From creative ideas to new emerging ventures: the process of identification and exploitation among finnish design entrepreneurs

This study focuses on identification and exploitation processes among Finnish design entrepreneurs (i.e. selfemployed industrial designers). More specifically, this study strives to find out what design entrepreneurs do when they create new ventures, how venture ideas are identified and how entrepreneurial processes are organized to identify and exploit such venture ideas in the given industrial context. Indeed, what does educated and creative individuals do when they decide to create new ventures, where do the venture ideas originally come from, and moreover, how are venture ideas identified and developed into viable business concepts that are introduced on the markets? From an academic perspective: there is a need to increase our understanding of the interaction between the identification and exploitation of emerging ventures, in this and other empirical contexts. Rather than assuming that venture ideas are constant in time, this study examines how emerging ideas are adjusted to enable exploitation in dynamic market settings. It builds on the insights from previous entrepreneurship process research. The interpretations from the theoretical discussion build on the assumption that the subprocesses of identification and exploitation interact, and moreover, they are closely entwined with each other (e.g. McKelvie & Wiklund, 2004, Davidsson, 2005). This explanation challenges the common assumption that entrepreneurs would first identify venture ideas and then exploit them (e.g. Shane, 2003). The assumption is that exploitation influences identification, just as identification influences exploitation. Based on interviews with design entrepreneurs and external actors (e.g. potential customers, suppliers and collaborators), it appears as identification and exploitation of venture ideas are carried out in close interaction between a number of actors, rather than alone by entrepreneurs. Due to their available resources, design entrepreneurs have a desire to focus on identification related activities and to find external actors that take care of exploitation related activities. The involvement of external actors may have a direct impact on decisionmaking and various activities along the processes of identification and exploitation, which is something that previous research does not particularly emphasize. For instance, Bhave (1994) suggests both operative and strategic feedback from the market, but does not explain how external parties are actually involved in the decisionmaking, and in carrying out various activities along the entrepreneurial process.

Analytic approximation of matrix functions in Lp

"Vegeu el resum a l'inici del document del fitxer adjunt."

Desarrollo y aplicación de estrategias de control avanzado en procesos biológicos de tratamiento de efluentes contaminados

En este proyecto se ha desarrollado estrategias de control avanzadas para plantas de depuración de aguas residuales urbanas que eliminan conjuntamente materia orgánica, nitrógeno y fósforo. Las estrategias se han basado en el estudio multivariable del comportamiento del sistema, que ha producido subsidios para la utilización de lazos de control feedforward, de control predictivo y de un control de costes que automáticamente enviaba las consignas más adecuadas para los controladores de proceso. Para el desarrollo de las estrategias, se ha creado un sistema virtual de simulación (simulador) de plantas de depuradoras, basado en datos de literatura. Para el caso de una planta real, se ha desarrollado un simulador de la planta de Manresa (Catalunya). Sin embargo, el sistema de Manresa se ha utilizado exclusivamente para auxiliar los ingenieros de la planta en la tomada de decisiones de cambio de configuración para que la eliminación de fósforo se dé por la ruta biológica y no por la ruta química. La implementación de los simuladores ha permitido hacer muchas pruebas que en una planta real demandarían mucho tiempo y consumirían muchos recursos energéticos y financieros. Las estrategias de control más elaboradas han podido ahorrar hasta 150.000,00 Euros por año en relación a la operación de la planta sin el control automático. Cuanto a los estudios del modelo de la planta real, se concluyó que la eliminación biológica de fósforo puede sustituir el actual proceso químico de eliminación de fósforo, bajando los costes operacionales (costes del agente precipitante).

The Monetary policy rules and the inflation process in open emerging

This paper has three objectives. First, it aims at revealing the logic of interest rate setting pursued by monetary authorities of 12 new EU members. Using estimation of an augmented Taylor rule, we find that this setting was not always consistent with the official monetary policy. Second, we seek to shed light on the inflation process of these countries. To this end, we carry out an estimation of an open economy Philips curve (PC). Our main finding is that inflation rates were not only driven by backward persistency but also held a forward-looking component. Finally, we assess the viability of existing monetary arrangements for price stability. The analysis of the conditional inflation variance obtained from GARCH estimation of PC is used for this purpose. We conclude that inflation targeting is preferable to an exchange rate peg because it allowed decreasing the inflation rate and anchored its volatility.

Quasiconformal maps, analytic capacity, and non linear potentials

"Vegeu el resum a l'inici del document del fitxer adjunt."

Analysing the innovation process in the EU Integrated Programme, ISAFRUIT

ISAFRUIT is an integrated European Union Project focussed on increasing fruit consumption as a means to improve human health, through evaluating the fruit chain and addressing bottlenecks therein.The innovations which are being developed throughout the ISAFRUIT Project have been analysed to determine both the success factors and the obstacles in reaching the commercialisation stage. Only 9.58% of the deliverables planned within the Project were focussed on developing technological innovations.There is evidence, however, of successes in the development of new innovations arising from the ISAFRUIT Project, with several other potential innovations in the pipeline. Of the technologies identified, 67% are still at the “invention stage”; that is, the stage prior to bridging the so-called “valley of death”, the stage between an invention and an innovation. Those which are considered to have moved over the “valley of death” either had industry partners included in the Project, or had consulted with industry to ensure that the technology was relevant, or met a recognised industry need. Many of the technologies which made less progress did not have the same interactions with industry. A number of other issues were identified which prevented further progress towards innovation. The need for scientists to publish scientific papers, both for their career pathways and to increase their chances of future funding, was identified as one issue, although the filing of patents is now becoming more accepted and recognised. The patenting system is considered complex by many scientists and is not well-understood. Finally, agreements between partners on the sharing of intellectual property rights can cause a delay in the innovation process.

