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In large technology companies, the requirements for managing and organizing technical documents created by engineers and managers have increased dramatically in recent years, which has led to a higher demand for more scalable, accurate, and automated document classification. Prior studies have only focused on processing text for classification, whereas technical documents often contain multimodal information. To leverage multimodal information for document classification to improve the model performance, this paper presents a novel multimodal deep learning architecture, TechDoc, which utilizes three types of information, including natural language texts and descriptive images within documents and the associations among the documents. The architecture synthesizes the convolutional neural network, recurrent neural network, and graph neural network through an integrated training process. We applied the architecture to a large multimodal technical document database and trained the model for classifying documents based on the hierarchical International Patent Classification system. Our results show that TechDoc presents a greater classification accuracy than the unimodal methods and other state-of-the-art benchmarks. The trained model can potentially be scaled to millions of real-world multimodal technical documents, which is useful for data and knowledge management in large technology companies and organizations., 16 pages, 8 figures, 9 tables

Empirical research has shown performance improvement of many different technological domains occurs exponentially but with widely varying improvement rates. What causes some technologies to improve faster than others do? Previous quantitative modeling research has identified artifact interactions, where a design change in one component influences others, as an important determinant of improvement rates. The models predict that improvement rate for a domain is proportional to the inverse of the domain's interaction parameter. However, no empirical research has previously studied and tested the dependence of improvement rates on artifact interactions. A challenge to testing the dependence is that any method for measuring interactions has to be applicable to a wide variety of technologies. Here we propose a novel patent-based method that is both technology domain-agnostic and less costly than alternative methods. We use textual content from patent sets in 27 domains to find the influence of interactions on improvement rates. Qualitative analysis identified six specific keywords that signal artifact interactions. Patent sets from each domain were then examined to determine the total count of these 6 keywords in each domain, giving an estimate of artifact interactions in each domain. It is found that improvement rates are positively correlated with the inverse of the total count of keywords with Pearson correlation coefficient of +0.56 with a p-value of 0.002. The results agree with model predictions, and provide, for the first time, empirical evidence that artifact interactions have a retarding effect on improvement rates of technological domains.

This paper introduces a method for linking technological improvement rates (i.e. Moore's Law) and technology adoption curves (i.e. S-Curves). There has been considerable research surrounding Moore's Law and the generalized versions applied to the time dependence of performance for other technologies. The prior work has culminated with methodology for quantitative estimation of technological improvement rates for nearly any technology. This paper examines the implications of such regular time dependence for performance upon the timing of key events in the technological adoption process. We propose a simple crossover point in performance which is based upon the technological improvement rates and current level differences for target and replacement technologies. The timing for the cross-over is hypothesized as corresponding to the first 'knee'? in the technology adoption "S-curve" and signals when the market for a given technology will start to be rewarding for innovators. This is also when potential entrants are likely to intensely experiment with product-market fit and when the competition to achieve a dominant design begins. This conceptual framework is then back-tested by examining two technological changes brought about by the internet, namely music and video transmission. The uncertainty analysis around the cases highlight opportunities for organizations to reduce future technological uncertainty. Overall, the results from the case studies support the reliability and utility of the conceptual framework in strategic business decision-making with the caveat that while technical uncertainty is reduced, it is not eliminated., Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables

In this research we study productivity trends of hybrid corn - an important subdomain of food production. We estimate the yearly rate of yield improvement of hybrid corn (measured as bushel per acre) by using both information on yields contained in US patent documents for patented hybrid corn varieties and on field-test data of several hybrid corn varieties performed at US State level. We have used a generalization of Moore's law to fit productivity trends and obtain the performance improvement rate by analyzing time series of hybrid corn performance for a period covering the last thirty years. The linear regressions results obtained from different data sources indicate that the estimated improvement rates per year are between 1.2 and 2.4 percent. In particular, using yields reported in a sample of patents filed between 1985 and 2010, we estimated an improvement rate of 0.015 (R2 = 0.74, Pvalue = 1.37 x 10^-8). Moreover, we apply two predicting models developed by Benson and Magee (2015) and Triulzi and Magee (2016) that only use patent metadata to estimate the rate of improvement. We compare these predicted values to the rate estimated using US States field-test data. We find that, due to a turning point in patenting practices which begun in 2008, only the predicted rate (rate = 0.015) using patents filed before 2008 is consistent with the empirical rate. Finally, we also investigate at the micro level - on the basis of 70 patents (granted between 1986 and 2015) - whether the number of citations received by a patent is correlated with performance achieved by the patented variety. We find that the relative performance (yield ratio) of the patented seed is positively correlated with the total number of citations received by the patent (until December 2015) but not the citations received within 3 years after the granted year, with the patent application year used as control variable.

