Minor Innovation Research Articles

An Act of Christ and the Church: The Order of Mass with the Participation of Only One or No Minister

abstract: A minor innovation of the 1970 Missale Romanum was its inclusion of two distinct Orders of Mass: the Ordo Missae cum populo and the Ordo Missae sine populo . Both of these ordines remain in the current Missale Romanum , with a few alterations. This duplication of ordines Missae was a novelty in three respects. First, the Consilium for the reform of the liturgy interpreted Sacrosanctum Concilium to call for a division of forms of Mass based on the presence or absence of the participation of the people, rather than on the presence or absence of singing, as had been the case previously. Second, the Missale Romanum as revised by Pope Pius V had used the same rubrics regardless of the size of the congregation, focusing rather on the role of the server. Third, the new Institutio generalis Missalis Romani lays out specific rubrics for the priest celebrating alone, something which previously had not been provided for in any substance. These rubrics do, however, still require further elaboration to be made practical, and this article applies the principles discerned from the revision process leading to the Ordo Missae sine populo to arrive at an interpretation of the current rubrics for a priest who celebrates Mass alone.

Innovations in small businesses: do public procurement contracts and intellectual property rights matter?

Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) are known to drive innovations, economic growth, and job creation. Numerous studies have analysed small businesses' innovations using new products and processes, with indicators such as funding, innovation activities, and collaborations. However, other vital determinants such as public procurement contracts and intellectual property rights protections capable of influencing innovations have not received enough scholarly attention, especially in the context of Central European countries. This paper aims to examine whether public procurement contracts, market orientations, public subsidies, intellectual property rights, and other firm characteristics shape small businesses' innovation outcomes in the Czech Republic. The results based on a cross-sectional sample of 4,193 small businesses from the Community Innovation survey 2014 prove that European utility models positively influence major and minor forms of innovation but not general innovations. Our findings also show that foreign procurement contracts matter for small businesses' major and minor forms of innovation but not general innovations. Our results further demonstrate that exporting, collaborations with universities and other public research organizations, and external research and development positively influence major and minor forms of innovation but not general innovations. The results on the average treatment effects confirm that firms' collaborations with universities and public research organizations have the highest additionality effects on major and minor forms of innovations. Finally, we find evidence that firm size and belonging to the enterprise group positively impact small businesses’ general innovations. We conclude with practical implications for policymakers and firm managers in Visegrad economies on measures that could be adopted to develop and improve upon existing and new policy initiatives to increase the effect of major and minor innovation outcomes.

Design Example of Catalyst Effect Analysis with Topological Graphing

Urban catalyst theory is based on the excavation of the phenomenon of "mutual stimulation of elements", designing and amplifying the synergistic effect between elements, that is, the catalyst effect. In this paper, the topological analysis framework of the dotted-line relationship of physical space is introduced, and it is found that the topology of the catalyst effect has distinct characteristics. This is a minor innovation in the understanding of urban catalyst theory. A case of urban catalyst theory illustrates a full process of transforming the elements that produce the catalyst effect from "grand-centered structure" to "polycentric structure" to "distributed structure". Starting from the classic case, this paper reproduces and further shows the occurrence process of the catalyst effect from the perspective of topology, and uses more cases to show the design of different types of catalyst effects, providing new ideas and references for future design on catalyst effects for different situations.

Ecumenical Dialogue and the "Insight Approach" to Conflict Mediation: A Suggestion Based on Lonergan for a Minor Methodological Innovation

Ecumenical Dialogue and the "Insight Approach" to Conflict Mediation: A Suggestion Based on Lonergan for a Minor Methodological Innovation

R&D intensity, free cash flow, and technological innovation: evidence from high-tech manufacturing firms in China

