Suchergebnisse

Problem setting. In a market economy and increased competition between enterprises become increasingly important concepts such as business information, trade secrets, know-how, confidential information, the information with restricted access. Given the fact that only one patent protection is unable to meet the needs of researchers, in addition to formal public protection and secured legal means we would like to pay attention at private legal measures, particular, the mode of trade secrets.Recent research and publications analysis. Different aspects of the protection of trade secrets were investigated by specialists such as G. Androschuk, J. Berzhye, I. Davydov, O. Davydyuk, D. Zadyhaylo, P. Kraynov, G. Nikiforov, S. Nikiforov, V. Rubanov, E. Solovyov, L. Hoffman, V. Chaplygin, A. Cherniavsky and others. However, at present there is a lack of comprehensive research of this legal phenomenon, equally useful for innovators and businesses that actively protect corporate security.Paper objective. This article is planned to determine the legal characteristics, structural elements and mechanisms by which the use of trade secrets in business have a positive impact on innovation development and corporate security entities.Paper main body. On the basis of requirements of Art. 505 Civil Code of Ukraine and art. 39 of the TRIPS Agreement we formulated commercial information signs under which it receives legal protection as an object of intellectual property: (1) privacy (real or potential) in the sense that it is as a whole or in a precise combination of aggregate and its components are not generally known or available to persons in the circles that normally deal with such information; (2) commercial value (not purely industrial or industrial), due to its secrecy; this information is unknown to others, which is a commercial interest; (3) the lawful holder of the information provides active special measures (technical, organizational, legal) to preserve secrecy. The objects of trade secrets, depending on the fields may be the following types of information: (1) scientific and technical; (2) management; (3) commercial; (4) financial.At this stage, there is a growing role of know-how, compared with patents, because as their special advantages and drop interest in patenting innovations as an independent factor, as well as economic and legal efficiency mode of trade secrets. Under the know-how necessary to understand the technical, manufacturing, engineering knowledge, experience and skills related to the design, development, manufacture, sale, operation, maintenance, repair, improve technology and other innovative objects which have the status of trade secrets, and a factor of competitiveness entity.Given the fact that the administrative and jurisdictional mechanisms for the protection of trade secrets are more or less clear, we focused on internal corporate events. First, this is consolidation in the basic documents of the entity (statute, founding and collective agreements, work rules on trade secret law) such provision as law on ownership and protection of trade secrets. Second, the order of the head of the entity to approve the list of information to be protected as a trade secret. Third, develop and adopt regulations on trade secrets. Fourth, to approve the regulations on the organization of the documents containing trade secrets. Fifth, to include in a labor agreement (contract) the condition of non-disclosure of trade secrets or employee expected signing of enhancing privacy protection.Conclusions of the research. In order to stimulate innovation growth and protection of corporate security entities we should propose changes to the legislation: (1) secure the definition of the concept of «know-how (secret production)» indicating that the exclusive right to the secret of acting as long as the relation of production secrets operating mode of trade secrets; (2) add Tax Code of Ukraine following types of tax benefits: (a) exemption of small businesses from paying value added goods produced using in-house production know-how (secrets), sold small businesses within the term of exclusive rights to these intellectual activities, but not more than 5 years; (B) exemption of small businesses from paying income tax amounts in the form of sales of products derived from the use of know-how (secrets) in-house production from the beginning of their use, within the term of the exclusive rights to these intellectual activities, but not more than 5 years; (3) adopt by the Cabinet of Ministers exemplary (typical) provision of trade secrets in business organizations, which determine the general procedure for the use of legal, organizational and technical means to ensure the confidentiality of trade secrets. ; В статье дана хозяйственно-правовая характеристика коммерческой тайны и ноу-хау, определено их соотношение с патентной защитой и место в системе охраны интеллектуальной собственности. Предложены подходы к совершенствованию правового обеспечения этих отношений и защиты корпоративной безопасности субъектов хозяйствования. ; У статті дано господарсько-правову характеристику комерційної таємниці та ноу-хау, визначене їх співвідношення з патентним захистом і місце в системі охорони інтелектуальної власності. Запропоновано підходи до вдосконалення правового забезпечення цих відносин і захисту корпоративної безпеки суб'єктів господарювання.

Straipsnyje grindžiama nuomonė, jog postmodernybė yra iš modernybės kylantis kapitalizmo sistemos būvis, kuriam būdinga gyvybės suprekinimas ir suišteklinimas. Postmodernybę charakterizuoja populiariosios ir medijų kultūros išplitimas. Tos kultūros apima ne tik kultūros prekes, bet ir vartojimo būdus, įgūdžius ir jų lavinimą. Pastaruoju metu jos kuria nemirtingumo vaizdiniams bei nuojautoms palankią kultūrinę, intelektinę ir pasaulėvaizdinę terpę, kurioje struktūriškai įsitvirtina genetinis diskursas ir jo nustatomos žmogaus ir jo gyvenamo pasaulio aiškinimo gairės. Svarbus šio diskurso bruožas yra technologinis inžinerinis jo pobūdis, išryškėjęs susiejant nano ir biotechnologijas, kuriomis tikimasi įveikti gyvąją ir negyvąją gamtą skiriančią prarają, iš reikalingų atomų bei molekulių kuriant reikalingų ląstelių dalis ir klonuojant gyvas būtybes. Gyvybė suprekinama ir suišteklinama patentuojant gyvybės elementus – genus ir su jais susijusius procesus. Daroma išvada, jog visi genetikos, informatikos ir kitų mokslų laimėjimai, teikiantys žmogaus gyvenimo ilginimo galimybių, kurios palaiko gundančią nemirtingumo idėją, jau yra persmelkti prekinių santykių, tad ir pats nemirtingumas įmanomas tik kaip prekė. Aptariami kai kurie evoliuciniai ir religiniai techno sapiens sampratos aspektai. Detaliau gvildenamos dvi "nemirtingumo" versijos: Z. Baumano, kuris nemirtingumo pažadą sieja su kompiuterinės technikos plėtra prasidėjus "Antrajai medijų erai", ir J. Baudrillard'o, tegiančio, jog klonavimo technologijos "apgręžia" evoliuciją ir žmogų gundo virusiniu ar vėžiniu belyčiu nemirtingumu.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: genetinis diskursas, klonavimas, medijų kultūra, nanobiotechnologijos, nemirtingumas, suprekinimas.Genetic Discourse in Media Culture:Temptation by Commodified ImmoralityVytautas Rubavičius SummaryPostmodernity is maintained as a stage of the development of capitalism. The difference between modernity and postmodernity is explained in relation to the new sphere of commodification and resourcification,namely, that of life and of all natural living processes. Postmodern media culture, or popular culture, is peopled by signs of immortality and various kinds of immortals – cyborgs, clones, zombies, immortal human beings and others. Thus, culture accustoms a consumer to immortals and immortality which is concidered as the main goal of a human being and evolution. By nano-bio-technologies and genetic discourse this goal is made scientifically valid, thus reachable. Genetic discourse is becoming the fundamental world-view providing focal landmarks for the emerging future. Media culture supports the spreading of genetic discourse and facilitates its understanding. The temptation by immortality can be considered as a version of modernist ideology of human liberation from various natural, social and heavenly bonds. This liberation, and also secularization, is supported by a scientific genetic technological discourse which is becoming a stimulating factor of postmodern media production. The genetic explanation of the world is particularly handy for technological reflexivity: the entire world is as if encapsulated into human genes, which become the principle explaining the mystery of life, evolution and the future of humanity, thus rendering power to produce the human proper form and the future of people. All the possibilities stemming from the new genetic and biotech discoveries fell under the regulation of property relations by patenting, thus making "immortality" – as a temptation and brand – not only an exeptional commodity, but also a political tool and a commodifying force. As the relationships of private property have penetrated natural biogenetic diversity and, having turned it into a resource, the cognitive subject has reached the goal to secularise the Universe, which he has set for himself: only he as the owner and producer of genes lures people with the eternal shapes of the clones and their genetic information, which will be sustained in any location of the Universe. The temptation by "immortality" will become even stronger when the genetic code is mastered. The future of humanity is related to the mixed forms of life, trans-genic or otherwise genetically modified organisms and techno-human forms that will help to postpone, and later to conquer, death. Even thinkers with religious tendencies perceive the technological improvement of human beings as their evolution towards the techno sapiens and consider such a development as an advancement towards the Kingdom of God. The technologization of human beings is imagined in terms of their divination. Yet in this case the character of contemporary science secularising God and obliterating the perception of divinity is overlooked. Two versions of immortality are analyzed more closely – that of Z. Bauman, who links it with the development of computer technologies, and that of J. Baudrillard, who gives a warning that by cloning technologies humanity is trying to inverse the evolution and to return to the undifferentiated state of cells. The conclusion is drawn that regardless of how we understand 'immortality,' argue over its reality or unreality, all possibilities to prolong human life granted by genetics, informatics and other advances in science and technologies, which support the tempting idea of immortality, have already been penetrated by commodity relationships; therefore, "immortality" itself will be available only as a commodity.Keywords: cloning, commodification, genetic discourse, immortality, media culture, nano-bio-technologies.

Sustainability aims at justice in a threefold sense: intragenerational justice, intergenerational justice, and justice towards nature. However, the justification, specific content and practical implications of justice claims and obligations in the sustainability context often remain underspecified. This dissertation therefore asks: How can the concept of justice be structured systematically? How can justice be specified in the context of sustainability? Which specific problems of justice arise in sustainability policy? And what are the respective contributions of (sustainability) economics and (sustainability) ethics? The five papers of this cumulative dissertation approach these issues from different angles, working at the conceptual level and at the level of cases from biodiversity and fishery policy. In Paper 1, a formal conceptual structure of justice is developed, which lists the conceptual elements of justice conceptions: the community of justice including claim holders and claim addressees, their claims (and corresponding obligations), the judicandum (that which is to be judged as just or unjust), the informational base for the assessment, the principles of justice, and on a more practical level, the instruments of justice. By specifying these conceptual elements of justice, it is possible to analyse and compare different conceptions of justice. In Paper 2, the normative dimension of sustainability is discussed in terms of justice. Based on the identification of certain core characteristics of the concept of sustainability, we determine the specific challenges of justice in the context of sustainability along the conceptual structure of justice (from Paper 1). Inter alia, we show that sustainability calls for the integration of justice claims in the relationships with contemporaries, future humans and nature in a non-ideal context characterized by uncertainty, systemic mediation and limits. Paper 3 addresses the contribution of economics to the assessment of trade-offs between intergenerational and intragenerational justice. Economic analysis can delineate the opportunity set of politics with respect to the two justice objectives and identify the opportunity cost of attaining one justice to a higher degree. While the two justices are primary normative objectives, the criterion of efficiency - when directed at the attainment of these justice objectives - has the status of a secondary normative objective. Paper 4 constitutes a case study, reconstructing the ´biopiracy´ debate from a justice perspective. The paper links to the so called Access and Benefit-Sharing framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and addresses the question, which problems of justice arise regarding the utilization of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, especially if associated with patenting. It is shown that the predominant perspective of justice-in-exchange is insufficient and therefore complementary conceptions, namely of distributive justice, corrective justice and structural justice have to be taken into account. Paper 5 empirically assesses the justice notions of stakeholders in the Newfoundland fishery, building on qualitative semi-structured interviews and a combination of inductive and deductive coding. A central result is that inshore fishers are seen as the main claim holders, with a claim to participate and being listened to, and the opportunity to make a living from the fishery. Recognition, participation and distribution are all important domains of justice in the context of the Newfoundland fishery. The paper also discusses the relationship between normative theorizing and empirical justice research. Overall, this thesis integrates ideal and non-ideal normative theorizing, economic analysis, empirical justice research and hints at institutional implementation in the debate on sustainability and justice. ; Nachhaltigkeit zielt auf Gerechtigkeit in einem dreifachen Sinne: intragenerationelle Gerechtigkeit, intergenerationelle Gerechtigkeit, und Gerechtigkeit gegenüber der Natur. Jedoch sind die Begründung, der spezifische Inhalt und die praktischen Implikationen von Gerechtigkeits-Ansprüchen und - Verpflichtungen im Nachhaltigkeits-Kontext häufig nicht ausreichend spezifiziert. Diese Dissertation fragt daher: Wie kann das Konzept der Gerechtigkeit systematisch strukturiert werden? Wie kann Gerechtigkeit im Nachhaltigkeits-Kontext spezifiziert werden? Welche spezifischen Gerechtigkeits-Probleme treten in der Nachhaltigkeitspolitik auf? Und was sind die jeweiligen Beiträge der (Nachhaltigkeits-) Ökonomik und (Nachhaltigkeits-) Ethik? Die fünf Artikel dieser kumulativen Dissertation nähern sich diesen Fragen aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven, auf der konzeptionellen Ebene und auf der Ebene von Fallstudien aus der Biodiversitäts- und Fischereipolitik. In Artikel 1 wird eine formale konzeptionelle Struktur von Gerechtigkeit entwickelt, welche die konzeptionellen Elemente von Gerechtigkeitskonzeptionen auflistet: die Gerechtigkeits-Gemeinschaft inklusive der Anspruchsinhaber und Anspruchsadressaten, ihre Ansprüche (und korrespondierenden Verpflichtungen), das Judicandum (das, was als gerecht oder ungerecht beurteilt wird), die Informationsbasis für diese Bewertung, die Prinzipien der Gerechtigkeit, und auf einer praktischeren Ebene die Instrumente der Gerechtigkeit. Indem man diese konzeptionellen Elemente spezifiziert, ist es möglich, verschiedene Gerechtigkeits-Konzeptionen zu analysieren und zu vergleichen. In Artikel 2 wird die normative Dimension von Nachhaltigkeit als Gerechtigkeit diskutiert. Basierend auf der Identifikation bestimmter Kern-Charakteristika des Nachhaltigkeits-Konzepts identifizieren wir die spezifischen Herausforderungen an Gerechtigkeit im Nachhaltigkeits-Kontext entlang der konzeptionellen Struktur von Gerechtigkeit (aus Artikel 1). Unter anderem zeigen wir, dass Nachhaltigkeit eine Integration der Gerechtigkeits-Ansprüche in den Beziehungen mit Gegenwärtigen, Zukünftigen und der Natur erfordert, in einem non-idealen Kontext, der durch Unsicherheit, systemische Mediation und Grenzen charakterisiert ist. Artikel 3 untersucht den Beitrag der Ökonomik zur Beurteilung von Zielkonflikten zwischen intergenerationeller und intragenerationeller Gerechtigkeit. Eine ökonomische Analyse kann die Möglichkeitenmenge der Politik in Bezug auf die zwei Gerechtigkeits-Ziele darstellen und die Opportunitätskosten der höheren Zielerreichung eines Gerechtigkeitsziels identifizieren. Während es sich bei den beiden Gerechtigkeits-Zielen um primäre normative Ziele handelt, hat das Effizienz-Kriterium - wenn es sich auf die Erreichung dieser Gerechtigkeits-Ziele bezieht - den Status eines sekundären normativen Ziels. Artikel 4 stellt eine Fallstudie dar, welche die ´Biopiraterie´-Debatte aus Gerechtigkeits-Sicht rekonstruiert. Die Studie knüpft an das Rahmenwerk zu Zugang und gerechtem Vorteilsausgleich der Konvention über biologische Vielfalt an und stellt die Frage, welche Gerechtigkeits-Probleme bei der Nutzung genetischer Ressourcen und traditionellen Wissens auftreten, speziell in Verbindung mit einer Patentierung. Es wird gezeigt, dass die vorherrschende Perspektive der Austausch-Gerechtigkeit nicht ausreicht und dass komplementäre Konzeptionen der Verteilungs-Gerechtigkeit, korrektiven Gerechtigkeit und Ordnungsgerechtigkeit einbezogen werden müssen. Artikel 5 erforscht empirisch die Gerechtigkeitsvorstellungen von Stakeholdern der Fischerei in Neufundland und baut auf qualitativen semi-strukturierten Interviews und einer Kombination von induktiver und deduktiver Kodierung auf. Ein zentrales Ergebnis ist, dass kleinskalige Fischer als Haupt-Anspruchsinhaber gesehen werden, mit einem Anspruch auf Partizipation und Gehört-Werden, sowie auf die Möglichkeit, aus der Fischerei einen Lebensunterhalt zu erzielen. Anerkennung, Partizipation und Verteilung sind wichtige Domänen der Gerechtigkeit im Kontext der Neufundländischen Fischerei. Der Artikel diskutiert auch die Beziehung zwischen normativer Theorie und empirischer Gerechtigkeitsforschung. In der Gesamtschau integriert diese Dissertation ideale und nicht-ideale normative Theorie, ökonomische Analyse, empirische Gerechtigkeitsforschung, und Hinweise auf die institutionelle Umsetzung in der Debatte um Nachhaltigkeit und Gerechtigkeit.

