Apple v. Samsung: Design Protection and Consumers

Nidhi Garg writes an article about how design patent protection affects product lines and the average consumer. The analysis is done in light of the case between Apple and Samsung over patents relating to iPhones and iPads. The article focuses on design patent protection and how it has evolved over history. After an analysis of the laws, regulation, and case law related to design patents the article describes how consumers are affected by such changes. More particularly, how overreaching design patent protection may improve product lines and/or decrease innovation and product selection

Synthesis and Characterization of Lactose-Amines with Respect to Oil-in-Water Emulsion Stability

Fatty amines (hexadecyl-amine) can be esterified to lactose via Schiff-base formation at temperatures of 60° C. Extending the time of the reaction results in a darker colored product due to the Maillard reaction. Due to the amphiphilic properties of the lactose-amines, the emulsion stabilization characteristics were investigated. In this study, synthesis of lactose-amines was done at four different heating and cooling cycles from 4 to 24 hours. Lactose-amines processed for 24 hours and 12 hours of constant heating and cooling cycles are named as 24H and 12H, respectively. Lactose-amines 4H and 8H were processed for 4 and 8 hours of constant heating at 60°C. The 24H and 12H samples were white in color as they were exposed to heat for short time (due to the cooling cycle) i.e. 2-2.5 and 1.5 hours, respectively, as compare to 4H and 8H (i.e. 4 hours and 8 hours, respectively). It was assumed that white colored compounds are early intermediates of Maillard browning reactions known as Amadori. The light brown color of the 4 hours heat-treated product might contain intermediate products of the Maillard browning reaction. The dark brown colored after 8 hours of constant heating might have advanced Maillard products and polymers. Each lactose-amine sample was used as emulsifiers in oil-in-water (20:80 ratio of oil: water) emulsion at four different concentrations (0.01%, 0.05%, 0.1%, and 1%). Negative controls consisted of hexadecyl-amine and lactose at the same concentrations as stated above, as well as an oil-in-water control. The positive control was an emulsion containing 2% whey protein (WP). Emulsions were formed with a microfluidizer 110S at a pressure of 6,900 psi. Emulsion stability was monitored by measuring the oil droplet sizes of each emulsion on day 0 and destabilization kinetics on day 1 and 5. The oil droplet size distribution and destabilization kinetics of the emulsions prepared with lactose-amines (4H, 8H, 12H, and 24H) at 0.01% of concentration were closer towards the negative controls (lactose, fatty-amine, and o/w). At 1% concentration, emulsions prepared with all types of lactose-amines had smaller droplet size similar to WPC 80. Destabilization kinetic profiles of the emulsions show that 1% lactose-amines produced more stabilized emulsions as compared to WPC 80 with respect to time. Emulsions of 4H and 24H were following the similar trend of droplet size distribution and destabilization rate as of WPC 80. Lactose-amines 8H and 12H emulsions were showing more destabilization and bigger oil droplet size as compared to 4H, 24H, and WPC 80. Droplet size distribution at day 0 and destabilization kinetics from day 0 to day 5 showed that the types of lactose-amines and their increasing concentrations have great influence on the stability of emulsions. This research has shown that lactose-amines produced at treatments of 24 and 4 hours are effective at stabilizing emulsions at 1% concentration

OSTEOPOROTIC FRACTURE RISK IN RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS

Objective: Osteoporosis is an extra-articular complication of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with increased risk of fractures. FRAX is an online tool for assessing risk of osteoporotic fracture. However, the relationship between the FRAX score and disease specific risk factors has not yet been investigated in RA. Hence, we assessed 10-year fracture risk using FRAX and its relationship with disease activity score, inflammation and disease duration in RA.Methods: 50 RA patients enrolled and recruited consecutively in a special camp organized for RA patients on the occasion of World Osteoporosis Day, 2016to estimate the osteoporotic fracture risk from Rheumatology clinic. Predicted 10-year risk of hip fracture and major osteoporotic fracture (MOF) by FRAX score without information on bone mineral density (BMD). Inflammatory disease activity measures included disease activity score of 28 joints (DAS28), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) were also measured. FRAX score also estimated in 40 age and sex matched healthy controls.Results: FRAX estimated significantly enhanced fracture risk in active RA, both for MOF (13.34±1.26%) and hip fracture (6.84±1.03%) as compared to controls for MOF (5.46±0.95%) and hip fracture (1.97±0.49%). In RA patients, MOF and hip fracture risk correlated with DAS28 and disease duration and MOF risk correlated with ESR and CRP.Conclusion: Active RA patients, even in the absence of BMD have an increased FRAX score indicating an enhanced 10-year probability of MOF and hip fracture. Long disease duration, high disease activity and an elevated ESR and CRP are potential disease specific risk factors for osteoporotic fractures in RA

