Biotechnology and the Law: A Consideration of Intellectual Property Rights and Related Social Issues

[Excerpt] “Recent advances in biotechnology are expected by many to improve crop yield, reduce reliance on agricultural inputs like pesticides and herbicides, alleviate world hunger, improve the safety and effectiveness of pharmaceuticals, assist in the discovery of genes that trigger diseases like cancer, and make more efficient our legal institutions through DNA testing. Clearly, innovations in biotechnology are a powerful force for social change, and they pose unique challenges and opportunities for legal scholars and institutions. This section of the Pierce Law Review focuses on the interface between law and technology by examining how innovations in biotechnology accelerate debates about social justice (on a global scale), the role of science, and the patenting of intellectual property. Since biotechnology, and the actors involved in the debates over intellectual property rights, are involved in a form of “high drama” that plays itself out in the social world, it is necessary to understand that technology does not exist in a vacuum. All technologies generate social change and affect, in varying degrees individuals, groups, institutions, etc. For example, the introduction of the pen changed how information is recorded. A pen is portable, relatively inexpensive and creates semi-permanent markings. The pen, however, represented a shift away from orality, created a note-taking culture and lessened our reliance on short-term memory. The pen also helped consolidate the power of bureaucracies where a reliance on efficiency and order was paramount. Legal documents are generally signed in ink. The pen plays a prominent role in our society and can be found in almost all institutions, including those where information/communication technology dominate. If these transformations can occur when a relatively simple technology is introduced, what can be said about the introduction of innovations arising from the science of biotechnology

Properties and Analysis of Thermally Aged Poly(ethylene oxide)

Recent studies have been performed into the use of polyethylene oxide (PEO) as a model system for observing the fundamental effects of adding micro and nano sized fillers to create polymeric composite systems. Many factors contribute to the successful creation of such a composite system, including dispersion of the filler and treatment of the material during creation. For example, while producing thin films of the materials for testing, high temperatures were used for short periods of time in open air to press the samples into small discs. It is well known that prolonged high temperature exposure can alter the chemistry and structure of polymeric materials and that small variations in the original chemistry, such as longer molecular weights or introduction of fillers, can reduce or possibly accelerate this 'ageing' effect. From these previous investigations many property changes were observed during addition of filler or variation of molecular weight, therefore to accurately attribute these changes to a cause the thermal ageing of the material should be observed. This investigation looks at the same 3 molecular weight PEO systems as those used in the previous investigations and analyses them for their vulnerability to thermal ageing. One thermally aged sample is then taken and tested alongside an unaged sample to observe the effects that the process has on the properties. This includes rheology in solution, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), AC electrical breakdown, dielectric spectroscopy and Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR). By observing the property changes of aged samples it is possible to better understand the thermal ageing process occurring and possibly a way to reduce the effect, along with considering the effect with regard to the behaviour of the previously tested composite samples

A review of clinical trial on evalution of Taila Payita Amrutha Tantu and Mersilk as suturing material w.s.r. to Riju Granthi technique in Sadyo Vrana

Wounds are the most common problem faced by man since his very existence. So long as human has treated the wounds we have looked for the way to close them. Suturing is an inseparable part of surgery which needs no introduction, although the first description of sutures and suturing material is from Susrutha Samhitha. It is true that very few of them are practically tried now, Amrutha Tantu was taken for the study in view of testing its efficiency and whether it exhibits any medicinal property to wound. For these study effects were compared with Mersilk as this is also non absorbable most commonly used suture materials, Total 60 patients 30 in each group were taken for study about efficiency of both suture materials were assessed with criteria like pain edema colour temperature, tenderness and discharge. Efficacy of Amruth Tantu was found equal to Mersilk with extra benfit of faster wound healing due to anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial property of Guduchi

A techno-economic evaluation of friction stir welding of DH36 steel

Friction stir welding of steel presents an array of advantages across many industrial sectors such as shipbuilding when compared to conventional fusion welding techniques. However, there seems to be very limited techno-economic assessment studies on its potential introduction in industry, and particularly in shipbuilding. A microstructure and property evaluation of friction stir welded low alloy steel grade DH36 plate, commonly used in ship and marine applications has been undertaken. In this comprehensive study, steel plates were butt welded together at increasing traverse speeds in order to improve the technical competitiveness of the process. Samples were examined microscopically and by traverse tensile testing, Charpy impact testing and micro-hardness testing in various regions of the weld. The study has examined a wide range of traverse speeds; from this, initial process parameter data have been established that are able to produce commercially attractive excellent quality welds through a substantial increase in the conventionally recognised welding traverse speed. In parallel, a comparative economic evaluation between friction stir welding and submerged arc welding has revealed a number of areas where the former is superior. However, the cost of the friction stir welding tool for steel has been exposed as the dominant obstacle for the wider commerical acceptance of the process on steel

An Introduction to Voting Rule Verification

We give an introduction to deductive verification methods that can be used to formally prove that voting rules and their implementations satisfy specified properties and conform to the desired democratic principles. In the first part of the paper we explain the basic principles: We describe how first-order logic with theories can be used to formalise the desired properties. We explain the difference between (1) proving that one set of properties implies another property, (2) proving that a voting rule implementation has a certain property, and (3) proving that a voting rule implementation is a refinement of an executable specification. And we explain the different technologies: (1) SMT-based testing, (2) bounded program verification, (3) relational program verification, and (4) symmetry breaking. In this first part of the paper, we also explain the difference between verifying functional and relational properties (such as symmetries). In the second part, we present case studies, including (1) the specification and verification of semantic properties for an STV rule used for electing the board of trustees for a major international conference and (2) the deduction-based computation of election margins for the Danish national parliamentary elections

Exploring property driven design fabrication through materials testing and software development

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2010.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis. Vita.Includes bibliographical references (p. 33).Since its introduction in the late 1980s, layered manufacturing has become an increasingly efficient and common means to delivering functional and visually representative prototypes in relatively short amounts of time from previously prepared Computer-Aided Design files. However, most layered manufacturing technologies today produce only single material, constant property prototypes from a limited array of materials. In this project, we explore a different approach to layer manufacturing, namely, a layered manufacturing product that, while using a single material, produces an entity of varying material properties. Materials testing of PMC®-724 demonstrate the material's capacity to possess a range of Shore A Hardness over a range of elasticity, illustrating the potential for printing with variable property materials. Moreover, we will also explore a new approach to fabrication that challenges the concept of Computer- Aided Manufacturing (CAM) by introducing a software application that, rather than providing a means of digitizing the geometry of a completed design, allows engineers and designers to create and design structures that are defined at various points by their material behavior as opposed to their geometry. As a proof of concept demonstration, a mono-material, variable property shoe sole will be printed using property-mapped polyurethane elastomer PMC®-724 with the new software.by Mindy Eng.S.B

Electoral Reforms, Membership Stability and the Existence of Committee Property Rights in American State Legislatures

One of the most creative theories advanced about legislative organization in recent years is Katz and Sala\u27s linkage of the development of committee property rights in the US House of Representatives to the introduction of the Australian ballot. Katz and Sala argue that the Australian ballot – a government-printed ballot cast in secret that replaced a party-produced ballot that was cast in public – gave members of the House an incentive to pursue personal constituency votes. This, in turn, led to the rise of committee property rights as members sought to keep their committee assignments from term to term because of the potential electoral benefits they derived from them. In this Note we use the state legislative committee membership dataset collected by Hamm and Hedlund and their colleagues to test whether committee property rights appeared in American state legislatures at roughly the same time as Katz and Sala find they emerged in the US House. State legislatures were, of course, exposed to the same electoral innovation at the same time. But, while in some ways state legislatures were much like Congress as organizations, in other ways they were very different. Our cross-sectional data and the variance in important institutional variables they provide allow us to test a critical proposition about the importance of membership stability rates in mediating the rise of committee property rights. We also go beyond Katz and Sala\u27s analysis by testing to see if differences in Australian ballot design (office column and party bloc) across the states influenced the behaviour of legislators in the way their theory suggests

Psychometrics in Behavioral Software Engineering: A Methodological Introduction with Guidelines

A meaningful and deep understanding of the human aspects of software engineering (SE) requires psychological constructs to be considered. Psychology theory can facilitate the systematic and sound development as well as the adoption of instruments (e.g., psychological tests, questionnaires) to assess these constructs. In particular, to ensure high quality, the psychometric properties of instruments need evaluation. In this paper, we provide an introduction to psychometric theory for the evaluation of measurement instruments for SE researchers. We present guidelines that enable using existing instruments and developing new ones adequately. We conducted a comprehensive review of the psychology literature framed by the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. We detail activities used when operationalizing new psychological constructs, such as item pooling, item review, pilot testing, item analysis, factor analysis, statistical property of items, reliability, validity, and fairness in testing and test bias. We provide an openly available example of a psychometric evaluation based on our guideline. We hope to encourage a culture change in SE research towards the adoption of established methods from psychology. To improve the quality of behavioral research in SE, studies focusing on introducing, validating, and then using psychometric instruments need to be more common.Comment: 56 pages (pp. 1-36 for the main paper, pp. 37-56 working example in the appendix), 8 figures in the main paper. Accepted for publication at ACM TOSE

The contactless measurement of the electrical resistivity

Physicists are interested in understanding the processes of nature. Within the field of Solid State Physics the characterisation of materials and the measurement of their properties is the first step towards identifiying new and interesting areas of scientific activities. The electrical resistivity of conductive materials is an important property which provides information about the electronic behaviour of the material. An elegant method to determine this characteristic is the measurement without using electrical contacts. Such a method avoids a whole set of experimental problems connected with the physics of electrical contacts to the sample. This Master-thesis gives an introduction into this experimental technique. A detailed theoretical description is developed. The experimental activity has involved the design, construction and testing of the apparatus. In the process of testing the method novel aspect emerged: The measurement at resonance point. These measurements can yield separate values for two different physical quantities: the electrical resistivity e and the magnetic susceptibility x. The innovation of this project is the simultaneous characterisation of both values for the material under investigation. The report starts by giving the theoretical background within which the first part of the detailed theoretical predictions are discussed. The second part contains experiments and a description of the experimental set-up. This design is the result of a long period of optimisation and testing. The working of the apparatus is demonstrated by the measurement of some samples

Fracking as a Test of the Demsetz Property Rights Thesis

Since its introduction in 1967, the account of property rights formation by Harold Demsetz has pervaded the legal and economic literature. Demsetz theorized that as a once-abundant, commonly shared resource becomes more valuable and sought-after, users will move to more clearly define property rights in the resource. Despite the high transaction costs of this approach, the costs of organizing and enforcing a rights regime become worthwhile in the face of scarcity. And privatization, in turn, leads to more efficient use of the resource by the individuals holding the property rights, with less externalization of the harmful effects of resource use. Modified accounts provide a more nuanced story in which “governance”—broadly speaking—emerges to address scarcity concerns. This governance can include traditional regulation that draws clearer property rights in the resource and forces cost internalization as well as innovative, less formal regimes, such as monitoring and reporting of resource use, voluntary agreements to internalize certain harms, and other commons management tools. But a conundrum remains: in some cases, scarcity does not generate regulation or innovative governance, and legal scholarship has called for more empirical testing of the reasons for this anti-Demsetzian response. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” presents a perfect case study for this sort of test. This oil and gas extraction technique, which has recently boomed in the United States, has identifiable and substantial negative externalities including, for example, air pollution and over-withdrawals of freshwater during droughts. Yet states and industry actors have not consistently responded with regulations or innovative governance strategies to internalize these externalities. In this Article, we explore the responses of three states experiencing a fracking boom and theorize the reasons for the diverse responses of these states to greater fracking externalities, including responses that do not track the Demsetz theory. We conclude that traditional political explanations, often pejoratively referred to as “capture” or “rent-seeking,” political culture, and legal institutions—particularly courts—account for the divergence between what we observe empirically and what Demestz’s theory would predict