Opt-out options in new product co-development partnerships

We study three contractual arrangements—co-development, licensing, and co-development with opt-out options—for the joint development of new products between a small and financially constrained innovator firm and a large technology company, as in the case of a biotech innovator and a major pharma company. We formulate our arguments in the context of a two-stage model, characterized by technical risk and stochastically changing cost and revenue projections. The model captures the main disadvantages of traditional co-development and licensing arrangements: in co-development the small firm runs a risk of running out of capital as future costs rise, while licensing for milestone and royalty (M&R) payments, which eliminates the latter risk, introduces inefficiency, as profitable projects might be abandoned. Counter to intuition we show that the biotech's payoff in a licensing contract is not monotonically increasing in the M&R terms. We also show that an option clause in a co-development contract that gives the small firm the right but not the obligation to opt out of co-development and into a pre-agreed licensing arrangement avoids the problems associated with fully committed co-development or licensing: the probability that the small firm will run out of capital is greatly reduced or completely eliminated and profitable projects are never abandoned.

Paradoxical evidence integration in rapid decision processes

Decisions about noisy stimuli require evidence integration over time. Traditionally, evidence integration and decision making are described as a one-stage process: a decision is made when evidence for the presence of a stimulus crosses a threshold. Here, we show that one-stage models cannot explain psychophysical experiments on feature fusion, where two visual stimuli are presented in rapid succession. Paradoxically, the second stimulus biases decisions more strongly than the first one, contrary to predictions of one-stage models and intuition. We present a two-stage model where sensory information is integrated and buffered before it is fed into a drift diffusion process. The model is tested in a series of psychophysical experiments and explains both accuracy and reaction time distributions. © 2012 Rüter et al.

Highly chiral-selective growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes with a simple monometallic Co catalyst

We report on the growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes from a monometallic Co catalyst on an oxidized Si wafer support by the most simple growth recipe (vacuum annealing, growth by undiluted C 2H 2). Nevertheless, multiwavelength Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron spectroscopy show a remarkable selectivity for chiral indices and thus, e.g., high abundance with a single chirality representing 58% of all semiconducting tubes. In situ x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy monitors the catalyst chemistry during carbon nanotube growth and shows interfacial Co-Si interactions that may help to stabilize the nanoparticle/nanotube diameter. We outline a two-mechanism model explaining the selective growth. © 2012 American Physical Society.

The Silent Period of Evidence Integration in Fast Decision Making

In a typical experiment on decision making, one out of two possible stimuli is displayed and observers decide which one was presented. Recently, Stanford and colleagues (2010) introduced a new variant of this classical one-stimulus presentation paradigm to investigate the speed of decision making. They found evidence for "perceptual decision making in less than 30 ms". Here, we extended this one-stimulus compelled-response paradigm to a two-stimulus compelled-response paradigm in which a vernier was followed immediately by a second vernier with opposite offset direction. The two verniers and their offsets fuse. Only one vernier is perceived. When observers are asked to indicate the offset direction of the fused vernier, the offset of the second vernier dominates perception. Even for long vernier durations, the second vernier dominates decisions indicating that decision making can take substantial time. In accordance with previous studies, we suggest that our results are best explained with a two-stage model of decision making where a leaky evidence integration stage precedes a race-to-threshold process. © 2013 Rüter et al.

HTGR fuel element depletion benchmark: Stage three results

Recently, a new numerical benchmark exercise for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGR) fuel depletion was defined. The purpose of this benchmark is to provide a comparison basis for different codes and methods applied to the burnup analysis of HTGRs. The benchmark specifications include three different models: (1) an infinite lattice of tristructural isotropic (TRISO) fuel particles, (2) an infinite lattice of fuel pebbles, and (3) a prismatic fuel including fuel and coolant channels. In this paper, we present the results of the third stage of the benchmark obtained with MCNP based depletion code BGCore and deterministic lattice code HELIOS 1.9. The depletion calculations were performed for three-dimensional model of prismatic fuel with explicitly described TRISO particles as well as for two-dimensional model, in which double heterogeneity of the TRISO particles was eliminated using reactivity equivalent physical transformation (RPT). Generally, good agreement in the results of the calculations obtained using different methods and codes was observed.

