Remember when SOPA, ACTA, PIPA and the other four letter acronyms for bills that were created to stifle the Internet were all the rage last year? Many politicians seemed to believe that the Internet needed to be controlled more than it already was, so they tried to push laws in place to help with that, only to face a major backlash that resulted in the bills being defeated.

You can't keep a good man down, and apparently you can't kill an act someone is determined to push through. If you remember SOPA, you might also remember the scale of the opposition. For one day, many sites went offline in protest. Then there was ACTA, and it too was given a loud response.

ACTA, the controversial anti-counterfeiting trade agreement, has been rejected by the European Parliament by a staggering majority. The law was smacked down by a 478 to 39 vote, and has now been completely killed in Europe. Internet activists rallied against ACTA when it was seen to be a legislative act that was far too broad, with criminal sanctions also found in the trade agreement.

Acta Numerica has established itself as the prime forum for the presentation of definitive reviews of numerical analysis topics. Highlights of this year's issue include articles on sequential quadratic programming, mesh adaption, free boundary problems, and particle methods in continuum computations. The invited papers will allow researchers and graduate students alike to quickly grasp the current trends and developments in this field.
Acta Numerica provides an annual compendium of the major advances in numerical mathematics. Highlights of the 1995 issue include articles on sequential quadratic programming, mesh adaption, free boundary problems and particle methods in continuum computations.

Another day, another threat to internet freedom. According to International Business Times, beloved Texas Representative Lamar Smith is the author of a new bill that includes extreme surveillance provisions, and a name that will make opponents sound like criminals: H.R. 1981 (bump that last digit up three times for a more fitting title), or the 'Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.'

The growing opposition against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in Europe reached new heights today as thousands of protesters took to the streets in locations all over the continent. These gatherings come a day after the German government decided to postpone signing ACTA until sometime later in 2012.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has been receiving more attention from the media and the general public lately, thanks in part to the massive Internet protests against the US-based SOPA and PIPA bills. Like SOPA and PIPA, ACTA was written in part to try to combat online piracy but opponents have claimed the act is too broadly written and will result in blocked web sites.

Further protests in opposition to controversial anti-piracy measures have taken place, with another 100 expected to happen in Europe this week.

A petition calling for the rejection of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) has attracted over 1.75 million signatures.

Negotiations over a controversial anti-piracy agreement have been described as a "masquerade" by a key Euro MP.

Kader Arif, the European Parliament's rapporteur for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta), resigned over the issue on Friday.

He said he had witnessed "never-before-seen manoeuvres" by officials preparing the treaty.

Online activists have attacked Polish government websites in protest against plans to sign an international copyright treaty.

The websites of the prime minister, parliament and other government offices were all rendered unreachable or sluggish on Sunday.

Critics say the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) could lead to censorship.

The government said it would sign the treaty as planned on Thursday.

Acta Numerica is an annual publication containing invited survey papers by leading researchers in numerical mathematics and scientific computing. The papers present overviews of recent developments in their area and provide 'state of the art' techniques and analysis.