A bibliometric analysis of pharmaceutical research

This study examines pharmaceutical research from a bibliometric perspective. It finds that there are bibliometric correlates of successful pharmaceutical research, in particular, the number and proportion of star (highly cited) clinical medical articles. The research also reveals that pharmaceutical company research reported in basic biomedical research journals is very highly cited, on a par with NIH supported medical school research. The policy implications of this are discussed. In addition, the pharmaceutical output (approved new drugs)/input (R&D budget) measures developed permit a ranking and characterization of the research performance of 24 major pharmaceutical companies.     

Medical knowledge discovery systems: data abstraction and performance measurement

Knowledge discovery systems can be traced back to their origin, artificial intelligence and expert systems, but use the modern technique of data mining for the knowledge discovery process. To that end, the technical community views data mining as one step in the knowledge discovery process, while the non-technical community seems to view it as encompassing all of the steps to knowledge discovery. In this exploratory study, we look at medical knowledge discovery systems (MKDSs) by first looking at three examples of expert systems to generate medical knowledge. We then expand on the use of data abstraction as a pre-processing step in the comprehensive task of medical knowledge discovery. Next, we look at how performance of a medical knowledge discovery system is measured. Finally, the conclusions point to a bright future for MKDSs, but an area that needs extensive development to reach its full potential.     

Innovation, regional knowledge spillovers and R&D cooperation

We investigate the impact of knowledge spillovers and R&D cooperation on innovation activities in three German regions. We begin by estimating the knowledge-production function in order to test for interregional difference with regard to the efficiency of innovation activities. In a second step, we analyze the contribution of spillovers from R&D effort of other private firms and of public research institutions to explain these differences. The inclusion of variables for R&D cooperation in the model indicates that R&D cooperation is only of relatively minor importance as a medium for knowledge spillover.     

Sliding mode control of manipulators using first-order equations of motion with diagonal mass matrix

This paper presents a proposition of a sliding mode controller for a rigid manipulator expressed in terms of the generalized velocity components (GVC) vector. Introduction of GVC (Trans. ASME J. Appl. Mech. 62 (1995) 216) together with generalized positions leads to two first-order decoupled equations of motion instead of a single second-order equation. It is shown that the new controller, stable in the sense of Lyapunov, has different properties and can, according to Slotine and Li (Int. J. Robotics Res. 6 (1987) 49), give better performance than the classical sliding mode controller. Both control algorithms were tested on a 3 d.o.f., 3-D Yasukawa-like robot.     

Introducing and Developing Professional Standards in the Information Systems Curriculum

In light of growing concerns in the public and recent mandates from business program accrediting bodies and curricular task forces, the importance of teaching ethical topics in information systems programs is discussed. Innovative strategies used for teaching the application of ethical criteria to common situations are reviewed. Results of a survey of information systems faculty members in the US are presented and are compared to previous studies that related primarily to computer science and software engineering programs. Insight is provided into the topics, techniques, degree of coverage, and assessment techniques currently used when teaching ethics in computing-related programs. Key concerns and future work is also outlined.     

A woman down to her bones. The anatomy of sexual difference in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries

Based on a wide range of Latin and vernacular sources, this essay reexamines Thomas Laqueur's and Londa Schiebinger's influential claim that the idea of incommensurable anatomical difference between the sexes was "invented" in the eighteenth century, reflecting, in particular, a need to resort to nature in order to justify female subordination against new ideals of equality and universal rights. It provides ample evidence that already around 1600 many leading physicians, rather than proclaiming a "one-sex model" of female inferiority, insisted on the unique and purposeful features of the female skeleton and the female genital organs and illustrated them visually. The author shares Laqueur's and Schiebinger's assumption that the shift toward incommensurable anatomical difference helped legitimize woman's subordinate position as housewife and mother as naturally given. But around 1600 Enlightenment ideals as yet played no role. Instead, this shift reflected, in particular, contemporary physicians' growing appreciation of personal discovery and innovation, the rise of a specialist gynecology, and new views on marriage and motherhood in the upper classes among whom the physicians lived and whose support they sought.