When secret use is not so secret

The concept of secret use has been a difficult element in establishing whether the validity of a patent may be challenged. Its difficulty is entrenched in the uncertainty of interpretation of the construction of the legislation and the meaning that the legislature imparts on it. One of the main cases in Australian patent law that has tested the issue of secret use is Azuko Pty Ltd. v. Old Digger Pty Ltd. (2001) 52 IPR 75. The significance of this decision is the differing approaches to the issue of secret use. This case demonstrates the various practical and policy implications that arise out of the differing views from the judgment. This paper will discuss the practical and policy implications raised by the differing views of the judges.     

Four nightmares for net neutrality

What is the economic substance behind net neutrality, the populist policy debate du jour? The authors assesses the basic economics behind net neutrality. To be sure, this debate has many arcane facets. For example, a couple years ago the FCC legally exempted US broadband firms - cable modem and DSL providers - from what are known as "common carrier" obligations. Phone companies have lived under these obligations for decades. In brief, common carriers are not responsible for the content of a message; they are responsible for carrying it and not altering it. This ruling recently survived a Supreme Court review (in a case called Brand-X). Why does that matter? It shapes the Internet. Sure, it's arcane, but it's too important not to understand     

Guidelines for Determining When to Use GKS and When to Use PHIGS

GKS, GKS-3D, and PHIGS are all approved ISO standards for the application programmer interface. How does a system analyst or programmer decide which standard to use for his application? This paper discusses the range of application requirements likely to be encountered, explores the suitability of GKS and PHIGS for satisfying these requirements, and offers guidelines to aid in the decision process.     

Finding needles in haystacks is harder with neutrality

This research presents an extended analysis of the reported successes of the Cartesian Genetic Programming method on a simplified form of the Boolean parity problem. We show the method of sampling used by the CGP is significantly less effective at locating solutions than the solution density of the corresponding formula space would warrant. We present results indicating that the loss of performance is caused by the sampling bias of the CGP, due to the neutrality friendly representation. We implement a simple intron free random sampling algorithm which performs considerably better on the same problem and then explain how such performance is possible.     

The myth of the moral neutrality of technology

Scientists and engineers lack the equivalent of an ethics committee to which their colleagues in the medical profession may turn when ethical dilemmas arise. In the US workers in aerospace industry have campaigned for a Technology Bill of Rights. In the UK there has been a vigorous movement around the concept of socially useful and environmentally desirable technology. The organisation Scientists for Social Responsibility has set up a panel of scientists who can advise younger colleagues on issues of ethical responsibility.Basically, I exploited the phenomenon of the technician's often blind devotion to his task. Because of what appeared to be the moral neutrality of technology, these people were without any scruples about their activities.     

On variance neutrality of systems within general random parameters

A necessary condition for variance neutrality of discrete-time linear systems within general random parameters and with arbitrary observations is established. It is proved that this condition is sufficient as well if the observations are linear. This result is of importance in connection with separability, of optimal control and state estimation.     

When groups decide to use asynchronous online discussions: collaborative learning and social presence under a voluntary participation structure

The purpose of this study is to explore how groups decide to use asynchronous online discussion forums in a non-mandatory setting, and, after the group decision is made, how group members use online discussion forums to complete a collaborative learning project requiring complex data gathering and research processes. While a large body of research on computer-mediated communication (CMC) has documented successful intervention strategies to promote and sustain online discussion forums, little of the research has examined the use of online discussion forums in voluntarily contexts, wherein the decision to use online discussion forums is a personal decision and participation is not a graded component. This study approaches the research questions using a naturalistic case study of one graduate-level blended learning course with 55 students. Employing both student interviews and content analysis methods, this study revealed that the factors affecting the group decision to use online discussion forums are (1) successful or unsuccessful experiences during the first trial, (2) perceived affordances of CMC tools, and (3) the interplay between the nature of collaborative tasks and perceived efficiency. The content analysis of online postings in two voluntary groups revealed that when groups decided to use online discussion forums, participation levels were almost equal among individual group members, and discussion threads were sustained until the final completion of the collaborative project.     

Manipulation complexity and gender neutrality in stable marriage procedures

The stable marriage problem is a well-known problem of matching men to women so that no man and woman who are not married to each other both prefer each other. Such a problem has a wide variety of practical applications, ranging from matching resident doctors, to hospitals to matching students to schools. A well-known algorithm to solve this problem is the Gale–Shapley algorithm, which runs in quadratic time in the number of men/women. It has been proven that stable marriage procedures can always be manipulated. Whilst the Gale–Shapley algorithm is computationally easy to manipulate, we prove that there exist stable marriage procedures which are NP-hard to manipulate. We also consider the relationship between voting theory and stable marriage procedures, showing that voting rules which are NP-hard to manipulate can be used to define stable marriage procedures which are themselves NP-hard to manipulate. Finally, we consider the issue that stable marriage procedures like Gale–Shapley favour one gender over the other, and we show how to use voting rules to make any stable marriage procedure gender neutral.     

