Which model of technology transfer for nanotechnology? A comparison with biotech and microelectronics

Nanotechnologies are often presented as breakthrough innovations, where technology transfer and knowledge-bridging will play a pivotal role in the industrial dynamics. This article investigates the model of knowledge transfer in the nanotechnologies in depth, by comparing it with the models of two recently emerged technologies: biotech and microelectronics. Our results show that the nanotechnology transfer model is very different from that involved in biotechnology evolution: while small–medium firms play a valuable technology-bringing role, the central function of “translating” new knowledge between public research and industry is carried by the larger firms, just as it was in the early stages of the microelectronics sector. These results suggest that specific policy initiatives to facilitate biotech's transfer are inappropriate to boost the diffusion of nanotechnology.     

Market challenges facing academic research in commercializing nano-enabled implantable devices for in-vivo biomedical analysis

This article reports on the research and development of a cutting-edge biomedical device for continuous in-vivo glucose monitoring. This entirely public-funded process of technological innovation has been conducted at the University of Barcelona within a context of converging technologies involving the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, telecommunications, electronics and energy. The authors examine the value chain and the market challenges faced by in-vivo implantable biomedical devices based on nanotechnologies. In so doing, they trace the process from the point of applied research to the final integration and commercialization of the product, when the social rate of return from academic research can be estimated. Using a case-study approach, the paper also examines the high-tech activities involved in the development of this nano-enabled device and describes the technology and innovation management process within the value chain conducted in a University–Hospital–Industry–Administration–Citizens framework. Here, nanotechnology is seen to represent a new industrial revolution, boosting the biomedical devices market. Nanosensors may well provide the tools required for investigating biological processes at the cellular level in vivo when embedded into medical devices of small dimensions, using biocompatible materials, and requiring reliable and targeted biosensors, high speed data transfer, safely stored data, and even energy autonomy.     

Municipal demand-side policy tools and the strategic management of technology life cycles

This research is particularly concerned with public policy instruments which may help to accelerate the development and diffusion of sustainable innovations and support local economic development. While sustainable technology sectors are in high demand, firms still face significant barriers in developing and diffusing their technologies in regions throughout the world (Hoff, 2012). This area has been less explored in the extant research yet recent experiences suggest that supply side tools may not always have positive benefits for supporting clean technology evolution, or for taxpayers. Leveraging innovation policy and technology life cycle literature, we develop a model of demand-side policy instruments which could be applied at different stages of the technology s-curve in order to accelerate the adoption of sustainable technologies. Implications for managers, public policy actors and researchers are considered.     

From kites to computers: Pennsylvania's Ben Franklin partnership

The traditional strength of the Pennsylvania economy has been steelmaking and other heavy manufacturing activities. During the past decade Pennsylvania has felt the impact of mature markets for steel and other capital goods, international competition and new technologies, as unemployment in the state has consistently exceeded the national average. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, state policymakers were faced with the problems of how to ease the state's reliance upon these declining industrial sectors, help existing industries within the state to modernize, and stimulate the formation of new growth industries.Recognizing Pennsylvania's history of technological innovation and its strong resource base in corporate and university research and development, state policymakers set out to create flexible public/private partnerships to encourage greater university/industry cooperation, and to focus regional economic development efforts toward innovation and modernization. In 1982, the Pennsylvania General Assembly created the Ben Franklin Partnership program, which established four regional advanced technology centers at major research universities in the state. These advanced technology centers are consortiums of universities, businesses, economic development organizations, financial institutions, and others committed to the goal of job creation through industrial modernization and technological innovation.To date, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has provided $29 million to the advanced technology centers for joint industry/university research and development projects, entrepreneurial development and education and training. This state funding was matched by $90 million from businesses, foundations, and other sources. Because of the long-term nature of such a program, the early results of the Ben Franklin Partnership are modest; however, the program has been successful in establishing relationships among universities, businesses and economic development organizations which will serve as the basis for long term growth.     

生物产业竞争力与中国的战略对策研究

生物技术的发展前景广阔。根据预测,在未来的2020年,56项和人类社会发展息息相关的重要技术中,其中生物技术就有26项。生物产业的发展已经成为了一种驱动力,促进着新的产业革命的进行,其影响远比前三次的科学技术革命深刻,因此,本文对于生物产业竞争力的研究,对推动我国生物产业的发展意义重大。     

从社会科学研究方法角度分析英语中的实际问题

开展社会科学方法论的研究,是推进社会科学繁荣发展的重要环节。把马克思主义哲学与社会科学方法论相结合,对社会现状加以分析,以确立社会科学方法论基本原则,建立科学的社会科学方法论体系。本文旨在从社会科学方法论的角度来分析《我国高校英语教育中的"中国文化失语"现状研究》一文中具体社会科学方法的运用。认识社会科学方法在实际问题中起到的指导作用,分析其处理和解决问题的思路方法。     

Social Sciences and Urban Studies: Goodbye to Paradigms?

