Protecting Menard’s Quixote: A Return to the Strict Originality Standard in Copyright Law

Copyright protection extends to “original” works. The adjective “original” here means a work that originated with its purported author, and is not meant to impute any novelty requirement to copyright law. However, case law and literature offer up several odd examples where two individuals have independently created identical works of art. The theory underlying copyright law requires that, because each work originated independently from separate authors, each work be independently copyrightable. Applying this strict, objective standard of originality to the transformative arts, we begin to see new possibilities for grounding copyrights in parodies and satires. Under current law, parodies escape infringement of their target works through the “fair use” exception to copyright law, while satires frequently do not. However, this essay argues that, under a strict interpretation of the originality standard, parodies and satires alike can be considered independently created works of art that are not derivative of (and hence not infringing) their target works. This essay suggests the application of a new standard of ascertainably different meanings when determining whether one work infringes upon a similar work

Life interrupted and life regained? Coping with stroke at a young age

Stroke is a leading cause of disability across the developed world, affecting an increasing number of younger people. In this article, we seek to understand the experience of stroke as a disabling life situation among young people and the strategies that they use to recover and cope. Directed content analysis was conducted from interviews with 17 community-dwelling stroke survivors aged 55 years and younger across the United Kingdom. The sample was drawn from a larger maximum variation sample of stroke survivors. Using the sociological concepts of biographical disruption and biographical repair as a guide, excerpts from the interviews pertaining to aspects of the patients’ life that were interrupted, in addition to how they coped with the changes, were selected and analysed. All individuals described an ‘‘altered sense of self,’’ a theme that included loss of identity, family disruption, and/or loss of valued activities. Individuals sought to adapt their sense of self by seeking external support, by restoring normality, and/or through positive reflection. Despite the adapted self that emerged, most individuals continued to experience impairments. While young stroke survivors adapt to their illness over time, they continue to experience impairments and disruptions in their personal and work lives.Aholistic model of rehabilitation that helps individuals regain the capacity for everyday activities related to work, family life, and leisure can begin to address the emotional ramifications of diseases such as stroke, restore wellness, and work towards minimizing the burden felt by family caregivers and children

Life interrupted and life regained? Coping with stroke at a young age

Stroke is a leading cause of disability across the developed world, affecting an increasing number of younger people. In this article, we seek to understand the experience of stroke as a disabling life situation among young people and the strategies that they use to recover and cope. Directed content analysis was conducted from interviews with 17 community-dwelling stroke survivors aged 55 years and younger across the United Kingdom. The sample was drawn from a larger maximum variation sample of stroke survivors. Using the sociological concepts of biographical disruption and biographical repair as a guide, excerpts from the interviews pertaining to aspects of the patients’ life that were interrupted, in addition to how they coped with the changes, were selected and analysed. All individuals described an ‘‘altered sense of self,’’ a theme that included loss of identity, family disruption, and/or loss of valued activities. Individuals sought to adapt their sense of self by seeking external support, by restoring normality, and/or through positive reflection. Despite the adapted self that emerged, most individuals continued to experience impairments. While young stroke survivors adapt to their illness over time, they continue to experience impairments and disruptions in their personal and work lives.Aholistic model of rehabilitation that helps individuals regain the capacity for everyday activities related to work, family life, and leisure can begin to address the emotional ramifications of diseases such as stroke, restore wellness, and work towards minimizing the burden felt by family caregivers and children

Las tic (tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones) como estrategia para la industria de la hospitalidad

Este documento mira la importancia estratégica cada vez mayor de las tecnologías de información y de las comunicaciones (TIC) en la industria de la hospitalidad. En las últimas cuatro décadas, la industria de la hospitalidad ha experimentado cambios dramáticos como resultado de innovaciones y de progresos de la tecnología. Uno podría discutir fácilmente que el negocio haya llegado a ser mucho más complejo, sofisticado e intensivo en costos con la evolución y la adopción de la tecnología a través de la industria. Hoy, es seguro decir que la tecnología y los negocios son inseparables

Las tic (tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones) como estrategia para la industria de la hospitalidad

