Integrating a file system with a RAID array that exports precise information about the arrangement of data blocks in the RAID subsystem. The present invention uses separate current-write location (CWL) pointers for each disk in the disk array where the pointers simply advance through the disks as writes occur. The present invention writes on the disk with the lowest CWL pointer. A new disk is chosen only when the algorithm starts allocating space for a new file, or when it has allocated N blocks on the same disk for a single file. A sufficient number of blocks are defined as all the buffers in a chunk of N sequential buffers in a file. The result is that CWL pointers are never more than N blocks apart on different disks, and large files have N consecutive blocks on the same disk.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to the field of file systems using disk array for storing information.
2. Background Art
A computer system typically requires large amounts of secondary memory, such as a disk drive, to store information (e.g. data and/or application programs). Prior art computer systems often use a single "Winchester" style hard disk drive to provide permanent storage of large amounts of data. As the performance of computers and associated processors has increased, the need for disk drives of larger capacity, and capable of high speed data transfer rates, has increased. To keep pace, changes and improvements in disk drive performance have been made. For example, data and track density increases, media improvements, and a greater number of heads and disks in a single disk drive have resulted in higher data transfer rates.
A disadvantage of using a single disk drive to provide secondary storage is the expense of replacing the drive when greater capacity or performance is required. Another disadvantage is the lack of redundancy or back up to a single disk drive. When a single disk drive is damaged, inoperable, or replaced, the system is shut down.
One prior art attempt to reduce or eliminate the above disadvantages of single disk drive systems is to use a plurality of drives coupled together in parallel. Data is broken into chunks that may be accessed simultaneously from multiple drives in parallel, or sequentially from a single drive of the plurality of drives. One such system of combining disk drives in parallel is known as "redundant array of inexpensive disks" (RAID). A RAID system provides the same storage capacity as a larger single disk drive system, but at a lower cost. Similarly, high data transfer rates can be achieved due to the parallelism of the array.
RAID systems allow incremental increases in storage capacity through the addition of additional disk drives to the array. When a disk crashes in the RAID system, it may be replaced without shutting down the entire system. Data on a crashed disk may be recovered using error correction techniques.
RAID has six disk array configurations referred to as RAID level 0 through RAID RAID level 5. Each RAID level has advantages and disadvantages. In the present discussion, only RAID levels 4 and 5 are described. However, a detailed description of the different RAID levels is disclosed by Patterson, et al. in A Case for Redundant Arrays of inexpensive Disks (RAID), ACM SIGMOD Conference, June 1998. This article is incorporated by reference herein.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a prior art system implementing RAID level 4. The system comprises one parity disk 112 and N data disks 114-118 coupled to a computer system, or host computer, by communication channel 130. In the example, data is stored on each hard disk in 4 KByte blocks or segments. Disk 112 is the Parity disk for the system, while disks 114-118 are Data disks 0 through N−1. RAID level 4 uses disk striping that distributes blocks of data across all the disks in an array as shown in FIG. 1. This system places the first block on the first drive and cycles through the other N−1 drives in sequential order. RAID level 4 uses an extra drive for parity that includes error-correcting information for each group of data blocks referred to as a stripe. Disk striping as shown in FIG. 1 allows the system to read or write large amounts of data at once. One segment of each drive can be read at the same time, resulting in faster data accesses for large files.
In a RAID level 4 system, files comprising a plurality of blocks are stored on the N data disks 114-118 in a "stripe." A stripe is a group of data blocks wherein each block is stored on a separate disk of the N disks. In FIG. 1, first and second stripes 140 and 142 are indicated by dotted lines. The first stripe 140 comprises Parity 0 block and data blocks 0 to N−1. In the example shown, a first data block 0 is stored on disk 114 of the N disk array. The second data block 1 is stored on disk 116, and so on. Finally, data block N−1 is block N−1 is stored on disk 118. Parity is computed for stripe 140, using techniques well-known to a person skilled in the art, and is stored as Parity block 0 on disk 112. Similarly, stripe 142 comprising N−1 data blocks is stored as data block N on disk 114, data block N+1 on disk 116, and data block 2N−1 on disk 118. Parity is computed for stripe 142 and stored as parity block 1 on disk 112.
As shown in FIG. 1, RAID level 4 adds an extra parity disk drive containing error-correcting information for each stripe in the system. If an error occurs in the system, the RAID array must use all of the drives in the array to correct the error in the system. Since a single drive usually needs to be accessed at one time, RAID level 4 performs well for reading small pieces of data. A RAID level 4 array reads the data it needs with the exception of an error. However, a RAID level 4 array always ties up the dedicated parity drive when it needs to write data into the array.
RAID level 5 array systems use parity as do RAID level 4 systems. However, it does not keep all of the parity sectors on a single drive. RAID level 5 rotates the position of the parity blocks through the available disks in the disk array of N+1 disks. Thus, RAID level 5 systems improve on RAID 4 performance by spreading parity data across the N+1 disk drives in rotation, one block at a time. For the first set of blocks, the parity block might be stored on the first drive. For the second set of blocks, a RAID level 5 system would be stored on the second disk drive. This is repeated so that each set has a parity block, but not all of the parity information is stored on a single disk drive. Like a RAID level 4 array, a RAID level 5 array just reads the data it needs, barring an error. In RAID level 5 systems, because no single disk holds all of the parity information for a group of blocks, it is often possible to write to several different drives in the array at one instant. Thus, both reads at one instant. Thus, both reads and writes are performed more quickly on RAID level 5 systems than RAID 4 array.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a prior art system implementing RAID level 5. The system comprises N+1 disks coupled to a computer system or host computer 120 by communication channel 130. In stripe 240, parity block 0 is stored on the first disk 212. Data block 0 is stored on the second disk 214, data block 1 is stored on the third disk 216, and so on. Finally, data block N−1 is stored on disk 218. In stripe 212, data block N is stored on the first disk 212. The second parity block 1 is stored on the second disk 214. Data block N+1 is stored on disk 216, and so on. Finally, data block 2N−1 is stored on disk 218. In M−1 stripe 244, data block MN-N is stored on the first disk 212. Data block MN-N+1 is stored on the second disk 214. Data block MN-N+2 is stored on the third disk 216, and so on. Finally, parity block M−1 is stored on the nth disk 218. Thus, FIG. 2 illustrates that RAID level 5 systems store the same parity information as RAID level 4 systems, however, RAID level 5 systems rotate the positions of the parity blocks through the available disks 212-218.
In RAID level 5, parity is distributed across the array of disks. This leads to multiple seeks across the disk. It also inhibits simple increases to the size of the RAID array since a fixed number of disks must be added to the system due to parity requirements.
A prior art file system operating on top of a RAID subsystem tends to treat the RAID array as a large collection of blocks wherein each block is numbered sequentially across the RAID array. The data blocks of a file are then scattered across the data disks to fill each stripe as fully as possible, thereby placing each data block in a stripe on a on a different disk. Once N data blocks of a first stripe are allocated to N data disks of the RAID array, remaining data blocks are allocated on subsequent stripes in the same fashion until the entire file is written in the RAID array. Thus, a file is written across the data disks of a RAID system in stripes comprising modulo N data blocks. This has the disadvantage of requiring a single File to be accessed across up to N disks, thereby requiring N disks seeks. Consequently, some prior art file systems attempt to write all the data blocks of a file to a single disk. This has the disadvantage of seeking a single data disk all the time for a file, thereby under-utilizing the other N−1 disks.
Typically, a file system has no information about the underlying RAID subsystem and simply treats it as a single, large disk. Under these conditions, only a single data block may be written to a stripe, thereby incurring a relatively large penalty since four I/O operations are required for computing parity. For example, parity by subtraction requires four I/O operations. In a RAID array comprising four disks where one disk is a parity disk, writing three data blocks to a stripe and then computing parity for the data blocks yields 75% efficiency (three useful data writes out of four IO's total), whereas writing a single data block to a stripe has an efficiency of 25% (one useful data write out of four IO's total).

Allocating files in a file system integrated with a RAID disk sub-system


A guide wire exchange system including an elongate, flexible, guide wire exchange catheter capable exchanging one guide wire for another in a safe, efficient, and secured manner, where a primary guide wire, after having been advanced through the body, is to be replaced with a secondary guide wire that is to be securely advanced through the body to the target site by the advancement of the exchange catheter over the path of the primary wire. The exchange catheter may include a securement element in order to releasably secure at least one guide wire to the exchange catheter at or near the distal end of the exchange catheter. Once secured, both the exchange catheter and the secured guide wire(s) may be advanced or retracted in a synchronous manner, without the possibility of divergence at the distal ends of the secured components as they are being manipulated by an operator.

The present invention relates to guide wires, catheters and elongate devices used in the vessels, ducts, and lumens of a living being, and more particularly to a system for facilitating the delivery and exchange of such catheters, devices, and guide wires to various locations within the body of a living being.
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, various medical procedures involve the use of catheters and guide wires that are inserted into various locations within a living being. By way of example, for the treatment of some vascular diseases, such as atherosclerosis, it is common practice to insert an instrument (e.g., catheter, guide wire, etc.) into a vessel to perform a procedure that reduces or eliminates a restriction or stenosis. Such procedures, known as percutaneous catheterization intervention (PCI), typically involve several steps. To begin, an initial puncture is created in a vessel that is typically remote from the stenosis. Next, a guide wire is inserted through the puncture and threaded into the vessel. A guiding catheter is then advanced in to the patient's arteries. A guide wire is then advanced through the guiding catheter and, for the treatment of coronary disease, into the patient's coronary arteries. The guide wire is maneuvered by advancing and rotating the distal tip, which normally has an asymmetric "J" shape imposed on it to enable the selection of various branches of the coronary vasculature. Once the wire is in the desired position, a diagnostic or therapeutic catheter, which has a lumen or other means adapted to receive the guide wire, is then guided along the wire to the desired location.
In the course of a typical PCI, for example, an angioplasty procedure, the catheter has a distally mounted balloon that can be placed, in a deflated condition, within the stenosis, and then inflated to dilate the narrowed lumen of the blood vessel. Such balloon dilation therapy is generally referred to as percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA). Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is used when the treatment is more specifically employed in vessels of the heart. PTCA is used to open coronary arteries that have been occluded by a build-up of cholesterol fats or atherosclerotic plaque. The balloon at the distal end of the catheter is inflated, causing the site of the stenosis to widen. In some cases, a stent, a cylindrically shaped device formed from wire(s) or a metal tube, is placed at the site of the restriction to act as a prosthesis that provides support to the body lumen. In addition to angioplasty and stealing procedures, other diagnostic and therapeutic procedures require the use of wires and catheters, such as drug delivery, embolic protection, angiography, atherectomy, imaging and other treatments known in the art.
During these procedures, the guide wire plays an important role in guiding the diagnostic or therapeutic device (e.g., catheter) to the desired location in the patient's body. For example, one difficulty that can be encountered in the procedure is the inability to cross the lesion or stenosis with the distal end of the guide wire. This can be the result of a variety of situations, including a tight stenotic lesion with insufficient lumen patency to allow passage of a guide wire. In other instances, the vessel can be completely blocked as in the case of a chronic total occlusion (CTO). In cases such as these, the physician may need to utilize a different guide wire and thus replace an in-situ wire with another having different construction, structure or properties, e.g., floppy-tip design or shape, stiffness, etc. The need to withdraw an already placed guide wire also occurs when the distal tip of the guide wire needs to be reshaped to pass a blockage or navigate into the desired vessel. Because of this, there exists a need for the physician to be able to exchange guide wires while supporting a pre-positioned guide wire to facilitate crossing of a difficult lesion.
The manner in which the catheter integrates with the guide wire during the procedure can have significant impact on she timing, ease of use, and ultimate success of the procedure. In general, there are four types of wire-catheter systems:
1. Over-the-wire (OTW),
2. Multi-Exchange (MX),
3. Rapid Exchange (RE), and
4. Fixed Wire (FW).
OTW, MX and RE catheters require the use of a guide wire that is separate from the catheter while a FW catheter has an integral guide wire. An OTW catheter comprises a guide wire lumen that extends the entire length of the catheter. The guide wire is disposed entirely within the catheter guide wire lumen except for distal and proximal portions of the guide wire, which extend beyond the distal and proximal ends of the catheter respectively. An MX catheter is arranged such that it has an over-the-wire configuration while the catheter is within the patient's body, but the wire exits the side of the catheter through a zipper-like, longitudinal slit configuration at a location outside the body.
OTW and MX catheters provide a full length guide wire lumen, whereas RE catheters provide a short guide wire lumen only at or near the distal end. However, traditional OTW, MX and traditional RE catheters do suffer some shortcomings. For example, it often becomes necessary, in the performance of a PCI, to exchange one indwelling catheter for another catheter. In order to maintain a guide wire in position while withdrawing an OTW catheter, the guide wire must be gripped at its proximal end to prevent it from being pulled out of the blood vessel with the catheter. For example, a PTCA catheter, which may typically be on the order of 135 centimeters long, is longer than the proximal portion of the standard guide wire that protrudes out of patient. Therefore, exchanging an over-the-wire PTCA catheter requires an exchange guide wire of about 300 centimeters long, whereas a standard guide wire is about 165 centimeters long. Wires of this length can be difficult to control in the surgical field, and it is not uncommon for a portion of such a long wire to inadvertently touch the floor or other non-sterile location in the catheterization laboratory, thereby requiring removal of the wire from the patient and the reinitiating of the procedure with a new wire. Other techniques are known in the art for performing wire exchange with OTW catheter yet regardless of which exchange process is used, the very long exchange guide wire is awkward to handle, often requiring at least two operators to perform the procedure.
RE catheters were developed in an attempt to simplify the procedure for exchanging wires and catheters. Catheters of this type are formed so that the guide wire is located outside of the catheter except for a short guide wire lumen that extends within only a comparatively short distal segment of the catheter. The RE catheter's proximal exit port for the guide wire is typically located about 5 cm (2.0 in) to 30 cm (11.8 in) proximal to the catheter's distal end. In use, the guide wire is placed initially in the patient's vascular system. The distal segment of the RE catheter then is threaded onto the wire. The catheter can be advanced alongside the guide wire with its distal segment sliding along the guide wire. The RE catheter can be removed and exchanged for another RE catheter without the use of a very long exchange guide wire and without requiring withdrawal of the initially placed guide wire.
However, one shortcoming associated with RE catheters is that it is not possible to exchange guide wires in an indwelling RE catheter, as can be done with OTW catheters. A guide wire can be withdrawn, sometimes accidentally, from the proximal guide wire port, thus derailing an indwelling RE catheter. However, neither the first guide wire, nor a replacement guide wire, can be directed back into the catheter's proximal guide wire port, which is located within the patient.
In addition to exchanging catheters over guide wires, it is also sometimes desirable to exchange one guide wire for another guide wire having a different feature. Over the years, specialty guide wires have been developed possessing different characteristics with respect to size, length, flexibility, tip shape, etc. to provide the physician with the proper wire for each unique medical circumstance. For example, when a physician encounters highly tortuous anatomy, a relatively soft and flexible guide wire is typically employed because they can be easily placed at the desired location and they have enough stiffness for guiding a flexible diagnostic angiography catheter through the vasculature. However, a shortcoming of these highly flexible wires is that their degree of flexibility makes them poor wires for guiding stiffer and larger therapeutic catheters (e.g., stent delivery catheters) through the same tortuous vasculature region. These stiffer catheters often require a guide wire that is relatively stiffer as well. In these instances it is desirable to place a second, more suitable, guide wire at the desired treatment site.
It is known in the art that dual lumen catheters can be used to exchange one wire for another. The first lumen of the catheter is used to guide the catheter along the initial wire and the second lumen is then used to deliver a second wire to the location of the first. A shortcoming of these systems is that the presence of dual lumens extending the length of the catheter makes them quite large (i.e., in effective diameter), limiting how far they may be advanced into the body, as well as affecting their flexibility. Furthermore, they require the use of double length wires, which is a tedious procedure with accompanying safety issues, as described previously.
Alternatively, it is known in the art to employ a rapid exchange delivery sheath, which utilizes only a short lumen segment for guiding an exchange catheter over the primary guide wire. This allows the primary wire to be of a shorter length, however the second wire must be double length to allow removal of the exchange catheter.
MX catheters include a longitudinal slit extending most of the length of the catheter, through which a wire may be removed laterally, or "peeled off". At the distal end of the catheter is a short segment lacking the longitudinal slit, similar in nature to the short, segment of a RE catheter. In use, a guide wire may be inserted at the proximal end of the catheter, and advanced through the central lumen of the catheter, much like an OTW catheter. However to remove the MX catheter, and not remove the wire, the proximal end of the wire (outside of the body) is laterally removed through the slit provided in the catheter wall. While holding the wire in position, the catheter is retracted, and removed from the wire through the length of the longitudinal slit of the catheter, in effect, peeling the catheter away from the wire as the catheter is retracted. As the catheter is peeled off, and the catheter is retracted until the wire encounters the distal end of the slit, whereupon there remains a short segment of the catheter that may be removed in a manner similar to that for a RE catheter. The MX procedure offers the benefit of an internal lumen delivery of the wire, similar to an OTW, but allows the user to avoid a double length catheter, similar to a RE catheter. However, the required "peeling-off" procedure is tedious as it requires holding onto the proximal end of the wire, and careful removal is required, as great care must be taken to ensure that the peeling off procedure does not crimp or otherwise damage a wire, and also to ensure that there are no movements as the wire is pulled through the longitudinal slit that would dislodge the distal end of the wire from the target location or vessel. The "peeling off" procedure may be acceptable with robust, large diameter wires, however the procedure is ill suited for use with specialized, narrow diameter guidewires, as may be required to reach far into tortuous vasculature or effect a difficult crossing of a lesion, as these wires are more sensitive to damage, such as crimping or breaking, when the MX catheter is retracted and removed.
It is known in the art, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,537,294 and 6,652,505, 6,142,987, and published US Application Nos. 2002/0095141 and 2004/0059372, that a catheter can be constructed where two short lumen segments are mounted on a mandrel or third wire. This device is used to deliver a filter device, housed in one short lumen, along a guide wire, housed in the second short lumen. A short-coming of this system is that there is no method for securing she filter in the short monorail segment other than the surface contact between the expandable filter and the internal surface of the short lumen of the monorail.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,864 describes a guide wire exchange catheter employing a MX procedure for peeling away the exchange catheter after the satisfactory placement of a second (replacement) guide wire. As the operator advances the exchange catheter into the patient, he also grasps a second (replacement) guide wire which has its distal end directed through the distal end portion of the exchange catheter. While grasping both the exchange catheter and the second guide wire at a location outside of the patient, the operator simultaneously advances both the exchange catheter and the replacement guide wire further into the patient, following along the first guide wire. The '864 patent does not provide for a way to secure the distal end of the second guide wire in place within the exchange catheter, therefore the operator must take great care to simultaneously grasp and advance the wire and catheter together. Once at the desired site, the wire may be left in place and the catheter must then be peeled off, taking care not to crimp the wire, nor dislodge it from the desired site.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,605,062 (Hurley et al.) describes a catheter for guide wire support or exchange having a longitudinal slit in the catheter to allow a guide wire exchange using a MX procedure where the catheter is peeled off of a second guide wire while the catheter is being retracted. Hurley et al. also provide for an axial support member secured to the elongate shaft to provide axial rigidity to the catheter. There is no provision for releasably locking or securing a guide wire in place within the exchange catheter.
What is needed is a reliable easy to use system to exchange one guide wire for another with out the need for double length guide wires. There is further a need where the delivery of the secondary guide wire, which is to be exchanged with the initial guide wire, is accomplished in a rapid, safe, and secure manner, where there is provided an exchange or shuttle catheter which is advanced over a primary wire, and where the exchange catheter securely carries or pulls along a second wire to the target site. Furthermore, there is a benefit to providing an elongate, flexible device that has a low, compact profile at the distal end to better navigate tortuous anatomy. Moreover, the system should be relatively easy to insert and remove from the patient's vasculature.


A glass sheet is placed on a mold and heated to a first temperature. The glass sheet is then formed into a glass article having a three-dimensional shape using the mold. An isothermal heat transfer device comprising at least one heat pipe is provided in thermal contact with the mold. With the glass article on the mold and the isothermal heat transfer device in thermal contact with the mold, the glass article, mold, and isothermal heat transfer device are transported along a thermally-graded channel to cool the glass article to a second temperature. During the transporting, the isothermal heat transfer device transfers heat from a relatively hot region of the mold to a relatively cold region of the mold.

Glass articles, such as cover glasses, for handheld electronic devices may be made by thermal reforming. The process involves heating a glass sheet to a temperature at which the glass can be deformed without damage. The heated glass is then formed into a glass article having a three-dimensional ("3D") shape.

Method and system for making glass articles


The pillow includes upper and lower substantially identical fabric sections, each having a peripheral edge with a gusset extending therebetween. A zipper assembly includes a gusset zipper portion and a pillow zipper portion which extends around substantially the entire periphery of the pillow from the end of the gusset zipper portion to a terminating point just before the end of the gusset zipper portion.

Pillows having various exterior configurations are well known. A traditional bed pillow is rectangular, with a single peripheral edge joining upper and lower fabric sections. An alternative configuration includes two upper and lower fabric sections, each of which has a peripheral edge, with a gusset between the upper and lower peripheral edges. Other shapes, including square, oval and even circular are possible. Specialty pillows, such as for specific neck and/or head support are also known. A wedge-shaped pillow is an example of a special pillow configuration.
Both traditional and gusseted bed pillows and wedge pillows have separate desirable features. Up until now, it was necessary to buy two pillows if one wanted both the traditional and the gusset pillows. Two separate pillows, however, require additional expense and possibly storage if both pillows are not used at the same time. The same is true for a wedge pillow.


A jet engine intake guard includes an engine sleeve located within the nacelle of the engine; a primary deflection screen located at a front portion of the sleeve and having a first circular frame formed of a tubular fabric member and a plurality of fiber yarn strings disposed across the diameter of the primary frame and attached to one another in a tri-axel weave pattern. The guard also includes a secondary deflection screen located behind the primary deflection screen in the direction of air flow through the engine and having a second circular frame formed of a tubular fabric member and a plurality of fiber yarn strings disposed across the secondary frame and attached to one another in a tri-axel weave pattern. The guard further includes a capture basket located between the primary and secondary deflection screens. The capture basket has a first wall located toward the primary deflection screen, a center portion and a second wall located toward the secondary deflection screen. In a preferred embodiment the entire guard is made of woven carbon fiber.

This invention relates to aircraft engine protection devices and, more particularly, to covers placed in front of the fan blades of aircraft engines so as to prevent the intrusion of foreign bodies. The present invention is directed to a device designed to prevent the intake of both large animals and foreign objects into the aircraft.
Protecting airplanes from damage due to birds or other airborne hazards has long been the goal of the prior art. While a direct strike on a fuselage is damaging to the airframe, the more pressing issue is when a bird strikes or other airborne hazard strikes the internal machinery of the engine assembly. Bird or foreign body strikes can cause catastrophic engine failure, resulting in loss of control of the airplane and possibly a forced or emergency landing. Currently, there is no effective device that both protects the engine while providing a non-lethal solution to prevent birds from entering the engine housing.
Problems caused by the injection of foreign objects into the inlet of engines has been previously known and recognized. For example U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,615,087; 4,833,879; 5,411,224; 3,426,981 and US App 2009/0101760, all discuss the danger of foreign bodies striking the engine intake and propose solutions. They are all hereby incorporated by reference. However, such devices and systems are known to limit engine thrust or create other problems with weight, maintenance, or cost. For example U.S. Published Application No. 2009/0101760 to Ghogomu provides for a protective screen designed to be mounted at the front of the intake of a jet engine nacelle. It is in the shape of a radial dome-shaped screen with interlocking wire mesh, rods and bars. While the Ghogomu prior art seeks to prevent foreign bodies from entering the engine intake, it does so in a manner that extends the profile of the engine, requires metal construction, and is capable of becoming a hazard itself if damaged.
Another example of failed design choices can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,411,224 to Dearman et al. Dearman provides for a guard apparatus to be positioned in front of a jet engine intake that has a plurality of concentric rings of gradually decreasing diameter beginning at the cowl of the engine and descending in circumference towards a front end. Through this shape, Dearman also provides a conical cover to the engine cover. As in Ghogomu, the engine cover is formed of metal rods and bars formed into a structural mesh. While the device would clearly prevent foreign bodies from entering the engine intake, there are significant drawbacks. For instance, the profile of the guard apparatus extends beyond the cover of the engine such that the profile of the air plane has been changed. Additionally, the guard is formed of metal and could pose a significant foreign body risk if damaged.
It would therefore be of benefit to provide an engine intake cover that does not increase the physical dimensions of the aircraft. Furthermore, it would be of benefit to provide an aircraft engine intake cover that resisted entry of foreign bodies while decreasing possibility of engine damage if the cover should be breached or damaged.


A transmission method based on Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 Multi-User (MU) Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output (MIMO). The method includes transmitting, by a plurality of Virtual Access Points (VAPs), respective acknowledgement requests to stations, wherein at least two of the stations are associated with different VAPs of the plurality of VAPs; and transmitting, by the stations to the VAPs, respective block acknowledgements.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 REV mc D6.0 dated Jun. 5, 2016, is a wireless networking (Wi-Fi) standard Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). The 5th generation of IEEE 802.11 (802.11ac Very High Throughput (VHT)) supports Downlink (DL) Multi-User Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) simultaneous transmissions from an Access Point (AP) to a plurality of stations. MU-MIMO allows an AP to use its spatial multiplexing resources to transmit multiple frames to different stations at the same time and over the same frequency spectrum.
A Virtual AP (VAP)/Basic Service Set Identification (BSSID) is a logical entity that resides within a physical AP and addresses unique requirements of various station groups and encryption types. Using a common physical AP, each VAP associated with the physical AP appears as an independent AP with its own unique BSSID or Medium Access Control (MAC) address.

Multi VAP simultaneous multi-user transmissions


Provided is a modified human tumor necrosis factor receptor-1 polypeptide or a fragment thereof that binds to a tumor necrosis factor in vivo or ex vivo. The modified human tumor necrosis factor receptor-1 polypeptide or fragment exhibits improved ability to bind tumor necrosis factor and resistance to proteases.

