In an image reading apparatus using a solid state image pickup element, a smear amount and the total received light amount at whole image taking region of the CCD linear sensor when a light source is turned on without film, are measured and calculated.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a solid state image pickup device that optically reads an image and converts the image into digital data.
2. Related Background Art
Up to now, a large number of image reading apparatuses have been developed. Even in medical fields, in order to conduct electronic filing, remote diagnosis, a diagnostic support using a computer, and the like, there have been developed apparatuses that take a medical image, in particular, an X-ray film image and convert the medical image into digital data.
According to such image reading apparatuses, an X-ray film is irradiated with light from a light source such as a halogen lamp or a fluorescent lamp and light transmitting through the X-ray film is received by a solid-state image pickup element such as a CCD linear sensor. Then, the X-ray film is scanned to obtain image data.
With respect to a CCD used as the solid-state image pickup element, there is a case where a phenomenon which is called a smear, in which a photoelectric conversion output levels rise by leaking a charge generated in a photoelectric conversion unit or a part of incident light to a transferring unit, occurs. The smear is caused when intense light is entered into the CCD linear sensor. When the smear is caused, the photoelectric conversion output levels of all reading pixels on the transferring unit rise.
For example, in the case where a film in which a low density region is present in a high density region as shown in FIG. 5 is scanned for reading in the illustrated scanning direction, the smear is caused from the light entered into the low density region. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6, such a problem is caused that levels of right and left regions adjacent to the low density region vary is caused.
Up to now, in order to reduce the smear, a mask is provided on a chip of the solid-state image pickup element to prevent a part of incident light from leaking to the transferring unit. Alternatively, for example, the photoelectric conversion unit may be separated from the transferring unit to prevent a charge generated in the photoelectric conversion unit from leaking to the transferring unit.
Also, there is a method of electrically conducting a smear correction using the output of the solid-state image pickup element. FIG. 7 shows a smear correction circuit for removing the smear, which is provided in an image reading apparatus. The smear correction circuit includes a solid-state image pickup element 1 made from a CCD, an A/D converter 2, a memory 3, a timing generation circuit 4, and a subtracter 5.
The memory 3 temporarily stores a pixel signal A/D-converted by the A/D converter 2. When a record signal is provided, an input signal is written. The written signal is held and outputted. The timing generation circuit 4 controls drive timing of the solid-state image pickup element 1 and write timing to the memory 3. The subtracter 5 subtracts the signal outputted from the memory 3 from the pixel signal outputted from the A/D converter 2.
As shown in FIG. 8, the solid-state image pickup element 1 is composed of photoelectric conversion elements 6, transferring registers 7 that transfer charges generated in the photoelectric conversion elements 6, and an amplifier 8 that amplifies the transferred charges to be converted into voltage values. The solid-state image pickup element 1 has an image taking region that receives light transmitting through a film, an optical black region that shields a part of the photoelectric conversion elements 6, and a dummy region in which the photoelectric conversion elements 6 do not exist.
First, when the light transmitting through the film is imaged onto the solid-state image pickup element 1, charges generated in the photoelectric conversion elements 6 are read to the transferring registers 7 and then transferred in the transferring direction indicated by an arrow. The charges transferred by the transferring registers 7 are amplified by the amplifier 8 and outputted as voltage values in succession. When such operation is repeated while the film is scanned, image signals of the entire film can be obtained.
When intense light is entered into the solid-state image pickup element 1, an output voltage of the solid-state image pickup element 1 increases by a constant level by the influence of the smear. However, because the charges produced from the light entered into the solid-state image pickup element 1 are not present in pixels within the dummy region, only smear components produce. Therefore, the signals from the pixels within the dummy region are subtracted from the signals from the pixels within the image taking region, so that pixel signals from which the smear components are removed can be obtained.
FIG. 9 is a timing chart showing the operation of the smear correction circuit in the image reading apparatus as shown in FIG. 7. As shown in FIG. 9, a pixel signal is outputted from the solid-state image pickup element 1 in synchronization with a horizontal synchronizing signal HD. In addition, as shown in FIG. 9, data is written into the memory 3 for only a period corresponding to the dummy region of the solid-state image pickup element 1. A dummy signal written into the memory 3 is outputted to the subtracter 5 without processing and subtracted from the pixel signal from the image taking region by the subtracter 5. Thus, according to such operation, a pixel signal from which the smear component is removed can be obtained.
According to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-050165, a method is disclosed, in which an addition average output of a plurality of dummy pixels in which no photoelectric conversion elements are provided or an addition average output of optical black pixels is held in a memory, and a signal (dummy pixel signal or optical black pixel signal) which is held in the memory is subtracted from a pixel signal from a solid-state image pickup element to remove a smear.
However, according to the above-mentioned conventional examples, it is necessary to provide a mask on a chip of the solid-state image pickup element. In the method in which the photoelectric conversion unit is separated from the transferring unit, it is difficult to completely remove the smear. In addition to this, a process for setting the mask is required and the size of the chip increases. Thus, there is a defect that a cost of the solid-state image pickup element increases.
In the method in which the dummy pixel signal or the optical black pixel signal is subtracted from the pixel signal from the solid-state image pickup element, the number of dummy pixel signal and the number of optical black pixel signal are limited to a range of from several pixels to several tens of pixels. Therefore, even if the addition average output is used, there is a problem in that the influences of noises such as a dark current and a random noise, other than the smear, cannot be completely eliminated to cause streak-shaped noises on an image.

