard measurements are used to verify and prove the stability of Leo in both the exploration and exploitation phases. Moreover, Statistical analysis supports the findings results of the proposed research. Finally, novel applications in the real world are introduced to demonstrate the practicality of Leo.Comment: 28 page

New Trends in Development of Services in the Modern Economy

The services sector strategic development unites a multitude of economic and managerial aspects and is one of the most important problems of economic management. Many researches devoted to this industry study are available. Most of them are performed in the traditional aspect of the voluminous calendar approach to strategic management, characteristic of the national scientific school. Such an approach seems archaic, forming false strategic benchmarks. The services sector is of special scientific interest in this context due to the fact that the social production structure to the services development model attraction in many countries suggests transition to postindustrial economy type where the services sector is a system-supporting sector of the economy. Actively influencing the economy, the services sector in the developed countries dominates in the GDP formation, primary capital accumulation, labor, households final consumption and, finally, citizens comfort of living. However, a clear understanding of the services sector as a hyper-sector permeating all spheres of human activity has not yet been fully developed, although interest in this issue continues to grow among many authors. Target of strategic management of the industry development setting requires substantive content and the services sector target value assessment