ABSTRACTTechnological innovation, which can be classified into major and minor innovation, enables firms to gain competitive and sustainable advantage in the changing environment. R&D investment and financial resources are recognized as two critical factors for fostering technological innovation. Based on a panel dataset of 257 listed Chinese high-tech manufacturing firms over the period of 2008–2015, we explored the effect of R&D intensity on technological innovation and the moderating role of free cash flow using negative binormal regression models. Our results reveal that the relationship between R&D intensity and technological innovation (both major and minor innovation) follows an inverted U pattern in which technological innovation increases with R&D intensity at decreasing rates and falls gradually after R&D intensity exceeds a threshold. Our results also indicate that free cash flow plays a moderating role in the relationship between R&D intensity and major innovation but not in the relationship between R&D intensity and minor innovation. Our study draws attention to the improvement of R&D investment efficiency in high-tech manufacturing firms and sheds light on the importance of holding cash in major innovation-oriented firms.

Discovering new technology opportunities based on patents: Text-mining and F-term analysis

Discovering new technology opportunities has long been a significant issue in both practice and academia. Among various approaches to search for opportunities, one of the most frequently used is to identify emerging or vacant technologies from patent documents. In line with it, this study aims to suggest a novel approach for the development of new technology ideas based on the F-term, which classifies patent documents according to the technical attributes of the inventions described within them. Since the technical attributes are analyzed according to various perspectives through the application of the F-term, which generates detailed and systematic information about technologies, the F-term can provide effective guidelines for generating new technology ideas, if utilized well.In the approach, we first choose a target technology for seeking new opportunities. Then, from the text-mining results of the F-term data, we identify other technologies with technical attributes similar to the target technology, called reference technologies. The next step is to extract technical attributes that are commonly used in the reference technologies but have not been used in the target technology. Finally, we can obtain new technology ideas by applying these technical attributes to the target technologies. This is one of the earliest attempts to adopt the F-term for patent analysis; the proposed methodology can show how to best take advantage of the F-term and the wealth of available technical information in patents, and also can be useful in the idea-creation process for major and minor innovation.

A Minor Innovation in Constructing a Small Bowel Stoma in Neonates with Small Bowel Atresia to Reduce the Morbidity.

Background: Intestinal atresia has still significant morbidity in developing countries. Stomas are now not recommended in every case of intestinal atresia; primary anastomosis is the goal of surgery after resection of dilated adynamic gut. A new type of stoma formation along with primary anastomosis is being presented here. Materials and Methods: This report is based on our experience of many cases with this technique in last 12 years but all the details and long follow-up of each case is not available. However the method of surgical procedure, progress, complications, and advantages encountered have been highlighted. Results: Presently we have data of 7 patients; others are lost to follow up. Three had died with other associated problems, namely one with multiple atresias, two with septic shock and prematurity. Two stomas did not require formal closure because stoma shriveled and disappeared. Two other stomas had grown very long like a diverticulum when these were closed after 5 and 8 months. Conclusion: This technique is another attempt to decrease morbidity of patients of intestinal atresia especially in those cases where short bowel syndrome is feared after resection of proximal dilated gut.

The next move in neuromodulation therapy: a question of timing.

