A jury hands Bungie a victory in a landmark anti-cheating decision
OEIS Cheating Spouse Private Investigator:
A jury found on Friday that Phoenix Digital, which owns the cheat mod site AimJunkies, is guilty of violating Bungie copyrights when it created cheats for Destiny 2, reported Stephen Totilo, who has written about Bungie’s cheating lawsuits for Axios. The landmark decision may be the first time a jury has agreed that a cheat creator violated a gaming company’s copyrights.
Yesterday’s jury decision awarded Bungie (PDF) a tidy sum of $63,210. Bungie counsel James Barker said in a statement emailed to The Verge that the company is “committed to our players and will continue to protect them against cheats, including taking this and future cases all the way to trial.”
In 2021, Bungie sued AimJunkies and four defendants (here’s a PDF of the complaint), alleging, among other things, that they hacked Destiny 2 to copy the code used to make cheats. Some of Bungie’s complaints — like that AimJunkies violated a DMCA provision forbidding circumvention of copyright protection tech — went to arbitration and saw Bungie winning $4 million. AimJunkies appealed after the judge confirmed that award. That appeal is still in process, as Polygon wrote this week.
Phoenix Digital founder David Schaefer will move to dismiss the jury’s verdict and appeal it if necessary, according to Totilo. However that shakes out, the verdict is significant, given that cheating lawsuits tend to conclude in other ways, like settlements. (For example, a judge shut down a Grand Theft Auto cheat distributor in 2018 following a Take-Two Interactive lawsuit, or when Bungie settled another cheating lawsuit in 2022 for $13.5 million.)
The win may only mean pocket change for Bungie, and it won’t likely put an end to online cheating, but it does put a jury on record about the legality of creating such cheats. That makes this more significant than the pocket-change-for-Bungie $63,000 award lets on.
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Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: The police investigation into Post Office and Fujitsu executives is about to gain the status of a major national investigation – but it could be years before any individuals are charged with crimes or face trial
The Metropolitan Police has confirmed it is setting up a national investigation into the Post Office scandal, although it could take at least two years before any individuals will be charged.
Two Fujitsu employees were questioned under caution about possible perjury charges on the basis of evidence presented in the High Court, but despite facing further questions in 2022, no charges have yet been brought.
The Met is a core participant at the current public inquiry into the scandal, and is waiting for the inquiry to conclude before considering any further charges against individuals. It has been working alongside the Crown Prosecution Service – which will ultimately make the decision about taking people to court – since 2020.
The force has now concluded that the scale of the investigation is such that it needs to proceed on a nationwide basis, and is asking other police forces to take part.
“A team of detectives has been painstakingly working through millions of documents manually and with the help of specialist software, in parallel with the public inquiry. This is very time consuming and we cannot cut corners and risk missing evidence,” said Met Police commander Stephen Clayman, who is overseeing the investigation, in a statement to Computer Weekly.
“Given the significant scale of the investigation, it has been agreed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council that the next phase of the investigation will be a national policing effort, coordinated by the Met, with the pursuit of justice at its heart. We do not underestimate the seriousness of the task at hand and we are determined to carry out a full investigation with independence, precision and integrity.”
However, the final report from the inquiry is not expected until well into 2025, and Computer Weekly understand that charges are unlikely to be brought until 2026 at the earliest. Some of the subpostmaster victims of the scandal have been told it could be 2028 before individuals from the Post Office or Fujitsu would go on trial.
Legal experts have suggested that executives from the Post Office and Horizon supplier Fujitsu could face charges such as perverting the course of justice, perjury and fraud, after the inquiry revealed people knew of bugs in Horizon that could have undermined prosecutions against accused subpostmasters.
The inquiry last week revealed that former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells had removed references to Horizon from the IT risk section of the prospectus for the Royal Mail as it was being floated on the stock market. The Post Office was part of the Royal Mail Group during the first decade of the 2000s when most of the hundreds of flawed prosecutions took place. Some experts have questioned whether doing so would breach financial services regulations.
The Guardian has reported that as many as 80 detectives will be involved in the investigation – resources similar to a major murder case.
The Post Office Horizon scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to accounting software (see below timeline of all Computer Weekly articles about the Horizon scandal, since 2009).
In Galicia in northwestern Spain, shellfish harvesting is traditionally females’s work.
However the clams and cockles the shellfish pickers’ livelihoods rely upon are extra and extra tougher to return by.
