Patent Law: Patentability of a Process That Includes a Programmed Digital Computer: The Court Invents a New Standard

Diamond v. Diehr, 101 S. Ct. 1048 (1981). Authority for Congress to enact the patent laws is found in the Constitution: “The Congress shall have power … to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for Limited times for Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” The patent laws are codified in title 35 of the United States Code. The purpose behind patents is to advance knowledge. This is done in two ways. First, patents encourage inventions by offering exclusive enjoyment of the discovery for seventeen years. Second, patents add to the public knowledge. Patent applications disclose the discovery sufficiently to enable one skilled in the subject to duplicate the invention. This allows the invention to be duplicated upon expiration of the seventeen-year period. The patent system, therefore, provides only limited benefit to private individuals, primarily benefiting the public. To qualify for patent protection an invention must be patentable subject matter, new, useful, and non-obvious. Until recently most litigation involved the latter three requirements; however, a number of recent cases have attempted to define statutory subject matter., The increased interest in subject matter has resulted from attempts to patent computer software and inventions which incorporate software. This note will discuss Diamond v. Diehr, the first United States Supreme Court decision to allow a patent on a process including a programmed digital computer

The Differential Impact of a Basic Public Speaking Course on Perceived Communication Competencies in Class, Work, and Social Contexts

Communication departments generally choose between a public speaking and a hybrid course of their basic course. Previous research has shown that students\u27 perceptions of their communication competencies increase after completing a hybrid course (Ford & Wolvin, 1992, 1993). After noting similarities between public speaking and hybrid courses, this study examines students\u27 perceptions of their competencies after completing a public a speaking course. Results indicated that students\u27 perceptions of their competencies changed significantly in class, work, and social contacts in such areas as public speaking, interpersonal and group communication, interviewing, listening, and self-confidence. The largest gains were in perceptions of their classroom competencies

Factorization scheme and scale dependence in diffractive dijet production at low Q^2

We calculate diffractive dijet production in deep-inelastic scattering at next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD, including contributions from direct and resolved photons, and compare our predictions to preliminary data from the H1 collaboration at HERA. We study how the cross section depends on the factorization scheme and scale M_\gamma at the virtual photon vertex for the occurrence of factorization breaking. The strong M_\gamma-dependence, which is present when only the resolved cross section is suppressed, is tamed by introducing the suppression also into the initial-state NLO correction of the direct part.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Determination of the geometry of the PSR B1913+16 system by geodetic precession

New observations of the binary pulsar B1913+16 are presented. Since 1978 the leading component of the pulse profile has weakend dramatically by about 40%. For the first time, a decrease in component separation is observed, consistent with expectations of geodetic precession. Assuming the correctness of general relativity and a circular hollow-cone like beam, a fully consistent model for the system geometry is developed. The misalignment angle between pulsar spin and orbital momentum is determined giving direct evidence for an asymmetric kick during the second supernova explosion. It is argued that the orbital inclination angle is 132\fdg8 (rather than 47\fdg2). A prediction of this model is that PSR B1913+16 will not be observable anymore after the year 2025.Comment: 16 pages, incl. 5 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Requirements for an Inductive Voltage Adder as Driver for a Kicker Magnet with Short Circuit Termination

At CERN pulse generators based on Thyratron switches and SF6 gas filled pulse forming lines, used for driving kicker magnets, are to be replaced with semiconductor technology. Preliminary investigations show the inductive voltage adder is suitable as a pulse generator for this application. To increase the magnetic field without raising the system voltage, a short-circuit termination is often applied to a kicker magnet. Because of the electrical length of a transmission line magnet, wave propagation needs to be considered. To allow for the wavefront reflected from the short-circuit termination back to the generator, a novel approach for an inductive adder architecture has been investigated. It is based on a modified generator interface, circulating the current back into the load, until the stored energy is absorbed at the end of the pulse. This approach allows for a smaller magnetic core size compared to a conventional design with a matched load. Moreover, it enables more energy-efficient operation involving smaller storage capacitors. This paper summarizes the conceptual design features and furthermore gives an overview of the parameter space for possible applications at CERN

