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Do immigrants ever catch-up with native Australians on housing outcomes? Are there any barriers that inhibits them closing the gap? This thesis aims to document the gap in homeownership between immigrants and natives in Australia and examine the sources behind the gap. Using 30 years of Census data, I document life-cycle housing profiles for immigrants and natives and find that the homeownership rates of for both these groups have been decreasing as birth cohorts get younger. My pseudo-panel analysis shows that early-life differences in homeownership between birth cohorts are not completely eliminated in later stages of the life cycle. I also find that immigrants only partially make up the deficit in homeownership to natives over time. Then, using an Australian micro dataset, I assess the determinants and driving forces behind homeownership and how they differ between immigrants and natives. I find that despite having similar observed characteristics, natives are still more likely to be homeowners. This suggests possible discrimination towards immigrants, or weaker preferences for homeownership amongst immigrants in Australia.

A substantial part of production and trade now takes place through global value chains (GVC), making it an essential conduit of knowledge spillover and technology transfer. Yet, extant studies examining how countries become productively efficient and catch-up to the global efficiency frontier through international trade have ignored the possible role of GVC in fast-tracking this process. This paper provides the first empirical evidence that fills this knowledge gap. We propose a two-stage empirical strategy to this end. First, we use a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to compute a measure of productive efficiency—defined herewith as a country’s relative productive efficiency to the global productive efficiency frontier. Second, we use the productive efficiency index as an outcome variable in a reduced-form equation that controls for GVC participation and its interaction with country characteristics that influence the gains from GVC participation. In addition to using the panel fixed effect method, we estimate the reduced-form equation with the difference-GMM to address endogeneity issues, and the Tobit and Fractional Response models to address the bounded nature of the productive efficiency index. We find strong evidence suggesting that GVC participation enables technology-lagging countries to become more productively efficient as well as catch-up to the global efficiency frontier. We also find that the productive efficiency and catch-up gains from GVC participation accrue more strongly to countries that have a high human capital stock, a well-functioning financial market, maintain stable macroeconomic conditions, and specialize in downstream activities in the value chain.

Successful catch-up is an important channel to achieve sustainable development for emerging economies; however, it is a great challenge to catch up in complex products and systems (CoPS). Studies show limited evidence on how successful catch-up occurred in CoPS for emerging economies. This study holds the view that CoPS catch-up means a narrower gap in the innovation ecosystem between latecomers and leaders. This study disentangles the CoPS innovation ecosystem and uses China’s high-speed railway (HSR) as a longitudinal case with abundant data to explore how successful catch-up in CoPS is achieved. The results show that the CoPS innovation ecosystem presents a dynamic evolution in the technology innovation subsystem, the value creation subsystem, and the habitat. Four types of forces from the innovation ecosystem mix together to drive CoPS catch-up. Finally, this study proposes a CoPS catch-up process model following the basic logic of start point, activities, and performance, and CoPS industrial standards are used to measure CoPS catch-up performance. The study on CoPS catch-up from an innovation ecosystem perspective provides new insights and useful implications for governments and entities in CoPS of emerging economies.

Innovation is increasingly decentralized, traded and transferred internationally. Specialized suppliers of knowledge-intensive business services have emerged, enhancing the international transfer of knowledge and technology. This has important implications for the global geography of technological and innovative capabilities. This paper focuses on the role of European KIBS providers for the catch-up process in the Chinese wind turbine industry. Drawing on in-depth studies of three central technology domains in wind turbine research and development, it shows how the recent catch-up in the Chinese wind turbine industry was closely connected to organizational changes taking place in the incumbent wind turbine lead markets in Europe. The paper suggests that access to knowledge through KIBS can unlock rapid but bounded latecomer development in emerging markets.

The world is in the early stages of a paradigm transition toward a global green economy. In this article, we propose the notion of green windows of opportunity, highlighting the importance of institutional changes in the creation of new opportunities for latecomer development. We emphasize how demand and mission-guided technical change influence the directionality of latecomer development and highlight the important role emerging economies may attain in the global green transformation. We provide important insights regarding opportunities for green development in emerging economies, how these opportunities emerge in different renewable energy sectors and their implications for the global green economy.

Recovery from nutritionally induced height deficits continues to garner attention. The current literature on catch-up growth, however, has 2 important limitations: wide-ranging definitions of catch-up growth are used, and it remains unclear whether children can recover from the broader consequences of undernutrition. We addressed these shortcomings by reviewing the literature on the criteria for catch-up in linear growth and on the potential to recover from undernutrition early in life in 3 domains: linear growth, developmental epigenetics, and child brain and neurocognitive development. Four criteria must be met to demonstrate catch-up growth in height: after a period in which a growth-inhibiting condition (criterion 1) causes a reduction in linear growth velocity (criterion 2), alleviation of the inhibiting condition (criterion 3) leads to higher-than-normal velocity (criterion 4). Accordingly, studies that are observational, do not use absolute height, or have no alleviation of an inhibiting condition cannot be used to establish catch-up growth. Adoption and foster care, which provide dramatic improvements in children's living conditions not typically attained in nutrition interventions, led to some (but incomplete) recovery in linear growth and brain and neurocognitive development. Maternal nutrition around the time of conception was shown to have long-term (potentially permanent) effects on DNA methylation in the offspring. Undernourishment early in life may thus have profound irreversible effects. Scientific, program, and policy efforts should focus on preventing maternal and child undernutrition rather than on correcting its consequences or attempting to prove they can be corrected.

Background: Celiac disease (CD) is a lifelong disorder with gluten-induced manifestations in different organs especially growth. Gluten free diet (GFD) is required to achieve remission and prevent abnormal growth. Study reports on growth of children with celiac disease on long-term GFD are not consistent. Objective: We evaluated the effect of GFD on growth of children with the classical form of CD (diagnosed by serology and small intestine mucosal biopsy) on log-term GFD (>2 years). Methods: We studied growth parameters (weight gain/day, BMI and BMI-SDS, height growth velocity, Ht-SDS) and lab data in 30 prepubertal children, aged 7.4±2.6 years, with CD, who were on GFD since the age of 3.2±1.6 years of age (>2 years on GFD) for duration of 1 year. The anthropometric data of 30 randomly selected normal, age and sex matched, children were used as control. Lab investigations of CD children included complete blood count (CBC), renal and liver functions (aspartate transaminase - AST, alanine aminotransferase - ALT, and alkaline phosphatase- ALP, serum albumin, fasting blood glucose, vitamin D, and thyroid function and antibodies. Results: The weight gain per day was on average or above, for age and sex, in 27 children and below average in 3. Two out of those 3 children had slow linear growth (decreased Ht-SDS by -0.56 and -0.1, over one year). BMI-SDS was normal in 26/30 patients (>-1.5). BMI-SD changed from -0.36±1.1 to -0.33±1.1 during the year of treatment. BMI-SDS decreased in 9 children during the follow up period that was explained by their fast-linear growth (increased Ht-SDS) in seven of them. The Ht-SDS was

Global sustainable development critically depends on a fundamental transformation of our current energy systems. This paper looks at how countries develop different types of renewable energy technology to achieve this transformation. We highlight the place-dependence in the global innovation systems of renewable energy technologies by focusing on how countries benefit from local and global knowledge. We show that both the relatedness of a country’s knowledge base, and international knowledge spillovers contribute to the development of renewable energy technologies. For low- and middle- income countries, domestic markets for renewables play a crucial role in absorbing and utilising these international knowledge spillovers. The results provide a better understanding of how countries can acquire new knowledge in renewable energy technologies.

