Showing papers by "University of Sussex published in 1995"

The ‘National System of Innovation’ in historical perspective

Abstract: Contrary to some recent work on so-called 'globalisation', this paper argues that national and regional systems of innovation remain an essential domain of economic analysis. Their importance derives from the networks of relationships which are necessary for any firm to innovate. Whilst external international connections are certainly of growing importance, the influence of the national education system, industrial relations, technical and scientific institutions, government policies, cul- tural traditions and many other national institutions is fundamental. The historical examples of Germany, Japan and the former USSR illustrate this point, as well as the more recent contrast between East Asian and Latin American countries. Introduction: The National System of Friedrich List According to this author's recollections, the first person to use the expression 'National System of Innovation' was Bengt-Ake Lundvall and he is also the editor of a highly original and thought-provoking book (1992) on this subject. However, as he and his colleagues would be the first to agree (and as Lundvall himself points out) the idea actually goes back at least to Friedrich List's conception of "The National System of Political Economy' (1841), which might just as well have been called 'The National System of Innovation'. The main concern of List was with the problem of Germany overtaking England and, for underdeveloped countries (as Germany then was in relation to England), he advocated not only protection of infant industries but a broad range of policies designed to accelerate, or to make possible, industrialisation and economic growth. Most of these policies were concerned with learning about new technology and applying it. The racialist and colonialist overtones of the book were in strong contrast to the inter- nationalist cosmopolitan approach of the classical free trade economists and List's belief that Holland and Denmark should join the German 'Bund' and acquire German nationality because of their 'descent and whole character' reads somewhat strangely in the European Community of today. Nevertheless, despite these unattractive features of his outlook, he clearly anticipated many contemporary theories. After reviewing the changing ideas of economists about development in the years since the Second World War, the World Bank (1991) concludes that it is intangible investment in knowledge accumulation which is decisive rather than physical capital investment, as was at one time believed (pages 33-35). The Report cites the 'New Growth Theory'

A single ataxia telangiectasia gene with a product similar to pi-3 kinase

Abstract: A gene, ATM, that is mutated in the autosomal recessive disorder ataxia telangiectasia (AT) was identified by positional cloning on chromosome 11q22-23. AT is characterized by cerebellar degeneration, immunodeficiency, chromosomal instability, cancer predisposition, radiation sensitivity, and cell cycle abnormalities. The disease is genetically heterogeneous, with four complementation groups that have been suspected to represent different genes. ATM, which has a transcript of 12 kilobases, was found to be mutated in AT patients from all complementation groups, indicating that it is probably the sole gene responsible for this disorder. A partial ATM complementary DNA clone of 5.9 kilobases encoded a putative protein that is similar to several yeast and mammalian phosphatidylinositol-3' kinases that are involved in mitogenic signal transduction, meiotic recombination, and cell cycle control. The discovery of ATM should enhance understanding of AT and related syndromes and may allow the identification of AT heterozygotes, who are at increased risk of cancer.

The major evolutionary transitions

Abstract: There is no theoretical reason to expect evolutionary lineages to increase in complexity with time, and no empirical evidence that they do so. Nevertheless, eukaryotic cells are more complex than prokaryotic ones, animals and plants are more complex than protists, and so on. This increase in complexity may have been achieved as a result of a series of major evolutionary transitions. These involved changes in the way information is stored and transmitted.

Collective efficiency: Growth path for small‐scale industry

Abstract: This study is concerned with the growth of small local industry in developing countries and explores one particular route for understanding and fostering such growth. It focuses on the clustering of firms and the competitive advantage which they derive from local external economies and joint action, captured in the concept of collective efficiency. Following a conceptual discussion, the article explores the economic and institutional conditions which enhance or hinder collective efficiency. This includes a case study which suggests that responding to opportunity and crisis requires shifting from mere reliance on external economies to joint action and from ascribed to earned trust.

