Three Essays on Innovation and Regional Economic Development

The first essay develops a typology that identifies the multiple pathways, functions and operations where innovation can occur in a firm\u27s internal business cycle based upon the extant literature that includes both technological and non-technological activities. This is an important step toward developing a comprehensive strategy for a regional economy and provides a common platform for the discussion of innovation among academics and practitioners.The typology adds to the existing knowledge of how innovation works in organizations by describing the pathways, business functions and operations in a firm\u27s internal-business-process the business strategies used to advance innovation to the market and the market impact that innovation has in a regional economy.The typology is enhanced by the different threads of literature - innovation, technology, organization and marketing. The integrated approach allows academics and practitioners to understand how and where innovation occurs in firms and lays the foundation for robust metrics of the behavioral relationship between variables under study. The result is a set of assessment tools that permits diagnostics of the firm, industry, market and region. The second essay examines the relationship between innovation, emerging technologies, business firms\u27 investment structure, and specialized types of private equity used to finance emerging technologies. A conceptual framework is developed for financial investment and a set of hypotheses tested for investment between Ohio and U.S. firms. Ohio firms take a different investing approach than U.S. firms when investing in a firm\u27s stage of business development but are not significantly different when using specialized types of financing, investing in industry/technology niches, and investing in geographic markets.The third essay explores the role of innovation in business firms. The essay examines the reasons firms invest in innovation and then test the difference in the innovation behavior of firms. Descriptive analysis is per

"Against the Public": Teacher Strikes and the Decline of Liberalism, 1968-1981

In the 1930s, the Democratic Party became the party of working people largely through its support of legislation encouraging the formation of labor unions. As the nation moved leftward, a liberal consensus emerged that placed support--in the name of both economic growth and greater social equality--for labor unions at it center. Support for this labor-liberalism declined considerably during the 1970s, paving the way for the neoliberal conservatism that has emerged in the last quarter century of American politics. This dissertation explains this shift by looking at the intersection between culture and the public sector labor movement in the postwar era. As unionized teachers became increasingly visible in American political culture in the 1960s, lengthy strikes by teachers in major metropolitan areas in the 1970s caused many Americans to question their assumptions about the role of the state and the importance of labor unions. Because of teachers' long-time cultural importance as providers of economic opportunity as well as inculcators of moral values, their labor stoppages (which were often violations of the law) caused many white working- and middle-class Americans to blame the excesses of the liberal state for moral decline and to re-think their views about what had made America so prosperous in the years following World War II. Further, the state's failure to solve the thorny problem of teachers shutting down the school system also caused many of these future "Reagan Democrats" to question the efficacy of the liberal state. With labor-liberalism discredited, free-market conservatives began, by the end of the decade, to argue persuasively for a shift to a more austere state, less government regulation of business, and for the privatization of social goods like education. This dissertation charts these larger developments by putting close examinations of teacher strikes in Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and St. Louis in dialogue with the national trajectory of neoliberal conservatism

Relationship between ethnicity and stage at diagnosis in England: a national analysis of six cancer sites

Objectives: Cancer stage at diagnosis is a determinant of treatment options and survival. Previous research has shown differences in barriers to presentation with cancer between ethnic groups. The completeness and quality of cancer stage and ethnicity data has improved markedly over recent years in England, allowing for comparison of stage distributions at diagnosis between ethnic groups. This study aimed to assess relationships between ethnic group and two outcomes: unknown stage cancer and late stage (stages 3 and 4) cancer, after adjustment for confounders.Design and setting: A retrospective secondary data analysis using data from NHS Digital’s National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service and Hospital Episode Statistics records from 2012 to 2016.Participants: This study analysed newly diagnosed breast, colon, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), ovary, prostate and uterine cancers in white British, Caribbean, African, Chinese and Asian patients aged 15–99 in England.Results: Caribbean, African and Asian women with breast or ovarian cancer, Caribbean and African women with uterine or colon cancer, Caribbean women with NSCLC and Caribbean men with colon cancer had increased odds of late-stage disease at diagnosis compared with the white British cohort. In contrast, Caribbean and African men with prostate cancer had decreased odds of late-stage cancer. Where stage was known, there were variations in late-stage cancer by ethnic group.Conclusions: Low symptom awareness and barriers to presentation can cause delays, resulting in later stage diagnosis. Targeted intervention campaigns to help raise awareness of cancer signs and symptoms and the benefits of early diagnosis, along with removing barriers to appropriate referrals, could help to improve these inequalities

Maximizing sampling efficiency to detect differences in fish community composition using environmental DNA metabarcoding in subarctic fjords

