A sheet material that includes an elastic component or material (e.g., film, nonwoven web laminated to the elastic component, etc.) is provided. The elastic component is formed from a styrenic block copolymer composition containing from about 10 wt. % to about 90 wt. % of styrene-butadiene-styrene block copolymer; and from about 10 wt % to about 90 wt. % of styrene-isoprene/butadiene-styrene block copolymer. The styrenic block copolymer composition has good viscosity stability during extrusion and thus may be readily formed into an elastic sheet material. The elastic sheet material may be subsequently crosslinked to achieve the desired elastic and mechanical properties.

Elastic sheet materials are commonly incorporated into products (e.g., diapers, training pants, garments, etc.) to improve their ability to better fit the contours of the body. For example, an elastic composite may be formed from an elastic sheet material and one or more nonwoven web facings. The nonwoven web facing may itself be extensible. Alternatively, the nonwoven web facing may be joined to the elastic sheet material while the elastic sheet material is in a stretched condition so that the nonwoven web facing can gather between the locations where it is bonded to the elastic sheet material when it is relaxed. The resulting elastic composite is stretchable to the extent that the nonwoven web facing gathered between the bond locations allows the elastic film to elongate.
Styrenic block copolymers are often employed to form the elastic components of such composites. For example, the styrenic block copolymer may contain a conjugated butadiene block positioned between two styrene blocks (i.e., S-B-S). Styrenic block copolymers containing conjugated butadiene blocks may be cross-linked to improve elastic performance. Suitably, the styrenic block copolymers may be melt extruded to form the elastic sheet materials. However, such polymers may be difficult to process by melt extrusion due to premature cross-linking of the butadiene block during the extrusion process. As such, a need exists for elastic materials that have good melt stability during processing, yet exhibit good elastic performance during use.

Sheet materials containing S-B-S and S-I/B-S copolymers


A printhead assembly for an inkjet printer that has an elongate printhead integrated circuit (IC) defining an array of ejection nozzles fabrication using semiconductor etching and deposition techniques. The printhead IC is mounted in the printer with a chip carrier that has a channel for enclosing the printhead IC on three of its four longitudinal sides. Resiliently deformable material is positioned between the three longitudinal sides of the printhead IC and the channel to accommodate relative movement of the printhead IC and the chip carrier during normal handling of the print head assembly.

The Applicant has developed a page width ink jet print head that is the subject of a large number of United States patents and patent applications. The print head is capable of printing text and images having resolutions as high as 1600 dpi.
An integral part of the print head is one or more print head chips. The print head chips are the product of an integrated circuit fabrication technique. In particular, each print head chip comprises a plurality of nozzle arrangements that are positioned along a length of silicon wafer substrate. Each nozzle arrangement is in the form of a micro electro-mechanical system. The applicant has developed technology that allows for the fabrication of such print heads having up to 84 000 nozzle arrangements.
In general, during assembly of a print head, the print head chips are positioned in some form of carrier. The carrier forms part of an ink distribution arrangement such as an ink distribution manifold. Instead, the carrier can itself be attached in some way to an ink distribution arrangement to define some form of interface between the print head chips and the ink distribution arrangement.
The positioning of the print head chips in their respective carriers usually takes place by way of simply urging the print head chip into a recess defined in the carrier. The recess is thus dimensioned so that the fit is a snug fit or an interference fit to ensure that the print head chip is retained in position in the carrier.
Due to the elongate nature of the print head chip, the print head chip is susceptible to flexure. As a result, any stresses that are exerted on the carrier during normal handling and operation can result in flexure of the carrier and thus the print head chip. It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the fact that the nozzle arrangements are each in the form of a micro electro-mechanical system makes such flexure highly undesirable.
A particular problem with such a fit stems from the possible ingress of particulate matter into the recess. This is especially so if the matter is in the form of one or more relatively hard particles. When the chip is urged into the recess, such a particle can become sandwiched between the print head chip and a wall of the recess. This results in a region of stress concentration at that point on the print head chip that is impinged upon by the particle. Thus, when the chip is subjected to a small amount of flexure that would usually not cause a problem, the stress concentration can cause a fracturing of the print head chip.
The Applicant has conceived the present invention to address this problem and to alleviate the necessity for the print head manufacturer to achieve a particulate free environment for the assembly stage of the print head. As is well known, chip manufacturers incur substantial expense to ensure that chip fabrication environments are kept sterile. Applicant believes that it is desirable that the need for such sterile environments does not extend to the print head assembly stage.

Printhead assembly configured for relative movement between the printhead IC and its carrier


The present invention provides a method of frequency modulated end-point detection. Control signals are sent to the manufacture device for performing the manufacturing process, wherein process signals are generated along with the manufacturing process. Process signals are filtered to obtain synchronization signals synchronized with the control signals. A judging standard is provided according to the synchronization signals corresponding to a specific state of the process. The synchronization signals are continuously monitored, and a process end-point is determined when the synchronization signals do not meet the judging standard.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an end-point detecting method and the related manufacturing apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method using frequency modulation to determine the end-point of the manufacturing process and the related manufacturing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the semiconductor manufacturing process, the end-point method is used to control the manufacturing time, which influences the quality of the product. FIG. 1 is a conventional manufacturing apparatus. The manufacturing apparatus 10 comprises a manufacturing device 12, a control device 14 and an end-point detecting device 16. The desired manufacturing process is performed in the manufacturing device 12 and a process signal PS is provided. The control device 12 provides the control signal CS controlling the power supply needed by the manufacturing device 12 and the enabling mechanism of the manufacturing device 12. During the manufacturing process, the end-point detecting device 16 monitors the manufacturing signal and determines whether the manufacturing device 12 is operating within predetermined conditions. An end-point is determined when the end-point detecting device 16 detects the manufacturing device 12 is operating outside the predetermined conditions. At this time, the end-point detecting device 16 informs the control device 14 to carry out a reaction to stop the manufacturing process or change the manufacturing parameter to begin the next manufacturing step.
For the purpose of illustration, assume the manufacturing apparatus 10 is a plasma etching system, the manufacturing device 12 could be a vacuum chamber, the control device 14 could be a power supply for providing a RF plasma power source or a general power supply to the vacuum chamber. In this case, the end-point detecting device 166 detects the light intensity signal generated by discharge of electrons of the plasma in the vacuum chamber and determines the plasma etching state in the vacuum chamber.
Generally, the end-point detecting method is used only after the manufacturing process has continued for a predetermined time and a stable state has been obtained. Thus, the misjudgment of the end-point caused by the unstable state of at the beginning of the manufacturing process can be avoided.
Most conventional end-point detecting methods simply monitor the process signal PS generated by the manufacturing device 12. One end-point detecting method averages the process signals collected over a time period after the procedure is started as the standard average value. The standard average value is compared to the current process signal PS to determine whether an end-point is reached. Referring to FIG. 2, the process signals PS from 0 to time Ta are averaged to obtain a standard average value Ia. If the current process signal is less than 0.9Ia, an end-point is detected.
However, accidental noises might affect the state of the manufacturing device 12. For example, a bad ground connection or aged components in the control device 14 might cause the power supply to the manufacturing device 12 to have a sudden power surge. The end-point detecting device 16 could incorrectly take the instance of the power surge as the end-point and mistakenly stop the manufacturing process.
A time-average method can be used to overcome the problem of an unstable end-point. For the best time-average result, a long period is used to do signal averaging. In other words, the sudden noise is xe2x80x9cdilutedxe2x80x9d by a long period, so that the judgement of the end-point won""t be affect. However, in real processes, this is impractical, as the manufacturing process will be delayed.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an end-point detecting method using frequency modulation to accurately find the end-point of the manufacturing process in a manufacturing device.
The present invention provides a method of frequency modulated end-point detection. First, control signals are sent to the manufacture device for performing the manufacturing process, wherein process signals are generated along with the manufacturing process. Then, the process signals are filtered to obtain synchronization signals synchronized with the control signals. Then, a judging standard is provided according to the synchronization signals corresponding to a specific state of the process. Finally, the synchronization signals are continuously monitored, and a process end-point is determined when the synchronization signals do not meet the judging standard.
The present invention further provides a manufacturing system with method of frequency modulated end-point detection. The manufacturing system has a control device, a manufacturing device and an end-point detecting device. The control device provides control signals. The manufacturing device performs a manufacturing process controlled by the control signals and generates process signals. The end-point detecting device monitors and filters the process signals to generate synchronization signals synchronized with the control signals. Furthermore, the end-point detecting device determines an end-point according to a judging standard defining the value of the synchronization signals corresponding to a specific state of the process.
The advantage of the present invention is the filtering of external noises. Because the external noises always have a different frequency than that of the control signals, the judging standard may eliminate the effect of the external noises and the end-point is thus found is accurately. Even though the control signals could be distorted slightly by the external noises, the effect can be countered by applying a simple computation of the ratio between the synchronization signal and the control signals.

