Innovation and Development. The Evidence from Innovation Surveys.

In this article we investigate the existing evidence on innovation produced by innovation surveys in developing and emerging countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. We review the relevant literature, discuss methodological issues, and analyse the results for the countries with the most comparable surveys, considering the well established findings of innovation surveys for Europe as a benchmark. From the evidence we considered, regional patterns are identified and some stylized facts on innovation and development are proposed, pointing out the specificity of innovation processes in economies engaged in industrialisation and catching-up.Innovation Surveys, Patterns of Innovation, Emerging Countries.

Pengenalan Wajah Menggunakan Metode Principal Component Analysis (PCA) dan Canberra Distance

Wajah merupakan salah satu karakteristik biometrik yang digunakan untuk mengenali seseorang selain karakteristik yang lain seperti ucapan; sidik jari; retina; dll. Wajah adalah struktur multidimesi yang sangat kompleks dan membutuhkan tehnik komputasi yang baik untuk pengenalan. Di dalam penelitian ini; penulis mengambil 10 pose wajah yang berbeda kemudian menggunakan metode PCA untuk pengoptimalan dalam mereduksi dimensi. Setelah citra original di ekstraksi menggunakan PCA maka akan di hitung tingkat kesamaan (similarity degree) antara gambar test dengan gambar training menggunakan metode jarak. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah tingkat kesamaan yang dihasilkan setelah proses reduksi dan ekstraksi menggunakan PCA didapatkan rata-rata nilai untuk Canbera Distance adalah 77;59

Music in the first days of life

In adults, specific neural systems with right-hemispheric weighting are necessary to process pitch, melody and harmony, as well as structure and meaning emerging from musical sequences. To which extent does this neural specialization result from exposure to music or from neurobiological predispositions? We used fMRI to measure brain activity in 1 to 3 days old newborns while listening to Western tonal music, and to the same excerpts altered, so as to include tonal violations or dissonance. Music caused predominant right hemisphere activations in primary and higher-order auditory cortex. For altered music, activations were seen in the left inferior frontal cortex and limbic structures. Thus, the newborn's brain is able to plenty receive music and to figure out even small perceptual and structural differences in the music sequences. This neural architecture present at birth provides us the potential to process basic and complex aspects of music, a uniquely human capacity

How do companies ‘perceive’ their intangibles? New statistical evidence from the INNOBAROMETER 2013

The report provides a statistical analysis of the way European companies have shown to perceive their Intangibles in the recent Innobarometer-2013. The report is intended to complement the evidence presented in the FLASH EUROBAROMETER 369 (“Investing in Intangibles”) with a deeper investigation of both the characteristics of the available micro-data and the regularities emerging from their statistical analysis. A special focus is placed on the extent to which companies perceive their intangibles as strategic and on that to which the relative investments interplay with their innovative projects. The role of context conditions vs. that of business incentives in motivating their intangible investments is also addressed.JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growt

Structural correlates of semantic and phonemic fluency ability in first and second languages

Category and letter fluency tasks are commonly used clinically to investigate the semantic and phonological processes central to speech production, but the neural correlates of these processes are difficult to establish with functional neuroimaging because of the relatively unconstrained nature of the tasks. This study investigated whether differential performance on semantic (category) and phonemic (letter) fluency in neurologically normal participants was reflected in regional gray matter density. The participants were 59 highly proficient speakers of 2 languages. Our findings corroborate the importance of the left inferior temporal cortex in semantic relative to phonemic fluency and show this effect to be the same in a first language (L1) and second language (L2). Additionally, we show that the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) and head of caudate bilaterally are associated with phonemic more than semantic fluency, and this effect is stronger for L2 than L1 in the caudate nuclei. To further validate these structural results, we reanalyzed previously reported functional data and found that pre-SMA and left caudate activation was higher for phonemic than semantic fluency. On the basis of our findings, we also predict that lesions to the pre-SMA and caudate nuclei may have a greater impact on phonemic than semantic fluency, particularly in L2 speakers

Thalamic volume reduction in drug-naive patients with new-onset genetic generalized epilepsy

OBJECTIVE: Patients with genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE) have subtle morphologic abnormalities of the brain revealed with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), particularly in the thalamus. However, it is unclear whether morphologic abnormalities of the brain in GGE are a consequence of repeated seizures over the duration of the disease, or are a consequence of treatment with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), or are independent of these factors. Therefore, we measured brain morphometry in a cohort of AED-naive patients with GGE at disease onset. We hypothesize that drug-naive patients at disease onset have gray matter changes compared to age-matched healthy controls. METHODS: We performed quantitative measures of gray matter volume in the thalamus, putamen, caudate, pallidum, hippocampus, precuneus, prefrontal cortex, precentral cortex, and cingulate in 29 AED-naive patients with new-onset GGE and compared them to 32 age-matched healthy controls. We subsequently compared the shape of any brain structures found to differ in gray matter volume between the groups. RESULTS: The thalamus was the only structure to show reduced gray matter volume in AED-naive patients with new-onset GGE compared to healthy controls. Shape analysis revealed that the thalamus showed deflation, which was not uniformly distributed, but particularly affected a circumferential strip involving anterior, superior, posterior, and inferior regions with sparing of medial and lateral regions. SIGNIFICANCE: Structural abnormalities in the thalamus are present at the initial onset of GGE in AED-naive patients, suggesting that thalamic structural abnormality is an intrinsic feature of GGE and not a consequence of AEDs or disease duration

