Patenting Living Matter in the European Community: Diriment of the Draft Directive

This article attempts to disentangle the mire of European patent authority and provide some picture of how the ultimate resolution of the proposed EC Directive will appear. Part I contains introductory and background materials on the biotech industry and the importance of patent protection to the future proliferation of technological innovation. Part I exposes current issues in the scientific and political realms of biotech patent law as well as the standard justifications for recognizing inventors rights, considerations that are presently shaping the debate in Europe. Part II attempts to ground the reader in the fundamentals of biotechnology patent laws as developed in the United States in order to provide a basic conceptual foundation for comparing and evaluating the bodies of European law. This section begins by introducing the basic statutory terminology before turning to a discussion of the landmark United States Supreme Court opinion in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, where the Court held that genetically altered living matter may be patented.8 The remainder of the section traces the legal developments spawned by the Chakrabarty decision. Part III begins with an introduction of the various bodies purporting to govern patent rights in Europe and attempts to resolve the supremacy issues among them. Attention then shifts to the proposed Council Directive on biotech patents: the procedures for its adoption, the political forces shaping the debate of life patents in Europe, and the important proposals for amending the original draft. Finally, this article will speculate on the ultimate resolution of the Draft Directive as a united system of patent laws for the European Community Member States

Assessment of Domestic Well-Being: From Perception to Measurement

Nowadays, there are plenty of sensing devices that enable the measurement of physiological, environmental, and behavioral parameters of people 24 hours a day, seven days a week and provide huge quantities of different data. Data and signals coming from sensing devices, installed in indoor or outdoor environments or often worn by the users, generate heterogeneous and complex structured datasets, most of the time not uniformly structured. The artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms applied to these sets of data have demonstrated capabilities to infer indices related to a subject's status and well-being [1]. Well-being is a key parameter in the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of health, considering its physical, mental, and social spheres. Quantitatively assessing a subject's well-being is of paramount importance if we want to assess the whole status of a person, which is particularly useful in the case of ageing people living alone. Assessment allows for continuous remote monitoring to improve people's quality of life (QoL) according to their perceptions, needs, and preferences. Technology undoubtedly plays a pivotal role in this regard, providing us new tools to support the objective evaluation of a subject's status, including her/his perception of the living environment. Its potential is huge, also in terms of support to the healthcare system and ageing people; however, there are several engineering challenges to consider, especially in terms of sensors integrability, connectivity, and metrological performance, in order to obtain reliable and accurate measurement systems

The importance of physiological data variability in wearable devices for digital health applications

This paper aims at characterizing the variability of physiological data collected through a wearable device (Empatica E4), given that both intra- and inter-subject variability play a pivotal role in digital health applications, where Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques have become popular. Inter-beat intervals (IBIs), ElectroDermal Activity (EDA) and Skin Temperature (SKT) signals have been considered and variability has been evaluated in terms of general statistics (mean and standard deviation) and coefficient of variation. Results show that both intra- and inter-subject variability values are significant, especially when considering those parameters describing how the signals vary over time. Moreover, EDA seems to be the signal characterized by the highest variability, followed by IBIs, contrary to SKT that results more stable. This variability could affect AI algorithms in classifying signals according to particular discriminants (e.g. emotions, daily activities, etc.), taking into account the dual role of variability: hindering a net distinction between classes, but also making algorithms more robust for deep learning purposes thanks to the consideration of a wide test population. Indeed, it is worthy to note that variability plays a fundamental role in the whole measurement chain, characterizing data reliability and impacting on the final results accuracy and consequently on decision-making processes

Fitting a Square Peg Into a Round Hole: Perceptions of Appalachian Physicians on the Incorporation of Chronic Disease Prevention Into Their Practice

