Skip to main content

Home/ Sensorica Knowledge/ Group items tagged china

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Steve Bosserman

Food Safety in China, and the Risk to the U.S. - 0 views

  •  
    Three years after the melamine-in-milk scandal that made 300,000 children sick, and two years after China passed its first-ever food safety law in response, the country is still struggling to keep its food supply healthy. The Chinese government recently cracked down, closing almost 5,000 food-producing businesses and arresting 2,000 people -- but China experts say a needlessly complex bureaucracy and ferocious determination to turn a profit mean the contamination will keep coming. (On forums where expats chat, Westerners living in China wonder whether there is anything safe to eat.) (Update: Commenters at the China Law Blog, many of them apparently resident in China, reflect the same anxiety.)
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

O-Send Opto-Electronics (Chongqing) Co., Ltd. - Laser module, Photodetector - 3 views

  •  
    O-Send Opto-Electronics (Chongqing) Co., Ltd.
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

PD-LD - 0 views

  •  
    used in Mosquito, now we are moving towards a new modular/all fiber design, using parts from China
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

supereyes.cc - 2 views

  •  
    never ordered from them, this was suggested by Jonathan
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

POWER-CURVE SOCIETY: The Future of Innovation, Opportunity and Social Equity in the Eme... - 1 views

  • how technological innovation is restructuring productivity and the social and economic impact resulting from these changes
  • concern about the technological displacement of jobs, stagnant middle class income, and wealth disparities in an emerging "winner-take-all" economy
  • personal data ecosystems that could potentially unlock a revolutionary wave of individual economic empowerment
  • ...70 more annotations...
  • the bell curve described the wealth and income distribution of American society
  • As the technology boom of the 1990s increased productivity, many assumed that the rising water level of the economy was raising all those middle class boats. But a different phenomenon has also occurred. The wealthy have gained substantially over the past two decades while the middle class has remained stagnant in real income, and the poor are simply poorer.
  • America is turning into a power-curve society: one where there are a relative few at the top and a gradually declining curve with a long tail of relatively poorer people.
  • For the first time since the end of World War II, the middle class is apparently doing worse, not better, than previous generations.
  • an alarming trend
  • What is the role of technology in these developments?
  • a sweeping look at the relationship between innovation and productivity
  • New Economy of Personal Information
  • Power-Curve Society
  • the future of jobs
  • the report covers the social, policy and leadership implications of the “Power-Curve Society,”
  • World Wide Web
  • as businesses struggle to come to terms with this revolution, a new set of structural innovations is washing over businesses, organizations and government, forcing near-constant adaptation and change. It is no exaggeration to say that the explosion of innovative technologies and their dense interconnections is inventing a new kind of economy.
  • the new technologies are clearly driving economic growth and higher productivity, the distribution of these benefits is skewed in worrisome ways.
  • the networked economy seems to be producing a “power-curve” distribution, sometimes known as a “winner-take-all” economy
  • Economic and social insecurity is widespread.
  • major component of this new economy, Big Data, and the coming personal data revolution fomenting beneath it that seeks to put individuals, and not companies or governments, at the forefront. Companies in the power-curve economy rely heavily on big databases of personal information to improve their marketing, product design, and corporate strategies. The unanswered question is whether the multiplying reservoirs of personal data will be used to benefit individuals as consumers and citizens, or whether large Internet companies will control and monetize Big Data for their private gain.
  • Why are winner-take-all dynamics so powerful?
  • appear to be eroding the economic security of the middle class
  • A special concern is whether information and communications technologies are actually eliminating more jobs than they are creating—and in what countries and occupations.
  • How is the power-curve economy opening up opportunities or shutting them down?
  • Is it polarizing income and wealth distributions? How is it changing the nature of work and traditional organizations and altering family and personal life?
  • many observers fear a wave of social and political disruption if a society’s basic commitments to fairness, individual opportunity and democratic values cannot be honored
  • what role government should play in balancing these sometimes-conflicting priorities. How might educational policies, research and development, and immigration policies need to be altered?
