Change it Now: eBay v. MercExchange-Business Method Patent Litigation Reaches Critical Juncture Concerning Remedies for Infringement

Visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) as field has been researched for ten years, but with recent advances in mobile performance visual SLAM is entering the consumer market in a completely new way. A visual SLAM system will however be sensitive to non cautious use that may result in severe motion, occlusion or poor surroundings in terms of visual features that will cause the system to temporarily fail. The procedure of recovering from such a fail is called relocalization. Together with two similar problems localization, to find your position in an existing SLAM session, and loop closing, the online reparation and perfection of the map in an active SLAM session, these can be grouped as visual location recognition (VLR). This thesis presents novel results by combining the scalability of FabMap and the precision of 13th Lab's tracking yielding high-precision VLR, +/- 10 cm, while maintaining above 99 % precision and 60 % recall for sessions containing thousands of images. Everything functional purely on a normal mobile phone. The applications of VLR are many. Indoors, where GPS is not functioning, VLR can still provide positional information and navigate you through big complexes like airports and museums. Outdoors, VLR can improve the precision of GPS tenfold yielding a new level of navigational experience. Virtual and augmented reality applications are other areas that benefit from improved positioning and localization

Corporate Cybersmear: Employers File John Doe Defamation Lawsuits Seeking the Identity of Anonymous Employee Internet Posters

Communications systems are now wide open and fully accessible, with no limits in range, scope or geography. Targeted audiences are accessible with pinpoint accuracy. Messages reach millions of readers with one click. There is a chat room for everyone. Most importantly, there is no limit on content. Therefore, employees can register their dissatisfaction by posting a message in a chat room. Moreover, the identity of the posting employee is not easily discoverable due to anonymous and pseudonymous communications capabilities. The nature of these online messages is qualitatively different from real-world communications. By way of example, newspapers have a responsibility regarding the veracity of the content that they print. Sponsors of online bulletin board services do not bear the same level of responsibility. In cyberspace chatrooms, everyone is a publisher; there are no editors. Online messages reflect this, too. The culture of online communications is vastly different from traditional discourse, in that the former tolerates and even encourages the use of hyperbole, crudeness, acronyms, misspellings, and misuse of language. It is a fast and loose atmosphere, emphasizing speed rather than accuracy. This is the current environment in which anonymous employees post negative statements about their employers. The questions raised in this article relate to management\u27s response, in the form of John Doe lawsuits, to this recent spate of negative Internet postings by employees. The emergence of the Internet as the medium of choice for such communications raises a myriad of questions that are new to courts. Questions arise regarding the extent to which employers may control the speech of current employees or former employees and, as a corollary to this, the extent to which such speech is protected, as well as whether this attempted speech control violates public policy. Such suits have just begun to reach the courts, and their resolution will form the contours of employee freedom of speech in the Internet age. John Doe suits implicate constitutional and common law issues ranging from the First Amendment to privacy, defamation, breach of employment agreement, and trade secret laws. Such suits involve statutes as well, including whistle-blower protections and Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation ( SLAPP ) laws. Negative postings by employees also correlate to general economic conditions. During the current two year downturn in the financial markets, for example, there has been a tremendous increase in such postings. Employers have just begun to reply to these allegedly defamatory postings--in the form of John Doe lawsuits. Because it is difficult to discern who is speaking in cyberspace, plaintiffs often file a lawsuit listing John Doe as the defendant. Plaintiffs then invoke the power of a subpoena to compel the Internet Service Provider ( ISP ) or Bulletin Board Service ( BBS ) on which the posting was made to identify the poster, thereby unmasking these anonymous and pseudonymous individuals. It is worth noting that plaintiffs have an alternative course of action, in that they could investigate the postings and discover for themselves who is posting the messages. It is not clear whether any more effort or expense is involved in this strategy than immediately invoking the assistance--and the power--of the judicial system. But it is fair to say that involving the judicial system at this earliest stage is a coercive, and effective, strategy

Corporate Cybersmear: Employers File John Doe Defamation Lawsuits Seeking the Identity of Anonymous Employee Internet Posters

