Digital design protection in Europe : law, trends, and emerging issues

Digital designs – that is, designs for display on electronic screens – have recently burst onto the intellectual property (IP) stage. While in the U.S. a smattering of legal studies have recently addressed the question of digital design as a copyright -, rademark - and patent - eligible subject matter, a European perspective is still lacking in the literature. This study provides an overview of basic legal background to the protection of digital designs in Europe, explores firms’ actual digital design protection behaviors, and highlights some important practical and doctrinal issues that warrant further study

Formalization model of expert knowledge about a technical index level of engineering products

The authors set a timely problem that concerns development of decision making models, which allow formalizing expert subjective ideas about technical index level of engineering products. The authors proposed a formalization model of expert knowledge about technical index level of engineering products on the basis of fuzzy sets. The model has a method of membership-function construction for linguistic variable terms on the basis of exponential functions

Validation, reproducibility and safety of trans dermal electrical stimulation in chronic pain patients and healthy volunteers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Surrogate pain models have been extensively tested in Normal Human Volunteers (NHV). There are few studies that examined pain models in chronic pain patients. Patients are likely to have altered pain mechanisms. It is of interest to test patient pain responses to selective pain stimuli under controlled laboratory conditions.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The Institutional Ethic Committee approved the study. 16 patients with chronic neuropathic radiculopathy and 16 healthy volunteers were enrolled to the study after obtaining informed consent. During electrical stimulation (150 minutes for volunteers and 75 minutes for patients) the following parameters were measured every 10 minutes:</p> <p>Ongoing pain: Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Numeric Rate Scale (NRS)</p> <p>Allodynia (soft foam brush)</p> <p>Hyperalgesia (von Frey monofilament 20 g)</p> <p>Flare</p> <p>For each endpoint, the area under the curve (AUC) was estimated from the start of stimulation to the end of stimulation by the trapezoidal rule. The individual AUC values for both periods were plotted to show the inter- and intra-subject variability. For each endpoint a mixed effect model was fitted with random effect subject and fixed effect visit. The estimate of intra-subject variance and the mean value were then used to estimate the sample size of a crossover study required to have a probability of 0.80 to detect a 25% change in the mean value. Analysis was done using GenStat 8^thedition.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Each endpoint achieved very good reproducibility for patients and NHV. Comparison between groups revealed trends towards:</p> <p>Faster habituation to painful stimuli in patients</p> <p>Bigger areas of hyperalgesia in patients</p> <p>Similar area of allodynia and flare (no statistical significance)</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The differences demonstrated between patients and NHVs suggest that the electrical stimulation device used here may stimulate pathways that are affected in the pathological state.</p

Enhanced hydrogen production from thermochemical processes

To alleviate the pressing problem of greenhouse gas emissions, the development and deployment of sustainable energy technologies is necessary. One potentially viable approach for replacing fossil fuels is the development of a H2 economy. Not only can H2 be used to produce heat and electricity, it is also utilised in ammonia synthesis and hydrocracking. H2 is traditionally generated from thermochemical processes such as steam reforming of hydrocarbons and the water-gas-shift (WGS) reaction. However, these processes suffer from low H2 yields owing to their reversible nature. Removing H2 with membranes and/or extracting CO2 with solid sorbents in situ can overcome these issues by shifting the component equilibrium towards enhanced H2 production via Le Chatelier's principle. This can potentially result in reduced energy consumption, smaller reactor sizes and, therefore, lower capital costs. In light of this, a significant amount of work has been conducted over the past few decades to refine these processes through the development of novel materials and complex models. Here, we critically review the most recent developments in these studies, identify possible research gaps, and offer recommendations for future research

Buprenorphine for neuropathic pain in adults

BACKGROUND Opioid drugs, including buprenorphine, are commonly used to treat neuropathic pain, and are considered effective by some professionals. Most reviews have examined all opioids together. This review sought evidence specifically for buprenorphine, at any dose, and by any route of administration. Other opioids are considered in separate reviews. OBJECTIVES To assess the analgesic efficacy of buprenorphine for chronic neuropathic pain in adults, and the adverse events associated with its use in clinical trials. SEARCH METHODS We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, and EMBASE from inception to 11 June 2015, together with reference lists of retrieved papers and reviews, and two online study registries. SELECTION CRITERIA We included randomised, double-blind studies of two weeks' duration or longer, comparing any oral dose or formulation of buprenorphine with placebo or another active treatment in chronic neuropathic pain. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Two review authors independently searched for studies, extracted efficacy and adverse event data, and examined issues of study quality. We did not carry out any pooled analyses. MAIN RESULTS Searches identified 10 published studies, and one study with results in ClinicalTrials.gov. None of these 11 studies satisfied our inclusion criteria, and so we included no studies in the review. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS There was insufficient evidence to support or refute the suggestion that buprenorphine has any efficacy in any neuropathic pain condition