The development of urban studies during the 1960s and 1970s was an offshoot of mainstream social sciences which, at least in Latin America, were formulated from a critical standpoint based largely on a renovated Marxism and the rise of the structuralisms. Now that this framework's apparently solid base has come under question in the so‐called ‘paradigm crisis', what is the outlook for urban studies and, in general, for the critical social sciences? This article poses a series of ideas which hopefully will contribute to a discussion on these and other aspects of a theoretical debate which cannot be ignored by urban researchers.     

A maturity framework for autonomous solutions in manufacturing firms: The interplay of technology,ecosystem, and business model

Significant advancements within the fields of digitalization, electrification, and automation have enabled the development, testing, and implementation of increasingly advanced autonomous solutions. Current examples of industrial automation promise significant economic and sustainability-oriented benefits for industrial customers. Yet, implemented autonomous solutions have rarely advanced beyond ‘islands of autonomy’. Although enabling initial improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of operations, they have not led to the systemic process improvements that fully integrated site-wide solutions can achieve. It is becoming increasingly clear that the major challenges in this shift extend beyond technology to focus on business transformation and ecosystem relationships. Yet, extant research offers few insights into these domains. There is a need to develop a business-focused maturity framework for autonomous solutions to contribute to a predominantly technical discourse and support equipment actors and their wider ecosystems in commercializing autonomous solutions. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how industrial equipment manufacturers can align the development of technology, business models and ecosystem relationships for the advancement of autonomous solutions. We build on case studies that include 32 interviews from four industrial equipment manufacturers and their extended ecosystems of customers and partners. We capture our findings in a three-level maturity framework for industrial autonomous solutions. This framework unwraps the attributes of each level from the perspectives of technical system development, ecosystem configuration, and business model design and is complemented by three overarching principles for the successful commercialization of autonomous solutions.

     

HAYEK AND MARKET SOCIALISM: SCIENCE,IDEOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY1

F. A. Hayek's significant intellectual contribution to a number of scholarly disciplines was grounded in his critique of socialist economics. This article sets out how Hayek's critique of classical and market socialism led to the development of his wide‐ranging research programme in the social sciences and shows that the implications of this research programme remain crucial to academic research and public policy in the twenty‐first century.     

Downdating: Interdisciplinary Research Between Statistics and Computing

The purpose of this paper is to define and explain the meaning behind the term 'downdating' which has recently been introduced in the statistics literature from the computing sciences. We give a review of the historical background and describe the main statistical application areas which make reference to the terminology. Extensive references are provided to the very active current research effort on downdating in both the statistical and computing sciences and opportunities for development in statistical science are outlined.     

公路路基水毁修复技术的设计与施工

开展修复技术研究的主要目的就是在掌握水毁发生发展规律的基础上,提出路基水毁修复的方法与技术,提高应急处理的主动性和科学性,从而缩短由于水毁引起交通中断的时间,减少带来的经济损失和社会影响,提高我国公路养护管理水平和运营质量、促进行业技术进步和行业发展、保证公路畅通和社会安定具有重要意义。     

Social influence in technology adoption: taking stock and moving forward

Social influence has been shown to profoundly affect human behavior in general and technology adoption in particular. Over time, multiple definitions and measures of social influence have been introduced to the field of technology adoption research, contributing to an increasingly fragmented landscape of constructs that challenges the conceptual integrity of the field. Consequently, this paper sets out to review how social influence has been conceptualized in technology adoption research. In so doing, this paper attempts to inform researchers’ understanding of the construct, reconcile its myriad conceptualizations, constructively challenge extant approaches, and provide impulses for future research. A systematic review of the salient literature uncovers that extant interpretations of social influence are (1) predominantly compliance-based and as such risk overlooking identification- and internalization-based effects; (2) primarily targeted at the individual level and non-social technologies, thereby precluding the impact of socially enriched environments; and (3) heavily reliant on survey-based and US/China-centric samples, which jeopardizes the generalizability and predictive validity of the findings. Building upon these insights, this paper develops an integrated perspective on social influence in technology adoption research that encourages scholars to pursue a multi-theoretical understanding of social influence at the interface of users, social referents, and technology.     

