An extended approach for service innovation study: an empirical research

Initially, service sector was defined as complementary to manufacturing sector. This situation has changed in recent times; services growth has resulted in a dominance of employment and economic activity in most developed nations and is becoming a key process for the competitiveness of their industrial sectors. New services related to commodities have become a strategy to differentiate their value proposition (Robinson et al., 2002). The service sector's importance is evident when evaluating its share in the gross domestic product. According to the World Bank (2011), in 2009, 74.8% of GDP in the euro area and 77.5% in United States were attributed to services. Globalization and use of information and communication technology has accelerated dissemination of knowledge and increasing customer expectations about services available worldwide. Innovation becomes essential to ensure that service organizations respond with appropriate products and services for each market segment. Customized and placed on time-tomarket new services require a more developed innovation process. Service innovation and new service development process are cited as one of the priorities for academic research in the following years (Karniouchina et al., 2005) This paper has the following objectives: -To present a model for the analysis of innovation process through the service value network, -To verify its applicability through an empirical research, and -To identify the path and mode of innovation for a group of studied organizations and to compare it with previous studies.

Employment rate impacts of charging the Heavy Good Vehicle corridor (Madrid-Sevilla) across Spanish regions: a Random Utility Based Multiregional Input-Output approach

The implementation of a charging policy for heavy goods vehicles in European Union (EU) member countries has been imposed to reflect costs of construction and maintenance of infrastructure as well as externalities such as congestion, accidents and environmental impact. In this context, EU countries approved the Eurovignette directive (1999/62/EC) and its amending directive (2006 /38/EC) which established a legal framework to regulate the system of tolls. Even if that regulation seek s to increase the efficien cy of freight, it will trigger direct and indirect effects on Spain’s regional economies by increasing transport costs. This paper presents the development of a multiregional Input-Output methodology (MRIO) with elastic trade coefficients to predict in terregional trade, using transport attributes integrated in multinomial logit models. This method is highly useful to carry out an ex-ante evaluation of transport policies because it involves road freight transport cost sensitivity, and determine regional distributive and substitution economic effect s of countries like Spain, characterized by socio-demographic and economic attributes, differentiated region by region. It will thus be possible to determine cost-effective strategies, given different policy scenarios. MRIO mode l would then be used to determine the impact on the employment rate of imposing a charge in the Madrid-Sevilla corridor in Spain. This methodology is important for measuring the impact on the employment rate since it is one of the main macroeconomic indicators of Spain’s regional and national economic situation. A previous research developed (DESTINO) using a MRIO method estimated employment impacts of road pricing policy across Spanish regions considering a fuel tax charge (€/liter) in the entire shortest cost path network for freight transport. Actually, it found that the variation in employment is expected to be substantial for some regions, and negligible for others. For example, in this Spanish case study of regional employment has showed reductions between 16.1% (Rioja) and 1.4% (Madrid region). This variation range seems to be related to either the intensity of freight transport in each region or dependency of regions to transport intensive economic sect ors. In fact, regions with freight transport intensive sectors will lose more jobs while regions with a predominantly service economy undergo a fairly insignificant loss of employment. This paper is focused on evaluating a freight transport vehicle-kilometer charge (€/km) in a non-tolled motorway corridor (A-4) between Madrid-Sevilla (517 Km.). The consequences of the road pricing policy implementation show s that the employment reductions are not as high as the diminution stated in the previous research because this corridor does not affect the whole freight transport system of Spain.

Expectations from EMET and OESEE ground listening of possible EM events generated by the TSS 1R

On 22nd February '96, the space mission STS 75 started ,from the NASA facilities at Cape Canaveral. Such a mission consists in the launch of the shuttle Columbia in order to carry out two experiments in the space: the TSS 1R (Tethered Satellite Sistem 1 Refliight) and the USMP (United States Microgravity Payload). The TSS 1R is a replica of a similar mission TSS 1 '92. The TSS space programme is a bilateral scientific cooperation between the USA space agency NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Agency) and the ASI (Italian Space Agency. The TSS 1R system consists on the shuttle Columbia which deploys, up-ward, by means a conducting tether 20 km long, a spherical satellite (1.5 mt diameter) containing scientific instrumentation. This system, orbiting at about 300 km from the Earth's surface, represents, presently, the largest experimental space structure, Due to its dimensions, flexibility and conducting properties of the tether, the system interacts, in a quite complex manner, wih the earth magnetic field and the ionospheric plasma, in a way that the total system behaves as an electromagnetic radiating antenna as well as an electric power generator. Twelve scientific experiments have been assessed by US and Italian scientists in order to study the electro dynamic behaviour of the structure orbiting in the ionos phere. Two experiments have been prepared in the attempt to receive on the Earth's surface possible electromagnetic events radiated by the TSS 1R. The project EMET (Electro Magnetic Emissions from Tether),USA and the project OESEE (Observations on the Earth Surface of Electromagnetic Emissions) Italy, consist in a coordinated programme of passive detection of such possible EM emissions. This detection will supply the verification of some thoretical hypotheses on the electrodynamic interactions between the orbiting system, the Earth's magnetic field and the ionospheric plasma with two principal aims as the technological assesment of the system concept as well as a deeper knowledge of the ionosphere properties for future space applications. A theoretical model that keeps the peculiarities of tether emissionsis being developed for signal prediction at constant tether current. As a step previous to the calculation of the expected ground signal , the Alfven-wave signature left by the tether far back in the ionosphere has been determined. The scientific expectations from the combined effort to measure the entity of those perturbations will be outlined taking in to account the used ground track sensor systems.

Urban voids, spaces of great expectations

Study and progress of urban voids. opportunities for new urban design.