The present invention provides a composition obtained by organic solvent extraction of defatted plant seed which is an atherosclerosis preventative agent. The present invention further provides a food and a pharmaceutical composition containing the composition, as well as a method of preventing an atherosclerotic disease.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention provides a composition obtained by organic solvent extraction of defatted plant seed which is an atherosclerosis preventative agent. The present invention further provides a food and a pharmaceutical composition containing the composition, as well as a method of preventing an atherosclerotic disease.
2. Discussion of the Background
Along with the westernization of life style in recent years, in addition to cancer, atherosclerotic diseases such as angina pectoris, intermittent claudication, cardiac infarction, cerebral infarction and the like have become the main causes of death of Japanese people. Once developed, these diseases are very difficult to cure, and dramatically degrade "quality of life." It is undisputable that a countermeasure to prevent or control the progression of atherosclerotic diseases is extremely important from a social standpoint as well.
A consensus has been generally reached that oxidation of low density lipoprotein (LDL) plays a key role in the early stages of lesion formation. As such, the importance of not only controlling the blood cholesterol level to a suitable range but also suppressing the production of oxidized LDL has been recently noted. It has been determined that certain foods, particularly a food derived from plants, contain an abundance of anti-oxidative substances. To this end, the anti-oxidative substances contained in green tea and red wine are considered to be taken into LDL (or in the vicinity thereof) and eliminate radical to prevent production of oxidized LDL (Fuhrman et al, Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 61: pp 549-54, 1995). There is also an epidemiological study that concludes that positive intake of these foods suppress cancer and heart diseases (Renaud et al, Lancet, 339: pp 1523-26, 1992).
In the meantime, there is a report that particular components derived from particular seeds such as sesame seed lignan, grapeseed polyphenol and the like show an anti-atherosclerotic activity with experimental animals (Kang et al. J. Nutr., 129: pp 1885-90, 1999; Yamakoshi et al, Atherosclerosis 142: pp 139-49, 1999). However, the anti-atherosclerotic property of a plant seed component has only been determined at an animal test level in a few cases, and many researches remain at a test tube level.
For example, JP-A-8-337536 discloses an anti-active oxygen agent extracted from a roasted and then fermented plant seed. The technique described in JP-A-8-337536 uses a plant seed as a starting material, but has low versatility because it requires operations such as roasting, fermentation treatment and the like, and, thus, this technique is not practical. In addition, no evidence exists that a fermented plant seed obtained by this method has an effect on suppressing atherosclerosis.
In another study, Zhang et al (Chem. Pharm. Bull., 45: pp 1910-14, 1997) report structures of a group of compounds extracted from a safflower oil cake by distribution of various solvents, and that some of these structures have an antioxidant activity in vitro. However, it is not clear at present if such compounds having an antioxidant activity are effective for preventing atherosclerosis. In consideration of the fact that antioxidant activity in vitro is known not to be necessarily correlated to the anti-atherosclerotic activity in living organisms (Fruebis et al, J. Lipid Res., 38: pp 2455-64, 1997, Fruebis et al, Atherosclerosis 117: pp 217-24, 1995, Munday et al, Arterioscler. Thromb. Vasc. Biol., 18: pp 114-19, 1998, Wagberg et al, J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther., 299: pp 76-82, 2001), confirmation of whether or not an anti-oxidative substance in a plant seed has anti-atherosclerotic property is required at least at an experimental animal level.
Therefore, in view of the state of the art and the ever increasing medical concerns over atherosclerotic diseases, there remains a critical need for compositions that are effective atherosclerotic disease preventatives.

Composition for preventing atherosclerosis


According to one embodiment, an immersion cooling system includes a coolant tank that has liquid coolant and contains at least partially submerged within the liquid coolant 1) a thermoelectric cooling (TEC) element that is coupled to an information technology (IT) component that is mounted on a piece of IT equipment, and 2) a heat sink that is coupled to the TEC element, wherein the TEC element is configured to transfer heat generated by the IT component into the liquid coolant via the heat sink.

Thermal management for a data center that includes several active electronic racks is critical to ensure proper performance of servers and other IT equipment (e.g., performing IT data processing services) that is operating in the racks. Without proper thermal management, however, the thermal environment (e.g., temperature) within the racks may exceed thermal operational thresholds, which may result in adverse consequences (e.g., servers failing, etc.). One way to manage the thermal environment is the use cooling air to cool the IT equipment. The cooling air is recirculated using cooling units that extract heat captured by the cooling air. One commonly used cooling unit is a computer room air conditioning (CRAC) unit that is a device that intakes hot exhaust air and supplies cooling air into the data center to maintain the data center's thermal environment. The CRAC is an air cooling unit that is widely used in existing air cooled data centers, and there are many other types of solutions for air cooled data centers. Also, a majority of existing data centers are air cooled.
Recently, data centers have been deploying more high-power density electronic racks, where more high-density chips are packaged closer together to provide more processing power. This is especially the case due to developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud-based services, which require high performance and high power density processors, such as control processing units (CPUs) and graphic processing units (GPUs). Cooling these high-density racks by maintaining a proper thermal environment may be an issue with existing cooling systems, such as a CRAC unit. For instance, although the CRAC unit may maintain the thermal environment with more conventional (or lower-density) racks, the unit may be unable to effectively cool high-power density racks because they may generate heat load at a higher rate due to the higher density electronics. In some cases, liquid cooling becomes a more efficient and feasible cooling solution in high power density or high heat flux scenarios.
Immersion cooling, on the other hand, which involves at least partially submerging electronics in a dielectric solution is a feasible solution for high-density electronics. Implementing immersion cooling, however, has challenges. For example, heat sink structures need to be customized for good thermal performance, since the working medium is not air anymore. Also, unlike air-cooling, immersion cooling depends on several factors, such as material properties of specific dielectric fluids and the elevation at which immersion cooling is performed. Changing location (e.g., elevation) or using different fluids may cause a significant performance degradation on immersion cooling.

Method and system for enhancing electronics cooling using a thermoelectric element


Electrochemical processes to convert alkali sulfates into useful chemical products, such as syngas, alkali hydroxide, and sulfur are disclosed. An alkali sulfate is reacted with carbon to form carbon monoxide and alkali sulfide. In one embodiment, the alkali sulfide is dissolved in water and subjected to electrochemical reaction to form alkali hydroxide, hydrogen, and sulfur. In another embodiment, the alkali sulfide is reacted with iodine to form alkali iodide sulfur in a non-aqueous solvent, such as methyl alcohol. The alkali iodide is electrochemically reacted to form alkali hydroxide, hydrogen, and iodine. The iodine may be recycled to react with additional alkali sulfide. The hydrogen and carbon monoxide from both embodiments may be combined to form syngas. The alkali hydroxide from both embodiments may be recovered as a useful industrial chemical.

Chemical products are used in a wide variety of useful applications. One problem with chemical products is that they are difficult and expensive to transport. Another problem is that they are expensive to manufacture. Many industrial applications create as a byproduct a waste stream that contains amounts of chemicals that must be contained or otherwise properly disposed of. It would be an advancement in the art to have methods and apparatuses that can create chemical products on site to reduce the need for transporting the chemicals. It would be a further advancement to be able to create useful chemical products from waste streams or other inexpensive or underutilized feed streams. Such methods and apparatuses are disclosed and claim herein.

Electrochemical conversion of alkali sulfate into useful chemical products


A system is configured to: determine whether criteria are met to grow a structure; calculate, when the criteria are met, a new size of the structure based on at least one or more of: a predefined curve, a total number of elements to be stored in the structure, an amount of available memory, or architecture information corresponding to the processor; allocate an area in memory to store the structure based on the new size; and store the elements of the structure in the area, where the area comprises space to add additional elements to the structure. The new size of the structure may be greater than the total number of elements.

Computer programming languages may allow a programmer to declare dynamic data structures that may grow, during the execution of a program, when the data structures need to store additional data. Each time that a size of a dynamic data structure needs to be expanded to store additional data, a new area in memory needs to be allocated for the expanded data structure and all of the data previously stored by the data structure needs to be copied into the newly allocated area in memory. As a result, time and computing resources are wasted by the requirements for the individual iterations of growing a data structure. For example, O(n2) time may be required to grow an array to store "n" number of elements when one element is added to the array at a time.
To avoid growing a data structure each time that additional element(s) are added to the data structure, a programmer may initially pre-allocate memory for the data structure to store additional data that may be added to the data structure at future points in time. However, users may not know to or not know how to properly pre-allocate memory for a data structure. Other users may find requirements of adding code to pre-allocate memory for a data structure burdensome. Also, programmers often have no way of predicting/determining, during coding of a program, how much data will be stored in a data structure during the execution of the program. Accordingly, these programmers do not know how much memory to pre-allocate for the data structure. For example, pre-allocation for one data structure may not be used to provide for enough memory to avoid growing the structure when two or more data structures are concatenated during execution of a program.