Problem setting. The unbalanced economic space is the reason that some regions directly dominate the other, thus affecting the development of the national economy. Territorial development is the key to effective transformational change in Ukrainian society and is a complex and dynamic process. In particular, it is ensured by the coordinated interaction of business entities operating at the micro-level and producing goods and services in a specific territory. It is therefore of utmost importance that the results of their management are high and how significant the social impact and social utility of their activities are. In this regard, the justification of strategic vectors for the development of territories at the micro-level is of national importance, since the micro-level gives impetus and stimulus for the development of meso and macro levels and provides socio-economic progress in society.Recent research and publications analysis. Issues of regional studies are addressed by such foreign scientists as I. Ansoff, F. Bryson, V. Brian, J. Ward, G. Gordon, B. Karloff and domestic researchers such as V. Averyanov, B. Adamov, G. Atamanchuk, V. Bakumenko, S. Bila, Z. Varnaliy, B. Danylyshyn, V. Kniazev, V. Kozbanenko, S. Kolomytsev, V. Kravchenko, V. Kuibida, V. Martynenko, N. Mikula, N. Nyzhnik, O. Obolenskyi, B. Panasyuk, S. Sakhanenko, N. Skliaruk, B. Tertychko, V. Udovichenko, O. Cherevko, Y. Chernetsky and others. However, the issue of micro-level territorial functioning and territorial development strategies requires a comprehensive scientific approach and deeper scientific research.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. Paper aims at substantiating the strategic vectors for the development of territories at the macro level, based on the necessity for the continuous progress of the Ukrainian state and addressing the challenges that society faces at the present stage.Paper main body. The development of the territories is ensured by the complex influence of external and internal factors, which ensure socio-economic progress and increase the well-being of the population. Among the external factors, the most important are the political, legal, technological, social and economic, which determine the development of the national economy (macro-level of the state). Their symbiosis directly or indirectly affects the territorial development and the activities of economic entities operating within the defined area.Along with external factors, internal factors that determine the development of regional systems are equally important. In particular, we are talking about the aggregate resource, investment, human resources, the innovation potential of the region, the level of its technological and social development, based on which business entities function and the development of regions at the micro-level is realized.Strategic vectors for the development of territories at the micro level should be aimed at solving the key problems of Ukrainian society: administrative-legal, financial, technological-innovation, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures that need to be implemented in the following areas: administrative, financial, innovative, decentralization.At the micro-level, balanced territorial development is based on financial security. To ensure effective interaction of financial market institutions and territorial economic entities, the state must exercise its regulatory functions by setting the optimal discount rate of the National Bank of Ukraine. In its turn, the NBU should regulate the interaction of commercial banks with entrepreneurs by implementing mandatory reserve requirements that are set for banking institutions.In the direction of effective implementation of the innovative vector of territorial development at the micro-level, it is necessary to carry out: development and implementation of innovative strategies at individual enterprises; intensification of production processes by stimulating innovative activity of economic entities; orientation on innovation of development at the expense of motivation of employees to improvement of professional level; harnessing the innovative potential of the enterprise to improve its management; automation and informatization of management systems at enterprises and development of innovative management; improving the intellectual property of business entities, enhancing patenting processes, improving copyright protection for inventions, industrial designs and more.In the field of territorial development at the micro-level, partnerships between local authorities and businesses can be created in Ukraine in the form of specialized agencies – institutions that will decide what the priorities should be for investments, loans and other types of assistance to territorial entities. Such relations should be regulated in a normative legal manner. This will reduce the administrative burden on local authorities and promote entrepreneurship.The decentralization vector is a generalization of the above-mentioned key areas of development of territories at the micro-level since decentralization itself has shown positive changes in society in the context of ensuring effective transformations in individual localities.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further research. Strategic directions for territorial development at the micro-level must take into account the objective realities and key needs of modern society. Accordingly, the functioning of business entities should be carried out on an innovative basis with sufficient financial support within the framework of civilized administrative and legal regulation, while realizing the main tasks of decentralization that is taking place in Ukraine. All positive transformations at the micro level should be made under the condition of state support, which would comprehensively solve the problems that exist in the field of territorial development. ; Розглянуто основні стратегічні вектори розвитку територій на мікрорівні: адміністративно-правові, фінансові, технологічно-інноваційні, децентралізаційні, виокремлено проблеми реалізації заходів за цими напрямами, які існують на сучасному етапі. Акцентовано на важливості процесів децентралізації, які безпосередньо впливають на територіальний розвиток, та, з огляду на зміни, обґрунтовано потребу поглиблення децентралізаційних перетворень у державі.

Problem setting. The unbalanced economic space is the reason that some regions directly dominate the other, thus affecting the development of the national economy. Territorial development is the key to effective transformational change in Ukrainian society and is a complex and dynamic process. In particular, it is ensured by the coordinated interaction of business entities operating at the micro-level and producing goods and services in a specific territory. It is therefore of utmost importance that the results of their management are high and how significant the social impact and social utility of their activities are. In this regard, the justification of strategic vectors for the development of territories at the micro-level is of national importance, since the micro-level gives impetus and stimulus for the development of meso and macro levels and provides socio-economic progress in society.Recent research and publications analysis. Issues of regional studies are addressed by such foreign scientists as I. Ansoff, F. Bryson, V. Brian, J. Ward, G. Gordon, B. Karloff and domestic researchers such as V. Averyanov, B. Adamov, G. Atamanchuk, V. Bakumenko, S. Bila, Z. Varnaliy, B. Danylyshyn, V. Kniazev, V. Kozbanenko, S. Kolomytsev, V. Kravchenko, V. Kuibida, V. Martynenko, N. Mikula, N. Nyzhnik, O. Obolenskyi, B. Panasyuk, S. Sakhanenko, N. Skliaruk, B. Tertychko, V. Udovichenko, O. Cherevko, Y. Chernetsky and others. However, the issue of micro-level territorial functioning and territorial development strategies requires a comprehensive scientific approach and deeper scientific research.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. Paper aims at substantiating the strategic vectors for the development of territories at the macro level, based on the necessity for the continuous progress of the Ukrainian state and addressing the challenges that society faces at the present stage.Paper main body. The development of the territories is ensured by the complex influence of external and internal factors, which ensure socio-economic progress and increase the well-being of the population. Among the external factors, the most important are the political, legal, technological, social and economic, which determine the development of the national economy (macro-level of the state). Their symbiosis directly or indirectly affects the territorial development and the activities of economic entities operating within the defined area.Along with external factors, internal factors that determine the development of regional systems are equally important. In particular, we are talking about the aggregate resource, investment, human resources, the innovation potential of the region, the level of its technological and social development, based on which business entities function and the development of regions at the micro-level is realized.Strategic vectors for the development of territories at the micro level should be aimed at solving the key problems of Ukrainian society: administrative-legal, financial, technological-innovation, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures that need to be implemented in the following areas: administrative, financial, innovative, decentralization.At the micro-level, balanced territorial development is based on financial security. To ensure effective interaction of financial market institutions and territorial economic entities, the state must exercise its regulatory functions by setting the optimal discount rate of the National Bank of Ukraine. In its turn, the NBU should regulate the interaction of commercial banks with entrepreneurs by implementing mandatory reserve requirements that are set for banking institutions.In the direction of effective implementation of the innovative vector of territorial development at the micro-level, it is necessary to carry out: development and implementation of innovative strategies at individual enterprises; intensification of production processes by stimulating innovative activity of economic entities; orientation on innovation of development at the expense of motivation of employees to improvement of professional level; harnessing the innovative potential of the enterprise to improve its management; automation and informatization of management systems at enterprises and development of innovative management; improving the intellectual property of business entities, enhancing patenting processes, improving copyright protection for inventions, industrial designs and more.In the field of territorial development at the micro-level, partnerships between local authorities and businesses can be created in Ukraine in the form of specialized agencies – institutions that will decide what the priorities should be for investments, loans and other types of assistance to territorial entities. Such relations should be regulated in a normative legal manner. This will reduce the administrative burden on local authorities and promote entrepreneurship.The decentralization vector is a generalization of the above-mentioned key areas of development of territories at the micro-level since decentralization itself has shown positive changes in society in the context of ensuring effective transformations in individual localities.Conclusions of the research and prospects for further research. Strategic directions for territorial development at the micro-level must take into account the objective realities and key needs of modern society. Accordingly, the functioning of business entities should be carried out on an innovative basis with sufficient financial support within the framework of civilized administrative and legal regulation, while realizing the main tasks of decentralization that is taking place in Ukraine. All positive transformations at the micro level should be made under the condition of state support, which would comprehensively solve the problems that exist in the field of territorial development. ; Розглянуто основні стратегічні вектори розвитку територій на мікрорівні: адміністративно-правові, фінансові, технологічно-інноваційні, децентралізаційні, виокремлено проблеми реалізації заходів за цими напрямами, які існують на сучасному етапі. Акцентовано на важливості процесів децентралізації, які безпосередньо впливають на територіальний розвиток, та, з огляду на зміни, обґрунтовано потребу поглиблення децентралізаційних перетворень у державі.

The Agbiotech Bulletin Volume 3, Issue 6, June, 1995 Code Number: NL95024 Sizes of Files: Text: 50K No associated graphics Minding the Store: Regulating Agbiotech Agriculture and food regulators are often the 'man in the middle' castigated by interest groups for being too lenient and harangued by industry for being too slow and demanding. But over the years of minding the store, the regulatory system has definitely 'produced the goods'. News PGS International Announces Canadian Canola Approvals Plant Genetic Systems (PGS) International has announced that its new hybrid canola varieties have received environmental and feed safety clearance from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. This approval follows last year's clearance of the variety by Health Canada. Novel Beef-Breeding Strategy Explored at Brandon Biotech Developments at Guelph Artificial 'seeds' are being developed for the $500 million dollar herb industry in North America by University of Guelph researchers. New Ethanol Facilities Opening A 50 million litre per year ethanol plant will be built in Cornwall, Ontario by Seaway Valley Farmers Energy Co-op. Canada To Aid Rwandan Research Reconstruction Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has launched a two-year, $500,000 project to assist the national reconstruction of Rwanda in the wake of civil war. Fast Plants Developed A Brassica rapa variety developed by interbreeding the 'fastest' species of Brassica accessions in the USDA's National Germplasm System flowers in 14 days and completes seed production in 35 days. Delay on rbST Ends on Canada Day The one year voluntary delay on the sale of rbST in Canada ends on July 1 of this year, however, sale of the recombinant cattle hormone will not commence unless the product has been given official Notice of Compliance by Health Canada by that date. Biotech Institute Launched in Singapore The newly-established Institute of Molecular Agrobiology (IMA) in Singapore is intended as a focal point for world-class research at the genetic and molecular levels. Events Public Expectation and the Corporate Sector Biotech Commercialization in Developing Countries. American Plant Physiologists Annual Meeting Engineering Plants for Commercial Products AgBiotech International Conference (ABIC) in Saskatoon 4TH International Conference on Plant Genetic Resources Trends The Research University in the 21st Century Fundamental changes in the nature of world society, such as the end of the cold war, are redirecting the course of universities, according to Paul Schimmel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alliances Canada-Latin American Initiative on Biotech Take Some Canola and Call Me in the Morning Tech Transfer AgCanada Expanding TechTransfer Activities New Environment for Research Support Agricultural research today is subject to a new set of ground rules. More Business Savvy Needed The stronger market orientation of agricultural research today necessitates that scientists develop more business savvy, says Yassa. 'Scientists must learn to function in a market-driven economy. They have to understand current business principles and problems.' Plant Transformation by Gene Transfer into Pollen British Technology Group (BTG) USA is entertaining discussions with regard to the licensing of a technology that allows for the production of transformed plants from seeds that have been produced by pollination using transformed pollen. Finance Saskatchewan Backs R&D Initiatives Saskatchewan's economic development strategy is placing renewed emphasis on R&D initiatives, including biotechnology. Western Economic Development Initiatives A number of initiatives of interest to the biotech sector have emerged from the new approach to economic development in the West announced by Western Development (WD) Minister Lloyd Axworthy in response to the recent federal budget. Royal Facilitates Exporter's Collection Process An easy-to-use service provided by the Royal Bank helps Canadian exporters prepare direct collection orders. Foreign Affairs Launches Electronic Trade Service The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has initiated a BBS project. New Contracting Process at CIDA The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has established a new process aimed at allowing more Canadians an opportunity to apply for contracts involving international development activities. Issues Issues Around Patents Assessed People, Plants and Patents is a new book on the impact of intellectual property on trade, plant biodiversity and rural society. Attitudes Consultation on Biotechnology Proposed A major process of public consultation on biotechnology has been proposed by a stakeholders group convened by the federal government's interdepartmental working group on biotechnology. Industry Needs Strategy to Boost Acceptance of Biotech Canadians are generally unaware of biotechnology, according to Rick Walter of the Canadian Institute of Biotechnology. Legal Notes Plant Protection Regulations Amended Amendments being proposed for regulations under the federal Plant Protection Act would affect the import and export of biologicals, seeds, plants, grain and pests, among other products. Brown Bag Sales Clarified by US Court A recent US Supreme Court decision (Asgrow vs. Winterboer) will be of interest to plant breeders. European Patent Developments The European Parliament voted in March against a directive which would have allowed the patenting of genetically-altered organisms, according to a report in SeedTrade News. Resources Biotech Educational Materials Available Canadian Ed Centres in Asia Nearly 100,000 foreign students the majority from Asia choose to study in Canada each year. They contribute $3 billion to the Canadian economy and help to generate some 19,000 jobs within Canada. Report of the rBST Task Force The Review of the Potential Impact of Recombinant Bovine Somatatropin in Canada has been completed and is available for review. Biotech & Plant Cultures Reviewed Biotechnological Applications of Plant Cultures is a new publication which presents the most updated reviews on current techniques in plant cultures. Getting Ready to Go Global The Management Development Initiative (MDI) is part of Getting Ready to Go Global, a campaign to improve the competitiveness of Canadian food and beverage processors in domestic and export markets. Evaluating Traditional Environmental Knowledge The book Capturing Traditional Environmental Knowledge is a product of an unusual workshop held in the Northwest Territories. People Watch Copyright 1995 Agbiotech Bulletins

The Agbiotech Bulletin Volume 3 Issue 8, August, 1995 Code Number: NL95026 Sizes of Files: Text: 50k No associated graphics Biotech Research at Foundation of Economy While plant biotechnology may not be as glamorous as, say, a new biotech drug, it effects the very foundations of the Canadian economy, according to Dr. Michael Smith. News Transgenic Canola in Canada In Saskatchewan, approximately 30,000 acres have been contracted by Prairie Pools Inc. to grow Innovator^tm canola, developed by AgrEvo for tolerance to their glufosinate ammonium based herbicide, Liberty^tm. Another 10,000 acres are under cultivation in Alberta. AgrEvo herbicide approved Liberty^tm herbicide (glufosinate ammonium) has been approved by Agriculture Canada for use on a tolerant canola variety, the first ever commercial clearance for a non-selective herbicide on a transgenic crop. Innovator^tm, a transgenic canola variety produced by AgrEvo, was previously cleared for use in Canada. SRC-SeCan Search for Hybrid Guide to Wild Brassicas The Centre for Land and Biological Resources Research has developed definitive guides to the wild germplasm of the Brassica group. Calgene Announces Transgenic High-erucic Canola Calgene has announced that the company has developed a transgenic rapeseed oil containing trierucin, which could lead to a dramatically improved source of erucic acid, which is used in a wide variety of industrial applications. Philom Bios Drops BioMal Saskatoon company Philom Bios has dropped commercialization plans for its mycoherbicide BioMal, due to changing market conditions and high production costs. Goodale Rejects Vet Criticism Concerns expressed by Dr. David MacDonald, president of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, that federal budget cutbacks threaten Canada's ability to control animal diseases and protect food safety have been rejected by Ralph Goodale, Canada's Agriculture Minister. New S&T Strategy Proposed A framework for a federal science and technology strategy has been proposed by the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology (NABST) following their assessment of federal science and technology policy. New CEPA Regulations Delayed FlavrSavr^tm Taking a Bruising Hormone for Swine Okayed Down Under Events AgBiotech International Conference in Saskatoon The planning for the Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference (ABIC '96) continues. The conference will premiere in Saskatoon from June 11 - 14, 1996. Tissue Culture Conference in Saskatoon The 4th Canadian Plant Tissue Culture and Genetic Engineering Conference will be held at the Delta Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan from June 1-4, 1996. Oats/Barley Genetics Conference The 5th International Oat Conference and the 7th International Barley Genetics Symposium will be held concurrently July 30 to August 6, 1996 at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Biotech Colloquium A Biotechnology Colloquium will be held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan October 16-20, 1995 as part of the North American Science and Tech Education The 8th Symposium of the International Organization of Science and Technology Education (IOSTE) will be held in Edmonton, Alberta from August 17 to 24, 1996. Trends European Biotech Gathering Momentum Ernst & Young's Second Annual Report on European Biotechnology reports that European biotech companies are "gathering momentum." Creating Knowledge, Japanese Style According to a Japanese study (The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation, Nonaka and Takeuchi, Oxford University Press) the ability to create new knowledge, rather than manufacturing prowess is a key to corporate advancement. Alliances Monsanto Buys Into Calgene Public-Private Sector Partnerships The following article is the second installment in a series based on a presentation to the Plant Science Department, University of Manitoba in November, 1994 by R.E. Morgan, Manager of Agricultural Research and Development with the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and member of the Board of Directors of Ag-West Biotech. Technology Transfer Canola Petal Test Commercialized A testing system used to predict the occurrence of an important canola disease has been licensed to a Saskatchewan company, Reed Agricultural Services, by University of Saskatchewan Technologies Incorporated. Biocontrol for Sclerotinia Around the Corner Meanwhile, AgCanada and Cominco Fertilizers Ltd. will commercialize a biocontrol agent for white mold/stem rot caused by Sclerotinia sclertiorum fungus. Queens Moves to Enhance Commercialization PARTEQ Innovations, Queen's University's for-profit technology transfer agent, is seeking private investments for an initiative designed to help commercialize the university's intellectual property. Finance New Biotech Loan Fund An innovative loan fund targeting Western Canada's biotechnology firms has been announced by Western Economic Diversification Minister Lloyd Axworthy and the Royal Bank of Canada's General Manager for Saskatchewan, Gord G. Tallman. Input on International Strategy Sought The federal government wants to hear from Canadian biotech companies about their international priorities for exporting products and services, attracting investment and acquiring new technology. Issues rbST Moratorium Extension Recommended A further two-year moratorium on the sale of rbST in Canada has been recommended by the House of Commons health committee. American Religious Leaders Oppose Gene Patents The Southern Baptist Conference in Atlanta has adopted a resolution calling for "an immediate moratorium on the patenting of animal and human tissues and genetic sequences until a full and complete discussion has concurred." Bt Genes and Organic Farmers Organic farmers are challenging the introduction of potatoes and other crops that have been engineered to contain insect toxin genes from Bacillus thuringiensis. Attitudes Public Determines if Agbiotech Products Will Fly What is a viable product? Canadian Consumers Wary of bST Milk Winnipeg public opinion pollster Angus Reid says Canadian consumers are suspicious of rbST. CDA Committee Favours Biotech A position paper of the Biotechnology Committee of the Canadian Dietetic Association has endorsed the value of biotechnology in maintaining an abundant and sustainable food supply. However, the Committee reports it has not yet been able to achieve consensus of its position with all provincial associations. Legal Notes Who's Suing Whom? American legislators recently beefed up that country's Plant Variety Protection Act, giving developers of new plant varieties stronger control of genetic property. Resources BioResearch Ireland Canola Info Service for Sask Export Strategies Info Systems for Agbiotech Electronic TechTransfer Service People Watch Canadian Dietetic Association Canola Council of Canada Canodev Cyanamid Canada Hoechst Mallinckrodt Veterinary Pioneer Hi-Bred VIDO Copyright 1995 Agbiotech Bulletins