Abstract: Using a ratio of the total received light amount when a light source is turned on without film to the one at the time of image reading, a smear correction data of each line is calculated for correction processing.


Biofungicide composition derived from a biologically pure culture of a Chilean bacterial isolate obtained from the skin of grapes, corresponding to Serratia plymuthica CCGG2742, to be used as an environmentally friendly biological control agent against fungal diseases of vegetables, in particular fruits susceptible to the infection of Botrytis cinerea, efficiently preventing the germination of conidia and the proliferation of mycelia of said phytopathogenic fungus, furthermore protecting the plant's leaves and fruits from the infection by the same fungus, and having the potential of being used in the biological control of other phytopathogenic fungus and microorganisms.

The diseases caused by phytopathogenic fungi are considered as the most harmful and of larger propagation at a world level. Nowadays the control of these diseases is based fundamentally in the use of chemical fungicides that despite their high toxicity, both for plants and humans that manipulate them and/or that work in fumigated fields, and their scarce biodegradation, continue to be massively used due to their relatively efficient activity against fungal diseases, in addition to the lack of efficient and environmentally more safer alternatives.
Botrytis cinerea is a phytopathogenic fungi that infects a great number of economically important vegetable species, including fruit trees, decorative plants and vegetables. This fungi produces a disease known as grey rot, resulting in a mayor problem both pre and post-harvest of strawberries, raspberries, apples, pears, chestnuts, kiwis and grapes, among others. In the grapevine this fungus produces the grape bunch rot, a disease that is currently considered as one of the most serious at a production level in the fruit export market in Chile, as it can cause great losses not only in the fields but also during storage and shipping (van Kan J. A. 2006. Licensed to kill: the lifestyle of a necrotrophic plant pathogen, Trends Plant Sci. 11, 247-253; Elad, Y., Williamson, B., Tudzynski, P. and Delen, N. eds. 2007. Botrytis: Biology, Pathology and Control. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers).
Today the control of this important phytopathogen is mainly carried out by chemical fungicides. However, in the last years some microorganisms having anti-fungal activity against B. cinerea have been described. Some of the most promissory examples is Serenade®, which active principle is a bacteria known as Bacillus subtilis QST 713, discovered in soil samples of a vegetable garden by the AgraQuest Inc. enterprise in Davis, Calif. This biofungicide is registered in various countries, including Chile. It has a low toxicity, and it is being commercially used in the United States for the control of diseases such as oidium (Uncinula necator), grey rot caused by Botrytis cinerea and acid rot in grapevines.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,869,038 describes bacterial isolates of the Pseudomonas fluorescens, Serratia liquefaciens, Serratia plymuthica, Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus pumilis and Bacillus polymyxa species, that are effective in inhibiting the development of Botrytis cinerea and Alternaria brassicicola, fungi that causes post-harvest diseases in cabbages. The Serratia plymuthica bacteria described in this patent corresponds to the strain CL43, different from the bacterial strain in the present invention, and conveniently used in mixtures with the previously mentioned bacteria in order to inhibit the fungus development with a suitable efficiency. On the contrary, the bacterial strain CCGG2742 as a pure culture efficiently inhibits B. cinerea and it is not necessary to mix it with other bacteria in order to use it as a biofungicide.