Welcome to the World of Tomorrow: An Exploration of Cell-Based Meats and How the FDA and USDA May Protect Intellectual Property Rights

Lab-grown meats are ready to be sold in United States markets. However, the meat product needs approval from regulators such as the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) and the United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”). The regulation approval process takes a significant amount of time. This approval period will cut into the lab-grown meat producers’ patent time, rendering a period of the patent ineffective. This Comment analyzes the effect of, and possible changes to, our current laws on the emerging lab-grown meat market. To look at this problem, this Comment compares FDA and USDA regulations, analyzes the Hatch-Waxman Act, and looks at what individual states have done in response to lab-grown meats. The current federal plan is to establish a joint regulation of the industry by the FDA and the USDA through a memorandum of understanding. However, this Comment shows that the FDA is better suited to handle the regulatory side of the process because of its current experience in regulating other genetically modified organisms and experience with the Hatch-Waxman Act. This Comment also explores the idea that Hatch-Waxman may need to be modified by Congress to adequately incorporate patent extensions to lab-grown meat producers. By incorporating the ideas in this Comment, the federal government will be able to effectively and efficiently handle this emerging market from a regulatory perspective, and lab-grown meat patent holders will not be negatively impacted as they wait for approval from regulatory authorities

Robust Detection of Dynamic Community Structure in Networks

We describe techniques for the robust detection of community structure in some classes of time-dependent networks. Specifically, we consider the use of statistical null models for facilitating the principled identification of structural modules in semi-decomposable systems. Null models play an important role both in the optimization of quality functions such as modularity and in the subsequent assessment of the statistical validity of identified community structure. We examine the sensitivity of such methods to model parameters and show how comparisons to null models can help identify system scales. By considering a large number of optimizations, we quantify the variance of network diagnostics over optimizations (`optimization variance') and over randomizations of network structure (`randomization variance'). Because the modularity quality function typically has a large number of nearly-degenerate local optima for networks constructed using real data, we develop a method to construct representative partitions that uses a null model to correct for statistical noise in sets of partitions. To illustrate our results, we employ ensembles of time-dependent networks extracted from both nonlinear oscillators and empirical neuroscience data.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure

How can we demonstrate the economic value of Precision Agriculture (PA) practices to New Zealand Agriculture service providers and arable farmers?

The amount of data collected has become a major challenge to the uptake of PA practices in New Zealand. There is a lack of clear value propositions around some PA practices, e.g. variable rate seeding (VRS). The importance of calibrating yield monitors, collecting yield data and mapping results has not been realised by farmers. The goal of the study is to provide economic evidence through yield data mining to encourage the adoption of PA

High-angle-of-attack stability characteristics of a 3-surface fighter configuration

A wind tunnel investigation was conducted to study the low speed, high angle of attack stability characteristics of a three surface fighter concept based on the F-15 configuration. Static force data were measured over angle of attack and side-slip ranges of 0 to 85 and -10 and 10 deg, respectively. A force oscillation technique was used to obtain dynamic derivatives at angles of attack from 0 to 60 deg. The tests were conducted for several canard deflections and with the canards removed to investigate the effects of the close coupled canard on the high angle of attack stability characteristics of the configuration. A fuselage strake was developed which significantly improved static lateral directional stability characteristics at high angles of attack while also increasing the maximum lift of the configuration

Citrus growers vary in their adoption of biological control

In a spring 2010 survey, we investigated the characteristics that influenced whether California growers controlled major citrus pests with beneficial insects. We also performed statistical analysis of growers' reliance on Aphytus melinus, a predatory wasp, to control California red scale. The survey results suggest that growers with greater citrus acreage and more education are more likely to use biological control. Marketing outlets, ethnicity and primary information sources also influenced the extent of reliance on beneficial insects. In Probit model analysis, respondents with greater citrus acreage were more likely to incorporate A. melinus into their pest management, as well as those with more education and higher-valued crops. Information sources and growing region also had statistically significant effects