Show me the Money: Federal R&D Support for Academic Chemistry, 1990–2009

We examine the distribution of Federal support for chemistry Research and Development (R&D) performed at U.S. universities from 1990-2009. Federal R&D funding is an essential source of funds for investigator-driven research at the nation’s universities. Previous studies have documented that aggregated federal R&D funding has become more dispersed over time and attributed this to political pressure to spread resources more evenly. There have, however, been few studies of the allocation of funds within narrowly defined scientific disciplines. By narrowing the focus and exploiting the panel nature of our data we are better able to analyze the correlates of funding variation, yielding a number of new insights not apparent in studies using more aggregated data. First, we find that R&D expenditures at the discipline level are considerably more volatile than aggregate funding. Second, we show a strong positive association between several measures of institutional research capacity and future funding. In particular, we find a positive association between the employment of postdoctoral researchers and higher future research funding

The Effectiveness of Social Science Research in Addressing Societal Problems: Broadening Participation in Computing

One important rationale for federal funding of social science research is its role in addressing pressing social problems. In this article we examine the impact of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Information Technology Workforce Program (ITWF) on broadening participation Computing and Information Technology careers. Established in 2000 in response to the declining participation of women and minorities in Computer Science education and Information Technology Careers, the ITWF supported close to $30 million in research before it ended in 2004. We document the quantitative and qualitative effects of this research funding both to illustrate the complex ways in which R&D funding can advance scientific understanding and to identify the challenges that such problem-driven social science research may encounter. The problem of diversity in the IT Workforce has not been solved, but we conclude that the ITWF program nonetheless had important effects on understanding of this problem and efforts to address it

Academic Chemistry Inputs and Outcomes Data

The Academic Chemistry Inputs and Outcomes Data assembles panel data on academic chemistry inputs and outputs for 147 universities from 1989 through 2009. Each observation represents a single university-year and includes information on numbers of publications, citations to these publications, levels of federal and non-federal R&D funding, numbers of faculty, postdoctoral researchers, doctorates awarded and institutional characteristics. The data were compiled for the analysis of the determinants of university publication behavior and its relationship to research funding as reported in Joshua L. Rosenbloom, Donna K. Ginther, Ted Juhl and Joseph Heppert, "The Effects of Research & Development Funding on Scientific Productivity: Academic Chemistry, 1990-2009," Public Library of Science One, available in KU ScholarWorks at http://hdl.handle.net/1808/20057. As described in the Data Description and Code Book, these data were assembled by linking together information from a number of publicly available data sources and combining them with proprietary data on publications and citations provided by Thomson Reuters from their Web of Science database. These data are available to download as a text file (.csv) and as a STATA (.dta) data file. Anyone is free to use these data for scholarly purposes, but must include a citation to this user guide in any papers or published articles that employ these data

Cognitive architectures as Lakatosian research programmes: two case studies

Cognitive architectures - task-general theories of the structure and function of the complete cognitive system - are sometimes argued to be more akin to frameworks or belief systems than scientific theories. The argument stems from the apparent non-falsifiability of existing cognitive architectures. Newell was aware of this criticism and argued that architectures should be viewed not as theories subject to Popperian falsification, but rather as Lakatosian research programs based on cumulative growth. Newell's argument is undermined because he failed to demonstrate that the development of Soar, his own candidate architecture, adhered to Lakatosian principles. This paper presents detailed case studies of the development of two cognitive architectures, Soar and ACT-R, from a Lakatosian perspective. It is demonstrated that both are broadly Lakatosian, but that in both cases there have been theoretical progressions that, according to Lakatosian criteria, are pseudo-scientific. Thus, Newell's defense of Soar as a scientific rather than pseudo-scientific theory is not supported in practice. The ACT series of architectures has fewer pseudo-scientific progressions than Soar, but it too is vulnerable to accusations of pseudo-science. From this analysis, it is argued that successive versions of theories of the human cognitive architecture must explicitly address five questions to maintain scientific credibility

