God's signature: DNA profiling,the new gold standard in forensic science

In the mid-1980s, when the first DNA profiling techniques were developed, the name DNA 'fingerprinting' was widely used. At the time, fingerprinting was a well-established forensic method, and it was rarely questioned in the courts. Fingerprint examiners were permitted to describe matching prints as evidence of individual identity, and they were not required to give probability estimates. Despite its nominal association with the older technique, DNA 'fingerprinting' went through a period of controversy, especially in the US courts. The association with fingerprinting was questioned, and experts were required to qualify their testimony with probability figures. Heated debate occurred in scientific publications and law courts about the statistical and population genetic assumptions that went into the probability calculations presented in court cases. However, by the late 1990s DNA profiling was so widely accepted that it became a basis for invidious comparison with all other forms of forensic evidence, including fingerprinting. In the past three years, the admissibility of fingerprint evidence has been challenged in several US federal and state courts. This article discusses the socio-legal and socio-technical issues that led to the inversion of credibility that characterized the intertwined history of the two techniques.     

Combat science: the emergence of Operational Research in World War II

World War II became known as the "wizard war" because the cycles of developing countermeasures and counter-countermeasures to the weapons deployed by all sides drove rapid technological change. However, technological innovation was not the only contribution scientists made to the war effort. Through Operational Research (OR)--the scientific scrutiny of new weapons, their deployment and relative efficiency--scientists also influenced how warfare itself was conducted. This new scientific field emerged in the UK, where it helped to tighten the defense against the Luftwaffe. It quickly spread to other aspects of the military machine, improving both antisubmarine campaigns and bombing strategy. But although this analytical approach to warfare offered military commanders a factual basis on which to base difficult decisions and deal with tactical and strategic uncertainty, it was not without controversy. Indeed, several recommendations that came out of OR sparked disputes over the allocation of resources and strategic priorities.     

COMMENTARY ROTHSCHILD IN AUSTRALIA? THE ORGANISATION OF R & D IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

The Rothschild scheme was introduced in the UK in 1972 and there have been recent calls for a similar approach from Australian government departments. However, numerous reviews and reports on the scheme have shown it to be largely ineffective, inefficient, inflexible and unbalanced. Consequently, it has failed to produce a coherent national research program. A database scan of the literature confirms these conclusions. Some dismantling of the scheme has now taken place in the UK.     

基于证据的政策制定：英国的实践与启示

近年来,基于证据的政策制定(evidence-based policy making)越来越为欧美国家所推崇,英国是该政策体系的重要倡导者。本研究基于对英国政府部门、议会、科研机构、大学、企业,包括能源与气候变化部、议会科技办公室、英国皇家学会等在内的18个部门的实地调研,深入分析了英国基于证据的政策制定的实践与方法,重点考察了政府决策支撑系统中独具特色的首席科学家制度。调研发现,英国构成了确保政策制定者能够在政策制定过程中寻求有效证据的相对完善的体系,科学和工程是英国政府寻求证据的重要来源,科学共同体作为科学证据的提供者,对英国政府的影响是多元化的并存在于政府的各个层面,构成了有效的支撑网络体系。     

“创新之策”或“避税之道”——英国“专利盒”政策实践与启示

税收优惠是激励创新的重要手段与方式,"专利盒"是欧盟地区促进企业创新的一项重要政策。实践中,该政策在降低企业税收负担、促进知识产权运用方面取得良好效果。但同时也存在优惠政策被滥用,以致成为企业避税工具的现实问题。通过案例研究的方法分析英国"专利盒"政策形成与演变的过程,研究发现,该政策有效降低了企业知识产权交易的税收金额,但政策受益的主体集中于大型跨国企业。在日趋严格的税收监管趋势下,限制优惠范围,规范计税方法,将成为"专利盒"政策发展的主要方向。上述结论可以为我国建立覆盖科技创新全流程的税收优惠政策体系提供有益参考。     

Performance-based research funding: Evidence from the largest natural experiment worldwide

A performance-based research funding system (PRFS) is a nationwide incentive scheme that promotes and rewards university research performance through competition for government funding. The UK’s PRFS, currently the Research Excellence Framework (REF), is considered the oldest, largest and most developed payment-by-results system in academia worldwide. Surprisingly, and despite the strong criticisms, little has been done to quantitatively and casually evaluate the intended and unintended effects of the PRFSs. In this paper, we evaluate the incremental impact of the REF 2014 in the fields of Economics and Business. We use a synthetic control method to compare the performance of UK universities with their artificial counterfactual units constructed using data from US universities. Our analysis shows, on the whole, that the introduction of the REF had a significant and positive impact on the quantity and quality of the scientific research produced at UK universities. However, we do not find a significant effect on the per author measures, suggesting that the REF did not result in an increase in research productivity. We also show that the effects are more heterogeneous across universities than across academic disciplines. We do not find evidence of a shift of research focus from Economics to Business topics, as some feared. But our analysis indicates that the REF 2014 may have contributed to the concentration of research excellence in elite institutions.     

Knowledge to money: Assessing the business performance effects of publicly-funded R&D grants

UK Research Councils (UKRCs) spend around £3bn pa supporting R&D and innovation. We provide a comprehensive assessment of these grants on the performance of participating UK firms, using data on all projects funded by UKRCs over the 2004–2016 period and applying a propensity score matching approach. We exploit the richness of the data available in the Gateway to Research database by investigating the heterogeneous effect of these projects across several novel directions which have not been explored before. We find a positive effect on the employment and turnover growth of participating firms, both in the short and in the medium term. Exploring impacts across different types of firms we find stronger performance impacts for firms in R&D intensive industries and for smaller and less productive firms. We also consider how impacts vary depending on the characteristics of the funded research projects in terms of partners characteristics, receipt of other research grants and grant value. Finally, we focus on the different sources of grants, analysing in particular the evolution in the funding strategy of Innovate UK. Our results have implications for the extent and targeting of future Research Council funding both in the UK and elsewhere.     

Specific and general information sharing among competing academic researchers

We examine information sharing among academics during the research process and show it is context dependent because of differences in trade-offs. When researchers respond to specific requests for information or materials, potential future reciprocity is weighed against the current loss of competitiveness, while general sharing intermediate results in an open forum is driven by the need for feedback versus potential misappropriation. We formally model these trade-offs and empirically test for differences using a survey of German and UK bio-scientists. Increased competition has a negative impact on sharing in both contexts. But career stage has an effect only on specific sharing with untenured faculty less likely to share. Further, scientists in larger teams are more likely to share specifically, but less likely to share generally. The importance of patents for one's reputation reduces sharing in both contexts, but the effect is greater for general information sharing.     

Helping with inquiries or helping with profits? The trials and tribulations of a technology of forensic reasoning

The commercialization of forensic scientific provision in the UK over the last two decades has had a major role in shaping a changing epistemic identity for forensic scientists working within this jurisdiction. Efforts to match the presumed epistemological standards of the 'pure' sciences have been brought together with concerns about value for money in a new approach to the interpretation of evidence, an activity that lies at the heart of criminal investigative practice. A study of the Case Assessment and Interpretation method developed by members of the UK Forensic Science Service is used to show how a technical innovation in the delivery of forensic science services to the police has instantiated these two recent social processes.     

企业创新的外部联系制度的组织与演变——来自英国企业的实证研究/FONT

本文着重研究企业获取与技术创新相关的知识和信息的外部联系制度。以创新系统理论和技术/产品生命周期理论为出发点,研究随着技术/产品生命周期的变化,工业企业创新的外部联系制度所发生的变化。对英国中部的处于技术/产品生命周期的成长期的信息/电子企业以及处于成熟期的汽车制造/工程企业进行了比较研究,发现它们创新的外部联系制度的组织和构成发生了显著变化,如处于成长期的企业对创新的外部联系制度的依赖更大,发生联系的外部知识/信息源的种类更多样化等。同时,两类企业在联系方式、特点以及获取知识的用途等方面也具备一些相似性。     

Intelligent agent systems for executive information scanning,filtering and interpretation: Perceptions and challenges

Using intelligent agent-based systems to support information processing for executives has not been significantly advanced in both theory and practice. Research into this field tends to focus more on technical aspects than on social perspective. When executives are faced with increasing information availability and uncertainty in the business environment, using intelligent agent-based systems to enhance executives’ information processing capability appears both an opportunity and a necessity. This study examines UK executives’ perceptions of intelligent agent-based systems for information scanning, filtering, interpretation and alerting. The study follows a deductive research design, i.e. hypothesis formulation and testing from the user’s perspective. Qualitative data was collected through focus groups and interviews with executives in the UK. The study produces rich evidence that challenges preconceptions of using agent-based information processing system by executives. The findings develop insight into executives’ behavior in information processing, which has implications for intelligent system developers and organizational information processing practice.     

Two approaches to etiology: the debate over smoking and lung cancer in the 1950s

Statisticians R.A. Fisher and Joseph Berkson have become infamous for ending up on the "wrong" side of the debate over the evidence linking smoking and lung cancer during the 1950s, and scholars have speculated about their personal motives in the controversy. But there were many senior biostatisticians and epidemiologists voicing similar concerns about the quality of the evidence at the time, albeit with less inflammatory rhetoric. This debate occurred during a time when epidemiological research methods commonly used today were understood by few and were only just beginning to work their way into public health and medicine. All of the participants in the debate over smoking and lung cancer saw the need for explicit and rigorous standards for evaluating etiological hypotheses, but they held conflicting views about what those standards should be. The differing opinions on the evidence reflected two different models of etiological research--controlled experiment as the crucial, objective test of a causal hypothesis versus inferential judgment based on a diverse body of evidence. This debate has relevance for current epidemiological practice, as tension between these two views still remains.     

Parliamentary cultures and human embryos: the Dutch and British debates compared

Twenty years ago, the technology of in vitro fertilization created a new artefact: the human embryo outside the woman's body. In many countries, political debates developed around the artefact. One of the central questions in these debates is whether it is permissible to use human embryos in research and, if so, under what conditions. To date, no uniform answer to this question has been given by the governments and parliaments of the different nation states. This highlights the importance of national cultures and local dynamics in the process of crafting the space for human embryo research. In this paper I approach the issue of the national context by comparing the Dutch and British parliamentary debates on human embryos. Though some arguments used in both debates were similar, the outcomes were very different. In the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act was passed in 1990. In the Netherlands, several bills on human embryos have been drafted, but each of them was withdrawn from the proceedings before reaching Parliament. To understand the processes which led to these different outcomes, I scrutinize the roles in the Netherlands of the political parties, of the scientists' lobby and of women speakers, and compare them with the findings of the UK debate. I also reflect upon the role played by gender in these two culturally different political contexts.     

The impact of R&D spillovers on UK manufacturing TFP: A dynamic panel approach

One of the benefits claimed for investment in Research and Development (R&D) is that there is a spillover effect. Industries benefit from both their own R&D efforts as well as the efforts of other national and overseas industries. The present research presents new evidence on the long-term impact of R&D investment upon UK industry's productivity performance and on the nature of these “R&D spillovers”. The results suggest that R&D efforts from the industry itself and from other national industries have a positive impact on the industry's productivity but, interestingly, there is no gain from foreign R&D investment.     

Forensic chemistry in 19th-century Britain

Poison has long been a common murder weapon, but in early nineteenth-century Britain toxic substances were readily available and little attention was paid to toxicology. In 1820 the use of poisonous substances in food manufacture was exposed and it was also realized that medical jurisprudence, including toxicology, was already well advanced in some European countries. Better training in these subjects for British doctors was begun, led by three prominent physicians, Robert Christison, Alfred Taylor and Thomas Stevenson. The professions of analytical chemist and Public Analyst were enhanced and the importance of chemical evidence in poison trials was established.     

消费情感对服务质量和顾客满意感影响的实证研究

以往对顾客满意和服务质量的研究,主要都是从顾客的认知角度进行,顾客情感在消费过程中对顾客服务评价和购后行为的影响未得到应有的重视。基于维纳在心理学研究中提出的"归因—情绪反应—行为预期"的理论框架,本研究建立起整合消费情感、顾客认知、服务质量和顾客满意的概念模型,提出相应假设,并通过实证方法对该模型进行了验证。研究结果表明,消费情感与认知显著相关,并且与顾客认知共同显著影响着整体服务质量评价和顾客满意。其中,积极情感对两者有显著正向影响,而自我和外在归因的消极情感则与两者显著负相关。值得注意的是,自我归因的消极情感对中国消费者的影响表现出与西方文化背景下不同的特性。     

基于循证理性决策的英国公共科研管理案例研究——对英国研究理事会的独立审查

分析英国科研与创新发展面临的新形势,以英政府委托保罗.纳斯爵士牵头对英国研究理事会的独立审查为案例,剖析"互动式参与"方式下的审查实施过程和基于循证的决策建议,分析独立审查发现和获取的重要线索,研究审查建议对革新优化公共科研治理结构,推动资源整合、促进合作,拉近科研与决策距离的实现途径,总结英国公共科研管理改革新举措,提出对中国推进科技管理改革工作的启示。     

Measuring the economic benefits from R&D: improvements in the MMI model of the United Kingdom National Measurement System

The benefits and priorities of public funding of R&D programmes are the subject of considerable research and debate and a number of methodologies have been suggested which might allow us to arbitrate on the issues involved. This paper looks at one method that is actually used in practice to evaluate and rank publicly funded R&D programmes in the UK. We describe the improvements that have been made to the mapping measurement impact (MMI) model, which is used by the UK Department of Trade and Industry to assess the economic benefit to industry of different research projects funded as part of the United Kingdom National Measurement System. The model has been in use for more than 5 years as a means to compare publicly funded R&D programmes. It allows evaluation of their benefit and prioritisation of future funding schemes and has potential for wider application in other areas of public R&D investment both inside and outside the UK.