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A site dedicated
to scholarly work on the commercialization of science and
technology, ranking the performance of high tech companies
by data envelopment analysis (DEA), economic logistics, and
supporting mathematical and computer techniques.
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The inspiration and the
common denominator of themes discussed in the pages to follow are the activities of the IC2 Institute (IC2 =
Innovation, Creativity and Capital), a "think tank" and
agent of venture capitalism operated by the University of Texas.
The
institute, the brainchild of Dr. G. Kozmetsky, was launched in 1977.
It was to grow into a major international academic institution,
operating a series of technology incubators in the US and developing
and teaching a global electronic classroom program in the
commercialization of science and technology. For more information
about these activities, visit the following home-pages
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Data envelopment analysis (DEA)
and Economic Logistics are analytical technique for
quantitative study of economic phenomena, pioneered by A.
Charnes and W.W. Cooper, the University of Texas at Austin, together with their
numerous Ph.D. students. The IC2 Institute at an early point became a center for
this research, organizing conferences, building data bases, and promoting
the publication of research.
The
nucleus of this website
is the scholarly work of
Dr. Sten A. Thore, Gregory A. Kozmetsky Centennial Fellow Emeritus,
the University of Texas. Dr.
Thore is no longer professionally active, and this site is managed
by Dr. Fedele Iannone, Ph.D. in Economic Sciences at the Federico
II University of Naples, and Fellow researcher in Economic Sciences
at the Institute for Service Industry Research (IRAT), National
Research Council (CNR), Italy.
Dr. Thore
was the Gregory A. Kozmetsky Centennial Fellow at the IC2
Institute from 1983 to 1997. Upon retiring, the Instituto
Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon, invited him to assume a newly created
chair in the commercialization of science and technology (donated
by the Luso-American Development Foundation). He held this position
from 1997-1999.
The
site is open to the
academic community for publication of scholarly papers,
discussions etc. How to submit papers.
The website covers scholarly
work in the areas listed below. Download scores of free research
papers and reprints of journal articles!
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Technology
Commercialization.
New product development is a
major occupation of the technical sector of the global economy.
Technology commercialization can be defined simply as the
movement of ideas from the research laboratory to the market
place. Through rapid institutional innovation during the last
25 years, a number of commercialization promoting institutions
and procedures have been appeared, like technology incubators,
technology parks, science cities (the "technopolis"),
and initial public offerings of high tech corporations on
the stock market. - - In order to proceed according to
plan, an R&D project needs to pass various engineering,
financial and marketing milestones. The performance of new
projects can be gauged and evaluated, using the techniques
of data envelopment analysis (DEA).
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Ranking
the Performance of High Tech Companies.
Standard corporate financial
statements are employed to perform DEA calculations of the
productive efficiency of high tech corporations. Such studies
have revealed the presence of strong economies of scale within
the new digital industry.
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Economic
Logistics. To
the operations research specialist, the field of logistics
is concerned with multi-echelon inventory systems, hierarchical
production and distribution networks, and the optimal location
of plants, inventories, and retail outlets. The economist
takes a somewhat broader view, looking not only at the physical
flow of goods along the production chain but also with the
formation of markets and prices along this chain. The tools
of economic logistics are linear and nonlinear programming.
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The
Capitalist System.
The emerging economic order in the West
is a new kind of capitalism that neither Adam Smith nor Karl
Marx foresaw. It is based on the freedom to create and the advent
of high technology. The logistics system of the entire economy
grows hierarchically with new and ever more diversified technology
layers added to the earlier ones.- - The performance of the
capitalist system in the West compared with various kinds of
totalitarian regimes may be investigated, using DEA.
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Newsflash! A
major study on the container seaport-interport system in Campania
region, presented by Sten Thore and Fedele Iannone at the 12th
ICTPI '09 in Porto, July 13-14,
2009.
For the full text, see the section on Economic
Logistics, or
- - click
here.
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