Aims: This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an innovative postnatal risk assessment (the postnatal Rotterdam Reproductive Risk Reduction checklist: R4U) and corresponding care pathways in Preventive Child Healthcare (PCHC), along with PCHC professional satisfaction. Design: Four PCHC organizations located in three municipalities with a higher adverse perinatal outcome than the national average were selected for participation. The study concerns a historically controlled study design. Methods: The study enrolled participants from September 2016 until December 2017. The historical cohort existed of children born in previous years from 2008 until 2016. The outcome measure was defined as catch-up growth: more than 0.67 standard deviation score weight for height increase in the first 6 months of life. PCHC professional opinion was assessed with a digital survey. Results: After the inclusion period, 1,953 children were included in the intervention cohort and 7,436 children in the historical cohort. Catch-up growth was significantly less common in the intervention cohort; 14.9% versus 19.5% in the historical cohort (p

The Finnish economy has experienced a relative late growth and catch-up process in relation to many other advanced Western economies. During this growth period, Finland also experienced a rapid structural change from an agrarian society to a developed service society. In a small open economy, the export industries have played a vital role in this development. Over several centuries, the forest industries have had a dominating impact in exports, along with the metal industries; however, the latter, as well as the electronics industry, with Nokia as the flagship company, gained more importance in the late 20th century in aggregate exports. The egalitarian educational system has to a large extent been pivotal respective of this change in the industrial structure and also in the growth of services. The demographic changes underlying these processes have been focal in these development processes, namely, the steady population growth in the 19th and early 20th centuries, followed by migration to urban centers, especially during the latter part of the 20th century; and, from the turn of the millennium, the emerging challenges of the welfare society followed by the aging of the population. peerReviewed

ObjectiveDespite recent progress in caring for patients born with esophageal atresia (EA), undernutrition and stunting remain common. Our study objective was to assess nutritional status in the first year after birth with EA and to identify factors associated with growth failure.Study designWe conducted a population-based study of all infants born in France with EA between 2010 and 2016. Through the national EA register, we collected prenatal to 1 year follow-up data. We used body mass index and length-for-age ratio Z scores to define patients who were undernourished and stunted, respectively. Factors with P < 0.20 in univariate analyses were retained in a logistic regression model.ResultsAmong 1,154 patients born with EA, body mass index and length-for-age ratio Z scores at 1 year were available for about 61%. Among these, 15.2% were undernourished and 19% were stunted at the age of 1 year. There was no significant catch-up between ages 6 months and 1 year. Patients born preterm (41%), small for gestational age (17%), or with associated abnormalities (55%) were at higher risk of undernutrition and stunting at age 1 year (P < 0.05). Neither EA type nor surgical treatment was associated with growth failure.ConclusionUndernutrition and stunting are common during the first year after birth in patients born with EA. These outcomes are significantly influenced by early factors, regardless of EA type or surgical management. Identifying high-risk patient groups with EA (i.e., those born preterm, small for gestational age, and/or with associated abnormalities) may guide early nutritional support strategies.

The article analyses the dynamics of technological catch-up through entrepreneurship in latecomer firms to emerging markets. With this aim, the article introduces Vietnam’s experience and illustrates the result of three case studies of Vietnamese technology firms at different stages of their evolution. Insights from the cases reveal all follow an incremental innovation model based on business model ‘soft’ innovations, mainly in customer-facing activities and partnering, as well as limited products and technology adaptation to local market needs. Consistently with latecomer firms’ theory, the market drives these firm’s innovation efforts, which are concentrated on developing new services and comprehensive solutions rather than new technologies. Comparisons of the findings with recent and similar experiences of Chinese firms highlight that different stages of catch-up lead to different innovation practices in nature and degree, and the need to strengthen institutions to face competition, rather than use the former to shelter from the latter. The Vietnamese firms’ innovation practices and catch-up patterns found are then discussed under the perspective of reaping the benefits of international knowledge and technology flows and the specific challenges faced by Vietnam. The paper concludes with several reflections, lessons learned and perspectives for other newly industrializing emerging countries.

This paper addresses the issue of catching and convergence at the level of firms, and investigates whether Korean firms tend to converge toward mature firms represented by the US firms in terms of their behavior and performance as well as firm-level innovations systems. It conducts regression analyses of several behavior and performance variables, using the data of the Korean and US firms during the 1990s, the 2000s, and 2010s. It finds some evidence of convergence, such that Korean firms become more profitability- rather than growth-oriented, borrowing and investing less, and thus being less indebted. However, they have not changed much in terms of their behavior toward firm values and dividend tendencies. Further analyses, using the patent-derived, innovation system variables, also confirm some aspects of convergence, compared with the early results, for which self-citations become significant and positive for firm values, furthermore, the variable of cycle time of technology is no longer significant for profitability, which is consistent with the results from the US firms. Meanwhile, changes in corporate governance associated with the rise of foreign shareholder are also shown to have resulted in higher profitability but insignificant change in firm values. An emerging conclusion is an ongoing but partially completed process of convergence.

There is limited data on the HPV immunization status of Latino/Hispanic youth in the USA. In Los Angeles County in 2015, 54,973 (34.3%) college students were of Latino/Hispanic background. We examined Los Angeles County college students’ awareness of HPV and HPV-related disease, HPV vaccine recommendations, and their vaccination status. This study surveyed 212 Los Angeles college students from January to April 2018. In a convenience sampling study, a 31-question, IRB-approved survey was administered face-to-face to college students 18 years and older at California State University settings in Los Angeles County. Almost two-thirds of the male (65%) and half of the female (51.6%) respondents did not know that the HPV vaccine is recommended through 26 years of age, and 47.6% did not know they can get the HPV vaccine at the college student health center or youth-friendly clinics. Ethnicity, family income, and the highest level of education in the family had a significant impact on immunization rates. Self-reported and actual HPV knowledge levels were significantly associated with vaccination status. Educational strategies focusing on the logistics of receiving the HPV vaccine and HPV vaccine catch-up eligibility for college students may be effective in decreasing racial disparities in vaccine receipt.