An electrophotographic image recording apparatus incorporates a fixing unit in which a toner image deposited on a print medium is fused by heat under pressure. The fixing unit includes a fixing member and a separator plate. The fixing member is in pressure contact with a pressure member. The separator plate that is disposed close to the fixing member and has a longitudinal portion extending in a direction transverse to a transport path of the print medium. The separator plate has a mid portion of the longitudinal portion. The mid portion has resiliency to extend away from the transport path and a guide member that pushes the mid portion of the separator plate to maintain the entire longitudinal portion flat so that mid portion is prevented from extending away from the transport path.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fixing unit that applies heat and pressure to a toner image, which has been transferred onto a print medium, so as to fix the toner image.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional fixing unit for use in an electrophotographic image recording apparatus includes a fixing roller that has a built-in heater and a pressure roller that rotates in pressure contact with the fixing roller. A toner image is transferred onto a print medium and is delivered to the fixing unit. The fixing roller and the pressure roller rotate in such a way that the print medium is sandwiched between the fixing roller and the pressure roller and is advanced forward. The print medium is positioned relative to the fixing roller so that the toner image directly faces the fixing roller and is heated under pressure to be fixed on the print medium permanently.
When the toner is fused, it acquires viscosity so that the print medium is apt to stick to the fixing roller. In order to ensure that the print medium separates from the fixing roller, a separator tongue is provided in an abutting relation with the fixing roller to strip the print medium from the fixing roller.
However, with the aforementioned conventional fixing unit, the separator tongue is in contact with the fixing roller and therefore may scratch the fixing roller. Also, toner that failed to be fixed may be deposited on the separator tongue and cause poor print quality. An area of the fixing roller in contact with the separator tongue may change in surface roughness, causing variations in gloss of printed images.
The present invention was made in view of the aforementioned problems.
An object of the invention is to provide a fixing unit in which a toner image deposited on a medium is fused by heat under pressure. The fixing unit includes a fixing member; and a separator plate that is disposed near the fixing member to extend in a direction transverse to a transport path through which the print medium travels.
The separator plate may have a mid portion that extends away from the transport path and a guide member that pushes the mid portion of the separator plate to prevent the separator plate from extending away from the transport path. The fixing unit may further include a member for absorbing thermal expansion of the separator plate.

Fixing unit having a separator plate for separating a print medium from a roller


[Problem to be solved] To provide a shuffling device that can lower correlation between macroblocks by executing macroblock shuffling substantially equally to an image with an arbitrary size. [Means for solving the problem] A macroblock shuffling device, comprising: a pack creation portion that extracts and rearranges in order a macroblock from a screen on which a plurality of macroblocks constituting the image data are arranged, and creates a plurality of packs, each having a first predetermined number of or a second predetermined number smaller than the first predetermined number of the macroblocks; and a slice creation portion that extracts macroblocks one by one in order from each of the plurality of packs created by the pack creation portion and creates the same number as the first predetermined number of slices, each having a plurality of macroblocks.

In the technology of digitally processing moving image data having an enormous amount of information, it is required to perform highly efficient compression processing.
FIG. 13 shows an example of an image coding device. As shown in FIG. 13, an image coding device 100 includes: a blocking portion 101 that creates a macroblock of 8*8, which is a basic unit of DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) by executing block processing when moving image data is input; a shuffling portion 102 that collects a predetermined number of macroblocks created by the blocking portion 101 and shuffles the macroblocks in a unit of slices so as to make amounts of information consistent; a movement detection portion 103 that detects movement of the macroblock; a DCT processing portion 104 that executes weight processing by way of DCT conversion of the shuffled block for each slice on the basis of the movement detected by the movement detection portion 103; a code amount estimation portion 105 that estimates a code amount by classifying the blocks processed by the DCT processing portion 104; a quantization portion 106 that quantizes the blocks according to the code amount estimated by the code amount estimation portion 105; and a variable length coding (VLC) portion 108 that variable-length codes the slice quantized by the quantization portion 106 and outputs compressed coded data obtained by compressing an amount of information with high efficiency.
Since the macroblocks continuously created at the blocking portion 101 and output directly reflect photographed image information, a correlation is generated between adjacent macroblocks, and an error amount or data amount contained in the individual macroblocks may be concentrated in some macroblock groups. With the purpose of preventing propagation of such data error or improving a processing speed realized by dividing the processing into a plurality of processing units and simultaneously processing them with a plurality of computing units, processing may be divided into a plurality of processing units and executed in some cases even if a single image is to undergo compression processing. A processing unit capable of such independent processing is referred to as a "slice". Thus, the shuffling portion 102 executes shuffling processing in which a spatial position of a macroblock is moved from an original position by the unit of slice obtained by collecting a plurality of macroblocks and shuffling. In this way, the correlation between the macroblocks is lowered and the data amounts between the macroblocks are evenly distributed while at the same time a concentration of an error in some macroblock groups is prevented.
The shuffling processing executed by the shuffling portion 102 conforms to the DV standard, which is a standard of digital video published by the HD Digital VCR Conference mainly for household use (See Non-patent Literatures 1 and 2). The shuffling method specified by the DV standard assumes images of predetermined sizes, namely, 720*480, 720*576, 960*720, 1280*1080, and 1440*1080. Moreover, although the shuffling portion 102 divides the image into super blocks and extracts a predetermined number of macroblocks for each super block and rearranges them, the size of the super block divided from the image is also specified.
FIG. 14 shows a structure of image data whereby the shuffling portion 102 performs shuffling according to the DV standard. Ix indicates the number of macroblocks in the horizontal direction, while Iy indicates the number of macroblocks in the vertical direction. Furthermore, the number of macroblocks in the horizontal direction in the super block divided by the shuffling portion is referred to as SBsx, and the number of macroblocks in the vertical direction in the super block as SBsy. As is evident from FIG. 14, due to the size of image processed by the shuffling portion 102 is specified, the size of the super block to be divided can also be equally allocated into SBsx in the horizontal direction and SBsy in the vertical direction.

Macroblock shuffling device, macroblock shuffling method, and macroblock shuffling program


An open end wrench includes first and second jaws. The first jaw includes an arcuate sliding groove having two support walls and an arcuate sliding wall between the support walls. A slide is slideably received in the sliding groove and includes an arcuate sliding face slideable along the sliding wall. Two wings respectively extend from top and bottom faces of the slide. Top and bottom extension faces extend from a wrenching face of the slide and are located on inner faces of the wings. When the open end wrench drives a workpiece to rotate, an outer face of each wing is partially in contact with the second jaw. Force imparted from the workpiece to the wings is transmitted to the second jaw.