This guide accompanies the following article: Daniel H. Nickolai, Steve G. Hoffman, and Mary Nell Trautner. 2012. 'Can a Knowledge Sanctuary also be an Economic Engine? The Marketing of Higher Education as Institutional Boundary Work', Sociology Compass 6(3):205–18.Authors' introductionThe marketing of higher education refers to a structural trend towards the adoption of market‐oriented practices by colleges and universities. These organizational practices blur the boundary between knowledge‐driven and profit‐driven institutions, and create tensions and contradictions among the three missions of the 21st‐century university: knowledge production, student learning, and satisfying the social charter. In this article, we highlight the historical contexts that nurtured the marketing of higher education in the US and Europe and explore the dilemmas that arise when market logics and business‐oriented practices contradict traditional academic values. We demonstrate that managing these dilemmas is a contested process of policing borders as institutional actors struggle to delineate the proper role of the university in a shifting organizational climate.Authors recommendArum, Richard and Josipa Roksa. 2011. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.A book that asks a fundamental question in higher education: "How much are students actually learning?" The results do not reflect well on the institution. Arum and Roksa conduct longitudinal tests of critical thinking and analytic reasoning skills on a cohort of students at a variety of universities and colleges. They find that a majority of respondents demonstrate little to no improvement in learning outcomes. Even students who improve show modest gains. The authors' analysis of student surveys suggests that a major culprit is a combination of low rigor in the curriculum, a lack of effort among students, and the overly modest expectations of instructors.Barnett, Ronald. 2010. 'The Marketised University: Defending the Indefensible.' Pp. 39–51 in The Marketisation of Higher Education and the Student as Consumer, edited by M. Molesworth, R. Scullion and E. Nixon. New York: Routledge.Barnett suggests that debates about the effects of marketization on higher education often reflect pre‐existing ideologies about the nature of markets in general. He presents numerous arguments in favor of the conception of students as consumers. For example, the increased power students receive in choosing where and from who to take classes may encourage accountability and actually improve the learning experience as students take a more active role in charting their own course through their education. Barnett also reminds readers that different institutions create different contexts and the extent to which market models of higher education are applicable are largely dependent on these different contexts.Berman, Elizabeth Popp. 2012. Creating the Market University: How Academic Science Became an Economic Engine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.An in‐depth historical sociology of the entrepreneurial university, this book explores when and why academic science become increasingly tethered to commercial interests over the last four decades. Berman focuses primarily on patenting trends and the political history of patenting law, as well as the development of biotech entrepreneurship and the emergence of university‐industry incubators. She argues that the trend toward an entrepreneurial model were largely driven by the ideals of government officials about the importance of translating scientific and technological innovation into economic growth, along the way creating the organizational environment necessary to enable market‐oriented research to flourish.Kleinman, Daniel Lee. 2003. Impure Cultures: University Biology and the World of Commerce. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Kleinman provides an in‐depth look into the daily work culture of a plant pathology lab at the University of Wisconsin. This participant observation study includes ambitious critiques of the dominant agency‐oriented approaches within science and technology studies by focusing on issues of structural constraint and institutional power. This study is especially good at demonstrating how university biologists are deeply, athough indirectly, constrained by commercial interests. The influence is not easily found in conflicts of interest or day‐by‐day decision making of scientists, who by and large conduct themselves ethically and in the fashion predicted by Mertonian norms of science. Instead, the culture of commerce impacts an array of daily lab practices, including the baseline epistemological assumptions around what is a "significant" finding. In the world of plant pathology, a successful trial is determined in relation to the metrics established by the field's resource dependency on the agro‐chemical industry.Leslie, Larry L. and Gary P. Johnson. 1974. 'The Market Model and Higher Education.'The Journal of Higher Education 45:1–20.This landmark article is among the first to interrogate the use of a market model as it applies to higher education. The authors trace several key legislative measures that altered federal funding practices and gave students discretion in choosing which schools would receive the most funding. While the authors draw similarities between market practices and the process of funding higher education through students, they also question the extent to which a market model of higher education is applicable. Drawing a contrast between higher education funding practices and a perfectly competitive market model, they provide an important critique of a funding system still in use today.McMillan, Jill J. and George Cheney. 1996. 'The Student as Consumer: The Implications and Limitations of a Metaphor.'Communication Education 45:1–15.This article warns of the dangers involved in recasting students as consumers. McMillan and Cheney synthesize arguments about the traditional goals of education and how treating students as consumers can threaten traditional classroom relations and alienate students from the learning process. Implicit in their discussion is an argument for more traditional classroom approaches to fostering democratic citizenship skills through critical analysis and communal sharing of ideas. They explicitly reject the notion of education as a product (rather than a process) and the demand for professors to deliver the product in the most entertaining and efficient manner.Owen‐Smith, Jason and Walter W. Powell. 2002. 'Standing on Shifting Terrain: Faculty Responses to the Transformation of Knowledge and Its Uses in the Life Sciences.'Science Studies 15:3–28.An interview‐based study of 80 scientists from two university campuses, this paper provides a typology of faculty identities and research strategies at the nexus of academic and commercial research within the life sciences. The typology includes "old" and "new school" orientations to commercial research as well as hybrid categories somewhere between these two extremes, such as "engaged traditionalists" and "reluctant entrepreneurs." Eschewing simplistic analyses that either condemn or glorify the commercial engagements of academics, Owen‐Smith and Powell point out that these various positions have created both novel fault lines and innovative research within the life sciences.Radder, Hans. 2010. The Commodification of Academic Research: Science and the Modern University. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.This book is an edited collection of essays on the history, extent, and contemporary impacts of commodification on academic research in the US and Europe. Most of the essays converge at the intersection of science studies and research policy, but are written by an impressively eclectic group of authors pulled from philosophy, sociology, government studies, epidemiology, genomics, and bioethics.Vallas, Steven Peter and Daniel Lee Kleinman. 2008. 'Contradiction, Convergence and the Knowledge Economy: The Confluence of Academic and Commercial Biotechnology.'Socio‐Economic Review 6:283–311.This is an interview‐based study of biotech science that develops a theory of the "asymmetrical convergence" that characterizes the two sides of the university‐industry relation. Vallas and Kleinman describe the work situations of university and commercial scientists to show that there has been a convergence of norms and practices across academic and corporate institutional domains. The authors show that the open discovery ideals of academic science have been increasingly integrated the entrepreneurial values and practices imported from the private sector. Simultaneously, commercial laboratories brought scientific practices and concepts into their workplaces. However, the convergence is asymmetrical, in the sense that both fields of practice are dominated by the profit motive and bottom‐line economic development rather than the communal norms of public science.Online materialsResearch Commercialization and SBIR Centerhttp://center.ncet2.org/This web‐based organization provides an online venue for faculty and students to take virtual workshops and webinars on how to engage in research capitalization and entrepreneurial training. The site includes a variety of resources for faculty and graduate students looking to transition into industry jobs. This site also provides researchers interested in the marketization of higher education a glimpse into a cottage industry that has emerged to provide training services for academics looking to capitalize their research and pedagogy.The Institute for Triple Helix Innovationhttp://www.triplehelixinstitute.org/thi/ithi_drupal/An organization focused on facilitating cross‐sector (academia, industry, and government) collaborations in the production and dissemination of scientific research aimed at economic growth. Another example of a cottage industry established to promote research capitalization and professional networks aimed at knowledge transfer and research capitalization.Documentary, "College Inc." (2010)http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/This 55‐minute video from PBS' Frontline series examines the emergence of, demand for, and debates surrounding the consequences of for‐profit universities such as the University of Phoenix. Available streaming online until October 19, 2012, thereafter only as DVD purchase. Supplemental materials on the College, Inc. webpage include: (1) a teaching guide with lesson plans, discussion questions, student handouts, and lesson extensions; (2) responses from the colleges and universities highlighted in the video; (3) articles, reports, and documents related to for‐profit education; (4) transcripts of interviews conducted with numerous investors, reporters, lobbyists, and college presidents; and (5) a transcript and audiocast of the full program.Documentary, "Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk" (2005)http://www.decliningbydegrees.org/This 120‐minute video from PBS examines the impact of market forces in higher education, specifically discussing factors such as declining government support for public education, changes to student loan programs, the pressure to attract students, college rankings, and college sports. The documentary shows viewpoints from administrators, students, and faculty. A companion book is available for purchase through the program's webpage.Sample syllabusThe "Marketization of Higher Education" article can be successfully incorporated in several types of undergraduate and graduate courses, including Introductory Sociology, Sociology of Education, Organizations and Institutional Change, and Science and Technology.For introductory or education‐focused courses, the article provides a succinct history of the relationship between higher education and the broader society while demonstrating how social institutions respond to social and cultural expectations/needs in different historical and national contexts. The article includes a short summary of the historical and contextual differences in the European and American models of higher education.For more advanced students of organizations, the article provides a case study demonstrating how macro level institutional changes influence organizational climate and social actors' perceptions of their own work. Further, advanced or graduate seminars in education may choose to highlight the various debates about the role of (higher) education in an increasingly knowledge‐based economy.Focus questions
 Discuss examples of how market logics may have influenced your coursework, choice of classes, or commitment to a class.
 What do you think about the informal economy and buying and selling course notes and study materials?
 Discuss examples in which you put more or less effort into a class based on your perception of the course's bottom‐line benefit to your post‐graduation career and/or income.
 How might the pressures faced by professors to bring in research funds from industry or venture capital influence their work and commitment to the classroom? In your experience, does this seem to be more common within those subject areas where knowledge capitalization is fairly common, such as biotech or computer science? Or, can we see the influence of knowledge capitalization in humanities or social sciences too?
 To the extent that students have adopted an understanding of higher education as a commercial exchange, in which they are customers who pay for grades, etc., what might be some ways in which we could change that perception? What changes would faculty need to make in order to change student attitudes? Administrators? Students themselves?
Seminar/Project ideasExploring Institutional BoundariesInterview a few other undergraduate students plus at least one faculty. Ask students questions such as why they decided to come to college, how they decided which college to attend, what they like and do not like about their college education, and what they hope to get out of their college experience. Ask faculty to provide their perspective on why they became a professor, what they like about their job and what they dislike, and what they see as the purpose of college and what students should get out of the college experience. In what ways do faculty and student perspectives converge, and how do they differ? Do any of the differences suggest blurring boundaries between missions of the university (knowledge production, student learning, and satisfying the social charter)?Marketization in Your College/UniversityDo a content analysis of official university admissions brochures, websites, and videos. What messages does the college want you to get from these materials? In what ways might the marketization of higher education be evident in such materials? If the university makes historical materials available, ask students to compare such materials over time to discern an increase in marketization, and how such processes are manifested. Do admissions materials for undergraduates and graduate students emphasize the same things? What differences do you note? Why do you think such differences do or do not exist?

Our thesis deals with the following problem: one of the theoretical justifications for patenting inventions is based on institutional arbitration, through temporary monopolies, offering incentives to certain individuals and discouraging others. But this trade-off is complex and the impact of patents on research, innovation and general welfare is theoretically and empirically still uncertain.The number of patents registered annually has tripled in just 20 years, rising from 500,000 to 1.5 million patents issued annually worldwide. Patents entail significant costs, and it is therefore estimated that more than a quarter of total private R&D expenditure in the United States is spent solely on defending patents. Given the significance of these figures, and the lack of solid evidence to justify the current arbitration, should we decline to recommend this public policy?There are two opposing schools of thought:• The conservative wait-and-see approach: Given the uncertainty, patents should be retained until further information is available because it is risky to reform such a highly developed institution without further knowledge. Patents are widespread worldwide and have been for a long time; with such a degree of uncertainty, it is unwise to make changes that are liable to cause short-term disruption, increase costs and result in errors and inefficiency.• The experimental reformist approach: Given the uncertainty, patents should be reformed immediately because it is risky to preserve such a highly developed institution without further knowledge. With such a degree of uncertainty, it is unwise to retain an institution that could be harmful and less than ideal.Our thesis defends the experimental reformist option for the following main reason: patents should be reformed for epistemic reasons because there is a new difficulty: standardisation. Indeed, since the worldwide virtual standardisation of patent law in 1995 (WTO TRIPS agreements) it has become extremely difficult to study patents lacking means of comparison. Patents must therefore be reformed in order to produce institutional diversity; through longitudinal and transversal comparisons, it will then be possible to empirically test the effects of patents on innovation.Addressing the main objection, i.e. the risks we incur by playing institutional sorcerers' apprentices, we offer three arguments: (1) the risks are low in many technological fields. A significant proportion of current innovation does not involve patents (around 70 %), and this proportion will tend to increase with the growing importance of IT innovations; (2) the costs of the changes and the risks of poor adjustment can be tested in the laboratory. We are demonstrating that this type of experiment is possible. We have carried out such an experiment in the laboratory. We focused on social acceptance and the effect on creativity of being forced by the majority to abandon patents. Our experiment demonstrates that the removal of patents in the laboratory does not reduce the incentive to invent among the most creative individuals, since they are not the ones who vote for patents; (3) various institutional solutions can be tested in the field without requiring the total abolition of patents. We identify ex ante (pre-marketing) / ex post (post-marketing) institutional mechanisms that would be worth testing and that differ from current patent law. For example, we propose a mechanism, the iVAT, which, while maintaining the current patent system, offers immunity to anyone marketing a patent-protected product, since the State would ensure that a proportion of the VAT was transferred to the owner of the patent in the form of royalties. ; Cette thèse traite du problème suivant : la justification théorique principale des brevets repose sur un arbitrage institutionnel, par le monopole temporaire, entre l'incitation offerte à certains individus et l'inhibition produite sur d'autres. Mais cet arbitrage est complexe et l'impact des brevets sur la recherche, l'innovation et le bien-être général est théoriquement et empiriquement toujours incertain.Le nombre de brevets déposés annuellement a triplé en seulement 20 ans passant de 500 000 à plus d'1,5 million de brevets délivrés annuellement dans le monde. Les brevets entraînent des coûts important, il est estimé que plus d'un quart du total des dépenses privées en R&D aux États-Unis est uniquement dépensé pour défendre les brevets. Au vu de l'importance de ces chiffres, en l'absence de preuves solides pour justifier l'arbitrage actuel, faut-il ne pas recommander cette politique publique ?Deux thèses s'opposent :• La thèse conservatrice attentiste : Au vu de l'incertitude, il faut conserver les brevets en attendant d'en savoir plus, car il est risqué de réformer une institution si développée sans avoir plus de connaissances à son sujet. Les brevets sont répandus de manière planétaire et depuis longtemps, il est déraisonnable de provoquer des changements susceptibles de générer des perturbations à court terme, augmenter les coûts, provoquer des erreurs et des inefficacités.• La thèse réformiste expérimentaliste : Au vu de l'incertitude, il faut réformer les brevets dès à présent, car il est risqué de conserver une institution si développée sans avoir plus de connaissances à son sujet. Il est déraisonnable de garder avec un tel niveau d'incertitude une institution qui pourrait être néfaste et sous-optimale.Notre thèse défend l'option réformiste expérimentaliste et la principale raison est la suivante : il faut réformer les brevets pour des raisons épistémiques car il s'est ajouté une difficulté nouvelle : l'uniformisation. En effet, depuis la quasi-uniformisation planétaire du droit des brevets en 1995 (accords ADPIC de l'OMC) il est devenu extrêmement difficile d'étudier les brevets par manque de moyens de comparaison. Il faut donc réformer les brevets afin de produire de la diversité institutionnelle, ce qui permettra de tester empiriquement, par comparaison longitudinale et transversale les effets des brevets sur l'innovation.Face à l'objection principale, c'est-à-dire, les risques que nous encourons à jouer aux apprentis-sorciers institutionnels, nous répondons par trois arguments : (1) Les risques sont faibles dans de nombreux domaines technologiques. Une part importante de l'innovation actuelle se fait hors brevet (environ 70 %) et cette part tendra à s'agrandir avec l'augmentation de l'importance des innovations informatiques. (2) Les coûts du changement et les risques d'inadaptation peuvent être expérimentés en laboratoire. Nous montrons que ce type d'expérimentation est possible. Nous avons réalisé une telle expérimentation en laboratoire. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur l'acceptation sociale et l'effet sur la créativité d'être forcés par l'avis majoritaire à abandonner les brevets. Notre expérimentation montre que supprimer les brevets en laboratoire ne réduit pas l'incitation à inventer chez les plus créatifs car ce ne sont pas eux qui votent pour les brevets. (3) De multiples solutions institutionnelles peuvent être expérimentées sur le terrain sans exiger l'abolition pure et simple des brevets. Nous identifions des mécanismes institutionnels ex ante (avant commercialisation) / ex post (après commercialisation) qu'ils seraient prometteurs d'expérimenter et qui diffèrent du droit des brevets actuel. Nous proposons par exemple un mécanisme, la iTVA, qui tout en maintenant le système actuel des brevets, offre une immunité à toute personne qui commercialiserait un produit protégé par brevet, car l'État serait garant du transfert d'une part de la TVA en royalties vers le détenteur du brevet.