This study used a focus group in August 2017 (n = 9) to explore the perceptions of rural physicians to a state request to incorporate diabetes prevention screening into their West Virginia medical practice. Analysis of the data revealed that the participants did not think private physicians were equipped to incorporate diabetes prevention programming into their practice. Three categories emerged from the data analysis to explain the reasoning of the health practitioners on the incorporation of pre-diabetes screening and management into their practice. ⁎ The practice of medicine ⁎ Prevention is a mismatch ⁎ Social determinants of health In the end, the study revealed that a request for physicians to identify and refer at risk patients to a diabetes prevention program is problematic due to conceptual and structural issues. Based on the findings it does not appear at this time that private physicians in rural settings can incorporate diabetes prevention into their existing practice. To address conceptual and structural barriers the invitation to rural physicians must: 1) present evidence on how physicians may be effective in a diabetes management team; 2) include a model that demonstrates a limited, specific role and duties for the physician within a team setting; and last, 3) integrate physicians into an existing community-based network of social and human service providers set up to provide diabetes prevention services

Metrological characterization of a therapeutic device for pressure wave therapy

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Opportunities and Traps for Trade Unions in European Employment Policy Initiatives:The Case of Social Dialogue on Active Inclusion

After some promise in the 1990s, European unions have grown increasingly disillusioned with regard to the results of EU social policy and EU social dialogue. The paper analyses the extent and reasons of this disillusion by looking at the impact on social dialogue of the Active Inclusion Recommendation launched by the European Commission at the outset of the economic crisis in 2008. The Recommendation led to a tripartite framework agreement at the EU level in 2010 (the only such agreement in a decade), which was then to be implemented at national and regional levels. With a multilevel governance approach, the paper looks at the extent to which social dialogue on Active Inclusion at the EU level, in six EU countries (France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK) and six regions (Rhône-Alpes, Lombardy, Lower Silesia, Catalonia, West Sweden and Greater Manchester) within those countries was somehow revitalised. The analysis, looking at both top-down and bottom-up processes and based on documentary analysis and interviews, shows that the initiative displays ambiguities similar to those of typical composite EU principles, such as famously the case of ‘flexicurity’. The multilevel governance of the EU, including the interaction between ‘soft’ employment policies and evolving ‘hard’ Eurogovernance tools, and with poor horizontal and vertical coordination, resulted in multiple distortions of the principle and, over time, to frustration. Unions’ engagement varies by level, country and region, reflecting both traditional national approaches and the local perception of ‘active inclusion’ as an opportunity. Although trade unions were more welcoming of ‘active inclusion’ than they had been for flexicurity, similar related threats and opportunities led to modest achievements and a gradual fading of the idea at the European and national levels, with some more opportunities however at the regional level. The paper concludes that, if trade unions want to engage with the idea of a European Social Model and with Eurogovernance, they could develop stronger networks among regional organisations

Effects of caspofungin against Candida guilliermondii and Candida parapsilosis.

The in vitro activity of caspofungin (CAS) was investigated against 28 yeast isolates belonging to Candida albicans (n = 5), Candida guilliermondii (n = 10), and Candida parapsilosis (n = 13). CAS MICs obtained by broth dilution and Etest methods clearly showed a rank order of susceptibility to the echinocandin compound with C. albicans > C. parapsilosis > C. guilliermondii. Similarly, time-kill assays performed on selected isolates showed that CAS was fungistatic against C. albicans and C. parapsilosis, while it did not exert any activity against C. guilliermondii. In a murine model of systemic candidiasis, CAS given at doses as low as 1 mg/kg of body weight/day was effective at reducing the kidney burden of mice infected with either C. albicans or C. guilliermondii isolates. Depending on the isolate tested, mice infected with C. parapsilosis responded to CAS given at 1 and/or 5 mg/kg/day. However, the overall CFU reduction for C. guilliermondii and C. parapsilosis was approximately 100-fold less than that for C. albicans. Our study shows that CAS was active in experimental systemic candidiasis due to C. guilliermondii and C. parapsilosis, but this activity required relatively high drug dosages