 |
CSTED |
| Our Expertise | |
| Our People | |
| Project Briefs | |
| Selected Reports | |
| Our Clients | |
| Contact CSTED | |
| Policy Division Home | |
Center for Science, Technology, and Economic Development (CSTED) > Selected Reports The Role of NSF's Support of Engineering in Enabling Technological InnovationFOOTNOTESClick on your browser's "Back" button option to return to the report! EXECUTIVE SUMMARY [1] Innovations were selected without any prior indication of the amount or type of influence NSF support may have had. Indeed, we were prepared to discover that there had been virtually none. [2] Source: NSF awards data. Analysis performed by SRI. [3] Source: NSF awards data. Analysis performed by SRI. [4] Source: NSF awards data. Analysis performed by SRI. I. INTRODUCTION TO THE CASES [5] Primary sources of criticisms are Kreilkamp (1971) and Mowery and Rosenberg (1979). [6] See Appendix A for the interview protocols used. II. REACTION INJECTION MOLDING [7] Elastomers are materials that, when stretched to about twice their length, will return with force to essentially their original length. [8] Polyols are compounds with more than one reactive hydroxyl group per molecule. [9] Chain extenders are compounds that contain active hydrogen atoms and serve to complete polymerization by lengthening the main chain of a polymer via end-to-end attachment. Typical chain extenders are water, glycols, diamines, and amino alcohols. [10] These descriptions are taken from Ferrari (1979). [11] Methyl isocyanate was the chemical that caused the Bhopal disaster in 1984. [12] Once cleaned, polyurethanes have excellent paint adhesion properties. [13] This section is based on chapter 2 of Macosko (1989), and Lewis (1987). [14] Blowing agents create gas bubbles during polymerization, thereby generating the less dense interior cellular structure common to RIM products. [15] Slocum (1990: 107-108); Macosko (1989: 12-29). [16] The car's roof, hood, and trunk lid were made of rigid polyurethane integral skin foam. The instrument panel padding, steering wheel cover, arm rests, bumpers, and center console were made from flexible integral skin foam. [17] Pontiac Fiero body panels were made with polyurethane-ureas during most the car's production, but during the last months of production were entirely polyurea. [18] U.S. Patent 4,374,229 (1983). [19] This section is based on Slocum (1990) and Macosko (1989, chapter 2). [20] The first U.S. production car with a RIM fascia was the 1975 Chevrolet Monza. The fascia was made by Davidson Rubber using Bayer chemicals and a Cannon machine. That technology was based on glycol chain extenders, not diamines. Diamine was not introduced until the late 1970s; it was patented by Bayer (Critchfield, personal communication, October 1996). As we will see below, an unexpected byproduct of amine extenders was that they more readily accommodated internal mold release agents (IMR). Another was that reinforcing fillers ,such as short fibers, can be incorporated more easily into the prepolymer materials. [21] See Kuerleber and Pahl (1972); also, R. D. Wingard and S. M. Leidal, U.S. Patent 4,085,512 (1978). [22] Broyer, Macosko, Critchfield, and Lawler, Polymer Engineering and Science, 18, 232 (1978); Richter and Macosko, Polymer Engineering and Science, 18, 1012 (1978); Pannone and Macosko, Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 34, 2409 (1987). [23] The exception was to Macosko for a laboratory-scale mixhead design. [24] As a check on whether the practice of using the "other references" section is related to the significance of the patent, we identified a subset of 93 RIM patents that had been cited at least once by other patents in the entire set of 264. Of these 93, 36 (38.7%) had "other references" entries. [25] Data courtesy of Francis Narin via Mary Ellen Mogee, presented at a recent conference at NIH. [26] According to NSF, its support of the Minnesota cooperative research project prompted Union Carbide to contribute two additional fellowships to the university (NSF, FY 1981 Budget Document, p. 28). [27] Given the broad range of keywords, this figure probably overestimates NSF's investment in the field, despite our efforts to eliminate unrelated awards. [28] About 20% of the budget for the Center for Interfacial Engineering at the University of Minnesota, an Engineering Research Center, supports work in polymer microstructures. Macosko is a researcher there. [29] Cooper, U. of Wisconsin; Macosko, U. of Minnesota; Coleman, Penn State; Flory, Stanford; Manaszlo, U. of Minnesota; Painter, Penn State. [30] Sanchez, U. of Massachusetts; Sundberg, U. of New Hampshire; Tirrell, U. of Minnesota; Amis, U. of Southern California; Ferry, U. of Wisconsin; Turro, Columbia. III. MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING [31] Presumably, this estimate was based on the primary applications of MRI in clinical medicine and research, and on assumptions about the number of hospitals worldwide likely to purchase machines at current and projected prices. [32] As we will see below, both NMR and CT scanners rely heavily on advances in computer technology. [33] This description of the physics of nuclear magnetic resonance is drawn from Feeney (1992), Blume (1992), and U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (1984). [34] At a magnetic field strength of 2.349 tesla (T), the Larmor frequency of 1H is 100 MHz. This isotope is the naturally occurring substance that is most sensitive