The economic impact of technological and organizational innovations. A firm-level analysis

By using firm-level data provided by the last round of the (Italian) Community Innovation Survey (CIS4) this paper explores (in a manufacturing-services comparative framework) the relationship between technological and non-technological innovations and their impact on firms’ performances. The empirical evidence presented shows that including the organizational dimension of innovation provides a much more comprehensive picture of the variegated universe of innovation in both macro-sectors. Four distinct innovation modes have been identified on the basis of the ways firms combine technological and non-technological innovations. These different modes of innovation are present and relevant in both manufacturing and service sectors and have been found to have a differentiated impact on firms’ performances. Strategies characterized by the joint introduction of product, process and organizational innovations have been found to give to both manufacturing and service firms a clear competitive advantage vis à vis both non-innovating firms and firms with a narrow approach to innovation. A few significant differences between services and manufacturing firms in the relevance and economic impact of different types of innovation strategies have also been found.     

Science in Quarantine: Academic Physics in Spain (1750–1900)

The incorporation of Physics as a subject matter in secondary school and universities was a long and controversial process. First, because of religious tensions; later, due to political tensions that, in some way, also had to do with religious belief. In 1857 the Faculties of Sciences were created in Spain. From that time onward the problems for the teaching of physics diminished considerably. At the same time, the first steps were taken toward the development of research in the physical sciences.     

The use of trigram analysis for spelling error detection

Work performed under the SPElling Error Detection COrrection Project (SPEEDCOP) supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) at Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) to devise effective automatic methods of detecting and correcting misspellings in scholarly and scientific text is described. The investigation was applied to 50,000 word/misspelling pairs collected from six datasets (Chemical Industry Notes (CIN), Biological Abstracts (BA). Chemical Abstracts (CA), Americal Chemical Society primary journal keyboarding (ACS), Information Science Abstracts (ISA), and Distributed On-Line Editing (DOLE) (a CAS internal dataset especially suited to spelling error studies). The purpose of this study was to determine the utility of trigram analysis in the automatic detection and/or correction of misspellings. Computer programs were developed to collect data on trigram distribution in each dataset and to explore the potential of trigram analysis for detecting spelling errors, verifying correctly-spelled words, locating the error site within a misspelling, and distinguishing between the basic kinds of spelling errors. The results of the trigram analysis were largely independent of the dataset to which it was applied but trigram compositions varied with the dataset. The trigram analysis technique developed determined the error site within a misspelling accurately, but did not distinguish effectively between different error types or between valid words and misspellings. However, methods for increasing its accuracy are suggested.     

ASSESSMENT OF CONTENT AND COGNITIVE STRUCTURES IN PHYSICS AT COLLEGE LEVEL

First, the theory of directed graphs (digraphs) was used to map the conceptual structure of the content, implicit in the instructional materials, in the area of electricity at college level. After this, the graphical representation of content structure, thus obtained, was compared with those obtained for the teacher's cognitive structure and the student's cognitive structure through a word association test and the multidimensional scaling technique. Research findings suggest mainly that the techniques used to assess content and cognitive structures might be useful tools for such a purpose.

     

Reflexiones sobre los niveles y agentes del diseño del curriculum

Resumen

Este artículo explora un tema actual del diseño del curriculum. Después de hacer una definición de términos sobre el tema, se expone una propuesta sobre los distintos niveles de concreción del diseño del curriculum.     

Using formative assessment to promote argumentation in a university bilingual science course

Formative assessment, bilingualism, and argumentation when combined can enrich bilingual scientific literacy. However, argumentation receives little attention in the practice of bilingual science education. This article describes the effect of a formative assessment-based pedagogical strategy in promoting university students’ argumentation. It examines the written and oral arguments produced by 54 undergraduates (28 females and 26 males, 16–21 years old) in Colombia during a university bilingual (Spanish-English) science course. The data used in this analysis was derived from students’ written responses, and audio and video recordings. The first goal of this study was to determine how this teaching strategy could help students increase the use of English as a means of communication in argumentation in science. The second goal was to establish the potential of the strategy to engage students in argumentative classroom interactions as an essential part of formative assessment. The findings show that the strategy provided participants with opportunities to write their argumentation in Spanish, in English and in a hybrid version using code-switching. Educational implications for higher education are discussed.     

The effect of external and internal factors on firms’ product innovation

In this article we analyse the effect of factors external and internal to the firm, on product innovation novelty, and how this effect varies by industry. We estimate three econometric models to determine the individual effects of these factors, their joint explanatory power and the effects of interactions among them. The analysis is based on a sample of 6094 manufacturing firms, taken from the Spanish Survey of Technological Innovation 2000. The results indicate that the firm's technological competences, derived from in-house R&D, are the main determinant of product innovation. They also suggest that in the presence of high levels of such competences, the technological opportunities deriving from non-industry agents become less important as determinants of innovation. We show that the determinants of innovation vary depending on the industrial sector and the degree of novelty of the product developed.