Den stigende interesse for den "grønne økonomi" som politiske agenda, har øget den globale opmærksomhed for øko-innovation, med problematikker relateret til vandstress identificeret som en af de største flaskehalse, for at opnå bæredygtig økonomisk udvikling og vækst. Vand er en kritisk ressource, og globalt indser flere og flere lande nødvendigheden, af at øge deres innovative kapacitet indenfor vand-sektoren. Med udgangspunkt i evolutionær økonomisk teori sigter denne afhandling på, at udføre en longitudinal og komparativ analyse af vand innovationsdynamikkerne i henholdsvis Kina og Europa. Afhandlingens mål er at vurdere ligheder og forskellige imellem de tendenser og mekanismer, som foregår i de to regioner, med et fokus på at identificere de faktorer, som driver øko-innovationsudvikling indenfor vand-sektoren. Mere specifikt bygger denne afhandling på innovations system begrebsrammen indenfor evolutionær økonomisk teori og inddrager tillige øko-innovation og vand-specifik litteratur. Forskningen føder ind til den stadig meget begrænsede vand innovationsforskning, så vel som grøn økonomi (green economy) og til dels 'catching up' litteraturen. Vi sætter fokus på at belyse de innovative betingelser for grøn økonomi i regioner, som befinder sig på forskellige udviklingstrin. Den empiriske analyse er baseret primært på patentdata, men inddrager også handelsdata i nogle af analyserne. Denne slags data er tidligere, kun i begrænset omfang, blevet anvendt indenfor vand innovationsstudier og endnu mindre indenfor et evolutionært økonomisk teoretisk perspektiv. Afhandlingen sammenligner og analyserer elementerne og dynamikkerne i henholdsvis det kinesiske og det europæiske vand- innovationssystem, fra tre forskellige vinkler. Først identificeres og karakteriseres; a) aktørerne indenfor vand innovations systemer, dernæst b) de drivende kræfter for den teknologiske udvikling og trends i den innovative kapacitet, og endeligt c) i hvilken grad Kina, som en centralt styret planøkonomi og late-mover indenfor grøn økonomi, har indhentet Europa, som er en veludviklet early mover indenfor grøn økonomi. Hovedfundene i denne afhandling er relateret til de klare forskellige i dynamikken indenfor vand innovations kontra øko-innovation i Kinesisk kontekst, hvor offentlige innovatører (universiteter og videns-institutioner) blev fundet til at spille en vigtigere rolle end i Europa indenfor øko-innovation end er tilfældet generelt indenfor vand-innovation. Dette indikerer en bedre association imellem de involverede aktører indenfor øko-innovations og vand- og innovations-lovgivning. Dette er et forventet fund på grund af den kinesiske planøkonomi, men det er ikke tidligere blevet dokumenteret eller diskuteret i analyser af vandsektoren. Derudover, identificeres og analyseres trends og drivkræfter for den samlede (øko) innovative kapacitetsudvikling for vandsektoren i de to regioner. Disse drivers blev fundet at være sammenlignelige og stærkt relateret til både dn nationale innovative strategier, såvel som de nationale budgetter, miljølovgivningen i regionen og udviklingen af R&D i sektoren. Generelt har Europa en højere (øko) innovativ kapacitet, men afhandlingen indikerer, at Kina i stigende grad øger sin innovative kapacitet i vandsektoren relativt til Europa. Specifikt blev det fundet at Kina er ved at indhente Europa på markedsplan, på trods af at de stadig på patentmæssigt ligger på et væsentligt lavere niveau end Europa. Begge regioner udviser sammenlignelige øko-innovative mønstre, med et vedvarende stærkt fokus på traditionelle vandforurenings- og spildevandsrensnings teknologier. Dette demonstrerer, at der stadig findes et stort uudforsket potentiale for grøn forretningsudvikling relateret til vandbesparelse og vand genindvinding i begge regioner som vil være vigtige for at sikre en fremtidig bæredygtig udvikling på vandområdet. Sammenfattende bidrager afhandlingens analyse til en mere nuanceret forståelse af vandinnovationsdynamikker såvel som globale vandinnovationstrends end hidtil. Nye bidrag til innovationssystemforskningen er den kombinerede belysning af mikroaspekter af vand innovationsdynamikkenerne (aktørerne), den økonometriske analyse af drivkræfter for innovations kapaciteten såvel som den longitudinale analyse af catch-up baseret på kombinerede patent og handelsdata indenfor forskellige teknologiske udviklingsspor. Den udviklede taxonomi for vand innovation samt listen over vandhandelsdata kan anvendes som nye indikatorer for øko-innovationsudviklingen og diffusionen i vandsektoren. På grund af emnets kompleksitet og den begrænsede forskning hidtil indenfor området og visse datamæssige begrænsninger, samt det forhold at mange nye grønne vand politiske tiltag i Kina endnu ikke reflekteres i de anvendte data, er resultaterne af de empiriske analyser ikke helt entydige. På nogle områder bevæger Kina sig imod Europæiske niveauer, hvorimod andre indikatorer er uændrede. Yderligere analyser er nødvendige for at opnå en mere komplet forståelse af dynamikkerne i vandinnovationssystemerne i både Kina og Europa. ; The recent rise of the 'green economy' agenda has increased the attention to eco-innovations globally, with issues related to water stress identified as one of the major bottlenecks for sustainable economic growth. Water being a critical resource, more and more countries worldwide are recognizing the need for increasing their innovative capacity within the water sector. Using evolutionary economic theory, this thesis undertakes a longitudinal and comparative analysis of the water innovation dynamics in Europe and China, representing respectively a developed, green early mover economy, and a centrally-planned economy and green late mover. The thesis aims to assess the similarities and differences in the mechanisms applied across these two regions, with a focus on outlining what drives eco-innovation development in the water sector. The thesis builds more specifically on the innovation system framework within evolutionary economic theory, as well as draws on eco-innovation and water specific literature. The analysis seeks to contribute to the still limited water innovation dynamics research, as well as the green economy and to some degree the 'catching up' literature, highlighting the innovation conditions of the green economy in regions with different stages of development. The empirical analysis is based primarily on patent data but also draws in trade data for some of the analysis. These data have been little used in water innovation studies and even less situated within an evolutionary economic theoretical perspective. The thesis compares and contrasts the elements and dynamics of the Chinese and European water innovation systems, working on multiple levels. The thesis identifies and characterizes: a) the actors of the water innovation system, b) trends in innovative capacity and the driving forces of the technological development, and c) the degree of Chinese catching up to Europe, both in general as well as related to different technological patterns of eco-innovation in the water sector. The main findings of the thesis are related to the clear differences in the dynamics of water innovation versus water eco-innovations in the Chinese context, where public innovators (universities and knowledge institutions) are found to have a more important role than in Europe in the development of eco-innovation – as opposed to the development of "general" water innovations. This points towards a better association among the actors involved in performing eco-innovation and the water regulations and innovation policies. This alignment is expected given the planned economy of China, but which has not been previously documented or discussed for the water sector. Additionally, the thesis identified and analysed the drivers for the overall (eco) innovative capacity development of the water sector in the two regions, and found them to be similar and strongly related to the national innovative strategy, as well as to public budgets, environmental regulations and R&D development. Generally, Europe presents a higher water (eco) innovative capacity; nevertheless, the thesis also indicates that China is increasing its innovative capacity in the water sector relative to Europe. In particular it could be seen that China is in the process of a "market" technological catch-up while remaining at a much lower patenting innovative performance level than Europe. Both regions present similar eco-innovative patterns, with a strong remaining focus on traditional water pollution technologies and wastewater treatment. This demonstrates there is still a huge potential for green business development related to water conservation and water recovery in both regions that hasn't been explored yet and may become crucial to the future transition towards sustainability. Overall, the analysis of the thesis contributes to a more nuanced understanding of water innovation dynamics, as well as global water innovation trends than has been conducted to-date. Novel contributions include the combined analysis of the micro aspects of water innovation dynamics, the econometric analysis of innovative capacity drivers, as well as the longitudinal catch-up analysis of combined patent and trade data, including the discussion of the development of different water technological trajectories. The suggested taxonomy for water (eco-) innovations and the trade data list of water technologies can be used as novel indicators to analyse eco-innovation developments and diffusion in the water sector. Given the limited prior research to draw on and limitations regarding data availability, as well as the many very recent green water policy tendencies in China whose effects are yet to be seen, the empirical results of this thesis are not that clear cut. In some respects, China is catching up in water innovations, in other respects not. Further analyses are needed to provide a more thorough understanding of the water innovation performances and dynamics of the European and Chinese water innovation systems.

From the 1970s onwards, the development programs promoted by key global actors have gone through significant transformations. The industrial-expansion projects of the post-colonial era have been replaced with a set of actions increasingly focused on agriculture and rural areas. At the same time, the neoliberal policies carried out since the 1980s have deeply affected the global dynamics related to food production and distribution, giving rise to the birth of a new food regime that is driven by new modalities of regulation and new extractive strategies based on global value chains and transnational corporations. Despite the increases in productivity and the decline in food prices linked to these processes, the world economy has not managed to recover the levels of growth prior to the crisis of the 1970s. On the contrary, the neoliberal reaction to this crisis has generated a growing disillusionment towards development, fuelled also by the awakening of greater sensitivity to the ecological issues raised by environmental movements from as early as the 1960s. This "legitimacy crisis" of development, in turn, has led multilateral organisations to redefine their strategic objectives and to develop a new language. Thus, concepts such as "sustainable development" and "food security" have become increasingly important, until assuming the crucial role they currently play within the United Nations 2030 Agenda. The article provides a critical reading of the recent trajectories of agrarian change and rural development, as well as of the food narratives produced by the actors of global governance, particularly focusing on the "sustainability discourse" which inspired the United Nations 2030 Agenda. The authors point out the importance of analysing the dominant discourse and policies surrounding food production and distribution in the light of capitalist restructuring arising from the recurrent accumulation crises. In doing so, they put into dialogue food regimes analysis with world-ecology theory. The departing assumption is that capitalism – as a system characterised by a specific combination of class relations, territorial power and nature – has relied on the expansion and deepening of the frontier of accumulation, needing to continuously identify new effective ways to combine the exploitation of labour with the free appropriation of the work of human and extra-human nature. In this sense, "cheap nature" – following Jason Moore's definition – represents at once a prerequisite of capitalist development and a historical product of evolving strategies of accumulation reproducing a metabolic rift between humans and nature. These strategies are always based on a specific international division of labour and determined by global economic and geopolitical dynamics. At the same time, they are also characterised by changing patterns of (semi)proletarisation, as well as by ways of organizing nature whose constant renewal is crucial for the reproduction of capitalism. What truly distinguishes the current global scenario from the past is the "end of cheap nature", i. e. the exhaustion of the frontiers and the value relationships that have historically allowed for a reduction in the cost of four fundamental elements: labor, food, energy and raw materials. Against this phenomenon, by looking at the recent trajectories of the accumulation strategies underlying food production and distribution, two main dynamics emerge: the first one is hinged on a reconfiguration of extractivism based on natural resources dispossession and land concentration processes, as well as on a cost-reduction strategy based on labour exploitation; the second one can be portrayed as the reflex of a new governmental approach to development according to which the formal reunification of the producers with some basic means of production is functional to their inclusion into the global value-chains ruled by the agri-business corporations. Leveraging the neoliberal rhetoric of self-entrepreneurship, this second dynamic put into practice a sort of "indirect proletarisation", in which the incitement of the individual creative and productive capabilities accompanies the implementation of new mechanisms of control based on the provision of credit and other inputs, as well as on the proliferation of standardisation procedures, practices of patenting of nature, and technological control. Under these premises, the authors read the food security discourse embedded in the UN 2030 Agenda as an attempt to elude the socioecological contradictions inherent in capitalism, which ends up providing a sort of ideological legitimacy to the aforementioned dynamics, thereby engendering new explosive contradictions. The article is divided into three sections. The first one retraces the transformations that the capitalist world-ecology has experienced from the 1970s onwards from a food regimes approach. The second section aims to deconstruct the discursive practices underlying the United Nations 2030 Agenda, as well as to bring to light the ambiguities and contradictions inherent in development policies inspired by the concepts of 'sustainable development' and 'food security'. In the last section, the authors use the world-ecology perspective to interpret ongoing agrarian change dynamics. In seeking to revitalise the neoliberal development model, the authors argue, the dominant food narratives use scarcity as a pretext to extend and intensify the logics of the market, turning it into a universal principle for the regulation of human and extra-human nature. Dominant food policies aim to elude the problems deriving from the exhaustion of the frontier logic underlying the historical evolution of capitalism through the creation of a new spatiality and a new way of organising nature. Yet, this operation exacerbates the tension between capital's inclination towards the commodification/monetisation of ever new areas outside the sphere of production and its need to keep relying on extended sources of unpaid work of human and extra-human nature. The lack of new effective solutions to this tension is, in turn, feeding a combination of contrasting tendencies. While it produces a deepening of the mechanisms of control and exploitation driven by global market logics, it also nourishes processes of de-globalisation, along with a set of phenomena which recall the dynamics described by Karl Polanyi's theory of the "double movement". At the same time, it has also constituted a fertile ground for the emergence of new conflicts, counter-narratives and anti-systemic movements for food sovereignty and agroecology. The authors come to the conclusion that the reorganisation of the food regime in XXI century world-ecology will be highly affected by the responses provided to the ongoing pandemic crisis, thus representing an important opportunity for each of the aforementioned tendencies to gain ground over the others. ; A partir de un análisis crítico de la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible, este artículo se propone evidenciar los nexos que unen los discursos dominantes sobre alimentos y agricultura con las dinámicas socioecológicas que subyacen a las transformaciones y a la crisis del capitalismo contemporáneo. El supuesto inicial es que el capitalismo —en cuanto ecología-mundo— debe su supervivencia a la posibilidad de identificar continuamente nuevas y efectivas formas de combinar la explotación del trabajo asalariado con la apropiación gratuita de la naturaleza humana y extrahumana. Esto implica que la crisis en la que el capitalismo se halla hoy en día representa también la crisis de una forma específica de organizar la naturaleza. Más precisamente, es una crisis que tiene sus raíces en el "fin de la naturaleza barata", es decir en el agotamiento de las fronteras y de las relaciones de valor que han permitido reducir periódicamente el coste del trabajo, de los alimentos, de la energía y de las materias primas. Frente a este fenómeno, las reacciones adoptadas por los principales actores de la gobernanza global han propiciado una reconfiguración general de las estrategias de acumulación vinculadas a la producción y distribución de alimentos. Como muestra el artículo, uno de los principales pivotes en torno al cual actualmente giran estas estrategias es representado por las políticas que se inspiran en los conceptos de "desarrollo sostenible" y "seguridad alimentaria", tal y como están articulados en la Agenda 2030. Nuestra tesis es que detrás de estos mismos conceptos es posible detectar una racionalidad de gobierno que pretende eludir los problemas que surgen de las contradicciones socioecológicas inherentes al capitalismo mediante el establecimiento de nuevas relaciones de valor y nuevas maneras de organizar y producir la naturaleza. Esta operación, sin embargo, exacerba la tensión entre la inclinación del capital a la mercantilización y monetización de nuevas áreas situadas al margen de la esfera productiva y su necesidad de poder seguir contando con amplias fuentes de naturaleza gratuita y trabajo no remunerado. La imposibilidad de devolver el excedente ecológico a niveles que permitan iniciar una nueva fase de expansión, por un lado, da lugar a una intensificación de los procesos de explotación impulsados por la lógica de los mercados globales y, por otro lado, hace cada vez más evidente la crisis del modelo neoliberal de desarrollo, alimentando algunas contratendencias que con la emergencia pandémica parecen destinadas a alcanzar un nivel de madurez más elevado. La primera parte del artículo reconstruye las recientes transformaciones de la economía-mundo capitalista a través de las lentes proporcionadas por el análisis de los regímenes agroalimentarios. La segunda parte se propone deconstruir las prácticas discursivas subyacentes a la Agenda 2030 y poner de relieve las ambigüedades y contradicciones inherentes a las políticas de desarrollo inspiradas en los conceptos de "desarrollo sostenible" y "seguridad alimentaria". La última parte utiliza la perspectiva de la ecología-mundo para exponer con mayor profundidad las tesis del artículo.

This work is a collection of papers on innovation, a broad theme that covers several but interconnected issues. Innovation is one of the main determinants of firms' performance in advanced economies and it is also an important driver of growth ((Romer 1990, Aghion and Howitt 1992, Acemoglu 2002, Jones 2002). Firms often invest huge amounts of resources in R&D to improve their production technology (process innovation, aiming to a cost reduction), create new products and increase the quality of the existing ones (product innovation); in this way, firms aim to increase their market shares and profits. Sometimes R&D investment is necessary to enter the market or simply not to exit. Firms' innovative activities contribute to make the surrounding economic system more competitive and stimulate further investment and innovation. At the same time,consumers enjoy the benefits accrued by lower prices, better quality and more variety. Despite of the beneficial effects they bring to the society, innovative activities are often associated with a non competitive market structure (harmful for consumers) and with externalities, meaning that innovation is strictly related to situations that bring to market failures and to not socially desirable outcomes (in terms of prices, quantities produced and R&D effort). These considerations often justify the request of government intervention in terms of subsidies to R&D and patent protection. The level of innovation of an economic system is affected by the interaction of several agents and also influenced by external factors. Understanding how the different forces at work interact and which factors enhance or prevent innovation is of primary importance from the point of view of policy makers; aware of the possible incentives and obstacles to innovation, they can develop policies aimed to create an environment that favor investment and growth. In this work I investigate the role of agents' heterogeneity in innovation processes, an issue that has received attention in the literature on innovation only quite recently, tough its importance has been recognized for a long time. I treat this topic from both a theoretical and empirical point of view, though applied to different subjects. In the theoretical part of the work (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3), I focus on a particular aspect of the issues related to innovation and market failure, namely the spillover externality problem and the use of R&D cooperation agreements (RJV) as a way to enhance innovation and lead the level of investment closer to its socially optimal level. The positive externality is caused by non-complete appropriability of the results of R&D activity and is responsible for R&D underinvestment. Since d'Aspremont and Jacquemin (1988) and Kamien et al. (1992), the positive effect of R&D cooperation agreements in presence of high spillovers has been widely analyzed. However, most of the previous works only consider symmetric firms, discarding the potential relevant impact of asymmetries on firms' decisions. The empirical literature has emphasized the role of asymmetries in terms of gains from cooperation, that in turn affect decisions about RJV membership (Kogut 1991, Röller, Tombak and Siebert 1998), but these issues have been scarcely taken into account in the theoretical literature, with few exceptions (Baerenss 1999, Atallah 2005). So, in this part of the work I try to fill this gap in the literature taking into account firms' heterogeneity. Firms can be heterogenous in many respects: efficiency level, type of technology, experience, market size etc. Here, firms' heterogeneity regards the efficiency of R&D effort. In the empirical part, I study a quite different aspect of innovation, namely the link between immigration and innovation. Owing to the size that the phenomenon of immigration has assumed in the advanced countries in the last decades, immigration has been recently at the centre of the political and economic debate. Economists have studied extensively the potential impact of immigration on a variety of economic and social indicators of host countries, such as natives' wages (Borjas 2003; 2005, Ottaviano and Peri 2012) and employment opportunities (Pischke and Velling 1997, Card 2001; 2005), firm productivity (Peri 2012), trade creation (Gould 1994, Rauch and Trinidade 2002, Peri and Requena-Silvente 2010) and crime (Bell et al. 2010, Bianchi et al. 2012), just to take a few examples. Until very recently the effect of immigration on innovation and technical change was instead much less studied. Although new evidence is progressively accumulating, it remains nonetheless mostly limited to the impact of skilled immigration in the U.S (Hunt and Gauthier-Loiselle 2010, Stuen et al. 2012, Lewis 2011, Peri 2012).Immigration can affect local innovation in several ways. First of all, immigration entails an inflow of foreign population into a region, and produces changes (i) in the size of the population; (ii) in the average skill level of the population; (iii) in the age structure of the population. All these variables have been recognized to be powerful predictor of innovation. Immigration has also a direct effect on innovation through cultural diversity (spillovers may arise from complementary abilities and different backgrounds, with a positive effect in the production of new ideas). At the same time, greater difficulties in communication and reduction of social capital can act as obstacles to innovation and growth (these negative effects are more likely to arise in presence of low skilled immigrants). Finally, immigrants flows affect firms' choices concerning technology adoption and investment in physical capital, according to the change in the average skill level they cause in the population. So, in this part of the work, heterogeneity concerns the greater cultural 'diversity'and the changes in the average skill level of the population induced by large immigration flows. The thesis has the following structure: Chapeter 1 provides an overview of the way in which the main issues related to innovative activity have been treated in the theoretical literature. Starting from earlier works on innovation, mainly focused on the value attached to innovation in monopolistic and competitive markets, it develops analising the two main fields in the literature on innovation: patent race and spillover externality. The part related to spillovers and R&D cooperation is treated in a more extensive way, since the theoretical models I present in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 belong to this strand of the literature. This chapter contains also a review of the past literature on incomplete information in R&D models. In Chapter 2, I extend standard models on R&D competition vs R&D cooperation in a context of non-complete appropriability of the results of R&D activity. In a Cournot duopoly model with R&D investment stage and spillovers, I introduce asymmetries in R&D productivity between firms that may engage in R&D cooperation. Also, with the introduction of a further stage, I analyze the incentive to cooperate in R&D by forming a RJV. While the existent literature focuses on the comparison between two scenarios exogenously given, I endogenize the formation process and show that, when spillovers are high, due to firms' asymmetries, RJV is not formed for most of the parameters' values and does not fulfill the aim of stimulating innovation. This contributes to explain the relatively low diffusion of cooperative agreement in R&D and supports some empirical findings about and the determinants of RJVs formation. Also, in line with the theoretical literature, I find that, when spillovers are low, R&D cooperation reduces the total level of investment; in this case allowing this kind of agreements can be harmful, since in some regions of parameters both symmetric and asymmetric firms have incentive to cooperate in order to avoid investment. Chapter 3 presents a further extension of the model discussed in Chapter 2, namely the introduction of the incomplete information assumption. Here, I investigate the role of R&D cooperation agreements (RJVs) in a context of incomplete information with asymmetric firms, where firms, in addition to set the optimal R&D investment under two regimes (R&D competition and RJV), have also to take decisions about RJV membership. Some interesting results arise from this extended model. (i) When firms compete in R&D, incomplete information about rival's R&D productivity leads to inefficient investment choices in some regions of parameters; in particular, when firms are actually symmetric, asymmetric information further reduces the investment, with respect to the complete information setting. (ii) A signaling role of cooperation agreements emerges, in addition to the already recognized role in reducing the inefficiencies arising from free riding problem. Revealing its willingness to participate, the efficient firm to signal its type, thus increasing the investment level (innovation enhancing effect) and improving total welfare. (iii) When firms are asymmetric, for most of the parameters' values, RJV is not formed and does not fulfill the role of stimulating innovation. Chapter 4 (joint with Massimiliano Bratti1) investigates the causal effect of foreign immigration on innovation (patents' applications) in Italian provinces. We provide evidence for a country which was exposed to a very fast and large wave of immigrations during the 2000s, using a very small geographical scale of analysis (NUTS-3 regions), which enables us to better control for differences in institutional and socio-economic factors which are difficult to observe but which may simultaneously contribute to both attracting new immigrants and increase the innovation potential of a region. Moreover, unlike most papers in the literature which only considered the effect of skilled immigration, (i) we first focus on the general impact of immigration, and then (ii) separately look at the effects of low-educated and high-educated immigrants on innovation. Using instrumental variables' estimation (and instruments based on immigrant enclaves), we find that the overall stock of immigrants has a significant negative effect on innovation of Italian provinces: rising the share of immigrants by one percent point (p.p.) decreases patenting by 0.064 percent. However, distinguishing the effect between low and highskilled migrants shows that the aggregate negative effect is driven by the prevalence in Italy of low-educated immigrants. In fact, our estimates suggest that an increase of 1 p.p. in the share of low skilled foreign migrants on the population induces a reduction in patents' applications per 1000 inhabitants in a range between 0.094 and 0.186 percent, according to the method used to classify immigrants by skill level. Instead, presumably due to the extremely low presence of high skilled immigrants in Italy and to the underutilization of their competencies, the impact of high skilled immigrants on innovation is positive, but cannot be precisely estimated.

