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Musician Hafez Nazeri's journey from Iran to New York
Iranian musician Hafez Nazeri left his country 14 years ago to follow his dream in the United States.
The son of acclaimed Iranian singer Shahram Nazeri, he went to New York City to study composing and conducting classical music.
In his first album recorded outside of the country, Nazeri mixed Iranian music with classical Western music, following the path of artists like Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar who forged music styles in their Grammy Award-winning 1966 album "West Meets East".
In September, he will return to Iran to perform the new music in his home country for the first time.
He spoke to BBC Persian's Sam Farzaneh about his album "Untold" and his musical journey.
20 Jul 2014

subset: commoncrawl


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Flight ME212 from CDG to BEY at 2:00 pm is one of Middle East Airlines' classic services. The plane was a very nice one and was quite modern (an A330-200) and clean (though a little noisy). The hostesses were nice, the seat was a little hard (it didn't recline), but the meal was very good. An aperitif is included (you can choose either an alcoholic or a non-alcoholic drink) and the menu was handed out in advance. This time, it was a choice between chicken or cod. The range of entertainment available is huge, and both the boarding and disembarking processes were fast and efficient. In short, I unreservedly recommend this airline!
Are you a representative of Middle East Airlines and would like to reply to this review or be notified by email when reviews are published about your airline company? Please contact us!


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The Process of Mounting a Charter of Rights and Freedoms Challenge
This was originally written by Wayne G. Stickland and available at a University of Toronto Web site. Sadly it was deleted – no doubt this is also due to the termination of the Court Challenges Program by the Harper government -.Since this is important information that enables citizens to defend their rights in court, it is too important to be deleted. I will re-post the entire article here.
The Process of Mounting a Charter of Rights and Freedoms Challenge
by: Wayne G. Stickland
This paper will explore the process and the procedure in bringing a Charter of Rights and Freedoms1 challenge in a civil proceeding in the province of Ontario. It is not meant to be a theoretical examination; rather, it is directed at those seeking a practical view of the procedural steps to be followed in bringing a Charter challenge.
There are two types of Charter challenges. Collateral challenges, where applicable, occur during the normal course of litigation. For example, in a criminal defence an applicant may seek protection from state action or inaction, which may have affected either the investigative process or the arrest and detention of the accused. In this example, the accused has already been charged; therefore, the Charter challenge arises in the course of criminal prosecution. As well, in a civil litigation case, the defendant may challenge the validity of a law or legislation upon which the plaintiff's action, or application, is based. In either case, the applicant is seeking to challenge the validity of a law.
Direct challenges arise when an individual, or public interest group, files an originating process for the express purpose of challenging the constitutionality of a law. In most cases, the general argument by the applicant is that legislation has affected a party either by inclusion or omission. An example would be an applicant who argues that the exclusion of same sex couples from receiving family benefits violates section 15 of the Charter. Usually, the applicant is seeking to have the legislation declared invalid.
It should be noted that the Rules of Civil Procedure2 might differ for each province. Therefore, readers in other provinces would be wise to consult the applicable rules in their province.
Collateral challenges are the most frequent type of challenge. Because a collateral challenge arises in the course of litigation, the identity of the parties, the originating process, and the appropriate court have already been pre-determined by the nature of the action3.
However, if a party seeks to raise a constitutional issue, the declarant party must provide to the Attorney General of Canada and the Attorney General of Ontario a notice of constitutional question. Notice is required by Rule 109 of the Courts of Justice Act. 4
Rule 109 provides the Attorneys General with an opportunity to respond to any attacks on federal or provincial legislation. Further to rule 109(1), rule 109(4) provides that the Attorneys General are entitled to adduce evidence and make submissions to the court with respect to the constitutional question. Therefore, even if the Attorney General of Canada or Ontario is not named as a party, the respective governments, vis-à-vis the Attorney General, have the option of defending the respective legislation if a constitutional challenge should arise. In Ontario, notice has to be in the prescribed form 4F5 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.6
One may inquire as to when the notice must be served. Rule 109(2.2) of the Courts of Justice Act indicates that notice must be provided to all parties in the proceeding as soon as the circumstances requiring it become known. In any event, notice must be given at least fifteen days prior to the day in which the question is to be argued, unless the court orders otherwise7. It has been suggested that providing the proper notice is the fundamental element required in a collateral challenge. However, once proper notice has been given, when will the constitutional question be heard?
Normally, the trial judge in the main action will hear the constitutional question. However, parties are becoming increasingly concerned about the costs associated with litigation. In some cases, it may be more economical, or indeed procedurally correct, to determine a constitutional issue prior to the trial at a preliminary motion. The Ontario rules of civil procedure allow for the determination of an issue prior to the commencement of a trial.
Rule 20 permits the plaintiff or defendant to move for summary judgment. As well, it authorizes the court, where it is satisfied that the only genuine issue is a question of law, to determine the question and grant judgment accordingly.8 Therefore, requiring the constitutional issue to be determined prior to the trial will decrease the total time required to argue a proceeding. Although many issues are determined during the course of a trial, the nature of constitutional arguments is such that these arguments can easily become very long and protracted. It is not inconceivable, depending the constitutional issue, to devote two full days of court time to arguing a constitutional issue. For that reason, rule 20 is of particular importance. A prolonged trial transfers additional costs to both parties in the proceeding.
The effect of a successful motion for summary judgment is that the issue being argued can be decided prior to proceeding to trial. If the only issue to be decided is the constitutional issue, then a summary judgement, in effect, eliminates the need for a trial.
Rule 21 permits an applicant to narrow the issues at a motion hearing prior to proceeding to trial.9 Thus, this rule also assists a party in saving litigation costs by limiting the issues that must be determined at trial. Therefore, rule 21 is also beneficial to applicants who are fiscally constrained.
Finally, rule 22 permits parties to a proceeding to state a question of law in the form of a special case for the opinion of the court.10 Rule 22 allows a party to make an application to a judge to determine whether a constitutional issue really exists. There may be some disagreement between parties as to the extent of the issues, or even whether a constitutional issue exists; thus, rule 22 facilitates the narrowing of issues once again, thereby expediting the trial process.
It is possible that a constitutional issue would not be resolved prior to the commencement of the trial. It is also possible that the judge may find that a constitutional issue should be argued within the structure of the trial process and not at a hearing. In either case, the issue would simply be argued within the framework of the trial.
The legal system today is comprised of more than simply "courts" proper. Some issues, for example labour issues, are argued before administrative tribunals. These administrative tribunals are created by statute. Although the jurisdiction of administrative tribunals to consider the Charter has been questioned, guidance has been provided by the Supreme Court of Canada. In Cuddy Chicks Ltd. v. Ontario (Labour Relations Board)11 a Union filed an application for certification of employees at a chicken hatchery. The issue in Cuddy Chicks was with respect to section 2(b) of the Labour Relations Act. That section stated that it did not apply to persons employed in agriculture. The Union argued that section 2(b) was invalid because it was contrary to section 15 equality provisions of the Charter12. The issue was whether the board could consider and rule on Charter arguments. The majority of a panel, convened for the purpose of hearing the ultimate issue, held that the board had jurisdiction to rule on Charter issues. This jurisdiction was found in three authorities. The authorities were section 24(1) of the Charter, section 52 of the Constitution Act13, and section 106(1) of the Labour Relations Act. Cuddy Chicks did not agree with the ruling and obtained leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. The Court held that due to the principle of supremacy of the Constitution, confirmed by s. 52(1) of the Constitution Act, an administrative tribunal which had the power to interpret law also held a concomitant power to determine whether that law was constitutionally valid. The court further held that section 52(1) did not specify who could consider and rule on a Charter question; therefore, jurisdiction had to be conferred on the tribunal by its enabling statute. The tribunal did not need to be a "court" according to section 24(1) to have the authority to consider the application of the Charter. However, it had to have jurisdiction over the entire matter, that is the parties, the subject matter and remedy sought.
In Cuddy, the board had jurisdiction over parties; but since the subject matter and remedy were premised on the application of the Charter, the authority to apply jurisdiction had to be found in board's enabling statute. Thus, since section 106(1) gave the board jurisdiction over questions of law and because a Charter issue had to be a question of law, the board had authority to apply the Charter. Its jurisdiction was only limited in that it could not give a formal declaration of constitutional invalidity.
Currently, rule 109(6) of the Courts of Justice Act states that section 109 applies to proceedings before boards, tribunals, and court proceedings.
