A comparative critique of several methods of collecting data for cognitive mapping

Summary Cognitive mapping by learners for various research purposes is assisted if the appropriate technique is used with learners at different stages of schooling and with varying degrees of understanding of a content field and of related content fields. There are however, techniques now available which appear to be usable by learners in primary, secondary and tertiary education. The use of the elucidatory interview is an exciting new tool for science educators. It is not, however, an easy one to use and our own experience suggests that a challenging combination of experince and naivety is needed for it to have optimal benefit as a means of rich data.     

Exploring information literacy in secondary schools in Hong Kong: A case study

Current curriculum reforms in Hong Kong emphasize learning how to learn and project-based learning. The most recent reform introduces “Liberal Studies” as a mandatory school subject in senior secondary school. This article reports on an exploratory case study of the information searching process (ISP) among Form 6 (Grade 12) students in a Liberal Studies course. Researchers examined sources of information used by students, students' cognitive and emotional experience during the ISP, and communication within the collaborative groups. Findings indicated that Internet-based sources were predominant but that most students had difficulty completing the ISP. Work is needed to help students develop a theory of knowledge in which the meaning of information is contextual and the process of interpreting information requires effort. Such work is important if collaborative inquiry projects in Liberal Studies courses are to lead to deep learning.     

Orphan drugs: Unmet societal need for non-profitable privately supplied new products

Due to the severity of rare diseases, the societal need for biopharmaceutical treatments for these diseases is high, despite low numbers of patients. Therefore, we investigated the barriers currently hindering the willingness to develop orphan drugs in the Netherlands. To this end, a robust, small sample, exploratory analysis of Dutch multi-actor development of orphan drugs was performed. Various factors that were expected to stimulate the adoption of orphan drug development were found to be important barriers. Concerted actions of producers, users, and especially regulators are necessary to overcome these barriers, but the prerequisite of a shared problem definition is lacking.     

Optimal dispersion of R&D activities in multinational corporations with a genetic algorithm

This paper presents a new communication-economic network model to predict the allocation of R&D activities in MNCs. While traditional models examine the influencing factors of R&D internationalization separately for each country and come to a one-dimensional result, this multi-dimensional approach integrates the influencing factors in a way that allows to identify an efficient configuration of the entire R&D subsystem in many countries at a time. It captures the information flows and employs a genetic algorithm to find a dispersion of R&D activities in which the problems of international communication have the least negative impact. The model is tested with data from seven MNCs covering a range of 48 countries as potential R&D locations.