Defense research companies are working hard at improving their "unattended ground sensor" technology: tiny, camouflaged devices that can be left alone for months or years to listen for and report events like footsteps and vehicles. The military has been using them for years, but previous versions didn't last nearly as long enough, and weren't effective enough, to justify their cost. The latest models improve on every aspect.
When troops clear an area and move on, they still have to monitor that area for enemy presence. Usually this means sending a patrol -- possibly a single jeep or a few soldiers on foot. These patrols are vulnerable to attack and can't cover every bit of ground. But if troops could drop sensors behind them that would report back every footfall and engine noise, they would know whether they needed to risk sending men out, and get some idea of the location of the threat.
The idea goes back as far as Vietnam, when bulky acoustic sensors were dropped to report back on Viet Cong movements,?but it's only in recent years that the devices have become a contender for mass deployment. Wired has an extended look at the technology with comment from some military and research officials.
The usual advances have contributed to the new models: smaller and faster microchips for detecting and interpreting signals, better batteries and solar cells for keeping those batteries charged, and more intelligent wireless capabilities that let dozens of the sensors share information with each other or their users.
One from Lockheed Martin, pictured, looks just like a rock and can stay active for years -- possibly decades, according to their creator. It listens for footsteps and vehicle noises (the devices can even determine the number of cylinders by certain distinctive measures), puts nearby sensors on alert, and relays the information to the commander.?Another, made by the far smaller Camgian Microsystems, uses a sort of micro-radar to actually watch for movement.
With such a long lifespan, such devices could remain in areas like Afghanistan long after American troops have been withdrawn, providing a basic level of intelligence on movement in areas of interest. Of course, one of?these smart rocks could also be sitting outside a local building or house and no one would be the wiser. In a few years it might be prudent?to check nearby suspicious rocks before whispering?sensitive information.
Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. His personal website is coldewey.cc.
Testing for new E. coli strains begins Barring any last-minute delays, U.S. food safety inspectors will begin testing Monday for six new strains of potentially deadly E. coli bacteria to be banned from certain cuts of raw beef.
Source: MSNBC Posted on:
Wednesday, May 30, 2012, 9:12am Views: 5
Trademarks are one of the most essential building blocks to a franchise brand.?We all immediately recognize what the Golden Arches, the block red ?GNC?, or the Sheraton ?S? surrounded by a sprig of mountain laurel represent.?So, we took great interest in a number of recent trademark decisions involving the spirits industry.
Alcohol packaging and trademark/trade dress law have intersected quite a few times in the news this month. ?First, as?Daniel Corbett?recently reported, the maker's of Daily's cocktails?sued Captain Morgan producer Diageo North America Inc. in a suit alleging that Diageo's single-serve cocktail pouches infringed the plaintiff's?design patents?and trade dress.
Then, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of Maker's?Mark Distillery, Inc. in its?complaint alleging that the makers of Jose Cuervo tequila infringed Maker's Mark's trademark and trade dress rights by?featuring a bottle having a dripping red wax seal. ?In an opinion that provides not only a discussion of trade dress law but also an?entertaining?history of American bourbon manufacturing, the Court considered whether the dripping wax seal was entitled to trademark protection and concluded that the answer was 'yes".
In its defense, Cuervo argued that the seal could not be protected because it was "aesthetically functional." ?The Court noted that "a?trademark is functional 'if it is essential to the use or purpose of the?article or if it affects the cost or quality of the article.'" ?Although the Court did not affirmatively state whether or not it even recognized the doctrine of aesthetic functionality, it upheld Makers' Mark's rights because others could easily sell their products without using the dripping red wax seal:
The district court was not?convinced ?that it would be difficult or costly for competitors to design around? the mark?and we do not disagree. There is more than one way to seal a bottle with wax to make?it look appealing, and so Cuervo fails the comparable alternatives test. As to the?effective competition test, the district court found that ?red wax is not the only pleasing?color of wax . . . nor does it put competitors at a significant non-reputation related?disadvantage to be prevented from using red dripping wax.
Noting that the USPTO awarded Maker's Mark a trademark registration for a non-color-specific version of the seal in connection with other food products, the court then turned to the question of infringement. ?Makers' Mark argued that Cuervo's use of the red dripping wax seal on tequila created "confusion of sponsorship" as to the source of the goods. ?Although there was no evidence of actual consumer confusion, the Court found that Makers' Mark's trade dress rights were strong due to over 50 years' use of the dripping red wax seal. ?The Court also found similarity between the accused and original marks, as well as relatedness in the goods, although the Court gave these factors less weight than it gave to the strength of the mark. ?On this basis, the Court ruled in favor of Makers' Mark.
