Innovation in the automotive sector of the Philippines
The performance of the Philippine automotive industry has steadily improved following the Asian financial crisis. However, relative to the performance of the automotive industry in other countries, the sector has languished. To understand the challenges being faced by the automotive assemblers, as well as parts and components manufacturers, the innovation capability and activities of selected establishments are analysed following the framework developed by J. Bessant. This paper finds that despite having an awareness of the importance of technology and upgrading, some of the automotive firms are not able to translate this awareness into other technology activities.
SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITIES AND ECONOMIC CATCH-UP
This paper seeks to explain why the Philippines has remained technologically and economically underdeveloped up to now and what it will take for the country to catch up scientifically, technologically, and economically. The paper first reviews the extent to which the Philippines has been left behind in S&T and economic development. Next it discusses and confutes two approaches to the problem of economic and S&T under- development that have been pushed in the past: (1) the “science-push” approach advocated by basic scientists starting with Vannevar Bush and (2) the "market-pull" approach favored by mainstream (neoclassical, neoliberal) economists and traditional businessmen and based on the neoclassical economic theory of comparative advantage. The paper then presents an alternative approach ─ a "catch-up oriented", "capability-based", technonationalist approach ─ which draws from the successful catch-up experiences of East Asian NICs. The approach entails the abandonment of the precepts of neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus, seeks to achieve rapid national economic and S&T catch-up, and calls for the integrated upgrading of the supply, demand, and linkage parts of the national S&T system to world-class standards.
Ceramic microwave antennas for mobile applications
Due to their medium to high permittivity values, ceramic microwave materials are attractive as building blocks for miniaturised antenna solutions. Further advantages are low dielectric losses and an excellent temperature stability of standard ceramic materials. Yet, the permittivity of the ceramic material also has a strong influence on the radiation efficiency and bandwidth of the antenna. This implies that in the design process a suitable compromise has to be found between the degree of miniaturisation on the one hand and the antenna efficiency and bandwidth on the other. We describe two approaches towards efficient miniaturised ceramic microwave antennas: the dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with partial metallisation and the shorting post patch antenna. We focus on design steps taken to ensure both a high degree of miniaturisation and high values of the radiation efficiency, the choice of the ceramic material and the experimental performance of the antennas.