Toxicogenomic predictive modeling: Emerging opportunities for more efficient drug discovery and development

Drug discovery companies are coming under increasing pressure to prove the long-term safety of their products more precisely, and to provide more data on them. As highlighted by Vioxx, for many drugs, the existence of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) becomes apparent once the compound has been extensively prescribed and a population base of considerable size has been exposed to the therapeutic agent. The ability to make decisions regarding termination of clinical development of a non-viable drug candidate as early as possible will have a large financial impact for a pharmaceutical company. Knowledge regarding the interactions of chemicals, genes, and cell function can improve chemical risk analyses. These efforts will be aided by continued improvement and expansion of predictive toxicology in combination with a range of mutually supportive technologies to develop strategies to facilitate better and more focused decision-making throughout the drug discovery process. Failure to implement such an approach causes companies to withdraw drugs from development or the market. This not only presents human health consequences but also has a negative economic impact on the industry. As such, one of the major challenges in drug discovery is to accurately predict which new drugs will be associated with a significant incidence of ADRs. The ability to produce information on potential toxicity early in the discovery phase will become the basis for judging whether a drug candidate merits further development.     

Evaluating latecomer growth in information technology: A historical perspective

From a low initial base it is not difficult for developing countries to close the relative digital divide with the developed countries. A more challenging and novel question is whether, because of leapfrogging and other latecomer advantages, developing countries have grown faster than developed from the same initial starting point. Or, is it the case rather that the disadvantages of being a latecomer exceed the advantages? Are there any pronounced outliers among the developing countries and what are their distinguishing characteristics? Using a number of methods and data sources I seek to answer these questions in a tentative but provocative manner.     

Knowledge sharing in an organization

Managers are always seeking effective policies that encourage employees to share their knowledge with others in an organization. The appropriate organizational incentives are difficult to investigate due to human factors and other institutional complexities affecting sharing behaviors of individuals. Conducting laboratory or field experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of various organizational incentive policies is unrealistic. This work proposes a novel agent-based modeling approach to simulate the actions of knowledge sharing between actors in an organization. Several human and institutional factors in this artificial world were manipulated to understand knowledge sharing. The simulation results produce the following interesting findings. (1) The initial state of actors' action affects the knowledge-sharing action regardless of the adopted strategy. (2) Poorer collective capability among the population lowers the knowledge sharing behaviors. (3) The incentive policy has restricted effects for increasing the sharing action. Rewarding each knowledge-sharing action is more effective than the periodic organizational incentives to encourage actors' knowledge sharing behaviors.     

Vehicle-to-grid systems for sustainable development: An integrated energy analysis

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems represent a means by which power capacity in parked vehicles can be used to generate electricity for the grid. This paper describes the first detailed and global analysis of the potential of V2G technologies over the long-term (to 2100) using a comprehensive energy-systems model. In this analysis we explore the potential for V2G systems to supply a number of electricity submarkets and concomitantly accelerate the diffusion of advanced vehicle technologies, including hybrid-electric and fuel cell drivetrains. We also examine the potential impact of V2G on the global energy system, particularly in terms of investment in conventional capacity, and the possible role of V2G-enabled vehicles in increasing the market penetration of renewable electricity generation technologies. Importantly, however, V2G technologies represent a paradigm shift in how the energy and mobility markets are related, and a number of possible barriers to the widespread adoption of this technology are also discussed.     

Accounting,Remuneration and Employee Motivation in the New Organisation

The paper draws upon two detailed case studies of global manufacturing companies to examine the role of accounting in redesigned remuneration systems which are emerging as organisations delayer their structures, change their production methods and move to team-based systems of work and reward. In this way, changes in the content and application of accounting measures are framed within new approaches to rewarding and motivating employees that have been stimulated by efforts to develop alternative, ‘leaner’ manufacturing practices. The focus is principally upon the remuneration of shopfloor employees, but we also consider the implications of team-based reward systems for managerial staff. We argue that despite the recent complementing of financial with non-financial forms of reward (e.g. skill acquisition, improvements to health and safety), and an emphasis upon peer pressure from team members in addition to individual incentives as a source of motivation, the language and calculations of accounting remain central and pervasive in developing, justifying and mobilising support for the new reward system.     

