El papel de los centros tecnológicos en la competitividad regional: un enfoque multicriterio

Countries adopt different policies and strategies to boost regional growth and competitiveness. R&D is one of the most important drivers of national competitiveness because of its ability to generate knowledge and convert that knowledge into useful information to improve people’s lives and maintain economic prosperity. Innovation emerges within innovation systems. Such systems encourage collaboration among institutional and economic agents. One of the main groups of agents that foster such collaboration consists of innovation intermediaries. Technology centers (TCs) are a prime example of such intermediaries, which exert a positive impact on the business sector. Given the numerous factors influencing TC efficiency, this paper studies the key variables associated with this efficiency, providing a ranking of these variables based on the views of innovation system experts. To evaluate these variables, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used. Of the six areas identified as essential for TC activity, the impact of TCs and the types of actions they undertake are the most important aspects for improving TC and business efficiency, as well as regional competitiveness. This study highlights the role of TCs in helping companies respond to challenges with innovative solutions that foster a strong, competitive, and innovative regional business sector.Los países adoptan diferentes políticas y estrategias para impulsar el crecimiento y la competitividad regional. La I+D es uno de los motores más importantes de la competitividad nacional por su capacidad de generar conocimientos y convertirlos en información útil para mejorar la vida de las personas y mantener la prosperidad económica. La innovación surge dentro de los sistemas de innovación. Estos sistemas fomentan la colaboración entre los agentes institucionales y económicos. Uno de los principales grupos de agentes que propician dicha colaboración son los intermediarios de la innovación. Los centros tecnológicos (CT) son un ejemplo excelente de estos intermediarios, que ejercen un impacto positivo en el sector empresarial. Dados los numerosos factores que influyen en la eficiencia de los CT, este artículo estudia las variables clave asociadas a esta eficiencia, proporcionando una clasificación de estas variables basada en las opiniones de los expertos en sistemas de innovación. Para evaluar estas variables, se utiliza el Proceso de Jerarquía Analítica (en inglés, Analytic Hierarchy Process, AHP). De las seis áreas identificadas como esenciales para la actividad de los CT, el impacto de los CT y los tipos de acciones que llevan a cabo son los aspectos más importantes para mejorar la eficiencia de los CT y las empresas, así como la competitividad regional. Este estudio destaca el papel de los CT para ayudar a las empresas a responder a retos con soluciones innovadoras que fomenten un sector empresarial regional fuerte, competitivo e innovador

A MCDM approach for project finance selection: An application in the renewable energy sector

Renewable energy (RE) is emerging as a solution in order to replace fossil fuels and become the primary source of energy consumption. Investments in the RE sector involve huge amounts of capital but also many risks. Public sector plays an important role in promoting RE projects but due to the need for reducing public expenditure the private sector becomes essential in financing this type of projects. Project Finance is widely used in RE projects and is especially attractive to the private sector because it can fund major projects off balance sheet. The objective of this paper is to present a decision making tool for helping the private sector on the selection process of RE projects to be funded. The problem could be considered as a multiple criteria decision-making problem where both, financial and non-financial criteria have to be taken into account. Objective aggregation weights for those criteria are obtained using the Moderate Pessimism Decision Making approach and a final ranking of the projects is obtained

R&D human resources in firms: What determines the educational level required?

This article analyses the determinants of the demand for R&D employees with different educational levels. The results from the estimations of an ordered logit model show that the main characteristics of the firms that explain the level of education required are university-firm cooperation, R&D intensity and how internal R&D activities are organized.R&D, skills, human resources,

X chromosome inactivation does not necessarily determine the severity of the phenotype in Rett syndrome patients

WOS: 000481590200024PubMed ID: 31427717Rett syndrome (RTT) is a severe neurological disorder usually caused by mutations in the MECP2 gene. Since the MECP2 gene is located on the X chromosome, X chromosome inactivation (XCI) could play a role in the wide range of phenotypic variation of RTT patients; however, classical methylation-based protocols to evaluate XCI could not determine whether the preferentially inactivated X chromosome carried the mutant or the wild-type allele. Therefore, we developed an allele-specific methylation-based assay to evaluate methylation at the loci of several recurrent MECP2 mutations. We analyzed the XCI patterns in the blood of 174 RTT patients, but we did not find a clear correlation between XCI and the clinical presentation. We also compared XCI in blood and brain cortex samples of two patients and found differences between XCI patterns in these tissues. However, RTT mainly being a neurological disease complicates the establishment of a correlation between the XCI in blood and the clinical presentation of the patients. Furthermore, we analyzed MECP2 transcript levels and found differences from the expected levels according to XCI. Many factors other than XCI could affect the RTT phenotype, which in combination could influence the clinical presentation of RTT patients to a greater extent than slight variations in the XCI pattern.Spanish Ministry of Health (Instituto de Salud Carlos III/FEDER) [PI15/01159]; Crowdfunding program PRECIPITA, from the Spanish Ministry of Health (Fundacion Espanola para la Ciencia y la Tecnologia); Catalan Association for Rett Syndrome; Fondobiorett; Mi Princesa RettWe thank all patients and their families who contributed to this study. The work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Health (Instituto de Salud Carlos III/FEDER, PI15/01159); Crowdfunding program PRECIPITA, from the Spanish Ministry of Health (Fundacion Espanola para la Ciencia y la Tecnologia); the Catalan Association for Rett Syndrome; Fondobiorett and Mi Princesa Rett