The opinion provides some guidance for companies who offer products that may appear to be similar to competing products. ?First, although Markers' Mark held a USPTO trademark registration for the dripping bottle seal, the registration was color-agnostic and only listed steak sauce (not alcohol) ?as the relevant goods. ?Thus, the opinion indicates the absence of a USPTO registration ?covering the goods in question does not necessarily mean that a party is not entitled to trademark or trade dress rights if the mark is sufficiently strong.
Second, the Court's focus on strength of the mark shows that consistent use of a trademark over time, along with extensive marketing efforts, can provide a trademark owner with substantial leverage when others use similar marks.?These cases reinforce what we?ve always believed:?franchisors, suppliers and others who own trademarks should adopt and enforce strict and consistent trademark usage policies before allowing others to use those marks. ?Otherwise, the trademark owner may end up with little or no trademark rights -- and no ability to keep infringers out of the market.
Earning money at home is something many people are becoming interested in. The best way to do that is to find an Internet marketing system that is trustworthy as well as rewarding. Nevertheless, before rushing off to start your business, there are a few downsides you should be aware of. You have to take time to get educated on both the good aspects and the bad aspects of managing a business online. Educate yourself first and you are going to avoid misery at a later stage.
The Internet is merely a tool, which can be a big help to developing a business, when used correctly. People?s opinions about the internet are not always couched in fact. One group considers it as a bringer of good things solely. Yet another group of people distrust the internet entirely, believing it to be filled with fraud and lies. The truth can be found somewhere between these two extremes. If you carry out a great marketing system and are prepared to invest some time on it, you can reasonably expect to build a good business. While it is true that your client base spans the whole world, the same can be said of the rivals. What you must do is position your business so that it is not up against huge, recognized competitors.
An internet business has the advantage that is open at all times. You could be pulling in sales all day long, every day, after you?ve built your niche site and set up everything that goes with it. Because the web is world-wide and across all time-zones it is always busy. Your business can therefore be busy at all times, as well, and make more sales. Once you put an opt-in box on your site, you can create a list of prospects with minimal expense. Your subscribers give you their contact information when they opt in. You can then mail them on a regular basis with information related to your niche, and include adverts for products on which you receive a portion of sales..
The fact that you don?t have any personal interaction with your clients is a huge issue. People typically purchase on the basis of what they have been told by a sales agent they trust. People generally want to hear a personal endorsement. This choice does not exist with a web business. The best you?ll be able to do is treat people well through your emails. That appears to be enough for many people, but there are still lots of people who won?t buy something on the web. You might want to make a study of who is checking out your website, and find out how likely they are to become customers.
In case you?ve got an offline business, it?s a good idea to increase your business by using an internet marketing system. All of us are different in how we do things, and we are not going to enjoy equal success from adding a web site to our business. Nonetheless, if it is done the right way, setting up a website will inevitably be great for your business.
No wild claims about ReverseMobile.com review? apologies! If you think you know the deal, you could ? just depends on what you understand about YOUR Broan 9815WH review. It?s up to you ? and easy enough to find out.
Selling Apple prototypes is tricky business. There's always the chance that Apple will shut it down and ask for the device back. The seller of the dual-dock iPad prototype knew this when he posted his Ebay auction. "I wasn't expecting the auction to finish, I was expecting Apple to take it down."
Antioxidant shows promise as treatment for certain features of autism, Stanford study findsPublic release date: 29-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Erin Digitale digitale@stanford.edu 650-724-9175 Stanford University Medical Center
STANFORD, Calif. A specific antioxidant supplement may be an effective therapy for some features of autism, according to a pilot trial from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital that involved 31 children with the disorder.
The antioxidant, called N-Acetylcysteine, or NAC, lowered irritability in children with autism as well as reducing the children's repetitive behaviors. The researchers emphasized that the findings must be confirmed in a larger trial before NAC can be recommended for children with autism.
Irritability affects 60 to 70 percent of children with autism. "We're not talking about mild things: This is throwing, kicking, hitting, the child needing to be restrained," said Antonio Hardan, MD, the primary author of the new study. "It can affect learning, vocational activities and the child's ability to participate in autism therapies."
The study appears in the June 1 issue of Biological Psychiatry. Hardan is an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford and director of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic at Packard Children's. Stanford is filing a patent for the use of NAC in autism, and one of the study authors has a financial stake in a company that makes and sells the NAC used in the trial.
Finding new medications to treat autism and its symptoms is a high priority for researchers. Currently, irritability, mood swings and aggression, all of which are considered associated features of autism, are treated with second-generation antipsychotics. But these drugs cause significant side effects, including weight gain, involuntary motor movements and metabolic syndrome, which increases diabetes risk. By contrast, side effects of NAC are generally mild, with gastrointestinal problems such as constipation, nausea, diarrhea and decreased appetite being the most common.
