Innovation, demand and structural change in Europe.

The model and the empirical test developed in this paper address the determinants of structural change for six major European economies from 1995 to 2007. The performances of sectors are explained by the unfolding of uneven technological opportunities and different conditions of demand. Building on the literature on structural change and on previous studies on the link between sectoral patterns of innovation and economic performance of sectors, a set of tests is developed on a panel of 21 manufacturing sectors and 17 services, merging three different sources of data. The results show the importance of breaking up the innovative efforts of sectors and the role of demand in shaping their trajectories of development.Structural change, Demand, Innovation, Industry-level analysis.

Psychometric test for blind adults and children, critical issues and perspectives

In literature a paucity of issues to measure cognitive functioning in the blinds is available (Rich, Anderson, 1965; Pichot, 1968; Newland, 1969; Vander Kolk, 1977; Nelson, Joyce, Dias, 2002) but in these reviews it is clear that they are not yet widely available without further support for research and development. This is particularly true for blind children. The purpose of the current study is to provide a proposal version of some of the Visual Performance Subtests adapted to blind children

Accurate Hartree-Fock vibrational branching ratios in 3σg photoionisation of N2

The authors report vibrational branching ratios for resonant photoionisation of N2 leading to the X2 Sigma g+ state of N2+. Their theoretical values are obtained from an accurate solution of the adiabatic-nuclei frozen-core Hartree-Fock model of molecular photoionisation. In contrast to other theoretical results the present results are in very good agreement with experimental measurements. Differences between the present and previous calculations are discussed

Application of the Schwinger variational principle to electron scattering

The authors present the results of the first rigorous application of the Schwinger variational principle to electron scattering with the inclusion of exchange. The results of this application to e-He scattering in the static-exchange approximation show that the Schwinger method provides accurate solutions of the scattering problem with small basis set expansions

Cycles and innovation.

This paper explores the way economic cycles influence the relationship between innovation and growth. A large literature has investigated this link in the long waves of development,focusing on the emergence of radical innovations and new technological paradigms; a parallel stream of research has examined differences in sectoral patterns of innovation and in industries’ technological regimes, emphasising their stability and persistence over time. We build on these approaches and we investigate whether the ups and downs of cycles, with changes in demand dynamics, alter the possibility to exploit the technological opportunities of sectors. Within industries’ innovative efforts, we identify on the one hand efforts based on R&D expenditure, focusing on new products and aiming at technological competitiveness and, on the other hand, investment in innovative machinery focusing on new processes and aiming at cost competitiveness.A model that explains sectoral growth in value added by combining technological and demand factors is proposed. The empirical test is based on data for six major European countries Germany, France, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands and Spain - at the level of 20 manufacturing sectors. Two upswings are considered - 1996-2000 and 2003-2007 – and their patterns are contrasted with that emerging from the downswing of 2000-2003. Results show that in upswings faster economic (and productivity) growth in industries is sustained by efforts to develop new products, while in downswings, due to a shortage of demand, process innovations aiming at restructuring result more relevant in supporting the increase in value added (or in containing its fall).Innovation, Cycles, Growth, Demand.

Variational treatment of electron-polyatomic molecule scattering calculations using adaptive overset grids

The Complex Kohn variational method for electron-polyatomic molecule scattering is formulated using an overset grid representation of the scattering wave function. The overset grid consists of a central grid and multiple dense, atom-centered subgrids that allow the simultaneous spherical expansions of the wave function about multiple centers. Scattering boundary conditions are enforced by using a basis formed by the repeated application of the free particle Green's function and potential, $\hat{G}^+_0\hat{V}$ on the overset grid in a "Born-Arnoldi" solution of the working equations. The theory is shown to be equivalent to a specific Pad\'e approximant to the $T$-matrix, and has rapid convergence properties, both in the number of numerical basis functions employed and the number of partial waves employed in the spherical expansions. The method is demonstrated in calculations on methane and CF$_4$ in the static-exchange approximation, and compared in detail with calculations performed with the numerical Schwinger variational approach based on single center expansions. An efficient procedure for operating with the free-particle Green's function and exchange operators (to which no approximation is made) is also described

Job creation in business services:Innovation, Demand, Polarisation.

The patterns and mechanisms of job creation in business services are investigated in this article by considering the role of innovation, demand, wages and the composition of employment by professional groups. A model is developed and an empirical test is carried out with parallel analyses on a group of selected business services, on other services and on manufacturing sectors,considering six major European countries over the period 1996-2007. Within technological activities a distinction is made between those supporting either technological competitiveness, or cost competitiveness. Demand variables allow identifying the special role of intermediate demand. Job creation in business services appears to be driven by efforts to expand technological competitiveness and by the fast growing intermediate demand coming from other industries; conversely, process innovation leads to job losses and wage growth has a negative effect that is lower that in other industries. Business services show an increasingly polarised employment structure.Business Services, Innovation, Employment.

A Motif-based Approach for Identifying Controversy

Among the topics discussed in Social Media, some lead to controversy. A number of recent studies have focused on the problem of identifying controversy in social media mostly based on the analysis of textual content or rely on global network structure. Such approaches have strong limitations due to the difficulty of understanding natural language, and of investigating the global network structure. In this work we show that it is possible to detect controversy in social media by exploiting network motifs, i.e., local patterns of user interaction. The proposed approach allows for a language-independent and fine- grained and efficient-to-compute analysis of user discussions and their evolution over time. The supervised model exploiting motif patterns can achieve 85% accuracy, with an improvement of 7% compared to baseline structural, propagation-based and temporal network features

Nuovi esempi di decorazione profana pittorica del Settecento veneziano

A Punishment of Midas decorates the staircase of the palace Vranyczany-Dobrinovic´ in Zagreb, the croatian National Gallery of Modern Art. The large painting is a new work of Bartolomeo Litterini, an 18th artist mainly known as a religious painter. The Triumph of Diana in venetian palazzo Zen ai Frari is now attributed to Gaetano Zompini and Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna: the ceiling is connected to decoration of the cupola in Tolentini’s church. Four new tempera paintings, with the History of Cleopatra, are presented: they were made by Domenico Fossati and Giovanni Scajario in 1776 for palace Gidoni-Bembo, Venice