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Curious Cat Science and Egineering blog full tag cloud
Drugmakers are counting on these deals to solve a persistent problem: underperforming product pipelines. Merck, Pfizer, and others have been losing sales of one blockbuster drug after another as patents expire and competitors charge in with generics. Big drug companies have fought back by spending more on research, yet the number of new medicines approved each year is falling. In the last week of April alone, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration rejected two of Merck’s experimental drugs, prompting the company to lay off 1,200 salespeople.
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Past deals between industry and academia have been hampered by patent disputes and tussles over publication rights, as companies tried to thwart academics who want to share their discoveries with colleagues around the world. So now the companies have devised policies allowing their Ivory Tower partners to patent and publish their discoveries, even as they draw the professors more deeply into corporate affairs.
Funding university activities this way can lead to conflicts and problems but realistically huge amounts of funding are entangled with possible conflicts of interest. The biggest concern I is that universities will bow to the almighty dollar instead of their missions. And inadequate oversight can damage their credibility (not one failure, most likely, but if a pattern emerges). For example: Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay (”The Harvard group’s consulting arrangements with drug makers were already controversial because of the researchers’ advocacy of unapproved uses of psychiatric medicines in children.”). Then find out the companies were paying them well, the professors failed to disclose that and the advocacy is rightfully questioned.
Related: From Ghost Writing to Ghost Management in Medical Journals - Funding Medical Research - Medical Study Integrity (or Lack Thereof) - Marketing Drugs
HHMI Awards $60 Million to Invigorate Science Teaching at Liberal Arts Colleges
Now 48 of the nation’s best undergraduate institutions will receive $60 million to help them usher in a new era of science education. This includes the largest number of new grantees in more than a decade; more than a quarter have never received an HHMI grant before.
Colleges in 21 states and Puerto Rico will receive $700,000 to $1.6 million over the next four years to revitalize their life sciences undergraduate instruction. HHMI has challenged colleges to create more engaging science classes, bring real-world research experiences to students, and increase the diversity of students who study science.
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Creating interdisciplinary science classes and incorporating more mathematics into the biology curriculum were among the major themes proposed by the schools. Many schools will also allow more students to experience research through classroom-based courses and summer laboratory programs.
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HHMI is the nation’s largest private supporter of science education. It has invested more than $1.2 billion in grants to reinvigorate life science education at both research universities and liberal arts colleges and to engage the nation’s leading scientists in teaching. In 2007, it launched the Science Education Alliance, which will serve as a national resource for the development and distribution of innovative science education materials and methods.
Related: $60 Million in Grants for Universities (2007) - Genomics Course For College Freshman Supported by HHMI at 12 Universities - $600 Million for Basic Biomedical Research - Funding Medical Research - posts on science and engineering funding
Deep-Sea Denizen Inspires New Polymers
To get their polymer to do the same thing, the Case scientists used fibers found in another deep sea dweller, sea squirts, and also in cotton. When they mixed those fibers - known as cellulose nanofibers - with the rubbery polymer ethylene oxide–epichlorohydrin, they formed a stiff network, “almost glued to each other,” says Weder. Due to the nature of the bonds between the polymer and the fibers, however, water gets between the two substances, weakening the fibers’ adhesion. The material then becomes soft.
Related: 100 Innovations for 2006 - Reusable Paper - High-efficiency Power Supplies
Better higher education will change lives by Shashi Tharoor
India is entering the global employment marketplace with a self-imposed handicap of which we are just beginning to become conscious - an acute shortage of quality institutions of higher education. For far too long we have been complacent about the fact that we had produced, since the 1960s, the world’s second largest pool of trained scientists and engineers.
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Whereas countries in the Middle East, and China itself, are going out of their way to woo foreign universities to set up campuses in their countries, India turns away the many academic suitors who have come calling in recent years. Harvard and Yale would both be willing to open branches in India to offer quality education to Indian students, but have been told to stay away. Those Indians who choose to study abroad easily get scholarships to do so - currently 80,000 of them are in the United States alone.
Related: Science and Engineering in Global Economics - Global Research University Rankings (2007) - The Role of Science in Economy - The Importance of Science Education - Engineering graduate: USA, China, India - posts on engineering education
Rep. Lofgren wants residency for foreign engineers
Lofgren, a Democrat, spoke to an audience Friday at the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley conference about threats to innovation in the area. She said that about 56 percent of the Ph.D. candidates at the finest schools in the United States are immigrants, and because of the government’s current immigration policy, many of those people leave the country.
I support such legislation. I also think it is only one, of many measure to take to encourage science and engineering excellence (which will in turn help the economy). I have no doubt that other countries are going to be successful establishing their own global centers of excellence and attract scientists and engineers from around the world: including from the USA. The Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog now includes a tag cloud on the right side of our home page, tags for this post include: government and economy.
