ScienceUSblog

ARLINGTON, VA, APRIL 18, 2012: A panel of the United States’ top stem cell experts will present their findings from a study tour of top Asian and European labs in a workshop to be held at the National Science Foundation (NSF) on May 24, 2012.

With sponsorship from NSF, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institute of Standards & Technology, the six-member WTEC panel on stem cell engineering (SCE) recently toured more than 40 sites in Europe and Asia, including sites in Japan, China, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Tissue regeneration through stem cell engineering is a promising line of research with the potential to treat a variety of medical conditions, including illnesses for which there is currently no cure.

While certain kinds of stem cell research have generated political controversy in the United States, most other countries have not had these reservations. Thus their research in this hot field has proceeded rapidly. The purpose of this study was to discover what research is occurring abroad in order to better inform U.S. scientists and policymakers.

In addition to gauging the relative positions of nations and assessing general progress in the field, the panel will discuss their findings in such particular areas as: regulations, ethics, and public policy; engineering & physical science applications; high-throughput screening, microfluidics & real-time phenotyping, quantitative & computational approaches; and biomanufacturing & bioprocessing. The panel will also be issuing a written final report later this year.

The WTEC Stem Cell Engineering panel is chaired by Dr. Robert Nerem of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Also on the panel are Jeanne Loring of The Scripps Research Institute, Todd McDevitt of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Sean Palecek of the University of Wisconsin, David Schaffer of the University of California, and Peter Zandstra of the University of Toronto. Serving as consultants to the panel are Jon Rowley of Lonza Biosceinces, Joseph Gold of the Geron Corporation, and Ronald McKay of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development.

The May 24 workshop will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Room 110 at the National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson Blvd. in Arlington, VA. The workshop is free, but space is limited, so registration is required. A video recording of the proceedings will also be available at a later date.

For more information and registration, please visit the SCE study’s webpage at http://www.wtec.org/SCE

About WTEC:

The World Technology Evaluation Center is the nation’s leading organization in conducting international technology assessments via peer review. WTEC has conducted over 70 such studies since 1989 under grants from a variety of Federal agencies. For more information, visit http://www.wtec.org.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
9 A.M. EDT, October 4, 2011
Contact: Matt Henderson
Phone: (717) 299-7130

ARLINGTON, VA, AUGUST 4, 2011: A panel of the United States’ top robotic experts will present their findings from a study tour of top Asian labs in a workshop to be held at the National Science Foundation (NSF) on Friday, December 2, 2011.

With sponsorship from NSF, the six-member WTEC Human-Robot Interaction study panel will tour more than a dozen labs in Japan, six in Korea, and will have a joint workshop in Beijing during the week of October 16, 2011.

The purpose is to guide and justify U.S. research & development in light of what is going on in other countries. “We want to see where the U.S. fits in the global perspective,” NSF’s Ted Conway explained at the study’s May 11 kickoff meeting.

It is not a merely academic exercise. “The emphasis… is on where exciting things are going on and where there should be investment,” noted Ephraim Glinert, also of NSF.

New breakthroughs appear likely to revolutionize human-machine interactions in a variety of settings, including healthcare, rehabilitation, education, entertainment, business, manufacturing – even military. The panel will discuss the latest developments in many of these areas and their implications for U.S. policymakers when they issue their report on December 2.

“How will robotics help with economic competitiveness and job creation?” asked Dr. Frank Huband, Director of WTEC’s International division.

That very issue is receiving attention from the highest levels of government. President Barack Obama recently visited Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center to announce a $70 million U.S. Robotics Initiative.

Obama stressed the importance of American manufacturing and business leadership in order to create and retain jobs, stimulate economic growth, and compete on the world stage.

The WTEC Human-Robot Interaction panel is chaired by Dr. Manuela Veloso of Carnegie Mellon University. Also on the panel are Mindy Aisen of the University of Southern California, Ayanna Howard of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Chad Jenkins of Brown University, Bilge Mutlu of the University of Wisconsin, and Brian Scassellati of Yale University.

The December 2 workshop will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Room 555 of the National Science Foundation’s Stafford II building at 4201 Wilson Blvd. in Arlington, VA. The workshop is free, but space is limited, so registration at wtec.org is required. The workshop will also be webcast by TV Worldwide (http://www.tvworldwide.com).

For more information, please visit the HRI study’s webpage at http://www.wtec.org/HRI

About WTEC:

The World Technology Evaluation Center is the nation’s leading organization in conducting international technology assessments via peer review. WTEC has conducted over 60 such studies since 1989 under grants from a variety of federal agencies. For more information, visit http://www.wtec.org.

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For decades the US has been investing in research and development, but neglecting manufacturing.  Since it is only the manufacturing of products that can repay investments in R&D, this strategy is really a loser–except for multinationals.  They can make money manufacturing abroad–no American workers are needed, except few sales clerks at $8 per hour.   

This is hardly rocket science, but many efforts to reap the benefits of American R&D in America have been ineffective.  But we have to keep trying.  The latest effort was announced by the Obama Administration on June 24–the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership.  This old EE might call it AMP, or R&D&M, adding manufacturing as an essential follow-on to R&D.

