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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Science funding & policy
In this report to the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable, authors Jerry Thursby and Marie Thursby summarize their research on the globalization of corporate R&D. The authors surveyed 200 multinational companies about recent and future R&D location decisions, and the factors influencing those decisions. The survey confirms that China and India are primary targets of R&D expansion, but this trend does not yet portend a "hollowing out" of R&D capability in the United States. R&D location decisions are complex and driven by a variety of factors, including the potential for market growth, the quality of R&D personnel, and the environment for collaborating with universities. The cost of research, while important, is not the primary factor in siting decisions. Table of Contents Front Matter Executive Summary Introduction General Background R&D Location Strategies Location of Recent or Planned R&D Sites Factors in the Selection of R&D Sites Protecting and Capitalizing on Intellectual Property and the Types of Research Conducted Concluding Remarks Appendix A: Respondent Pool, Statistical Tests, and Presentation of Results
Public Support of Private Innovation describes the One North Carolina Small Business Program's purpose and history, as well as offer an assessment of whether it has met its stated goals and objectives. Through an analysis of data collected through a 2017 survey of all the program's grantee companies, this monograph provides both descriptive findings as well as econometric assessments of the Program against its four stated goals. Both the descriptive findings and the econometric analyses are supportive of the conclusion that the program is meeting its legislatively authorized purpose and goals. This monograph is divided into five sections. Section 1 provides background context on the One North Carolina Small Business Program. Section 2 describes the Federal SBIR and STTR Programs and how North Carolina has fared under the programs since their establishment. Section 3 presents descriptive information on the programs' survey and sets the stage for section 4, which details the econometric assessment of the program. Concluding observations are presented in section 5.
If the stories they tell about themselves are to be believed, all of the tech giants-Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon-were built from the ground up through hard work, a few good ideas, and the entrepreneurial daring to seize an opportunity when it presented itself. With searing wit and blistering commentary Bit Tyrants provides an urgent corrective to this froth of board room marketing copy that is so often passed off as analysis. For fans of corporate fairy-tales there are no shortage of official histories that celebrate the innovative genius of Steve Jobs, liberal commentators who fall over themselves to laude Bill Gates's selfless philanthropy, or politicians who will tell us to listen to Mark Zuckerberg for advice on how to protect our democracy from foreign influence. In this highly unauthorized account of the Big Five's origins, Rob Larson sets the record straight, and in the process shreds every focus-grouped bromide about corporate benevolence he could get his hands on. Those readers unwilling to smile and nod as every day we become more dependent on our phones and apps to do our chores, our jobs, and our socializing can take heart as Larson provides us with maps to all the shallow graves, skeleton filled closets, and invective laced emails Big Tech left behind on its ascent to power. His withering analysis will help readers crack the code of the economic dynamics that allowed these companies to become near-monopolies very early on, and, with a little bit of luck, his calls for digital socialism might just inspire a viral movement for online revolution.
This report evaluates the In-House Laboratory Independent Research (ILIR) conducted at the Research, Development, and Engineering Centers (RDECs) of the U.S. Army's Research, Development, and Engineering Command (RDECOM) during 2018. It reviews and offers recommendations for each of the eight areas of ILIR research: chemistry, computational sciences, electronics, life sciences, materials science, mechanical sciences, network sciences, and physics. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 Introduction 2 Chemistry 3 Computational Sciences 4 Electronics 5 Life Sciences 6 Materials Science 7 Mechanical Sciences 8 Network Sciences 9 Physics 10 Crosscutting Recommendations Appendixes Appendix A: Army Research Program Review andAnalysis Committee Biographical Information Appendix B: Acronyms
Provides a nontechnical reference source of the relevant social science and policy literature on nanotechnology. The authors hope to engender not only a greater appreciation of the economic and social benefits of nanotechnology but also to encourage more extensive research and public support of this technology. Section 2 briefly overviews U.S. policy initiatives related to nanotechnology and to the systematic investment in research that the U.S. Congress has approved to advance it over the nearly past two decades. Section 3 summarizes these U.S. research investments into nanotechnology and compares dimensions of nanotechnology activity in the United States to activity in other countries. Section 4 offers a taxonomy and overview of the relevant social science and policy literature related to nanotechnology. The taxonomy is a subjective classifying device for tracking the growth of this literature over time; the overview is a descriptive summary of how researchers in these disciplines have characterized the practice of nanotechnology. The appendix to this monograph presents an annotated bibliography of this literature. The extensive annotated bibliography fills a gap in the literature because the reviews that exist are limited in scope, and the review points out the lack of policy research related to public investments in nanotechnology. Finally, Section 5 suggests specific directions for future policy research with a focus on a methodology for evaluating the social benefits of publicly funded nanotechnology R&D investments.
