Utility models fall within the definition of “Industrial Property” provided for by Art. 2 of the Industrial Property Code (IPC) enacted by legislative decree 30/2005. Accordingly, their protection follows the general rules established by the Code for all industrial property rights (Art. 1-6; Art. 117 ff.), the provisions specifically dedicated to utility models (Art. 82-86), as well as the rules governing patents to the extent they are compatible with the specificities of utility models. Of limited relevance appear Articles 2592 and 2594 of the Civil Code, which offer a summary of the basic rules governing this intellectual property right.

This chapter investigates the impact of artificial intelligence on legal services. The questions addressed include: How will artificial intelligence change and improve the legal services offered by lawyers? How will the legal profession change as a result of the increased use of artificial intelligence? How will artificial intelligence change the way lawyers work and the way they organise, charge for and finance their work? A key insight discussed concerns the focus when thinking about the impact of artificial intelligence on the work of lawyers: concentrating on the ‘tasks’ that lawyers perform reveals more insights than asking whether artificial intelligence will destroy ‘jobs’. Exploring the impact on ‘tasks’ of lawyers shows that they are both consumers and producers of services augmented by artificial intelligence. Focusing on ‘tasks’ also helps in understanding what kinds of activities are affected by artificial intelligence and which activities will be performed, at least for the foreseeable future, by human lawyers. The discussion also deals with the emergence of multidisciplinary teams and the success indicators for LawTech start-ups.

The impact of premature birth can be lifelong, and although the risk of acute complications reduces throughout infancy and early childhood, long-term morbidity remains high. Low gestational age at birth is an independent risk factor for increased mortality from respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine and congenital disorders in childhood and early adulthood. This chapter describes the definitions and risk factors of prematurity and the clinical manifestations unique to the premature infant, including thermoregulatory instability, respiratory distress syndrome and bronchopulmonary dysplasia, apnoea of prematurity, patent ductus arteriosus, necrotising enterocolitis, intraventricular haemorrhage and retinopathy of prematurity. The preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative considerations for management of these vulnerable infants will be discussed. Finally, the conduct of anaesthesia in the ex-premature infant will be described and key points highlighted.

The Spanish and Portuguese and their American territories saw the disembarkation of almost two-thirds of all the enslaved carried from Africa. They were the first colonizers of the Atlantic and chose those areas that were best for obtaining slaves and putting them to work in the Americas. Almost every port large enough to launch a transoceanic voyage at some point entered the slave trade. Rio de Janeiro and Bahia (now Salvador) dispatched more vessels to Africa than did any European port, and overall sent out more voyages than did Europe. Thus the typical slave-trading voyage was not triangular, but rather bilateral. The Americas were the center of the slave trade because of their millennia-long isolation from the rest of the world, the inability of their Indigenous populations to resist Old World pathogens, and the very high land–labor ratios that resulted. Voyages to Africa from the Americas were quicker than those from Europe and the plantations and mines quickly generated a pool of investors willing to underpin the slave trade. In Brazil, especially, these small investors included free and enslaved Blacks, including even some enslaved crew. Close to half the merchandise traded for slaves came to be produced in the Americas rather than in Europe.

This chapter discusses the need for greater coordination and coherence in the design, approval, financing, and implementation of biodiversity, conservation, and nature-based solutions across the MENA region. Considering the wide-ranging impacts of biodiversity loss on water, energy, and food security, as well as on cultural heritage, tourism, urban planning, healthcare, human rights, and other key sectors, comprehensive and wide-ranging responses are required. This chapter therefore examines the guiding principles of implementing a nexus and integrated governance approach across the region to effectively mainstream biodiversity and nature conservation into all aspects of development planning and decision making. It discusses the need for coherent and holistic legal responses; clear and comprehensive legislation; institutional coordination; biodiversity entrepreneurship, increased biodiversity financing; human rights due diligence; and biodiversity-focused environmental law education as essential steps for advancing the nexus and integrated implementation of biodiversity and nature conservation across the MENA region.

This chapter examines how teachers in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, overcome economic adversity owing to the high cost of living in urban areas and low official compensation for teachers. Focusing on ten schools in Bishkek, this study investigates the mechanisms employed by teachers, principals, and school administrators across the city to counter a single teacher salary reform introduced in 2011 and maintain the status quo. The study illustrates the endurance of longstanding norms and social hierarchies within the teaching workforce in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. It identifies a number of mechanisms employed by teachers and administrators to overcome their disadvantaged position in the labor market. This includes utilizing agency and drawing on social capital to forge ties between teachers and principals (as well as policymakers) in order to maximize formal earnings and to normalize the practice of unofficial school fee collection from parents. The chapter illustrates ways in which teachers and schools have the capacity to ignore, modify, and altogether undo centrally mandated education reforms.

Although rarely at the center of the most influential human historical narratives, the stories of human-plant interaction are nonetheless sporadically recorded in a variety of literary genres and other cultural media across nearly five centuries. This chapter aims to provide a contextual outline of our present human–plant culture as it developed in North America through the early nineteenth century, and to orient readers to the most frequently discussed texts, questions, and resources in the field. It introduces the early modern history of settler cash crops – cotton, sugar, and tobacco – and the longer history of changing agricultural practice during the early contact period. Early American literature in English – poetry, herbals, prose tracts, and instructional writing – was deeply engaged with the movement of indigenous and imported plant species as they flowed in and out of North America as rapidly as humans moved into the region from the rest of the globe.

This chapter explores the importance of multi-stakeholder participation in advancing biodiversity and nature conservation efforts across the MENA region. It begins with a contextual overview and discusses the interconnected requisites of effective multi-stakeholder participation. It examines approaches facilitating bottom-up implementation and fostering productive collaboration among multiple parties. This chapter stresses the importance of inclusivity and multi-party collaboration in the development and implementation of innovative and sustainable conservation initiatives. It concludes by emphasizing that a multi-stakeholder participation approach is indispensable for effectively tackling the challenges of biodiversity and nature conservation in the MENA region.

Most financial decisions boil down to figuring out how much an asset is worth. For example, in deciding whether to invest in a security such as a stock or a bond or in a business opportunity, you have to determine whether the price being asked is high or low relative to other investment opportunities available to you. In addition to investment decisions, there are many other situations in which one needs to determine the value of an asset. For example, suppose that the tax assessor in your town has assessed your house at $500,000 for property tax purposes. Is this value too high or too low? Or suppose you and your siblings inherit some property, and you decide to sell it and share the proceeds equally among yourselves. How do you decide how much it is worth?

This paper presents the main topics, arguments, and positions in the philosophy of AI at present (excluding ethics). Apart from the basic concepts of intelligence and computation, the main topics of artificial cognition are perception, action, meaning, rational choice, free will, consciousness, and normativity. Through a better understanding of these topics, the philosophy of AI contributes to our understanding of the nature, prospects, and value of AI. Furthermore, these topics can be understood more deeply through the discussion of AI; so we suggest that “AI philosophy” provides a new method for philosophy.