177 research outputs found
The future of printcrime: Intellectual property, innovation law, and 3D printing
No full textIn a 2006 short story, ‘Printcrime’, Cory Doctorow imagined a dystopian future of contraband 3D printers. In the work, police try to shut down a bootleg operation, which engaged in the 3D printing of intellectual property. In his 2009 novel Makers, Cory Doctorow explored the rise of the maker community, and its do-it-yourself ethic. In an interview about the novel, the author reflected:\ud
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<i>"There has never been a better time to be a maker because finding the people who know how to fix the thing that's broken has never been easier. Finding someone else who has done 80% of what you want to do, and sharing the things you have done with other people, has never been easier. A maker is someone who is of and in the 21st century." </i>\ud
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Rather prophetically, he discussed the prospect of intellectual property conflicts around 3D printing (particularly around copyright infringement and trademark infringement), and future controversies over 3D printing guns. In his 2015 short story, ‘The Man Who Sold the Moon’, Cory Doctorow imagined 3D printing in space. This body of creative work has been an important inspiration for the Maker Movement – but it has also shown a critical engagement with the law, ethics, and public policy associated with 3D printing and additive manufacturing.\ud
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Inspired by such science fiction, there have since been a number of optimistic, utopian manifestos published on the topic of 3D printing and the rise of the Maker Movement. There has been high hopes that the emerging, disruptive technology will be part of a new industrial revolution. The founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, situates 3D printing within the framework of a fourth industrial revolution. He predicted: ‘As current size, cost and speed constraints are progressively overcome, 3D printing will become more pervasive to include integrated electronic components such as circuit boards and even human cells and organs.’ Schwab anticipated that there would be a ‘new generation of self-altering products capable of responding to environmental changes such as heat and humidity.’ Moreover, he expected that ‘this technology could be used in clothing or footwear, as well as in health-related products such as implants designed to adapt to the human body.’ Schwab placed 3D printing alongside autonomous vehicles, advanced robotics, and new material as physical manifestations of larger technological megatrends.\ud
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In this context, this collection provides a sober, critical evaluation of the legal, ethical, and public policy issues in respect of intellectual property, innovation law, and 3D printing. Building upon Mark Lemley’s chapter, ‘IP in a World Without Scarcity,’ it considers the legal opportunities and challenges of the Maker Revolution. It provides both theoretical and empirical insights in respect of 3D printing, intellectual property, innovation, and regulation
BILETA Response to the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications Enquiry 'The Internet: to Regulate or Not to Regulate'
No full textThis is a collaborative submission from a group of academics based in the UK with expertise in Information technology law and related areas. The preparation of the response has been funded by the British and Irish Law Education Law and Technology Association. This response has been prepared by Dr Kim Barker, Dr Edina Harbinja, Professor Dinusha Mendis and Dr Felipe Romero-Moreno. Dr Kim Barker is a lecturer at the University of Stirling. Dr Edina Harbinja is a senior lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire. Professor Dinusha Mendis is a professor at the University of Bournemouth. Dr Felipe Romero-Moreno is a lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire. Please note that the copyright of this Response remains with the author(s)
Spatial and temporal variation in malaria transmission in a low endemicity area in northern Tanzania.
