Entrepreneurial Experiments in Science Policy: Analizing the Human Genome Project

We re-conceptualize the role of science policy makers, envisioning and illustrating their move from being simple investors in scientific projects to entrepreneurs who create the conditions for entrepreneurial experiments and initiate them. We argue that reframing science policy around the notion of conducting entrepreneurial experiments – experiments that increase the diversity of technical, organizational and institutional arrangements in which scientific research is conducted – can provide policy makers with a wider repertoire of effective interventions. To illustrate the power of this approach, we analyze the Human Genome Project (HGP) as a set of successful, entrepreneurial experiments in organizational and institutional innovation. While not designed as such, the HGP was an experiment in funding a science project across a variety of organizational settings, including seven public and one private (Celera) research centers. We assess the major characteristics and differences between these organizational choices, using a mix of qualitative and econometric analyses to examine their impact on scientific progress. The planning and direction of the Human Genome Project show that policy makers can use the levers of entrepreneurial experimentation to transform scientific progress, much as entrepreneurs have transformed economic progress.Entrepreneurial Experiments; Science Policy; Human Genome Project

Public governance, corporate governance, and firm innovation: An examination of state-owned enterprises

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier

China's innovation landscape

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier

Mechanics of Composite Materials in Fuel Cell Systems

The science and technology that are fundamental to the concept of composite materials are also the foundation for the construction and function of fuel cells and fuel cell systems. The present paper outlines this relationship in the context of the physics and chemistry that are enabled by the specific selection and arrangement of constituents of the “functional composite” fuel cell. General principles of operation are described, and fundamental issues are defined that must be addressed by the composites community if the fuel cell science and engineering is to advance. Examples of several types of functional composite fuel cells are presented, with emphasis on polymer electrolyte (PEM) and solid-oxide (SOFC) systems. Specific needs for continued research are identified

Can ratoon cropping improve resource use efficiencies and profitability of rice in central China?

Identifying cropping systems with small global warming potential (GWP) per unit of productivity is important to ensure food security while minimizing environmental footprint. During recent decades, double-season rice (DR) systems in central China have progressively shifted into single-crop, middle-season rice (MR) due to high costs and labor requirements of double-season rice. Ratoon rice (RR) has been proposed as an alternative system that reconciliates both high annual productivity and relatively low costs and labor requirements. Here we used onfarm data collected from 240 farmer fields planted with rice in 2016 to evaluate annual energy balance, environmental impact, and net profit of MR, DR, and RR cropping systems in central China. Energy factors, emission values, and commodity prices obtained from literature and official statistics were used to estimate energy balance, GWP, and economic profit. Average annual yield was 7.7, 15.3. and 13.2 Mg ha−1 for MR, DR, and RR systems, respectively. Average total annual energy input (36 GJ ha−1), GWP (9783 kg ha−1), and production cost (3057 $ha−1) of RR were 35–48$ ha−1) than MR. Compared with DR, RR produced statistically similar net energy yield while doubling the net economic return, with 32–42% lower energy input, production costs, and GWP. Consequently, RR exhibited significantly higher net energy ratio and benefit-to-cost ratio, and substantially lower yield-scaled GWP than the other two cropping systems. In the context of DR being replaced by MR, our analysis indicated that RR can be a viable option to achieve both high annual productivity and large positive energy balance and profit, while reducing the environmental impact

Can ratoon cropping improve resource use efficiencies and profitability of rice in central China?

Identifying cropping systems with small global warming potential (GWP) per unit of productivity is important to ensure food security while minimizing environmental footprint. During recent decades, double-season rice (DR) systems in central China have progressively shifted into single-crop, middle-season rice (MR) due to high costs and labor requirements of double-season rice. Ratoon rice (RR) has been proposed as an alternative system that reconciliates both high annual productivity and relatively low costs and labor requirements. Here we used onfarm data collected from 240 farmer fields planted with rice in 2016 to evaluate annual energy balance, environmental impact, and net profit of MR, DR, and RR cropping systems in central China. Energy factors, emission values, and commodity prices obtained from literature and official statistics were used to estimate energy balance, GWP, and economic profit. Average annual yield was 7.7, 15.3. and 13.2 Mg ha−1 for MR, DR, and RR systems, respectively. Average total annual energy input (36 GJ ha−1), GWP (9783 kg ha−1), and production cost (3057 $ha−1) of RR were 35–48$ ha−1) than MR. Compared with DR, RR produced statistically similar net energy yield while doubling the net economic return, with 32–42% lower energy input, production costs, and GWP. Consequently, RR exhibited significantly higher net energy ratio and benefit-to-cost ratio, and substantially lower yield-scaled GWP than the other two cropping systems. In the context of DR being replaced by MR, our analysis indicated that RR can be a viable option to achieve both high annual productivity and large positive energy balance and profit, while reducing the environmental impact

Closing yield gaps for rice self-sufficiency in China

China produces 28% of global rice supply and is currently self-sufficient despite a massive rural-to-urban demographic transition that drives intense competition for land and water resources. At issue is whether it will remain self-sufficient, which depends on the potential to raise yields on existing rice land. Here we report a detailed spatial analysis of rice production potential in China and evaluate scenarios to 2030. We find that China is likely to remain self-sufficient in rice assuming current yield and consumption trajectories and no reduction in production area. A focus on increasing yields of double-rice systems on general, and in three single-rice provinces where yield gaps are relatively large, would provide greatest return on investments in research and development to remain self-sufficient. Discrepancies between results from our detailed bottom-up yield-gap analysis and those derived following a topdown methodology show that the two approaches would result in very different research and development priorities

Institutional regime shift in intellectual property rights and innovation strategies of firms in China

This study develops a novel conceptual framework to understand the differential impact of formal institutional regime shift in intellectual property rights on the innovation and patenting strategies of Chinese and Western firms operating in China. We argue that to the extent that Chinese firms have been deeply embedded in China’s informal institutions, they are less responsive to formal institutional changes than Western firms operating in China. Using the major China patent law reform of 2001 as an exogenous event, we find results consistent with our key arguments: With the strengthening of the previously weak (utility model) patent protection, Chinese firms are less likely to apply for such patents to safeguard their innovations than Western firms. However, this difference becomes less pronounced in regions with higher quality intellectual property rights and legal institutions that foster research and development and innovation, and when Western firms gain longer operational experience in China. This study advances our understanding of the intricate interaction between formal and informal institutions and specifically how “stickiness” may arise in their substitutive relationship because of the embeddedness of firms in informal institutional environments. It also provides important implications for policy and innovation strategies for policy makers and firms in emerging economies. </jats:p

An FDTD/MoM hybrid technique for modeling complex antennas in the presence of heterogeneous grounds

©1999 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.Calculating the current distribution and radiation patterns for ground-penetrating radar antennas is a challenging problem because of the complex interaction between the antenna, the ground, and any buried scatterer. Typically, numerical techniques that are well suited for modeling the antennas themselves are not well suited for modeling the heterogeneous grounds, and visa versa, For example the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique is well suited for modeling fields in heterogeneous media, whereas the method of moments (MoM) is well suited for modeling complex antennas in free space. This paper describes a hybrid technique, based upon the equivalence principle, for calculating an antenna's current distribution radiation pattern when the antenna is located near an air-ground interface. The original problem is decomposed into two coupled equivalent problems: one for the antenna geometry and the other for the ground geometry, with field information passing between them via a rapidly converging iterative procedure, The fields in each region may be modeled using numerical techniques best suited to them, Results for several test cases are presented, using FDTD to model the ground problem and MoM for the antenna problem, that demonstrate the accuracy of this hybrid technique