The results of the individual chapters are summarized below, starting with chapter 2. The first chapter is the introduction. Finally, the main research question is answered. Chapter 2: Limitations and Definitions Definitions for CI and OI were developed from which the variants of the innovation methods were derived. Definitions of CI and OI: Closed Innovation (CI) CI is an innovation method for creating an innovation for an organization, wherein only internal inventors and only this organization is involved in the innovation method. Open Innovation (OI) OI is an innovation method for creating an innovation for an organization, wherein at least one step of the innovation method is outside this organization. Four variants of innovation methods were derived from the definitions of OI and CI, that have the following characteristics: Closed Innovation (CI) One organization and internal inventors Variant 1 of Open Innovation (OI with-an-external-inventor) One organization and at least one external inventor Variant 2 of Open Innovation (firm-to-firm OI (Hagedoorn and Zobel, 2015, p. 1050)) Two or more organizations and internal inventors Variant 3 of Open Innovation (firm-to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor) Two or more organizations and at least one external inventor Inventors are those participants in an innovation process who make a creative contribution in terms of patent law to the resulting innovation. Chapter 3: State of the Scientific Research Evaluation of the state of scientific research has shown that there are very few studies on the interaction between patent law and OI on the low-level of concrete provisions of the patent law. Chapter 4: Coexistence of OI and Patent Law In the scientific community, it has been argued that patent law and OI are contradictory concepts. It was stated that patent law would hinder or even prevent OI. Therefore, it was concluded that patent law should be abolished in order to fully exploit the benefits of the OI concept.(von Hippel and von Krogh, 2006; Wilson, 2009; Baldwin and von Hippel, 2011) Many interfaces between patent law and OI have been found to refute these conclusions. Instead, in some areas patent law even helps to implement the OI concept.(Murray and Stern, 2007; de Jong et al., 2008, pp. 39–40; Hagedoorn and Zobel, 2015) At least, it can be stated that patent law and OI are not fundamentally mutually exclusive. Chapter 5: Touchpoints between OI and Patent Law It has been pointed out that one link between patent law and an OI project is the interface between invention and innovation. The invention is assigned to the subject area of patent law and innovation is assigned to the subject area of OI.(Drucker, 1986, p. 62; Keukenschrijver, 2016b Rdn. 6-10; Moufang, 2017a Rdn. 15) An innovation can be created by an OI project. If this innovation fulfils the requirements of an invention, patent law is relevant. In this case, it can be checked whether the innovation of the OI project can lead to a patent.(Kraßer and Ann, 2016, §25) Furthermore, there are effects on the innovation by the innovation method used such as OI through the prohibition rights of patent law and the legal instrument of unlawful extraction.(Keukenschrijver, 2016o, 2016c, 2016n; Kraßer and Ann, 2016, §§31 and 32; Moufang, 2017n; Rinken, 2017f, 2017a) Therefore there are three points of contact between patent law and OI, namely because OI can result in inventions in terms of patent law, because of the prohibition rights of patent law and because of the legal instrument of unlawful removal. Chapter 6: Properties of an Invention The characteristics of an invention due to patent law were determined, wherein those characteristics, which have to be fulfilled that there is an invention at all, were disregarded. These characteristics must be fulfilled anyway, so that the patent law is relevant at all. An invention according to patent law has the following characteristics: • being in the right language (Schäfers, 2015e; Stauder, 2016a; Moufang, 2017e; Visser, 2017, pp. 18–25), • feasibility (Moufang, 2017c Rdn. 349-362), • susceptible of industrial applicability (Moufang, 2017j; Visser, 2017, pp. 126–127), • being a state secret (Schäfers, 2015i), • mentioning the inventor (Teschemacher, 2016b; Moufang, 2017f), • property in the invention (Keukenschrijver, 2016l; Moufang, 2017l), • novelty (Keukenschrijver, 2016g; Moufang, 2017b) and • inventive activity (Keukenschrijver, 2016j; Moufang, 2017g). Chapter 7: Relevant Properties of an Invention It was found that four properties of an invention are indeed influenced by the innovation method chosen, namely mention of the inventor, property in the invention, novelty and inventive activity. Therefore, these properties have an effect on the way patent law works with respect to the innovation method chosen. The effects of these properties are as follows: • Patent law requires that the inventors will be mentioned.(Teschemacher, 2016b; Moufang, 2017f) Therefore, the inventors must be identified. • In addition, the invention leads directly to a claim to ownership of the invention for the inventor.(Keukenschrijver, 2016l; Moufang, 2017l) Such a claim can, for example, stand in opposition to the wish of an initiator of a crowdsourcing project. Naturally, the initiator strives for ownership of an resulting invention of the crowdsourcing project.(Geschka and Meitinger, 2016) • Due to the open character of OI, there is a danger that an invention will become known and is therefore no longer new and inventive.(Keukenschrijver, 2016g, 2016j, Moufang, 2017b, 2017g) In this case, it is not possible to patent the invention.(Kraßer and Ann, 2016, §25) The following table 44 shows all possible properties of an invention, namely those which are a requirement for being an invention at all, all possible properties in terms of patent law and those properties, which have an effect on the way patent law is working depending on the innovation method chosen. Table 44 shows all properties of an invention. In the first column of the table (requirement of an invention), the properties that are a prerequisite for an invention are determined as "yes". These properties are used in section 5.3.3 of chapter 5 to determine whether an innovation by OI can be an invention under patent law at all. The second column (directing patent law) of the table 44 lists the characteristics of an invention with "yes" that influence the way patent law is working. For example, only a new and inventive invention can become a patent. These properties are determined in chapter 6. Inventorship comprises the characteristics of mention of the inventor and property of the invention. The third column determines those properties of an invention which not only control patent law but are additionally influenced by the type of innovation method chosen. These properties are determined in chapter 7. Chapter 8: Groups of Innovation Methods Four variants of innovation methods before the background of patent law were found, namely: • Closed innovation, • variant 1 of OI: OI with-an-external-inventor, • variant 2 of OI: firm-to-firm OI and • variant 3 of OI: firm-to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor. Closed Innovation (CI) is characterized by the fact that all steps of the innovation process are within one organization. An OI with-an-external-inventor (variant 1 of OI) is an innovation method that is characterized by the participation of at least one external inventor. This inventor is not a member of the organization. The variant 2 of OI is called a firm-to-firm OI (Hagedoorn and Zobel, 2015, p. 1050) which is an OI innovation method wherein at least two organizations, such as companies or universities, are involved in the development of the innovation. Further, all the inventors are internal inventors, which means that every inventor belongs to one of the companies involved in the innovation process. The variant 3 of OI is called a firm-to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor. This variant is characterized by the fact that it is a sequence of the variants 1 and 2 of OI. It does not matter which part of the sequence starts first and which part is succeeding. A grouping of the innovation methods has been carried out. From the viewpoint of patent law, CI and firm-to-firm OI constitute a first group and OI with-an- external-inventor and firm-to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor form a second group: • Group 1 (not critical with regard to patent law): o CI and o firm-to-firm OI • Group 2 (critical with regard to patent law): o OI with-an-external-inventor and o firm-to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor. CI and firm-to-firm OI are to be assessed as not critical before the background of patent law. On the other hand, OI with-an-external-inventor and firm-to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor are critical with regard to all four relevant properties of an invention. Therefore, the characteristic of "having at least one external inventor" means that an innovation method must be regarded as critical. If you add to CI an external inventor you get OI with-an-external-inventor. If you add to firm-to-firm OI an external inventor, you arrive at firm-to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor. CI and OI with-an-external-inventor as well as firm- to-firm OI and firm-to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor therefore represent contradictory pairings from the point of view of patent law, whereby the members of group 1 are uncritical and the innovation methods of group 2 are to be regarded as critical from the viewpoint of patent law. Chapter 9: OI and Prohibition Rights The variants of innovation methods have been categorised on the basis of the possibilities of having the innovations of the innovation methods granted as patents. This resulted in two groups, namely a group 1, which comprises CI and firm-to-firm OI, and as a second group OI with-an-external-inventor and firm- to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor. A further effect on the innovation methods and the resultant innovations may come from the prohibition rights under patent law. The prohibition rights enable a patent holder to prohibit the use of a protected invention.(Keukenschrijver, 2016o, 2016c, Rinken, 2017f, 2017a) The question arose whether a different grouping of the innovation methods results in the light of the prohibition rights due to patent law. However, it was found that the grouping of the innovation methods already determined is also relevant before the background of the prohibition rights. Chapter 10: OI and Unlawful Removal The grouping of innovation methods found was examined in the light of the legal instrument of unlawful removal due to patent law. An invention is deemed to have been withdrawn unlawfully if a person who is not entitled files a patent application for this invention with the patent office.(Keukenschrijver, 2016n; Moufang, 2017n) It was found that the same grouping as in the previous two chapters is valid before the background of the legal instrument of unlawful removal. Chapter 11: Empirical Studies It has been found that CI is dominant in innovations, which result in patent applications. Therefore the importance of OI for patents was questioned.(Meitinger, 2017b, 2017c) The empirical studies of the thesis have confirmed with a more comprehensive examination, that indeed OI, in comparison to CI, plays little role in patent applications. Therefore, at the moment it can be stated, that "Thus, there will likely remain a certain level of ´closed-ness´…".(Keupp and Gassmann, 2009, p. 338) The empirical studies show that there are very few patent applications due to firm-to-firm OI, although firm-to-firm OI is compatible with patent law. However, it must be borne in mind that firm-to-firm OIs can be critical under antitrust law.(Besen and Slobodenjuk, 2011, pp. 300–301; Fuchs, 2012 Rdn. 2-9) It can therefore be assumed that at least some firm-to-firm OI innovation projects might be prevented due to concerns because of antitrust law. On the other hand, innovation methods with an external inventor lead to fewer patent applications compared to the corresponding innovation methods without an external inventor. This result was attributed to the fact that the corresponding innovations are not compatible with patent law. In principle, it would be conceivable that it is not the existence of the external inventor that is responsible for the filing or waiving of a patent application, but in particular the specificity of the organization concerned. For this reason, organizations carrying out innovation methods with external inventors were roughly compared with those organizations carrying out innovation methods without external inventors. No obvious differences in criteria such as company size, industrial sector, etc. were found. Summarizing the empirical studies, CI is dominant with respect to OI with-an- external-inventor and firm-to-firm OI dominates in comparison to firm-to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor. Further, the group 1 is dominant compared to group 2. Therefore, the theoretical findings of the thesis could not be falsified by the empirical studies. Chapter 12: Proposals to amend Patent Law Several suggestions have been developed in this thesis in order to better adapt patent law to OI. A change in the inventor's principle has been proposed to allow organizations to acquire ownership of an invention that they have initiated. Such an amendment is particularly advantageous with regard to OI with-an-external-inventor and firm-to-firm OI with-an-external-inventor, for example as crowdsourcing.(Meitinger, 2017d) A comparison was made between the employer-employee relationship and the relationship of a crowdsourcer to a crowd member. It has been found that there are similarities, suggesting that a similar law to the GEIA for the needs of crowdsourcing should be drawn up.(Meitinger, 2016) Such a special law would be also an adequate response by the legislature to the development of the labor market, with ever more flexible forms of work.(Deinert, 2014; Uffmann, 2016) The 18 months period of secrecy due to §32(2) sentence 1 PatG in conjunction with §31(2) No. 2 PatG prevents the search for current state-of-the-art documents.(Rudloff-Schäffer, 2017a Rdn. 33) This increases legal uncertainty about the patentability of inventions. In particular, inventions of OI projects are affected by this, as their open character increases the likelihood that similar patent applications will be filed. It was proposed to abolish this time period in order to be able to search the relevant prior art as early as possible. This would make it easier to ascertain whether an invention by an external inventor is patentable or whether it infringes third party intellectual property rights.(Meitinger, 2017a) Chapter 13: Miscellaneous Approaches There is an incentive theory as justification for patent law that says that the possibility of patenting an invention would spur technological development, which promotes the economy of the country concerned.(Rogge and Melullis, 2015 Rdn. 3; Keukenschrijver, 2016q Rdn. 68) However, patent law is evaluated by other scholars as disadvantageous because of macroeconomic concerns.(Mansfield, 1986, p. 180; Chu, 2009, p. 75; Lerner, 2009, p. 347) Therefore, patent law is seen controversial.(Encaoua and Hollander, 2002, p. 63; Shapiro, 2002, p. 70) The abolition of patent law was recommended. Alternatively, it is recommended a case law which favors OI, as OI is generally considered to be worthy of protection.(Wiebe, 2004; Boyle, 2006) However, this cannot be taken across the board, as OI is also used to monopolize markets. This can be done by the introduction of products to the markets being available for free. This ensures a high market penetration, wherein complements of these products are not accessible for free. These complements are needed for full functionality and will be made accessible only after sale.(West and Gallagher, 2006, pp. 325–327) For this reason, the jurisprudence should not be based on the assumption of consistently positive OI projects. A further possibility to improve harmonization of OI and patent law can result from the use of the technology of smart contracts. Smart contracts could manage innovations of OI projects in such a way, that their patentability is not infringed. Additionally an disadvantageous influence, which occurs through the prohibition rights of patent law or through the legal instrument of unlawful extraction could be prevented.(Meitinger, 2017f) In addition, a smart contract could design the ownership rights to an invention in such a way that they are more suitable for OI. Chapter 14: Recommendations for Users of OI Suggestions for OI users have been developed before the background of the current patent law. One suggestion is to document all contributions of the inventors with their date and origin. This makes it possible to meet the legal requirements of patent law after mention the inventors. In addition, it is recommended to enter into appropriate transfer agreements with each inventor so that ownership of the invention can be acquired.(Geschka and Meitinger, 2016, p. 33) It is recommendable to file the resulting invention with a patent office as early as possible. In this case, an early filing date protects against third party patents.(Keukenschrijver, 2016i Rdn. 3-4; Kraßer and Ann, 2016, §25 Rdn. 6; Teschemacher, 2016a Rdn. 1; Moufang, 2017d Rdn. 11-15). ; Administración y Dirección de Empresas

