Determinants of innovativeness in SMEs. disentangling core innovation and technology adoption capabilities

This paper studies innovativeness in SMEs from a set of innovation indicators at the firm level, capturing various types of innovation (product, process, organisational, and marketing innovations) and the level of innovativeness in these firm’s developments. The article identifies two separate dimensions in the innovativeness of Spanish SMEs, using factor analysis techniques. One dimension is associated with the capabilities for core/internal innovation and the other with the capabilities for the adoption of technology. The paper shows that significant differences exist in the personal and organisational factors that favour these two dimensions. The entrepreneur’s motivation, business planning, and cooperation in R&D activities constitute significant factors when considering the core dimension of a firm’s innovativeness, but have no effect on the firm’s capabilities for technology adoption. However, the use of external consultancy services seems to have no significant effect on the core dimension of the innovativeness of anSME, whereas it is a relevant factor for its technology adoption. Furthermore, it is shown that the entrepreneur’s education plays a more significant role in the core dimension of a firm’s innovativeness than in its capabilities for technology adoption. Depending on the policy objectives, these differences should lead to the application of specific policy approaches when an attempt to stimulate innovation in SMEs is made

Variational Principles for multisymplectic second-order classical field theories

We state a unified geometrical version of the variational principles for second-order classical field theories. The standard Lagrangian and Hamiltonian variational principles and the corresponding field equations are recovered from this unified framework.Comment: 6 pp. Minor corrections. Clarifications and comments have been added. Two new sections ("Introduction" and "The higher-order case") have been added. Bibliography enlarge

Determinants of technology adoption in the retail trade industry - the case of SMEs in Spain

This paper analyzes the determinants of small and medium-sized enterprises’ technology adoption in the retail trade industry. From the theoretical perspective, two types of influential factors are differentiated in this respect: the personal characteristics of the manager/business owner and the business’s organizational characteristics. The empirical analysis is based on a survey of 268 small and medium-sized enterprises in the Spanish retail trade sector. A logistic regression specification is used as an econometric method. The results indicate that both the acquisition of new technical and electronic equipment and the obtaining of new software are affected by the two types of determinants previously pointed out. The manager/business owner’s entrepreneurial motivation and educational background have significant influences on technology adoption in this type of companies. Furthermore, being part of a business group, carrying out training activities for the employees and inter-firm cooperation also positively influence technology adoption in the retail trade industry

A new multisymplectic unified formalism for second-order classical field theories

We present a new multisymplectic framework for second-order classical field theories which is based on an extension of the unified Lagrangian-Hamiltonian formalism to these kinds of systems. This model provides a straightforward and simple way to define the Poincar\'e-Cartan form and clarifies the construction of the Legendre map (univocally obtained as a consequence of the constraint algorithm). Likewise, it removes the undesirable arbitrariness in the solutions to the field equations, which are analyzed in-depth, and written in terms of holonomic sections and multivector fields. Our treatment therefore completes previous attempt to achieve this aim. The formulation is applied to describing some physical examples; in particular, to giving another alternative multisymplectic description of the Korteweg-de Vries equation.Comment: 52 pp. Revision of our previous paper. Minor corrections on the statement of some results. A new example is added (Section 6.1). Conclusions and bibliography have been enlarged, and some comments on the higher-order case have been adde

Application of conjugation to produce genetically modified lactobacilli

Lactic acid bacteria play a crucial role in the production of dairy food products, as well as in human and animal health as part of the microbiota. In particular, lactobacilli strains are well-known for their properties as probiotics and hence, they constitute an ideal candidate for therapeutic molecules delivery in humans. Despite their potential in the industry and biomedical applications, the genetic modification of this group is challenging due to their low transformation efficiency and complex diversity, especially in wild type strains. Recently, bacterial conjugation from Escherichia coli to lactobacilli strains has been successfully performed, opening a wide range of new possibilities; however, conjugation frequencies obtained were low. In this work we have tried to optimize this conjugation protocol to lactobacilli strains. First, several parameters of the protocol were modified such as the growth phases and the ratios between donors and recipients. During these experiments we have not seen an increase of the conjugation frequency; in fact, a decrease was observed under some conditions. We have also studied the effect of DNA methylation in bacterial conjugation frequencies using as donor an E. coli strain with a mutation in the DNA-cytosine methyltransferase system, in order to avoid restriction systems in the recipient. No increase in the transfer frequency of unmethylated DNA was observed. Finally, we have designed two different plasmid systems in order to combine bacterial conjugation with homologous recombination techniques to perform specific gene modifications in the recipient cell.Máster en Biología Molecular y Biomedicin

Unified formalism for the generalized kth-order Hamilton-Jacobi problem

The geometric formulation of the Hamilton-Jacobi theory enables us to generalize it to systems of higher-order ordinary differential equations. In this work we introduce the unified Lagrangian-Hamiltonian formalism for the geometric Hamilton-Jacobi theory on higher-order autonomous dynamical systems described by regular Lagrangian functions.Comment: 9pp. Revised version: Minor corrections done. Second part of our previous work arXiv:1309.2166. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1309.216

Hamilton-Jacobi theory in multisymplectic classical field theories

The geometric framework for the Hamilton-Jacobi theory developed in previous works is extended for multisymplectic first-order classical field theories. The Hamilton-Jacobi problem is stated for the Lagrangian and the Hamiltonian formalisms of these theories as a particular case of a more general problem, and the classical Hamilton-Jacobi equation for field theories is recovered from this geometrical setting. Particular and complete solutions to these problems are defined and characterized in several equivalent ways in both formalisms, and the equivalence between them is proved. The use of distributions in jet bundles that represent the solutions to the field equations is the fundamental tool in this formulation. Some examples are analyzed and, in particular, the Hamilton-Jacobi equation for non-autonomous mechanical systems is obtained as a special case of our results.Comment: 44 p

La actividad de búsquedas en Google anticipa los resultados electorales

Aquest treball de recerca pretén analitzar la utilitat d'ús de les estadístiques de cerca a Google a l'hora d'explicar i/o predir diferents esdeveniments. En aquest estudi proposem un model economètric de dades de panell que demostra que les estadístiques de cerca de Google tenen capacitat explicativa i predictiva sobre l'evolució de la intenció de vot en les eleccions espanyoles. La relació entre ambdues variables és significativa, positiva i amb un coeficient superior a la unitat; per tant, si les estadístiques de cerca de Google augmenten d’un punt, interpretarem que la intenció de vot augmentarà de més d'un 1% del cens electoral.This research aims to analyze the usefulness of Google searching activity to explaining and/or predicting different events. In this study we propose a panel data econometric model that shows that Google search statistics have explanatory and predictive capacity on the evolution of voting intentions in the Spanish elections. The relationship between votes and searches is significant, positive and has a coefficient greater than unity, so that if Google search statistics increase in 1 point, voting intention increases by more than 1% of the electorate.Este trabajo de investigación pretende analizar la utilidad de uso de las estadísticas de búsqueda en Google a la hora de explicar y/o predecir diferentes acontecimientos. En este estudio proponemos un modelo econométrico de datos de panel que demuestra que las estadísticas de búsqueda de Google tienen capacidad explicativa y predictiva sobre la evolución de la intención de voto en las elecciones españolas. La relación entre ambas variables es significativa, positiva y con un coeficiente superior a la unidad; por lo que si las estadísticas de búsqueda de Google aumentan en un punto interpretaremos que la intención de voto aumentará en más de un 1 % del censo electoral