Initiating private-collective innovation: The fragility of knowledge sharing

Incentives to innovate are a central element of innovation theory. In the private-investment model, innovators privately fund innovation and then use intellectual property protection mechanisms to appropriate returns from these investments. In the collective-action model, public subsidy funds public goods innovations, characterized by non-rivalry and non-exclusivity in using these innovations. Recently, these models have been compounded in the private-collective innovation model where innovators privately fund public goods innovations. Private-collective innovation is illustrated in the case of open source software development. This paper contributes to the work on this model by investigating incentives that motivate innovators to share their knowledge in an initial situation, before there is a community to support the innovation process. We use game theory to predict knowledge sharing behavior in private-collective innovation, and test these predictions in a laboratory setting. The results show that knowledge sharing is a coordination game with multiple equilibria, reflecting the fragility of knowledge sharing between innovators with conflicting interests. The experimental results demonstrate important asymmetries in the fragility of knowledge sharing and, in some situations, more knowledge sharing than theoretically predicted. A behavioral analysis suggests that knowledge sharing in private-collective innovation is not only affected by material incentives, but also by social preferences such as fairness. The results offer general insights into the relationship between incentives and knowledge sharing and contribute to a better understanding of the initiation of private-collective innovation.     

Trinucleotide repeats and neuropsychiatric disorders

Expansions of trinucleotide repeats at the level of genomic DNA are increasingly recognized as a cause of a number of neuropsychiatric disorders. Triplet repeat disorders are commonly classified into two groups, those with moderate CAG expansions that result in a polyglutamine stretch in the gene products and those with very long expansions, usually non-CAG, that are not translated. The triplet repeat intergeneration and intra-generational instability, and genetic anticipation characterize disorders. Most of the diseases caused by expanded CAG repeat share common features, which include neurodegeneration, a dominant pattern of inheritance and widespread expression of the gene products with neuronal loss restricted to distinct subset of neurons. Neurodegenerative changes associated of CAG expansion disorders is explained in terms of intra and extra cellular aggregation of mutant gene products, the insoluble nature of the protein(s) being attributed to the presence of polyglutamine stretches, hence their neurotoxic effects. methods based on poymerase chain reaction have become handy in the diagnosis of these genetic disorders. Progress in transgenic animal models for these disorders will be critical for understanding the progress of these disorders and for testing new therapeutic strategies.     

睡眠障碍

研究睡眠障碍,目的是为了提高人们的生活质量。作者从现代人的生理、心理及亚健康的生活方式,阐述睡眠障碍的多种病因（5P）、生理现象与心理因素障碍等。提示保证充足质量的睡眠是工作安全,身体健康的前提,从而使医务工作者和广大民众高度重视,防患于未然。     

Different differences: the use of 'genetic ancestry' versus race in biomedical human genetic research

This article presents findings from our ethnographic research on biomedical scientists' studies of human genetic variation and common complex disease. We examine the socio-material work involved in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and discuss whether, how, and when notions of race and ethnicity are or are not used. We analyze how researchers produce simultaneously different kinds of populations and population differences. Although many geneticists use race in their analyses, we find some who have invented a statistical genetics method and associated software that they use specifically to avoid using categories of race in their genetic analysis. Their method allows them to operationalize their concept of 'genetic ancestry' without resorting to notions of race and ethnicity. We focus on the construction and implementation of the software's algorithms, and discuss the consequences and implications of the software technology for debates and policies around the use of race in genetics research. We also demonstrate that the production and use of their method involves a dynamic and fluid assemblage of actors in various disciplines responding to disciplinary and sociopolitical contexts and concerns. This assemblage also includes particular discourses on human history and geography as they become entangled with research on genetic markers and disease.We introduce the concept of'genome geography' to analyze how some researchers studying human genetic variation'locate' stretches of DNA in different places and times. The concept of genetic ancestry and the practice of genome geography rely on old discourses, but they also incorporate new technologies, infrastructures, and political and scientific commitments. Some of these new technologies provide opportunities to change some of our institutional and cultural forms and frames around notions of difference and similarity. Nevertheless, we also highlight the slipperiness of genome geography and the tenacity of race and race concepts.     

Strategic risk management using complementary assets: Organizational capabilities and the commercialization of human genetic testing in the UK

Teece's complementary asset framework explains how firms use assets to appropriate the benefits of innovation. This paper extends Teece's framework to show how firms also use complementary assets to disappropriate the risks of technical change. Based on case studies of the commercialisation of genetic testing in the UK the paper shows how firms can strategically alter the social distribution of risk to their advantage by managing distinct types of risk using different institutions with diverse risk management capabilities. We highlight the specific risk management capabilities of the state that are not available to either firms or markets, and their role in supporting technical change. Implications for policy and the academic understanding of technical change are discussed.     

Architectures of genetic medicine: comparing genetic testing for breast cancer in the USA and the UK

This paper compares the development of genetic testing for breast cancer (BRCA testing) in the USA and the UK. It argues that national political cultures played an important role in how these genetic testing technologies were shaped, and that the shapes of these technologies had important implications for the users of these systems. In order to demonstrate the roles of national social and political elements in the development of new genetic testing technologies, I introduce the concept of a technology's architecture, which is made up of components and the specific ways in which these components are assembled to fulfill particular functions. In the USA, four very different BRCA testing systems initially emerged. However, one biotechnology company, Myriad Genetics, eventually used its legal and economic position to become the sole provider of testing. It offered BRCA testing the way many other laboratory tests were provided in the USA, available to anyone through any physician. The shape of this testing service had important implications for its participants, defining the client as a consumer who could demand access to any of Myriad's laboratory services, but could not choose among testing systems. In the UK, the government-run National Health Service provided testing through regional genetics clinics, using family history information to assess risk and triage care. Clients in the UK were defined as citizens and patients, who had the right to equal access to the testing system but could not demand any specific services.     

并行分布式遗传算法的研究

传统遗传算法在面对一些搜索空间巨大的复杂问题时,其表现往往难以令人满意。作者针对传统遗传算法解决高维多峰值问题时可能会出现的困难进行了分析,然后根据困难出现的原因,基于PVM设计了并行分布式遗传算法,并对适应度评估、交叉、变异算子做了一些改进,旨在加强算法的全局搜索能力,提高算法的收敛速度。为了验证算法多项措施的有效性,对一多峰函数在高维条件下进行多方面的测试,实验结果表明这几项措施是有效的。     

German politics of genetic engineering and its deconstruction

Policy-making, as exemplified by biotechnology policy, can be understood as an attempt to manage a field of discursivity, to construct regularity in a dispersed multitude of combinable elements. Following this perspective of politics as a textual process, the paper interprets the politicization of genetic engineering in Germany as a defence of the political as a regime of heterogeneity, as a field of 'dissensus' rather than 'consensus', and a rejection of the idea that the framing of technological transformation is an autonomous process. From its beginning in the early 1970s, genetic engineering was symbolically entrenched as a key technology of the future, and as an integral element of the German politics of modernization. Attempts by new social movements and the Green Party to displace the egalitarian imaginary of democratic discourse into the politics of genetic engineering were construed by the political élites as an attack on the political order of post-World War II Germany. The 1990 Genetic Engineering Law attempted a closure of this controversy. But it is precisely the homogenizing idiom of this 'settlement' which continues to nourish the social movements and their radical challenge to the definitions and codings of the politics of genetic engineering.     

Ordering disorders; linking organization design and knowledge integration

Studies addressing the connections between knowledge and organization structures can be divided into two classes. One class holds that a perspective on knowledge signals shortcomings of classical design principles and calls for flatter hierarchy and less specification of the production structure. Another class maintains that a knowledge perspective on organizations is at odds with any design perspective, whether classical or not, because the emergent, thoroughly social and practice-based nature of knowledge as knowing in action makes knowledge a useless and even dangerous beacon to designers: ex ante, knowledge is said to be fundamentally indeterminate and any attempt to ‘structure around knowledge’ may effectively drive out knowledge. To explore differences and possible bridges between these two calls of studies, the paper explores how both elements of the equation, organization structure and organizational knowledge, are to be conceived to ensure a meaningful connection between them. It is argued that the grouping focus in both defines the meeting place of organization structures and organizational knowledge, but shows that the involved knowledge and grouping concepts are not mutually compatible. It leads to a view where organization structures are seen as the ‘seeding’ background for knowledge integration processes that, in turn, constitute the patterns of work relationships envisioned in the designer's organizational decomposition and grouping. For illustration purposes, the paper presents the example of the Max Planck Institute that describes one possible way through the conceptual model presented in the paper.     

The effects of a genetic information leaflet on public attitudes towards genetic testing

Genetics opinion surveys often include information to ensure that respondents have sufficient understanding to give informed responses. The information is assumed to be neutral but may skew responses. We assessed the impact of a seemingly "neutral" information leaflet on attitudes towards genetic testing among 1,024 survey respondents, half of whom received the leaflet. The leaflet group reported higher levels of subjective understanding of genetic testing (68 percent vs. 53 percent), were mre interested in genetic testing (81 percent vs. 77 percent), and held more positive attitudes towards genetics than people who did not receive the leaflet. Information leaflets may have the intended effect of increasing understanding, but may also unintentionally influence reported views of genetics. In the light of the weight given to public consultation in today's governance and regulation of human genetics, increased awareness of how even seemingly neutral information can influence public attitudes is recommended.     

Perceived efficacy and attitudes towards genetic science and science governance

Arguments for public involvement in science and technology are often based on ideas of developing a more capable public and the assumed effects this may have for science. However, such a relationship is yet to be sufficiently explored and recent work indicates that a more involved public may have counterintuitive effects. Using nationally representative survey data for the U.K. and Northern Ireland, the effects of the public's own beliefs about involvement are explored. Developing the concept of "belief in public efficacy," findings suggest those who believe that the public might be able to affect the course of decision making have less approving attitudes towards future applications of genetic science; however, an individual's political efficacy does not significantly influence these attitudes. Furthermore, political efficacy and belief in public efficacy have some distinct and opposing relationships with the principles of governance people prefer. Overall, findings provide support for suggestions that it is simplistic to consider increasing public involvement as a way of increasing the approval of risky new technologies.     

Autoimmune thyroid disorders—An update

Background: Autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD), a common organ specific autoimmune disorder is seen mostly in women between 30–50 yrs of age. Thyroid autoimmunity can cause several forms of thyroiditis ranging from hypothyroidism (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis) to hyperthyroidism (Graves’Disease). Prevalence rate of autoimmune mediated hypothyroidism is about 0.8 per 100 and 95% among them are women. Graves’ disease is about one tenth as common as hypothyroidism and tends to occur more in younger individuals. Both these disorders share many immunologic features and the disease may progress from one state to other as the autoimmune process changes. Genetic, environmental and endogenous factors are responsible for initiation of thyroid autoimmunity. At present the only confirmed genetic factor lies in HLA complex (HLA DR-3) and the T cell regulatory gene (CTLA 4). A number of environmental factors like viral infection, smoking, stress & iodine intake are associated with the disease progression. The development of antibodies to thyroid peroxidase (TPO) thyroglobulin (TG) and Thyroid stimulating hormone receptor (TSH R) is the main hallmark of AITD. Circulating T Lymphocytes are increased in AITD and thyroid gland is infiltrated with CD4+ and CD8+ T Cells. Wide varieties of cytokines are produced by infiltrated immune cells, which mediate cytotoxicity leading to thyroid cell destruction. Circulating antibodies to TPO and TG are measured by immunofluorescense, hemagglutination, ELISA & RIA. TSHR antibodies of Graves’ disease can be measured in bioassays or indirectly in assays that detect antibody binding to the receptor.     

Thyroid disorders in women of Puducherry

Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), Free Thyroxine (FT₄) and Free Triiodothyronine (FT₃) were assayed in 505 women of this region. 60 women had previous history of thyroid disease. The remaining 445 women formed the “Disease free group”. A “Reference group” was obtained by excluding women with previous and present history of thyroid dysfunction. Of the total 505 women examined 15.8% had thyroid dysfunction and 84.2% were euthyroid. 11.5% were hypothyroid (9.5% sub-clinical) and 1.8% hyperthyroid (1.2% clinical). The geometric mean TSH for the total population was 2.65 μIU/ml. It was significantly (p=0.025) lower in the reference population 2.17 μIU/ml. There was no significant difference in the FT₃ and FT₄ values between groups. 19% of women over 60 years had elevated TSH above 4.5 μIU/ml. The 2.5 and 97.5 percentiles of the reference population was 1.1–5.2 μIU/ml. 6.1% of women in the reference group had TSH levels above the reference intervals. Hypothyroidism particularly sub-clinical hypothyroidism is predominantly present amongst women in this iodine sufficient region. Evaluation of thyroid status could help in early detection and treatment.     

Retrieval parameter optimization using genetic algorithms

This paper describes our experiments on automatic parameter optimization for the Japanese monolingual retrieval task. Unlike regression approaches, we optimized parameters completely independently of retrieval models enabling the optimized parameter set to illustrate the characteristics of the target test collections. We adopted genetic algorithms as optimization tools and cross-validated with four test collections, namely the CLIR-J-J collections for NTCIR-3 to NTCIR-6. The most difficult retrieval parameters to optimize are the feedback parameters, because there are no principles for calibrating them. Our approach optimized feedback parameters and basic scoring parameters at the same time. Using test sets and validation sets, we achieved effectiveness levels comparable with very strong baselines, i.e., the best-performing NTCIR official runs.     

Plasma oxidant-antioxidant status in different respiratory disorders

This study confirms the fact that in different respiratory disorders, the status of plasma oxidants and antioxidants shifts from normal. The status of oxidants in plasma as represented by malondialdehyde (MDA) levels increased significantly in the conditions of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, bronchiectasis and bronchial asthma. The two vitamin antioxidants vitamin C and vitamin E showed decreased levels than in controls. In patients with COPD the endogenous antioxidant viz. reduced glutathione (GSH) estimated from whole blood was comparable to that of control group, whereas in patients with emphysema, bronchiectasis and bronchial asthma, GSH concentration was increased to that of control group. The activity of enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD) was significantly decreased in all study groups. Pulmonary function tests were found to have no correlation with MDA and antioxidants     

人力资源与人力资本刍议

随着知识经济的到来，人力资源是第一资源，人力资本是第一资本的观念逐渐为人们所接受。在澄清了关于人力资源和人力资本的几种模糊认识的同时，对人力资源和人力资本的定义，特征，属性，结构和作用等若干问题，作了较为细致的分析和归纳，提出了人力资本的经济增长贡献模型和人力资源-人力资本关系模型，并对上述模型的政策涵义作了具体阐述。     

遗传性疾病先天性疾病和家族性疾病的区别

遗传病不但种类多，发病率也高，而且也传递给后代。我国人口基数大，患遗传病的人相应就多，在我国人口中，估计有20％—25％的人患有遗传病。但很多时候，人们都认为先天性疾病和家族性疾病，就是遗传性疾病。许多人往往把这三种疾病的病因和发病机理弄混。其实不然。     

Christian lay understandings of preimplantation genetic diagnosis

Focus groups were used to analyse Christian lay public understanding of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a relatively new biomedical practice. The paper explores how this often controversial genetic technology was contextualised and interpreted through the intersection of religious values and beliefs, secular and cultural knowledges, and lived experience and emotion. For the lay people in our study, PGD often created moral dilemmas that could not necessarily be resolved through Christian beliefs and teaching, but which required the expression of empathy and compassion. The findings emphasise the heterogeneity in individuals' interpretations of scientific issues and reinforce the need to consider public understanding of science and technology in terms of public concerns and meaning.