Re-thinking the role of intellectual property in nano-strategy

AbstractIn two past studies we observed and analyzed a group of European new and adolescent ventures, looking in particular at how they were about exploiting nanotechnology-based business opportunities, what was the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs), mainly patents, in those strategies, what was the link between patent filings in nanotechnology and exploitation patterns in the market. We formulated hypotheses and proposed an interpretative model of the strategic decisions and business choices. After a couple of years we took the opportunity to revisit some of the hypotheses and outcomes of the proposed interpretative model. If the overall framework of analysis is still, at least partly, applicable to the current situation, new trends emerge, which involve: the creation of extended portfolios of IPRs and intangible assets, which are both technology and marketing related, the entry of strategic investors and the new role of the financial and funding instruments, and the emergence of new types of consolidation patterns which are rooted in the net of strategic partnerships, collaborations and new forms of alliances in the supply chain and in the market

Distributed Resource Allocation for URLLC in IIoT Scenarios: A Multi-Armed Bandit Approach

This paper addresses the problem of enabling inter-machine Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) in future 6G Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) networks. As far as the Radio Access Network (RAN) is concerned, centralized pre-configured resource allocation requires scheduling grants to be disseminated to the User Equipments (UEs) before uplink transmissions, which is not efficient for URLLC, especially in case of flexible/unpredictable traffic. To alleviate this burden, we study a distributed, user-centric scheme based on machine learning in which UEs autonomously select their uplink radio resources without the need to wait for scheduling grants or preconfiguration of connections. Using simulation, we demonstrate that a Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) approach represents a desirable solution to allocate resources with URLLC in mind in an IIoT environment, in case of both periodic and aperiodic traffic, even considering highly populated networks and aggressive traffic.Comment: 2022 IEEE Globecom Workshops (GC Wkshps): Future of Wireless Access and Sensing for Industrial IoT (FutureIIoT

A Distributed Neural Linear Thompson Sampling Framework to Achieve URLLC in Industrial IoT

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) networks will provide Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) to support critical processes underlying the production chains. However, standard protocols for allocating wireless resources may not optimize the latency-reliability trade-off, especially for uplink communication. For example, centralized grant-based scheduling can ensure almost zero collisions, but introduces delays in the way resources are requested by the User Equipments (UEs) and granted by the gNB. In turn, distributed scheduling (e.g., based on random access), in which UEs autonomously choose the resources for transmission, may lead to potentially many collisions especially when the traffic increases. In this work we propose DIStributed combinatorial NEural linear Thompson Sampling (DISNETS), a novel scheduling framework that combines the best of the two worlds. By leveraging a feedback signal from the gNB and reinforcement learning, the UEs are trained to autonomously optimize their uplink transmissions by selecting the available resources to minimize the number of collisions, without additional message exchange to/from the gNB. DISNETS is a distributed, multi-agent adaptation of the Neural Linear Thompson Sampling (NLTS) algorithm, which has been further extended to admit multiple parallel actions. We demonstrate the superior performance of DISNETS in addressing URLLC in IIoT scenarios compared to other baselines

A New Scheduler for URLLC in 5G NR IIoT Networks with Spatio-Temporal Traffic Correlations

This paper explores the issue of enabling UltraReliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) in view of the spatio-temporal correlations that characterize real 5th generation (5G) Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) networks. In this context, we consider a common Standalone Non-Public Network (SNPN) architecture as promoted by the 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA), and propose a new variant of the 5G NR semi-persistent scheduler (SPS) to deal with uplink traffic correlations. A benchmark solution with a “smart” scheduler (SSPS) is compared with a more realistic adaptive approach (ASPS) that requires the scheduler to estimate some unknown network parameters. We demonstrate via simulations that the 1-ms latency requirement for URLLC is fulfilled in both solutions, at the expense of some complexity introduced in the management of the traffic. Finally, we provide numerical guidelines to dimension IIoT networks as a function of the use case, the number of machines in the factory, and considering both periodic and aperiodic traffic

The Challenges of O2 Detection in Biological Fluids: Classical Methods and Translation to Clinical Applications

