It is commonly accepted nowadays that innovations are brought forward in an interactive process of knowledge generation and application. The business sector, the science sector, and policy actors are involved in this process as has been stressed in concepts such as innovation systems and the network approach. It is still unclear, however, as to what extent different kinds of innovation rely on specific knowledge sources and links. More advanced innovations on the one hand might draw more on scientific knowledge, generated in universities and research organizations. Such knowledge is often exchanged in personal interactions at a local or regional level. Incremental innovations and the adoption of new technologies, on the other hand, seem to occur often in interaction with partners from the business sector also at higher spatial levels. In this paper we analyze such patterns of knowledge links. After dealing with knowledge interactions from a conceptual view and reviewing the relevant literature, we present an empirical analysis for Austria. The findings show that firms introducing more advanced innovations are relying to a higher extent on R&D and patents, and that they are cooperating more often with universities and research organizations. Firms having introduced less advanced innovations rely more on knowledge links with business services. Furthermore, the employment of researchers was identified as a key factor enhancing knowledge interactions of firms with universities. (authors' abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

La question du sujet. Question fondamentale qui constitue comme un fil rouge pour qui souhaite cheminer et s’orienter dans la pensée philosophique d’Emmanuel Levinas. S’orienter dans une pensée intempestive et toujours mouvante, qui se déplace et progresse comme le mouvement des vagues, continu et entraînant. Mouvement intime et constitutif d’une pensée puissante qui, depuis ses débuts jusqu’à son acmé, n’a cessé de porter, autant que d’être portée par elle, cette question abyssale du sujet. Interrogation vertigineuse, en effet, qui se double intimement d’une intense réflexion sur l’altérité et sur ses différentes modalités de signification, d’expression. L’un et l’autre, le sujet et l’altérité, tous deux participent d’un seul et même souffle, d’une seule et même geste philosophique que Levinas entend déplier patiemment depuis ses premières œuvres jusqu’à son maître-ouvrage, le plus aride par son style syncopé, le plus déroutant par son écriture cassée et le plus dérangeant, surtout, par sa radicalité éthique : Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence (1974). Ouvrage de la maturité où s’élabore et se donne à voir page après page une nouvelle figure du sujet, à la fois extrêmement aboutie, taillée dans la roche, ciselée même et ô combien questionnante et soumise elle-même à vive controverse. Un sujet fragile - débarrassé de toute stance égologique, de toute assise substantielle - expatrié en somme, autant que faire se peut, de ses antiques terres et privilèges ontologiques. Une subjectivité éthique, précisément, que Levinas expose sous toutes ses coutures et dans ses moindres nervures et replis possibles ; une subjectivité autopsiée en quelque sorte, ouverte, comme malgré elle, sur l’énigmatique travail d’une altérité intime qui l’habite depuis toujours. / The question of the subject. A fundamental question which is like a red thread for those who want to talk and move in Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophical thought. Move in an untimely and always moving thought that moves and progresses as wave motion, continuous and catchy. Intimate movement and constitutes a powerful thought that, from its inception to its peak, has stopped wearing as much as to be driven by it, the abyssal question of the subject. Querying dizzying, indeed, that intimately doubles intense reflection on otherness, both part of a single breath, a single philosophical movement that Levinas means unfold patiently for his early works to his master-piece, his most arid, confusing, broken and disturbing work, especially by its ethical radicalism writing syncopated style : Otherwise than Being or beyond Essence (1974). A work of maturity which is developed and gives page after page to see a new face of the subject, both extremely accomplished, carved into the rock and even chased oh questionnante and subjected itself to controversy. A fragile subject – free of any egological stance, of any substantial base – expatriate in short as far as possible, its ancient lands and ontological privilege. Ethical subjectivity is what Levinas precisely exposes in all its glory and in its lower ribs and possible downturns ; subjectivity autopsied somehow open, as in spite of itself, the enigmatic work of an intimate otherness that has always inhabited.

