The role of marketing activities in the fuzzy front end of innovation: a study of the biotech industry

In this paper we explore the importance of marketing activities during the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation (FFEI), which in product life cycle management is described as the phase between R&D and the beginning of formal new product development. The FFEI is characterized by informal processes and many industry specific conditions. The particular context in which the study was conducted involved research emerging from a US government sponsored institution. Firms obtain licenses for technology from the government sponsored institution with the purpose of advancing them towards commercialization. But, the process of development often gets stalled, especially during the initial stages due to the lack of a number of resources (financial, key personnel, etc.). The specific interest in this study was, therefore, to understand the extent to which various marketing efforts by the licensees enabled the survival of early stage biotech innovations. Licensees would be expected to seek resources by undertaking a number of marketing activities designed to communicate a value proposition to potential resource providers. The study involved qualitative data collection among licensees to uncover marketing activities in which they engaged during the FFEI phase. The data was coded to develop the specific types of marketing activities that had been employed so as to provide insight into which activities were important in enabling early stage innovation survival. Future research can build upon this study’s findings in industries other than biotech and involving different sources of technology transfer (universities, etc.).     

Improving justice and mental health systems interactions

Over the last three decades, theorists and practitioners in the field of mental health law have adhered to adoctrinal analysis paradigm characterized by an emphasis on legal doctrine, rational analysis of self-evident, albeit abstract legal principles, and law reform. Acknowledging that the paradigm has been highly successful in facilitating major reform of mental health law, the thesis of this article is that its value for understanding and improving justice and mental health systems interactions is largely exhausted. It urges a “paradigm shift” to an approach that emphasizes the interrelated steps, tasks, and processes in the interactions of the justice and mental healthsystems. It suggests several directions where such a shift might lead: (a) inquiry focused on such organizational components of justice and mental health interactions as court clinics; (b) the development of a meaningful statistical portrait of the number and composition of cases that impact both the justice and mental health systems; (c) a better understanding of the missions, goals, objectives, and administrative structures of the components in the justice and mental health systems interactions; (d) a greater emphasis on the work of trial courts, as opposed to appeals courts; and (e) the development of a new information architecture for the field of mental health law.     

Does the Prior Application of the Field Kit Bullet Hole Testing Kit 3 on a Suspected Bullet Hole Bias the Analysis of Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry?

Forensic ballistics is the study of bullet trajectory and consists of determining gunshot residue (GSR) to identify bullet holes. Among several highly sensitive methods, atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) is employed to analyze GSR in the laboratory. However, it is sometimes necessary to identify bullet holes immediately at a crime scene. The purpose of this examination was to determine whether the use of the field test Bullet Hole Testing Kit 3 (BTK3) on a suspected bullet hole would influence the outcome of AAS‐analysis: Three commonly encountered firearms (Glock17, Tokarev, and Colt) were fired at skin, wood, and cloth. AAS‐analysis was performed with and without previous BTK3 application. The results clearly indicate that there is no significant interaction on the grounds of BTK3 use (BTK3 vs. no‐BTK3 [kit_nokit] [Pb: p = 0.1309; Sb: p = 0.9111], material*kit_nokit [Pb: p = 0.5960; Sb: p = 0.9930], distance*kit_nokit [Pb: p = 0.4014; Sb: p = 0.9184], and firearm type*kit_nokit [Pb: p = 0.9662; Sb: p = 0.9885]); hence, applying this field kit does not falsify later AAS outcomes.     

Part-time Work,Job Satisfaction and Well-being: Evidence from a Developing OECD Country

We estimate the effects of part-time work on job and life satisfaction using new data for Chile. While part-time work is being promoted to increase female labour participation in many countries, there are concerns about its quality and the overall effect on well-being of such policies. We estimate models for job and life satisfaction addressing for endogeneity and selectivity bias. We found that part-time work has a negative effect on job satisfaction and well-being for men; however, when looking at just women, the negative effect is reversed. This should be considered when designing public policies oriented at increasing female labour participation through part-time work.     

Fulminant liver failure in a patient on carbamazepine and levetiracetam treatment associated with status epilepticus

A 22-year-old female with a history of developmental delay and seizures successfully treated with carbamazepine and levetiracetam developed fulminant hepatic failure and subsequently died. She had been admitted to the hospital following secondary generalized seizures of 35 min duration. A circulatory shock as well as intoxication was taken into consideration during the clinical course. Autopsy failed to reveal a macroscopically discernible cause of death. Significant findings on microscopic examination included acute tubular necrosis in the kidneys, pre-existing marked accumulation of neutral lipid within the hepatocytes as well as hyperacute liver damage with evidence of almost complete hepatocyte necrosis. Carbamazepine and levetiracetam were simultaneously determined from blood and tissues such as liver, lungs, muscle and kidneys by LC-MS/MS following addition of lamotrigine as an internal standard and liquid-liquid extraction. Validation data are given for levetiracetam. Both carbamazepine and levetiracetam were present in blood at concentrations within or below the therapeutic range, respectively. Moreover, tissue concentrations suggested long-term administration of anticonvulsant drugs, which is in accordance with the medical history. After excessive drug concentrations could be ruled out, the metabolic consequences of a prolonged carbamazepine therapy to cause severe hepatic injury in the present case are discussed. A mechanism of injury to the hepatocytes may be membrane damage by either an increased production of free radicals and/or a decreased free radical scavenging capacity. Following ischemia with reperfusion and during hyperthermia, large amounts of free radicals are formed. Induction of the mixed oxidase activity during longterm administration of carbamazepine may also increase production of free radicals, leaving the hepatic cell more vulnerable to oxidative injury.     

