1,784 research outputs found
The growth dynamics of technology-based firms in Scotland
In recent years high growth firms (HGFs) undertaking rapid, transformative growth, have been identified as important contributors to economic growth (Acs et al, 2008; Anyadike-Danes et al, 2009; OECD, 2010). For a wide variety of reasons, notably their contribution to employment growth, high export intensity, strong contribution to productivity growth and innovation, HGFs have been hailed as vital drivers of economic competitiveness (Henrekson and Johansson, 2010). As a consequence, these firms (often referred to as 'gazelles'), have been accorded a central role in many economic development strategies at both national and regional levels, especially during a time of economic austerity where employment growth has been an overriding policy goal for many governments (BERR, 2008; NESTA, 2011; OECD, 2010; Scottish Enterprise, 2011). Yet despite the strong policy focus on the promotion of HGFs in recent times, much remains unknown about these organisations and how best to support them (Henrekson and Johansson, 2010; Anyadike-Danes et al, 2012; Mason and Brown, forthcoming). Scottish Enterprise recently commissioned research on Scotland’s population of HGFs (Mason and Brown, 2010). This was the first comprehensive analysis of these firms ever conducted in Scotland and some of the findings were published in this journal (Brown and Mason, 2010). One of the most significant conclusions from this study was that they are extremely heterogeneous in terms of their age, size, ownership and industry sector. Few fit the stereotypical ‘gazelle’ definition which refers to young high growth firms that are less than five years old. The vast majority are over 10 years old, with some significantly older (Mason and Brown, 2010). Furthermore, only a relatively small proportion of these firms are in high-tech areas of the economy. According to some scholars, there is ‘no evidence that Gazelles are overrepresented in high- technology industries’ (Henrekson and Johansson, 2010, p.240). Despite their strong prioritisation by policy makers, the reality is that the representation of technology based firms (TBFs) in the population of HGFs is roughly on a par with their proportion in the economy (Mason and Brown, forthcoming). In view of these twin priorities of promoting high growth in general and high tech firms in particular, Scottish Enterprise commissioned further research to explore HGFs, especially in high tech areas of the economy. The objectives of this paper are twofold: to provide an update on the level of HGFs in Scotland and to assess the population of TBFs in Scotland. The paper proceeds as follows. First, the terms high growth and technology-based enterprises are defined. Second, the methodology is outlined. Third, the aggregate evidence on the levels of HGFs in Scotland is presented. Fourth, the population of TBFs in Scotland, including analysis of high growth TBFs is profiled. Fifth, some of the key characteristics of high growth TBFs in Scotland are examined. Sixth, some of features of these firms which were captured during the qualitative part of this research process are summarised. The paper finishes with some brief conclusions and issues for further research
Mathematical and Physical Continuity
There is general agreement in mathematics about what continuity is. In this paper we examine how well the mathematical definition lines up with common sense notions. We use a recent paper by Hud Hudson as a point of departure. Hudson argues that two objects moving continuously can coincide for all but the last moment of their histories and yet be separated in space at the end of this last moment. It turns out that Hudson’s construction does not deliver mathematically continuous motion, but the natural question then is whether there is any merit in the alternative definition of continuity that he implicitly invokes
The relationship between various live animal scores/measurements and carcass classification for conformation and fatness with meat yield and distribution, and ultimate carcass value
End of project reportAccordingly, the primary objectives of the following study were to:
(1) determine the relationship of live animal muscular and skeletal scores, ultrasonically scanned muscle
and fat depth measurements of the m. longissimus dorsi, and carcass conformation and fat scores with
kill-out proportion, carcass composition and value.
