Using patents and publications to assess R&D efficiency in the states of the USA

Even with the USA spending the largest amounts in R&D, its share in total patent grants worldwide has been declining. This decline is also evident in its share of world scientific publications. These developments have been termed by some as the “American Paradox”. Extant research on R&D efficiency and technological innovation capability has considered the USA as a homogeneous entity and has not focused at the sub-national level. This paper analyses the R&D efficiency of 50 US states and the District of Columbia. R&D efficiency is calculated as the ratio of patents granted and scientific publications to R&D expenditures. Only 14 states out of the 51 regions are found to exhibit positive changes in R&D efficiency between 2004 and 2008. Comparing this performance with that of the BRICS nations over the same period we find that Brazil, India, China and South Korea show significant improvements in R&D efficiency with India taking the lead. This research identifies the states in the US with the highest R&D efficiency and presents benchmarks which can be followed by policy interventions. The paper highlights the importance of conducting analyses of R&D efficiency using patents and publications at the sub-national level for informed policy making.     

Review of nanomaterials R&D in 21st century in Thailand with highlight on nanoparticle technology

The authors first survey, classify, analyze and summarize the main statistics on international papers on nanomaterials (nanoparticles) published by Thai and foreign authors affiliated with organizations and institutions in Thailand. To get a better overall and more balanced view of Thailand’s strengths and specific fields of national interest, the corresponding statistics of selected ASEAN countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam) and Japan are also collected, analyzed and compared. Next the emphasis turns to nanomaterials, including nanoparticle technology, research in Thailand. The strengths and fields of interest of selected centers/labs are highlighted, especially those that have not been described recently elsewhere. Applications of nanomaterials/nanoparticles in Thailand are also briefly introduced.     

A note on the divergence problem arising in calculation of Green’s function for a 2D piezoelectric thin film strip with free boundaries and containing straight line defects: Fourier approach for bodies of cubic symmetry

Analytic formulas for the Green’s function and the coupled electro-elastic fields for a 2D piezoelectric strip with free boundaries and containing a distribution of straight line defects have already been found some years ago. These formulas exploit the well-known Stroh formalism and the Fourier approach, so the result is given as the Fourier integral and therefore its numerical implementation should pose no problem. However, in this note we show that for the case of cubic symmetry this form of the Green’s function contains strong divergences, excluding possibilities of direct application of well-known numerical schemes. It is also shown that these divergences translate to divergences of the corresponding electro-elastic fields of a single defect. By means of a rigorous analysis it is demonstrated that imposing physical conditions implied by the nature of the problem all of these divergences cancel and the final, physical result exhibits expected, regular behavior at infinity. Unfortunately, although the nature of this problem is purely mathematical, it leads to irremovable numerical ∞ − ∞ uncertainties which tend to spread over the whole Fourier domain and severely impede engineering applications of the Green’s function. This motivates us to compute the exact form of all divergent terms. These novel formulas will serve as a guide when establishing numerically stable algorithms for engineering computations involving the system in question.