The effect of time-varying electrical currents (AC) on neuronal activity is currently the focus of intense translational and multidisciplinary research efforts. Thanks to a broad range of neuromodulation modalities, it is indeed possible to induce, more or less invasively, electrical currents in brain tissue. On the non-invasive side, transcranial alternating stimulation (tACS), or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) have demonstrated their potential for the symptomatic treatment of neurological disorders. In the domain of more invasive stimulation techniques, deep brain stimulation (DBS), or cortical stimulation (electrical motor cortex stimulation, EMCS) have proven extremely successful therapies for Parkinson's Disease (PD) or pain management, and are used in tens of thousands of patients worldwide (over 100,000 patients for DBS only). The underlying mechanisms are increasingly understood, even if they remain wrapped in some mystery that refrains the outstanding potential of brain stimulation for treating neurological disorders. However, the basic idea is simple: information processing by the brain is achieved, at least partially, by neuronal electrical oscillations in various frequency ranges, produced by a variety of neuronal networks distributed throughout the brain. Efforts to link the spatiotemporal structure of these neuronal oscillations with brain function and behavior have provided an enormous amount of data that is shaping our understanding of brain function (see Buzsaki and Draguhn, 2004 for a review on the functional significance of brain oscillations). By inducing currents in brain tissue, it is possible to modulate the membrane potential of neurons, thereby resulting in detectable changes in neuronal activity, and to impact associated function of neuronal networks. The most widespread neurostimulation therapy today is DBS, clinically used to treat symptoms in neurological disorders such as in PD (see Modolo and Beuter, 2009 for a review). More than 25 years after its discovery, the technology of DBS has not changed much: high-frequency (>130 Hz) electrical stimulation using biphasic pulses, which are defined by their pulse width and amplitude. One minor recent innovation is the use of current-controlled DBS devices, which keep the stimulation steady at all times to avoid fluctuations in the stimulation signal being delivered and potential associated side effects (Bronstein et al., 2014). Given the tremendous progress of electronics over the last 25 years, and the advance in our qualitative and quantitative understanding of brain function, it is somewhat surprising that more personalized, sophisticated devices have not surfaced yet. Of course, using more advanced neuromodulation technologies would be meaningless if current technology was sufficient. With only 5–10% of patients eligible for DBS, a 1–3% rate of complications during surgery, batteries to replace every 4 years on average (under general anesthesia), stimulation parameters needing manual adjustments, and a complete absence of brain activity monitoring, there is however a consensus on the facts that current technology is not sufficient, and that the next generation of neuromodulation devices has to be pushed forward. Perhaps the most important aspect of all is the ability of novel neuromodulation devices to deliver stimuli with the right timing: with DBS, no matter what the ongoing brain activity is, the same stimulation pattern is continuously repeated. Why is that a limit, and why is it of fundamental importance to improve DBS drastically?

Success in Meeting the Primary Endpoint in Phase III Trials: A Comparison of Industry and Cooperative Group Trials

Abstract 508 Background:Evaluation of research effort, especially estimation of the proportion of treatment successes in randomized clinical trials (RCTs), has important ethical, scientific, and public policy implications. Whether commercial or public sector research programs generate higher discovery rate of new successful treatments when tested in cancer RCTs is not known.These research programs are postulated to be governed by two competing hypotheses. The “equipoise/uncertainty hypothesis” assumes that investigators cannot predict trial results in advance, and as a consequence, the rate of discovering new treatments is about 50%. In contrast, the “design bias hypothesis” assumes that researchers conduct only those RCTs which have high likelihood of success. We hypothesize that the public sector RCTs are governed by the equipoise hypothesis while the industry-sponsored (IS) RCTs are based on the design bias hypothesis. Here we conduct the comparative systematic assessment to investigate if IS RCTs are associated with higher success rates than publicly-sponsored trials (PS) according to design bias versus equipoise/uncertainty hypothesis, respectively. Methods:All consecutive, published and unpublished, phase III cancer RCTs assessing treatment superiority and conducted by Canada's NCIC Clinical Trials Group (NCIC CTG) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) from 1980 to June 2010 were included. All trial protocols from GSK and NCIC CTG were reviewed independently by two reviewers to determine their eligibility. Two reviewers independently extracted data from eligible study protocols and publications using a standardized form. Three metrics were extracted to determine treatment successes: (1) the proportion of statistically significant trials favoring new or standard treatments, (2) the proportion of the trials in which new treatments were considered superior according to the original investigators, and (3) quantitative synthesis of data for primary outcomes as defined in each trial. An experimental regimen (drug compound or combinations or procedures), which was not tested previously in an RCT involving a specific cancer population or for alleviation of symptoms was classified as a major innovation. If a drug or regimen was already tested in a specific cancer population and testing involved dose modifications or changes in route of administration, it was classified as a minor innovation. Results:Between1980 to 2010 NCIC CTG conducted 77 RCTs enrolling 33,260 patients while GSK conducted 40 cancer RCTs accruing 19,889 patients. Forty two percent (99%CI 24 to 60) of the results were statistically significant favoring experimental treatments in GSK versus 25% (99%CI 13 to 37) in the NCIC CTG cohort (p=0.04). Investigators concluded that new treatments were superior to standard treatments in 80% of GSK versus 44% of NCIC CTG RCTs (p<0.0001) The GSK investigators deemed 32% (99%CI 14 to 50; 14/44) of interventions as “breakthroughs” versus 10% (99%CI 1 to 18; 8/82) by NCIC CTG investigators (p=0.002). Pooled analysis for the primary outcome indicated higher success rate in GSK trials (odds ratio: 0.61 [99%CI 0.47–0.78]) versus NCIC trials (odds ratio: 0.86 [99%CI 0.74–1.00]) (p=0.003). Experimental treatments were considered as major innovations in 32% (99%CI 15 to 49; 16/50) of GSK vs. 93% (99%CI 86 to 100; 78/84) of NCIC CTG trials (p<0.0001). Increased success rate in IS RCTs was mainly due to testing of new palliative agents, while the research program of NCIC CTG largely focused on development of therapies to improve survival. Conclusions:This first study evaluating the treatment success and pattern of therapeutic discoveries in IS versus PS research showed that industry discovers more successful new treatments compared with public sector. However, industry appears to undertake RCTs with high likelihood of success. PS research had significantly high proportion of major innovations compared with IS research. Disclosures:No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Ohno's dilemma: evolution of new genes under continuous selection.

