Technological regimes, Schumpeterian patterns of innovation and firm-level productivity growth

The article investigates the relationships between technological regimes and firm-level productivity performance, and it explores how such a relationship differs in different Schumpeterian patterns of innovation. The analysis makes use of a rich dataset containing data on innovation and other economic characteristics of a large representative sample of Norwegian firms in manufacturing and service industries for the period 1998–2004. First, we decompose TFP growth into technical progress and efficiency changes by means of data envelopment analysis. We then estimate an empirical model that relates these two productivity components to the characteristics of technological regimes and a set of other firm-specific factors. The results indicate that: (i) TFP growth has mainly been achieved through technical progress, while technical efficiency has on average decreased; (ii) the characteristics of technological regimes are important determinants of firm-level productivity growth, but their impacts on technical progress are different from the effects on efficiency change; (iii) the estimated model works differently in the two Schumpeterian regimes. Technical progress has been more dynamic in Schumpeter Mark II industries, while efficiency change has been more important in Schumpeter Mark I markets.

Two-phase flow regimes in microchannels

Capillary hydrodynamics has three considerable distinctions from macrosystems: first, there is an increase in the ratio of the surface area of the phases to the volume that they occupy; second, a flow is characterized by small Reynolds numbers at which viscous forces predominate over inertial forces; and third, the microroughness and wettability of the wall of the channel exert a considerable influence on the flow pattern. In view of these differences, the correlations used for tubes with a larger diameter cannot be used to calculate the boundaries of the transitions between different flow regimes in microchannels. In the present review, an analysis of published data on a gas-liquid two-phase flow in capillaries of various shapes is given, which makes it possible to systematize the collected body of information. The specific features of the geometry of a mixer and an inlet section, the hydraulic diameter of a capillary, and the surface tension of a liquid exert the strongest influence on the position of the boundaries of two-phase flow regimes. Under conditions of the constant geometry of the mixer, the best agreement in the position of the boundaries of the transitions between different hydrodynamic regimes in capillaries is observed during the construction of maps of the regimes with the use of the Weber numbers for a gas and a liquid as coordinate axes.

Testing the effectiveness of commonly-used site curing regimes

A range of seven test methods was used to assess the effectiveness of curing on C30 and C50 Portland cement concretes. Curing was by formwork retention, wrapping in wet hessian or wrapping in polythene for periods of between one and seven days. Specimens from each mix were also subjected to both air and water storage.

Welfare regimes and household income packaging in the European Union

This paper uses harmonized data for the member states of the European Union to analyse household income packaging from a 'welfare regimes' perspective. Using data from the third wave of the ECHP, it looks at how the role of welfare transfers in the income package varies across countries and welfare regimes, and assesses whether this is consistent with the predictions of welfare regime theory, having first elaborated some specific hypotheses in that regard. It finds that when one focuses on averages across countries categorized into regimes, many of these hypotheses about the role of transfers are in broad terms borne out by the evidence. However, when one focuses on individual countries rather than regime averages the picture is a good deal more complex and consistency with the range of hypotheses more limited. It is essential that this variation across countries is taken into account in interpreting and using welfare regime theory and typologies.

Moving in and out of poverty - The impact of welfare regimes on poverty dynamics in the EU

Although many of the debates around social exclusion and cumulative disadvantage relate to processes that occur across time, there has been relatively little research into poverty dynamics except in a few notable countries such as Britain, the USA and Germany. This neglect is almost entirely because of the absence of comparative longitudinal data on income for other countries, but it is regrettable given the central importance of this area. By studying poverty dynamics we not only get a better insight into the processes leading to patterns of disadvantage and inequality, but we can also understand better the influence of different welfare state regimes on the social risks experienced by different types of individuals and households. The extent to which different national contexts protect their citizens from poverty persistence, or vary in the factors leading to poverty persistence, tells us a great deal about the workings of their socioeconomic systems and welfare regimes.

In this article we use the recent availability of five waves of the European Community Household Panel Survey to outline the nature of poverty persistence and poverty dynamics across a large number of countries. In doing so we ask three important questions. First, is poverty a more common experience when viewed longitudinally rather than cross-sectionally, and how is this affected by the income poverty line used? Second, can we identify a tendency toward poverty persistence, and does this vary in its extent across countries? Third and lastly, what types of events are more likely to lead to entry into and exit from poverty, and does the importance of these events differ between countries? The article shows that the experience of poverty is far wider than is appreciated from cross-sectional data, and also tends to be more concentrated on a particular population than would be expected from cross-sectional rates. Moreover, the pattern of poverty persistence is congruent with welfare regime theory. The importance of country institutions and welfare regimes is also underlined by the finding that social welfare and market incomes play different roles in poverty transitions across countries, and that Southern European, or residualist, welfare regimes focus poverty risks on the experience of the household's primary earner to a far greater extent than Northern European welfare states do.

Experimental investigation of hole boring and light sail regimes of RPA by varying laser and target parameters

Temporal evolution of plasma jets from micrometre-scale thick foils following the interaction of intense (3 × 10 W cm ) laser pulses is studied systematically by time resolved optical interferometry. The fluid velocity in the plasma jets is determined by comparing the data with 2D hydrodynamic simulation, which agrees with the expected hole-boring (HB) velocity due to the laser radiation pressure. The homogeneity of the plasma density across the jets has been found to be improved substantially when irradiating the laser at circular polarization compared to linear polarization. While overdense plasma jets were formed efficiently for micrometre thick targets, decreasing the target areal density and/or increasing the irradiance on the target have provided indication of transition from the 'HB' to the 'light sail (LS)' regime of RPA, characterized by the appearance of narrow-band spectral features at several MeV/nucleon in proton and carbon spectra.

Major and trace elements in milk and Halloumi cheese as markers for authentication of goat feeding regimes and geographical origin

Sixty samples of milk, Halloumi cheese and local grazing plants (i.e. shrubs) were collected over a year from dairy farms located on three different locations of Cyprus. Major and trace elements were quantified using inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). Milk and Halloumi cheese produced in different geographical locations presented significant differences in the concentration of some of the elements analysed. Principal component analysis showed grouping of samples according to the region of production for both milk and cheese samples. These findings show that the assay of elements can provide useful fingerprints for the characterisation of dairy products.

Parametric scans of HB and LS-RPA regimes employing Petawatt laser

By contrast to the Target Normal Sheath acceleration (TNSA) mechanism [1], Radiation Pressure Acceleration (RPA) is currently attracting a substantial amount of experimental [2,3] and theoretical [4-6] attention worldwide due to its superior scaling in terms of ion energy and laser-ion conversion efficiency. Employing Vulcan Petawatt lasers of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, both the Hole-boring (HB) and the Light-Sail (LS) regimes of the RPA have been extensively explored. When the target thickness is of the order of hole-boring velocity times the laser pulse duration, highly collimated plasma jets of near solid density are ejected from the foil, lasting up to ns after the laser interaction. By changing the linear polarisation of the laser to circular, improved homogeneity in the jet's spatial density profile is achieved which suggests more uniform and sustained radiation pressure drive on target ions. By decreasing the target areal density or increasing irradiance on the target, the LS regime of the RPA is accessed where relatively high flux (~ 1012 particles/MeV/Sr) of ions are accelerated to ~ 10 MeV/nucleon energies in a narrow energy bandwidth. The ion energy scaling obtained from the parametric scans agrees well with theoretical estimation based on RPA mechanism and the narrow bandwidth feature in the ion spectra is studied by 2D particle-in-simulations.