WTEC analyzes alternate universes abroad to seek policies that work.  Some countries (you know who you are) have made a spectacular success from the M part, sometimes without much of the R&D part, at least to start.  Learning from abroad is essential in finding strategies for zero-sum games–like seeking world market share of high-tech sales.  It’s silly to contemplate your own navel to see what has to be done; you have to learn from your successful competitors.  Let’s start by banishing the term, R&D alone, and always adding the manufacturing part: R&D&M.

I’ll discuss the Administration’s new AMP program in the next post in this context.

 R. D. Shelton

An important science and technology policy development was drowned out last week in the cacophony of carnival barkers questioning the president’s birthplace.  The United States Patent and Trademark Office announced that it would be postponing the implementation of reforms aimed at improving the efficiency of the patent application approval process.  This unfortunate decision resulted from Congress’s decision to raid some 100 million of the USPTO’s self supported dollars.  It is all the more ironic that the announcement came just days before World Intellectual Property Day, a day meant to celebrate the protection of intellectual property worldwide.

      As pointed out in an article by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the reforms would have included a pilot program for fast-tracking patent approval for an extra fee, opening a satellite office in Detroit, much needed upgrades to the USPTO’s computer, and hiring of personnel–necessary to simply keep up with the increasing pace of applications.  In a recent White House video blog, Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, explains how the average patent takes three years to be approved because of a patent office straining with insufficient resources.  The recently delayed reforms were designed to address these problems.         Patent protection is critical for businesses competing in industries of the future which are dependent upon technological innovation including biotechnology, nanotechnology, clean energy, and computing.  China is undertaking a concerted effort to compete with the US in these areas of innovation as indicated by a recent Thomson Reuters report on the state of innovation in China.  The report concluded that “if current trends continue, China is set to dominate the patent information landscape in the not-too-distant future.”

     China’s increasing efforts at securing patents should be kept in perspective, and may be a “case of the world’s second-largest economy playing catch up,”  However, it is clear that the US needs to implement reforms to our patent process in order to remain competitive and maintain leadership in science and technology related industries.

Lance Miller

Mackie, put down Angry Birds!  Vickie, take out those ear buds!  Daddy wants to tell you about old fashioned information technology.  I’ll make this short.

Book.  These were handheld devices that told a story written by a Published Author, which meant that a publisher thought it was good enough to gamble some money to print it.  Thus they were usually pretty good, compared to the blog drivel that anyone can post. [Recursive reference: like this]

Encyclopedia. A shelf full of books, similar to Wikipedia, but with alphabetical topics.  It had links, but you often had to get off your duff to get another volume.

Book Store.  Similar to Amazon.com, except you had to drive there.  You could drink their coffee while you read.  Coffee sales did not pay the rent, and replacing the coffee stained books, so these have disappeared.

Library.  Similar to bookstores, but free.  That is, they were paid for by the taxpayers.  The Tea Party decided that they were not worth it.

Telephone.  A early cell phone, amazingly connected to the wall by a short cord.  No one could call you while you were trying to trying to drive onto an expressway.  Nice, but the down side was that there was no way to turn them off.  Your daddy once stuffed a phone’s bell with Kleenex, when being repeatedly called by a drunk wanting a cab home.

Typewriter.  Similar to Word, but incredibly primitive.  You retyped a whole page if you made one mistake.

Computer. By just plugging wires into sockets, you could make a little spot of light bob up and down, if you also knew differential equations.

Movie.  A dark place for teenagers to make out.  [No change]

You get the idea.  Readers, if any, are invited to add to this list in the comments.

R. D. Shelton

High-technology trade is one bottom line indicator of the performance of a national S&T establishment, or “innovation ecosystem.”  The OECD has been gathering this data for many years for five kinds of products: pharmaceuticals, aerospace, electronics, computers, and instruments.  While OECD doesn’t tabulate totals, it’s easy to sum these up for overall indicators of imports, exports and trade balance in high-tech products.  Econobabble claims that international trade is always a win-win situation for all nations, but the latest direction of these indicators shows that all is not so rosy for the US and EU.

Individual companies measure sales, profits, and market share to monitor the health of their enterprise.  Nations can do something similar by monitoring imports, exports, and trade balance.  The high-technology product sector is particularly valuable as a measure of the success of a nation’s overall R&D investments.  After all, about the only way one can get any financial return whatsoever on their investments in research is to manufacture the resulting innovations, and sell them in domestic and foreign markets.

First the good news: imports of these products are growing rapidly in the US, EU, and PRC providing a cornucopia of snazzy new products like iGadgets for everyone to enjoy: Figure 1.  Figures Here  There is just that little dip in 2009, presumably because of a slowdown due to the Great Recession.  All these graphs are in current dollars.  

The Obama Administration has a goal of doubling exports, and Figure 2 shows that high-tech products are contributing mightily.  The not so good news is  that while US exports of these products are growing rapidly, China’s, and even Europe’s, are growing much more rapidly.