A direct constitutional challenge raises many of the same issues that arise in a collateral challenge. However, unlike collateral challenges, the issues of parties, originating process, and the appropriate court are not defined by the nature of the action. Therefore, a direct challenge requires that the parties, the originating process and the court to be determined before a constitutional issue can be brought forth.
a) THE ISSUE OF STANDING
In order to determine whether a party can challenge the constitutionality of a law, the applicant must determine whether or not it has standing, or status, to mount a Charter challenge.
The question whether a person has standing (or locus standi) to bring legal proceedings is a question about whether a person has sufficient stake in the outcome to invoke the judicial process. The question of standing focuses on the position of the party seeking to sue, not on the issue that the lawsuit is intended to resolve.14
Professor Hogg indicates that the restrictions on standing are intended:
1. to avoid opening the floodgates to unnecessary litigation;
2. to ration scarce judicial resources by applying them to real rather than hypothetical disputes;
3. to place limits on the exercise of judicial power by precluding rulings that are not needed to resolve disputes;
4. to avoid the risk of prejudice to persons who would be affected by a decision but are not before the court;
5. to avoid the risk that cases will be inadequately presented by parties who have no real interest in the outcome; and
6. to avoid the risk that a court will reach an unwise decisions of a question that comes before it in a hypothetical of abstract form, lacking the factual context of a real dispute.15
Prior to the enactment of the Charter, standing was determined in accordance with the requirements as defined in the "trilogy of standing cases."16 The trilogy of cases culminated in Finlay v. Minster of Finance17. The end result of these four cases is a very liberal interpretation of the rule determining standing. Professor Hogg has stated that:
[w]hile it is still the case that a private plaintiff has not right to bring a declaratory action when he or she has no special interest in an issue of constitutional or public law, the courts will grant standing as a matter of discretion to the plaintiff who establishes (1) that the action raises a serious legal question, (2) that the plaintiff has a genuine interest in the resolution of the question, and (3) that there is no other reasonable and effective manner in which the question may be brought to court.18
b) NOTICE OF CONSITUTIONAL QUESTION
Once an applicant has determined that they have standing, they must then establish whom they are going to name in the suit. Generally, because a direct challenge attacks the vires of legislation, the challenge must be directed at the makers of the legislation. Despite the fact that the Attorney General is named in the suit, the applicant must file a notice of constitutional question nonetheless. The steps required in filing a notice are the same as the steps that were previously discussed in the collateral challenge portion of this paper. Simply, the applicant must complete and serve a form 4F on the Attorney General of Canada, and the Attorney General of Ontario. Rule 109 (2.2) requires that the notice be filed at least 15 days prior to the hearing.
c) WHERE WILL THE CHALLENGE BE HEARD?
Section 24 (1) of the Charter provides that:
Anyone whose rights or freedoms, as guaranteed by this Charter, have been infringed or denied may apply to a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain such remedy, as the court considers appropriate and just in the circumstances. [Emphasis added]
What then, practically speaking, is court of competent jurisdiction?19
In Ontario, a court of competent jurisdiction can be one of three courts. One is the Divisional Court. The Divisional Court is comprised of a panel of three judges from the General Division Court. The purpose of the Divisional Court is to review decisions of administrative tribunals and to review government actions. The Divisional Court was created by the power of the Courts of Justice Act; therefore, the court only has the jurisdiction and powers that the statue confers upon it.
The remedies available through the Divisional Court are mandamus, prohibition, and certiorari. Mandamus is a discretionary prerogative writ issued by a superior court and used to compel public authorities to perform their duties. Mandamus may also be used to ensure the proper exercise of discretion, or to compel observance of the rules of natural justice where a duty to observe those rules is required by statute or can be implied. Prohibition is a process or writ issued by a superior court that prevents an inferior court or tribunal from exceeding its jurisdiction or usurping jurisdiction with which it has not been vested by law. Finally, a certiorari is a means of achieving judicial review. A certiorari is issued from a superior court to one of inferior jurisdiction, inquiring into the validity of the latter. The writ is used to determine of there have been any irregularities in the proceeding of the inferior tribunal.20 The court does not have the authority to declare a statute invalid.21 In more practical terms, the Divisional Court would be the appropriate court to bring a Charter challenge against an employee of a government ministry, such as the Ministry of Transportation. If an employee of the Ministry denied a licence applicant the right to obtain a licence, and applicant may bring a Charter challenge claiming that his section 15 equality rights have been infringed.
Another court is the Federal Court. The Federal Court is a statutory court similar to the Divisional Court. The Federal Court can hear constitutional issues that relate to Federal legislation. However, since the Federal Court is also a statutory court, it is subject to the same limitations that are imposed upon the Divisional Court (outlined above). It should be noted that review of Federal legislation is not required to occur in the Federal Court. It is possible to have the Ontario Court General Division hear cases dealing with Federal legislation and constitutionality.
The High Court of Justice is the third court where a party may bring a constitutional challenge. Unlike the other two courts, the High Court of Justice is a court of inherent jurisdiction; therefore, it is always a court of competent jurisdiction. Because it is a court of inherent jurisdiction, it can grant remedies similar to those outlined above in addition to having the authority to declare legislation invalid. However, the High Court of Justice is not always the most appropriate court in which to commence an action. For example, if the subject matter of the a challenge is already before another court or tribunal, that court would be more appropriate to hear the issue.
d) ORIGINATING PROCESS
The final step to be examined with respect to direct challenges is process. With which process, by an application or by an action, should a party commence a constitutional challenge?
Generally, proceedings are commenced by way of an action. The originating process of an action is issuance of a statement of claim. (Rule 14.01)
14.01 (1) All civil proceedings shall be commenced by the issuing of an originating process by the registrar of the court in which the proceeding is to be commenced, except where a statute provides otherwise and as provided in subrules (2) and (2.1).
Then the originating process is issued. (Rule 14.07)
14.07 (1) An originating process is issued by the registrar's act of dating, signing and sealing it with the seal of the court and assigning to it a court file number.
(2) A copy of the originating process shall be filed in the court file when it is issued.
If an applicant has insufficient time to prepare a statement of claim, a notice of action may be issued. (Rule 14.03)
14.03 (2) Where there is insufficient time to prepare a statement of claim, an action other than a divorce action may be commenced by the issuing of a notice of action (Form 14C) that contains a short statement of the nature of the claim.
After a statement of claim has been served, a statement of defence must be served and filed in response if the respondent chooses to defend the action. (Rule 18.01)
18.01 Except as provided in rule 18.02 or subrule 19.01(5) (late delivery of defence) or 27.04(2) (counterclaim against plaintiff and non-party). A statement of defence (Form 18A) shall be delivered,
(a) within twenty days after service of the statement of claim, where the defendant is served in Ontario;
(b) within forty days after service of the statement of claim, where the defendant is served elsewhere in Canada or in the United States of America; or
(c) within sixty days after service of the statement of claim, where the defendant is served anywhere else,
18.02 (1) A defendant who is served with a statement of claim and intends to defend the action may deliver a notice of intent to defend (Form 18B) within the time prescribed for delivery of a statement of defence.
Once pleadings have been closed, a notice of examination for discovery of documents can be served on every party that has been joined in the proceeding. (Rule 30)
Following the examination for discovery of documents, either party could make a motion under rule 20, 21, or 22 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.22 A motion under one of the preceding rules can be made anytime after the statement of defence has been filed. Assuming that the motions were not successful, and the examination for discovery process has been completed, the proceeding then moves to trial.
Rule 14.05 of the Rules of Civil Procedure indicates that in some cases a challenge may be brought by an application rather than by an action. Proceedings may be commenced by an application where authorized by a statute (Rule 14.05 (2)) or where authorized by the Rules of Civil Procedure. (Rule 14.05(3)).
Notice of Application
14.05 (1) The originating process for the commencement of an application is a notice of application (Form 14E, 68A, 73A, 74.44 05 75.5).
Application under Statute
(2) A proceeding may be commenced by an application to the Ontario Court (General Division) or to a judge of that court, if a statute so authorizes.
Application under Rules
(3) A proceeding may be brought by application where these rules authorize the commencement of a proceeding by application or where the relief claimed is,
(g.1) for a remedy under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; or
Following the notice of application, the applicant must then serve the notice of application and all supporting affidavits. (Rules 38.06 and 39.01(2))
Once the notice of application and supporting documents have been served upon the respondent, the respondent, if they should choose to defend, must serve and file a notice of appearance. (Rule 38.07(1))
Notice of Appearance
38.07 (1) A respondent who has been served with a notice of application shall forthwith deliver a notice of appearance (Form 38A).
A respondent who does not deliver a notice of appearance is not entitled to receive notice of any step in the proceeding or other document. Nor is the respondent able to file material, examine a witness, cross-examine on an affidavit, or be heard at the hearing except with the leave of the judge.
