Bridging the Gap: establishing the necessary infrastructure and knowledge for teaching and research in neuroscience in Africa.

Advances in neuroscience research over the last few decades have increased our understanding of how individual neurons acquire their specific properties and assemble into complex circuits, and how these circuits are affected in disease. One of the important motives driving neuroscience research is the development of new scientific techniques and interdisciplinary cooperation. Compared to developed countries, many countries on the African continent are confronted with poor facilities, lack of funding or career development programs for neuroscientists, all of which deter young scientists from taking up neuroscience as a career choice. This article highlights some steps that are being taken to promote neuroscience education and research in Africa.

Domestic and International Research Joint Ventures: The Effect of Collusion

We analyze the effect of research joint ventures (RJVs) on consumer welfare in an international context when collusion can occur. The main novelty of our analysis is to study the differentiated effect of domestic and international RJVs. The recent literature shows that RJVs with collusion harm consumers. However, our results introduce a qualifi cation to this statement: international RJVs with collusion might be bene ficial for consumers when internationalization costs are high. The EU and US competition policy advises against RJVs that facilitate collusion on the grounds of their expected negative effects. Our results suggest that antitrust authorities should distinguish between domestic and international RJVs and, in certain cases, be more benevolent with international RJVs. Keywords: collusion; domestic research joint venture; international research joint venture JEL Classi fication Numbers: K21, L24, L44, O32

Annual Report of Highway Division Highway Research and Development in Iowa, 2004

Annual report for Iowa Department of Transportation

Dialogic learning and interactive groups: an IMS LD template integrated in runtime systems

Dialogic learning and interactive groups have proved to be a useful methodological approach appliedin educational situations for lifelong adult learners. The principles of this approach stress theimportance of dialogue and equal participation also when designing the training activities. This paperadopts these principles as the basis for a configurable template that can be integrated in runtimesystems. The template is formulated as a meta-UoL which can be interpreted by IMS Learning Designplayers. This template serves as a guide to flexibly select and edit the activities at runtime (on the fly).The meta-UoL has been used successfully by a practitioner so as to create a real-life example, withpositive and encouraging results

Automated Segmentation of Cerebral Vasculature with Aneurysms in 3DRA and TOF-MRA using Geodesic Active Regions: an Evaluation Study

Purpose: To evaluate the suitability of an improved version of an automatic segmentation method based on geodesic active regions (GAR) for segmenting cerebral vasculature with aneurysms from 3D X-ray reconstruc-tion angiography (3DRA) and time of °ight magnetic resonance angiography (TOF-MRA) images available in the clinical routine.Methods: Three aspects of the GAR method have been improved: execution time, robustness to variability in imaging protocols and robustness to variability in image spatial resolutions. The improved GAR was retrospectively evaluated on images from patients containing intracranial aneurysms in the area of the Circle of Willis and imaged with two modalities: 3DRA and TOF-MRA. Images were obtained from two clinical centers, each using di®erent imaging equipment. Evaluation included qualitative and quantitative analyses ofthe segmentation results on 20 images from 10 patients. The gold standard was built from 660 cross-sections (33 per image) of vessels and aneurysms, manually measured by interventional neuroradiologists. GAR has also been compared to an interactive segmentation method: iso-intensity surface extraction (ISE). In addition, since patients had been imaged with the two modalities, we performed an inter-modality agreement analysis with respect to both the manual measurements and each of the two segmentation methods. Results: Both GAR and ISE di®ered from the gold standard within acceptable limits compared to the imaging resolution. GAR (ISE, respectively) had an average accuracy of 0.20 (0.24) mm for 3DRA and 0.27 (0.30) mm for TOF-MRA, and had a repeatability of 0.05 (0.20) mm. Compared to ISE, GAR had a lower qualitative error in the vessel region and a lower quantitative error in the aneurysm region. The repeatabilityof GAR was superior to manual measurements and ISE. The inter-modality agreement was similar between GAR and the manual measurements. Conclusions: The improved GAR method outperformed ISE qualitatively as well as quantitatively and is suitable for segmenting 3DRA and TOF-MRA images from clinical routine.

Research News, Summer 2005

Newsletter for research news at the Iowa Department of Transportation

Considering context in psychological leadership research

Despite Lewin's identification of the importance of context in behavioral research over 70 years ago, leadership psychology tended to ignore the context. Only in the past 10 years has the context been more routinely included in psychological leadership research. We provide examples of leadership research that has explored the context, introduce the special issue articles, and provide suggestions for future research on the context of leadership.

Assessment of Dowel Bar Research, August 2002

This report presents the latest technological gaps in dowel bar research based upon completed and ongoing dowel bar research from across the nation. In order to obtain this collection of information about dowel bars, a search was conducted on a nationwide level. The technological gaps and duplications of the research were then determined. In addition, this report also provides a brief annotated bibliography of all sources used to determine the gaps in technology and knowledge for dowel bar and alternative dowel bar topics as applied to highway pavements.

Use of mobile devices to answer online surveys: implications for research.

BACKGROUND: There is a growing use of mobile devices to access the Internet. We examined whether participants who used a mobile device to access a brief online survey were quicker to respond to the survey but also, less likely to complete it than participants using a traditional web browser. FINDINGS: Using data from a recently completed online intervention trial, we found that participants using mobile devices were quicker to access the survey but less likely to complete it compared to participants using a traditional web browser. More concerning, mobile device users were also less likely to respond to a request to complete a six week follow-up survey compared to those using traditional web browsers. CONCLUSIONS: With roughly a third of participants using mobile devices to answer an online survey in this study, the impact of mobile device usage on survey completion rates is a concern. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01521078.

Parallel Research, Multiple Intellectual Property Right Protection Instruments, and the Correlation among R&D Projects, September 2005

The choice of a research path in attacking scientific and technological problems is a significant component of firms’ R&D strategy. One of the findings of the patent races literature is that, in a competitive market setting, firms’ noncooperative choices of research projects display an excessive degree of correlation, as compared to the socially optimal level. The paper revisits this question in a context in which firms have access to trade secrets, in addition to patents, to assert intellectual property rights (IPR) over their discoveries. We find that the availability of multiple IPR protection instruments can move the paths chosen by firms engaged in an R&D race toward the social optimum.

Long-term Plan for Concrete Pavement Research and Technology: The CP Road Map, November 2004, Volume 1 of 2

An Iowa State University–led team facilitated development of the CP Road Map. They developed a database of existing research. They gathered input, face to face, from the highway community. They identified gaps in research that became the basis for problem statements, which they organized into a cohesive, strategic research plan.

Long-term Plan for Concrete Pavement Research and Technology: The CP Road Map, November 2004, Volume 2 of 2

An Iowa State University–led team facilitated development of the CP Road Map. They developed a database of existing research. They gathered input, face to face, from the highway community. They identified gaps in research that became the basis for problem statements, which they organized into a cohesive, strategic research plan.