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,004,774 discloses a Bacillus subtilis strain to inhibit the development of pathogenic plant fungus and bacteria, and describes methods to treat or protect plants from infections with fungus and bacteria.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,077,506 refers to a novel Bacillus thuringiensis bacterial strain that presents a wide anti-fungal and anti-bacterial capacity. Furthermore, the use of the bacillus thuringiensis bacterial strain or the antibiotic that it produces for the control of a wide range of plant pathogenic bacteria and fungus is described.
Publication WO 00/57706 discloses a substantially pure biological culture of a Pantoea agglomerans bacterial strain, its use as antagonist for the biological control of fungi responsible for the fruit rot. A very high efficacy resulted from such antagonist and it is comparable to those synthetic fungicides that are of most use. The antagonist is effective to fight the rot caused by Botrytis cinerea, Penicillium digitatum, Penicillium expansum, Penicillium italicum and Rhizopus stolonifer.
Publication WO 02/072795 discloses a group of bacteria that are antagonists for the protection against plants phytopathogenic fungi and bacteria. The isolated bacteria are the Paenibacillus polymyxa, Pseudomonas chlororaphis, Pseudomonas putida, Serratia plymuthica and Bacillus subtilis species. In this case, the bacterial strain Serratia plymuthica VKPM B-7957 is also different from the bacterial strain of the present invention, because when used in a pure culture, the efficacy of this bacteria against phytopathogenic fungus is very low, and it must be used in mixtures with other bacteria that have fungicide activity to boost its effect.
Publication WO 03/000051 discloses a biologically pure culture of a microorganism, Bacillus licheniformis, bacterial strain SB3086, to be used as a biofungicide.
The application of living organisms as biological control agents presents some limitations such as a narrow effective range against vegetable pathogens, and instability in time, resulting in a short permanence of the living organism in the environment and therefore a very low biopesticide action efficacy. Many of the bacterial strains used die within some weeks when subjected to standard storing conditions, or within hours in the typical conditions faced in the field, with relatively high temperatures and the deleterious effects of UV light on the actively growing microorganism. The attempts to grow said microorganisms in the same place where they should be used have been of some usefulness. However, the serious problems of culture contamination and the need of the biocontrol agent to be applied late in the day in order to prevent the effects of UV light and temperature make the system complicated and the process expensive.
This explains that for the time being an effective and environmentally friendly biological control method, that enables to inhibit the damage on plants originated by fungal diseases, has not been yet designed, thus constituting a great challenge to the scientists, and a great necessity to the agricultural industry, in order to diminish the use of synthetic chemical fungicides that currently are of massive use.
Therefore it is an object of this invention to provide an efficient, environmentally safe biological agent with biofungicide activity, for controlling plant's diseases caused by phytopathogenic fungus and microorganisms, in particular B. cinerea.

Biofungicidal composition for controlling phytopathogenic fungi


Disclosed are a heat conductive sheet including a resin and a particulate carbon material, and having a thermal resistance value under a pressure of 0.05 MPa of 0.20° C./W or less, a heat dissipation device including the heat conductive sheet interposed between a heat source and a heat radiator, and a method of producing a heat conductive sheet.

