The strategic value of new university technology and its impact on exclusivity of licensing transactions: An empirical study

Commercialization of new university technology within the new product development process is an important tool by which established firms can expand their innovative capabilities. The strategic importance of the university technology to the firm, however, can vary considerably. An exclusivity agreement is a useful tool to protect the firm’s investment and help ensure that value is appropriated through the commercialization process. An empirical study of 66 technology transfer projects in the information and communications technology industry reveals that licensing transactions are usually secured by some form of exclusivity agreements when the product innovation enabled by the new university technology is new-to-the-firm or new-to-the-market and the firm’s perception of the strategic value of the new technologies is high.      

How is Anxiety Involved in the Longitudinal Relationship between Brooding Rumination and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents?

A growing body of research supports the application of Response Styles Theory to adolescent populations. Although the essential dynamic, namely that rumination increases the incidence of depressive symptoms, has been demonstrated among adolescents, a number of important empirical questions remain, such as: what are the gender differences and developmental trends for brooding and reflective rumination?; does a reciprocal relationship exist between brooding or reflective rumination, on the one hand, and depressive symptoms and anxiety, on the other hand, over time? and how do additional variables (i.e., anxiety) impact upon the rumination-depressive symptoms relationship? In this study, self-reported levels of rumination (both brooding and reflective), and anxious and depressive symptoms were measured longitudinally across 4 months in a sample of 976 community adolescents (46 % females), aged 11–16 years old. Mean group differences showed that female adolescents reported engaging in more brooding rumination than male adolescents beginning at 13 years of age. A reciprocal brooding rumination to depressive symptoms relationship and a reciprocal brooding rumination to anxiety relationship were found over time, and they did not differ for boys and girls. We tested the possibility that anxious symptoms would function as a third variable, but the obtained model showed that brooding rumination and anxiety both contributed unique variance in predicting changes in depressive symptoms over time.     

The Last Good Chance: A Reassessment of U.S. Operations at Tora Bora

The inability of the United States to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and many of his top deputies at Tora Bora is widely recognized as one of the most significant missed opportunities of America's struggle with al Qaeda. However, the debate over U.S. actions at Tora Bora during Operation Enduring Freedom lacks in-depth analysis, especially concerning the commonly offered solution of more U.S. troops on the ground. This paper dissects the original operation against al Qaeda forces entrenched in the mountain complex in eastern Afghanistan in late 2001 and its impact on the debate over the Afghan model of warfare. An alternative plan involving U.S. conventional forces is presented that takes into account the considerable constraints of the scenario and analyzes the key make-or-break points of the operation. Although the challenges are far greater than most critics have allowed, the revised plan would likely have offered the best chance to capture or kill Bin Laden and a significant portion of the al Qaeda leadership.     

Blurring the dimensions of privacy? Law enforcement and trusted traveler programs

Risk has become a ubiquitous tool for security governance. This paper analyzes the ongoing shift in airport/aviation security from rule-based to risk-based screening. Seeking to explore the effects of data based passenger risk assessment on privacy through the collection and processing of personal data, it is argued that risk is likely to enroll passengers into a partly voluntary, partly enforced membership in trusted traveler schemes in order to enhance the database, thus enabling a more precise assessment of risk levels. In a disciplinary spatial setting, the once distinct privacy dimensions of citizen-state and consumer-market become increasingly blurred, as law enforcement authorities seek to exploit data that was originally obtained for commercial purposes to improve risk calculations.     

… and still we are left wanting: Malta's White Paper on digital rights

CLSR welcomes occasional comment pieces on issues of current importance in the law and technology field from different jurisdictions. In this instance the Government of Malta published a White Paper in October 2012 for public consultation, proposing the introduction of the following four so-called “digital rights” in the Constitution of Malta: (1) the right to Internet access; (2) the right to informational access; (3) the right to informational freedom and (4) the right to digital informational self-determination. The author believes that the proposal is indeed a step in the right direction but lacks punch where it matters most and does not go far enough.     

The scientific foundation of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models

DSGE-models provide a coherent framework of analysis. This coherence is brought about by restricting acceptable behavior of agents to dynamic utility maximization and rational expectations. The problem of the DSGE-models (and more generally of macroeconomic models based on rational expectations) is that they assume extraordinary cognitive capabilities of individual agents. In addition, these models need a lot of ad-hoc assumptions to make them fit the data. I argue that we need models that take into account the limited cognitive abilities of agents. One can introduce rationality in such models by assuming “trial and error“ learning. I propose such a model and I analyze its implications.     

Book note Résumé de livres

Richard A. Clarke,Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 304, index. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the U.S.,The 9/11 Commission Report, authorized edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., [2004]. Pp. xviii, 567, bibliographical references.