Harnessing and Sharing the Benefits of State Sponsored Research

In recent years data-sharing has been a recurring focus of struggle within the scientific research community as improvements in information technology and digital networks have expanded the ways that data can be produced, disseminated, and used. Information technology makes it easier to share data in publicly accessible archives that aggregate data from multiple sources. Such sharing and aggregation facilitate observations that would otherwise be impossible. But data disclosure poses a dilemma for scientists. Data have long been the stock in trade of working scientists, lending credibility to their claims while highlighting new questions that are worthy of future research funding. Some disclosure is necessary in order to claim these benefits, but data disclosure may also benefit one\u27s research competitors. Scientists who share their data promptly and freely may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage relative to free riders in the race to make future observations and thereby to earn further recognition and funding. The possibility of commercial gain further raises the competitive stakes. This article discusses data sharing in California\u27s stem cell initiative against the background of other data sharing efforts and in light of the competing interests that the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is directed to balance. We begin by considering how IP law affects data-sharing. We then assess the strategic considerations that guide the IP and data policies and strategies of federal, state, and private research sponsors. With this background, we discuss four specific sets of issues that public sponsors of data-rich research, including CIRM, are likely to confront: (1) how to motivate researchers to contribute data; (2) who may have access to the data and on what conditions; (3) what data get deposited and when do they get deposited; and (4) how to establish database architecture and curate and maintain the database

Top quark asymmetry and Wjj excess at CDF from gauged flavor symmetry

We show that the scalar sector needed for fermion mass generation when the flavor symmetry of the standard model is maximally gauged can consistently explain two anomalies reported recently by the CDF collaboration - the forward-backward asymmetry in t-tbar pair production, and the dijet invariant mass in the Wjj channel. A pair of nearly degenerate scalar doublets with masses in the range 150-200 GeV explain these anomalies, with additional scalars predicted in the mass range 100-400 GeV. Consistency of such low scale flavor physics with flavor changing processes is shown, and expectations for the LHC are outlined.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 3 figure