The present invention relates to an open end wrench capable of fast driving and, more particularly, to an open end wrench capable of fast driving a workpiece without the risk of undesired shifting from the workpiece.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,320,668 discloses a wrench including a stationary jaw and a movable jaw slideable along a guide. The movable jaw is forced against an abutment at an outer end of the guide by a spring bearing against the stationary jaw. An end of the spring is received in a bore in the stationary jaw. The other end of the spring is received in another bore in the movable jaw. An intermediate portion of the spring is exposed between the stationary jaw and the movable jaw. When the user is intended to tighten or loosen a nut, the wrench is turned in a driving direction during which operation the movable jaw remains in contact with the abutment. For reengagement of the wrench with the nut it is necessary only to turn the wrench in the opposite direction, during which operation the movable jaw slides backward against the pressure of the spring and on the edges of the nut. The movable jaw is forced forward again as soon as the bearing surfaces of the stationary and movable jaws are parallel with the sides of the nut. The nut can be tightened or loosened through repeated operations. However, the structural strength of the wrench is insufficient for high-torque operation, as the movable jaw merely encloses the guide and is not enclosed by other members. Furthermore, the guide is irregularly formed in a wrenching space of the wrench, leading to difficulties in processing. Further, the exposed portion of the spring, when compressed by the movable jaw, is liable to bend and, thus, in frictional contact with the end edges of the bores of the stationary and movable jaws, leading to non-smooth compression of the spring or even permanent deformation of the spring. Further, the exposed portion of the spring is apt to be contaminated by oil to which debris easily adheres.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,695,125 discloses an open end ratchet wrench including a head having a fixed jaw and an opposed pawl support portion. A pawl and a spring are mounted to an inner side of the pawl support portion. The pawl is biased by the spring and slideable between an extended torquing position and a retracted ratcheting position. Two side caps are fixed to two sides of the head to define a space receiving the pawl and the spring and to prevent disengagement of the pawl and the spring. The pawl includes a stop shoulder to prevent the pawl from moving out of the pawl support portion under the action of the spring. The pawl support portion includes an arcuate section and then extends perpendicularly to the fixed jaw. Such a structure is difficult to process. Furthermore, assembly of the open end ratchet wrench is troublesome. Further, the pawl is merely enclosed at both sides and has insufficient structural strength in the lateral direction. Further, a contact area of the workpiece (such as a nut) engaged with the movable pawl is smaller than a contact area of the workpiece engaged with the fixed jaw. When the nut is tightened to a position adjacent to an object to be fixed, wear or damage to the nut may occur if the nut has insufficient contact area or has a small volume.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,528 discloses an adjustable wrench including a fixed jaw and an adjustable jaw. In an embodiment, a sliding jaw is provided on the fixed jaw. The sliding jaw includes a rectilinearly extending slot through which a pin is extended, preventing disengagement of the sliding jaw. A plate spring is mounted to an inner face of the fixed jaw to bias the sliding jaw outward. A hole is formed in an end wall of the slot and receives a coil spring to bias the sliding jaw inward. Thus, the sliding jaw is movable inward or outward and can be retained in place under action of the plate spring and the coil spring. Such a wrench is particularly suitable for rotating pipes, but not suitable for tightening or loosening fasteners such as bolts, nuts, or the like. This is because the sliding jaw can only slide rectilinearly, and the shape of the slot will cause the sliding jaw to slide along the slot to a position pressing against the periphery of the pipe.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,024,971 discloses an open end ratchet wrench including first and second stationary jaws. The first stationary jaw supports a movable plate. A space is sandwiched between two face plates of the first stationary jaw to accommodate the movable plate. The movable plate includes two angled slots each receiving a pin extending through the space, avoiding disengagement of the movable plate. The wrench further includes a hole receiving a spring that has an end located outside of the hole for biasing the movable plate. Each angled slot of the movable plate includes a short section and a long section at an angle to the short section such that the movable plate can move in two stages each having a rectilinear travel. However, the stationary jaw is enclosed by the movable plate such that the contact area between the stationary jaw and the workpiece is significantly decreased. Instead, the supporting effect depends on the larger contact area between the workpiece and the movable plate with structural strength weaker than the fixed jaw. The holding force applied by the open end ratchet wrench is reduced.
U.S. Publication No. 2009/0193941 A1 discloses first and second jaws formed on a jaw support. The first jaw can be moved by rotating a worm. The jaw support includes an open track in the form of a slot receiving the second jaw. The jaw support further includes a pin extending through the track. The second jaw includes a rectilinear opening through which the pin extends, preventing the second jaw from disengaging from the jaw support. A biasing member is mounted in the opening of the second jaw to bias the second jaw outward. Since the second jaw includes a single rectilinear opening, a change in the spacing from the second jaw to the first jaw is relatively small such that a workpiece will be rotated when the wrench rotates in a reverse direction not intended to rotate the workpiece. Thus, the first jaw must be movable, and the spacing between the first and second jaws can be adjusted by rotating the worm to avoid joint rotation of the workpiece when the wrench rotates in the reverse direction. However, the wrench of this type includes many elements, and the track, opening, and holes in the elements weaken the wrench. Furthermore, since the track is open, the reactive force imparted to the second jaw during driving of the workpiece is completely transmitted to the pin. Thus, the pin is liable to be damaged. Although the second jaw includes a surface in sliding contact with the jaw support to guide sliding movement of the second jaw, this surface merely transmits the reactive force to the pin instead of effectively withstanding the torque. Further, since the second jaw moves rectilinearly, the opening in the second jaw must be lengthened if it is desired to increase the spacing between the first and second jaws. However, this would expose the opening support such that the opening and the biasing member in the opening would easily be contaminated by oil to which debris adheres easily. Furthermore, operation of the biasing member would be adversely affected, causing non-smooth movement of the second jaw.
U.S. Patent Publication No. US 2009/0301271 A1 discloses an open-ended wrench including a first jaw and a second jaw. The second jaw includes an auxiliary jaw retracting opening that receives an auxiliary jaw. A spring is mounted between an end of the auxiliary jaw and an end wall of the auxiliary jaw retracting opening. The auxiliary jaw includes a limiting slot. An auxiliary jaw limiting member extends from a surface of the second jaw through an opening to the auxiliary jaw retracting opening and is coupled with the limiting slot for confining the auxiliary jaw to move between a first position in which the auxiliary jaw is non-longitudinally biased and a second position in which the auxiliary jaw is longitudinally biased. The auxiliary jaw has an arcuate pushing surface and a driving surface. In use, the wrench can drive a nut in a driving direction to a position and then directly move in a reverse direction about the center of the nut. The auxiliary jaw is compressed by a side of the nut and retracts into the auxiliary retracting opening. Thus, the wrench can be directly rotated in the reverse direction through an angle to a next driving position for driving the nut in the driving direction without the need of disengaging from the nut and reengaging with the nut. However, it is difficult to form the auxiliary jaw retracting opening in the second jaw, which is particularly true for axial drilling. Furthermore, the pushing face and the driving surface of the auxiliary jaw must retract into the auxiliary retracting opening so that the wrench can move in the reverse direction to the next driving position. Thus, the widths of the pushing face and the driving surface must be smaller than the size of the auxiliary jaw retracting opening. However, if the nut is of a smaller thickness or if the nut is moved to a position adjacent to a surface of an object to be tightened such that the width of the side of the nut is smaller than the extent of the pushing face and the driving surface, the pushing face and the driving surface may be worn or damaged due to insufficient contact area with the side of the nut.
U.S. Patent Publication No. US 2010/0071516 A1 discloses a reciprocatable open end wrench including first and second jaws and a swing member. The second jaw includes a concave arcuate surface having a slot. The swing member is received in the slot. A surface of the swing member faces the second jaw and has an arcuate hollow groove for receiving a returning device. A retaining pin is inserted into the hollow groove in a manner that allowing the swing member to be slideable relative to the second jaw. The returning device presses against the retaining pin and the swing member and, thus, biases the swing member outward. However, the diameter of the curvature of the concave arcuate face is not concentric to a wrenching width between two parallel sides of a workpiece. After the wrench has driven the workpiece to rotate in a driving direction, the rotating arc of the diameter can not allow the wrench to rotate in a reverse direction to the next driving position. Specifically, the wrench has to be moved backwards through a certain travel so that the concave arcuate face can slide along the side of the workpiece to the next driving position. If the wrench is directly rotated about the center of the workpiece without the backward travel, the arcuate face will be interfered by a side of the workpiece. The driving operation provided by the wrench is not smooth.
Thus, a need exists for an open end wrench capable of fast driving of a workpiece without the disadvantages of the above conventional open end wrenches.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


Disclosed is a nonaqueous liquid electrolyte comprising a nonaqueous solvent, an electrolyte dissolved in the nonaqueous solvent and a macromolecular material added to the nonaqueous solvent. The nonaqueous liquid electrolyte is a fluid having a viscosity at 20° C. of 7 cP to 30,000 cP. The nonaqueous liquid electrolyte suppresses leakage, ensures high discharge characteristics, reduces the unevenness of liquid electrolyte, and lessens the change of electrodes and the change in battery resistivity.

The present invention relates to a nonaqueous liquid electrolyte and a nonaqueous liquid electrolyte secondary battery
Currently, a lithium ion secondary battery has been commercialized as a nonaqueous liquid electrolyte secondary battery intended for a portable device such as a portable cellular phone. This particular battery has a positive electrode, a negative electrode and a separator which contains a liquid electrolyte, wherein utilized are lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) for the positive electrode, a graphitic or carbonaceous material for the negative electrode, an organic solvent in which a lithium salt has been dissolved for the nonaqueous liquid electrolyte and a porous membrane for the separator.
The nonaqueous liquid electrolyte is a nonaqueous solvent in which an electrolyte has been dissolved, for which used usually is a low viscosity and low boiling point material such as a liquid mixture comprising propylene carbonate, ethylene carbonate or γ-butyrolactone, etc.
In the meantime, the nonaqueous liquid electrolyte secondary battery is adapted to be mounted on a portable device as being housed in a hermetically sealed container or the like. In so doing, a problem arises in which the nonaqueous liquid electrolyte may leak out of the hermetically sealed container. The battery also has a disadvantage that its electrodes may deform after charge/discharge cycles to largely swell its outer packaging.
To overcome such problems, a gel-like electrolyte has been proposed to ameliorate such leakage, which contains a solid electrolyte as an ion conducting material instead of using a nonaqueous liquid electrolyte. See, for example, Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication 2000-315523.
Since such a gel-like electrolyte contains a large amount of macromolecular material, however, the resin that is the base therefor will severely prevent the movement of the electrolyte, thereby remarkably reducing the ion conductivity as compared with the case of a nonaqueous liquid electrolyte alone. There has also been a disadvantage that contact with the electrodes will lessen as compared with the case of a liquid, which increases the resistance at the interface of the electrodes, thereby deteriorating the discharge characteristics of the nonaqueous liquid electrolyte secondary battery.
Furthermore, since a gel-like electrolyte is produced by encapsulating an electrolyte and a monomer together with electrodes in an outer packaging for the battery and then filling it with a gelling agent, the electrolyte will become gel-like while the gelling agent infiltrates from around the outer packaging toward the center. As such, there is a disadvantage that a homogeneous gel electrolyte may not easily be obtained between the electrodes and the electrodes per se will considerably deform during the charge/discharge cycles to swell the outer packaging.
As described above, a nonaqueous liquid electrolyte secondary battery utilizing a gel-like electrolyte containing a nonaqueous liquid electrolyte in order to prevent leakage or the like has been unable to provide sufficient discharge characteristics. In addition, a considerable amount of deformation will result in association with the charging and discharging

Nonaqueous liquid electrolyte and nonaqueous liquid electrolyte secondary battery


A network switch and method of switching are provided, in which first and second signal converters convert electrical signals to optical signals and vice versa. The network switch monitors alarm contacts and power drawn by the first and second signal converters, and switches from one to the other in the case of an alarm condition or power loss. In order to force a corresponding switch at the remote end, power is removed from one of the signal converters in order to force an alarm in the corresponding signal converter at the remote end.

