Carlos Aguirre Bastos

Latin America (LAC) is renewing efforts to build-up research and innovation (R&I) capacities, guided by policies that consider the need to transform the traditional science system into a more dynamic entity. Policies permitted the generation of new spaces to develop science, strengthen scientific communities, improve university-enterprise linkages, establish common agendas between public and private sectors, earmark special budgets, build new infrastructure, and improve the number and quality of scientific publications. In spite of much progress, LAC lags much behind developed countries, their universities rank lower than their international counterparts, the number of researchers is small and funding is below an appropriate threshold. Some countries have innovated in few economic sectors, while others remain technologically underdeveloped and much of the countries' innovative capacities remain untapped. It is believed that policies still have little influence on social and econ...

The rise and expansion of organized scientific research has led individuals to become accustomed to an unceasing delivery of new scientific results and technical improvements that resolve even seemingly unsolvable problems. This timely book examines how science-based research and innovation is designed, implemented and applied in developing countries in support of development and poverty alleviation. The expert contributors trace and compare the emergence of national innovation systems (NIS) in four developing countries – Bolivia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Vietnam. Dedicated chapters on each country identify the main structural and organizational problems for improving the relevance and quality of research output for the productive sector, and conclude by offering suggestions on how the process of applying research outputs and innovations in support of development goals can be improved.

The Pierre Auger Observatory is a facility designed for the study of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. The Observatory combines two different types of detectors: a surface array of 1600 water Cherenkov stations placed on a 1.5 km triangular grid covering over 3000 km2; and a fluorescence detector of 24 telescopes located in 4 buildings at the perimeter of the surface array. The fluorescence telescopes, each consisting of 440 photomultipliers, collect the ultraviolet light produced when the charged secondary particles in an air shower excite nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere. Because the intensity of the nitrogen fluorescence is proportional to the energy deposited in the atmosphere during the air shower, the air fluorescence measurements can be used to make a calorimetric measurement of the cosmic ray primary energy. Showers observed independently by the surface array and fluorescence telescopes, called hybrid events, are critical to the function of the Observatory, as they allow for a model-independent calibration of the surface detector. In this paper I describe the detector and the most important measurements.

Todos los paises de America Latina y el Caribe (ALC) han definido e implementado politicas de ciencia, tecnologia e innovacion (CTI) con diferentes grados de exito y dentro de tres modelos economicos, "substitucion de importaciones", "liberalizacion y privatizacion", y mas recientemente en algunos paises "socialismo del siglo XXI". Mientras que las politicas de CTI estaban siendo adoptadas e implementadas dentro de tales modelos, la tasa de cambio tecnologico acelero grandemente y ocurrieron cambios en el proceso de innovacion, pasando de un modelo lineal a uno no lineal y evolucionando hacia un modelo "abierto". Tales cambios indujeron una creciente complejidad en los sistemas nacionales de innovacion y presentan nuevos desafios a la elaboracion de politicas de CTI. Las politicas adoptadas permitieron avances significativos, evidenciados por indicadores existentes; sin embargo, la region de ALC como un todo esta atras de otras regiones. Numer...

Carlos Aguirre-Bastos. B.Sc. in Physics, Oklahoma State University, USA. Postgraduate degrees, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Brazilian Physical Research Center, Brazil. Guest Scientist, Austrian Institute of Technology. Mahabir P. Gupta. B.Sc. in Pharmacy, University of Rajasthan, India. M.Sc. in Pharmacy, Ba­ naras Hindu University, India. Ph.D. in Pharmacognosy, Washington State University, USA. Professor and Director of Center for Pharmacognostic Study of Panamanian Flora (CIFLORPAN), University of Panama. Address: CIFORPLAN, Universidad de Pana­ má. Apartado 0824­00172, Panamá, República de Panamá. e­mail: mahabirpgupta@gmail.com sCIeNCe, TeCHNoLoGy ANd INNoVATIoN PoLICIes IN LATIN AMerICA: do THey WorK?

The innovative performance of 506 private firms of all sizes and covering different productive sectors in Panama has been measured through a survey. Of these firms, 53% did not conduct any innovation activity, while in those where these activities took place, investments were mostly addressed to the import of capital goods, while smaller resources were dedicated to internal and external R&D. In terms of outputs, process innovations are the largest in number, a characteristic that does not change independent of sector, geographical location or size of firm, but the innovative rate does grow with firm size. In spite of growing innovation activities, outputs are still limited as evidenced by the small number of patents and reduced impact of innovations in the firm’s performance. Further, activities of major or relatively major complexity in innovations are not pursued. Only 17% of firms, mainly in the manufacturing and transport sectors, have conducted mostly internal R&D activities. I...

