Search For New Knowledge Research Articles

The adoration of “hard data”: A case study of data fetishism in the evaluation of infant day care

Using a recent journal issue devoted to the evaluation of infant day care as a point of departure, this article examines the manner in which the data-driven character of child development research limits the validity and penetration of the search for new knowledge and understanding, and imposes a skewed image of what is known about children and childhood by excluding the less objective observations and insights of the clinician/practitioner.

The biomedical challenge of the next half century: The search for new knowledge of the aging process and its associated disease

The biomedical challenge of the next half century: The search for new knowledge of the aging process and its associated disease

INNOVATION: ITS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ASPECTS AND SOME OF THEIR EMPIRICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR MERGERS

Innovators may have incentives to incur the expense of the search for new knowledge even if others can use the results without contributing to the costs of the search for them. Why?Assume firms choose their actions independently. Assume new knowledge is a free public good: a firm can make the product at lower cost even if it spends nothing on research, if another does the research. The most plausible noncooperative equilibrium in this situation is stochastic: firms will decide what to do on the basis of a random device. The theory determines the probability that the firm spends nothing, or something, on research. In consequence, no firm can be certain that a rival will do the research; no firm can be certain of becoming a free rider. In consequence, there will be no relation on average between returns on research‐outlays and size of outlays; but the yield on research always will be positive.Innovation can lead to differences among firms, but these differences should not persist, as firms can gain by eliminating them. In a non‐cooperative equilibrium, where firms have different cost conditions, the allocation of output among them is inefficient. Such inefficiency can be eliminated if information about methods of production is sold, say by way of licensing. But royalty receipts are a very small fraction of total revenues, even in research and development intensive industries such as chemicals and scientific instruments.Merger is another avenue of cooperation. The theory which assumes research results are private predicts a positive relation between merger activity and technical change. Empirical evidence for the 1879–1930 inverval supports this prediction.

Selecting industrial research projects

INDUSTRIAL research covers a wide spectrum of research activity, from fundamental research through applied research to development work. Fundamental research in industry is the counterpart of pure research elsewhere: it is the search for new knowledge in scientific fields which are relevant to an organization's short‐ or long‐term objectives. In fundamental research one cannot predict beforehand what each project will achieve and relate this to the organization's objectives. The research workers should choose individual projects within a particular field on their scientific merits. The effectiveness of fundamental research depends on selecting the fields in which to carry it out and on the ability of the research workers to make discoveries. Fundamental research in industry aims to provide a flow of discoveries and new ideas that may, after applied research and development, produce technology that the organization can exploit to promote its objectives.

Letters to the Editor

I seem not to have made my meaning plain. The pediatrician does not deny responsibility for patients with kidney disease because the molecular mechanisms for renal sodium transport are still in dispute; neither should he disdain developmental disorders because theorists quarrel. In both instances, the good physician undertakes to seek a working synthesis of available evidence even as he and his colleagues search for new knowledge. It was this that I had intended to stress.

Stand-patism versus change in psychiatric clinic practice.

A number of factors appear to retard the implementation of new clinic practices designed to cope more effectively with widespread, multi-faceted disorders. To remove these deterrents to change, the author offers three premises: more and better knowledge of the community, broadening of the treatment concept to embrace direct and indirect services including help in regard to housing, education, etc., and adding to professional training the concept of the need for a constant search for new knowledge and skills.

Nurturing New Scientists

> IT IS A pleasure once again to attend National Science Fair and have an opportunity to speak to young people who, I think, truly represent the new wave of future. Winston Churchill once said: Men occasionally stumble over truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. Such is not case with young men and women here this evening. You are ones in new generation who will be actively seeking truth-many truths-and when you find them I'm sure you will also be doing your share in seeing that they are directed toward serving society. We are proud of you and we are putting a great deal of faith in you. I want to talk with you tonight in a serious way about what it means to be a scientist. I know from fact that you are here that many of you must have given some thought to this question. The decision to become a scientist is for anyone a commitment which he ought to think about carefully. For young people of your age there are many possible avenues into future-many, many paths you might take toward realization of your dreams and ambitions and science is one of noblest and most rewarding of these in our time. It was only a century or two ago that modern science became an organized study of natural phenomena deduced from experimental evidence. Since that time applied science and invention have influenced life of individual, development of industry, evolution of political societies and course of history. In past few decades we have seen a great increase in impact of science on our society owing to a new factor which was not previously present. This new factor is systematic and intensive accumulation of new scientific knowledge-the result of basic or fundamental scientific research. We now know that search for new knowledge, if not restricted to subjects of foreseeable and immediate practical importance, results in -an unexpected increase in our understanding of physical or biological phenomena.

COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH.

Success of the National Mental Health Program proposed by President Kennedy hinges on public acceptance of the comprehensive Community Mental Health Center concept of care for the mentally ill; on coordinated and adequate planning; on proper recruitment and utilization of manpower; and on an expanded and intensified search for new knowledge and techniques.

Sizing Up Research

Sizing Up Research

The Contractor System

ATOMIC energy is a contractors' industry. It was so created by the wartime Manhattan Engineer District and has been so continued by the Atomic Energy Commission. Approximately 95 per cent of the total expenditures of the Atomic Energy Commission in fiscal year 1953 were made through contractors. Private concerns under contract construct the plants, refine the uranium, produce the fissionable materials, fabricate the atomic weapons, and develop new atomic engines for war and peace. Academic bodies search for new knowledge under contract. Contractor employees numbered 142,000 of the 149,000 persons in the atomic energy industry in June 1953. The remaining 7,000, exclusive of 65 or 70 military personnel, were employees of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Church Historical Research and Library Cooperation

The poverty of our American libraries in research books is a matter of almost daily observation in research libraries. We are rich in the books for learning and teaching, that is, in all the machinery for spreading common knowledge; but when it comes to the search for new knowledge, those sciences which, like history and philology, find their chief sources in books, are handicapped at every turn. It was estimated three or four years ago that there are at least five million live research books in the world, i.e., books liable to be sought at the reference desk any day. Of these it was said perhaps one million can be found in the great reference libraries, another million exist in America somewhere, if only they could be located, and the rest are only to be found abroad. Since that time it has been found that both the number which can be found and the number, in America which might be found are increasing rapidly, but the problem is still very far from approaching solution. Every few weeks, if not oftener, any one actively engaged in research work runs up against a concrete instance. The writer has already met several during the first month of the academic year. The most recent is as typical as any.