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The production and diffusion of knowledge: essays on Science, Technology, and Proximity
No full textThe mainstream recipe for long-run economic prosperity rests upon generating
novel ideas and turning them into marketplace innovations. Such
innovations increase productivity, and an increase in productivity begets
economic growth. Nonetheless, uncovering the roots, mechanisms, and
consequences of the production and diffusion of ideas remains a crucial
challenge. Ideas and knowledge are “public goods” that markets fail to
deal with, causing distortions in the level and direction of research efforts.
For instance, insufficient resources support fundamental research on crucial
issues such as climate change. Fortunately, knowledge flows following
patterns that can now be tracked by exploiting big data, combined with
network and data science tools. Accordingly, this dissertation takes a
data-driven perspective to provide new evidence on how social, technological,
and geographical proximity affects the production and diffusion
of knowledge.
The first essay provides evidence that centrality in the inter-sectoral
knowledge space positively affects the competitiveness of industries, but
only national knowledge flows have a significant impact. We shift the emphasis
of the analysis from the bilateral knowledge flows that characterize
industrial relationships to the position of an industry in the entire intersectoral
knowledge space. We collect patent data on 14 manufacturing
industries in 16 OECD countries over the period 1995–2009 to track down
inter-sectoral flows, and then we investigate whether the relative position
of an industry affects its international competitiveness. The analysis
suggests that centrality in the inter-sectoral knowledge space positively
affects industries’ export market shares. Furthermore, national-level
knowledge flows’ impacts on international competitiveness are stronger
than international ones. Industries that can intercept knowledge flows
outperform their foreign counterparts. Interestingly, this is true as far
as national flows are concerned: geographical boundaries still limit the
transmission of tacit knowledge.
Next, the second essay shows that knowledge and social proximity
drive scientists’ research portfolio diversification, and social relationships
become crucial when scientists move far from their core specialization.
By looking at the research output of roughly 200k physicists and using
bipartite networks, we derive a measure of topic similarity and a measure
of social proximity to investigate to what extent knowledge and
social proximity shape scientists’ research portfolio diversification. We
find that scientists’ strategies are not random and significantly affected
by both measures. However, social relatedness stands out in explaining
research diversification, suggesting that science is an eminently social
enterprise. In addition, a significant negative interaction between knowledge
and social relatedness signals that the farther scientists move from
their specialization, the more they rely on collaborations.
Finally, the third essay aims at quantifying knowledge spillovers stemming from research efforts in “Negative Emissions Technologies” (NETs),
deemed as one of the leading potential solutions to tackle global warming.
As of today, however, NETs hardly represent fully developed technologies
to be deployed at scale. By looking at scientific articles, patents,
and policy documents, we quantify the impact of NETs within and beyond
the scientific realm. Our results suggest that knowledge spillovers
are non-negligible for NETs research. Yet, the impact of different NETs
varies greatly within science, and Direct Air Capture (DAC) is the option
that generates more impact beyond the academic world (measured by citations
coming from patents). Finally, we also apply network analysis to
identify research hubs that can support future collaborations.
Science and technology policy will play a crucial role in shaping our
response to crises and societal challenges, such as global health issues or
climate change. The essays collected in this work contribute to the literature
by offering novel insights into how scientific and technical knowledge
flows across our economies and societies, including policy-relevant recommendations
Knowledge and social relatedness shape research portfolio diversification
Full text linkScientific discovery is shaped by scientists’ choices and thus by their career patterns. The increasing knowledge required to work at the frontier of science makes it harder for an individual to embark on unexplored paths. Yet collaborations can reduce learning costs—albeit at the expense of increased coordination costs. In this article, we use data on the publication histories of a very large sample of physicists to measure the effects of knowledge and social relatedness on their diversification strategies. Using bipartite networks, we compute a measure of topic similarity and a measure of social proximity. We find that scientists’ strategies are not random, and that they are significantly affected by both. Knowledge relatedness across topics explains ≈ 10 % of logistic regression deviances and social relatedness as much as ≈ 30 % , suggesting that science is an eminently social enterprise: when scientists move out of their core specialization, they do so through collaborations. Interestingly, we also find a significant negative interaction between knowledge and social relatedness, suggesting that the farther scientists move from their specialization, the more they rely on collaborations. Our results provide a starting point for broader quantitative analyses of scientific diversification strategies, which could also be extended to the domain of technological innovation—offering insights from a comparative and policy perspective
Does the position in the inter-sectoral knowledge space affect the international competitiveness of industries?
