KYIV, 5 June 2013 ? On the occasion of World Environment Day, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ukraine?s Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara, calls for greater attention to the safety of food and energy sources. This year, World Environment Day runs under the umbrella of the ?Think.Eat.Save.? campaign, which encourages people to stop wasting food and help keep the world?s natural resources safe.
?On the background of the three international ?F?s crises? ? food, fuel und finance - it?s a matter of utmost importance to keep these challenges in focus. Food security, environmental protection, green economies and renewable energy sources ? all these issues are interlinked and attached to the OSCE?s comprehensive security concept,? the OSCE Chair said.
?The world needs clean, efficient and reliable energy services to meet its long-term demand for economic growth and development,? Minister Kozhara said. ?With its call to stop wasting food, the World Environment Day also underlines the need for the sustainable use of energy and exploration of alternative energy resources, an issue that has been high on Ukraine?s OSCE Chairmanship agenda.? As a country of lasting agrarian traditions, Ukraine is strongly committed to contributing to food and energy security, which today is at the heart of economic, environmental and social development.
The Chairperson reiterated that Ukraine?s priority for 2013 is to address the impact of energy-related activities on the environment in the OSCE area and highlighted the importance of a broader use of alternative and renewable energy sources. He also called on the participating States to use the Helsinki+40 process to strengthen the Organization?s efforts in the fields of economy and environment protection.
June 5, 2013 ? Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have reported* the first observation of the "spin Hall effect" in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a cloud of ultracold atoms acting as a single quantum object. As one consequence, they made the atoms, which spin like a child's top, skew to one side or the other, by an amount dependent on the spin direction. Besides offering new insight into the quantum mechanical world, they say the phenomenon is a step toward applications in "atomtronics" -- the use of ultracold atoms as circuit components.
The spin Hall effect is seen in electrons and other quantum particles when their motion depends on their magnetic orientation, or "spin." Previously, the spin Hall effect has been observed in electrons confined to a two-dimensional semiconductor strip, and in photons, but never before in a BEC.
A quantum circuit might use spins, described as "up" or "down," as signals, in a way analogous to how electric charge can represent ones and zeros in conventional computers. Quantum devices, however, can process information in ways that are difficult or impossible for conventional devices. Finding ways to manipulate spin is a major research effort among quantum scientists, and the team's results may help the spin Hall effect become a good tool for the job.
The team used several sets of lasers to trap rubidium atoms in a tiny cloud, about 10 micrometers on a side, inside a vacuum chamber and then cool the atoms to a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero. Under these conditions, the atoms change from an ordinary gas to an exotic state of matter called a BEC, in which the atoms all behave identically. Then, the NIST team employed another laser to gently push the BEC, allowing them to observe the spin Hall effect at work.
Spin is roughly analogous to the rotation of a top, and if the top is gently pushed straight forward, it will eventually tend to curve either to the right or left, depending on which way it is spinning. Similarly, subject to the spin Hall effect, a quantum object spinning one way will, when pushed, curve off to one side, while if it spins the other way, it will curve to the other. The BEC followed this sort of curved path after the laser pushed it.
"This effect has been observed in solids before, but in solids there are other things happening that make it difficult to distinguish what the spin Hall effect is doing," says the research team's Matthew Beeler, who just completed a postdoctoral fellowship at NIST. "The good thing about seeing it in the BEC is that we've got a simple system whose properties we can explain in just two lines of equations. It means we can disentangle the spin Hall effect from the background and explore it more easily."
Conceptually, the laser setup can be thought of as an atom spin transistor -- an atomtronic device -- that can manipulate spin "currents" just as a conventional electronic transistor manipulates electrical current.
Beeler says that it is unlikely to be a practical way to build a logic gate for a working quantum computer, though. For now, he says, their new window into the spin Hall effect is good for researchers, who have wanted an easier way to understand complex systems where the effect appears. It also might provide insight into how data can be represented and moved from place to place in atomtronic circuits.
You might argue that eBay is a virtual store of sorts already. But -- according to reports -- the auction giant is planning a new spin on the term. Reuters claims that eBay plans to place 9-foot by 2-foot screens in closed retail units in a variety of locations around New York. The idea being that real shoppers will be able to paw at the virtual stores through the glass, and have purchases delivered to them in under an hour -- ideal for those who just can't wait. There's already one client onboard -- Fith & Pacific Companies -- which plans to use the screens to launch a new fashion brand without having to kit out physical stores. The firm does plan on furnishing actual bricks and mortar outlets eventually, but won't ditch the screens after. Instead making them a permanent fixture in-store to add items that aren't always available in current stock.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Alleged high-tech spying from inside China will top the agenda when President Barack Obama sits down this weekend in California with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but other topics including Syria and China's record on human rights also will be discussed, senior Obama administration officials said Tuesday.
The White House sees cybersecurity as a leading threat to the U.S economy and national security.
A recent government report found that more than 40 Pentagon weapons programs and nearly 30 other defense technologies have been compromised by cyber intrusions from China. The cybersecurity firm Mandiant also has linked a secret Chinese military unit to years of cyber-attacks against U.S. companies.
The Chinese government denies it engages in such spying against the U.S.
The Obama administration officials said they expect the cybersecurity issue to become a standing one in relations between the two countries going forward. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be quoted by name previewing the meeting.
Two days of private meetings between Obama and Xi are scheduled to begin Friday evening at Sunnylands, a 200-acre estate in Rancho Mirage, Calif., once owned by the late publishing tycoon Walter Annenberg. It will be their first get-together since Xi took power in March.
The schedule also includes a private dinner on Friday followed by additional talks on Saturday morning.
Beyond cybersecurity, Obama also will raise China's record on human rights, ranging from censorship to the illegal detention of dissidents.
The civil war in Syria is another likely topic for discussion, though China is seen as having less influence on that issue than Russia, because of Russia's steadfast support of Syrian President Bashar Assad, including its supplying weapons to the Assad government.
North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons will also be a topic of discussion. In a shift from his predecessor welcomed by the U.S., Xi has taken a stern tone with North Korea and has told the North to return to nuclear talks with the U.S. and other world powers. The U.S. long has pushed China to take more aggressive action against North Korea. China is the North's strongest ally and biggest trading partner.
The Obama-Xi talks will be followed by a July meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials that will focus on cyber espionage.
Taking the bilateral talks outside of the White House and to a Southern California venue with sweeping mountain views and a lush golf course is aimed at forging more personal ties between the leaders as relations between the global powers they represent become increasingly complex.
The expectation by the White House is that the setting at Sunnylands will encourage a more informal and less scripted set of discussions between Obama and Xi than U.S. and Chinese officials have had to date.
Xi and Obama first met last year when Xi was vice president and he visited the White House. Xi has a warm relationship with Vice President Joe Biden that blossomed when they traveled together throughout China during Biden's 2011 visit.
___
Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap
President Obama today released information on planed executive orders and push for new legislation that will attempt to block companies from asserting their patents unless they are also manufacturing a product based upon the patented design. And at the same time, the President's National Economic Council and Council of Economic Advisers released a report a report titled "Patent Assertion and U.S. Innovation." The report generally takes the viewpoint that Patent Assertion Entities are bad for the US Economy and makes the bold claim that, in the past year PAE's have threatened "over 100,000 companies with patent infringement." The bulk of the report that identifies the "problem" is based upon the work of professor Colleen Chien (Santa Clara); Jim Bessen & Mike Meurer (BU); Mark Lemley (Stanford) and Michele Boldrin (WUSTL) & David K. Levine (WUSTL).
Despite the unknowing hyperbole of the report, the suggested actions are, for the most, welcome and will benefit the patent system as a whole. In fact, this move to finally address the problem of predictability of patent scope and patent validity hits the sweet spot of where problems emerge in the system. Of course, the devil will be in the details of these approaches.
Executive Actions:
1. Knowing Who Owns the Patents: Through the PTO a new rule will require patent applicants and owners to regularly update ownership information with the "real party of interest" so that the assignment records are accurate complete.
2. Tightening Functional Claiming. The PTO will provide new targeted training to its examiners on scrutiny of functional claims and will, over the next six months develop strategies to improve claim clarity, such as by use of glossaries in patent specifications to assist examiners in the software field.
In my view, these two elements are sorely needed and will generally improve the patent system without actually limiting the ability of patent assertion entities to derive value from their innovations through patent assertion. In addition, the PTO will begin a number of outreach mechanisms intended to provide assistance to non-patent-insiders who receive patent demand letter.
Legislative Actions:
1. Require patentees and applicants to disclose the "Real Party-in-Interest," by requiring that any party sending demand letters, filing an infringement suit or seeking PTO review of a patent to file updated ownership information, and enabling the PTO or district courts to impose sanctions for non-compliance. [DC: This would add statutory back-up for the PTO rulemaking]
2. Permit more discretion in awarding fees to prevailing parties in patent cases, providing district courts with more discretion to award attorney's fees under 35 USC 285 as a sanction for abusive court filings (similar to the legal standard that applies in copyright infringement cases). [DC: This can be helpful if allowed to go both-ways, although courts generally find that patent litigators are the most well-prepared and honorable of any that they see in court.]
3. Expand the PTO's transitional program for covered business method patents to include a broader category of computer-enabled patents and permit a wider range of challengers to petition for review of issued patents before the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB). [DC: This has the potential of capturing a substantial percentage of issued patents, but that may be fine.]
4. Protect off-the-shelf use by consumers and businesses by providing them with better legal protection against liability for a product being used off-the-shelf and solely for its intended use. Also, stay judicial proceedings against such consumers when an infringement suit has also been brought against a vendor, retailer, or manufacturer. [DC: We are on our way here toward a fair use of patents.]
5. Change the ITC standard for obtaining an injunction to better align it with the traditional four-factor test in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, to enhance consistency in the standards applied at the ITC and district courts. [DC: The focus here is to get patent assertion entities out of the ITC]
6. Use demand letter transparency to help curb abusive suits, incentivizing public filing of demand letters in a way that makes them accessible and searchable to the public. [DC: This sounds good, I wonder how those writing demand letters would respond.]
7. Ensure the ITC has adequate flexibility in hiring qualified Administrative Law Judges. [DC: However, must ensure that the flexibility is not used to hire because of particular political bent.]
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) ? A Mississippi man suspected of sending poison-laced letters to President Barack Obama and two other officials was charged in a five-count federal indictment made public Monday that could send him to prison for life if he's convicted.
The indictment charges 41-year-old James Everett Dutschke with developing, producing and stockpiling the poison ricin, threatening the president and others and attempting to impede the investigation. The indictment also alleges that Dutschke mailed the letter in part to retaliate against a rival, who briefly became a suspect in the investigation.
The indictment was made public Monday, but it was dated May 31.
Arraignment is scheduled for Thursday in U.S. District Court in Oxford. Dutschke has been jailed without bond since his arrest.
George Lucas, Dutschke's lawyer, told The Associated Press in an email Monday that his client will plead not guilty to each of the five charges.
Dutschke (pronounced DUHS'-kee) was arrested April 27 at his home in Tupelo. He's suspected of mailing ricin-laced letters on April 8 to Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Lee County, Miss., Justice Court Judge Sadie Holland.
Dutschke has denied any involvement in the letters.
He is the second person to face charges in the case.
The first, entertainer and Elvis impersonator Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was arrested on April 17, but the charges were dropped six days later when the investigation shifted to Dutschke.
After his arrest, Curtis said he was framed and pointed investigators to Dutschke. The men had met years earlier while both worked for an insurance company owned by Curtis' brother. Curtis said they had feuded over the years.
Count five of the indictment says Dutschke mailed the letters "to retaliate against and frame Kevin Curtis."
The letters contained language that Curtis had often used on his Facebook page, including the line, "I am KC and I approve this message." The letters also contained the phrase "Missing Pieces," the same title as an unpublished book Curtis wrote about his belief that there's a black market for body parts in the United States.
Curtis says he discovered the underground market while running a janitorial service at a hospital. Dutschke briefly owned a small newspaper and the two had discussed publishing the book, but later had a falling out, Curtis has said.
Dutschke, a former martial arts instructor, has unsuccessfully run for public offices, such as in 2007 when he challenged Democratic state Rep. Steve Holland, the son of the Mississippi judge who received one of the letters. That letter was the only one to make it to its intended recipient. The others were intercepted at mail sorting centers.
Authorities said that a dust mask Dutschke removed from his former martial arts studio and dumped in a nearby trash can tested positive for ricin and the DNA of two people, including Dutschke. Authorities haven't said who else's DNA was on the mask, but an FBI agent testified during a preliminary hearing that most of the genetic material on it belonged to Dutschke.
Authorities said Dutschke used the Internet to make three purchases of castor beans, from which ricin is derived, and researched how to make the poison.
