Information and communication technologies hope to revolutionize the healthcare industry with innovative and affordable solutions with a focus on pervasive care. Wearable sensors products can provide monitoring in a natural environment with a constant stream of information, enriching healthcare practices and enabling better pervasive care. Wearable sensor technologies could monitor patients' mobility, gait, tremor, daily activity and other health indicators in real time that could allow for simple, non-invasive, tracking of spine care that may lead to increased patient engagement, integration, feedback, post-surgery analysis, monitoring of patient's condition, patient's data extraction and analysis and possibly aiding in better diagnosis, intervention, adherence to treatment for the betterment of quality of care. This research focuses on the assessment of technology adoption potential of medical devices particular to tracking the mobility of patients of neurosurgery and orthopedics. Wearable medical devices that track the mobility of patients after spinal procedures could help surgeons in providing post-operative care, analysis of treatment outcomes and patient mobility. The assessment of those devices by physicians is a complex process associated with various perspectives and criteria. Therefore, the objective of this research is to assess the potential for technology adoption of those wearable medical devices through development of a hierarchical decision-making model (HDM) that incorporates the relevant perspectives and criteria encompassing the needs of hospital neurological surgery and orthopedics departments. The proposed research builds on an existing body of knowledge researched through literature review and background of the field and expands the health technology assessment field by implementation of a holistic, comprehensive and multi-perspective approach to technology assessment in wearable sensor products adoption for pervasive care in neurosurgery and orthopedics. The Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) approach is used to break the problem down into hierarchical levels and then calculate the alternatives using pairwise comparison scales and a judgment quantification technique. Inconsistencies, disagreement, sensitivity and scenario analysis are performed as well. HDM research software is created with Ruby and R to facilitate the computation of some of these important model parameters to higher precision than is available in current statistical analysis software packages or extensions targeted for decision making. Patient perspective dominates as the main perspective for the technology adoption potential of wearable devices for pervasive care in neurosurgery and orthopedics, followed by technical and financial perspectives. Valedo, a wearable device aimed to relieve back pain through exercises, motivation and mobility tracking, received the highest ranking for adoption potential, while other devices also received high relative scores. The framework could serve as a supplementary technology assessment tool and could be tested in other settings: private, small clinic etc. with the experts and special needs of physicians in particular healthcare departments.

Intelligence tools have been developed and applied widely in many different areas in engineering, business and management. Many commercialized tools for business intelligence are available in the market. However, no practically useful tools for technology intelligence are available at this time, and very little academic research in technology intelligence methods has been conducted to date. Patent databases are the most important data source for technology intelligence tools, but patents inherently contain unstructured data. Consequently, extracting text data from patent databases, converting that data to meaningful information and generating useful knowledge from this information become complex tasks. These tasks are currently being performed very ineffectively, inefficiently and unreliably by human experts. This deficiency is particularly vexing in product planning, where awareness of market needs and technological capabilities is critical for identifying opportunities for new products and services. Total nescience of the text of patents, as well as inadequate, unreliable and untimely knowledge derived from these patents, may consequently result in missed opportunities that could lead to severe competitive disadvantage and potentially catastrophic loss of revenue. The research performed in this dissertation tries to correct the abovementioned deficiency with an approach called patent mining. The research is conducted at Finex, an iron casting company that produces traditional kitchen skillets. To 'mine' pertinent patents, experts in new product development at Finex modeled one ontology for the required product features and another for the attributes of requisite metallurgical enabling technologies from which new product opportunities for skillets are identified by applying natural language processing, information retrieval, and machine learning (classification) to the text of patents in the USPTO database. Three main scenarios are examined in my research. Regular classification (RC) relies on keywords that are extracted directly from a group of USPTO patents. Ontological classification (OC) relies on keywords that result from an ontology developed by Finex experts, which is evaluated and improved by a panel of external experts. Ontological semantic classification (OSC) uses these ontological keywords and their synonyms, which are extracted from the WordNet database. For each scenario, I evaluate the performance of three classifiers: k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN), random forest, and Support Vector Machine (SVM). My research shows that OSC is the best scenario and SVM is the best classifier for identifying product planning opportunities, because this combination yields the highest score in metrics that are generally used to measure classification performance in machine learning (e.g., ROC-AUC and F-score). My method also significantly outperforms current practice, because I demonstrate in an experiment that neither the experts at Finex nor the panel of external experts are able to search for and judge relevant patents with any degree of effectiveness, efficiency or reliability. This dissertation provides the rudiments of a theoretical foundation for patent mining, which has yielded a machine learning method that is deployed successfully in a new product planning setting (Finex). Further development of this method could make a significant contribution to management practice by identifying opportunities for new product development that have been missed by the approaches that have been deployed to date.