The present invention is related to protection circuits for communication networks. More specifically, the present invention is related to a protection switch to support the redundant application of electrical and optical signal converters.
Fiberoptic communication networks are capable of carrying tremendous volumes of voice and data traffic. Businesses and individuals rely more and more on voice and data communications and are therefore becoming more heavily impacted by failure in communications equipment. In a fiberoptic network, optical fibers can become damaged or severed, and lasers can fail. Further, repeater equipment, and electrical and optical converter equipment, among others, are also sources of failure. Therefore, in order to increase the reliability of communication networks, backup systems have been developed. Protection channels are known in the art and are described, for example, in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,451,916 to Casper et al. Disadvantageously, Casper requires a twisted pair copper wire link coupled along the end terminal stations and each repeater station along the network for the purpose of monitoring and fault isolation in the event of a failure. Other protection schemes have been devised for high-speed data networks which require sophisticated add-drop multiplexing equipment to monitor the content of the signals being transmitted.
Typically, at either end of the fiberoptic network, signal converting equipment converts optical signals into electrical signals which can then be further processed to pull individual multiplexed data channels from a high-speed signal. It would be advantageous to provide multiple optical-to-electrical converter units at either end of multiple optical fibers to provide a redundant fiberoptic network. Thus, if one set of fibers failed, or if one signal converter unit at either end of an optical fiber failed, a backup path could be placed into service. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a simple mechanism for automatically switching between redundant fiberoptic paths through multiple signal converting units.
The above described disadvantages are overcome and other advantages are realized by providing a network switch for connecting redundant signal converting devices to a communications port. The signal converting devices preferably convert optical signals to electrical signals for downstream transmission to subscriber equipment, and electrical signals from subscriber equipment to optical signals for upstream transmission. When the switch is in a first state, electrical signals from the first signal converting device are connected to the communication port. When the switch is in a second state, electrical signals from the second signal converting device are connected to the communication port. The network switch monitors alarm contacts of both signal converting devices, as well as the nominal current drawn by each signal converting device. If the alarm contacts are activated for the active signal converting device, or if the nominal current drawn by the active signal converting device stops, the network switch switches to the second state. The network switch also terminates power to the active signal converting device temporarily, to force an alarm condition at the far end, causing a corresponding remote network switch to switch to the corresponding backup signal converting device.
According to a further aspect of the invention, the network switch provides output alarm contacts, and closes a relay between the output alarm contacts if the alarm contacts associated with the first signal converting device are closed.
According to another aspect of the invention, a method of providing backup communications is described. Two signal converting devices are provided, which preferably each convert optical signals to electrical signals. The electrical signals from each signal converting device are connected to a network switch, which in turn can switch between a first state, in which the electrical signals from the first signal converting device are connected to a communication port, and a second state in which the electrical signals from the second signal converting device are connected to the communication port. The method further includes monitoring the alarm contacts associated with the first signal converting device, as well as measuring the nominal current drawn by the first signal converting device. If an alarm is detected, or if the nominal current decreases substantially, the method includes removing power from the first signal converting device temporarily, and switching to the second state, so that the electrical signals from the second signal converting device are connected to the communication port.
According to yet another aspect of the invention, the above method further includes closing output alarm contacts if an alarm is detected in the alarm contacts associated with the first signal converting device.

Protection switch to support redundant application of converter units


A method in a network node for handling a traffic flow of a User Equipment, UE is provided. The network node is related to a local service cloud. The traffic flow is related to an application session to be served by the local service cloud. The network node identifies (202) a UE Internet Protocol, IP, address of the UE. When the identified UE IP address is used by another UE in a first Virtual Local Area Network, VLAN, comprised in the local service cloud, the network node selects (204) a second VLAN comprised in the local service cloud for local break out of the traffic flow of the application session to the local service cloud. In the second VLAN, the identified UE IP address is not used by another UE.

Wireless terminals for communication such as terminals are also known as e.g. User Equipments (UE), mobile terminals, wireless terminals and/or mobile stations. Terminals are enabled to communicate wirelessly in a cellular communications network or wireless communication system, sometimes also referred to as a cellular radio system or cellular networks. The communication may be performed e.g. between two terminals, between a terminal and a regular telephone and/or between a terminal and a server via a Radio Access Network (RAN) and possibly one or more core networks, comprised within the cellular communications network.
Terminals may further be referred to as mobile telephones, cellular telephones, laptops, or surf plates with wireless capability, just to mention some further examples. The terminals in the present context may be, for example, portable, pocket-storable, hand-held, computer-comprised, or vehicle-mounted mobile devices, enabled to communicate voice and/or data, via the RAN, with another entity, such as another terminal or a server.
The cellular communications network covers a geographical area which is divided into cell areas, wherein each cell area being served by a base station, e.g. a Radio Base Station (RBS), which sometimes may be referred to as e.g. eNodeB (eNB), NodeB, B node, Base Transceiver Station (BTS), or AP (Access Point), depending on the technology and terminology used. The base stations may be of different classes such as e.g. macro eNodeB, home eNodeB or pico base station, based on transmission power and thereby also cell size. A cell is the geographical area where radio coverage is provided by the base station at a base station site. One base station, situated on the base station site, may serve one or several cells. Further, each base station may support one or several communication technologies. The base stations communicate over the air interface operating on radio frequencies with the terminals within range of the base stations. In the context of this disclosure, the expression Downlink (DL) is used for the transmission path from the base station to the mobile station. The expression Uplink (UL) is used for the transmission path in the opposite direction i.e. from the mobile station to the base station.
In 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE), base stations, which may be referred to as eNodeBs or even eNBs, may be directly connected to one or more core networks.
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile communication system, which evolved from the GSM, and is intended to provide improved mobile communication services based on Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) access technology. UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) is essentially a radio access network using wideband code division multiple access for terminals. The 3GPP has undertaken to evolve further the UTRAN and GSM based radio access network technologies.
3GPP LTE radio access standard has been written in order to support high bitrates and low latency both for uplink and downlink traffic. All data transmission is in LTE is controlled by the radio base station.
Local service clouds in a base station are demanded to optimize a backhaul network. In a hierarchical telecommunications network the backhaul portion of the network comprises the intermediate links between a core network or a backbone network and small sub-networks at the edge of the entire hierarchical network, such as e.g. between a base station and a radio network controller.
Cloud computing in general may be portrayed as a synonym for distributed computing over a network, with the ability to run a program or application on many connected computers at the same time. It specifically refers to a Computing hardware machine or group of computing hardware machines commonly referred as a server connected through a communication network such as internet, intranet, Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN) and Individual user or users as well as base stations who have permission to access the server can use the server's processing power for their individual computing needs like to run an application, store data or any other computing need alike.
The local service clouds in a base station enable local functions to be added to the base station such as e.g. data compression, tunneling, and Forward Error Correction (FEC) function to enhance the backhaul when internet is used as a backhaul. Further examples are local applications, e.g. the backhaul network usually has bottlenecks that will limit the performance of the applications at the core network sites. Applications running in the local service cloud at the base station site will fully utilize the radio link.
One of the problems to enable application execution for a UE at a base station site is the local breakout of traffic from the Radio Bearers (RBs) to the local application at the local service cloud. The RBs will be further explained below. The local breakout is usually realized by a classifier which inspects passing data traffic. Based on the inspected passing data traffic, the classifier classifies the data traffic e.g. based on Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) and/or 5-tuple. A 5-tuple refers to a set of five different values related to a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection. The 5-tuple includes a source IP address/port number, destination IP address/port number and the protocol in use. Based on the classified data traffic, the classifier then routes traffic classified as local application traffic through a specific interface between the base station and the local service cloud.
In the end-to-end traffic in this example where one end is the UE and the other end is the server where the application/service is running, the non-local traffic may be tunneled within a GTP-tunnel. The classification is made on the end-to-end traffic instead of the tunnel header. This is known for people skilled in 3GPP-architecture.
There are many bearers, i.e. GTP-tunnels to a base station and there are many base stations. Due to the mobility of the UEs the UEs connected to a base station is varying over-time i.e. one UE moves its connection between many base stations. The specific set of UEs connected to one base-station is therefore varying over time. A RB is an association for the base-station to know how and to which UE the traffic should be sent to. The RB has two directions, one uplink direction which is the traffic from the UE to the base station, and one downlink direction which is the traffic from the base station towards the UE.
The traffic in the uplink can easily be classified and broken out, i.e. routed to the local service cloud. If any kind of tunnel header is used for a broken out packet, such as a GTP tunnel header, it is stripped off before the packet is delivered to the application server in the local service cloud, such that the application server only receives the native end-to-end packets.
An IP address is allocated to a UE when a default bearer is activated. The IP address allocated for the default bearer is used for the dedicated bearers within the same Packet Data Network connection. A major problem in this scenario is that the UE's IP address cannot be guaranteed to be unique. Several UEs may be allocated the same private IP address. This is most critical when the traffic shall be routed downlink and the traffic from the local service cloud shall be inserted, i.e. broken in, into a RB belonging to the correct UE. There are many UEs and downlink RBs to select between and a native IP packet which is sent from the local service cloud has no relation to UE identities or RB identities. The lack of guaranteed IP address uniqueness is a problem also in the uplink, since the traffic from different UEs may interfere, i.e. be mixed with each other and confuse the application servers in the local service cloud. The applications in the local service cloud require different UE IP addresses and an operating system uses the UE IP addresses and port numbers as identifiers of the application sessions.
Note also that one UE may use several servers in the local service cloud such that traffic from those servers must be broken in and routed to the same UE.
An Evolved Packet System (EPS) is a central network portion of the UMTS LTE mobile communication system. An EPS primarily transfers packet data between edge networks and the radio access network. In an EPS network a bearer between a UE and a Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (PGW) is denoted "EPS bearer". In between the UE and the PGW the EPS bearer traverses an eNodeB (eNB) and a Serving Gateway (SGW). The parts of the EPS bearer between the PGW and the SGW and between the SGW and the eNB are realized through GTP tunnels. The part of the EPS bearer between the eNB and the UE is realized through radio interface user plane protocols and is denoted Radio Bearer (RB). An EPS bearer is bidirectional, i.e. it has both an uplink and a downlink direction.
A solution is to handle the problem of non-unique UE addresses by introducing Network Address Translation (NAT) between the UE and the local service cloud.
NAT
Primarily NAT was introduced to the world of Information Technology (IT) and networking due to the lack of IP addresses. When computers and servers within a network communicate, they need to be identified to each other by a unique address, in which resulted in the creation of a 32 bit number, and the combinations of these 32 bits would accommodate for over 4 billion unique addresses, known as IP address. This was named IPv4, and although over 4 billion addresses sounds a lot, it really is not considering how fast the world of computers and the internet has grown.
To circumvent this problem, a temporary solution was produced known as NAT. NAT resulted in two types of IP addresses, public and private. A range of private addresses were introduced, which anyone could use, as long as these were kept private within the network and not routed on the internet.
NAT allows the use these private IP address on the internal network. So within a private network a unique IP address is assigned to all computers, servers and other IP driven resources in the private network. Another company can use the same private IP addresses as well, as long as they are kept internal to their network. So two companies may use the same range of IP addresses but because they are private to their network, they are not conflicting with each other.
However when internal hosts need to communicate with a public network such as the Internet the public address is used. This address is a routable public address everyone can see, which would represent the network gateway of the user. This public address would be unique; no one else would use this address.
A problem with a NAT solution is that the NAT:ed UE-addresses are locally unique. The uniqueness will not hold in mobile scenarios, where movements may cause the UE to connect to a new local service cloud in which the NAT:ed IP address is not unique.
Another problem with the NAT solution is that a NAT includes a state that makes it difficult to interwork with mobility. The connectivity is broken when the mobile is handed over to another base-station.
A yet further problem with the NAT solution is that some applications may not work equally well when there is a NAT in a path. Here the path refers to the connection between the two ends of a communication.
The lack of uniqueness of the UE IP address is a consequence of 3GPP architecture where the core network decides and allocates an IP address range to each Access Point Name (APN). The same IP address range or overlapping ranges may be allocated to different APNs, such that IP addresses can be reused between APNs.
An APN identifies a PDN that a mobile data user wants to communicate with. In addition to identifying a PDN, an APN may also be used to define the type of service, such as e.g. connection to a wireless application protocol server, multimedia messaging service (MMS), which is provided by the PDN. APN is used in 3GPP data access networks, e.g. General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), and Evolved Packet Core (EPC).

Network node and method for handling a traffic flow related to a local service cloud


A vehicle roof window includes an uncoated glass transparency having an Lta in the range of greater than 0% to 10%, and a solar factor in the range of equal to or less than 30%, measured at a thickness in the range of 3.6-4.1 millimeters (“mm”), e.g. at a thickness of 3.6 mm, 3.9 mm or 4.1 mm. The solar factor is determined in accordance to International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”) No. 13837.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a dark privacy glass having a low solar factor, and more particularly, to vehicle windows, e.g. automotive roof windows made using the dark privacy glass, the windows having a solar factor equal to or below 30% calculated in accordance to the International Organization for Standardization ("ISO") No.13837.
2. Discussion of the Technical Challenge
There is continued interest in reducing the load applied to vehicle engines, e.g. automotive gasoline engines to increase the miles per gallon of gasoline and to reduce the carbon monoxide exhausted from the engines. Of particular interest in the present discussion are the imposed and the proposed regulations of the Federal Clean Air Act and of the California Air Resources Board ("CARB") directed to vehicle windows, e.g. automotive windows to reduce solar energy passing through the windows to reduce solar heating of the vehicle interior. As is appreciated by those skilled in the art, reducing solar heating of the vehicle interior, especially during the summer months reduces the air conditioner load on the engine. The proposed CARB regulation includes regulations directed to the automotive roof window and requires that the transparency of the roof window, e.g. the glass transparency have a solar factor of a specified value determined according to International Organization for Standardization ("ISO") No,13837. As is appreciated by those skilled in the art, the automotive roof window can be securely mounted in the roof or can be mounted in the roof for reciprocating movement between an open position and a closed position. Further automotive roof windows are also referred to as sun windows and moon windows.
The solar factor is a measure of the percent of solar energy or heat that passes through the glass transparency, e.g. the roof window into the car interior. The lower the solar factor, the higher the solar protection and the higher the performance of the glass transparency in preventing passage of solar energy into the vehicle interior. Using a solar control glass transparency can reduce the need for air-conditioning, thereby reducing air pollution and increasing miles per gallon of fuel.
The formula for calculating the solar factor recited in ISO No. 13837 includes the following variables: total solar energy transmission of the transparency; total solar energy reflectance of the transparency; total solar energy absorbance of the transparency, emissivity of the surfaces of the transparency facing the interior and exterior of the vehicle, speed of the wind moving over the exterior surface of the transparency, thickness of the transparency and heat transfer coefficient of the interior and the exterior surfaces of the transparency. A government, state or municipal agency selects the value of the solar factor. By way of illustration and of interest to the present discussion, CARB has selected a solar factor for transparencies for roof windows of equal to or less than 30%.
As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, it would be commercially advantageous to provide glass transparencies for vehicle roof windows that meet the solar factor requirement set by the government, state and/or municipal agencies, e.g. but not limiting to the solar factor set by CARB.


Systems, methods, and devices related to providing content items from a collection of content items. The embodiments disclosed enhance user experience by keeping track of which content items were already played to a user, and skipping those content items automatically. The embodiments disclosed herein also can enable a user to limit playing of content items to those that have been added since the last time contents items from the collection of content items were played. If the user selects to receive additional content items after receiving the newly added items, the system can provide the older unplayed content items after the newly added content news items have been played.

Electronic devices, such as audio (e.g., voice) controlled electronic devices, are capable of performing various functions. For instance, an individual may speak a command to activate such a device and in response, the device or other system component(s) may perform various functions and/or cause one or more actions to be performed. Some voice-controlled electronic devices may also include display screens capable of outputting content.

System and methods for providing unplayed content


A fuel compact formed by integrally molding coated fuel particles by a press into a cylindrical body and comprising a chamfer having plane or curved surface at its corner to thereby prevent the coated fuel particles from being damaged due to stress on press molding whereby the strength thereof is improved against mechanical contact with a fuel sleeve and a graphite block.