If the respondent party has filed a notice of appearance, then the examination of witnesses follows. (Rule 39.03) The parties can cross-examine the opposing parties on the affidavits. (Rule 39.02)
After the process of completing the preceding steps results in each party creating an application record. The respective parties must then file and serve their respective application records to the required parties. Once the parties have been filed and served, the hearing of the application can be completed. At the hearing stage, the presiding judge may either grant the relief sought, dismiss, or adjourn the application in whole or in part with or without terms. In the alternative the presiding judge may order that the whole application, or a single issue, proceed to trial and give such directions as are just (Rule 38.10(1))
Upon a quick reflection of the rules, it is painfully obvious that the rules were not designed in contemplation of the complex constitutional cases proceeding on this basis. For example, rule 39.01(3) simply requires a party to serve and file their documents the day before the hearing is to take place. If counsel were to abide by this last minute deadline, the hope of proceeding in a timely manner would be eradicated simply because opposing counsel would no other alternative than to seek an adjournment. The best resolution to this problem it to have a mutual agreement with opposing counsel for co-operation. It is only with the co-operation of both parties that an application can proceed expeditiously.23
Prior to the adoption of the new Rules of Civil Procedure (post 1985), the issue of originating process was vital. If counsel commenced a proceeding in the wrong originating process, the proceeding may have been quashed. The offending party would then have to start a new originating process in the proper method. This would translate into great costs to the litigants. However, rule 38.11 of the Rules of Civil Procedure gives the court the authority to convert a proceeding commenced by notice of application into an action.
Now, because of rule 2.01, failure to comply with rules of originating process does not render a proceeding a nullity.
However, in the interest of costs and fiscal constraints, it is still in the best interest of counsel to determine the best process so that additional time and cost can be avoided.
In conclusion, I hope that I have been able to adequately delve into the procedure and process of mounting a Charter claim. As previously mentioned, I have tried, wherever possible, to relay as much information as I thought would adequately describe the required steps. If you should find that I have neglected to reflect upon some vitally important procedural step, I would hope that you would contact me so that I may update this informational site. With anticipated diligence, I hope to update this paper and provide current, and relevant information.
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Part 1 of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (U.K.), 1982, c.11. [hereinafter, the Charter]
J.J. Carthy, W.A.D. Millar & J.G. Cowan, The Ontario Annual Practice, 1996-97 (Aurora: Canada Law Book, 1996
For a comprehensive discussion of the steps in an action or application, please see below.
Courts of Justice Act, R.S.O. 1990, Chap. C.43 [hereinafter, the CJA]
See Appendix A.
Rule 109. (2.1) CJA
Rule 109. (2.2) CJA
R.E. Charney, "Litigating Charter Claims" (Address to Canadian Bar Association-Ontario, Continuing Legal Education Seminar, 15 April, 1989.)
Supra, note 8.
Supra, note 8.
It was also argued that s. 2(b) also violated s. 2(d) of the Labour Relations Act.
Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (U.K.), 1982, c. 11.
P. Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada (Toronto: Carswell, 1996)
See Thorson v. Attorney General of Canada, [1975] 1 S.C.R. 138; Nova Scotia Censor Board v. MacNeil, [1976] 2 S.C.R. 265; and Borowksi v. Attorney General of Canada, [1981] 2 S.C.R. 575.
Hogg, supra note 17.
For a very comprehensive and theoretical interpretation of jurisdiction of courts, see J. Sack Q.C., "Where to go and how to get there-Questions of Forum and Form in Charter Litigation" (Address to the Canadian Bar Association, October 25-25, 1986.)
J.A. Yogis, Canadian Law Dictionary (New York; Barron's Educational Series, 1995)
See Re Service Employees' International Union and Broadway Manor (1985), 48 O.R. (2d) 225.
See the above descriptions of Rules 20, 21, and 22.
Charney, supra note 8.
Here at least is the entire article re-posted for the use of the Canadian People.
2 Responses
single mom
22 April 2010 9:21 pm
I searched for something completely different, but found your website! And have to say thanks. Nice read. Will come back.
17 August 2013 11:16 am
I apologize for not replying sooner. I thank-you for your polite compliment and hope that this information is useful.


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Soka Gakkai International
Buddhism in Action for Peace
History & Philosophy
Buddhist Practice
Global Vision
Stories and reflections on the Buddhist approach to life
Updates and reports from around the world
by Ngapaki Emery, New Zealand/Aotearoa
Ko Tainui te waka, ko taupiri te maunga, ko waikato te awa, ko Waikato te iwi, ko Turangawaewae te marae, ko Ngapaki Emery ahau.
For those of you who may not know, the above is called a pepeha. The purpose of a pepeha is to make links with what is inside the room and what is outside the room. Waikato is a tribe of people I belong to. Tainui is the canoe that some of my ancestors came across the Pacific Seas on to this land. Taupiri is the mountain that is special for the people of Waikato. It is also the resting place of many. Waikato is the river that we acknowledge. It gives sustenance. Turangawaewae is the meeting place.
As I warmed myself up to writing this experience, many things came up that I thought of sharing. I think that my pepeha is the key to what I want to share. I am going to talk with you all about the ways my Buddhist practice has completely changed my relationship to myself and the way I walk in the world as Māori.
Since receiving my Gohonzon in 2007, I have had a turbulent relationship with it. Only in the last six months has my practice of chanting started to sit right in me, in my heart and in my puku, my stomach. Before this I had bursts of chanting but was not very consistent. Whenever things were going wrong for me, I would chant. Always when I chanted things got better. My life-condition would change and I could take on whatever obstacles came or watch them pass.
I also struggled with the idea that I should be looking for things in my own culture to sustain my spirituality.
Yet somewhere deep inside me, there was a belief that this practice was not mine. When I looked around in the meetings, there weren't many people who looked like me. Did I belong? Would I be accepted here? Was this right for me? I also struggled with the idea that I should be looking for things in my own culture to sustain my spirituality.
My mother and father were brought up in a world that was rooted in the values of a Māori worldview and they did a great job of conveying this world to my brothers and sisters and me. We were taught to appreciate that there is wairua and mauri—roughly translated as spirit and life-force in everything, every interaction. However, my parents also were part of the generation that was punished for speaking Māori at school. This caused a very strained and paradoxical relationship in our household. In keeping a relationship with our Māoritanga, we were encouraged to be "Māori" but not so encouraged to speak Te Reo Māori. We were encouraged to follow and study things like history and accounting rather than things Māori, mostly because my parents, particularly my father, believed that following Māori ways would not financially support us in the world.
Looking back, I can see where they were coming from. They had had it ingrained in them since they were small that speaking their own language was inferior. Because a people's language is the heart of the culture, devaluing the language meant devaluing the customary ways as well. Though my parents struggled, they still managed to instil in me a great respect for the places, people and traditions from which we came. The effect this had on me was a deep yearning to be with the Māori side of me. To find a way of walking in a world that generally holds predominantly Western ways of thinking, while still holding onto myself and the values my parents taught me.
As a result, I was conflicted about my Buddhist practice. For a lot of the time I stayed isolated, trying to practice on my own. I thought in some way that if I chanted on my own, that I could secretly hold this practice and avoid looking like a "Buddhist". I didn't want to be labelled, but I now think it was more than that. I didn't want to lose my Māoritanga—something I hold so dear and precious in me, something my parents struggled to hold onto themselves and then pass onto me. I didn't want to lose this gift that was given to me.
I was searching to find the ability to hold onto my Māori-ness in a world that holds a different value system. Also, to grow up in my own country not being able to speak my Māori language, things like this fuelled a frustration, hurt and power in me. I felt these feelings not just for me but also for the generations before me that had struggled and that had to adapt to survive.
Sometimes when I chanted, images came into my mind—my imaginings of the past, of the history of our country. A deep hurt would arise and then anger and then sadness. I feel that the Gohonzon was really giving me the chance to face all of what was inside me.
My confusion caused me to go on a path where for one period I would try to suppress this power, this energy of the anger and hurt. But inside I was hating myself for it. I was so afraid of my own power. I wanted to protect myself and others because I had seen what my anger could do. It wasn't nice, so all I could think of at that time was to shut it off but every time I chanted it came up really strongly.
Why did I continue to go back to my Gohonzon? After a year had passed, I asked myself this question because I didn't have to go back. Nobody would know but me. I wasn't proving anything to anyone. This is something I love about SGI and being a part of this practice. I never felt pressure from anyone to do anything. It was all up to me. I think something deep in me knew that I would always have my Gohonzon. There were times when I thought "This box with this piece of paper in it is useless. Why am I chanting to this thing?" All these dark voices saying negative things. I moved house many times and each time it came with me. It's been the one constant in my life.
