An audio-output amplifier circuit for an audio device includes an output amplifier and a switching element connected between an amplifier-output terminal of the output amplifier and ground, to short-circuit the amplifier-output terminal of the output amplifier after transition to ground-level voltage is finished.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an audio-output amplifier circuit for an audio device, an audio device, an electronic device including the audio device, and an output control method to switch the audio device, and more particularly to an audio-output amplifier circuit to reduce pop more stably.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is well known that audio devices sometimes generate an unusual crackling sound (pop) when a power supply of an audio output amplifier of the audio device is turned on or off. As a technology for reducing pop, JP-2011-029683-A discloses a pop reduction circuit to control an audio-output amplifier circuit so that an output voltage of an output amplifier of the audio-output amplifier circuit transits smoothly, using raised cosine and ramp waveforms, when the output amplifier is switched on and off.
FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram illustrating a configuration of an audio-output amplifier circuit 7X including an output amplifier 1. FIG. 2 is a timing chart illustrating operation of the audio-output amplifier circuit 7X shown FIG. 1, assuming that a time-constant determined by a resistance of an output resistance load and a capacitance of a DC-cut capacitor is large.
In this example shown in FIG. 1, a capacitor 3 (DC-cut capacitor) is attached to an audio device 8X including a pop reduction circuit 6, and the DC-cut capacitor 3 blocks a direct-current (DC) component of the output signal when the audio output amplifier 1 of the audio device 8X is turned off. With this configuration, when a time-constant determined by a resistance RL of an external resistance load 4 and a capacitance C1 of the DC-cut capacitor 3 is large relative to a transition time of an output voltage VOUT, a residual charge is remaining in the DC-cut capacitor 3 even after the transition of the output voltage VOUT is finished.
Therefore, if the output voltage VOUT of the audio device 8X is turned off in this condition, a pathway to discharge the residual charge is shut off, and a level difference may occur in the waveform (11, 12 shown in FIG. 2) after the capacitor 3 blocks the DC because an output voltage VOUTRL after the DC cut suddenly rises, which may generate the pop.
A specific example is described below with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. In FIG. 1, the output amplifier 1 is switched on and off based on an audio output control signal PD, and an output terminal (amplifier-output terminal) 1a of the output amplifier 1 is connected to an output terminal 2 of the audio device 8X. The output terminal 2 is connected to ground via the DC-cut capacitor 3 and the resistance load 4 A pop reduction circuit 6 that generates a reference voltage VREF input to the output amplifier 1 is provided in a previous stage of the output amplifier 1.
In the audio-output amplifier circuit 7X of this example, immediately before the output amplifier 1 is switched off, the pop reduction circuit 6 varies the reference voltage VREF so that the output voltage VOUT transits from a setting reference voltage value VSET to a ground-level voltage 0. Then, the output amplifier 1 is switched off after the output voltage VOUT at the outer terminal 2 reaches the ground-level voltage 0. When the output amplifier 1 is switched off, the amplifier-output terminal 1a enters a high-impedance state.
In FIG. 2, a primary delay element, based on the time-constant determined by the resistance RL of the external resistance load (output load) 4 and the capacitance C1 of the DC-cut capacitor 3, dominantly acts on the output voltage VOUTRL of the output load 4 after the DC-cut capacitor 3 blocks the DC component, and accordingly, transition of the waveform of the output voltage VOUTRL across the external load 4 is delayed compared with the waveform of the output voltage VOUT at the output terminal 2.
Then, even after the transition of the output voltage VOUT is finished and the output voltage VOUT reaches the ground-level voltage, the output voltage VOUTRL, after the DC-cut capacitor 3 blocks the DC, does not reach the ground-level voltage because of the charge remains in the capacitance C1 of the DC-cut capacitor 3.
In this state, if the output amplifier 1 is switched off and the amplifier-output terminal 1a of the output amplifier 1 rises to a high impedance, a pathway to discharge the charge remaining in the capacitance C1 of the DC-cut capacitor 3 is shut off, which generates a large difference (step) in level of the waveform of the output voltage (11, 12 shown in FIG. 2). Therefore, the pop may be generated.

Audio-output amplifier circuit for audio device, audio device, electronic device including audio device, and output control method for audio device


A processor comprises a memory, an instruction decoder coupled to the memory for decoding instructions retrieved therefrom, and a plurality of execution units for executing the decoded instructions. One or more of the instructions are in a compound instruction format in which a single instruction comprises multiple operation fields, with one or more of the operation fields each comprising at least an operation code field and a function field. The operation code field and the function field together specify a particular operation to be performed by one or more of the execution units.

Programmable digital data processors use instructions, which are stored in memory, to tell the processor how to perform a specific task. Instructions typically include an operation code (opcode), which tells the processor what operation to perform, and operand specifiers, which indicate the location of input and output data used by the operation. The instructions to be performed by the processor are often stored in program memory and the data to be used by the instructions is often stored in data memory. Typical operations include loading data from memory, storing data to memory, performing arithmetic and logic operations, and branching to a different location in a program.
The amount of program memory used to implement a specific task or set of tasks is referred to as the code size. The code size depends on the size of the individual instructions, the complexity of the instructions, the complexity of the task or set of tasks, and other factors. In modern processors, instructions typically have a fixed size, since this allows the instructions to be efficiently fetched from memory, decoded, and executed. Because of how memory systems are designed, the instruction size in bits is often restricted to be a whole number power of two (e.g., 16 bits, 32 bits or 64 bits).
Small code size is an important goal in the design of low-power embedded processors, such as digital signal processors, multimedia processors and graphics processors. Thus, these types of architectures often feature compact instructions that are fairly powerful. For example, in a traditional embedded processor architecture, a 16-bit multiply-accumulate instruction might be used to specify that the values in two registers, RC and RB, should be multiplied together, and added to the value in an accumulator register, RA, with the result being stored back to the accumulator register RA.
To achieve small code size, many processors implement Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) processing techniques. With SIMD processing, a single instruction is used to perform the same operation on multiple data operands. SIMD processing is especially useful when performing the same operation on multiple vector or matrix elements.
All programmable processors use some type of instruction format. Conventional instruction formats are described in, for example, John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson, "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach," Third Edition, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, Calif., 2003.
In order to achieve high performance, modern embedded processors for applications such as digital signal processing, multimedia and graphics often have Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) architectures. Examples are described in J. A. Fischer, "Very Long Instruction Word Architectures and ELI-512," Proceedings of the Tenth Symposium on Computer Architecture, pp. 140-150, June 1983, R. Colwell et al., "A VLIW Architecture for a Trace Scheduling Compiler," IEEE Transactions on Computers, pp. 967-979, August 1988, and N. Seshan, "High VelociTI Processing: Texas Instruments VLIW DSP Architecture," IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 86-101, March 1998. With these architectures, a single VLIW specifies multiple operations that can execute in parallel. For example, a 256-bit VLIW might have eight operation fields, each of which is specified using 32 bits. Although VLIW architectures typically offer improved performance over architectures that perform only a single operation each cycle, they may have much larger code size, since operation fields that cannot be utilized in a given cycle are filled with no operation (NOP) instructions.
More recently, Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) architectures have been proposed. See, e.g., M. Smotherman, "Understanding EPIC Architectures and Implementations," ACM Southeast Conference, 2002, and M. Schlansker and B. Rau, "EPIC: Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing," IEEE Computer, pp. 37-45, February, 2000. These architectures often contain additional bits in the instruction, which indicate the operations in the instruction that can execute in parallel or if multiple instructions can execute in parallel. Although these architectures often have more compact code than VLIW processors, they add complexity to the processor hardware.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved approach to achieving small code size, particularly in low-power embedded processors, which avoids the problems associated with the above-described VLIW and EPIC approaches.

Multi-threaded processor having compound instruction and operation formats


Each of unit blocks (UB1, UB2) is provided with an output circuit (20) including a serial circuit of FETs (21) and (22). A power supply circuit (1b) can operate in a first mode for generating an output voltage (Vo) using only one of the output circuits (20) or in a second mode for generating the output voltage (Vo) using two output circuits (20) by synchronous/parallel driving. When switching from the first mode to the second mode, start of the synchronous/parallel driving from a state where the FET (22) on the low voltage side is turned on is inhibited (start of the synchronous/parallel driving is waited until the FET (21) on the high voltage side is turned on).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power supply circuit.
2. Description of Related Art
A power supply circuit illustrated in FIG. 19 uses an output circuit 910 including a serial circuit of a high side FET disposed on a high voltage side and a low side FET disposed on a low voltage side, so as to generate an output voltage Vo′ from an input voltage. In the power supply circuit illustrated in FIG. 19, each FET is controlled to turn on and off based on a feedback voltage VFB′ corresponding to the output voltage Vo′.
In this case, as illustrated in FIG. 20, the feedback voltage VFB′ is compared with each of voltages (VREF′+ΔV) and (VREF′−ΔV), and the FETs are controlled to turn on and off based on the comparison results so that the output voltage Vo′ can be stabilized to a desired voltage corresponding to the reference voltage VREF′.
Note that there are following technical documents related to the present invention: (1) JP-A-2009-219184, (2) JP-A-2012-156826, and (3) JP-A-2002-335145.
A load of a power supply circuit sometimes requires large current. For instance, when a signal processor configured to perform signal processing on data of a magnetic disk is a load of the power supply circuit, the signal processor requires large current particularly in reading and writing data. On the contrary, there are cases where the signal processor does not require large current. In view of this situation, it is considered to prepare two output circuits 910 illustrated in FIG. 19 to be connected in parallel. When small current is required, only one output circuit 910 is used to generate the output voltage Vo′ (hereinafter referred to as single driving). When large current is required, two output circuits 910 are driven in parallel to generate the output voltage Vo′. However, it is necessary to consider so that stable operation of the load is not disturbed when switching from the single driving to the parallel driving (for example, consideration for preventing a transient drop of the output voltage).
In addition, if a hysteresis voltage ΔV can be accurately generated in FIG. 20, an accuracy of the output voltage is improved (the output voltage Vo′ is identical to the desired voltage with high accuracy). The improvement of the output voltage accuracy also contributes to the stable operation of the load.


