The National Innovation System (NIS) and the automobile industry in South Korea

Since Freeman (1988) suggested the concept of National Innovation System (NIS), NIS has provided a foundation for understanding the organizational interactions that engendered innovations in industry. The definition of NIS varies with the context in which innovation activities are performed and evaluated. The multiple definitions of NIS can be classified by their scopes (Chung 2002). In a broad sense, NIS encompasses all the interrelated institutional actors that create, diffuse, and exploit innovations. On the contrary, according to the narrow definition, NIS is a complex of innovation actors that are only directly associated with the generation, diffusion, and appropriation of technological innovation. Research and Development (R&D) departments, universities, and public research institutes can be taken as examples. In this report, primarily the narrow definition of NIS will be adopted, and the role of NIS in the South Korean automotive industry will be accordingly discussed. --

Dynamic Assessment of Oligopoly, Oligopsony Power, and Cost Efficiency using the New Empirical Industrial Organization in the U.S. Beef Packing Industry

In this paper, the new empirical industrial organization approach with a dynamic model is simultaneously employed to measure the degree of oligopoly, oligopsony power, and cost efficiency in the U.S. beef packing industry. The oligopsony power is estimated with two effects: cash cattle procurement market power and captive supply market power. The model is estimated by the Generalized Method of Moments using monthly data from 1990 to 2006. The empirical results reveal the presence of market power in both the beef retail market and the cattle procurement market in the sample period. The captive supply is a source of oligopsony market power, but the effect is considerably small. The oligopsony market power is greater and less stable than oligopoly market power for the whole sample period. The cost efficiency effect outweighs the market power effects for the sample period.beef packing industry, captive supply, cost efficiency, industrial concentration, market power, NEIO, Agricultural and Food Policy, Industrial Organization, Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing, Q13,

Dynamic Assessment of Bertrand Oligopsony in the U.S. Cattle Procurement Market

The new empirical industrial organization approach with the Bertrand model is employed to measure the oligopsony market power in the U.S. cattle procurement market. The assumption of price competition (Bertrand model) based on the nature of cattle production such as cattle cycle and seasonality is used and compared to quantity competition (Cournot model). The empirical results show that the oligopsony market power exists in the U.S. cattle procurement market. The cattle cycle and seasonality affect the oligopsony market power and the cattle cycle causes the change of market power. However, concentration has a negative effect on the oligopsony market power.cattle cycle, concentration, market power, NEIO, oligopsony, seasonality, Agribusiness, Demand and Price Analysis, Industrial Organization, Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing, Q13, L13, L16,

Fundamental Limits on Data Acquisition: Trade-offs between Sample Complexity and Query Difficulty

We consider query-based data acquisition and the corresponding information recovery problem, where the goal is to recover $k$ binary variables (information bits) from parity measurements of those variables. The queries and the corresponding parity measurements are designed using the encoding rule of Fountain codes. By using Fountain codes, we can design potentially limitless number of queries, and corresponding parity measurements, and guarantee that the original $k$ information bits can be recovered with high probability from any sufficiently large set of measurements of size $n$. In the query design, the average number of information bits that is associated with one parity measurement is called query difficulty ($\bar{d}$) and the minimum number of measurements required to recover the $k$ information bits for a fixed $\bar{d}$ is called sample complexity ($n$). We analyze the fundamental trade-offs between the query difficulty and the sample complexity, and show that the sample complexity of $n=c\max\{k,(k\log k)/\bar{d}\}$ for some constant $c>0$ is necessary and sufficient to recover $k$ information bits with high probability as $k\to\infty$

Targeting atherosclerosis using supramolecular micellar assemblies

Despite the high level of mortality, the cardiovascular field has not benefited to a similar degree as cancer from recent advances in nanomedicine. Applications of medical nanotechnology toward cancer far out-number those to cardiovascular disease by orders of magnitude. Similarly to cancer applications, nanomedicine can bring numerous powerful advantages, including early detection by amplification of small signals; local, as opposed to systemic, delivery of therapeutics; simultaneous delivery of a battery of agents. Within cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis is known to be a leading contributor to morbidity and mortality. Current imaging modalities use techniques that focus on the severity of the blockage within arteries. However, the majority of plaques that rupture and cause a clinical event do not correlate with plaque size. Therefore, early detection is needed, and requires detecting molecular markers that characterize vulnerable plaques. Peptide-based nanomaterials are particularly useful for these applications as the peptide provides a tool to incorporate a biological epitope for specific homing, with inherent biocompatible and biodegradable characteristic. To this end, we have engineered supramolecular, peptide amphiphile micelles (sPAM) that bind to various stages of atherosclerosis and incorporated imaging agents to act as contrast agents for clinically relevant modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Micelles formed from PAs are advantageous because a locally concentrated display of a peptide on the exterior can be used to potentiate specific binding to a disease target of interest, minimizing systemic side effects. Moreover, the nanometer size provides favorable pharmacokinetic properties in vivo. And notably, due to the modularity of PAMs and their ability to incorporate multiple components, theranostic micelles can be easily constructed through simple mixing of the various amphiphilic molecules. Such micelles have the potential to be the next generation of nanoparticles with capabilities to bind to specific disease markers of interest, deliver a therapeutic, and monitor the progression and/or regression of the disease in real-time. We present micelles developed for early to late-stage atherosclerosis, and their potential as contrast-enhancing, diagnostic agents in vivo