Full text linkThis paper empirically investigates how the inter-sectoral knowledge flows affect the international competitiveness of industries, once controlling for both cost and other technological factors. Using patent data on 14 manufacturing industries in 16 OECD countries over the period 1995-2009, we apply a network-based approach to capture the effect of industries' position in the flows of technological knowledge across industries, which we label inter-sectoral knowledge space. We find that (i) centrality and local clustering in the inter-sectoral knowledge space positively affect the export market shares of an industry, (ii) such two effects are rather redundant and, (iii) national-level knowledge flows' impacts on international competitiveness are way stronger than international ones. Network measures of position in the knowledge space are found to be more relevant than standard technological indicators such as patent counts. Our results point to the importance of industries being well located in the stream of knowledge flows, rather than being innovative per-se, and offers an novel yet robust proxy to measure technological factors affecting trade performances. In addition, we find evidence of geographical boundaries of knowledge flows
Does the position in the inter-sectoral knowledge space affect the international competitiveness of industries?
No full textThis paper empirically investigates how the inter-sectoral knowledge flows affect the international competitiveness of industries, once controlling for both cost and other technological factors. Using patent data on 14 manufacturing industries in 16 OECD countries over the period 1995–2009, we apply a network-based approach to capture the effect of industries’ position in the flows of technical knowledge across industries,
which we label inter-sectoral knowledge space. We find that (i) centrality and local clustering in the inter-sectoral knowledge space positively affect the export market shares of an industry, (ii) such two effects are
rather redundant and (iii) national-level knowledge flows’ impacts on international competitiveness are way stronger than international ones. Network measures of position in the knowledge space are found to be more relevant than standard technological indicators such as patent counts. Our results point to the importance of industries being well located in the stream of knowledge flows, rather than being innovative per se, and offer a novel yet robust proxy to measure technological factors affecting trade performances. In addition, we find evidence of geographical boundaries of knowledge flows
Ruolo del sistema Ran/importine nel controllo del fuso mitotico in cellule di mammifero
Full text linkMarco Tripodi, Giorgio Prantera, Angela Santon
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
The public use of early-stage scientific advances in carbon dioxide removal: a science-technology-policy-media perspective
Full text linkWhile Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) solutions are considered essential to meet Paris Agreement objectives and curb climate change, their maturity and current ability to operate at scale are highly debated. The rapid development, deployment, and diffusion of such methods will likely require the coordination of science, technology, policy, and societal support. This article proposes a bibliometric approach to quantify the public use of early-stage research in CDR. Specifically, we employ generalized linear models to estimate the likelihood that scientific advances in eight different carbon removal solutions may induce (i) further production of scientific knowledge, (ii) technological innovation, and (iii) policy and media discussion. Our main result is that research in CDR is of significant social value. CDR research generates significant, positive, yet heterogeneous spillovers within science and from science to technology, policy, and media. In particular, advances in Direct Air Capture spur further research and tend to result in patentable technologies, while Blue Carbon and Bio-energy with Carbon Capture and Storage appear to gain relative momentum in the policy and public debate. Moreover, scientific production and collaborations cluster geographically by type of CDR, potentially affecting long-term carbon removal strategies. Overall, our results suggest the existence of coordination gaps between science, technology, policy, and public support
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