Grand unification and enhanced quantum gravitational effects

In grand unified theories with large numbers of fields, renormalization effects significantly modify the scale at which quantum gravity becomes strong. This in turn can modify the boundary conditions for coupling constant unification, if higher dimensional operators induced by gravity are taken into consideration. We show that the generic size of these effects from gravity can be larger than the two-loop corrections typically considered in renormalization group analyses of unification. In some cases, gravitational effects of modest size can render unification impossible.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, revtex; minor changes in v2 (version published in Phys. Rev. Lett.

What Do Entrepreneurs Pay for Venture Capital Affiliation?

This study empirically evaluates the certification and value-added roles of reputable venture capitalists (VCs). Using a novel sample of entrepreneurial start-ups with multiple financing offers, I analyze financing offers made by competing VCs at the first professional round of start-up funding, holding characteristics of the start-up fixed. Offers made by VCs with a high reputation are three times more likely to be accepted, and high-reputation VCs acquire start-up equity at a 10–14% discount. The evidence suggests that VCs\u27 “extra-financial” value may be more distinctive than their functionally equivalent financial capital. These extra-financial services can have financial consequences

Evaluating Prescriptive Design Requirements through the Lens of Low-Income Housing in Huntington, West Virginia

Journeyman International is a non-profit organization that pairs graduating seniors in the fields of architecture, architectural engineering, and construction management with professional mentors to provide practical services for humanitarian projects that seek their aid. The particular project of interest is economical housing for Habitat for Humanity in Huntington (West Virginia). The project aims to provide structural calculations and drawings for three different building layouts which the client would be able to submit as construction documents to the local authority having jurisdiction. This report includes the background of the project, the organizations involved, challenges faced by the sole architectural engineering student involved, structural design and calculations for the project

The Impact of Uncertain Intellectual Property Rights on the Market For Ideas: Evidence From Patent Grant Delays

This paper considers the impact of the intellectual property (IP) system on the timing of cooperation/licensing by start-up technology entrepreneurs. If the market for technology licenses is efficient, the timing of licensing is independent of whether IP has already been granted. In contrast, the need to disclosure complementary (yet unprotected) knowledge, asymmetric information, or search costs may retard efficient technology transfer. In these cases, reductions in uncertainty surrounding the scope and extent of IP rights may facilitate trade in the market for ideas. We employ a dataset combining information about cooperative licensing and the timing of patent allowances (the administrative event when patent rights are clarified). While pre-allowance licensing does occur, the hazard rate for achieving a cooperative licensing agreement significantly increases after patent allowance. Moreover, the impact of the patent system depends on the strategic and institutional environment in which firms operate. Patent allowance seems to play a particularly important role for technologies with longer technology lifecycles or that lack alternative mechanisms such as copyright, reputation, or brokers. The findings suggest that imperfections in the market for ideas may be important, and that formal IP rights may facilitate gains from technological trade.

When Does Start-Up Innovation Spur the Gale of Creative Destruction?

This paper is motivated by the substantial differences in start-up commercialization strategies observed across different high-technology sectors. Specifically, we evaluate the conditions under which start-up innovators earn their returns on innovation through product market competition with more established firms (such as in many areas of the electronics industry) as opposed to cooperation with these incumbents (either through licensing, strategic alliances or outright acquisition as observed in the pharmaceutical industry). While the former strategy challenges incumbent market power, the latter strategy tends to reinforce current market structure. Though the benefits of cooperation include forestalling the costs of competition in the product market and avoiding duplicative investment in sunk assets, imperfections in the market for ideas' may lead to competitive behavior in the product market. Specifically, if the transaction costs of bargaining are high or incumbents are likely to expropriate ideas from start-up innovators, then product market competition is more likely. We test these ideas using a novel dataset of the commercialization strategies of over 100 start-up innovators. Our principal robust findings are that the probability of cooperation is increasing in the innovator's control over intellectual property rights, association with venture capitalists (which reduce their transactional bargaining costs), and in the relative cost of control of specialized complementary assets. Our conclusion is that the propensity for pro-competitive benefits from start-up innovators reflects an earlier market failure, in the market for ideas.'

Grand unification through gravitational effects

We systematically study the unification of gauge couplings in the presence of (one or more) effective dimension-5 operators cHGG/4MPl, induced into the grand unified theory by gravitational interactions at the Planck scale MPl. These operators alter the usual condition for gauge coupling unification, which can, depending on the Higgs content H and vacuum expectation value, result in unification at scales MX significantly different than naively expected. We find non-supersymmetric models of SU(5) and SO(10) unification, with natural Wilson coefficients c, that easily satisfy the constraints from proton decay. Furthermore, gauge coupling unification at scales as high as the Planck scale seems feasible, possibly hinting at simultaneous unification of gauge and gravitational interactions. In the Appendix we work out the group theoretical aspects of this scenario for SU(5) and SO(10) unified groups in detail; this material is also relevant in the analysis of non-universal gaugino masses obtained from supergravity.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, 8 tables, 1 appendix, revtex; v2: introduction and conclusion expanded, references added, minor changes, version published in PR

Knowledge Brokering and Organizational Innovation: Founder Imprinting Effects

We empirically examine the innovation consequences of organizational knowledge brokering, the ability to effectively apply knowledge from one technical domain to innovate in another. We investigate how organizational innovation outcomes vary by founders’ initial mode of venture ideation. We then compare how firms established with knowledge-brokering-based ideation differ in their methods of sustaining ongoing knowledge-brokering capacity compared with firms not established in such a manner. We do so by tracking all the start-up biotechnology firms founded to commercialize the then-emergent recombinant DNA technology (the sample of initial knowledge brokers) together with a contemporaneously founded sample of biotechnology firms that did not license the DNA technology (the sample of initial nonbrokers). Our results suggest that (a) ongoing knowledge brokering has an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovative performance in general; (b) initial knowledge brokers have a positive imprinting effect on their organizations’ search patterns over time, resulting in superior performance relative to nonbrokers; and (c) initial nonbrokers rely more on external channels of sourcing knowledge, such as hiring technical staff, relative to initial brokers, reinforcing the imprinting interpretation. The described imprinting mechanism differs from extant mechanisms such as partner affiliation- and trigger-based mechanisms in explaining entrepreneurial performance differentials

Organizing Venture Capital: The Rise and Demise of American Research & Development Corporation, 1946–1973

While venture capital (VC) has become an important element of the twentiethcentury US innovation system, few studies have systematically examined the origins and evolution of this financial institution. We take a step in this direction by analyzing the evolution of the early and influential VC firm, American Research & Development Corporation (ARD), in the period that it was independent from 1946 to 1973. We place the creation and subsequent evolution of ARD within its historical context and show how it was an innovation by Boston-area civic elites. Using new historical data, we examine the evolution of ARD’s practices over time. We argue that ARD’s funding model constrained its functioning as a venture capital firm and contributed to its demise. ARD was a pioneering organization whose business model ultimately failed as a newer organizational model, the limited partnership, was created and had a better fit with the business environment. Nevertheless, ARD has had a lasting imprint on the practice of modern venture capital