The General Atomic and Molecular Electronic Structure System (GAMESS): Novel Methods on Novel Architectures.

The primary focus of GAMESS over the last 5 years has been the development of new high-performance codes that are able to take effective and efficient advantage of the most advanced computer architectures, both CPU and accelerators. These efforts include employing density fitting and fragmentation methods to reduce the high scaling of well-correlated (e.g., coupled-cluster) methods as well as developing novel codes that can take optimal advantage of graphical processing units and other modern accelerators. Because accurate wave functions can be very complex, an important new functionality in GAMESS is the quasi-atomic orbital analysis, an unbiased approach to the understanding of covalent bonds embedded in the wave function. Best practices for the maintenance and distribution of GAMESS are also discussed.

Gershom Bulkeley, "Saltbox Science," and the Colonial New England Laboratory.

This article investigates the prolific colonial New England alchemist and physician Gershom Bulkeley (1635/36-1713) and his late seventeenth-century household laboratory. First, I provide an updated bibliography and biography of Bulkeley and then engage an assemblage of surviving commonplace and account books, inventories, a vade mecum, and several books discovered to have been previously owned by Bulkeley. In order to understand Bulkeley's laboratory, I coin the term "saltbox science," arguing that his work combined European textual knowledge and temporal and material adaptations within the colonial household and town. I describe first his creative flexibility in regard to the construction of laboratory furnaces that were based on designs initially gained from Europeans. Thereafter, I demonstrate how his laboratory practice was embedded within his household and his town's temporal rhythms and material networks. Bulkeley's "saltbox science" is meant to serve as a template for understanding a certain domestic class of seventeenth-century colonial New England alchemists who, in general, leave behind little archival evidence of their laboratory activities.

Basics of US patents and the patent system.

The patent system plays an important role in stimulating the economy and advancing the quality of life in the United States. It serves as an incentive for innovation by giving inventors an exclusive right to their inventions for a limited period of time. It also increases and hastens the publication of useful knowledge by requiring inventors to disclose their invention to the public. Patents are particularly important in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries because they provide a mechanism by which the extremely high product development costs may be recouped. The United States Patent and Trademark Office acts as a gatekeeper in the patent system to prevent patents that do not meet the legal requirements from being thrust on the public. The legal requirements for obtaining a patent are discussed, particularly as they relate to pharmaceutical and biotechnological inventions. The process of examining an application for a patent is briefly described, along with some of the burdens faced by examiners when deciding the patentability of therapy-related inventions.

A brief guide to understanding patentability and the meaning of patents.

This author provides a brief overview to the U.S. patent system with respect to DNA-based or gene patents, examines the statutory requirements for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and its processes of review, and explains how this system is implemented in the issue or decline of a patent. The author describes the important role played by the courts in their continuing reinterpretation and application of the patent law. He notes that many issues raised in discussions about the perceived benefits to society or general concerns arising from the patenting of gene sequences actually pertain to matters of enforcement and licensing of patents. These aspects, the author notes, lie outside of the USPTO's purview. Social questions about access to patented subject matter-such as the practice of patented gene-based diagnostic tests-must be addressed in other forums.