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UW project highlights liability of internet ‘intermediaries’ in developing countries

How much liability do website owners and other online service providers have for content posted by other people? If someone posts content on your website that is defamatory, constitutes hate speech, disseminates child pornography or invades someone’s privacy, are you liable?

The answers to such questions can be murky in developing countries. And as internet use expands around the globe, so does the potential liability for the owners of websites, search engines, social media sites and other online platforms, who are subject to laws in each country where their websites and services are accessible.

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Law student the first Cuban to attend the UW in half a century

38-year-old David Camps is studying at the UW School of Law as one of three 2015 fellows in the Barer Institute for Law and Global Human Services. Launched in 2012 by retired attorney and UW law alumni Stan Barer, the program pays for attorneys from developing countries to spend an academic year studying issues related to health, education and economic development in their home countries through the university’s Sustainable International Development LL.M. program.

Camps is the first Cuban student enrolled at the UW since the U.S. embargo against the island nation in 1960. In the 2014-15 academic year, there were 94 Cuban students studying in the United States, according to the Institute of International Education. Camps met Barer while serving as a tour guide for a UW learning trip organized by then-provost and now UW President Ana Mari Cauce, a native of Cuba. Barer chatted with Camps as the bus rolled through the streets and discovered he had previously worked as an attorney in Cuba. Barer was struck by his intelligence and resourcefulness, and later encouraged Camps to apply for the fellowship.

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UW-led team awarded $1M bioelectronics innovation prize

An international team led by researchers at the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering (CSNE) based at the University of Washington is one of three finalists in a race to produce an implantable wireless device that can assess, stimulate and block the activity of nerves that control organs.

For the GlaxoSmithKline Bioelectronics Innovation Challenge, the team is working on an implantable device that could help restore bladder function for people with spinal cord injuries or millions of others who suffer from incontinence.

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US-India collaboration finds molecular signatures of severe malaria

The University of Washington’s International Center of Excellence for Malaria Research in South Asia — along with partners at the Center for Infectious Disease Research (CIDR) and Goa Medical College (GMC) of India — have discovered that specific types of parasite proteins, when combined with high parasite biomass, strongly predict severe malaria disease in adults. The discovery, published May 16 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a significant advancement in understanding the causes of severe malaria. Quantitative characterization of disease presentations and biotechnology capabilities at the ICEMR lab at Goa Medical College combined with specialized assays for molecular host-parasite interactions and machine learning tools at the CIDR helped unlock the mysteries of what leads to the development of severe malaria disease.

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