In recent years, electronic parts such as plasma display panels (PDPs) and integrated circuit (IC) chips generate more heat along with their increasing performance. This has led to the necessity of taking measures to prevent function failure due to temperature rises in the electronic parts of electronic devices.
General measures to prevent function failure due to temperature rise in an electronic part involve attaching a heat radiator such as a metallic heat sink, a radiation plate or a radiation fin to a heat source such as an electronic part to facilitate heat dissipation. When a heat radiator is used, the heat radiator and the heat source are closely attached to each other via a sheet member having high heat conductivity (heat conductive sheet) under a certain pressure in order to efficiently transfer heat from the heat source to the heat radiator. As the heat conductive sheet, a sheet molded using a composite material sheet having excellent heat conductivity is used. Such heat conductive sheets sandwiched between a heat source and a heat radiator during use are required to have high flexibility, as well as high heat conductivity. In order to improve the heat conductivity of the heat conductive sheet, it is necessary to lower the thermal resistance of the heat conductive sheet. The thermal resistance of the heat conductive sheet, when sandwiched between the heat generator and the heat sink, is considered to be the sum of the bulk thermal resistance, which is the thermal resistance of the heat conductive sheet itself, and the interfacial thermal resistance at the interface between the heat source and the heat radiator and the heat conductive sheet.
It is known that the thermal resistance of the material itself, that is, the bulk thermal resistance is expressed in relation to the thickness and heat conductivity of the material as:bulk thermal resistance(m2·K/W)=thickness of material(m)/heat conductivity of material(W/m·K).From this relational expression, in order to reduce the thermal resistance of the heat conductive sheet itself, that is, the bulk thermal resistance of the heat conductive sheet, it is necessary to reduce the thickness of the heat conductive sheet and to improve the heat conductivity of the heat conductive sheet. On the other hand, the interfacial thermal resistance of the heat conductive sheet is known to increase or decrease depending on the adhesion (interfacial adhesion) at the interface with the heat source and the heat radiator, the difference in bulk thermal resistance between the heat source and the heat conductive sheet, and the difference in bulk thermal resistance between the heat radiator and the heat conductive sheet. In particular, the interfacial adhesion can be affected by the pressure applied to the heat conductive sheet, the hardness (flexibility) of the heat conductive sheet, and the like. Therefore, in order to reduce the interface thermal resistance of the heat conductive sheet, it has been generally considered to increase the interfacial adhesion by giving a tack on the surface of the heat conductive sheet or decreasing the hardness of the heat conductive sheet.
For example, in WO2009/142290 (PTL 1), a primary sheet is formed from a composition containing a thermoplastic rubber, a thermosetting rubber, a thermosetting rubber curing agent, and an anisotropic graphite powder, and such primary sheets are stacked on top of each other to form a laminate, which in turn is sliced in the vertical direction to obtain a heat conductive sheet having a low thermal resistance of 0.04° C./W under a pressure of 0.5 MPa with graphite aligned in the vertical direction. In the heat conducting sheet, when forming a primary sheet from the composition, heat treatment is performed such that a thermosetting rubber is crosslinked with a thermosetting rubber curing agent and the thermosetting rubber crosslinked with the thermoplastic rubber coexist, thereby improving strength and flexibility.
For example, JP2014033193A (PTL 2) describes a heat conductive sheet containing a resin and a fibrous carbon fiber. By preventing 45 to 95% of the entire fibrous carbon fibers contained from being oriented in the thickness direction of the heat conductive sheet, the heat conductive sheet achieved a thermal resistance of 0.35° C./W under a pressure of 0.1 MPa.
For example, JP2006137930A (PTL 3) describes a heat conductive silicone grease composition containing a silicone oil and a copper powder having a low oxygen content. In the heat conductive silicone grease composition, the coarse particle mass is decreased by using a copper powder having a small average particle diameter and the coating thickness is made thin, whereby a sufficiently low thermal resistance of 0.036° C./W is achieved under a pressure of 0.15 MPa.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Heat conductive sheet and method of producing same, and heat dissipation device


A fluid flow machine blade (1) is provided on the outer contour of the airfoil (4) with a thermal barrier coating (41). In this context, quite purposefully, only part-regions of the airfoil have the thermal barrier coating, while well-defined second part-regions of the airfoil (42, 43, 44) are realized purposefully without thermal barrier coating. In particular, along the trailing edge (46) of the airfoil, a region (42) is realized without thermal barrier coating. In further embodiments of the invention, regions of the airfoil (43, 44) which lie adjacent to foot-side (21) or tip (31) platforms of the blades are realized without thermal barrier coating.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fluid flow machine blade, and further relates to a process for manufacturing a fluid flow machine blade of this kind.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
In modern fluid flow machines, especially in the hot-gas path of gas turbo sets, very high temperatures prevail. Components which are used there are therefore, on the one hand, cooled and, on the other hand, provided with thermal barrier coatings (TBC) as an alternative or complement. The thermal barrier coatings, which generally include ceramic materials, reduce the heat input into the fluid flow machine components. In order to achieve optimal heat insulation, the components which are flowed around by hot gas are usually provided with the thermal barrier coating on the whole of their contour which is flowed around or flowed over by hot gas. It has been shown, however, that, in addition to the pure thermal loading of the components, there also occur uneven temperature distributions, which give rise to thermal stresses which are detrimental to the service life of a component. It has further been shown that the thermal barrier coatings, on the one hand, increase the friction losses from the circumfluence or flowing-over of the component; furthermore, it has also been shown that, due to the airfoil trailing edge having been made thicker by the thermal barrier coating, the trailing edge losses on turbine blades also rise.