While the importance of venture capital (VC) can be highlighted by policy goals outlined in the 'Lisbon agenda', the European VC industry remains nascent in comparison to the more sophisticated VC market in the US. Researchers have identified key determinants that foster VC success on a broad level, and have often identified syndication as an important factor of success. This paper seeks to understand the role of syndication on the VC-backed company's success. I take a novel departure from past research in this area in three ways 1) I measure performance from the perspective of the portfolio company, rather than the VC firm which invests in the company 2) I isolate syndication in the first financing round and 3) I utilize a logistical model as well as a simultaneous equation model for which I introduce an instrumental variable. I gather VC data for both Europe and the US from the VentureXpert database to test various hypotheses regarding syndication. The results are significant and provide evidence to support that syndication in the first financing round is associated with greater success in achieving IPO exit in both regions. This should encourage VC firms, VC-backed companies, and policymakers to increase the practice of VC syndication in early financing rounds, thereby providing access to greater long-term growth opportunities. This paper adds to the existing, but limited, literature base on cross-region venture capital syndication.

Many software development projects fail because they do not meet the needs of users, are over-budget, and abandoned. To address this problem, the user requirements elicitation process was modified based on principles of Appreciative Inquiry. Appreciative Inquiry, commonly used in organizational development, aims to build organizations, processes, or systems based on success stories using a hopeful vision for an ideal future. Spanning five studies, Appreciative Inquiry was evaluated for its effectiveness with eliciting user requirements. In the first two cases, it was compared with traditional approaches with end-users and proxy-users. The third study was a quasi-experiment comparing the use of Appreciative Inquiry in different phases of in the software development cycle. The final two case studies combined all lessons learned using Appreciative Inquiry, with multiple case studies to gain additional understanding for the requirements gathered during various project phases. Each study evaluated the requirements gathered, developer and user attitudes, and the Appreciative Inquiry process itself. Requirements were evaluated for the quantity and their type regardless of whether they were implemented or not. Attitudes were evaluated for process feedback, as well as requirements and project commitment. The Appreciative Inquiry process was evaluated with differing groups, projects, and project phases to determine how and when it is best applied. Potentially interceding factors were also evaluated including: team effectiveness, emotional intelligence, perceived stress, the experience of the facilitator, and the development project type itself. Appreciative Inquiry produced positive results for the participants, the requirements obtained, and the general requirements eliciting-process. Appreciative Inquiry demonstrated benefits to the requirements gathered by increasing the number of unique requirements as well as identifying more quality-based (non-functional) and forward-looking requirements. It worked well with defined projects, when there was time for participants to reflect on the thought-provoking questions, structured questions and extra time to facilitate the extraction and translation of requirements, and a knowledgeable interviewer. The participants (end-users and developers) expressed improved vision and confidence. End-users participated consistently with immediate buy-in and enthusiasm, especially those users who were technically-inhibited. Development teams expressed improved confidence, and improved user communication and understanding.

This paper attempts to estimate the change in sales associated with pharmaceutical patent expiration. Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and patent expiration information from historical Orange Book publications, I estimated monthly sales associated with choice pharmaceutical patents. I then used a fixed-effects model to estimate the average change in sales before and after initial patent expiration, controlling for patent extension factors. My findings support that pharmaceutical patent expiration results in a statistically significant drop in sales by 38% on average within this sample, and further, that patent extensions had a negligible effect on this relationship. The question of patent expiration’s effect on sale is economically important for the sake of evaluating the efficacy of pharmaceutical patent law in protecting the interests of brand-name and generic drug manufacturers as well as paying consumers.

Many San Francisco residents who have achieved new wealth from the expansion of the technology industry are paying record high prices for homes. But the city is landlocked and has a limited housing supply. I study the impact of the technology boom on the increase of housing prices in the city and the outflow of the middle class, by analyzing housing supply and demand, regulations, neighboring towns, home ownership, and housing price potential solutions. I find that the increase in technology jobs creates an employment multiplier effect, decrease in housing supply, increased competition and all-cash offers, and income inequality. Policymakers and activist neighborhood groups need to focus on continually increasing housing supply through dense development incentives and legalizing in-law units.

p. 1 - 143 / Submitted by Santiago Fabio (fabio.ssantiago@hotmail.com) on 2013-01-22T18:12:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2222.pdf: 498588 bytes, checksum: 40bfaa1147c9bf9c2071db504ecd1c61 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-01-22T18:12:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2222.pdf: 498588 bytes, checksum: 40bfaa1147c9bf9c2071db504ecd1c61 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / As universidades, além do seu papel na formação de pessoas e na geração e disseminação do conhecimento, têm sido entendidas como importantes atores no processo de geração de inovações tecnológicas e, consequentemente, no desenvolvimento econômico. Diante deste contexto, emerge a discussão sobre um aspecto fundamental nas relações entre organizações acadêmicas e empresas: a proteção e exploração comercial da propriedade intelectual no âmbito universitário. Modelos atuais de Sistemas de Inovação consideram múltiplas relações recíprocas no processo de desenvolvimento de inovações, apresentando uma rede de comunicações e expectativas que reorganizam os arranjos institucionais entre universidades, empresas e governos. O objetivo desse estudo volta-se para as relações entre universidades e governos e consiste em analisar qual a contribuição das agências de fomento à ciência, tecnologia e inovação para as atividades de proteção e exploração econômica da propriedade intelectual no ambiente universitário. A partir desse objetivo, no desenvolvimento teórico dessa reflexão, o estudo realiza uma análise acerca do papel da universidade na geração da inovação tecnológica. Em seguida, reflete-se sobre a inserção relativamente recente da propriedade intelectual no ambiente acadêmico. Posteriormente, discute-se sobre os incentivos governamentais à geração de inovação tecnológica, enfatizando a análise da contribuição de agências governamentais para atividades de proteção e exploração econômica da propriedade intelectual decorrente de pesquisas universitárias. A etapa empírica consiste em estudo de caso sobre a Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado da Bahia (FAPESB), agência governamental de fomento à ciência, tecnologia e inovação. Os resultados encontrados apresentam evidências sobre a influência que marcos legais, estrutura organizacional, políticas e ações de fomento dessa agência podem exercer sobre as atividades de propriedade intelectual das universidades. / Salvador

Submitted by Luciana Bittencourt da Silva (lu_bittencourt@msn.com) on 2017-12-07T20:33:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Final Luciana Bittencourt da Silva.pdf: 2252834 bytes, checksum: 2751e025163c6a9797baefa53c5cddfb (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br) on 2017-12-11T15:39:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Final Luciana Bittencourt da Silva.pdf: 2252834 bytes, checksum: 2751e025163c6a9797baefa53c5cddfb (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-12-26T13:40:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Final Luciana Bittencourt da Silva.pdf: 2252834 bytes, checksum: 2751e025163c6a9797baefa53c5cddfb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-01 / The main objective of this study is to characterize the country's research infrastructures and to analyze the financing contribution of Finep to the construction of a modern and competitive research infrastructure. To achieve this objective, the database of the national mapping of the national infrastructures carried out by the IPEA (2016) was used, which contains information on 1.760 research infrastructures in the country, of which 238 reported receiving financial support from Finep. In this sense, the sample was divided in two categories - infrastructures financed by Finep and infrastructures not financed by Finep - to describe the frequency of occurrence as to its central