Inflammation is the body's defense response which is induced by antigenic stimulation. An inflammatory response may worsen pathologically when inflammation takes place even after the removal of injurious antigenic substances or an inflammatory response is induced by an inappropriate stimulus such as an auto-antigen. Such an inflammatory response involves a variety of cytokines. In particular, as a cytokine which serves to control inflammation, a tumor necrosis factor (hereinafter, referred to as "TNF") was identified.
TNF was originally discovered as a protein which eliminates tumor cells (Carswell et al., PNAS 72:3666-3670, 1975). TNF is a class of cytokines produced by numerous cell types, including monocytes and macrophages, and is directly involved in inflammatory responses. At least two TNFs (TNF-α and TNF-β) have been previously described, and each is active as a trimeric molecule and is believed to initiate intracellular signaling by crosslinking receptors (Engelmann et al., J. Biol. Chem., 265:14497-14504). TNFs induce inflammatory responses in vivo to regulate cell-mediated immune responses and defense mechanisms and have important physiological effects on a number of different target cells (Selby et al., Lancep 1:483, 1988). However, it was demonstrated that an excess of TNFs results in a pathological condition such as rheumatoid arthritis, degenerative arthritis, psoriasis or Crohn's disease, and suppression of TNFs exhibits therapeutic effects on the diseases (Feldmann et al., Nat. Med. 9:1245-1250, 2003).
Tumor necrosis factor receptor (hereinafter, referred to as "TNFR") is a cytokine receptor which binds to TNF.
Two types of TNFRs, known as p55-TNFRI and p75-TNFRII, have been currently discovered. Expression of TNFRI can be demonstrated in almost every mammalian cell while TNFRII expression is largely limited to cells of the immune system and endothelial cells.
The two TNF receptors exhibit 28% amino acid sequence similarity therebetween. Both receptors have an extracellular domain and have four cysteine-rich domains.
The cytoplasmic portion of TNFRI contains a "death domain" which initiates apoptotic signaling. TNFRII has no death domain and the function thereof has not been yet clearly defined. In addition, TNFRI and TNFRII exhibit a difference in terms of affinity for TNF-α which is a ligand. It is known that TNFRI exhibits an affinity 30 times or higher than that of TNFRII (Tartaglia et al., J. Biol. Chem. 268:18542-18548, 1993). Due to such affinity difference, a variety of attempts have been made for the development of pharmaceuticals regarding TNFRI.
TNFR adhering to the cell surface is cleaved by protease to produce soluble TNFR. The soluble TNFR neutralizes an excess of TNF to control the level of TNF. In cases such as autoimmune disease and chronic inflammation excessively high levels of TNF overwhelms the ability to self-regulate.
In order to artificially control TNF signaling, various strategies of blocking TNF have been attempted including inhibition of TNF synthesis, inhibition of TNF secretion or shedding, and inhibition of TNF signaling. Among TNF blocking methods, a method of blocking TNF signaling by preventing binding of TNFR to TNF has been applied for the development of pharmaceuticals. For example, etanercept, which is prepared by fusing a TNFRII extracellular region to the Fc region of an antibody, and antibodies capable of binding to TNF, adalimumab and infliximab have been used globally as a therapeutic agent for treating rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, ankylosing spondylitis, or the like.
Lenercept, which is a fusion protein of an antibody Fc to a TNFRI extracellular domain produced by applying the same technique as in the anti-rheumatoid arthritis drug etanercept, has completed a phase II clinical trial in Europe and USA (Furst et al., J. Rheumatol. 30:2123-2126, 2003). In addition, research has been carried out for a TNFRI dimer and a pegylated soluble TNFRI molecule (Carl et al., Ann. Rheum. Dis. 58:173-181, 1999).
Further, as an approach to reduce immunogenicity of TNFRI and increase the ability of TNFRI to bind with TNF, modification of amino acid sequences has been studied. In particular, a TNFRI mutant, against which the occurrence of an antibody has been decreased through partial substitution of the amino acid sequence of TNFRI, and a TNFRI mutant, which has an increased ability of TNFRI to bind with TNF, are known (U.S. Pat. No. 7,144,987).
Research has been actively made to find an active site responsible for binding of TNFR to TNF, and it is known that the fourth domain of TNFR is not essential for binding with TNF, and when deletion of the second and third domains results in loss of TNF binding activity (Corcoran et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 233:831-840, 1994). Further, a certain region of the third domain for binding of TNFRI to TNF may be made deficient, and the amino acid sequence consisting of amino acid residues 59 to 143 of a human TNFRI polypeptide (SEQ ID NO: 1) is known to be a region showing a biological activity of TNFRI (U.S. Pat. No. 6,989,147).
Therefore, since binding of TNFRI to TNF is made in this region, other regions may include considerable added groups, eliminated groups or substituted groups. Meanwhile, in order to enhance bioavailability, TFNRI is used in the form of a TNFRI polypeptide fragment rather than full-length TNFRI. For the purpose of producing an effective injection and oral formulation capable of minimizing protease cleavability and enhancing cellular permeability, TFNRI needs to be prepared as small in size as possible.
Since protein therapeutics are cleared by general processes such as metabolism during in vivo circulation, glomerular filtration, and action of proteases in gastrointestinal tracts, tissues and blood, there is difficulty in delivery of a protein therapeutic to a target site while retaining an intrinsic activity of the protein in vivo. In particular, clearance of a drug by protease has significant effects on a half-life of a protein therapeutic upon administration thereof via oral administration, vascular injection, intramuscular injection, or the like.
A human tumor necrosis factor inhibitor, which is one of protein therapeutic drugs and controls in vivo TNF, has been developed in the form of an injection, but the administration of an injection has problems associated with pain and risk of infection. Therefore, another approach is required such as reduction of injection frequency or oral administration. Enhancement of stability of a human tumor necrosis factor inhibitor is essential for this purpose, but protease-induced degradation constitutes a great obstacle thereto.
Meanwhile, while wild-type TFNRI regulates intracellular actions of TNF-α via binding with TNF-α, the binding ability of TNFRI is not as high as that of antibodies. Thus, wild-type TNFRI is poorer at inhibiting TNF-α than are the antibodies. The development of protein therapeutics using TNFRI requires the selection of a TNFRI capable of strongly coupling with TNF-α.
Therefore, one of the main goals in the development of protein therapeutics is to improve the biological activity and resistance to proteases.
This subject was conducted as part of a program for the development of industrial original technology (subject ID No. 10040233) with the support of the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy of the Korean Government

Modified human tumor necrosis factor receptor-1 polypeptide or fragment thereof, and method for preparing same


A system for a multimodal unification of articulation includes a voice signal modality to receive a voice signal, and a control signal modality which receives an input from a user and generates a control signal from the input which is selected from predetermined inputs directly corresponding to the phonetic information. The interactive voice based phonetic input system also includes a multimodal integration system to receive and integrates the voice signal and the control signal. The multimodal integration system delimits a context of a spoken utterance of the voice signal by using the control signal to preprocess and discretize into phonetic frames. A voice recognizer analyzing the voice signal integrated with the control signal to output a voice recognition result. This new paradigm helps overcome constraints found in interfacing mobile devices. Context information facilitates the handling of the commands in the application environment.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a voice based multimodal input system with interactive context adjustments via explicit mediation, and more particularly, to a software-driven voice based multimodal input system with interactive context adjustments via control signals.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most prevalent and natural means of interactive communication is through the spoken language. Especially, for communication in real time, since there is no temporal gap, there is no need for storage, and there is no need for conversion into written language. This realtime-ness is a constraint and an advantage at the same time. The use of voice signals is not nearly as prevalent in interfacing computers or electronic devices. When applying this natural mode of interactive communication to human machine interface, the interactiveness can be leveraged. In other words, other kinds of interactive input modalities can be integrated to mediate the voice processing process. Research in cognitive science confirms that human brain also rely on integrating cues from plurality of sensing modalities to recognize speech. This is referred to as the McGurk effect.
Here, we classify conventional arts in integration and mediation schemes for voice recognition, as depicted in FIG. 1. Interactively mediating 110 voice recognition can be done either at pre-processing stage 112 or post-processing stage 111. Most existing voice recognition systems used in computers do have interactive interface to confirm the results processed by the recognition module, which occurs in the post-processing stage. U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,576, issued May 9, 1989, to Edward W. Porter, discloses a menu driven interface 117 for post-process confirmation. For pre-processing stage mediation 112, there is either hardware-driven mediation 113 or software-driven mediation 114. A hardware-driven pre-processing mediation 113 is disclosed in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,576: a hardware switch 118 to convert between dictation mode and command mode. For software-driven mediation 114 at pre-processing stage, further division exists; between implicit 115 and explicit 116. Explicit software-driven mediation 116 at pre-processing stage provides explicit information, such as speech period start and termination point, or referent target of the command. Aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,576 discloses a method of using voice signal amplitude 122 to determine speech period start and termination point. Alternatively, U.S. Pat. No. 5,884,257, issued Mar. 16, 1999, to Idetsugu Maekawa et al, discloses a method of using lip image processing 123 to determine speech period start point and termination point. U.S. Pat. No. 6,990,639 B2, issued Jan. 24, 2006, to Andrew Wilson, discloses integration of a pointing device 124 to determine which component a user wants to control and what control action is desired. In above three patents, mediation of the voice recognition occurs with an explicit input, such as lip movements or pointing device motions. For the 'implicit' software-driven mediation 115 (at pre-processing stage), number of prior arts exists as well. Implicit software-driven mediation 115 at pre-processing stage can aid in context determination, for more efficient recognition. U.S. Pat. No. 5,615,296, issued Mar. 25, 1997, to Vincent M. Stanford et al, discloses software based algorithm to implicitly perform high-speed context switching 119 to modify the active vocabulary. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,463, issued Apr. 9, 1993, to Laurence S. Gillick et al, discloses a software algorithm to use beginning part of speech to pre-filter 120 the set of vocabulary to match against. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,677,991, issued Oct. 14, 1997, to Dong Hsu et al, discloses arbitration algorithm 121 to mediate between "large vocabulary isolated word speech recognition (ISR) module" and "small vocabulary continuous speech recognition (CSR) module." All three patents above implicitly infer cues embedded in speech without explicit user input. All three of the implicit software-driven mediation 115 at pre-processing stage, by design, increases recognition accuracy while reducing computation. This is not always the case with integration schemes for multiple sensing modalities. Aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 6,990,639 B2 124 provides means of augmenting context information at a cost of increased computation; this patent, with the combined use of pointing device and voice input, augments voice commands with the referent or the target of the command, as a form of context information. Increased computational cost is due to independent processing of voice inputs and the pointing device inputs. Another such example is U.S. Pat. No. 6,499,025 B1, issued Dec. 24, 2002, to Eric J. Horvitz, which discloses methodology of integrating multiple sensing modalities. With each added sensing modality, Bayesian inference engine 126 is added, and computation is increased proportionately.
However, each one of these references suffers from one or more of the disadvantages. Therefore, development of more efficient system with an increased accuracy and without increasing computation is required.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Multimodal unification of articulation for device interfacing


A method for protecting a wood piling against marine borer attack wherein the piling is surrounded with a flexible sheet of UV-resistant material so as to define an annular space which is filled with a water-insoluble filler material.

1. Field Of The Invention
This invention relates to a method for protecting submerged wooden structures, such as wood pilings, from attack by marine organisms, such as marine borers. The invention prolongs the life and serviceability of submerged pilings and the like.
2. Description Of Related Art
Wooden piling has been used for many years to support piers, wharves, and for slips and the like. It is well-known that such piling is subject to many hazards necessitating replacement of the piling. One major source of damage is plant and particularly marine life. Certain parasites and microorganisms are particularly troublesome for wooden structures. Marine organisms known as limnoria, gribbles and teredo or shipworms are prevalent in shore waters and commonly infest submerged wooded structures seriously sapping the strength and life of the structures.
Previous efforts to safeguard against these hazards include the impregnation of the structures and/or the coating of their surfaces with special preservatives and protective coatings using materials such as creosote, tar, impervious paint and many others. While these materials do protect against certain hazards, they are quite ineffective with respect to others. More importantly, these chemical treatments are subject to leaching, scaling and erosion by the action of the constantly moving, surrounding water, temperature changes, shock forces and oft repeated application and relief of load forces. The high salinity and other constituents of sea water also contribute to degradation of these protective measures.
Various guard devices also have been proposed for installation about pilings. One prior art protective measure involved enclosing portion of the piling in direct contact with the water with a plastic sheet by wrapping the sheet tightly around the pile. Piling also has been encased with rigid polyvinyl chloride tubing. This method provides a barrier to access by marine life not already present in or on the piling and traps that life present in and on the piling inside the jacket. Rapid depletion of any oxygen present between the protective wrapping and the wood piling deprives marine life of this vital gas and arrests further damage to the piling. While this measure can prove quite effective, prior art techniques for implementing it have proved to be rather cumbersome. Moreover, the jacketing which is intended to wrap tightly around the piling often has a loose set with the result that wave action and other water currents along the shore line causes undesirable wear and often premature failure. Representative of this basic prior art approach are Liddell U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,027,610; 3,103,103; 3,321,924 and 3,372,552; Plummer U.S. Pat. No. 3,181,300 and Maurer U.S. Pat. No. 3,999,399.


A hand-held, self-operable electronic acupuncture device includes a hand-holdable casing having an outer surface; a probe for supplying current to the skin of a person, the probe extending from the casing and movable with respect to the casing in an axial direction of the probe; a coil spring for biasing the probe out of the casing; a locating current supply for supplying a locating current to the probe; a therapeutic current supply for supplying a therapeutic current to the probe in a tone mode or a relax mode; a switch assembly for selectively supplying the locating current or therapeutic current to the probe; contact members on the outer surface of the casing for completing an electrical circuit of the device when the person is in contact with the contact membrs so as to provide a return path for the locating current and the therapeutic current; and a switch control for controlling the switch assembly to selectively supply the therapeutic current to the probe either directly or indirectly through the contact members and the body of the user.

This invention relates generally to acupuncture devices, and more particularly, is directed to a hand-held, self-operable acupuncture device.
The art of acupuncture has been used by the Chinese for nearly 4,500 years to treat and alleviate physical and mental pain. Chinese acupuncture has been based on the principle that complementary forces of Yin and Yang control Qi, the essential energy running through the human body. Specifically, it was believed that there are twelve meridians or channels connected under the skin to all of the basic organs of the body. When pain or bad health occur, it was believed that Qi was out of balance. Acupuncture was designed to restore the balance so that flow through the twelve meridians is established with the proper balance. There are approximately 2,000 points along the meridians at which the acupuncturist can insert needles to redirect the flow to achieve proper balance.
Accordingly, needles were inserted into the desired acupuncture points to achieve balance, the needles being twirled or oscillated about their axes to enhance the effect of the acupuncture. Because the twirling of the needles requires great skill, and because such twirling becomes extremely tiresome after a short period of time, it has been suggested that the manual twirling be replaced by the application of an alternating current to the needles to achieve the same effect. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,908,669 to Man et al and U.S. Pat. No. 3,897,789 to Blanchard.
Modern medicine indicates that acupuncture may have some benefit, but that acupuncture has nothing to do with vital energy running through the body. Instead, it is argued that acupuncture is merely a good way to stimulate peripheral nerves so that the body's own mechanism for overriding pain is stimulated. Thus, some research has shown that acupuncture releases various neurotransmitters and activates three areas of the nervous system. Specifically, acupuncture stimulates nerves to send mild pain messages to the spinal cord, which in turn releases pain-blocking chemicals. The spinal cord sends impulses to the midbrain which sends other pain-blocking neurotransmitters to the spinal cord. Finally, the spinal cord may stimulate the pituitary gland to release pain blockers and anti-inflammatory agents into the blood stream and brain.
Further, research has now shown that the manner in which acupuncture is applied can vary the effectiveness thereof. Thus, the specific frequency of the AC signal supplied to the needles has proven effective for different pain relief.
As a further development, it has been found that a similar effect can be achieved merely by the application of an AC signal to the skin surface at the desired acupuncture points. In such case, a probe contacts the skin of the user to apply such AC signal. An example of such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,657 to Chen et al, which describes a hand-held, self-operable acupuncture device of this type. See also U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,064 to Pomeranz et al.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,180,079 to Wing also discloses a hand-held, self-operable acupuncture device which applies an electrical pulse to selected portions of the skin. A probe terminating in a wad of cotton is the active electrode and the instrument case is the other electrode, whereby current flows from the probe and in a return path through the body and the hand that is holding the instrument, to the instrument case, so as to complete the circuit. However, the entire case is electrically conductive which is not desirable.
However, none of the above-described devices disclose any manner of locating the acupuncture points. This is accomplished generally by charts that are studied by the acupuncturist.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,900,020 to Lock, there is disclosed an electronic acupuncture device which can be used with either needles or probes, and which includes a separate probe for locating the desired acupuncture points on the patient's body. The probe is passed over the patient's body, and an acupuncture point is located by noting sharp movements in the readings of the meters on the control panel. There is also a discussion of converting increases in current through the point finder probe into an audio signal. The probe is in two parts, a first part held by the physician and passed over the patient's body, and a second probe held by the patient. It is apparent, however, that such a system could not be used as a hand-held, self-operable acupuncture device by the patient. Further, there are separate probes and probe sockets in the control panel for supplying the therapeutic acupuncture current, in addition to different circuitry, thereby increasing the cost and complexity of the device.


Detection precision is improved by reducing a detection error of a change in position of a target. A correction value derivation apparatus is provided for deriving a correction value used in correction of a displacement amount derived based on an encoder signal indicating a change in position of a movable portion as a target. A displacement amount derivation unit is configured to derive a detected displacement amount of the movable portion based on the encoder signal. A displacement velocity derivation unit is configured to derive a detected displacement velocity based on the detected displacement amount derived by the displacement amount derivation unit. An average displacement velocity calculation unit is configured to calculate an average displacement velocity over a predetermined displacement range. A correction value derivation unit is configured to derive the correction value based on the detected displacement velocity and the average displacement velocity.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for processing an encoder signal indicating a phase change of a position or angle of a target.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an optical rotary encoder is popularly used to detect a moving amount, angle, position, and the like of a rotation member of a motor or the like. A rotary encoder of this type irradiates a rotation signal screen provided with a required signal pattern with uniform light from a light-emitting element including a light-emitting diode (LED) or the like from one side. Then, a light-receiving element such as a photodiode or phototransistor receives and detects transmission light which has transmitted through the signal pattern or reflected light from the signal screen, thus forming an electric signal pattern. An encoder output signal is generated based on the electric signal pattern. As functional segmentations of the encoder, an incremental type and absolute type are known.
In an incremental encoder, a technique for attaining high-precision position detection by interpolation processing (electric division) is known. This technique is premised on that amplitudes of encoder signals and offset values are uniform, and analog sine wave signals of two phases having a 90° phase difference are output. For this reason, the interpolation processing is often executed after the output signals from the encoder are corrected to approach the premises.
As a practical interpolation processing method, a resistance division method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 02-138819 (patent literature 1) and an arctangent (arctan) calculation method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 06-58769 (patent literature 2) are known. On the other hand, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-112862 (patent literature 3) discloses a method of correcting encoder output signals by detecting errors from an ideal Lissajous waveform included in Lissajous waveforms of two-phase analog signals.
However, actual encoder output signals include harmonic components and nonlinear components, and are not ideal sine wave signals. For this reason, even when errors of amplitudes, offsets, and phases of the encoder output signals are corrected, the corrected signals are not strict sine wave signals, and detection errors are generated upon execution of the interpolation processing. Hence, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-303358 (patent literature 4) discloses a method of generating values obtained by differentiating detected displacement amounts (detected angles) of the encoder, that is, correction values that make displacement velocities constant.
However, for example, the method disclosed in patent literature 4 allows to calculate correction values in only a constant velocity driving area. For this reason, in order to calculate suitable correction values, driving control of a target (motor or the like) is required to be executed using a high-precision motor and external driving device having high velocity stability to cause the encoder to detect displacements. For this reason, when a motor having low velocity stability is used, suitable correction values cannot be calculated during normal driving with a velocity change.

Correction value derivation apparatus, displacement amount derivation apparatus, control apparatus, and correction value derivation method


A data sharing platform can be used to implement a method for allowing at least one entity which makes payments with a payment network to share transaction data. A database containing the transaction data from the at least one entity which makes payments with the payment network is maintained. A user interface is provided, which presents the at least one entity which makes payments with the payment network with at least one selection providing consent to sharing of at least a portion of the transaction data with at least one third party. The consent from the at least one entity which makes payments with the payment network is obtained, via the at least one selection. Interfacing takes place with the at least one third party to share the at least portion of the transaction data.

The use of credit cards, debit cards, pre-paid cards, and similar non-card payment devices (e.g., appropriately configured smart phones) has become ubiquitous. People may use such cards and devices for many different types of purchases, including goods and/or services, and ranging from small to major purchases.
Social media includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue. Examples include magazines, Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, micro-blogging, wikis, podcasts, photographs or pictures, video, rating and social bookmarking. One particularly popular type of social media is the social networking site (e.g., Facebook).

MASTERCARD INTERNATIONAL INCORPORATED PURCHASE


Systems and methods are provided for configuring an alignment between various resource grids. A base station transmits alignment information between a first resource grid or a first transmission using the first resource grid, and a second resource grid and a third resource grid. The first resource grid uses a first sub-carrier spacing (SCS) from a first set of SCSs, the second resource grid uses a second SCS from a second set of SCSs, the third resource grid uses a third SCS from the second set of SCSs. The base station transmits a synchronization sequence block (SSB) using the first resource grid, and the base station transmits a first physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) in assigned resource blocks using at least one of the second resource grid and the third resource grid. A user equipment receives the alignment information, and determines the resource grids based on the alignment information so as to be able to receive the transmitted resource blocks.

5th generation mobile networks (5G) are the proposed next generation of telecommunications standards beyond the current 4G standards. Some goals of 5G include higher capacity than current 4G, thereby allowing a higher density of mobile broadband users. 5G also proposes to support device-to-device, ultra-reliable, and massive machine communications. Additionally, 5G proposes to provide faster data transfer rates than are currently available. However, in order to achieve these goals, a number of problems must be addressed and solved.
Different numerologies may be used on different channels. Different numerologies have different sub-carrier spacings (SCS) and/or cyclic prefixes, for example. Transmission on each channel, using the respective numerology, employs a respective resource grid which consists of subcarriers spaced by the SCS of the numerology. Some transmissions may occur in units of resource blocks (RBs), each resource block occupying a fixed number of sub-carriers. An RB grid may be defined based on the resource grid. For any transmission on a resource grid, the transmission will use a set of subcarriers on the grid including a lowest frequency subcarrier.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Resource grid offset indication in mixed numerologies


The invention relates to the use of solid betaine for de-icing and/or preventing slipperiness. The solid betaine comprises at least one non-betaine compound affecting water and/or moisture movement in said solid betaine. The invention further relates to a process for the manufacture of solid betaine. A suspension comprising betaine crystals is prepared from a feed liquid and the betaine crystals are separated and washed. The amount of wash liquid is adjusted in order to leave 0.5 to 10 w-% of at least one non-betaine compound in said solid betaine.

The purpose of the ice-melting and de-icing agents is to disrupt and weaken the adhesion of the ice to the surface of pavement, after which the surface can more easily be mechanically cleaned. In general, ice-melting agents are used for de-icing treatment, optionally together with added thickeners in order to increase viscosity, as well as water, surfactants and corrosion inhibitors.
The prevention of ice-formation and slipperiness is extremely important at airports in order to maintain safe conditions. Sodium chloride and other chlorides used on roads to prevent slipperiness, cannot be used at airports, since they corrode the metal parts of the planes. Thereto chlorides have a harmful effect on groundwater quality, soil, vegetation and soil microfauna. Also the use of urea, which traditionally has been used for de-icing at airports, has partly been given up due to its significant environmental load. At present acetates, liquid potassium acetate and solid sodium acetate as well as formiates, potassium formiate and sodium formiate are widely used at airports. Although these are effective in de-icing and are less detrimental to the environment, they are also heavily corrosive on metals, carbon brakes and electrical equipment of airplanes and airports. In fact ice-melting agents based on acetate and formiate have been found to cause heavy corrosion in airplane materials, including carbon brakes, metal surfaces and mating metal-metal surfaces. Further especially acetate and formiate dissolve the bitumen part of asphalt, thus causing pavement erosion and slipperiness.
Since solid and often granular ice-melting agents are easily carried away from the intended surface under the influence of air flows, liquid ice-melting agents have been found to be the most usable form of ice-melting agent. The effect of granular ice-melting agents has been found to be very local and the required amount has been found to be higher than for a liquid or wetted substance. Granular substances are however required for thicker ice in order to melt the ice down to the surface before snowploughing or brushing the surface, for example for the runway of an airport.
One more recent ice-melting agent used in liquid form is Cryotech NX360™ (Cryotech) which contains sodium acetate together with propanediol (Susterra®, Cryotech). Another ice-melting agent used in liquid form is the use of betaine as an aqueous solution for the prevention of freezing of aircrafts and runways disclosed in EP 1034231 B1. WO 2007/128878 A1 relates to the improved effect obtained by the combination of betaine and at least one other de-icing agent for de-icing treatment.
However, although betaine has been found to be a more environmental friendly alternative than urea and a non-corrosive alternative compared to the acetate and formiates used, the melting capacity of betaine as an aqueous solution has not been altogether satisfactory. Further the precipitation of betaine in concentrated aqueous solutions as well as its highly hygroscopic nature has also limited its use.
The original betaine, N,N,N-trimethylglycine, is often called glycine betaine to distinguish it from other betaines that are widely distributed in microorganisms, plants and animals. In the glycine betaine three methyl groups are bonded to the nitrogen atom of the glycine molecule.
Betaine can be obtained, for example from sugar beet by chromatographic methods. U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,957 as well as U.S. Pat. No. 4,359,430 disclose methods for the recovery of betaine from molasses and U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,398 discloses the recovery of betaine from a beet-derived sucrose containing material. U.S. Pat. No. 6,572,775 relates to a chromatographic system and U.S. Pat. No. 6,187,204 to a method for the fractionation of molasses for inter alia recovery of betaine. All methods aim for good yield as well as a high purity of the product.
Betaine has a bipolar structure and is a highly hygroscopic substance which easily turns viscous, lumpy and poorly flowable in humid conditions. In order to improve the treating properties of these hygroscopic materials in general two different approaches are used. The material may be coated with for example oil or fats which protect against humid conditions or the material may be mixed with fluidity improvers or anti-agglomeration agents which do not protect against humidity but which improve the fluidity of betaine in dry conditions. According to FR 2151076 A1 which relates to a method of improving the hygroscopicity and fluidity of different solid hygroscopic materials, such material may be treated with a powder of a calcium, magnesium, zinc or aluminium salt of a higher fatty acid.
Treating anhydrous betaine crystals is disclosed in EP 1015106 B1 which relates to arranging a hydrophobic and moisture-proof layer of calcium stearate or hydrophobic silica on the surface of the particles. The melted, hot soap is sprayed onto the surface of the betaine crystals or the soap flakes are mixed together with the betaine particles and then mixed and heated. According to EP 1015106 B1 anhydrous betaine crystals are used as an animal feed additive, in fertilizers, in cosmetic skin care products, in pharmaceutical products as well as in food.
The prior art processes for preventing ice-formation and slipperiness are not altogether satisfactory. There is a need for a non-corrosive and environmentally friendly alternative for de-icing and for preventing slipperiness. The present invention aims at satisfying that need.
It should be noted that all documents cited in this text ("herein cited documents") as well as each document or reference cited in each of the herein-cited documents, and all manufacturer's literature, specifications, instructions, product data sheets, material data sheets, and the like, as to the products and processes mentioned in this text, are hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference.

Use of solid betaine product and method for its manufacture


A turbine engine fan casing for containing a separated blade fragment comprising a support case having an axially extending impact zone, a substantially structurally continuous penetrable covering circumscribing the impact zone; and a containment covering circumscribing the penetrable covering. The containment covering comprises a textile fabric containing threads in a warp direction and a fill direction, wherein the threads in the warp direction are of a different denier than the threads in the fill direction.

The current invention relates to fan casings for gas turbine engines for aircraft, particularly to penetration resistant fan casings for containing fragmented engine parts.
Jet aircraft are powered by propulsion system, which includes a gas turbine engine housed within an aerodynamically streamlined nacelle. The typical engine includes a fan section with a rotatable hub connected to an array of fan blades projecting radially from the hub, and a fan case encircling the blades. In operation, engine parts (particularly portions of the fan blade) may become separated from the hub, which may include all or a portion of the blade becoming separated from the remainder of the blade. Fan casings are designed to contain the fragmented pieces within the casing.
Particularly in large diameter engines, a metallic case thick enough to resist penetration is prohibitively heavy. As such, the engines are often equipped with a containment structure, which includes a fabric wrapped around engine parts. The fabric is often a light-weight, high strength ballistic fabric such as Kevlar® (a trademark of E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Company). The containment fabric is wrapped in multiple layers around a relatively thin, often penetrable supporting case. Thus, the portion of the blade becomes separated from the rest of the engine, the fragment penetrates the support case and strikes the fabric. The fabric deflects radially, and at least some of the fabric layers remain intact to capture and contain the fragment.
Containment systems which include fabric are more weight efficient than metallic containment cases, but nonetheless add considerable weight to the engine. The fabric must be designed to be light-weight, but to maintain its durability. If the fabric deflects excessively, the fragmented engine part can strike or damage the interior of the nacelle, resulting in a pierced fabric. Thus, it is desirable to have a fabric that is durable but within minimized weight that will not compromise containment capability or risk damage to the nacelle.

Low deflection fan case cotainment fabric


A stackable module for a processor system including a support plate with a set of topside circuit components mounted to its topside, and topside and underside connectors. The module is stackable with other such modules and are provided with conductive tracks that are arranged to convey transport stream data and transport stream control signals between modules in a stack. A stack of such modules in a processor system is also provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stackable module and a stack of modules for a processor system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The invention is particularly but not exclusively concerned with providing modules as an expansion system to allow new peripherals to be added to set top box motherboards. The intention is to provide modules that provide an expansion capability in a flexible and multi-functional fashion.
Existing set top box motherboards comprise an onboard processor which can implement a certain amount of functionality relating to data supplied via the set top box. It is increasingly the case that set top boxes need to be able to function with a variety of different peripherals, such as expanded memory, audio and video peripherals. Moreover, decryption of data is increasingly becoming necessary.
Thus, it is necessary for the motherboard to provide a number of different interfaces to support different peripherals, and also for the onboard processor to be able to take into account the extra functionality. This can lead to a motherboard that is complex and cumbersome, often unnecessarily so when such peripherals are not needed.
One way to resolve this difficulty is to provide a motherboard to which can be attached one or more expansion modules.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a stackable module for a processor system, the module including: a support plate having a topside and an underside; a set of topside circuit components mounted on the topside of the support plate; a topside connector mounted to the topside of the support plate; an underside connector mounted to the underside of the support plate, wherein there are a first set of conductive tracks connected directly between the topside connector and the underside connector and a second set of conductive tracks connecting the topside connector to the topside circuit components, the underside connector and the topside connector being engageable with respective underside connectors and topside connectors of other modules, whereby the conductive tracks are arranged to convey transport stream data and transport stream control signals between modules in a stack.
The transport stream takes the form of digital, packetized, encoded data including audio and video data, for example in MPEG format. Information such as teletext, program guides, channel information, can also be provided. In addition, digital versions of analogue video and audio signals (not encoded) can be conveyed via the conductive tracks.
Another aspect of the invention provides a stack of modules in a processor system, the stack including: a main board having an interface connector and a set of main board components, the interface connector providing a set of pins for conveying transport stream data and transport stream control signals; at least one module comprising a support plate with an underside connector mounted to an underside of said support plate and a topside connector mounted to a topside of said support plate, the underside connector connected to the interface connector of the main board, wherein transport stream data and transport stream control signals are conveyed from at least some of said circuit components on the topside of the at least one module to the interface connector of the main board.
In a stack, the topside connector of a current module forms an UP port with the underside connector of the module above it. The underside connector of the current module forms a DOWN port with the topside connector of the module below it for the current module.
The topside and underside connectors can each comprise a set of pins for carrying memory access signals to allow a module to function as an external memory interface (EMI).
In the described embodiment the topside connector is a receptacle and the underside connector is a plug, but it will readily be appreciated that the reverse configuration is possible.
Each support plate can comprise at least one through-hole for receiving a support pillar. In such an arrangement, a support pillar can be provided on a support plate at a location so as to pass through a through-hole of an upper module in a module stack.
Each module can comprise a connector space-defining component which extends upwardly from the support plate by a distance calculated to define the minimum spacing between modules in a stack.
Modules of different types can be provided, and such modules can be stackable in a common stack.
According to one type, the circuit components of the module constitute a transport stream generating device that generates transport stream data and transport stream control signals. Examples are a tuner board or packet injector converter.
A second type of module has circuit components that constitute a device, which acts on transport stream data and transport stream control signals, for example a decryptor.
A third type of module has circuit components that constitute a device which does not utilize transport stream data and transport stream control signals, for example an EMI. In that case, the transport stream data and control signals are supplied via said topside and underside connectors directly to another module in the module stack.
A module can include a multiplexor for selectively selecting transport stream data from a lower module in the stack and an upper module in the stack (i.e., from the UP or DOWN port).
The stackable modules described herein provide expansion capabilities to set top box motherboards or main boards. In particular, transport streams are supported. The described embodiment supports memory access peripherals in addition to transport streams.
The modules can be stacked on top of each other to minimize main board requirements. The modules provide cableless expansion of general set top box peripherals.
Although the main application for the modules is considered to be for a set top box motherboard, they may be used in other applications.
The invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings.


An indirect aggregator NAL unit for the SVC file format and RTP payload format for video coding. The indirect aggregator NAL unit of the present invention enables easy identification of scalability dependencies within a bit stream, thereby enabling fast and efficient stream manipulation. Furthermore, the indirect aggregator NAL unit of the present invention ensures that a base layer of the streams can still be processed with a H.264/AVC decoder, AVC file format parser, and H.264/AVC RTP payload parser.

This section is intended to provide a background or context to the invention that is recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Scalable Video Coding (SVC) provides scalable video bitstreams. A scalable video bitstream contains a non-scalable base layer and one or more enhancement layers. An enhancement layer may enhance the temporal resolution (i.e. the frame rate), the spatial resolution, or the quality of the video content represented by the lower layer or part thereof. The scalable layers can be aggregated to a single real-time transport protocol (RTP) stream or transported independently.
The concept of a video coding layer (VCL) and network abstraction layer (NAL) is inherited from advanced video coding (AVC). The VCL contains the signal processing functionality of the codec; mechanisms such as transform, quantization, motion-compensated prediction, loop filter, inter-layer prediction. A coded picture of a base or enhancement layer consists of one or more slices. The NAL encapsulates each slice generated by the VCL into one or more NAL units.
Each SVC layer is formed by NAL units, representing the coded video bits of the layer. An RTP stream carrying only one layer would carry NAL units belonging to that layer only. An RTP stream carrying a complete scalable video bit stream would carry NAL units of a base layer and one or more enhancement layers. SVC specifies the decoding order of these NAL units.
The concept of scaling the visual content quality by omitting the transport and decoding of entire enhancement layers is denoted as coarse-grained scalability (CGS).
In some cases, the bit rate of a given enhancement layer can be reduced by truncating bits from individual NAL units. Truncation leads to a graceful degradation of the video quality of the reproduced enhancement layer. This concept is known as fine-grained (granularity) scalability (FGS).
According to the H.264/AVC video coding standard, an access unit comprises one primary coded picture. In some systems, detection of access unit boundaries can be simplified by inserting an access unit delimiter NAL unit into the bitstream. In SVC, an access unit may comprise multiple primary coded pictures, but at most one picture per each unique combination of dependency_id, temporal_level, and quality_level.
Scalable video coding involves the encoding of a "base layer" with some minimal quality, as well as the encoding of enhancement information that increases the quality up to a maximum level. The base layer of SVC streams is typically advanced video coding (AVC)-compliant. In other words, AVC decoders can decode the base layer of an SVC stream and ignore SVC-specific data. This feature has been realized by specifying coded slice NAL unit types that are specific to SVC, were reserved for future use in AVC, and must be skipped according to the AVC specification.
The identification of pictures and their scalability characteristics within an SVC access unit is important at least for two purposes. First, this identification is important for compressed-domain stream thinning in servers or gateways. Due to the requirement to handle large amounts of data, these elements have to identify removable pictures as quickly as possible. Second, this identification is important for the playback of a stream with desired quality and complexity. Receivers and players should be able to identify those pictures in a scalable stream that they are incapable or unwilling to decode.
One function of media-aware gateways or RTP mixers (which may be multipoint conference control units, gateways between circuit-switched and packet-switched video telephony, push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) servers, IP encapsulators in digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H) systems, or set-top boxes that forward broadcast transmissions locally to home wireless networks, for example) is to control the bit rate of the forwarded stream according to prevailing downlink network conditions. It is desirable to control the forwarded data rate without extensive processing of the incoming data, e.g., by simply dropping packets or easily identified parts of packets. For layered coding, gateways should drop entire pictures or picture sequences that do not affect the decoding of the forwarded stream. The interleaved packetization mode of the H.264/AVC RTP payload specification allows for the encapsulation of practically any NAL units of any access units into the same RTP payload (referred to as an aggregation packet). In particular, it is not required to encapsulate entire coded pictures in one RTP payload, but rather the NAL units of a coded picture can be split into multiple RTP packets.
While this liberty of packet aggregation is welcome for many applications, it causes a number of complications in a gateway operation. First, given an aggregation packet, it is not known to which pictures its NAL units belong to before parsing the header of each NAL unit contained in the aggregation packet. Therefore, when the interleaved packetization mode is applied for SVC, the layers in which the contained NAL units belong are not known before parsing the header of each NAL unit in the packet. Consequently, a gateway has to parse each NAL unit header before deciding whether any, all, or some NAL units of the packet are forwarded. Second, for some NAL units, such as Supplemental Enhancement Information (SEI) and parameter-set NAL units, it is not possible to identify the access unit they belong to before video coding layer (VCL) NAL units of the same access unit are received. Therefore, the gateway may need to maintain a buffer and some state information to resolve the mapping of non-VCL NAL units to their associated pictures.
In conventional video coding standards, a picture header is used to separate coded pictures. However, in the H.264/AVC standard and in SVC, no picture header is included in the syntax. Additionally, although parsers may have the ability to parse the scalability information for each NAL unit in a stream, this requires a bit larger amount of processing power, and some parsers may not have this ability.
In addition to the above, an aggregator NAL unit has been previously proposed in the SVC file format verification model 2 (MPEG document M7586). In this system, the aggregator NAL unit is a container that includes the associated NAL units in its payload. The aggregator NAL unit has a type that is unspecified in the H.264/AVC and SVC specifications and must be ignored in H.264/AVC and SVC decoders. However, when a base layer picture according to the H.264/AVC standard is enclosed within an aggregator NAL unit, it no longer is decodable with an H.264/AVC decoder, nor is it parsable with a H.264/AVC RTP depayloadizer or AVC file format parser.

Backward-compatible aggregation of pictures in scalable video coding


An exhaust gas turbocharger includes a turbine casing (4) within which a turbine wheel (10) is rotatably arranged relative to an axis of rotation (1). A guide vane ring (22) is non-rotatably arranged which comprises variable guide vanes (44) which are arranged upstream of the turbine wheel (10) with respect to an exhaust gas flow. The guide vane ring (22) is centered by means of a matched pair of two contact surfaces (24, 26) pressed against each other with respect to the turbine casing (4), of which at least the one contact surface (24 or 26, respectively) is formed conically.

DE 10 2014 203 498 A1 shows an exhaust gas turbocharger with variable turbine geometry. The exhaust gas turbocharger comprises a turbine casing within which a turbine wheel is rotatably arranged relative to an axis of rotation. For realising the variability of the turbine geometry, a guide vane ring is provided, which technically is also referred to as nozzle ring and which comprises variable guide vanes which are pivotable to this end. The variable guide vanes are arranged upstream of the turbine wheel with respect to an exhaust gas flow. The guide vane ring is non-rotationally and radially fixed with respect to the turbine casing and a bearing housing. To this end, the guide vane ring is connected via bolts with a support ring which is designed as a flat disc and fixed between the turbine casing and a bearing housing. The assembly of the turbine casing with the bearing housing, the guide vane ring and the support ring is work-intensive.
WO 2007/107289 A1, U.S. Pat. No. 8,464,528 B2, EP 2 302 175 B1 and EP 1 536 103 B1 each disclose an exhaust gas turbocharger with variable turbine geometry wherein a guide vane ring is pressed against a turbine casing by means of a disc spring.
Both in WO 2007/107289 A1 and in EP 2 302 175 B1, the respective guide vane ring is centered immediately on the bearing housing.
DE 10 2010 015 272 A1 discloses the turbine casing of an exhaust gas turbocharger with variable turbine geometry. A disc spring which serves as a seal is arranged between the turbine casing and the bearing housing.


A defect inspecting apparatus includes a sample mounting device for mounting a sample; lighting and detecting apparatus for illuminating a patterned sample mounted on a mount and detecting the optical image of the reflected light obtained therefrom. Also included is a display for displaying the optical image detected by this lighting and detecting apparatus; an optical parameter setting device for setting and displaying optical parameters for the lighting and detecting apparatus on the display; and optical parameter adjusting apparatus for adjusting optical parameters set for the lighting and detecting apparatus according to the optical parameters set by the optical parameter setting apparatus; a storage device for storing comparative image data; and a defect detecting device for detecting defects from patterns formed on the sample by comparing the optical image detected by the optical image detecting apparatus with the comparative image data stored in the storage.

This invention relates to a high resolution optical system used for inspecting and observing fine pattern defects, foreign matter, etc, which appear, for example, in manufacturing processes of semiconductor devices and flat panel displays. The invention also relates to a defect inspecting apparatus that uses such a high resolution optical system.
A conventional technique, which has provided a method and an apparatus for photographing the structures of fine lines in width using an optical microscope, is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-128595. This technique is characterized by the use of light which is linearly polarized by a polarizer positioned at about 45° to the linear dimension of a sample. The optical delay axis of a ¼ wavelength plate placed between the polarizer and the sample is angled optimally (25° typically) to the main linear shape of the sample. This ¼ wavelength plate converts the linearly polarized light to elliptically polarized light, which is then applied to the sample. This elliptically polarized light, when reflected from the sample, has a phase difference. The reflected light passes through the ¼ wavelength plate again, then passes through a polarizer provided in a detecting light path. The light passing through the polarizer forms an image of the sample on a photoelectric conversion element. In such conventional apparatus, therefore, the phase difference caused by the sample is estimated beforehand, enabling the light set as elliptic polarized light to be converted to circularly polarized light after reflection from the sample.
In the method and apparatus for imaging structures of fine line width using an optical microscope as described, a polarizer is disposed in a lighting light path, and a linearly polarized light is passed through the polarizer. Then this linearly polarized light is converted to an elliptic polarized light through the ¼ wavelength plate before it is applied to the sample. In such an optical system, therefore, both 0-order diffracted light reflected from the sample and higher-order diffracted light become circularly polarized light, and the ratio between the amplitudes of the 0-order diffracted light effective for forming optical images and higher-order diffracted light is the same as that of the random polarized light (the amplitude of the 0-order diffracted light is larger than that of the higher-order diffracted light). Consequently, the 0-order diffracted light and the higher-order diffracted light interfere with each other, thereby degrading the resolution of the optical image of the sample, particularly because the amplitude of the higher-order diffracted light is small, and this causes the low frequency component to be increased.
If an image sensor is used for detecting images, the light intensity is adjusted so as to prevent saturation. For example, because a cyclical fine pattern increases the diffraction angle, the contrast between patterns is small, making detected images dark. If a pattern image is detected and this detected image is processed for defect inspection, the small difference in contrast between patterns, and the dark image causes lower detection sensitivity.

Method and apparatus for observing and inspecting defects


According to some embodiments, information may be received about a non-relational database object, such as an InfoSet, InfoSet query, or Advanced Business Application Programming (“ABAP”) function for an enterprise resource planning system. The non-relational database object may then be mapped into a relational database model, such as a model associated with a business intelligence platform. As a result, Structured Query Language (“SQL”) inputs from a business intelligence platform may be used create reports based on information in an enterprise resource planning system.

In some cases, a user interface may be associated with a relational database model, such as a table that is organized into rows and columns. For example, a user may provide a Structured Query Language input associated with the relational database model and receive business information (e.g., sales data, purchase order data, or information about employees) from one or more data sources in the form of a table or report.
Some information, however, may be stored in connection with non-relational database objects. For example, various objects might require different Application Programming Interface ("API") techniques to read the appropriate metadata and/or to query the data. Moreover, there may be no common language associated with the non-relational database objects.
Accordingly, an efficient mechanism for representing non-relational database objects into a relational database model may be addressed by some embodiments herein.

Mapping non-relational database objects into a relational database model