108,041 research outputs found
High-quality patents for emerging science and technology through external actors: community scientific experts and knowledge societies
This article explores one type of administrative mechanism to achieve high-quality patents: Article 115 of the European Patent Convention, which permits the inclusion of third parties to provide input to the prior art search and to communicate relevant information to the examiner in charge. Our empirical research analyzes the field of human genetic inventions. The empirical findings here show that third parties usually participate only after patents have been granted. Between 1999 and 2009, only a limited number of human gene patent cases made use of third-party, pre-grant interventions. There is thus an imbalance between third-party participation in the pre- and post-grant phase of patent prosecution, and we urge for greater participation of knowledge communities in the search and examination process. Europe should create a funnel for participation through advisory bodies and learned societies, which would allow judicious consideration of the search and examination, with a resultant improvement in patent quality
SaveDisney.com and Activist Challenges: A Habermasian Perspective on Corporate Legitimacy
This study develops a Habermasian framework for evaluating and generating challenges to organizational legitimacy. The launch of the SaveDisney.com web site represents an innovative example of an Internet-based activist public successfully challenging a corporation’s legitimacy and advocating for changes in corporate governance. Legitimacy research has focused on strategies used by organizations to build legitimacy (e.g., Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975; Metzler, 2001), but scholars rarely address how publics challenge legitimacy claims. Using Habermas’ conceptualization of communicative action and legitimacy to explore the SaveDisney.com case offers insight into ways that activist publics successfully challenge and reject the legitimacy claims of powerful corporations
The Flexible Executive Mindset: How Top Management Should Look at Tomorrow’s Markets
The need for management to better anticipate the future is the urgent message currently being advocated by consultants in strategic market planning. Uses a survey of high-level managers from Fortune 1,000 corporations to illustrate the advantages of cultivating a flexible mindset concerning environmental trends and their strategic marketing implications. Reviews projected developments in the economy, technology, ecology and the social/political environments that are expected to occur by 2005. Discusses appropriate marketing responses to these trends
Cryptocurrency with a Conscience: Using Artificial Intelligence to Develop Money that Advances Human Ethical Values
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are offering new avenues for economic empowerment
to individuals around the world. However, they also provide a powerful tool that
facilitates criminal activities such as human trafficking and illegal weapons sales
that cause great harm to individuals and communities. Cryptocurrency advocates
have argued that the ethical dimensions of cryptocurrency are not qualitatively new,
insofar as money has always been understood as a passive instrument that lacks
ethical values and can be used for good or ill purposes. In this paper, we challenge
such a presumption that money must be ‘value-neutral.’ Building on advances in
artificial intelligence, cryptography, and machine ethics, we argue that it is possible
to design artificially intelligent cryptocurrencies that are not ethically neutral but
which autonomously regulate their own use in a way that reflects the ethical values
of particular human beings – or even entire human societies. We propose a technological framework for such cryptocurrencies and then analyse the legal, ethical, and
economic implications of their use. Finally, we suggest that the development of
cryptocurrencies possessing ethical as well as monetary value can provide human
beings with a new economic means of positively influencing the ethos and values
of their societies
POLICY OF NATIONALISM GUIDANCE THROUGH IN TRADITIONAL MARKET MANAGEMENT IN CENTRAL JAVA
A research on policy nationalism guidance through in traditional markets management in the province of Central Java is implemented in “Pasar Gede Solo” with qualitative methods. The reason for selecting “Pasar Gede Solo” because of Solo City has a lot of cultural heritages that are still held strong until today. The cultural heritage is the local identity. The Local identity can develop into the province identity, then to be the national identity. A strong national identity shows high Nationalism which reflected from loyalty, passion and pride of the nation itself. The number of local identities in “Pasar Gede Solo” is likely to evolve into national identity should be encouraged to preserve the Government's policy to strengthen Indonesia Nationalism
The role of handbooks in knowledge creation and diffusion: A case of science and technology studies
Genre is considered to be an important element in scholarly communication and
in the practice of scientific disciplines. However, scientometric studies have
typically focused on a single genre, the journal article. The goal of this
study is to understand the role that handbooks play in knowledge creation and
diffusion and their relationship with the genre of journal articles,
particularly in highly interdisciplinary and emergent social science and
humanities disciplines. To shed light on these questions we focused on
handbooks and journal articles published over the last four decades belonging
to the research area of Science and Technology Studies (STS), broadly defined.