to NMR. At this field strength, Larmor frequencies of common reference isotopes range from about 10 MHz for 15N to just over 94 MHz for 19F. Early NMR spectrometers operated at about 60 MHz; currently available ones operate at 600 MHz and employ superconducting magnets with field strengths of 14 T. [35] Indeed, very early experimental MRI machines did not use computers. [36] In principle, the projection method and the Fourier transform method of imaging give the same signal-to-noise ratio. The Fourier transform methods, as employed in spin warp, are advantageous because they mitigate the adverse effects (i.e., blurred images) of inhomogeneity of the magnetic field (Edelstein, personal communication, October 28, 1996). [37] This section is based on Feeney (1992) and Chapter 7 of Mattson and Simon (1996). [38] This section is based on Chapter 5 of Blume (1992), and U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (1981). [39] In 1979, Hounsfield and Cormack shared the Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology. [40] GE's fan beam geometry greatly speeded up scans and was a critically important advance. The detector consisted of an array of 1,000 high-pressure xenon detectors that require very precise alignment, a considerable engineering feat (Edelstein, personal communication, October 28, 1996). [41] See Blume (1992); Bud and Cozzens (1992); Chen and Hoult (1989); Hollis (1987); Grant and Harris (1996); Lauterbur (1986); Mattson and Simon (1996), U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (1984). [42] U.S. Patent 4,354,499. [43] A second FONAR patent, which described the commercial machine, was dated November 20, 1978. [44] GE did not begin to develop an MRI scanner until 1980, when the company hired Bottomley and Edelstein, although there was "some thinking about MRI and some important activities before that" (Edelstein, personal communication, October 28, 1996). [45] GEC merged its medical interests with Picker, a U.S. company, to form Picker International (Blume, 1992: 278). [46] Technicare was the parent company of Ohio-Nuclear. Technicare was taken over by Johnson & Johnson in 1978 (Blume, 1992: 278). [47] Waldo Hinshaw offers an interesting comment on the apparent irrelevance, at least until recently, of patents in the medical imaging industry. He and his group at Technicare "did not publish in the scientific literature; we were having too much fun and were too busy. Furthermore, despite the wise and persistent requests of the Johnson & Johnson management, we did not patent much of what we did. Prior to MRI, the tradition among the medical imaging companies was for each company to obtain a few patents and then quietly to ignore everyone else's patents. None of the players wanted to start a patent war. Battles are now being fought, however, over some of the early patents" (Hinshaw, 1996: 390). [48] At UCSF, Alexander Margulis of the radiology department organized an NMR imaging project with Leon Kaufman and Lawrence Crooks, together with Jerome Singer from the electrical engineering department at Berkeley. They started human imaging in 1981 with a magnet purchased by Pfizer and continued development in collaboration with Diasonics when Pfizer left the imaging business (Grant and Harris, 1996: 122). [49] Examples of significant developments include:
[50] Controversy exists concerning the relative contributions of these (and other) individuals. Compare, for example, the treatment of Damadian's vs. Lauterbur's contribution in Hollis (1987) with that of Mattson and Simon (1996). [51] This section is based on chapters about Damadian and Lauterbur in Mattson and Simon (1996) and on interviews conducted by SRI with both Lauterbur and Damadian. [52] Recall that Singer was a major contributor to the UCSF NMR imaging group. Crooks was one of Singer's Ph.D. students. [53] Lauterbur called his technique "zeugmatography," from the Greek word zeugma, that which is used for joining, signifying that the technique relied on the joining of the main magnetic field and the gradient field. [54] The first commercial FT NMR spectrometer was introduced, not by Varian, but by Bruker in 1969, to Varian's amazement (R. R. Ernst, autobiographical sketch, Les Prix Nobel, 1991, quoted in Mattson and Simon, 1996: 592). [55] At this time, GE had strong and extensive research teams at both the corporate lab in Schenectady and the Medical Systems division in Milwaukee. In Schenectady were Bottomley, Edelstein, J. F. Schenk (Ph.D. physics and M.D.), C. J. Hardy (Ph.D. physics), O. M. Mueller (Ph.D. electrical engineering), D. M. Vatis (Ph.D. electrical engineering), C. M. Dumoulin (Ph.D. chemistry), and P. B. Roemer, (Ph.D. electrical engineering); in Milwaukee were Gary Glover, Cecil Hayes, N. Pelc (Ph.D. physics), F. W. Wehrli (Ph.D., chemistry), J. McFall (Ph.D., chemistry), C. Charles (Ph.D. chemistry), the majority of whom got their educations in American universities working on government-supported projects (Edelstein, personal communication, October 28, 1996). [56] Unlike Damadian, Lauterbur and the British researchers were well acquainted with NMR techniques, so that their work built extensively on that experience as well as on existing NMR instrumentation. [57] The same phenomenon now may be occurring in MRI, as academic researchers pursue other applications for MRI, such as microscopic analysis, and as the high prices of MRI machines stimulate interest in improving images from low-field