tendency, mainly the average, of the following variables: economic aspects, general conditions, activities developed and scientific production of research infrastructures. Based on the analysis of the infrastructure, the following results could be presented: (i) Finep has supported the infrastructure of higher value and has larger equipment; (ii) the infrastructures financed by Finep are more modern and advanced - compared to the best infrastructures in the country and also those observed abroad; (iii) the infrastructure financed by Finep shows a higher percentage of cooperation with companies, national and international institutions, and also a higher percentage of technology and business services, and (iv) the average number of articles produced in infrastructure financed by Finep is about 20% higher than in infrastructures not financed by Finep. One of the limitations of the study is the difficulty in specifying the monetary values of the main sources of financing of the infrastructures, so it was considered as proxy if the infrastructure had received resources from Finep or not and, we characterized the infrastructure as "with Finep support" and "without Finep support". Another point relates to the temporal aspect, since the survey was fixed in a certain period, more precisely, in the year 2012, so that similar studies can be developed at another time with the same sample and achieve different results. Finally, it is worth mentioning the limitation of this study regarding the analyzed sample, which may present selection bias, endogeny and causality. This study aimed to analyze the country's research infrastructures in the context of the National System of Innovation and the contribution of Finep to its strengthening, given the intrinsic need to have results that offer society information on the return of the public investments applied by Finep in the country's research infrastructures. / Este estudo tem como principal objetivo caracterizar as infraestruturas de pesquisa do país e analisar a contribuição de financiamento da Finep para a construção de uma infraestrutura de pesquisa moderna e competitiva. Para cumprir tal objetivo, utilizou-se o banco de dados do mapeamento inédito das infraestruturas nacionais realizado pelo IPEA (2016), que contém informações sobre 1.760 infraestruturas de pesquisa do país, das quais, 238 informaram receber apoio financeiro da Finep. Nesse sentido, a amostra dividiu-se em duas categorias - infraestruturas financiadas pela Finep e infraestruturas não financiadas pela Finep - para descrever a frequência de ocorrência quanto a sua tendência central, principalmente a média, das seguintes variáveis: aspectos econômicos, condições gerais, atividades desenvolvidas e produção científica das infraestruturas de pesquisa. A partir da análise das infraestruturas, os seguintes resultados puderam ser apresentados: (i) a Finep tem apoiado as infraestruturas de maior valor e que possuem equipamentos de maior porte; (ii) as infraestruturas financiadas pela Finep são mais modernas e avançadas – em relação às melhores infraestruturas do país e também às observadas no exterior; (iii) as infraestruturas financiadas pela Finep apresentam maior percentual de cooperação com empresas, instituições nacionais e internacionais e também maior percentual de prestação de serviços tecnológicos e para empresas, e, por fim, (iv) a média de publicação de artigos produzidos nas infraestruturas financiadas pela Finep é cerca de 20% maior do que nas infraestruturas não financiadas pela Finep. Uma das limitações do estudo diz respeito a dificuldade em se precisar os valores monetários referente às principais fontes de financiamento das infraestruturas, dessa forma, considerou-se como proxy se a infraestrutura havia recebido recursos da Finep ou não e, a partir disso, se caracterizou a infraestrutura como “com apoio Finep” e “sem apoio Finep”. Outro ponto, diz respeito ao aspecto temporal, visto que o levantamento foi fixado em determinado período, mais precisamente, no ano de 2012, de modo que estudos semelhantes podem ser desenvolvidos em outro momento com a mesma amostra e alcançar resultados distintos. Por fim, cabe destacar a limitação desse estudo quanto à amostra analisada, que pode apresentar viés de seleção, endogenia e causalidade. Este trabalho se propôs a analisar as infraestruturas de pesquisa do país no contexto do Sistema Nacional de Inovação e a contribuição da Finep para o seu fortalecimento, tendo em vista a necessidade intrínseca de se dispor de resultados que ofereça à sociedade informações sobre o retorno dos investimentos públicos aplicados pela Finep nas infraestruturas de pesquisa do país.

