Court of Appeal decision on the Design Directive shades Animal from Oakley's designs

The Court of Appeal rejects the claimant's argument that, sincethe government failed properly to implement the Directive 98/71on the legal protection of designs, the transitional provisionson validity in new law of registered designs were partiallyinvalid and that, therefore, their registered design was valid.     

Prison commitments,crime, and unemployment: A theoretical and empirical specification for the United States, 1933–1985

This paper examines sources for the changing commitment rates to U.S. state prisons (PCR) from 1933 to 1985 using a variety of time-series techniques. Theoretically, it resolves ambiguous interpretations of how crime, unemployment, and imprisonment are related. Hypotheses that crime and punishment are in equilibrium are rejected. Our final specification supports theories integrating institutionally endogenous and socially exogenous causes of prison use and includes feedback effects between crime and punishment. We reached several general conclusions. (1) Changes in PCR are due partly to changes in the levels of unemployment, age composition of the population, and military active-duty rates. (2) Effects of the criminal justice system, captured as autoregressive institutional drift, account for approximately half of the year-to-year fluctuations in the PCR. The contemporaneous prison discharge rate also influences the rate of prison commitments. (3) Neither the specified nor the unspecified institutional effects mediate the effects of other exogenous variables. (4) Under most simultaneous-equation specifications, the crime rate is moderately influenced by the contemporaneous unemployment rate and strongly influenced by prior levels of prison commitments. The preferred simultaneous causal model estimates a modest positive coefficient for the unemployment-crime causal path and a substantial positive coefficient for the unemployment-prison commitment causal path.     

Automated PCR setup for forensic casework samples using the Normalization Wizard and PCR Setup robotic methods

Human genome, pharmaceutical and research laboratories have long enjoyed the application of robotics to performing repetitive laboratory tasks. However, the utilization of robotics in forensic laboratories for processing casework samples is relatively new and poses particular challenges. Since the quantity and quality (a mixture versus a single source sample, the level of degradation, the presence of PCR inhibitors) of the DNA contained within a casework sample is unknown, particular attention must be paid to procedural susceptibility to contamination, as well as DNA yield, especially as it pertains to samples with little biological material. The Virginia Department of Forensic Science (VDFS) has successfully automated forensic casework DNA extraction utilizing the DNA IQ(trade mark) System in conjunction with the Biomek 2000 Automation Workstation. Human DNA quantitation is also performed in a near complete automated fashion utilizing the AluQuant Human DNA Quantitation System and the Biomek 2000 Automation Workstation. Recently, the PCR setup for casework samples has been automated, employing the Biomek 2000 Automation Workstation and Normalization Wizard, Genetic Identity version, which utilizes the quantitation data, imported into the software, to create a customized automated method for DNA dilution, unique to that plate of DNA samples. The PCR Setup software method, used in conjunction with the Normalization Wizard method and written for the Biomek 2000, functions to mix the diluted DNA samples, transfer the PCR master mix, and transfer the diluted DNA samples to PCR amplification tubes. Once the process is complete, the DNA extracts, still on the deck of the robot in PCR amplification strip tubes, are transferred to pre-labeled 1.5 mL tubes for long-term storage using an automated method. The automation of these steps in the process of forensic DNA casework analysis has been accomplished by performing extensive optimization, validation and testing of the software methods.