I was afraid that if I fully committed and admitted that this practice was important to me that I would lose part of myself. I would lose my Māoritanga.
About two months ago, I went to a friend, who said to me, "Ngapaki, this practice could not take away your Māoritanga. It will make you be more Māori." It had taken me a long time to be able to broach this subject and was so glad to hear that.
The Gohonzon has allowed me to see that I don't need to suppress or hide or feel ashamed of the hurt and pain.
From that point, so many things have revealed themselves to me. The power I have in me—the force behind all of that anger and hurt—I now put that energy into my chanting. The Gohonzon has allowed me to see that I don't need to suppress or hide or feel ashamed of the hurt and pain. It wasn't bringing it in front of me to taunt me or punish me, it was bringing it out to allow me to accept it and then evolve it, transform it for the better. This understanding has shifted my life and has flowed out to affect my whole life, especially my relationships with my partner, with my family and friends and most importantly, with myself.
I don't feel like anything has been resolved. Because of the nature of this practice I feel like that is not even the question. Nothing needs resolving. I only need to be able to have a relationship with something that's forever growing and changing in me as I evolve, as the world evolves. When I read Nichiren's writing "The Real Aspect of the Gohonzon" it helped me understand why the darkness that sits inside me is not something to be pushed away or to be ashamed of but is the fuel to transform myself, so that I am a person in the world who is helping to grow it in positive ways.
This is something that I have been learning about on my course as a directing student. To be a director, my teacher said, is to project yourself out into the world. A director is also a "disturber," a person who affects change by the way they disturb. What kind of change do I want to effect? Positive change: change with the seed of compassion in it. It doesn't mean I have to be "nicey nice" or "fluffy." It means—and this is something this practice has taught me—that I can use my power for good. I don't have to suppress it but I do have to be conscious about how I use it and to what end.
In closing, this practice for me is very Māori. I love the ritual of it, the rigour and the simplicity. I feel very fortunate that this tipuna or ancestor, Nichiren, developed it and fought for it to survive, as did his disciples who carried it forth, such as SGI President Daisaku Ikeda, who made it possible for us here in Aotearoa to practice it so we can grow the peace in ourselves and our world.
[Courtesy, SGI-New Zealand]


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Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Coupling During an Isolated Substorm Event: A Multispacecraft ISTP Study
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Publication Date
Multispacecraft data from the upstream solar wind, polar cusp, and inner magnetotail are used to show that the polar ionosphere responds within a few minutes to a southward IMF turning, whereas the inner tail signatures are visible within ten min from the southward turning. Comparison of two subsequent substorm onsets, one during southward and the other during northward IMF, demonstrates the dependence of the expansion phase characteristics on the external driving conditions. Both onsets are shown to have initiated in the midtail, with signatures in the inner tail and auroral oval following a few minutes later.
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Pulkkinen, T. I., Baker, D. N., Turner, N. E., Singer, H. J., Frank, L. A., Sigwarth, J. B., . . . Slavin, J. A. (1997). Solar wind-magnetosphere coupling during an isolated substorm event: A multispacecraft ISTP study. Geophysical Research Letters, 24(8), 983-986.
Publication Information
Geophysical Research Letters


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- Research
- Open Access
Different network typologies in patenting activity of academic inventors through time: the case of Italian chemists in the period 2000–2011
- Saveria Capellari1Email author and
- Domenico De Stefano2
© Capellari and De Stefano. 2016
- Received: 8 July 2015
- Accepted: 31 March 2016
- Published: 21 April 2016
In this paper, we present the results of a network analysis applied to academic patent data in a subsector of the chemical field in Italy in the period 2000–2011. In particular, we analyse the micro-level interactions to point out the different network structures shaped by university-owned and university-invented patents. We detected three subnetwork typologies (labelled type A, B, and C) that exemplify different qualitative relational structures as well as different attributions to propriety rights. Type A (open science) exemplifies the typical owned patent; type B (multiple ties) represents the hybrid structure with multiple ties and involvement of academics as individuals and of universities as organisation; type C (disconnected subnetworks) represents the typical invented patent with no role of universities as organisation. The whole network seems to show a breaking point in terms of connectivity around 2005, a year that marks a change in policy rule and strategic orientation of Italian universities towards patenting. After 2005, the number of actors grew disproportionally and the network appears disconnected in several comparable components. Also, the composition in terms of subnetwork types changed. The overall picture seems to underline a big structural change dominated by the important increase of academic patenting both direct (university ownership) and indirect (increasing academic patenting).
En este trabajo se presentan los resultados de un análisis de redes aplicado a los datos de patentes académicas en un subsector del sector químico en Italia en el período 2000-2011. En particular, se analizan las interacciones a nivel micro para precisar las diferentes estructuras de la red que resultan de los diferentes modos de tenencia de patentes originadas en universidades. Ofrecemos una tipología (tipo de etiqueta A, B, C) que caracteriza diferentes estructuras relacionales, así como diferentes atribuciones de derechos de propiedad. Tipo A (ciencia abierta) es la tenencia típica donde el titular es la universidad; Tipo B (múltiples lazos) es una estructura híbrida con múltiples titulares incluyendo inventores y sus universidades; Tipo C (subredes desconectadas) representa una tenencia típica donde el titular es el inventor universitario. La evidencia muestra un punto de quiebre en la conectividad de la red alrededor de 2005, el año en que cambiaron las regulaciones de patentes y en el que las universidades se re-orientaron hacia la tenencia de patentes. Después de 2005, el número de actores creció de manera desproporcionada y la red parece estar desconectada en varios componentes comparables. También la composición en términos de tipos de subred cambió. El panorama general sugiere cambio estructural grande dominado por el importante aumento de patentes tanto en tenencia directa (propiedad de la universidad) como indirecta (propiedad del inventor).
Dans cet article, nous présentons les résultats d'une analyse de réseau appliquée aux données des brevets universitaires dans un sous-secteur de la chimie en Italie pendant la période 2000-2011. En particulier, nous analysons les interactions au niveau micro pour mettre en exergue les différentes structures du réseau généré par les brevets d'inventions détenus par les universités et par ceux détenus par des propriétaires. Nous avons détecté en particulier trois typologies de sous-réseaux (types A, B et C) qui illustrent différentes structures relationnelles qualitatives ainsi que différentes attributions des droits de propriété. Le type A (science ouverte) illustre le brevet dont l'université est propriétaire; le type B (liens multiples) représente une structure hybride à liens multiples et l'implication des inventeurs et des universités comme personnes physiques et comme personnes morales; le type C (sous-réseaux non connexes) représente le brevet typique d'invention sans aucun rôle des universités comme personnes morales. En termes de connectivité, le réseau entier semble montrer un point de rupture vers 2005, année qui marque un changement dans les règles de la politique et l'orientation stratégique des universités italiennes en matière de brevetage. Après 2005, le nombre d'acteurs s'est accru de façon disproportionnée et le réseau est devenu non connexe dans plusieurs composantes semblables. En outre, la composition en termes de types de sous-réseaux a changé. La présentation générale semble souligner un grand changement structurel dominé par la croissance importante du brevetage universitaire aussi bien direct (propriété de l'université) qu'indirect (propriété de l'inventeur universitaire).
摘 要
В настоящей статье мы представляем результаты анализа сетей на основании данных по патентованию в академической среде, в частности в химическом секторе, в период с 2000 по 2011 гг.
В частности, мы исследовали взаимодействия на микро-уровне с целью выделения различных сетевых структур применительно к созданным и принадлежащим университетам патентам. Мы обнаружили три типа подсетей (обозначенные типами A, B, C), которые характеризуют различные качественные связи в структурах, равно как и различные отношения в отношении прав собственности. Тип А (открытая наука) представляет собой типичный университетский патент; тип В (многочисленные связи) характеризуется гибридной структурой с многочисленным связями и вовлечением индивидуальных лиц со стороны научных организаций и университетов; тип С (разобщенные подсети) содержат типичные авторские патенты, созданные без участия университетов в качестве координирующей организации. Вся сеть в целом продемонстрировала переломный момент в коммуникациях в 2005 году, когда произошли изменения в законодательстве и стратегической ориентации итальянских университетов в области патентования. После 2005 года число участников стало расти непропорционально, и сеть продемонстрировала тенденцию к расслоению на несколько составляющих. Также, изменился состав компонентов подсетей. Общая картина отражает большое структурное изменение, обусловленное значительным ростом числа академических патентов как в прямом (принадлежность университетам) и непрямом (рост активности академического патентования) аспектах.
