Does Copyright Enforcement Encourage Piracy?

More intensive copyright enforcement reduces piracy, raises prices, and lowers consumer surplus. We show that these results do not hold regarding the extent rather than intensity of enforcement. When enforcement is targeted at high-value buyers such as corporate and government users, the copyright holder has an incentive to charge super-monopoly prices, thereby encouraging piracy among low-value buyers. Extending enforcement down the demand curve broadens the copyright holder’s captive market, leading to lower prices and higher sales that can increase both profits and consumer surplus. The standard tradeoff between the incentive to generate intellectual property and the cost of monopoly power is therefore avoided. Private enforcement by copyright holders may be insuciently extensive since consumers can also benefit from more extensive enforcement. Similarly, new technologies which lead to stronger control over illicit use can paradoxically benefit consumers.piracy; internet; intellectual property; copyright protection; super-monopoly pricing

Resource management in heterogeneous computing systems with tasks of varying importance

2014 Summer.The problem of efficiently assigning tasks to machines in heterogeneous computing environments where different tasks can have different levels of importance (or value) to the computing system is a challenging one. The goal of this work is to study this problem in a variety of environments. One part of the study considers a computing system and its corresponding workload based on the expectations for future environments of Department of Energy and Department of Defense interest. We design heuristics to maximize a performance metric created using utility functions. We also create a framework to analyze the trade-offs between performance and energy consumption. We design techniques to maximize performance in a dynamic environment that has a constraint on the energy consumption. Another part of the study explores environments that have uncertainty in the availability of the compute resources. For this part, we design heuristics and compare their performance in different types of environments

Does Copyright Enforcement Encourage Piracy?

More intensive copyright enforcement reduces piracy, raises prices, and lowers consumer surplus. We show that these results do not hold regarding the extent rather than intensity of enforcement. When enforcement is targeted at high-value buyers such as corporate and government users, the copyright holder has an incentive to charge super-monopoly prices, thereby encouraging piracy among low-value buyers. Extending enforcement down the demand curve broadens the copyright holder's captive market, leading to lower prices and higher sales that can increase both profits and consumer surplus. The standard tradeoff between the incentive to generate intellectual property and the cost of monopoly power is therefore avoided. Private enforcement by copyright holders may be insuciently extensive since consumers can also benefit from more extensive enforcement. Similarly, new technologies which lead to stronger control over illicit use can paradoxically benefit consumers

The correlation of visual inspection, Pap-smear and immunocytochemistry of human papilloma virus in detection of cervical cytology

Background: Carcinogenicity presents as a major challenge to scientists and society.. Cervical cancer ranks fifth in the world and is the second cause of death in developing countries like India and China. The rate of death due to cervical cancer is greatest in India. At any time women are at risk of harboring HPV infection, which has been seen to cause cervical cancer. Clinical judgment should be used in spite of all high quality modalities available for screening and diagnosis, as initiated by WHO (World health organization) the Down Staging of cervical cancer, VIA, VILI, Pap smear introduced by George Papanicolaou in 1940s , HPV testing by Immunocytochemistry (ICC) and  HPV DNA , Colposcopy , are other modalities to screen cervix. The study aims to evaluate the correlation between Pap smear, visual inspection and Immunocytochemistry of Human papilloma virus (HPV).Methods: All 100 consecutive women were subjected to visual inspection of cervix, Pap smear and immunocytochemistry of HPV. Pap smear was done by conventional method.Results: it was seen that out 100 consecutive cervico-vaginal, ears for Pap and Immunocytochemistry, only 33 were abnormal, 24 were ASCUS, 6 were LSIL, 2 were HSIL, 1 was SCC and 67 were NILM out of which 3 were reactive for ICC. And all 33 were reactive for ICC.Conclusions: The p16 immunostaining performed on conventional smears can become alternative or addition to l HPV DNA tests. The Bethesda System (TBS) 2001 for reporting cervical cytology diagnosis is of high value in detecting abnormal cervical cytology. It is further concluded that the ancillary screening for HPV in NILM category seems to be not advisable as percentage of detection of HPV in this category is low. 

Dobutamine Echocardiography for Assessment of Viability in the Current Era

Purpose of review Studies from the 1990s and early 2000s documented the utility of dobutamine echocardiography for the prediction of functional recovery and prognosis with revascularization. The results of The Surgical Treatment of Ischemic Heart Failure (STICH) trial called into question the value of viability assessment using dobutamine echocardiography. The purpose of this review is to re-examine the literature on dobutamine echocardiography, put into context the STICH results, and provide insight into the current role of dobutamine echocardiography viability testing. Recent findings In contrast to the results of previous nonrandomized trials, the STICH trial showed that patients with viability defined by nuclear perfusion imaging or dobutamine echocardiography did not have improved survival with CABG compared with optimal medical therapy. Viability by dobutamine echocardiography was defined as the presence of contractile reserve in at least five segments with baseline dysfunction. The results of dobutamine echocardiography studies published before and after initiation of the STICH trial suggest that the definition of viability utilized in that trial may be suboptimal for assessment of improvement in global function and prognosis in patients undergoing revascularization. Assessment of global contractile reserve using wall motion score (WMS) or ejection fraction may be superior to utilization of a binary definition of viability confined to assessment of contractile reserve in a fixed number of segments because these indices provide information on both the magnitude and extent of contractile reserve of the entire left ventricle (LV). Summary Assessment of WMS or ejection fraction with dobutamine echocardiography may be the optimal means of evaluating the impact of viability on prognosis. Video abstract http://links.lww.com/HCO/A5

