Patents on the soles of your shoes...: AIDS day

Showing posts with label AIDS day. Show all posts

Sunday, December 1, 2019

World AIDS Day 2019

Just 40 years ago, AIDS patients were turned away at major hospitals, or they might be quarantined in broom closets, until they died. Nurses and doctors went to court, refusing to take care of AIDS patients, much less touch them, love them or make them feel good, at a time when it was still unclear, exactly how AIDS was transmitted.

In 1983, a group of nurses and doctors changed the face of AIDS care and treatment at San Francisco General Hospital, opening what became known as Ward 5B. The documentary, titled 5B is the story of this ward, and the unconventional, groundbreaking means that were implemented to care for the patents, who walked in, mostly to die.

Narrated in 2018 by the extraordinary nurses, doctors, staff and volunteers who founded the ward, in 1983, the documentary uses archival footage from the 1980s to chronicle victories and setbacks, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, prior to the discovery of ARTs (Antiretroviral therapies). A period of time when 3,000 people were diagnosed with AIDS, half of them dying, in San Francisco alone.

A must-see for anyone interested in the decriminalization of disease, and the humanization of care. Protocols for AIDS patient care and treatment, effective today, were developed in Ward 5B, forever changing the care, worldwide.

Presented at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, co-produced by Paul Haggis, Dan Krauss, Hayley Pappas, Rupert Maconick, Brett Henenberg, Guru Gowrappan, Brendan Gaul, and co-directed by Paul Haggis and Dan Krauss, the official trailer of the documentary 5B is included below.

References

UNFPA - United Nations Population Fund - World AIDS Day 2019

https://www.unfpa.org/about-us
WHO - World AIDS Day
https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-aids-day

World AIDS Day - Rock the ribbon with us
https://www.worldaidsday.org/

Saturday, December 1, 2018

World AIDS Day 2018

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Artist: Keith Haring

Today is World AIDS Day.

The first WHO (World Health Organization) World AIDS Day public health campaign was celebrated in 1988, 30 years ago. The theme for this year’s campaign is an explanation “Why the HIV epidemic is not over”. Indeed, the statistics are still staggering.

Since the late 80s, 70 million people in the world have contracted HIV, 35 million people have died.
Today, about 37 million are living with HIV, 22 million are receiving treatment
In 2017, 1.8 million people were newly infected.
Approx. 1 million people are still dying each year from HIV-related causes (940,000 in 2017).
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the area with the highest infection rates, estimated at 25.7 million in 2017.
Every minute, every day, a girl between the ages of 15 and 24 is infected with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa.
1 in 4 people who have HIV don’t know.
There is no cure for HIV.
Effective ART (anti-retroviral therapy) drugs exist which can control viral loads, enabling long, healthy and productive lives.
The costs of these treatments are still largely prohibitive.
Between 2000 and 2017, HIV infections dropped 36% and HIV-related deaths dropped 38%, with 11.4 million lives saved through ART drugs.

References

Keith Haring

http://www.haring.com/

Keith Haring Foundation

http://www.haring.com/kh_foundation/

WHO – HIV/AIDS – Key Facts

http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hiv-aids

WHO – World AIDS Day 2018

http://www.who.int/who-campaigns/world-aids-day/world-aids-day-2018

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Oh, patents! Wueste's princess cut diamond

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

The princess cut diamond is sometimes referred to as a square/rectangular modified brilliant-cut diamond, per the GIA (Gemological Institute of America) grading reports. It may be cut as a square or a rectangle. In general, square/rectangular princess cut diamonds use more of the rough diamond than round brilliant-cut diamonds. In turn, the amount of rough diamond waste that is generated impacts pricing.

The princess cut diamond is recited in US6745596B2, titled Princess cut diamond, granted to Robert J. Wueste. Within the long prior art of diamond cutting, where round brilliant diamond cutters are always seeking the perfect diamond geometry in view of enhancing the diamond’s most prized properties, its essential brilliance, fire and scintillation, Wueste seeks to do likewise for the princess cut. Wueste seeks to find the perfect balance of the diamond’s essential properties, increasing the number of facets, recombining the shape of the crown, girdle and pavilion and their characteristic dimensions.

Wueste’s princess cut diamond has 101 facets (including the table) as summarized in the following abstract of the patent:

A princess cut gemstone having a pavilion, a girdle, and a crown. In the presently preferred embodiment, the princess cut gemstone is a diamond with 101 facets: a pavilion of 64 facets, a girdle of 4 facets, and a crown with 33 facets (including the table). [Abstract US6745596B2]

More specifically, in the preferred embodiment, Wueste’s princess cut diamond “comprises 8 side crown facets, 24-star crown facets, and a table facet. The pavilion comprises 20 side pavilion facets and 44-star pavilion facets. The girdle comprises 4 girdle facets".