Nesse artigo apresentamos os resultados de uma análise de redes aplicada aos dados de patentes acadêmicas em um subsetor da química na Itália durante o período de 2000 e 2011. Em especial, foram analisadas as interações no nível micro para apontar as diferentes estruturas de redes moldadas pelas patentes de propriedade da universidade e as de propriedade dos inventores. Em particular, foram detectadas três tipologias de subredes (identificada como tipo A, B, C) que exemplificam várias estruturas relacionais qualitativas, bem como diferentes atribuições de direitos de propriedade. O tipo A (ciência aberta, ou open science) exemplifica a típica propriedade de patente; o tipo B (laços múltiplos) representa a estrutura híbrida com laços múltiplos e a participação de acadêmicos como indivíduos e das universidades como organizações; o tipo C (subredes desconetadas) representa a típica patente inventada sem papel das universidades como organizações. Toda a rede parece mostrar um ponto de ruptura em termos de conectividade em torno de 2015, um ano que marca uma mudança na regra de política e orientação estratégica das universidades italianas para a patenteabilidade. Após 2005, o número de atores cresceu desproporcionalmente e a rede apareceu desconectada em vários componentes comparáveis. A imagem geral parece sublinhar uma grande mudança estrutural dominada pelo aumento importante de patenteamento acadêmico tanto direto (propriedade da universidade) e indireto (crescente patenteamento acadêmico).
- Academic patenting
- Science-industry linkages
- Social network analysis
- Co-invention networks
- Network components
Multilingual abstract
Please see Additional file 1 for translation of the abstract into Arabic.
Universities play determinant roles in a knowledge-based society and have wide impacts on the evolution of economies and the collective well-being. Beyond the traditional role of offering higher education—a role that has not lost momentum within contemporary society, with the educational attainment of the population remaining one of the pillars of innovation systems—and performing basic research, universities are now engaged in a set of multifaceted activities pertaining to the third mission. Its general aim is to put in place a variety of strategies to facilitate technology transfer and knowledge exchange with a multiplicity of public and private subjects involved in the process going from basic research to innovation (Etkowitz and Andrew 1998; Florida and Cohen 1999). Among the third mission activities, university patenting is one of the most prominent. University patenting grew rapidly in the USA at the end of the 1980s, and this trend increased all over the world in the ensuing years, in Europe as well as in emerging countries (WIPO 2011). The contribution of academics to the process of invention is not restricted to the direct patent activity of a university. Very often, in particular in Europe and in Italy, and differently from the USA and emerging countries, academic inventors take part to patents assigned to subjects other than universities: private firms, public research organisations (PROs) and other public institutions as well as individual inventors.1 If the relative balance between universities and public laboratories depends on the division of labour characterising the National Innovation System, patents assigned to firms are the result of some form of cooperative research between them and the departments, research units, or single researchers belonging to individual universities.
Inside the flourishing stream of literature (see among others, Balconi and Laboranti 2006; Lissoni 2012) that has tried to understand the reasons and the consequences of this phenomenon, patenting activity of academic researchers has been grouped under the heading of "academic patents" and divided in two typologies: "university-owned patents" (patents having a university as assignee) and "university-invented patents" (having one or more academics as inventors but assigned to other subjects).
The analysis of academic patent data can be particularly interesting because they include information both on individual inventors and on the organisation's ownership, giving interesting insights on the patterns of collaboration between science and industry at the core of the triple-helix mechanism (Leydesdorff and Meyer 2003; 2007). In fact, the crucial role of spurring innovation played by cooperation activities in the process of knowledge creation and diffusion is well grounded in the economic literature, which emphasises, in particular, the relevance of relationships between research institutes and private companies in science-based sectors. These cooperation activities between public and private organisations (hybrid interactions) give rise to networks that are at the core of the process of communication and differentiation between science and market and between public and private control (Leydersdorff and Etzkowitz 1996, 1998). These networks can be also viewed as a loose form of organisation, inside which different actors create real "co-assets" (Powell 1990; Whittington Bunker et al. 2009).
Traditionally, cooperation patterns between academia and industry have been studied by means of Social Network Analysis (SNA). SNA tools allow for the understanding of the structural characteristics that make up the social network of inventors and organisations (each representing a node), showing their importance in the relational mechanisms through several possible statistics, such as centrality or brokerage roles (see among others: Fleming et al. 2007; Uzzi et al. 2007).
Recently, Capellari and De Stefano (2013, 2014), in a case study on university-owned and university-invented patents of two Italian universities, identified prototypes of different relational mechanisms of knowledge diffusion through patenting, embedding different rationales for the attribution of property rights. In this paper, we extend that approach to a more general case, focusing on the patenting activities of researchers belonging to a subsector of the Italian academic chemists, namely general and inorganic chemistry.
Our main goal is to study the change occurred in the patterns of collaboration shaped by university-owned and university-invented patents in a period in which the universities came to the forefront as important subjects in patenting activity for the first time. In particular, we will focus on the analysis of micro-level interactions in terms of subnetwork typologies to verify if the relational structure of those co-invention networks changed during the period taken into consideration.
The paper is organised as follows: in the "State of the art" section, we briefly report the recent literature on academic patents; then, in the following section, we describe the adopted methodology; in the "Data and descriptive analysis" section, we illustrate the data set and describe the principal characteristics of the Italian academic patents in chemical scientific sector; in the "Network analysis" section, we present the results of SNA applied to our data; and finally, we draw some conclusions and directions for further research.
State of the art
In this section, we briefly mention the two streams of literature at the root of our research work: (i) the role of the academic inventors in patenting and (ii) the SNA methodology to analyse co-invention networks.
The patenting activities of universities were, for a long time, analysed within the framework of knowledge transfer by which the universities were asked to open up towards the real economy, especially bringing basic research into patentable results and eventually giving rise to new companies (typically spinoffs). In this context, the debate was centred on the race to patent, in one respect, and on the discussion of the possible negative feedbacks of patenting on the open science activities of academics,2 in another respect. In the race to patent, European universities were found to lag far behind the USA. This result seemed to highlight an inefficiency of European research institutions to transfer scientific discoveries into something immediately useful for the economy (and the society), a consideration that grounded an institutional change of IPR regulation and of a policy push towards universities' direct engagement in patenting. Starting from the early 2000s, it was proved, by an important body of literature (Meyer 2002; Balconi and Laboranti 2006; Crespi et al. 2006; Breschi and Lissoni 2009; Thursby et al. 2009; Geuna and Rossi 2011; Lissoni 2012), that these conclusions were misplaced because they did not take into account the overall patenting activity of academics, excluding those patents not directly owned by universities but in which academic inventors played a key role. Thanks to these studies, the sharp difference between Europe and the USA in the inventions patented was drastically scaled down. The difference was not determined by European academics contributing less to the invention process but, rather, to a different solution to the problem of appropriability. Of course, this fact also changed the possible policy implications. The point was not only to favour the knowledge transfer but also to understand the most favourable way, in terms of patent ownership, to maximise the social welfare.
From an empirical point of view, many attempts have been made to understand whether there are systematic differences between patents owned by universities and those owned by external organisations with respect to the quality of the inventions (Lissoni and Montobbio 2012; Lawson 2013), without reaching so far a definite set of conclusions.
In the recent years, taking into account academic patents (both university-owned and university-invented), several studies focused on the role of academic inventors in the knowledge diffusion process, starting form the idea that innovation, at the firm level, depends on a complex set of factors, among which, the capacity to develop a fruitful relationship with external partners, in particular universities and research organisations (Hagedoorn 2002). Moreover, networks can shape the pattern of knowledge diffusion, conveying tacit knowledge and reducing cognitive as well as organisational distance. In this context, SNA applied to academic patent data appears as the appropriate tool to describe and understand this phenomenon.
In particular, a stream of research was aimed at understanding if the networks arising from academic patents had peculiar characteristics at the global level and which roles academic inventors play inside the network itself. The efficiency of different network structures in knowledge diffusion was tested. In this frame, many efforts were made to detect, in the networks of academic inventors, particular network models or ties generating mechanisms, like small-world model. The small-world model represents a prominent mechanism in the network diffusion processes (Fleming et al. 2007; Uzzi et al. 2007; Breschi and Lissoni 2009; Breschi and Catalini 2010), and it is considered particularly suited to maximise the spread of knowledge, because ties are "efficient" and non-redundant. Such a model is typical of the open science environments. Consequently, detecting this kind of structure in networks made up of academics and industrial inventors seems to highlight the predominance of open science relational style in the context of mixed teams.3 In addition, SNA has been used in the field of the geography of innovation, particularly for understanding the role of local versus international ties, in shaping innovation activities (for a review, see Autant-Bernard et al. 2007).
