ResearchBuzz

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation has launched an intellectual property database. It covers technologies available for commercialization from academic institutions, private companies, and federal research facilities. The institutions are from Maryland, DC, and Virginia (thus the “Maryland area” in the headline.)

The database is called InvenioIP and it’s available for free at http://www.invenioip.org. There are currently 1923 “innovation summaries” available; the front page allows you to search by keyword but there’s an institution search as well.

I did a search for “database” and got 48 results including things like “A Method and Apparatus for Illumination-Insensitive Face Recognition” and “Physics-based Modeling of Acoustic Reverberation.” Each listing has a Web and PDF link.

Hmm… “Search Engine Technology Description” looks interesting. This page provides information on an addon search technology (a “sounds-alike” search capacity.) Information on this particular page is rather images. On the other hand, the page on VROOM provides an extensive overview of a fleet management and maintenance software package.

The institutions page has only ten listings, but they also include the date each of the institution’s research was last updated. Plenty to see here but you may have to do some experimenting with search keywords.

With the primaries just about to explode all over the news, I thought this would be a good resource. Philip Lampi has spent almost fifty years putting together a set of records that have now become an online database: A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787-1825 . This site, available at http://elections.lib.tufts.edu/aas_portal/index.xq , contains information on 15,000 elections. (Eventually information on 60,000 elections will be available.)

Unfortunately I was not able to access even one of the election results, as any attempt to actually load the site was met with lots and lots of waiting. Considering how huge and how unique this collection is, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Tufts.edu gets overwhelmed.

I’m going to keep trying to load it. You can try the link above to see if you have more luck than me, or you can get more background on the project here. I’m looking forward to seeing it….

Family Caregiver Alliance has started an online database of state and national legislation on caregiving at http://www.caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/content_node.jsp?nodeid=1848 . The database will be updated monthly.

You have a couple of ways to go through the available information. The first is to view the information broken down by state or federal sphere. Looking at Federal Legislation Introduced or Enacted in 109th Congress or State Legislation Introduced or Enacted in 2004-2006 will get you a page with a brief overview and then a table of information including bill status, date of introduction, summary, and current status.

Alternately, you can view the information by policy strategy, including care coordination, tax incentives, and Medicare.

As long as you’re here, also check out Caregiving Across the States, which provides state-by-state information on caregiving resources. Nebraska had four programs or sets or programs listed as well as a state profile available.