The primary federal program designed to ensure that all states are capable of participating the nation's research enterprise fall under the general rubric of the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCOR). The National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration have active EPSCOR programs. Since its inaugural year in 1979, the EPSCOR program has grown from funding programs in five states to awarding funding to 31 states in 2012. The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research assesses the effectiveness of EPSCOR and similar federal agency programs in improving national research capabilities, promoting an equitable distribution of research funding, and integrating their efforts with other initiatives designed to strengthen the nation's research capacity. This report also looks at the effectiveness of EPSCOR states in using awards to develop science engineering research and education, as well a science and engineering infrastructure within their state. The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research makes recommendations for improvement for each agency to create a more focused program with greater impact. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 Mission, Evolution, and Context 2 Program Structure and Operation 3 Assessments and Outcomes 4 Findings and Recommendations References Appendixes Appendix A: Agency Profiles Appendix B: State Profiles Appendix C: Statement of Task and Congressional Mandate Appendix D: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
On June 12-14, 2012, the Board on Global Science and Technology held an international, multidisciplinary workshop in Washington, D.C., to explore the challenges and advances in intelligent human-machine collaboration (IH-MC), particularly as it applies to unstructured environments. This workshop convened researchers from a range of science and engineering disciplines, including robotics, human-robot and human-machine interaction, software agents and multi-agentsystems, cognitive sciences, and human-machine teamwork. Participants were drawn from research organizations in Australia, China, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The first day of the workshop participants worked to determine how advances in IH-MC over the next two to three years could be applied solving a variety of different real-world scenarios in dynamic unstructured environments, ranging from managing a natural disaster to improving small-lot agile manufacturing. On the second day of the workshop, participants organized into small groups for a deeper exploration of research topics that had arisen, discussion of common challenges, hoped-for breakthroughs, and the national, transnational, and global context in which this research occurs. Day three of the workshop consisted of small groups focusing on longer term research deliverables, as well as identifying challenges and opportunities from different disciplinary and cultural perspectives. In addition, ten participants gave presentations on their research, ranging from human-robot communication, to disaster response robots, to human-in-the-loop control of robot systems. Intelligent Human-Machine Collaboration: Summary of a Workshop describes in detail the discussions and happenings of the three day workshop. Table of Contents Front Matter 1 Introduction 2 Scenario Exercises 3 Human-Machine Teamwork Panels 4 Common Challenges and Breakthroughs 5 Global and Transnational Issues 6 Revisiting the Scenarios Appendix A: Workshop Participants Appendix B: Workshop Agenda Appendix C: Presentation Abstracts
An inside account of the fight to contain the world's deadliest diseases,and the panic and corruption that make them worseThroughout history, humankind's biggest killers have been infectious diseases: the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and AIDS alone account for over one hundred million deaths. We ignore this reality most of the time, but when a new threat,Ebola, SARS, Zika,seems imminent, we send our best and bravest doctors to contain it. People like Dr. Ali S. Khan.In his long career as a public health first responder- protected by a thin mask from infected patients, napping under nets to keep out scorpions, making life-and-death decisions on limited, suspect information- Khan has found that rogue microbes will always be a problem, but outbreaks are often caused by people. We make mistakes, politicize emergencies, and, too often, fail to imagine the consequences of our actions. The Next Pandemic is a firsthand account of disasters like anthrax, bird flu, and others,and how we could do more to prevent their return. It is both a gripping story of our brushes with fate and an urgent lesson on how we can keep ourselves safe from the inevitable next pandemic.