New genes with novel functions arise by duplication and divergence, but the process poses a problem. After duplication, an extra gene copy must rise to sufficiently high frequency in the population and remain free of common inactivating lesions long enough to acquire the rare mutations that provide a new selectable function. Maintaining a duplicated gene by selection for the original function would restrict the freedom to diverge. (We refer to this problem as Ohno's dilemma). A model is described by which selection continuously favors both maintenance of the duplicate copy and divergence of that copy from the parent gene. Before duplication, the original gene has a trace side activity (the innovation) in addition to its original function. When an altered ecological niche makes the minor innovation valuable, selection favors increases in its level (the amplification), which is most frequently conferred by increased dosage of the parent gene. Selection for the amplified minor function maintains the extra copies and raises the frequency of the amplification in the population. The same selection favors mutational improvement of any of the extra copies, which are not constrained to maintain their original function (the divergence). The rate of mutations (per genome) that improve the new function is increased by the multiplicity of target copies within a genome. Improvement of some copies relaxes selection on others and allows their loss by mutation (becoming pseudogenes). Ultimately one of the extra copies is able to provide all of the new activity.

Spillover effects of FDI on innovation in China: Evidence from the provincial data

Foreign direct investment (FDI) can benefit innovation activity in the host country via spillover channels such as reverse engineering, skilled labor turnovers, demonstration effects, and supplier–customer relationships. Using provincial data from 1995 to 2000, we find positive effects of FDI on the number of domestic patent applications in China. This finding is robust under both pooled time-series and cross-section data estimation and panel data analysis and for different types of patent applications (invention, utility model, and external design). The spillover effect is the strongest for minor innovation such as external design patent, highlighting a “demonstration effect” of FDI.

Spillover Effects of FDI on Innovation in China: Evidence from the Provincial Data

Foreign direct investment (FDI) can benefit innovation activity in the host country via spillover channels such as reverse engineering, skilled labor turnovers, effects, and supplier-customer relationships. Using provincial data from 1995 to 2000, we find positive effects of FDI on the number of domestic patent applications in China. This finding is robust under both pooled time-series and cross-section data estimation and panel data analysis and for different types of patent applications (invention, utility model, and external design). The spillover is the strongest for minor innovation such as external design patent, highlighting a demonstration effect of FDI.

The Use of Highlighting to Indicate Artifacts of the User Interface

This article shows how an apparently minor innovation, special highlighting to indicate that a term represents an artifact of the user interface, has implications for sentence grammar. In short, the highlighting increases the semantic complexity of the sentence in which it appears, and unless the highlighting is used with the utmost care problems can arise in interpretation.