Coarse weather occasions made extra frequent and intense by climate alternate, including heat waves and torrential rain, threaten the four main shellfish species harvested within the distance, and with them, the tradition that has been handed down thru generations of females.
Reporting for this memoir changed into supported by Journalismfund Europe below the Earth Investigations Programme.
GALICIA, Spain — The first sleepy rays of morning gentle are beginning to illuminate the seaside of Cambados, a miniature Atlantic-going thru town within the Spanish space of Galicia that’s well-liked for its shellfish and Albariño wine. It’s a moist morning in March and the mariscadoras — females shellfish pickers — are wading straight into the ocean armed with buckets and rubber boots for one other day of work.
However the clams and cockles their livelihood is relying on are extra and extra laborious to return by. Coarse weather occasions made extra frequent and intense by climate alternate, including heat waves and torrential rain, threaten varied marine species within the distance, and with them, the tradition that has been handed down thru generations of females.
“Both the shellfish adapt, or they die, and us too,” says Patricia Piñeiro between wind gusts and rain as she searches for clams wide sufficient to harvest.
“They’re comely too miniature,” she says, showing the measuring instrument from the local fishing authorities space to 4 centimeters (1.5 inches), which method she must return a range of the clams she finds to the ocean.
“At this tempo, the almeja fina [[Ruditapes decussatus] and almeja babosa [[Venerupis corrugata] will move,” says Maria José Cacabelos Domínguez, a retired mariscadora who now organizes excursions for folks looking out to seem the shellfish pickers in motion.
Most mariscadoras are between 40 and 60 years musty and began out decades ago when shellfish shares had been silent great. It’s without a doubt one of the most few jobs that can even be mixed with caretaking tasks on this silent-old and patriarchal space, says Sandra Amézaga, the spokesperson of Mulleres Salgadas, an affiliation of females within the fishing sector. The shortcoming of shellfish is now pushing many to plan terminate precarious, informal jobs cleansing hotels or working in bars, she adds.
Shellfish in rapid decline
Moreover sustaining livelihoods, shellfish play a vital role in regulating marine ecosystems. As filter feeders, they super the water they dwell in by eliminating nitrogen, phosphorous and carbon, making them an environmentally sustainable source of nutrient-dense protein.
A 2023 glance from the local University of Vigo shows that the four main species of clams and cockles harvested in Galicia, including almeja babosa and almeja fina, are already in moving decline. While the non-native almeja japónica (R. philippinarum), launched for its adaptability, has proved to be extra resilient to rising temperatures, it, admire the others, is at threat of prolonged sessions of low salinity brought about by heavy rains.
In 2023, comely before Christmas — the most profitable season for shellfish — strangely heat temperatures coupled with intense rainfall brought a pair of mass mortality tournament that reportedly killed spherical 95% of Galicia’s cockles (Cerastoderma edule) and 75% of almeja japónica. Local executive fish market data present a steep decline in shellfish sales following the December occasions, and shares silent haven’t recovered.
Offshore to the north, on Illa de Arousa, shellfish pickers face the an identical fight. “The few clams we space up to search out aren’t rising,” says Inmaculada Rodriguez, head of the local mariscadora affiliation, who began shellfishing alongside her mother and aunts when she changed into 14. “I be aware pulling out clams the scale of my fist.” Nowadays, spherical 3,500 shellfish pickers withhold a license to characteristic, half of as many as in 2001.
Following the disastrous December, a range of Galicia’s shellfish associations temporarily ceased actions to aid shares get better. That involves the mariscadoras from the nearby town of Vilanova de Arousa, who haven’t worked since. They now salvage a limited extra than 1,000 euros ($1,073) a month in executive toughen, says María José Vales Martínez, who beforehand headed the city’s fishing guild. Alternatively, the requirements are strict — these working a second job are in most cases denied compensation — and payments are in most cases delayed, Amézaga says.
While the 6 billion euro ($6.43 million) European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund is alleged to “guarantee … the livelihood of coastal communities,” the extra than 1 billion euros ($1.07 million) given to Spain isn’t reaching the artisanal producers most in want, in preserving with Amézaga. The shellfish pickers Mongabay spoke to order advanced application processes create the funds laborious to access no topic particular guidelines bringing up that EU countries “must endeavour to introduce simplified procedures for miniature-scale coastal fishing corporations applying for EMFAF toughen.”