Quadraticity and neutrality in discrete time stochastic linear quadratic control

A general discrete-time stochastic linear model with a quadratic objective function is analyzed with regard to its neutrality and a rarely-discussed property called quadraticity. Such a problem having quadraticity is relatively easily solved, and most variations of the linear quadratic control problem for which exact solutions are known possess this property. A generally less tractable set of problems is that consisting of nonneutral models, those in which it is possible to learn about system unknowns through experimentation. It is shown that quadraticity and neutrality apparently neither imply nor preclude one another within the class of linear quadratic models.     

When to make a type [programming]

When I started programming computers, I began with fairly primitive languages, such as Fortran 4 and various early flavors of Basic. One of the first things you learn using such languages - indeed, even using more up-to-date languages - is which types your language supports. Being oriented toward number crunching, Fortran supported integer and real types, with the interesting rule that any variable whose name started with the letters I through N was an integer, and all other variables were floats. I'm glad that convention hasn't caught on, although Perl is close. Furthermore, using object-oriented languages, you can define your own types and in the best languages, they act just as well as built-in ones.     

在实施CMM时如何应用6 Sigma方法

介绍了CMM和6 Sigma,以及两者之间的异同;指出在CMM中应用6 Sigma是可行的,并给出了一些在CMM中应用6 Sigma的方法,包括应用6 Sigma工具在CMM各KPA以及在CMM全局和流程中的应用;最后指出软件机构在应用6 Sigma的同时还需要用CMM来改进软件过程。     

When is a good time to refinance?

Because of inertia and wish effect, businesses hurt their own future by refusing to take advantage of low interest rates. As a business builds up its equity in the capital structure, the firm could refinance to take advantage of leverage financing. Even when the capital structure is unchanged, the firm may wish to refinance because of a low interest rate. But the business may not refinance because of inertia and wish effect. Decision makers have been reluctant to refinance due to high interest rates. Even when the new rate is lower, they wait for an even better rate. They keep the old high rate and do nothing about it, wishing for the good old days of low interest rates. They just do not venture into new opportunities because of the lack of capital. The nation's economy and productivity are hurt.

This paper examines refinancing situations of firms and individuals who use long term loans. The paper then develops four decision models for typical refinancing situations considering such factors as old and new interest rates, capital structure in terms of debt/equity ratio, loan amount, transaction cost, expected rate of return from the best opportunity available, expected inflation rate, and possible changes in interest rates in the future.

Based on the decision models, a computerized Refinancing Decision System (RDS) has been developed. The paper discusses the functions and uses of the system showing how each of the decision models has been incorporated in the system.

The RDS is a good tool in evaluating refinancing decision situations for individual owners of income properties and similar real properties subject to long term mortgage loans and for the managers of firms that hold plants and have expansion plans. The System can be very useful for the general home owners too, if they wish to reduce the monthly payments of their mortgage loan interest.     

When to test less [software testing]

Small-scale software projects usually can't afford to implement time-consuming and expensive tests. However, the authors show that, in a surprisingly large number of cases, a small number of randomly selected tests will adequately probe the software     

在实施CMM时如何应用6 Sigma方法

介绍了CMM和6Sigma，以及两者之间的异同；指出在CMM中应用6Sigma是可行的．并给出了一些在CMM中应用6Sigma的方法，包括应用6Signka工具在CMM各KPA以及在CMM全局和流程中的应用；最后指出软件机构在应用6Sigma的同时还需要用CMM来改进软件过程。     

When MHD-based microfluidics is equivalent to pressure-driven flow

Magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) provides a convenient, programmable means for propelling liquids and controlling fluid flow in microfluidic devices without a need for mechanical pumps and valves. When the magnetic field is uniform and the electric field in the electrolyte solution is confined to a plane that is perpendicular to the direction of the magnetic field, the Lorentz body force is irrotational and one can define a “Lorentz” potential. Since the MHD-induced flow field under these circumstances is identical to that of pressure-driven flow, one can utilize the large available body of knowledge about pressure-driven flows to predict MHD flows and infer MHD flow patterns. In this note, we prove the equivalence between MHD flows and pressure-driven flows under certain conditions other than flow in straight conduits with rectangular cross sections. We determine the velocity profile and the efficiency of MHD pumps, accounting for current transport in the electrolyte solutions. Then, we demonstrate how data available for pressure-driven flow can be utilized to study various MHD flows, in particular, in a conduit patterned with pillars such as may be useful for liquid chromatography and chemical reactors. In addition, we examine the effect of interior obstacles on the electric current flow in the conduit and show the existence of a particular pillar geometry that maximizes the current.     

What to Do When the Worst Happens!

The last few weeks have been full of news that confirms the advice we’ve been presenting to readers of this column. The Love Bug virus was one example, it demonstrated the current pitiful state we find ourselves in when we have global electronic commerce, but only national and local laws dealing with criminal abuse of the systems. In the past few days we have two additional developments that show there is more cause for alarm.     

When Disaster Strikes

The importance of securing data against the threat of natural disasters i s something most MIS managers don't realize until it's too late. This column describes how two fires and an earthquake adversely affected several companies that were unprepared, or only partially prepared, for such disasters. It also discusses disaster recovery measures some MIS executives believe their companies should strengthen not only to protect the data center but to reduce their employees risk of losing valuable informa- tion from office files.