An antenna includes a feed element, a ground element, and a slot therebetween. The feed element includes a feed end wall and first and second feed side walls extending from the feed end wall at first and second corners. The ground element includes a ground end wall and first and second ground side walls at first and second corners. The slot includes a first slot portion between the first feed and ground side walls, a second slot portion between the second feed and ground side walls, and a third slot portion between the feed and ground end walls. The third slot portion is continuous between the first slot portion and the second slot portion.

The subject matter herein relates generally to antenna assemblies.
Antennas are used to transmit and/or receive electromagnetic waves, such as for communication. Some known antennas, known as slot antennas, include a metal plate having a hole or slot formed therein. Such antennas are basic antenna elements and may be manufactured in a cost effective manner. However, such antennas are not without disadvantages. For instance, slot antennas are directional and have radiation patterns that have large nulls or areas of poor performance.
A need remains for a cost effective and reliable antenna providing omnidirectional antenna coverage.


Subject matter disclosed herein relates to a memory device, and more particularly to read or write performance of a phase change memory.

1. Field
Subject matter disclosed herein relates to a memory device, and more particularly to read or write performance of phase change memory.
2. Information
Phase change memory (PCM) may operate based, at least in part, on behavior and properties of one or more particular phase change materials, such as chalcogenide alloy and/or germanium antimony telluride (GST), just to name a few examples. Crystalline and amorphous states of such materials may have different electrical resistivities, thus presenting a basis by which information may be stored. The amorphous, high resistance state may represent a stored first binary state and the crystalline, low resistance state may represent a stored second binary state. Of course, such a binary representation of stored information is merely an example: Phase change memory may also be used to store multiple memory states, represented by varying degrees of phase change material resistivity, for example.
A PCM memory cell may transition from an amorphous state to a crystalline state by applying a bias signal to the memory cell. Characteristics of a bias signal, such as peak magnitude and/or pulse width, for example, may be selected to allow a transition to a crystalline state.
Nonvolatile memory devices, such as PCM, may comprise wordlines and bitlines to program an array of memory cells. As density of memory cells in an array increase, distances between adjacent wordlines or bitlines may decrease. Decreased spacing among wordlines or bitlines may lead to undesirable effects, such as capacitive coupling, crosstalk, or proximity-disturb, just to name a few examples.

Program-disturb management for phase change memory


Peptides capable of interfering with the Kv2.1-mediated apoptotic K+ current surge that leads to neuronal cell death are described. The disclosed peptides are derived from the C-terminal region of Kv2.1, which mediates binding to the SNARE protein syntaxin. Disruption of Kv2.1 binding to syntaxin inhibits the apoptotic K+ current surge that leads to neuronal cell death. The present disclosure provides methods of inhibiting binding of Kv2.1 to syntaxin in a cell (in vitro or in vivo), such as for neuroprotection following cerebral ischemia, stroke, or traumatic brain injury, or during the course of a neurodegenerative disease, or any other condition associated with neuronal cell death.

Potassium is the most abundant intracellular cation in neurons. It is essential for maintaining the resting membrane potential and also for regulating cellular volume (Pasantes-Morales et al., J Neurosci Res 34, 219-224, 1993; Yu, Prog Neurobiol 70, 363-386, 2003). During injury, K+ efflux and intracellular K+ loss critically contribute to the apoptotic volume decrease (Bortner et al., J Biol Chem 272, 32436-32442, 1997; Maeno et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 97, 9487-9492, 2000; Lang and Hoffmann, Compr Physiol 2, 2037-2061, 2012), a hallmark morphological feature of programmed cell death (Kerr et al., Br J Cancer 26, 239-257, 1972). In addition, reduced cytosolic K+ enables apoptosis by providing a permissive environment for activation of caspases and nucleases (Hughes et al., J Biol Chem 272, 30567-30576, 1997; Yu et al., Science 278, 114-117, 1997). Kv2.1, a voltage-dependent delayed-rectifier K+ channel normally involved in the regulation of high-frequency repetitive firing (Pongs, FEBS Lett 452, 31-35, 1999; Du et al., J Physiol 522, 19-31, 2000; Guan et al., J Physiol 591, 4807-4825, 2013), acts as the primary conduit for K+ efflux during apoptotic cell death in neocortical and hippocampal neurons (Pal et al., J Neurosci 23, 4798-4802, 2003; Shen et al., J Neurosci Res 87, 3153-3160, 2009). This process occurs via a syntaxin-dependent exocytotic incorporation of new Kv2.1-encoded channels into the plasma membrane of dying neurons, measurable as a large enhancement of voltage-dependent K+ currents (McLaughlin et al., J Neurosci 21, 3303-3311, 2001; Pal et al., J Neurosci 23, 2003; Pal et al., Cell Death Differ 13, 661-667, 2006). Inhibiting any of the upstream signaling events leading to the insertion of Kv2.1, or blocking Kv2.1 channel function itself, is neuroprotective (Yu et al., Science 278, 114-117, 1997; McLaughlin et al., J Neurosci 21, 3303-3311, 2001; Pal et al., J Neurosci 23, 4798-4802, 2003; Aras and Aizenman, Antioxid Redox Signal 15, 2249-63, 2011).

Kv2.1 channel-derived peptides and methods of use

University of Pittsburgh—Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education


An expandable stent comprised of a plurality of helical segments is disclosed. In one embodiment, the stent is generally cylindrical in shape having a cylindrical axis, and comprises a first and second set of helical segments. The helical segments in the first set are substantially parallel and have a first pitch forming a first helical angle with respect to the cylindrical axis. The helical segments in the second set are also generally parallel to each other and form a second pitch that differs from the first pitch, thereby forming a second helical angle with respect to the cylindrical axis. In an alternative embodiment, the stent comprises one set of helical segments and a plurality of circumferential elements that are joined together by the helical segments to form a plurality of cylindrical elements which are joined together to form a stent body. The stent may also have endzones.

Stents are prosthetic devices that are implanted in the lumen of a vessel inside the body to provide support for the vessel's wall. Structural support from stents is particularly important in angioplasty procedures. Typically, stents are implanted within a vessel system to reinforce vessels that are partially occluded, collapsing, weakened, or abnormally dilated. More generally, stents can be used inside any physiological conduit or duct including, for example, arteries, veins, bile ducts, the urinary tract, alimentary tracts, the tracheobronchial tree, a cerebral aqueduct or the genitourinary system. Stents may be used in both humans and animals.
There are typically two types of stents: self expanding stents and balloon expandable stents. Self expanding stents automatically expand once they are released and assume a deployed, expanded state. A balloon expandable stent is expanded using an inflatable balloon catheter. The balloon is inflated to plastically deform the stent. Balloon expandable stents may be implanted by mounting the stent in an unexpanded or crimped state on a balloon segment of a catheter. The catheter, after having the crimped stent placed thereon, is inserted through a puncture in a vessel wall and moved through the vessel until it is positioned in the portion of the vessel that is in need of repair. The stent is then expanded by inflating the balloon catheter against the inside wall of the vessel. Specifically, the stent is plastically deformed by inflating the balloon so that the diameter of the stent is increased and remains at an increased state. In some situations, the vessel in which the stent is implanted may be dilated by the stent itself when the stent is expanded.
The Palmaz-Schatz™ stent, which is disclosed in the Handbook of Coronary Stents by Patrick W. Serruys et al. (Martin Dunitz, LTD 1998), is an example of a balloon expandable stent that had been implanted in hundreds of thousands of patients. The Palmaz-Schatz™ stent, like other known stents, has certain limitations. These include, but are not limited to: (i) low stent-to-vessel ratio uniformity, (ii) comparative rigidity of the stent in a crimped as well as deployed state, and (iii) limited flexibility making delivery and placement in narrow vessels difficult. Stent-to-vessel ratio generally refers to the degree that the vessel wall is supported by the stent in its expanded state and preferably should be uniform throughout the length of the stent. Furthermore because the Palmaz-Schatz™ stent consists of one or more bridges that connect a number of consecutively slotted tubes, there are a number of bare areas in the vessel after the expansion of the stent. These shortfalls are common to many stents. Id. at 36.