In this book, Rudolf A. Raff reaches out to the scientifically queasy, using his life story and his growth as a scientist to illustrate why science matters, especially at a time when many Americans are both suspicious of science and hostile to scientific ways of thinking. Noting that science has too often been the object of controversy in school curriculums and debates on public policy issues ranging from energy and conservation to stem-cell research and climate change, Raff argues that when the public is confused or ill-informed, these issues tend to be decided on religious, economic, and political grounds that disregard the realities of the natural world. Speaking up for science and scientific literacy, Raff tells how and why he became an evolutionary biologist and describes some of the vibrant and living science of evolution. Once We All Had Gills is also the story of evolution writ large: its history, how it is studied, what it means, and why it has become a useful target in a cultural war against rational thought and the idea of a secular, religiously tolerant nation.
In the face of so many daunting near-term challenges, U.S. government and industry are letting the crucial strategic issues of U.S. competitiveness slip below the surface. Five years ago, the National Academies prepared Rising Above the Gathering Storm, a book that cautioned: "Without a renewed effort to bolster the foundations of our competitiveness, we can expect to lose our privileged position." Since that time we find ourselves in a country where much has changed-and a great deal has not changed. So where does America stand relative to its position of five years ago when the Gathering Storm book was prepared? The unanimous view of the authors is that our nation's outlook has worsened. The present volume, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited, explores the tipping point America now faces. Addressing America's competitiveness challenge will require many years if not decades; however, the requisite federal funding of much of that effort is about to terminate. Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited provides a snapshot of the work of the government and the private sector in the past five years, analyzing how the original recommendations have or have not been acted upon, what consequences this may have on future competitiveness, and priorities going forward. In addition, readers will find a series of thought- and discussion-provoking factoids-many of them alarming-about the state of science and innovation in America. Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited is a wake-up call. To reverse the foreboding outlook will require a sustained commitment by both individual citizens and government officials-at all levels. This book, together with the original Gathering Storm volume, provides the roadmap to meet that goal. While this book is essential for policy makers, anyone concerned with the future of innovation, competitiveness, and the standard of living in the United States will find this book an ideal tool for engaging their government representatives, peers, and community about this momentous issue. Table of Contents Front Matter Executive Summary 1.0 The Gathering Storm, Revisited 2.0 Efforts to Avert the Storm 3.0 Changing Circumstances 4.0 The Ingredients of Innovation 5.0 A Category 5 Storm Appendix A: Some Perspectives Appendix B: Report Reviewers Appendix C: Project Staff Appendix D: Bibliography
The Nobel Prizes in natural sciences have developed to become a unique measure of scientific excellence. Using archival documents, which have been released (50 years secrecy) for scholarly work, the author expertly traces the strengths and weaknesses of the Nobel system as exemplified by individual prizes. Surveys of the more than 100 years that the Prizes have been awarded are also presented. This book discusses the most important prize in the world of science and gives unique historical insights into how the laureate selection process has developed to secure optimal choice. No other book has been published which draws from previously classified archival materials to the extent that this book does. It indirectly deals with factors that foster scientific discoveries viz. the role of both individuals and institutions and thus provides invaluable insights for researchers, institutions and anyone interested in science.
Blockchain has the potential to revolutionize how people and organizations, who may not know or trust each other, share information and carry out transactions online. Nearly every institution on the planet wants to be a leader in blockchain technology as well as a home to significant platforms, applications, and companies. There is a need for a glocal policy to meet and support these goals as blockchain technology must embrace glocal values and ideals in its legal and regulatory frameworks. Glocal Policy and Strategies for Blockchain: Building Ecosystems and Sustainability discusses the features and advantages of blockchain technology, the innovative applications of blockchain technology, and the potent and limited aspects of blockchain technology. Covering topics such as digital change, international policy, and cyber security governance, this reference work is ideal for industry professionals, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.
The Russian science establishment was one of the largest in the world, boasting many Nobel prizes, a world-leading space program, and famous schools in mathematics, physics, and other fields. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the major financial supports for the scientific community were eliminated, with resulting "brain drain." The subsequent expansion of capitalism and globalization revealed that Russian science was ill adapted to compete with other countries in high technology. Science in the New Russia tells the dramatic story of the near collapse of Russian science in the mid-1990s and of subsequent domestic and international efforts to reform and reenergize scientific activity in Russia.