Transitioning economic sectors towards more sustainable futures is a major global challenge, in particular for non-OECD countries. Policymakers in these countries are confronted with a double challenge: how to implement cleaner technologies and infrastructures while at the same time promoting rapid industrial development. In catch-up studies, this trade-off has been increasingly interpreted as providing windows of opportunity for gaining strong leadership in new generations of cleantech industries. In this paper, we maintain that in order to specify how these windows of opportunity can be endogenized, a deeper understanding is needed about whether, how and by whom the directionality of innovation systems can be influenced. For this purpose, we propose an analytical approach that draws on the technological innovation system framework extending the current understanding of directionality in two ways: first, we complement the prevalent top-down perspective with a bottom-up view exemplified by the institutional entrepreneurship literature. Second, we posit that the focus has to be shifted from the manufacturing of single technologies to the transformation of entire socio-technical systems. The presented framework is validated by a case study on recent shifts in the dominant technology in China’s urban water management sector. Major changes in the country’s sectoral selection environment led membrane bioreactor technology to become the dominant design in urban water management – a development that is unmatched in any other country in the world. Owing to these transformations, China’s technology firms outcompete multinational players and therefore they show strong potentials for industrial leapfrogging. However, although the promise to solve environmental problems played a decisive role in the shaping of the selection environment, it remains unclear whether the observed transformation leads the way to a more sustainable sector structure in the longer run. The case, however, still enables us to specify how windows of opportunity can be endogenized through the interplay of different actors trying to shape different layers of the selection environment in a specific sector.

This paper develops a history-friendly model of the process of catch-up by Chinese firms in the mobile communications industry. It aims to explain how the sectoral environment in terms of segmented markets and generational technological change facilitated the catch-up of domestic firms with respect to foreign multinationals. Segmented markets provided a nurturing environment in peripheral markets for the survival of domestic firms starting with low level capabilities in their infant stage. Generational technological change opened windows of opportunities for domestic firms to catch-up with foreign multinationals in new product segments. Segmented markets and generational technological change allowed domestic firms to leverage their initial advantages in peripheral markets to catch-up in core markets. Counterfactual simulations highlight that the process of catch-up was facilitated by relatedness across technological generations. This paper contributes to the literature on catch-up and industry evolution by illustrating the role of technological change and market regimes in the process of catching-up.

This paper contributes to theory building efforts around the concept of knowledge connectivity and its relevance in buyer-supplier relationships in global value chains. We use the Pakistani IT industry as our study context. Pakistan suffered a significant adverse perception bias following terror attacks in 2008-09. We based our illustration on the experiences of 12 Pakistani offshore service providers (OSPs) who succeeded in offsetting the negative implications of the country’s adverse political environment. The case firms link into two distinct value chain configurations. In each configuration, we observe a distinct course of strategic action, which we term step-up and break-out, respectively. While these observations emerged from the Pakistani context, the implications of the resulting dynamic framework for theory and practice go beyond this particular adverse country setting.

International audience; Background: Migrants often undergo an incomplete vaccination program in regards to the French recommendations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the practices of French General Practitioners’ (GPs) in terms of catch-up vaccination. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried-out in 2017–2018 in France. An online questionnaire was disseminated by email through scholarly societies to GPs involved in the care and the vaccination of migrants. Analyses included univariate and multivariate analysis with a logistic regression model. Results: A total of 216 GPs completed the survey. A majority identified themselves with an average level regarding the prevention of infectious diseases among migrant populations (56.7%) and confirmed this is part of their daily practice (83.3%). The majority of respondents do not perform more than two injections on the same day. When compared to GPs working in health centres, those with a private practice are more likely to report returning to a full primary vaccination schedule (adjusted OR = 2.90, 95% CI [1.29–6.53]). Aside from the serology for hepatitis B and to a lesser extent for measles, other pre-vaccination serologies were not frequently used by GPs. When a migrant declares to be up-to-date with his immunisations, only 56.5% of doctors consider this information reliable. Conclusions: This study clarified the vaccination practices of GPs receiving migrant patients in consultation and showed its heterogeneity. An important need for benchmarks has been identified and these results were used for the elaboration of the French guidelines on vaccines catch-up.

In Vietnam, fishing is a crucial source of nutrition and employment, which not only affects the development of the domestic economy but is also closely related to exports, heavily influencing the economy and foreign exchange. However, the Vietnamese fishery sector has been facing many challenges in innovating production technology, improving product quality, and expanding markets. Hence, the fishery enterprises need to find solutions to increase labor productivity and enhance competitiveness while minimizing difficulties. This study implemented a performance evaluation from 2015 to 2018 of 17 fishery businesses, in decision making units (DMUs), in Vietnam by applying data envelopment analysis, namely the Malmquist model. The objective of the paper is to provide a general overview of the fishery sector in Vietnam through technical efficiency, technological progress, and the total factor productivity in the four-year period. The variables used in the model include total assets, equity, total liabilities, cost of sales, revenue, and profit. The results of the paper show that Investment Commerce Fisheries Corporation (DMU10) and Hoang Long Group (DMU8) exhibited the best performances. This paper offers a valuable reference to improve the business efficiency of Vietnamese fishery enterprises and could be a useful reference for related industries.

Over the last 20 years, the rapid development of high-speed Chinese trains has provided valuable guidelines to countries and companies eager to develop their complex product and system (CoPS) sectors. CoPS refers to the high cost and technology-intensive systems, networks, infrastructure and engineering constructs, and services. Although established studies highlight the importance of CoPS to the economy and development of a country, especially those that have yet to develop high-speed rail, scholars have not paid much attention to investigating the catch-up of CoPS industries from the windows of opportunity perspective. We aimed to fill in this research gap by analyzing the successful catch-up of Chinese high-speed trains. Based on a longitudinal case study of this industry, we analyzed and detailed the mechanisms of the catch-up process of a typical CoPS sector and its development. Our results enrich the literature of the catch-up process, CoPS, and the studies of windows of opportunity. In particular, we show that the windows of opportunity that emerge in the catch-up process of CoPS have the characteristics of endogeneity, asymmetry, and relevance. Moreover, our study further indicates that the endogenous windows of opportunity regarding policy result in the development of later windows of technology and demand. We also find that the technology’s windows of opportunity consist of the window to broaden the technology width and the window to deepen the technology depth of latecomers. In addition to theoretical contributions, our findings can help policymakers of latecomer countries better formulate CoPS industrial policies, followed by a gradual progress in successfully catch-up with the leading countries.