Different technological domains have significantly different rates of performance improvement. Prior theory indicates that such differing rates should influence the relative speed of diffusion of the products embodying the different technologies since improvement in performance during the diffusion process increases the desirability of the product diffusing. However, there has not been a broad empirical attempt to examine this effect and to clarify the underlying cause. Therefore, this paper reviews the theoretical basis and focuses upon empirical tests of this effect across multiple products and their underlying technologies. The results for 18 different diffusing products show the expected relationship-faster diffusion for products based on more rapidly improving technological domains- between technological improvement and diffusion with strong statistical significance. The empirical examination also demonstrates that technological improvement does not slow down in the latter parts of diffusion when penetration does slow down. This finding indicates that diffusion slow down in the latter stages is due to market saturation effects and is not due to slowdown of performance improvement.

The relationship of scientific knowledge development to technological development is widely recognized as one of the most important and complex aspects of technological evolution. This paper adds to our understanding of the relationship through use of a more rigorous structure for differentiating among technologies based upon technological domains (defined as consisting of the artifacts over time that fulfill a specific generic function using a specific body of technical knowledge)., Comment: 32 pages, 6 figures, 7 tables, the paper was presented at the 16th ISS conference

Empirical research has shown performance improvement of many different technological domains occurs exponentially but with widely varying improvement rates. What causes some technologies to improve faster than others do? Previous quantitative modeling research has identified artifact interactions, where a design change in one component influences others, as an important determinant of improvement rates. The models predict that improvement rate for a domain is proportional to the inverse of the domain interaction parameter. However, no empirical research has previously studied and tested the dependence of improvement rates on artifact interactions. A challenge to testing the dependence is that any method for measuring interactions has to be applicable to a wide variety of technologies. Here we propose a patent-based method that is both technology domain-agnostic and less costly than alternative methods. We use textual content from patent sets in 27 domains to find the influence of interactions on improvement rates. Qualitative analysis identified six specific keywords that signal artifact interactions. Patent sets from each domain were then examined to determine the total count of these 6 keywords in each domain, giving an estimate of artifact interactions in each domain. It is found that improvement rates are positively correlated with the inverse of the total count of keywords with correlation coefficient of +0.56 with a p-value of 0.002. The empirical results agree with model predictions and support the suggestion that domains with higher number of artifacts interactions (higher complexity) will improve at a slower pace., Main manuscript: 18 pages including, 5 figures; supplemental information: 30 pages, 1 figure

Patents represent one of the most complete sources of information related to technological change. This paper presents three months of research on U.S. patents in the field of patent analysis. The methodology consists of using search terms to locate the most representative international and US patent classes and determines the overlap of those classes to arrive at the final set of patents and using the prediction model developed by Benson and Magee to calculate the technological improvement rate for the technological domains. My research focused on the Biochemical Pharmacology technological area and selecting relevant patents for technological domains and sub-domains within this area. The goal is to better understand structure of technology domain and understand how fast the domains and their sub-domains progress. The method I used is developed by Benson and Magee which is called the Classification Overlap Method1, it provides a reliable and largely automated way to break the patent database into understandable technological domains where progress can be measured., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures

The aim of this paper is to develop and test metrics to quantitatively identify technological discontinuities in a knowledge network. We developed five metrics based on innovation theories and tested the metrics by a simulation model-based knowledge network and hypothetically designed discontinuity. The designed discontinuity is modeled as a node which combines two different knowledge streams and whose knowledge is dominantly persistent in the knowledge network. The performances of the proposed metrics were evaluated by how well the metrics can distinguish the designed discontinuity from other nodes on the knowledge network. The simulation results show that the persistence times # of converging main paths provides the best performance in identifying the designed discontinuity: the designed discontinuity was identified as one of the top 3 patents with 96~99% probability by Metric 5 and it is, according to the size of a domain, 12~34% better than the performance of the second best metric. Beyond the simulation analysis, we tested the metrics using a patent set representative of the Magnetic information storage domain. The three representative patents associated with a well-known breakthrough technology in the domain, the giant magneto-resistance (GMR) spin valve sensor, were selected based on the qualitative studies, and the metrics were tested by how well the metrics identify the selected patents as top-ranked patents. The empirical results fully support the simulation results and therefore the persistence times # of converging main paths is recommended for identifying technological discontinuities for any technology., Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures

Introduction and aims: A growing body of research indicates parental supply of alcohol to children and adolescents is common. The present study aimed to examine parents' reasons for supplying alcohol to adolescents that they may find hard to articulate or not be consciously aware of.

The government of Singapore is launching a new university, the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), that is scheduled to take in its first freshman class in April, 2012. SUTD, in collaboration with MIT and Zhejiang University, is striving to establish a 21st century innovation paradigm that recognizes the synergy between innovation and design. Many aspects of such an exciting development are of interest to engineering educators and particularly to design educators and two are covered in this paper. One challenge addressed in this paper is the possibility for conflicting agendas between design‐centric education and the goal of becoming a leading research‐intensive university. An overview of research intended to address this conflict –that of the International Design Center that is jointly part of MIT and SUTD‐ is given. It is argued that, rather than conflicting, design‐centric education and research‐intensity are synergistic for a 21st century university. The second challenge discussed in some depth is the setting of “culture” for the new institution that encourages bold attempts to improve the world through technical innovation (“innovation culture”) with breadth in national cultures (“global culture”) bridging from Western to Asian perspectives. Relative to the latter item, a central feature are the “Eastern Cultural” curriculum items being developed by a second SUTD partner university ‐ Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China). The breadth of national cultures and a wide academic disciplinary base as part of the education process are postulated to be enablers for developing a strong 21st century innovation‐leadership‐culture for the modern research university.

Chapter 1 provides a general introduction to radical polymerization, including chain transfer, and controlled/living radical polymerization. A review of the literature since 2009 on heterogeneous controlled/living radical polymerizations in supercritical carbon dioxide is provided. Chapter 2 describes the work published in Polymer Chemistry 2014, 5, 2259-2265. Chain transfer to solvent in conventional radical polymerization of N-tert-butylacrylamide (TBAM) and N-(2-morpholin-4-ylethyl)acrylamide (MEA) in a range of alcohol solvents at 120 °C was investigated. Mayo analysis of polymerizations of TBAM in linear alcohols (C3-C9) resulted in an approximately linear increase in chain transfer to solvent constant (Ctr,S) with the number of methylene (CH2) units in the solvent. The solvents with the lowest chain transfer to solvent constant (Ctr,S) allowed the attainment of higher molecular weight (MWs) in both conventional and nitroxide-mediated radical polymerization (NMP) of TBAM. The first controlled/living polymerizations of MEA are detailed with chain transfer having a greater impact on maximum achievable MWs in NMP in comparison to TBAM. Chapter 3 gives an account of work published in Polymer Chemistry 2014, 5, 5725-5733. The first alkoxyamine-initiated precipitation polymerization of styrene in supercritical carbon dioxide is provided. Reasonable controlled/living character using TIPNO-Alkoxyamine was possible in the absence of any excess free nitroxide. The analogous SG1-alkoxyamine gave inferior control under the same conditions. Nitroxide partitioning effects were investigated by comparing the relative performances of three novel fluorinated TIPNO based alkoxyamines. Despite increased steric bulk around the N-O bond, all polymerization using these three alkoxyamines proceeded at a similar rate and level of control to the TIPNO system in solution. These experiments were supported by PREDICI simulation of the partitioning effects of the styrene/TIPNO system in scCO2. Chapter 4 describes the controlled/living reversible addition-fragmentation transfer (RAFT) polymerization of MEA. The morpholine moieties of the poly(MEA) were shown by 1H NMR spectroscopy to be reversibly protonated in aqueous solutions of CO2. Poly(MEA) was chain extended with N,N-dimethylacrylamide and styrene to yield amphiphilic triblock copolymer, which self-assembled in water to form uniform spherical micelles of 25 nm in diameter. Colloidal aggregation was reduced by addition of CO2 in water with micelles appearing larger and more irregular in size. 2018-12-04

Aims: To examine sociodemographic factors associated with attitudes regarding dementia.

