Reliable GPS position on an unreliable hardware

International audienceThis work address the fault tolerance topic in the GPS context. Starting from a noiseless GPS receiver, redundant mechanisms can be added to design a more resilient GPS receiver in the presence of errors due to process, voltage and temperature (PVT) variations. These mechanisms are based on different layer of abstraction to guarantee a mutual trade-off of system performance (quality of the position given by the GPS receiver), hardware reliability and implementation complexity. An Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) will be designed with two versions of the GPS receiver: the standard version, and a complex version where fault tolerant techniques are added to make the GPS receiver more tolerant to errors

AFIT School of Engineering Contributions to Air Force Research and Technology. Calendar Year 1972

This report contains abstracts of Master of Science Theses, Doctoral Dissertations, and faculty publications completed during the 1972 calendar year at the School of Engineering, Air Force Institute of Technology, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

In the Best Interests of Whom?: An Analysis of Judicial Bias in Custody Disputes Involving Transgender Children

Anti-transgender discrimination and bias loom large in many areas of our society, but perhaps one of the most concerning settings is within the four walls of a courtroom. Evidence suggests that judicial decision making in custody determinations involving transgender children are influenced by anti-transgender bias. In this Note, I examine the current best practice for treating transgender children, the affirmative model, and explore the legal landscape of custody cases involving parents who disagree on how to treat their transgender child. I then suggest a model of comprehensive judicial education reform to help eliminate antitransgender bias from family courts in the United States

Patenting Genetic Information

The U.S. biotechnology industry got its start and grew to maturity over roughly three decades, beginning in the 1980s. During this period genes were patentable, and many gene patents were granted. University researchers performed basic research— often funded by the government—and then patented the genes they discovered with the encouragement of the Bayh-Dole Act, which sought to encourage practical applications of basic research by allowing patents on federally funded inventions and discoveries. At that time, when a researcher discovered the function of a gene, she could patent it such that no one else could work with that gene in the laboratory without a license. She had no right, however, to control genes in nature, including in human bodies. Universities licensed their researchers’ patents to industry, which brought in significant revenue for further research. University researchers also used gene patents as the basis for obtaining funding for start-up enterprises spun out of university labs. It was in this environment that many of today’s biotechnology companies started. In 2013, the Supreme Court held that naturally occurring genes could no longer be patented. This followed a 2012 decision that disallowed patents on many diagnostic processes. These decisions significantly changed the intellectual property protections in the biotechnology industry. Nevertheless, the industry has continued to grow and thrive. This Article investigates two questions. First, if some form of exclusive rights still applied to genes, would the biotech industry be even more robust, with more new entrants in addition to thriving, well-established companies? Second, does the current lack of protection for gene discoveries incentivize keeping such discoveries secret for the many years that it can take to develop a therapeutic based thereon—to the detriment of patients who could benefit from knowledge of the genetic associations, even before a treatment is developed? The Article concludes by analyzing what protection for discovering genetic associations, if any, will most increase social welfare