The Pioneer Fund, established in 1937 by Wickliffe Preston Draper,
is one of the most controversial nonprofit organizations in the
United States. Long suspected of misusing social science to fuel
the politics of oppression, the fund has specialized in supporting
research that seeks to prove the genetic and intellectual
inferiority of blacks while denying its ties to any political
agenda. This powerful and provocative volume proves that the
Pioneer Fund has indeed been the primary source for scientific
racism. Revealing a lengthy history of concerted and clandestine
activities and interests, "The Funding of Scientific Racism"
examines for the first time archival correspondence that
incriminates the fund's major players, including Draper, recently
deceased president Harry F. Weyher, and others.
The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation together fund more than $40 billon of research annually in the United States and around the globe. These large public expenditures come with strings, including a complex set of laws and guidelines that regulate how scientists may use NIH and NSF funds, how federally funded research may be conducted, and who may have access to or own the product of the research. Until now, researchers have had little instruction on the nature
of these laws and how they work. But now, with Robert P. Charrow's
"Law in the Laboratory," they have a readable and entertaining
introduction to the major ethical and legal considerations
pertaining to research under the aegis of federal science funding.
For any academic whose position is grant funded, or for any faculty
involved in securing grants, this book will be an essential
reference manual. And for those who want to learn how federal
legislation and regulations affect laboratory research, Charrow's
primer will shed light on the often obscured intersection of
government and science.
"Limited by Design" is the first comprehensive study of the varying roles played by the more than 16,000 research and development laboratories in the U.S. national innovation system. Michael Crow and Barry Bozeman offer policy makers and scientists a blueprint for making more informed decisions about how to best utilize and develop the capabilities of these facilities. Some labs, such as Bell Labs, Westinghouse, and Eastman Kodak, have been global players since the turn of the century. Others, such as Los Alamos National Laboratory, have been mainstays of the military/energy industrial complex since they evolved in the 1940s. These and other institutions have come to serve as the infrastructure upon which a range of industries have relied and have had a tremendous impact on U.S. social and economic history. Michael Crow and Barry Bozeman illustrate the histories, missions, structure, and behavior of individual laboratories, and explore the policy contexts in which they are embedded. In studying this large and varied collection of labs, Crow, Bozeman, and their colleagues develop a new framework for understanding the structure and behavior of laboratories that also provides a basis for rationalizing federal science and technology policy to create more effective laboratories. The book draws upon interviews and surveys collected from thousands of scientists, administrators, and policy makers, and features boxed "lab windows" throughout that provide detailed information on the variety of laboratories active in the U.S. national innovation system. "Limited by Design" addresses a range of questions in order to enable policy makers, university administrators, and scientists to plan effectively for the future of research and development.
An in-depth analysis of why COVID-19 warnings failed and how to avert the next disaster Epidemiologists and national security agencies warned for years about the potential for a deadly pandemic, but in the end global surveillance and warning systems were not enough to avert the COVID-19 disaster. In The COVID-19 Intelligence Failure, Erik J. Dahl demonstrates that understanding how intelligence warnings work-and how they fail-shows why the years of predictions were not enough. In the first in-depth analysis of the topic, Dahl examines the roles that both traditional intelligence services and medical intelligence and surveillance systems play in providing advance warning against public health threats-and how these systems must be improved for the future. For intelligence to effectively mitigate threats, specific, tactical-level warnings must be collected and shared in real time with receptive decision makers who will take appropriate action. Dahl shows how a combination of late and insufficient warnings about COVID-19, the Trump administration's political aversion to scientific advice, and decentralized public health systems all exacerbated the pandemic in the United States. Dahl's analysis draws parallels to other warning failures that preceded major catastrophes from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, placing current events in context. The COVID-19 Intelligence Failure is a wake-up call for the United States and the international community to improve their national security, medical, and public health intelligence systems and capabilities.