La popolazione mondiale è in continua espansione e la crescita demografica ed economica inducono allo sfruttamento progressivo dell'ambiente ed al depauperamento delle risorse naturali (acqua ed energia in particolare), con conseguenti impatti potenzialmente importanti sul cambiamento globale. Si rende, pertanto, necessaria ed urgente una più efficiente gestione delle risorse basata sulla rielaborazione di obiettivi sostenibili di politiche e strategie ambientali e sulla riduzione del consumo delle risorse, promuovendo la transizione da un modello di economia lineare ad uno circolare, costituito da un ciclo continuo di sviluppo positivo che preserva e migliora il capitale naturale, ottimizzando l'utilizzo delle risorse a tutte le scale. Come noto, l'Ingegneria Naturalistica (IN) utilizza le piante come materiale da costruzione nelle opere per la riqualificazione ambientale e paesaggistica del territorio. Le opere di IN sono infatti a basso impatto ambientale ed in grado di innescare processi di rinaturalizzazione che favoriscono la biodiversità, offrendo una promettente strategia di mitigazione e adattamento ai cambiamenti climatici. Fondamentale per il raggiungimento di questi obiettivi, risulta essere quindi l'uso di materiali adeguati, sostenibili, di facile reperimento e basso costo. Tenuto conto della grande disponibilità dei residui derivanti dalla potatura annuale delle viti (sarmenti) e dallo spiaggiamento annuale delle foglie di Posidonia oceanica (banquette) in Sicilia, la presente tesi ha come obiettivo principale la descrizione e l'analisi di questi nuovi materiali organici di scarto in relazione alla possibilità di uso degli stessi in opere di Ingegneria Naturalistica. Ogni anno infatti la potatura dei vigneti produce un elevato quantitativo di residui (sarmenti), che rappresentano una biomassa da smaltire; nel contempo, il fenomeno dello spiaggiamento dei residui di P. oceanica è percepito come un disagio dai cittadini, entrando in conflitto con alcune attività economiche (turismo, stabilimenti balneari, ecc). Nonostante il fondamentale ruolo ecologico che rivestono le fanerogame marine sia per limitare l'erosione della costa che per favorire la formazione del sistema dunale costiero, la presenza di residui di P. oceanica lungo la costa può comportare la riduzione del valore turistico delle spiagge; conseguentemente è richiesta alle amministrazioni locali la rimozione delle banquette ed il loro conferimento in discarica. L'utilizzo della biomassa prodotta comporta quindi un duplice vantaggio: la risoluzione del problema dello smaltimento dei residui prodotti e la creazione di nuovi prodotti, locali ed a basso costo, riutilizzabili anche nel campo del risanamento ambientale. La biomassa residuale viene vista in questo modo come una risorsa e non più un rifiuto, acquisendo un valore sia dal punto di vista ecologico che dal punto di vista economico Nell'ottica dell'economia circolare, i sarmenti sono stati assemblati in forma di fascina per costituire l'elemento base per realizzare il modulo di una fascinata, opera lineare di IN con funzioni antierosive, consolidanti e di stabilizzazione, mentre, i residui di P. oceanica sono stati utilizzati come substrato di coltivazione per rendere "viva" l'opera dopo la messa a dimora di specie autoctone al suo interno. Nella tesi sono state eseguite una serie di analisi e sperimentazioni volte: i) a caratterizzare i due materiali per valutarne l'idoneità come costituenti della fascina, ii) ad individuare le specie vegetali biotecnicamente più idonee a rendere viva l'opera, iii) ad eseguire una prima valutazione sulla funzionalità dell'opera nel suo insieme utilizzando osservazioni fatte su un piccolo prototipo di fascinata messa in opera nei campi sperimentali dell'Università di Palermo. Viene infine presentata una tecnica costruttiva innovativa delle fascinate oggetto di brevettazione da parte dell'Università degli Studi di Palermo e sviluppata nel corso delle attività di questo dottorato di ricerca. Con l'obiettivo di stimare indicatori di resistenza e durabilità delle fascine sperimentali sono state, in primo luogo, individuate quattro aziende vitivinicole che operano nel territorio siciliano, disponibili a fornire a titolo gratuito i sarmenti appena potati. Le prove meccaniche di resistenza a flessione (valutazione di tensioni di rottura e modulo di elasticità) sono state quindi eseguite su 122 provini di 8 differenti cultivar di sarmento (Cabernet, Inzolia, Nero d'Avola, Grecanico, Grillo, Chardonnay, Sirah e Catarratto). I provini di sarmento, di lunghezza L=10 cm ed umidità "normale" (12%), sono stati selezionati con criterio di assenza di nodi ed imperfezioni, uniformità di diametro ed asse longitudinale rettilineo (cilindricità). Sotto l'ipotesi di validità della legge di Hook, le prove di resistenza a flessione eseguite secondo lo schema a tre punti (3 point bending test) sino alla rottura delle fibre inferiori dei provini, hanno permesso di ricavare il modulo di elasticità longitudinale (lungo le fibre), E, e la tensione di rottura sulla base dei diagrammi sforzo/deformazione e della forza a rottura. Dai primi risultati si rileva come i vitigni Cabernet, Grillo e Sirah presentino le migliori caratteristiche di resistenza flessionale (maggiore rigidità) con netta prevalenza del Sirah (4878.6 MPa), mentre più deformabili risultano essere i sarmenti di Grecanico, Chardonnay, Catarratto e Nero d'Avola (1200 - 2000 MPa). I valori maggiori di tensioni di rottura si riscontrano invece per il Cabernet (70 MPa). Nel complesso, mettendo in relazione le tensioni di rottura campionarie ai corrispondenti moduli di elasticità, le migliori caratteristiche di resistenza e di maggiore durabilità riscontrate sono quelle del Cabernet e dello Chardonnay, che possono quindi trovare potenziale impiego come materiale da costruzione nelle opere di Ingegneria Naturalistica. Pertanto, i sarmenti di Cabernet sono stati utilizzati per il confezionamento delle fascine nell'installazione sperimentale, insieme al Catarratto che è la cultivar maggiormente coltivata nella regione e che, conseguentemente, produce il maggior quantitativo di biomassa annuale. L'area di prelievo dei residui di P. oceanica è stata individuata nella costa prospicente l'abitato di Custonaci in provincia di Trapani. La banquette dalla quale sono stati prelevati i residui presenta un'altezza di 4 m e si estende per centinaia di metri lungo la costa rocciosa alle spalle di Monte Cofano. I residui di P. oceanica spiaggiata sono stati rimossi meccanicamente e depositati in un'area di stoccaggio appositamente realizzata nel vicino Parco Sub urbano di Custonaci. Allo scopo di valutare l'abbattimento della salinità a mezzo dilavamento naturale è stato studiato il processo di infiltrazione che si attua nei residui di P. oceanica accumulata nei siti di stoccaggio. Un contributo alla caratterizzazione idrologica dei residui di P. oceanica è stato fornito eseguendo una sperimentazione su campioni di residui sottoposti ad una pioggia di fissata intensità, al fine di mettere a punto un modello semplificato di infiltrazione, valido per ammassi porosi altamente permeabili. Più precisamente il modello di infiltrazione a base fisica adottato stima il tempo di ritardo, (o di primo gocciolamento) ovvero il tempo necessario affinchè il fronte di umidità, a partire dall'inizio dell'evento piovoso, raggiunga la base dell'ammasso. Il protocollo di sperimentazione è stato studiato in modo da variare progressivamente le condizioni iniziali di umidità sullo stesso campione così da non alterare le caratteristiche fisiche del campione stesso rendendo omogenei i risultati. I campioni di residui di P. oceanica, preparati in laboratorio con una densità apparente, pari a quella misurata su campioni indisturbati nel sito di stoccaggio, sono stati posti in anelli metallici di diametro, D = 200 mm liberamente drenanti al fondo, chiusi con tessuto non tessuto e rete metallica di contenimento. Le prove di infiltrazione sono state condotte con un simulatore di pioggia di diametro pari a quello degli anelli, alimentato con una bottiglia di Mariotte (pressione costante). Nella sequenza delle prove le condizioni iniziali di umidità sono variate da 0.030 a 0.197, mentre il volume drenato, si è incrementato da 0.030 a 0.32. La condizione iniziale di umidità ha influenzato i tempi di ritardo che sono passati dai 3.87 minuti della prima prova ai 13.62 minuti dell'ultima prova. La densità apparente, stimata empiricamente in funzione dell'altezza H del campione, ha mostrato una variazione, da 0.130 a 0.140 g/cm3 che ha comportato una riduzione della porosità. Dalle prove eseguite è emerso come la compattazione dei residui di Posidonia abbia giocato un ruolo determinante durante il processo di infiltrazione. Sulla base di questa osservazione il modello teorico di infiltrazione adottato, valido su mezzi altamente porosi ma a porosità costante, è stato modificato introducendo sia l'effetto della compattazione che quello della parzializzazione della superficie effettivamente interessata dal processo di infiltrazione. La legge di infiltrazione tarata sui dati sperimentali per valori dell'intensità di pioggia variabili da i=20 a i=100 mm/h, per un ammasso di P. oceanica, messa a confronto con l'analoga legge di infiltrazione relativa ad un terreno con stesse caratteristiche idrologiche della P. oceanica, ha evidenziato in definitiva la differenza di comportamento dei due media. I residui di P. oceanica mostrano rispetto al terreno, tempi di ritardo molto brevi (infiltrazione veloce), poco variabili sia con l'intensità che con le condizioni iniziali di umidità. Per condizioni di umidità iniziale superiori a 0.15 i tempi di ritardo per il campione dei residui di P. oceanica tendono a crescere all'aumentare dell'umidità indicando, in questo campo, una lieve riduzione della permeabilità del mezzo. L'abbattimento della salinità nei residui di P. oceanica è stato valutato in laboratorio simulando in un campione un processo di lavaggio a pressione costante. I campioni di residui di P. oceanica appena spiaggiati mostrano un elevato valore di conducibilità elettrica (CE) iniziale nell'acqua di drenaggio ( 20 mS/cm) ed un rapido abbattimento del contenuto in sali già con i primi tre lavaggi unitari (di peso pari al peso del materiale dilavato). Gli ulteriori sei lavaggi hanno affinato la riduzione di CE fino al raggiungimento di valori accettabili all'utilizzo agricolo ( 2 mS/cm). Assunta una densità della P. oceanica pari a 0,1 g/cm3 un lavaggio unitario di un ammasso alto un metro corrisponde allora ad un volume d'acqua specifico di 100 mm. I valori estremi del processo di lavaggio dei residui appena spiaggiati sono stati confermati da analisi di salinità svolte secondo metodo standard con diluizione 1:20. L'abbattimento del contenuto salino dei residui di P. oceanica accumulati nel deposito all'aperto di Custonaci è avvenuto, in modo sostenibile, a mezzo di un dilavamento naturale durato poco più di un anno che ha ridotto il valore di CE a 2,8 mS/cm. Tale riduzione concorda con le sperimentazioni fatte, infatti, tenuto conto che la precipitazione media annua alla stazione pluviografica di S. Vito Lo Capo vale 474 mm e che lo spessore medio dell'ammasso è di 1 m, il deposito è stato soggetto a circa 6 lavaggi unitari che sono bastati per abbattere significativamente il valore di CE. Ulteriori lavaggi unitari applicati ad un campione di P. oceanica prelevato dal deposito hanno portato ad un CE pari a 1,8 mS/cm, dopo il primo lavaggio, che si è ridotto ulteriormente del 33,3% (CE=1,2 mS/cm) al terzo lavaggio unitario. L'individuazione delle specie vegetali biotecnicamente più idonee a rendere viva l'opera è stata condotta a mezzo di prove di resistenza a trazione, Tr, delle radici. Il prelievo delle specie vegetali autoctone da utilizzare per rendere vive le fascine è stato eseguito in 5 differenti stazioni nella provincia di Palermo. Gli elevati valori di tensioni di rottura delle radici delle specie vegetali prese in esame nello studio (A. mauritanicus, O. miliaceum, H. coronarium. M. lupulina, L. spartum, B. distachyon, R. officinalis, R. coriaria e S. junceum) confermano la loro adeguatezza nel campo del ripristino ambientale, della stabilizzazione dei versanti e nella prevenzione delle frane. In particolare S. junceum ha mostrato le migliori caratteristiche biotecniche in termini di legge tensioni/diametri e quindi è stato individuato come materiale da utilizzare preferibilmente per rendere vive le fascine. Da un'analisi più approfondita delle radici di S. junceum che crescono nelle due differenti giaciture di piano e di pendenza (22°- 28°- 40°), è stato possibile evidenziare come la giacitura in pendenza influenzi significativamente sia l'architettura complessiva del sistema radicale che lo stato tensionale dello stesso. L'indagine è stata eseguita in tre siti di prelievo (A, B e C) tutti in provincia di Palermo Nelle prove di trazione effettuate, in accordo con il maggiore sviluppo e la differente architettura radicale, i campioni di S. junceum prelevati in giacitura di pendenza hanno presentato i valori di tensione a rottura mediamente più alti. In corrispondenza dei diametri più bassi (0,5 mm) i valori di tensione a rottura sono risultati molto simili (61-70 MPa) nelle due giaciture mentre in corrispondenza dei diametri maggiori (>1 mm) la tensione a rottura dei campioni in piano risulta minore rispetto ai campioni in pendenza. Il test di covarianza (ANCOVA) applicato al campione delle tensioni di rottura con covariata il Diametro e variabili indipendenti il sito (A, B, C) e la giacitura (piano, pendenza) ha permesso di considerare non significativa la differenza tra i siti (suoli) e significativa la differenza tra le due giaciture. Nell'installazione delle fascine sperimentali si è stimata la crescita delle piantine in fitocella di S. junceum messe a dimora in diversi substrati. Dalle prime evidenze le piante cresciute sul substrato costituito dai residui di P. oceanica hanno presentato la maggior percentuale di attecchimento e la maggiore crescita epigea. Tale risultato può essere, con buona probabilità, attribuito alle proprietà fisiche ed alla capacità isolante dei residui. Difatti, la maggiore capacità drenante del substrato costituito dai residui di P. oceanica, rilevato durante le prove di infiltrazione, sembra aver giocato un ruolo positivo nell'attecchimento e sviluppo della pianta. Il controllo del microclima all'interno delle fascine è stato eseguito con misure di temperatura rilevate ad intervalli di 30 minuti da sensori hobo data logger inseriti ad una profondità di 5 cm, lasciati indisturbati per tutta la durata delle misure (dal 14.07.2017 al 20.11.2017). I dati sono stati misurati: a) nell'ambiente atmosferico, b) all'interno dei residui di P. oceanica contenuti nelle fascine e c) nel terreno contiguo all'istallazione. In totale sono stati raccolti 6201 valori di temperatura per ognuno dei tre sensori. Le misure di temperatura hanno evidenziato l'elevata capacità isolante dei residui di P. oceanica che si è manifestata con una significativa attenuazione, a livello dell'apparato radicale, delle temperature massime (36.6°C) nei residui di Posidonia e minime giornaliere (9.7°C), rispetto alle temperature massime (55.1°C) e minime (5.6°C) misurate nell'ambiente esterno nei due periodi considerati (estate e autunno). Le temperature medie più basse si sono registrate nei residui di Posidonia all'interno delle fascine, sia nel periodo estivo (25.7±3.6) che nell'arco temporale delle misure (21.8±5.2). È interessante osservare come il ruolo che tale materiale ha nel campo dell'edilizia come isolante termico possa risultare di interesse anche nel campo della coltivazione di specie vegetali. Infine, la ricerca svolta nei tre anni di dottorato ed i risultati conseguiti hanno portato al miglioramento della tecnica di realizzazione della fascinata le cui metodologie sono oggetto di una domanda di brevetto depositata dall'Università di Palermo. I vantaggi della nuova metodologia rispetto alle tecnologie attuali, possono sintetizzarsi come segue: • Riutilizzo sostenibile di materiali organici di scarto (sarmenti e P. oceanica spiaggiata e dilavata) con conseguente economia di realizzazione di una fascinata (opera I.N. lineare di consolidamento e protezione idrogeologica). • Meccanizzazione della produzione dei manufatti modulari (fascina) costituenti l'opera, che nell'attuale pratica prevede un assemblaggio solo di tipo manuale, con conseguente riduzione dei tempi di costruzione e dei costi ad esso associati. • Il prodotto proposto rende "strutturale", con un sistema di collegamento dei moduli, un'opera che staticamente non è resistente alle azioni di spinta delle terre. • Riduzione dei tempi di messa in opera del manufatto lineare. Con la tecnica innovativa avanzata, grazie alla caratteristica strutturale del manufatto, si potranno realizzare opere su più piani (non più di tre) o opere chiuse. I residui di potatura della vite ed i residui di P. oceanica sono stati utilizzati anche nell'ambito di un progetto, finanziato dalla Comunità Europea, al Comune di Custonaci dal titolo "Primi interventi finalizzati a contenere il fenomeno della desertificazione del territorio Comunale Parco sub-urbano Portella del Cerriolo". Recenti controlli di qualità dell'Unione Europea sulle opere realizzate con i suddetti materiali di scarto nel Parco sub-urbano Portella del Cerriolo a Custonaci, hanno evidenziato gli ottimi risultati raggiunti dal progetto. Per tale motivazione, La UE ha proposto la candidatura del suddetto progetto come best practices nell'area mediterranea per la lotta al fenomeno della desertificazione. L'uso dei due materiali, che rappresentano uno scarto di produzione agricola ed un rifiuto solido, ampiamente presenti sia in Sicilia che nella maggior parte dell'area mediterranea, si inquadra in un uso efficiente delle risorse (riuso sostenibile), nel risparmio economico ed energetico e nel pieno rispetto dell'ambiente. ; The world population is expanding continuously, and economic and demographic growth are leading to the exploitation of the environment and the reduction of natural resources (water and energy in particular), with potentially important impacts on global climate change. Therefore, more efficient management of resources is necessary, based on the reworking of sustainable objectives of environmental policies and strategies and lower consumption of resources, thus promoting the transition from a linear economy model to a circular one, consisting of a continuous positive development cycle that preserves and improves natural capital, optimizing the use of resources. Soil and Water Bioengineering uses plants as living building material in environmental and landscape development works. Such works with low environmental impact, promote biodiversity and, in addition, offer a promising strategy for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Thus, the use of adequate, sustainable, easy to find and low-cost materials are essential for the achievement of these objectives. Considering the great availability of residues resulting from the annual pruning of vines and the annual cleaning of beaches from the leaves of Posidonia oceanica in Sicily, the aim of this thesis is to describe and apply innovative Soil and Water Bioengineering techniques that involve the construction of modular structures made with organic waste materials, namely, the residues of vine pruning (vine shoots) and beachside P. oceanica (banquette). In fact, every year, the pruning of vines produces high quantity residues (vine shoots), which represent a biomass to be disposed. At the same time, the beaching of P. oceanica residues is considered a problem by the population. It conflicts with a number of economic activities (tourism, bathing establishments, etc.). Even though seagrasses have a fundamental ecological role to play in limiting coastal erosion and promoting the formation of the coastal dune system, the presence of P. oceanica residues along the coast can reduce the tourism value of beaches. As a result, local authorities are required to remove banquette and dispose of them in landfills. Therefore, the use of this biomass has a double beneficial effect. It constitutes a solution to the problem of waste disposal and an opportunity for the creation of local and low-cost new products. Moreover, this waste can also be used in the field of environmental restoration. Therefore, the residual biomass considered a resource and no longer as waste, and has ecological and economic value. From the viewpoint of the circular economy, vine shoots were assembled in the form of fascines to constitute the basic element used to create a fascinate module, a linear Soil and Water Bioengineering work with anti-erosive, consolidation and stabilization functions, while the residues of P. oceanica were used as a growing medium to render the work "alive" after planting with native species. A series of analyses and experiments were carried within the framework of the thesis, in order to i) characterize both materials and evaluate their suitability as constituents of fascines, ii) identify the most biotechnically suitable plant species for rendering the work "alive", and iii) evaluate the functionality of the work as a whole using observations made on a small prototype of fascinate set up in experimental fields at the University of Palermo. Finally, an innovative fascinates construction technique is presented, which is the object of patenting by the University of Palermo and was developed during the activities of this research doctorate. First of all, we identified four wine-producing companies operating in Sicily and available to provide vine shoots just after pruning and free of charge. In order to estimate the durability of the experimental fascines, mechanical tests were carried out in the laboratory (tensile strength and modulus of elasticity) on 122 samples of 8 different vine shoot cultivars (Cabernet, Inzolia, Nero d' Avola, Grecanico, Grillo, Chardonnay, Sirah and Catarratto). The vine shoot samples, L=10 cm long and "normal" humidity (12%), were selected based on the criteria of absence of knots and imperfections, uniformity of diameter and straight longitudinal axis (cylindricality). The abiotic (mechanical) durability of the vine shoots was then estimated by means of flexural strength tests and measurement of tensile strength. Under the hypothesis of validity of Hook's law, flexural strength tests were carried out according to the three-point scheme up to the rupture of the lower fibres of the samples, which allowed to obtain the longitudinal elasticity modulus E (along the fibres) and the tensile strengthon the basis of the force/deformation diagram and tensile strength. The first results show that Cabernet, Grillo and Sirah vine shoots have the best flexural strength characteristics (greater rigidity) with a clear prevalence of Sirah (4878.6 MPa), while the vine shoots of Grecanico, Chardonnay, Catarratto and Nero d' Avola (1200 - 2000 MPa) are the most deformable. The highest values of tensile strength were found for the Cabernet (70 MPa). Consequently, by linking sample tensile strength to the corresponding elasticity modules, Cabernet and Chardonnay display the best resistance and durability characteristics, and could be used potentially as a building material in Soil and Water Bioengineering works. Therefore, Cabernet vine shoots have been suggested and used for the packaging of fascines in the experimental installation, together with Catarratto, which is the variety most cultivated in the region and, consequently, produces the largest quantity of annual biomass. P. oceanica residues were collected on the coast of Custonaci, Trapani (Southern of Italy). The "banquette" from which the residues were obtained is 4 metres high and extends hundreds of metres along the rocky coast behind Monte Cofano. P. oceanica residues were removed mechanically and deposited in a storage area created in the nearby Custonaci Park. In order to evaluate the reduction of salinity by natural runoff, the infiltration process that takes place in the residues of P. oceanica accumulated at the storage sites was studied. The investigation carried out on samples of P. oceanica residues subjected to rain of fixed intensity, allowed the development of a simplified theoretical model, valid for highly permeable porous storage. Furthermore, an analysis was performed in order to characterise P. oceanica residues from a physical and hydrological point of view and verify the applicability of a physical infiltration model for the estimation of delay time, starting from the beginning of the rainy event and ending with the storage site. The experimental protocol was studied in order to modify gradually the initial humidity conditions of the same sample and not modify the physical characteristics of the sample for the results to be homogeneous. The samples of P. oceanica residues, prepared in the laboratory with an apparent density equal to that measured on undisturbed samples at the storage site, were placed in metal rings, D = 200 mm, with free draining at the bottom, closed with non-textile and metal mesh containment. The infiltration tests were conducted with a rain simulator equal in diameter to that of the rings, and connected to a Mariotte bottle. In the test sequence, the initial humidity conditions varied from 0.030 to 0.197, while the drained volume increased from 0.030 to 0.32. Modification of the initial humidity condition had an effect on delay times. In particular, the times, with certain dispersion, increased by initial humidity conditions from the initial values of 3.87 minutes for the first test to 13.62 minutes for the last test. The apparent density empirically estimated as a function of the height H of the sample, showed a variation from 0.130g/cm3 to 0.140 g/cm3 which resulted in a reduction of porosity. The tests carried out showed that the compaction of P. oceanica residues played a decisive role during the infiltration process. Following this observation, the infiltration model on highly porous media was modified by introducing the effect of both compaction and that of the surface actually affected by the infiltration process. The infiltration law calibrated on the experimental data for rain intensity values varying from i=20 to i=100 mm/h, for P. oceanica storage, compared with the analogous infiltration law relative to soil with the same hydrological characteristics as stored P. oceanica. The difference in behaviour of the two media was revealed. P. oceanica residues show very short delay times in relation to soil (fast filtration); small differences are measured in the intensity and the initial humidity conditions. While the soil shows a typical monotonous reduction in delay times, for P. oceanica there is a slight increase in time after a given initial humidity condition, which indicates a slight reduction in permeability of the medium in this field. The reduction of salinity in P. oceanica residues was evaluated in the laboratory by means of a constant pressure washing process. P. oceanica residue samples show a high initial electrical conductivity (EC) value in drainage water (20 mS/cm) and a rapid reduction of the salt content with the first three unit washes. The six additional washings refined EC reduction to an acceptable level for agricultural use (2 mS/cm). The extreme values of the residue washing process were confirmed by salinity analysis using the standard method with dilution 1:20. The reduction of the salt content of P. oceanica residues was also achieved in a sustainable way by means of natural runoff in open storage for more than one year (≈ 500 mm/year of rain). The measurements taken at the first unit wash showed an EC of 1.8 mS/cm, which was reduced by 33.3% (CE=1.2 mS/cm) after the second unit wash. The most biotechnically suitable plant species were then identified to make the work "alive" by means of laboratory tests of Tr tensile strength of the roots. The native plant species used to make the fascine "alive" were collected at 5 different stations in the province of Palermo. The high tensile strength values of the roots of the plants considered in the study (A. mauritanicus, O. miliaceum, H. coronarium. M. lupulina, L. spartum, B. distachyon, R. officinalis, R. Coriaria and S. junceum) confirm their suitability in the field of environmental restoration, slope stabilization and landslide prevention. In particular, S. junceum displayed the best biotechnological characteristics in relation to the tension/diameter law and has therefore been identified as a material to be used for making fascine "alive". A more detailed analysis of the morphological parameters of S. junceum roots, growing at two different positions (plane and slope of 22°- 28°- 40°), showed that the position on the slope significantly influences the root system of the plant and the overall architecture of the root system at the three sampling sites (A, B and C). In the tensile strength tests carried out, in accordance with the greater development and the different radical architecture, the samples of break strength values taken in a slope position showed the highest break strength values. As regards the lowest diameters (0.5 mm), the break strength values are similar (61-70 MPa) in the two positions, while for larger diameters (2 mm) the break strength values of plane samples are lower than those of slope samples. In fact, they range from 20 MPa to almost 80 MPa at site A, 20 MPa to 50 MPa at site B, and 20 MPa to 40 MPa at site C. In the experimental installation, we estimated the growth of S. junceum planted in different substrates. The first evidence shows that the plants grown on the substrate consisting of P. oceanica residues showed the highest percentage of rooting and the greatest aerial growth (121.3 cm). This result can, most probably, be attributed to the physical properties and insulating capacity of the residues. In fact, the increased draining capacity of the substrate of P. oceanica residues, detected during infiltration tests, may have played a positive role in plant rooting and development. The micro-climate inside the fascines was estimated with temperature measurements using hobo data logger sensors inserted at a depth of 5 cm from 14.07.2017 to 20.11.2017, carried out continuously and with a time interval of 30 minutes. The data were recorded: a) in the external environment, b) inside the P. oceanica residues contained in fascines and c) in the land adjacent to the installation. A total of 6201 temperature values were collected by each of the three sensors. The temperature measurements showed the high insulating capacity of the P. oceanica residues, which manifested itself with a significant attenuation, at root level, of the maximum temperatures (36.6°C) in P. oceanica residues and daily minimum temperatures (9.7°C), compared to the maximum temperatures (55.1°C) and minimum temperatures (5.6°C) measured in the external environment during the two periods considered (summer and autumn). The lowest average temperatures were recorded in P. oceanica residues inside fascines, both in the summer period (25.7±3.6) and throughout the measurement period (21.8±5.2). It is interesting to note that the thermal insulation role of this material in the building industry also applies to agriculture. Finally, the research carried out during the three years of doctoral studies has led to the improvement of the fascinate production technique, and this methodology is subject to a patent application filed by the University of Palermo. The benefits of the new methodology compared to current technologies can be summarised as follows: • The proposed product makes "structural", with a module connection system, a work frequently used in Soil and Water Bioengineering that is not statically resistant to the actions of soil thrust. • Sustainable reuse of organic waste materials with consequent economy of construction. • Mechanisation of modular manufactured products, which in current practice provides for assembly only by hand with consequent reduction of construction time and costs. • Reduction of installation time for hydrogeological protection structures. The advanced innovative technique, to be developed with future experimental installations, has provided for the construction of a modular building made with eco-compatible materials at low cost; vine pruning residues (vine shoots) and Posidonia oceanica beaches (banquette). Vine pruning residues and P. oceanica residues were also used in a project, funded by the European Community, to the Municipality of Custonaci entitled " Primi interventi finalizzati a contenere il fenomeno della desertificazione del territorio Comunale Parco sub-urbano Portella del Cerriolo". European Union quality controls on these works has shown the excellent results achieved with the waste materials. For this reason, the EU has suggested project application as "best practices" in the mediterranean area for combating desertification. The use of these two materials, namely agricultural production waste and solid waste which are widely available in both in Sicily and most of the Mediterranean area, constitutes an efficient use of resources (sustainable use) that is low-cost, energy efficient and totally respects the environment.