  • The Innovation Economy
  • Conventional economics says that progress comes from new infusions of capital, whether financial, physical or human. But those are not necessarily the things that drive innovation
  • What drives innovation are new tools and then the use of those new tools in new ways.”
  • at least 50 percent of the acceleration of productivity over these years has been due to ICT
  • economists have developed a number of proxy metrics for innovation, such as research and development expenditures.
  • Atkinson believes that economists both underestimate and overestimate the scale and scope of innovation.
  • Calculating the magnitude of innovation is also difficult because many innovations now require less capital than they did previously.
  • Others scholars
  • see innovation as going in cycles, not steady trajectories.
  • A conventional approach is to see innovation as a linear, exponential phenomenon
  • leads to gross errors
  • Atkinson
  • believes that technological innovation follows the path of an “S-curve,” with a gradual increase accelerating to a rapid, steep increase, before it levels out at a higher level. One implication of this pattern, he said, is that “you maximize the ability to improve technology as it becomes more diffused.” This helps explain why it can take several decades to unlock the full productive potential of an innovation.
  • innovation keeps getting harder. It was pretty easy to invent stuff in your garage back in 1895. But the technical and scientific challenges today are huge.”
  • costs of innovation have plummeted, making it far easier and cheaper for more people to launch their own startup businesses and pursue their unconventional ideas
  • innovation costs are plummeting
  • Atkinson conceded such cost-efficiencies, but wonders if “the real question is that problems are getting more complicated more quickly than the solutions that might enable them.
  • we may need to parse the different stages of innovation: “The cost of innovation generally hasn’t dropped,” he argued. “What has become less expensive is the replication and diffusion of innovation.”
  • what is meant by “innovation,”
  • “invention plus implementation.”
  • A lot of barriers to innovation can be found in the lack of financing, organizational support systems, regulation and public policies.
  • 90 percent of innovation costs involve organizational capital,”
  • there is a serious mismatch between the pace of innovation unleashed by Moore’s Law and our institutional and social capacity to adapt.
  • This raises the question of whether old institutions can adapt—or whether innovation will therefore arise through other channels entirely. “Existing institutions are often run by followers of conventional wisdom,”
  • The best way to identify new sources of innovation, as Arizona State University President Michael Crow has advised, is to “go to the edge and ignore the center.”
  • Paradoxically, one of the most potent barriers to innovation is the accelerating pace of innovation itself.
  • Institutions and social practice cannot keep up with the constant waves of new technologies
  • “We are moving into an era of constant instability,”
  • “and the half-life of a skill today is about five years.”
  • Part of the problem, he continued, is that our economy is based on “push-based models” in which we try to build systems for scalable efficiencies, which in turn demands predictability.
  • The real challenge is how to achieve radical institutional innovations that prepare us to live in periods of constant two- or three-year cycles of change. We have to be able to pick up new ideas all the time.”
  • pace of innovation is a major story in our economy today.
  • The App Economy consists of a core company that creates and maintains a platform (such as Blackberry, Facebook or the iPhone), which in turn spawns an ecosystem of big and small companies that produce apps and/or mobile devices for that platform
  • tied this success back to the open, innovative infrastructure and competition in the U.S. for mobile devices
  • standard
  • The App Economy illustrates the rapid, fluid speed of innovation in a networked environment
  • crowdsourcing model
  • winning submissions are
  • globally distributed in an absolute sense
  • problem-solving is a global, Long Tail phenomenon
  • As a technical matter, then, many of the legacy barriers to innovation are falling.
  • small businesses are becoming more comfortable using such systems to improve their marketing and lower their costs; and, vast new pools of personal data are becoming extremely useful in sharpening business strategies and marketing.
  • Another great boost to innovation in some business sectors is the ability to forge ahead without advance permission or regulation,
  • “In bio-fabs, for example, it’s not the cost of innovation that is high, it’s the cost of regulation,”
  • This notion of “permissionless innovation” is crucial,
  • “In Europe and China, the law holds that unless something is explicitly permitted, it is prohibited. But in the U.S., where common law rather than Continental law prevails, it’s the opposite
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

