District heating in the UK:A Technological Innovation Systems analysis

District heating infrastructure could contribute to the UK's energy policy goals of decarbonisation, renewable energy deployment, tackling fuel poverty and ensuring energy security. However, while a number of schemes have been developed over the last decade, deployment of the technology remains limited. This paper adopts a Technological Innovation Systems framework to ask what the principal challenges are to significantly scaling up the deployment of DH in the UK. While district heating networks are inherently local infrastructures, they are positioned in regulatory and market contexts organised at larger spatial scales, making geography an important factor and coordination across spatial scales an important policy area for accelerated deployment

Social and Technological Efficiency of Patent Systems

This article develops an evolutionary model of industry dynamics in order to carry out a richer theoretical analysis of the consequences of a stronger patent system. The first results obtained in our article are rather consistent with the anti-patent arguments and they do not favour the case for a stronger patent system: higher social welfare and technical progress are observed in our model in industries with milder patent systems (lower patent height and patent life).Innovation, technical progress, patent system, Intellectual property rights,

Change, Coordination, and Capabilities

Empirical studies on coordination of economic activities focused on the two polar cases of governance mode, namely vertical integration and market exchanges. Whether firms should be vertically integrated or lever market exchanges in the face of change is, however, debated. Two positions have emerged. Some scholars argue that the vertically integrated firm is the appropriate mode of coordination when change occurs, while market exchanges are more appropriate for dealing with stable contexts (Teece, 1996). On the other hand, Harrigan (1984, 1985) contends that firms should rely on market exchanges when technological change renders upstream capabilities obsolete. Based on two case studies of the aircraft engine industry, this paper introduces the concept of systems integration as the primary coordination mechanism in-between markets and hierarchies that firms employ to cope with change. The focus is on multitechnology settings. Multitechnology, multicomponent products intensify the coordination efforts for firms developing them and therefore provide a vantage point to study coordination modes in the face of technological change. The paper argues that systems integration, as a coordination mechanism, comprises a set of different technological and organizational skills, ranging from component assembly through the understanding and integration of the technological disciplines underlying a product, to project management. It shows that from a competitive point of view, systems integration is most appropriately understood as knowledge integration. Systems integrating firms are understood as those organizations that set up the network of actors involved in the industry and lead it from an organizational and technological viewpoint.technological change, systems integration, knowledge integration, vertical integration, market exchanges

Technological and Social Costs and Benefits of Patent Systems

"If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one. But since we have had a patent system for a long time, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge, to recommend abolishing it." Machlup (1958) - cited by Hall (2002) The demand for a stronger patenting system has become in the recent period a major source of tension between the U.S. government and the E.U. The US demand is generally motivated by the conventional economic wisdom affirming that a strong patenting system yields convenient incentives for the private investment in Research and Development (R&D) and hence, for technical progress in Society. This rather mechanistic approach of technological dynamics and of the role of the patenting is mainly based on the neoclassical theory of technical progress that strongly focuses on the agents' incentives rather than on the dynamics of the existent technological systems. Other appreciations of the existing patenting systems have nevertheless continued to be quite critical (see Machlup (1958) and Penrose (1951)). These appreciations are generally based on approaches where the nature of the actual technologies plays a central role. Moreover, the first part of the opinion emitted by Machlup in the above excerpt becomes very urgent since the question of establishing a strong patenting system is actually scrutinized for some industries in Europe (like the software industry) and in some countries (like Russia and China). We should hence consider the social costs of the patenting system, as well as its advantages, in order to guide such decisions. More specifically, it is time to seriously consider and check the old and new criticism of this system. The shortcomings of the standard wisdom have more recently been pointed out by Merges & Nelson (1990) and Mazzoleni & Nelson (1998). We propose to reassess the theoretical social value of patenting through a model founded on the approach adopted by these more empirical and conceptual studies. We develop a simulation model based on the Nelson & Winter (1982), part V. This basic model is completed by a patent system that allows the protection of the innovations. We therefore use this model for evaluating the efficiency of this system under different technological conditions emphasized by Merges & Nelson (1990) and as a function of different dimensions of patents (mainly their length and their breadth). An econometric study of the results from Monte Carlo simulations is used to evaluate the determinants of the Social costs and benefits of patents. These social effects are mainly characterized at two levels: at the level of the efficiency of the technical progress in the industry, and at the level of the social surplus. The neoclassical approaches conclude to a positive effect on both dimensions. Evolutionary approaches point at the contingency of these results with respect to the technological particularities of the industries. For example, Merges & Nelson (1990) distinguishes four classes of technologies in which the role of patents can be strongly contrasted: discrete inventions, cumulative technologies, chemical technologies and sciencebased technologies. We propose to include the specificities of these classes in our analysis, through different calibrations of the technology space of our industry dynamics model. The results of the simulations will then allow us to check the effectiveness of the patenting system in different configurations and with different characteristics measuring its strength. References Hall, B. (2002), "Current issues and trends in the economics of patents", Lecture to the ESSID Summer School in Industrial Dynamics Hall, B. & Ham Ziedonis, R. M. (2001), The effects of strengthening patent rights on firms engaged in cumulative innovation: Insights from the semiconductor industry, in G. Libecap, ed., "Entrepreneurial Inputs and Outcomes: New Studies of Entrepreneurship in the United States", Vol. 13 of Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Growth, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam. Jaffe, A. B. (2000), "The u.s. patent system in transition: Policy innovation and the innovation process", Research Policy 29, 531–557. Machlup, F. (1958), "An economic review of the patent system", Study No. 15 of Commission on Judiciary, Sub comm. on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights, 85th Congress, 2d Session. Mazzoleni, R. & Nelson, R. R. (1998), "The benefits and costs of strong patent protection: A contribution to the current debate", Research Policy 27, 273–284. Merges, R. & Nelson, R. R. (1990), "On the complex economics of patent scope", Columbia Law Review 90, 839–916. Nelson, R. R. & Winter, S. (1982), An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, London. Penrose, E. (1951), The Economics of the International Patent System, John Hopkins University Press, BaltimorePatent system, social welfare, public policy, intellectual property rights, industrial dynamics

RESEARCH OF THE APPLICATION OF COMBINED ANCHOR SYSTEMS FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF RE-USED MINING WORKINGS

Study the possibility of developing the technical and technological justification of combined anchor systems for the maintenance of re-used mining workings in economic effective level

Statistical assessment of speech system performance

Methods for the normalization of performance tests results of speech recognition systems are presented. Technological accomplishments in speech recognition systems, as well as planned research activities are described