Knowledge and Power in Indonesian Traditional Music: A Genealogical Approach on the Transformation of the Meaning of Karawitan

The term Karawitan is generally known to mean gamelan music, more specifically Javanese, Balinese, and Sundanese gamelan music tuned to slendro and pelog scales. However, the term is discursive and has meaning in wider contexts as well. The term karawitan first appeared during the colonial period in royal courts on Java to indicate Javanese gamelan music. However, through its nation-wide university karawitan programs, the Indonesian government and art academics use the term to refer to all Indonesian traditional music practices (Musik Nusantara).Thisarticle gives a postcolonial account of the discourse surrounding the term karawitan to trace the transformation of its meaning. It employs Michel Foucault's theory of discourse and genealogical research methods to explore colonial-era and post-colonial literature using the term karawitan. By reviewing various discourses about karawitan, authors provide a more nuanced understanding about how power operates in the context of traditional music in Indonesia. We illustrate how the meaning of “karawitan” has been re-defined and contested through discursive practices. In general, these transformations demonstrate a shift from colonial power to national powe

, nevertheless,

Derived from transitions, my artistic practice is an act of condolence for the transient presence that takes time and indulges every process as an acceptance of loss. Over the years, I have moved between distinctive regions and cultures, only to be disoriented by mementos that are residues of a seemingly in- accessible past. What remains is to witness the vanished moments that evoke associated memories. I tend to solidify the volatile condition of transition by carving a temporary fragment on a permanent surface to make the ephemeral, eternal. The attempt to preserve a transitory phenomenon through archives by utilizing digital photography and various mediums inevitably leads to an alteration of memory. The intrinsic presence disappears when it is retained, duplicated, and remembered. Retrospection makes memories fade. The process of recall supplants experience with imagery, often tied to a photo or another cue, that displaces the initial experience. I understand memory to be an ephemeral transition constructed and reconstructed through one’s sensory perception. Accepting that transitions are inevitable, I released my eagerness to grasp every reminiscence of the bygone past. Through the properties of olfaction, which is persistent in the form of memory but cannot be stored or duplicated, I articulate and reconstruct ephemeral autobiographical memories through scent. I focus on insignificant transitions, which are often taken for granted, unnoticed, and forgotten. Between those transitions, I am engaged in meticulously dissecting the exquisite fragments of each moment. My practice is a personal memoir that ultimately characterizes specific correlations between various autobiographical retrieval cues and the level of modification to memories. Operating under the premise that odor-evoked memories are persistent, I use the characteristics of scented material in association with visual cues to determine the level of alteration in memories

Light-Front QCD Hamiltonian Dynamics and Constituent Quark Picture in Exclusive Processes

After reviewing a connection between quantum chromodynamics and contituent quark model pictures in the light-front quantization with some comparison and contrast to the ordinary equal-time bridge a la Bogoliubov-Valatin transformation, we discuss some newer development of the light-front quark model phenomenology in exclusive processes including the embedded state. The skewed parton distribution appears to be a good testing ground for our new effective treatment of the light-front nonvalence contributions in timelike exclusive processes.Comment: 5pages, Contributed to International Light-Cone Workshop "Light-cone Physics: Particles and Strings", Trento, Italy, 3-11 Sep. 200

Analysis of the effect of initial conditions on the initial development of a turbulent jet

The effect of the initial condition at the jet exit on the downstream evolution, particularly within the potential core length, were numerically investigated as well as with available experimental data. In order to select the most dependable computational model for the present numerical experiment, a comparative study has been performed with different turbulence models at k-epsilon level, and it was found that the k-epsilon-gammma model yields superior prediction accuracy over other conventional models. The calculated results show that the potential core length and the spreading rate the initial mixing layer are dependent on the initial length scale as well as the turbulent kinetic energy at the jet exit. Such effect of the initial length scale increases with higher initial turbulence level. An empirical parameter has been devised to collapse the calculated data of the potential core length and the spreading rate with various initial conditions onto a single curve

Symmetric Inkball Alignment with Loopy Models

Alignment tasks generally seek to establish a spatial correspondence between two versions of a text, for example between a set of manuscript images and their transcript. This paper examines a different form of alignment problem, namely pixel-scale alignment between two renditions of a handwritten word or phrase. Using loopy inkball graph models, the proposed technique finds spatial correspondences between two text images such that similar parts map to each other. The method has applications to word spotting and signature verification, and can provide analytical tools for the study of handwriting variation