Reformed Epistemology is an influential view in contemporary philosophy of religion, according to which theistic beliefs that are the product of our native, non-inferential cognitive faculties often constitute knowledge if God exists. My aim in this thesis is to ascertain whether Reformed Epistemology is viable in light of contemporary scientific explanations of the mechanisms of religious belief- formation, especially the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR). I argue for a qualified “yes.” To begin with, I attempt to carefully reconstruct and scrutinise some currently popular “debunking arguments” from CSR’s findings, which aim to show that non-inferential religious beliefs are not knowledge, even if true, given the causal origins that CSR ascribes to them. I try to show that in various ways these arguments fail. Subsequently, I attempt to find a better such argument. The strongest debunking argument, I contend, is one that focuses upon the diverse and mutually inconsistent outputs of the religious belief-producing mechanisms described by CSR. However, I go on to argue that even supposing that this argument succeeds in showing that religious beliefs that are partly the product of contingent cultural influences are not knowledge even if true, there remains a body of what I term “core propositions”—propositions concerning the existence of some kind of personal, supernatural creator and moral lawgiver, in which humans are naturally disposed to believe regardless of their particular cultural setting— that can be known if God exists. Finally, I try to show that merely having this core supernaturalistic knowledge would provide someone with the cognitive contact with God that is sufficient for having a personal relationship with God (if God exists), even if only de re relationship. I argue, moreover, that God would have positively good reasons for creating a world in which human beliefs about life’s most important matters, including religious matters, are significantly dependent upon testimony and hence subject to the ebbs and flows of cultural tides.

The last couple of years have seen a fascinating evolution. While the early Web predominantly focused on human consumption of Web content, the widespread dissemination of social software and Web 2.0 technologies enabled new forms of collaborative content creation and problem solving. These new forms often utilize the principles of collective intelligence, a phenomenon that emerges from a group of people who either cooperate or compete with each other to create a result that is better or more intelligent than any individual result (Leimeister, 2010; Malone, Laubacher, & Dellarocas, 2010). Crowdsourcing has recently gained attention as one of the mechanisms that taps into the power of web-enabled collective intelligence (Howe, 2008). Brabham (2013) defines it as “an online, distributed problem-solving and production model that leverages the collective intelligence of online communities to serve specific organizational goals” (p. xix). Well-known examples of crowdsourcing platforms are Wikipedia, Amazon Mechanical Turk, or InnoCentive. Since the emergence of the term crowdsourcing in 2006, one popular misconception is that crowdsourcing relies largely on an amateur crowd rather than a pool of professional skilled workers (Brabham, 2013). As this might be true for low cognitive tasks, such as tagging a picture or rating a product, it is often not true for complex problem-solving and creative tasks, such as developing a new computer algorithm or creating an impressive product design. This raises the question of how to efficiently allocate an enterprise crowdsourcing task to appropriate members of the crowd. The sheer number of crowdsourcing tasks available at crowdsourcing intermediaries makes it especially challenging for workers to identify a task that matches their skills, experiences, and knowledge (Schall, 2012, p. 2). An explanation why the identification of appropriate expert knowledge plays a major role in crowdsourcing is partly given in Condorcet’s jury theorem (Sunstein, 2008, p. 25). The theorem states that if the average participant in a binary decision process is more likely to be correct than incorrect, then as the number of participants increases, the higher the probability is that the aggregate arrives at the right answer. When assuming that a suitable participant for a task is more likely to give a correct answer or solution than an improper one, efficient task recommendation becomes crucial to improve the aggregated results in crowdsourcing processes. Although some assumptions of the theorem, such as independent votes, binary decisions, and homogenous groups, are often unrealistic in practice, it illustrates the importance of an optimized task allocation and group formation that consider the task requirements and workers’ characteristics. Ontologies are widely applied to support semantic search and recommendation mechanisms (Middleton, De Roure, & Shadbolt, 2009). However, little research has investigated the potentials and the design of an ontology for the domain of enterprise crowdsourcing. The author of this thesis argues in favor of enhancing the automation and interoperability of an enterprise crowdsourcing environment with the introduction of a semantic vocabulary in form of an expressive but easy-to-use ontology. The deployment of a semantic vocabulary for enterprise crowdsourcing is likely to provide several technical and economic benefits for an enterprise. These benefits were the main