Born Digital / Grown Digital: Assessing the Future Competitiveness of the EU Video Games Software Industry

This report reflects the findings of the JRC-IPTS study on the Video games Industry, with a focus on two specific activities: online and mobile video games. The report starts by introducing the technologies, their characteristics, market diffusion and barriers to take up, and their potential economic impact, before moving to an analysis of their contribution to the competitiveness of the European ICT industry. The research is based on internal and external expertise, literature reviews and desk research, several workshops and syntheses of the current state of the knowledge. The results were reviewed by experts and in dedicated workshops. The report concludes that the general expectations for the next years foresee a speeded up migration of contents and services to digital, in a scenario of rapidly increasing convergence of digital technologies and integration of media services taking advantage of improved and permanent network connections. The role of the so-called creative content industry is expected to increase accordingly. Communication services and media industry will co-evolve on the playground of the Internet of services, along with a product to service transformation of the software market in general. In this general context the Video games Software industry plays and is expected to play a major role. The games industry may become a major driver of the development of networks as it has been in the past for the development of computer hardware.JRC.DDG.J.4-Information Societ

Internationalisation of ICT R&D

This report investigates the contrasting views on the process of R&D internationalisation. On the one hand, there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence of companies locating their R&D activities outside of their home countries in order to search for new sources of knowledge and locate themselves close to new markets. On the other hand, however, the levels of international patents lead one to conclude that the level of R&D internationalisation is negligible. Such discrepancies in the views on the new geography of R&D activity, together with the scarcity of data illustrating the developments in R&D activity, pose a challenge for informed policy making. This apparently contradictory evidence can be explained by the complexity of the inventive process and various motivations behind the decisions to do R&D abroad. To address these complexities related to the internationalisation of R&D, the report uses a methodology that divides the process of R&D into input and output side and, subsequently, analyses separately their levels of internationalisation. The results confirm that there is a discrepancy between them. The EU and the US have higher levels of internationalisation than Japan and Asia. However, according to which measures are taken into account, there are differences between the levels of internationalisation in the EU and the US. For example, these two regions have similar levels of R&D input internationalisation, but very different levels of R&D output internationalisation. A comparison of Japan and Asia also shows that these two regions follow different R&D internationalisation trajectories. On the one hand, these discrepancies may indicate that all regions follow different R&D internationalisation paths. On the other hand, they may also be a sign of the unequal capabilities of companies from different regions to ‘go global’.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

ICT and Regional Economic Dynamics: A Literature Review

The objective of this report is to review the relevant theoretical and empirical literature to provide a conceptual and methodological background for the analysis of the consequences of ICT use and globalisation on the regional economies in the European Union. We highlight the key aspects of ICT as a general purpose technology, discuss the economic impacts of ICT diffusion from macro and micro perspectives, and examine the spatial consequences of ICT diffusion. We focus on regional innovation systems and globalisation in order to propose an organizing framework for the analysis of the impact of ICT diffusion on regional development.JRC.DDG.J.4-Information Societ

The 2011 Report on R&D in ICT in the European Union

This report is the 2011 edition of a report that is published annually. It presents all the data available on ICT R&D private and public expenditures in Europe, at sector, country and company levels, and from an international perspective (benchmarking). It provides data up to 2008.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

The European union’s 2010 target: Putting rare species in focus

P. 167-185The European Union has adopted the ambitious target of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Several indicators have been proposed to assess progress towards the 2010 target, two of them addressing directly the issue of species decline. In Europe, the Fauna Europaea database gives an insight into the patterns of distribution of a total dataset of 130,000 terrestrial and freshwater species without taxonomic bias, and provide a unique opportunity to assess the feasibility of the 2010 target. It shows that the vast majority of European species are rare, in the sense that they have a restricted range. Considering this, the paper discusses whether the 2010 target indicators really cover the species most at risk of extinction. The analysis of a list of 62 globally extinct European taxa shows that most contemporary extinctions have affected narrow-range taxa or taxa with strict ecological requirements. Indeed, most European species listed as threatened in the IUCN Red List are narrow-range species. Conversely, there are as many wide-range species as narrow-range endemics in the list of protected species in Europe (Bird and Habitat Directives). The subset of biodiversity captured by the 2010 target indicators should be representative of the whole biodiversity in terms of patterns of distribution and abundance. Indicators should not overlook a core characteristic of biodiversity, i.e. the large number of narrow-range species and their intrinsic vulnerability. With ill-selected indicator species, the extinction of narrowrange endemics would go unnoticedS