Rodriguez and her fellow mariscadoras of Illa de Arousa had been among the final to forestall working, and so they’re now within the strategy of applying for monthly executive toughen. At the second, they’re struggling to make a decision even 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of almeja japónica.
“What method you method with 1 kilo [of clams]? It’s most likely you’ll per chance per chance’t even pay your social security charges on the end of the month,” Rodriguez says. “[A] lot of folks accept already left to circulation work on land because here is unsustainable.”
Heavy rains and rising temperatures
Mass mortality occasions such because the one in December are inclined to develop into extra total as global warming disrupts rainfall patterns. “Right here in Galicia, we’re mature to the rain. The predicament is when that rain accumulates over a pair of days,” says Elsa Vázquez, a University of Vigo zoologist who stories how changes in salinity and temperature affect the first shellfish species harvested in Rías Baixas, the four productive estuaries in southwestern Galicia.
Torrential rainfall will improve the quantity of freshwater flowing from the river mouths into the estuaries, where the shellfish banks are located. Prolonged sessions of low salinity affect bivalves’ capacity to breathe, feed, grow and reproduce. Shellfish can terminate their valves all the method thru sessions of low salinity to defend themselves, however this makes expend of up precious energy and weakens them, Vázquez says.
Between October and November 2023, Galicia’s weather agency recorded extra than 30 consecutive days of rainfall yielding extra than 1,000 liters of rain per sq. meter (264 gallons per 10.7 sq. toes) — 127% extra than commonplace. “In step with our experiments, salinity below 15 parts per thousand for lots of days causes mortality, and this winter there had been many days when salinity changed into as low as 5 parts per thousand,” Vázquez says.
The emptying of reservoirs all the method thru low tide by electricity corporations also alters the estuaries’ fine balance. In step with the Platform for the Defense of the Ría de Arousa, a conservation NGO, the open of water must be timed to coincide with excessive tide to steer clear of freshwater inundating the shellfish banks.
As caring as low salinity are marine heat waves, that are inclined to space off mass mortality occasions affecting an rising resolution of species and habitats, the EU’s Copernicus weather institute says. In both August 2023 and January 2024, the arena’s ocean temperatures reached an unparalleled realistic of 21.1°C (70°F), a clear mark of global warming with vital implications for biodiversity.
Intertidal shellfish species bury themselves within the sand to withhold chilly, however with heat waves changing into extra intense the warmth penetrates deeper, making it impossible to accept away. Any survivors are severely weakened, which impacts their growth and reproductive ability, Vázquez says.
Diversified variables, such as sea level rise and air pollution from local industry, also play a job. Every centimeter (0.39 trail) of sea level rise method a loss of about half of a meter (1.65 ft) of coastline, submerging sandbanks for longer, says Silvia Torres López, an oceanographer on the Centro Tecnológico del Mar, a research institute in Vigo. “Air pollution is silent a wide unknown. … We wish to withhold monitoring all these factors,” she says. Plans to manufacture a textile factory within the distance, which shellfishers and ecologists pain could per chance extra wound the ecosystem, are within the interim being debated in Galicia and on the EU level.
A bunch of shellfish pickers urged Mongabay they wish the Galician executive to fund an in-depth glance on the impacts of climate alternate to aid present capacity solutions. Scientific objects counsel 2060 is on the total a world tipping point for shellfish in many regions of the arena, with fisheries in Spain at excessive threat due to low species diversity and vulnerability to elevated temperatures.
The near of clam hatcheries is on the total an answer. While some business hatcheries exist for almeja japónica, rising toddler clams to be planted out on sandbanks, extra research is indispensable to cultivate almeja fina and babosa profitably, Vázquez says. She describes this as “the method ahead for shellfishing” for its capacity to put sufficient reproducing adult shellfish to accept shares help to commonplace.
One other solution being explored is the right-time monitoring of salinity, temperature and other variables within the shellfish banks. This is in a position to per chance help researchers accept predictive objects so mariscadoras could per chance put together for sessions of low salinity and excessive temperatures, Vazquez says, adding that it would require devoted executive funding and toughen.
With the warmth summer season months at hand, the mariscadoras are left with the few kilos of almeja japónica they space up to search out. Vales Martínez has worked as a mariscadora for twenty-four years, comely admire her mother and grandmother before her. However admire a range of her colleagues, she’s alarmed in regards to the future.