This article contributes to the ongoing debate about whether, how, and under what conditions latecomer countries can become producers of new technology and innovation, thereby catching up with technological leaders. Recent work on sectoral systems of innovation and in the evolutionary economics literature suggests that successful latecomers can move into new technological or industrial domains. They specialise in domains that present more frequent windows of opportunity, shorter technological cycles, flatter learning curves and easier access to relevant knowledge than others. This study investigates the role and significance of two hitherto neglected dimensions of technological regimes that might influence technological catch-up, namely, the degree of complexity and variety of an industry's knowledge base. The impact of technological variety and complexity on catch-up dynamics is tested in three industries – upstream oil/gas, wind power and solar energy – over the period from 1980 to 2016. First, we find that increased knowledge base complexity and related (as opposed to unrelated) variety play a substantial role by hindering the latecomers’ attempts to catch up with technological leaders within each industry. Second, we confirm that other dimensions of technological regime are relevant. Specifically, we find that the length of the technological cycle is important, although a nuanced picture emerges regarding the direction of its impact on catch-up when results are compared across the three industries. These results offer new insights into the technologies and industries in which latecomer countries can specialise in order to develop their innovation capacity.

Real estate management and its operation play a crucial role in supporting company operation. Going hand-in-hand with the rapid growth of companies, the real estate portfolio has expanded dramatically, attracting large numbers of domestic and foreign investors. This paper studied the top 12 real estate companies listed on Vietnam&rsquo, s stock market to develop a method that combines the Grey methodology and the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Malmquist model, intending to predict and evaluate their performances in two periods: 2015&ndash, 2018 and 2019&ndash, 2022. The proposed model considered three input factors, namely total assets, cost of sales, and cost of goods sold, and two output factors, namely total revenue and gross profit. Findings revealed that drastic efficiency changes in some companies should be observed at the beginning of the process, even if the technological efficiency in the period is stable. In the future period, most companies achieved relatively stable productivity. This study serves as a reference for policymakers and strategy makers by analyzing insights for the operational status of real estate businesses and providing an overview in the future toward sustainable development.

Public intervention to support knowledge generation is recognized as a fundamental strategy that enables the closing the gap between latecomers and forerunners economies. Evaluations and academic studies have been conducted on a wide variety of interventions and rapidly expanded what is known about these policies instruments. However, much of the evidence report conflicting results and can lead to misunderstandings about the potential of these interventions. This article offers a systematic review and a critical discussion of what the literature has to say about the effectiveness of these instruments. It is argued that learning about the effectiveness of interventions requires a capacity to seize and interpret its effects. Specifically, two critical factors are emphasized to understand the potential of these policies, which are their sequence of implementation and the context-dependence of interventions. Since none of these issues has been investigated in-depth, some aspects are discussed to guide future evaluations. La intervención pública para apoyar la generación de conocimiento es reconocida como una estrategia fundamental que permite cerrar la brecha entre las economías recién llegadas y las precursoras. Se han realizado evaluaciones y estudios académicos sobre una amplia variedad de intervenciones y se expandió rápidamente lo que sabemos sobre estos instrumentos de políticas. Sin embargo, gran parte de la evidencia reporta resultados contradictorios y puede dar lugar a malentendidos sobre el potencial de estas intervenciones. Este artículo ofrece una revisión sistemática y una discusión crítica de lo que la literatura tiene que decir sobre la efectividad de estos instrumentos. Se argumenta que aprender sobre la efectividad de las intervenciones requiere la capacidad de captar e interpretar sus efectos. Específicamente, enfatiza dos factores críticos para comprender el potencial de estas políticas, que son su secuencia de ejecución y la dependencia del contexto de las intervenciones. Dado que ninguno de estos temas ha sido investigado en profundidad, se discuten algunos aspectos para orientar futuras evaluaciones. A intervenção pública de apoio à geração de conhecimento é reconhecida como uma estratégia fundamental que permite reduzir a distância entre as economias retardatárias e precursoras. Avaliações e estudos acadêmicos foram realizados em uma ampla variedade de intervenções e expandiram o que sabemos sobre esses instrumentos de políticas. No entanto, muitas das evidências relatam resultados conflitantes e podem levar a mal-entendidos sobre o potencial dessas intervenções. Este artigo oferece uma revisão sistemática e uma discussão crítica do que a literatura tem a dizer sobre a eficácia desses instrumentos. Argumenta-se que aprender sobre a eficácia das intervenções requer a capacidade de perceber e interpretar seus efeitos. Especificamente, enfatiza dois fatores críticos para compreender o potencial dessas políticas, que são sua sequência de execução e a dependência do contexto das intervenções. Como nenhuma dessas questões foi investigada em profundidade, alguns aspectos são discutidos para orientar as avaliações futuras.

Universities and academic institutions play a very crucial role in nation development through the production of highly competent manpower. The eight universities in New Zealand have been recognized as some of the top academic institutions in the world. However, the rankings from different international organizations are declining and are hardly likely to rise. Government policies in funding allocation are being blamed for the universities&rsquo, regress as they operate with an insufficient amount of funds. This study uses the Malmquist Productivity Index model to examine the technical efficiency, technological change, and productivity performance of the eight universities. This model uses a variety of inputs (number of academic and non-academic staff and total enrolment) and outputs (number of degree and postgraduate graduates, total graduates, and total operating revenue from the Equivalent Full-Time Student (EFTS) funding system and the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF), etc.) obtained for the period 2013&ndash, 2018. The overall results show that the average catch-up and frontier-shift efficiencies of the universities are roughly in a &ldquo, no-change&rdquo, scenario, meaning that the universities did not make any progress over these years. The Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) also shows a stable result, with average final values slightly higher than 1, wherein only five universities reached an actual productivity score of 1. It is recommended that the universities improve their internal factors, including personnel, equipment, facilities, and student services, while taking accounts of external aspects, such as rapid growth in technological environments and innovations, to achieve sustainable organizational progress and improved productivity. The re-assessment of government policies for funding allocation is also suggested. This research paper offers insights into the New Zealand universities&rsquo, productivity performances for the past few years. This could be used as a reference for other purposes.

International audience; Background: Unknowing immunity status make migrants vaccine catch-up difficult. The interest of using a rapid tetanus immunotest as the Tétanos Quick Stick® (TQS®) to assess immunity status against tetanus has been evaluated in emergency rooms and it is now commonly used. The study aim was to evaluate TQS® as a tool for migrants' vaccine catch-up.Methods: From December 2018 to February 2019, a prospective study was performed and included consecutively migrants who attented to the primary medicine outconsultation of a health care centre in Paris. Migrants above 18, without any records of tetanus immunization were included and a TQS® was performed during a medical consultation. Adapted vaccine catch-up was then proposed. Immunity against tetanus among migrants, factors associated with positive TQS® and costs savings were evaluated.Results: TQS® test was positive for 32% of the 310 included patients. In the univariable analysis, factors associated to the presence of a positive TQS® test were a female gender (OR = 1.69 CI95% [1.02-2.80]) and an urban living in the country of origin (OR = 1.79 CI95% [1.07-3.02]). In the multivariable analysis, these factors were not significantly associated to a positive TQS®. Anamnesis was not correlated to the immunity status: only 26% of the migrants who reported vaccinations in childhood, adolescence and adulthood had a positive TQS® test. The use of TQS® test allowed savings of 6,522 US$ as compared to the immediate catch-up strategy for the 310 patients.Conclusion: The TQS® test is an acceptable, simple, rapid and cost saving test that could find a place in the migrants' vaccine catch-up.

