Technological Advantages

Tilton (1971) showed that the demand for the first specialised semiconductors were mostly matched by new firms that thereafter became large multinational firms. In general, first adopters are often in niche markets that are unattractive for large firms, j.g. Christensen (1997). 

Compared to factors on the demand and cost side that induce innovations, there is only weak empirical evidence for a pure science-push explanation of technical change (Thirtle, Ruttan 1987, p. 10). It has been argued instead that science is rather endogenous, resulting more from technological progress. Funds for scientific work are induced by commercial success of a related industry (Stephan 

Dosi (1982) suggested that technical progress follows technological trajectories because R D activities built on accumulated knowledge and commercial problems and scientific questions are normally tackled within a technological paradigm. 

In this hypothesis, technology is not transferred along the flow of direct investments as the traditional theory suggests but rather against the flow of direct investment, see for instance Neven, Siotis (1996) Lichtenberg, van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (1996) Shan, Song (1997). 

The adoption of innovation spurred the investment in science and technology in these countries and not vice versa. 

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Paper technology-based nonwoven processes provide the least product versatitity and require a high investment at the outset, but yield outstandingly uniform products at exceptional speeds. Hybrid processes provide combined technological advantages for specific apptications. 

The obvious technological advantage of a heterogeneous catalyst is that it can be easily separated from reactants and products. However, the serious physical problem is diffusion of reactants to active centers on the surface of the catalyst and back diffusion of the formed intermediate and final products from the surface into the solution. This duffusion occurs much more slowly in the liquid phase compared to the gas phase. The problem of effectiveness of the heterogeneous catalyst in comparison with the homogeneous catalyst is closely connected with the problem of diffusion and sorption on the surface in the liquid phase. 

Discharge tubes have an excellent detectivity and are solar-blind. These technological advantages have to be balanced against the need for acceleration voltage of some 100 V and complicated readout electronics. These requirements make sensing systems based on discharge tubes much more expensive than those based on photo-... 

Thin-film solar cells, 23 26 preparation of, 17 55-58 Thin-film strain gauges, 20 654-655 Thin-film technologies, advantages of, 23 47... 

Ultrathin resists have many technological advantages In optical lithography they offer improved exposure and focus latitude (2), and alleviate the problem of... 

According to the vendor, the technology can effectively treat almost aU hydrocarbons (inclnd-ing gasoline, crnde oil, diesel fnel, and jet fnel), pentachlorophenols, polychlorinated biphenyls, benzene, tolnene, ethyl benzene, xylene, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, trichloroethylene, trichloroethane, and suspended solids. The granules can also be used to remove vegetable-based oils and fats. Another technology advantage is the ability of the SFC system to remove oil emulsified in water to concentrations less than 15 mg/hter. 

There is a patent pending for PET, but the technology has not yet been applied as a full-scale system. The vendor is also marketing this technology in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China. Technology advantages include ... 

As with other new products, commercial acceptance of SC will depend not only on the technological advantages of the material, but to an equal or greater degree on the economics. The inherent and potential economic advantages of SC are determined chiefly by ... 

The main technological advantage of microspheres is that the viscosity of systems with spherical fillers is always less than that of a system with fillers of any other shape, because a sphere has the smallest surface. Moreover the isotropic materials with the best strength properties are those with spherical gas inclusions10). 

The economic estimation based on the pilot unit results showed that ammonia contributes 70% to the prime cost of the N20. Using this result and the ammonia price 0.37 kg-1 [191], one can evaluate the N20 price to be 0.53 kg-1. Certainly, this cost far exceeds that of dioxygen. Therefore, for reactions producing inexpensive products, like the oxidation of methane to methanol, the application of N20 cannot be economically sound. However, this modest cost opens great N20 prospects for the preparation of more expensive chemical products. For instance, the theoretical expenditure for N20 in the oxidation of benzene to phenol is 17%, and in the oxidation of phenol to hydroquinone is 4%, of the cost of the target product. The commercial viability of such processes will depend primarily on their technological advantages rather than the cost of nitrous oxide. 

As mentioned at the beginning of the previous section, some instrumental and methodological problems with optical sensors exist when performing absorbance measurements analogous to those made with conventional spectroscopic techniques. However, IWAOs present some technological advantages in comparison with other optical sensors and have some suitable analytical features to be exploited. 

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