Anchor entrepreneurship and industry catalysis: The rise of the Italian Biomedical Valley

Accounting for the rise of the medical device industry in the Emilia-Romagna town of Mirandola from a once depressed agricultural area in 1962 to a world-manufacturing center for dialysis equipment and disposable plastic medical devices, requires in large measure mapping the methods of the local entrepreneur who spearheaded its development. Reworking Agrawal and Cockburn's anchor-tenant hypothesis highlighting the role of large organizations in fostering agglomerations, this paper privileges the Schumpeterian entrepreneur as the dynamic force driving new industrial formations. This anchor-entrepreneur with no prior experience in manufacturing medical devices and without any public financing or large private backers founded six firms. Each of these would be sold off fairly quickly to a different large multinational corporation. Placing the anchor-entrepreneur at the center stage advances understanding of early industry evolution, spelling out how first-mover pioneers shape the environment to establish the first markets needed to attract new resources and capabilities. Underpinning our argument are 61 fine-grain interviews with key medical device industry informants in addition to extensive secondary sources and historical records. We draw on this material to induce a stylized model of anchor-entrepreneurship and industry catalysis that rests on three generative processes: bricolage, second-hand imprinting and beaconing

Anchor entrepreneurship and industry catalysis: The rise of the Italian Biomedical Valley

Accounting for the rise of the medical device industry in the Emilia-Romagna town of Mirandola from a once depressed agricultural area in 1962 to a world-manufacturing center for dialysis equipment and disposable plastic medical devices, requires in large measure mapping the methods of the local entrepreneur who spearheaded its development. Reworking Agrawal and Cockburn's anchor-tenant hypothesis highlighting the role of large organizations in fostering agglomerations, this paper privileges the Schumpeterian entrepreneur as the dynamic force driving new industrial formations. This anchor-entrepreneur with no prior experience in manufacturing medical devices and without any public financing or large private backers founded six firms. Each of these would be sold off fairly quickly to a different large multinational corporation. Placing the anchor-entrepreneur at the center stage advances understanding of early industry evolution, spelling out how first-mover pioneers shape the environment to establish the first markets needed to attract new resources and capabilities. Underpinning our argument are 61 fine-grain interviews with key medical device industry informants in addition to extensive secondary sources and historical records. We draw on this material to induce a stylized model of anchor-entrepreneurship and industry catalysis that rests on three generative processes: bricolage, second-hand imprinting and beaconing

3D Equilibrium Effects Due to RMP Application on DIII-D

The mitigation and suppression of edge localized modes (ELMs) through application of resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) in Tokamak plasmas is a well documented phenomenon. Vacuum calculations suggest the formation of edge islands and stochastic regions when RMPs are applied to the axisymmetric equilibria. Self-consistent calculations of the plasma equilibrium with the VMEC and SPEC codes have been performed for an up-down symmetric shot in DIII-D. In these codes, a self-consistent calculation of the plasma response due to the RMP coils is calculated. The VMEC code globally enforces the constraints of ideal MHD; consequently, a continuously nested family of flux surfaces is enforced throughout the plasma domain. This approach necessarily precludes the observation of islands or field-line chaos. The SPEC code relaxes the constraints of ideal MHD locally, and allows for islands and field line chaos at or near the rational surfaces. Equilibria with finite pressure gradients are approximated by a set of discrete "ideal-interfaces" at the most irrational flux surfaces and where the strongest pressure gradients are observed. Both the VMEC and SPEC calculations are initialized from EFIT reconstructions of the plasma that are consistent with the experimental pressure and current profiles. A 3D reconstruction using the STELLOPT code, which fits VMEC equilibria to experimental measurements, has also been performed. Comparisons between the equilibria generated by the 3D codes and between STELLOPT and EFIT are presented

Confirmation of the topology of the Wendelstein 7-X magnetic field to better than 1:100,000

Fusion energy research has in the past 40 years focused primarily on the tokamak concept, but recent advances in plasma theory and computational power have led to renewed interest in stellarators. The largest and most sophisticated stellarator in the world, Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), has just started operation, with the aim to show that the earlier weaknesses of this concept have been addressed successfully, and that the intrinsic advantages of the concept persist, also at plasma parameters approaching those of a future fusion power plant. Here we show the first physics results, obtained before plasma operation: that the carefully tailored topology of nested magnetic surfaces needed for good confinement is realized, and that the measured deviations are smaller than one part in 100,000. This is a significant step forward in stellarator research, since it shows that the complicated and delicate magnetic topology can be created and verified with the required accuracy.EURATOM 633053U.S. Department of Energy DE-AC02-09CH1146

Computation of multi-region relaxed magnetohydrodynamic equilibria

We describe the construction of stepped-pressure equilibria as extrema of a multi-region, relaxed magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) energy functional that combines elements of ideal MHD and Taylor relaxation, and which we call MRXMHD. The model is compatible with Hamiltonian chaos theory and allows the three-dimensional MHD equilibrium problem to be formulated in a well-posed manner suitable for computation. The energy-functional is discretized using a mixed finite-element, Fourier representation for the magnetic vector potential and the equilibrium geometry; and numerical solutions are constructed using the stepped-pressure equilibrium code, SPEC. Convergence studies with respect to radial and Fourier resolution are presented.The authors gratefully acknowledge support of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Australian Research Council, through Grants DP0452728, FT0991899, and DP110102881