An Analysis of the Function and Status of CAS in National Nanotechnology Research

NB I C, n a m e l y n a n o sc i e n ce &nano-technology, biotechnology & bio-medicine (including genetic engineering),information technology (including computing andcommunications) and cognitive science (includingcognitive neuroscience) are universally regarded asfour R&D disciplines to critically influence humanlife in the near future. Providing technological ground-work for the latter three’s healthy development,nanoscience and related technologies now becomethe most active S&T frontiers…     

Who are the researchers that are collaborating with industry? An analysis of the wine sectors in Chile, South Africa and Italy

Research on University-industry (U-I) linkages and their determinants has increased significantly in the past few years. However, there is still controversy on the key factors explaining the formation of U-I linkages, and especially related to individual researcher characteristics. This paper provides new empirical evidence and, in particular, looks at the importance of researchers’ individual characteristics and their institutional environments in explaining the propensity to engage in different types of U-I linkages. Based on an original dataset, we present new evidence on three wine producing areas - Piedmont, a region of Italy, Chile and South Africa - that have successfully responded to recent structural changes in the industry worldwide. Empirical findings reveal that researchers’ individual characteristics, such as centrality in the academic system, age and sex, matter more than publishing records or formal degrees. Institutional specificities at country level also play a role in shaping the propensity of researchers to engage with industry.     

Untangling the mystery of absorptive capacity: A process or a set of success factors?

The absorptive capacity of an organization is its ability to translate the knowledge sourced from outside into commercial benefits. Having gained a certain academic interest, the mechanism of the absorptive capacity phenomenon is still puzzling. This paper provides some limited confirmation of earlier frameworks; however, absorptive capacity is demonstrated to be a set of interrelated success factors rather than a sequential process of knowledge articulation in a company. The new model of absorptive capacity proposed encompasses four dimensions: continuing development, bottom-up innovation, trust-based internal cooperation, and deferred knowledge use. The continuing development facet entails a strong positive impact on organizational performance, while the bottom-up innovation dimension deteriorates it. Trust-based internal cooperation and deferred knowledge use report mixed results.     

IP Protection in the Environment of Globalisation:An Overview of the International Conference on Globalisation and the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

The International Conference on Globalisation and the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights convened from 20 to 21 January 2007 in Beijing,China.Present at the Confer- ence were approximately 200 experts and scholars from the IP community of the United States of America,Germany, Japan,Israel,China,and the Taiwan region of China.They held special in-depth discussions on the issues relating to the protection of intellectual property rights within the envi- ronment of globalisation.     

Understanding and Application of “Being Already in Use” Mentioned in Article 31 of the Trademark Law

According to Article 31 of the Trademark Law as re- vised in 2001,In trademark application,one should not pre- emptively register a mark that is already in use by another party and has certain influence;it is also provided in Article 41,paragraph two that where a registered trademark stands in violation of the preceding provision,the owner of the mark     

Rewriting and the Original Work——An analysis of the adapted version of Outlaws of the Marsh

One of the best known and best loved of the ancientChinese novels to have come down through the ages, ShiNai’an’s Outlaws of the Marsh is based on a peasant up-rising which took place in the reign of Hui Zong, a SongDynasty emperor who ruled from 1101 t…     

Information Societies or “ICT Equipment Societies?” Measuring the Digital Information-Processing Capacity of a Society in Bits and Bytes

The digital divide is conventionally measured in terms of information and communication technology (ICT) equipment diffusion, which comes down to counting the number of computers or phones, among other devices. This article fine-tunes these approximations by estimating the amount of digital information that is stored, communicated, and computed by these devices. The installed stock of ICT equipment in the consumer segment is multiplied with its corresponding technological performance, resulting in the “installed technological capacity” for storage (in bits), bandwidth (in bits per second), and computational power (in computations per second). This leads to new insights. Despite the rapidly decreasing digital equipment divide, there is an increasing gap in terms of information-processing capacity. It is shown that in 1996 the average inhabitant of the industrialized countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had a capacity of 49 kibps more than its counterpart from Latin America and the Caribbean. Ten years later, this gap widened to 577 kibps per inhabitant. This innovative approach toward the quantification of the digital divide leads to numerous new challenges for the research agenda.     