HAY, 1906 1T0L. XIT. HO. 3 GETTYSBURG COLLEGE GETTYSBURG, PA. i »»^wiiw»ir^Ww>BffwwuWiii>ii come; and there too we become subject to the great discipline of suffering from which we learn how to meet the real prob-lems of life. Some time ago a contractor of New York City, advertised for twenty five laborers at two dollars a day. Within a (ew hours scores of applicancs thronged his office, until it became almost an angry mob. Each one attempted to make applica-tion before his competitors, and in that way increase his chances lor appointment. This contractor at the same time advertised for a high class specialist to manage a branch of the work, wages twenty-five dollars a day. Days passed and not one man made application. The difference between the re-quirements of the two positions was largely a difference of ex-perience. What the polishing is to the beauty of a diamond discipline and experience are to the usefulness of a life. The experience of nations again and again have shown that an army is of value in active service only to the extent that it is well equipped and trained So the life of an individual is of true value to the world in so far as the powers of that life are cultivated to perform such service as will contribute to the bet-terment of mankind. The man made wise by experience endeavors to judge cor-rectly of the things which come under his observation, and form the thoughts of his daily life. " What we call common sense is for the most part, but the result of common experience wisely improved." The whole of life may be regarded as a great school of experience in which men and women are the pupils. The world today sends forth the cry for men and women of experience, men who are trained and equipped for action. The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have to serve. It is a good stimulus and discipline of THE MERCURV. 73 character. It often brings forth powers that without it would have remained dormant. Just as an electric current passing through a wire requires resistance in order to produce light and heat, so men are often caused to shine brightly in some chosen profession or work because of the resistance they en-counter. It seems as if in the lives of some, the sharp and sudden blow of adversity is required to bring out the divine spark. There are natures that blossom and ripen amidst trial that would only wither and decay in an atmosphere of ease, and comfort Some men only require a great difficulty set in theif way to exhibit the force of their character and genius ; and that diffi-culty once conquered becomes the greatest incentive to their future progress. When a boy fourteen years of age Joseph Lancaster after reading " Clarkson on the Slave Trade " formed the resolution of leaving his home and going to the West In-dies to teach the poor Blacks to read the Bible. He set out with a Bible and " Pilgrims Progress " in his valise, and a few shillings in his purse. The difficulties he encountered were al-most beyond conception, yet they were only a means of strengthening his courage. Soon one thousand pupils were under his instructions. Above the door of his school room were written the words—" If people will not send their chil-dren to school here and have them educated free they may pay for it." Thus Joseph Lancaster was one of the precursors of our present system of National Education. Men do not always succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failure. Many have to make up their minds to encounter failure again and again before they succeed. Talma the great actor was hissed off the stage when he first appeared. Montalembert said of his first public appearance in the church of St. Roch, " I failed completely," and coming out every one said, " Though he be a man of talent he will never be a preacher." He made one attempt after another until he succeeded; and two years after was preaching to large audiences. Each mind makes its own little world. The cheerful mind makes it pleasant, the discontented mind makes it miserable. n JLiiiiiiiMiL i Z 1 74 THE MERCURY. " My mind to me a kingdom is " applies the same to the peas-ant as to the monarch. Life is for the most part but the mirror of our own individual selves; and he who regards it as a sphere of useful efforts of working for others good as well as his own will find this earthly existence joyful, hopeful, and blessed. AN HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED SCENE FROM ROMEO AND JULIET. S. E. SMITH, '07. SCENE—A Street in Venice. Enter Benvolio and Mercutio. Ben. The sun now sinks and ends the rule of day, And night her sable mantle spreads abroad, Save where the moon doth rend her dark'ning folds, And stars like moths do pierce her sombre woof. Mer. .Through my blue veins a sultry flood doth pour Encouraged by the blazing orb of day And should old Capulet and his fell fiends Approach, my swora should feed his hungry point. Marry ! I would give them what ardent Sol Doth thrust into my blood, a poison rank. Ben. Kind sir, forget our deadly strife this eve When springs a breeze from out the deep blue sea, That has the kiss of Venus for its mesh And tangles hearts of men in stouter folds Than ever fisher wove to snare the fish Which sport in wanton glee in cool sea caves. Mer. Then come, let's hasten from the street to where The moonbeams chase each other through the leaves And while the calm and sleepless night is young By music's charms invite old Morpheus To come to nurse our minds till dawn returns. But look ! young Romeo, with head adroop Comes slowly down the street like one whose friends Have faithless proved. Dost thou surmise the cause THE MERCURY. 75 Which drives the heir of Montague To sulk ? Enter Romeo. Ben. To what fair maiden's bower now My Romeo do you your mind address ? Rom. Zounds ! Thy thoughts are ever far from truth, Ben. Now hear ! Mer. Behold the youthful champion of truth ! This night, my honor e'en will vouch for it, I saw him stand beneath a linden tree And rail against the fate that prompted him To look at Luna's silver bow across That shoulder which foretells ill luck 'tis said ; His calf like love was shocked at thought of this And now he pines lest Rosaline should spurn His ardent love. Rom. False babbler hold thy tongue Your wisdom keep for dumber men than I. Exeunt Benvolia and Mercutio Romeo 'goes toward villa of Rosaline. Rom. It is beyond my comprehension quite Why Rosaline doth so indif'rent prove, In spite of all my growing burning love She seems as cold as snow on mountain tops, Or can it be my heart has hid its fire And kept from her its fierce enkindling flame. Well should that be ; tonight I'll leave no spot In her fair heart unscorched by foul desire. Come Orpheus and lend thy mellow art That I may touch and melt her hardened heart. He sings under her window. Sea waves gleam with a tint of blue, The heavens vault is azure too, Yet their hues so rich and rare With thy soft eyes cannot compare, Cho. Come love come and hear my pleading Come and kiss me and caress me Or my heart will pine away. . J 76 THE MERCURY. The lily blooms so sweet and fair The violet gently drugs the air Yet all their beauty and perfume If thou art nigh, are forgotten soon, Cho. Come love, etc., etc. Rosaline appears at the window aboi'e. Ros. Who comes at this quiet hour of night And rends the air with woeful songs of love; It is not love but passion's fiery breath That desecrates the holy calm of eve; This passion is a treach'rOus, murd'rous fiend Who steals abroad beneath the name of love And poisons minds of maids with that unrest Which blights the budding flowers of virgin minds. Rom. Oh Rosaline be not unkind I pray But come and sit with me beneath the moon ; Enjoy the evening cool mid sighing trees While I declare to thee my heartfelt love Which bounds and struggles till it tears my breast. Ros. Oh youth entrapped by Venus give good heed To what I say, and do not come again To haunt the garden of my father's house, Thy passion fierce does not arouse my heart To join with thee in amorous delights, Minerva, chaste my patron goddess is And follow her I will through all my years, For she preserves the happiness of life While Venus blights the ones who trust in her. Romeo goes away. Rom. What pity that such wondrous charms should be Untouched by love's divine consuming fire For from such burning would arise anew Fair forms of beauty which would bless the world. Now sadly to my couch I take my way With unrequited love to pine away; m THE MERCURY. 77 WHAT IS THE RIGHT USE OF BOOKS? E. G. HESS '06. TO those who are students and scholars books are of in-calculable value. By properly using them their minds become vastly enriched, filled with noble and graceful images and guided to profound truths. They are their masters in-structing them in history, philosophy, literature and art. By them the entire line of one's mental horizon is sometimes changed. In the lonely hours of solitude books are one's cheer-ful companions. In deep heart-rending sorrow they have the power to console effectually. When one is confronted by trials and temptations, they beeome a firm and unbending shield. Deep inspiration and renewed life may be found directly back of the print. A library of choice books, therefore, is more precious than great wealth without them. When the imagi-nation constructs its gorgeous and fantastic forms or builds its magnificent air castles, the library is a veritable fairyland. Your handsomely illustrated geographies and well worded geologies speak of the earth with its beautiful mountains, whose gentle slopes with red roofed huts scattered among green groves of pine and hemlock, with here and there an open heath, arch gracefully upward until their majestic snow-capped summits pierce the very vault of heaven, or of clear swiftly flowing streams, rushing over beds of solid rock, suddenly breaking over a perpendicular ledge, then falling, mantled with fleecy clouds of spray, over which hover the brilliant colors of the rainbow, and dashing its hissing torrents into the raging foam-ing gulf below while the eternal roar of the water echoes along the stupendous gorge. Others give knowledge of plant life, from the tender mosses and the tiny delicate flowers to the gigantic trees of the forest. And, yet, has anyone ever obtained the pleasing, refreshing odors of the most fragrant blossoms from reading books, or have the leafy boughs shaded and protected him from the scorching rays of the noon day sun? Can one, while read-ing, hear the ceaseless roaring waters or see the grandeur of the fall ? Hume says : " The poet using the most glowing colors I .:*)*. .11 _ » i',> I 1 Hi f 78 THE MERCURY. of his art cannot depict a scene in such a way that his de-scription might be mistaken for the real landscope." Our histories speak concerning the great men of the past and their remarkable achievements. They tell us of Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander and hosts of others. These interesting his-toric recitals thrill and inspire us, yet we who know only American life frequently fail to think ourselves into those far away lands, and that distant past, into the very conditions un-der which these people lived, thought and fought. They and their deeds belong to the dark dominion of the past, and no book,however well written, can perfectly reflect the past. They, thus, generally appear to us as mere names upon the printed page rather than actual living historic characters who had bodies of flesh and blood very similar to our own. What then do we have in books more than signs for thoughts ? Can real knowledge and actual thoughts be found in books? Can knowledge be found elsewhere than in some one's consciousness ? Truth may exist independent of our minds. But the alphabet, Latin, Greek or Hebrew, the Cunei-form system of the ancient Persians and Assyrians, the Egypt-ian Hieroglyphics are only symbols for ideas and thoughts. The benefit derived from the printed page is wholly a matter of interpretation. Let one hold in his hand a Chinese book, there is a world of truth printed upon its pages, but, unless he understands the language he is unable to interpret it, thus the book conveys no thought. Let him stand before Cleopatra's Needle in New York and unless he be versed in Egyptology, the golden key of interpre-tation is wanting and those curious hieroglyphics are meaning-less. Let two men read a page of English, there is a differ-ence in interpretation proportionate to the difference in capa-city and development. There is also a vast difference in the mental experiences of the same person when he gets his con-ception of an object, or event from the pages ot a printed book or has it indelibly stamped upon his memory by actual personal experience. In the former case, because of the asso-ciation of ideas the words have for him a certain coloring which they had not for the author, and his imagnation working THE MERCURY. 79 over the ideas produces a picture unlike that which was in the author's mind. We hear much about impure drugs and adulterated food. We want our Rio coffee of the same quality and value as when it departed from the port of Brazil. But in our acquisition of knowledge we do not apply these same strict business princi-ples but permit ourselves to be satisfied with second-hand experiences. Some have read books on travel, perhaps the very guide books which are indespensible to a man treading his way amid the cloud-hidden heights or appalling depths of an Alpine glazier. A fatal step may be saved by the book. But no one would read these books and say he has had actual experiences of travel. Thus, when one is struggling with the grave prob-lems of life earnestly striving toward the highest development, a good book may save him much effort, perhaps a disas-trous mistake. But we would not conclude that we gain ex-periences of actual life by reading these (so-called) life books. Only in our imagination can we follow the experiences of great men, leaving an infinite gulf between the experiences gained by reading and those gained from actual life. Let books, therefore, serve us as a pair of eye glasses, as a microscope or telescope. Let them help us to see through the eyes of the authors what otherwise we should not see. Dur-ing leisure hours, let them inspire us, but whenever we can see directly, let us waste neither time nor effort in studying other men's records of what they saw. Emerson says: " Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books." Thus as scholars we look toward the future and see unwritten books waiting to chronicle our own original investigations. 8o THE MERCURY. SHOULD THE VOTING MACHINE BE INTRO-DUCED INTO PENNSYLVANIA? FRANK W. MOSER, '07. THERE is an old saying that the Yankee will do nothing by hand that he can invent a machine to do for him. He maintains the astonishing record of patenting twenty-three thousand new mechanisms every year and a study of all the complications almost overwhelms one. Outside of the realm of electricity no invention has met the need of the hour so thoroughly and efficiently as the voting machine. This state-ment can be proved by the citing of several facts and its special application to Pennsylvania can then be inferred from general conditions. In the first place voting machines have worked well wher-ever they have been tried. This fact alone is exceedingly sig-nificant when we consider the conditions of turmoil in politics and labor that have marked the last few years. A trial under such circumstances is a trial indeed and the fact that it has proved thoroughly satisfactory is splendid evidence of its value to any state. Considering the rapidity with which the Aus-tralian ballot came into use, we can almost predict that, after the complications in the larger cities, especially in Philadelphia, voting by machine would spring into the front all over the land. Buffalo has voted by machine for several years and seems more than satisfied with the result. This satisfaction is splendid evidence of its worth among the recent inventions tending toward the bettering of conditions in the state. Secondly, when voting is carried on by machines, none of the troubles of a recount can arise. The machine is run some-what on the principle of the cash register and records unerr-ingly and promptly. In tabulating the results, the viewers make numerous errors both by accident and even sometimes it may be with intention and in the press of a hard fight the er-rors are unnoticed and the result, if close, may not embody the will of the people. The automatic action of the machine makes such mistakes an impossibility. The importance of this point can hardly be overestimated since the charges of fraud THE MERCURY. 8l In voting and criminality in the recounts have been spread so broadcast in the daily papers. There is only one immediate and final remedy for this; only one thing that will make such action impossible ; only one thing that can prevent libelous in-dictments from flying on every daily sheet; and that one thing is the voting machine. Thirdly, the result is ready as soon as the voting ceases- There are no long hours of waiting for the results to be an-nounced nor of wearisome labor by the officers. Immediately upon the closing of the polls the machine is ready to hand out its tabulated account arranged in neat and systematic order. Like many other.things in the world the voting machine is shunned because the people are not used to it. There has hardly been an invention in the history of the world's progress, but the people were wary of it, called it a hoax and its inventor a lunatic, and applied a multitude of like foolish accusations, and it is often only after long and severe test that they can be urged to take up with it. The voting machine is simple, very simple, when once it is understood. There is no red tape about the machine nor any patent levers nor anything else of the kind to confuse or annoy the voter. It is as simple as the cash register, a touch and your vote is cast. That these facts are especially applicable to Pennsylvania cannot be doubted by any sound-minded person. Whenever in state or city the power falls into the hands of corrupt and reckless men, pessimism cries out that popular government is a failure. The crisis through which Pennsylvania has just passed, the smoke of the conflict still lingering over the battle-field, ought to be an object lesson at once forceful and abiding. Were the power of corruption in machine and gang entirely dead, then we might settle down to our newspapers and maga-zines with some degree of security, but the lightening that ever and anon illuminates the edge of the cloud shows that there is still dormant energy behind the apparent calm, which may break into a storm at any minute. Superficial remedies, advocated by would-be reform societies, are worse than useless. The reform must come from within and be deep and perma-nent to achieve the best results, and the introduction of the 82 THE MERCURY. voting machine would be a big step toward preventing any such conditions from becoming prevalent in the future. Penn-sylvania needs the voting machine because, having just passed through a stormy period, she is still hanging in suspense to-await future events ; she needs the machine because the ma-chine would give a reasonable guarantee of fairness at the polls; she needs the machine because she is the keystone of the union and should be solidly for the right, a position it would assist her to maintain ; she ought to have the machine because her citizens are ever broad-minded enough to put away prejudice against the new and fall into line on any improvement in state government. To repeat, the machine ought to be introduced into Pennsyl-vania because it has met with decided success wherever it has been tried; because none of the troubles of a recount can arise; because the result is ready as soon as the voting ceases ; because Pennsylvania is now in such condition as to render the introduction of the voting machine not only advantageous but imperative. It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be ; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sear : A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night, It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see ; And in short measures life may perfect be. —Ben Jonson. mmwwm**— • THE MERCURY. 