Enhancing Concept Test Validity by Using Expert Consumers

In standard concept testing practice, consumers may be invited to participate in a test if they use or possess the product. However, merely using or possessing a product is no guarantee that a consumer has the level of product knowledge that is necessary for judging the concept. Conducting a concept test with consumers who lack the necessary product knowledge may jeopardize the validity of the test results. That is, the results of such a concept test may not accurately indicate how consumers will evaluate the real product.To ensure the validity of concept test results, Jan Schoormans, Roland Ortt, and Cees de Bont suggest that consumers who are invited to participate in a concept test should possess a degree of product knowledge. When a consumer is asked to evaluate a concept, their product expertise allows them to understand product information faster, fill in missing information, and learn more easily. Consumers with product expertise are better able to discriminate between important and unimportant aspects of a product. They are also better able to infer benefits from a product's physical attributes.To explore the effects of consumer expertise on the quality of the evaluations provided by concept tests, the authors conducted two experiments, both of which resemble actual concept tests. The first experiment examines the effect of consumer expertise on the results of a concept test for a major innovation, Videotext. This experiment tests the hypothesis that the similarity between the evaluations of a concept and an actual product will be greater for consumers with a high level of product‐category expertise than for consumers with low product‐category expertise. The results of the experiment clearly support the idea that product‐category expertise enhances a respondent's ability to evaluate concepts in a test of major innovations. From this, it is concluded that only respondents with high product‐category expertise should be used for concept tests of major innovations.The second experiment explores the effects of product expertise on consumers' evaluations of a minor innovation, a redesigned coffee maker. This experiment tests two hypotheses. First, it is proposed that consumers with high product expertise give more consistent evaluations in a concept test than consumers with low product expertise. Second, it is suggested that consumers with product expertise generate more stable evaluations over time than consumers without product expertise. The results of this experiment clearly indicate that using consumers with moderate to high levels of product expertise is beneficial to the validity of the results from concept tests of minor innovations.

Enhancing concept test validity by using expert consumers

In standard concept testing practice, consumers may be invited to participate in a test if they use or possess the product. However, merely using or possessing a product is no guarantee that a consumer has the level of product knowledge that is necessary for judging the concept. Conducting a concept test with consumers who lack the necessary product knowledge may jeopardize the validity of the test results. That is, the results of such a concept test may not accurately indicate how consumers will evaluate the real product. To ensure the validity of concept test results, Jan Schoormans, Roland Ortt, and Cees de Bont suggest that consumers who are invited to participate in a concept test should possess a degree of product knowledge. When a consumer is asked to evaluate a concept, their product expertise allows them to understand product information faster, fill in missing information, and learn more easily. Consumers with product expertise are better able to discriminate between important and unimportant aspects of a product. They are also better able to infer benefits from a product's physical attributes. To explore the effects of consumer expertise on the quality of the evaluations provided by concept tests, the authors conducted two experiments, both of which resemble actual concept tests. The first experiment examines the effect of consumer expertise on the results of a concept test for a major innovation, Videotext. This experiment tests the hypothesis that the similarity between the evaluations of a concept and an actual product will be greater for consumers with a high level of product-category expertise than for consumers with low product-category expertise. The results of the experiment clearly support the idea that product-category expertise enhances a respondent's ability to evaluate concepts in a test of major innovations. From this, it is concluded that only respondents with high product-category expertise should be used for concept tests of major innovations. The second experiment explores the effects of product expertise on consumers' evaluations of a minor innovation, a redesigned coffee maker. This experiment tests two hypotheses. First, it is proposed that consumers with high product expertise give more consistent evaluations in a concept test than consumers with low product expertise. Second, it is suggested that consumers with product expertise generate more stable evaluations over time than consumers without product expertise. The results of this experiment clearly indicate that using consumers with moderate to high levels of product expertise is beneficial to the validity of the results from concept tests of minor innovations.