ISSI-5-2014 - 0 views

  • The proposals should include an international dimension in particular with the following countries: Brazil, Republic of South Africa, India, Canada, Australia, Russia, United States of America, Japan and China.
  • encourage the modernisation of institutional practices and culture in research institutions, Higher Education Institutions and funding agencies, to promote Responsible Research and Innovation
  • increase Responsible Research and Innovation uptake in research organizations
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • developing a Responsible Research and Innovation Plan covering five RRI keys (societal engagement, gender equality and gender in research and innovation content, open access, science education and ethics) in each participating institution.
  •  
    "Topic: Supporting structural change in research organisations to promote Responsible Research and Innovation"
Tiberius Brastaviceanu

Collaborations: The rise of research networks : Nature : Nature Publishing Group - 0 views

  • Co-authorship has been increasing inexorably3, 4. Recently it has exploded.
  • Collaboration is normally a good thing from a wider public perspective. Knowledge is better transferred and combined by collaboration, and co-authored papers tend to be cited more frequently
  • The first paper with 1,000 authors was published in 2004
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • a paper with 3,000 authors came in 2008
  • By last year, a total of 120 physics papers had more than 1,000 authors and 44 had more than 3,000
  • independent contributions to joint efforts, usually in the form of data, that involve only weak intellectual interaction
  • Papers with hundreds of co-authors contribute to the apparent pervasiveness of collaboration between countries.
  • Consequently, distinguishing Malta's own science performance is already impossible. This blurring of national distinctiveness could be a growing issue.
  • The rapid growth of each nation's research base and regional links, driven by relatively strong economies investing in innovation, will undoubtedly produce a regional research labour force to be reckoned with by 2020
  • China's rapid growth since 2000 is leading to closer research collaboration with Japan
  • Taiwan
  • South Korea
  • Australia
  • Asia-Pacific region
  • India has a growing research network with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, although it is not as frequent a collaborator with China as one might expect
  • Middle East, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have a strong research partnership that is drawing in neighbours including Tunisia and Algeria.
  • Latin America has an emerging research network focused around Brazil,
  • has doubled its collaboration with Argentina, Chile and Mexico in the past five years
  • Africa has three distinct networks: in southern Africa, in French-speaking countries in West Africa and in English-speaking nations in East Africa.
  • proximity is just one of several factors in networks
  • use paths of least resistance to partnership, rather than routes that might provide other strategic gains
  • Commonwealth countries
  • have adopted similar research structures
  • Students
  • proximity
  • lower cost of living
  • generous government scholarships
  • Job opportunities
  • countries in science's old guard must drop their patrician tendencies, open up clear communication channels and join in with new alliances as equal participants before they find themselves the supplicants.
  • Collaboration between the public and private sectors has become more apparent because of government interest in exploiting research for economic competitiveness. Some data show that industrial investment in research seems to be dropping — perhaps a reaction to the recession, but the trend seems to be long term, at least in the United Kingdom9
  • Incentives for collaborative innovation investment that draws directly on the science base would be a good start.
  • So what are the costs and benefits of collaboration? It provides access to resources, including funding, facilities and ideas. It will be essential for grand challenges in physics, environment and health to have large, international teams supported by major facilities and rich data, which encourage the rapid spread of knowledge.
  • Research networks are a tool of international diplomacy.
  • As for costs, collaboration takes time and travel and means a shared agenda
  • The risk is that international, national and institutional agendas may become driven by the same bland establishment consensus.
  • The iconoclastic, the maverick and the marginal may find a highly collaborative world a difficult place to flourish
  •  
    "Co-authorship has been increasing inexorably3, 4. Recently it has exploded."
Kurt Laitner

