Innovating in the textile industry: An uncoordinated dance between firms and their territory?

Considering the process of innovati on development, this paper aimed to examine the eff ect of diff erent dimensions of proximity and the level of coordinati on that exists in a texti le cluster. This study employed a qualitati ve method, based on indepth interviews that were conducted with two leading fi rms in a texti le cluster in Valencia, Spain, which is subject to intense competi ti on from producers in Asia. Firms were selected according to the criteria of innovati on development and opportunity. This is a pilot study that precedes a more ambiti ous one. The results suggested that fi rms' innovati ons are developed in an isolated, disconti nuous, marginal, and uncoordinated way, and clustering has a marginal eff ect. Furthermore, despite high geographical and cogniti ve proximity, low social proximity is maintained by the low level of trust between the fi rms. These fi ndings may be of signifi cant practi cal value for practi ti oners and insti tuti ons. Firms can gain a bett er understanding of the importance of being located in a cluster, as this is a key factor for their survival under intense competi ti on. However, geographical proximity is not suffi cient, and fi rms need to cooperate with each other and share their ideas and experiences. In additi on, insti tuti ons should interact more with companies, speak their language, meet their needs, and devise strong cluster initi ati ves. This study provides a more comprehensive understanding of how insti tuti ons and fi rms interact within a cluster in the process of innovati on development and elaborate upon diff erent dimensions of proximity among fi rm

Analyse préliminaire de la situation et des perspectives de la culture du haricot de Lima (Phaseolus lunatus L.) sur la Côte péruvienne (Vallées d'Ica, Pisco et Casma)

Preliminary analysis of the situation and prospects of the Lima bean crop (Phaseolus lunatus L.) in the Peruvian Coast (Valleys of Ica, Pisco and Casma). The Lima bean, Phaseolus lunatus L., is a crop of regional importance on the Peruvian Coast. Within the framework of a collaborative project between the ""faculté universitaire des Sciences agronomiques'"" in Gembloux and the ""Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina"" in Lima, we carried out a diagnosis of this speculation in the Ica, Pisco and Casma valleys in order to define the constraints which limit crop yields and to suggest improvements within the reach of the smallholders. To achieve these objectives we carried out a formal survey, centred on the Lima bean crop and smallholder relations with the agro-socio-economical environment, and an informal survey, centred on the studied farm systems. To complete these data we met some key informants belonging to all the sectors in contact with agriculture. This study allowed us to identify five undersystems in the farm systems of the Peruvian Coastal Valleys. These undersystems are: cotton, commercial food crops, self-subsistence food crops, livestock and fruit trees. The Lima bean usually belongs to the commercial food crops undersystem. There are two types of constraints. External constraints affect all the components of the farm system and are mainly: end of State support to agriculture, liberalization of trade and unavailability of credit. Internal constraints directly affect the Lima bean crop. Low income leads to a deficiency in pest control and adequate crop management. The Lima bean is also in competition with other components of the system such as cotton and common bean

Self-pulsing dynamics of ultrasound in a magnetoacoustic resonator

A theoretical model of parametric magnetostrictive generator of ultrasound is considered, taking into account magnetic and magnetoacoustic nonlinearities. The stability and temporal dynamics of the system is analized with standard techniques revealing that, for a given set of parameters, the model presents a homoclinic or saddle--loop bifurcation, which predicts that the ultrasound is emitted in the form of pulses or spikes with arbitrarily low frequency.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Ultrasonic evaluation of the hydration degree of the orange peel

