Electronic commerce and user-based design of a web site: Targeting the technology transfer audience

Web sites have the potential of playing a major role in the exchange of technology related information between federal laboratories and commercializers in the private sector. Most, if not all, Web site designs are developed based on the organization's perception of what the target audience wants from a Web site. This contribution addresses the issue of successful Web site design from the user's perspective in the context of technology transfer. The orientation takes into account important concepts and principles such as cost, marketing, diffusion, information retrieval, and strategic networking. The results of a survey of private sector technology transfer professionals offer insights to meet the target audience's needs, thus making a Web site a timely and cost-effective electronic linkage for interaction, information-seeking, and networking functions that enable technology transfer. This work was funded by United States Air Force contract number F30602-95-C-0240.     

EVAR FOR ABDOMINAL AORTIC ANEURYSM IN ELDERLY PATIENTS,AND THE BIOETHICAL ISSUES THAT COULD GENERATE

Open repair is likely to be more cost-effective than EVAR on average in patients considered fit for open surgery. EVAR is likely to be more cost- effective than open repair for a subgroup of patients at higher risk of operative mortality. These results are based on extrapolation of mid-term results of clinical trials. But how does that affect on patients who are older than 80 years. Late survival depends very much on the patient＇s age at the time of surgery. The life expectancy in this group of patients who undergo successful Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm （AAA） open repair or EVAR is not as good as that of the age-matched general population. At this age, life expectancy is six years or more over patients who are older than 85 years, life expectancy is just five years. On the other hand, annual/one year risk of rupture in patients with AAA diameter six to seven cm is 10%-20%. At the same time, total cost of endograft implantation is at least 10,000 euro per patient, which is still extremely expensive for many countries in transition. Regarding all these facts, some countries （in transition） are forced to reassess ethical point of endovascular treatment. Simplified they haven＇t enough endografs for all patients. Vascular surgeon in this situation has need to decide how, when and who needs by priority this expensive graft. Of course, this is not medical question, but for sure question that encumbers vascular surgeons from countries in transition. Should we consider octogenarians as the first group of patient who will endure this problem？ How to decide who needs endograft as priority and who does not？ Finally, who is better candidate for endovascular, open surgical or medicament treatment from financial point of view？ These are just some of the questions, which are still open and encumber many vascular surgeons from countries with poorer healthcare system.     

Women's participation in democratic innovation apparatuses: the case of the autonomous region of the Basque country,Spain

Since 1990, many democratic regimes have seen an increasing number of democratic innovation apparatuses that have been the subject of many of the reflections of democratic theory. Furthermore, the notion of participation has been a priority since the early stages of the institutionalisation of gender studies. Many analyses of the presence and the voice of women in representative spaces and in social movements have been made. However, both areas of study seem to have developed in parallel, giving rise to a knowledge gap when it comes to the participation of women in public affairs by the democratic innovation apparatuses. This article is situated at the intersection of those areas. It analyses the relationship between women's participation and the extension of the public sphere in terms of obstacles. Based on the analysis of the participatory biographies of 42 women and six men who participate in 15 democratic innovation apparatuses implemented between 1978 and 2014 in the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country (Spain), five discussion groups and two direct observations, the obstacles met by the women when carrying out their participatory project in those governance apparatuses are identified. The article concludes by highlighting the currency of the public versus private and reason versus emotion categories to explain the objectivized and incorporated structure of the obstacles. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Formal independence of regulatory agencies and Varieties of Capitalism: A case of institutional complementarity?

The Varieties of Capitalism literature posits that national economic institutions reflect the mode of coordination of a country's market actors. Despite the importance of this claim and a rich literature on the emergence of regulatory capitalism, few studies test such prediction for Independent Regulatory Agencies (IRAs). This article connects the two fields of research by analysing the impact of economic coordination on the formal independence of IRAs. The results show that, beyond issues of credible commitment and policy stability, the collective action capacity of market actors matters. In particular, regulators in Coordinated Market Economies enjoy less independence than in Liberal Market Economies, while intermediate regimes grant IRAs the least autonomy. The policy implications are nontrivial. Similar to other macroeconomic institutions, inappropriate combinations of economic coordination and IRA independence may engender Pareto‐suboptimal regulatory solutions. In such cases, policymakers should reconsider the rules governing national regulators.     

Raman spectroscopy offers great potential for the nondestructive confirmatory identification of body fluids

Raman spectroscopy was used to compare body fluids commonly found at crime scenes in a nondestructive manner. The dry traces of semen, vaginal fluid, sweat, saliva, and blood were analyzed using confocal Raman microscopy with a 785-nm excitation. The results show that the five fluids can be differentiated from one another by visual comparison of their Raman spectra, and that the laser radiation does not damage the sample. The Raman signature of each body fluid is specific and correlates with the known composition of the fluid. Dry traces of human and canine semen exhibited distinctly different Raman signatures. Overall, this preliminary study demonstrates the great potential of Raman spectroscopy for nondestructive, confirmatory identification of body fluids for forensic purposes.     

Toleration and Recognition

The author asks: Is there a case for redefining toleration as the recognition of excluded identities? He is inclined to answer no. Liberal democratic states, should of course recognise disfavoured groups by registering the normality of their members and the justice of their claims but must resist recognition in any stronger sense. Appropriate recognition consists in confronting the live contemporary issues of exclusion and of ethnic and national injustice by compensatory policies and constitutional innovations.     

The 1948 Coup d'État in Prague Through the Eyes of the American Embassy

This article examines the dramatic events that transformed Czechoslovakia into a totalitarian dictatorship primarily from the perspective of the United States Foreign Service officers posted at the American Embassy in Prague. It is based on new archival sources, on interviews with former American Foreign Service and Intelligence officers, and on their unpublished mémoires.