Profile instabilities of the millisecond pulsar PSR J1022+1001

We present evidence that the integrated profiles of some millisecond pulsars exhibit severe changes that are inconsistent with the moding phenomenon as known from slowly rotating pulsars. We study these profile instabilities in particular for PSR J1022+1001 and show that they occur smoothly, exhibiting longer time constants than those associated with moding. In addition, the profile changes of this pulsar seem to be associated with a relatively narrow-band variation of the pulse shape. Only parts of the integrated profile participate in this process which suggests that the origin of this phenomenon is intrinsic to the pulsar magnetosphere and unrelated to the interstellar medium. A polarization study rules out profile changes due to geometrical effects produced by any sort of precession. However, changes are observed in the circularly polarized radiation component. In total we identify four recycled pulsars which also exhibit instabilities in the total power or polarization profiles due to an unknown phenomenon (PSRs J1022+1001, J1730-2304, B1821-24, J2145-0750). The consequences for high precision pulsar timing are discussed in view of the standard assumption that the integrated profiles of millisecond pulsars are stable. As a result we present a new method to determine pulse times-of-arrival that involves an adjustment of relative component amplitudes of the template profile. Applying this method to PSR J1022+1001, we obtain an improved timing solution with a proper motion measurement of -17 \pm 2 mas/yr in ecliptic longitude. Assuming a distance to the pulsar as inferred from the dispersion measure this corresponds to an one-dimensional space velocity of 50 km/s.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Dislocation Dynamics in an Anisotropic Stripe Pattern

The dynamics of dislocations confined to grain boundaries in a striped system are studied using electroconvection in the nematic liquid crystal N4. In electroconvection, a striped pattern of convection rolls forms for sufficiently high driving voltages. We consider the case of a rapid change in the voltage that takes the system from a uniform state to a state consisting of striped domains with two different wavevectors. The domains are separated by domain walls along one axis and a grain boundary of dislocations in the perpendicular direction. The pattern evolves through dislocation motion parallel to the domain walls. We report on features of the dislocation dynamics. The kinetics of the domain motion are quantified using three measures: dislocation density, average domain wall length, and the total domain wall length per area. All three quantities exhibit behavior consistent with power law evolution in time, with the defect density decaying as $t^{-1/3}$, the average domain wall length growing as $t^{1/3}$, and the total domain wall length decaying as $t^{-1/5}$. The two different exponents are indicative of the anisotropic growth of domains in the system.Comment: 8 figures: 7 jpeg and 1 pd

Constraining the dense matter equation-of-state with radio pulsars

Radio pulsars provide some of the most important constraints for our understanding of matter at supranuclear densities. So far, these constraints are mostly given by precision mass measurements of neutron stars (NS). By combining single measurements of the two most massive pulsars, J0348$+$0432 and J0740$+$6620, the resulting lower limit of 1.98 $M_\odot$ (99% confidence) of the maximum NS mass, excludes a large number of equations of state (EOSs). Further EOS constraints, complementary to other methods, are likely to come from the measurement of the moment of inertia (MOI) of binary pulsars in relativistic orbits. The Double Pulsar, PSR J0737$-$3039A/B, is the most promising system for the first measurement of the MOI via pulsar timing. Reviewing this method, based in particular on the first MeerKAT observations of the Double Pulsar, we provide well-founded projections into the future by simulating timing observations with MeerKAT and the SKA. For the first time, we account for the spin-down mass loss in the analysis. Our results suggest that an MOI measurement with 11% accuracy (68% confidence) is possible by 2030. If by 2030 the EOS is sufficiently well known, however, we find that the Double Pulsar will allow for a 7% test of Lense-Thirring precession, or alternatively provide a $\sim3\sigma$-measurement of the next-to-leading order gravitational wave damping in GR. Finally, we demonstrate that potential new discoveries of double NS systems with orbital periods shorter than that of the Double Pulsar promise significant improvements in these measurements and the constraints on NS matter.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures. Accepted by MNRA

Mapping functional transcription factor networks from gene expression data

A critical step in understanding how a genome functions is determining which transcription factors (TFs) regulate each gene. Accordingly, extensive effort has been devoted to mapping TF networks. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, protein–DNA interactions have been identified for most TFs by ChIP-chip, and expression profiling has been done on strains deleted for most TFs. These studies revealed that there is little overlap between the genes whose promoters are bound by a TF and those whose expression changes when the TF is deleted, leaving us without a definitive TF network for any eukaryote and without an efficient method for mapping functional TF networks. This paper describes NetProphet, a novel algorithm that improves the efficiency of network mapping from gene expression data. NetProphet exploits a fundamental observation about the nature of TF networks: The response to disrupting or overexpressing a TF is strongest on its direct targets and dissipates rapidly as it propagates through the network. Using S. cerevisiae data, we show that NetProphet can predict thousands of direct, functional regulatory interactions, using only gene expression data. The targets that NetProphet predicts for a TF are at least as likely to have sites matching the TF's binding specificity as the targets implicated by ChIP. Unlike most ChIP targets, the NetProphet targets also show evidence of functional regulation. This suggests a surprising conclusion: The best way to begin mapping direct, functional TF-promoter interactions may not be by measuring binding. We also show that NetProphet yields new insights into the functions of several yeast TFs, including a well-studied TF, Cbf1, and a completely unstudied TF, Eds1