“What’s in actuality vital is to make investments within the ocean, even supposing it method closing it for a Three hundred and sixty five days whereas shares get better,” she says. ”We wish to address the foundation causes of the predicament, because if the estuary dies, we all die.”
Banner image: A mariscadora makes expend of a clam rake to dredge for shellfish off Cambados in Galicia. Image by Naomi Mihara for Mongabay.
Domínguez, R., Olabarria, C., & Vázquez, E. (2023). Overview of risks linked to indecent climate occasions in miniature-scale bivalve fisheries: Conceptual maps for resolution-making in preserving with a overview of most fresh stories. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 11(6), 1216. doi:10.3390/jmse11061216
Carss, D. N., Brito, A. C., Chainho, P., Ciutat, A., de Montaudouin, X., Fernández Otero, R. M., … Jones, L. (2020). Ecosystem companies provided by a non-cultured shellfish species: The total cockle Cerastoderma edule. Marine Environmental Look at, 158, 104931. doi:10.1016/j.marenvres.2020.104931
Des, M., Fernández-Nóvoa, D., DeCastro, M., Gómez-Gesteira, J., Sousa, M., & Gómez-Gesteira, M. (2021). Modeling salinity descend in estuarine areas below indecent precipitation occasions within a context of climate alternate: Create on bivalve mortality in Galician rias Baixas. Science of The Total Ambiance, 790, 148147. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148147
Stewart‐Sinclair, P. J., Final, K. S., Payne, B. L., & Wilding, T. A. (2020). A world evaluation of the vulnerability of shellfish aquaculture to climate alternate and ocean acidification. Ecology and Evolution, 10(7), 3518-3534. doi:10.1002/ece3.6149
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OEIS The Private Eye: —
Androgen precursor could maybe furthermore just reduction cirrhosis-connected sarcopenia
by Katherine Kahn,
Workers Author, MedPage At the brand new time
June 11, 2024
An investigational testosterone prodrug resulted in improvements in skeletal muscles and quality, and reduced rates of hepatic encephalopathy in men with cirrhosis and sarcopenia, per a limited piece II pilot look.
In a modified plot-to-treat evaluation, men with cirrhosis had an extend within the L3-skeletal muscle index (L3-SMI) of 4.1 cm2/m2 after 24 weeks of therapy with LPCN 1148, as in contrast with a fall of 0.6 cm2/m2 within the L3-SMI amongst those that got a placebo (P<0.01), reported Arun Sanyal, MD, of the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, on the European Association for the Uncover of the Liver in Milan.
The result represented a placebo-adjusted 9.9% extend within the L3-SMI within the LPCN 1148 neighborhood, and the extend was maintained by week 48, Sanyal told attendees.
Also, when the six individuals within the placebo neighborhood switched to therapy with LPCN 1148 at week 24, their L3-SMI elevated critically by 8.1 cm2/m2, or 16.7%, at week 48 (P<0.01).
“Sarcopenia is accepted in cirrhosis and impacts clinically meaningful outcomes,” he indispensable. “To boot, it increases healthcare helpful resource utilization.”
“There are extra than one mechanisms that make contributions to sarcopenia in cirrhosis,” Sanyal pointed out. “Of those, quite a lot of pathways are impacted by androgens, that are linked to muscles inhibit myostatin. Of fellows with cirrhosis, 90% have low-free testosterone.”
LPCN 1148 is an oral ester prodrug of bioidentical testosterone, testosterone dodecanoate. “Or no longer it is no longer an exogenous testosterone analog,” Sanyal emphasised. Consistent with its androgenic mechanism of action, it is anticipated that LPCN 1148 could maybe furthermore just have anabolic effects, equivalent to an extend in muscles, bone density, and improved nutritional status. It could per chance maybe furthermore just furthermore toughen liver characteristic, thereby lowering ammonia stages, and induce hematopoiesis.
‘Worth Pursuing Forward’
LPCN 1148 furthermore elevated excessive-quality muscle at week 24 by 12.1% as in contrast with an extend of 1.2% with placebo (P<0.05). Furthermore, the prodrug-treated patients had a lower in intramuscular adipose tissue of 19.7% versus a lower of 9.2% in placebo recipients (P<0.05).