Communications systems are now wide open and fully accessible, with no limits in range, scope or geography. Targeted audiences are accessible with pinpoint accuracy. Messages reach millions of readers with one click. There is a chat room for everyone. Most importantly, there is no limit on content. Therefore, employees can register their dissatisfaction by posting a message in a chat room. Moreover, the identity of the posting employee is not easily discoverable due to anonymous and pseudonymous communications capabilities. The nature of these online messages is qualitatively different from real-world communications. By way of example, newspapers have a responsibility regarding the veracity of the content that they print. Sponsors of online bulletin board services do not bear the same level of responsibility. In cyberspace chatrooms, everyone is a publisher; there are no editors. Online messages reflect this, too. The culture of online communications is vastly different from traditional discourse, in that the former tolerates and even encourages the use of hyperbole, crudeness, acronyms, misspellings, and misuse of language. It is a fast and loose atmosphere, emphasizing speed rather than accuracy. This is the current environment in which anonymous employees post negative statements about their employers. The questions raised in this article relate to management\u27s response, in the form of John Doe lawsuits, to this recent spate of negative Internet postings by employees. The emergence of the Internet as the medium of choice for such communications raises a myriad of questions that are new to courts. Questions arise regarding the extent to which employers may control the speech of current employees or former employees and, as a corollary to this, the extent to which such speech is protected, as well as whether this attempted speech control violates public policy. Such suits have just begun to reach the courts, and their resolution will form the contours of employee freedom of speech in the Internet age. John Doe suits implicate constitutional and common law issues ranging from the First Amendment to privacy, defamation, breach of employment agreement, and trade secret laws. Such suits involve statutes as well, including whistle-blower protections and Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation ( SLAPP ) laws. Negative postings by employees also correlate to general economic conditions. During the current two year downturn in the financial markets, for example, there has been a tremendous increase in such postings. Employers have just begun to reply to these allegedly defamatory postings--in the form of John Doe lawsuits. Because it is difficult to discern who is speaking in cyberspace, plaintiffs often file a lawsuit listing John Doe as the defendant. Plaintiffs then invoke the power of a subpoena to compel the Internet Service Provider ( ISP ) or Bulletin Board Service ( BBS ) on which the posting was made to identify the poster, thereby unmasking these anonymous and pseudonymous individuals. It is worth noting that plaintiffs have an alternative course of action, in that they could investigate the postings and discover for themselves who is posting the messages. It is not clear whether any more effort or expense is involved in this strategy than immediately invoking the assistance--and the power--of the judicial system. But it is fair to say that involving the judicial system at this earliest stage is a coercive, and effective, strategy

Phosphinogold(I) dithiocarbamate complexes : effect of the nature of phosphine ligand on anticancer properties

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Dissipative dynamics of vortex arrays in trapped Bose-condensed gases: neutron stars physics on μ\muK scale

We develop a theory of dissipative dynamics of large vortex arrays in trapped Bose-condensed gases. We show that in a static trap the interaction of the vortex array with thermal excitations leads to a non-exponential decay of the vortex structure, and the characteristic lifetime depends on the initial density of vortices. Drawing an analogy with physics of pulsar glitches, we propose an experiment which employs the heating of the thermal cloud in the course of the decay of the vortex array as a tool for a non-destructive study of the vortex dynamics.Comment: 4 pages, revtex; revised versio

Genetic and environmental influences on sleep quality in middle‐aged men: a twin study

Poor sleep quality is a risk factor for a number of cognitive and physiological age-related disorders. Identifying factors underlying sleep quality are important in understanding the etiology of these age-related health disorders. We investigated the extent to which genes and the environment contribute to subjective sleep quality in middle-aged male twins using the classical twin design. We used the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to measure sleep quality in 1218 middle-aged twin men from the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (mean age = 55.4 years; range 51-60; 339 monozygotic twin pairs, 257 dizygotic twin pairs, 26 unpaired twins). The mean PSQI global score was 5.6 [SD = 3.6; range 0-20]. Based on univariate twin models, 34% of variability in the global PSQI score was due to additive genetic effects (heritability) and 66% was attributed to individual-specific environmental factors. Common environment did not contribute to the variability. Similarly, the heritability of poor sleep-a dichotomous measure based on the cut-off of global PSQI>5-was 31%, with no contribution of the common environment. Heritability of six of the seven PSQI component scores (subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep disturbances, and daytime dysfunction) ranged from 0.15 to 0.31, whereas no genetic influences contributed to the use of sleeping medication. Additive genetic influences contribute to approximately one-third of the variability of global subjective sleep quality. Our results in middle-aged men constitute a first step towards examination of the genetic relationship between sleep and other facets of aging.Accepted manuscrip

Cm-Wavelength Total Flux and Linear Polarization Properties of Radio-Loud BL Lacertae Objects

