Innovation, R&D Investment and Productivity in Chile

This paper uses two sources of information and different methodologies to analyze the causal effect of product and process innovation on productivity in the Chilean manufacturing industry during the past decade. In general, the evidence suggests there is not a contemporaneous effect of product innovation on productivity, but there is a positive effect of process innovation. This notsignificant effect of product innovation contrasts with evidence of studies for other countries. However, the results show the presence of lagged effects product innovation on productivity two years after innovation. Compared with the case of developed countries, this evidence might be consistent with a very slow process of “learning by doing” on the part of Chilean firms with regard to mastering new technologies. These slow and frequently uncertain gains in productivity could help to explain the low levels of investment in research and development (R&D) activities by Chilean firms.Productivity, Innovation, Investment, Research and development, Chile

Biblioteca de procesamiento de imágenes optimizada para Arm Cortex-M7

La mayoría de los vehículos en la actualidad están equipados con sistemas que asisten al conductor en tareas difíciles y repetitivas, como reducir la velocidad del vehículo en una zona escolar. Algunos de estos sistemas requieren una computadora a bordo capaz de realizar el procesamiento en tiempo real de las imágenes del camino obtenidas por una cámara. El objetivo de este proyecto es implementar una librería de procesamiento de imagen optimizada para la arquitectura ARM® Cortex®-M7. Esta librería provee rutinas para realizar filtrado espacial, resta, binarización y extracción de la información direccional de una imagen, así como el reconocimiento parametrizado de patrones de una figura predefinida utilizando la Transformada Generalizada de Hough. Estas rutinas están escritas en el lenguaje de programación C, para aprovechar las optimizaciones del compilador GNU ARM C, y obtener el máximo desempeño y el mínimo tamaño de objetos. El desempeño de las rutinas fue comparado con la implementación existente para otro microcontrolador, el Freescale® MPC5561. Para probar la funcionalidad de esta librería en una aplicación de tiempo real, se desarrolló un sistema de reconocimiento de señales de tráfico. Los resultados muestran que en promedio el tiempo de ejecución es 18% más rápido y el tamaño de objetos es 25% menor que en la implementación de referencia, lo que habilita a este sistema para procesar hasta 24 cuadros por segundo. En conclusión, estos resultados demuestran la funcionalidad de la librería de procesamiento de imágenes en sistemas de tiempo real.Most modern vehicles are equipped with systems that assist the driver by automating difficult and repetitive tasks, such as reducing the vehicle speed in a school zone. Some of these systems require an onboard computer capable of performing real-time processing of the road images captured by a camera. The goal of this project is to implement an optimized image processing library for the ARM® Cortex®-M7 architecture. This library includes the routines to perform image spatial filtering, subtraction, binarization, and extraction of the directional information along with the parameterized pattern recognition of a predefined template using the Generalized Hough Transform (GHT). These routines are written in the C programming language, leveraging GNU ARM C compiler optimizations to obtain maximum performance and minimum object size. The performance of the routines was benchmarked with an existing implementation for a different microcontroller, the Freescale® MPC5561. To prove the usability of this library in a real-time application, a Traffic Sign Recognition (TSR) system was implemented. The results show that in average the execution time is 18% faster and the binary object size is 25% smaller than in the reference implementation, enabling the TSR application to process up to 24 fps. In conclusion, these results demonstrate that the image processing library implemented in this project is suitable for real-time applications.ITESO, A. C.Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y TecnologíaContinental Automotiv

Crustal Characteristics in the Subduction Zone of Mexico: Implication of the Tectonostratigraphic Terranes on Slab Tearing

During the past years, significant work has been done for studying the crustal anisotropy and state of stress of the Mexican subduction zone. At the same time, there is new evidence of the geometry of the subducted slab proposing subduction tearing. Here, we present a study of the Earth crust using three different methods: azimuthal anisotropy based on ambient noise, shear‐wave splitting of tectonic tremors, and moment tensor inversions of the earthquakes of 7 September 2017 M_w 8.2 Tehuantepec, Mexico. This earthquake initiated a seismic sequence that triggered shallow seismicity and aftershocks. The shallow earthquakes fall into a region where there were few published focal mechanism higher than M_w 4.5. Two slab tearings: in the Michoacán–Guerrero border and in central Oaxaca, best represent the slab geometry of the Mexican subduction zone. At the Michoacán–Guerrero, the subducted slab is subhorizontal, whereas in central Oaxaca the plate is characterized by northeast vergence. We interpret that the mantle’s flow in this part of the subducted slab produces multiple alignments in the crust and differentiates the tectonostratigraphic terranes of the southern region of Mexico

