Productivity growth and R & D expenditure in UK manufacturing firms

This paper analyses the relationship between productivity growth and R&D expenditure at the firm level. A Cobb-Douglas function is estimated for 170 UK quoted firms including R&D intensity as well as the capital to labour ratio. A positive and significant role is found for the firm’s own R&D expenditure in influencing productivity growth from 1988-1992; the relationship is no longer significant when sector fixed effects are included. To capture these sector effects, two spillover variables are included: the R&D expenditure of other firms in the same sector, and the weighted R&D expenditure of innovation-supplying industries. The former is found to play a large positive role in productivity growth, increasing it by around 1%, while no significant role is found for the latter. The variation in technological opportunity across sectors appears to play an important role in the efficacy of R&D expenditure.research and development ;

Technological competitiveness, trade and foreign direct investment

This paper seeks to assess the importance of country-level determinants in affecting the international competitiveness of a country, defined both by export shares and shares in FDI, within a common framework based on a neo-Schumpeterian approach which regards technology as playing a central role in competitiveness. The relationships are tested with data for 40 developing and industrialised countries, and country determinants are found to play a similar role in explaining both inward and outward investment and exports. However, the explanatory power of the model varies over countries, explaining almost all the variation in competitiveness of the developing countries and a much lower proportion of the variation for industrialised countries. Technological capabilities, and the level of development of the country, are found to be two of the key determinants of competitiveness. We conclude that country determinants are equally effective in explaining both trade and FDI, but that in the case of industrialised countries there are additional factors, such as firm specific competitive advantages, which are not related to country-specific characteristics, and are important determinants of competitiveness.economics of technology ;

Chasing the genes that control resistance to gastrointestinal nematodes

The host-protective immune response to infection with gastrointestinal (GI) nematodes involves a range of interacting processes that begin with recognition of the parasite’s antigens and culminate in an inflammatory reaction in the intestinal mucosa. Precisely which immune effectors are responsible for the loss of specific worms is still not known although many candidate effectors have beenproposed. However, it is now clear that many different genes regulate the response and that differences between hosts (fast or strong versus slow or weak responses) can be explained by allelic variation in crucial genes associated with the gene cascade that accompanies the immune response and/or genes encoding constitutively expressed receptor/signalling molecules. Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes have been recognized for some time as decisive in controlling immunity, and evidence that non-MHC genes are equally, if not more important in this respect has also been available for two decades. Nevertheless, whilst the former have been mapped in mice, only two candidate loci have been proposed for non-MHC genes and relatively little is known about their roles. Now, with the availability of microsatellite markers, it is possible to exploit linkage mapping techniques to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) responsible for resistance to GI nematodes. Four QTL for resistance to Heligmosomoides polygyrus, and additional QTL affecting faecal egg production by the worms and the accompanying immune responses, have been identified. Fine mapping and eventually the identification of the genes (and their alleles) underlying QTL for resistance/susceptibility will permit informed searches for homologues in domestic animals, and human beings, through comparative genomic maps. This information in turn will facilitate targeted breeding to improve resistance in domestic animals and, in human beings, focused application of treatment and control strategies for GI nematodes

Bayesian joint models with INLA exploring marine mobile predator-prey and competitor species habitat overlap

EPSRC grant Ecowatt 2050 EP/K012851/1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank the associate editor and the anonymous reviewers for their useful and constructive suggestions which led to a considerable improvement of the manuscript. The authors would also like to thank the following people/organizations for making large datasets available for use in this paper: Mark Lewis (Joint Nature Conservation Committee), Philip Hammond (Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St. Andrews), Susan Lusseau (Marine Scotland Science), Darren Stevens (The Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science, PML), and Yuri Artioli (Plymouth Marine Laboratory). This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EcoWatt250; EPSRC EP/K012851/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Rotating Electromagnetic Waves in Toroid-Shaped Regions

Electromagnetic waves, solving the full set of Maxwell equations in vacuum, are numerically computed. These waves occupy a fixed bounded region of the three dimensional space, topologically equivalent to a toroid. Thus, their fluid dynamics analogs are vortex rings. An analysis of the shape of the sections of the rings, depending on the angular speed of rotation and the major diameter, is carried out. Successively, spherical electromagnetic vortex rings of Hill's type are taken into consideration. For some interesting peculiar configurations, explicit numerical solutions are exhibited.Comment: 27 pages, 40 figure