IP Management – Key Skills in a Knowledge Economy

Intellectual property (IP) is an important element in the knowledge economy. Through focused appropriation strategies, companies can use intellectual property to generate profits from the investments they make in new knowledge. To do so, it is necessary for various subsystems of the knowledge economy to be combined at an interdisciplinary level. To support the success of the company, IP management can help to optimize appropriation mechanisms. A consideration of the economic properties of intangible assets and an interdisciplinary background of those involved are required for this. With the management of IP, new competences and skills are entering the knowledge economy. By understanding the generation of wealth in the knowledge economy and the IP exploitation mechanisms, the need for new training approaches becomes clear

Do you BET on routine? The reliability of N2 physisorption for the quantitative assessment of biochar’s surface area

A large specific surface area is one of the structural characteristics which makes biochar a promising material for novel applications in agriculture and environmental management. However, the high complexity and heterogeneity of biochar's physical and chemical structure can render routine surface area measurements unreliable. In this study, N-2 and CO2 characterization of twelve biochars from three feedstocks with production temperatures ranging from 400 degrees C to 900 degrees C were used to evaluate materials with varying structural properties. The results indicate that the frequently reported peak in the surface area of biochars around 650 degrees C is an artefact of N-2 measurements and not confirmed by CO2 analysis. Contradicting results indicate an influence of the structural rigidity of biochar on N-2 measurements due to pore deformation in certain biochars. Pore non-specific calculation models like the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller method do not allow for adjustments to these changes. Instead, the use of a pore specific model and the exclusion of pores smaller than 1.47 nm was found to achieve more representative results. The proposed calculation was validated on an external dataset to highlight the applicability of the method. Our results provide novel insights for understanding the structural evolution of biochar related to production temperature

Revealing the structure of the lensed quasar Q 0957+561 III. Constraints on the size of the broad-line region

Our aim is to examine the size, kinematics, and geometry of the broad-line region (BLR) in the double-lensed quasar Q 0957+561 by analyzing the impact of microlensing on various rest-frame ultraviolet broad-emission lines (BELs). We explore the influence of intrinsic variability and microlensing on the C IV, C III], and Mg II emission lines through multiple spectroscopic observations taken between April 1999 and January 2017. By utilizing the line cores as a reference for no microlensing and correcting for the long time delay between the images, we estimate the sizes of the regions emitting the broad-line wings using a Bayesian approach. Our study of the microlensing amplitudes between the lensed images of the quasar Q 0957+561 reveals differing sizes of the regions emitting the three prominent BELs C IV, C III], and Mg II. The strength of the differential microlensing indicates that the high-ionization line C IV arises from a compact inner region of the BLR with a half-light radius of $R_{1/2} \gtrsim 16.0$ lt-days, which represents a lower limit on the overall size of the BLR and is comparable to the size of the region emitting the r-band continuum in this system. A somewhat larger size of $R_{1/2}\gtrsim 44$ lt-days is obtained for the semi-forbidden line C III]. Microlensing has a weak impact on the lower-ionization line Mg II, which is emitted from a region with a half-light radius of $R_{1/2} \gtrsim 50$ lt-days. These findings suggest that the BEL regions may have distinct geometries and kinematics, with the more extended ones being spherically symmetric, and the most compact ones being nonspherical, with motions likely confined to a plane

Hypoxia promotes breast cancer cell invasion through HIF-1a-mediated up-regulation of the invadopodial actin bundling protein CSRP2

Hypoxia is a common feature of solid tumours that promotes invasion and metastatic dissemination. Invadopodia are actin-rich membrane protrusions that direct extracellular matrix proteolysis and facilitate tumour cell invasion. Here, we show that CSRP2, an invadopodial actin bundling protein, is upregulated by hypoxia in various breast cancer cell lines, as well as in pre-clinical and clinical breast tumour specimens. We functionally characterized two hypoxia responsive elements within the proximal promoter of CSRP2 gene which are targeted by hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) and required for promoter transactivation in response to hypoxia. Remarkably, CSRP2 knockdown significantly inhibits hypoxia-stimulated invadopodium formation, ECM degradation and invasion in MDA-MB-231 cells, while CSRP2 forced expression was sufficient to enhance the invasive capacity of HIF-1a-depleted cells under hypoxia. In MCF-7 cells, CSRP2 upregulation was required for hypoxia-induced formation of invadopodium precursors that were unable to promote ECM degradation. Collectively, our data support that CSRP2 is a novel and direct cytoskeletal target of HIF-1 which facilitates hypoxia-induced breast cancer cell invasion by promoting invadopodia formation.The authors are grateful to Monika Dieterle, Arnaud Muller, Pter Nazarov and Muhammad Zaeem Noman (Oncology Department, LIH, Luxembourg) for technical assistance, support in statistical analyses and constructive discussions. The authors also warmly thank Sara A. Courtneidge for the gift of the Tks5-GFP construct (Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, USA). This work was mainly supported by a research grant from “Fondation Cancer” Luxembourg (FC/2016/02), and the National Research Fund (C16/ BM/11297905). Joshua Brown Clay is recipient of a Postdoctoral fellowship from “Fonds De La Recherche Scientifque” - FNRS “Télévie” (7.4512.16). Antoun Al Absi and Hannah Wurzer are recipients of PhD fellowships from the National Research Fund, Luxembourg (AFR7892325 and PRIDE15/10675146/CANBIO, respectively)

Compact and Loosely Bound Structures in Light Nuclei

A role of different components in the wave function of the weakly bound light nuclei states was studied within the framework of the cluster model, taking into account of orbitals "polarization". It was shown that a limited number of structures associated with the different modes of nucleon motion can be of great importance for such systems. Examples of simple and quite flexible trial wave functions are given for the nuclei $^8$Be, $^6$He. Expressions for the microscopic wave functions of these nuclei were found and used for the calculation of basic nuclear characteristics, using well known central-exchange nucleon-nucleon potentials.Comment: 19 pages, 3 ps figure

Sensitivities of the Proton-Nucleus Elastical Scattering Observables of 6He and 8He at Intermediate Energies

We investigate the use of proton-nucleus elastic scattering experiments using secondary beams of 6He and 8He to determine the physical structure of these nuclei. The sensitivity of these experiments to nuclear structure is examined by using four different nuclear structure models with different spatial features using a full-folding optical potential model. The results show that elastic scattering at intermediate energies (<100 MeV per nucleon) is not a good constraint to be used to determine features of structure. Therefore researchers should look elsewhere to put constraints on the ground state wave function of the 6He and 8He nuclei.Comment: To be published in Phys. Rev.