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Purpose of the study: To analyze how Applied Social Sciences (ASS) field uses patent documents in articles, in addition to non-patent literature. Methodology/approach: A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was carried out, by selecting articles statistically analyzed regarding the year of publication, authors' nationality and knowledge area. Articles from the ASS area which explore technical information of patent documents were qualitatively analyzed as for content and ways patent information was used. Originality/Relevance: The use of technical information present in patent documents is unusual in articles, in which bibliographic references prevail as the main data source. Knowledge fields with interdisciplinary profile lack specific studies. Main results: The results obtained point that the ASS area explores little technical patent information, with patentometric studies prevailing. Articles that explore technical information observe on average one patent document, with a matter description based on textual data obtained from the title or abstract. Theoretical/methodological contributions: Systematization of SLR selected articles that allowed performing relevant quantitative analysis to understand how ASS researchers use information obtained from patent documents (metric analysis or exploration of technical information) for the construction of scientific knowledge. Social Contributions/Management Contributions: Potential opportunity to offer actions and tools to help students and researchers towards exploring patent bases in order to select documents relevant to the research topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses the contextual aspects of the dropout phenomenon in higher education in Guadeloupe, in relation to the large proportion of professional bachelors in this region. Conducting life stories with students who have dropped out of the BTS assistant manager helps to better understand the tensions that weighed on their decision. Students are confronted with constrained orientations because the local higher education map does not meet the training needs and aspirations of professional bachelors. Thus, socioeconomic and territorial characteristics in Guadeloupe are major determinants for the integration of professional bachelors into higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of domestic animal genetic resources is a topic of pressing concern given developing trends such as the liberalization of genetic resources markets, the increasing number of patents and intellectual property rights and the withdrawal of governments from the organization and control of breeding activities. Managing territorialized common goods of this nature calls for cooperative mechanisms involving a wider range of actors than so far. How to steer these mechanisms and handle crises in cooperation that can impede them, is crucial to maintaining biodiversity. This article proposes an analytical framework to analyze and facilitate cooperation in distributed breeding organizations. This framework is the result of an intervention research into breeding organizations for three local breeds of milk sheep in the Western-Pyrenees. By investigating the design and uses of scientific, technical and management instruments on which breeding activities and organization rely, we identified three dimensions to be considered in the analysis of cooperation for animal resources management: a) tensions between the design and uses of scientific instruments for genetic gain achievement; b) tensions between the evaluation of animals using scientific instruments and the evaluation of animals based on breeder know-how in qualifying animal common resources; c) diversity of farmer strategies and functioning of the market for breeding goods and services resulting from the activities conducted in the two previous dimensions (production of genetic gain, qualification of the common resources). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the development of an advanced retrieval engine to search information in libraries of chemical patents. We use the international TREC (Text Retrieval Conferences) evaluation framework to develop and assess an original search strategy combining a standard vector-space model, a network of co-citations between patents, and a strategy of standardization/expansion of chemical named-entities based on natural language processing. Our basic engine obtains an average accuracy of 0.067. The most significant precision gain is provided by the use of co-citations (+168%), while other contents, in particular ICP codes, do not improve retrieval effectiveness of the engine. The official TREC performance of our engine (ranked #1, with a mean average precision approaching 20%) emphasize the role of document contents as opposed to technological expertise in document retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A major challenge in the use of carbon nanotubes in electronic devices can be found in the problem of controlling their chirality. Very early, researchers, both from academia and industry, have circumvented the problem using a statistical averaging of the nanotube properties and the use of a random network. After a rapid review of the historical background of this subject, the article will focus on recent (up to 2008) and rapidly progressing results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]