Typical dimension ranges of a princess cut diamond are recited per the following table, extracted from the patent. Wueste’s preferred, and recited dimension ranges, for the patented princess cut diamond, are added in a fourth column --just in case you are wondering what the differences might be.

Name	Dimension	Value range	Wueste value range
Crown height (percentage)	Percentage of crown's height to the overall width of the diamond	-5%-15%	8% - 14%
Table percentage	Percentage of table's, vidth to the overall width of the diamond	-56%--82%	65%-85%
Depth percentage	Ratio of the overall depth of the diamond to the overall width of the diamond	-53%--85%	62%-75%
Length-to-Width Ratio	Ratio of the overall length of the diamond to the overall width of the diamond	-1:1-1.5:1	1:1-1 – 1:3-1

The patent also recites all the preferred angles for each of the crown, girdle and pavilion facets. Wueste also notes that since these are preferred dimensions and geometries, many variations, known to those skilled in the art, also fall within the scope of the invention.

The patent figure 3B is included above. It shows a bottom view of the invention square princess cut diamond, with the 44-star cut pavillion, according to the specifications of the patent. Figure 2B of the prior art is also included below it for you to see the bottom view differences in cut between the prior art 50-faceted (table included) conventional square princess cut, and the present invention reciting Wueste's 101-faceted princess cut diamond. An image of a marketed square princess cut diamond is also included above.

Friday, December 1, 2017

World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day.

For this year's celebration, the World Health Organization (WHO) chose the theme “Everybody counts”. The United Nations chose the theme “My health, my right”, highlighting the need for universal health coverage for people living with HIV.

The latest WHO statistics indicate the 20.9 million people living with HIV are now receiving ART (antiretroviral therapy), and that 7 out 10 pregnant women are receiving ART to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV. According to Dr. Hirnschall (2017), Director for HIV and Hepatitis at WHO, HIV-related deaths have almost halved since 2005.

Still, a synopsis of the latest United Nations statistics on AIDS indicates that:

19.5 million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy in 2016.
36.7 million [30.8 million–42.9 million] people globally were living with HIV in 2016.
1.8 million [1.6 million–2.1 million] people became newly infected with HIV in 2016.
1 million [830 000–1.2 million] people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2016.
76.1 million [65.2 million–88.0 million] people have become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic.
35.0 million [28.9 million–41.5 million] people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic.
In 2016, there were 36.7 million [30.8 million–42.9 million] people living with HIV.

References

UNAIDS – Latest fact sheet

http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet

UNAIDS – Fact sheet with regional breakdown

http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/UNAIDS_FactSheet_en.pdf

WHO - World AIDS day

http://www.who.int/hiv/en/

UN – World AIDS Day

http://www.un.org/en/events/aidsday/
Hirnschall, G. Dr. (2017) AIDS-related deaths have almost halved since 2005

http://www.globalcause.co.uk/infectious-diseases/hiv-aids/aids-related-deaths-have-almost-halved-since-2005

Thursday, December 1, 2016

World AIDS Day

An estimated 37 million people are currently living HIV-positive worldwide with about 2.1 million annual new infections (WHO, 2016). Only an estimated 18.2 million people are receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) (WHO, 2016). At the end of 2015, 1.1 million people died of AIDS-related causes (WHO, 2016).

Thus, the fight continues for an HIV-free world, via access to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, in particular:

- within the context of the UN-WHO Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ending AIDS by 2030

- access to antiretroviral (ART) therapies, education and information

- prevention of the transmission of HIV from mother to child (WHO, 2016)

- access to HIV self-testing (WHO, 2016)

- development of strong labs in areas of incidence (CDC Global)

- eradication of the stigma of the disease and of discrimination in health care settings (Elton John AIDS Foundation)

Increasingly, the AIDS epidemic is becoming indissociably connected to the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic worldwide, as TB is the leading cause of death for people living with HIV (CDC HIV & TB).

The prevalence of people living with HIV/AIDS world-wide is the following:

World map of HIV prevalence 2009 - UNAIDS - Our world in data

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Note: HIV vs. AIDS: People who are infected with HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus) do not always develop AIDS (Acquired immune-deficiency syndrome) which is a clinical diagnosis of the final stages of the infection.

References

AIDS.gov

https://www.aids.gov/news-and-events/awareness-days/world-aids-day/

CDC – HIV AIDS

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/

CDC – HIV AIDS – Statistics Center

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/index.html

CDC – AIDS statistics

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/overview/

CDC – Global HIV & TB

http://www.cdc.gov/globalhivtb/index.html

Elton John AIDS Foundation