A high-temperature gas cooled reactor is a nuclear reactor which can take out a gas such as a helium gas with peculiar high safety and very high outlet temperature because a reactor core structure containing a nuclear fuel is formed from graphite having large calorific capacity and good high temperature soundness and also a gas such as a helium gas which never causes a chemical reaction under high temperature is used as a coolant gas. Thus, the high temperature heat of about 900° C. from the high-temperature gas cooled reactor can be used in broad fields such as a hydrogen manufacture and a chemical plant as well as an electric power generation.
(Coated Fuel Particles)
In general, coated fuel particles of about 500 micrometer to 1000 micrometer diameter are used as the nuclear fuel for this high-temperature gas cooled reactor. The coated fuel particles are formed by coating with total four layers of first to fourth layers, the fuel kernels of about 350 micrometer to 650 micrometer diameter obtained by sintering a uranium dioxide, a thorium, etc. to the form of ceramics. Specifically, the coated layers are the following four layers.
That is, the innermost first layer generally called a buffer layer is a layer which is formed of low-density thermal decomposition carbon (PyC) of a density of about 1 g/cm3 and serves to store a gas of a gas-like fission product (FP) and also to absorb swelling of the nuclear fuel. In general, the second layer applied onto this first layer is an inner thermal decomposition carbon (PyC) layer formed of high-density thermal decomposition carbon of a density of about 1.8 g/cm3 and serves to hold a gas-like fission product (FP) as a barrier of diffusion of the gas-like fission product (FP). The third layer called a silicon carbide (SiC) layer is formed of silicon carbide of a density of about 3.2 g/cm3 and serves to hold a solid-like fission product as a barrier of diffusion of the solid-like fission product and also serves as a main reinforcing member for the whole coated fuel particles. The outermost thermal decomposition carbon layer as the fourth layer is formed of high-density thermal decomposition carbon of a density of about 1.8 g/cm3 in the same manner as the second layer and serves to hold the strength of the whole coated fuel particles under irradiation by generating compression stress on the third silicon carbide layer by irradiation contraction and also to hold the gas-like fission product (FP).
Such coated fuel particles are generally manufactured through the following processes. First, concretely explaining the production of the fuel kernel, a dropping undiluted solution is produced by adding and agitating pure water and a thickening agent to a uranyl nitrate undiluted solution formed by melting uranium oxide powder in a nitric acid. In this case, the thickening agent is added so that the liquid drop of the dropped uranyl nitrate undiluted solution becomes true ball-like form by its own surface tension during its dropping. A resin such as a polyvinyl alcohol resin which has a property of being solidified under alkali conditions, polyethylene glycols and metolose for example may be used as this thickening agent. Subsequently, after cooling the dropping undiluted solution prepared in such a way to a predetermined temperature and adjusting its viscosity, it is dropped into the ammonia solution by vibrating a dropping nozzle of thin diameter. In this case, the deformation of the liquid drop is prevented when it lands on the ammonia solution surface by blowing an ammonia gas upon the liquid drop in space where it drops until it lands there so as to gel the surface of the liquid drop.
The undiluted solution dropped into the ammonia solution gets particles of heavy uranium acid ammonium by the full reaction of the uranyl nitrate with the ammonia in the ammonia solution. The particles of heavy uranium acid ammonium are roasted in the atmosphere to form uranium trioxide particles, which are further reduced and sintered to obtain the fuel kernels formed of high-density ceramics-like uranium dioxide. Since the diameter and the deviation from the spherical form of the thus obtained fuel kernels very substantially effect on the manufacture conditions in the subsequent coating process, the fuel kernels are fed to the coating process after their diameter is sorted by a sieve and their deviation from the spherical form is also sorted.
Thereafter, in the coating process of the fuel kernels, the fuel kernels are loaded in a fluid bed and sequentially coated with the first through fourth layers by thermally decomposing the coating gases. In this case, the first low-density carbon layer is applied onto the fuel kernels by thermally decomposing an acetylene (C2H2) at about 1400° C. The second and fourth high-density thermal decomposition carbon layers are applied by thermally decomposing a propylene (C3H6) at about 1400° C. The third silicon carbide layer is formed by thermally decomposing a methyl-chorolosilane (CH3SiCl3) at about 1600° C. The thus manufactured coated fuel particles get over-coated particles by further applying graphite matrix material comprising graphite powder, a caking agent, etc. on the surface of the coated fuel particles.
(Fuel Compact)
In using the thus over-coated coated fuel particle as a fuel compact, after dispersing the coated fuel particles in a graphite matrix material, they are molded by press or by die into a solid type or a hollow type cylindrical body and then sintered to produce the fuel compact 10 of predetermined form shown in FIG. 7(A) (see JP 2000-284084A, for example). This fuel compact 10 is formed by integrally binding a plural of coated fuel particles 12 by softening a phenol resin contained in the graphite matrix material by heating dies or punches when the coated fuel particles 12 are compressed as shown in FIG. 8.
(Loaded into a Reactor Core)
The thus formed fuel compact 10 has two kinds of solid type cylindrical body and hollow type cylindrical body and, in either case, 1) a predetermined amount of fuel compacts are contained in a fuel sleeve (cylinder) of graphite with its top and bottom closed by plugs so as to form a fuel rod and the fuel rods are loaded directly into a plural of insertion openings of a hexagon pillar type graphite block of the high-temperature gas cooled reactor, or 2) the fuel compacts are loaded directly into the insertion openings of the hexagon pillar type graphite block. Finally, the hexagon pillar type graphite blocks are loaded as the fuel into the reactor core while they are superposed one step on another step in a honey cam arrangement.
(Breakage of Fuel Compact)
In this case, when the treatment of the fuel compacts 10, that is when they are loaded into the fuel sleeve or the graphite block is carried out, the fuel compact 10 mechanically contacts with the inner surface of the fuel sleeve or the graphite block to thereby apply an impact onto the fuel compact 10 whereby the corner 10b of the fuel compact 10 is possibly broken (see FIG. 7).
In this manner, as a breakage arises in the fuel compact 10, a state of high temperature occurs within the high-temperature gas cooled reactor and therefore, when the fuel compact 10 is thermally expanded, the broken pieces thereof are held between the fuel compact 10 and the inner face of the fuel sleeve or the graphite block, which causes a high stress to occur in the place where the broken pieces are held, whereby the fuel compact 10, the fuel sleeve and the graphite block are damaged.
In addition thereto, since a temperature difference arises due to a difference of cooling efficiency between the central part of the high-temperature cooling gas cooled reactor and the peripheral part thereof when the fuel compact is used in the reactor and therefore the central part of the high-temperature gas cooled reactor has a temperature higher than the peripheral part thereof, the central part of the high-temperature gas cooled reactor has thermal expansion larger than the peripheral part thereof, with the result that the fuel compact 10 tends to be deformed into a drum-like shape. The thus drum-shaped fuel compact 10 causes its corner 10b to mechanically contact with the inner surface of the fuel sleeve or the graphite block, which causes the fuel compact 10 to be possibly cracked.
Thus, it is required to prevent such breakage of the fuel compact 10, but, in this case, it is also required to take a consideration of not damaging the coated fuel particles 12 by the stress when it is pressed.


A semiconductor device and a manufacturing method thereof are provided. The semiconductor device includes a well region disposed in a substrate, a gate disposed on the substrate, a halo region disposed in a channel region under the gate, and a source LDD region and a drain LDD region disposed on opposite sides of the halo region.

1. Field
The following description relates to a semiconductor device and a method of manufacturing the same, and to a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) having a halo region separately formed in a channel region located between a source LDD region and a drain LDD region.
2. Description of Related Art
High integration of semiconductor devices demands narrower intervals to be provided between a source and a drain of a transistor, which results in a shorter channel length and a shorter gate length. The structural limitation causes deterioration in the operation of semiconductor devices due to short-channel effects and hot carrier effects.
Various methods have been suggested to the structure of such semiconductor devices in order to ameliorate or eliminate the above-mentioned limitations and to obtain a better design for semiconductor devices to meet the target specifications of device characteristics. One of the methods is the formation of a lightly doped drain (LDD) structure. An LDD structure is a widely known solution to the above-mentioned limitations, and is thus used widely in the manufacture of semiconductor devices.
An LDD region of a MOSFET is formed by implanting a lower dose of impurity ions (N− for NMOS, P− for PMOS) than the dose implanted to form a source or a drain of the MOSFET. The LDD region is located between the source or drain junction region (N+ for NMOS, P+ for PMOS) and the channel region under a gate electrode.
Although the LDD region can reduce strong peak field due to excessively-doped drain, the LDD region introduces a series resistance, which in turn results in another limitation that results in the deterioration of semiconductor device performance.
The impurities within the source or drain junction region may diffuse to the channel region below the gate electrode when the impurities are heat-treated during the manufacturing process. Thus, a halo region that surrounds the LDD region may be formed so as to prevent the diffusion of impurities to the channel region below the gate electrode. While the addition of a halo region can reduce short-channel effects that are mainly caused by the decreasing channel length, the addition of the halo region can also cause the performance degradation of a MOSFET. For example, the addition of the halo region can reduce drain saturation current. However, the hot carrier reliability may be low.
As mentioned above, the MOSFET channel length may be reduced down to deep sub-micron level due to improved semiconductor device integration techniques. However, this also causes various short-channel effects that have not been witnessed in the conventional long channel devices. The short-channel effects are the main cause of limitations such as low breakdown voltage due to punch-through, reduced threshold voltage, increased leakage current, and hot-carrier effect.
Among the short-channel effects, deteriorations due to hot carrier are serious concern. The hot-carrier effects include the increase of substrate current and the shift in the drain saturation current, as well as the reduction of trans-conductance. The lifetime of the device may be also shortened.
Accordingly, it is necessary to effectively control the hot carrier effects of a semiconductor device, and a structural improvement of the semiconductor device is desirable. The structural shortcoming may also result in complicated manufacture process that increases the cost of production.

Semiconductor device and manufacture method thereof


A solid electrolytic capacitor with a protective structure, which includes stacked capacitor elements electrically connected to the positive and negative terminal. A packaging material such as synthetic resin is used to encapsulate the capacitor elements, the positive terminal, and the negative terminal. Before packaging, a protective layer is formed by a colloid material, which covers the main body of the capacitor that includes the capacitor elements, the positive terminal, and the negative terminal. The protective layer provides a better seal and relieves the external pressure exerting on the capacitor during the packaging process. The protection prevents structural damage to the capacitor's main body while reducing the risk of short-circuits and excessive current leakage.