Hippocampal representation of threat features and behavior in a human approach-avoidance conflict anxiety task

Decisions under threat are crucial to survival and require integration of distinct situational features such as threat probability and magnitude. Recent evidence from human lesion and neuroimaging studies implicated anterior hippocampus (aHC) and amygdala in approach/avoidance decisions under threat, and linked their integrity to cautious behavior. Here we sought to elucidate how threat dimensions and behavior are represented in these structures. Twenty human participants (11 female) completed an approach-avoidance conflict task during high-resolution functional MRI. Participants could gather tokens under threat of capture by a virtual predator, which would lead to token loss. Threat probability (predator wake-up rate) and magnitude (amount of token loss) varied on each trial. To disentangle effects of threat features, and ensuing behavior, we performed a multifold parametric analysis. We found that high threat probability and magnitude related to BOLD signal in left anterior hippocampus/entorhinal cortex. However BOLD signal in this region was better explained by avoidance behavior than by these threat features. A priori region-of-interest analysis confirmed the relation of anterior hippocampus BOLD response with avoidance. Exploratory subfield analysis revealed that this relation was specific to anterior CA2/3 but not CA1. Left lateral amygdala responded to low and high, but not intermediate threat probability. Our results suggest that anterior hippocampus BOLD signal is better explained by avoidance behavior than by threat features in approach-avoidance conflict. Rather than representing threat features in a monotonic manner, it appears that anterior hippocampus may compute approach/avoidance decisions based on integration of situational threat features represented in other neural structures

Views of Catholic Middle School Students on Handling Peer Aggression

Peer aggression toward peers who are perceived as weaker or different is a widespread problem for middle-school students including those attending Catholic middle schools. Middle school students’ normative beliefs about the acceptability of various types of aggressive behavior influences their own potential involvement in bullying or as bystanders to bullying in school environments. This study examined decision-making preferences of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade girls and boys for how they thought a targeted peer (from a vulnerable group) should handle a situation of physical, verbal, or cyber aggression. Significant gender, grade and type of peer aggression effects were found for the decision making of the middle schoolers, carrying important implications for the design of future school-based bullying prevention programs

Minimally invasive medial patellofemoral ligament reconstruction for patellar instability using an artificial ligament: A two year follow-up

Introduction: Recurrence of acute patellar dislocation affects approximately 30% of individuals, and up to 75% of those with grade IV instability. The medial patellofemoral ligament (MPFL) is considered to be critical for patella stabilisation. MPFL reconstruction with allografts has been proposed to reduce risk of recurrence, but there is limited evidence about the safety and effectiveness of techniques using synthetic allografts. Method: We present a retrospective case series of 29 individuals who underwent a MPFL reconstruction between 2009 and 2012, using an artificial ligament for patellar instability by a single surgeon. Clinical, radiological and functional outcomes were measured at a minimum of 24 months. Results: 31 knees (29 individuals) were followed up for a median of 43 (range: 24 – 68) months. Using the Crosby and Insall grading system, 21 (68%) were graded as excellent, 9 (29%) were good, 1 (3%) as fair and none as worse at 24 months. The mean improvement in Lysholm knee score for knee instability was 68 points (standard deviation 10). Ligamentous laxity was seen in 17 (55 %) of individuals. In this subset, 12 were graded as excellent, 4 as good and 1 as fair. The mean improvement in patellar height was 11 % at 3 months follow-up. All knees had a stable graft fixation with one re-dislocation following trauma. Conclusions: We propose a minimally invasive technique to reconstruct the MPFL using an artificial ligament allowing early mobilization without bracing. This study indicates the procedure is safe, with a low risk of re-dislocation in all grades of instability

Modeling startle eyeblink electromyogram to assess fear learning

Pavlovian fear conditioning is widely used as a laboratory model of associative learning in human and nonhuman species. In this model, an organism is trained to predict an aversive unconditioned stimulus from initially neutral events (conditioned stimuli, CS). In humans, fear memory is typically measured via conditioned autonomic responses or fear-potentiated startle. For the latter, various analysis approaches have been developed, but a systematic comparison of competing methodologies is lacking. Here, we investigate the suitability of a model-based approach to startle eyeblink analysis for assessment of fear memory, and compare this to extant analysis strategies. First, we build a psychophysiological model (PsPM) on a generic startle response. Then, we optimize and validate this PsPM on three independent fear-conditioning data sets. We demonstrate that our model can robustly distinguish aversive (CS+) from nonaversive stimuli (CS-, i.e., has high predictive validity). Importantly, our model-based approach captures fear-potentiated startle during fear retention as well as fear acquisition. Our results establish a PsPM-based approach to assessment of fear-potentiated startle, and qualify previous peak-scoring methods. Our proposed model represents a generic startle response and can potentially be used beyond fear conditioning, for example, to quantify affective startle modulation or prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response