What next? Three knowledge objectives for communication researchers

This essay identifies as knowledge objectives the need to (1) understand the interrelatedness of communicative contexts, (2) pinpoint more precisely the serial nature of communication, and (3) establish the relationship between laboratory and naturalist investigations     

Studies on the use of fear appeals: A summary and analysis

While a number of studies have been concerned with the effects of varying intensities of fear appeals on audience response, interpretation of the findings poses a number of problems. The author summarizes some of the major research thus far conducted, analyzes several of the problems involved in interpreting the findings of these studies, and provides some tentative suggestions for fruitful approaches to the study of the effects of fear‐arousing appeals.     

An improvement on the transient response of tracking for the sampled-data system based on an improved PD-type iterative learning control

An improvement on the transient response of tracking for the sampled-data system based on an improved PD-type iterative learning control (ILC) is proposed in this paper. The developed analog ILC method and the high-gain property tracker design methodology are first combined to significantly reduce learning epochs and overcome the initial condition shift problem and discontinuous reference input in the traditional ILC. Besides, the proposed ILC improves the transient response and decreases the rate of weighting matrices Q$Q$ to R$R$ under the traditional linear quadratic tracker design. First, the off-line observer/Kalman filter identification (OKID) is used to determine the appropriate (low-) order system parameters and state estimator for the physical system with unknown system equation, so that the model-based PD-type ILC can be implemented for practical applications. Then, to improve the transient response and decrease the control effort, the proportional difference type (PD-type) ILC algorithm is combined with the high-gain property linear quadratic tracker (LQT) design to construct the high performance tracker for the model-based sampled-data systems. Furthermore, the discrete-time version high performance tracker design for the unknown stochastic sampled-data system via the iterative learning control method is proposed in this paper based on the Euler method and the digital redesign approach. Finally, some examples are given for illustrating the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

The expanding role of university patenting in the life sciences: assessing the importance of experience and connectivity

We extend debates about the sources of university capabilities at research commercialization. Drawing upon quantitative data for a panel of 89 research-intensive US universities and interview data from two academic licensing offices, we model the relationship between technology transfer experience, embeddedness in biotechnology industry networks, basic science quality and capacity, and citation impact measures of university life science patents. Technology licensing officers draw upon the expertise of corporate partners to evaluate the potential impact of invention disclosures. The information gleaned through network ties to industry enables well-connected institutions to develop higher impact patent portfolios. Reaping the benefits of such connections, however, requires experience in balancing academic and corporate priorities to avoid the danger of ‘capture’ by industrial interests as overly tight connections limit patent impact. This pattern of diminishing returns to connectivity is robust across multiple citation measures of patent quality.     

Beyond Changing Culture in Small High Schools: Reform Models and Changing Instruction With Project-Based Learning

This study describes the status of small school reforms in U.S. high schools and contemplates their future. It asks how cultural and instructional reforms differ across school reform types. Analyses focus on indicators of teacher and student culture as well as instructional reforms including project-based learning (PBL) and other inquiry-related practices. Findings are based on data from a national survey completed by 395 high school teachers who were responsible for and had used PBL in core academic subjects. Study participants taught in large, comprehensive high schools; in schools that had converted to small learning communities; and in newly created small school start-ups. Some of these small schools and conversions were based on a reform model, and others were not. Teachers in reform model schools reported the greatest number of cultural and instructional reforms, followed by teachers in other small schools. Reform models were particularly strong on instructional reforms and student culture. In general, start-up teachers reported more success implementing reforms than teachers in conversion schools, and teacher culture was reformed much more often than student culture and instruction. These findings help shed light on how widely practices and conditions have spread throughout the broader small schools movement, and which of these (including extensive PBL use) only seem to flourish in schools that subscribe to a holistic reform model.