Intellectual Property Rights and South-North Global Innovation Networks

This paper explores the role of IPR protection in the emergence of R&D linkages from newly emerging economies. Using data from a new survey on Chinese and Indian firms in the ICT sector, we find IPR protection to be key in the engagement of Southern firms in global innovation networks. A complementary exercise uses global bilateral patent data to investigate the location-specificity of IPR enforcement for this phenomenon. We find that a stringent IPR regime in the North (South) discourages (encourage) foreign patenting activities of firms in the South, suggesting that a global convergence of IPRs can stimulate Southern innovation.

Improving the usefulness of US mortality data: new methods for reclassification of underlying cause of death

Mappings of ICD9 and ICD10 codes to condensed set of causes of death, including garbage codes. (XLSX 1139 kb

Intellectual property rights and south-north formation of global innovation networks

With the rise of the knowledge economy, delivering sound innovation policies requires a thorough understanding of how knowledge is produced and diffused. This paper takes a step to analyze a new form of globalization, the so-called system of Global Innovation Networks (GINs), to shed light on how the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) influences their creation and development. We focus on the role of IPR protection in fostering international innovative activities in emerging economies (South), such as China and India, and more generally, how IPRs affect the development of GINs between newly industrialized countries and OECD countries. Using both survey-based firm-level and country-level global data, we find IPRs to be an important determinant of participation in GINS from a Southern perspective. We find IPR protection at home and its harmonization across county pairs foster South-North formation of GINs. We also find that a stringent regime in the destination country discourages foreign international innovative activities that originate in NICs. Both levels of our analysis confirm the ICT industry, particularly the hardware segment, to rely on IPRs when engaging in the international outsourcing and offshoring of innovation or in patenting activities abroad

Comparing Blood Sugar Levels Measured by the Glucometer in Healthy and Crushed Fingers to Predict Gangrene in Tehran, Iran

Background: Crushed fingers are one of the most common reasons that patients visit the emergency centers for hand surgery, and based on the level of injury, it can cause many disabilities for patients. It is difficult to decide the treatment strategies (amputation, aggressive revascularization, immediate or delayed complex reconstruction and immediate conservative treatment) for crushed fingers. Objectives: The current study aimed to compare the blood sugar (BS) levels measured by the glucometer in healthy and crushed fingers to predict gangrene in patients referred to 15 Khordad Hospital in Tehran, Iran. Methods: This cohort study was conducted on 265 patients with crushed fingers referred to the emergency center of 15 Khordad hospital in Tehran, Iran, from March 2015 to March 2016. Blood glucose levels were measured by glucometer in the crushed fingers and in the finger of the opposite side at the same time and measurements were recorded. Data were analyzed using t-test and chi-square test with SPSS software version 22. Results: The results showed that 317 crushed fingers of 265 patients were ischemic based on the color, temperature, capillary refill time and pulse oximetry and accordingly the vascular reconstruction was not possible. Of 317 crushed fingers, 61 (19.24%) became gangrene (all with sugar levels lower than 37). The mean BS levels of the amputated and non-amputated fingers were 33.5 ± 1.52 and 111.04 ± 15.27 mg/dL, respectively. Therefore, there was a significant difference in the mean BS level between the patients with amputated and non-amputated fingers (P < 0.001). Conclusions: The lower levels of sugar in crushed fingers compared to healthy fingers can help to diagnose gangrene in crushed finger

Evaluation of genetic diversity of Iranian grapevine accessions using microsatellite markers

Research Note

Nanoscale orbital excitations and the infrared spectrum of a molecular Mott insulator: A15-Cs3C60

The quantum physics of ions and electrons behind low-energy spectra of strongly correlated molecular conductors, superconductors and Mott insulators is poorly known, yet fascinating especially in orbitally degenerate cases. The fulleride insulator Cs3C60 (A15), one such system, exhibits infrared (IR) spectra with low temperature peak features and splittings suggestive of static Jahn-Teller distortions with a breakdown of orbital symmetry in the molecular site. That is puzzling, since there is no detectable static distortion, and because the features and splittings disappear upon modest heating, which they should not. Taking advantage of the Mott-induced collapse of electronic wavefunctions from lattice-extended to nanoscale localized inside a caged molecular site, we show that the unbroken spin and orbital symmetry of the ion multiplets explains the IR spectrum without adjustable parameters. This demonstrates the importance of a fully quantum treatment of nuclear positions and orbital momenta in the Mott insulator sites, dynamically but not statically distorted. The observed demise of these features with temperature is explained by the thermal population of a multiplet term whose nuclear positions are essentially undistorted, but whose energy is very low-lying. That term is in fact a scaled-down orbital excitation analogous to that of other Mott insulators, with the same spin 1/2 as the ground state, but with a larger orbital momentum of two instead of one