83 IN THE SHELTER OF A ROCK. E. A. CHAMBERLIN, '08. WILLIAM BLODGETT always was an enthusiastic pho-tographer. Although only an amateur, yet some of his battlefield views rivaled even those of the professionals, Mumper and Tipton. His mountain views, water scenes, and views of historic spots, had won a name for him among his numerous college friends and outside admirers. Scarcely did a publication of the " Amateur Photographer," appear without the use of one of Blodgctt's reproductions as an illustration. One afternoon, after he had puzzled his brain over Prof. Nixon's cycloids and hypocycloids, he strapped his camera over his shoulder, placed his tripod beneath his arm, and strolled forth in the direction of Culp's Hill in quest of speci-mens for his botanical collection, and for further purpose of adding to his already numerous supply of battlefield views. After walking about a mile, finding only a few flowers, he came upon a scene which made the heart of the young photographer leap for joy. He had often seen it before but it was never so inviting as now. The avenue had been built in the side of the hill, and, as he halted upon its white surface to feast his eyes upon this garden spot of nature, he beheld stretched below him in a small valley, masses of rock, one upon the other, between which flowed Rock Creek now flooded to its banks by early spring rains. One mass of rock in particular showed the results of the hor-rible struggle which had taken place at this point nearly forty years before. Even now upon the rock could be seen the marks of many bullets, and streaks of white lead oxidized by the rains of many years. The trees here thick and tall were beginning to bud, while in the background loomed up a wooded hill, the only sentinel which had withstood the victorious charge of O'Neal's men. An excursion from Baltimore was upon the field but, as luck would have it, all seemed to be elsewhere sightseeing. So with no one to disturb him he planted his tripod and arranged his camera for a view which in his opinion would far surpass a similar scene, taken by a Princeton student, which had been 84 THE MERCURY. published a few weeks before. Not a breeze disturbed the leaves in the tree-tops—not a creature could be seen, with the exception of a distant buzzard sailing over the ground once made fruitful, in his aviarian mind, by the inhuman struggles of two contending armies. With a last look upon the scene he turned, removed the cover from the plateholder and gently pressed the bulb. That night after he had worked for two hours upon his Latin, he went to his dark room and proceeded to develop his treasure. How carefully he measured the powders and liquids, how gently he removed the plate from its holder and placed it in the tray. The image arose upon the plate resplendent in the ruby light. Yet Blodgett's heart sank within him as he looked upon it, for, in the very centre of the picture, just above the rock, appeared a small black spot which would render the negative practically' worthless. Tired, disgusted and discouraged, he finished the process and went to bed. As the first rays of the morning sun shone in his window he jumped out of bed to take a better look in the daylight at the defective spot. Imagine his surprise when upon holding it to the window he discovered that the black spot was caused by no other object than the head of a beautiful girl, made even more beautiful by its surroundings. She had undoubtedly been concealed and, at the very moment in which he had pressed the bulb had looked over the moss covered edge of the rock. The face was one of exceptional beauty. During the day, and those which followed, Blodgett often looked at the small features, the dark waving hair and the eyes which he knew, from their expression, must be of the deepest blue. He had never seen the young lady in question, and, make inquiry as he would, no information upon the subject could he gain. He searched the spot sheltered by the rock for some clew; this was also in vain. He found nothing save a few dainty foot prints upon the mossy bank. The months and years flew past. Blodgett graduated from college and entered a school in Baltimore, where it was his pur-pose to make a special study of photography, his great hobby ; yet he never forgot the face which had appeared from behind ,.-. --- r—i THE MERCUKY. 85 the sheltering rock, and never failed to look for it even in the busy city in which he now lived. One day while passing through Druid Hill Park he was struck by an automobile and lay seemingly lifeless upon the speedway. A burly policeman lifted him tenderly, placed him gently upon a grassy bank and after noting the number of the machine sent in a hurry call for an ambulance. Blodgett thought himself in a deep pit while ever and anon there would appear above him in bold outline against the outer light, a face the same which had in his college days appeared in like manner from behind the rock. At last the pit vanished and there bending over him was the face with a small nurse's cap surmounting it. The face although now slightly older was nevertheless the same. His air castles had materalized. He had been injured internally, and it was several months before he was able to leave his cot. In the meantime he had told the owner of the face, a certain Miss Hartman, about the photograph of the rock and had received her side of the story. At the end of a week they were fast friends, and, as the weeks lengthened into months their friendship changed to something even deeper. He is now one of the leading photographers in Baltimore while she although her name is changed yet her face is the same as on that day when it so suddenly appeared and then as quickly vanished behind the shelter of the rock. THE ]\|ERCURY Entered at the Postoffi.ee at Gettysburg as second-class Matter VOL. XIV GETTYSBURG, PA., MAY, 1906 No. 3 Editor-in-chief WARD B. S. RICE, '07 Exchange Editor . THOS. E. SHEARER, '07 Business Manager THOMAS A. FAUST, '07 Ass'l Bus. Managers. HENRY M. BOWER, '08 H. WATSON DAVISON, '08 Associate Editors GEO. W. KESSLER, '08 J. K. ROBB, '08 EDMUND L. MANGES, '08 . Advisory Board PROF. J. A. HIMES, LITT.TX PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M.D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D.D. Published each month, from October to June inclusive, by the joint literary societies of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price, one dollar a year in advance; single copies 15 cents. Notice to discontinue sending the MERCURY to any address must be accompanied by all arrearages. Students, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Busi-ness Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. EDITORIALS. Every young GOLDEN MOMENTS. man ^Q ;«. about to enter an institution of learning has to a certain extent made plans which when he makes them does it in all sin-cerity and fully intends to carry them through. The majority realize that they are entering into a course of training which when completed will have changed them and made them entirely new persons. There is such a Pt».H»^f| THE MERCURY. 87 diversity in men's lives that no two men will receive the same amount of benefits. Some who have laid extensive plans and are ambitious may not accomplish as much as a man whose intentions are not so extensive but has the natural faculty of making use of his time. Spare moments have well been called the gold dust of time. At this time of the year when nature has taken on her •summer clothing it is especially easy to waste our precious moments in which we should be carrying out our plans. We are now nearing the close of another school year and for this very reason we should not even let nature or any other factor •waylay us or take advantage of us, but we should do as the runner who on the home stretch puts forth his best efforts and finishes his race in an admirable manner. It is a hard thing to go to one's room and work when one could enjoy the beauti-ful evenings on the campus. But when time has been idled away there is always a feeling of discontent while on the other hand when time is well spent there comes a feeling of content. There is a question now being agitated A PERSONAL QUESTION. wh, i•ch, i• s ofc vi.tal, i.mportance to every Gettysburg student, those who may oppose it as well as those who may favor it. It is that of a compulsory athletic fee, pro-viding that each student shall be required to pay a yearly athletic fee, and that there shall be free admission to all games, also carrying with it the provision that the student will not be required to assist financially except as above stated. Every-one acquainted with the present system of meeting the athletic debts must confess that it is faulty and is largely chance, and that the only results of its workings have been debt and dissatisfaction. Of course this reform, like all others, has ob-jections raised against it, but we believe that the merits of the system proposed will high override all objections. But before we come to a conclusion, let us look at some of the benefits to be derived as set over against the objections. In the first place the present system is working to the de-triment of the college. It does not provide the funds neces-sary for the best results. This is a serious drawback because 88 THE MERCURY. the the athletic success of a college plays an important part in influencing prospective students. Especially students of means-will consider this point, and they are generally most influential for the college. It may be well to state that we are not depre-ciating our success along atheletic lines, but believe that with a good coach for each branch of our athletics, which we would have under the system proposed, we would surprise some of our old rivals. Take for example the last football season. Again since there would be free admission to all games, the student body would make a better showing, and the teams would re-ceive better support. In the next place, the burden would not fall so heavily upon those who are willing to contribute, but the responsibility would fall equally upon all, and each could claim an equal share in the success. In connection with the forego-ing reason, an objection arises, and we may say the only one which can be brought up. That is, that it would not be fair to-those of limited means. We have all respect for students of that kind, but we are of the opinion that a reasonable fee would not inconvenience them any more than some necessity which may present itself. There may be a few-exceptions, but they would-be provided for with ease in comparison with what would have to be overcome if the present system continues. If the college is to be conducted for those of very limited means, then abolish athletics and show true colors. On the other hand if we are go-ing to support this branch, let up us adopt a system, such as-the one proposed, that will be beneficial to the student body and the college, instead of pursuing one which is unsatisfactory and unbusinesslike for the sake of a difficulty which can be easily provided for. With regard to next month's issue we would urge the hearty cooperation of all. Although, this is the busiest season of the school year, the Seniors have ing their class exercises, the Juniors having the oratorical con-test, and the Sophomores orations to deliver, let us have this-issue measure up to the standard, if not surpass it. At this-time we are apt to say that we are too busy, but we hope that LEST WE FORGET. THE MERCURY. 89 you will consider it well before you declare yourself in such a strait. Let everybody get to work, we must have a good selec-tion. Begin to write immediately and hand it in on time as the number will have to be published before commencement. EXCHANGES. As the Commencement season draws near, the attention of the college world is directed toward oratory, commencement speeches and class oratorical contests. This is plainly shown in the exchanges of the past month. The March number of the Maniton Messenger is an Oratori-cal Number, containing the orations of St. Olaf's representa-tives in an Inter-collegiate Contest. The orations are good of their kind, but as a comment upon them we, will quote from an editorial in the April number of the same journal which has just come to hand. The editor says : " The tendency of current college oratory seems to be in favor of character sketches- Instead of whetting his intellect on intricate present day prob-lems, our college orator turns to the musty records of past ages, and from the mouldering bones of ancient heroes draws a pencil sketch of the man who was. The warrior, the states-man, the orator, and the reformer each has his turn. We are told of the life they lived, the work they did, and the death they died. That is all. The grand passions that filled their hearts and swayed their minds we never feel because the prob-lems that shook the foundations of society in their time no longer exist. * * * * Our sympathies are in the present. The great orators of the past became great because the subjects of their orations were the problems of the time in which they lived. They were themselves fired with the theme and could therefore kindle the fire in others." "The Mob Mind in Social Life," in the Augustana Observer, is, without doubt, the best article of a serious nature that we have seen in that paper in many issues. The writer defines a mob as " a number of individuals under the absolute influence of a common idea or sentiment, temporarily void of individuals, personality, and ruled by unconscious or sub-conscious forces!' Under this definition he works out the psychology of the 9o THE MERCURY. mob mind to the conclusion that direct legislation providing for the punishment of individuals of the mob must be useless in controlling, or guiding its forces, but that ' thetonly ulti-mate ' solution of the mob problem is to fill the ' sub-con-sciousness of mankind with noble ideas.' " And this," he says, " is the task of unnumbered centuries." Some of the other articles that we would like to commend are : " An Idyll of the Grove," a story, in The Haverfordian ; " Ruskin on War," in The Albright Bulletin; " Insurance or No Insurance," a parody on Hamlet's soliloquy, in The Moun-taineer; "Child Labor Problem " in Dickinsonian ; " The Man Who Spent His Father's Money," a story in The Red and Blue ; " The Flower Maiden," a poem, in The Philomathean Monthly; and " Undine," as a product of the German Romantic School," in The Forum. In searching the month's exchanges we were surprised at the scarcity of good editorials. Only one or two contained any of any length and merit. This is something unusual. Heretofore they have proved to be good reading, but this month they are weak. Are the editors so busy reading copy that they have no time to* write, or are they out among the students hunting up copy ? It is very likely perhaps that the new staffs are not yet in good working order and that this de-fect will be remedied in the next issue. There seems to be an inclination in some of the college papers to place in their " Locals " so very many nonsensical items. Although we realize that an exchange editor is hardly in a position to make mention of local items, yet we cannot refrain from doing so when this practice mentioned above is carried to such an extent that it lowers our opinion of the paper and incidentally of the school. For example, we have in mind the " Class Items " in The College Folio ; " Locals " in The Midland; " Local Items " in The Grove City Collegian ; and " Things Said and Done " in The Drury Mirror. These papers usually contain but two contributed articles—some-times three, if short—which is a small number for a monthly publication. Now we do not mean that any news item should be suppressed, but if a page or so of these personal jokes and foolish puns were replaced by a good essay or story, we feel sure that the general tone of the papers would be heightened. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISER'S I FURNITURE Mattresses, Bed Springs, Iron Beds, Picture Frames. Repair Work done promptly. Under-taking a specialty. * Telephone No. 97. H. B. ^erLcLer 37 Baltimore St., Gettysburg, Pa. The Windsor Hotel 1217=2 Filbert St., Philadelphia. Headquarters for Students. Thoroughly Renovated, Refurnished and Remodeled FRANK M. SCHEIBLEY, Manager. Graduate of Lafayette College 1898. A. G. Spalding & Bros. Largest Manufacturers in the World of Official Athletic Supplies Base Ball Lawn Ten is Foot Ball Archery Roque Quoits Cricket Lacrosse Golf Implements for al Sports Spalding's Official Base Ba.ll Guide for 1906. Edited by Henry Chadwick. The most complete and up-to-date book ever published on the subject. Fully illustrated. Price 10 Cents. For over a quarter of a century Spalding's Trade-Mark on Base Ball implements has marked the advancement in this particular sport. Spalding's O&cial League Ball is the adopted ball ol the National League, and must he used in all match games. Every requisite for Lawn ten-nis and Golf. Spalding's Trade Mark. on our Athletic Implement gives you an advantage over the other player as you have a better article, lasts longer, gives more satisfaction. Every Base Ball Manager should send at once/or a copy of Spalding's Spring and Sum-mer Catalogue—FREE. A. G. SPALDING