Aeroacoustic source measurement methods for characterizing the sound generated by ducted flow devices with higher-order modes.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) method 5136 is widely used in industry and academia to determine the sound power radiated into a duct by fans and other flow devices. The method involves placing the device at the center of a long cylindrical duct with anechoic terminations at each end to eliminate reflections. A single off-axis microphone is used on the inlet and outlet sides that can theoretically capture the plane-wave mode amplitudes but this does not provide enough information to fully account for higher-order modes. In this study, the "two-port" source model is formulated to include higher-order modes and applied for the first three modes. This requires six independent surface pressure measurements on each side or "port." The resulting experimental set-up is much shorter than the ISO rig and does not require anechoic terminations. An array of six external loudspeaker sources is used to characterize the passive part of the two-port model and the set-up provides a framework to account for transmission of higher-order modes through a fan. The relative importance of the higher-order modes has been considered and their effect on inaccuracies when using the ISO method to find source sound power has been analyzed.

The use of non-dimensional parameters to study stress in lithiumion battery electrode storage particles

Mechanical degradation is thought to be one of the causes of capacity fade within Lithium-Ion batteries. In this work we develop a coupled stress-diffusion model for idealized spherical storage particles, which is analogous to the development of thermal strains. We then non-dimensionalize the model and identify three important parameters that control the development of stress within these particles. We can therefore use a wide number of values for these parameters to make predictions about the stress responses of different materials. The maximum stress developed within the particle for different values of these parameters are plotted as stress maps. A two dimensional model of a battery was then developed, in order to study the effect of particle morphology. Copyright © 2012 by ASME.

Factorial comparison of working memory models.

Three questions have been prominent in the study of visual working memory limitations: (a) What is the nature of mnemonic precision (e.g., quantized or continuous)? (b) How many items are remembered? (c) To what extent do spatial binding errors account for working memory failures? Modeling studies have typically focused on comparing possible answers to a single one of these questions, even though the result of such a comparison might depend on the assumed answers to both others. Here, we consider every possible combination of previously proposed answers to the individual questions. Each model is then a point in a 3-factor model space containing a total of 32 models, of which only 6 have been tested previously. We compare all models on data from 10 delayed-estimation experiments from 6 laboratories (for a total of 164 subjects and 131,452 trials). Consistently across experiments, we find that (a) mnemonic precision is not quantized but continuous and not equal but variable across items and trials; (b) the number of remembered items is likely to be variable across trials, with a mean of 6.4 in the best model (median across subjects); (c) spatial binding errors occur but explain only a small fraction of responses (16.5% at set size 8 in the best model). We find strong evidence against all 6 documented models. Our results demonstrate the value of factorial model comparison in working memory.

Low voltage ride-through of DFIG and brushless DFIG: Similarities and differences

The brushless doubly fed induction generator (BDFIG) has been proposed as a viable alternative in wind turbines to the commonly used doubly fed induction generator (DFIG). The BDFIG retains the benefits of the DFIG, i.e. variable speed operation with a partially rated converter, but without the use of brush gear and slip rings, thereby conferring enhanced reliability. As low voltage ride-through (LVRT) performance of the DFIG-based wind turbine is well understood, this paper aims to analyze LVRT behavior of the BDFIG-based wind turbine in a similar way. In order to achieve this goal, the equivalence between their two-axis model parameters is investigated. The variation of flux linkages, back-EMFs and currents of both types of generator are elaborated during three phase voltage dips. Moreover, the structural differences between the two generators, which lead to different equivalent parameters and hence different LVRT capabilities, are investigated. The analytical results are verified via time-domain simulations for medium size wind turbine generators as well as experimental results of a voltage dip on a prototype 250 kVA BDFIG. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.

Lean product development in practice: Insights from 4 companies

This paper aims to elucidate practitioners' understanding and implementation of Lean in Product Development (LPD). We report on a workshop held in the UK during 2012. Managers and engineers from four organizations discussed their understanding of LPD and their ideas and practice regarding management and assessment of value and waste. The study resulted in a set of insights into current practice and lean thinking from the industry perspective. Building on this, the paper introduces a balanced value and waste model that can be used by practitioners as a checklist to identify issues that need to be considered when applying LPD. The main results indicate that organizations tend to focus on waste elimination rather than value enhancement in LPD. Moreover, the lean metrics that were discussed by the workshop participants do not link the strategic level with the operational one, and poorly reflect the value and waste generated in the process. Future directions for research are explored, and include the importance of a balanced approach considering both value and waste when applying LPD, and the need to link lean metrics with value and waste levels.