Useless Research

The world of academics baffles me. I consider myself reasonably aware of business issues and yet I can't make any sense of most of the research publications that come out on business. Actually I can't make any sense of even the title - let alone the contents. I challenge you to figure out "Tabu Search for the Single Row Facility Layout Problem in FMS using a 3-opt Neighborhood" or " On the Blowout Preventer Testing Problem: An Approach to Checking for Leakage in BOP Networks". Yes, I know, I am a bit dense, but still ........


So it was with delight that I discovered the Ig Nobel Prize - given annually to what is euphemistically called "Improbable Research". 2011winners were

PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE : Anna Wilkinson (of the UK), Natalie Sebanz (of THE NETHERLANDS, HUNGARY, and AUSTRIA), Isabella Mandl (of AUSTRIA) and Ludwig Huber (of AUSTRIA) for their study "No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise."

CHEMISTRY PRIZE : Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of JAPAN, for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm.

MEDICINE PRIZE : Mirjam Tuk (of THE NETHERLANDS and the UK), Debra Trampe (of THE NETHERLANDS) and Luk Warlop (of BELGIUM). and jointly to Matthew Lewis, Peter Snyder and Robert Feldman (of the USA), Robert Pietrzak, David Darby, and Paul Maruff (of AUSTRALIA) for demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things — but worse decisions about other kinds of things‚ when they have a strong urge to urinate.

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE : Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, NORWAY, for trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh.

LITERATURE PRIZE : John Perry of Stanford University, USA, for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which says: To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important. 

BIOLOGY PRIZE : Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the UK and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle

PHYSICS PRIZE : Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne and Bruno Ragaru (of FRANCE), and Herman Kingma (of THE NETHERLANDS), for determining why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't.

PEACE PRIZE : Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, LITHUANIA, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.

There is a Distinguished Academic amongts the "legions" of readers of this blog. Perhaps she would like to offer a rebuttal !!