machines. [58] Note that the cutoff date for this list of patents is 1990, and that the search covered only those patents that contained the phrase "magnetic resonance imaging" in their title or abstract. Thus, many patents for supporting technologies, such as the birdcage RF coil, may not appear in the list. The purpose of the list is not to denote the absolute number of patents but to indicate the relative positions of major industrial players. Interestingly, if the cutoff date is changed to 1989, Toshiba's patents are halved; if it is changed to 1988, Toshiba drops off the list entirely. [59] Source: NSF awards data. Analysis performed by SRI. [60] The Illinois Center, one of NSF's Science and Technology Centers, is no longer active. IV. THE INTERNET [61] In the late 1960s the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) initiated a communication network designed to link computers at institutions with ARPA research contracts. The purpose of the network was to experiment with digital communication systems to produce knowledge that might have military application. By 1971 ARPA was funding 30 universities as part of the ARPANET program (National Research Council, 1994: 237). [62] Kleinrock subsequently joined the Information Systems Division in the Engineering School at UCLA, managed a large number of ARPA contracts, and directly or indirectly supported numerous graduate students who subsequently contributed to the ARPANET and the Internet. Among them were Vinton Cerf, Steve Crocker, and Jon Postel (Kleinrock, personal communication, October 12, 1996). [63] ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Defense Department, had "Defense" added to its name for a period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but was recently renamed ARPA. We will use the term ARPA throughout this case. [64] Adapted from White House Press Release, October 10, 1996, "Background on Clinton-Gore Administration's Next-Generation Internet Initiative." The chronology in the press release lists Hobbes' Internet Timeline, v. 2.5, as the source. [65] Browser software may not turn out to be fundamental, if one imagines evolutionary successors that may work differently (Vinton Cerf, personal communication, October 1996). [66] In 1989 CSNET and BITNET merged to form the Corporation for Research and Education Networking. CSNET was discontinued in 1991. BITNET ("Because It's Time NETwork) was a general-purpose academic network based on store-and-forward protocols created in 1981 at the City University of New York. BITNET provided electronic mail, remote job entry, and file transfer services and expanded rapidly, indicating that there was sizable demand for these services among academics. A central organization was initially supported by an IBM grant. In 1986, with support from NSF CSNET, BITNET explored means of upgrading to the TCP/IP protocol and linking to CSNET (Jennings, Landweber, Fuchs, and Farber, 1986: 947). [67] In the early to mid 1960s, Thomas was working with Bede Liu, whom Kahn recalls as well. Liu received a $70,000 grant in 1965 for related work. [68] There is disagreement about the extent to which Baran's early work actually influenced Larry Roberts and the design of the ARPANET. The Babbage Institute concludes that "While Baran's work was largely unrecognized for the next few years, it later influenced Lawrence Roberts and the conceptual design of the ARPANET" (CBI, 1995: 233). On the other hand, Leonard Kleinrock claims that Baran "had no influence on the ARPANET creation" and that "Baran did not influence Larry Roberts" (Kleinrock, personal communication, October 12, 1996). [69] All supercomputing "centers" are formally classified by NSF as "facilities," in the same category as observatories. [70] Arguably, this program is a manifestation of NSF's mission to "enable" national research, in this case by recognizing that the nature of research was changing rapidly and dramatically and that it was essential to assist researchers and institutions so that the U.S. remained at the forefront of knowledge. [71] The general principle of the NSFNET Backbone Services Acceptable Use Policy was as follows: "NSFNET Backbone services are provided to support open research and education in and among US research and instructional institutions, plus research arms of for-profit firms when engaged in open scholarly communication and research. Use for other purposes is not acceptable." [72] The FNC is the current name for the Federal Research Internet Coordinating Committee (FRICC), made up of representatives from DOD, DOE, NSF, NIH, and NASA. [73] The Inspector General's report is available at http://www.nsf.gov/ftp/OIG/reports/oig9301.txt. [74] It is important to note that vBNS does not serve as part of the commercial backbone, but is restricted to research use. [75] Not all of NSF was supportive of these initiatives. [76] Source: NSF awards data. Analysis performed by SRI. [77] Source: NSF awards data. Analysis performed by SRI. V. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS [78] We proposed, and NSF approved, a subtask for this year to apply advanced bibliometric and patent citation analyses to the MRI case. Because of administrative delays at NSF, we could not do this subtask in FY 1996 but intend to do so in FY 1997. The experience with the first three cases suggests that this kind of analysis may be even more valuable than we expected and in some instances may be essential. Table of Contents | ||||