Res judicata in patent actions: is the law too entrenched?

The Court of Appeal rules that a patentee's entitlement to financialcompensation following the final determination by a UK courtthat its patent is both valid and infringed cannot be underminedby the subsequent revocation of that patent in opposition proceedingsin the EPO.     

E‐participation Opportunities and the Ambiguous Role of Corruption: A Model of Municipal Responsiveness to Sociopolitical Factors

Municipalities ostensibly scale the ladder of e‐participation improvement to gain legitimacy. However, research has not yet addressed how e‐participation initiatives are affected by serious legitimacy concerns such as corruption. One municipal response to corruption is to use e‐participation offerings as a remedial effort to gain citizen trust, but window‐dressing strategies might also be used. In this article, the authors attempt to make sense of this ambiguity by hypothesizing that the effects of perceived corruption on e‐participation offerings depend on the type of e‐participation as well as the level of local social capital and local public accountability demand. Analysis of data from 104 municipal websites in South Africa between 2013 and 2017 reveals support for two moderation mechanisms: (1) a positive remedial response to corruption in the presence of strong social capital and (2) a negative avoidance response to corruption in the presence of high demand for accountability.     

Interview mode effects on estimates of need for alcohol and drug treatment among welfare recipients: evidence from a quasi-experiment

Employing a quasi-experimental design, this study compared responses from face-to-face and telephone surveys of welfare recipients to assess the effects of survey modality on prevalence estimates of alcohol and drug abuse and need for treatment. Samples were drawn from adult welfare recipients in Oklahoma in 2001. We generated 1-year and 30-day prevalence estimates of alcohol and drug use, employed several common measures of substance-related behavioral and physical problems to estimate treatment need, and used odds ratios to compare prevalence estimates. Results indicated that telephone surveys provided estimates that were (1) statistically no different from those of face-to-face administration in the categories used to estimate treatment need and (2) significantly higher than those of face-to-face surveys for admission of ever having a substance problem and driving after consuming alcohol or drugs. We conclude that, for welfare recipients, telephone surveys provide similar data quality about treatment need as do more costly face-to-face interviews, a finding that is important and of practical concern to both practitioners and methodologists. More broadly, we argue that further survey methodology research is required for specific populations and subgroups that are often the focus of criminal justice and public health research and response.     

The Cold War “Special Relationship” Revisited

This article focuses on one of the most potent ideas in world politics: the idea of an Anglo-American “special relationship.” It examines the use and abuse of this relationship, as cultural referent, rhetorical construct, and political imperative, during the long Cold War. It inspects the roots of specialness—the core conditions—in terms of belief and experience as well as need and opportunity. It warns of the hubris inherent in the presumption of specialness on the Churchillian model, a frame of reference (and a set of strategic contingencies) time-expired even before the expiration of the Cold War itself.     

Predicting Technology Success: Identifying Key Predictors and Assessing Expert Evaluation for Advanced Technologies

This study investigates a set of precursor factors that appear related to future technology success, and whether or not expert evaluators can a priori provide useful information during the technology review process. Sixty-nine highly advanced post 9–11 technologies are tracked over time. Based upon the results of this study, we conclude that a reasonably good predictive model can be constructed from organizational and technology factors, such as firm size, stage of development, and strategic partnerships. The results also indicate that the incremental value of expert reviewers and technology evaluators to predict future technology success is relatively small. Reviewers that provided the greatest predicative power, however, had current scientific responsibilities. These results raise important issues regarding the capability of developing predictive models of technology success.      

Bullets to ballots: The reintegration of UNITA in Angola

Angola has enjoyed mostly peace since April 2002 and is preparing for legislative elections in September 2008—the first since 1992. This paper charts the fortunes of the former rebel movement, UNITA, the Union for the Total Independence of Angola, assesses how successfully it has transformed itself from a rebel movement into the leading party of the democratic opposition and what its future prospects are. Many of the problems that UNITA faces are similar to other political opposition parties in Africa and there are few signs that UNITA is any longer disadvantaged by its violent past. The biggest threat to UNITA is that it loses badly in the September 2008 legislative elections and makes these ex-rebels irrelevant to the majority of Angolans.