A growing number of studies have identified chronic sleep restriction as a potential risk factor for obesity. This could have important implications for how obesity is prevented and managed, but current understanding of the processes linking chronic sleep restriction to obesity is incomplete. In this paper, we examined some of the pathways that could underlie the relationship between chronic sleep restriction and obesity. This involved exploring some of the potential environmental, health, behavioral, and sociodemographic determinants of chronic sleep restriction, which require further investigation in this context. Three pathways that could potentially link chronic sleep restriction to obesity were then examined: (1) altered neuroendocrine and metabolic function, (2) impaired glucose regulation, and (3) waking behavior. The selected pathways linking chronic sleep restriction to obesity reviewed in this paper are presented in a schematic representation; this may be used to guide future research in this area. This area of research is important because it may lead to more effective interventions and strategies to combat the present obesity epidemic.

Proposals for campaign finance reform are essentially based on the belief that political influence can be bought with financial donations to a candidate's campaign. But do contributions really influence the decisions of legislators once they are in office? In this brief, Christopher Magee examines the link between campaign donations and legislators' actions. His results suggest that political action committees donate campaign funds to challengers in order to affect the outcome of the election by increasing the challenger's chances of winning. These contributions have a large effect on the election outcome but do not seem to affect challengers' policy stances. In contrast, campaign contributions to incumbents do not raise their chances of being reelected and seem to be given with the hope of gaining influence.

This paper examines political action committees' motivations for giving campaign contributions to candidates for political office. First, the paper estimates the effect of campaign contributions received by candidates on the outcomes of the 1996 elections to the U.S. House of Representatives. Next, the paper uses a Congressional Quarterly survey of candidates' policy positions to determine the impact of contributions on the policy stances adopted by the candidates. The empirical results suggest that political action committees donate campaign funds to challengers in order to affect the outcome of the election. Campaign contributions received by challengers have a large impact on the election outcome but do not affect the challengers' policy stances on any of the five issues examined in this paper. Campaign contributions to incumbents do not raise their chances of election, however, and affect their policy decisions on only one issue. Some evidence is presented that PAC contributions to incumbents may be given primarily in order to secure unobservable services for the political action committees

Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Surface wetting on the textured surface is classically explained by the theories of Cassie-Baxter or Wenzel. However, in recent years, an increasing number of complex surface topographies with superhydrophobic properties have been achieved without prediction or simulation using these theories. One example is biomimetic surfaces. In many instances, theories were used to explain surface properties found in nature but have not led to or predicted the complex topographies. Although new wetting theories continue to emerge, there is not yet a set of design rules to guide the selection of surface topographies to achieve superhydrophobicity. By grouping known surface topographies into common geometrical descriptions and length scale, this paper suggests a set of surface topography classifications to provide selection guidelines for engineering superhydrophobic surfaces. Two key outcomes emerged from the design analysis: first, categorization of frequently reported surface patterns shows that there exists a set of commonly used descriptions among diverse designs; second, the degree of hydrophobicity improvement within a class of topography design can be used to predict the limit of improvement in superhydrophobicity for a given material. The presentation of topography descriptors by categories of design and performance may serve as a prologue to an eventually complete set of design guidelines for superhydrophobic performance. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper seeks to analyze how design creates economic value. The literature on knowledge-based economic development has primarily focused on innovation as the analytical lens, whereas design is the original action that leads to innovation. Despite the fundamental importance of design, existing design research has offered few insights and little guidance for national strategies due to the lack of focus on and analysis of design in an economic context. This paper addresses such gaps by linking design research and economic development theory. We first elaborate on the relationship among design, invention and innovation, describing the necessity of design activity for invention and innovation. Our analysis of the fundamental characteristics of design across contexts sheds light on the strategic importance of the accumulative nature of technology-based design for sustaining economic growth. Through the lens of technology-based design, we further quantitatively compare Singapore and three similarly-sized countries (South Korea, Finland and Taiwan). Based upon interview data, we also qualitatively examine Singapore's national strategy focusing on design. The quantitative and qualitative results align well with the Singaporean government's use of design as a strategic lever to pursue innovation-driven economic growth, and also reveal its achievements and shortfalls which indicate possible directions for strategic adjustment. Keywords: Technology-based design; Invention; Innovation; Design capability; Economic growth, SUTD-MIT International Design Centre (IDC)

