Firms' perception of the importance and use of patents as a means of appropriating the returns from innovation

The present research extends the existing literature in at least three aspects. Firstly, it looks at what makes firms perceive patents as more or less important. Secondly, it examines how patents do (if at all) interact with other appropriability mechanisms. Finally, it looks at how firms act with respect to why, where, what and when to patent. The manufacturing industry is still the major source of patent applications. Thus, a firm-level study in manufacturing was chosen. The adopted methodology consists of i) a series of interviews with decision-makers on patents in six pharmaceuticals firms, using a semi-structured questionnaire, and ii) two postal surveys of firms in UK manufacturing, conducted through structured questionnaires. One survey, also known as the Community Innovation Survey, was undertaken by the UK Office for National Statistics on behalf of the UK Department of Trade industry. Another survey, encompassing particular aspects of patenting activities, was administered by the researcher to firms listed in the UK R&D Scoreboard. Contrary to our suspicions patent numbers may be a good proxy for evaluating the importance of patents as a mechanism of protection, but not necessarily for measuring the level of innovativeness of a firm. Secondly, our findings suggest that some mechanisms of appropriability are more correlated to patents than others but, overall, they lead to the same sort of conclusions. Finally, we found that i) firms seek patents mainly as a protective device against copying; ii) patents tend to be filed early in the innovation process when the prospects may still be uncertain; iii) in general broader patent scope is sought but a narrow scope can also be valuable; and iv) the attractiveness of the market is central when firms decide to pursue cross-border proprietary control of the knowledge they create

Firms' perception of the importance and use of patents as a means of appropriating the returns from innovation

The present research extends the existing literature in at least three aspects. Firstly, it looks at what makes firms perceive patents as more or less important. Secondly, it examines how patents do (if at all) interact with other appropriability mechanisms. Finally, it looks at how firms act with respect to why, where, what and when to patent. The manufacturing industry is still the major source of patent applications. Thus, a firm-level study in manufacturing was chosen. The adopted methodology consists of i) a series of interviews with decision-makers on patents in six pharmaceuticals firms, using a semi-structured questionnaire, and ii) two postal surveys of firms in UK manufacturing, conducted through structured questionnaires. One survey, also known as the Community Innovation Survey, was undertaken by the UK Office for National Statistics on behalf of the UK Department of Trade industry. Another survey, encompassing particular aspects of patenting activities, was administered by the researcher to firms listed in the UK R&D Scoreboard. Contrary to our suspicions patent numbers may be a good proxy for evaluating the importance of patents as a mechanism of protection, but not necessarily for measuring the level of innovativeness of a firm. Secondly, our findings suggest that some mechanisms of appropriability are more correlated to patents than others but, overall, they lead to the same sort of conclusions. Finally, we found that i) firms seek patents mainly as a protective device against copying; ii) patents tend to be filed early in the innovation process when the prospects may still be uncertain; iii) in general broader patent scope is sought but a narrow scope can also be valuable; and iv) the attractiveness of the market is central when firms decide to pursue cross-border proprietary control of the knowledge they create.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceConselho Nacional de Pesquisas (Brazil) (CNPq)GBUnited Kingdo

Engineering course specially designed to face retention issue

Many engineering colleges have been facing the retention problem in engineering programs due to difficulties and lack of knowledge about what really means being an engineer. It is mainly due to the fact that the first 3 years are particularly intense and hard. A possible way to overcome this period is to implement a new kind of course more attractive and dynamic, which is the idea of COPEC’s engineering education research team, to embed a course with a more interesting activity for students in the first year. It is a short-term workshop in order to show the students the possibilities of performing as engineers in a global environment – a project developed for a private university in order to augment the retention rate in their engineering courses.This work has been financed by FEDER funds through the Competitivity Factors Operational Courseme – C OMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136 and POCI-010145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Gender and socio-demographic distribution of body mass index: The nutrition transition in an adult Angolan community

This cross-sectional survey with 2357 subjects aged 15 to 64 years from a ruralurban community in Bengo Province, Angola, aimed to evaluate the gender differences in the prevalence of body mass index categories and how socio-demographic characteristics influence it. Women presented a significantly higher prevalence of obesity (10.5% versus 2.8%) but the underweight frequency was similar to men (10.2% versus 12.4%). Overweight and obesity increased with age, with underweight being more prevalent in the age group 15 to 24 years. Obesity was more prevalent among individuals living with a companion (in a marital relation), decreased with education (in women), but was higher in rural areas, and for those with a higher family monthly income, in both genders. The prevalence of obesity and underweight were similar in women, reflecting a nutrition transition state. Like in other African communities, women present a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity them men, but the values of underweight are similar between genders. This stresses the need of designed health interventions for women, to face the double burden and accumulation of risk factors in women

Rethinking engineering education

The Professional of today needs to acquire a dynamic ability to absorb information, adjust to organizational goals, and navigate in a complex work environment. For this reason, a classic approach seems to be more useful for the demands of today's job market. It is at least interesting to notice, that the classic approach is being neglected, at a time when its product might be more interesting than ever. The Engineering Education Team of COPEC – Science and Education Research Council has designed a program that is knowledge centered and specially challenging, which integrates classical engineering approaches and real experience in order to achieve a high level of engineers ready to perform as professionals or researchers. It aims to form the Engineer – a professional that is capable to learn for life and be creative in many ways.This work is financed by FEDER funds through the Competitivity Factors Operational Programme – COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and by national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology within the scope of the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136 and project UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Contribution of the Epstein-Barr virus to the oncogenesis of mature T-cell lymphoproliferative neoplasms

EBV is a lymphotropic virus, member of the Herpesviridae family that asymptomatically infects more than 90% of the human population, establishing a latent infection in memory B cells. EBV exhibits complex survival and persistence dynamics, replicating its genome through the proliferation of infected B cells or production of the lytic virions. Many studies have documented the infection of T/NK cells by EBV in healthy individuals during and after primary infection. This feature has been confirmed in humanized mouse models. Together these results have challenged the hypothesis that the infection of T/NK cells per se by EBV could be a triggering event for lymphomagenesis. Extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTCL) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive nodal T- and NK-cell lymphoma (NKTCL) are two EBV-associated lymphomas of T/NK cells. These two lymphomas display different clinical, histological and molecular features. However, they share two intriguing characteristics: the association with EBV and a geographical prevalence in East Asia and Latin America. In this review we will discuss the genetic characteristics of EBV in order to understand the possible role of this virus in the oncogenesis of ENKTCL and NKTCL. In addition, the main immunohistological, molecular, cytogenetic and epigenetic differences between ENKTCL and NKTCL will be discussed, as well as EBV differences in latency patterns and other viral molecular characteristics

International experiences and the implications for the success of engineering programs

The working midst has become challenging due to the multicultural environment and the need of skills such as cultural understanding, are very important in the formation of an engineer. It has been like this for many years however, now more than ever. So, for engineering schools, internationalization has become, on top of others, another demand for the accomplishment of a good program. It became necessary to provide international academic experience for the students. For this reason, internationalization is now a strategy to raise the quality of courses and as another result of these efforts, to raise the engineering students’ retention rate along the program. The goal of this paper is to present and discuss the internationalization process of a University’s engineering school, with the objective of making the program more attractive and promoting the double diploma in order to higher the quality of the programs.(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio