Organizational Structure as a Determinant of Academic Patent and Licensing Behavior: An Exploratory Study of Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Pennsylvania State Universities

This paper examines the influences of university organizational structure on technology transfer performance. The analysis treats the organizational structure of the technology-transfer office as an independent variable that accounts, in part, for measured differences in inter-institutional patenting, licensing, and sponsored research activities. We derive and investigate three hypotheses that link attributes of organizational form – information processing capacity, coordination capability and incentive alignment – to technology transfer outcomes. A detailed analysis of three major research universities – Johns Hopkins University, Pennsylvania State University, and Duke University – provides evidence of the existence of alternative organizational structures. The data also suggest that these organizational capabilities result in differences in technology transfer activity.     

Labour and Antisemitism: a Crisis Misunderstood

In this article, we argue that Labour’s antisemitism crisis has been misunderstood. We suggest that a more accurate and sophisticated understanding of antisemitism offers a way forward. There are three elements to this claim. First, by drawing on existing data on attitudes towards Jews, we criticise the widespread focus on individual ‘antisemites’, rather than on the broader problem of antisemitism. In turn, we conceive of antisemitism not as a virus or poison, as in so many formulations, but rather, as a reservoir of readily available images and ideas that subsist in our political culture. Second, following on from this understanding, we offer five ways forward. Finally, we set this analysis in the context of a historical parting of the ways between anti-racism and opposition to antisemitism. An anti-racism defined solely by conceptions of whiteness and power, we argue, has proven unable to fully acknowledge and account for anti-Jewish racism.     

The Reparations Debate

This paper examines the reparations question from the perspective of its role in the post-1924 period. Particular attention is paid to the work of Albert Ritschl on the reparations regimes between 1924 and 1934. He stresses the competition between Germany's public and private debts and the importance of Germany's role as a sovereign debtor that could not commit national suicide by fulfilling its obligations at any social and political price but that sought to maintain its credit by giving primacy to its private obligations at the expense of reparations. There was some learning from the past after 1945. The London Debt Agreement of 1953 precluded a conflict between private and public debts by an exclusive concentration on private debts and the restoration of German credit.     

Late-Night Comedy as a Gateway to Traditional News: An Analysis of Time Trends in News Attention Among Late-Night Comedy Viewers During the 2004 Presidential Primaries

Recent reports published by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2000 Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. (2000). Audiences fragmented and skeptical: The tough job of communicating with voters. http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=46  [Google Scholar], 2004 Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. (2004). Cable and Internet loom large in fragmented political news universe. http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=200  [Google Scholar]) propose that young audiences are abandoning traditional news as a source of election information in favor of late-night comedy programs. However, additional evidence (Young & Tisinger, 2006 Young, D. G. and Tisinger, R. 2006. Dispelling late-night myths: News consumption among late-night comedy viewers and the predictors of exposure to various late-night shows. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 11(3): 113–134. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggests that exposure to late-night comedy programming is positively correlated with traditional news exposure. This study extends this body of research by offering evidence that exposure to late-night comedy is associated with increases in attention paid to the presidential campaign in national network and cable news. The analysis uses data collected via the National Annenberg Election Survey during the 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey (2004). Daily Show viewers knowledgeable about presidential campaign. http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/Downloads/Political_Communication/naes/2004_03_late-night-knowledge-2_9-21_pr.pdf (Accessed: 7 February 2008).  [Google Scholar] presidential primary season, between October 30, 2003, and June 4, 2004. Cross-sectional results demonstrate that viewers of late-night comedy programs—specifically viewers of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman, as well as Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—pay more attention to the campaign in national network and cable news than nonviewers, controlling for a variety of factors. An analysis of time trends also reveals that the rate of increase in news attention over the course of the primary season is greater for viewers of Leno or Letterman than for those who do not watch any late-night comedy.     

The seductive quality of central human capabilities: sociological insights into Nussbaum and Sen's disagreement

Abstract

In an era when relativism and questions of modernity have unsettled the premises and goals of the development project, there is a seductive quality to the universalism of Nussbaum's capabilities approach. We query Nussbaum's philosophically based contribution and raise epistemological concerns about her commitment to a list of central human capabilities. We argue that attention to state forms and practices, as well as unequal power relations, must be incorporated into analyses of capability and development. This leads us to support Sen's advocacy of deliberative democracy as a productive space for collectivities and individuals to strive for social justice and equity. Such a focus is necessarily attentive to multiple forms of inequality and domination and is best understood by engaging historically specific analyses of state formations.     

Female Domestic Violence Toward Male Partners: Exploring Conflict Responses and Outcomes

The general purpose of this study was to investigate domestic violence within a conflict framework. Specifically, the association between conflict-based, communication response and outcome behaviors and the frequency and severity of female domestic violence towards male partners was examined. Participants were 153 female volunteers who reported on a range of communication responses and outcomes for both self and partner. The contribution of relationship distress was controlled for and also examined as a moderator. Relationship distress was not found to be a significant moderator. Results showed that seven communication response variables and four outcome variables were significantly associated with the frequency and/or severity of female domestic violence. Relative to nonviolent relationships, relationships with female violence had more male and female unilateral verbal aggression, more mutual verbal aggression, more male verbal aggression/female calms things down, more male demand/partner withdraw, more mutual avoidance, and less constructive relative to destructive communication. Relationships with female violence also had poorer resolution of problems and more emotional distance after problem arguments and discussions than their nonviolent counterparts.     

Whose body is it anyway? Human cells and the strange effects of property and intellectual property law

Whatever else I might own in this world, it would seem intuitively obvious that I own the cells of my body. Where else could the notion of ownership begin, other than with the components of the tangible corpus that all would recognize as "me"? The law, however, does not view the issue so neatly and clearly, particularly when cells are no longer in my body. As so often happens in law, we have reached this point, not by design, but by the piecemeal development of disparate notions that, when gathered together, form a strange and disconcerting picture. This Article examines both property and intellectual property doctrines in relation to human cells that are no longer within the body. In particular, the Article discusses the Bilski decision, in the context of life science process patents, and the Molecular Pathology case, in the context of gene patents. For patent law, the Article concludes that the problem lies not with the fact that genes constitute patentable subject matter, but rather with the extent of the rights that are granted. For both property and intellectual property law, the Article concludes that a more careful application of basic legal principles would better reflect the interests of society as a whole and the interests of individual human subjects, as well as the interests of those who innovate.     

Mandated justice: The potential promise and possible pitfalls of mandating procedural justice in the workplace

This study addresses the question of whether and how legal authorities ought to intervene in work organizations in order to most effectively regulate the behavior of employees. This question is examined empirically, by exploring whether the association between the level of fairness employees experience in procedures regarding pay and benefits, and their adherence to workplace rules, differs depending upon whether those procedures are enacted by companies voluntarily or mandated by law. This question was addressed using both a survey of a representative sample of employees in Israel, as well as their reactions to an experimental vignette. The results generally suggest that evaluations of the procedural justice of performance appraisal hearings more strongly influenced judgments of overall workplace fairness, perceptions of management legitimacy, and employee rule‐adherence behavior when employees believed fairer workplace procedures were required by law.