200,231 research outputs found

    How Valuable is Patent Protection? Estimates By Technology Field Using Patent Renewal Data

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    This paper presents quantitative estimates of the private value of property rights conferred by patent protection for different technology fields and countries of ownership. The measures are derived from parametric estimation of a model of patent renewal, using a new data set on patent renewals in France during the period 1969-1987. The results show that patent protection is a significant, but not the major, source of private returns to inventive activity and that its importance varies sharply across technology fields. The paper quantifies the equivalent subsidy to R&D generated by the patent system, characterizes variations in the value of patent rights across technology fields, countries of ownership and time, and explores the determinants of those differences.

    The Sacramental Foundations of Ecclesial Identity: Barrier or Passageway to Ecumenical Unity?

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    Two important events this year make it clear that ecclesiology still deserves a prominent place on the theological agenda. Pope Francis announced the creation of a council of cardinals to assist him in governing the world-wide Catholic Church. During the next assembly of the World Council of Churches the long awaited Faith & Order statement on The Church: Towards a Common Vision will be officially received. In this volume more than 40 authors (among whom well-known theologians such as André Birmelé, William Cavanaugh, Michael Fahey, Bradford Hinze, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Paul Murray, Bernard Prusak, Ioan Sauca, Myriam Wijlens, Susan Wood and many others) engage in an ecumenical reflection on the Church, focusing on four major themes. The book starts with several essays by authors representing different fields in the humanities dealing – often from a postmodern perspective – with ‘Community, Individualization, Belonging’. The second part of the book, ‘Strengthening Roman Catholic Ecclesiology’, offers reflections on important topics such as the sinfulness of the Church, the sacramentality of the Church, lay ministries, theologians and the magisterium, to end with contributions on eschatological ecclesiology and the link between ecclesiology and the Catholic Church in dialogue with people of other faiths. In the next part Protestant and Orthodox scholars offer contributions to the renewal of their own ecclesiologies. In the final and longest part of the volume the reader is provided with ‘Reflections on the Future of the Ecumenical Dialogue’

    Lille city report

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    How Design Plays Strategic Roles in Internet Service Innovation: Lessons from Korean Companies

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    In order to survive in the highly competitive internet business, companies have to provide differentiated services that can satisfy the rapidly changing users’ tastes and needs. Designers have been increasingly committed to achieving user satisfaction by generating and visualizing innovative solutions in new internet service development. The roles of internet service design have expanded from a narrow focus on aesthetics into a more strategic aspect. This paper investigates the methods of managing design in order to enhance companies’ competitiveness in internet business. The main research processes are to: (1) explore the current state of internet service design in Korea through in-depth interviews with professional designers and survey questionnaires to 30 digital design agencies and 60 clients; (2) compare how design is managed between in-house design groups and digital design agencies though the case studies of five Korean companies; and (3) develop a taxonomy characterizing four roles of designers in conjunction with the levels of their strategic contributions to internet service innovation: visualist, solution provider, concept generator, and service initiator. In addition, we demonstrate the growing contributions of the strategic use of design for innovating internet services, building robust brand equity, and increasing business performance. Keywords: Design Management; Internet Business; Internet Service Design; Digital Design; Digital Design Agency; In-House Design Group, Case Study</p

    Bandlimited Spatial Field Sampling with Mobile Sensors in the Absence of Location Information

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    Sampling of physical fields with mobile sensor is an emerging area. In this context, this work introduces and proposes solutions to a fundamental question: can a spatial field be estimated from samples taken at unknown sampling locations? Unknown sampling location, sample quantization, unknown bandwidth of the field, and presence of measurement-noise present difficulties in the process of field estimation. In this work, except for quantization, the other three issues will be tackled together in a mobile-sampling framework. Spatially bandlimited fields are considered. It is assumed that measurement-noise affected field samples are collected on spatial locations obtained from an unknown renewal process. That is, the samples are obtained on locations obtained from a renewal process, but the sampling locations and the renewal process distribution are unknown. In this unknown sampling location setup, it is shown that the mean-squared error in field estimation decreases as O(1/n)O(1/n) where nn is the average number of samples collected by the mobile sensor. The average number of samples collected is determined by the inter-sample spacing distribution in the renewal process. An algorithm to ascertain spatial field's bandwidth is detailed, which works with high probability as the average number of samples nn increases. This algorithm works in the same setup, i.e., in the presence of measurement-noise and unknown sampling locations.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Trans on Signal Processin

    Well-Ordered Philosophy? Reflections on Kitcher's Proposal for a Renewal of Philosophy.

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    In his recent article Philosophy Inside Out, Philip Kitcher presents a metaphilosophical outlook that aims at nothing less than a renewal of philosophy. His idea is to draw philosophers’ attention away from “timeless questions” in the so-called “core areas” of philosophy. Instead, philosophers should address questions that matter to human lives. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to reconstruct Kitcher’s view of how philosophy should be renewed; second, to point out some difficulties relating to his position. These difficulties concern the integration of his naturalism into the pragmatic vision of philosophy, the role of putative philosophical experts, and the ideal status of the program of well-ordered inquiry

    The Relation of Local Government Structure to Urban Renewal

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    Stochastic lattice models for the dynamics of linear polymers

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    Linear polymers are represented as chains of hopping reptons and their motion is described as a stochastic process on a lattice. This admittedly crude approximation still catches essential physics of polymer motion, i.e. the universal properties as function of polymer length. More than the static properties, the dynamics depends on the rules of motion. Small changes in the hopping probabilities can result in different universal behavior. In particular the cross-over between Rouse dynamics and reptation is controlled by the types and strength of the hoppings that are allowed. The properties are analyzed using a calculational scheme based on an analogy with one-dimensional spin systems. It leads to accurate data for intermediately long polymers. These are extrapolated to arbitrarily long polymers, by means of finite-size-scaling analysis. Exponents and cross-over functions for the renewal time and the diffusion coefficient are discussed for various types of motion.Comment: 60 pages, 19 figure

    What do Nonprofits Stand For? Renewing the Nonprofit Value Commitment

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    Nonprofit organizations are under assault today as perhaps never before, with consequences that could be profound for the future of these organizations and for those they serve. Proposals to cap the federal tax deduction for charitable contributions have become an increasingly common feature of budget-balancing measures from both ends of the political spectrum; a growing number of state and local governments have imposed new taxes and other fees on nonprofits, and shifts in government payment methods that advantage forprofit businesses have led to a significant loss of market share for nonprofits in a number of traditional nonprofit fields of activity.This report grows out of a first step toward meeting this challenge: to see whether there is a meaningful degree of consensus about the distinctive values of the nonprofit sector among a significant portion of the sector's organizations. More than that, the work on which this report is based also sought to explore two other matters: first, how well nonprofit organizations feel they actually embody the values they profess; and second, how successful they feel the sector has been in conveying these values to key stakeholders and supporters.To shed light on these matters, the Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Listening Post Project surveyed the 1,500 nonprofit organizations in the three core fields of human services, community development, and the arts that have agreed to serve as the Project's eyes and ears on major developments affecting the nonprofit sector across the country. The results reflect the responses of 731 organizations -- enough to provide a statistically significant sample of nonprofit organizations of various sizes, and of nonprofit activity, in these fields.While we do not claim these results are representative of the nonprofit sector as a whole (hospitals and higher education, for example, are not included), we do believe they are representative of both the total number of organizations and the lion's share of the nonprofit activity in these three core fields, which embrace a significant portion of all nonprofit organizations
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