As one begins to explore the many complexities of quantum computing, nanotechnology, and AI, it becomes clear that there is an underlying reality within cyberspace that is comprised of other realities and that these realities all have their own biomes, ecosystems, and microbiomes built on information, energy, and human creative reality and potential. It is clear that there has not been much research on this , especially the piece dealing with the cyber microbiome, which looks at the part of the iceberg that is "under the surface" and makes up most of cyberspace, much like how our human microbiome is many orders of magnitude larger than our human cells. The microbiome is extremely important from the perspective of how to treat diseases in humans, especially bacterial infections. The same is true for how to treat "diseases" in the cyber meta-reality. Thus, knowing all we can about the cyber meta-reality, biome, and microbiome is absolutely necessary in ensuring this world's growth, care, and flourishing.
Reimagining transparency and secrecy in the era of digital data When total data surveillance delimits agency and revelations of political wrongdoing fail to have consequences, is transparency the social panacea liberal democracies purport it to be? This book sets forth the provocative argument that progressive social goals would be better served by a radical form of secrecy, at least while state and corporate forces hold an asymmetrical advantage over the less powerful in data control. Clare Birchall asks: How might transparency actually serve agendas that are far from transparent? Can we imagine a secrecy that could act in the service of, rather than against, a progressive politics? To move beyond atomizing calls for privacy and to interrupt the perennial tension between state security and the public's right to know, Birchall adapts Edouard Glissant's thinking to propose a digital "right to opacity." As a crucial element of radical secrecy, she argues, this would eventually give rise to a "postsecret" society, offering an understanding and experience of the political that is free from the false choice between secrecy and transparency. She grounds her arresting story in case studies including the varied presidential styles of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump; the Snowden revelations; conspiracy theories espoused or endorsed by Trump; WikiLeaks and guerrilla transparency; and the opening of the state through data portals. Postsecrecy is the necessary condition for imagining, finally, an alternative vision of "the good," of equality, as neither shaped by neoliberal incarnations of transparency nor undermined by secret state surveillance. Not least, postsecrecy reimagines collective resistance in the era of digital data.
Geoengineering, the idea of addressing climate change through large-scale technological projects, is a unique example of a contested emerging technology. It stands out in the degree to which both its scope of possibilities and its premise are characterized by global existential risks. Despite controversy, this field has been shifting toward mainstream consideration. Geoengineering Discourse Confronting Climate Change: The Move from Margins to Mainstream in Science, News Media, and Politics examines the trajectory of geoengineering through critical discourse analysis of three key genres: science policy reports, news media journalism, and congressional hearings. Brynna Jacobson explores how science policy reports from distinguished scientific societies have constructed certain notions of legitimacy around geoengineering as well as how narratives within news coverage have shaped the public discourse and understanding of geoengineering. The book further demonstrates that geoengineering has garnered political support from both major political parties in the United States. Through analysis of discursive conventions within these genres, the author reveals the evolution of notions of normalcy, legitimacy, and imperative around the field of geoengineering.
The Returns to Publicly Funded R&D focuses on the returns to U.S. public-sector investments in R&D and the accompanying new empirical analysis relates specifically to the returns to public-sector R&D expenditures in U.S. Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs). One motivation for studying the rates of return to public-sector R&D is the paucity of existing literature on the topic. However, there are two other important motivations for studying the rates of returns to public-sector R&D: a public accountability motivation and a mandated public policy motivation. Although the analysis of investments in R&D in FFRDCs presented herein is econometrics based, there is however a frequently overlooked program evaluation literature that also offers insight into the rates of returns to public-sector R&D. Examples of the program evaluation literature is presented in Section 3 for completeness as well as to illustrate a broader rate of return concept than that presented in the econometrics-based literature. U.S. legislative actions to increase publicly funded R&D in support of private-sector R&D are discussed in Section 4. For the purpose of providing context, a brief history of FFRDCs in the United States is presented in Section 5. FFRDCs have surprisingly been an overlooked element of the public-sector ecosystem that supports public-sector research. An empirical analysis of U.S. public-sector R&D expenditures in FFRDCs, and the associated scientific publications, is presented and discussed in Section 6. Concluding observations about the themes discussed throughout this monograph are offered in Section 7. |
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