Noise and the Reality Gap: The Use of Simulation in Evolutionary Robotics

Abstract: The pitfalls of naive robot simulations have been recognised for areas such as evolutionary robotics. It has been suggested that carefully validated simulations with a proper treatment of noise may overcome these problems. This paper reports the results of experiments intended to test some of these claims. A simulation was constructed of a two-wheeled Khepera robot with IR and ambient light sensors. This included detailed mathematical models of the robot-environment interaction dynamics with empirically determined parameters. Artificial evolution was used to develop recurrent dynamical network controllers for the simulated robot, for obstacle-avoidance and light-seeking tasks, using different levels of noise in the simulation. The evolved controllers were down-loaded onto the real robot and the correspondence between behaviour in simulation and in reality was tested. The level of correspondence varied according to how much noise was used in the simulation, with very good results achieved when realistic quantities were applied. It has been demonstrated that it is possible to develop successful robot controllers in simulation that generate almost identical behaviours in reality, at least for a particular class of robot-environment interaction dynamics.

The Chemistry of Fullerenes

Abstract: Initially envisaged as rather unreactive, aromatic-like molecules, the fullerenes instead undergo a wide variety of reactions characteristic of alkenes. The many derivatives of C60, and the few of C70, that have now been reported offer new directions for organic chemistry.

Role-Conflict, Ambiguity, and Overload - a 21-Nation Study

Abstract: The extent of role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload reported by middle managers from 21 nations was related to national scores on power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, an...

Foresight in science and technology

Abstract: Emerging generic technologies seem set to make a revolutionary impact on the economy and society. However, success in developing such technologies depends upon advances in science. Confronted with increasing global economic competition, policy-makers and scientists are grappling with the problem of how to select the most promising research areas and emerging technologies on which to target resources and, hence, derive the greatest benefits. This paper analyzes the experiences of Japan, the US, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the UK in using foresight to help in selecting and exploiting research that is likely to yield longer-term economic and social benefits. It puts forward a model of the foresight process for identifying research areas and technologies of strategic importance, and also analyzes why some foresight exercises have proved more successful than others. It concludes by drawing an analogy between models of innovation and foresight.

Which parts of the road guide steering

Abstract: A driver steering a car on a twisting road has two distinct tasks: to match the road curvature, and to keep a proper distance from the lane edges. Both are achieved by turning the steering wheel, but it is not clear which part or parts of the road ahead supply the visual information needed, or how it is used. Current models of the behaviour of real drivers or 'co-driver' simulators vary greatly in their implementation of these tasks, but all agree that successful steering requires the driver to monitor the angular deviation of the road from the vehicle's present heading at some 'preview' distance ahead, typically about 1 s into the future. Eye movement recordings generally support this view. Here we have used a simple road simulator, in which only certain parts of the road are displayed, to show that at moderate to high speeds accurate driving requires that both a distant and a near region of the road are visible. The former is used to estimate road curvature and the latter to provide position-in-lane feedback. At lower speeds only the near region is necessary. These results support a two-stage model of driver behaviour.

Bayesian regularization and pruning using a Laplace prior

Abstract: Standard techniques for improved generalization from neural networks include weight decay and pruning. Weight decay has a Bayesian interpretation with the decay function corresponding to a prior over weights. The method of transformation groups and maximum entropy suggests a Laplace rather than a gaussian prior. After training, the weights then arrange themselves into two classes: (1) those with a common sensitivity to the data error and (2) those failing to achieve this sensitivity and that therefore vanish. Since the critical value is determined adaptively during training, pruning---in the sense of setting weights to exact zeros---becomes an automatic consequence of regularization alone. The count of free parameters is also reduced automatically as weights are pruned. A comparison is made with results of MacKay using the evidence framework and a gaussian regularizer.

Good‐turing frequency estimation without tears*

Abstract: Linguists and speech researchers who use statistical methods often need to estimate the frequency of some type of item in a population containing items of various types. A common approach is to divide the number of cases observed in a sample by the size of the sample; sometimes small positive quantities are added to divisor and dividend in order to avoid zero estimates for types missing from the sample. These approaches are obvious and simple, but they lack principled justification, and yield estimates that can be wildly inaccurate. I.J. Good and Alan Turing developed a family of theoretically well-founded techniques appropriate to this domain. Some versions of the Good–Turing approach are very demanding computationally, but we define a version, the Simple Good–Turing estimator, which is straightforward to use. Tested on a variety of natural-language-related data sets, the Simple Good–Turing estimator performs well, absolutely and relative both to the approaches just discussed and to other, more sophisticated techniques.

