Agents intentionality, capabilities and the performance of Systems of Innovation

We are interested on why and how an economic system evolves and, in particular, on the causes of the differences across systems of innovation (SI). SI’s performance differs substantially because there are specific causes at work, apart from the differences in the underlying technologies, institutions, etc. In particular, we refer to the intentionality of the agents interacting within a system for innovation to find out the relationship between agents’ goals, SI’s performance and its policy implications. The underlying thesis in this paper is that agent intentionality is a necessary condition for a substantive explanation of the dynamism of any socio-economic system. The paper departs from an abstract definition of a system as a set of constitutive elements and the connections among them serving a common purpose. And explores how intentionality shapes the structure, evolution and performance of an SI. In this context an evolutionary efficiency criterion is proposed.systems of innovation; intentionality; evolving capabilities; evolutionary efficiency.

Action Plans and Socio-Economic Evolutionary Change

An important challenge to evolutionary economics consists of how to tackle with the dramatic tension between purposeful human action and the ‘blindness’ of evolutionary processes. On the one hand, economic action, if rational, has to be planned (which implies purposeful ordering of the means used to achieve objectives). On the other hand, an evolutionary process involves both the emergence of novelties (both intended innovations and unintended consequences of actions) and properties that manifest at meso and macro levels. Some recent papers have insisted on these issues. However, few analytical tools are yet available to cope with both, the analysis of intended dynamic action and ‘blind’ evolution. In this paper we propose the so-called ‘action plan approach’, a theoretical framework which could be useful for this task. The development of tools that permit us to analyze how individuals construct their plans, the projective (conjectural) and interactive nature of action, and the learning processes involved in ‘planning and acting’, may help us identifying and understanding new sources of complexity of economic processes. The close relationship of the ‘action plan approach’ with other systemic conceptual approaches is also highlighted.connections, action plans; novelty; intentionality; evolutionary economic process

Miradas hiperbólicas: los cuentos de Pilar Adón y Mercedes Cebrián

Este ensayo analiza dos volúmenes de cuentos: El mes más cruel (2010), de Pilar Adón, y El malestar al alcance de todos (2004), de Mercedes Cebrián. La ironía es uno de los recursos más y mejor utilizados por las autoras españolas actuales, y de él se vale con maestría Mercedes Cebrián en su colección de cuentos, además de la sátira, la parodia y el humor, para aproximarse a la sociedad actual. Por otro lado, el lirismo caracteriza la narrativa de Pilar Adón y el tono de sus cuentos conforma un mundo propio al que el lector tiene acceso sin plena seguridad de lo que allí ocurre, aunque sí comprobará siempre experiencias de dominación y sometimiento. Una perspectiva feminista es común a las dos obras. Nuestro artículo enfoca estos y otros aspectos. Algunos estudios de Marc Augé, Zygmunt Bauman, Rosi Braidotti y Judith Butler, entre otros, fundamentan nuestras reflexiones

‘Ethical Novelty’: new insights into economic change

Agents’ knowledge combines their perception of what reality is with their conception of what reality should be. “Ethical dynamics” refers to the evolution in the latter conception. This is a key element to explain changes in agents’ objectives of action, which usually do not result simply from interaction or “cognitive dynamics”. “Ethical novelties” are important sources of economic change. They consist of changes in the structure of action objectives which result from ethical dynamics.knowledge; action plan; ethical novelty; cognitive and ethical dynamics; economic change

Efficient Spectral Domain MoM for the Design of Circularly Polarized Reflectarray Antennas Made of Split Rings

The method of moments (MoM) in the spectral domain is used for the analysis of the scattering of a plane wave by a multilayered periodic structure containing conducting concentric split rings in the unit cell. Basis functions accounting for edge singularities are used in the approximation of the current density on the split rings, which makes it possible a fast convergence of MoM with respect to the number of basis functions. Since the 2-D Fourier transforms of the basis functions cannot be obtained in closed-form, judicious tricks (controlled truncation of infinite summations, interpolations, etc.) are used for the efficient numerical determination of these Fourier transforms. The implemented spectral domain MoM software has been used in the design of a circularly polarized reflectarray antenna based on split rings under the local periodicity condition. The antenna has been analyzed with our spectral domain MoM software, with CST and with HFSS, and good agreement has been found among all sets of results. Our software has proven to be around 27 times faster than CST and HFSS

Eficiencia evolutiva en los sistemas económicos: Una propuesta

The paper proposes an efficiency criterion for evolving economic systems. Drawing on the idea that these systems develop from the interconnected actions of intentional creative agents (which invent and try to carry out action plans), the suggested criterion at a micro level could be state as follows: a system is efficient (from a micro evolutionary perspective) if agents’ intentional and hierarchical (open) goals are actualized through action. Thus, intentionality leads to facts and goals are reached. The evolutionary efficiency criterion proposed in the paper links the intended goals of heterogeneous agents and the performance of the system they are involved.En este trabajo se propone un criterio de eficiencia para los sistemas económicos evolutivos. Basándose en la idea de que estos sistemas se desarrollan a partir de acciones intencionales desplegadas por parte de los agentes creativos (que inventan los planes de acción y tratan de llevarlos a cabo), el criterio sugerido a un micro-nivel podría establecerse como sigue: un sistema es eficiente (desde la perspectiva micro evolutiva) si los objetivos (abiertos) intencionales y jerárquicos de los agentes se materializan a través de la acción. El criterio de eficiencia evolutiva propuesto en el documento vincula los objetivos propuestos por los agentes heterogéneos y el rendimiento del sistema en el que están inmerso