Overseas listing as a policy tool: Evidence from China’s H-shares

We investigate why the Chinese government chooses to perform share issue privatization (SIP) of its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Hong Kong, despite the benefit of facilitating the domestic stock market development if performing SIP in China (Subrahmanyam and Titman, 1999) and the higher cost to list in Hong Kong. We address this issue by arguing that the positive effect of SIPs on the development of the domestic market may have limitations, especially when the domestic market is not well developed and cannot absorb rapid and large-scale SIP activities. To maintain domestic market order, it may be optimal to carry out SIP in overseas markets. Furthermore, by listing shares in developed overseas markets, SOEs from the less developed countries could leverage on the overseas markets’ better accounting, governance, and legal standards. By examining a sample of 92 Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong and the relevant control samples of purely domestically listed Chinese firms during the period of 1993–2006, we find supporting evidence for both arguments.     

Public—Private Partnerships in Ireland: Policy and Practice

Ireland's National Development Plan 2000–2006 includes a significant programme of public—private partnerships (PPPs). The Irish Government's policy on PPPs has been shaped to ensure that capital investments under PPP are not included when calculating key fiscal aggregates. This article traces the origins of Ireland's PPP programme and outlines the extent of PPP activity to date. It details how the PPP programme has failed to make an impact in terms of addressing Ireland's infrastructure deficit and examines three particular cases where the PPP model has been applied.     

Editorial to Introduce the Bloom and Webinger Forum

Abstract

Undergraduate accounting students in Australian universities are dissatisfied with the feedback that they currently receive. Recent evidence from the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ, a national survey of Australian university graduates) suggests that the accounting discipline ranks poorly on assessment feedback when compared to other disciplines. This finding aligns with the results of local university data, which also shows that students appear dissatisfied with feedback. Similar results can be found in other jurisdictions, as noted by the Higher Education Academy in the UK. Given the importance of feedback to enhancing students' learning, these results are of concern to accounting academics and other stakeholders, including professional accounting bodies and graduate employers. To date, few studies have sought to understand in a comprehensive manner the relatively poor performance in feedback scores in the discipline of accounting. This exploratory study seeks to address this gap by investigating the reasons underlying students' dissatisfaction. We report on students' perceptions obtained from a large survey of Australian undergraduate accounting students across 12 universities. Over 2600 students responded to the survey. Our findings indicate that accounting students value feedback that is individualised, detailed, constructive and timely, and that currently they are not receiving feedback with these attributes.     

Colonising Space: The New Economic Geography in Theory and Practice

The New Economic Geography (NEG) incorporates social space into neoclassical models, and claims to provide an explanation of uneven development within the parameters of economic orthodoxy. It is among the most influential recent innovations in mainstream economics – Paul Krugman was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions to the NEG, and it provided the theoretical inspiration for the World Bank's 2009 World Development Report. Drawing on the work of David Harvey and Henri Lefebvre, this article interprets the NEG as a colonising project in both its theoretical claims and its practical applications. Theoretically, the NEG colonises the disciplinary terrain of economic geography while replacing its substantive content with the abstractions of neoclassical economics. In practical terms, the NEG has been instrumental in the World Bank's ‘new spatial approach to development’, which aims to fully colonise peripheral regions of the global economy through constructing the spatial infrastructures necessary for globalised production and exchange. The social contradictions implicit in this project are revealed in the case of the Plan Puebla Panamá, a regional development programme for southern Mexico and Central America, based on the NEG, and identified by the World Bank as a prototype for its spatial approach to development. The article thus provides a critique of the NEG as a theoretical approach and as a policy tool, demonstrating the increasing significance of the production of space within the neoliberal project, and cautioning against the transformation of socio-spatial reality in the image of technocratic abstractions.