Creativity definition

Trade secrets are creative works (usually methods, processes, or designs) that are not covered by the strict definition of an invention required for a legal patent. Or they are actual inventions that a company or individual does not want to expose to public scrutiny through the patent process (since the published patent must contain a written description of the invention). 

For example, a traditional checklist is, by definition, based on the process experience the author accumulates from various sources. The checklist is likely to provide incomplete insights into the design, procedural, and operating features necessary for a safe process. The what-if part of the analysis uses a team s creativity and experience to brainstorm potential accident scenarios. However, because the what-if analysis method is usually not as detailed, systematic, or thorough as some of the more regimented approaches (e.g., HAZOP study, FMEA), use of a checklist permits the PrHA team to fill in any gaps in their thought process. 

When chemists investigate the mechanism of a reaction, they are not so lucky. Determining the mechanism of a chemical reaction is a bit like figuring out how a clock works just by looking at its face and hands. For this reason, reaction mechanisms are proposed rather than definitively stated. Much of the experimental evidence that is obtained to support a mechanism is indirect. Researchers need a lot of creativity as they propose and test mechanisms. 

There are (at least) two major opportunities for research by those interested in this topic. On the computational side, there is definite room for improvement in simulation methods. Right now none of the simulation approaches has the user friendliness that has brought electronic-structure calculation into the realm of routine applicability by nonspecialists. Nor has the field seen the development of the qualitative or semiquantitative models that did so much to make the results of molecular orbital calculations useful to organic chemists. On the experimental side, it will be obvious to the reader that the techniques for detecting the effects of nonstatistical dynamics are still very rudimentary and indirect. There is clearly room for creative scientists to come up with techniques whose results can give us more direct insight into these issues. 

In the Oxford English Dictionary, definitions of the verb to create include, to bring into being or to form out of nothing . In a term more appropriate to R D these could be redefined as making something new out of previously unconnected ideas or observations . Creativity is therefore the process by which a genuinely new idea is produced. 

In our evaluation of computers for developing pesticide formulations, we find them to have a definite place. They can carry out many tedious routines and free people for more creative tasks. 

Go to Lichtenstein Creative Media at www. theinfinitemind.com/mindl92.htm and the report on the New Normal after the September 11 Disasters. Scroll down to Dr. Robert Ursano s definition of normal. How does he define it, and what are the implications of the new normal ... 

Intellectual property issues need to be addressed more effectively. In the past, collaborations typically involved a company and a federal laboratory. Simple assignments of the patents or provisions for the company to license the technology were adequate. The DOE cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) Subject Invention definition can confuse intellectual property ownership. Today, the collaborations may involve several partners, the results may be used by joint ventures, or even more-creative business structures may need access to the intellectual property developed by the collaboration. Increased flexibility on how this property is managed is a key issue for the future. 

Be creative. Write a poem or song or story or joke. Parody the style of someone you ve heard or read. Become an inanimate object and complain to the humans around you (for example, what would a soft-drink machine like to say to those folks constantly beating on its stomach ). Become a little green creature from Mars and convince a human to accompany you back to your planet as a specimen of Earthlings (or be the invited guest and explain to the creature why you are definitely not the person to go). The possibilities are endless, so go wild. 

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