Regional science policy and the growth of knowledge megacentres in bioscience clusters

Changes in epistemology in biosciences are generating important spatial effects. The most notable of these is the emergence of a few Bioscience Megacentres of basic and applied bioscience (molecular, post-genomic, proteomics, etc.) medical and clinical research, biotechnology research, training in these and related fields, academic entrepreneurship and commercial exploitation by clusters of drug discovery start-up and spin-off companies, along with specialist venture capital and other innovation system support services. Large pharmaceutical firms that used to lead such knowledge generation and exploitation processes are becoming increasingly dependent upon innovative drug solutions produced in such clusters, and Megacentres are now the predominant source of such commercial knowledge. Big pharma is seldom at the heart of Megacentres such as those the paper will argue are found in about four locations each in the USA and Europe, but remains important for some risk capital (milestone payments), marketing and distribution of drugs discovered. The reasons for this shift (which is also spatial to some extent) are as follows: first, bioscientific research requires the formation of collaboratory relationships among hitherto cognitively dissonant disciplines molecular biology, combinatorial chemistry, high throughput screening, genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics to name a few. Second, the canonical chance discovery model of bioscientific research is being replaced by rational drug design based on those technologies because of the need massively to reduce search costs and delivery timeframes. Third, the US and to some extent European 'Crusade against Cancer' and other pathologies has seen major increases in basic research budgets (e.g. to $27.3 billion in 2003 for the US National Institutes of Health) and foundation expenditure (e.g.$1billion in 2003 by the UK's Wellcome Trust; $1 billion approximately by the top ten US medical foundations, and a comparable sum from corporate foundations). Each of these tendencies weakens the knowledge generation role of 'big pharma'and strengthens that of Megacentres. But the process also creates major, new regional disparities, which some regional governances have recognised, causing them to develop responsibilities for regional science policy and funding to offset spatial biases intrinsic in traditional national (and in the EU, supranational) research funding regimes. Responses follow a variety of models ranging from market following to both regionalised (decentralising by the centre) and regionalist (ground-up), but in each case the role of Megacentres is justified in health terms. But their role in assisting fulfilment of regional economic growth visions is also clearly perceived and pronounced in policy terms.

Transversality and Transition: Branching to New Regional Path Dependence

Since Paul David published his economic histories of path dependent innovation the subject has exerted fascination upon scholars of innovation, technological change and, latterly, regional scientists and economic geographers. This paper speaks to the third and fourth of these communities in the main, though it may have theoretical and empirical elements of interest to the first two as well. The paper begins with an overview of recent perspectives and critiques concerning the relevance of the path dependence concept to the understanding of regional economic development and its associated governance. It then goes on to discuss the contribution of evolutionary economic geography to thinking about ÔbranchingÕ from path dependence and the creation of new paths. Evidence for key generic spatial processes of path transition is provided before the main content of the paper concludes with new insights into the contributions of regional innovation policy to path evolution. Conclusions are then drawn.regional path dependence, branching, transition, transversality

Primo Levi partigiano

The article is an extended review of two major biographical studies of Italy's most famous 20th century author, Primo Levi. The article examines in detail the issue of Levi's brief partisan career and proposes an alternative interpretation of the execution of two young partisans in Levi's band. Specifically it identifies the probable executioner of the partisans as Aldo Piacenza, and thus sheds new light on the motives behind Levi's silence over the affair

Dark and light: entrepreneurship and innovation in new technology spaces

Notable changes to human comfort are underway that add greatly to the complexity of existential processes. These are «inter-ethnic violence» and «economic polarisation». Historically, these have resisted resilience from urban recovery in intractable contexts. Among the «wicked problems» confronting future actors and agents of newly emerging frontiers of research and policy are those addressing the «dark side» of innovation and entrepreneurship. This is seldom studied in economic geography but such are the negativities associated with so many dimensions of not only technology but its deformations and inhuman inversions that there will, for sure, be future growth for a wide range of social, natural, applied sciences and technology fixes for human dilemmas into the foreseeable future. We consider «resilience» in prefatory remarks on two intractable cases. Contrariwise, in this brief paper on «new technological spaces», attention is devoted to two new «cybersecurity» spatial types, each of which consists in an under-explored «dark side». In this, not in the long term, the naturally optimistic research outlook of the academic will be obscured by the demands of a more pessimistic outlook for the short term. Two of our selected sub-fields, in cyber-security and structured finance, reference both the «dark web» for illegal and terroristic communication and «dark pools». The paper reviews the economic geographies of these «apocalypses» and draw conclusions.Se están produciendo notables cambios en el comportamiento humano actualmente en curso que afectan a la complejidad de los procesos existenciales. Entre ellos están la «violencia inter-racial» y la «polarización económica». Históricamente, estos se han enfrentado con la capacidad de reacción de las áreas urbanas en contextos realmente difíciles. Entre los «problemas perversos» que enfrentan a los futuros actores y agentes de las nuevas fronteras emergentes de investigación y de diseño de políticas están los que afectan al «lado negro» de la innovación y el emprendedurismo. Esto raramente se estudia en geografía económica, pero los aspectos negativos asociados a estos procesos tienen muchas dimensiones y no sólo se vinculan a la tecnología sino a sus deformaciones y a los retrocesos humanos, que a buen seguro darán lugar en el futuro a futuros incrementos de un amplio conjunto de impactos sociales, naturales, de ciencias aplicadas y de la tecnología. Nosotros hemos considerado de forma preliminar la «resilience» (capacidad de reacción) con referencia a dos casos muy relevantes. Por contra, en este breve trabajo sobre nuevos espacios tecnológicos, la atención se centra en dos nuevos tipos espaciales de «cybersecurity» (seguridad ciberné- tica), cada uno de los cuales constituye un ámbito muy poco explorado del «lado oscuro». En este caso, aunque no a largo plazo, la visión investigadora naturalmente optimista del académico quedará ocultada por las demandas de una visión a corto plazo más pesimista. Dos de los sub-campos seleccionados, seguridad cibernética y finanzas estructuradas, hacen referencia a cuestiones que se mueven en los ámbitos de la ilegalidad y de la comunicación terrorista y de los «dark pools». El artículo revisa las geografías económicas de estas «apocalipsis» y extrae algunas conclusiones