drivers in efforts made during the research project of this thesis: 1. Task allocation: With the utilization of the semantics, requesters are able to form smaller task-specific crowds that perform tasks at lower costs and in less time than larger crowds. A standardized and controlled vocabulary allows requesters to communicate specific details about a crowdsourcing activity within a web page along with other existing displayed information. This has advantages for both contributors and requesters. On the one hand, contributors can easily and precisely search for tasks that correspond to their interests, experiences, skills, knowledge, and availability. On the other hand, crowdsourcing systems and intermediaries can proactively recommend crowdsourcing tasks to potential contributors (e.g., based on their social network profiles). 2. Quality control: Capturing and storing crowdsourcing data increases the overall transparency of the entire crowdsourcing activity and thus allows for a more sophisticated quality control. Requesters are able to check the consistency and receive appropriate support to verify and validate crowdsourcing data according to defined data types and value ranges. Before involving potential workers in a crowdsourcing task, requesters can also judge their trustworthiness based on previous accomplished tasks and hence improve the recruitment process. 3. Task definition: A standardized set of semantic entities supports the configuration of a crowdsourcing task. Requesters can evaluate historical crowdsourcing data to get suggestions for equal or similar crowdsourcing tasks, for example, which incentive or evaluation mechanism to use. They may also decrease their time to configure a crowdsourcing task by reusing well-established task specifications of a particular type. 4. Data integration and exchange: Applying a semantic vocabulary as a standard format for describing enterprise crowdsourcing activities allows not only crowdsourcing systems inside but also crowdsourcing intermediaries outside the company to extract crowdsourcing data from other business applications, such as project management, enterprise resource planning, or social software, and use it for further processing without retyping and copying the data. Additionally, enterprise or web search engines may exploit the structured data and provide enhanced search, browsing, and navigation capabilities, for example, clustering similar crowdsourcing tasks according to the required qualifications or the offered incentives.

This thesis deals with the isotopic composition of lead and 210 lead in recent galena from burning heaps after coal mining in the Lower Silesian basin. The studied sites were heaps in Radvanice, Markoušovice and Rybníček, where samples of galena, coal and burnt rocks were available. For the determination of the isotopic composition was used mass spectrometry with inductively coupled plasma (ICP - MS). Mass 210 Pb activity in galena was measured in a gamma - spectrometer Silar and the effect of radioactivity on galena crystal lattice was determined by the modified Williamson - Hall graph which was made from taken X-ray diffraction data. The values of isotope ratios in galena ranged for 207 Pb/206 Pb = 0,8402 to 0,8435 and for 208 Pb/206 Pb = 2,0663 to 2,0836. The average values of the coal were measured for 207 Pb/206 Pb = 0,8312 and 208 Pb/206 Pb = 2,0421. On the basis of these isotope ratios was found out that during the burning of coal and subsequent galena crystallization from hot gases there is no isotopic fractionation. Mass 210 Pb activity in galena ranged from 135 ± 9 Bq/g to 714 ± 22 Bq/g. Radioactivity of galena causes the developement of micro-deformation in the crystal structure. This micro-deformation is demonstrated by increased micro-strain in the crystal lattice. The level of this...

The purpose of this study was to analyze the amount of time spent shopping by family members. The researcher also intended to identify factors that influence the amount of time devoted to shopping. Data for the study came from the Utah portion of the "Interstate Comparison of Urban/Rural Families' Time Use" which involved 210 two - parent / two -child families in Utah. Data were collected through interviews with the homemakers in each family using diaries and an information questionnaire . Shopping time of the homemaker, spouse, and children were analyzed. The factors considered included employment status of the homemaker, place of residence, family income level, age of younger child, and the number of family members 16 and elder. Statistical analysis W3S done using a Pearson product moment correlation, a t test, and analysis of variance. Findings revealed that shopping is an activity that consumes approximately 10% of total housework time of all family members. The homemaker spends more minutes per day shopping than any other family member. Time spent in paid employment by the homemaker seems to be the major factor influencing her time spent shopping. The more time spent in paid employment, the less time the homemaker spent shopping. The factors influencing the shopping time of children are level of family income and age of child. As level of family income increases, the amount of time spent shopping by the child increases. It was found that as children get older, they spend less time shopping. The shopping time of the wife was the only factor related to the shopping time of the husband. As the wives' shopping time increased, the amount of time spent shopping by husbands also increased.

