Patent management: the prominent role of strategy and organization

PurposeThe purpose of this article is twofold; to verify the existence of different profiles of firms based on the level of sophistication of their patent management core processes and to test the impact of the interplay between two patent management supporting dimensions, namely patent strategy and organization for patenting, on the level of sophistication of patent management core processes.Design/methodology/approachThe method consists of a survey study, collecting data from a set of European patent management professionals. These data are analyzed with factor analysis, cluster analysis and regression analysis to test several hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that patent strategy positively and significantly impacts patent management sophistication, and that the patent organization positively moderates this relationship. In other words, a patent strategy, supported by a well-developed patent organization and culture, will positively influence the processes of managing a firm's patent portfolio.Originality/valueThis study is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first one to provide quantitative evidence that supports the notion that it is important to take a strategic and organizational perspective of patent management.

Scientometric engineering: Exploring citation dynamics via arXiv eprints

Scholarly communications have been rapidly integrated into digitised and networked open ecosystems, where preprint servers have played a pivotal role in accelerating the knowledge transfer processes. However, quantitative evidence is scarce regarding how this paradigm shift beyond the traditional journal publication system has affected the dynamics of collective attention on science. To address this issue, we investigate the citation data of more than 1.5 million eprints on arXiv (https://arxiv.org) and analyse the long-term citation trend for each discipline involved. We find that the typical growth and obsolescence patterns vary across disciplines, reflecting different publication and communication practices. The results provide unique evidence on the attention dynamics shaped by the research community today, including the dramatic growth and fast obsolescence of Computer Science eprints, which has not been captured in previous studies relying on the citation data of journal papers. Subsequently, we develop a quantitatively-and-temporally normalised citation index with an approximately normal distribution, which is useful for comparing citational attention across disciplines and time periods. Further, we derive a stochastic model consistent with the observed quantitative and temporal characteristics of citation growth and obsolescence. The findings and the developed framework open a new avenue for understanding the nature of citation dynamics. Peer Review https://publons.com/publon/10.1162/qss_a_00174

Evidence for late glacial oceanic carbon redistribution and discharge from the Pacific Southern Ocean

Southern Ocean deep-water circulation plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. On geological time-scales, upwelling along the Chilean continental margin likely contributed to the deglacial atmospheric carbon dioxide rise, but little quantitative evidence exists of carbon storage. Here, we use a new X-ray Micro-Computer-Tomography method to assess foraminiferal test dissolution as proxy for paleo-carbonate ion concentrations ([CO32−]). Our subantarctic Southeast Pacific sediment core depth transect shows significant deep-water [CO32−] variations during the Last Glacial Maximum and Deglaciation (10 – 22 ka BP). We provide evidence for an increase in [CO32−] during the early deglacial period (15-19 ka BP), followed by a ca. 40 µmol kg−1 reduction in Lower Circumpolar Deepwater (CDW). This decreased Pacific to Atlantic export of low-carbon CDW contributed to significantly lowered carbon storage within the Southern Ocean, highlighting the importance of a dynamic Pacific–Southern Ocean deep-water reconfiguration for shaping late-glacial oceanic carbon storage, and subsequent deglacial oceanic-atmospheric CO2 transfer.

The "Tau" of Science - How to Measure, Study, and Integrate Quantitative and Qualitative Knowledge

Scientists' ability to integrate diverse forms of evidence and evaluate how well they can explain and predict phenomena, in other words, $\textit{to know how much they know}$, struggles to keep pace with technological innovation. Central to the challenge of extracting knowledge from data is the need to develop a metric of knowledge itself. A candidate metric of knowledge, $K$, was recently proposed by the author. This essay further advances and integrates that proposal, by developing a methodology to measure its key variable, symbolized with the Greek letter $\tau$ ("tau"). It will be shown how a $\tau$ can represent the description of any phenomenon, any theory to explain it, and any methodology to study it, allowing the knowledge about that phenomenon to be measured with $K$.To illustrate potential applications, the essay calculates $\tau$ and $K$ values of: logical syllogisms and proofs, mathematical calculations, empirical quantitative knowledge, statistical model selection problems, including how to correct for "forking paths" and "P-hacking" biases, randomised controlled experiments, reproducibility and replicability, qualitative analyses via process tracing, and mixed quantitative and qualitative evidence.Whilst preliminary in many respects, these results suggest that $K$ theory offers a meaningful understanding of knowledge, which makes testable metascientific predictions, and which may be used to analyse and integrate qualitative and quantitative evidence to tackle complex problems.

Inequality

Inequality: A Contemporary Approach to Race, Class, and Gender offers a comprehensive introduction to the topics animating current sociological research focused on inequality. Contemporary, engaging, and research-oriented, it is the ideal text to help undergraduate students master the basic concepts in inequality research and gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which race, class, and gender interact with systems of social stratification. Following an introduction to theories and research methods used in the field, the authors apply these concepts to areas that define inequality research, including social mobility, education, gender, race, and culture. The authors include up-to-date quantitative evidence throughout. The text concludes by examining policies that have facilitated inequality and reviewing the social movements that in turn seek to reshape those structures. Though primarily focused on the United States, it includes a chapter on stratification across the globe and draws on cross-national comparisons throughout.

Community Currencies as Crisis Response: Results From a Randomized Control Trial in Kenya

This paper presents the results of what may be the world’s first randomized control trial on community currencies, focusing on Grassroots Economics Community Inclusion Currency (CIC) model run on the xDAI blockchain. Beneficiaries in Nairobi, Kenya were sent the equivalent of $30 in cryptocurrency tokens, enabling a level of impact evaluation usually unfeasible for most cash and mobile-money based transfer programs. Results show that CIC transfers of $30 are associated with $93.51 increase in beneficiaries wallet balance, a $23.17 increase in monthly CIC income, a $16.30 increase in monthly CIC spending, a $6.31 increase in average trade size and a $28.43 increase in expenditure on food and water. However, the difference in treatment effects for males versus females suggests gender imbalances persist. This study serves as an important prototype for novel cash transfer models and presents some of the first quantitative evidence in the area of “crypto for good.”

Adolescent Suicides and Social Disparities

Suicides have been the second leading cause of deaths among adolescents in the United States in 2016. This paper aims to find qualitative and quantitative evidence of the relationship between socioeconomic inequalities and adolescent suicides. The suicide risk factors among all states are identified to form the pooled dynamic panel dataset from 1990 to 2016. To our knowledge, this paper is the first to find that social inequalities are significantly related to American adolescent suicides using the state-level dynamic panel data. Changes of unemployment rates have the consistent and significantly positive impacts on changes of adolescent suicides rates. Changes of Top 10% income index are uniformly positive to changes of adolescent suicide rates. Gini indices have inconsistently positive correspondence to adolescent suicide rates. Furthermore, high school graduation rates are insignificantly and negatively associated with adolescent suicide rates in the United States.

Cointegration FDI to Economy Growth

The contribution of foreign direct investment to economic growth is perhaps one of the most studied topics in academic research over the past five decades. However, few studies have examined both the short-term and long-term effects of this impact on developing and emerging markets, particularly during times of economic uncertainty including the financial crisis. global financial crisis. This paper examines the relevant quantitative evidence on the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) and outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on economic growth by the regression method and the Johansen cointegration test.