Este documento mira la importancia estratégica cada vez mayor de las tecnologías de información y de las comunicaciones (TIC) en la industria de la hospitalidad. En las últimas cuatro décadas, la industria de la hospitalidad ha experimentado cambios dramáticos como resultado de innovaciones y de progresos de la tecnología. Uno podría discutir fácilmente que el negocio haya llegado a ser mucho más complejo, sofisticado e intensivo en costos con la evolución y la adopción de la tecnología a través de la industria. Hoy, es seguro decir que la tecnología y los negocios son inseparables

SEINE: Methods for Electronic Data Capture and Integrated Data Repository Synthesis with Patient Registry Use Cases

Integrated Data Repositories (IDR) allow clinical research to leverage electronic health records (EHR) and other data sources while Electronic Data Capture (EDC) applications often support manually maintained patient registries. Using i2b2 and REDCap, (IDR and EDC platforms respectively) we have developed methods that integrate IDR and EDC strengths supporting: 1) data delivery from the IDR as ready-to-use registries to exploit the annotation and data collection capabilities unique to EDC applications; 2) integrating EDC managed registries into data repositories allows investigators to use hypothesis generation and cohort discovery methods. This round-trip integration can lower lag between cohort discovery and establishing a registry. Investigators can also periodically augment their registry cohort as the IDR is enriched with additional data elements, data sources, and patients. We describe our open-source automated methods and provide three example registry uses cases for these methods: triple negative breast cancer, vertiginous syndrome, cancer distress

Photometric redshifts from reconstructed QSO templates

From SDSS commissioning photometric and spectroscopic data, we investigate the utility of photometric redshift techniques to the task of estimating QSO redshifts. We consider empirical methods (e.g. nearest-neighbor searches and polynomial fitting), standard spectral template fitting and hybrid approaches (i.e. training spectral templates from spectroscopic and photometric observations of QSOs). We find that in all cases, due to the presence of strong emission-lines within the QSO spectra, the nearest-neighbor and template fitting methods are superior to the polynomial fitting approach. Applying a novel reconstruction technique, we can, from the SDSS multicolor photometry, reconstruct a statistical representation of the underlying SEDs of the SDSS QSOs. Although, the reconstructed templates are based on only broadband photometry the common emission lines present within the QSO spectra can be recovered in the resulting spectral energy distributions. The technique should be useful in searching for spectral differences among QSOs at a given redshift, in searching for spectral evolution of QSOs, in comparing photometric redshifts for objects beyond the SDSS spectroscopic sample with those in the well calibrated photometric redshifts for objects brighter than 20th magnitude and in searching for systematic and time variable effects in the SDSS broad band photometric and spectral photometric calibrations.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, LaTeX AASTeX, submitted to A

Discovery of Stable and Selective Antibody Mimetics from Combinatorial Libraries of Polyvalent, Loop-Functionalized Peptoid Nanosheets.

The ability of antibodies to bind a wide variety of analytes with high specificity and high affinity makes them ideal candidates for therapeutic and diagnostic applications. However, the poor stability and high production cost of antibodies have prompted exploration of a variety of synthetic materials capable of specific molecular recognition. Unfortunately, it remains a fundamental challenge to create a chemically diverse population of protein-like, folded synthetic nanostructures with defined molecular conformations in water. Here we report the synthesis and screening of combinatorial libraries of sequence-defined peptoid polymers engineered to fold into ordered, supramolecular nanosheets displaying a high spatial density of diverse, conformationally constrained peptoid loops on their surface. These polyvalent, loop-functionalized nanosheets were screened using a homogeneous Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) assay for binding to a variety of protein targets. Peptoid sequences were identified that bound to the heptameric protein, anthrax protective antigen, with high avidity and selectivity. These nanosheets were shown to be resistant to proteolytic degradation, and the binding was shown to be dependent on the loop display density. This work demonstrates that key aspects of antibody structure and function-the creation of multivalent, combinatorial chemical diversity within a well-defined folded structure-can be realized with completely synthetic materials. This approach enables the rapid discovery of biomimetic affinity reagents that combine the durability of synthetic materials with the specificity of biomolecular materials