Objective: Up-regulated expression of transcription-factor E2F1 in human visceral adipose tissue (VAT) characterizes a dysmetabolic obesity sub-phenotype. An E2F1-miRNA network has been described in multiple cancers. Here we investigated whether elevated VAT-E2F1 in obesity is associated with VAT-miRNA alterations similar to, or distinct from, those described in cancer. Furthermore, we assessed if E2F1-associated miRNA changes may contribute to the link between high- VAT-E2F1 and a dysmetabolic obesity phenotype. Methods: We assembled a cohort of patients with obesity and high-VAT-E2F1, matched by age, sex, ±BMI to patients with low-VAT-E2F1, with and without obesity (8 patients/groupX3 groups). We performed Nanostring -based miRNA profiling of VAT samples from all 24 patients. Candidate E2F1-related miRNAs were validated by qPCR in an independent cohort of patients with extreme obesity, with or without type-2-diabetes (T2DM) (n = 20). Bioinformatic tools and manipulation of E2F1 expression in cells were used to establish the plausibility of the functional VAT-E2F1-miRNA network in obesity. Results: Among n = 798 identified miRNAs, 17 were differentially expressed in relation to E2F1 and not to obesity itself. No evidence for the cancer-related E2F1-miRNA network was identified in human VAT in obesity. In HEK293-cells, overexpression/downregulation of E2F1 correspondingly altered the expression of miRNA-206 and miRNA-210-5p, two miRNAs with reported metabolic functions consistent with those of E2F1. In VAT from both cohorts, the expression of both miRNA-206 and 210-5p intercorrelated, and correlated with the expression of E2F1. In cohort 1 we did not detect significant associations with biochemical parameters. In cohort 2 of patients with extreme obesity, all those with high VAT-E2F1 showed a diabetes-complicated obesity phenotype and higher expression of miRNA-206 and miRNA-210-5p, which also correlated with fasting glucose levels (both miRNAs) and fasting insulin (miRNA-210-5p). Conclusions: Whilst the previously described cancer-related E2F1-miRNA network does not appear to operate in VAT in obesity, miRNAs-206 and 210-5p may link high-E2F1 expression in VAT with diabetes-complicated extreme obesity phenotype.

L’hypoxie est une caractéristique commune des tumeurs solides et l’une des spécificités du micro environnement tumoral. L’hypoxie tumorale joue un rôle important dans l’angio génèse, la progression maligne, le développement de métastases, la chimio/radio-résistance et favorise l’échappement au système immunitaire du fait de l’émergence de variant tumoraux avec un potentiel de survie et de résistance à l’apoptose augmenté. Cependant, très peu de travaux ont étudié l’impact de l’hypoxie tumorale sur la régulation de la susceptibilité des tumeurs à la lyse induite par la réponse immune cytotoxique. Nous nous sommes donc demandé si l’hypoxie pouvait conférer aux tumeurs une résistance à la lyse induite par les lymphocytes T cytotoxiques (CTL). Nous avons démontré que l’exposition de cellules cibles tumorales à l’hypoxie possédait un effet inhibiteur sur la lyse de ces cellules tumorales par des CTL autologues. Cette inhibition n’est pas associée à des altérations de la réactivité de CTL ou de la reconnaissance des cellules cibles. Cependant, nous avons montré que l’induction hypoxique concomitante de la phosphorylation de STAT3 (pSTAT3) au niveau de la tyrosine 705 et du facteur HIF-1α (Hypoxia Inducible Factor-1 alpha) est liée fonctionnellement à l’altération de la susceptibilité de cellules tumorales bronchiques non à petites cellules (NSCLC) à la mort induite par les CTL. Nous avons aussi montré que la résistance de cellules tumorales bronchiques à la lyse CTL induite par l’hypoxie était associée à une induction d’autophagie dans les cellules cibles. En effet, l’inhibition de l’autophagie empêche la phosphorylation de STAT3 (via l’inhibition de la kinase Src) et restaure la susceptibilité des cellules tumorales hypoxiques à la lyse induite par les CTL. De plus, l’inhibition in vivo de l’autophagie par l’hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) dans