Dissolved oxygen (DO) is deeply involved in preserving the life of cellular tissues and human beings due to its key role in cellular metabolism: its alterations may reflect important pathophysiological conditions. DO levels are measured to identify pathological conditions, explain pathophysiological mechanisms, and monitor the efficacy of therapeutic approaches. This is particularly relevant when the measurements are performed in vivo but also in contexts where a variety of biological and synthetic media are used, such as ex vivo organ perfusion. A reliable measurement of medium oxygenation ensures a high-quality process. It is crucial to provide a high-accuracy, real-time method for DO quantification, which could be robust towards different medium compositions and temperatures. In fact, biological fluids and synthetic clinical fluids represent a challenging environment where DO interacts with various compounds and can change continuously and dynamically, and further precaution is needed to obtain reliable results. This study aims to present and discuss the main oxygen detection and quantification methods, focusing on the technical needs for their translation to clinical practice. Firstly, we resumed all the main methodologies and advancements concerning dissolved oxygen determination. After identifying the main groups of all the available techniques for DO sensing based on their mechanisms and applicability, we focused on transferring the most promising approaches to a clinical in vivo/ex vivo settin

Educação ambiental nas coleções de livros didáticos de ciências aprovados pelo programa nacional do livro didático (2016-2018) / Environmental education in the sciente textbooks recommended by the didatic book national program 2016-2018

As discussões a respeito do meio ambiente têm aumentado nos últimos anos e a Educação Ambiental (EA), nesse contexto, mostra-se de grande importância. Este trabalho se integra nas pesquisas sobre EA com o objetivo de realizar uma breve análise dos livros didáticos de Ciências dos anos iniciais do Ensino Fundamental recomendados pelo Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD), triênio 2016-2018. A análise é voltada para a Educação Ambiental, com ênfase na poluição, ou seja, o problema de pesquisa foca em como esses livros abordam as questões importantes a respeito, tanto na discussão, quanto nas atividades propostas. No total, foram cinco coleções analisadas, sendo que foi optado direcionar o olhar para os livros do 3º ano do Ensino Fundamental. Como resultado, a pesquisa demonstrou que todos os livros abordam o tema, sendo que apenas um revelou aspectos negativos a respeito da carência de estímulo a criticidade, sendo que fica a cargo do professor promover a reflexão crítica sobre o tema

Educação ambiental nas coleções de livros didáticos de ciências aprovados pelo programa nacional do livro didático (2016-2018) / Environmental education in the sciente textbooks recommended by the didatic book national program 2016-2018

As discussões a respeito do meio ambiente têm aumentado nos últimos anos e a Educação Ambiental (EA), nesse contexto, mostra-se de grande importância. Este trabalho se integra nas pesquisas sobre EA com o objetivo de realizar uma breve análise dos livros didáticos de Ciências dos anos iniciais do Ensino Fundamental recomendados pelo Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD), triênio 2016-2018. A análise é voltada para a Educação Ambiental, com ênfase na poluição, ou seja, o problema de pesquisa foca em como esses livros abordam as questões importantes a respeito, tanto na discussão, quanto nas atividades propostas. No total, foram cinco coleções analisadas, sendo que foi optado direcionar o olhar para os livros do 3º ano do Ensino Fundamental. Como resultado, a pesquisa demonstrou que todos os livros abordam o tema, sendo que apenas um revelou aspectos negativos a respeito da carência de estímulo a criticidade, sendo que fica a cargo do professor promover a reflexão crítica sobre o tema

Cell damage induced by asbestos similar particles

The presence, in nature, of asbestos similar particles, highly toxic and potentially cancerogenic for human healthy is well known (1). Inhalation of the fibrous form of erionite, has been shown to cause effects compared to those observed with mineral fibers classified as ‘‘asbestos,’’ including malignant mesothelioma, a disease typically associated with occupational and environmental exposures to asbestos (2). In this work various zeolite materials have been considered because of their suspected carcinogenic activity and, the possible interactions occurring between asbestiform fibers and U937 cell, a human hemopoietic cell line, have been evaluated. Chemical and morpho-functional analyses have been carried out, both to characterize fiber structure and cell response. Cells showed the ability to internalize the minerals, as observed after TEM analyses. With zeolite exposure time increasing, a diffuse cell damage with features of apoptotic and necrotic death can be evidenced (3). These findings suggest that the fibrous form of scolecite or offretite too can be considered potentially toxic for cell culture in vitro

Clinical impact of first-line bevacizumab plus chemotherapy in metastatic colorectal cancer of mucinous histology: a multicenter, retrospective analysis on 685 patients

In metastatic colorectal cancer (MCRC), mucinous histology has been associated with poor response rate and prognosis. We investigated whether bevacizumab combined with different chemotherapy regimens may have an impact on clinical outcomes of MCRC patients with mucinous histology