To get a detailed picture we used the full-text of five handbooks (500,000
words) and a well-defined set of 11,700 STS articles. We confirmed the
methodological split of STS into qualitative and quantitative (scientometric)
approaches. Even when the two traditions explore similar topics (e.g., science
and gender) they approach them from different starting points. The change in
cognitive foci in both handbooks and articles partially reflects the changing
trends in STS research, often driven by technology. Using text similarity
measures we found that, in the case of STS, handbooks play no special role in
either focusing the research efforts or marking their decline. In general, they
do not represent the summaries of research directions that have emerged since
the previous edition of the handbook.Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of Informetric
Pirate or subscriber? An exploratory study on italian consumers' music habits
Purpose of the paper: This paper analyzes Italian consumers’ music habits in
terms of online piracy behaviors and their interest toward subscription-based music
services (SBMS), i.e. services that for a small monthly fee give users legal access to vast
music libraries across multiple devices. The objective is to try and profile a piracy-prone
consumer and explore if SBMS could be a viable alternative to online music piracy in
Italy, where the general piracy rate is very high.
Methodology: The study is based on an empirical quantitative analysis through the
collection of 505 questionnaires completed by Italian consumers.
Findings: The paper highlights how Italian consumers reflect the ‘attitude-behavior
gap’ in music consumption, as they perceive online music piracy as ethically wrong, yet
they still show low preference for the legal, reasonably priced choice (such as SBMS).
Younger, male, lower education, students have the highest propensity towards online
piracy. In addition, consumers’ awareness, familiarity and interest in subscriptionbased
music services are still very low.
Research limitations: The limitations of the paper are linked mainly to the adapted
scales, to the omission of alternative determinants of attitude towards piracy, to the
composition of the sample and for analyzing only two subscription-based music services
(Napster and Spotify).
Managerial implications: The results call for greater efforts by music industry
actors and public institutions to educate Italian consumers about the consequences of
their online piracy behavior and the possible solutions offered by SBMS.
Originality of the paper: This paper is the first to focus on Italian consumers’
music habits, their attitude and behavior towards online piracy and their interest
toward subscription-based music services as a viable alternative
An Empirical Study of the I2P Anonymity Network and its Censorship Resistance
Tor and I2P are well-known anonymity networks used by many individuals to
protect their online privacy and anonymity. Tor's centralized directory
services facilitate the understanding of the Tor network, as well as the
measurement and visualization of its structure through the Tor Metrics project.
In contrast, I2P does not rely on centralized directory servers, and thus
obtaining a complete view of the network is challenging. In this work, we
conduct an empirical study of the I2P network, in which we measure properties
including population, churn rate, router type, and the geographic distribution
of I2P peers. We find that there are currently around 32K active I2P peers in
the network on a daily basis. Of these peers, 14K are located behind NAT or
firewalls.
Using the collected network data, we examine the blocking resistance of I2P
against a censor that wants to prevent access to I2P using address-based
blocking techniques. Despite the decentralized characteristics of I2P, we
discover that a censor can block more than 95% of peer IP addresses known by a
stable I2P client by operating only 10 routers in the network. This amounts to
severe network impairment: a blocking rate of more than 70% is enough to cause
significant latency in web browsing activities, while blocking more than 90% of
peer IP addresses can make the network unusable. Finally, we discuss the
security consequences of the network being blocked, and directions for
potential approaches to make I2P more resistant to blocking.Comment: 14 pages, To appear in the 2018 Internet Measurement Conference
(IMC'18
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