A new threat to India- Zika! An obstetrician's perspective

Since last 2 years, ever since the Zika outbreak in Brazil, there has been a great interest in this infection caused by Aedes aegypti and A. albopictus, though this RNA Flavirus has been in existence since 1947. A large number of children born with microcephly during the outbreak in Brazil attributed to Zika was alarming. Though Brazil in May, 1917 has declared an end to Zika emergency, this virus continues to be detected in parts of America ca and south East Asia, including Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar. WHO declared Zika as Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 1st February, 2016. Though at present only 4 confirmed cases have been reported in India, Zika is a notifiable disease along with chicken guinea and dengue. A state of awareness and preparedness is required, among treating physicians, obstetricians and pediatricians for this disease. This article deals with history, presentation, diagnosis, pitfalls, management and preventive aspect of Zika in pregnancy.

Revisiting Global Health Security Measures in COVID 19 Pandemic

As the world has become a global village with increasing socio-economic interdependence, health, security and stability issues are imposing interrelated global impacts. Thus, activities supporting epidemic and pandemic preparedness are needed to minimize vulnerability to acute public health events. Coordination mechanisms must be pre-established for diagnostics, therapeutics and research as emergencies often lead to competition and shortage of resources. This paper attempts to discuss the available global health security measures at the time of COVID 19 pandemic

Demographics and follow up of post partum intra-uterine copper device in tertiary hospital in Delhi, India

Background: Increasing unintended pregnancies in post partum females in our country warrants urgent attention towards prevalence and efficacy of contraceptives used. This study was done to determine the prevalence of PPIUCD and its follow up in patients attending tertiary hospital in New Delhi, India.Methods: Prospective study was carried in Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. RML Hospital, New Delhi, India over a period of 1 year from July 2017 to July 2018. The awareness and prevalence of PPIUCD was assessed. At 6 week follow-up visit, women with PPIUCD were asked for symptoms of unusual vaginal discharge, irregular or heavy bleeding per vagina, and any expulsions if noticed. All the data was recorded and assessed.Results: Out of 1478 deliveries, 1372 were eligible for PPIUCD. 335 patients got PPIUCD inserted. 295 patients were followed as 40 patients were lost to follow up. 79.3% women did not have any complaints. 11.8%, 1% and 7.4% women had only heavy menstrual bleeding, only lower abdominal pain and both symptoms respectively. Spontaneous expulsion rate was noted in one patient (0.3%) at 6 weeks. IUCD removal was done in 4 patients who had complaints of pain and heavy menstrual bleeding not conservatively managed.Conclusions: PPIUCD insertion is a safe, convenient and effective method of contraception. The benefits of contraception immediately after delivery outweigh disadvantage of complications. Antenatal counseling and follow up in hospitals need to be strengthened to increase awareness and acceptability of PPIUCD

Existence and Computation of Epistemic EFX Allocations

We consider the problem of allocating indivisible goods among $n$ agents in a fair manner. For this problem, one of the best notions of fairness is envy-freeness up to any good (EFX). However, it is not known if EFX allocations always exist. Hence, several relaxations of EFX allocations have been studied. We propose another relaxation of EFX, called epistemic EFX (EEFX). An allocation is EEFX iff for every agent $i$, it is possible to shuffle the goods of the other agents such that agent $i$ does not envy any other agent up to any good. We show that EEFX allocations always exist for additive valuations, and give a polynomial-time algorithm for computing them. We also show how EEFX is related to some previously-known notions of fairness.Comment: Edit: include additional authors and some minor change

Language Identification for Language Agnostic Text

Detecting query language is an important task for applications such as search engines, virtual assistants, etc. It is difficult to correctly determine the language for short text. This task is even more difficult when the text includes references to entities, brands, or other words that are common across multiple languages. Language classifiers can be used to identify query language as well as to determine the intent language of the users. This disclosure relates to techniques to define and identify language agnostic tokens and phrases from text. The techniques described herein can be used to identify language agnostic text (e.g., in a user query) and to select a language model that works best for such text. The techniques can help reduce systematic bias towards English language content for users that are multilingual. The techniques enable better detection of language of a given text by reducing noise through identification of language agnostic queries

Insights of Breast Cancer and Barriers to its Therapy

Breast cancer is the most common cancer across the globe occurring commonly in women population, and it is one of the main causes of mortality in women. In 2018, 1,62,468 new cases and 87,090 death cases of breast cancer were registered in India. In these recent years, lots of studies were conducted in breast cancer related to treatment and management, but in spite of getting so much advancement in the treatment of breast cancer still, the mortality rate of women is increasing day by day. Numerous factors are acting as barriers or challenges in breast cancer preventive therapy. It includes lack of knowledge regarding the treatment of cancer and patient getting insecure about treatment, fear of having side effects, cost of treatment and the efficacy of the drugs being prescribed. The study intended to determine the perceived insights and barriers to treatment of breast cancer