The aim of this paper is to propose a new method to identify main paths in a technological domain using patent citations. Previous approaches for using main path analysis have greatly improved our understanding of actual technological trajectories but nonetheless have some limitations. They have high potential to miss some dominant patents from the identified main paths; nonetheless, the high network complexity of their main paths makes qualitative tracing of trajectories problematic. The proposed method searches backward and forward paths from the high-persistence patents which are identified based on a standard genetic knowledge persistence algorithm. We tested the new method by applying it to the desalination and the solar photovoltaic domains and compared the results to output from the same domains using a prior method. The empirical results show that the proposed method overcomes the aforementioned drawbacks defining main paths that are almost 10x less complex while containing more of the relevant important knowledge than the main path networks defined by the existing method., 20 pages, 7 figures

This article presents a method for quantitatively assessing the role of materials innovation in overall technological development. The method involves classifying the technical changes underlying the overall innovation process first within a set of functional categories and then within each category as a hierarchical array of technical changes. It is specifically found that about 2/3 of the total progress in computation over the past 40 years has been due to materials/process innovations. More speculatively, materials/process innovation contributes at least 20% of the progress in all areas and the relative contribution of materials/process innovation to overall technological progress has grown in the past few decades., W. L. Gore & Associates

Many areas of academic and industrial work make use of the notion of a ‘technology’. This paper attempts to reduce the ambiguity around the definition of what constitutes a ‘technology’ by extension of a method described previously that finds highly relevant patent sets for specified technological fields. The method relies on a less ambiguous definition that includes both a functional component and a component consisting of the underlying knowledge in a technological field to form a two-component definition. These two components form a useful definition of a technology that allows for objective, repeatable and thus comparable analysis of specific technologies. 28 technological domains are investigated: the extension of an earlier technique is shown to be capable of finding highly relevant and complete patent sets for each of the technologies. Overall, about 500,000 patents from 1976 to 2012 are classified into these 28 domains. The patents in each of these sets are not only highly relevant to the domain of interest but there are relatively low numbers of patents classified into any two of these domains (total patents classified in two domains are 2.9 % of the total patents and the great majority of patent class pairs have zero overlap with a few of the 378 patent class pairs containing the bulk of the doubly listed patents). On the other hand, the patents within a given domain cite patents in other domains about 90 % of the time. These results suggest that technology can be usefully decomposed to distinct units but that the inventions in these relatively tightly contained units depend upon widely spread additional knowledge., SUTD-MIT International Design Centre (IDC)

In the original publication of the article, the data in Table 6 ‘‘Comparison of the different search methods including the adjusted HKC method’’ size and relevancy percentage of the cell in row ‘‘Electric capacitor’’ and column ‘‘Classification selection’’ has been published incorrectly as 9,472 (2 %). It should read as 69,277 (7 %). The correct version of Table 6 is provided below.

This paper presents a relatively simple, objective and repeatable method for selecting sets of patents that are representative of a specific technological domain. The methodology consists of using search terms to locate the most representative international and US patent classes and determines the overlap of those classes to arrive at the final set of patents. Five different technological fields (computed tomography, solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, electric capacitors, electrochemical batteries) are used to test and demonstrate the proposed method. Comparison against traditional keyword searches and individual patent class searches shows that the method presented in this paper can find a set of patents with more relevance and completeness and no more effort than the other two methods. Follow on procedures to potentially improve the relevancy and completeness for specific domains are also defined and demonstrated. The method is compared to an expertly selected set of patents for an economic domain, and is shown to not be a suitable replacement for that particular use case. The paper also considers potential uses for this methodology and the underlying techniques as well as limitations of the methodology., SUTD-MIT International Design Center

Tese de Doutoramento. Líderes para Indústrias Tecnológicas. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2012