The FBI has not revealed details about how lethal the ricin was. A Senate official has said the ricin was not weaponized, meaning it wasn't in a form that could easily enter the body. If inhaled, ricin can cause respiratory failure, among other symptoms. No antidote exists.
__Follow Holbrook Mohr at http://twitter.com/holbrookmohr
Duke to co-lead NIH research network on antibacterial resistancePublic release date: 3-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rachel Harrison 919-419-5069 Duke University Medical Center
DURHAM, N.C. -- Investigators at Duke Medicine and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have been selected to oversee a nationwide research program on antibacterial resistance, which includes a focus on the growing unmet challenges associated with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and E. coli.
The research team will direct the allocation of a federal grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Duke has been awarded $2 million in initial funding to launch the network; total funding for the award will reach at least $62 million through 2019.
The grant creates a network of researchers who will design, prioritize, implement and manage a clinical research agenda to address antibacterial resistance, an issue that has been identified as one of the leading threats to human health worldwide. The group's goal is to develop new approaches that can benefit patients.
"Antibacterial resistance is an incredibly complex problem because of a convergence of issues: a dwindling pipeline of new products to treat infections, and a growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria," said Vance Fowler, Jr., M.D., MHS, professor of medicine at Duke and one of the network's two principal investigators.
Antibiotics have been used for the past 70 years, significantly reducing illness and death from bacterial infections. However, some bacteria have adapted to the antibiotics designed to kill them, leaving the drugs less effective.
"Infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria are challenging to treat because one often has to rely on second- or third-line antibiotics, the effectiveness of which is not well known, or if known, is less than drugs of choice. These antibiotics may be more toxic, as well," said co-principal investigator Henry "Chip" Chambers, M.D., professor of medicine at UCSF and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.
To address this growing issue, NIAID created the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group. Led by researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) in collaboration with UCSF, the group serves as a central hub to identify, prioritize, execute and disseminate clinical research on antibacterial resistance. The global scientific community will be invited to submit proposals for research projects on antibacterial resistance, which the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group will review and fund based on alignment with the group's priorities.
"One of the strengths that we've tried to leverage in this project is the formidable expertise of a number of investigators across the United States," Fowler said. "We want to partner with these smart, talented, and driven investigators in the key areas we've identified."
The research effort will focus on four priorities:
Gram-negative bacteria, such as E. coli;
Gram-positive bacteria, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA;
Stewardship and infection control, which will determine how to best prevent infections, prescribe antibiotics and avoid overuse;
Devices and diagnostics, which will aim to reduce the amount of time it takes to determine what type of bacteria are causing infection.
"Gram-negative bacteria are front-and-center in our research agenda because the need for new treatments is greatest with them," Fowler said. He also stressed the importance of improving diagnostics, noting that technology will likely play a role in helping identify pathogens more quickly.
"For most bacterial infections, our diagnostic strategies are still fundamentally the same as they were 100 years ago," Fowler said. "We're still isolating, culturing and identifying bacteria that have been grown from a clinical sample. Each of those steps takes time, and clinicians don't always have the luxury of time.
"Reducing the time to knowledge would have the dual benefit of improving care for individual patients, but on a broader scale can serve to reduce the need for unnecessary antibiotics," Fowler said.
In addition to the four research priorities, the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group will focus attention on pharmacokinetics, or how drugs behave in patients, and antibacterial resistance in children.
The group will also work to cultivate the next generation of experts in antibacterial resistance by placing an emphasis on mentoring and training.
The group represents a partnership between NIAID staff and the antibacterial resistance research community, and will have the capacity to rapidly respond to emerging priority clinical research questions in antibacterial resistance.
The Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group builds on a model of successful research networks led by Duke, including the Pediatric Trials Network and the NIAID-funded Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology.
The structure of the DCRI also gives investigators the ability to perform complex clinical trials necessary for antibacterial resistance research.
"The track record that DCRI brings to the table for networks, particularly NIH-funded networks, is unprecedented," Fowler said.
###
Additional investigators and institutions involved in Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group include Scott Evans of Harvard University; Barry Kreiswirth of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; Robert Bonomo of Case Western Reserve University; Brad Spellberg of the University of California, Los Angeles; John Bartlett and Sara Cosgrove of Johns Hopkins University; Ebbing Lautenbach of the University of Pennsylvania; Robert Daum of the University of Chicago; Robin Patel of Mayo Clinic; Melinda Pettigrew of Yale University; and Keith Rodvold of University of Illinois at Chicago.
The Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group will be funded through cooperative agreement award 1UM1A1104681.
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Duke to co-lead NIH research network on antibacterial resistancePublic release date: 3-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rachel Harrison 919-419-5069 Duke University Medical Center
DURHAM, N.C. -- Investigators at Duke Medicine and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have been selected to oversee a nationwide research program on antibacterial resistance, which includes a focus on the growing unmet challenges associated with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and E. coli.
The research team will direct the allocation of a federal grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Duke has been awarded $2 million in initial funding to launch the network; total funding for the award will reach at least $62 million through 2019.
The grant creates a network of researchers who will design, prioritize, implement and manage a clinical research agenda to address antibacterial resistance, an issue that has been identified as one of the leading threats to human health worldwide. The group's goal is to develop new approaches that can benefit patients.
"Antibacterial resistance is an incredibly complex problem because of a convergence of issues: a dwindling pipeline of new products to treat infections, and a growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria," said Vance Fowler, Jr., M.D., MHS, professor of medicine at Duke and one of the network's two principal investigators.
Antibiotics have been used for the past 70 years, significantly reducing illness and death from bacterial infections. However, some bacteria have adapted to the antibiotics designed to kill them, leaving the drugs less effective.
"Infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria are challenging to treat because one often has to rely on second- or third-line antibiotics, the effectiveness of which is not well known, or if known, is less than drugs of choice. These antibiotics may be more toxic, as well," said co-principal investigator Henry "Chip" Chambers, M.D., professor of medicine at UCSF and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.
To address this growing issue, NIAID created the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group. Led by researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) in collaboration with UCSF, the group serves as a central hub to identify, prioritize, execute and disseminate clinical research on antibacterial resistance. The global scientific community will be invited to submit proposals for research projects on antibacterial resistance, which the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group will review and fund based on alignment with the group's priorities.
"One of the strengths that we've tried to leverage in this project is the formidable expertise of a number of investigators across the United States," Fowler said. "We want to partner with these smart, talented, and driven investigators in the key areas we've identified."
The research effort will focus on four priorities:
Gram-negative bacteria, such as E. coli;
Gram-positive bacteria, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA;
Stewardship and infection control, which will determine how to best prevent infections, prescribe antibiotics and avoid overuse;
Devices and diagnostics, which will aim to reduce the amount of time it takes to determine what type of bacteria are causing infection.
"Gram-negative bacteria are front-and-center in our research agenda because the need for new treatments is greatest with them," Fowler said. He also stressed the importance of improving diagnostics, noting that technology will likely play a role in helping identify pathogens more quickly.
"For most bacterial infections, our diagnostic strategies are still fundamentally the same as they were 100 years ago," Fowler said. "We're still isolating, culturing and identifying bacteria that have been grown from a clinical sample. Each of those steps takes time, and clinicians don't always have the luxury of time.
"Reducing the time to knowledge would have the dual benefit of improving care for individual patients, but on a broader scale can serve to reduce the need for unnecessary antibiotics," Fowler said.
In addition to the four research priorities, the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group will focus attention on pharmacokinetics, or how drugs behave in patients, and antibacterial resistance in children.
The group will also work to cultivate the next generation of experts in antibacterial resistance by placing an emphasis on mentoring and training.
The group represents a partnership between NIAID staff and the antibacterial resistance research community, and will have the capacity to rapidly respond to emerging priority clinical research questions in antibacterial resistance.
The Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group builds on a model of successful research networks led by Duke, including the Pediatric Trials Network and the NIAID-funded Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology.
The structure of the DCRI also gives investigators the ability to perform complex clinical trials necessary for antibacterial resistance research.
"The track record that DCRI brings to the table for networks, particularly NIH-funded networks, is unprecedented," Fowler said.
###
Additional investigators and institutions involved in Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group include Scott Evans of Harvard University; Barry Kreiswirth of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; Robert Bonomo of Case Western Reserve University; Brad Spellberg of the University of California, Los Angeles; John Bartlett and Sara Cosgrove of Johns Hopkins University; Ebbing Lautenbach of the University of Pennsylvania; Robert Daum of the University of Chicago; Robin Patel of Mayo Clinic; Melinda Pettigrew of Yale University; and Keith Rodvold of University of Illinois at Chicago.
The Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group will be funded through cooperative agreement award 1UM1A1104681.
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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: 3-Jun-2013
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