Club of Amsterdam blog: The impact of culture on education - 0 views

  • For example in some countries the objective of education is: to develop a critical mind, which in other cultures is viewed as absurd. In these countries students are supposed to try to learn as much as possible from the older generation and only when you are fully initiated you may communicate to have ideas of yourself.
  • For example in some countries the objective of education is: to develop a critical mind, which in other cultures is viewed as absurd. In these countries students are supposed to try to learn as much as possible from the older generation and only when you are fully initiated you may communicate to have ideas of yourself.
  • The combined scores for each country explain variations in behavior of people and organizations. The scores indicate the relative differences between cultures.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • n masculine cultures like USA, UK, Germany, Japan and Italy the dominant values are achievement and success. The dominant values in feminine cultures are consensus seeking, caring for others and quality of life. Sympathy is for the underdog. People try to avoid situations distinguishing clear winners and losers.  In masculine cultures performance and achievement are important. The sympathy is for the winners. Status is important to show success. Feminine cultures like the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands have a people orientation. Small is beautiful and status is not so important.
  • In masculine cultures like USA, UK, Germany, Japan and Italy the dominant values are achievement and success. The dominant values in feminine cultures are consensus seeking, caring for others and quality of life. Sympathy is for the underdog. People try to avoid situations distinguishing clear winners and losers.  In masculine cultures performance and achievement are important. The sympathy is for the winners. Status is important to show success. Feminine cultures like the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands have a people orientation. Small is beautiful and status is not so important.
  • In masculine cultures like USA, UK, Germany, Japan and Italy the dominant values are achievement and success. The dominant values in feminine cultures are consensus seeking, caring for others and quality of life. Sympathy is for the underdog. People try to avoid situations distinguishing clear winners and losers.  In masculine cultures performance and achievement are important. The sympathy is for the winners. Status is important to show success. Feminine cultures like the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands have a people orientation. Small is beautiful and status is not so important.
  • For example in some countries the objective of education is: to develop a critical mind, which in other cultures is viewed as absurd. In these countries students are supposed to try to learn as much as possible from the older generation and only when you are fully initiated you may communicate to have ideas of yourself.
  • c. Masculinity vs. Femininity (MAS) In masculine cultures like USA, UK, Germany, Japan and Italy the dominant values are achievement and success. The dominant values in feminine cultures are consensus seeking, caring for others and quality of life. Sympathy is for the underdog. People try to avoid situations distinguishing clear winners and losers.  In masculine cultures performance and achievement are important. The sympathy is for the winners. Status is important to show success. Feminine cultures like the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands have a people orientation. Small is beautiful and status is not so important.
  • He defines culture as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others”.
  • Analyzing his data, Hofstede found five value clusters (or “dimensions”) being the most fundamental in understanding and explaining the differences in answers to the single questions in his questionnaires
  • The five dimensions of national culture identified by Hofstede are:  Power Distance Index (PDI)  Individualism vs. collectivism (IDV)  Masculinity vs. femininity (MAS)  Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)  Long Term Orientation (LTO)
  • Power distance is the extent to which less powerful members of a society accept that power is distributed unequally. In high power-distance cultures everybody has his/her rightful place in society. Old age is respected, and status is important. In low power-distance cultures people try to look younger and powerful people try to look less powerful
  • In individualistic cultures, like almost all the rich Western countries, people look after themselves and their immediate family only; in collectivist cultures like Asia and Africa people belong to "in-groups" who look after them in exchange for loyalty
  • In masculine cultures like USA, UK, Germany, Japan and Italy the dominant values are achievement and success. The dominant values in feminine cultures are consensus seeking, caring for others and quality of life. Sympathy is for the underdog. People try to avoid situations distinguishing clear winners and losers.  In masculine cultures performance and achievement are important. The sympathy is for the winners. Status is important to show success. Feminine cultures like the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands have a people orientation. Small is beautiful and status is not so important
  • Uncertainty avoidance (or uncertainty control) stands for the extent to which people feel threatened by uncertainty and ambiguity. In cultures with strong uncertainty avoidance, people have a strong emotional need for rules and formality to structure life
  • The last element of culture is the Long Term Orientation which is the extent to which a society exhibits a future-orientated perspective rather than a near term point of view.  Low scoring countries like the USA and West European countries are usually those under the influence of monotheistic religious systems, such as the Christian, Islamic or Jewish systems. People in these countries believe there is an absolute and indivisible truth. In high scoring countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, for example those practicing Buddhism, Shintoism or Hinduism,  people believe truth depends on time, context and situation
  •  
    has explanatory power over many of the fundamental disagreements I have seen play out in sensorica discussions - may be worthwhile to understand constituents based on this model
1 - 14 of 14
Showing 20 items per page