The state of drug treatments for autism's core features, such as social deficits, language impairment and repetitive behaviors, is also a major problem. "Today, in 2012, we have no effective medication to treat repetitive behavior such as hand flapping or any other core features of autism," Hardan said. NAC could be the first medication available to treat repetitive behavior in autism if the findings hold up when scrutinized further.
The study tested children with autism ages 3 to 12. They were physically healthy and were not planning any changes in their established autism treatments during the trial. In a double-blind study design, children received NAC or a placebo for 12 weeks. The NAC used was a pharmaceutical-grade preparation donated by the neutraceutical manufacturer BioAdvantex Pharma. Subjects were evaluated before the trial began and every four weeks during the study using several standardized surveys that measure problem behaviors, social behaviors, autistic preoccupations and drug side effects.
During the 12-week trial, NAC treatment decreased irritability scores from 13.1 to 7.2 on the Aberrant Behavior Checklist, a widely used clinical scale for assessing irritability. The change is not as large as that seen in children taking antipsychotics. "But this is still a potentially valuable tool to have before jumping on these big guns," Hardan said.
In addition, according to two standardized measures of autism mannerisms and stereotypic behavior, children taking NAC showed a decrease in repetitive and stereotyped behaviors.
"One of the reasons I wanted to do this trial was that NAC is being used by community practitioners who focus on alternative, non-traditional therapies," Hardan said. "But there is no strong scientific evidence to support these interventions. Somebody needs to look at them."
Hardan cautioned that the NAC for sale as a dietary supplement at drugstores and grocery stores differs in some important respects from the individually packaged doses of pharmaceutical-grade NAC used in the study, and that the over-the-counter version may not produce the same results. "When you open the bottle from the drugstore and expose the pills to air and sunlight, it gets oxidized and becomes less effective," he said.
Although the study did not test how NAC works, the researchers speculated on two possible mechanisms of action. NAC increases the capacity of the body's main antioxidant network, which some previous studies have suggested is deficient in autism. In addition, other research has suggested that autism is related to an imbalance in excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters in the brain. NAC can modulate the glutamatergic family of excitatory neurotransmitters, which might be useful in autism.
The scientists are now applying for funding to conduct a large, multicenter trial in which they hope to replicate their findings.
"This was a pilot study," Hardan said. "Final conclusions cannot be made before we do a larger trial."
###
Hardan's collaborators at Stanford were Lawrence Fung, MD, a psychiatry resident; Robin Libove and Surekha Nair, MD, social science research assistants; postdoctoral scholar Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD; Lenore Herzenberg, DSc, professor of genetics and member of the Stanford Cancer Institute; and Rabindra Tirouvanziam, PhD, a former instructor in pediatric pulmonary medicine at Stanford who is now at the Emory University School of Medicine. The research was supported by a grant from the Escher Family Fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Herzenberg and Tirouvanziam are listed as inventors on two patents for NAC used for treating cystic fibrosis that are licensed by BioAdvantex Pharma, which supplied NAC for the trial. Herzenberg also has equity in BioAdvantex.
Information about the Stanford Autism Center at Packard Children's Hospital and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, which also supported the research, is available online at http://autism.lpch.org and http://psychiatry.stanford.edu.
The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://mednews.stanford.edu. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. For information about all three, please visit http://stanfordmedicine.org/about/news.html.
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital is annually ranked as one of the nation's best pediatric hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, and is the only San Francisco Bay Area children's hospital with programs ranked in the U.S. News Top Ten. The 311-bed hospital is devoted to the care of children and expectant mothers, and provides pediatric and obstetric medical and surgical services in association with the Stanford University School of Medicine. Packard Children's offers patients locally, regionally and nationally a full range of health care programs and services, from preventive and routine care to the diagnosis and treatment of serious illness and injury. For more information, visit http://www.lpch.org.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Antioxidant shows promise as treatment for certain features of autism, Stanford study findsPublic release date: 29-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Erin Digitale digitale@stanford.edu 650-724-9175 Stanford University Medical Center
STANFORD, Calif. A specific antioxidant supplement may be an effective therapy for some features of autism, according to a pilot trial from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital that involved 31 children with the disorder.
The antioxidant, called N-Acetylcysteine, or NAC, lowered irritability in children with autism as well as reducing the children's repetitive behaviors. The researchers emphasized that the findings must be confirmed in a larger trial before NAC can be recommended for children with autism.