Results from a long-term program to quantify the range of behavior of the cm-wavelength total flux and linear polarization variability properties of a sample of 41 radio-loud BL Lac objects using weekly to tri-monthly observations with the University of Michigan 26-m telescope operating at 14.5, 8.0, and 4.8 GHz are presented; these observations are used to identify class-dependent differences between these BL Lacs and QSOs in the Pearson-Readhead sample. The BL Lacs are found to be more highly variable in total flux density than the QSOs, exhibiting changes that are often nearly-simultaneous and of comparable amplitude at 14.5 and 4.8 GHz in contrast to the behavior in the QSOs and supporting the existence of class-dependent differences in opacity within the parsec-scale jet flows. Structure function analyses of the flux observations quantify that a characteristic timescale is identifiable in only 1/3 of the BL Lacs. The time-averaged fractional linear polarizations are only on the order of a few percent and are consistent with the presence of tangled magnetic fields within the emitting regions. In many sources a preferred long-term orientation of the EVPA is present; when compared with the VLBI structural axis, no preferred position angle difference is identified. The polarized flux typically exhibits variability with timescales of months to a few years and shows the signature of a propagating shock during several resolved outbursts. The observations indicate that the source emission is predominately due to evolving source components and support the occurrence of more frequent shock formation in BL Lac parsec-scale flows than in QSO jets. The differences in variability behavior and polarization between BL Lacs and QSOs can be explained by differences in jet stability.Comment: 1 LaTex (aastex) file, 21 postscript figure files, 2 external LaTex table files. To appear in the Astrophysical Journa

Predictors of irritability symptoms in mildly depressed perimenopausal women

OBJECTIVE: Irritability is a highly burdensome complaint, commonly, but not universally, linked with depressive symptoms. While increased variability in estradiol has been associated with depressive symptoms during perimenopause, more insight is needed into reproductive hormone dynamics and other factors that predispose perimenopausal women to irritable mood. METHODS: Among 50 mildly depressed perimenopausal women (mean (SD) age 48.4 (3.9) years), severity of irritability symptoms (on Symptom Questionnaire Hostility subscale, range 0-23) was assessed weekly for eight weeks, concurrent with potential predictors. Associations between these were examined using generalized estimating equating models. RESULTS: Most women (82.0%) reported having moderate to severe irritability at least once. However, the severity of irritability was highly variable from week-to-week (between-subject mean coefficient of variation [CV] 72.9% and within-subject mean CV 63.7%). In multivariate analyses, less variable serum estradiol levels (standardized beta within-person CV -0.23 95%CI [-0.32, -0.14], p \u3c 0.001), greater depression severity (0.45 [0.35, 0.56], p \u3c 0.001), younger age (-0.23, [-0.28, -0.09], p \u3c 0.001), and more frequent vasomotor symptoms (0.14 [0.05, 0.23], p=0.002) were associated with more irritability. Depression severity explained the largest portion of the variance in irritability, but still not more than 20.3%. Neither crude values, weekly change in, or variability of progesterone or FSH levels were associated with irritability. CONCLUSIONS: Irritability was highly prevalent among mildly depressed perimenopausal women. In contrast to depressive symptoms, decreased rather than increased variability in estradiol levels was associated with more irritability. This highlights that irritable mood can be disentangled from depressive symptoms in perimenopausal women and might be linked with different estradiol dynamics

Do women athletes’ experiences of menstrual function and dysfunction vary across competition levels? A mixed methods exploration

Menstrual dysfunction is a common phenomenon in sport and many women describe that their menstrual cycle can negatively impact their sport participation, performance, and experiences. However, there is little research examining if competition level plays a role in women athletes’ rates and experiences of menstrual function and dysfunction. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore and describe rates and experiences of menstrual function and dysfunction among athletes of differing competition levels. An online mixed methods approach was applied. Women athletes (N = 63), between 14 and 39 years of age (M = 24.20, SD = 6.53), competing in a range of sports from the local to international level completed an anonymous interview style survey to generate data. Data analysis for this project was an iterative and integrated process where quantitative and qualitative data were considered together and are represented through reported statistics and generated themes. Although group differences were hypothesized, no differences based on competition level in rates or experiences of menstrual dysfunction were observed. In addition to detailed descriptive statistics, five themes were generated: Normalizing Dysfunction; Menstrual Symptoms; Clothing as a Distraction; Participation Impact; and Regaining Control. In line with previous research, the women in this study experienced a range of menstrual dysfunctions that impacted their sport experiences. However, this study highlights that regardless of competition level or sport type women face challenges in sport regarding menstrual function and due to the normalization of dysfunction in sport women athletes’ health and well-being are not always supported