Technology Transfer in the Irish Food Industry: Researcher Perspectives

The public R&D system represents an important part of the framework conditions for carrying out innovation activities and creating commercially applicable knowledge (Drejer and Jørgensen, 2004). It is an important source of information for companies, particularly those that are developing new products (Tijssen, 2004). However, Rubenstein (2003) stated that there has been a perception that public research capacity and results were not being optimally used and thus that potential economic benefits were not entirely realised. It is also suggested that research conducted in the public sector is not efficiently or successfully transferred to industry (Markman et al, 1999) and that it is necessary to understand and improve the means of technology transfer for society to reap the benefits of public science (Geuna and Nesta, 2003). Thus, there is a growing interest, and indeed pressure, among policymakers and academics to ensure informed spending of taxpayers’ money, that useful and relevant research is conducted that represents good “value for money” and that wealth is generated from publicly-funded research (Carr, 1992; Lyall et al., 2004; Mustar et al., 2006). To achieve this requires, amongst other things, the establishment of scientific and technical human capital which is the sum of researchers’ professional network ties and their technical skills and resources (Bozeman and Coreley, 2004). This paper examines the interactions engaged in by researchers from Irish public science providers (public research centres and higher education institutions), with a particular focus on researchers- industry interactions, as well as their skills and resources. To provide context, it firstly briefly outlines the actors involved in conducting publicly funded R&D in Ireland. It then describes the methodology and presents the results of a national survey of publicly funded food researchers focusing on the extent and nature of researcher interactions with other researchers and with industry, the barriers to and motivations for researcher-industry interaction and researcher skills regarding technology transfer. It concludes with a discussion and some policy recommendations.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization,

Knowledge Transfer in the Irish Food Innovation System: Industry and Researcher Perspectives

The new EU Animal Health Strategy suggests a shift in emphasis away from control towards prevention and surveillance activities for the management of threats to animal health. The optimal combination of these actions will differ among diseases and depend on largely unknown and uncertain costs and benefits. This paper reports an empirical investigation of this issue for the case of Avian Influenza. The results suggest that the optimal combination of actions will be dependent on the objective of the decision maker and that conflict exists between an optimal strategy which minimises costs to the government and one which maximises producer profits or minimises negative effects on human health. From the perspective of minimising the effects on human health, prevention appears preferable to cure but the case is less clear for other objectives.Knowledge transfer, technology transfer, Irish food sector, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Individual exploratory responses are not repeatable across time or context for four species of food-storing corvid.

Exploration is among one of the most studied of animal personality traits (i.e., individual-level behavioural responses repeatable across time and contexts). However, not all species show clear evidence of this personality trait, and this is particularly so for members of the Corvidae family. We assessed the exploratory behaviour of four food-caching corvid species: pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus), Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana), California scrub jays (Aphelocoma californica), and black-billed magpies (Pica hudsonia). Contextual repeatability was assessed through examining behavioural measures during the Novel Environment task and the Novel Object task, whereas temporal repeatability was assessed by examining changes in these measures over repeated trials. Our results suggest that, for corvids, an individual's exploratory behaviour was not repeatable across contexts or over time. Hence, we found no evidence that exploration constitutes a personality trait for these species of corvid. We did find differences in exploratory behaviour, at a species level, that may be explained by relative reliance on cached food

Bringing Legacy to Life: How Video Storytelling Inspires Multigenerational Involvement in Family Philanthropy

Most family foundations go through some sort of process to define donor intent and formalize their values, whether at the beginning of their life span or after their founders’ passing. Video is a powerful tool in that process, vividly bringing stories to life for family members, older and younger alike. So how can video help foundations capture the important story of their donor intent and legacy, and use it to inspire future involvement in their mission? With the experience of the Marion I. & Henry J. Knott Foundation serving as the backdrop, this article examines how a donor legacy video can not only help inspire multigenerational participation in the governance of a family foundation, but also extend multiple direct benefits to grant applicants and grantees. Grounded in research and reflective practice, this article details the power of video in preserving family stories, the goals and outcomes of the Knott Foundation’s successful video project, and some practical suggestions for other family foundations. Key findings show that video storytelling can inspire new board member participation, enhance everyone’s understanding of the founders’ legacy, and benefit a foundation’s wider grantee community

Facilitation of Learning Spatial Relations among Goal Locations does not Require Visual Exposure to the Configuration of Goal Locations