Inversion of analytic characteristic functions and infinite convolutions of exponential and Laplace densities

This paper shows that certain quotients of entire functions are characteristic functions. Under some conditions, we provide expressions for the densities of such characteristic functions which turn out to be generalized Dirichlet series which in turn can be expressed as an infinite linear combination of exponential or Laplace densities. We apply these results to several examples.

On rigid analytic uniformizations of Jacobians of Shimura curves

The main goal of this article is to give an explicit rigid analytic uniformization of the maximal toric quotient of the Jacobian of a Shimura curve over Q at a prime dividing exactly the level. This result can be viewed as complementary to the classical theorem of Cerednik and Drinfeld which provides rigid analytic uniformizations at primes dividing the discriminant. As a corollary, we offer a proof of a conjecture formulated by M. Greenberg in hispaper on Stark-Heegner points and quaternionic Shimura curves, thus making Greenberg's construction of local points on elliptic curves over Q unconditional.

Immigrants'assimilation process in a segmented labor market

While much of the literature on immigrants' assimilation has focused on countries with a large tradition of receiving immigrants and with flexible labor markets, very little is known on how immigrants adjust to other types of host economies. With its severe dual labor market, and an unprecedented immigration boom, Spain presents a quite unique experience to analyze immigrations' assimilation process. Using data from the 2000 to 2008 Labor Force Survey, we find that immigrants are more occupationally mobile than natives, and that much of this greater flexibility is explained by immigrants' assimilation process soon after arrival. However, we find little evidence of convergence, especially among women and high skilled immigrants. This suggests that instead of integrating, immigrants occupationally segregate, providing evidence consistent with both imperfect substitutability and immigrants' human capital being under-valued. Additional evidence on the assimilation of earnings and the incidence of permanent employment by different skill levels also supports the hypothesis of segmented labor markets.

How to improve the formal analytic reasoning and scientific motivation in the intellectual training of medical students

A review article of the The New England Journal of Medicine refers that almost a century ago, Abraham Flexner, a research scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, undertook an assessment of medical education in 155 medical schools in operation in the United States and Canada. Flexner’s report emphasized the nonscientific approach of American medical schools to preparation for the profession, which contrasted with the university-based system of medical education in Germany. At the core of Flexner’s view was the notion that formal analytic reasoning, the kind of thinking integral to the natural sciences, should hold pride of place in the intellectual training of physicians. This idea was pioneered at Harvard University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania in the 1880s, but was most fully expressed in the educational program at Johns Hopkins University, which Flexner regarded as the ideal for medical education. (...)

Divergent Reactions to Globalization: Labor Unions and the Nafta and the EU Enlargement Process

The 1990s witnessed the launching of two ambitious trade regionalization plans, the Nafta and EU enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe. In contrast to previous projects for the creation or expansion of regional trade blocs, these two projects concerned states at dramatically different levels of economic development: The Nafta involved the very wealthy economies of Canada and the USA and the significantly poorer economy of Mexico, whereas EU enlargement involved the very wealthy economy of the 15 member-state European Union and the significantly poorer economies of former Communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. Ultimately, the Nafta and EU enlargement are responses to the challenges of globalization. Paradoxically, however, they have been met with radically different societal reactions in the wealthy partners that participated in the launching of these processes. This paper focuses on the reaction by labor unions on both sides of the Atlantic. I conclude that while labor relations and welfare institutions constrained the trade policy choices made by labor unions in the United States and Europe, they do not tell the whole story. It would seem that United States labor unions were more sensitive to the potential risks for workers associated to the liberalization of trade than were their European counterparts.

The New Institutions of Transatlantic Aviation

This article focuses on the institutions of transatlantic aviation since 1945, and aims at extracting from this historical process topical policy implications. Using the methodology of an analytic narrative, we describe and explain the creation of the international cartel institutions in the 1940s, their operation throughout the 1950s and 60s, their increasing vulnerability in the 1970s, and then the progressive liberalization of the whole system. Our analytic narrative has a natural end, marked by the signing of an Open Skies Agreement between the US and the EU in 2007. We place particular explanatory power on (a) the progressive liberalization of the US domestic market, and (b) the active role of the European Commission in Europe. More specifically, we explain these developments using two frameworks. First, a “political limit pricing” model, which seemed promising, then failed, and then seemed promising again because it failed. Second, a strategic bargaining model inspired by Susanne Schmidt’s analysis of how the European Commission uses the threat of infringement proceedings to force member governments into line and obtain the sole negotiating power in transatlantic aviation.

The learning process as a cooperative task among teachers and students

This research project gathers several ideas and guidelines on professional improvement as a teacher. This study includes two empirical studies. The first one focuses mainly on the teacher's figure. It is meant to be a study of the several resources that the teacher uses in order to construct the student's knowledge in an English classroom context. The second empirical study focuses on the students. It is a study on how students learn cooperatively by analyzing their oral productions when working in small groups

Productivity in southern European small firms: When and how work organization complements process innovation

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of human capital, advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT), and new work organizational practices on firm productivity, while taking into account the synergies existing between them. This study expands current knowledge in this area in two ways. First, in contrast with previous works, we focus on AMT and not ICT (information and communication technologies). Second, we use a unique employer-employee data set for small firms in a particular area of southern Europe (Catalonia, Spain). Using a small firm data set, allows us to analyse the particular case of small and medium enterprises, since we cannot assume they have the same characteristics as large firms. The results provide evidence in favor of the complementarity hypothesis between human capital, advanced manufacturing technologies, and new work organization practices, although we show that the complementarity effects depend on what type of work organization practices are used by a firm. For small and medium Catalan firms, the only set of work organization practices that improve the benefits of human capital and technology investment are those practices which are more quality oriented, such as quality circles, problem-solving groups or total quality management.