Research and Development as a Competence Creating Business in a Business

Research and development departments in industrial firms may not take it for granted anymore that they are the only preferred supplier of research and development to the company of which they are a part. The growing need to be innovative and the increasing availability of innovative competencies on the market result in a pressure on these departments to become more business–like and to reconsider their sources of competitive advantage over other (potential) suppliers of research and development. Traditionally, scientific and technological knowledge and skills concerning the product were the prime source. Nowadays, managerial competencies and the ability to work for and with your clients and suppliers are becoming more important. To become a competitive business in a business, research and development departments should create the competencies that enable them to create value for their clients. This calls for good competence management, comprising management of human resources, information technology, and internal and external interfaces. In this paper we explore what it means and what it takes for research and development departments to implement competence management, elaborating it theoretically and describing a case of competence management in the research and development department of a European car company.     

The electromagnetic edge wave due to a point source of current radiating in the presence of a conducting wedge

Cylindrical wave expansions for the dyadic Green's functions for electric and magnetic fields of a point source of electric current radiating in the presence of a perfectly conducting wedge are derived using a scalarization procedure developed by Levine and Schwinger. The forms derived from this procedure involve a sum over angular wavenumbers and a continuous spectral integral which may be expressed either as an integration over a longitudinal or a radial spectral variable. Some relationships between these two representations are discussed. The longitudinal spectrum integral has a pair of branch points as its only singularities and may be evaluated asymptotically along a steepest descent path away from one of the branch points. The resulting asymptotic representation is found to agree with an earlier result obtained by Kouyoumjian and Buyukdura. The edge-guided wave interpretation of the asymptotic field is discussed, both in light of the longitudinal spectral representation and of the physical content of the asymptotic representation.     

Incidence of bitter pit in relation to the calcium content of apples: Calcium distribution in the fruit

The distribution of calcium at harvest, its subsequent redistribution within the fruit during storage in air at 2.8°C and bitter pit development in samples of Cox's Orange Pippin apples picked at intervals during September and October were investigated. The distribution of calcium in the fruit changed on the tree and during storage. The percentages of pitted apples, assessed in January, were poorly related to calcium concentrations in the whole fruit or in any fruit zone at harvest. Redistribution of calcium from the mid and outer cortical tissues to the core zone was followed, at longer intervals over successive picks, by the appearance of bitter pit lesions. The earliest-picked sample was less affected by bitter pit than samples picked later in September. The least bitter pit occurred in samples picked in October, after the climacteric rise in respiration, and these fruits were apparently less subject to fluctuations in calcium concentrations during storage.     

A general framework for linear periodic systems with applicationsto H∞ sampled-data control

The authors present a framework for dealing with continuous-time periodic systems. The main tool is a lifting technique which provides a strong correspondence between continuous-time periodic systems and certain types of discrete-time time-invariant systems with infinite-dimensional input and output spaces. Despite the infinite dimensionality of the input and output spaces, a lifted system has a finite-dimensional state space if the original system does. This fact permits rather constructive methods for analyzing these systems. As a demonstration of the utility of this framework, the authors use it to describe the continuous-time (i.e., intersample) behavior of sampled-data systems, and to obtain a complete solution to the problem of parameterizing all controllers that constrain the L² -induced norm of a sampled-data system to within a certain bound     

A double-blind placebo-controlled phase II trial of thalidomide in asymptomatic HIV-positive patients: clinical tolerance and effect on activation markers and cytokines

A randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study was performed to determine the safety, efficacy, and effect of thalidomide on a variety of immunological and biochemical parameters in asymptomatic human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive patients. Nineteen male patients with elevated markers of immune activation and CD4 cell counts above 400/mm3 were randomized to either placebo or thalidomide at 100 mg/day for 24 weeks. However, only 3 (of 10) patients receiving thalidomide completed all 24 weeks compared to 6 (of 9) patients receiving placebo. This was mainly due to fatigue (somnolence is a recognized side effect), although this was also seen to a lesser extent in the placebo group and so may not be drug attributable. No significant changes in CD4/CD8 count, activation markers, TNF-alpha, or TNFR1 were observed. However, a nonsignificant trend toward inhibition of mitogen-induced TNF-alpha production was observed in the thalidomide arm. The lack of systemic effect and the lower tolerance of thalidomide (at this dose) in asymptomatic patients highlights the need for pharmacokinetic analysis to address possible absorption problems and the need for more potent and less toxic TNF-alpha inhibitors to be developed for use in this type of study.     

The development of bases for trait attribution: Children's understanding of traits as causal mechanisms based on desire.