The evaluation of change in the construction industry

The paper describes the fortunes of a minor technical innovation - purpose-made, steel fabric reinforcement for concrete, and argues, through this example, that the discussion of change, which is formally carried on within ‘technical’ and ‘economic’ frameworks, must be extended in order to address explicitly the ‘political’ implications which are tacitly recognized by practitioners. The term ‘political’ is used in its widest sense to encompass the fact that the many parties involved within the construction process promote not only their own interests but different ways in which benefits are described and evaluated. The use of mainstream economics, offering to provide a unitary set of criteria by which to evaluate benefit, submerges this political dimension.

Innovation in a Labor-Managed Firm: A Membership Perspective

IN his treatise on on the general theory of the labor-managed economy, Vanek [10] argues that the organizational principle of labor-management has an advantage over other forms in promoting minor innovation. Minor innovation can be distinguished from major innovation according to capitalfinancing characteristics. Major innovation corresponds to research and development ventures which require long-term financing. Minor innovation involves using the Hayekian time and place specific information of the worker to improve productivity. Implementation occurs in a learning-by-doing atmosphere and externalities among workers are likely, but no long-term financing is required. Vanek argues that a labor-managed organization provides a conflict-free environment within which Hayek's man-on-the-spot is willing to share his information with fellow workers to improve overall performance. Vanek states that a natural channel of communication exists between those who have the information and innovative ideas and those who choose production techniques to implement this choice because of the participatory decision-making structure in the labor-managed firm. Furthermore, he claims that goal congruence exists between those with the information and those who incorporate the fruits of innovation into the distribution scheme of the firm because of each member's property right to residual earnings in -the labor-managed firm. Vanek concludes that the labor-managed firm is better able to elicit the information necessary to undertake the minor technical innovation and to accommodate and adjust to any negative effects of implementing such innovation by cushioning adverse employment effects. Vanek considers explicitly the reaction of the labor-managed firm to only one type of technical innovation, Hicks' neutral technological change. He argues that the dividend-maximizing firm faces countervailing employment reactions to such innovation. The scale effects tend to increase employment while a capital-cost sharing effect, familiar to the dividend-maximizing firm

Crop protection: the role of the chemical industry in an uncertain future

Chemical means for the control of weeds, pests and diseases have become legion during the last 40 years, to the point at which it might superficially appear that all the major problems are solved. An international industry earning more than £4000M has grown up, and spends around £250M annually on research and development: in a period of increasing economic pressures on the heavy organic chemical industries, the speciality field appears increasingly attractive to prospective entrants. The future contains opportunities and constraints, and above all uncertainty. While minor innovation may be slowing down, major advances continue in the direction of more active or more specific chemicals, new formulation methods and revolutionary application systems. At the same time, regulatory, legal and social pressures call into question the validity of the judgement of experts and reinforce underlying trends in cost inflation. Under heavy techno-commercial pressures, and from a science base that is as yet inadequate, the chemical industry is striving to assess its long-term role in relation to changing market needs and the potential contribution of other technologies.

Broadpoint: Culture, Phase, Horizon, Tradition, or Knife?

Turnbaugh's thesis about the dispersal of the Broadpoint Culture along the East Coast of the United States is critically examined. The test of Turnbaugh's thesis presented here examines the proposed Broadpoint Culture from seven dimensions: characteristic style of artifacts, technology, subsistence base, trade networks, mortuary practices, human biology, and sociocultural factors. Assemblages reported from 15 Broadpoint components are compared. It is concluded that: (1) the Broadpoint Culture was at best a reflection of a widespread maritime economy, rather than a complete culture; (2) the dispersal of broadpoint artifacts along the East Coast reflects a minor technological innovation rather than the physical migration of Broadpoint Culture peoples; and (3) the Broadpoint Horizon (ca. 2250 to 1550 B.C.) represents an excellent archaeological situation to study the dynamics of band-level societies practicing a maritime economy.