Knowledge transfer to emerging markets via consulting projects

In recent years, development agencies (DAs) have focused their activities on consulting projects rather than on financing turnkey projects when assisting emerging markets. The main reason is that the implementation of consulting projects is likely to be connected with an intensive knowledge transfer from developed to emerging markets. Training of local employees and cooperation with local firms are necessary elements to make the transfer effective. The empirical statistics shows training and cooperation to be more frequent in consulting projects financed by DAs as compared to commercial projects. According to theory and experience, training should be included in projects in the least developed host countries, whereas local cooperation should be more frequent, the higher is the development level of the host country. However, DAs do not follow these rules of thumb in a convincing way. A policy implication of the paper is therefore that DAs should better organize and plan the contents of their consulting projects.

Effects on academia-industry collaboration of extending university property rights

Several recent studies show European university scientists contributing far more frequently to company-owned patented inventions than they do to patents owned by universities or by the academic scientists themselves. Recognising the significance of this channel for direct commercialisation of European academic research makes it important to understand its response to current Bayh-Dole inspired reforms of university patenting rights. This paper studies the contribution from university scientists to inventions patented by dedicated biotech firms (DBFs) specialised in drug discovery in Denmark and Sweden, which in this respect share a number of structural and historic characteristics. It examines effects of the Danish Law on University Patenting (LUP) effective January 2000, which transferred to the employer university rights to patents on inventions made by Danish university scientists alone or as participants in collaborative research with industry. Sweden so far has left property rights with academic scientists, as they also were in Denmark prior to the reform. Consequently, comparison of Danish and Swedish research collaboration before and after LUP offers a quasi-controlled experiment, bringing out effects on joint research of university IPR reform. In original data on all 3,640 inventor contributions behind the 1,087 patents filed by Danish and Swedish DBFs 1990–2004, Difference-in-Difference regressions uncover notable LUP-induced effects in the form of significant reductions in contributions from Danish domestic academic inventors, combined with a simultaneous substitutive increase of non-Danish academic inventors. A moderate increase in academic inventions channelled into university owned-patents does appear after LUP. But the larger part of the inventive potential of academia, previously mobilised into company-owned patents, seems to have been rendered inactive as a result of the reform. As a likely explanation of these effects the paper suggests that exploratory research, the typical target of joint university-DBF projects in drug discovery, fits poorly into LUP’s requirement for ex ante allocation of IPR. The Pre-LUP convention of IPR allocated to the industrial partner in return for research funding and publication rights to the academic partner may have offered more effective contracting for this type of research. There are indications that LUP, outside the exploratory agenda of drug discovery, offers a more productive framework for inventions requiring less complicated and uncertain post-discovery R&D.

Strong life sciences in innovative weak contexts: a “developmental” approach to a tantalizing mismatch

Life sciences are the best developed area of academic research throughout Latin America. Biomedical research has been particularly successful. However, generally speaking, excellence in research has not been accompanied by commercially successful innovations, a pattern that differs from what has happened in many highly industrialized countries, even small ones. The paper explores some causes of such disappointing outcome, stressing in particular the historical lack of political and social legitimacy exhibited by innovation policies in underdevelopment. From a developmental point of view it is of great importance the building of such legitimacy. One way of doing so is to link more tightly innovation policies to social concerns; bio-innovation is suggested as a productive path towards that aim.

Coparenting Conflict and Parenting Behavior in Economically Disadvantaged Single Parent African American Families: The Role of Maternal Psychological Distress

Substantial research has focused on the negative associations between coparenting conflict, parental psychological functioning, and parenting behavior in European American, middle-income, families. However, less attention has been given to ethnic minority families and to families that are nontraditionally structured. In an effort to address this gap, the current longitudinal study examines the relation between conflict with the mother-identified primary co-caregiver and parenting practices in single parent, economically disadvantaged African American families. Participants included 234 mother–child dyads. It was hypothesized that conflict would relate to less utilization of positive parenting practices and that this association would be mediated, at least in part, by maternal psychological distress. Hypotheses were examined using structural equation modeling (Lisrel 8.3): Conflict with a co-caregiver was significantly related to parenting both directly and indirectly through maternal psychological distress. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Terrorism and relative justice

Terrorist violence and violent justice responses have much in common. While contextually dependant, both forms of violence lay claim to contestred legitimacies. The relationships between terrorism and justice responses require both theoretical and empirical examination if the prospects for controlling the violence they perpetrate is to be sharpened.