Two studies investigated 4- to 7-year-old children's understanding that traits can be causal mechanisms based on desires, as well as mere summaries of behavioral regularities. In Experiment 1, children made predictions given trait information. Children from 5 years made different emotion predictions about the same situation for actors with different traits, thus appreciating traits as psychological causes. For behavior prediction, children over age 4 generalized across situations. In Experiment 2, accurate emotion prediction by 3- to 7-year-olds was linked to understanding desire as a subjective mental property. The results suggest that children change from viewing traits as behavioral regularities to understanding them as internal mediators, and that advances in understanding desire underlie this change. These changes in understanding traits extend research on theory of mind beyond the basic concepts of desire and belief. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Magnetoluminescence properties of Hg1−xCdxTe epitaxial layers and superlattice structures grown by metalorganic molecular beam epitaxy

We present a study of the electro-optical properties ofHg _1- xCd_xTe epitaxial layers and Hg_1-x Cd_xTe/CdTe (0.28 < x < 0.30) superlattice structures by x-ray diffraction, lateral transport and photo- and magneto-luminescence measurements. Systematic studies of the excitation intensity and magnetic field dependence of the photoluminescence revealed direct evidence of an excitonic contribution to the observed luminescence in Hg_{1- x}Cd_xTe epitaxial layers. Similar investigations of the superlattice structures indicated that excitonic corrections were required to adequately fit the luminescence data. Optical gains of 80 cm⁻¹ were obtained for an excitation intensity of 100 kW/cm² indicating suitable electro-optical properties for making efficient mid-infrared laser diodes.     

Cross-language synonyms in the lexicons of bilingual infants: one language or two?

This study tests the widely-cited claim from Volterra & Taeschner (1978), which is reinforced by Clark's PRINCIPLE OF CONTRAST (1987), that young simultaneous bilingual children reject cross-language synonyms in their earliest lexicons. The rejection of translation equivalents is taken by Volterra & Taeschner as support for the idea that the bilingual child possesses a single-language system which includes elements from both languages. We examine first the accuracy of the empirical claim and then its adequacy as support for the argument that bilingual children do not have independent lexical systems in each language. The vocabularies of 27 developing bilinguals were recorded at varying intervals between ages 0;8 and 2;6 using the MacArthur CDI, a standardized parent report form in English and Spanish. The two single-language vocabularies of each bilingual child were compared to determine how many pairs of translation equivalents (TEs) were reported for each child at different stages of development. TEs were observed for all children but one, with an average of 30% of all words coded in the two languages, both at early stages (in vocabularies of 2-12 words) and later (up to 500 words). Thus, Volterra & Taeschner's empirical claim was not upheld. Further, the number of TEs in the bilinguals' two lexicons was shown to be similar to the number of lexical items which co-occurred in the monolingual lexicons of two different children, as observed in 34 random pairings for between-child comparisons. It remains to be shown, therefore, that the bilinguals' lexicons are not composed of two independent systems at a very early age. Furthermore, the results appear to rule out the operation of a strong principle of contrast across languages in early bilingualism.     

beta-Amyloid precursor protein isoforms show correlations with neurones but not with glia of demented subjects

Post-mortem cerebral cortex from 15 demented patients was specially collected to minimise autolysis and two membrane fractions and one soluble fraction were quantitatively examined for the major species of beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP) of high apparent molecular mass (> or = 80 kDa) together with the major mRNA species encoding APP isoforms. The number of pyramidal neurones and astrocytes, putative biochemical indices of interneurones and pyramidal neurones, and choline acetyl transferase activity were also determined. Multiple regression analysis has been used to investigate intercorrelations of APP species with biochemical and morphometric measures, free of any effects of confounding demographic variables. Subjects with Alzheimer's disease showed a loss of cholinergic activity and D-aspartate uptake compared with patients with other causes of dementia. The major finding of the study is that measures of neurones rather than astrocytes most closely correlate with the concentration of APP. Pyramidal cell numbers were positively correlated with mRNA for APP695. APP in the soluble fraction showed a negative correlation with pyramidal cell numbers and cholinergic activity. These results indicate that neurones within the cerebral cortex are the major source of APP, and that secretion of APP is dependent upon cortical pyramidal neuronal activity and cholinergic activity.     

Water‐uptake kinetics in poly(methyl methacrylate) films with a fluorescent rotor probe

A fluorescence method was adapted to measure moisture‐uptake kinetics in films of poly(methyl methacrylate), and data were interpreted in the context of a Fickian diffusion model. The films, 2–60 μm thick, were supported on acid‐etched microscope slides. They were compared with several freestanding slabs about 1 mm thick. The moisture diffusion in the slabs was Fickian with a diffusivity of 3.2 × 10^?9 cm²/s. The apparent Fickian diffusivity in the films decreased substantially with decreasing film thickness; however, a careful examination revealed that the initial moisture uptake was governed by a thickness‐independent diffusivity for a wide range of film thicknesses. This suggested that the appearance of non‐Fickian behavior originated within about a micrometer of the buried interface, possibly as a result of water accumulation beneath the film or slight thickness variations. Moisture uptake in the thickest films was more rapid than in the slabs, most likely because of residual thermal stresses. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 86: 2463–2471, 2002