Derailing individualized ovarian stimulation

No abstract available

Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)

Based on a survey questionnaire administered to 1478 R&D labs in the U.S. manufacturing sector in 1994, we find that firms typically protect the profits due to invention with a range of mechanisms, including patents, secrecy, lead time advantages and the use of complementary marketing and manufacturing capabilities. Of these mechanisms, however, patents tend to be the least emphasized by firms in the majority of manufacturing industries, and secrecy and lead time tend to be emphasized most heavily. A comparison of our results with the earlier survey findings of Levin et al. [1987] suggest that patents may be relied upon somewhat more heavily by larger firms now than in the early 1980s. For the protection of product innovations, secrecy now appears to be much more heavily employed across most industries than previously. Our results on the motives to patent indicate that firms patent for reasons that often extend beyond directly profiting from a patented innovation through either its commercialization or licensing. In addition to the prevention of copying, the most prominent motives for patenting include the prevention of rivals from patenting related inventions (i.e., patent blocking'), the use of patents in negotiations and the prevention of suits. We find that firms commonly patent for different reasons in discrete' product industries, such as chemicals, versus complex' product industries, such as telecommunications equipment or semiconductors. In the former, firms appear to use their patents commonly to block the development of substitutes by rivals, and in the latter, firms are much more likely to use patents to force rivals into negotiations.

Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry facility : recent improvements and applications

Marine organic and organic geochemical studies require the best available performance in trace analysis of organic compounds in environmental samples. This report briefly outlines some of the recent improvements in the experimental capabilities of the Chemistry Department Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry Facility (GC/MS Facility) from a user-oriented and non-technical viewpoint. These improvements include principally the interfacing of high performance glass capillary columns with Finnigan 1015 and 3200 quadrupole mass spectrometers, and the adaptation of the latter for use with selective chemical ionization (CI) techniques. Some of the new capabilities available using combined glass capillary GC/EI-MS and CI-MS are illustrated with examples from research in several areas of marine organic chemistry. These include studies of volatile organics in seawater, the distributions of various lipid class compounds in marine phytoplankton, sediments and particulate matter, and the behavior of anthropogenic pollutants in natural and artificial marine ecosystems.Prepared for the Office of Naval Research under Contracts N00014-66-C-0241; NR 083-004 and N00014-?4-C-0262; NR 083- 004, for the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE 74-22781, OCE 76-08696, OCE 74-09991, OCE 77- 26084, and GC-44224, EPA Grants R803902010 and R8042-15; DOE Contract EE-77-5-02-4256 and the Bureau of Land Management via Interagency Agreement NOAA 550-lA-7-20

IMPACT OF MEAT IMPORTS ON LEAST-COST UNITED STATES BEEF PRODUCTION

International Relations/Trade,

Rabies Surveillance Identifies Potential Risk Corridors and Enables Management Evaluation

Intensive efforts are being made to eliminate the raccoon variant of rabies virus (RABV) from the eastern United States and Canada. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Wildlife Services National Rabies Management Program has implemented enhanced rabies surveillance (ERS) to improve case detection across the extent of the raccoon oral rabies vaccination (ORV) management area. We evaluated ERS and public health surveillance data from 2006 to 2017 in three northeastern USA states using a dynamic occupancy modeling approach. Our objectives were to examine potential risk corridors for RABV incursion from the U.S. into Canada, evaluate the effectiveness of ORV management strategies, and identify surveillance gaps. ORV management has resulted in a decrease in RABV cases over time within vaccination zones (from occupancy (ψ) of 0.60 standard error (SE) = 0.03 in the spring of 2006 to ψ of 0.33 SE = 0.10 in the spring 2017). RABV cases also reduced in the enzootic area (from ψ of 0.60 SE = 0.03 in the spring of 2006 to ψ of 0.45 SE = 0.05 in the spring 2017). Although RABV occurrence was related to habitat type, greater impacts were associated with ORV and trap–vaccinate–release (TVR) campaigns, in addition to seasonal and yearly trends. Reductions in RABV occupancy were more pronounced in areas treated with Ontario Rabies Vaccine Bait (ONRAB) compared to RABORAL V-RG®. Our approach tracked changes in RABV occurrence across space and time, identified risk corridors for potential incursions into Canada, and highlighted surveillance gaps, while evaluating the impacts of management actions. Using this approach, we are able to provide guidance for future RABV management