The diffusion of exporting in Brazilian industrial clusters

The present research aimed at understanding the process by which firms in a cluster start to export based on systemic interactions, and the process of diffusion of exporting as a business strategy within the cluster. Diffusion was defined, following Rogers’ (1995: 5) seminal work, as ‘the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system’. The research method used was industry case studies and the unit of analysis selected was the cluster. Two manufacturing industries were chosen to be investigated, and within each geographic area clusters were identified as the origin of dynamic export growth in the industry. Players in each industrial cluster, as well as other significant actors, were interviewed. Extensive secondary data research was done to study clusters’ historical development. Detailed analysis and a comparison of the experiences permitted the extraction of some general conclusions concerning the similarities and differences between the clusters in terms of the adoption and diffusion of exporting. Results showed that the diffusion of exporting in an industrial cluster is quite similar to the dissemination of technical innovation. Social ties were important to facilitate the diffusion of exporting in one of the clusters studied. Also, the role of domestically-owned flagship firms in leading the internationalization process proved to be important in only one of the clusters, while the role of external actors was fully supported in the two industries studied. Finally, a number of support institutions, private and public, interfered in different stages of the internationalization process. In both industries, the federal government had only a late and limited impact on export initiation and development.     

Self-managed work teams: an enabling or coercive nature

The paper analyses self-managed work teams (SMWTs) of two Portuguese industrial firms, using the case-study method. It examines the nature of SMWTs, by discerning a double enabling and coercive face. The enabling features are related to high levels of job enrichment, broad employee participation, and extensive communication. The coercive features are related to incidental job rotation to optimize technology, asymmetries of technical knowledge between supervisors or industrial engineers and team members, economic cohesion based upon the group-performance system and peer pressure toward self-discipline. An enabling face of SMWT has greater chances to prevail under an organizational infrastructure based upon management commitment regarding economic, cultural and social objectives of SMWTs, management ability to develop a set of complementary and mutually reinforcing HR practices and production programs aligned with SMWTs, as well as a past history and employees' past experience in tune with present changes.     

New Pedagogy and New Content: The Case of Statistics

Statistical education now takes place in a new social context. It is influenced by a movement to reform the teaching of the mathematical sciences in general. At the same time, the changing nature of our discipline demands revised content for introductory instruction, and technology strongly influences both what we teach and how we teach. The case for substantial change in statistics instruction is built on strong synergies between content, pedagogy, and technology. Statisticians who teach beginners should become more familiar with research on teaching and learning and with changes in educational technology. The spirit of contemporary introductions to statistics should be very different from the traditional emphasis on lectures and on probability and inference.     

Inductive reasoning: The promise of big data

Theory is a cornerstone of organizational research. Recently, however, some organizational scientists have argued that there is an overemphasis on theory development in our prominent publication outlets, calling for a rejuvenation of empirically driven research. To bring empirical research back to the forefront, the organizational sciences need a shock to the system: the advent of big data analytics in organizations provides just such a shock. The purpose of the following paper is to advocate for big data analytics as tools that can be used to support inductive research methods in the organizational sciences. We then highlight areas of organizational research and practice in which big data analytics can have an impact, provide readers with a tempered perspective on big data in the organizational sciences, and suggest a number of ways that researchers, reviewers, and editors can prepare themselves for the introduction of big data research in the organizational sciences.     

甘肃省改革开放成就回顾与展望

改革开放,甘肃省经济社会取得了前所未有的发展进步,但因资源、环境、体制、人才、科技、观念等特殊省情的限制,其发展在历史和当今都落后于其他省份,也产生了很多不足和问题。事物发展是个矛盾体,也是前进性和曲折性的统一,面对37年的辉煌和阻力,中央、省委省政府、普通公众只有同心协力,才能创造甘肃省更好的明天。     

二氧化钛光催化降解水中污染物性能研究

环境污染引起人们对更多环保技术的关注和研究。TiO2光催化氧化作为一种高级氧化技术,其氧化能力强,催化活性高,生物、化学、光化学稳定性好等优势一直是光催化研究的热点。本文综述了TiO2降解污染物的机理、影响因素以及现在研究的主要方向和工业化发展需要取得的突破。     

工业机械设备电气工程自动化技术的应用研究

当前,科学技术的发展越来越快,基于此,各类自动化技术也随着科学技术的发展逐渐发展起来。这些自动化技术的发展以及应用对经济的发展带来了很大的促进作用,由于自动化技术在操作方面具有简洁性特征,以及具有较高的操作友好性,这些独特的优势都成为电气设备自动化技术发展的推动力。论文基于工业机械设备中电气工程自动化技术的发展,提出该技术的应用策略,对应用过程中出现的问题进行探讨,深入分析电气工程自动化技术对于工业机械设备的影响。