Knowledge-related competitiveness and the roles of multinationals’ R&D in a peripheral European economy: Survey analysis of Greece

Abstract and Key Results

Innovation in multinational firms: Does cultural fit enhance performance?

Abstract and Key Results

Using multi-hub structures for international R&;D: Organisational inertia and the challenges of implementation

Abstract and Key Results

Multinationality and technical efficiency: A neglected perspective

Abstract and Key Results

Modeling macro-R&;D production frontier performance: an application to Chinese province-level R&;D

This paper proposes a novel methodological framework for effectively measuring the production frontier performance (PFP) of macro-scale (regional or national) R&D activities themselves associated with two improved models: a non-radial data envelopment analysis (DEA) model and a nonradial Malmquist index. In particular, the framework can provide multidimensional information to benchmark various R&D efficiency indexes (i.e., technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency) as well as the total factor R&D productivity change (determined by three components: “catch-up” of R&D efficiency, “frontier shift” of R&D technology as well as “exploitation” of R&D scale economics effect) at a comparable production frontier. It can be used to not only investigate the potential and sustainable capacity of innovation but also screen and finance R&D projects at the regional or national level. We have applied the framework to a province-level panel dataset on R&D activities of 30 selected Chinese provinces.     

Optical conductivity of a superconductor withdx2?y2 symmetry

Using a simplified Eliashberg formulation in which we keep only that part of the susceptibility which is separable and of symmetry in the pairing channel and keep the isotropic part in the renormalization channel, we have calculated the ac conductivity in the superconducting state. At zero temperature, in the clean limit, we find a finite amount of absorption at any frequency, however small, although it is substantially reduced over its normal-state value. Besides this boson-assisted absorption, when impurities are added a new channel is opened up in which momentum is given up to the impurity system and absorption proceeds directly through the creation of a hole-particle pair. Born and unitary impurity scattering are considered.This research was supported in part by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIASR), by the Ontario Centre for Materials Research (OCMR), and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council o f Canada (NSERC).     

Impact of Intellectual Property Rights on the Governance Mode Decisions of Engineering Managers During the Establishment of Research Alliances With Publicly Funded Entities

Strengthening intellectual property rights for publicly financed research and development (R&D) ensures that research organizations maximize the full national value of the intellectual property that they generate, but potential negative spillover effects on the perceived value of a research alliance might deter an existing alliance partner from continued collaboration or a potential alliance partner from future collaboration. This study, performed in 2010 within the context of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa, aimed to develop a structural equation modeling-based value-mediation governance decision-making model that will enable engineering managers at publicly financed R&D organizations to select optimal governance modes for the research alliances they are establishing to grow their organizations’ R&D capabilities.     

An international comparison of relative contributions to academic productivity

This paper presents a methodology for measuring the improvements in efficiency and adjustments in the scale of R&D (Research & Development) activities. For this purpose, this study decomposes academic productivity growth into components attributable to (1) world academic frontier change, (2) R&D efficiency change, (3) human capital accumulation, and (4) capital accumulation. The world academic frontier at each point in time is constructed using data envelopment analysis (DEA). This study calculates each of the above four components of academic productivity for 27 countries over 1990–2003, and finds that the components which contribute to academic productivity growth vary with the different countries’ characteristics and development stages. Human capital has more weight in terms of the quantity of academic research, and capital accumulation plays a more important role in the citation impact of academic research.     

Development and application of a keyword-based knowledge map for effective R&D planning

With the growing recognition of the importance of knowledge creation, knowledge maps are being regarded as a critical tool for successful knowledge management. However, the various methods of developing knowledge maps mostly depend on unsystematic processes and the judgment of domain experts with a wide range of untapped information. Thus, this research aims to propose a new approach to generate knowledge maps by mining document databases that have hardly been examined, thereby enabling an automatic development process and the extraction of significant implications from the maps. To this end, the accepted research proposal database of the Korea Research Foundation (KRF), which includes a huge knowledge repository of research, is investigated for inducing a keyword-based knowledge map. During the developmental process, text mining plays an important role in extracting meaningful information from documents, and network analysis is applied to visualize the relations between research categories and measure the value of network indices. Five types of knowledge maps (core R&D map, R&D trend map, R&D concentration map, R&D relation map, and R&D cluster map) are developed to explore the main research themes, monitor research trends, discover relations between R&D areas, regions, and universities, and derive clusters of research categories. The results can be used to establish a policy to support promising R&D areas and devise a long-term research plan.     

Optical study of localization in theab-plane conductivity of single crystals of YBa2Cu3O6.95 induced by ion damage

We studied the changes in the dc resistivity, Raman scattering, and IR conductivity of single crystals of YBa₂Cu₃O_6.95 induced by damage from low-energy He⁺ ion bombardment. It appears thatT _c , transport properties, and optical conductivity are strongly affected by modest irradiation doses whereas the chemical composition of the sample is not modified. Carrier localization is evidenced by the frequency dependence of the optical conductivity in the strongly damaged crystal and is used to explain the suppression of both the superfluid density andT _c upon irradiation. The temperature dependence of the superfluid density is in agreement with the theoretical predictions for ad-wave superconductor. We also show that the intrinsic residual losses in the FIR are dramatically reduced in the disordered crystal.On leave from P. N. Lebedev Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. One of us (A.P.) is grateful to the Ontario Center for Materials Research for financial support.     