The really bad news is in Figure 3.  US and Japanese market share in this sector has dropped like a rock as they moved their manufacturing off-shore.  Also, like the market share of a company, the trade balance of a country (Figure 4) is an overall measure of its business strength in relation to its competitors.   Until the 1990s the US was a high-tech powerhouse; a trade surplus in this sector helped balance losses in sectors like automobiles.  Then China started manufacturing high-tech products in quantity and selling them at prices no one could compete with.  (Try finding a PC made anywhere else at Best Buy.)  Unfortunately this indicator is also a measure of the overall ROI on research investments.   Heretical thought: could it be that our herculean efforts to innovate our way out of our economic problems and build up our STEM workforce may actually be counterproductive, if our competitors reap ALL the benefits of making and selling the resulting products?!

 R. D. Shelton

Yesterday I picked up from the Baltimore office the final report for the scalable software workshop.  This is an important contribution to an important problem.  Dave Nelson, Ben Benokraitis, and Patricia Foland did a very good job in making this a big success.

Last night I heard that the paper by Shelton and Leydesdorff was accepted for presentation at the ISSI conference in Durban in July; I passed out hardcopies of this at our last staff meeting.  Yesterday I also submitted a longer version to the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.  Loet posted this one at a preprint service hosted at Cornell. http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.3047 

Yesterday we also finished a draft of the brochure summary of the nanoEHS stategy, which I will bring to NNCO today.  Patricia, Matt, David, and I have been crashing on this for the last few days.  I think this looks very good, but we’ll see what the client thinks.  In any event, we will now turn our attention back to the similar brochure on Nano2.  OmniStudio is going to prettify both.

I suppose that Geoff and company are also finishing their supplement to the President’s FY2012 budget, a document with considerably higher stakes.

R. D. Shelton

This handsome new book has been published by the Imperial College Press based on a 2009 WTEC study on nanocatalysis.  Actually the title is An International Assessment of Research and Development in Catalysis by Nanostructured Materials.  Robert Davis of the Unversity of Virginia was chair of the WTEC expert panel, and is listed as the book’s editor. 

We learned the hard way in the course of the study that the shorthand title, “nanocatalysis,” is touchy.  Some in the catalysis community believe that catalysts have always operated at nano scales and thus research on nanotechnogy is nothing new.  Of course, you could say the same thing about any field of nanotechnology, since everything is made out of atoms.  What is really new about the field of nanotechnology is new tools that permit manipulation of matter at nanometer scales, thus the full title we used.

The book is available from the publisher for $99 at http://www.worldscibooks.com/chemistry/p772.html  Amazon doesn’t have it in stock yet.  Or you could download the full text from wtec.org for free.

 R. D. Shelton

For decades the US innovation community has been trying to get the attention of the White House and Congress for this issue, which has been way down on the list of Washington priorities.  This grassroots lobbying effort has been greatly handicapped by not having the money to buy access that some other lobbies have.  Still, some modest success was gained with the NIH doubling initiative, the American Competitiveness Initiative, and the America COMPETES Act.  Except for the NIH money and a small portion of the ARRA stimulus bill, this has been mostly talk and not much action.  At last we’ve got the attention of the White House, and maybe the Congress.  When a State of the Union address from the President to the Congress is focused almost entirely on this issue, we’ve got the best lobbyist in town on our side. 

WTEC has played a very small role in this movement though its pointing with alarm abroad.  With this new attention at the highest levels, we are positioned to do a lot more.  This President reaffirmed President Truman’s 1950 goal in the address,  ”Maintaining our leadership in research and technology is crucial to America’s success.”  Logically, if one has a goal, it is necessary to measure progress toward that goal.  Measuring world leadership of S&T is our middle name: World Technology Evaluation Center, Inc.  And we have a 20-year record of doing more of this than anyone else by the on-site, peer review method that some believe is the most accurate method.

I think we are ideally positioned to take advantage of this new priority that our issue has in Washington.  As the country as a whole focuses on competing in innovation worldwide, WTEC and WTIP should focus on redoubling our efforts to do our part to help.  And as in the case of the country as a whole, we have a very tangible motivation for this: our prosperity depends on it.

Over Xmas and New Years, we went to Montreal.  Why north in the winter?  Well, when you get back, it really seems refreshingly balmy at home.  Think about it; the Canadian snowbirds have it backwards.  They should go to Greenland for winter vacations, instead of Florida.

 Since I couldn’t find any Made in the USA clothing in America, I tried to find some Made in Canada clothing in Canada.  I did find one item in the Montreal Walmart, a belt, which I bought.  In the 8-story Bay department store (BTW, this is where E-Bay comes from) I asked a clerk if there was any men’s clothing made in Canada; he said no with some regret.  I did find a cap, which I bought.

What has this got to do with S&T?  Well, manufacturing is the business end of the innovation cycle; that’s where the money is made to recoup R&D investments.  By ceding this phase to other nations, the US, and now Canada, is giving up on the opportunity to actually make money from S&T.  I don’t think that is a sustainable policy.

 R. D. Shelton