Innovation networks in metropolitan regions - the case of the Vienna urban region

Metropolitan regions are important locations of innovation networks. They comprise a broad variety of high tech firms, producer services, research organizations, financial organizations, training institutions and other private and public organizations which are contributing to innovation. Such regions, however, are typically larger than the administrative entity of the core city. This applies also to the greater Vienna urban region, the most important concentration of innovation-related institutions in Austria. This paper analyses the potential role of the municipal authorities of Vienna in supporting and shaping the metropolitan innovation system. This is a complex task because many important elements of the innovation networks of local firms are located outside the city or the metropolitan region. And even those organizations which have their physical location in the city are sometimes controlled from abroad (e.g. foreign owned subsidiaries) or by other, in particular national, administrative levels (e.g. federal universities). Based on a survey of innovation networks in the Vienna urban region, basic structural features of these networks - types of partners, their location and the kind of relations between them - are presented. From these results, conclusions concerning the design of urban innovation policy - its potential scope and effectiveness, reasonable priorities and inevitable limits - are drawn.

Asymptotically Optimal Algorithms for Budgeted Multiple Play Bandits

We study a generalization of the multi-armed bandit problem with multiple plays where there is a cost associated with pulling each arm and the agent has a budget at each time that dictates how much she can expect to spend. We derive an asymptotic regret lower bound for any uniformly efficient algorithm in our setting. We then study a variant of Thompson sampling for Bernoulli rewards and a variant of KL-UCB for both single-parameter exponential families and bounded, finitely supported rewards. We show these algorithms are asymptotically optimal, both in rateand leading problem-dependent constants, including in the thick margin setting where multiple arms fall on the decision boundary

Effects of the internet on the spatial structure of innovation networks

Research on innovation systems and innovative milieux has shown that the innovation process of companies is strongly interrelated with other firms and organisations. Internet is a new information and communication technology with a considerable potential to change such relationships and networks. An often held expectation is that the Internet will allow firms to interact with distant partners more easily and that as a consequence innovation networks become independent from geographical space. A contrasting view argues that local and regional networks and innovation systems will keep their importance, due to the fact that tacit knowledge, face to face communication and institutional factors are still of key relevance. In the paper we are going to investigate to which extent and how the Internet changes innovation network of companies. Do firms using the Internet intensively have other innovation partners at wider spatial scales than firms which hardly use this communication technology? We have analysed the effects of the Internet on the innovation-related knowledge flows of firms by conducting a telephone survey, personal interviews and a WWW-survey of Austrian firms. Preliminary analysis shows that there is significant variance between firms depending on the relative importance of different types of knowledge communicated and the type of firm (e.g., science-based firms versus traditional manufacturing firms). Overall, there is evidence that the Internet made relations to innovation partners more efficient. However, the configuration of networks (types and location of partners) did not change as much as is often expected in the literature.

Stabilization of the alleged bishomoromatic bicyclo[3.2.1]octa-2,6-dienyl anion by counterion interactions and by hyperconjugation

Hyperconjugation and inductive effects, rather than homoaromaticity, are responsible for the stabilization of the title anion in the gas phase; interaction of the double bond with the Li+ gegenion in the endo geometry contributes additionally in solution

Network of the Day: Aggregating and Visualizing Entity Networks from Online Sources

This software demonstration paper presents a project on the interactive visualization of social media data. The data presentation fuses German Twitter data and a social relation network extracted from German online news. Such fusion allows for comparative analysis of the two types of media. Our system will additionally enable users to explore relationships between named entities, and to investigate events as they develop over time. Cooperative tagging of relationships is enabled through the active involvement of users. The system is available online for a broad user audience

Hybrid waveguide-bulk multi-path interferometer with switchable amplitude and phase

We design and realise a hybrid interferometer consisting of three paths based on integrated as well as on bulk optical components. This hybrid construction offers a good compromise between stability and footprint on one side and means of intervention on the other. As experimentally verified by the absence of higher-order interferences, amplitude and phase can be manipulated in all paths independently. In conjunction with single photons, the setup can, therefore, be applied for fundamental investigations on quantum mechanics.Comment: accepted in APL Photonic

Effects of parabolic flight and spaceflight on the endocannabinoid system in humans

The endocannabinoid system (ECS) plays an important role in the regulation of physiological functions, from stress and memory regulation to vegetative control and immunity. The ECS is considered a central and peripheral stress response system to emotional or physical challenges and acts through endocannabinoids (ECs), which bind to their receptors inducing subsequent effecting mechanisms. In our studies, the ECS responses have been assessed through blood concentrations of the ECs anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol. In parallel, saliva cortisol was determined and the degree of perceived stress was quantified by questionnaires. This report summarizes the reactivity of the ECS in humans subjected to brief periods of kinetic stress and weightlessness during parabolic flights and to prolonged stress exposure during life onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Both conditions resulted in a significant increase in circulating ECs. Under the acute stress during parabolic flights, individuals who showed no evidence of motion sickness were in low-stress conditions and had a significant increase of plasma ECs. In contrast, highly stressed individuals with severe motion sickness had an absent EC response and a massive increase in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity. Likewise, chronic but well-tolerated exposure to weightlessness and emotional and environmental stressors on the ISS for 6 months resulted in a sustained increase in EC blood concentrations, which returned to baseline values after the cosmonauts' return. These preliminary results suggest that complex environmental stressors result in an increase of circulating ECs and that enhanced EC signaling is probably required for adaptation and tolerance under stressful conditions