Product combines function and form. This research focuses on the evolution of the product form and its corresponding system at national and international level. With the rise of the intangible economy, the evidence in this study presents that the global economy during the past decades has witnessed the transfer of design capability for product form from high-income countries to catch-up countries. However, product form as an intangible asset has been neglected by innovation policy makers in middle-income countries. Managers and policy makers thus need to depart from the traditional wisdom that product function is the main driver of product innovation and also to recognize product form as one of most significant complementary intangible assets to other related intellectual property schemes (e.g. trademark) in the new global economy context. Specifically, for the first time, the identification of “design-intensive industries” globally based on publicly available data becomes possible. This study further developed a new model on the measurement of the national design system – The National Design System 2.0. The research method employed in this study for the identification of the new model is the practitioner research method. Furthermore, semi-structural interviews with policy makers have been conducted in order to test the new model’s validation. Specifically, by innovatively incorporating the national design system framework into the theory of evolutionary economics, a comparative analysis of four groups of economies (namely the United States and China, catch-up economies, the developed economies and the middle-income economies) has been conducted to observe the different evolutionary patterns of their national design system. The cavern curve has been compiled according to the ranking of the GDP per capital for individual countries as well as the generalization for the classification of the four groups of economies. A strong similarity between their GDP per capital growth and national design system evolution in catch-up economies (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, China) has been observed. The value and benefits of this research are that it developed a new measurement model - the national design system 2.0 – which could help policy makers in latecomer countries to focus on product form in a global context. Also, the global country dashboard and analytical framework provide empirical analysis tools for innovation policy makers to grasp design- driven growth opportunities in the new global economy context., United Nations General Fund

The development experience observed in Korea has been a symbol of successful catch-up for several decades. This process allowed its upward transition from middle income to high-income status and has drawn the attention of many streams of scholars. More recently, emergent research has improved our understanding of this experience and its policy implications for developing countries (Lee, 2013; 2016; 2019). This paper proposes a review of what this literature has to say about the mechanisms behind the successful path followed by Korea and a discussion of lessons to overcome the middle-income trap. It is argued that latecomers do not limit themselves to follow the path of technological development of the advanced countries and that alternative paths are possible. The main policy implication for latecomers is that a successful catch-up is possible yet difficult to achieve because it requires taking detours and leapfroging into new technologies. Resumo A experiência de desenvolvimento observada na Coréia tem sido um símbolo de catch-up bem-sucedido por várias décadas. Esse processo permitiu sua transição ascendente do status de renda média para a alta e tem chamado a atenção de muitas correntes de estudiosos. Mais recentemente, pesquisas emergentes têm melhorado a nossa compreensão dessa experiência e suas implicações políticas nos países em desenvolvimento (Lee, 2013; 2016; 2019). Este artigo propõe uma revisão do que esta literatura tem a dizer sobre os mecanismos por trás do caminho bem-sucedido seguido pela Coréia e uma discussão de lições para superar a armadilha da renda média. Argumenta-se que os países retardatários não se limitam a seguir o caminho do desenvolvimento tecnológico dos avançados e que são possíveis caminhos alternativos. A principal implicação de política para os retardatários é que um catch-up bem-sucedido é possível, mas difícil de alcançar, porque requer detours e leapfrog para as novas tecnologias.

This paper analyses the impact of technological capabilities on convergence. While looking at the relevance of differences in technological capabilities has a long tradition in economics when it comes to explaining persistent deviations in income, we provide econometric tests on the role of technology in determining convergence outcomes in a growth regression framework. We exploit recent advances in measuring technological capabilities for a global country sample over the period 1985-2014. Our results show that convergence is conditional on technological capabilities. This finding is robust to controlling for economic globalisation, resource dependence, institutional quality and other confounding factors. The initial stock of accumulated technological capabilities is one essential factor that may allow poorer countries to convergence towards higher income levels in rich countries. A successful catching-up process cannot be expected for countries lacking a sufficient stock of previously accumulated technological capabilities.

Based on a newly compiled set of Chinese data, this paper puts established assumptions on the role of technological variety in perspective. It does so from two main angles. First, by documenting whether, in China, the technological variety has played a similar role for regional development as in Western economies. Second, by exploring how, more recently, this may change as China transitions towards an innovation-driven economy. In summary, its findings suggest that, while technological variety has indeed so far mattered differently for China's regional development, more recently, first traces of systemic change can be identified in both evolution of related variety and its emerging impact on aspects of regional development.

The role that emerging economies, and China in particular, play in the global energy transition appears to be transforming. Transition literature to date characterizes the formation of cleantech sectors in emerging economies as being heavily dependent on foreign inputs of knowledge and other key resources. This article argues that in the, currently unfolding, next phase of the global energy transition, Chinese actors may play a more central role in global niche development for high-tech industries, including in constructing innovative and effective socio-technical configurations. This argument is illustrated with a case study of the Chinese Concentrated Solar Power industry, which is found to have developed largely independently of foreign resources. The case is used to highlight a number of specificities of the Chinese environment that set it apart from niche formation environments in OECD countries, and may allow China to open up technological trajectories unlikely to develop in those OECD countries.

This is the review of the book "The art of economic catch-up: barriers, detours and leapfrogging", published in 2019 by authorKeun Lee, profesor of economics at Seoul National University​. Thereview was written by the author Ana Burcharth, profesor at Fundação Dom Cabral in Brasil and associated profesor at Aarhus University in Dinamarca. Esta é a resenha do livro "El arte de la recuperación económica: barreras, desvíos y saltos", publicado en 2019 pelo autor Keun Lee, profesor de economía de la Universidad Nacional de Seúl. A resenha foi escrita pela autora Ana Burcharth, professora na Fundação Dom Cabral em Nova Lima, Brasil, y professora associada na Aarhus University em Aarhus, Dinamarca. Esta é a resenha do livro "The art of economic catch-up: barriers, detours and leapfrogging", publicado em 2019 pelo autor Keun Lee, professor de economia da Seoul National University​. A resenha foi escrita pela autora Ana Burcharth, professora na Fundação Dom Cabral em Nova Lima, Brasil, e professora associada na Aarhus University em Aarhus, Dinamarca. &nbsp

Most studies of industrial policy in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China have been concerned with the state’s role in framing industrial policy, and have taken a cross-sectional approach, limited in time. This thesis explores industrial policy longitudinally, as a dynamic, evolving relationship between the state and firms, one in which the positive contribution of the state tends to diminish as capabilities in the wider economy increase. It does so through an examination of the development of firms in China’s electricity-generating equipment industry since 1978, based on more than 70 case study interviews. Three sub-sectors – thermal power equipment, wind turbines, and photovoltaics – are examined in order to track state industrial policy development and the evolution of firm-level capabilities and strategies over four decades. A multi-disciplinary theoretical foundation is constructed from development economics studies and economic and strategic management theory. The findings point to inevitable tension between the early-stage, centralising support for technological learning by a strong developmental state and the more fluid, dynamic and disruptive capabilities that define successful firms’ strategies once basic manufacturing skills are acquired. While the developmental state’s strengths are reflected in the steady, conservative nurturing of manufacturing capabilities, successful firm strategy increasingly requires dynamic capabilities reflected in systems integration, and strategic risk taking in the choice of activities in the business chain and technology sourcing, in turn favouring private ownership. The thesis findings recommend policies that explicitly recognise the need for transitions from state-led development to decentralised, entrepreneurial and market-led growth. It is concluded that strategic management research could contribute significantly to our understanding of economic development if researchers focused attention on political economy transitions in developmental-state-led economies., ESRC funded

Transitioning economic sectors towards more sustainable futures is a major global challenge, in particular for non-OECD countries. Policymakers in these countries are confronted with a double challenge: how to implement cleaner technologies and infrastructures while at the same time promoting rapid industrial development. In catch-up studies, this trade-off has been increasingly interpreted as providing windows of opportunity for gaining strong leadership in new generations of cleantech industries. In this paper, we maintain that in order to specify how these windows of opportunity can be endogenized, a deeper understanding is needed about whether, how and by whom the directionality of innovation systems can be influenced. For this purpose, we propose an analytical approach that draws on the technological innovation system framework extending the current understanding of directionality in two ways: first, we complement the prevalent top-down perspective with a bottom-up view exemplified by the institutional entrepreneurship literature. Second, we posit that the focus has to be shifted from the manufacturing of single technologies to the transformation of entire socio-technical systems. The presented framework is validated by a case study on recent shifts in the dominant technology in China's urban water management sector. Major changes in the country's sectoral selection environment led membrane bioreactor technology to become the dominant design in urban water management – a development that is unmatched in any other country in the world. Owing to these transformations, China's technology firms outcompete multinational players and therefore they show strong potentials for industrial leapfrogging. However, although the promise to solve environmental problems played a decisive role in the shaping of the selection environment, it remains unclear whether the observed transformation leads the way to a more sustainable sector structure in the longer run. The case, however, still enables us to specify how windows of opportunity can be endogenized through the interplay of different actors trying to shape different layers of the selection environment in a specific sector.

Acquisitions by Chinese firms have increased markedly in recent years. So far, we know little about the effects of these acquisitions on the acquirer’s innovation performance. Our paper focuses on two interrelated research questions. First, to what extent can Chinese firms increase their patent output following an acquisition? Second, which factors influence the post-acquisition patent output? Using a comprehensive dataset of 697 publicly listed Chinese firms in the manufacturing sector that conducted 1545 acquisitions from 2000 to 2012, we find no significant overall effect of acquisitions on patent output. However, we find that several acquisition-specific factors have a positive effect on the post-acquisition patent output (e.g., size of the acquired knowledge base, relatedness of the acquired knowledge base, cross-border acquisitions). Our study extends prior research on post-acquisition innovation performance to the context of Chinese acquirers.

Background: Congenital cytomegalovirus infection (CMVc) affects 0.7%-6% of recent births. Among its clinical manifestations are low weight and length at birth. Objective: Describe the growth patterns of children with CMVc in their early years. Methods: Observational, multicenter study of patients with CMVc. Anthropometric data were collected during the first 2 years of life and compared with World Health Organization standards. Results: Anthropometric characteristics of 383 children with CMVc were studied, of which 198 (51%) were symptomatic at birth. At birth, 9% were small for gestational age (SGA) in terms of their weight and length and 17% had microcephaly. At 24 ± 3 months, 10% had a weight and length ≤2 SD, and 13% a head circumference ≤2 SD. Of those who were SGA at birth, at 24 ± 3 months >20% remained at ≤2 SD of their weight and length. Conversely, 75% of children with low weight or length at 24 ± 3 had not been SGA at birth. 20% of infants with microcephaly at birth remained with microcephaly, and 10% of those without microcephaly developed it at 24 ± 3 months. The average growth rate in length and weight was normal. Patients who were symptomatic at birth, premature and with motor and neurocognitive impairment had a significantly higher risk of low weight and length at 24 ± 3 months. Conclusion: Around 10% of children with CMVc are at ≤2 SD in weight, length and head circumference at 24 ± 3 months. The lack of adequate growth is associated with symptoms at birth, prematurity and motor and neurocognitive impairment. Growth impairment could be incorporated into the symptomatic spectrum of CMVc. Sin financiación 3.164 JCR (2020) Q3, 56/92 Infectious Diseases 1.269 SJR (2020) Q1, 69/292 Infectious Diseases No data IDR 2019 UEM

The integrated circuit (IC) industry is the foundation of the information industry, and its level of development is an important manifestation of the economic and technological strength of a country. At present, the IC industry is primarily monopolised by developed countries. Although China is the world&rsquo, s largest consumer of semiconductors, it has a disproportionately small international market share of production and a very low domestic chip self-sufficiency rate, lagging far behind Europe, the United States, Japan, and South Korea. The process of promoting the development of China&rsquo, s IC industry ecosystem is discussed based on a case study of Tsinghua Unigroup and the observation and analysis of its recent international mergers and acquisitions. The resulting conclusions suggest valuable mechanisms that could benefit the technological improvement of late-developing countries and help them close the gap with more developed countries. Relevant theory for the industrial ecosystem is enriched, providing a useful reference for the development of the IC industry in late-developing countries.

This article compares African countries to South Korea in terms of knowledge economy (KE). Emphasis is laid on human capital, knowledge creation, knowledge diffusion, institutions and economic incentives. The analytical approach consists of providing knowledge economy catch-up strategies that can be understood within the context of country-specific gaps between the frontier country in KE and laggard African countries. The empirical evidence is based on sigma convergence with data for the period 1996-2010. Overall, a KE diagnosis is provided by assessing KE gaps (between South Korea and specific-African countries) and suggesting compelling catch-up strategies with which to reduce identified gaps. Contemporary and non-contemporary policies from South Korea and more contemporary policies based on challenges of globalisation are discussed. The policy relevance of this inquiry aligns with the scholarly perspective that catch-up between South Korea and more advanced economies was accelerated by the former adapting to and assimilating relatively obsolete technological know-how from more developed nations.

Change in industrial leadership is often explained in terms of technological and costs advantages. However firms in emerging economies not only have to produce high quality, cost-competitive goods, but also win the resistance of consumers in the world market, who are often adverse to purchasing products from countries that yet have to build a reputation. We argue that this country-of-origin bias significantly influences the chances of leadership change. A model that aims at capturing the endogenous dynamics of demand building and leapfrogging is proposed. We show that in sectors with high monopoly power acquiring a superior technology is not sufficient for a latecomer country to become leader, unless a significant share of consumers is aware of the quality of its products. An extension of the model to multiple sectors shows that a latecomer country remains specialized into low-value undifferentiated goods, even after overtaking the technology of the leading country.

Background: Breastfeeding promotes healthy growth in very-preterm-born infants (VPI), but extra nutritional supply is needed to ensure catch-up growth and brain development. Objectives: To investigate how different types of post-discharge nutrition affect growth until 6 years of age in children born VPI. Methods: This was a 6-year follow-up study of 281 VPI. Median gestational age (GA) was 30 + 0 weeks (range 24–32 weeks). When breastfed at discharge, they were randomized to unfortified human milk (UHM) or fortified human milk (FHM). If not breastfed at discharge, they received a preterm formula (PF). The intervention lasted until 4 months of corrected age (CA). At 6 years CA, their height and weight were measured. Results: A total of 239 children participated in the follow-up. UHM-feeding compared to both PF- and FHM-feeding resulted in a slower but continuous catch-up growth until 6 years of age. Participants born small-for-GA compared to appropriate-for-GA more often demonstrated continuous catch-up growth until 6 years of age (p = 0.018). Rapid weight growth (a change in z score > 1 SD during a short time period) was found to be most pronounced from 34 weeks post-menstrual age to 2 months CA, and especially among those fed PF (p = 0.002 vs. UHM, p = 0.07 vs. FHM). Conclusions: Catch-up growth occurred mainly before discharge, regardless of the feeding group. UHM-fed infants demonstrated catch-up growth that was slower, but extended until 6 years of age. Rapid weight growth was most pronounced shortly after discharge and especially if PF-fed.

Submitted by Rosivalda Pereira (mrs.pereira@ufma.br) on 2018-04-13T21:03:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PaolaGarcia.pdf: 2941387 bytes, checksum: 33598ef569d10d549e2b5bd60bd5dcef (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-13T21:03:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PaolaGarcia.pdf: 2941387 bytes, checksum: 33598ef569d10d549e2b5bd60bd5dcef (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-11-07 CNPq There is growing evidence that early factors have important influences on human capital in adult life. In this scenario, low birth weight and height catch-up would be important markers for these analyzes, considering the possibilities of influence on schooling and future work conditions, key elements for the accumulation of human capital. This study aimed to determine the effect of low birth weight and height-catch-up on the human capital of young adults from data from one of the country's oldest birth cohorts: the birth cohort of Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, 1978/79. This is a prospective longitudinal cohort study. The sample consisted of all young adults enrolled in the fourth phase of the cohort, totaling 2,063 individuals (31.8% of the original cohort) for analysis. 1,004 individuals had sufficient information to calculate the catchup height at school age. Two theoretical models were developed, followed by analysis plan based on structural equations (using Mplus 7.31). Exposure variables were low birth weight and catch-up height and the human capital outcome (latent variable composed of three indicator variables: schooling, income and occupation). It was verified that low birth weight exerts a negative direct effect on human capital in adult life (CP = -0.109 / p = 0.018). However, the greatest effect was observed in maternal human capital on adult human capital (CP = 0.671 / p

Background The World Health Organisation recommends the use of catch-up campaigns as part of the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) to accelerate herd protection and hence PCV impact. The value of a catch-up campaign is a trade-off between the costs of vaccinating additional age groups and the benefit of additional direct and indirect protection. There is a paucity of observational data, particularly from low- and middle-income countries, to quantify the optimal breadth of such catch-up campaigns. Methods In Kilifi, Kenya, PCV10 was introduced in 2011 using the three-dose Expanded Programme on Immunisation infant schedule and a catch-up campaign in children

Highlights • We modelled the cost-effectiveness catch-up ‘MenB’ vaccination in England. • Catch-up vaccination for 1 year old children could be cost-effective at ⩽£8 per dose. • Additionally vaccinating 2 year olds was less cost-effective. • With conservative vaccine assumptions vaccinating 2 year olds was not-cost-effective. • It was not cost-effective to extend vaccination further to 3–4 year olds., We assessed the cost-effectiveness of offering catch-up vaccination with Bexsero against meningococcal disease to children too old to receive the vaccine under the recently introduced infant programme. Offering catch-up vaccination to increasingly older children is less economically attractive because of declining disease burden. We estimate catch-up vaccination of 1 year old children could be cost-effective, incremental on the infant programme with a vaccine price of ⩽£8 per dose. Extending vaccination to 2 year olds could only be cost-effective (incremental on infant and 1 year old catch-up) with a vaccine price of ⩽£3 per dose and was not cost-effective in sensitivity analyses with more conservative vaccine assumptions. Extending catch-up further to 3–4 year olds was not cost-effective. Employing the current criteria for assessing vaccines, our models suggest that even with low vaccine prices only catch-up vaccination in 1 year old children could be cost-effective, when considered incrementally on the infant programme.

This study uses a new dataset to provide comparative gaps, benchmarking with best performers and policy syndromes of growth quality in 93 developing countries with data for the period 1990-2011. Sigma and Beta estimation strategies are used to provide between and within cross-country dispersions. The empirical evidence is based on: time, regions, income levels, resource-wealth, state fragility and time-consistent growth quality (GQ) performance. First, for ‘within dispersions’ the following outcomes are established: (1) GQ dispersions within fundamental characteristics have been decreasing over time, (2) From a time-dynamic view, countries within Asia and the Pacific have experienced the highest reduction in GQ differences while nations in the Middle East and North Africa (Central and Eastern European) region have witnessed the highest (lowest) differences, (3) From an income perspective, upper-middle-income (Low-income) countries have the lowest (highest) differences in GQ. (4) Resource-rich and Non-fragile countries have higher differences relative to their Resource-poor and Fragile counterparts respectively. Second, for ‘between dispersions’ and policy syndromes, we found two time-consistent extremities. (1) In decreasing need of policy intervention, the following are apparent for the Policy syndrome extreme: Hopeful, Fragile, Sub-Saharan African, Low-income and Resource-rich countries. (2) In the same line of policy inference, the following are apparent for the Syndrome-free extreme: Central and Eastern European, Asia and the Pacific, Latin American, Best Performing and Upper-middle-income countries. Their predispositions are clarified and policy implications discussed.