1. Field of the Invention
The instant disclosure relates to a solid electrolytic capacitor; in particular, a solid electrolytic capacitor with a protective structure and a method for manufacturing thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring to FIG. 1, which shows a conventional solid electrolytic capacitor 10 consists of stacked capacitor elements 6. FIG. 2 shows a separate capacitor element 6 of the conventional solid electrolytic capacitor of FIG. 1. Particularly, each capacitor element 6 has an anode portion 7 and a cathode portion 8. The bodies of the capacitors are placed on top of one another in a stack-configuration while the anodes connected to a positive terminal 12 and the cathodes connected to a negative terminal 13. Conventionally, the portions of the capacitor elements 6 are joined by conductive adhesives (shown as layer 18 in FIG. 1), and a synthetic resin material 14 is applied directly to cover the capacitor elements 6. Thus, the anode, the cathode, and the stacked capacitor elements form the main body of the capacitor unit. Furthermore, with the exception of the bottom surface of the positive and negative terminals 12 and 13, the synthetic resin material 14 substantially covers the upper surface of the capacitor structure to form the capacitor package.
Each capacitor element 6 is made of a dielectric oxide film 2 and a cathode layer 3 forming over an aluminum foil 1. Specifically, the cathode layer 3 comprises solid electrolytic layer 3a, which is created from a conductive polymer known as polythiophene; a carbon layer 3b, and a silver coating 3c. The section where the cathode layer 3 forms over the dielectric oxide film 2 defines a cathode region 8. On the other hand, the section without the cathode layer 3 defines an anode region 7. When stacking the capacitor element 6, soldering (anode welding) is performed between the neighboring anode regions 7. In addition, a conductive adhesive 18 is used between the neighboring cathode regions 8 of the capacitor element 6. Thus, the stacked solid electrolytic capacitor 10 is formed.
A first and a second groove 16 and 17 are disposed near the border region 15 between the cathode region 8 and the anode region. The anode region 7 may be easier bent at the first groove 16 and the second groove 17. The first groove 16 and the second groove 17 act to reduce the bending stress around the border 15 between the anode region 7 and the cathode region 8. However, during the manufacturing process of the capacitor, especially during the application of the synthetic resin 14, a large force is usually applied for molding and shaping of the resin structure. Thus, the large force applied during the manufacturing process may damage the capacitor element 6 easily. Moreover, the structural damage may cause short-circuit and excessive current leakage of the capacitor unit. Therefore, heavy emphasis has been placed on protecting the capacitors during the manufacturing process.

Solid electrolytic capacitor having a protective structure and method for manufacturing the same


A composite absorbent structure capable of extremely short fluid penetration time, well-suited for use as an absorbent core in disposable absorbent products such as adult disposable briefs, diapers, incontinence pads, sanitary napkins, wound dressings and bandages. The composite absorbent structure comprises a highly absorbent fluid transfer sheet having a low fluid retentiveness, and a laminated, wicking reservoir with a high fluid retentiveness in intimate fluid communication with the fluid transfer sheet to draw fluid therefrom under the effect of capillary action. The laminated reservoir includes superposed layers, the layer closest to the fluid transfer sheet being provided with a fluid distribution well. A highly porous and hydrophilic spacer element is inserted between the reservoir layers establishing a high void volume area which forms an extension of the fluid absorptive well between the reservoir layers. The invention also comprehends a method for providing a rapid fluid absorption in a disposable absorbent product.

Absorbent structures used in diapers, incontinence products and the like, must have the ability to rapidly take-up and retain body fluids which are released in an appreciable quantity over a relatively short period of time. To achieve this objective, the absorbent structure should be able to rapidly capture the onrush of fluid to prevent the fluid to leak past the edges of the absorbent structure, disperse by wicking action the captured fluid mass within the entire available absorbent volume, and lock the absorbed fluid therein to prevent leak-through and wet-back failures.
An absorbent structure which has been found particularly successful in this regard is a combination of a highly permeable fluid transfer sheet, such as pulp, exhibiting an extremely short fluid penetration time, and a highly absorbent and wicking laminated reservoir, made from peat moss material for example, in intimate fluid communicative relationship with the fluid transfer sheet, whose purpose is to permanently retain the absorbed fluid. This composite absorbent structure combines the desirable advantages of fairly rapid fluid penetration, high absorption and excellent wicking power contributing to reduce failures.
To further enhance the fluid absorption characteristics of the composite absorbent structure, it has been suggested to provide the laminated reservoir with a fluid distribution well in the inner reservoir layer. (For the purpose of this specification, the terms "inner layer" and "outer layer" will be used to designate the various layers of the laminated reservoir by their positions with respect to the fluid transfer sheet. "Inner" denotes a position closer to the fluid transfer sheet, while "outer" refers to a position farther from the fluid transfer sheet). The purpose of the well is twofold. Firstly, it exposes the outer layer to the fluid transfer sheet, through an opening in the inner layer, thereby increasing the surface area of the laminated reservoir capable to take-up fluid. Secondly, the well has the ability to distribute a coherent mass of fluid released from the fluid transfer sheet, along the laminated reservoir from the point of impact to prevent local saturation and overflow leakage.
Although composite absorbent structures of the type described above perform relatively well, it is desirable to further improve their fluid absorption characteristics.


A solid electrolyte type fuel cell which incorporates a metal separator comprising a base material of a metal other than silver or a silver alloy which is plated with silver or a silver alloy. The fuel cell can achieve improved efficiency for electricity generation with no increase of the resistance of the metal separator, even when it is operated at a low temperature.

In general, since a solid electrolyte type fuel cell can use hydrogen gas, natural gas, methanol, coal gas or the like as a fuel, it can promote the substitution of alternative energy for oil in electric power generation, and further, since waste heat can be used, it has attracted attention from the viewpoint of resource savings and an environmental problem.
This solid electrolyte type fuel cell has a laminated structure as shown in an exploded perspective view of FIG. 1 and a sectional schematic view of FIG. 2. That is, a solid electrolyte type fuel cell 10 includes an electric power generation cell 14 made up of a solid electrolyte layer 11, a fuel electrode layer 12 and an air electrode layer 13, which are disposed at both sides of this solid electrolyte layer 11, a fuel electrode current collector 16 disposed to be in close contact with the fuel electrode layer 12, an air electrode current collector 18 disposed to be in close contact with the air electrode layer 13, and metal separators 17 constructed so that a fuel gas can be supplied to the fuel electrode layer 12 and an oxidizing agent gas containing oxygen can be supplied to the air electrode layer 13. Reference numerals 20 and 21 in FIG. 2 denote grooves which become a fuel passage and an air passage, respectively.
The conventional solid electrolyte type fuel cell is operated at a high temperature of 1000° C., so that chemical energy of fuel can be relatively efficiently converted into electric energy, however, in order to operate the solid electrolyte type fuel cell at 1000° C., materials used for component parts of the solid electrolyte type fuel cell are restricted especially to materials superior in heat resistance. For example, as a structure material of the separator or the like, it has been necessary to use dense ceramics such as lanthanum chromite (LaCrO3). Further, an attached apparatus (for example, a preheating apparatus of fuel gas, or the like) for operating the solid electrolyte type fuel cell is also required to be made of a material resistant to high temperature, and because of the operation at a high temperature, the consumption of the material becomes quick, the use life becomes short, and it is inevitable that the cost becomes high. Thus, in recent years, a solid electrolyte type fuel cell which can be efficiently operated at a temperature lower than 1000° C. and in which metal material can be used for peripheral members, has been developed.
In such a low temperature operating solid electrolyte type fuel cell, lanthanum gallate oxide, Sc-added zirconium, Y-added zirconium, ceria base oxide or the like is used for a solid electrolyte layer. By using these materials, the operation temperature can be lowered to about 700° C., and a metal material can be used for a peripheral member such as a separator. As a metal separator material, stainless steel, nickel base heat resistant alloy, cobalt base alloy or the like is used.
Besides, an air electrode current collector material is one of a plurality of important members influencing the power generation performance of a fuel cell, and mesh-shaped platinum is conventionally used as the air electrode current collector material.
However, the surface of the conventional metal separator material is covered with a chromium oxide film under conditions of, for example, 700° C. in the air, and the chromium oxide has conductivity at a high temperature, and has such a property that when temperature is lowered, its electric resistance increases. Accordingly, in the case where the operation is performed at a low temperature of about 700° C., it has a defect that the electric resistance is too large to be used as a separator material. Thus, even in the case where the fuel cell is operated at a low temperature while metal material is used for the separator, a material having a smaller electric resistance has been required.
Besides, in the case where a platinum mesh is used as an air electrode current collector, platinum is expensive since it is a noble metal, and for reduction in cost, a high performance air electrode current collector material substituting for platinum has been desired.