How do men and women differ in research collaborations? An analysis of the collaborative motives and strategies of academic researchers

Do men and women academic faculty vary in their research collaboration patterns and strategies? This straightforward question does not lend itself to a straightforward answer. A great many sex-correlated variables could possibly mitigate the relationship of sex and collaboration. If one finds sex-correlated differences in the number of collaborators, can one infer that there is something intrinsic to men's and women's work strategies and preferences? Or would such differences owe instead to women's and men's different positions in work structures and hierarchies? The focus here is on two sets of research collaboration variables, numbers of collaborators and the collaboration strategies employed. The study uses questionnaire data from the U.S. National Survey of Academic Scientists (n = 1714) and tests several hypotheses about collaboration numbers and strategies. Regression results indicate, counter to the core hypotheses and almost all published literature, that in a properly specified model, one taking into account such factors as tenure, discipline, family status and doctoral cohort, women actually have somewhat more collaborators on average than do men. For both men and women, those with more industrial interactions and those affiliated with university research centers have more collaborators. Men and women differ in their collaborator choice strategies. Men are more likely to be oriented to “instrumental,” and “experience” strategies, while both men and women are motivated by “mentoring” strategies. Regression analyses show that for both men and women, having a coherent collaborator choice strategy predicts the number of collaborators.     

Sicily or the Sea of Tranquility? Mapping and naming the moon

In their race to provide the ultimate guide to the moon, two 17th-century astronomers proposed lunar maps and nomenclatures that they hoped would gain international currency. But the names we use today were those proposed by the Jesuit, a friend of Galileo's persecutors, in a book whose purpose was to refute the Copernican system once and for all. We now believe that Riccioli was wrong about the universe, but why do we still use his nomenclature? The keys to this foundational visual debate in astronomical image-making are the moon maps themselves.     

Complements or substitutes? The role of universities and local context in supporting the creation of academic spin-offs

In this paper, we analyze the extent to which University-Level Support Mechanisms (ULSMs) and Local-Context Support Mechanisms (LCSMs) complement or substitute for each other in fostering the creation of academic spin-offs. Using a sample of 404 companies spun off from the 64 Italian Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics universities (STEM universities) over the 2000–2007 period, we show that the ULSMs’ marginal effect on universities’ spin-off productivity may be positive or negative depending on the contribution offered by different LCSMs. Specifically, in any given region, ULSMs complement the legislative support offered to high-tech entrepreneurship whereas they have a substitution effect with regard to the amount of regional social capital, regional financial development, the presence of a regional business incubator, regional public R&D expenses as well as the level of innovative performance in the region. Results support the idea that regional settings’ idiosyncrasies should be considered for universities to develop effective spin-off support policies. This paper contributes to the debate on the evaluation of economic policies supporting entrepreneurship.     

Recommended for “frequent perusal” and “improving the science of medicine”: Benjamin Rush’s American editions and the circulation of medical knowledge in the early Republic

Between 1809 and 1813 leading American physician Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) devoted a significant portion of his time to the production of “American Editions” of four British and colonial medical texts by Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689), Sir John Pringle (1707–1782), William Hillary (1697–1763), and George Cleghorn (1716–1789). This occurred during a period where Rush might have written a textbook detailing his preferred medical system for students outright. Instead, he opted for a different form of knowledge production and proliferation that focused on creating fictive conversations and encouraging critical reading rather than rote memorization. He dedicated these heavily annotated documents to the medical students of the United States of America and set them up as a pedagogical tool. Analysis of these texts helps uncover the reading practices of Rush and the manner in which he expected Americans to mediate their usage of foreign texts and theories after the American Revolution.     

Characterization of lectins and their specificity in carcinomas—An appraisal

Lectins, a group of specific glycoproteins present in animal as well as plant cells, are used as differentiating markers to study cancers and metastatic cell lines. This property of lectins depends on the process of cellular glycosylation. Glycosylation of some of the extracellular membrane proteins and lipids maintains the cell/cell and cell/matrix interactions. Chemical alterations in glycosylation play an important role in the metastatic behavior of tumor cells. Carbohydrate residues of the membrane glycoproteins can be detected using lectins due to their binding specificity to carbohydrates. Lectins, therefore have gained an importance in the field of cancer research. Galectins, a specialized group of lectin like proteins that are Ca+ independent and galactoside binding, are also considered as differentiation markers in some specific cancers like the carcinomas of thyroid. Thus the use of lectins and galectins to identify specific carbohydrates present on cell surface help in invasion and metastasis processes.