Measuring Well-Being: A Review of Instruments

Interest in the study of psychological health and well-being has increased significantly in recent decades. A variety of conceptualizations of psychological health have been proposed including hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, quality-of-life, and wellness approaches. Although instruments for measuring constructs associated with each of these approaches have been developed, there has been no comprehensive review of well-being measures. The present literature review was undertaken to identify self-report instruments measuring well-being or closely related constructs (i.e., quality of life and wellness) and critically evaluate them with regard to their conceptual basis and psychometric properties. Through a literature search, we identified 42 instruments that varied significantly in length, psychometric properties, and their conceptualization and operationalization of well-being. Results suggest that there is considerable disagreement regarding how to properly understand and measure well-being. Research and clinical implications are discussed

Constructing regional advantage: Platform policies based on related variety and differentiated knowledge bases

The article presents a regional innovation policy model, based on the idea of constructing regional advantage. This policy model brings together concepts like related variety, knowledge bases and policy platforms. Related variety attaches great importance to knowledge spillovers across complementary sectors, possibly in a region. Then, the paper categorises knowledge into ‘analytical’ (science based), ‘synthetic’ (engineering based) and ‘symbolic’ (artistic based) in nature, with different ‘virtual’ and real proximity mixes. Finally, the implications of this are traced for evolving ‘platform policies’ that facilitate economic development within and between regions in action lines appropriate to related variety and differentiated knowledge bases.Related variety; Differentiated knowledge bases; Platform policy, Regional innovation policy

Queer and Flourishing: Understanding the Psychosocial Well-Being of Non-Heterosexual Men

Non-heterosexual populations often face the additional stress of discrimination, harassment, and social rejection due to their sexual identity. These prejudicial experiences, along with other factors such as internalized homonegativity, negative appraisal of one’s sexual identity, and poor social support, contribute to an increased risk for negative mental health outcomes for sexual minority individuals (King et al., 2008; Meyer, 2003). While much is known about factors predicting psychosocial distress in LGB populations, less is known about the factors that predict psychosocial well-being in this group. The present study investigated the minority stress model’s (Meyer, 1995; 2003) hypothesis that minority stress processes (e.g., discrimination, internalized homonegativity) negatively affect positive psychosocial health outcomes (e.g., positive affect, meaning in life) in non-heterosexual men. Additionally, the study examined how positive sexual identity factors and universal protective factors (e.g., social support and resilience) affect the psychosocial well-being of non-heterosexual men. Results of the study showed that social support and resilience had the largest effect on psychosocial well- being, while holding positive views on various aspects of one’s non-heterosexual identity were not significant predictors of well-being. Implications of these findings, limitations to the study, and future research directions are discussed

The impact of faults on fluid flow in porous carbonate rocks

Faults may impact subsurface fluid flow over production and geological timescales. Predicting fault permeability is crucial for understanding subsurface fluid flow, which is required for a number of subsurface industries. Fault permeability is determined by the micro-fabric and distribution of fault rocks, which are influenced by the deformation mechanisms exhibited during faulting, fault-related diagenesis, and fault zone architectural evolution. Non-uniform strain distributions along fault zones lead to heterogeneous fault cores, therefore, predicting fault permeability is difficult. Empirical relationships linking lithological parameters to the petrophysical properties of different fault rocks are commonly utilised to predict fault permeability in clay-bearing sequences. However, no such relationships exist for carbonate rocks. A better understanding of these controls, in addition to the characterisation of fault rock permeability is required to establish predictive relationships for fault rock permeability. This thesis combines structural, microstructural and petrophysical data from a series of carbonate-hosted fault zones in Malta. Thereby enabling an understanding of the fault zone permeability structures in various lithofacies, whilst highlighting the heterogeneity on all scales of carbonate-hosted fault zones. The continuity of fault rock is shown to increase with displacement, and displacement thresholds for both a continuous fault core and cataclasite are established for fault zones in Malta. Only fault rocks derived from high porosity host rocks have the potential to retard fluid flow over reservoir scales. Lithological heterogeneity is retained within fault cores, whereby the heterogeneity of the faulted lithofacies is linked to the variability in fault rock petrophysical properties. Novel methods of upscaling fault permeability and implementing fault rock continuity relationships to fault property modelling are presented. The results provide an example of how porosity of the host carbonate can impact fault rock permeability under low stresses. Combined with similar studies from different lithofacies and structural settings, this thesis contributes towards a generalised understanding of the controls on fault permeability in porous carbonate rocks

3D image analysis for pedestrian detection

A method for solving the dense disparity stereo correspondence problem is presented in this paper. This technique is designed specifically for pedestrian detection type applications. A new Ground Control Points (GCPs) scheme is introduced, using groundplane homography information to determine regions in which good GCPs are likely to occur. The method also introduces a dynamic disparity limit constraint to further improve GCP selection and dense disparity generation. The technique is applied to a real world pedestrian detection scenario with a background modeling system based on disparity and edges