The first subnetwork (type A, open science, Fig. 1a) is typical of academics collaborating to patents with scientists belonging to other open science organisations. These structures are composed of homogenous actors and the relational style adopted is very close to that of open science organisation. The patent arises almost directly from research work and the attribution of property rights to the university is straightforward.
The second subnetwork (type B, multiple interactions, Fig. 1b) arises from cooperation of several academic scientists with one (or more) private firm (and industrial inventors), with the university in the role of assignee, at least in one occurrence. In this subnetwork, brokerage and gatekeeping roles of academic are enhanced. Overall, it represents an example of the archetypical hybrid interaction between the two worlds of science and private companies. This subnetwork seems structurally more conducive to a multifaceted knowledge diffusion because of the different channels through which knowledge flows. The attribution of property rights can be more difficult here, and the logic of appropriability can clash with the objective of knowledge diffusion.
The third subnetwork (type C, disconnected subnetworks, Fig. 1c) emerges from inventions owned by private firms to which individual academics participate as inventors and without any involvement of the university as organisation. In this subnetwork, academics play the role of brokers, connecting several non-academic co-inventors. Patents often arise as the result of the consultancy work of academics. In the general case, the research work is carried out mainly with the resources made available by the private firm that retains the property rights of the invention.
The three above described typologies, highlighting the possible links between appropriability and the network structure, seem to be well suited to connect the changes on the ownership attribution with the patterns of the diffusion of knowledge that is the focal point of our analysis.
To study the co-invention network created by an Italian academic inventor in the chemistry science sector, we follow the approach of Capellari and De Stefano (2013, 2014). In particular, we include inventors and assignees in the network, even if they belong to different "levels" of analysis, accounting for both the ownership and the individual levels embedded in each patent.4 In this way, we introduce, in the analysis, the information on relationships among inventors and between inventors and organisations (as assignees). Consequently, in such a network, we can identify different types of links that may convey different degrees of knowledge transfer—from patenting activity—between actors: (i) co-invention: inventor-inventor link (I); (ii) co-assignment: assignee-assignee link5 (A); and (iii) observed cross-level link: inventor-assignee link. In particular, we suppose that, according to the nature of the actors involved in the relation, different degrees of knowledge may be transferred via patents.
Co-invention relations are the typical collaboration ties among inventors and are the most important knowledge exchange mechanism among intra-level actors (at the individual level). Co-assignee relations can typically be considered an intra-level relationship (at the ownership/organisation level) and may convey scarce knowledge transfer, being mainly an inter-organisational agreement. The observed cross-level link represented by the inventor-assignee link can be, on the contrary, an important channel of knowledge exchange and spill-over effects mediated by the collaboration for patent. This importance is due to the different modes of functioning of the two main organisations involved in academic patenting activities, namely universities and private firms. Universities, belonging to the open science environment, are less hierarchically organised, and academic scientists can often get in contact with different hierarchical levels of the external organisations (industrial inventors as well as management) to directly convey their (research-based) knowledge through different channels. Therefore, cross-level relationships are tangible and their effects on knowledge diffusion processes should not be neglected. Our main assumption is that cross-level relationships are one of the core channels of patent-based knowledge transfer.
The methodology we adopt to disentangle these types of relations is based on certain SNA tools, such as the counting of network substructures and brokerage analysis. In particular, we analyse interactions by exploring the subnetwork structures in both university-owned and university-invented patents, adopting a clustering approach, and applying a blockmodeling technique (Doreian et al. 2004) to identify clusters of regular equivalent inventors/assignees. This will lead us to "qualitatively" classify subnetworks into one of the three types (type A, type B or type C) defined in Capellari and De Stefano (2014). After this step, also, an in-depth analysis of the detected subnetwork typologies is performed. In particular, following Gould and Fernandez (1989), we check the role of each individual brokerage role covered by the actors according to the classification of inventors based on their affiliation. In detail, four brokerage roles are considered: coordination, broker, gatekeeper and liaison. The first two involve mediation among members of a given group. If the mediator is a member of the group, he or she is regarded as a coordinator. If the mediator comes from outside of the group, he or she is defined as the broker. The other two brokerage roles describe mediation among members of different groups. The mediator is a gatekeeper when she or he channels the knowledge flow from the outside to his group; the mediator is a liaison when he or she mediates among members of different groups without belonging to these groups himself/herself.
Data and descriptive analysis
In the present paper, we used the APE-INV database and related information (Lissoni et al. 2008, 2013) in order to collect patents authored by Italian academic inventors in chemistry. Firstly, we isolated the academic inventors belonging to the scientific field (CHEM 03, general and inorganic chemistry6) recorded as inventors in the APE-INV database, in the period from 2000 to 2011. The data also provided the applicant's names. Then, from Espacenet,7 we retrieved the names of all of the non-academic inventors registered in each patent. For each inventor, we tried to determine the affiliation by looking at different sources of data, in particular, professional social networks (essentially, academia.edu, LinkedIn, Patent Buddy). The inventor was, then, associated with a particular organisation if the occurrence of the patent was accompanied by other information on professional activities and affiliations of the inventor. The web search made it possible to identify the majority of non-academic inventors. The non-academic inventors were classified according to their affiliation: industrial inventors, PRO inventors, and students/post-doc/technicians within universities. Assignees were classified in three categories: universities, PROs (for all the public research organisations different from universities) and private firms. For each category, we considered whether the geographical localisation was in Italy (headquarters located in Italy) or outside the national borders (headquarters located outside Italy). For every assignee, we identified the relevant industry and considered whether the company was ranked among the top 2000 R&D world investors, according to the European R&D scoreboard (European Commission 2014).
The resulting dataset is composed of 167 academic patents (only six are assigned to inventors only), and 20 are owned by one of the Italian universities (excluding co-assignment). The remaining patents are derived from the collaboration of at least one academic inventor to patents owned by external organisations or in co-assignment. The great majority of patents published in the period 2000–2011 are assigned to companies with an important role of PROs before 2005. Co-patenting seems to be an important phenomenon. In fact, patents co-owned by universities and other organisations are as many as university-owned patents.
The total number of academic inventors is 361: 70 % of them are affiliated to the science sector CHEM 03 and 30 % belong to other sectors (other chemical sectors, biology and medical science, industrial engineering). Only a limited number of academics are recorded as multiple inventors; the vast majority signed only one patent in the whole period.
When looking at the characteristics of private companies, the prevailing sectors are, as expected, the chemical, pharmaceutical and energy industries (oil, gas electricity generation and renewable energies), with other sectors close behind (e.g. metallurgy and concrete industries). Several private companies involved are among the leading organisations in the world. In fact, 20 % of them are among the 2000 firms ranked in the R&D Scoreboard (European Commission 2014). Moreover, looking at the qualitative information available, we can say that a strategy of open innovation is intentionally followed by many organisations, with cooperation with universities and PROs being a structural characteristic of their behaviour.
The distribution of patents among the IPC (International Patent Class) mirrors the characteristics of assignees and inventors covering a wide spectrum of sectors. In particular, 75 % of the patents are included in the following four sectors: medical science, organic chemistry, organic macromolecular compounds and physical or chemical processes. The large percentage of patents in organic chemistry may be surprising but is explained by the fact that CHEM 03 covers inorganic chemistry as well as general chemistry. Moreover, as mentioned before, academic patents show many collaboration ties of CHEM 03 scientists to other science sectors (see above).
Distribution of patents (by ownership)
Academic patents (total)a
Owned by
Firm or PROs
These two periods seem to embed a rather different way of patent production. However, in both periods, as will be clearer in the network analysis, patents were the result of important cooperation activities between open science and private organisations, likely assuming different shapes due to different strategies of universities and companies.
Network analysis
In this section, we present the results of the network analysis distinguishing the two time frames (2000–2005, 2006–2011) previously identified.
Statistics for the overall and the two subperiod networks: 2000–2005 (period 1) and 2006–2011 (period 2)
Period 1
Period 2
Of which assignee (firms, PROs, universities)
# Link
# of components
# of nodes in giant component (% nodes)
276 (50.6 %)
38 (15.2 %)
51 (13.9 %)
Average degree
Network centralisation
6.3 %
14.3 %
6.2 %
Besides these large structures, most of the other components of the first period are relatively small but not less interesting, being often composed of a mix of academic and industrial inventors collaborating on patents owned by private companies. In particular, few academics work with a variable number of non-academic inventors. These components represent instances of disconnected subnetworks related to university-invented patents (type C in our classification system), and looking at the number of these components, they can be considered the distinguishing characteristic of the relational structure in the first period: there are 20 type C subnetworks. It is worth mentioning that one of these structures is rather complex, being formed by the interactions of one assignee and an academic inventor (from Torino University) acting as a broker connecting other academics (from his own university and external universities) and industrial inventors. This is a subnetwork that will maintain its importance also in the subsequent period.
