Closing the gap between copyright and designs: an age of enlightenment or state of confusion?

The arena of intellectual property encompasses streams that often interrelate and overlap in protecting different aspects of intellectual property. Australian commentators suggest that ‘one of the most troublesome areas in the entire field of intellectual property has been the relationship between copyright protection for artistic works under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) and protection for registered designs under the Designs Act 1906 (Cth).’ [McKeough, J., Stewart, A., & Griffith, P. (2004). Intellectual property in Australia (3rd ed.). Chatswood, NSW: Butterworths.] [Ricketson, S., Richardson, M., & Davison, M. (2009). Intellectual property: Cases, materials and commentary (4th ed.). Chatswood, NSW: LexisNexis Butterworths.] This overlap has caused much confusion for both creators of artistic works and industrial designs, as there is an uncertainty of whether protection against infringement is afforded under the Copyright Act 1988 (Cth) or whether the Designs Act 2003 (Cth) will apply. In Australia, there is limited precedent that examines the crossover between copyright and designs. Essentially, the cases that have tested this issue remain unclear as to whether a design applied industrially will invoke copyright protection. The cases demonstrate that there is an inconsistency in this area despite the aims of the new provisions of the Designs Act 2003 (Cth) to close the loopholes between copyright and designs. This paper will discuss and evaluate the relationship between copyright protection for artistic works and protection for registered designs with respect to the Designs Act 2003 (Cth).     

Homopolymer Nanolithography

Future progress in nanoscience and nanotechnology necessitates further development of versatile, labor‐, and cost‐efficient surface patterning strategies. A new approach to nanopatterning is reported, which utilizes surface segregation of a smooth layer of an end‐grafted homopolymer in a poor solvent. The variation in polymer grafting density yields a range of surface nanostructures, including randomly organized pinned spherical micelles, worm‐like structures, networks, and porous films. The capability to use the polymer patterns for site‐specific deposition of small molecules, polymers, or nanoparticles is shown. This versatile strategy enables patterning of curved surfaces with direct access to the substrate and no need in changing polymer composition to realize different surface patterns.     

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering nanosensors for <Emphasis Type="Italic">in vivo</Emphasis> detection of nucleic acid targets in a large animal model

Although nanotechnology has led to important advances in in vitro diagnostics, the development of nanosensors for in vivo detection remains very challenging. Here, we demonstrated the proof-of-principle of in vivo detection of nucleic acid targets using a promising type of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanosensor implanted in the skin of a large animal model (pig). The in vivo nanosensor used in this study involves the “inverse molecular sentinel” detection scheme using plasmonics-active nanostars, which have tunable absorption bands in the near infrared region of the “tissue optical window”, rendering them efficient as an optical sensing platform for in vivo optical detection. Ex vivo measurements were also performed using human skin grafts to demonstrate the detection of SERS nanosensors through tissue. In this study, a new core–shell nanorattle probe with Raman reporters trapped between the core and shell was utilized as an internal standard system for self-calibration. These results illustrate the usefulness and translational potential of the SERS nanosensor for in vivo biosensing.

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Post-craniectomy intracranial hypotension: potential impact on rehabilitation

The process of active dissociation or "DNA clearing" of not covalently binding agents from DNA in living HeLa cells was shown by the flow cytometry technique. The vital fluorescent bisbenzimidazole dye Hoechst 33342, which binds tightly but not covalently to DNA in a minor groove, was used as a basic model to study the interaction of not covalently binding agents with DNA. In this paper, we continue to analyse the "DNA clearing" process in the living fibroblasts of different rodent species (mouse, rat, Chinese hamster). The obtained data suggest that the processes of active dissociation or "DNA clearing" of Hoechst 33342 have some common features in all investigated mammalian cells. Nevertheless, some differences in the process were found in these lines. The role of nucleotide excision repair genes in the process of DNA clearing was not established.     

The Ashkenazic Jewish Bloom syndrome mutation blmAsh is present in non-Jewish Americans of Spanish ancestry

Bloom syndrome (BS) is more frequent in the Ashkenazic Jewish population than in any other. There the predominant mutation, referred to as "blmAsh," is a 6-bp deletion and 7-bp insertion at nucleotide position 2281 in the BLM cDNA. Using a convenient PCR assay, we have identified blmAsh on 58 of 60 chromosomes transmitted by Ashkenazic parents to persons with BS. In contrast, in 91 unrelated non-Ashkenazic persons with BS whom we examined, blmAsh was identified only in 5, these coming from Spanish-speaking Christian families from the southwestern United States, Mexico, or El Salvador. These data, along with haplotype analyses, show that blmAsh was independently established through a founder effect in Ashkenazic Jews and in immigrants to formerly Spanish colonies. This striking observation underscores the complexity of Jewish history and demonstrates the importance of migration and genetic drift in the formation of human populations.     

Presence of mind: a reaction to Thomas Sheridan's "Further musings on the psychophysics of presence."

An operator's sense of remote presence during teleoperation or use of virtual environment interfaces is analyzed as to what characteristics it should have to qualify it as an explanatory scientific construct. But the implicit goal of designing virtual environment interfaces to maximize presence is itself questioned in a second section in which examples of human-machine interfaces beneficially designed to avoid a strong sense of egocentric presence are cited. In conclusion, it is argued that the design of a teleoperation or virtual environment system should generally focus on the efficient communication of causal interaction. In this view the sense of presence, that is of actually being at the simulated or remote workplace, is an epiphenomena of secondary importance for design.     

Atomic force microscopy of protein films and crystals

A customized atomic force microscopy (AFM) instrument optimized for imaging protein crystals in solution is described. The device was tested on crystals and Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films of two proteins with quite different molecular weights. This approach enables the periodicity and morphology of crystals to be studied in their mother liquid, thereby preserving the native periodic protein crystal structure, which is typically destroyed by drying. Moreover, the instrument appears to distinguish protein crystals from salt crystals, which under the optical microscope are frequently quite similar, the difference between them often being revealed only during x-ray analysis. AFM estimates of the packing, order, and morphology of the given single proteins appear quite similar in the LB thin film and in the crystals, which means that routine crystal measurements can be performed at high resolution. The AFM consists of a custom-built measuring head and a homemade flexible SPM controller which can drive the head for contact, noncontact and spectroscopy modes, thus providing the user with a high degree of customization for crystal measurement.     

A taxonomy of clutter reduction for information visualisation

Information visualisation is about gaining insight into data through a visual representation. This data is often multivariate and increasingly, the datasets are very large. To help us explore all this data, numerous visualisation applications, both commercial and research prototypes, have been designed using a variety of techniques and algorithms. Whether they are dedicated to geo-spatial data or skewed hierarchical data, most of the visualisations need to adopt strategies for dealing with overcrowded displays, brought about by too much data to fit in too small a display space. This paper analyses a large number of these clutter reduction methods, classifying them both in terms of how they deal with clutter reduction and more importantly, in terms of the benefits and losses. The aim of the resulting taxonomy is to act as a guide to match techniques to problems where different criteria may have different importance, and more importantly as a means to critique and hence develop existing and new techniques.     

Photopyroelectric measurement of the thermal diffusivity of recrystallized high purity aluminum

Thermal diffusivity measurements on high purity (99.99% pure) aluminum samples are reported, using chirped and sinusoidally-modulated laser excitation and photopyroelectric detection of the thermal wave response. The results are found to be dependent on the degree of recrystallization of the specimen: for cold-rolled aluminum, the thermal diffusivity is measured to be =3.10×10^–5 m²/s, which rises to 3.88×10^–5 m²/s for fully recrystallized samples, and then falls to 3.53×10^–5 m²/s for samples exhibiting the initial stages of grain growth.     

Emerging university student experiences of learning technologies across the Asia Pacific

Three hundred students across eight countries and eleven higher education institutions in the Asia Pacific Region participated in two courses on climate change and disaster management that were supported by learning technologies: a satellite-enabled video-conferencing system and a learning management system. Evaluation of the student experience across the region proved a significant challenge, particularly the way the students conceived of the links between the technologies and their studies, and the way they approached the use of the technologies in connected and sometimes disconnected ways. This study examines the results of a quantitative investigation into the student experience and identifies key aspects of the structure of the variables used to evaluate the experience as well as identifying groups of students in the sample population who reported qualitatively different experiences. Significant outcomes reveal that cohesive conceptions of the learning technologies tend to be related to more effective ways of using both the video-conferencing and learning management systems, and that both at the level of variables, and at the level of groups of students, these experiences tend to be related to relatively higher outcomes. The results have important implications for both the design and teaching of technology-mediated courses and offer ideas for courses that combine systems such as learning management and video-conferencing.