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.

Transcription of multi-genre media archives using out-of-domain data

We describe our work on developing a speech recognition system for multi-genre media archives. The high diversity of the data makes this a challenging recognition task, which may benefit from systems trained on a combination of in-domain and out-of-domain data. Working with tandem HMMs, we present Multi-level Adaptive Networks (MLAN), a novel technique for incorporating information from out-of-domain posterior features using deep neural networks. We show that it provides a substantial reduction in WER over other systems, with relative WER reductions of 15% over a PLP baseline, 9% over in-domain tandem features and 8% over the best out-of-domain tandem features. © 2012 IEEE.

Network reconstruction using knock-out and over-expression data

This paper outlines necessary and sufficient conditions for network reconstruction of linear, time-invariant systems using data from either knock-out or over-expression experiments. These structural system perturbations, which are common in biological experiments, can be formulated as unknown system inputs, allowing the network topology and dynamics to be found. We assume that only partial state measurements are available and propose an algorithm that can reconstruct the network at the level of the measured states using either time-series or steady-state data. A simulated example illustrates how the algorithm successfully reconstructs a network from data. © 2013 EUCA.

Characterization and deformation response of orthotropic fibre networks with auxetic out-of-plane behaviour

In the present paper, highly porous fibre networks made of 316L fibres, with different fibre volume fractions, are characterized in terms of network architecture, elastic constants and fracture energies. Elastic constants are measured using quasi-static mechanical and modal vibration testing, yielding local and globally averaged properties, respectively. Differences between quasi-static and dynamic elastic constants are attributed to through-thickness shear effects. Regardless of the method employed, networks show signs of material inhomogeneity at high fibre densities, in agreement with X-ray nanotomography results. Strong auxetic (or negative Poisson's ratio) behaviour is observed in the through-thickness direction, which is attributed to fibre kinking induced during processing. Measured fracture energies are compared with model predictions incorporating information about in-plane fibre orientation distribution, fibre volume fraction and single fibre work of fracture. Experimental values are broadly consistent with model predictions, based on the assumption that this energy is primarily associated with plastic deformation of individual fibres within a process zone of the same order as the inter-joint spacing. © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Acta Materialia Inc. All rights reserved.

Motor systems: reaching out and grasping the molecular tools.

Two recent studies provide important insights into the organization of premotor circuitries, showing that control of highly-specific skilled forelimb movements, such as reaching and grasping, requires activation of specific subpopulations of neurons in the brainstem and spinal cord.