Agents intentionality, capabilities and the performance of Systems of Innovation

We are interested on why and how an economic system evolves and, in particular, on the causes of the differences across systems of innovation (SI). SI’s performance differs substantially because there are specific causes at work, apart from the differences in the underlying technologies, institutions, etc. In particular, we refer to the intentionality of the agents interacting within a system for innovation to find out the relationship between agents’ goals, SI’s performance and its policy implications. The underlying thesis in this paper is that agent intentionality is a necessary condition for a substantive explanation of the dynamism of any socio-economic system. The paper departs from an abstract definition of a system as a set of constitutive elements and the connections among them serving a common purpose. And explores how intentionality shapes the structure, evolution and performance of an SI. In this context an evolutionary efficiency criterion is proposed.systems of innovation; intentionality; evolving capabilities; evolutionary efficiency.

Action Plans and Socio-Economic Evolutionary Change

An important challenge to evolutionary economics consists of how to tackle with the dramatic tension between purposeful human action and the ‘blindness’ of evolutionary processes. On the one hand, economic action, if rational, has to be planned (which implies purposeful ordering of the means used to achieve objectives). On the other hand, an evolutionary process involves both the emergence of novelties (both intended innovations and unintended consequences of actions) and properties that manifest at meso and macro levels. Some recent papers have insisted on these issues. However, few analytical tools are yet available to cope with both, the analysis of intended dynamic action and ‘blind’ evolution. In this paper we propose the so-called ‘action plan approach’, a theoretical framework which could be useful for this task. The development of tools that permit us to analyze how individuals construct their plans, the projective (conjectural) and interactive nature of action, and the learning processes involved in ‘planning and acting’, may help us identifying and understanding new sources of complexity of economic processes. The close relationship of the ‘action plan approach’ with other systemic conceptual approaches is also highlighted.connections, action plans; novelty; intentionality; evolutionary economic process

Falling birth rates and world population decline: A quantitative discussion (1950-2040)

The UN data (1950-2010) and projections (both medium and low-fertility variants for 2015- 2040) show that fertility rates are already below replacement level in all continents except Africa. In this paper we develop a simple new approach for population projections based on a Improved Rate Equations (IRE) model. Population projections under the (1) Malthusian assumption, (2) an (IRE) model fitting and extrapolating from actual UN population data up to 2040, and (3) UN projections (low-fertility variant), are compared. The model fits quite well actual data and suggests a world population decline in the 21st Century. The economic, social and political consequences of this new and global circumstance would be far reachin

“Last-chance” sales: what makes them credible?

This paper analyzes the firms’ standard practice of announcing clearance or “last-chance” sales, namely advertising that a particular product is not going to be available in the market anymore. In the context of a two-period signaling game, prices and advertising decisions of firms are analyzed. Then, the set of separating and pooling equilibria is characterized, so that the above usual advertising techniques can be better understood as equilibria of this model for certain parameter values. In particular, this paper shows that, when the firm which continues in the business knows that few of their current customers will come back in future periods, the set of separating equilibria shrinks. That is, fewer future prospects induce all types of firms to compete for current consumers, leading to pooling equilibria in which all firms announce a “last-chance” sale, even if some of them know they will remain in the industry next period.signaling, advertising, separating equilibria, information transmission

Enlace de imágenes en los registros del Real Jardín Botánico

Sección: Noticias. Noticias de archivosEl archivo del Real Jardín Botánico custodia fondos muy variados. Reúne parte de la documentación generada por el funcionamiento del Centro desde su traslado al Paseo del Prado en 1781 (el primer documento es de 1775; una parte importante está en el archivo del Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC), más una serie de colecciones adquiridas por depósito, donación o compra. Es muy destacable su colección de dibujos y estampas, unos 15.000, principalmente botánicos.N

Feature selection for microarray gene expression data using simulated annealing guided by the multivariate joint entropy

In this work a new way to calculate the multivariate joint entropy is presented. This measure is the basis for a fast information-theoretic based evaluation of gene relevance in a Microarray Gene Expression data context. Its low complexity is based on the reuse of previous computations to calculate current feature relevance. The mu-TAFS algorithm --named as such to differentiate it from previous TAFS algorithms-- implements a simulated annealing technique specially designed for feature subset selection. The algorithm is applied to the maximization of gene subset relevance in several public-domain microarray data sets. The experimental results show a notoriously high classification performance and low size subsets formed by biologically meaningful genes.Postprint (published version

‘Ethical Novelty’: new insights into economic change

Agents’ knowledge combines their perception of what reality is with their conception of what reality should be. “Ethical dynamics” refers to the evolution in the latter conception. This is a key element to explain changes in agents’ objectives of action, which usually do not result simply from interaction or “cognitive dynamics”. “Ethical novelties” are important sources of economic change. They consist of changes in the structure of action objectives which result from ethical dynamics.knowledge; action plan; ethical novelty; cognitive and ethical dynamics; economic change

Typification of Carex helodes Link, Carex laevigata Sm. and Carex patula Link ex Schkuhr (Cyperaceae)

The name of Carex helodes Link is neotypified. This species has been erroneously considered as a synonym of Carex laevigata Sm. and Carex patula Schkuhr, which the names are also lectotypified. Each type is illustrated and discussed.Le nom de Carex helodes Link est néotypifié. Cette espèce a été considérée de manière erronée comme un synonyme de Carex laevigata Sm. et Carex patula Schkuhr dont les noms sont aussi lectotypifiés. Chaque type est illustré et discuté

Using adaptive hypermedia to support diversity in secondary schools

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. F. Muñoz, and A. Ortigosa, “Using adaptive hypermedia to support diversity in secondary schools”, in Sixth International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, 2006, Kerkrade, 2006, pp. 1055-1059Attention to diversity is growing concern in public secondary schools in Spain. This paper presents an assessment about the use of adaptive hypermedia technology for supporting diversity. Three experiences were carried out with an adaptive course on mathematics to test the effects of this technology on the heterogeneous population of secondary schools. Their results and conclusions are also presentedThis work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education, TIN2004-03140

Shall I post this now? Optimized, delay-based privacy protection in social networks

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10115-016-1010-4Despite the several advantages commonly attributed to social networks such as easiness and immediacy to communicate with acquaintances and friends, significant privacy threats provoked by unexperienced or even irresponsible users recklessly publishing sensitive material are also noticeable. Yet, a different, but equally significant privacy risk might arise from social networks profiling the online activity of their users based on the timestamp of the interactions between the former and the latter. In order to thwart this last type of commonly neglected attacks, this paper proposes an optimized deferral mechanism for messages in online social networks. Such solution suggests intelligently delaying certain messages posted by end users in social networks in a way that the observed online activity profile generated by the attacker does not reveal any time-based sensitive information, while preserving the usability of the system. Experimental results as well as a proposed architecture implementing this approach demonstrate the suitability and feasibility of our mechanism.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft