José Luis Velasco

Bridging the Gap between Firms and Academic Institutions The Role of ‘Translators’

In university-industry relationships, ‘translators’ facilitate communication among individuals, institutions, business organizations and groups. However, systematic study of the functions and characteristics of these translators has been scant. Drawing on interviews with participants in knowledge networks, this paper argues that ‘translation’ contributes to the integration of academic knowledge with economic development by reconciling different cognitive orientations, cultures, disciplines, codes and interests. The paper also identifies the personal and professional characteristics that enable some individuals to act as ‘bridges’ between academia and industry. Finally, the authors analyse the relationship between trust and translation, and discuss the pros and cons of creating a position explicitly devoted to performing translation functions.

Knowledge Networks: Integration Mechanisms and Performance Assessment

This ground-breaking new volume evaluates the capacity of the triple helix model to represent the recent evolution of local and national systems of innovation. It analyses both the success of the triple helix as a descriptive and empirical model within internationally competitive technology regions as well as its potential as a prescriptive hypothesis for regional or national systems that wish to expand their innovation processes and industrial development. In addition, it examines the legal, economic, administrative, political and cognitive dimensions employed to configure and study, in practical terms, the series of phenomena contained in the triple helix category.

Power Without Representation: The Coherence and Closeness of the Trilateral Commission

This chapter argues that governance networks claiming to represent the global public opinion need to follow two opposing principles: coherence and openness. To probe this argument and observe its practical implications, the authors focus on the Trilateral Commission (TC), which brings together leaders of several influential think tanks and outstanding personalities from business corporations, political organizations, academic institutions, and media firms. They find that the TC is highly coherent but excessively endogamous, centering on an exclusive group of pro-US leaders, members of transnational corporations, and partisans of free trade. Thus, the TC is a coherent but closed network, very powerful but scarcely representative, which is ironic for a network that claims to promote the use of “soft power” in the international sphere.

Niveles de fósforo disponible aparente en pollas Leghorn blanca durante las etapas de iniciación, crecimiento, desarrollo e inicio de postura

Phosphorus (P) is important for the growth and metabolism of pullets and young laying hens, although the requeriments of this mineral could be overvalued. An experiment was conducted with 750 Hy-line W-36 pullets to evaluate the effects of apparent available phosphorus (aaP) levels during starter (1 d to 6 wk), growing (7 to 12 wk), development (13 to 18 wk), and initial laying period. The analyzed variables were: body weight (BW), feed intake (FI), percentage of P in excreta (PPE) and tibia bone (TBP), tibia breaking strength (TBS), egg mass (EM), and specific gravity (SG). The evaluated aaP levels had no effect (P>0.05) on FI, FP, TBP, RB, or EM in the stages under study. There was a difference (P 0.05) in the starter period, the optimum biological levels for growing and finishing stages were 0.28 and 0.26 % of aaP, respectively. It was concluded that the requirements of apparent available phosphorus could be lower than the value suggested by NRC (1994) for the growth stages and the variables measured, without affecting the body condition and bone mineralization of pullets.