Irritability affects 60 to 70 percent of children with autism. "We're not talking about mild things: This is throwing, kicking, hitting, the child needing to be restrained," said Antonio Hardan, MD, the primary author of the new study. "It can affect learning, vocational activities and the child's ability to participate in autism therapies."
The study appears in the June 1 issue of Biological Psychiatry. Hardan is an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford and director of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic at Packard Children's. Stanford is filing a patent for the use of NAC in autism, and one of the study authors has a financial stake in a company that makes and sells the NAC used in the trial.
Finding new medications to treat autism and its symptoms is a high priority for researchers. Currently, irritability, mood swings and aggression, all of which are considered associated features of autism, are treated with second-generation antipsychotics. But these drugs cause significant side effects, including weight gain, involuntary motor movements and metabolic syndrome, which increases diabetes risk. By contrast, side effects of NAC are generally mild, with gastrointestinal problems such as constipation, nausea, diarrhea and decreased appetite being the most common.
The state of drug treatments for autism's core features, such as social deficits, language impairment and repetitive behaviors, is also a major problem. "Today, in 2012, we have no effective medication to treat repetitive behavior such as hand flapping or any other core features of autism," Hardan said. NAC could be the first medication available to treat repetitive behavior in autism if the findings hold up when scrutinized further.
The study tested children with autism ages 3 to 12. They were physically healthy and were not planning any changes in their established autism treatments during the trial. In a double-blind study design, children received NAC or a placebo for 12 weeks. The NAC used was a pharmaceutical-grade preparation donated by the neutraceutical manufacturer BioAdvantex Pharma. Subjects were evaluated before the trial began and every four weeks during the study using several standardized surveys that measure problem behaviors, social behaviors, autistic preoccupations and drug side effects.
During the 12-week trial, NAC treatment decreased irritability scores from 13.1 to 7.2 on the Aberrant Behavior Checklist, a widely used clinical scale for assessing irritability. The change is not as large as that seen in children taking antipsychotics. "But this is still a potentially valuable tool to have before jumping on these big guns," Hardan said.
In addition, according to two standardized measures of autism mannerisms and stereotypic behavior, children taking NAC showed a decrease in repetitive and stereotyped behaviors.
"One of the reasons I wanted to do this trial was that NAC is being used by community practitioners who focus on alternative, non-traditional therapies," Hardan said. "But there is no strong scientific evidence to support these interventions. Somebody needs to look at them."
Hardan cautioned that the NAC for sale as a dietary supplement at drugstores and grocery stores differs in some important respects from the individually packaged doses of pharmaceutical-grade NAC used in the study, and that the over-the-counter version may not produce the same results. "When you open the bottle from the drugstore and expose the pills to air and sunlight, it gets oxidized and becomes less effective," he said.
Although the study did not test how NAC works, the researchers speculated on two possible mechanisms of action. NAC increases the capacity of the body's main antioxidant network, which some previous studies have suggested is deficient in autism. In addition, other research has suggested that autism is related to an imbalance in excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters in the brain. NAC can modulate the glutamatergic family of excitatory neurotransmitters, which might be useful in autism.
The scientists are now applying for funding to conduct a large, multicenter trial in which they hope to replicate their findings.
"This was a pilot study," Hardan said. "Final conclusions cannot be made before we do a larger trial."
###
Hardan's collaborators at Stanford were Lawrence Fung, MD, a psychiatry resident; Robin Libove and Surekha Nair, MD, social science research assistants; postdoctoral scholar Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD; Lenore Herzenberg, DSc, professor of genetics and member of the Stanford Cancer Institute; and Rabindra Tirouvanziam, PhD, a former instructor in pediatric pulmonary medicine at Stanford who is now at the Emory University School of Medicine. The research was supported by a grant from the Escher Family Fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Herzenberg and Tirouvanziam are listed as inventors on two patents for NAC used for treating cystic fibrosis that are licensed by BioAdvantex Pharma, which supplied NAC for the trial. Herzenberg also has equity in BioAdvantex.
Information about the Stanford Autism Center at Packard Children's Hospital and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, which also supported the research, is available online at http://autism.lpch.org and http://psychiatry.stanford.edu.
The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://mednews.stanford.edu. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. For information about all three, please visit http://stanfordmedicine.org/about/news.html.
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital is annually ranked as one of the nation's best pediatric hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, and is the only San Francisco Bay Area children's hospital with programs ranked in the U.S. News Top Ten. The 311-bed hospital is devoted to the care of children and expectant mothers, and provides pediatric and obstetric medical and surgical services in association with the Stanford University School of Medicine. Packard Children's offers patients locally, regionally and nationally a full range of health care programs and services, from preventive and routine care to the diagnosis and treatment of serious illness and injury. For more information, visit http://www.lpch.org.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 29-May-2012
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