The shape-based method as a new approach to preliminary simulation of spacecraft attitude dynamics

LAUREA MAGISTRALENella fase preliminare della progettazione di un nuovo veicolo spaziale è spasso necessario eseguire migliaia di simulazioni per determinare il miglior compromesso tra i vari parametri che caratterizzano l'architettura dei differenti sottosistemi. In questa fase del design è importante sfruttare metodi che permettano efficienti simulazioni preliminari dei sistemi di bordo. Si è ritenuto interessante affrontare queste tecniche nel campo della dinamica d'assetto. Per caratterizzare la dinamica di assetto di un veicolo spaziale è necessario predisporre complesse simulazioni che poi andranno eseguite per un numero considerevole di casi. In questa tesi è presentata una nuova tecnica con lo scopo di affrontare questo problema, chiamata shape-based approach, un metodo già sviluppato in passato in molte discipline, soprattutto la meccanica orbitale. Questo metodo è stato storicamente impiegato per generare soluzioni approssimate per manovre low-thrust, come trasferimenti interplanetari, rendez-vous e molti altri. In questa tesi specialistica è sviluppata una nuova versione dello shape-based approach per applicarlo nel campo della simulazione della meccanica d'assetto. Per raggiungere questo obbiettivo, per prima cosa è rivista la ricerca già svolta riguardante l'applicazione di questo metodo nell'ambito della meccanica orbitale. Viene poi sviluppato un metodo capace di simulare la dinamica d'assetto sfruttando lo shape-based approach e la minimizzazione nel senso dei minimi quadrati, che verrà testato attraverso alcuni problemi selezionati per verificare i risultati ottenuti in un'ampia gamma di casi. I risultati sono commentati e le prestazioni del metodo sono valutate per dimostrarne l'efficacia. Sono presentati una serie di grafici rappresentanti la soluzione derivata con lo shape-based approach e quella attesa, inoltre viene mostrata la performance in termini di accuratezza e tempo computazionale. Vengono formulate considerazioni riguardanti l'accuratezza delle soluzioni in termini di residuo del metodo ai minimi quadrati, e il tempo computazionale necessario rispetto ai metodi di risoluzione tradizionali.In the preliminary phases of the design of a spacecraft, it is often needed to perform thousands of simulations to identify the best trade-off among many parameters which characterise the architecture of different subsystems. In these phases of the design, it is important to exploit methods that allow computationally efficient, preliminary simulations of the on-board subsystems. It is deemed interesting to address these techniques applied to the field of attitude dynamics. To characterise the attitude dynamics of a spacecraft, computationally heavy simulations are usually set up and run for a considerable number of cases. To tackle this issue a new technique is introduced in this thesis, called shape-based approach, a method applied in the past to many different fields, one among all the one of orbital mechanics. The shape-based approach has been historically used to generate approximate solutions for low-thrust trajectories. In this master thesis, a new version of this method is developed to apply the shape-based approach in the field of attitude dynamics. To achieve this, first the state of the art about the shape-based method applied to trajectory design is reviewed. A method capable of simulate attitude dynamics exploiting the shape-based approach is developed, supported by the least squares method, and it is tested against some problems selected to check the results in wide range of cases. Finally, the results are commented, and the performances of the method are evaluated to demonstrate its effectiveness. A series of graphical representations of both the dynamics simulated by the various shape functions discussed in this work and the exact solutions expected is presented, together with charts evaluating the accuracy in terms of residual of the least square method, and the computational time. Considerations about the accuracy of the solution and computational time with respect to established approaches are made

Business innovation statistics and the evolution of the Oslo Manual

After the publication of the fourth (2018) edition of the Oslo Manual, a key methodological reference for producing innovation statistics at international level, a review of the definitions of innovation – or, better, business innovation – used by the community of official statisticians has to be recommended. The main reason for such a review is the need to assess to what extent the current Oslo Manual has benefited from the rich economic and management literature on firms’ innovation produced since the publication of the previous edition in 2005. It should also be pointed out that the current Manual was expected to fix some long-standing issues like that of properly accommodating service innovation in a statistical framework constantly biased towards innovation in tangible goods and technology-related phenomena. This article argues that these challenges have been only partially met. By reviving some concepts used in the past, such as the object-oriented approach to measure innovation, and being especially concerned to make the statistical framework designed to measure business innovation applicable in other sectors of the economy (including individuals and households), some specific features of the business innovation processes may have been neglected. The Manual discusses a wide array of issues regarding the economics of innovation and management practices, however it does not define a new consistent framework able to accommodate the demand for indicators about the influence on business innovation of the ongoing processes of digitalization, servitization or open innovation and, at least partially, to adopt a service-dominant logic