In the second period (Fig. 2b), the connective role of the CNR ceased and the network seemed to become more disconnected (31 components). However, many components are now more complex, generally flourishing around universities and private companies. Briefly, this period is characterised by the lack of a strong centre, connecting most inventors and assignees. The presence of universities as assignees became clearly more important while the disconnected subnetworks around one or two private companies lost momentum. We note an increasing number of type A subnetworks centred around universities (no more PROs). Also, we note a non-negligible presence of universities involved in co-assignments. The largest component is shaped around the University of Bologna, which seems to cover the role CNR had in the previous period (even if on a smaller scale). University of Bologna gives rise to an interesting type B subnetwork, and moreover, several (4) type C subnetworks are generated by Bologna academics (collaborating with pharmaceutical companies located in the same region). The type B subnetwork is generated by owned-patents in co-assignment with two different universities and a PRO and by cooperative activity with a university spin-off together with a role of gatekeeping of some academic inventors. However, the overlap between owned and invented networks is quite low.
On the opposite side, the number of type C subnetworks has been reduced to 14, but their complexity is increased in several respects. With complexity here, we refer to the tendency of actors, particularly individual inventors, in being involved in many patents with the presence of several different assignees and involving different groups of, otherwise disconnected, inventors. As a consequence, in this period, we expect the brokerage role, in connecting different realms (mainly university-industry), of individual inventors to be enhanced with respect to the previous period. In fact, a relevant connecting role of some inventors emerged and several other academics, already present in the first period, become more central.
In this period, academic inventors covered all brokerage roles, especially those of gatekeepers, brokers and liaisons in all three types of subnetworks. These academic inventors were mainly full professors in inorganic chemistry working at universities located in northern Italy and with long scientific careers. In addition, some industrial inventors also played strategic roles, acting as gatekeepers (connecting realms of industry and academia). Differently from other studies, here, the brokerage roles of academic inventors are enhanced only within small disconnected components and especially in type C subnetworks. One complex structure of this kind is an evolution of a previous existing component (see Fig. 2b) where an academic inventor (from Torino University) signed many patents with a private company as assignee, connecting industrial as well as other academic inventors. We do not observe any link with the university of affiliation as organisation; however, we can detect an important array of connections between the prominent inventor and other academic inventors belonging to different Italian universities.
To understand better the change which occurred in the second period, we performed an exercise considering the compositional change of the network, that is detecting the number and the quality of the actors present in the first period but not in the second. In this way, we can isolate the change occurred through time as well as the persistence of nodes in the two periods. We note that only 14 out of the 52 assignees persist after 2005 (about 1 out of 4), and consequently, 46 out of the 60 assignees in the second period are brand new organisations involved in the patenting activities of the academic inventors. It is worth noting that 10 out of the 17 universities of the second period were not present before 2005. Regarding the inventors, only 47 out of 199 (about 24 %) persisted in the second period from the previous one. It is worth noting that both the case described before which are the result of a positive evolution of subnetworks are already present in the first period.
The overall picture seems to capture the big change occurred in this time frame, that is a sharp increase in university patenting both directly (ownership) and indirectly (major role of academic inventors). The reasons for this are of course many, but we can say that the policy change oriented towards universities' third mission has played an important role.
We can observe a compositional change between the two periods with many individual universities becoming, for the first time, active in the field. In the meantime, we observe a decrease in small disconnected subnetworks; however, we cannot say, with the available data, that there has been a definite substitution effect between the two kinds of subnetworks.
A common characteristic over the two periods is that the university-industry knowledge diffusion seems to be suffering from different limitation effects. In period 1, this limitation was due to the large concentration of the patents' property around assignees that stopped their activities in recent years (at least in this field). In the second period, the limitation was due to the emergence of several disconnected components that likely mirrored the scientific competences of the academic inventors within their own research groups and universities. However, the university and the academic inventors give rise to more interesting structures at least in terms of increasing the number of published patents as well as the knowledge diffusion processes, thanks to the rather complex structures that appear to be formed or in formation around prominent inventors and universities.
Conclusions and directions for further research
In this paper, we described the co-invention networks generated by university-owned and university-invented patents signed by Italian academic chemists during the period between 2000 and 2011 by means of SNA.
The study analysed micro-level interactions by exploring the subnetwork structures in owned and invented patents verifying if the typologies identified in previous studies—open science (type A), multiple interactions (type B) and disconnected subnetworks (type C)—were a good instrument to understand the change occurred in the network of collaboration in the mentioned period. These typologies represent different relational styles as well as different solution to the appropriablity problem. From this second point of view, the type A claims for a university ownership whereas type C claims for a company's ownership. The type B subnetworks represent the most complex case (multiple ties linking organisations as well as industrial and academic inventors) where the attribution of property right could be more uncertain. The results confirmed that the three previously mentioned subnetwork typologies could be identified in particular regions of the network structure.
We performed a distinct analysis of the two time frames (2000–2005, 2006–2011). After 2005, the number of actors increased and new assignees appeared. This change follows a greater engagement of Italian universities in patenting activity stimulated by important policy changes.
Comparing the occurrence and the nature of the three subnetwork typologies, we verify in the second period an increase in the type A (open science) subnetwork and a parallel decrease in the type C (disconnected subnetworks). It seems that, between the two periods, an organisational change occurred inside the public sector, with the reduction of the coordination role of PROs in favour of a major role of the individual universities.
The hybrid structures, mainly represented by the type B, are more frequent in the second period. The role played by academic inventors in collaboration with the private sector becomes in several cases more complex, showing an increase of degree of connectivity with academics belonging to different universities.
The overall picture seems to underline a big structural change dominated by the important increase of university patenting. Substitution effects between different forms of ownership could have been possible but they cannot be properly measured with the instruments at hand. In this respect, the analysis cannot be conclusive but opens the way to further research developments. The first step of the future research will be the launch of a survey on the most prominent actors of the described subnetworks. The survey will be devoted to investigate some central questions, such as those concerning the efficiency of network representation described in this study, the effectiveness of the cooperation with respect to the patent's value and the possible disputes on the appropriability rules. On this basis, we will be able to better understand the relationship between the structure of the network and the exogenous factors guiding individual and institutional choices.
In Italy, the number of individual inventors recorded also as assignees is really limited.
We cannot focus here on this point because it would bring us far away from our focus. However, it is worth mentioning here that the prevailing evidence on this point favours the idea of a complementarity between high-level research and patenting (see among others, Meyer et al 2005, Azoulay et al. 2009). For a theoretical approach to the allocation of propriety rights to University see Aghion and Tirole 1994 and Verspagen 2006.
The point is far from being trivial, given the fact that these teams are crossing the boundaries of different organisations: the firm, focused on appropriability problems, and universities, focused on knowledge diffusion (or, at appropriability through diffusion).
We are aware that we are dealing with multilevel data since we deal with two level of analysis: the individual level (inventors) and the organisation level (assignees). Furthermore, inventors are possibly nested into assignees (since they can be employers or researchers hired by that organisation). However, we allow nodes belonging to different level of analysis to be placed on the same network because in this way, we can observe different kinds of university-industry interactions, even those mediated by assignees.
This link can also represent an inventor-inventor link (or inventor-assignee link) whenever the individual inventor is registered as the assignee of the patent. In the following information, we disregard this possible complication because we assume the inventor co-assignment relationship between inventors is "absorbed" by the co-invention link.
CHEM 03 is the code for General and Inorganic Chemistry used by the Italian university official classification of scientific disciplines. The choice to limit the analysis to this scientific sector is related to data availability and reliability.
Espacenet is the EPO engine to search for patent applications (http://www.epo.org/searching-for-patents/technical/espacenet.html).
Before 2001, the IPR Law, dating back to the 1939 (Royal Decree n.1127/1939), stated that IPRs on employees' inventions were granted to the employer, when the invention stemmed from research carried out during the accomplishment of the employees' duties or during a contract (Baldini et al. 2014). The rule was per se conducive to university patenting, but the Italian university system was very centralised, and universities lacked the necessary autonomy to move in that direction until the mid 1990s.