Esta tese teve como objetivo analisar as mudanças nas universidades públicas federais brasileiras nos Governos Lula (2003-2010) e Dilma (2011-2016), a partir das políticas de ampliação do acesso ao ensino superior e de incentivo à inovação. Essas mudanças foram analisadas na totalidade social, buscando compreender como as alterações nas táticas neoliberais modificaram a organização das universidades públicas federais brasileiras. A universidade pública não foi considerada uma estrutura estática, mas como síntese de múltiplas relações dotadas de contradições. Visando a compreender as consequências do avanço neoliberal no contexto do capitalismo dependente, recorri ao pensamento social brasileiro por meio da categoria padrão dependente de educação superior de Florestan Fernandes. A partir das condições concretas do desenvolvimento do ensino superior brasileiro, defendo que a articulação entre as políticas de ampliação ao acesso e de incentivo à inovação aprofunda o padrão dependente de educação superior. O método do materialismo histórico-dialético foi escolhido para o desenvolvimento da pesquisa. Os dados foram coletados por meio da pesquisa bibliográfica, análise documental e realização de entrevistas semiestruturadas com gestores e especialistas de notório saber. O neoliberalismo acadêmico foi implementado no Brasil por meio de uma série de reformas estruturais. As bases foram construídas desde a Reforma Universitária de 1968, marco no predomínio do ensino superior privado e direcionamento das universidades públicas para a pesquisa. O neoliberalismo acadêmico ortodoxo foi marcado por políticas que priorizaram os investimentos da educação básica, no desenvolvimento de políticas de ensino superior voltadas, prioritariamente, para a expansão do ensino privado e por tentativas de modificação da natureza jurídica das universidades pública federais O novo neoliberalismo acadêmico, implementado a partir do Governo Lula, foi caracterizado: pela criação de políticas inclusivas; pela flexibilização da formação por meio da oferta de novas modalidades de cursos; pela modificação no financiamento; pelo estabelecimento do empreendedorismo, como cultura a ser disseminada nos processos de ensino, pesquisa, extensão; pela difusão do gerencialismo na organização das universidades; e pela flexibilização e precarização do trabalho. Essas mudanças reproduzem o padrão dependente de educação superior, pois são baseadas na importação de modelos de educação, direcionam para a importação de conhecimentos e estruturam grande parte do sistema de educação superior voltado para o trabalho simples. Ademais, aprofunda o padrão dependente de educação ao direcionar a pesquisa de excelência realizada nas universidades públicas federais para os interesses privados nacionais e para os países centrais. Assim, a mudança no projeto para as universidades públicas brasileiras no novo neoliberalismo criou novos mecanismos de integrá-las aos circuitos de reprodução do capital, sem a modificação da sua natureza jurídica, ou seja, criou-se, em um contexto de aceleração tecnológica, novas formas imperialistas de apropriação do conhecimento produzido pelas universidades públicas brasileiras. / This thesis aimed at analyzing the changes in the Brazilian federal public universities in the Lula (2003-2010) and Dilma (2011-2016) Governments, from the perspective of the access expansion policies for students and the fostering innovation policies. These changes were analyzed in the social totality method, trying to understand how the changes in neoliberal tactics modified the organization of Brazilian federal public universities. The public university was not considered a static structure, but as a synthesis of multiple relations endowed with contradictions. Seeking to understand the consequences of the neoliberal evolution within the context of the dependent capitalism, I recurred to the Brazilian social thought, from the higher-education dependent pattern category of Florestan Fernandes. Based in the concrete contradictions on the development in the Brazilian higher education, I defend the articulation between the access expansion policies for students and the fostering innovation policies strengthens the dependent pattern of the higher education. The historical-dialectical materialism method was chosen for the research development, and data collected through bibliographic sources, documental analysis and semi-structured interviews with senior-level managers and experts of notorious knowledge. Academic neoliberalism was being implemented in Brazil through a series of structural reforms. The bases were built since the 1968 University Reform, a milestone in the predominance of private higher education and the direction of public universities for research. Orthodox academic neoliberalism was marked by policies that prioritized investments in basic education and in the development of higher education policies geared primarily to the expansion of private education and by attempts to modify the legal nature of federal public universities The new academic neoliberalism, implemented from the Lula Government, was characterized by: the creation of inclusive policies; the implementation of the flexibility in the student formation from new models of courses; the implementation of entrepreneurship as culture to be disseminated in the process of teaching, research and extension programs; through the managerialism diffusion in the structure and management of the public universities; and through the faculty work flexibilization and precarization. These changes reproduce the higher-education dependent pattern, since are based upon three factors: the external educational model's importation, the external knowledge importation, and the organization of the major part of the higher educational system to the simple work. Furthermore, was identified that the orientation of the public university's cutting-edge research to national private’s and dominant country's interests also strength the higher educational dependent pattern. Therefore, the changes during this period after the neoliberal project to the Brazilian public universities in the new neoliberalism promoted a new mechanism to integrate them to the capital reproduction system, without the modification of their juridical nature. That means, in a context of technological acceleration, the creation of new forms imperialist of appropriation of the knowledge produced by the Brazilian public universities.