Enhanced high temperature fuel cell systems, such as solid oxide fuel cell systems and molten carbonate fuel cell systems are disclosed. Embodiments of the disclosure include solid oxide and molten carbonate fuel cell systems incorporating gas separation apparati facilitating the recycle of hydrogen fuel from fuel cell anode exhaust for supply to the fuel cell anode inlet. Further embodiments of the disclosure include solid oxide and molten carbonate fuel cell systems incorporating inventive combinations of anode materials conducive to combination with enriched hydrogen fuel. Other embodiments of the disclosure include gas separation apparati for providing enriched oxygen feed to the cathode inlet of solid oxide and molten carbonate fuel cells.

Fuel cells provide an environmentally friendly source of electrical current. One type of high temperature fuel cell (HTFC) used for generating electrical power is the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). The SOFC includes an anode channel for receiving a flow of fuel gas, a cathode channel for receiving a flow of oxygen gas, and a solid electrolyte which is a ceramic membrane conductive to oxygen ions and separates the anode channel from the cathode channel. Oxygen in the cathode channel dissociates to oxygen ions, which cross the electrolyte to react with hydrogen in the anode channel to generate a flow of electrons. While hydrogen is a preferred fuel gas for efficient SOFC operation, the fuel gas may be a hydrocarbon which reacts in the anode channel either by direct oxidation or to generate hydrogen by steam reforming and water gas shift reactions. As hydrogen is consumed, carbon monoxide may be oxidized directly or may be shifted by steam to generate additional hydrogen. Carbon dioxide and water vapor are produced in the anode channel by oxidation of fuel components. Typical operating temperature of solid oxide fuel cells is about 500° to about 1000° C.
Another type of high temperature fuel cell used for generating electrical power, particularly envisaged for larger scale stationary power generation, is the molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC). The MCFC includes an anode channel for receiving a flow of hydrogen gas (or a fuel gas which reacts in the anode channel to generate hydrogen by steam reforming and water gas shift reactions), a cathode channel for receiving a flow of oxygen gas, and a porous matrix containing a molten carbonate electrolyte which separates the anode channel from the cathode channel. Oxygen and carbon dioxide in the cathode channel react to form carbonate ions, which cross the electrolyte to react with hydrogen in the anode channel to generate a flow of electrons. As the hydrogen is consumed, carbon monoxide is shifted by steam to generate additional hydrogen. Carbon dioxide and water vapor are produced in the anode channel by oxidation of fuel components, and by reduction of carbonate ions from the electrolyte. Typical operating temperature of molten carbonate fuel cells is about 650° C.
For stationary power generation, hydrogen may be generated from natural gas by steam reforming or partial oxidation, and particularly by direct internal reforming within the anode channel, to produce "syngas" comprising a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, steam and some unreacted methane. As hydrogen is consumed in the fuel cell anode channel, much of the carbon monoxide reacts with steam by water gas shift to generate more hydrogen and more carbon dioxide. Other carbonaceous feedstocks (e.g. heavier hydrocarbons, coal, or biomass) may also be reacted with oxygen and steam to generate syngas by partial oxidation, gasification or autothermal reforming.
While the fuel cell may be operated on hydrogen or syngas that has been generated externally from a fossil fuel, efficient thermal integration between a high temperature fuel cell and an external fuel processing system may be difficult to achieve, since the fuel cell stack generates excess heat remote from the endothermic heat demand of fuel processing.
In order to achieve benefits of simplicity and better thermal integration, most SOFC developments for natural gas as the hydrocarbon fuel have contemplated internal reforming, in which the steam methane reforming reaction is conducted within the anode channel. A conventional SOFC anode material is nickel cermet with yttria stabilized zirconia (Ni-YSZ), which is an active catalyst for steam methane reforming. However, the nickel cermet is also catalytic for carbon deposition which must be avoided, typically by operating with a sufficiently high steam/carbon ratio with the adverse consequence that the excess steam degrades the SOFC voltage output. Under typical SOFC operating conditions, the steam reforming reaction will be substantially complete within about the first 20% of the anode channel, resulting in excessive cooling of that zone, which degrades performance and causes thermal stresses that may damage the SOFC stack. To ameliorate these problems, it is standard practice to include a pre-reformer which may achieve about 30% conversion of the steam reforming reaction upstream of the anode channel entrance. The pre-reformer also reduces the risk of carbon deposition within the anode, by accelerated reforming or methanation of the more reactive higher hydrocarbon components. The pre-reformer may be an externally heated steam reformer or an autothermal reformer based on partial oxidation.
Further simplification could be achieved if the hydrocarbon fuel could be oxidized directly within the SOFC anode channel, without addition of steam. Thus, Barnett et al (U.S. Pat. No. 6,214,485 B1) have used a nickel yttria doped ceria (Ni/YDC) cermet anode without carbon deposition on methane at temperatures below 800° C. Gorte et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2001/0053471 A1) have used copper ceria over porous yttria stabilized zirconia cermets (Cu/CeO2/YSZ) to demonstrate operation on a range of hydrocarbon fuels without carbon deposition. H. Kim et al (J. Electrochem. Soc. 149, p. A247, 2002) used copper-nickel alloy ceria cermets for direct SOFC oxidation of methane. Lawless (U.S. Pat. No. 6,372,375) has proposed the use of copper cermets with niobia stabilized bismuth oxide.
Numerous other SOFC anode materials have been considered for direct oxidation of methane, for example cerium-modified lanthanum doped strontium titanate (La,Sr)/(Ti,Ce)O3 by O. A. Marina and L. R. Pederson, Proceedings Fifth European Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Forum, p. 481, 2002; copper gadolinium doped ceria (Cu/CGO) by M. Joerger et al, Proceedings Fifth European Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Forum, p. 475, 2002 and by E. Ramirez-Cabrera et al, Proceedings Fifth European Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Forum, p. 531, 2002; nickel gadolinium doped ceria (Ni-CGO) by M. Ihara et al, Proceedings Fifth European Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Forum, p. 523, 2002; and modified lanthanum chromites (LaCrO3, substituted by other lanthanides, and by Ca, Sr, Mg, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu or Nb) by J. Sfeir et al, Proceedings Fifth European Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Forum, p. 570, 2002 and E. Ramirez-Cabrera et al, Proceedings Fifth European Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Forum, p. 546, 2002.
While the above developments of advanced SOFC anode materials can enable direct oxidation of dry methane and some other hydrocarbons, the anode catalytic activity for hydrocarbons is much inferior to that for hydrogen. Hence, severe anode over-voltages for direct oxidation of hydrocarbons are typical, and higher performance (least activation polarization) would always be expected with hydrogen. It is noteworthy that activity of a Cu-ceria-YSZ cermet (R. Gorte et al, Adv. Mater. 2000, 12, p. 1465, 2000) increases in the order of methane<butane<hydrogen, indicating that the LPG components of natural gas should be oxidized more readily than methane, as expected owing to their greater reactivity than the more stable methane molecule.
The lower heat of combustion of a fuel usefully defines the energy (enthalpy change of the reaction) that may be generated by oxidizing that fuel. The electrochemical energy that can be generated by an ideal fuel cell is however the free energy change of the reaction, which is smaller than the enthalpy change. The difference between the enthalpy change and the free energy change is the product of the entropy change of the reaction multiplied by the absolute temperature. This difference widens at higher temperatures, so higher temperature fuel cells inherently convert a lower fraction of the fuel energy to electrical power at high efficiency, while a larger fraction of the fuel energy is available only as heat which must be converted to electrical power by a thermodynamic bottoming cycle (e.g. steam or gas turbine plant) at lower efficiency.
For both SOFCs and MCFCs, accumulation of reaction products (carbon dioxide and steam) on the fuel cell anode opposes the electrochemical reaction, so that the free energy is reduced. Higher partial pressure of oxygen over the cathode, and higher partial pressure of hydrogen over the anode, drive the reaction forward so that the free energy is increased. Unfortunately, the reaction depletes the oxygen in the cathode channel and depletes hydrogen in the anode channel while rapidly increasing the backpressure of carbon dioxide as a diluent in the anode channel. Hence the free energy change is reduced, directly reducing the cell voltage of the fuel stack. This degrades the electrical efficiency of the system, while increasing the heat that must be converted at already lower efficiency by the thermal bottoming cycle.
The free energy change is simply the product of the electromotive force ("E") of the cell and the charge transferred per mole by the reaction ("2F"), where the factor of two reflects the valency of the oxygen ion. The following Nernst relation for a SOFC expresses the above described sensitivity of the electromotive force (open circuit voltage, or Gibbs free energy expressed as electron-volts per electron) to the partial pressures of the electrochemical reactants in the anode and cathode channels, where the standard electromotive force ("Eo") is referred to all components at standard conditions and with water as vapor.
  E  =            E      o        -                  RT                  2                    F                                  ln                          [                                    P                              H2O                                                  (                  anode                  )                                                                                P                                  H2                                                        (                    anode                    )                                                              ·                              P                                  O2                                                        (                    cathode                    )                                                  0.5                                              ]                    The same sensitivity to partial pressures of reactants in MCFCs is expressed by the following Nernst relation for a MCFC
  E  =            E      o        -                  RT                  2                    F                                  ln                          [                                                    P                                  H2O                                                        (                    anode                    )                                                              ·                              P                                  CO2                                                        (                    anode                    )                                                                                P                                  H2                                                        (                    anode                    )                                                              ·                              P                                  O2                                                        (                    cathode                    )                                                  0.5                            ·                              P                                  CO2                                                        (                    cathode                    )                                                                                ]
The open circuit voltage is elevated by a high ratio of hydrogen to steam over the anode, and by increased partial pressure of oxygen over the cathode. At finite working current density, the operating voltage is determined by subtracting ohmic resistance losses, activation polarization and concentration polarization from the open circuit voltage.
Prior art MCFC systems do not provide any satisfactory solution for this problem which gravely compromises attainable overall efficiency. Despite repeated attempts to devise an effective technology and method to maximize reactant concentrations, and minimize product accumulation in both the anode and cathode circuits that would be compatible with MCFC operating conditions, no such attempt has been adequately successful.
The accepted method for supplying carbon dioxide to the MCFC cathode has been to burn a fraction of the anode exhaust gas (including unreacted hydrogen and other fuel components) to provide carbon dioxide mixed with steam and nitrogen to be mixed with additional air providing oxygen to the cathode. This approach has serious limitations. Even more of the original fuel value is unavailable for relatively efficient electrochemical power generation, in view of additional combustion whose heat can only be absorbed usefully by the thermal bottoming cycle. Also, the oxygen/nitrogen ratio of the cathode gas is even more dilute than ambient air, further reducing cell voltage and hence transferring more power generation load less efficiently onto the thermal bottoming plant.
A further shortcoming of high temperature fuel cell power plant systems known in the prior art is the inability of such previously known systems to provide means for effective mitigation of "greenhouse" gas and other environmentally deleterious gas emissions resulting from fossil-fuel derived power generation.


An apparatus generally having a plurality of first circuits and a second circuit is disclosed. The first circuits may be configured to (i) generate a plurality of intermediate bits by dividing a plurality data bits by a plurality of minimal polynomials of an encoding along a first path and (ii) generate a plurality of parity bits by multiplying the intermediate bits by the minimal polynomials along a second path. A number of the parity bits may be variable based on a configuration signal. The second circuit may be configured to (i) delay the data bits and (ii) generate a plurality of code bits by appending the parity bits to a last of the data bits.

A conventional hardware implementation of a non-reconfigurable Bose, Ray-Chaudhuri, Hocquenghem (i.e., BCH) encoder or a Reed-Solomon (i.e., RS) encoder has a start signal that tells the encoder when a new data word is ready to be encoded. Most implementations of BCH/RS encoders do not allow changes to the parameters of the BCH/RS code, such as a maximum error limit. However, modern applications of BCH/RS codes in solid state disk flash controllers are specified to change some parameters at runtime. To achieve a fast speed, a reconfiguration time of the reconfigurable controllers should be as short as possible. Hence, the reconfigurable encoders often have a configuration interface that sets the encoder into a current configuration. The configuration interface can set the maximal error limit or the number of parity bits inserted into the codes.
A typical BCH/RS encoder is conventionally implemented using a linear feedback shift register (i.e., LFSR). If the maximum error limit "T" is fixed, the coefficients of the LFSR are constants. Thus, constant multipliers are used to implement the LFSR instead of ordinary multipliers in a Galois Field (i.e., GF). The area of a constant GF-multiplier is less than the area of non-constant GF-multiplier.
Reconfigurable BCH/RS encoders can produce different numbers of parity symbols depending on the maximum error limit T. Therefore, the coefficients of the LFSR depend on the maximum error limit T and are not constants. As such, non-constant GF multipliers are commonly implemented and so significantly increase the area of the encoder.
An existing scheme that works around the non-constant multipliers uses a reconfigurable encoder as a wrapper around a non-reconfigurable encoder. For relatively small Galois Fields, the wrapper approach has an area approximately twice as large as the non-reconfigurable designs. However, the wrapper approach still suffers from the use of some non-constant multipliers and even Galois Field inversion, which can be difficult to implement with large Galois Fields. Furthermore, the wrapper encoder also is not reconfigurable on-the-fly.
In the case of binary BCH encoders, a standard implementation of a non-reconfigurable encoder performs multiplication by a constant binary matrix in GF(2). The implementation is relatively simple and area efficient (i.e., the designs only have trees of XOR gates). To implement a reconfigurable binary BCH encoder using the same scheme, the coefficients of matrixes heavily depend on the configuration data and are not easy to calculate.
It would be desirable to implement a variable parity encoder.


Container with a bottom wall, two side walls, and a back wall connecting them, and at least one drawer which can be pulled from the opening of the container, opposite this back wall, wherein on the upper edges of the two side walls, at least one locking device is provided. Such known containers are not flexible enough for practical use. The goal of refining a generic container in such a way that there are more combination possibilities in handling is attained in that the upper side of the container, opposite the bottom wall, is open and another container or a lid, covering the open upper side, can be optionally locked in via the locking device.

DE 10 2008 058 007 B3 shows a stackable transport or storage container with a bottom and a container cover and four surrounding side walls, of which two opposite side walls have complementary locking elements on an upper and lower side, so that the container can be stacked, in an undisplaceable manner, via its base surface with models which are structurally identical with respect to the locking elements, wherein on the side walls with locking elements, furthermore, a spring-pretensioned locking catch is provided on both sides of the locking element and a complementary trap on the other complementary locking element, wherein when stacking, the locking catch of the one model interacts with the trap of the other model in a snap-closing manner and the models are automatically locked with one another.
From EP 0 348 789 A2, a forms storage compartment is known, which consists of containers that can be stacked and locked above one another. The containers have a bottom wall, two side walls, and a back wall connecting them. The upper side of the container, opposite the bottom wall, is open. The locking of two such containers, with one another, takes place via locking elements, which are located in the bottom wall of the upper container and mesh into corresponding locking recesses on the underside of a track of the lower container, located in the upper part of the side walls. To connect the two containers, they are first pushed laterally into one another, so that the upper container reaches under the track of the lower container, and then locks it by means of the locking elements. The locking elements are actuated by a slider located in the bottom wall of the container, which can be operated from the upper side of the bottom wall. The connecting of the containers takes place when they are not full, in which the slider is accessible and the lateral insertion is not additionally complicated by the increased weight of the containers.
In actual practice, it has become evident that, in addition to the containers to be stacked on one another, there is the need for drawers to be pulled out, in the same arrangement. In particular, craftsmen request combined solutions in which a stack or "rack," has not only containers, but also drawer elements. Proceeding from the initially mentioned publication, the applicant as subsequently developed the device offered on the market under the name LS-BOXX. This is a combination of a generic container that can be carried, with a fold-up lid and a drawer arrangement of a shape so that the side walls of the container are elongated downwards and form a holding space for one or more drawers, arranged above one another. In this solution, however, it is not possible to transport the drawer component by itself, because it is firmly connected with the container. The craftsman, therefore, must take along the whole container to the workplace, even if he needs only the drawer part.


A device for detecting the presence of urine at the genital region of an individual and removing and storing the urine. The device includes an external urine collecting vessel which is supported at the genital region to contain the urine within the vessel. Liquid sensors are contained within the vessel for detecting the presence of urine and automatically activating a pump to draw the urine through a tubing to a temporary storage chamber. A liquid impermeable liner is place within the collecting vessel for improved hygiene and for directing the urine away from the individual.

This invention relates to devices for use by individuals who are unable to control the flow of urine and, more particularly, to a device for detecting the presence of urine, and subsequently removing and storing the urine.
Millions of individuals are afflicted with urinary problems of varying severity, ranging from those individuals who have no control over their bladder function to those individuals who on occasion are unable to reach an appropriate location for urination. Failure to control the flow of urine is a source of acute embarrassment and frequently requires that otherwise healthy individuals adopt a life of relative seclusion. Incontinence also creates serious health risks for bedridden individuals such as the aged and severely ill and hospitals and nursing facilities spend enormous amounts of time, money, and material dealing with the effects of incontinence.
Previous attempts at solving the incontinence problem in males have focused on urethetic catheters and condom-like sheaths. The catheter must be internally inserted and poses a serious risk of urinary tract infection in addition to the extreme discomfort it may create. The sheath device is worn externally and results in discomfort because it is in direct contact with the skin of the patient and also creates a high risk of infection. These device are frequently intentionally or inadvertantly displaced by the patient because of the discomfort created and require that the patient be restrained to prevent displacement of the device.
Both the catheter and sheath devices rely on gravity to remove the urine to a temporary storage container and failure to maintain the container at a lower elevation than the device prevents the proper removal of the urine. Devices have been developed which provide a vacuum to remove the urine to a storage container, but require that the individual be sufficiently alert to properly position the urine collecting device when needed. These devices are of limited benefit to patients who experience incontinence problems while asleep or who have restricted physical movement and are unable to position the device.
Incontinence devices for females have been limited to internal catheter devices which suffer from the same shortcomings as the male catheter devices. There are no satisfactory external devices for use by females.
While the presently known male and female incontinence devices may prove to be adequate for specific and limited applications, they fail to provide an acceptable solution to the incontinence problem.

Method and device for removing and collecting urine


Disclosed is a gelatino-silver halide photographic material which contains a dye of the following formula (I), described in detail herein and at least one hardener. ##STR1## The dye is decolored by photographic processing and does not exert any adverse influence on the photographic characteristics, especially the spectral sensitizability, of the photographic material. The material exhibits excellent storage stability and has a negligible moisture-dependency in exposure.

In silver halide photographic materials, the photographic emulsion layers or other layers are often colored for the purpose of absorbing a light of a particular wavelength range. The layers to be colored are often composed of a hydrophilic colloid, and therefore, a water-soluble dye is generally incorporated into the layer to color the same. The dyes used for the purpose are required to satisfy the following conditions.
(1) They have a pertinent light-absorbability in accordance with the purpose for using them. PA1 (2) They are photochemically inactive. Precisely, they do not impart any chemically unfavorable influences to the properties of the silver halide photographic emulsion layers; for example, they do not cause lowering of sensitivity, fading of latent images or fogging in the photographic emulsion layers. PA1 (3) They are decolored or are dissolved and removed during the photographic processing step so that they do not cause any harmful extra-coloration in the photographic materials processed. PA1 R.sub.5 and R.sub.6 each independently represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an aryl group; PA1 Q.sub.1 and Q.sub.2 each independently represents an aryl group; PA1 X.sub.1 and X.sub.2 each independently represents a divalent linking group or a bond; PA1 Y.sub.1 and Y.sub.2 each independently represents a sulfo group or a carboxyl group; PA1 L.sub.1, L.sub.2 and L.sub.3 each independently represents a methine group; PA1 m.sub.1 and m.sub.2 each independently represents 1 or 2; PA1 n represents 0, 1 or 2; PA1 .sub.1 and p.sub.2 each independently represents 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4; and PA1 s.sub.1 and s.sub.2 each independently represents 1 or 2; ##STR4## where R.sub.7 represents a chlorine atom, a hydroxyl group, an alkyl group, an alkoxy group, an alkylthio group, --OM (in which M is a monovalent metal atom), Or --NR.sup.I R.sup.II or --NHCOR.sup.III (in which R.sup.I, R.sup.II and R.sup.III are each independently a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or an aryl group); and PA1 R.sub.8 the same meaning as R.sub.7 except that it cannot represent a chlorine atom; ##STR5## where R.sub.9 and R.sub.10 each independently represents a chlorine atom, a hydroxyl group, an alkyl group, an alkoxy group or --OM (in which M is a monovalent metal atom); Q.sub.3 and Q.sub.3 ' each independently represents a linking group represented by --O--, --S-- or --NH--; PA1 L.sub.4 represents an alkylene group or an arylene group; and PA1 l.sub.1 and l.sub.2 each independently represents 0 or 1.
Many efforts have been made by those skilled in the art to find dyes which satisfy these conditions. In particular, oxonolepyrazolone dyes have been intensively studied because they have been considered to satisfy the necessary characteristics. They are disclosed in British Patents 506,385, 1,177,429, 1,278,621, 1,311,884, 1,338,799, 1,385,371, 1,467,214, 1,433,102 and 1,553,516; JP-A-48-85130, JP-A-49-114420, JP-A-55-161233 and JP-A-59-111640 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an unexamined published Japanese patent application); and U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,247,127, 3,469,985, 4,078,933, 2,533,472 and 3,379,533.
However, some of these dyes are known to have drawbacks that they have a noticeable influence on spectrally sensitized emulsions in that they cause further spectral sensitization of the emulsions in the unnecessary range or they often cause desorption of sensitizing dyes thereby lowering the sensitivity of photographic emulsions, although they do not have so much influence on photographic emulsions themselves.
In addition, some of these dyes have been found to remain in the processed photographic materials after the materials are processed by rapid processing method which is frequently been utilized. In order to overcome these problems, use of dyes having a high reactivity with sulfite ion has been proposed. In such case, however, the stability of the dyes in a photographic film is not sufficient so that the concentration of the dyes therein decreases with time and, as a result, the desired photographic effect are not obtained. Accordingly, the dyes are unsatisfactory for photographic use.
On the other hand, in printing color photographic materials, gelatin is mostly related to the binder used in the materials, and a hardening agent for the binder is incorporated into the material together with the binder.
The characteristics required for the hardening agents include a rapid hardening activity, not causing fogging, etc. on silver halides, causing no problems related to sanitary labour conditions or any environmental pollution, good water solubility, easiness of synthesis and low cost.
Under the circumstances, investigation of printing color photographic materials has begun from the side of hardening agents of vinylsulfone compounds, ethyleneimine compounds, epoxy compounds, N-methylol compounds and cyanuric chloride compounds. In particular, the cyanuric chloride hardening agents described in JP-B-47-6151 (the term "JP-B" as used herein means an "examined Japanese patent publication), and JP-A-48-19220, JP-A-51-78788, JP-A-52-128130, JP-A-52-130326 and JP-A-56-1043 were found to satisfy almost all the aforesaid characteristics and were therefore considered excellent.
However, when silver halide photographic materials contain both an anti-irradiation dye and a hardening agent, two problems occur. One is that the solubility of the anti-irradiation dye in development decreases in some cases, depending upon the characteristics of the coexisting hardening agent, so that the whiteness in the non-image background part is also lowered. The second is that the combination of anti-irradiation dye and hardening agent would cause an advise influence of photographic characteristics of the photographic materials, such as desensitization or increase of fog, during storage of from preparation to use of the materials. Accordingly, it has been difficult to maintain the initial photographic characteristics of photographic materials during or after storage of the materials.


Disclosed is a simulation system for displaying source lines in a behavior level description during execution of simulation to indicate the execution status of a conditional branch statement in a state, including a simulation model generation unit, a simulator and a simulation monitor. The simulation model generation unit receives a source file including a behavior level description composed of a plurality of lines and that generates a simulation model, which includes a finite state machine (FSM), from the behavior level description. The simulation model generation unit generates a simulation model, in which identification information (branch ID) is assigned to a conditional branch statement in a state, and generates a behavior level description source line—branch ID correspondence table. The simulator receives the simulation model for executing simulation; and a simulation monitor monitors the execution of simulation, extracts the branch ID in a state when a state transition to said state occurs, obtains the number of a source line in the behavior level description corresponding to the extracted branch ID from the behavior level description source line—branch ID correspondence table, and displays the source line in the behavior level description having the obtained line number in a form distinguishable from other lines.

A technology for generating a simulation method and performing simulation is proposed by the applicant of the present invention, wherein the simulation method comprises the steps of receiving a source file, composed of a behavior level description, for behavioral synthesis with the behavior level description (algorithm description) as the hardware description; creating a finite state machine/data path model description, a variable/register/state position correspondence table, and a behavior level description source line/state position correspondence table, as a simulation model; and performing clock-level simulation (for example, see Patent Document 1).
Patent Document 1 discloses a configuration in which, when a state transition occurs, the current state position is obtained, the source line corresponding to the state position is obtained from the line information table, and the source line is highlighted (or displayed in reverse video) on the GUI (Graphical User Interface) such as an execution display window as shown in FIG. 18 for letting the user identify the current execution position on the behavior level description. For how to create a finite state machine/data path model description and a behavior level description source line/state position correspondence table from a behavior level description, also see the description in Patent Document 2, proposed by the applicant of the present invention, that is given below.
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Kokai Publication No. JP-P2001-109788A (FIG. 9, FIG. 11)
[Patent Document 2]
Japanese Patent Kokai Publication No. JP-P2003-67438A (FIG. 2, FIG. 5)
As described in Patent Documents 1 and 2, a method for allowing the user to recognize the correspondence between the simulation execution states and the behavior level description source during the simulation of the hardware description including a behavior level description is efficient, for example, in a circuit design process.
According to the method described in Patent Document 1, the correspondence between the simulation execution states and the behavior level description source lines in the simulation model of a finite state machine structure is based on state transition units, for example, state 1 corresponds to the third line of source File1.c, state 2 is to the fourth line of source file File2.c, and state 3 is to the fourth line of source file File 3.c (see FIG. 9 in Patent Document 1).
A simulation model sometimes includes a conditional branch in a state entered by a transition (for example, see if statement in FIG. 18). And, it is known that, in a hardware description, there is a relatively high possibility that a bug lurks in a conditional branch.
In consideration of the fact described above, the inventor of the present invention has found that the correspondence between the simulation execution states and the behavior level description source lines should be based, not on a state transition, but on a conditional branch statement whose granularity is finer than that of the state transition, to provide the user with more detailed information to increase debugging accuracy and circuit design efficiency.
The inventor of the present invention has also found that the method described in above-described Patent Document 1 for managing the correspondence between the simulation execution states and the behavior level description source lines on a state transition basis can be improved to implement a function that establishes the correspondence between conditional branch statements included in a behavior level description and the simulation execution states.


The invention provides sensor compositions and method of making sensors.

Label-free optical sensors based upon surface structured photonic crystals have recently been demonstrated as a highly sensitive method for performing a wide variety of biochemical and cell-based assays. See, e.g., Cunningham, et al., Label-Free Assays on the BIND System. Journal of Biomolecular Screening, 2004. 9:481-490. These sensors reflect only a narrow band of wavelengths when illuminated with white light at normal incidence, where positive shifts of the reflected peak wavelength value (PWV) indicate the adsorption of detected material on the sensor surface. See, e.g., Cunningham, et al., Colorimetric resonant reflection as a direct biochemical assay technique. Sensors and Actuators B, 2002. 81:316-328. By spatially confining incident photons at the resonant wavelength, a high optical field is generated at the sensor surface that extends a short distance into a test sample, much like an evanescent field. The high degree of spatial confinement of resonant photons within the device structure leads to a strong interaction between the structure and adsorbed biomaterial, and to the ability to perform high resolution imaging of protein and cell attachment. See, e.g., Li, et al., A new method for label-free imaging of biomolecular interactions. Sensors and Actuators B, 2004. 99:6-13.
Previously, photonic crystal optical biosensors have been fabricated from continuous sheets of plastic film using a process in which the periodic surface structure is replicated from a silicon master wafer using a UV-cured polymer material. See, e.g., Cunningham, et al., A plastic calorimetric resonant optical biosensor for multiparallel detection of label-free biochemical interactions. Sensors and Actuators B, 2002. 85:219-226. This patterned polymer can be subsequently coated with a high refractive index TiO2 layer that is generally thinner than the height of the surface structure. Such devices have been demonstrated for a wide variety of biochemical and cell-based assays, with a mass density sensitivity resolution less than 0.1 pg/mm2 and a large dynamic range enabling single cell detection. See, e.g., Lin et al., A label-free biosensor-based cell attachment assay for characterization of cell surface molecules. Sensors and Actuators B, Accepted April 2005. In general, optimization of device sensitivity requires increasing the interaction of the electromagnetic field intensity distribution with the molecules deposited atop the photonic crystal surface. Therefore, selection of optical materials and design of the surface structure topology is aimed at extending the electromagnetic field profile from the interior regions of the photonic crystal (where they cannot interact with adsorbed material) to the region adjacent to the photonic crystal that includes the liquid test sample.
Methods are needed in the art to increase the sensitivity of these and other types of sensors and to decrease the cost of their manufacture.

Photonic crystal biosensor structure and fabrication method

The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois


Disclosed herein are methods for improving ethanol production from biomass sources by blocking cellulose from binding to lignin.

This section introduces aspects that may help facilitate a better understanding of the disclosure. Accordingly, these statements are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is or is not prior art.
Hydrothermal pretreatments, such as liquid hot water pretreatment, steam explosion, and dilute acid pretreatment, enhance cellulolytic conversion of lignocellulose by solubilizing the hemicellulose fraction of the biomass. Due to the distinctively different pretreatment optima for hemicellulose and cellulose, a multi-stage pretreatment offers advantages over a single-stage pretreatment in terms of achieving a maximal recovery of both pentose and hexose sugars. In a multi-stage pretreatment, the first pretreatment can be optimized to remove the majority of hemicellulose while minimizing degradation of hemicellulose and re-precipitation of humins derived from the degradation. The subsequent pretreatments are more targeted to generate cellulose with enhanced susceptibility to cellulases.
The extent of hemicellulose removal alone is not a reliable parameter to predict enzymatic hydrolyzability of pretreated mixed hardwood. A great degree of variability in cellulose conversion yields existed among the pretreated hardwood materials even if majority of initial xylan was removed from the lignocellulose during liquid hot water pretreatment.
Given the integrative nature of the cell wall structure [67], pretreatment that changes one property will also affect others. Removal of hemicellulose and some lignin during liquid hot water pretreatment of lignocellulose, therefore, would also alter other substrate characteristics that affect cellulose hydrolyzability. The ease of enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulosic feedstocks can be affected by several substrate characteristics, such as cellulose's accessibility to cellulases which is a function of the degree of polymerization (DP), crystallinity, lignin and hemicellulose content and structure, and particle size.
Studies have investigated the effect of swelling, DP, fiber size, enzyme accessible area, crystallinity, composition, and presence of lignin on the enzymatic hydrolysis of various lignocellulosic materials. However, most studies involved measuring substrate characteristics of lignocellulose feedstocks that were either pretreated by different pretreatment technologies or pretreated within a limited range of pretreatment conditions.
There is therefore an unmet need for strategies to mitigate the inhibitory effects of lignin and soluble phenolics to ensure robust and economic enzymatic conversion of cellulose.

Methods for mitigating the inhibitory effects of lignin and soluble phenolics for enzymatic conversion of cellulose


A sealing assembly provides a seal between first and second parts that are movable relative to each other. The sealing assembly comprises an elastic ring having an annular sealing lip configured to fixedly and sealingly abut on the first part. A sealing ring includes a sealing edge configured to sealingly abut on a sliding surface of the second part. A supporting ring is fixedly connected with the elastic ring and is inserted between the elastic ring and the sealing ring.

In tracks, in particular of tracked vehicles, the links of the track are typically connected with each other via pivot pin hinges. For this purpose, such a pivot pin hinge comprises a pin and a sleeve that is rotatably suspended around the pin. Links of the track are press-fit on the respective ends of the pin and the sleeve. The pivot bearing surfaces between the pin and the sleeve are lubricated by an oil reservoir in the pin. The oil chamber between the pin and the sleeve is sealed by two sealing elements that comprise sealing lips pressing against the end faces of the sleeve.
A track pin assembly having such a seal is known, for example, from DE 27 26 033 A1 and its English-counterpart U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,516 and comprises a track pin attached to a portion of a first track link and a bushing attached to a portion of a second track link. The bushing surrounds a portion of the track pin and is reciprocally movable relative to the track pin. A cavity is defined in the first track link for receiving the seal having a sealing lip for abutment on an end face of the bushing. A spacer ring surrounds the track pin and extends in the axial direction between an end face of the cavity and the end face of the bushing. The seal is inserted in the hollow space defined in the cavity and comprises a primary seal ring made of a relatively stiff, but elastic, first elastomeric material and a secondary sealing element made of a second resilient elastomeric material that is substantially less stiff than the first material.
A sealing assembly for a track pivot pin hinge is also known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,854, which comprises a first ring made of a flexible elastomeric material having a sleeve-like portion, a flange-like portion having a sealing lip, and a second ring made of elastic material contacting the first ring for sealing a space between a pin and a sleeve surrounding the pin. The first ring comprises a cylindrical, metallic reinforcing ring that is completely embedded in the sleeve-like portion of the first ring.
A sealing assembly and a track link are also known from DE 10 2006 050 439 A1 and its English-counterpart US 2010/0148572. This sealing assembly comprises a sealing ring having a sealing edge that sealingly abuts on an element of the track. A metallic support ring is embedded in the sealing ring for reinforcing the sealing assembly. An elastic ring is pushed onto the support ring and has a sealing lip that abuts on a further element of the track.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,256,316 discloses a joint sealing structure for sealing two joint parts that are axially movable relative to each other and includes a seal ring having a sealing lip for maintaining a dynamic seal with a sealing surface of one of the joint parts. A stiffener is provided for transferring a biasing force from a spring means to the sealing lip. The stiffener includes a flexible connecting portion permitting free movement of the sealing lip under the biasing action of the spring means over the range of movement between the joint parts.

Sealing assembly and track hinge including the same


A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium has stored therein a program that causes a computer to execute a process, the process including: obtaining an estimation value of a third variable by subtracting a second output value of a second parametric model to which a second variable is input from a first output value of a first parametric model to which a first variable is input; performing first parameter update of updating first parameters of the first parametric model and second parameters of the second parametric model such that independence between the second variable and the estimation value of the third variable is maximized; and updating the first parameters and third parameters of a third parametric model in the first parameter update, such that a third output value of the third parametric model is approximated to the first variable, the third parametric model being input with the first output value.

In the field of data analysis, data mining, and so on, a relationship between pieces of data is clarified to make a decision or the like based on the thus-clarified relationship. For example, the relationship between pieces of data used in the decision-making in the fields of manufacturing, medical, material, and the like is not a point relationship (prediction) but a line relationship (cause and effect). In one example, in order to decrease a certain numerical value in a test, an item having a causality with the numerical value in the test is discovered to figure out which treatment is better. In another example, in order to produce a substance having a certain target strength, a part of the molecular structure having a causality with the strength is discovered to figure out which part of the molecular structure has to be changed and how much.
In the field of causal discovery for finding out whether there is causality between pieces of data, usually a model (function) that is theoretically verified as having a capability of determining the causality is used since the pieces of data used in the discovery do not have the causality every time. A post-nonlinear (PNL) model has been known as the above-described model. The PNL model is a model with a high representation ability among models that are theoretically verified. Model estimation by the theoretically verified PNL model makes it possible to discover a causal explanation of whether the target pieces of data have causality.
Related techniques are disclosed in, for example, Kun Zhang and Aapo Hyvarinen, "Distinguishing Causes from Effects using Nonlinear Acyclic Causal Models", JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings 6:157-164, 2007.

Method of updating parameters and information processing apparatus


A dual-die device, a display device and a driving method thereof are provided. The dual-die device includes: a first light emitting die for emitting light containing short-wave blue light; a second light emitting die for emitting light from which short-wave blue light is filtered out; and a control circuit. The control circuit is connected to the first light emitting die and the second light emitting die, and configured to control the first light emitting die or the second light emitting die to be turned on.

With the development of display technology and the wide application of display devices, users have put forward higher requirements on display devices, for example, a requirement to incorporate a function of protecting eyesight in display devices has been raised. In the current liquid crystal display (abbreviated as: LCD) device, an anti-blue light eye protection function has been incorporated into the backlight module.
Because the short-wave blue light in the blue light wave band, i.e., the light in the range of 400 nanometers (nm) to 450 nm, will increase the amount of toxins in the macular region of a human eye and damage the human eye. Therefore, the anti-blue light function is intended to filter out the short-wave blue light of 400 to 450 nm in the blue light emitted by the backlight module, i.e., filter out harmful the blue light wave band. Currently, an anti-blue light film or an anti-blue light chip replacing the blue light chip is generally used as an anti-blue light method.

Dual-die device, display device and driving method of display device

CHONGQING BOE OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.

BEIJING BOE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CO., LTD.


A computer-implemented method for ensuring non-repudiation of a payment request and/or other action may include a step of receiving, over a network, the payment request together with a digital certificate identifying a user having caused the payment request to be generated. The certificate may include certificate-identifying information, user-identifying information, authority information that defines and delimits the authority of the user to make the payment request. The certificate-identifying information and the user-identifying information included within the received certificate may be validated. The authority information included within the received certificate may then be validated. The payment request and/or other action is then only executed when the certificate-identifying information, the user-identifying information and the authority information within the received certificate are successfully validated.

1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention includes but is not limited to methods and systems for providing security for corporate payments through a corporate bank (hereafter, Financial Service Provider or FSP) to a payee such as corporate partner (hereafter, Trading Partner or TP). The case of the Financial Service Provider (FSP) is included in order to illustrate and clarify this disclosure. The present inventions also relate to methods and systems for incorporating indicia of authority within digital certificates.
2. Description Of The Prior Art And Related Information
Every corporation may be presumed to have a Chief Executive Office (CEO), Chief Financial Officer (CEO) or a person or persons that operate in that capacity. Such a person typically designates employees with authority to approve payments and/or authorize the FSP to make payments to the TP for goods and/or services provided by the TP to the corporation. To prevent fraud or mistake, such payments should be approved before the corporation's account with the FSP is debited. Preferably, the person or mechanism established to approve such pending payments should be authenticated (their identity verified to insure that the person or mechanism is who or what he, she or it purports to be) prior to the payment to the TP being released. Authentication is required for an FSP to perform financial service related transactions. There are several means of securing authentication, including passwords, smart cards, certificates, and even biometrics measurements such as retinal scans or voice recognition. Of these, the use of certificates and digital signatures, smart cards, and biometrics are referred to as "strong" levels of security, while the ordinary password-protected access is deemed "weak" by typical financial institutions and security experts.
Applications that generate payment requests to an FSP conventionally do not assume any responsibilities for strong authentication, being only the means by which a representative of a corporation generates non-XML files to send to and from FSPs and sellers. Conventional systems work, but do not meet the higher standards that banks set for electronic business banking. Strong authentication beyond the typical id and password pair is needed.
All current payment options, whether credit card or EFT, put the responsibility on the corporation to assure its own security and proper use of the payment system. Only the supposed source of a message from the corporation vouches for the authenticity of the payment request. As can be appreciated from the above, there is a need to prevent fraud and to control access to and use of payment requests generating computer application.
The primary corporate payment instruments are: paper checks, Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), EXtensible Markup Language (XML) messages, credit cards, and purchase cards. Each payment instrument has its existing set of security models, yet none of them are totally satisfactory. All existing security models focus on given payment instruments, largely to the exclusion of the others. Alternatively, security risks vary widely among these methods of payment. Paper checks have the longest tradition as a payment method, which usually consists of the matching of a signature on the check against a signature on a signature card. Some checks of high value may require two signatures to be valid. However, for efficiency reasons, signatures are not commonly examined by the FSP as they are processed, except perhaps to insure that the correct number of signatures is present. If the account has sufficient funds, the check will usually clear regardless of signature. The corporation, then, must discover any discrepancies during a reconciliation process, applying to the FSP to reverse check and charges as appropriate. This results in contention between the FSP and the corporation, as the FSP tries to shift assumption of the risk of bad checks to the corporation, while the corporation typically believes the FSP should assume this responsibility. This is an ongoing problem for many corporations and their FSPs.
In a typical scenario, the FSP receives checks for clearing against the corporation's account until 2 pm (for example) each day. In addition, the FSP accumulates pending payment requests from servers used by the corporation. Such requests may not have digital signatures. If they do not, the FSP typically has no non-repudiable means of determining the legitimacy of the payment request. The paper checks received for clearing against the corporation's account may or may not be legitimate. FSPs typically no longer inspect signatures and compare them against signature cards unless they have received a specific request to do so. At the end of the business day (such as at 5 pm, for example), the FSP debits the corporation's account for the amounts in the received payment requests and correspondingly credits the accounts of the purported payees. The FSP will then typically print a statement at the end of the month and send it securely to an authorized person at the corporation for reconciliation against the corporation's accounting system.
EFTs are customarily handled by agreement between corporations and their FSPs, with some electronic banking systems permitting EFTs. Some EFTs and corporations rely on security based upon a combination of an ID and a password, with or without private networking (such as a Virtual Private Network or VPN) and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificates. EFT security typically requires a signature on paper to back up whatever other security means have been selected. Moreover, the measures aimed at securing EFTs are usually applicable only to EFT payments.
XML payments are under development by a variety of providers of services and technology. Typically, an XML payment system will include authorization through PKI certificate by a person identified through the certificate. The ancillary procedures, that is, the means by which certificates are generated and distributed, varies widely—in some cases, third party vendors participate in the security arrangements. Most such XML efforts have FSP sponsorship and may be presumed to have very high standards of security. None of the known systems for XML security either integrate with corporate Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems or internal FSP procedures.
Credit cards are discrete instruments designated by an account number and an expiration date, both of which are known to the holder of the card. Unfortunately, these are easily learned by others and credit cards have historically not been regarded has having strong security. Federal law requires FSPs to assume responsibility for unauthorized charges over $50. However, FSPs would like to find others (usually the vendor who accepted the card—the payee) to take responsibility for the unauthorized charge. The usual control is that purchases made with credit cards are subject to predetermined limits. The only security measure usually associated with credit cards is that the merchant will verify by signature/picture on the physical card before submitting the purchase request to the card issuer. However, merchants rarely, in practice, compare the signature on the receipt with that appearing on the card. Moreover, such thin security measures are not typically available for purchases made over the telephone or Internet. Credit card fraud is a major problem in the U.S. and an even greater problem elsewhere. Such fraud affects both business and personal payments.
Purchase Cards (Pcards) are corporate credit cards that have high limits relative to credit cards. Pcards may be physically implemented as plastic cards, but their main function lies in supporting payments for corporate purchases over the facsimile, telephone or the Internet. The security provisions for Pcards vary widely, with ID/password being the highest level and none at all (use of the card number on a paper form) being the lowest.
Corporate use of credit cards and Pcards usually costs the corporation and the TP some fee paid to the FSP. Unlike consumer credit cards, the main risk involves fraud or improper use by unauthorized individuals rather than non-payment by the holder of the card. Even so, corporate losses could be considerable, as could those of the FSP. The TP is in a quandary, since there is no basis other than the means of communication for believing that a card number is valid and is being properly used. Faxed orders with the credit card number on the fax would be an example of security for the TP.
When requests for payment are received by a financial institution from a certificate holder, the sender of the message incorporating the request for payment may be authenticated by means of the certificate presented. However, for lack of alternative, the recipient of the message incorporating the request for payment and the certificate makes the assumption that the person so authenticated has also been authorized to represent and bind the company, which company is assumed to be the person's employer. Changes in the status of employment of that person (such as, for example, suspension, demotion, termination or promotion) or of the privileges granted to the certificate holder (such as signature authority) most often will materially affect the certificate holder's authority to bind his or her employer. Changes to the person's status of employment and/or authority often lag behind the continued use of the certificate. In other words, the person may have been recently terminated or suspended and that change in status may not be reflected in his or her certificate for an indeterminate period of time, thereby exposing the corporation to liability for transactions initiated or otherwise carried out by the employee through the issuance of one or more messages to the corporation's FSP. When an individual's authority is stored in a directory, changes to an individual's data within such a directory may not be preserved as a history of transactions, and the CA may have no information at all as to the authorization level of an individual employee. These issues make fraud on the company relatively easy to accomplish, such as when a recently terminated employee uses an otherwise valid certificate to issue payment requests to an FSP. The FSP may verify the validity of the certificate presented and carry out the payment instructions, with little or no recourse available to the company that has become bound by this fraudulent transaction.
An important goal of FSP in handling such transactions is, therefore, to insure that they are non-repudiable. The goal of non-repudiation is to prove that a particular transaction took place at the behest of a duly authorized representative of a company, so that liability for the transaction stays with the originator of the transaction (the company) and not the party who executed the transaction (the FSP). A non-repudiation feature establishes accountability of information about a particular event or action to its originating entity. This is an important security measure, as users are increasingly called upon to sign contracts for certain transactions or events; and FSPs want assurances that no FSP client will be able to repudiate such events, to thereby shift the liability for the transaction back to the FSP. To insure non-repudiation of transactions carried out by a financial application of the company, FSPs should require that those originating message-based transactions are unambiguously identified and authorized to do so. Server to server security is insufficient to meet this goal.
What are needed, therefore, are methods and systems for insuring strong security for all forms of corporate payments. From the foregoing, it is also clear that authentication alone is not sufficient to insure non-repudiation of actions taken by an FSP on behalf of its clients. What are needed, therefore, are methods and systems to insure that those who originate actions with an FSP are, in fact, authorized to originate such actions. What are also needed, therefore, are standards for strong authentication and quantifiable authorization operable in a distributed networked computing environment.

Methods and systems for authentication and authorization


An output control method for a laser system comprised of a laser oscillator and a laser amplifier. The method enables the output energy to be stably controlled over a wide range, without changing the excitation energy, by controlling the delay (.tau.) of the excitation energy application timing of the laser oscillator with respect to the excitation energy application timing of the laser amplifier.

The present invention relates to an output control method for a laser system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an output control method for a laser system comprising a laser oscillator and a laser amplifier, which enables the output of the laser system to be stably controlled over a wide range.
The output of an MOPA (Master Oscillator-Power Amplifier) laser system, which comprises a laser oscillator and a multiplicity of laser amplifiers, has heretofore been controlled by a method in which the laser gain is varied by controlling the excitation energy for the laser medium of each of the oscillator and amplifiers. This conventional method suffers, however, from the problem that oscillation and amplification are unstable in a state where the excitation energy is small, and since the energy supplied to the medium changes, the thermal behavior of the medium becomes unstable. In addition, when the laser system employs as an excitation energy switching power supply a power supply constructed exclusively of solid-state components including a semiconductor device, e.g., a thyristor, and a magnetic pulse compressor circuit, the adjustable voltage range is so narrow that it is difficult to control the output energy delicately.


A thermoplastic polyurethaneurea having free amino groups is the reaction product of a diisocyanate, a fluorinated polyol, a non-fluorinated polyol and a polyamine. The invention includes a shaped polymeric support structure having the thermoplastic polyurethaneurea coated thereon and a medical article comprising the coated support and heparin covalently bonded to the free amino groups of the coated support. In another aspect of the invention, a method for preparing the heparinized medical article is provided.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to biomedical devices, and more specifically relates to a method for covalent immobilization of an antithrombogenic agent onto a substrate.
2 Background of the Invention
Extensive investigations have been undertaken over many years to find materials that will be biologically and chemically stable toward body fluids. This area of research has become increasingly important with the development of various objects and articles which must be in contact with blood, such as artificial organs, vascular grafts, probes, cannulas, catheters and the like.
Synthetic plastics have come to the fore as preferred materials for such articles. However, these materials have the major drawback of being thrombogenic. Thrombogenicity has conventionally been counteracted by the use of anticoagulants such as heparin. Various procedures for attachment of heparin to otherwise thrombogenic polymeric surfaces have been disclosed. In one method taught by R. I. Leininger and G. A. Grode, U.S. Pat. No. 3,457,098, a quaternary amine is incorporated into an epoxy resin. Subsequent exposure to sodium heparinate dissolved in water then results in ionically bound heparin. The polymer systems are essentially rigid epoxy resins which are not suitable for forming medical devices such as catheters or other devices requiring extrusion. These polymers also are not appropriate where flexibility in the device is required.
Leininger et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 3,617,344 discloses a method in which a polymeric surface is chemically modified to include a chloromethyl group. Amination of the chloromethyl group provides a quarternary ammonium halide. Reaction of the halide with sodium heparin results in ionic bonding of the heparin to the surface.
A related approach for ionic binding has been described by Eriksson et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 3,634,123. An article having a plastic surface is heated to near or above its softening point in an aqueous solution of a cationic surface active agent, such as a long chain alkylamine or alkylenediamine hydrohalide. The solution is preacidified to a pH of 7.0 or lower. Subsequent digestion of the plastic article with an aqueous solution of heparin results in an article having about 0.1 International Unit of heparin thereon.
Williams et al., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,349,467 and 4,613,517 disclose modifications of the surface active agent-heparin method. The former patent discloses that higher quantities of heparin are attached to a plastic surface by using more concentrated solutions of heparin. The latter patent discloses treating a polymeric surface with a plasma, digesting the plasma-treated surface with a quaternary ammonium salt, reacting the salt with sodium heparin, and crosslinking the heparin with glutaraldehyde.
Covalent conjugation of heparin to a polymeric article coated with an amine-rich surface is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,521,564 to Solomon et al. In an improvement disclosed by Hu et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,512, fluorine atoms are plasma deposited onto the amine-rich surface of Solomon et al. prior to heparinization.
Polyurethanes containing segments derived from both perfluoroalkyl substituted diols and polysiloxane diols are disclosed by Mueller in U.S. Pat. No. 4,098,742.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,810,749 to Pinchuk discloses fluorinated polyurethanes prepared from fluorinated polysiloxane diols.
Copending application Ser. No. 173,892, of common assignee herewith discloses fluorinated polyetherurethanes and medical devices fabricated therefrom.
While significant advances have been made toward antithrombogenic surfaces for fabrication of medical devices, further improvements are needed. In particular, materials having surfaces that are essentially non-thrombogenic for use in devices which will be in contact with blood for prolonged periods are needed. It is toward fulfillment of this need that this invention is directed.

Amine rich fluorinated polyurethaneureas and their use in a method to immobilize an antithrombogenic agent on a device surface


A memory repair mechanism for the memories clustered across the multiple power domains and can be switched on and off independent of each other, thereby enabling low power operation. Enhancements in the shared Fuse Wrapper Architecture enable sharing of a plurality of parallel links connecting the memory blocks of each power domains to the Shared Fuse Wrapper architecture.

Advancement in semiconductor technologies allows implementation of multiple memories on a single chip. Due to their high density, memories are prone to faults which reduce the total chip yield. In order to correct such defects memory sub-systems are provided with a repair mechanism that makes use of redundant memory locations.
A memory is periodically tested by an external test hardware or by an on chip dedicated hardware (i.e. memory Built-In-Self-Test (BIST)) in order to identify fault locations. A BIST mechanism uses a built-in algorithm which performs a series of read-write operations to identify one or more defective row or column addresses. The defective row/column is then replaced by a redundant row/column depending upon whether there is a row or column redundancy support. At the end of the test process repair data of the repairable memories is programmed onto the fuse macro cells provided on the chip for all small/medium memories during wafer production. This fused information is further used during chip functional operation as a repair solution.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2008/0065929A1 entitled "Method and Apparatus for storing and distributing memory repair information" to Nadeau-Dostie, et al. published on Mar. 13, 2008 discloses a system for repairing embedded memories on an integrated circuit. The system comprises an external Built-In Self-repair Register (BISR) associated with every reparable memory on the circuit. Each BISR is configured to accept a serial input from a daisy chain connection and to generate a serial output to a daisy chain connection, so that a plurality of BISRs are connected in a daisy chain with a fuse box controller. The fuse box controller has no information as to the number, configuration or size of the embedded memories, but determines, upon power up, the length of the daisy chain. With this information, the fuse box controller may perform a corresponding number of serial shift operations to move repair data to and from the BISRs and into and out of a fuse box associated with the controller. Memories having a parallel repair interface are supported by a parallel address bus and enable control signal on the BISR, while those having a serial repair interface are supported by a parallel daisy chain path that may be selectively cycled to shift the contents of the BISR to an internal serial register in the memory. Preferably, each of the BISRs has an associated repair analysis facility having a parallel address bus and enable control signal by which fuse data may be dumped in parallel into the BISR and from there, either uploaded to the fuse box through the controller or downloaded into the memory to effect repairs. Advantageously, pre-designed circuit blocks may provide daisy chain inputs and access ports to affect the inventive system there along or to permit the circuit block to be bypassed for testing purposes. While U.S. Patent Publication No. 2008/0065929A1 provides a fuse box module to repair memory structures present in a single power domain, it remains specific to the number, size and configuration of the embedded memory locations and is incapable of supporting memories spanning across plurality of power domains.

Shared fuse wrapper architecture for memory repair


An electronic element mounting substrate includes: a first substrate including a first principal face; a second substrate located inside the first substrate in a plan view of the electronic element mounting substrate, the second substrate being made of a carbon material; a third substrate located between the first substrate and the second substrate in the plan view, the third substrate being made of a carbon material; and a first mounting portion for mounting a first electronic element, the first mounting portion being located on the first principal face side in a thickness direction of the substrate. The second substrate and the third substrate each have a low heat conduction direction and a high heat conduction direction. The second substrate and the third substrate is arranged so that the low heat conduction directions thereof are perpendicular to each other, and the high heat conduction directions thereof are perpendicular to each other.

In the related art, an electronic element mounting substrate includes: an insulating substrate including a first principal face, a second principal face, and side faces; and an electronic element mounting portion and a metallic layer located on each of the first principal face and the second principal face of the insulating substrate. In the electronic element mounting substrate, an electronic element is mounted on the electronic element mounting portion. Thus, an electronic device is constructed (refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 2013-175508).

Electronic element mounting substrate, electronic device, and electronic module


Systems and methods for a storage unit are disclosed. A storage unit includes a container defining an interior storage space and an opening configured to provide access to the interior storage space, a door configured to open and close the opening, a heating/cooling mechanism configured to adjust a temperature in the interior storage space, a temperature sensor configured to monitor the temperature in the interior storage space. A control unit is configured to receive the temperature in the interior storage space, receive a required temperature of an item in the storage unit, receive a signal indicative of a distance of a delivery vehicle, and activate the heating/cooling mechanism based on the temperature, the required temperature, and the distance of the delivery vehicle. The heating/cooling mechanism is activated at a time configured to achieve the required temperature within the interior storage space when the delivery vehicle arrives at the storage unit.

Customers are increasingly choosing to purchase food, drugs, and goods online. But insuring that the deliveries are received by the intended recipient in the intended condition has presented a challenge for retailers. Many deliveries must be made when the recipient is not home, which leaves the contents of the delivery vulnerable to theft or tampering. Additional precautions must be taken to protect perishable items which may spoil if kept at the wrong temperature, and these type of items may be particularly attractive to wildlife. Food delivery services have used expensive cooling devices to keep perishable items at the intended temperature. Some retailers have used disposable coolers or cooling packs which results in cost and waste. To address this problem other retailers have used more expensive coolers that their customers must return upon removing their delivery, which requires additional coordination between the retailer and recipient and additional transportation.
To address the problem of theft of delivered packages, customers have resorted to expensive video home monitoring systems. Other devices have been put into place to allow delivery people to enter residences to deliver packages for later retrieval by the intended recipient. However, many customers are uncomfortable with delivery people entering their home or building.
In addition to the cost and labor necessary to preserve and secure deliveries, many of these methods are not desirable because they are incompatible with delivery by unmanned vehicles such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or autonomous or remotely controlled land or water vehicles. The use of UAVs to deliver packages with food, drugs, or goods offers many benefits over traditional package delivery. UAVs offer large retailers the ability to deliver packages on-demand with increased automation, minimizing the amount of human capital expenditures and decreasing the impact on the environment that may result from traditional ground transportation.
But UAVs may not have the capability to alert package recipients of a delivery like the traditional knock-on-the-door of a delivery person. Additionally, it may be preferable for UAVs to deliver packages a certain distance away from the intended delivery location. For example, it may not be desirable for a UAV to enter a residential property because of pets or children on the property who may be startled by the UAV or may intentionally or innocuously tamper with the UAV
The secure storage of packages in a temperature controlled environment is therefore a significant problem for many retailers. It is advantageous to have a storage unit that allows access to designated persons or devices, such as by the delivery person or vehicle and the recipient.

System and method for securely receiving and storing deliveries


A switching voltage regulator is disclosed including a charging element operable to generate an output voltage. The charging element is configured during a cycle, including to charge the charging element for an on-time, discharge the charging element for a discharge time, and tristate the charging element for a tristate time. Prior to a power mode changing which increases the current demand of the load, the on-time is increased.

Discontinuous switching voltage regulators comprise a charging element that is charged/discharged and then tristated over a cycle that begins when an error signal exceeds a threshold. For example, the charging time may begin when an output voltage falls below a reference voltage, or when a propagation oscillation signal representing a propagation delay of a digital circuit falls below a reference oscillation signal. In a discontinuous buck mode switching voltage regulator, the charging element typically comprises an inductor that is connected to a source voltage through an upper switch (e.g., a field effect transistor or FET) while charging during an "on-time," and connected to ground through a lower switch (e.g., using a diode or FET) while discharging during a "discharge time." Once the inductor discharges, both the upper and lower switches are opened to tristate the inductor during a "tristate time" in order to prevent the inductor from resonating with the output capacitor. The inductor remains in tristate until the error signal exceeds the threshold which starts a new cycle.

Switching voltage regulator employing current pre-adjust based on power mode


The tank handle has an upper section, a central section, and a lower section, oriented in a common plane and integrally formed. The upper section has an aperture which thereby forms a grip for lifting, and the lower section has an aperture for coupling to a tank gas passageway. The handle is rotatably coupled to the gas passageway of a gas tank.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tank handle and more particularly pertains to conveniently lifting and transporting a propane tank and a scuba tank and an oxy-acetylene tank and a wide variety of other tanks of the type having a cylindrical neck in a horizontal orientation at an upper region.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of container lifters of known designs and configurations is known in the prior art. More specifically, container lifters of known designs and configurations previously devised and utilized for the purpose of lifting containers through known methods and apparatuses are known to consist basically of familiar, expected, and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which has been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
While the prior art devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not describe a tank handle that allows conveniently lifting and transporting a propane tank and a scuba tank and an oxy-acetylene tank and a wide variety of other tanks of the type having a cylindrical neck in a horizontal orientation at an upper region.
In this respect, the tank handle, according to the present invention, substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of conveniently lifting and transporting a propane tank and a scuba tank and an oxy-acetylene tank and a wide variety of other tanks of the type having a cylindrical neck in a horizontal orientation at an upper region.
Therefore, it can be appreciated that there exists a continuing need for a new and improved tank handle which can be used for conveniently lifting and transporting a propane tank and a scuba tank and an oxy-acetylene tank and a wide variety of other tanks of the type having a cylindrical neck in a horizontal orientation at an upper region. In this regard, the present invention, including the various embodiments of the invention as set forth within this disclosure, substantially fulfills this need.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Tank handle and method of using a tank handle

The Christopher W Bibow Irrevocable Trust


A suction tool includes: a hollow cylindrical main pipe having: a rear end side connected to a vacuum cleaner main body; a front end portion in which a main suction port is formed; and a hollow cylindrical sub pipe having: a rear end side at which an inside of the hollow cylindrical sub pipe communicates with an inside of the main pipe; and a front end portion in which a sub suction port is formed. The sub pipe is movable between a retracted position in which the front end portion of the sub pipe is arranged so as to be retracted from the front end portion of the main pipe, and a use position in which the front end portion of the sub pipe is arranged so as to protrude from the front end portion of the main pipe along an axial direction of the main pipe.

As a suction tool for an electric vacuum cleaner, an interspace nozzle for removing dust and the like piled up in a narrow interspace between a piece of furniture, the wall, and the floor is known. In addition, there is also known a suction tool including a coupling part connected to a hose unit of an electric vacuum cleaner in an attachable and detachable manner, and a hollow and flat suction part that is long in the axial direction of the hose unit and is integrally formed with the coupling part, in which a plurality of suction holes that communicate with a hollow part are formed in an upper surface and a lower surface of the suction part in the longitudinal direction at predetermined intervals, and a fabric is provided along the suction holes in the longitudinal direction (for example, see PTL 1).

Suction tool and electric vacuum cleaner