Human participants searched in a virtual-environment open-field search task for four hidden goal locations arranged in a diamond configuration located in a 5 x 5 matrix. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Pattern Only, Landmark + Pattern, or Cues + Pattern. All participants experienced a Training phase followed by a Testing phase. During Training, visual cues were coincident with goal locations for the Cues + Pattern group, and a single visual cue at a non-goal location maintained a consistent spatial relationship with the goal locations for the Landmark + Pattern group. All groups were then tested in the absence of visual cues. Presence of the visual cue(s) during Training facilitated acquisition of the task, but the Landmark + Pattern group and the Cues + Pattern group did not differ when their visual cues were removed during Testing and performed superior to the Pattern Only group. Results suggest learning based upon the spatial relations among locations may not be susceptible to cue-competition effects and facilitation of learning spatial relations by visual cues does not require visual exposure to the configuration of goal locations

Use of a geometric rule or absolute vectors: Landmark use by Clark’s nutcrackers (\u3ci\u3eNucifraga columbiana\u3c/i\u3e)

Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) were trained to search for a hidden goal located in the center of a four-landmark array. Upon completion of training, the nutcrackers were presented with tests that expanded the landmark array in the east-west direction, north-south direction and in both directions simultaneously. Although the birds learned to search accurately at the center of the landmark array during training, this search pattern did not transfer to the expansion tests. The nutcrackers searched at locations defined by absolute distance and/or direction relationships with landmarks in the training array. These results contrast with those from experiments with nutcrackers in which an abstract geometric rule was learned. This difference appears due to differences in the experimental paradigms used during training

Orienting in virtual environments: how are surface features and environmental geometry weighted in an orientation task?

a b s t r a c t We investigated how human adults orient in enclosed virtual environments, when discrete landmark information is not available and participants have to rely on geometric and featural information on the environmental surfaces. In contrast to earlier studies, where, for women, the featural information from discrete landmarks overshadowed the encoding of the geometric information, Experiment 1 showed that when featural information is conjoined with the environmental surfaces, men and women encoded both types of information. Experiment 2 showed that, although both types of information are encoded, performance in locating a goal position is better if it is close to a geometrically or featurally distinct location. Furthermore, although features are relied upon more strongly than geometry, initial experience with an environment influences the relative weighting of featural and geometric cues. Taken together, these results show that human adults use a flexible strategy for encoding spatial information

Is it only humans that count from left to right?

We report that adult nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) and newborn domestic chicks (Gallus gallus) show a leftward bias when required to locate an object in a series of identical ones on the basis of its ordinal position. Birds were trained to peck at either the fourth or sixth element in a series of 16 identical and aligned positions. These were placed in front of the bird, sagittally with respect to its starting position. When, at test, the series was rotated by 90° lying frontoparallel to the bird's starting position, both species showed a bias for identifying selectively the correct position from the left but not from the right end. The similarity with the well-known phenomenon of the left-to-right spatially oriented number line in humans is considered

Lee Silverman voice treatment versus standard NHS speech and language therapy versus control in Parkinson's disease (PD COMM pilot):study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background: Parkinson’s disease is a common movement disorder affecting approximately 127,000 people in the UK, with an estimated two thirds having speech-related problems. Currently there is no preferred approach to speech and language therapy within the NHS and there is little evidence for the effectiveness of standard NHS therapy or Lee Silverman voice treatment. This trial aims to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of randomizing people with Parkinson’s disease-related speech or voice problems to Lee Silverman voice treatment or standard speech and language therapy compared to a no-intervention control. Methods/Design: The PD COMM pilot is a three arm, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled trial. Randomization will be computer-generated with participants randomized at a ratio of 1:1:1. Participants randomized to intervention arms will be immediately referred to the appropriate speech and language therapist. The target population are patients with a confirmed diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson’s disease who have problems with their speech or voice. The Lee Silverman voice treatment intervention group will receive the standard regime of 16 sessions between 50 and 60 minutes in length over four weeks, with extra home practice. The standard speech and language therapy intervention group will receive a dose determined by patients’ individual needs, but not exceeding eight weeks of treatment. The control group will receive standard care with no speech and language therapy input for at least six months post-randomization. Outcomes will be assessed at baseline (pre-randomization) and post- randomization at three, six, and 12 months. The outcome measures include patient-reported voice measures, quality of life, resource use, and assessor-rated speech recordings. The recruitment aim is at least 60 participants over 21 months from 11 sites, equating to at least 20 participants in each arm of the trial. This trial is ongoing and recruitment commenced in May 2012. Discussion: This study will provide information on the feasibility and acceptability of randomizing participants to different speech and language therapies or control/deferred treatment. The findings relating to recruitment, treatment compliance, outcome measures, and effect size will inform a future phase III randomized controlled trial