This paper examines the effects of different public policies (strengthening capability building, favouring firms’ learning, protectionism and support of entry of new domestic firms) on the catch-up of a latecomer with respect to an incumbent country in changing and uncertain technological environments. The effects of these policies are analysed with a simulation model first separately and then jointly to assess possible complementarities. We reach several results. First, we confirm that capability building and firms’ learning are important drivers of catch-up. Second, we find that when a large technological discontinuity takes place, entry support favours catch-up while protectionism has the opposite effect. Protectionism favours catch-up only when no technological discontinuity opens up. Third, we find that depending on the technological conditions, different policy complementarities exist; therefore, different policy mixes should be at the base of a country catch-up strategy. These results add to the previous literature on public policy and catching up by developing countries in an industry by distinguishing the different effects of various types of public policy and relating them to the technological conditions that are present in an industry.

This study proposes a framework that aims to explain why successive changes in industry leadership (called also the catch-up cycle) occur over time in a sector. In catch-up cycles, latecomer firms and countries emerge as international leaders, whereas incumbents lose their previous positions. New leaders are then dethroned by newcomers. To identify factors at the base of catch-up cycles, this article adopts a sectoral system framework and identifies windows of opportunity that may emerge during the long-run evolution of an industry. This study proposes three windows related to the specific dimensions of a sectoral system. One dimension is related to changes in knowledge and technology. The second dimension pertains to changes in demand, and the third includes changes in institutions and public policy. The combination of the opening of a window (technological, demand, or institutional/policy) and the responses of firms and other components of the sectoral system of the latecomer and incumbent countries determines changes in industrial leadership and catch-up. Sectors differ according to the type of windows that may open and the responses of firms and other components of systems. Empirical evidence of catch-up cycles is presented from six sectors, namely mobile phones, cameras, semiconductors, steel, mid-sized jets, and wines.

This study assesses the knowledge economy (KE) performance of lagging African countries vis-à-vis their frontier counterparts with regard to the four dimensions of the World Bank’s knowledge economy index (KEI). The empirical exercise is for the period 1996-2010. It consists of first establishing leading nations before suggesting policy initiatives that can be implemented by sampled countries depending on identified gaps that are provided with the sigma convergence estimation approach. The following are established frontier knowledge economy countries. (i) For the most part, North African countries are dominant in education. Tunisia is overwhelmingly dominant in 11 of the 15 years, followed by Libya which is a frontier country in two years while Cape Verde and Egypt lead in a single year each. (ii) With the exception of Morocco that is leading in the year 2009, Seychelles is overwhelmingly dominant in ICT. (iii) South Africa also indomitably leads in terms of innovation. (iv) While Botswana and Mauritius share dominance in institutional regime, economic incentives in terms of private domestic credit are most apparent in Angola (8 years), the Democratic Republic of Congo (3 years) and Tanzania, Sierra Leone and Malawi (each leading in one year).

For humans, visual tracking of moving stimuli often triggers catch-up saccades during smooth pursuit. The switch between these continuous and discrete eye movements is a trade-off between tolerating sustained position error when no saccade is triggered or a transient loss of vision during the saccade due to saccadic suppression. de Brouwer et al (2002) demonstrated that catch-up saccades were less likely to occur when the target re-crosses the fovea within 40 to 180ms. To date, there is no mechanistic explanation for how the trigger decision is made by the brain. Recently, we proposed a stochastic decision model for saccade triggering during visual tracking (Coutinho et al., 2018 ) that relies on a probabilistic estimate of predicted position error (PEpred). Informed by model predictions, we hypothesized that saccade trigger time length and variability will increase when pre-saccadic predicted errors are small or visual uncertainty is high (e.g. for blurred targets). Data collected from human participants performing a double step-ramp task showed that large pre-saccadic PEpred (>10deg) produced short saccade trigger times regardless of the level of uncertainty while saccade trigger times preceded by small PEpred ( Significance Statement The mechanism by which the brain decides when to trigger discrete catch-up saccades during continuous smooth pursuit has eluded researchers for decades. In this study, we present behavioral data complemented by computational model predictions in support of an intuitive trigger mechanism that relies on probabilistic estimation of future position error. Our results add support for a common and shared sensorimotor process for saccades and pursuit. Furthermore, by linking motor control to statistical decision making, we offer a novel perspective on how sensorimotor prediction and uncertainty modulate oculomotor tracking behaviour.

The 2019 hepatitis A outbreak has become increasingly prevalent among adults in Korea and is the largest outbreak since that in 2009-2010. The incidence in the current outbreak is highest among adults aged 35-44 years, corresponding to the peak incidence among those aged 25-34 years 10 years ago. This may indicate a cohort effect in the corresponding age group. Causes of these repeated outbreaks of hepatitis A in Korea are low level of immunity among adults, Korean food culture that consumes raw seafood such as salted clam and inadequate public health system. Among countermeasures, along with general infectious disease control measures including control of the infectious agent, infection spread, and host, urgent actions are needed to review the vaccination policy and establish an adequate public health system.

In a previous study, 3-dose primary vaccination of Nigerian infants with the 10-valent pneumococcal nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae protein D conjugate vaccine (PHiD-CV) was immunogenic for vaccine pneumococcal serotypes, with comparable tolerability between PHiD-CV and control groups. In an open-label study (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01153893), 68 primed children received a PHiD-CV booster dose co-administered with a diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTPa) booster dose at 15-21 months and 36 children unprimed for pneumococcal vaccination received two PHiD-CV catch-up doses (first dose co-administered with DTPa booster dose) at 15-21 and 17-23 months. Adverse events were recorded and immune responses were measured before and one month after vaccination. In both groups, pain was the most frequent solicited local symptom and fever was the most frequent solicited general symptom after the booster dose and each catch-up dose. Few grade 3 solicited symptoms and no vaccine-related serious adverse events were reported. After booster vaccination, for each vaccine serotype, at least 98.5% of children had an antibody concentration ≥ 0.2 µg/ml and at least 94.0% had an opsonophagocytic activity (OPA) titer ≥ 8. After 2-dose catch-up, for each vaccine serotype, at least 97.1% had an antibody concentration ≥ 0.2 µg/ml, except for serotypes 6B (82.9%) and 23F (88.6%), and at least 91.4% had an OPA titer ≥8, except for serotypes 6B (77.4%) and 19F (85.3%). PHiD-CV induced antibody responses against protein D in both groups. In conclusion, PHiD-CV administered to Nigerian toddlers as a booster dose or 2-dose catch-up was well tolerated and immunogenic for vaccine pneumococcal serotypes and protein D.

Using a panel data set covering 139 countries over the 1970 - 2009 period, we empirically investigate the role of foreign direct investment on growth through dif- fusion of technology and innovation. Using an otherwise standard growth regression and regressions on productivity growth, we introduce a direct effect of foreign di- rect investment, which may be proxying for innovation, and an indirect effect, to capture the role of technological catch-up. We find that these two mechanisms have a positive effect on productivity growth and on GDP growth. These results are consistent with an open economy model, in which foreign direct investment affects growth through diffusion of technology and innovation., COMPETE; QREN; FEDER; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)