The management of diabetic ketoacidosis in children

The object of this review is to provide the definitions, frequency, risk factors, pathophysiology, diagnostic considerations, and management recommendations for diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in children and adolescents, and to convey current knowledge of the causes of permanent disability or mortality from complications of DKA or its management, particularly the most common complication, cerebral edema (CE). DKA frequency at the time of diagnosis of pediatric diabetes is 10%–70%, varying with the availability of healthcare and the incidence of type 1 diabetes (T1D) in the community. Recurrent DKA rates are also dependent on medical services and socioeconomic circumstances. Management should be in centers with experience and where vital signs, neurologic status, and biochemistry can be monitored with sufficient frequency to prevent complications or, in the case of CE, to intervene rapidly with mannitol or hypertonic saline infusion. Fluid infusion should precede insulin administration (0.1 U/kg/h) by 1–2 hours; an initial bolus of 10–20 mL/kg 0.9% saline is followed by 0.45% saline calculated to supply maintenance and replace 5%–10% dehydration. Potassium (K) must be replaced early and sufficiently. Bicarbonate administration is contraindicated. The prevention of DKA at onset of diabetes requires an informed community and high index of suspicion; prevention of recurrent DKA, which is almost always due to insulin omission, necessitates a committed team effort

Thirty Years After Michael E. Porter: What Do We Know About Business Exit?

Although a business exit is an important corporate change initiative, the buyer’s side seems to be more appealing to management researchers than the seller’s because acquisitions imply growth, i.e., success. Yet from an optimistic viewpoint, business exit can effectively create value for the selling company. In this paper we attempt to bring the relevance of the seller’s side back into our consciousness by asking: What do we know about business exit? We start our exploration with Porter (1976), focusing on literature that investigates the antecedents of, barriers to, and outcomes of business exit. We also include studies from related fields such as finance and economics.1 Through this research we determine three clusters of findings: factors promoting business exit, exit barriers, and exit outcomes. Overall, it is the intention of this paper to highlight the importance of business exit for research and practice. Knowing what we know about business exits and their high financial value we should bear in mind that exit need not mean failure but a new beginning for a corporation

ENCODE whole-genome data in the UCSC Genome Browser

The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project is an international consortium of investigators funded to analyze the human genome with the goal of producing a comprehensive catalog of functional elements. The ENCODE Data Coordination Center at The University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) is the primary repository for experimental results generated by ENCODE investigators. These results are captured in the UCSC Genome Bioinformatics database and download server for visualization and data mining via the UCSC Genome Browser and companion tools (Rhead et al. The UCSC Genome Browser Database: update 2010, in this issue). The ENCODE web portal at UCSC (http://encodeproject.org or http://genome.ucsc.edu/ENCODE) provides information about the ENCODE data and convenient links for access

A Response to the IPCC Fifth Assessment

This collection of essays is the initial product of the second meeting of the Environmental Law Collaborative, a group of environmental law scholars that meet to discuss important and timely environmental issues. Here, the group provides an array of perspectives arising from the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Each scholar chose one passage from one of the IPCC’s three Summaries for Policymakers as a jumping-off point for exploring climate change issues and responding directly to the reports. The result is a variety of viewpoints on the future of how law relates to climate change, a result that is the product not only of each scholar’s individual knowledge but also of the group’s robust discussion

A Response to the IPCC Fifth Assessment

This collection of essays is the initial product of the second meeting of the Environmental Law Collaborative, a group of environmental law scholars that meet to discuss important and timely environmental issues. Here, the group provides an array of perspectives arising from the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Each scholar chose one passage from one of the IPCC’s three Summaries for Policymakers as a jumping-off point for exploring climate change issues and responding directly to the reports. The result is a variety of viewpoints on the future of how law relates to climate change, a result that is the product not only of each scholar’s individual knowledge but also of the group’s robust discussion