No full textBACKGROUND: Spatial and longitudinal monitoring of transmission intensity will allow better targeting of malaria interventions. In this study, data on meteorological, demographic, entomological and parasitological data over the course of a year was collected to describe malaria epidemiology in a single village of low transmission intensity. METHODS: Entomological monitoring of malaria vectors was performed by weekly light trap catches in 10 houses. Each house in the village of Msitu wa Tembo, Lower Moshi, was mapped and censused. Malaria cases identified through passive case detection at the local health centre were mapped by residence using GIS software and the incidence of cases by season and distance to the main breeding site was calculated. RESULTS: The principle vector was Anopheles arabiensis and peak mosquito numbers followed peaks in recent rainfall. The entomological inoculation rate estimated was 3.4 (95% CI 0.7-9.9) infectious bites per person per year. The majority of malaria cases (85/130) occurred during the rainy season (chi2 = 62,3, p < 0.001). Living further away from the river (OR 0.96, CI 0.92-0.998, p = 0.04 every 50 m) and use of anti-insect window screens (OR 0.65, CI 0.44-0.94, p = 0.023) were independent protective factors for the risk of malaria infection. Children aged 1-5 years and 5-15 years were at greater risk of clinical episodes (OR 2.36, CI 1.41-3.97, p = 0.001 and OR 3.68, CI 2.42-5.61, p < 0.001 respectively). CONCLUSION: These data show that local malaria transmission is restricted to the rainy season and strongly associated with proximity to the river. Transmission reducing interventions should, therefore, be timed before the rain-associated increase in mosquito numbers and target households located near the river
Surface Core Hole Electron Energy-Loss Fine Structure in MgO: Experiment and Theory
No full textCore holes are an important contributing factor to the core-loss fine structure in electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS). While there has been much work on bulk materials, less is known about core hole screening in more complex dielectric environments, such as free surfaces or interfaces between two different materials, even though the latter is frequently encountered in high spatial resolution EELS analysis. In this work, experimental O K- and Mg L3,2-EELS edges from the free surfaces of a MgO cube are measured using scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). The free surface O K-spectrum shows extra intensity at the edge onset compared with the “bulk” spectrum. Core hole screening near a free surface is modeled using electrodynamic theory. It is shown that much of the extra intensity is due to reduced core hole screening, while genuine surface states make a smaller contribution to the fine structure. The low energy Mg L3,2-edge, however, does not show any significant change at a free surface. This is because the measurement is less surface sensitive due to strong delocalization
Learning approach among health sciences students in a medical college in Nepal: a cross-sectional study
No full textAji Gopakumar,1 Susirith Mendis,2 Jayakumary Muttappallymyalil,3 Jayadevan Sreedharan3 1Department of General Education, 2Continuing Medical Education, Continuing Professional Development and Center for Continuing Education and Community Outreach, 3Department of Community Medicine, Gulf Medical University, Ajman, United Arab Emirates Shah et al aimed to explore the learning approaches among medical, dental, and nursing students which were considered useful to transform the students to become better learners. While the generic objective of the study is appreciated, we have some concerns regarding the methodology and statistical analysis of the study. View the original paper by Author and colleagues. 
Electron beam-specimen interactions and their effect on high-angle annular dark-field imaging of dopant atoms within a crystal
No full textPlanck's generalised radiation law and its implications for cathodoluminescence spectra
No full textCathodoluminescence (CL) is an important analytical technique for probing the optical properties of materials at high spatial resolution. Interpretation of CL spectra is however complicated by the fact that the spectrum depends on the carrier injection density of the incident electron beam. Here a generalised version of Planck's radiation law is used to uncover the evolution of CL spectra with injection under steady-state conditions. The importance of the quasi-Fermi level is highlighted and it is shown that steady-state luminescence is suppressed when the carrier distributions undergo a population inversion. The theory is consistent with some well-known luminescence phenomena, such as the blue shifting of donor-acceptor pair transitions with increased injection, and its predictions are experimentally verified on CdTe and GaN, which are exemplar thin-film solar cell and light emitting diode materials respectively. Furthermore, the discussion is broadened to include pulsed illumination in time resolved CL, where the carrier distribution is dynamically evolving with time
Theory underpinning multislice simulations with plasmon energy losses
No full textThe theoretical conditions for small-angle inelastic scattering where the incident electron can effectively be treated as a particle moving in a uniform potential is examined. The motivation for this work is the recent development of a multislice method that combines plasmon energy losses with elastic scattering using Monte Carlo methods. Since plasmon excitation is delocalized, it was assumed that the Bloch wave nature of the incident electron in the crystal does not affect the scattering cross-section. It is shown here that for a delocalized excitation the mixed dynamic form factor term of the scattering cross-section is zero and the scattered intensities follow a Poisson distribution. These features are characteristic of particle-like scattering and validate the use of Monte Carlo methods to model plasmon losses in multislice simulations
Bloch State Contributions to Dopant Atom Contrast in HAADF STEM
No full textExtended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2010 in Portland, Oregon, USA, August 1 – August 5, 2010.</jats:p
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