Many insects such as fleas, froghoppers and grasshoppers use a catapult mechanism to jump, and a direct consequence of this is that their take-off velocities are independent of their mass. In contrast, insects such as mantises, caddis flies and bush crickets propel their jumps by direct muscle contractions. What constrains the jumping performance of insects that use this second mechanism? To answer this question, the jumping performance of the mantis Stagmomantis theophila was measured through all its developmental stages, from 5 mg first instar nymphs to 1200 mg adults. Older and heavier mantises have longer hind and middle legs and higher take-off velocities than younger and lighter mantises. The length of the propulsive hind and middle legs scaled approximately isometrically with body mass (exponent=0.29 and 0.32, respectively). The front legs, which do not contribute to propulsion, scaled with an exponent of 0.37. Take-off velocity increased with increasing body mass (exponent=0.12). Time to accelerate increased and maximum acceleration decreased, but the measured power that a given mass of jumping muscle produced remained constant throughout all stages. Mathematical models were used to distinguish between three possible limitations to the scaling relationships: first, an energylimited model (which explains catapult jumpers); second, a powerlimited model; and third, an acceleration-limited model. Only the model limited by muscle power explained the experimental data. Therefore, the two biomechanical mechanisms impose different limitations on jumping: those involving direct muscle contractions (mantises) are constrained by muscle power, whereas those involving catapult mechanisms are constrained by muscle energy.

Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) are widely argued to be important actors in innovation systems. They are active both innovating themselves, and by providing their clients with important knowledge and learning opportunities. This study uses survey data to investigate the mechanisms of knowledge transfer and innovativeness improvement through the provision of KIBS. The empirical core of the paper is a set of Russian surveys of KIBS and their clients: KIBS are a fairly new phenomenon in Russia, so this provides an opportunity to contrast KIBS supplier-client relationships featuring more and less experienced customers. Many of the KIBS firms' services are highly tailored to customer specificities, and we consider how far this is minor customisation and how far novel products (and thus potentially product innovations) are involved. These services typically involve KIBS consumers into a coproduction process, where both the formal supplier and the formal user of the service are engaged together in service production. Knowledge transfers through learning-by-doing in such cases affect customers' propensity to innovate and improve their absorptive capacity. The paper concludes that the generation of innovations through KIBS may well be a self-sustaining process. In this process, service providers are incentivised to engage in service innovations by more innovative customers' demand for highly individualised services. In turn, the process stimulates the innovativeness of customers, as they engage in learning-by-doing through coproduction.JEL Classification: D83, L84, O32.

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Knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) are special in that they rely on knowledge exchange between service providers and consumers and thus intensive cooperation between the two parties is essential at all stages. This implies approaches to find the "right" provider may have to differ from those used in the sector of more homogeneous services and goods. Public procurement regulation aims to improve competitiveness, yet does this help achieving the best value for money in the procurement of KIBS? Legislative constraints on the types of admissible public procurement mechanisms may have an undesirable effect on the provider selection, meaning that services may not be purchased from the most efficient or the most suitable provider. As a benchmark, private consumers are unconstrained in their choice of KIBS providers. We exploit this difference to study the efficiency of KIBS purchases by the public sector, as compared to that in the private sector. Using the 2007 and 2011 waves of a unique survey of KIBS consumers in Russia, we find, inter alia, that the public sector reports lower satisfaction from KIBS and admits a lower level of co-production than the private sector. Our main recommendations refer to the optimal choice of public procurement methods.

Рубрика 18Форсайт № 2 (6) 2008 2 Исследование выполнено с участием компании РОМИР Холдинг и включало качественный и количественный этапы. На первом этапе проведены углубленные опросы 60 экспертов -представителей первой двадцатки компаний в каждом сегменте. В ходе количественного этапа опрошены 650 организаций -производителей интеллектуальных услуг, а также потребители интеллектуальных услуг, включая 235 компаний -лидеров 18 отраслей российской экономики и 2100 домохозяйств.