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Gauging support for innovative farmland preservation techniques

Given growing concerns about the loss of farmland in the US, governmental and nonprofit groups are seeking innovative, cost-effective methods to preserve lands that will elicit additional landowner participation. This article describes four innovative farmland preservation techniques and derives implications for the policy process through interviews of key stakeholders: program administrators, lawmakers, and landowners. Experts on farmland preservation were also interviewed to ensure stakeholder perceptions substantively inform the policy process. Four techniques were selected for assessment from approximately 30 novel techniques. Reactions to these policy options reflect stakeholder perceptions of a baseline condition; the perceptions help evaluate which options are likely to survive the policy process and what attributes will lead to their acceptability because few of these techniques have yet become policy. Although the stakeholders may have more limited experience with the policy process, land preservation experts validated many of the results and the possibility of success in the “rough and tumble” of the policy process. Of the four investigated techniques rights of first refusal was the most favored, although respondents thought effective implementation would require careful targeting and a dedicated funding source. Experts agreed this technique was most likely to survive in the political arena. Agricultural conservation pension was also viewed favorably, though it was considered administratively difficult to implement. Several experts thought that, though inchoate, the pension plan could potentially be more cost effective than rights of first refusal. Land preservation tontines were perceived to be an interesting concept, but confusing, difficult to implement, and ill-defined. Term conservation easements were viewed unfavorably because they did not preserve land permanently.

Sentencing Using Statistical Treatment Rules: What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us

The existing literature seriously misinterprets the available evidence on the predictability of high rate criminal offending and thus the potential value of statistical treatment rules that impose stiffer punishments on offenders with higher predicted risk of recidivism. The misinterpretation results from the failure to take account of the fact that the data used in existing risk assessment exercises come from environments characterized by informal (and sometimes formal) attempts by judges and other actors to base penal treatments on expected recidivism. Findings of little or no predictive power for baseline covariates may simply indicate the efficient use of the available information. We lay out the problem in detail, provide examples from several literatures and then consider general solutions to the problem.

Advances in Offender Profiling: A Systematic Review of the Profiling Literature Published Over the Past Three Decades

Despite the immense popularity of offender profiling as both a topic of fascination for the general public as well as an academic field of study, concerns have been raised about the development of this area of scientific inquiry. The present study provides a preliminary step towards moving the field forward as it reviews the type and quality of studies dealing with offender profiling over the past 31 years. Based on a content analysis of 132 published articles, the review indicates that researchers investigating this phenomenon rarely publish multiple articles, and they are generally reported across many different journals, thereby making knowledge synthesis and knowledge transfer problematic. In addition, the majority of papers published in the area are discussion pieces (e.g., discussing what profiling is, how profiles are constructed, and when profiling is useful), despite the fact that the processes underlying offender profiling are still not well understood. Finally, although peer-reviewed articles exploring this topic have steadily increased, the statistical sophistication of these studies is sorely lacking, with most including no statistics or formal analyses of data. Suggestions for future research and recommendations to streamline efforts in this field are provided based on the results of this review.

A Capture–Recapture Model to Estimate the Size of Criminal Populations and the Risks of Detection in a Marijuana Cultivation Industry

Originally developed in biology, capture-recapture methodologies have increasingly been integrated into the study of human populations to provide estimates of the size of “hidden populations.” This paper explores the validity of one capture-recapture model—Zelterman’s (1988) truncated Poisson estimator—used to estimate the size of the marijuana cultivation industry in Quebec, Canada. The capture–recapture analysis draws on arrest data to estimate the number of marijuana growers “at risk of being arrested” for a period of five years (1998–2002). Estimates are provided for growers involved in two different techniques: (1) soil-based growing, and (2) hydroponics. In addition, the study develops an original method to estimate the prevalence of cultivation sites “at risk of detection.” A first set of findings shows that the cultivation industry is substantial; the estimated prevalence of growers compares to estimates of marijuana dealers in the province. Capture–recapture estimates are also used to compare the risks of being arrested for different types of offenders. Results indicate that hydroponic growers—those involved in large scale and sophisticated sites—face lower enforcement-related risks than growers involved in smaller enterprises. The significance of these findings is discussed in the context of the widespread development, both in Europe and in North America, of a successful domestic production-driven, rather than importation-driven, marijuana trade.

Test–Retest Reliability of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2)

The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) are widely used to measure intimate partner aggression. Various aspects of the CTS2 and its subscales have been examined, e.g. factor structure, internal consistency, and validity, but little or no evidence exists regarding the stability of the self-report of aggression on the CTS2 This study examines the stability of reports of aggression against a partner on the CTS2 among 82 men court-mandated to a batterer intervention program. At both testing times men reported on aggression occurring in the year prior to beginning treatment. Using variety scores, stability of report was strong for psychological aggression (r = 0.69), physical assault (r = 0.76), injury (r = 0.70), and negotiation (r = 0.60), but weaker for sexual coercion (r = 0.30). Implications for the use of the CTS2 in court-mandated populations are discussed.