(2) Specifically develop and test the accuracy of prediction equations for carcass meat, fat and bone
proportions, derived from carcass conformation and fat scores, and develop prediction equations for
total carcass composition from hind-quarter composition
On Generating Plausible Counterfactual and Semi-Factual Explanations for Deep Learning
There is a growing concern that the recent progress made in AI, especially
regarding the predictive competence of deep learning models, will be undermined
by a failure to properly explain their operation and outputs. In response to
this disquiet counterfactual explanations have become massively popular in
eXplainable AI (XAI) due to their proposed computational psychological, and
legal benefits. In contrast however, semifactuals, which are a similar way
humans commonly explain their reasoning, have surprisingly received no
attention. Most counterfactual methods address tabular rather than image data,
partly due to the nondiscrete nature of the latter making good counterfactuals
difficult to define. Additionally generating plausible looking explanations
which lie on the data manifold is another issue which hampers progress. This
paper advances a novel method for generating plausible counterfactuals (and
semifactuals) for black box CNN classifiers doing computer vision. The present
method, called PlausIble Exceptionality-based Contrastive Explanations (PIECE),
modifies all exceptional features in a test image to be normal from the
perspective of the counterfactual class (hence concretely defining a
counterfactual). Two controlled experiments compare this method to others in
the literature, showing that PIECE not only generates the most plausible
counterfactuals on several measures, but also the best semifactuals.Comment: 4 figures, 9 page
Validation and Improvement of the Beef Production Sub-index in Ireland for Beef Cattle
End of project reportThe objectives of the following study were to:
a. Quantify the effect of sire genetic merit for BCI on:
1. feed intake, growth and carcass traits of progeny managed under bull or steer beef production
systems.
2. live animal scores, carcass composition and plasma hormone and metabolite concentrations in their
progeny.
b. Compare the progeny of :
1. Late-maturing beef with dairy breeds and
2. Charolais (CH), Limousin (LM), Simmental (SM) and Belgian Blue (BB) sires bred to beef suckler
dams,
for feed intake, blood hormones and metabolites, live animal measurements, carcass traits and carcass value in
bull and steer production systems
Problem Formulation and Resolution in Online Problem-Based Learning
This paper discusses an exploratory study to investigate the existence, and nature, of student problem formulation and resolution processes in an undergraduate online Problem-Based Learning (PBL) course in Agricultural Sciences. We report on the use of a content analysis instrument developed to measure problem formulation and resolution (PFR) processes in online asynchronous discussions (Murphy, 2004a, 2004b) to analyze students' text-based, online discussions. The results offer evidence that students do engage in problem formulation and resolution and that these processes appear to be consistent with the PBL process carried out in this course. However, the nature of the PBL pedagogy, at least in this instructional context, ties the PBL problems to be solved tightly to a marked assignment structure and, therefore, appears to restrict the PFR process in its early and late stages
A comparison of six fingerprint enhancement techniques for the recovery of latent fingerprints from unfired cartridge cases
This work compared the effectiveness of six different enhancement methods on six different sizes of brass cartridges. One sebaceous fingerprint was deposited onto twenty-five of each size of cartridge to enable a statistical evaluation of the enhancement methods for each cartridge size to be undertaken. The enhancement methods compared were superglue followed by BY40, superglue followed by gun blue followed by BY40, gun blue only, superglue followed by palladium deposition, palladium deposition only, and powder suspension. The six different cartridges used in this study were .22s, .32s, 9mm, .38s, ribbed shotgun, and smooth shotgun. The study found that more potentially identifiable fingerprints were enhanced on the larger cartridge cases. This was due to the surface area on the smaller cartridges, and in particular the .22s provided little ridge detail. Two techniques provided the best results - superglue followed by gun blue followed by BY40, and superglue followed by palladium deposition. This showed that the combination of the cyanoacrylate fuming and the metal oxidation reactions is increasing the yield of potentially identifiable fingerprints compared with the use of the techniques separately. Both techniques were also found to give reproducible results. These two enhancement techniques were also compared statistically and no statistical difference in their effectiveness was found suggesting both techniques are equally as effective at enhancing fingerprints on brass cartridge cases
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Segmentation and Visualization of Multivariate Features Using Feature-Local Distributions
We introduce an iterative feature-based transfer function de- sign that extracts and systematically incorporates multivariate feature- local statistics into a texture-based volume rendering process. We argue that an interactive multivariate feature-local approach is advantageous when investigating ill-defined features, because it provides a physically meaningful, quantitatively rich environment within which to examine the sensitivity of the structure properties to the identification parameters. We demonstrate the efficacy of this approach by applying it to vortical structures in Taylor-Green turbulence. Our approach identified the exis- tence of two distinct structure populations in these data, which cannot be isolated or distinguished via traditional transfer functions based on global distributions
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