The elastic parameters of fruit and vegetables are normally monitored in quality control processes as there is a good correlation to the degrees of firmness, turgidity and humidity. These parameters have been traditionally measured by means of penetration tests, which are destructive. This has resulted in the increased attention recently given to ultrasonic techniques applied to the quality evaluation of horticultural commodities. Nevertheless, since most of the fruit and vegetables display a viscoelastic behavior, the penetration test should be considered to be quasi-static, especially when compared with the speeds associated with the ultrasonic tests. Both methods should provide different values for the elastic parameters. The aim of this work is to study this discrepancy in the values of the elastic parameters and interpret the elastodynamic behavior of the vegetable tissue under an ultrasound test. Thus, the paper presents an ultrasonic nondestructive method to evaluate the elastic parameters of the sweet orange peel at 40. kHz. The complete dehydration process of two sets of oranges (Navelina and Ortanique) was monitored for 2. months. A linear elastic solid model with viscous losses was numerically solved using a simulation scheme based on a 3D-Spherical FDTD method (Finite-Difference Time-Domain) in order to interpret the results, which proved that the elastic parameters obtained by penetration and ultrasonic tests differ. The method provides an empirical relation between the hydration state and the elastic parameters of the orange peel. Therefore, the proposed ultrasonic test reported in this work is capable of determining the hydration state of the orange simply by measuring the propagation speed of the Rayleigh waves on the orange peel, and hence, can be used as a fruit quality index during postharvest processes. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.This study was supported by the Programa de Apoyo a la Investigacion y Desarrollo (PAID-05-09-002-618), (PAID-06-10-002-295) of Universidad Politecnica de Valencia. The authors would like to thank K. Y. Foo, from the University of Birmingham and P. Malischewsky from the University Friedrich-Schiller at Jena, for the fruitful discussions regarding surface acoustic waves.Jimenez, N.; Picó Vila, R.; Camarena Femenia, F.; Redondo, J.; Roig, B. (2012). Ultrasonic evaluation of the hydration degree of the orange peel. Postharvest Biology and Technology. 67:130-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postharvbio.2011.12.020S1301376

Prospects for probing the gluon density in protons using heavy quarkonium hadroproduction

We examine carefully bottomonia hadroproduction in proton colliders, especially focusing on the LHC, as a way of probing the gluon density in protons. To this end we develop some previous work, getting quantitative predictions and concluding that our proposal can be useful to perform consistency checks of the parameterization sets of different parton distribution functions.Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages, 6 EPS figure

A mobile data acquisition system

A mobile data aquisition (MobiDAQ) was developed for the ATLAS central hadronic calorimeter (TileCal). MobiDAQ has been designed in order to test the functionalities of the TileCal front-end electronics and to acquire calibration data before the final back-end electronics were built and tested. MobiDAQ was also used to record the first cosmic ray events acquired by an ATLAS subdetector in the underground experimental area

Space-oriented navigation solutions with integrated sensor-suite: the I3DS H2020 project

In all orbital applications, such as on-orbit servicing and repair, rendezvous and docking, active debrisremoval (ADR), and planetary applications, such as exploration of unknown environments for scientificpurposes by means of rovers, GPS-denied navigation aspects have a very large impact on the successfuloutcome of missions. Having a sensor suite, and hence several different sensors, also requires, at the sametime, a suite of navigation algorithms able to deal with different kinds of inputs. Some of them, however,can be shared between multiple sensors, after thorough pre-processing of the raw data. Additionally, thesame kind of sensor can require two different navigation algorithms depending on the scenario. The workdescribed in this paper aims to present and critically discuss the approach to precise relative navigationsolutions with a complete suite of sensors and their performance in different space-oriented applicationscenarios.Standalone navigation filters are examined. In the case of a high-resolution camera for an orbitalscenario, the pose of a target, with respect to a chaser, can be thoroughly obtained with the aid offiducial markers. Stereo camera-based navigation is also addressed with visual odometry. In the case of astereo camera the problem of scale estimation during odometry is solved by means of triangulation. Sincethe outputs of the sensor-suite are also dense 3D point clouds, Iterative Closest Point and Histogram ofDistances (HoD) with Kalman filter approaches are analyzed, paying attention to the provision of correctsensor characterization. The results for each filter are exhaustively examined, highlighting their strengthsand the points where some improvements can be achieve