Academic Patenting in Japan: Illustration from a Leading Japanese University.

In April 2004, the Japanese government incorporated the national universities as “independent administrative entities”. This important change in Japan’s research culture has allowed its universities to gain higher control and oversight over their strategic development trajectories. In this paper, we will present an analysis centered on the legislative changes concerning intellectual property and their impact on Japanese universities. We will particularly focus our attention on a leading Japanese research institution: Tohoku University. We will analyze the different mechanisms that have been put in place to foster the use of patents by faculty members. In that respect, we introduce a differentiation between university-owned and university-invented patents, and put emphasis on the difference in patenting behaviors among scientific disciplines. Finally, we argue that contractual research is a major channel for the technology transfer of Japanese universities’ knowledge and findings.science policy, academic research, academic patenting, Japan.

Expériences religieuses en contexte urbain. De l'ordo monasticus aux religiones novæ : le jalon du monachisme militaire

http://pubp.univ-bpclermont.fr/public/Histoire_Medievale.phpInternational audienceLes ordres militaires sont-ils les "fils" de la révolution urbaine du XIIe siècle ? Représentent-ils en cela un jalon qui aiderait à comprendre le passage de l'ordo monasticus traditionnel aux "Religiones novæ" du XIIIe siècle incarnées par l'expérience mendiante ? Pour tenter de mieux comprendre les modalités de l'inurbamento des ordres militaires, on s'efforce d'abord de situer brièvement ces derniers au sein des différents courants de la vie régulière attirés par la ville. L'intégration parfaitement assumée des commanderies à l'économie urbaine est ensuite évoquée. L'adoption de nouvelles formes d'écriture "pragmatique" - comptabilités, testament - traduit des logiques de gestion qui participent de certaines formes de culture urbaine. Pour faire écho aux récentes réflexions sur la "fabrique urbaine", on s'interroge ensuite sur la marque des commanderies dans le paysage. Fut-elle spécifique au regard des autres implantations monastiques dans la ville ? Est enfin abordée la position des frères dans l'encadrement des sociétés urbaines où l'on retrouve bien des traits partagés avec les Mendiants. On insiste, notamment, sur la vigueur des structures confraternelles et sur l'ouverture sociale du recrutement des frères et de leurs bienfaiteurs

Les ordres militaires dans la ville médiévale (1100-1350)

Lire l'introduction : http://hal-clermont-univ.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/95/81/42/PDF/D_CARRAZ_ORDRES_MIL_INTRO.pdf et http://pubp.univ-bpclermont.fr/public/Histoire_Medievale.phpInternational audienceNés entre Jérusalem et Acre dans le courant du XIIe siècle, les premiers ordres militaires sont tous issus d'un milieu profondément marqué par la ville. Les confréries guerrières apparues dans le cadre de la christianisation de la Baltique et de la Reconquista ibérique tirent également leurs origines de la défense d'un château ou d'un territoire liés à un centre urbain. Les ordres militaires ont donc accompagné le grand mouvement d'urbanisation du Moyen Âge central, non seulement dans le contexte de la guerre sainte, mais également par leur démarche spirituelle, par leur intégration sociale ou par leurs choix économiques. À partir de bilans assez larges ou bien d'éclairages monographiques fondés sur une approche croisée de l'histoire et de l'archéologie, cet ouvrage se propose d'examiner les différentes modalités de l'intégration des frères guerriers à la ville

Présences et dévotions féminines autour des commanderies du Bas-Rhône (XIIe-XIIIe siècle)

International audienc

ESRGAN+ : Further Improving Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Network

Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Network (ESRGAN) is a perceptual-driven approach for single image super resolution that is able to produce photorealistic images. Despite the visual quality of these generated images, there is still room for improvement. In this fashion, the model is extended to further improve the perceptual quality of the images. We have designed a novel block to replace the one used by the original ESRGAN. Moreover, we introduce noise inputs to the generator network in order to exploit stochastic variation. The resulting images present more realistic textures. The code is available at https://github.com/ncarraz/ESRGANplus .Comment: ICASSP 202

Synthesis and cytotoxic activity of a novel dihydroisoquinoline-derived hydroxamic acid

Naturally occurring hydroxamic acid derivatives are biosynthesized by microorganisms (siderophores) and plants (benzoxazinoids). Recent developments in drug related research have highlighted the promising biological and pharmacological properties that the hydroxamic acid function may offer for the enhancement of therapeutic applications. This study reports on the full synthesis of a new dihydroisoquinoline hydroxamic acid (2-Hydroxy-3,3-dimethyl-7-nitro-3,4-dihydroisoquinolin-1(2H)-one). It also describes its cytotoxicity with regard to the human hepatocarcinoma cell line Hep3B.    Â

Partnering in facilities management: An advantageous approach for public sector organisation

Managing and maintaining the built environment can account for 10% to 20% of an organisation's operational costs. With public sector expenditure reaching £550bn in 2005/06, increased pressure has been placed on organisations to promote "Best Value" practices and many universities, emergency services operators and government organisations have outsourced areas of their facilities management operations to private sector service providers in an attempt to improve resource efficiency and service effectiveness. During the last twenty years the benefits of outsourcing as a strategy have continued to be questioned and a number of issues, such as the development of adversarial relationships, have been highlighted. This has in part, led to the evolution of the "partnering" concept as applied to FM. With the culture of openness and collaboration the concept promotes, it has been seen as a way to address some of the weaknesses of outsourcing. This report aimed to establish whether partnering is an advantageous approach for public sector organisations managing their facilities. In doing so it looked firstly at whether partnering as a concept addresses the outsourcing concerns echoed by organisations, secondly whether the partnering elements are aligned to those prioritised by public sector organisations and finally how the partnering arrangement can be successfully implemented and managed to make it an advantageous approach. When answering the above questions the research has looked at how authors and public sector organisations regard outsourcing and the concept of partnering. In doing so the investigation has involved reviewing a number of articles, analysing the results from a self-administered survey, considering feedback obtained through interviews and exploring appropriate case studies. The results from each of these have been consistent and conclusive and there are two key findings established from the research. The first is that the emphasis on communication and commitment within partnering arrangements has been fundamental in addressing weaknesses of the FM outsourcing strategy, specifically the adversarial relationships that can develop. The second is through setting clear measurable objectives at the pre-contract stage and creating and maintaining the partnering culture of openness and collaboration, a mutually beneficial and advantageous relationship can be experienced by both public sector clients and FM service providers