A model process for forensic mental health screening and evaluation

This article describes an operational definition and a model process for forensic mental health examinations developed on the bases of field research, reviews of literature and other documentary materials, and a survey of forensic mental health programs. Forensic mental health screening and evaluation is defined as the process conducted by mental health personnel, at the direction of criminal justice authorities, for the purposes of delineating, acquiring, and providing information about the mental condition of client-offenders that is useful in decision making in the criminal justice system. The proposed model encompasses 14 pragmatically oriented steps within three major structural components of the examination process—delineation, acquisition, and provision—in a manner that places the entire process in the functional context of the criminal justice and mental health systems. The definition and model are aimed at practitioners, program evaluators, and policy makers to be used as a starting point for the establishment of standards against which the practices and policies relating to forensic mental health screening and evaluation can be compared and improved.The preparation of this article was supported in part by a grant (No. 79-NI-AX-0070) by the National Institute of Justice. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the National Institute of Justice or the National Center for State Courts. The author thanks his colleagues for their assistance and advice during the study upon which this article is based, as well their critical reviews of earlier documents related to this work. The comments and suggestions of Amiran Elwork and an anonymous reviewer are also gratefully acknowledged.     

Developmental changes through adolescence in the spontaneous nomination of reference groups as a function of decision content

The achievement of behavioral autonomy and psychological independence from the family is one of the foremost developmental tasks of the adolescent. This aspect of adolescent socialization is examined with regard to the developmental trends in the individual's nomination of socialization groups as competent referents in different areas of judgment. Eighty subjects, distributed equally between sex and among samples drawn from the fifth, seventh, ninth, and twelfth grades, were interviewed and allowed to nominate spontaneously reference groups of their own choosing for guidance in moral, informational, and social judgments. A significant relation was found between the nomination of a particular reference group and the nature of the decision to be made. The distribution of reference group nominations among the grade levels sampled differed significantly in the case of informational and social judgments. With increasing age during adolescence, peers seemed to be a more acceptable source of information in matters of social judgment than either parents or adults outside the family. Adults outside the family, however, exhibited a marked increase in acceptability as a reference group for judgments of an informational nature. Parents seemed to be the most acceptable referent across all grades for moral judgments. The findings are viewed particularly in relation to the results of studies which have examined developmental trends in simulated group conformity situations and susceptibility to cross-pressures. The possible reasons for the different developmental phenomena revealed by this study and by the conformity studies are discussed.This article is based on a thesis submitted by the first author to Duke University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science with Distinction of Psychology.     

Public Attitudes About Property Distribution at Death and Intestate Succession Laws in the United States

Intestate succession statutes should reflect the distributive preferences of intestate decedents. To date, these distributive preferences could only be inferred from distributive patterns found in wills. This telephone survey of 750 persons living in Alabama, California, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas supplements prior will studies and provides new insights concerning public attitudes about property distribution at death. The distributive preferences of the respondents revealed few significant differences that could be attributed to age, education, income, wealth, or occupational status. Two other important findings of this study suggest that a modern intestacy statute should provide that (1) the surviving spouse inherit the entire estate in preference to the decedent's issue or family of orientation and (2) issue who are in the same generation share equally in the estate.     

Some observations on the link between learning disabilities and juvenile delinquency

In order to test the hypothesis that learning disabilities are related to juvenile delinquency, a sample of 1,005 public school and 687 adjudicated juvenile delinquent youths (ages 12 to 17) reported about delinquent behaviors in which they had engaged. The youths' educational records were screened, and, if the presence of learning disabilities could not be discounted, the children were given a series of tests. Every child was classified as either learning disabled or not. The results indicated that proportionately more adjudicated delinquent children than public school children were learning disabled. Self-report data, however, showed no differences in delinquent behaviors engaged in by learning-disabled and non-learning-disabled children, within either the adjudicated or public school samples. Public school children who have learning disabilities reported that they were picked up by the police at about the same rate as non-learning-disabled children, and engaged in about the same delinquent behaviors. Charges for which learning-disabled and non-learning-disabled adjudicated delinquents were convicted followed the same general patterns. In light of these findings, it was proposed that the greater proportion of learning-disabled youth among adjudicated juvenile delinquents may be accounted for by differences in the way such children are treated within the juvenile justice system, rather than by differences in their delinquent behaviors.