Method and system of frequency modulated end-point detection


The invention relates to a nucleic acid molecule that improves aroma production in a plant, and a cell and a transgenic plant comprising the nucleic acid molecule. A protein and a protein complex for catalyzing the synthesis of a monoterpene and a precursor thereof and uses for improving the production of aroma in a plant are also provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a gene for improving aroma production in a plant, and more particularly to a gene, protein, protein complex and method for improving aroma production in a plant.
2. Description of the Related Art
Flowers are unique organs that advertise their attractiveness in form, color and fragrance for insects, birds and mammals to assure pollination. Orchidaceae is one of the largest monocotyledon families, containing more than 25,000 species. In orchids, large quantities of pollen in masses are spread by animals (bees, moths, flies and birds), and the floral scents serve as attractants for species-specific pollinators. These pollinators play an important role in orchid floral diversification advantageous to the evolution of an obviously successful family. However, the biochemistry of fragrance production and the mechanisms regulating its emission in orchids remains sketchy.
To date, no simple, efficient, and reliable culture methods for scented orchids have been developed. Although the sympatric speciation of orchids is linked to differences in their floral odors, the large genome size, long life cycle and regeneration time and inefficient transformation system render the orchid scent biology difficult to explore. Furthermore, several scent and scentless species are cross-incompatible, which leads to the difficulty of producing scented offspring via traditional breeding. In some successful cases of cross-breeding, the offspring have diluted scent or even totally expel the scent-producing ability. Thus, to increase crop quality, the molecular breeding of scent species by introducing key enzymes regulating scent production to species/cultivars already with good characters is of interest.
Terpenoids belong to a large family of plant secondary metabolites, and their corresponding alcohols possess useful properties such as fragrance, flavor, insecticidal properties and characteristics that make them useful as pharmaceutical agents. In addition, primary metabolites like abscisic acid, carotenoids, chlorophyll, gibberellins, quinine electron carriers and steroids are also terpene-derived (van Schie et al., 2007, Plant J, 52, 752-762). Monoterpens formed from geranyl diphosphate (GDP, C10, is synthesized from dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMADP, C5) and isopentenyl diphosphate (IDP, C5) by GDP synthase (GDPS). IDP and DMADP are used by prenyltransferases to catalyze the synthesis of the general terpene backbones. GDPS is a member of the short-chain trans-prenyltransferase family, and it also includes farnesyl diphosphate synthase (FDPS) and geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase (GGDPS), which synthesize farnesyl diphosphate (FDP, C15) and geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGDP, C20), respectively (Ogura and Koyama, 1998, Chem. Rev., 98, 1263-1276; Reiling et al., 2004, Biotechnol Bioeng, 87, 200-212). These enzymes provide the acyclic branch-point intermediates for isoprenoid biosynthesis and control the flux into various terpenoid products. However, regulation and sharing of precursor pools are only starting to be explored.
The distribution of GDPS appears to be limited within nature. It has been described in the plants Mentha piperita (Burke et al., 1999, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 96, 13062-13067), Arabidopsis thaliana (Bouvier et al., 2000, Plant J, 24, 241-252), Abies grandis (Burke and Croteau, 2002, Arch Biochem Biophys, 405, 130-136), Antirrhinum majus, Clarkia breweri (Tholl et al., 2004, Plant Cell, 16, 977-992), Lycopersicon esculentum (van Schie et al., 2007, Plant J, 52, 752-762) and Phalaenopsis bellina (Hsiao et al., 2008, Plant J, 55, 719-733). GDPSs are either homomeric or heteromeric; the A. grandis, Arabidopsis and tomato GDPS, which contain the Asp-rich motifs and presume function as homodimers (Bohlmann et al., 2000, Arch Biochem Biophys, 375, 261-269; Burke and Croteau, 2002, Arch Biochem Biophys, 405, 130-136; van Schie et al., 2007, Plant J, 52, 752-762). The M. piperita, A. majus, and C. breweri GDPSs comprise heterodimers of a small (Mentha_SSU, Antirrhinum_SSU and Clarkia_SSU) and a large subunit (Mentha_LSU and Antirrhinum_LSU), which share only 22-38% identity with homomeric angiosperm GDPSs or GGDPSs (Burke et al., 2004, Arch Biochem Biophys, 422, 52-60; Tholl et al., 2004, Plant Cell, 16, 977-992). Notably, the small subunit from these plants lacks the Asp-rich motifs and is inactive per se (Tholl et al., 2004, Plant Cell, 16, 977-992). It appears to control the length of the chain synthesized by the catalytic large subunit, because interaction of the small subunit with GGDPS results in the conversion of functional GGDPS into GDPS (Tholl et al., 2004, Plant Cell, 16, 977-992). Meanwhile, the GDPS large subunit shares high amino acid sequence identity with GGDPS from plants (50%-75%), but the Mentha_LSU and Antirrhinum_LSU per se forms an active GGDPS enzyme that produces GGDP (Tholl et al., 2004, Plant Cell, 16, 977-992). Thus, the frequency of occurrence of the GDPS large subunit in plants has remained an open question.
Previously, floral scents in P. bellina (Orchidaceae, monocot) are demonstrated to be rich in the monoterpenes, geraniol and linalool and their derivatives (Hsiao et al., 2006, BMC Plant Biol, 6, 14). Identification a dual-function GDPS that lacks the Asp-rich motifs normally required for scent production but contains instead a glutamate-rich (Glu-rich) motif and is able to form a homodimer. Recent researches showed that GDPS small subunit from M. piperita, A. majus, and C. breweri is capable of modifying the chain length specificity of its catalytic partner and can bind to a variety of bona fide GDPS_LSU and GGPPS enzymes (Burke and Croteau, 2002, J Biol Chem, 277, 3141-3149; Tholl et al., 2004, Plant Cell, 16, 977-992). None of the previous studies of heterodimer GDPS have been performed in plant of monocots. It is curious that whether or not the heterodimer GDPS exists in orchid flower.

Gene, protein, protein complex and method for improving aroma production in a plant


For manufacturing a component with porous silicon, two highly doped regions with a lightly doped region arranged between them are formed in a silicon wafer. The dopant concentrations are thereby set such that porous silicon arises in the lightly doped region in a subsequent anodic etching. Light-emitting diodes or light-controlled bipolar transistors can be manufactured in this way.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method for manufacturing a porous silicon component which guarantees reliable contacting of the porous silicon.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Silicon is an indirect semiconductor having a band gap of 1.1 eV. The manufacture of semiconductor structures for light emission in the visible spectral range using silicon has heretofore not been thought possible by those knowledgeable in the art.
The production of porous silicon is known in the art from V. Lehman et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 58, p. 856 (1991). Porous silicon is formed at the surface of a silicon wafer by anodic etching of single-crystal silicon in a fluoride-containing, acidic electrolyte in which the silicon wafer is connected as anode. Porous silicon comprises pores or canals. The diameter of the canals is dependent on the doping of the silicon wafer. Given a doping of the silicon wafer in the range between 10.sup.15 and 10.sup.18 cm.sup.-3 yields canals having diameters from 1-2 nm. Canals having diameters of 10 nm-100 nm arise in silicon with a doping of more than 10.sup.19 cm.sup.-3.
It has been discovered (see v. Lehmann et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 58, p. 856 (1991)) that porous silicon produced from lightly doped silicon with a dopant concentration between 10.sup.15 and 10.sup.18 cm.sup.-3, and therefore having channels with diameters from 1-2 nm, has a band gap of approximately 1.7 eV and exhibits photoluminescence in the visible spectral range (See L. T. Canham Appl. Phys. Lett. 57, p. 1046 (1990) and N. Koshida et al., Jap. J. Appl. Phys. 30 p. L1221 (1991)).
An optical semiconductor component with porous silicon using a layer of porous silicon with Schottky contacts by vapor-deposition of gold has been proposed (see the press release of the Fraunhofer Inst. IFT. Sueddeutsche Zeitung, No. 199, p. 37, Aug. 29, 1991). The vapor deposition of metal, however, is difficult because of the porosity of the porous silicon.

Method for manufacturing a component with porous silicon


Provided is an oil-based cosmetic comprising a siliconized polysaccharide compound, silicone emulsifier, organic modified clay mineral, carbonic acid ester, and wax. According to the present invention, a spinnable oil-based composition having exceedingly excellent adherability can be obtained by using a specific siliconized polysaccharide compound, silicone emulsifier, organic modified clay mineral, carbon dioxide ester, and wax, and if this composition is used in an eyelash cosmetic material, it is possible to obtain an eyelash cosmetic material that has excellent adherability, has an excellent long-lash effect without adding fibers, and is capable of imparting a natural finished look.

Because they are useful in various ways, compositions having stringiness are being studied in a variety of fields, including not only cosmetics and quasi-drugs, but also foods and resins. Stringiness refers to the quality that a highly viscous liquid has of forming a string when allowed to drip down or when a rod is inserted into the liquid and then quickly drawn up out of the liquid. In order for this quality to be employed in various applications, a composition is required to have a stringiness and viscidity that are suitable for the intended purpose.
One application for stringy compositions is hair cosmetics, especially cosmetics for eyelashes. Eyelash cosmetics are used because they make the eyelashes look long and beautiful, and thus have the effect of highlighting the eyes. To address this aim, there exists art which imparts a long-lash effect and a volume-adding effect by formulating a stringy composition. Specifically, there exists art which, by including both a lysine derivative-modified silicone and a silicone-modified polysaccharide compound, imparts stringiness and extends the length of the eyelashes (see, for example, Patent Document 1: JP-A 2007-314655). At the same time, art has been disclosed wherein both fibers and an adhesive film-forming agent are included in an eyelash cosmetic which, by applying fibers to the eyelashes, adds volume to the eyelashes (see, for example, Patent Document 2: JP-A 2004-517092). There is also art on oil-based gelling agents composed of a siliconized polysaccharide and a polyether-modified silicone (see, for example, Patent Document 3: JP-A 2008-105994).
However, although eyelash cosmetics which include fibers have a good long-lash effect, applying too much fiber to the eyelashes results in an unnatural finish. Also, even though waxes such as beeswax are included in eyelash cosmetics so as to impart adherence and volume, sufficient viscosity is not obtained with an oil-based gelling agent composed of a silicone-modified polysaccharide compound and a polyether-modified silicone, making it inadequate as a gelling agent for eyelash cosmetics.


Devices and methods for capturing and imaging a specimen, such as a living organism, are disclosed. In some embodiments, a method for imaging a living organism in vivo includes placing at least one specimen into a hydrogel polymer on a substrate, and curing the hydrogel to embed the at least one specimen within the cured hydrogel such that the at least one specimen is kept alive and the movement of the at least one specimen within the cured hydrogel is restricted. The at least one embedded specimen can be imaged.

Small model organisms are widely used for in vivo studies of basic physiology and systemic responses. Many imaging techniques require reliable immobilization of the sample during imaging periods while simultaneously preserving the organism's health and maintaining the function of fluorescent markers for the duration of the experiment. In addition to addressing sample conditions such as hydration, temperature, and nutritional environment, imaging parameters such as light exposure intensity must be carefully optimized for maximal signal with minimal phototoxicity and sample perturbation.
Current immobilization methods suffer from a number of shortcomings, such as, use of toxic reagents and inability to support health of the organisms for the duration of the studies. Accordingly, there is still a need for materials and methods that provide a rapid, gentle, versatile, and inexpensive alternative mounting method useful for continuous long-term imaging.

Hydrogel encapsulation of living organisms for long-term microscopy


A facsimile device in which both of manuscript and copied sheet are discharged in a direction outside of the front surface at the operating portion of the facsimile device, and a sheet tray assembly unitarily constructed with a manuscript tray for receiving manuscript and a copied sheet tray for receiving copied sheet is attached to the main part of the facsimile device. And further, a partition member is additionally provided therein for use in separating the copied sheet tray and the manuscript tray from each other. Both of the manuscript tray and the copied sheet tray can be jointed to the facsimile device's main part together with the partition member so as to be inclined in a direction substantially perpendicular to that of discharging the copied sheet in the same direction, for instance, in a vertical direction. In such a construction, even curling sheet can be smoothly stacked in the sheet tray assembly.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a facsimile device in which both a manuscript and copied sheet are discharged in a direction outside of the front surface at the operating portion of the facsimile device, in particular, a facsimile device in which a sheet tray assembly unitarily comprising a manuscript tray for receiving manuscript and a copied sheet tray for receiving copied sheet are attached to the main part of the facsimile device, and the same is constructed such that even a curled sheet can be smoothly stacked in the sheet tray assembly.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, in a facsimile device in which manuscript and copied sheet are discharged in a direction outside of the front surface at the operating portion of the facsimile device, the main part of the facsimile device is put, for instance, on a table, and a horizontal tray is equipped at the sheet discharging side thereof, or a basket-shaped falling-down tray is equipped at the same.
In the case of the former, if a stocked previous-page copied sheet gets into a habit of curling and thereby turns out to be rolled, the tip end of next subsequent-page copied sheet gets hooked at the previous-page copied sheet, and therefore the same pushes out some of the stacked copied sheets as it exits from the upper part of the tray. Consequently, the copied sheets cannot be stocked (stacked) normally. And further, in the case of the latter, since the basket-shaped falling-down tray has no means for reforming the curled copied sheet, the same enters the tray as it is and turns out to be rolled at the same time. Consequently, stack of the rolled sheets becomes bulky (voluminous), so that many of copied sheets cannot be stocked in a limited space. And further, in the case of stocking both of copied sheet and manuscript in the same tray, the number of stocked sheets is restricted. In addition, the works of classifying copied sheets and manuscripts may get troublesome.
Next, sheet discharging mechanisms of the facsimile device are described in detail. A manuscript putting table is provided at the rear end of an operating portion. Furthermore, a manuscript discharging outlet is provided at the side of the operating portion and a copied sheet discharging outlet is further provided at the lower stage thereof. Moreover, a manuscript's width setting guide means is disposed on the manuscript putting stand.
In the facsimile device having such sheet discharging outlets, when a horizontal tray is installed thereto so as to fit the length (width) of manuscript or copied sheet (for instance, A-size, B-size, etc.), the same protrudes in the forward direction at the front surface side of the operating portion so that the operability of such facsimile device turns out to be worse. Furthermore, also in the case of employing a commonly-used tray for manuscript and copied sheet, since the tray fitted to the length (width) of the sheet is the employed the situation is same in diminished operability. In addition, manuscript and copied sheet mixedly exist and therefore it takes a long time for selecting and putting those mixed sheets in order. As mentioned heretofore, the conventional facsimile device has such defects to be solved.
And further, the operational function of the facsimile device is explained in brief hereinafter. When the manuscript to be transmitted is set on the manuscript putting table, the set position thereof in its width direction is limited by means of the manuscript's width setting guide. The manuscript set by operating the operating portion of the facsimile device is separated from the device on a separating section and transported therefrom by use of a pair of manuscript transporting rollers. The same is read out by the reading-out portion of an optical system constructed with light source, mirror, etc., and an electric signal thus generated is transmitted therefrom. And further, the manuscript read out is transported by use of another pair of manuscript transporting rollers and discharged from the front surface of the facsimile device through the manuscript discharging outlet.
Furthermore, in the case of receive-printing, the recording portion is constructed in such a manner as that the recording medium such as roll paper is printed by the recording portion comprising a thermal head and a platen roller, and the printed recording medium is cut off by a cutter unit and further discharged by use of a discharging roller from the front surface of the facsimile device through the copied sheet discharging outlet.
As mentioned above, in a facsimile device having sheet discharging outlets for respectively discharging manuscript and copied sheet provided at the front surface side of the operating portion, a horizontal tray is attached thereto and therefore the same protrudes at the front surface side of the device so that its operability is remarkably worsened. In such a situation, the device is required to be improved.
Furthermore, in the case of cutting off the rolled paper by the cutter unit and discharging it outside of the device through the copied sheet discharging outlet, the rolled paper tends to be curled in itself. In the conventional device, there remains a problem to be solved that the paper gets rolled up if its tendency of being curled is not removed, namely, the paper lacks firmness so that the copied sheet (paper) cannot be smoothly stacked in the tray normally.


The present invention provides a method and device for automatically determining a capture trajectory of a flight trajectory for an aircraft, as well as a procedure and system for automatic guidance of an aircraft. The flight trajectory includes at least one lateral trajectory furnished at least with a plurality of rectilinear stretches. The capture trajectory is a lateral capture trajectory that allows the aircraft to join up laterally with a particular rectilinear stretch of the lateral trajectory of the flight trajectory. The capture trajectory is defined to allow a minimum capture duration. An automatic navigation mode is engaged as soon as requested by the pilot to, if necessary, capture and follow the planned flight trajectory.

When an aircraft comprises a planned flight trajectory (which has been planned in standard fashion in preparation for a mission), an automatic guidance mode consisting in making the aircraft follow this planned flight trajectory, in particular a navigation mode consisting more precisely in making the aircraft follow laterally a lateral trajectory of said planned flight trajectory, cannot be engaged in a managed mode, so long as the aircraft does not lie on said planned flight trajectory.
Also, when a pilot enables such an automatic guidance mode, in particular the aforesaid navigation mode, he must firstly guide the aircraft manually or according to a selected mode (that is to say by manually tuning particular parameters which are controlled on the aircraft) so as to allow him to join up with said planned flight trajectory, before said automatic guidance mode is engaged, this naturally requiring a significant work load of the pilot and giving rise to a delay in the engagement of the automatic guidance.
It will be noted that the fact of deviating from a planned flight trajectory is relatively frequent during a low altitude flight carried out in the military context, for example by a military transport plane, and generally depends on the operational conditions encountered and in particular on the search during the flight for the most effective possible terrain masking.

Method and device for automatically determining a capture trajectory of a flight trajectory for an aircraft, as well as a procedure and system for automatic guidance of an aircraft


A laser oscillator comprising a laser resonator having a plurality of mirrors for directing the laser energy from source to exit apertures, the mirrors being constructed and mounted adjustably for reducing parasitic oscillations. The mirrors are mounted in adjusting members that have channels therein for coolant and are provided with heat insulating members that minimize heat gradients and unwanted heat transfers that may result in the distortion of the reflecting surfaces. In addition, the mirrors are angled so that light paths are defined that present a Z-shaped turning pattern. Apertures proximate to the mirrors through which the light beams are directed are offset from a common plane so that a reflective surface is not within the aperture of the opposing reflective surface. One or more of the apertures can be so offset to reduce the possibility of parasitic oscillations. Further, the reflectors can be angled and the apertures sized so as to eliminate parasitic oscillations.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laser oscillating apparatus and particularly to a laser oscillating apparatus designed to stabilize the pointing of a laser beam.
2. Description of the Background Art
FIGS. 21 and 22 are perspective views illustrating the arrangement of, for example, a laser oscillating apparatus of the background art disclosed in Japanese Patent Disclosure Publication No. 254684 of 1985. Referring to FIG. 22, the numeral 10 indicates an enclosure for enclosing a laser medium gas, 4 a pair of discharge electrodes, 8 a heat exchanger, 6 a blower, 26, 28 and 30 total reflectors, 32 a partial reflector, 12a first laser beam reflecting unit including the partial reflector 32 and total reflector 28, 12b second laser beam reflecting unit including the total reflectors 26 and 30, and 2 a laser beam. FIG. 23 shows a cross section of the first laser beam reflecting unit 12a, wherein 14 and 15 indicate apertures disposed in aperture member 95 immediately before the partial reflector 32 and total reflector 28, respectively, 36 an optical base for holding the first laser beam reflecting unit 12a, 44 a connecting rod for connecting the optical base 36 and an optical base for the second laser beam reflecting unit 12b, 54 bellows on which the enclosure 10 and optical base 36 are installed to maintain vacuum and airtightness, 38 an optical board installed on the optical base 36, and 40 and 42 adjusting plates mounted with the total reflector 28 and partial reflector 32 for adjusting the angles of the total reflector 28 and partial reflector 32, respectively.
FIGS. 24 and 25 illustrate the optical board 38 and an angle adjusting mechanism of the adjusting plate 40 installed on the optical board 38. FIG. 24 is a side view and FIG. 25 is a sectional view taken along the plane 25--25 of FIG. 24. In FIGS. 24 and 25, 46 indicates adjusting screws for adjusting the angle of the adjusting plate 40, 47 a threaded portion where the adjusting screw 46 is threaded into the optical board 38, 48 an O ring for vacuum-sealing and simultaneously holding the adjusting screw 46 rotatably against the optical board 38, 49 a receiving member provided on the adjusting plate 40 to make contact with the end of the adjusting screw 46, 55 a spring disposed to pull the adjusting plate 40 toward the optical board 38, 50 a support provided on the adjusting plate 40, 56 coolant flowing in the adjusting plate 40, 58 tubes in which the coolant 56 flows, 51a and 51b holes formed in the optical board 38 to permit a flow of the coolant 56, and 52 joints for connecting the tubes 58, optical board 38 and adjusting plate 40.
The operation of the laser oscillating apparatus arranged as described above will now be described.
FIG. 26 is a vertical sectional diagrammatic view in the longitudinal direction of the oscillating apparatus including the resonator light paths of the laser oscillating apparatus described in FIG. 22. Referring to FIGS. 26 and 22, the pair of discharge electrodes 4 for generating discharge and exciting the laser medium gas, the blower 6 for circulating the laser medium gas, and the heat exchanger 8 for cooling the laser medium gas are disposed in the enclosure 10 as described previously, and the laser medium gas passes between the pair of discharge electrodes 4 and is excited to be ready for laser oscillation. The laser medium gas then enters the heat exchanger 8, is cooled there, passes through the blower 6, and circulates in the direction of an arrow A. In the meantime, three resonator light paths pass an excitation area 18, where the laser medium gas is excited by discharge, in a Z pattern. The three parts are formed by resonator mirrors, comprising the total reflectors 26, 28 and 30 and the partial reflector 32 disposed in the longitudinal direction of the enclosure 10.
The laser beam 2 reflected by the total reflector 26 passes a first optical axis 20 and reaches the total reflector 28. Since the total reflector 28 is disposed slanting downward at an angle of .theta. relative to the first optical axis 20, the laser beam 2 passes a second optical axis 22 slanting downward at an angle of 2.theta. with respect to the first optical axis 20 and reaches the total reflector 30. Since the total reflector 30 is disposed slanting upward at an angle of .theta. relative to the first optical axis 20, the laser beam 2 passes a third optical axis 24 parallel with the first optical axis 20 and reaches the partial reflector 32. Part of the laser beam 2 reaching the partial reflector 32 is output intact to the outside and the rest thereof returns to the total reflector 26 on an opposite route to the above. With this process repeated, the laser beam 2 is amplified while passing the excitation area 18 repeatedly, and at a proper energy level is output to the outside from the partial reflector 32.
The angle adjusting mechanism of the total reflector 28 will now be described with reference to FIGS. 24 and 25. The angle of the total reflector 28 installed on the adjusting plate 40 is adjusted by the adjustment of the angle of the adjusting plate 40. Since the adjusting plate 40 is pulled by the spring 55 toward the optical board 38 and is pushed back by the support 50 and two adjusting screws 46, the angle of the adjusting plate 40 is determined by a relationship between the length of the support 50 and the projection length of the adjusting screws 46 from the optical board 38. Namely, by turning the adjusting screws 46, the projection length thereof from the optical board 38 is changed, allowing the angle of the adjusting plate 40 to be adjusted up and down and/or side to side.
In the meantime, on receiving the laser beam 2, the total reflector 28 having a certain absorption factor for the laser beam 2 absorbs part of the laser beam 2 and generates heat. The total reflector 28 is indirectly cooled by the coolant 56 which cools the adjusting plate 40. The coolant 56 enters from the outside into the tube 58, passes the hole 51a in the optical board 38, then passes a hole formed in the adjusting plate 40, re-enters the hole 51b in the optical board 38, and finally goes out.
In terms of temperature, while the optical board 38 making direct contact with the coolant 56 depends on the coolant temperature, the optical base 36 depends on the ambient temperature. Accordingly, when a difference occurs between the coolant temperature and ambient temperature, a temperature difference is also produced between the optical board 38 and optical base 36. Since a linear expansion coefficient is different between the optical board 38 and optical base 36, thermal stress is generated therebetween. Generally, the optical base 36 is built very sturdily to support most of the components of the first or second laser beam reflecting means 12a or 12b. Hence, the thermal stress produced between the optical board 38 and optical base 36 causes distortion in the optical board 38.
When distortion occurs in the optical board 38 as described above, the angles of the adjusting plates 40 and 42 change, which forces the angles of the total reflector 28 and partial reflector 32 to change and the optical axes of the laser beam in the resonator to be misaligned, deteriorating the pointing (positional accuracy) stability of the laser beam.
The second optical axis 22 in FIG. 26 and the total reflectors 28 and 30 located at both ends of the second optical axis 22 will now be noted. Since the total reflector 28 slants downward at the angle of .theta. relative to the first optical axis 20 as described previously, the laser beam 2 reaches the total reflector 30 through the second optical axis 22 slanting downward at the angle of 2.theta. relative to the first optical axis 20. Since the total reflector 30 slants upward at the angle of .theta. relative to the first optical axis 20, the laser beam 2 passes the third optical axis 24 parallel to the first optical axis 20. In other words, the second optical axis 22 slants at the angle of 2.theta. relative to the first and third optical axes 20 and 24, and the reflective surfaces of the total reflectors 28 and 30 located at both ends of the second optical axis 22 are parallel to each other, slanting at the angle of .theta. relative to the first and third optical axes 20 and 24, respectively.
In such an arrangement, portions 34 and 35 where the reflective surfaces of the total reflectors 28 and 30 are opposed to each other occur in the openings of the apertures 15 and 16 as shown in FIG. 27. This causes a probability that parasitic oscillation 36 will be generated between portions 34 and 35 where the total reflectors 28 and 30 are opposed to each other, in addition to the ordinary laser oscillation. If this parasitic oscillation takes place, the beam mode of the laser beam 2 emitted by the laser oscillating apparatus will be faulty or the stability of the beam mode will be worsen.
The magnitude of beam mode control is determined by a ratio .PHI./.omega. (hereinafter referred to as the "beam mode control factor"); .omega. is 1/e.sup.2 radius in a single mode determined by resonator mirror curvature and resonator length (light path length from the total reflector 26 to the partial reflector 32), where e indicates the base of natural logarithm and .PHI. is an aperture diameter. In the single mode, an aperture having an approximately 3.1 to 3.4 beam mode control factor .PHI./.omega. is often selected as a controlling aperture value. Thus, as the beam mode control factor .PHI./.omega. becomes smaller, the degree of controlling the beam mode becomes higher.
In the conventional laser oscillating apparatus, the beam mode control factor .PHI./.omega. of one of four apertures 14 to 17 as shown in FIG. 18 is made lower than those of the other three apertures to prevent the occurrence of the parasitic oscillation 36. This is because the adjustment of the resonator mirrors will be difficult if the mode is controlled in many places. For instance, the apertures 14, 16 and 17 are set to the beam mode control factor .PHI./.omega. of 3.6, and only the aperture 15 is set to the beam mode control factor .PHI./.omega. of 3.2 for use as an aperture for controlling the single mode.
In this conventional arrangement, the adjustment of the resonator mirrors is comparatively simple because the beam mode is controlled at one place. However, since the laser beam 2 path is also controlled at one place, the optical path 24 of the laser beam 2 varies within a range where the aperture control is loose, leading to a inability to maintain the pointing stability of the laser beam 2.
The conventional laser oscillating apparatus arranged as described above will not have stabilized laser beam pointing.

Laser oscillating apparatus with mirror angle adjustment


A mobile cervical brace for support, immobilization, and extension of the cervical vertebrae utilizing a base portion, a cranial support member selectively movable by an extension component relative to the base of the brace. Movement of the cranial support member is accomplished by a worm screw which engages and disengages threaded slots of a depending guide of the extensions means affixed to cranial support member to move the cranial support member relative to the base of my brace.

The use of portable neck braces to immobilize the head, neck and sternum in proper alignment subsequent to an injury, as a result of trauma or disease has been widely used in the medical field for some time, especially in the field of medical emergency medicine. Numerous United States patents as well as foreign patents have disclosed a portable neck brace--U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,854,306; 4,886,052; 4,628,913; PCT/US82/01403; 4,708,129. The above patents disclose various apparatus which align and immobilize the neck and/or cervical vertebrae. Further, the devices disclosed in the above patents allow the user to remain mobile. Specifically, the above patents disclose a design of a "U" shape which fits around the user's neck. Some of the designs disclose the use of a sternum and clavicle member for greater stability. However, none of the above disclose an apparatus which is both portable and capable of applying variable upward pressure to the skull, thereby, simultaneously resulting in immobilization, stabilization, and extension of the cervical vertebrae as is provided by the present invention. The present invention provides a cranial support means which is movable relative to the base thus allowing the cranial support means to be extended to various positions causing tension to be placed upon the cervical vertebrae without losing mobility.

Mobile-cervical extension and supporting apparatus


A system is reconfigured at runtime when triggers are issued in response to events taking place in the system. The triggers, which are issued on configuration entities, are correlated by transferring relations of the configuration entities to relations of the triggers to thereby identify related triggers. Elasticity rules are selected for the triggers, where the elasticity rules specify actions for resource allocation or deallocation at runtime. Selected actions of the selected elasticity rules for the related triggers are executed to reconfigure the system according to a set of action correlation meta-rules which provide an ordering of the actions.

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a contract between a service provider and a customer that describes the service quality the provider agrees to deliver to the customer. The level of service availability is part of the SLA and is defined as the percentage of time the service is provided to the users. Mission critical and telecom services are required to be highly available, i.e. 99.999% of the time available.
One of the goals of service providers is to minimize system's resource usage while ensuring that the SLAs are met to avoid penalties. To meet the required quality of services and optimize resource utilization, the system is monitored continuously and reconfigured periodically and dynamically according to workload variations and predefined patterns. This basically consists of adjusting the system's processing power by adding or removing software instances contained in e.g. a virtual machine (VM) or scaling up/downsizing a VM. In cloud computing this is commonly known as elasticity. To track workload variations, the system is monitored, different metrics are collected and periodically assessed with respect to the SLAs. Whenever a dynamic reconfiguration is required because of potential SLA violation or low resource utilization, one or more triggers are generated. These triggers invoke the elasticity rules that reconfigure the system based on the system's current situation and the trigger received.
Depending on the situation multiple triggers may be generated simultaneously. One may be tempted to handle each trigger separately. However, the triggers may be related, and handling them separately may lead to serious problems. For example, assume that two triggers t1 and t2 invoke two opposite elasticity rules e1 and e2, respectively, where e1's action is to remove a node and e2's action is to add a node. If the triggers are handled separately, resource oscillation will occur. In cloud systems, due to the existence of multiple layers (infrastructure, platform and application layer), one root cause may generate multiple triggers in the different layers. For example, some workload decrease at the application layer may cause triggers at the application layer as well as triggers at the infrastructure layer. If these triggers are considered separately, the corresponding elasticity rules may remove some critical resources twice and this may jeopardize the availability of the service.
To correlate triggers, a number of solutions have been proposed in the literature but not with respect to elasticity. In these studies, a trigger is issued to signal an error caused by a fault in an entity of the system. As an error may propagate throughout the system, a large number of errors and therefore symptom triggers may be generated. These solutions aim at eliminating the symptoms and identifying the root cause, i.e. the fault in the system. When the root cause is identified, appropriate actions are taken.

Trigger correlation for dynamic system reconfiguration


Example implementations relate to a self-tune controller. For example, the self-tune controller may poll, via an out-of-band data stream, low-level operation information about a processor or a bus of a computing system under a present workload. At least some of the low-level operation information may be descriptive of a nature of traffic on the bus. The self-tune controller may program, via an out-of-band control signal, a setting of the computing system for the present workload based on the low-level operation information.

A computing system may include at least one processor, memory, and input/output (I/O) devices. I/O devices may include storage, a network interface card, peripherals, or the like. A processor may be connected to other processors, memory, and I/O devices by way of busses. A computing system may perform different workloads, and different workloads may utilize the processor and bus resources of a computing system in different ways and to different extents.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP


A scanner for scanning an object having a circumferential surface, the scanner comprising a housing with a glass pane defining an internal area containing camera assembly configured to scan the circumferential surface of the object, and a carriage assembly to rotatably move the object across the glass pane of the scanner in synchronous motion with the movement of the camera assembly.

The basic concept of a scanner is well known in the prior art. Several devices have been invented to facilitate the scanning and producing reproductions of three-dimensional objects.
It is clear that no prior art patents disclose a scanner capable of scanning the minute details of the surface of a cylindrical object. Traditionally, flatbed scanners have been used to scan images of two-dimensional objects, or alternatively scan two-dimensional scans of three-dimensional objects. Systems have been developed which modify flatbed scanners to attempt to scan three-dimensional objects. For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,898,508, issued to Bekanich, discloses an apparatus for producing multidimensional images or reproductions of three-dimensional objects. The Bekanich invention attempted to solve the problem of scanning a three-dimensional object by surrounding the object with housing with a reflective surface. However, this solution does not satisfactorily reproduce the minute images on the surface of a cylindrical object such as a fingerprint on a shell casing and reproduce the image as a two-dimensional image for forensic analysis.
Many scanning systems use triangulation schemes whereby multiple cameras take images which can then be recreated within a coordinate system. An example of a three-dimensional scanner designs is U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,481, issued to Lee et al. for three-dimensional scanning system that scans a three-dimensional object and calculates a three-dimensional coordinate data from a surface of the object. The three-dimensional scanning system has a photoelectron detector, a rotational scanning device, a drive device, an image processing circuit, and an operational control device. The problem involves scanning an object that is three-dimensional with a flatbed scanner that is two-dimensional. The inventor has attempted to solve the problem by using a rotating scanning device that scans the outer surface of a three-dimensional object. However, this solution is inadequate because it does not allow the scanning device to scan the entire surface area of the object while in close proximity to the glass of the scanner.
Alternatively, manipulating lighting to create multiple scans having different degrees of shading can be processed to recreate a three-dimensional image. However, in each of these systems, the entire surface of the object is not scanned. Additionally, many of these systems are only capable of scanning a surface contour and do not truly scan the surface. U.S. Pat. No. 6,885,479 issued to Pilu for a curled surface imaging system for de-warping images of a developable surface, including developable curled surfaces, and in particular of images of curled documents. However, in the Pilu scanner, the object to be scanned needs to be entirely illuminated with light of sufficient quantity under the same conditions from outside the scanning area of the camera, so as not to interfere with the scanning of the camera between the camera and the object. As a result, a plurality of lighting apparatuses are installed around the camera. If the camera is far away from the object to be scanned, lighting apparatuses producing a great amount of light are used.
Other prior art imaging processes employ cameras which rotate slowly about a three-dimensional object and signals from those cameras are fed into suitable computers to produce two or three-dimensional images of the three-dimensional object. Still other systems such as a Cyberware 3-D digitizer employ laser and video based technology to scan a three-dimensional object and then feed that information to suitable computer operated equipment to produce two or three-dimensional reproductions of the three-dimensional object. The signal information may also be sent to an automated milling machine which may create a physical reproduction of the three-dimensional object. Although this system is highly sophisticated and accurate, it is very expensive and, as a practical matter, is not affordable to many users.
Thus it is readily apparent that there is a long felt need for a scanning device which scans the entire surface of a three-dimensional object modified to rotate a three-dimensional cylindrical object as it is being scanned along the two-dimensional surface of the flatbed scanner.


A multilayered acoustic panel (1) including: a substantially air impermeable outer membrane layer (3); an underlying second portion bonded to the membrane layer (3), the second portion including an intermediate layer (5); and an inner layer (7) underlying the second portion, the inner layer (7) having a plurality of apertures (6) therein, said apertures (6) being covered by the intermediate layer (5) of the second portion, wherein the membrane layer (3) and second portion are not bonded together where the membrane layer (3) overlies the apertures (6) such that those portions of the membrane layer (3) which overlie the apertures (6) are free to vibrate independently of the second portion in response to sound waves incident on the membrane layer (3).

The interior walls of buildings, for example houses, offices, restaurants, retail stores, hospitals and the like typically include a frame lined with plasterboard panels. The frame of the wall normally includes a series of upright beams, commonly referred to as studs, to which the plasterboard panels are mounted. The panels are mounted to the studs such that the ends of adjoining panels abut one another. The ends are then covered with wet plaster and subsequently sanded when the plaster dries to provide a continuous wall surface. The wall surface created by the plasterboard panels is also usually painted to provide an aesthetically pleasing appearance.
In general, hard, solid materials, for example plasterboard panels, reflect sound better than softer air permeable materials. In this respect, sound waves incident upon an interior wall lined with plasterboard tend to be reflected well. The reflected sound waves can also undergo reflection by bouncing off other walls and surfaces, even after the source ceases emitting sound. This phenomenon is known as reverberation and the time it takes for reverberant sound energy to dissipate by 60 dB is known as the reverberation time. The reverberation time in an enclosure, for example a room, can make a significant impact upon the intelligibility of speech. In this respect if the reverberation time is too long speech can be difficult to interpret as the reverberant sound in the room acts as background noise.
Ideally, the issue of reverberation is considered and addressed at the design stage of a building. However, in some instances, reverberation problems may not become apparent until construction of a building is completed. In both cases there are various options available to address reverberation issues. These typically include the use of perforated acoustic tiles, carpet, curtains, fabric wall linings and other soft materials. Unfortunately, many of these options are not able to adequately blend with the desired aesthetic appearance.
The acoustic panel disclosed in International Publication No. WO 2009/023900, (herein after referred to as "the Bellmax panel"), the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference, sought to address the issue of aesthetic appearance by providing a sound absorbing acoustic panel which mimicked the look and feel of a conventional plasterboard panel, could be painted like conventional plasterboard yet remained sound absorbing, and be installed using the same installation method as conventional plasterboard. The primary components of the Bellmax panel were a membrane layer made of paper or a polymer film, and an underlining perforated sound absorbing layer preferably made of fibrous polyester material.
Although the Bellmax panel mimicked the look and feel of a conventional plasterboard panel, could be painted like conventional plasterboard, and installed using the same installation method as conventional plasterboard, its ability to absorb sound wave energy once painted was found to be limited to very specific frequencies. In addition, flammability issues made it difficult for the Bellmax panel to adequately comply with stringent building regulations.
FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings provides a graph showing the absorption coefficient across a range of frequencies for a painted sample Bellmax panel of the prior art. The sample Bellmax panel consisted of a membrane layer made of paper, and a sound absorbing layer made of fibrous polyester having a surface density of approximately 1800 g/m2 (without apertures). The sound absorbing layer had a plurality of 15 mm apertures extending therethrough which provided the layer with 33% open area. The sample was mounted to a frame structure having wall type studs with sound absorbing material having a surface density of approximately 800 g/m2 being located behind the sample in a wall cavity having a depth of 25 mm.
The graph in FIG. 1 demonstrates that the sample Bellmax panel has two prominent absorption peaks at approximately 300 Hz and 1700 Hz with virtually no absorption being provided at other frequencies. The absorption peak at 300 Hz is due to the sample Bellmax panel, in combination with the enclosed air volume in the wall cavity behind the sample, acting as a panel absorber. In this respect, a panel absorber is a form of resonant oscillating mass-spring system whereby the panel is able to resonate in response to sound waves incident on the panel with dampening being provided by the enclosed air volume. The absorption peak at 1700 Hz is due to the portions of the membrane layer which overlie the 15 mm apertures acting as diaphragms which vibrate at maximum amplitude when imparted with sound waves of a frequency corresponding to their resonant frequency, thereby reducing the sound waves energy.
In view of the above, it would be desirable to provide an acoustic panel which is able to absorb sound wave energy across a broad range of frequencies, whilst at the same time mimic the look and feel of a conventional plasterboard panel when painted and be sufficiently nonflammable to comply with building regulations.
Any discussion of documents, devices, acts or knowledge in this specification is included to explain the context of the invention. It should not be taken as an admission that any of the material formed part of the prior art base or the common general knowledge in the relevant art in Australia or any other country on or before the priority date of the claims herein.


Receiving a data set including user skills as well as skill competency levels and an event with event-relevant skills as well as expected skill competency levels. Identifying one or more video games that can train a user's skill competency levels in the event-relevant skills to the expected skill competency levels. Prioritizing which video games to train the user's skill levels to the expected skill competency levels.

The present invention relates generally to the field of data processing, and more particularly to performance prediction.
Gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry. There are a variety of gaming systems and video game types utilized by individuals across all sectors of the population. Gaming devices include video game consoles, handheld gaming devices, computer systems, and mobile computing devices. These gaming devices support a variety of video game types, including, simulators, action, adventure, racing, strategy, puzzle, etc. As the video game industry develops, video games become more sophisticated requiring a variety of skills and skill levels from users.
Users also exist in the real world, outside of gaming environments. To get through daily tasks and challenges, users rely on skills developed throughout their lives. However, the skills developed by a user may not be tailored to match the tasks and challenges that user will experience.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Predictive recommendations for skills development

International Business Machines Corporation


This system may include a system for electronically reallocating any portion of a transaction by maintaining a user account at a user institution; maintaining a vendor account at a vendor institution; maintaining a user account at a trust institution; initiating a transaction for the transaction amount; electronically distributing the transaction amount from said user account to said vendor account; and electronically distributing at least a portion of the transaction amount from the vendor account to the user account at the trust institution, wherein the portion of the transaction amount in the user account at the trust institution is placed in an investment vehicle. The system of the present invention may further comprise providing an interactive information source between the user and the trust institution, whereby the trust institution can provide information (current or historical) to the user regarding the portion of the transaction amount placed in the investment vehicle.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for automatically re-allocating at least a portion of a transaction amount to an investment system, particularly to a system for diverting a portion of a transaction amount to a user trust for investment for the benefit of the user, and more particularly to a system for diverting a portion of a transaction amount to a user investment trust to grow the funds for the benefits of the user or a designated beneficiary after a set gestation period.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Currently, the typical family is undereducated and or simply not able to save money for their children's steadily increasing cost of education, or to save money for retirement. Most families make only enough to provide for their present needs and do not have the means to take advantage of the many existing tax-advantaged savings systems, such as IRA's, 401K's, and the like.
Thus, lower and middle income families are saddled with the need to provide for their future themselves, but without any additional income to put aside after paying for current expenses.
In the United States, the Social Security System is a future savings system by which individuals are specifically taxed on their income to provide money into a Social Security Fund, from which they are eligible to withdraw funds once they reach a certain age and/or circumstances. Individuals have no direct control over how this Social Security money is to maintained or grown. The funds are controlled directly by the federal government. However, many individuals invest in the aforementioned tax-advantaged savings systems to supplement the money that they will receive from Social Security.
Accordingly, a workable and efficient system is needed which would allow individuals to automatically put money aside now. This money would be invested and grown for their future or their children's future, without the need for them to generate additional funds or manage said funds.

System for electronic re-allocation of a transaction amount to an investment


An enclosed active armor arrangement wherein the panels that form the enclosure have a product of the density and the thickness of the side panels that is greater than the product of the density and the thickness of the armor panels to provide for a reflective action on the detonation waves of the explosive. This reflective action accentuates the destructive effect on the incoming explosive charge jet.

One such reactive wall structure is known, for example, from the German Patent Specification No. 2.031.658, and is effective to degrade or disturb the hollow charge jet to such an extent as to impair penetration of the jet. One known reason for this is because the jet detonates the explosive charge so as to generate forces which accelerate the plates of the panel structure forwards and backwards towards the jet, therewith degrading a large part thereof.
In this known protective wall structure the explosive charge has the form of an explosive layer positioned on the inner surface of the outer wall of the panel and at a given distance of the inner wall thereof, so as to leave an air gap between the inner wall and the explosive layer. Since this air gap is important to the function of the protective wall structure, the interior of the panel cannot be filled completely with explosive, which limits the efficiency of the protective wall structure. Furthermore, in the case of this protective wall structure it is solely the outer wall of the panel and the explosive layer affixed thereto that constitute the functional part of the protective wall structure when impinged upon by a hollow charge jet.
Furthermore, this known wall structure will not degrade a hollow charge jet which impinges on the wall structure at right angles to the plane thereof with the same degree of efficiency as when the jet impinges obliquely to said plane.


A device for wiping a windshield of motor vehicles comprises a wiper blade which brushes over a wiping field located between two oscillating reversing positions and which is securely connected with a rocker shaft via a wiper arm, and which can be placed in a rest position which is located prior to the wiping field as seen in one oscillating direction. The wiper device has a drive comprising an electrical drive motor and a crank operatively connected with the drive motor and forming a part of a pendulum gear unit which transmit the rotating movement of the drive motor into an oscillating movement of the rocker shaft. The crank is additionally supported with a shaft in an eccentric bush rotatable between two positions relative to a device housing in such a way that the axis of rotation of the crank is movable between a pendulum operating position and an additional position effecting the wiper blade rest position. The eccentric bush comprises a separate drive motor adjusting mechanism which is independent of the pendulum drive, so that the wiping movement of the wiper blade can also be effected immediately when the wiper device is switched on.

The invention is relates to a wiper device comprising an electric motor and a crank for translating rotational movement of the motor shaft into oscillating movement of a rocker shaft connected with a wiper arm. The crank is supported in an eccentric bush movable between two positions with respect to the device housing in one of which the wiper blade is in a rest position thereof. A wiper device is already known (DE-OS 18 12 307) in which the drive device is provided with a construction comprising magnet and locking means which is costly and susceptible to failure and which enables the rotating movement of the eccentric bush when the wiper device is to be stopped. However, this rotating movement can only be initiated and carried out after the last pendulum stroke is concluded. Also when starting the wiper device, the pendulum movement can only be effected after the rotational restoring movement of the eccentric bush has been concluded, so that valuable time is lost in certain traffic situations before the necessary wiping pendulum movement of the wiper blade can be carried out. In addition, the noises occurring during locking are annoying.
It is also known (DE-OS 32 18 373) to arrange an adjusting mechanism on a rocker belonging to the pendulum gear unit and to adjust the point of articulation between a connecting rod and the rocker with this adjusting mechanism, so that there is an additional swiveling movement of the wiper blade into the rest or parked position located outside of the wiping field.
However, this solution requires additional space which is not available in the area of the rocker. Moreover, it is a disadvantage in this solution that the supply cable of the adjusting mechanism must compensate for the pendulum movement of the rocker occurring during the wiping operation of the wiper device and the adjusting mechanism increases the mass to be moved.


An image forming device includes an image forming unit, a fuser, a memory, and a control circuit. The image forming unit forms an image on a recording medium with a decolorable toner based on image data. The decolorable toner decolorizes at a first temperature and does not decolorize at a second temperature that is lower than the first temperature. The fuser has a plurality of regions extending in a direction orthogonal to a direction of conveyance of the recording medium. The fuser generates heat in each of the plurality of regions to fuse the image onto the recording medium. The memory stores a correspondence between the plurality of regions and positions of a plurality of areas positioned along a main scanning direction in the image data. The control circuit changes the correspondence based on a degree of color development or decolorization of the image.

There is a split-heating fuser having a plurality of heating units split in a direction orthogonal to the direction of conveyance of a recording medium. In such a fuser, each of the plurality of heating units generates heat according to an area where an image is to be fused in a main scanning direction.
However, the fuser may be slightly misaligned from a correct position of installation into a direction orthogonal to the direction of conveyance of the recording medium due to assembly error. In such a case, the area where heat is generated in the fuser does not easily coincide with the area where an image is to be fused. If the area where heat is generated in the fuser does not coincide with the area where an image is to be fused, a part of the image is not fused to the recording medium. To restrain the probability that a part of the image may not be fused to the recording medium, the area where heat is generated in the fuser may be made broader than the area where the image is to be fused. In this case, a heating unit that originally should not generate heat generates heat, thus causing an excess load on the fuser.

Image forming apparatus with misalignment correction capability


Systems, methods and/or devices are used to enable locality grouping during garbage collection of a storage device. In one aspect, the method includes, at a storage controller for the storage device: performing one or more operations for a garbage collection read, including: identifying one or more sequences of valid data in a source unit, wherein each identified sequence of valid data has a length selected from a set of predefined lengths; and for each respective sequence of the one or more sequences of valid data in the source unit, transferring the respective sequence to a respective queue of a plurality of queues, in accordance with the length of the respective sequence; and performing one or more operations for a garbage collection write, including: identifying full respective queues for writing to a destination unit; and writing from the full respective queues to the destination unit.

Semiconductor memory devices, including flash memory, typically utilize memory cells to store data as an electrical value, such as an electrical charge or voltage. A flash memory cell, for example, includes a single transistor with a floating gate that is used to store a charge representative of a data value. Flash memory is a non-volatile data storage device that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. More generally, non-volatile memory (e.g., flash memory, as well as other types of non-volatile memory implemented using any of a variety of technologies) retains stored information even when not powered, as opposed to volatile memory, which requires power to maintain the stored information. Increases in storage density have been facilitated in various ways, including increasing the density of memory cells on a chip enabled by manufacturing developments, and transitioning from single-level flash memory cells to multi-level flash memory cells, so that two or more bits can be stored by each flash memory cell.
Garbage collection is a process of memory management that reclaims portions of memory that no longer contain valid data. Using flash memory as an example, data is written to flash memory in units called pages, which are made up of multiple memory cells. However, flash memory is erased in larger units called blocks, which are made up of multiple pages. If some pages of a first block contain invalid data, those pages cannot be overwritten until the whole block containing those pages is erased. The process of garbage collection reads and re-writes the pages with valid data from the first block into a second block and then erases the first block. After garbage collection, the second block contains pages with valid data and free pages that are available for new data to be written. However, blindly gathering valid data in a source block (e.g., the first block) and re-writing the valid data to a destination block (e.g., the second block) can degrade the performance of host read operations after garbage collection.

Locality grouping during garbage collection of a storage device


Disclosed is a manufactured three-dimensional convex-concave fairing with attached vortex generators, for hydraulic structures such as bridge piers and abutments, whose shape prevents the local scour problem around such hydraulic structures. The device is a conventionally made concrete or fiber-reinforced composite, or combination of both, vortex generator equipped hydrodynamic fairing that is fit or cast over an existing or new hydraulic structure around the base of the structure and above the footing. The vortex generators are positioned so as to energize decelerating near wall flow with higher-momentum outer layer flow. The result is a more steady, compact separation and wake and substantially mitigated scour inducing vortical flow.

Removal of river bed substrate around bridge pier and abutment footings, also known as scour, presents a significant cost and risk in the maintenance of many bridges throughout the world. Bridge scour at the foundations of bridge piers and abutments is one of the most common causes of highway bridge failures. It has been estimated that 60% of all bridge failures result from scour and other hydraulic-related causes (Jean-Louis Briaud, 2006). In 1973, a study by the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) was conducted to investigate 383 bridge failures caused by catastrophic floods, and it concluded that 25 percent involved pier damage and 72 percent involved abutment damage (Richardson et al., 1993). This has motivated research on the causes of scour at bridge piers and abutments (Ettema et al., 2004) and led bridge engineers to develop numerous countermeasures that attempt to reduce the risk of catastrophe. Unfortunately, all such countermeasures currently in existence and practice are temporary responses that cannot endure throughout the lifetime of the bridge and do not prevent the formation of scouring vortices, which is the root cause of the local scour. Consequently, sediment such as sand and rocks from around the foundations of bridge abutments and piers is loosened and carried away by the flow during floods, which may compromise the integrity of the structure. Due to the temporary nature of available scour countermeasures for at-risk bridges, expensive monitoring technologies and support professionals are required to enable sufficient time for implementing contingency plans when failure is likely. Even designing bridge piers or abutments with the expectation of some scour is highly uncertain, since a recently released study (Sheppard et al., 2011) showed huge uncertainties in scour data from hundreds of experiments. None of the conservative current bridge pier and abutment footing or foundation designs prevent scouring vortices, so the probability of scour during high water or floods is present in all current designs.
The bridge foundations in a water current (WC), such as piers (P) and abutments (A), change the local hydraulics drastically because of the appearance of large-scale unsteadiness and shedding of coherent vortices, such as horseshoe vortices (HV). FIG. 1 is a sketch of the horseshoe vortex (HV) formed around the base of a hydraulic structure by a separating boundary layer. The horseshoe vortex (HV) has high lift and shear stress and triggers the onset of sediment scour and a scour hole (SH) is formed as shown in FIG. 1.
The flow field around a vertical-wall abutment (A) is highly three-dimensional and involves strong separated vortex flow around the abutment as shown in FIG. 2. A separation bubble (SB) is formed at the upstream corner of the abutment. Unsteady shed wake vortices (WV) are created due to the separation of the flow at the abutment corners. These wake vortices (WV) are very unsteady, are oriented approximately vertical and have low pressure at the vortex cores. These vortices act like small tornadoes, lifting up sediment from the sediment bed (SB) and creating a large scour hole (SH) behind the abutment (A) and a downstream scour hole (DSH). The down flow (DF) at the front of the abutment is produced by the large vertical stagnation pressure gradient of the approaching flow. The down flow rolls up and forms the primary vortex (PV) as shown in FIG. 2, which is similar to the formation of the horseshoe vortex around a single bridge pier. FIGS. 3 and 4 show the flowfield (FF) past a wing-wall abutment (A) and spill-through abutment (A), respectively, where deep contraction scour can occur due to vortices, high turbulence (HT), and flow separation zones (FS).
Bridge scour is comprised of three components: long-term aggradations and degradation of the river bed, general scour at the bridge, and local scour at the piers or abutments (Lagasse et al., 2001). The structural countermeasures are used primarily to minimize local scour such as extended footings, scour collars, pier shape modifications, debris deflectors, and sacrificial piles, all of which are only marginally effective. A number of collar devices (Inman, U.S. Pat. No. 3,529,427; de Werk, U.S. Pat. No. 4,279,545; Larsen, U.S. Pat. No. 3,830,066; Larsen, U.S. Pat. No. 3,844,123; and Pedersen, U.S. Pat. No. 3,859,803) encircle the lower end of hydraulic structures, but do not prevent scour on the downstream side of the structure. A similar anti-scour apparatus comprising an upper and a lower collar was patented by Loer (U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,286). U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,394 by Larsen describes the use of a sheet or sack housing film material, which is secured around a hydraulic structure with cables. All of the above collar devices would only have a local effect and local scour will still happen around the vicinity of the collar, as shown by Tian et al. (2010) in work performed in the AUR flume in U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,853 (Oppenheimer and Saunders), one structure of vortex generators, located upstream of the hydraulic structure, is specified to produce a pair of stream-wise vortices that move toward the free surface and protect the hydraulic structure from the impact of oncoming debris. Another structure of vortex generators is positioned directly in front of the hydraulic structure to prevent the streambed from scouring by counteracting the horseshoe vortex (HV) (also sometimes called the necklace vortex) formed by separation at the hydraulic structure nose if there was no control. Simpson (2001) showed that this counteracting mechanism fails as a scour countermeasure.
For abutments, Barkdoll et al. (2007) reviewed the selection and design of existing bridge abutment countermeasures for older bridges, such as parallel walls, spur dikes located locally to the abutment, and horizontal collar-type plates attached to the abutment. Two similar collar devices (Lee et al., U.S. patent Ser. No. 10/493,100; Mountain, U.S. patent Ser. No. 11/664,991) are comprised of a number of interlocking blocks or bags in a monolayer or multilayer on the stream bed around abutments. However, these horizontal collar type scour countermeasures are only marginally effective as shown in the flume test results of Tian et al. (2010). The scour hole at the upstream abutment corner is eliminated, but the downstream scour hole due to the wake vortex shedding becomes more severe. In another approach to prevent streambed scour of a moving body of water, a scour platform is constructed by placing an excavation adjacent to the body of water (Barrett & Ruckman, U.S. Pat. No. 6,890,127). The excavation is covered with stabilizing sheet material, filled with aggregate, and extends up or downstream a desired length. However, the local scour around the excavation is inevitable, especially when the excavation is exposed to a moving body of water.

Bridge pier and abutment scour preventing apparatus with vortex generators


An amphibious vehicle wheel suspension includes upper and lower linkages, a road suspension device and a retraction device for moving the wheel between a protracted position for road use, and a retracted position for marine use. Suspension device can be operatively disconnected from the wheel and/or the linkages to allow for retraction and protraction. Retraction device may also be disconnected for road use. The disconnection mechanisms may comprise a ball and track mechanism, interlocking splines, interlocking teeth, or a pneumatic clutch. Also provided is a combination of splines for a suspension lever arm, and a pneumatic clutch for retraction arm. Suspension device may be connected to upper linkage. Coil, torsion bar, or hydropneumatic springs may be used.

The present invention relates to an amphibious vehicle.
Amphibious vehicles capable of powered travel on both land and water are known. In order to improve the performance of amphibious vehicles on water, various systems have been developed to allow the wheels to be retracted above the water line when the vehicle is water-borne. Such a system is known, for example, from the applicants' International patent application WO95/23074, which describes an apparatus that enables an axle-driven wheel to move between a protracted position, in which it has a substantially horizontal axis of rotation for support of the vehicle on land, and a retracted position, in which the axis of rotation of the wheel is at an angle greater than 45 degrees to the horizontal.
In a typical known retractable wheel arrangement, the wheel is mounted to the body of the vehicle by means of one or more suspension linkages which are configured to allow the wheel to move between the protracted and retracted positions. Normally an actuator, such a hydraulic strut or ram, will be operatively connected to one of the suspension linkages to move the wheel between the protracted and retracted positions. Also connected to one of the suspension linkages is a suspension means comprising springing and damping means for absorbing road shocks when the vehicle is used on land. Various types of suspension means have been proposed for use with the known retractable wheel apparatus, such as: coil spring and hydraulic damper struts, torsion bar and damper systems, and hydropneumatic suspension units.
A drawback with known retracting wheel arrangements is that the design of the suspension means may have to be compromised in order to allow the wheel to be retracted. For example, it may be necessary to design the suspension means so that it can be fully compressed when the wheel retracts or it may be necessary to alter the sizes and shapes of components to enable full retraction of the wheel to take place. As a result, it may be difficult and time consuming to tune the suspension characteristics of the vehicle for land use. For example, users of the vehicle will expect ride comfort characteristics on land which are comparable to those of a conventional land based motor vehicle.
A further drawback of some known wheel retraction arrangements is the amount of space required to accommodate movement of the suspension means as the wheel moves between its protracted and retracted positions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,584, for example, describes an amphibious vehicle having a wheel retraction arrangement in which the wheel is attached to the vehicle body using a wishbone type suspension. A suspension means in the form of a strut having a coil spring located about a telescopic hydraulic damper is connected between an upper wishbone and part of the wheel retraction system. To move the wheel to the retracted position, the upper end of the strut is drawn inwardly. This arrangement takes up a considerable amount of space in a central area of the vehicle making it unsuitable for use with a compact amphibious vehicle. The problem is most acute where the engine and transmission are mounted between a pair of retractable road wheels, as there is little space available into which the struts for those wheels can be drawn.


A system and method for managing a plurality of content items employs a plurality of storage volumes that may be checked out, with or without previously archived content items stored on them, and that may be checked in, with or without new or changed content items stored on them. The content items may be audio content, video content, audio/video content, or the like. The plurality of storage volumes may be removable hard disk drives, virtual storage, storage locations on a storage device or devices, or the like. When a storage volume is checked in, embodiments of the system and method may detect whether new or changed content items are stored on the storage volume and any new or changed content items may be archived. When a content item is archived, the content may be stored along with related metadata and with an association between the content item and the related metadata.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a system and a method for managing media storage and, in particular embodiments, to a system and method for managing storage of content items, such as, for example, audio content, by employing a plurality of storage volumes, each of which may be checked out, with or without archived content items copied onto the storage volume, and each of which may be checked in, at which time altered content items and new content items may be archived.
2. Related Art
Audio and visual content items may be stored in a variety of physical media including film, optical (CDs and DVDs), and magnetic. As used herein, the expression "content items" broadly and generally refers to information stored on a physical media. Examples of content items may include audio data, such as music, dialog, movie soundtracks, sound effects, or other like audio data. Examples of content items also may include visual data, such as video, including, but not limited to, movies, television programs, animation, home video, and the like. Examples of visual data may also include still images, such as pictures, writings, charts, or other like images. Other like content items, including combinations of content items (e.g. audio and video data associated with a movie) may also be included. There are a variety of problems associated with conventional means for storing content items, including the possibility of (1) lost or misplaced content items; (2) deterioration of content items; (3) difficulty in locating and/or retrieving content items; and (4) information loss during production.
Content items may be lost or misplaced. Content items stored on a physical media may be difficult to locate after some time has passed. For example, in the case of movie audio, large amounts of audio data may be generated that ultimately is not mixed into a movie soundtrack. The audio data may be stored on magnetic tape, film, or computer disks. These physical media may be labeled and stored. However, the physical media may also be misplaced, mislabeled, or otherwise difficult to locate after some time has passed.
Content items stored on a physical media also may be subject to deterioration over time. This may be particularly problematic for content items stored in an analog format. For example, content items stored on magnetic tape or on film may be subject to deterioration. As such, someone desiring, for example, audio tracks from a movie that was created several years ago may discover that the sound quality of the magnetic recordings is no longer satisfactory. In addition, the quality of an analog recording may degrade over time as copies are made of the recording, and as copies are made of copies of the recording.
In addition, there may be difficulty in locating and accessing desired content items. For example, even if audio and/or video content items are stored on a physical media and archived, it may be difficult to locate or access the specific content items desired. Content items may be created and archived by multiple people, groups, or companies. As such, it may be difficult to identify where the desired content item is archived or stored. Also, once a physical media containing the desired content item is located, it may still need to be sent or delivered to an individual who desires access to the content item. Sending or delivering a physical media may be time intensive and inefficient.
Finally, content items may not be adequately archived or stored during the production of the content items. For example, in the case of movie audio, there may be multiple phases or stages of production of the audio that are never stored or archived. Actors may record their lines multiple times and on different tracks. These types of content items may be recorded over or discarded once the movie has been completed. Similarly, sound effects and background music may be added to a movie soundtrack in multiple phases. These content items may never be archived during production of the soundtrack, which may render the content unavailable in the future. Thus, many content items may never be adequately archived. Also, much information may be lost when it is not recorded during production. After a movie has been completed, for example, it may be difficult to discern who is speaking in a particular scene, how a particular sound effect was created, or other like information that may be readily available during the production of the movie audio data.

Media storage and management system and process


Provided herein is a proxy tunnel end point apparatus including a tunnel management unit configured to generate a tunnel; a VNID management unit configured to generate a VSI for a VNID; a tunnel packet end point unit configured to terminate the tunnel, extract VNID information from the packet, and transmit the terminated L2 packet to the VSI corresponding to the VNID; a VSI unit having a virtual port corresponding to each terminated tunnel in the tunnel packet end point unit, and configured to perform L2 switching on the terminated L2 packet transmitted from the tunnel packet end point unit and to transmit the L2 packet to a destination virtual port; and a tunnel packet generation unit configured to transmit the packet to a second tunnel end point unit of a destination of transmission, based on a destination virtual port information.

Field of Invention
Various embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a proxy tunnel end point apparatus, a communication system and method for scalable network virtualization having the same, and more particularly, to a proxy tunnel end point apparatus with reduced configuration complexity, a communication system and method for scalable network virtualization having the same.
Description of Related Art
An overlay network virtualization method wherein a virtual network is configured with a virtual machine without being affected by the configuration of an underlay network in an IDC (Internet Data Center)-based cloud environment is entering into general use. Representative examples of this technology include VXLAN (virtual extensible local area network) and NVGRE (network virtualization using generic routing encapsulation). According to this technology, in order to configure a layer 2 virtual network, a tunnel is set between virtual machines existing in different servers so that traffic may be exchanged therebetween. Herein, in order to process multicast traffic such as flooding etc., if an underlay IP network supports multicast, it is better to use a multicast tunnel, but since most of today's IP networks do not support multicast, VXLAN or NVGRE solutions use full-mesh unicast tunnel methods instead of multicast tunnel methods. Furthermore, even when a multicast tunnel is being used for a non-unicast packet, for a unicast packet, a full-mesh unicast tunnel must be set between nodes belonging to a virtual network.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional communication system for network virtualization. In each of a plurality of node units 11, 12, 13, 14, each of a first to Nth tunnel end point units 21, 22, 23, 24 is included, respectively. Furthermore, to each of the first to Nth tunnel end point units 21, 22, 23, 24, each of a plurality of VMs (Virtual Machines) 31, 32, 33, 34 is connected, respectively. Herein, in a network having N node units, up to N*(N−1) unicast tunnels 40 must be set for one virtual network, and thus the complexity of setting/managing the network significantly increases to as much as O(N^2). Therefore, depending on limitations to the number of tunnels that may be made in one node unit, the size of an overlay type network virtualization domain is limited.

Proxy tunnel end point unit, communication system for scalable network virtualization having the same and communication method for scalable network virtualization

ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE