international R&D spillovers and technological performance in the French economy: an empirical study using random coefficient models

International audienceThe existence of R&D spillovers or externalities i.e. the effects of firms' research activities on other firms activities was theoretically established by Arrow 1962, but few empirical studies have addressed their effects on firms' economic performance (i.e., value-added) and technological performance (innovation output). In an open economy, firms' economic and technological performances depend on the position of these firms in their national and international technological environments. The main focus of this paper is identifying the different channels through which spillover occurs, specially the international technology spillovers (i.e., R&D activities of foreign firms; foreign technology payments; international intermediate inputs; and international R&D cooperation) and the mobility of engineers and scientists between firms. Our statistical and econometric analysis determines that spillovers drive the production of individual firms together and link it to the incidence of innovations. Thus, using a pooling method based on segmentation of bunched (or grouped) individuals rather than those of usual individuals panel models and proposing an efficient new full information method (3SLS) , this empirical study shows that international spillovers are rather large compared to national spillovers. They account for a substantial fraction of the variation in firm production and innovation output in the French economy

Workshop 2 - Intro to Microsoft Power BI

PowerBI is an interactive data visualization and reporting tool that is used in businesses. In this workshop, you will learn how to apply Power BI for best practices that are in line with current businesses and technical requirements for extracting, loading, modeling, visualizing, and analyzing data

Introduction: Early Career Researcher Issue IX

In lieu of an abstract, we include here the first paragraph of the introduction: With this issue, gender forum continues its series of Early Career Researcher Issues, which invite scholars in the early stages of theiracademic careers to publish scholarly articles and reviews that investigate notions of gender and sexuality in (Anglophone) literature and culture. I had the pleasure to act as guest editor for this issue, collaborating initially with my fellow Ph.D. student Alexandra Novacov under the supervision of Judith Rauscher, one of the general editors of gender forum , and then, after Alexandra had to withdraw from the project for organizational reasons, with Judith Rauscher. Being able to work with other early career researchers on their papers for a peer reviewed, open access publication like gender forum has offered me the opportunity to gain insights into processes of scholarly publishing that sometimes remain behind closed doors. It has been wonderful to be part of a publication project that commits to facilitating the discursive participation as well as to promoting a higher visibility of the work of early career researches in the academic community, including researchers from outside Germany

Survey on Indigenous Chicken Production and Utilization Systems in Southern Zone of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia

The survey was carried out in southern zone of Tigray to generate information on village based indigenous chicken production and utilization system. The results of the study showed that the dominant chicken production system of the study area was a backyard extensive system using majority of indigenous chicken (92.67%) managed mainly on scavenging with conditional feed supplementation. The mean chicken flock size per household of the study area was 7.91±0.4 chickens. The survey indicated that almost all farmers provided night shelter for their chickens. Broody hens were the sole means of egg incubation and chick brooding in the study area. The result also showed that the average age of male at firs mating and female at first egg were 6.23±0.06 and 6.74±0.05 months, respectively. The number of clutch per hen per year, eggs per clutch and total eggs produced per hen per year were 4.25±0.07, 14.9±0.32 and 63.2±1.75 eggs, respectively. The hatchability and survival rate of chicks were 84.22% and 58.71%. Most chicken keepers in the study area had the tradition of selecting chicken for replacement stock. Body size, plumage color, body conformation, comb type, egg production performance and responsiveness to predators were the major means of selection. Chicken diseases and predators were considered to be the largest threat to village chicken production. The survey indicated low productivity of indigenous chickens; hence appropriate interventions particularly on the improvement of breed, health care, housing, and feeding are required. Therefore, efforts need to be made to improve the productivity of village chickens in sustainable way through a holistic approach in services like health, husbandry, research, extension, training and credit interventions. Keywords: Chicken disease, indigenous chicken, predators, productivity, scavengin

Evaluation of heterosis, maternal and reciprocal effects on different traits of Fayoumi and White Leghorn crossbreeds

Several studies were conducted on evaluation of heterosis, maternal and reciprocal-effects for different chicken breeds. However, there is a limited information on the heterosis, maternal and reciprocal-effect for crossbreed of Fayoumi and White Leghorn. Therefore; this study was designed to evaluate the heterosis, maternal and reciprocal effects on different traits for crossbreed of Fayoumi and White Leghorn from day-old to age at first egg. A total of six hundred chicks were selected,150 from each genotype and evaluated  simultaneously under the same management. The specific and general heterosis, maternal, and reciprocal effects were estimated for all traits. The heterosis of body weight ranged from 3.06 to 21.31% for the main and 1.35 to 14.89% the reciprocal crossbred, which is within the recommended range (-6.5-26.2%). The heterosis of weight gain ranged from -0.07 to 33.03%. The F1 of Fayoumi cocks and White Leghorn hens exhibited a higher positive heterotic recorded for the body weight at first egg. The main and reciprocal crossbreds had negative heterotic for age at first egg and lies within the recommended range of (-25 and 11.5 %). The effect of maternity on body weight was found to be more favorable at brooder age for Fayoumi breed while it was at grower age for White leghorn. Negative estimates were observed for maternal and reciprocal effects on body weight at day-old, 20 weeks, and age at first egg; weight gain at 8-12 and 16- 20 weeks; feed intake at 0-4 and 12-20 weeks; feed conversion efficiency at 0-8 and 16-20 weeks; and egg weight at first egg. Generally, this study concluded that the crosses between WLH hen and Fayoumi cock produced progenies that are more feed efficient and produced heavier eggs than their main crossbred. Keywords: Crossbreed; Fayoumi; Heterosis; Maternal; Reciprocal; White Leghor

Effect of Dates and Methods of Sowing with and without Hydropriming on Growth, Phenology and Yield of Sorghum under Semi Arid Conditions of Eritrea

A study was carried out at the research farm of Hamelmalo Agricultural College during summer 2015 to study the effect of dates and methods of sowing with and without hydro-priming on growth, development and yield of sorghum. The experiment consisted of 2 factors- three dates of sowing viz. D0 (Sowing before the onset of first summer rain, June 30), D1 (Sowing with the onset of first summer rains, July 7) and D2 (Sowing after the onset of summer rains, July 14) and three methods of sowing viz. SP (Direct sowing with hydro seed priming), TR (Transplanting) and DS (Direct sowing without hydro seed priming). The experiment was conducted in split plot design with 4 replications by keeping dates of sowing in the main plots and methods of sowing in the sub plots. The data on growth parameters, crop phenology, yield components and yield were recorded. The data were analysed using GENSTAT software and inferences were drawn by using LSD at 5% level of significance. Sowing methods significantly affected leaf area and leaf area index but sowing dates and their interaction with sowing methods did not show significant difference. Stand count, plant height, phenological parameters, thousand grain weight, grain and biomass yield were significantly affected by the sowing dates and methods but no significant difference in their interaction on all the parameters except in stand count and phenological parameters. Sowing before the onset of first summer rains (D0) resulted in significantly highest grain yield. Among the sowing methods, transplanting resulted in significantly higher grain yield seconded by direct sowing with hydro seed priming. Transplanting is less profitable and practicable as it is more laborious and difficult to apply in larger areas

Effects of Neem (Azadirachta indica) and Pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima) Seeds and their Combination as Feed Additive on Intake, Muscle chemical composition, Sensory Quality and Hematology of Broilers

A study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of feeding neem (Azadirachta indica) and pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima) seed as natural feed additive for broiler chicks on dry matter intake, mortality, meat quality and blood parameters of broilers. One hundred ninety two day-old Cobb 500 chicks distributed to four treatments with three replications in a completely randomized design. Feed offered and refusals were recorded and Dry matter intake was calculated as the difference between the two on dry matter basis. At the end of the trial, four broilers were randomly picked up from each replication and slaughtered for carcass evaluation and the treatment used were ration that contain only commercial broiler diet (0 kg Neem and pumpkin seed (0NS-PS)), 1kg neem seed on 100kg commercial broiler diet (1NS), 1kg pumpkin seed on 100kg commercial broiler diet (1PS) and 1kg of neem and pumpkin seed combination on 100kg of commercial broiler diet (1NS-PS) stands for Treatment1, Treatment 2, Treatment 3 and Treatment 4 respectively. The average daily dry matter intake during the entire experimental period was 106, 111, 114 and 117 g/ bird for 0NS-PS, 1NS, 1PS and 1NS-PS respectively, and it was significantly higher (p<0.05) for 1NS-PS as compared to 0NS-PS, 1NS and 1PS. The serum cholesterol and white blood cell of broilers in the experimental period were significantly (p<0.05) decreased but total blood protein was significantly (p< 0.05) increased among treatment. Crude protein content of breast and thigh meat was significantly high for 1NS-PS. It is concluded that neem and pumpkin seed can be a good feed additive for broiler production aside its nutritional importance. Key words: Broiler; Feed additive; Hematology; Neem and Pumpkin seed