Quantifying the benefits of participating in an industry university research center: An examination of research cost avoidance

The challenges to conducting valid and complete outcome evaluations of cooperative research activities, like the National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) Program, are daunting. The current study tries to make a small but important contribution to this area by attempting to develop quantitative estimates of one center benefit - R&D cost avoidance. Cost avoidance is operationalized as R&D costs industrial members would have incurred but did not, because they participated in university-based industrial consortia, minus the costs of belonging to the consortia. Data were collected from a total of 18 industrial sponsors from three IUCRCs on 35 different research projects. Findings indicate that some firms do avoid R&D costs by participating in an IUCRC but the prevalence of this benefit varies across centers and across firms. The implications of these findings for policy, practice and future research are discussed.     

Metal matrix composites for industrial application

The present status of Metal Matrix Composite materials Research & Development (R&D) and industrial exploitation is summarised. Metal Matrix Composites (MMC) are defined and described and their value to the designer is discussed in the context of their technical strengths and weaknesses. The driving force for the present high level of investment in MMC R&D worldwide is discussed and the economic advantages of collaborative development initiatives are analysed. The present UK industrial collaborative MMC R&D programme is described and set in the context of the scope and objectives of major development programmes in the US, Japan and Europe.     

Attenuation of Rayleigh waves on a LiNbO3 crystal in contact with a liquid4He bath

Experimental results are presented for the attenuation of surface acoustic waves on a lithium niobate plate immersed in a bath of liquid helium. The results are compared to theory, and reasonable agreement is found with a model which takes substrate anisotropy into account. The variation in attenuation at the solidification point is discussed in terms of an enhanced transmission due to a transverse mode as well as that expected for a viscoelastic model for solid helium.Work supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the GRSD (Groupe de recherches sur les semiconducteurs et les diélectriques), the FCAC (Formation de chercheurs et action concertée), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.     

Measuring S&T activities in the Former Socialist Economies of Central and Eastern Europe: Conceptual and methodological issues in linking past with present

The economic and social transformation of countries of central and eastern Europe has deeply affected their S&T systems. However, conceptual and methodological problems in monitoring transformation of their S&T systems are not trivial. In this paper we analyse conceptual and methodological issues involved in measuring S&T activities in the socialist and post-socialist period across the most important S&T indicators (R&D, US and national patents; innovation surveys; bibliometrics). Our conclusions are that: i) the process of methodological harmonisation of S&T indicators has progressed considerably and we have provided some evidence in that respect; ii) the use of similar or identical indicators (business R&D, innovation counts, patents, citations) when making inter-country or inter-temporal comparisons should be approached with caution because of the significant differences between the socialist and post-socialist periods as well as between post-socialist R&D systems and R&D in other market economies. This latter applies especially to the interpretation of business R&D data in the post-socialist period. A first version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the implementation of OECD methodologies for R&D/S&T statistics in central and eastern European countries' which was held in Budapest from 6.–8. November 1996. Research which formed the basis for this paper was funded in case of one of the authors by the EC TSER programme. Correspondence should be addressed to: SlavoRadosevic, SPRU, University of Sussex, BN1 9RF, Brighton. We are grateful to SylvanKatz for stimulative discussions and to two anonymous referees for comments in revisions of this paper. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the organisations for which they work.     

Full-scale field tests of concrete slabs subjected to blast loads

This paper describes full-scale field explosion tests on protected and unprotected concrete slabs. The experiments were performed by the Protective Technologies Research & Development Center of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU-PTR&DC) under a contract with the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the supervision of the IDF Steering Committee for R&D of Protective Structures. The aims of the tests were to: (1) extract data on the dynamic response of an elementary concrete structure to blast loads in order to verify and validate (V&V) our corresponding computer codes; and (2) check the ability of aluminum foams to mitigate blast wave loads. Time-dependent measurements of the response of the concrete slabs to the blast wave loads were successfully recorded using a variety of measurement devices. The obtained data have been used to verify and validate our computer codes.     

On the reformulation of topology optimization problems as linear or convex quadratic mixed 0–1 programs

We consider equivalent reformulations of nonlinear mixed 0–1 optimization problems arising from a broad range of recent applications of topology optimization for the design of continuum structures and composite materials. We show that the considered problems can equivalently be cast as either linear or convex quadratic mixed 0–1 programs. The reformulations provide new insight into the structure of the problems and may provide a foundation for the development of new methods and heuristics for solving topology optimization problems. The applications considered are maximum stiffness design of structures subjected to static or periodic loads, design of composite materials with prescribed homogenized properties using the inverse homogenization approach, optimization of fluids in Stokes flow, design of band gap structures, and multi-physics problems involving coupled steady-state heat conduction and linear elasticity. Several numerical examples of maximum stiffness design of truss structures are presented. The research is funded by the Danish Natural Science Research Council and the Danish Research Council for Technology and Production Sciences.