Investigating orphan cytochromes P450 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis : the search for potential drug targets

Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease that the World Health Organisation (WHO) regards as a global pandemic. There is a great need for new drugs to combat this threat. Drug resistant strains of the causative agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), have increased the urgency of this quest for novel anti-mycobacterial medicines. Publication of the Mtb genome sequence revealed a large number of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes [Cole, S. T. et al. 1998]. These mono-oxygenase enzymes have been studied for many years and are responsible for metabolic functions in every kingdom of life. Research on the Mtb P450s to date has highlighted several of them as having critcal roles within the organism. CYP121 and CYP128 have been implicated as essential through gene knockout studies. It has been demonstrated that CYP125 is not essential for viability. However, it is part of a gene cluster highly important for Mtb infectivity and virulence. Due to the prospective importance of P450s to Mtb, this group of enzymes is under investigation as a source of novel drug targets. CYP142 was discovered as a potential drug target after it was located to a gene cluster involved in cholesterol catabolism during Mtb dormancy. As part of this PhD project, it was demonstrated that CYP142 performs an almost identical role to that reported for CYP125. These enzymes both perform C27 hydroxylation and carboxylation of the cholesterol side chain. However, variations in the level of oxidation have been identified, dependent upon the redox system with which these P450s are associated. A crystal structure of CYP142 showing high similarity in active site architecture to CYP125 supports the physiological role of CYP142 in cholesterol catabolism. Combining this with in vitro data which demonstrates that CYP142 possesses high affinity for a range of azole anti-fungal agents [Ahmad, Z. et al. 2005, 2006] supports the suggestion that it is a candidate target for the next generation of anti-mycobacterial drugs. CYP144 was highlighted as being important during the latent phase of Mtb growth, a phase that is not targeted by any of the current antimycobacterials. Work performed as part of this PhD has shown that many characteristics of CYP144 are highly comparable to those reported for other MtbP450s. CYP144 shows high affinity and specificity towards many azole molecules. Econazole, clotrimazole and miconazole have repeatedly been shown to bind to MtbP450s, including CYP144 and CYP142, with high affinity and are excellent potential candidates as novel anti-mycobacterial agents. An N-terminally truncated form of CYP144, CYP144-T, has been investigated in the pursuit of a CYP144 crystal structure. It is hoped that this will enable the elucidation of a physiological role for CYP144. Both CYP142 and CYP144 have demonstrated biochemical and biophysical characteristics that contribute to our knowledge of P450 enzymes. This PhD has established that CYP142 exhibits an equilibrium between P450 and P420 species in its CO-bound, ferrous form. A conversion from P420, and stabilisation of P450, upon substrate binding was also demonstrated. CYP144 displays unusual azole coordination characteristics when examined by EPR and removal of the CYP144 gene from Mtb increased sensitivity of the strain to clotrimazole. Studies of these enzymes has advanced knowledge of P450 and Mtb redox chemistry, established roles for the MtbP450 cohort and identified the potential of anti-mycobacterial drugs and associated targets.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Three Framing Conditions for eServices. How much do they apply to Eastern European Member States?

This paper discusses the hypothesis which positions today'spotential for IS leap-frogging in Central European Member States as the result of a relevant articulation of public reforms, eServices development, IST penetration rates and the reshaping of innovation systems.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

Bulgaria

This chapter, devoted to the Bulgarian case, forms part of a book analysing the IS take-up in 13 new Member States and Candidate Countries during the period 2000-2005JRC.J.4-Information Societ

Assessing the European Web 2.0 Landscape

Summary of WEB 2.0 work at IPTSJRC.J.4-Information Societ

European ICT Industries at the Regional Level

This article summarises the main findings publihsed in the IPTS report on ICT industries at regional levelJRC.J.4-Information Societ