Creativity and regional innovation: Evidence from EU regions

We analyse the role of creative workers in the region as a source and foundational element of regional innovation in the European Union. We show the empirical relevance of this factor – which we label inspiration – within the structure of a recursive model of regional innovation for a set of 83 European regions. We show that, when differentiated from the presence of regional intelligence – as measured by the availability of human capital – and from technological infrastructure, inspiration, along with the degree of development of national and regional institutions, has the strongest direct and indirect effects on regional patenting activity.     

Narrative research in climate change adaptation—Exploring a complementary paradigm for research and governance

Climate adaptation research increasingly focuses on the socio-cultural dimensions of change. In this context, narrative research is often seen as a qualitative social science method used to frame adaptation communication. However, this perspective neglects an important insight provided by narrative theory as applied in the cognitive sciences and other practical fields: human cognition is organized around specific narrative structures. In adaptation, this means that how we ‘story’ the environment determines how we understand and practice adaptation, how risks are defined, who is authorized as actors in the change debate, and the range of policy options considered. Furthermore, relating an experience through story-telling is already doing ‘knowledge work’, or learning. In taking narrative beyond its use as an extractive social research methodology, we argue that narrative research offers an innovative, holistic approach to a better understanding of socio-ecological systems and the improved, participatory design of local adaptation policies. Beyond producing data on local knowledge(s) and socio-cultural and affective-emotive factors influencing adaptive capacity, it can significantly inform public engagement, deliberation and learning strategies–features of systemic adaptive governance. We critically discuss narrative as both a self-reflective methodology and as a paradigmatic shift in future adaptation research and practice. We explore the narrative approach as a basis for participatory learning in the governance of socio-ecological systems. Finally, we assemble arguments for investing in alternative governance approaches consistent with a shift to a ‘narrative paradigm’.     

Creating value in ecosystems: Crossing the chasm between knowledge and business ecosystems

Policy makers take initiatives to stimulate knowledge ecosystems in technology hotspots. It is implicitly assumed that these ecosystems will lead to value networks through which the participating companies can realize a competitive advantage. Value networks refer to business ecosystems where the value proposition is offered by a group of companies which are mutually complementary. The strategy literature suggests that business ecosystems lead to competitive advantages for each of the partners in the ecosystem. Based on a unique hand-collected database of 138 innovative start-ups in the region of Flanders, we analyze the knowledge and business ecosystem and the financial support network. We find that the knowledge ecosystem is well structured and concentrated around a number of central actors while the business ecosystem is almost non-existent at the local level. Further, we find that the financial support network is almost 100% publicly backed and fails to bridge the knowledge and business ecosystem. The implications for policy makers who tend to focus on the development of local ecosystems are discussed.     

Real time exploration and management of large medical volumetric datasets on small mobile devices—Evaluation of remote volume rendering approach

In this paper I present the architecture of system that can be used for real time exploration and management of large medical volumetric datasets. The new state of the art solution presented in this paper is an example of visual data management system. System prototype evaluation proved that it is possible to use low-powered (and cheap) up-to-date mobile devices with programmable GPUs as the remote interfaces for exploration of large volumetric medical data. The implementation was done with high-level programming language that enables portability between different hardware models. The lack of lossy compression enables to display high quality medical images visualizations without any simplifications and noises in frequency domain. The prototype of system is capable to remotely render and send to a client (for example cell phone or tablet) rendered data with frequency 30 fps with limited resolution during interaction. One second after the interaction is finished client machine receives full resolution image. The evaluation of the system was performed on volumetric computed tomography angiography image with approximate size 512³ voxels.     

Knowledge flows and bases in emerging economy innovation systems: Brazilian research 2005–2009

This article considers the role of domestic knowledge capabilities for developing countries and emerging economies, and in particular in the build-up of their national systems of innovation. Using bibliometric methods, we describe the geographic sources of knowledge and the users of Brazilian research in 2005–2009, and analyze the roles of domestic and foreign knowledge bases in it. Our results suggest that increasing reliance on domestic sources of knowledge is a feature of Brazil's improved science and technology capabilities. The ascendancy of Brazil's research informs us about the unfolding re-organization of global research, too, underlining nascent South-South knowledge flows, the prevailing relevance of EU research, and the relative decline of US research for Brazilian knowledge creation.     

Adaptive output feedback neural network control of uncertain non-affine systems with unknown control direction

This paper deals with the problem of adaptive output feedback neural network controller design for a SISO non-affine nonlinear system. Since in practice all system states are not available in output measurement, an observer is designed to estimate these states. In comparison with the existing approaches, the current method does not require any information about the sign of control gain. In order to handle the unknown sign of the control direction, the Nussbaum-type function is utilized. In order to approximate the unknown nonlinear function, neural network is firstly exploited, and then to compensate the approximation error and external disturbance a robustifying term is employed. The proposed controller is designed based on strict-positive-real (SPR) Lyapunov stability theory to ensure the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. Finally, two simulation studies are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed scheme.     

数字鸿沟视角下社会图书馆系统用户感知差异性实证研究

百度产品如百度知道、百度百科、百度文库等是基于Web2.0应用的知识共享平台,用户不仅可以搜寻知识,而且可以贡献知识,被认为是重要的社会图书馆系统。本文结合数字鸿沟,探讨用户对百度产品易用性（能力鸿沟）和有用性（产出鸿沟）的感知差异,旨在推动社会图书馆系统的健康发展。首先进行量表设计;然后基于量表搜集数据;再针对数据进行分析,包括测量模型有效性检验、易用性和有用性的频数统计及相关分析;结合数据分析,用图的方式展现了用户在感知差异性上的分布状态,发现能力鸿沟和产出鸿沟之间存在高度相关性。     

某任务管理计算机航电系统测试与研究

为了解决某机载任务管理计算机航电系统测试设备对故障的快速定位及故障诊断、隔离问题,对机载计算机航电测试设备的系统结构、硬件、软件进行了分析,阐述了系统测试设备的设计思想及实现方法,最后通过对机载任务管理计算机各模块故障模拟、数据分析,对测试系统设备进行了评价,验证了某机载任务管理计算机测试设备设计的合理性和可靠性,为机载计算机测试系统设计、研发、故障隔离诊断提供借鉴和参考。     

一般企业消防系统简介

本文介绍了一般企业中最常见的消防系统的构成和工作原理,包括火灾自动报警系统、火灾探测器的种类、自动喷水灭火系统、消火栓系统和消防控制室等。     

Provider fairness across continents in collaborative recommender systems

When a recommender system suggests items to the end-users, it gives a certain exposure to the providers behind the recommended items. Indeed, the system offers a possibility to the items of those providers of being reached and consumed by the end-users. Hence, according to how recommendation lists are shaped, the experience of under-recommended providers in online platforms can be affected. To study this phenomenon, we focus on movie and book recommendation and enrich two datasets with the continent of production of an item. We use this data to characterize imbalances in the distribution of the user–item observations and regarding where items are produced (geographic imbalance). To assess if recommender systems generate a disparate impact and (dis)advantage a group, we divide items into groups, based on their continent of production, and characterize how represented is each group in the data. Then, we run state-of-the-art recommender systems and measure the visibility and exposure given to each group. We observe disparities that favor the most represented groups. We overcome these phenomena by introducing equity with a re-ranking approach that regulates the share of recommendations given to the items produced in a continent (visibility) and the positions in which items are ranked in the recommendation list (exposure), with a negligible loss in effectiveness, thus controlling fairness of providers coming from different continents. A comparison with the state of the art shows that our approach can provide more equity for providers, both in terms of visibility and of exposure.