Mediation Effect of Lean: A Bidirectional Synergetic Relationship with SCM for Higher Operational Performance

Competitive plants focus their efforts on reducing manufacturing costs and waste along their production chains. Hence, manufacturing programs with important practices and methodologies such as lean, JIT, TPM, and Kaizen have been embraced. However, an empirical investigation of simultaneous use of several manufacturing programs representing multiple facets of lean is lacking in the literature. Various studies have found that some supply chain management practices are bi-directionally related to lean, but its holistic measurement in relation to supply chain management is still lacking. Thus, this paper provides an evidence of mediation effect of lean from high performance manufacturing (HPM) project perspective in relation to supply chain management

PUMI: An explicit ED unstructural finite element solver for the Euler equations

The PUMI flow solver has been developed at CIMNE in to address the need for fast solutions of the flow field around complex geometries. Nowadays calculations involving a number of cells on the order of ten million are performed routinely. PUMI was created to deal with this kind of large-scale problem using modest hardware, therefore special emphasis was placed on the computational efficiency of the code. Design guidelines where minimum memory requirement, very fast single-threaded performance as well as satisfactory parallel scaling up to a moderate number of threads (as found on current desktop hardware using a small number of multi-core CPUs. In order to speedup the mesh generation activities an unstructured finite element formulation was selected. This papers describes the theoretical basis of the algorithms as well as detail of the implementation that increase the robustness and efficiency of the code

Triggered star formation in a molecular shell created by a SNR?

We present a study of a new molecular shell, G126.1-0.8-14, using available multiwavelegth Galactic plane surveys and optical Gemini observations. A well defined shell-like structure is observed in the CO(1--0) line emission at (l,b) = (126.1, -0.8), in the velocity range --10.5 to --15.5 km/s. The HI, emission shows a region of low emissivity inside G126.1-0.8-14, while radio continuum observations reveal faint non-thermal emission possibly related to this shell. Optical spectra obtained with Gemini South show the existence of B-type stars likely to be associated with G126.1-0.8-14. An estimate of the stellar wind energy injected by these stars show that they alone can not be able to create such a structure. On the other hand, one supernova explosion would provide enough energy to generate the shell. Using the MSX, IRAS, and WISE Point Source Catalogues we have found about 30 young stellar objects candidates, whose birth could have been triggered by the expansion of G126.1-0.8-14. In this context, Sh2-187 could be a consequence of the action on its surroundings of the most massive (and thus most evolve) of the stars formed by the expanding molecular shell.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, accepted in MNRA

Simple and efficient numerical tools for the analysis of parachutes

This work describes a set of simple yet effective, numerical method for the design and evaluation of parachute-payload system. The developments include a coupled fluidstructural solver for unsteady simulations of ram-air type parachutes. For an efficient solution of the aerodynamic problem, an unsteady panel method has been chosen exploiting the fact that large areas of separated flow are not expected under nominal flight conditions of ram-air parachutes. A dynamic explicit finite element solver is used for the structure. This approach yields a robust solution even when highly non-linear effects due to large displacements and material response are present. The numerical results show considerable accuracy and robustness. An added benefit of the proposed aerodynamic and structural techniques is that they can be easily vectored and thus suitable for use in parallel architectures. The main features of the computational tools are described and several numerical examples are provided to illustrate the performance and capabilities of the technique

Cyber Physical System Based Proactive Collaborative Maintenance

The aim of the MANTIS project is to provide a proactive maintenance service platform architecture based on Cyber Physical Systems. The platform will allow estimating future performance, predicting and preventing imminent failures and scheduling proactive maintenance. Maintenance is an important element that creates added value in the business processes and it also creates new business models with a stronger service orientation. Physical systems and the environment they work in are continuously monitored by a range of intelligent sensors, resulting in massive amounts of data, which characterise the usage history, working condition, location, movement and other physical properties of the systems. These systems are part of a larger network of heterogeneous and collaborative systems (e.g. vehicle fleets) connected via robust communication mechanisms able to operate in challenging environments. MANTIS consists of distributed processing chains that efficiently transform raw data into knowledge, while minimising the need for bandwidth. Sophisticated distributed sensing and decision-making functions are performed at different levels collaboratively, ranging from local nodes to locally optimise performance, bandwidth and maintenance; to cloud-based platforms that integrate information from diverse systems and execute distributed processing and analytics algorithms for global decision-making