Related: Brain Drain Benefits to the USA Less Than They Could Be - economic benefits of science and engineering excellence - USA Losing Brain Drain Benefits
How to Re-engineer an engineering major at a women’s college:
Related: Smith’s engineering education efforts - Engineering Education Study Debate - A New Engineering Education - The Future is Engineering
Moving Forward to Improve Engineering Education a report from the National Science Board:
Related: NAE Report on Educating the Engineer of 2020 - Engineering Education Study Debate - Educating Engineers for 2020 and Beyond by Charles Vest - The Future is Bright with Engineering and Entrepreneurism - Global Engineering Education Study - USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates - Leah Jamieson on the Future of Engineering Education - Improving Engineering Education the Olin Way
The SCImago Journal and Country Rank provides journal and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus database. As stated in previous posts these types of rankings have limitations but they are also interesting (such as the best research universities 2007). The table shows the top 6 countries by h-index and then some others I chose to list.
| Country | h-index | % of World Population |
% of World GDP | total Cites | % Top 500 Schools |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 793 | 4.6% | 27.4% | 43,436,526 | 33% |
| United Kingdom | 465 | 0.9 | 4.9 | 9,895,817 | 8 |
| Germany | 408 | 1.3 | 6.0 | 8,377,298 | 8 |
| France | 376 | 0.9 | 4.6 | 5,795,531 | 4 |
| Japan | 372 | 2.0 | 9.0 | 7,167,200 | 6 |
| Canada | 370 | 0.5 | 2.6 | 4,728,874 | 4 |
| Additional countries of interest | |||||
| 20) China | 161 | 20.1 | 5.5 | 1,629,993 | 3 |
| 20) South Korea | 161 | .7 | 1.8 | 1,018,532 | 2 |
| 24) Brazil | 148 | 2.9 | 2.2 | 752,658 | 1 |
| 25) India | 146 | 17.0 | 1.9 | 994.561 | .4 |
Read more about the h-index (Hirsh index). Country population and GDP data taken World Development Indicators 2007, by the World Bank.
via: Stat freaks, are you ready to play with the SCImago Journal & Country Rank?
Related: Worldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree Data - Views on Evolution by Country - Science and Engineering Doctoral Degrees Worldwide - Top 10 Manufacturing Countries 2006 - USA Teens 29th in Science - Ranking Universities Worldwide - Diplomacy, Science Research and Economics
Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow? by Dr. Robert B.K. Dewar and Dr. Edmond Schonberg
An additional benefit of the practice of Lisp is that the program is written in what amounts to abstract syntax, namely the internal representation that most compilers use between parsing and code generation. Knowing Lisp is thus an excellent preparation for any software work that involves language processing.
This is an excellent article: any CS students or those considering careers as programmers definitely should read this. Also read: Computer Science Education.
via: Who Killed the Software Engineer?
Related: A Career in Computer Programming - Programming Grads Meet a Skills Gap in the Real World - Programming Ruby - What you Need to Know to Be a Computer Game Programmer - Hiring Software Developers - What Ails India’s Software Engineers?
About a year ago I posted that UC-Berkeley Course Videos were available on Google Video. Well now the
Berkeley YouTube site includes even more videos of Berkeley lectures. They include those listed on Google Video that I mentioned last year such as Physics for Future Presidents and Search Engines (by Sergey Brin) and more.
They currently have 201 videos posted. Hopefully they will add many more.
Does anyone else have the annoying delay on pages with YouTube videos? My entire browser locks up for probably 15 seconds on average now for any page that has an embedded YouTube video (not always but very often now). I find this very annoying.
Related: Science and Engineering Webcast Directory - More Great Webcasts: Nanotech and more - Google Technology Talks
There are several rankings of universities. They can be interesting but also have obvious limitations. I find Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University’s the most interesting (especially the international nature of it). Their real focus seems to be in providing a way for China to get a feel for how they are progressing toward developing world class universities (interesting slide presentation on their efforts). The methodology values publications and faculty awards and is provides a better ranking of research (rather than teaching). Results from the 2007 rankings of Top 500 Universities worldwide showing country representation of the top schools:
| location | Top 101 | % of World Population |
% of World GDP | % of top 500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 54 | 4.6% | 27.4% | 32.7% |
| United Kingdom | 11 | 0.9 | 4.9 | 8.3 |
| Germany | 6 | 1.3 | 6.0 | 8.1 |
| Japan | 6 | 2.0 | 9.0 | 6.3 |
| Canada | 4 | 0.5 | 2.6 | 4.3 |
| France | 4 | 0.9 | 4.6 | 4.3 |
| Sweden | 4 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 2.2 |
| Switzerland | 3 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 1.6 |
| Australia | 2 | 0.3 | 1.6 | 3.3 |
| Netherlands | 2 | 0.3 | 1.4 | 2.4 |
| Israel | 1 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 1.4 |
| Finland | 1 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 1.0 |
| Norway | 1 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.8 |
| Denmark | 1 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.8 |
| Russia | 1 | 2.2 | 2.0 | 0.4 |
| China | 20.1 | 5.5 | 2.8 | |
| India | 17.0 | 1.9 | 0.4 |
China has 1 ranked in the 151-202 range as do Taiwan, Korea and Brazil. Singapore has one in the 102-151 range. The other country without any in the top 101 with representation in the next 101 is Italy with 3 schools in the 102-151 range and 2 in the 152-202 range. India has 2 in the 305-401 range.