Recurrence of overt hepatic encephalopathy (OHE) furthermore reduced amongst patients within the LPCN 1148 therapy neighborhood whereas on out of the ordinary medication for hepatic encephalopathy. At 24 weeks, those within the LPCN 1148 neighborhood had two OHE events versus six events within the placebo neighborhood (P<0.05). Also, average time to first OHE was longer within the therapy neighborhood, at 114 days, as in contrast with 35 days within the placebo neighborhood. For the period of the commence-mark extension, one extra case of OHE occurred in each and every therapy arm.
LPCN 1148 furthermore critically improved hemoglobin and anemia amongst individuals. At baseline, hemoglobin was 11.4 g/dL within the therapy neighborhood and elevated by 0.9 g/dL at week 24 (P<0.05 from baseline), whereas there was no extend in hemoglobin within the placebo neighborhood (P<0.05 between groups). The extend was maintained all the arrangement by 52 weeks of therapy. The patients within the placebo neighborhood who switched to LPCN 1148 at 24 weeks furthermore skilled a well-known extend in hemoglobin stages.
Of new, the Liver Frailty Index (LFI) discover, per grip strength, timed chair stands, and balance, was roughly 4 in both groups at baseline. No well-known changes were indispensable between the 2 palms by the live of the look. Alternatively, individuals who switched from placebo to LPCN 1148 at week 24 did have a nonsignificant lower of 0.32 on the LFI discover.
There were two deaths within the placebo arm versus one within the LPCN 1148 arm. Time spent within the scientific institution was 114 days within the placebo neighborhood versus about 51 to 54 days within the therapy neighborhood, Sanyal indispensable.
LPCN 1148 was well-tolerated, with identical entire, indispensable, and severe harmful events between the therapy and placebo groups. Importantly, there were no conditions of drug-introduced about liver damage, “which is continuously something we take into legend when the usage of a testosterone-address molecule in cirrhotic patients,” he mentioned.
In the LPCN 1148 neighborhood there were two conditions of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). One participant introduced with a 2.2-cm hepatic mass at 250 days after starting therapy and got ablation. But every other participant had pre-existing nodules seen on imaging quite a lot of months earlier than the look and was later classified as presumably having HCC on imaging. Alternatively, that affected person could maybe furthermore just tranquil were excluded from the trial at recruitment. “In future studies, there might maybe be a must display screen for conditions of HCC as an match of special passion,” he mentioned.
Sanyal acknowledged that the fundamental limitation of the look was its limited size. “But that was our impartial, to interrogate if there was a signal to interrogate whether LPCN 1148 is rate pursuing ahead,” Sanyal concluded. “General, we take into accout these recordsdata new that LPCN 1148 did toughen extra than one clinically relevant and surrogate outcomes whereas being well-tolerated up to 52 weeks in male patients with evolved cirrhosis.”
Uncover Miniature print
The proof-of-belief look enrolled 29 grownup males with cirrhosis and sarcopenia who were listed for liver transplantation. Sufferers were excluded if they had active severe encephalopathy, active an infection, uncontrolled or recurrent GI bleeding all the arrangement by the past 6 months, or a outdated or new HCC prognosis.
The indicate age at enrollment was about 58. Sufferers had a indicate BMI of 29, an L3-SMI of about forty five-48 cm2/m2 and a Mannequin for Cease-Stage Liver Disease discover of about 16-18. Most patients had on the least one prior decompensation match, 73% had a historical past of hepatic encephalopathy, most had ascites, and 53% to 57% had esophageal varices. Nearly all were on rifaximin and lactulose.
The look randomized patients to either oral LPCN 1148 (n=15) or placebo (n=14) for the first 24 weeks of the trial. In the placebo neighborhood, two patients died and two patients withdrew after liver transplantation. For the subsequent 28 weeks, the remaining 10 patients within the placebo were included within the therapy neighborhood, in an commence-mark fashion. At the live of 52 weeks, 9 patients within the LPCN 1148 and 7 within the placebo neighborhood had performed the look. Prognosis included a security dwelling and a modified plot-to-treat evaluation.
Katherine Kahn is a workers author at MedPage At the brand new time, covering the infectious ailments beat. She has been a scientific author for over 15 years.
Disclosures
The look was subsidized by Lipocine. Some co-investigators are firm staff.
Sanyal disclosed extra than one relationships with industry.
Fundamental Source
European Association for the Uncover of the Liver
Source Reference: Sanyal AJ “Intervention with oral LPCN 1148 improves sarcopenia and hepatic encephalopathy (HE) in patients with cirrhosis: a 52-week piece 2 randomized clinical trial” EASL 2024; Presentation LBO-005.