The Code was certainly the result of a compromise between different positions. In fact, the 65 articles, Par. 1, attribute "to the researchers employed in public research institutions (i.e. universities and PROs) the exclusive propriety right over their inventions"(professor privilege), but the Par. 5 lifts the "professor privilege" in case of inventions stemming from research at least partially privately financed or from a specific research project that was, at least partially, financed by a public institution different from that of affiliation of the inventor.
We are grateful to the anonymous referees for their useful comments and suggestions. Special thanks are due to Francesco Lissoni (GREThA—Université de Bordeaux) for having made available the APE-INV database on academic inventors and to Gianni Perini (University of Trieste) for his valuable contribution to the building of the complete dataset used in the analysis.
Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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Of course, you can count on the German's for efficiency...now you can multi-task your vices! Yes, it was one of the latest news items. Also in the news was the fact that clowns annoy doctors - surgeons in particular. Sure, we could get into the details here...but listen to the podcast and get the answers there.
Sadly, we just realized we missed the boat on an eBay gem: Jon Stewart's old Daily Show set was up for auction last week: the plexi glass map...you remember it? Well it's been sold off...Guess how much it went for. Wrong. Listen to the Show #49 - the answers to everything you need to know (for now) are all there...as long as you don't ask deep questions.
I'd love to keep going, but I have to pick the old cigarette butts out of my gin...it's a new invention I'm working on...


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The accompanying article is implied for guardians of a high schooler who may be fixated on video and/or PC diversions. While in some of our different articles we may seem as if we empower fixation, we share a worry over adolescents who have a tendency to evade different interests in life in support for gaming exercises to the point where they pull back from society. We could never energize this sort of conduct, and that is the reason we've required significant investment to portray a portion of the indications of diversion fixation and offer some guidance on the most proficient method to manage it.
Perceiving the indications of adolescent amusement fixation isn't as simple as one considers. It generally begins off as initial, an interest, and it then begins to develop into an expansion. The issue with distinguishing the starting phases of amusement fixation starts with the high schooler. When our youngsters are 15 and up, they've adapted some somewhat amazing debating aptitudes. So when we doubt their inspirations for tedious diversion play, they may invalidate our worries with rationale and even make it a point to scrutinize our own defects as guardians.
Since no guardian ever truly needs to concede an imperfection, we can at times collapse and persuade ourselves that perhaps 4 hours before a computer game isn't that awful. All things considered, we invest that much energy at the PC, on the telephone, or transmitting information forward and backward between our Palms, Blackberries, and Cingular phones.
Be mindful so as not to fall prey to the consistent youngster. Computer games can be addictive and if the time spent playing them is not deliberately checked, they'll devour everything that a high schooler used to think about.
The minute you see your youngster's evaluations falling, homework missing, or social life beginning to drop off, check that amusement time from the beginning. On the off chance that you hold up past the point where it is possible to limit diversion time, you may encounter pre-grown-up hissy fits that you aren't set up to handle accurately (reviling, breaking things, taking, fleeing from home, and so on.). Now, the kid is fixated and will do anything to get his or her hands on an amusement controller.
Another indication of fixation is a behavioral change. A tyke fixated on gaming will lose persistence with things and with others, rush to outrage, and respond to circumstances without completely thinking about the outcomes. On the off chance that you've given careful consideration to video and/or PC recreations, you'll see that they require this sort of conduct to win or to progress to a more elevated amount.
It's deplorable, however a high schooler fixated on this sort of vicious gaming is actually being prepared to respond in the way depicted previously. That is the reason it's relevant that as a grown-up, you confine access to this sort of amusement and supplant it with exercises that moderate considering, (for example, workmanship, music, theater, and so forth.) and open your youngster to other peaceful delights (swimming, move, skating, and so on.).
There are a considerable measure of level headed discussions coursing around about the effect that computer games have on today's childhood and some of it may warrant giving careful consideration to. As a mother or father of an adolescent, you will do well with your teenager's yearning to "get his amusement on" by watching out for undesirable changes.


text: "On the last day of the December term of 1944 there took place in the Hall a ceremony that marked the introduction, not of a new activity, but of a new conception of our many activities. This conception, without our being aware of it, we had long needed; and through it we have gathered up the threads of our school life into a pattern, computed the value of every undertaking and of every individual contribution to it and learnt to honour the House of which members, in the new sense of proportion we have acquired, have been most active and most successful not only in games but also in their scholarship and any essays in artistic excellence on which they have ventured. The ceremony was the presentation of the Friedlander Shield. The shield was offered for House competition by Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Friedlander and their three sons in memory of Cecil Friedlander, whom many Old Boys and the older members of the Staff recall as a boy and a man of great ability and of fine and rare sportsmanship and charm, the first of the Old Boys to lose his life in the recent war. The gift, and the constructive thought behind it, is yet another of Mr. Friedlander's wise and generous contributions to our endowment and to the spirit of our School; and the beauty of the shield, the badge and the many medallions for the recording of the names of the winning Houses is in keeping with the new conception of manifold service to the School which the trophy is designed both to record and to encourage."G.B. [Dr. G. H. M. Bobbins, senior English master and senior assistant] C. A. Friedlander Cecil Arnold, son of Alfred and Margaret Friedlander matriculated at Wynberg in 1928. Graduating from UCT with a B.A. LLB, he was called to the Bar in Cape Town, served his Articles of Clerkship and was admitted as an Attorney. Click to view the online WBHS 1945 Magazine When war broke out he enlisted in the artillery but later transferred to the South African Naval Forces as an Able Seaman. Volunteering for service craft, he was sent to the Mediterranean and posted to HMSAS (His Majesty's South African Ship) Southern Floe, going down with her when she [was lost, presumably to a mine, … the ship being blown from the water near Tobruk on the night*] of 10 February 1941. The Friedlander Shield was presented in Cecil's memory by his family in December 1944. Cecil was the brother of late Old Boy Richard "Dick" Friedlander, who like their father Alfred, served as chairman of the School Board of Governors and as Mayor of Cape Town. The Friedlander family were cousins to Arnold Lorie, the first headmaster of the independent Wynberg Boys' Junior School, after whom Lorie House is named. The Friedlander Shield is now contested by the eight houses of Wynberg across our four pillars: Academics, Sport, Culture and Service. * Source: www.defenceweb.co.za, Book Review, "Official History of the SANF during WW2"


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May 27, 2016 Comments Off on Under-passing all your dreaming
Under-passing all your dreaming
A year ago I bought a CD. It was an accident and I'm not quite sure how it happened.
I thought I'd bought a download, but a week later a CD turned up, from Pittsburgh, PA, bearing the three songs that make up the most recent single from City Steps.
I've never played the CD. I don't have a CD player. But thankfully, having purchased it through Bandcamp, I was entitled to the download I'd initially sought.


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I visit lots of schools and run Creative Writing sessions with young people in libraries, museums, Young Offenders Institutions and in tents.
This year I've worked in The Priory School Hitchin, The Bridge Academy, Haggerston, and Sarah Bonnell in Stratford, as well as Hackney Libraries, Lancashire Libraries, and the Discover Centre in Stratford which is my new favourite place.
I have been writer in residence at Cardinal Pole Secondary school in Hackney and in Heathcote School in Stevenage (but not at the same time).
Other schools I have worked in include, Gainsborough School, Mossbourne School, The Phoenix School, Henrietta Barnett School, King Edward Camp Hill School Birmingham, Coulsden Sixth Form College and the Mulberry School.
As a bit of a school failure myself I have found ways to make writing accessible and interesting. like to show people ways of getting their own stories out rather than read my own work. We do instant characters, how to cook up stories and occasionally mind reading.
I am happy to do talks about books too and have various powerpoint accompanied talks about black history, Nest of Vipers, and Brave New Girl.
A whole day visit will usually involve a maximum of four workshops or talks and I am happy to work with all abilities and ages between nine and 18.
I have also worked with teenagers in Albania for the British Council where I had a wonderful time in Tirana.
I have been involved in Young Cultural Creators, the project that started with London libraries and the Tates Britain and Modern. These meant running workshops and making stories in the galleries in front of paintings you can find out more at their website – www.youngculturalcreators.com.
I have lots of references from satisfied schools and libraries and if you are interested in getting me to visit you can get in touch with me here and I will get back to you with my rates and availability.
The mind reading is optional.
I have taught Creative Writing to adults at Kingston University, London Metropolitan University, and at the Groucho Club in London.
I am also a mentor on the Adventures in Fiction scheme.
School visits
I visit lots of schools and run Creative Writing sessions with young people in libraries, museums, Young Offenders Institutions and in tents.