Top 10 schools (same schools as last year, Cambridge moved from 2nd to 4th):
University of Wisconsin - Madison is 17th 
My father taught there while I grew up.
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The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities provides another estimate of the top universities. The methodology is far ideal however I still find it interesting. The various attempts to rank schools can provide a general idea of impact of various institutions (though the measures are fairly crude). Still a sensible picture (especially at the country level) can emerge. And the various rankings should be a able to track shifts in the most influential institutions and relative country strength over time. How quickly those rankings track changes will vary depending on the measures used. I would imagine most will lag the “real” changes as it is easy to imagine many measures that would lag. Still, as I have said before, I expect the USA will lose in relative ranking compared to China, India, Japan, Singapore, Mexico…
The ranking methodology used here weighed rankings in: Jiao Tong academic rankings, Essential Science Indicators, Google Scholar, Alexa (a measure of web site visits to universities) and The Times Higher World University Rankings.
Country representation of the top universities (number of top schools in each country):
| location | Webometrics Top 100 |
Jiao Tong Top 101 |
% of World Population |
% of World GDP* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 53 | 54 | 4.6% | 30.4% |
| Germany | 10 | 5 | 1.3 | 6.3 |
| Canada | 8 | 4 | 0.5 | 2.5 |
| United Kingdom | 6 | 10 | 0.9 | 5.0 |
| Australia | 3 | 2 | 0.3 | 1.6 |
| Japan | 1 | 6 | 2.0 | 10.3 |
| The rest of Europe | 16 | 13 | ||
| Brazil | 1 | 0 | 2.8 | 1.8 |
| Mexico | 1 | 0 | 1.6 | 1.7 |
| Israel | 0 | 1 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
* IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, September 2006 (2005 data)
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Great report - The Atlas of Ideas: How Asian innovation can benefit us all by Charles Leadbeater and James Wilsdon:
| Year | China | France | Germany | Japan | Korea | UK | US | EU-15 |
| 1995 | 2.05 | 6.09 | 7.62 | 8.65 | 0.79 | 8.88 | 33.54 | 34.36 |
| 1998 | 2.90 | 6.48 | 8.82 | 9.42 | 1.41 | 9.08 | 31.63 | 36.85 |
| 2001 | 4.30 | 6.33 | 8.68 | 9.52 | 2.01 | 8.90 | 31.01 | 36.55 |
| 2004 | 6.52 | 5.84 | 8.14 | 8.84 | 2.70 | 8.33 | 30.48 | 35.18 |
Excellent reading, the report is full of useful information I have not been able to obsorb yet.
Related: Diplomacy and Science Research - The World’s Best Research Universities - Engineering the Future Economy - Worldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree Data - USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates - Increasing American Fellowship Support for Scientists and Engineers
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Watch a video of Richard Baraniuk (Rice University professor speaking at TED) discussing Connexions: an open-access education publishing system. The content available through Connexions includes short content modules such as:
and: Protein Folding, as well as full courses, such as: Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering I and Physics for K-12.
Related: Google technical talk webcasts (including a presentation by Richard Baraniuk at Google) - podcasts of Technical Talks at Google - science podcast posts - Berkeley and MIT courses online
Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University produces a ranking of the top universities annually (since 2003). The methodology used focuses on research (publications) and faculty quality (Fields and Nobel awards and citations). While this seems a very simplistic ranking it still provides some interesting data: highlights from the 2006 rankings of Top 500 Universities worldwide include:
Country representation in the top schools:
| location | Top 101 | % of World Population |
% of World GDP | % of top 500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 54 | 4.6% | 28.4% | 33.4% |
| United Kingdom | 10 | 0.9 | 5.1 | 8.6 |
| Japan | 6 | 2.0 | 11.2 | 6.4 |
| Canada | 4 | 0.5 | 2.4 | 8.0 |
| The rest of Europe | 18 | 4.4 | ||
| Australia | 2 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 3.2 |
| Israel | 1 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 1.4 |
Update: see our post on 2007 best research universities results
Top 10 schools:
University Tries to Make Texas a Science Force:
The initiative would be one of the largest investments in expansion by a public university, university officials said.
Related: How to cultivate Your Own Silicon Valley - Universities Focus on Economic Benefits - Economic Benefits of Engineering - Singapore Supporting Science Researchers - $1 Billion for Indian Research University
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