A control unit, a pump for supplying infusion water, a boiler for heating the infusion water, an infusion unit, a coffee mill, and a user interface including a selector for a beverage and/or a ground coffee dose. The coffee mill has a hopper for coffee beans, a rotating and a non-rotating grinder, a motor for directly or indirectly driving the rotating grinder, all with capability to adjust the distance between the grinders. A first sensor detects a number of turns and/or speed of the motor and/or of the rotating grinder. A second sensor detects a distance between the grinders. The control unit stores an algorithm for calculating a correct dose of ground coffee, configured to receive the value of ground coffee selected and the distance between the grinders to automatically generate the number of motor turns necessary to obtain the correct dose of ground coffee.

As is well known, the definition of the correct dose of ground coffee at a given particle size with which brewing takes place lies at the basis of a brew that may correctly correspond to the selection made on each occasion by the user.
The particle final size of the ground coffee powder is one of the most important variables in determining the final result.
The final particle size of the coffee power strongly influences the hydraulic conditions of percolation by determining the pressure drop of the percolation water and consequently the flow rate delivered by the pump and the thermal behaviour of the boiler.
A finer grind leads to a greater extraction of the substances contained in the coffee, producing a stronger and more full-bodied beverage with the production of abundant crema, whereas a coarser grind is more suitable for preparing a less extracted coffee with less crema.
The selection of the particle size is generally defined by the user by manually setting a ring nut for adjusting the gap between the grinders.
The definition of the correct dose of ground coffee at a given particle size in accordance with the user's taste is made difficult by the variability of many parameters depending, on the one hand, on the type of coffee used, in particular the batch, brand, roast, and its moisture content, and, on the other hand, on the coffee mill, in particular the grinding system, mechanical adjustment at the end of the breaking-in period, the wear on the grinders, and the amount of coffee introduced.
Today in general the control unit of a coffee machine, upon acquiring the beverage to be dispensed and possibly the flavour selected by the user and/or the distancing of the grinders, defines the grinding time in such a way as to produce a dose of ground coffee that is sometimes imprecise, with the consequence that the flavour of the product in the cup does not always correspond to the one selected by the user.

Coffee machine provided with a coffee mill and process to control the coffee mill of the coffee machine


A non volatile memory apparatus including a control circuit, plural terminals having clock, command and other terminals, plural nonvolatile memory cells, and first and second volatile memories. The clock and command terminals respectively receive a first clock signal and commands including read and program commands. In response to the read command, the control circuit controls reading data from the memory cells, stores read data to the second volatile memory, transfers data to first volatile memory, and outputs data via the other terminal except the command terminal in response to the first clock signal. In response to the program command, the control circuit controls receiving data via the other terminal except the command terminal in response to the first clock signal, stores received data to the first volatile memory, transfers data to the second volatile memory, and writes data to the memory cells.

The present invention relates to a technique which is especially effective when applied to a multi-value data storing system in a semiconductor memory device and a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device, for example, to a technique which is effective when applied to a nonvolatile memory device (hereinafter referred to as the xe2x80x9cflash memoryxe2x80x9d) for batch-erasing a plurality of memory data electrically.
A flash memory uses nonvolatile memory elements each having a control gate and a floating gate similar to FAMOSS, as its memory cells, and each memory cell can be constructed of one transistor. In such a flash memory, for a programming operation, the drain voltage of the nonvolatile memory element is set to about 5 V, as shown in FIG. 12, and the word line connected to the control gate is set to about xe2x88x9210 V, so that the charge on the floating gate is drawn therefrom by tunnel current to set the threshold voltage to a low value (logic xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d).
For the erasing operation, as shown in FIG. 13, the P-type semiconductor region pwell is set to about xe2x88x925 V, and the word line is set to about 10 V, so that tunnel current is caused to flow to inject negative charges into the floating gate, thereby to set the threshold value to a high state (logic xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d). Thus, one memory cell is able to store the data of one bit.
Incidentally, there has been the concept of a so-called xe2x80x9cmulti-valuexe2x80x9d has been proposed in which data of two or more bits are stored in one memory cell so as to increase the storage capacity. An invention relating to such a multi-value memory is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 121696/1984.
In a flash memory of the prior art, it is known that the variation of the threshold value is increased due to both a weak program (the disturb) or the like caused by the programming reading and erasing operations of an adjacent bit and natural leakage (the retention), and consequently, the half-value width (the width of the peak of the bell-shaped variation distribution at the position of a half peak value, as shown in FIG. 3) of the variation distribution of the threshold value corresponding to logic xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d and increases with the lapse of time. The inventors have found that, with the lower level of the power supply voltage of future LSIS, the threshold voltage of the memory cells may exceed the marginal range for the read voltage by the broadening of the variation distribution with time, thereby to cause a malfunction.
This problem is especially serious in a multi-value memory for storing one memory element with data of a plurality of bits by the difference between the threshold values, because this difference is small for the individual data. In a flash memory, moreover, there is a technical problem for minimizing the processing time and the circuit scale intrinsic to the multi-value memory, because of the erasing and program verifying operations intrinsic to the nonvolatile memory device.
An object of the present invention is to provide a multi-value type nonvolatile memory device which can realize programming, reading and erasing operations of high accuracy performed in a short time while minimizing the increase in the circuit scale.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of sharpening the shape of the variation distribution of the threshold values, and accordingly, to a nonvolatile memory device capable of stably operating at a low voltage.
Representatives features of the invention to be disclosed herein will be briefly summarized in the following.
(1) At the data programming time, data of a plurality of bits are transformed by a data transforming logic circuit into data (multi-value data) according to the combination of the bits, and the transformed data are sequentially transferred to a latch circuit connected to the bit lines of a memory array. A program pulse is generated according to the data latched in the latch circuit and is applied to a memory element in a selected state, so that it is brought into a state in which it has a threshold value corresponding to the multi-value data. In the data reading operation, the states of the memory elements are read out by changing the read voltage to intermediate values of the individual threshold values and are transferred to and latched in a register for storing the multi-value data, so that the original data may be restored by an inverse data transforming logic circuit on the basis of the multi-value data stored in the register.
(2) After a weak erasing operation of the memory elements in the memory array has been executed, the memory element, which has a threshold value lower than the read level of the word line and higher than the verify level, is detected, and the program is executed such that the threshold value of the memory element may be lower than the verify voltage thereby to narrow the width of the variation distribution shape of the threshold voltage of the memory element which is programmed correspondingly to the individual input data.
According to the aforementioned feature (1), the peripheral circuit scale of the memory array can be suppressed to a relatively small size. In the programming operation, the verify voltage value of the word line is sequentially changed (as will be seen in (1) to (4) of FIG. 3) by a predetermined value in a direction away from the near side of the erasing word line voltage, so that the total number of the program pulses, i.e., the program time, can be made shorter than that of the multi-value flash memory system, in which the verify voltage is set at random, thereby to realize a programming operation performed in a short time.
According to the aforementioned feature (2), on the other hand, the shape of the variation distribution of the threshold voltage of the memory elements, which has been widened due to disturb or retention influences, can be returned to a steep shape substantially identical to that just after the end of the programming operation.

Clock synchronized non-volatile memory device


An optical element is provided with: first polarization-separation layer (13) that is laminated on first surface (12b) of light guide body (12) and that, of the light incident from light guide body (12), transmits X-polarized light and reflects Y-polarized light that is orthogonal to the X-polarized light; polarization hologram layer (14) that is laminated on first polarization-separation layer (13) and that diffracts to a prescribed diffraction angle the X-polarized light that is incident within a prescribed range of angles of incidence and converts the X-polarized light to Y-polarized light; second polarization-separation layer (15) that is laminated on polarization hologram layer (14) and that, of the light incident from polarization hologram layer (14) transmits Y-polarized light and reflects X-polarized light; reflection layer (18) provided on second surface (12c) side of light guide body (12); and phase difference layer (17) that is provided between first surface (12b) of light guide body (12) and reflection layer (18) and that imparts a phase difference before and after transmission to mutually orthogonal polarization components of the incident light.

A LED projector has been proposed that has a light source device that employs a light-emitting diode (LED) as a light source. