When does community participation enhance the performance of open source software companies?

This study examined how participation in open innovation communities influences the innovative and financial performance of firms commercializing open source software. Using an original dataset of open source companies in the Netherlands, I found that the community participation–performance relationship is curvilinear. In addition, results indicate that extensive technical participation in open source projects is more strongly related to performance for firms that also engage in social (“offline”) community activities, for companies of larger size, and for firms with high R&D intensities. Overall, this research refines our understanding of the boundary conditions under which engagement in community-based innovation yields private returns to commercial actors.     

How online gamers’ participation fosters their team commitment: Perspective of social identity theory

Online games are highly popular applications. While online gamers actively participate in gaming teams, no study has yet explored whether gamers have sufficient teamwork knowledge and have accumulated sufficient team participation experience. These likely strengthen team commitment, but we do not know, indicating a research gap. Research filling this gap could shed light on useful means for enhancing gamers’ team commitment. Grounded in social identity theory, we theorize the mechanism that links gamers’ overall gaming team participation experience and overall gaming teamwork knowledge to their team commitment. We collect two-wave data from 344 online gamers that have played massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and use structural equation modelling for data analysis. We find that overall team participation experience is positively related to gaming team identification, while overall teamwork knowledge is positively related to compliance with gaming team norms. Both team identification and norm compliance are positively related to gaming team commitment. This study is the first to clarify the mechanism underlying the impacts of overall gaming team participation experience and overall gaming teamwork knowledge on gamers’ team commitment. Our findings provide the practical insight that game designers should incorporate game features that require or reward gamers’ participation in gaming teams or enhance gaming teamwork knowledge, thus strengthening gamers’ team commitment.     

Public participation: democratic ideal or pragmatic tool? The cases of GM foods and functional foods

Over recent decades, public participation initiatives have been employed across Europe often with a focus on science and technology issues. In the area of new food technologies most participation initiatives have centered on genetically modified foods. By contrast, in the area of functional foods--where significant EU legislation was recently passed--we have seen no initiatives towards public inclusion. This applies also for Denmark, the country which is the focus of this article. Based on an interview study with members of the Danish parliament the article examines why such considerable differences exist between initiatives to involve the public, and it challenges the role that public participation plays in Danish politics. The main claim made in the article is that although politicians argue for the value and relevance of public participation their willingness to initiate participatory processes is overruled by their concern with playing by the rules of the political game.     

Employees’ participation in electronic networks of practice within a corporate group: perceived benefits and costs

This paper explores benefits and costs of knowledge exchange perceived by individuals in connected electronic networks of practice (ENoP) in a corporate setting. The results of 25 semi-structured interviews show 9 perceived benefits and 5 perceived costs to be of importance for knowledge exchange. Altruism and reciprocity are the two main perceived benefits from the knowledge providers’ perspective; problem solving is the main perceived benefit from the knowledge seekers’ perspective. Five perceived costs are identified for both knowledge seekers and knowledge providers; time and effort are the most frequently cited.     

Differential influences of perceived organizational factors on younger employees’ participation in offline and online intergenerational knowledge transfer

Intergenerational supportive climate, top management support, organizational institution are seen as three types of important organizational factors for intergenerational knowledge transfer (IGKT), however, current studies are qualitative with little empirical evidence, further, the interrelations of them are little known. This paper investigates and verifies their relationships by an empirical study, especially focuses on their differential effects on younger employees’ participation in IGKT using offline versus online communication methods drawing upon social influence theory. A survey with younger doctors was conducted in the medical industry to test the research model proposed in this study. Results show that younger employees’ perceived intergenerational supportive climate (PISC) has a significant positive influence on offline IGKT, but not on online IGKT; perceived top management support (PTMS) has a significant positive influence on offline IGKT, but has a negative impact on online IGKT; perceived organizational institution support (POIS) has a significant positive influence on online IGKT, but not on offline IGKT. These findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding about IGKT, as well as help managers be more effective to enhance younger employees’ participation in IGKT through offline/online methods, which contribute to offline and online intergenerational knowledge transfer to knowledge management.     

Third-party mobile app developers’ continued participation in platform-centric ecosystems: An empirical investigation of two different mechanisms

Platform-centric ecosystems run by Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. enable the companies to magnify the values of their products and services on an unprecedented scale, by harnessing third-party add-on software such as mobile apps. Despite the importance, however, there is a dearth of empirical research that investigates how third-party developers’ continued participation is actually determined. This paper examined two different mechanisms increasing dedication to a platform and constraining exit from the platform, respectively. Specific factors in each mechanism and their casual relationships were tested and discussed in the context of Apple’s mobile platform.     

Impact of Enforcement of Right of Communication through Information Network

On 27 October 2001, the Standing Committee of the People's Congress reviewed and passed the Amendment to the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China. In Article 10 of the amended Copyright Law as of 2001 has been incorporated a new subject matter under the copyright protection: the right of communication through information network, that is, the right to make a work available to the public by wire or by wireless means, so that people may have access to the work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them. This is the first time to have put the right of communication through information network in place in the law in China. But, the legislators did not make any specific provisions concerning this right in the Copyright Law.     

Exploration of Principle for Construction of Functional Features of Patent Claims

In recent years,along with the rapid increase in the number of applications for patent received,examined and granted by the State Intellectual Property Office(SIPQ),the number of the cases of dispute arising from patent infringe- ment has been on the rise.In hearing cases of infringement of patent limited or defined by a functional feature,construc-     

Rules Concerning the Election of Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

(Adopted by the Presidium of the Chinese Academy of Sciences onDecember 4, 1992, and amended by the Presidium on December 16,1994, November 6, 1996, December 14, 1998, September 29, 2000,December 19, 2002 and October 18, 2004)Article I. General RulesSecti…     

Preliminary Analysis of Examination of Threedimensional Trademarks

Article 8 of the Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China provides that any visual sign capable of distinguish- ing the goods or service of one natural person,legal person or any other entity from those of others,including words,de- vices,letters,numerals,three-dimensional symbols,combi- nations of colours or any combination of the above elements, may be applied for the registration of a trademark.It may be seen from the provision on the components of a registered trademark that any visual sign comprising three-dimensional symbols or three-dimensional symbol containing other ele-     

Verification of Purification of Entangled Quantum States

Entanglement purificationholds the promise for quan-tum communication overlarge distances. Now Pan Jianwei (J.W. Pan), a CAS scholar working atthe University of Vienna, and hiscolleagues have obtained the firstever experimental verification of pu-rification of entangled quantumstates. Scientists believe their workcould be an important step towardslong-distance quantumcommunication.Distribution of entangled statesbetween distant locations is essen-tial for quantum communication overlarge di…     

On the Issue of Validity of Technology Contract

In today's society where science and technology are undergoing rapid development,and enterprises competing each other primarily with advanced technologies in which they enjoy their own intellectual property right,a major part of an enterprise's business activities is that patented technolo- gy and technical secret(or known-how)are taken as goods of technical trade and that R&D of hi-tech achievements are undertaken by way of conclusion of contracts.It is worth at- taching importance to how to ensure the legitimacy and va-     

Usefulness of ferroxidase activity of ceruloplasmin in the diagnosis of Wilson’s disease

Serum ceruloplasmin is one of the most commonly used screening tests for Wilson’s disease. However immunological assays for ceruloplasmin are not recommended for diagnosis and management of Wilson’s disease through calculation of free copper index. Enzymatic methods using non-physiological substrates have toxicity and stability problems, making them difficult to automate. Ferroxidase assays may be a satisfactory alternative for measuring serum ceruloplasmin. The o-dianisidine hydrochloride manual method for estimation of serum ceruloplasmin enzyme activity was compared with an automated method using the ferroxidase activity of ceruloplasmin in measurement in a double blind study in 91 consecutive patients screened for Wilson’s disease. The o-dianisidine and ferroxidase methods both successfully identified 7 patients with Wilson’s disease. Values for these 7 patients in the o-dianisidine and ferroxidase methods were median 5.0 (range 0–16.0 U/L) and median 45.0 (range 4–166 U/L) respectively. There were 7 other positive values (<62 U/L) with the o-diansidine method and 2 (<200 U/L) with the ferroxidase method, where WD was not confirmed. ROC curves for both methods showed area under the curve of 0.998 for o-dianisidine and 0.997 for ferroxidase. Using literature cut off values of 62 U/L and 200 U/L respectively both methods had 100% sensitivity and specificity was 91.7% (o-dianisidine) and 97.6% (ferroxidase). For the o-dianisidine assay, specificity was improved to 98.8% using a cut off of 22.5 U/L. In the 84 persons (46 adults and 38 children) in whom the diagnosis of Wilson’s disease was not established, the mean value for ceruloplasmin activity by the o-dianisidine and ferroxidase methods was 124.7 ± 48.7 U/L and 571.4 ± 168.1 U/L respectively. There were no significant differences between sex or age of patients (p > 0.29). In a subsequent evaluation with 372 specimens, the Pearson correlation coefficient between the assays was 0.908, p < 0.01, slope 4.06, intercept 265.8, with the manual assay as the x-axis. The ferroxidase assay is a suitable replacement for the o-dianisidine assay in detecting patients with Wilson’s disease.     

History of mathematics and history of science reunited?

For some years now, the history of modern mathematics and the history of modern science have developed independently. A step toward a reunification that would benefit both disciplines could come about through a revived appreciation of mathematical practice. Detailed studies of what mathematicians actually do, whether local or broadly based, have often led in recent work to examinations of the social, cultural, and national contexts, and more can be done. Another recent approach toward a historical understanding of the abstractness of modern mathematics has been to see it as a species of modernism, and this thesis will be tested by the raft of works on the history of modern applied mathematics currently under way.     

New President of Academy of Mathematics and System Sciences

Prof. Guo Lei, director of In-stitute of Systems Science(ISS), was recently appointedas the President of the CAS Acad-emy of Mathematics and SystemSciences (AMSS), a parent institu-tion of four CAS institutes in the fieldof mathematics: Institute ofMathematics, Institute of AppliedMathematics, Institute of SystemsScience and Institute of Computa-tional Mathematics and Scientific/En-gineering Computing.Prof. Guo obtained his Ph.D in Con-trol Theory at ISS in 1987 and con-ducted…     

On the Issue of Suspension of Patent Infringement Procedure

Within the framework of the patent system in China, the patents for invention, utility mode and design are under the examination of different types: the patents for invention are examined as to substance, and those for utility model and design as to formality only, which renders the patent right for utility model and design relatively less certain and vulnerable to challenge. For example, in the infringement lawsuit involving a patent for utility model or design, the defendant often files a request with the Patent Reexamination Board (PRB) of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) for invalidation of the patent in respect of which the plaintiff, the patentee, has instituted the proceedings in the court. In case like this, the court will suspend the legal procedure under Article 136 of the Several Provisions on Issues Relating to Application of Law to Trial of Cases of Patent Disputes formulated by the Supreme People's Court.     

Installation of Mechanical System of Beijing Spectrometer III Successful

The mechanical system ofthe Beijing Spectrometer III(BESIII) recently passedthe evaluation of a panel of expertsat the CAS Institute of High EnergyPhysics (IHEP) in Beijing, markinga breakthrough in the renovation ofthe Bei j i ng Electron Posi tronCollid…     

Effect of varying durations of pyramid exposure — an indication towards a possibility of overexposure

Miniature replicas modeled after the Great Pyramid of Giza are believed to concentrate geoelectromagnetic energy within their cavities and hence act as antistressors in humans and animals. Although there are not many reports of adverse effects of ‘overexposure’ in the pyramid, subjects have claimed to feel uneasy after certain duration of staying in the pyramid. The present study was aimed to analyze the effects of prolonged pyramid exposure on plasma cortisol level, markers of oxidative damage and antioxidant defense in erythrocytes of adult female Wistar rats. Rats were divided into three groups, normal controls (NC, n=6) that were maintained under standard laboratory conditions in their home cages, pyramid exposed group-2 (PE-2, n=6) & pyramid exposed group-4 (PE-4, n=6) where the rats were housed under the pyramid for 6 hours/day for 2 weeks and 4 weeks respectively. Plasma cortisol and erythrocyte TBARS levels were significantly lower in both PE-2 and PE-4 rats and erythrocyte GSH levels and GSH-Px activity were significantly higher in them as compared to the NC rats. There was no significant difference in the results for these parameters between the PE-2 and PE-4 rats except for erythrocyte GSH-Px activity which was significantly more in the PE-2 rats than in the PE-4 rats. Although these results don’t confirm any adverse effects of prolonged exposure in pyramids, they indicate a possibility of such adverse effects.