415 research outputs found
A gap in competencies or in capabilities?: the role of regional universities in developing scientific and technological skills in Campania
A gap in competencies or in capabilities?: the role of regional universities in developing scientific and technological skills in Campania The paper assesses the role of universities in resolving the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skills gap in the Campania region of Southern Italy. The results are shown to hinge on a doubled supply/demand model, involving a first upstream stage (logically if not chronologically) of derived demands for and supplies of STEM-based skill development within universities, and a second downstream stage of the usage of these skills in industrial firms. The main objective of this work is to re-examine the role of conventional âknowledge capitalâ arguments for the role of universities in development processes in catching-up regions of the EU â i.e. human capital and R&D capital, or what will be identified here as âcompetenciesâ â as against what we refer to as âcapabilitiesâ arguments, reflected here in better ways in which universities might adapt to the actual needs of industry for highly skilled workers and research outcomes. The results suggest that the STEM skills gap is not clearly a deficiency just in capabilities, but more so in the links between capabilities and competencies. Moreover, the STEM universities are trying to feed the interaction with industry, however it is still left mostly to the personal relationships of the professors or their administrative counterparts, e.g. head of the T&T office, and/or to placement. Key words: Derived demand and supply, STEM subjects, Mezzogiorno region, skills gap, competencies and capabilities.
TECHNOLOGICAL FIELDS AND CONCENTRATION OF INNOVATION AMONG FOOD AND BEVERAGE MULTINATIONALS
With a sample of nearly 18,611 utility patents, this paper studies the technology mix of 90 of the world's leading food and beverage multinationals (FBMs) over 1969-1994. It explores the statistical association between patenting in food technology and in non-food technological fields. Food patenting is always associated with patenting in Biotech, Chemistry, Machinery and Other patenting, whatever the home country of the company. The strength of the association, however, could vary. Herfindahl indices show that capabilities in core technology and in Machinery and Other fields are spread among many FBMs. Though to a lesser extent, technical capabilities in Biotechnology, Packaging and Refrigeration are also dispersed. By contrast, patenting in Tobacco, Chemistry and Drugs is concentrated.Agribusiness, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,
Transferring new dynamic capabilities to SMEs: the role of ONERA â the French Aerospace LabTM in promoting asymmetries management
The technology transfer process between a public laboratory and a company has been the subject of many publications and has been widely discussed in economic theory. This paper highlights several newly identified asymmetries occurring between the different agents taking part in the process, dealing specifically with the aerospace and defense sectors in France. These specificities concern the characteristics, capabilities and competencies (the âcapacities') of French SMEs and public research laboratories. The theoretical corpus of the article draws partly upon the analyses of âdynamic and interactive capabilities' (and competencies), and for the rest upon empirical sources, being based on the recent experience of one of the most dynamic Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in France: the case of ONERA (the National Office for Aerospace Studies and Research) and its dyadic relations with the SMEs. In such a cooperative, interactive innovation process, we will argue that certain collaborative tools or practices emerge, aimed at reducing information asymmetries or acting as compensation mechanisms for other types of asymmetries between the partners at a microeconomic level; especially in France where there is a gap between the public R&D laboratories and the SMEs in terms of Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs). Some of these compensation mechanisms, particularly those related to the knowledge economy, could be adapted and reshaped for agents engaged in R&D and innovation in various other sectors, perhaps inducing positive amplification effects on innovation behavior, and thereby on economic growth at the macroeconomic level within the ânational innovation systemâ. This research work initiated by the author further to his economic research works on âinnovation actors' asymmetriesâ (Paun, F., 2009) and âhybridizing tendency of the innovation approachesâ (Paun, F., 2010) is based on the empirical study about eighty SMEs partners of ONERA coordinated by Florin Paun as Deputy Director in charge with Industrial Innovation at ONERA in order to better understand the barriers perceived inside this relationship and with the aim to envisage systemic solutions for accelerating innovation. A specific questionnaire has been developed by Florin Paun and more then forty interviews have been thus conducted with scientists and industrial representatives involved in direct collaborations linked to technology or knowledge transfer.French SMEs, technology transfer, information asymmetries, dynamic capabilities, innovation systems
The Diffusion of the Steam Engine in Eighteenth-Century Britain
revolution, economic growth, steam, technological
Gravitational Lensing by Spinning Black Holes in Astrophysics, and in the Movie Interstellar
Interstellar is the first Hollywood movie to attempt depicting a black hole
as it would actually be seen by somebody nearby. For this we developed a code
called DNGR (Double Negative Gravitational Renderer) to solve the equations for
ray-bundle (light-beam) propagation through the curved spacetime of a spinning
(Kerr) black hole, and to render IMAX-quality, rapidly changing images. Our
ray-bundle techniques were crucial for achieving IMAX-quality smoothness
without flickering.
This paper has four purposes: (i) To describe DNGR for physicists and CGI
practitioners . (ii) To present the equations we use, when the camera is in
arbitrary motion at an arbitrary location near a Kerr black hole, for mapping
light sources to camera images via elliptical ray bundles. (iii) To describe
new insights, from DNGR, into gravitational lensing when the camera is near the
spinning black hole, rather than far away as in almost all prior studies. (iv)
To describe how the images of the black hole Gargantua and its accretion disk,
in the movie \emph{Interstellar}, were generated with DNGR. There are no new
astrophysical insights in this accretion-disk section of the paper, but disk
novices may find it pedagogically interesting, and movie buffs may find its
discussions of Interstellar interesting.Comment: 46 pages, 17 figure
Visualizing Interstellar's Wormhole
Christopher Nolan's science fiction movie Interstellar offers a variety of
opportunities for students in elementary courses on general relativity theory.
This paper describes such opportunities, including: (i) At the motivational
level, the manner in which elementary relativity concepts underlie the wormhole
visualizations seen in the movie. (ii) At the briefest computational level,
instructive calculations with simple but intriguing wormhole metrics,
including, e.g., constructing embedding diagrams for the three-parameter
wormhole that was used by our visual effects team and Christopher Nolan in
scoping out possible wormhole geometries for the movie. (iii) Combining the
proper reference frame of a camera with solutions of the geodesic equation, to
construct a light-ray-tracing map backward in time from a camera's local sky to
a wormhole's two celestial spheres. (iv) Implementing this map, for example in
Mathematica, Maple or Matlab, and using that implementation to construct images
of what a camera sees when near or inside a wormhole. (v) With the student's
implementation, exploring how the wormhole's three parameters influence what
the camera sees---which is precisely how Christopher Nolan, using our
implementation, chose the parameters for \emph{Interstellar}'s wormhole. (vi)
Using the student's implementation, exploring the wormhole's Einstein ring, and
particularly the peculiar motions of star images near the ring; and exploring
what it looks like to travel through a wormhole.Comment: 14 pages and 13 figures. In press at American Journal of Physics.
Minor revisions; primarily insertion of a new, long reference 15 at the end
of Section II.
What hampers innovation? Evidence from the UK CIS4
barriers to innovation, innovative firms, non-innovators
Non-malarial, remittent, and other fevers; and the thallophyte blood parasite associated with them
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