O objetivo geral da presente dissertação é analisar comparativamente os elementos constitutivos das políticas organizacionais de Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (C, T&I) e da gestão de ativos intangíveis em Instituições Científicas e Tecnológicas (ICTs). Os objetivos específicos são: 1) identificar e analisar comparativamente os elementos constitutivos das políticas organizacionais de C,T& I das ICTs; 2) identificar e analisar comparativamente os métodos utilizados na valoração das patentes pelas ICTs e seus respectivos indicadores; 3) verificar se os métodos de valoração das patentes empregados pelos Núcleos de Inovação Tecnológica (NITs) das ICTs, com o advento da Lei de Inovação, estão aderentes aos métodos sugeridos pela literatura corrente; 4) verificar quais são os indicadores utilizados na valoração das patentes implementados nas ICTs; e 5) elaborar a análise comparativa. No que tange à metodologia, a presente pesquisa pode ser classificada como qualitativa e quantitativa, exploratória, bibliográfica, documental e estudos de casos. Os achados indicam que os NITs apresentam configurações distintas e adaptadas as suas necessidades e atribuições. A preocupação com a capacitação é unânime em todas as ICTs visitadas. São utilizados recursos orçamentários e extra orçamentários provenientes de agências de fomento e fundações de apoio à pesquisa, sendo incubadoras de base tecnológica e spin off de tecnologia consideradas possíveis portas de entrada de capitalistas de risco. São mantidas relações institucionais com atores dos ambientes acadêmico, governamental, empresarial, além da sociedade civil em geral. Os processos decisórios são compartilhados e descentralizados, permeados pela autonomia do pesquisador. Existe tendência de que esse processo sofra alterações em virtude da criação de Comitês de Gestão do Conhecimento. Ações de impacto socioambiental são decorrentes de atividades desenvolvidas pela instituição, mas não necessariamente voltadas a esse fim. Existe o zelo por parte das ICTs visitadas com a difusão do conhecimento e para tal são empregados os seguintes instrumentos: página da instituição na internet, informativos e periódicos institucionais. Observou-se a possibilidade do incremento da participação institucional em premiações, uma vez que estas são, em geral, oriundas da iniciativa dos pesquisadores. Ações têm sido empreendidas pelas ICTs visitadas no sentido de aperfeiçoar a gestão de contratos, o gerenciamento de projetos e o mapeamento de processos. Em termos de oportunidades, as ICTs estudadas vislumbram a obtenção de novas fontes de financiamento, o aprimoramento da capacitação do seu pessoal e a modernização dos seus parques de equipamentos. Não existem metodologias de valoração de patentes e nem tampouco aqueles repositórios institucionais têm sido empregados como fontes geradoras de receitas. Contudo, a valoração do portfólio de patentes e o acompanhamento dos custos de proteção tecnológica são validamente reconhecidos pelas ICTs, uma vez que contribuem para a melhor qualificação do acervo institucional. Este estudo apresenta limitações no que se refere à avaliação subjetiva dos respondentes, associada ao fato de as respostas ao questionário conterem nuances características da interpretação e da compreensão de cada respondente a respeito dos questionamentos realizados. Dessa forma, o resultado da pesquisa está adstrito aos cinco casos estudados, sendo impossível a sua generalização.