ABSTRACT Todos los países de América Latina y el Caribe (ALC) han definido e implementado políticas de ciencia, tecnología e innovación (CTI) con diferentes grados de éxito y dentro de tres modelos económicos, "substitución de importaciones", "liberalización y privatización", y mas recientemente en algunos países "socialismo del siglo XXI". Mientras que las políticas de CTI estaban siendo adoptadas e implementadas dentro de tales modelos, la tasa de cambio tecnológico aceleró grandemente y ocurrieron cambios en el proceso de innovación, pasando de un modelo lineal a uno no lineal y evolucionando hacia un modelo "abierto". Tales cambios indujeron una creciente complejidad en los sistemas nacionales de innovación y presentan nuevos desafíos a la elaboración de políticas de CTI. Las políticas adoptadas permitieron avances significativos, evidenciados por indicadores existentes; sin embargo, la región de ALC como un todo esta atrás de otras regiones. Numerosos estudios han analizado esta situación, y más recientemente, en el contexto de un proyecto auspiciado por el IDRC, el presente estudio llevó a cabo una encuesta entre antiguos y presentes líderes de CTI, para realizar un análisis en profundidad sobre la efectividad e impacto de las políticas publicas de CTI. Las respuestas muestran los logros y los problemas que el desarrollo de la CTI enfrenta en ALC. La insatisfaccion existente con la aplicación del proceso de liberalización y otras reformas económicas de los 1990’s convocan a una nueva agenda del desarrollo, que debe incluir la CTI para ser exitosa. Esto requiere, a su vez, nuevas condiciones y reglas de gobernabilidad, en particular la definición de políticas, de tal manera que la CTI sea estimulada y guiada por la búsqueda de soluciones a los desafíos sociales y económicos existentes, considerando la creciente complejidad de los sistemas de innovación.

Bolivia’s first university was founded in 1624 and since then a large system composed of public and private universities was created. The autonomous public universities have been at the forefront of social change through the conceptual development and practical exercise of social innovations. Autonomy of the public system dates back to 1932 and it is now expected that within their autonomy, universities will find a new political discourse, directing the academic model to centre on facing the grand challenges present both at the global and national scales.

... Convenio Andrés Bello". Autor del libro, Campo Cabal, Alvaro. éd Yesid Bernal, Henry. éd Aguirre Bastos, Carlos Ramírez Rebolledo, Guillermo Morales Espinal, Juan Ricardo Carrasco Toral, Santiago López Facal, Javier Sánchez Jorquera, Ceferino Zavaleta García, Amaro ...

... of the photomultiplier and logarithmic amplifier in all detectors with a time constant of about 10 ps (revised from the original design, Suga et a1 ... The fitting procedure has been repeated for the same shower by changing s and a best s value which minimises x2 has been found for ...

Abstract: The 2012/2013 Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum has had a very favorable receptivity in Panama, as the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) has placed the country for the second consecutive time in the 40th position among 144 and 148 countries respectively, thus consolidating its position as the most competitive economy in Central America. This measurement has given place to the definition of a competitiveness agenda that faces the observed weaknesses and enhances the strengths. Science, technology and innovation (STI) are key elements of competitiveness and to make an active part of it, it is needed a renewed policy that promotes and strengthens them. To this purpose the production of trustworthy and opportune indicators constitutes a priority. To contribute to the definition of such policy, a study was undertaken to examine the way the GCI produces its indicators and their validity. This presentation resumes some of the results of the study, concent...

In the past years there have been several proposals put forward for the use of foresight as an instrument for improving the performance of innovation systems. Martin and Johnston (1999) have argued that foresight is a powerful tool for strengthening the systems in terms of their capacity to learn and innovate. Central to their argument was the recognition of the vital importance of interactions between actors making up the systems, an argument pointing out that foresight offered a meaningful way to stimulate, extend and deepen those interactions. More recently, foresight has attracted interest in emerging and developing economies where the ability to effectively exploit the results of foresight is hampered by the limitations of the respective governance systems to take into account the complexity in the definition of public policies, to foster and strengthen indigenous capabilities to use, adapt, modify or create technologies and scientific knowledge. Under such context, a parallel ...

En agosto de 1979 se reunieron decidores de política y miembros de la comunidad científica y tecnológica internacio-nal, convocados por Naciones Unidas para celebrar, en Viena, una conferencia dedicada a examinar la situación mundial de la ciencia y la tecnología, y definir los pasos necesarios para acelerar su dominio por los países en desarrollo, como parte de su búsqueda de progreso. La reunión fue una opor-tunidad para que cada país, grande o pequeño, examinara la situación en que se encontraba. El resultado del examen no fue alentador para la mayoría de los países en desarrollo. A pesar de importantes esfuerzos realizados en décadas pasadas, pocos habían conseguido dominar el conocimiento científico y tecnológico y ponerlo al servicio de sus sociedades como fuente de riqueza. La Conferencia de Viena se realizó cuando la teoría de la dependencia continuaba en boga y naturalmente se debían "achacar" muchos de los males a los países dominantes. El Plan de Acción de Viena...

The experiment to operate an air shower array, a hadron calorimeter and an emulsion chamber is carried out at Mt. Chacaltaya (5200 m, Bolivia). The emulsion chamber detects high energy particles in the air shower, called 'family'. In this way the experiment supplies us with the data of the air shower together with those of high energy particles in the

We operate an air shower array and an emulsion chamber simultaneously at Mt. Chacaltaya (5200 m, Bolivia), in order to study high energy nuclear interactions, induced by cosmic rays. We show that high energy electromagnetic component and hadronic component in the air shower are not described by the simulations, indicating that the energy spectrum of produced particles in multiple particle production is suppressed strongly in the forward region.

ABSTRACT Entrenched poverty and persistent inequality persists throughout Latin America. We propose that a potential solution to rectify this problem is to better integrate countries' national systems of innovation policies with their inclusive growth agendas. Drawing on a preliminary assessment of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Peru, we found that there remains considerable variance in the degree of integration among institutions responsible for innovation policies and inclusive growth. A deeper understanding of innovation and entrepreneurial dynamics within impoverished communities can improve national innovation policies resulting in solutions for improved social, cultural, economic, technological and environmental challenges. We conclude by proposing a research agenda to improve our understanding how integration between systems of innovation and inclusive growth can be achieved.