le modèle murin portant la tumeur B16F10 and chez les souris vaccinée avec le peptide TRP2 augmente de façon drastique l’inhibition de la croissance tumorale. Collectivement, cette étude établit un nouveau lien fonctionnel entre l’autophagie induite par l’hypoxie et la régulation de la lyse induite par les cellules T spécifique d’antigènes et souligne le rôle majeur de l’autophagie dans le contrôle de la croissance tumorale in vivo.Finalement, étant donné que le la résistance tumorale à la lyse induite par les cellules tueuses est très probablement régulée par de multiples facteurs, nous avons aussi eu pour but d’identifier les micro-ARNs (miRs) régulés par l’hypoxie dans des modèles de NSCLC et de mélanome et leur implication putative dans la régulation de la susceptibilité tumorale à la lyse induite par les cellules T spécifique d’antigènes. Le micro-ARN 210 (miR-210) est ainsi significativement induit de manière dépendante de HIF-1α dans des cellules de NSCLC et de mélanome, et miR-210 est exprimé dans les zones hypoxiques de tissus issus de NSCLC. De plus, nous avons démontré que l’induction de miR-210 par l’hypoxie régule la susceptibilité tumorale à la lyse induite par les CTL en partie grâce à l’inhibition de l’expression de PTPN, HOXA1 et TP53I11, indiquant que miR-210 joue un rôle potentiel dans la régulation de la réponse immune antitumorale. / Hypoxia is a common feature of solid tumors and one of the hallmarks of tumor microenvironment. Tumor hypoxia plays an important role in angiogenesis, malignant progression, metastatic development, chemo-radio resistance and favours immune evasion by the emergence of tumor variants with increased survival and anti-apoptotic potential. There is very little work done on the impact of tumor hypoxia on the regulation of tumor susceptibility to the lysis induced by cytotoxic antitumor response. Therefore, we asked whether hypoxia confers tumor resistance to cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL)-mediated killing. We demonstrated that exposure of target cells to hypoxia has an inhibitory effect on the CTL-mediated autologous target cell lysis. Such inhibition was not associated with an alteration of CTL reactivity and tumor target recognition. We also showed that the concomitant hypoxic induction of Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) phosphorylation on tyrosine 705 residue (pSTAT3) and hypoxia inducible factor 1 alpha (HIF-1α) is functionally linked to the alteration of Non small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) target susceptibility to CTL-mediated killing. We also showed that hypoxia-induced resistance of lung tumor to CTL-mediated lysis was associated with autophagy induction in target cells. Inhibition of autophagy resulted in impairment of pSTAT3 (via inhibition Src kinase) and restoration of hypoxic tumor cell susceptibility to CTL-mediated lysis. Moreover, in vivo inhibition of autophagy by hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in B16F10 tumor bearing mice and mice vaccinated with TRP2 peptide dramatically increased tumor growth inhibition. Collectively, the current study establishes a novel functional link between hypoxia-induced autophagy and the regulation of antigen specific T cell lysis and points to a major role of autophagy in the control of in vivo tumor growth.Finally, as resistance of tumor targets to killer cells is likely to be regulated by multiple factors, we further aimed to identify the microRNA’s regulated by hypoxia in NSCLC and melanoma and their putative involvement in the regulation of tumor susceptibility to antigen-specific CTL-mediated killing. MicroRNA-210 (miR-210) was significantly induced in a HIF-1α dependent manner in NSCLC and melanoma cells and miR-210 was expressed in hypoxic zones of human NSCLC tissues. Moreover, we demonstrated that hypoxia-induced miR-210 regulates tumor cell susceptibility to CTL-mediated lysis in part by suppressing PTPN, HOXA1 and TP53I11 expression indicating that miR-210 plays a potential role in the regulation of anti-tumor immune response.

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