Solid electrolyte type fuel cell and air electrode current collector for used therein


The present invention discloses a method for product quality control and fingerprint detection of an epimedium brevicornu complex. The method uses high performance liquid chromatography, and can effectively realize the quality control of products containing traditional Chinese medicine components, and especially stable control of the quality of products containing a large quantity of non-traditional Chinese medicine components in formulas. Through step-by-step quality control, product quality fluctuation is reduced and stable quality is ensured. Meanwhile, the method is simple and convenient, does not need additional instruments and standards, saves the cost and is more conducive to actual production.

The present invention relates to a method for product quality control and a fingerprint, and particularly relates to a method for product quality control through a method of content determination and fingerprint. The content determination of index components means that content detection is conducted through corresponding standards and test articles by high performance liquid chromatography and the content of the substance in the test article is calculated through the content of the standards. The content determination of index components is currently a common method for quality control of traditional Chinese medicine related products.
The traditional Chinese medicine fingerprint refers to an atlas obtained by means of modern information collection technology and quality analysis means after appropriate treatment of some traditional Chinese medicines or Chinese patent medicines and capable of displaying images, figures, spectrograms and data of chemical features of the traditional Chinese medicines or the Chinese patent medicines. As a quality control mode, the traditional Chinese medicine fingerprint is gradually valued by people. The most basic attributes in the chromatographic fingerprints are integrity and ambiguity. It is a comprehensive and quantizable identification means, is based on system research of chemical components of the traditional Chinese medicine and is mainly used for evaluating the authenticity, the superiority and the stability of the quality of semi-finished products of the traditional Chinese medicines and the traditional Chinese medicine formulations.
The existing quality standards of traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces and compound decoctions and granules generally include two aspects: morphological identification, physical and chemical identification, and spectral chromatographic analysis, wherein the spectral chromatographic analysis generally includes thin layer chromatography, high performance liquid content determination method and fingerprinting method. If the product contains many components, the chemical components contained therein are relatively complicated and interference factors are numerous in many aspects. Therefore, the research is difficult, and it is difficult to achieve accurate, stable and controllable production. At present, the field of pharmaceutical compound formulations has only one or two index components in terms of content control, and is single in quality control, fewer in indexes and difficult to comprehensively reflect the quality status of the product. In the extraction process of the traditional Chinese medicine, due to the limitations of the technology and the quality of the traditional Chinese medicine, each batch of the obtained extracts has obvious differences. If quality control is conducted only through common content determination, even if the content needs are satisfied, the overall quality of the product is fluctuated. If control indexes are increased, the material basis needs to be clarified through mass spectrometry, and then content detection is conducted through the standards. Because the components contained in the traditional Chinese medicine have diversity, if quality control is conducted by the method of adding the indexes for content determination, the time and money cost of quality control may be increased and the difficulty of quality control may be increased, which is not conducive to practical application.
Therefore, with respect to the above problems, the problem to be urgently solved by those skilled in the art is to provide a method for product quality control and fingerprint detection of an epimedium brevicornu complex.

Method for product quality control and fingerprint detection of epimedium brevicornu complex


Disclosed is a method for predicting collisions and conflicts between multiple moving bodies. A method for predicting and avoiding collisions and conflicts between multiple moving bodies comprises the steps of: creating objects by modeling the shape of each of multiple moving bodies; creating two-dimensional circles by modeling the objects by using size information of the objects; modeling the two-dimensional circles into moving disks by using at least one of the moving speeds of the moving bodies, the monitoring time window for the moving bodies, and the size information of the two-dimensional circles; computing a Voronoi diagram between the moving disks and calculating edges of the Voronoi diagram; and during the monitoring time window for the moving bodies, calculating a flipping event in which at least one of the edges of the Voronoi diagram is converted into a vertex and then converted into another edge, and a collision event by which a collision between a pair of moving disks defining an edge of the Voronoi diagram is predicted, and calculating whether actual collisions occur between moving disks triggering the flipping event and between moving disks triggering the collision event, in chronological order of the occurrence of the flipping event and the collision event.

Similar to traffic accidents on the land that cause many casualties, collision accidents frequently occur between ships on the sea and cause many casualties. In addition, collision accidents often occur between aircrafts in the sky, resulting in very many deaths. A typical example was air collision over Uberlingen, Germany, on Jul. 1, 2002, resulting in the death of 71 passengers in both aircrafts. In addition, collisions occasional occur between air planes moving along the runway on the ground. In recent years, unmanned aircrafts such as drones are more frequently used, and collisions between the drones and airliners or between the drones and helicopters also frequently occur. (Example: the drone/passenger plane crash in Quebec, Canada on Oct. 16, 2017). Thus, massive casualties may be resulted when failing to accurately predict conflicts (or conjunctions) or collisions between the aircrafts or between ships.
As a method for predicting collision and conflict between multiple moving bodies, a method for sampling positions of objects in a unit of a pair at a predetermined time window and checking whether the sampled positions intersect has been used. However, the above method has a risk of failing to detect the conflict depending on the sampling method and the sampling frequency even though there is an actual conflict risk, and the amount of calculations may increase greatly to reduce the risk. For example, if the sampling frequency is M for N moving bodies, the calculation amount of the conventional method is O (N2M2). In this case, the amount of calculation may be greatly increased even when the sampling frequency is slightly increased, so a large-scale supercomputer is required for predicting the collision and conflict of the moving bodies.
In order to improve the above elementary method, there is provided a method for efficiently determining a collision between two moving bodies by using a segment tree based on a sorted binary tree [Bentley J L, Wood D. An optimal worst case algorithm for reporting intersections of rectangles. IEEE Transactions on Computers. 1980 Jul. 1(7):571-7.] (O(N log N) time to build a binary tree and average time of O(log N) time to find the two nearest moving bodies). However, this method is specialized only for collisions between two moving bodies and depends on the coordinate system.
In contrast, the method proposed in the present invention is independent from the coordinate system, and can efficiently analyze the conflict between any number of moving bodies as well as between two or three moving bodies (O(N log N) time for preprocessing to predict the collision and conflict and average O(log N) time to deal with each subsequent event).
In addition, the method proposed in the present invention can replay the situation of the collision and conflict through the event history for collision avoidance and other analysis even after the calculation for predicting the collision and conflict is completed, but the above method does not replay the situation. The rapid replay is an important feature because it allows to repeat various analyzes for future situations.
In addition, there have been studies on how to calculate the Voronoi diagram with respect to a movable point set without considering the size of each moving body. [Roos T. Voronoi diagrams over dynamic scenes. Discrete Applied Mathematics. 1993 Jun. 10; 43(3):243-59.]. However, this method is difficult to accurately predict the collision and conflict because the size of the moving body may not be accurately reflected.

Method for predicting collision and avoiding conflict between multiple moving bodies

IUCF-HYU (INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY COOPERATION FOUNDATION HANYANG UNIVERSITY)


A method provides a modular dental implant. The modular dental implant has (a) an implant apex comprising an internal fastening surface; (b) a first hollow implant body segment; (c) an abutment having a screw access hole; and (d) a fastening screw. The method also entails fastening the external fastening surface of the first hollow implant body segment to the internal fastening surface of the implant apex; and screwing the fastening screw (i) through the abutment and the first hollow implant body segment, and (ii) into the implant apex, when the abutment, the first hollow implant body segment, and the implant apex are fastened together.

Dental implants are commonly used for artificial replacements of teeth roots. A dental implant is usually constructed from an implant body and from an abutment (or other type of dental prosthetic attachment) for supporting prosthesis or like dental solutions. The bottom portion of the implant usually includes an apex.
It is noted that dental implants of various sizes are utilized by each dental professional, which requires a whole variety of implants to be available for every single surgeon. Prior art dental implants are not capable of being extended or shortened according to changing clinical requirements—both during the dental implantation and further in the treatment—which affects the quality of the restoration, may hamper the restoration, and may hurt (in different degrees of severity) in a periodontal supporting structure of the dental implant, and/or in an environment of the dental implant.
There is a growing need to provide reliable and simple means of constructing dental implants.

Method and system for dental implantation


The present invention provides a method for polishing a wafer including, after unloading and before loading to hold a next wafer to be polished: measurement to measure a depth PDt of a concave portion of a template after taking out a polished wafer; calculation to calculate a difference ΔPD between the measured depth PDt of the concave portion and a depth PD0 of the concave portion of the template before being used for polishing; and adjustment to adjust polishing conditions for a next wafer to be polished in accordance with the calculated difference ΔPD. Consequently, there are provided the method for polishing a wafer and a polishing apparatus which enable adjusting a fluctuation in flatness of each wafer caused due to a fluctuation in numerical value of a pocket depth of a template.

Polishing of wafers is often performed by a waxless mount polishing apparatus which contains a wafer in an annular member made of, e.g., glass epoxy and holds a back side of the wafer by a backing pad placed between the wafer and a polishing head. Usually, to perform this polishing, a template having the annular member bonded to the backing pad is used. The template is usually attached to an annular base ring made of PVC (polyvinyl chloride), titanium, or the like in the polishing head, and used in this state.

Method for polishing wafer and polishing apparatus