An analysis package comparing PID anti-windup strategies

Abstract: This article describes software developed in SIMULINK that enables the behavior of feedback control systems with actuator saturation and PID controllers to be evaluated. The software, which is part command- and part menu-driven, allows a choice of four PID controllers using different integral wind-up strategies and transfer function entry of the actuator and plant dynamics. Most realistic control systems contain nonlinearities of some form. One nonlinearity commonly found in control systems is a saturating element. If integral control is applied to such a system to eliminate steady state error, an undesired side effect known as integrator windup may occur when large setpoint changes are made. This effect leads to a characteristic step response with a large overshoot and a very high settling time. To avoid this situation, many different anti-windup strategies have been suggested. This article discusses a software package that has been developed in the SIMULINK/MATLAB environment to investigate and compare the performance of four different anti-windup implementations for PI or PID controllers. The software is partially menu-driven and enables the user to easily enter his own actuator and plant transfer functions to study the performance with the different controllers. >

Localised production of technology for global markets

Abstract: Given the trends towards increasing globalization of markets and of production, the globalization of technology remains a subject of considerable interest to analysts and policymakers in the 1990s. The main conclusion of this paper is that there is no systematic evidence to suggest that widespread globalization of technological activities occurred in the 1980s. The evidence, based on the U.S. patenting activities of 569 of the world's largest firms (based in 13 countries, and covering 17 product groups), shows that for an overwhelming majority of them technology production remains close to the home base. The analysis also shows the dangers of generalizing on the basis of anecdotal evidence from a small sample of firms from a particular country or sector. (c) 1995 Academic Press, Inc. Copyright 1995 by Oxford University Press.

Schon Shock: a case for refraining reflection‐in‐action?

Abstract: This paper assesses the contribution of Donald Schon's The Reflective Practitioner to thinking about professional knowledge and expertise. While containing an important original idea, the notion of reflection‐in‐action, Schon seems more concerned with finding examples to counter what he calls the technical rationality paradigm. Hence he neither analyses everyday practice nor attempts to consider how reflective processes might serve different purposes or vary from one context to another. Most of his examples fail to provide evidence of reflection‐in‐action and none of them relate to crowded settings like classrooms. Indeed it is difficult to see how one could distinguish reflection‐in‐action from reflection‐on‐action when the action is cool and deliberate rather than hot and rapid. Three recommendations are made for reframing Schon's account of reflection. First, to redefine the key prepositions so that in refers to context on refers to focus and for refers to purpose. All Schon's examples relate ...

An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory

Abstract: 1. The Beginning 2. Readers and Reading 3. The Author 4. The Text and the World 5. The Uncanny 6. Narrative 7. Character 8. Voice 9. Figures and Tropes 10. Laughter 11. The Tragic 12. History 13. Me 14. Sexual Difference 15. God 16. Ideology 17. Desire 18. Suspense 19. Racial Difference 20. The Performative 21. Secrets 22. The Postmodern 23. Pleasure 24. Queer 25. Ghosts 26. The Colony 27. Monuments The End

Oscillons: Resonant configurations during bubble collapse

Abstract: Oscillons are localized, nonsingular, time-dependent, spherically symmetric solutions of nonlinear scalar field theories which, although unstable, are extremely long lived. We show that they naturally appear during the collapse of subcritical bubbles in models with symmetric and asymmetric double-well potentials. By a combination of analytical and numerical work we explain several of their properties, including the conditions for their existence, their longevity, and their final demise. We discuss several contexts in which we expect oscillons to be relevant. In particular, their nucleation during cosmological phase transitions may have wide-ranging consequences.

New populist parties in Western Europe

Abstract: This article addresses the electoral success of far right political parties in West European party systems and suggests that there is a new type of party ‐ the New Populist. Differentiating between neo‐fascism and the New Populism is instructive in two senses. First, it reveals that the current wave of comparative electoral success is more associated with the New Populism than neo‐fascism. Second, it demonstrates that there are certain parallels between the New Politics and the New Populism thereby suggesting that changes in the contemporary far right may well be telling indicators of changes in West European societies that are deeper set than a simple resurgence of racist and anti‐immigrant sentiment.