Environmental DNA (eDNA) has gained popularity as a tool for ecosystem biomonitoring and biodiversity assessment. Although much progress has been made regarding laboratory and fieldwork protocols, the issue of sampling efficiency requires further investigation, particularly in three-dimensional marine systems. This study focuses on fish community composition in marine ecosystems and aims to analyze the efficiency of sampling design given the sampling effort for distinguishing between different communities. We sampled three fjords in Northern Norway, taking samples along fjord transects and at three different depths, and amplified a fragment of the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene of bony fishes using the MiFish primers. We evaluated the effect of (i) the number of sampling stations, (ii) samples' spatial distribution, and (iii) the data treatment approach (presence/absence versus semiquantitative) for maximizing the efficiency of eDNA metabarcoding sampling when inferring differences of fish community compositions between fjords. We found that the manner of data treatment strongly affected the minimum number of sampling stations required to detect differences among communities; because the semiquantitative approach retained some information about abundance of the underlying reads, it was the most efficient. Furthermore, we found little-to-no difference of fish communities in samples from intermediate depths when comparing vertical fish communities. Lastly, we found that the differences between fish communities at the surface were the highest across the horizontal distance and overall, samples ~30 km apart showed the highest variation in the horizontal distribution. Boosting sampling efficiency (reducing sampling effort without compromising ecological inferences) can significantly contribute to enhanced biodiversity management and efficient biomonitoring plans.publishedVersio

Establishing population-based surveillance of diagnostic timeliness using linked cancer registry and administrative data for patients with colorectal and lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: Diagnostic timeliness in cancer patients is important for clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction but, to-date, continuous monitoring of diagnostic intervals in nationwide incident cohorts has been impossible in England. METHODS: We developed a new methodology for measuring the secondary care diagnostic interval (SCDI - first relevant secondary care contact to diagnosis) using linked cancer registration and healthcare utilisation data. Using this method, we subsequently examined diagnostic timeliness in colorectal and lung cancer patients (2014-15) by socio-demographic characteristics, diagnostic route and stage at diagnosis. RESULTS: The approach assigned SCDIs to 94.4% of all incident colorectal cancer cases [median length (90th centile) of 25 (104) days] and 95.3% of lung cancer cases [36 (144) days]. Advanced stage patients had shorter intervals (median, colorectal: stage 1 vs 4 - 34 vs 19 days; lung stage 1&2 vs 3B&4 - 70 vs 27 days). Routinely referred patients had the longest (colorectal: 61, lung: 69 days) and emergency presenters the shortest intervals (colorectal: 3, lung: 14 days). Comorbidities and additional diagnostic tests were also associated with longer intervals. CONCLUSION: This new method can enable repeatable nationwide measurement of cancer diagnostic timeliness in England and identifies actionable variation to inform early diagnosis interventions and target future research.GL is supported by a Cancer Research UK Advanced Clinician Scientist Fellowship (award C18081/A18180). GL is an associate director (co-investigator) of the multi-institutional CanTest Research Collaborative funded by a Cancer Research UK Population Research Catalyst award (C8640/A23385

Oral etoposide as a single agent in childhood and young adult cancer in England: Still a poorly evaluated palliative treatment

From Wiley via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2020-10-27, rev-recd 2021-06-04, accepted 2021-06-16, pub-electronic 2021-07-06Article version: VoRPublication status: PublishedAbstract: Background: Oral etoposide is commonly used in palliative treatment of childhood and young adult cancer without robust evidence. We describe a national, unselected cohort of young people in England treated with oral etoposide using routinely collected, population‐level data. Methods: Patients aged under 25 years at cancer diagnosis (1995–2017) with a treatment record of single‐agent oral etoposide in the Systemic AntiCancer Dataset (SACT, 2012–2018) were identified, linked to national cancer registry data using NHS number and followed to 5 January 2019. Overall survival (OS) was estimated for all tumours combined and by tumour group. A Cox model was applied accounting for age, sex, tumour type, prior and subsequent chemotherapy. Results: Total 115 patients were identified during the study period. Mean age was 11.8 years at cancer diagnosis and 15.5 years at treatment with oral etoposide. Median OS was 5.5 months from the start of etoposide; 13 patients survived beyond 2 years. Survival was shortest in patients with osteosarcoma (median survival 3.6 months) and longest in CNS embryonal tumours (15.5 months). Across the cohort, a median of one cycle (range one to nine) of etoposide was delivered. OS correlated significantly with tumour type and prior chemotherapy, but not with other variables. Conclusions: This report is the largest series to date of oral etoposide use in childhood and young adult cancer. Most patients treated in this real world setting died quickly. Despite decades of use, there are still no robust data demonstrating a clear benefit of oral etoposide for survival

Enhancer Remodeling during Adaptive Bypass to MEK Inhibition Is Attenuated by Pharmacologic Targeting of the P-TEFb Complex

Targeting the dysregulated BRaf-MEK-ERK pathway in cancer has increasingly emerged in clinical trial design. Despite clinical responses in specific cancers using inhibitors targeting BRaf and MEK, resistance develops often involving non-genomic adaptive bypass mechanisms. Inhibition of MEK1/2 by trametinib in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients induced dramatic transcriptional responses, including upregulation of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) comparing tumor samples before and after one week of treatment. In preclinical models MEK inhibition induced genome-wide enhancer formation involving the seeding of BRD4, MED1, H3K27 acetylation and p300 that drives transcriptional adaptation. Inhibition of P-TEFb associated proteins BRD4 and CBP/p300 arrested enhancer seeding and RTK upregulation. BRD4 bromodomain inhibitors overcame trametinib resistance, producing sustained growth inhibition in cells, xenografts and syngeneic mouse TNBC models. Pharmacological targeting of P-TEFb members in conjunction with MEK inhibition by trametinib is an effective strategy to durably inhibit epigenomic remodeling required for adaptive resistance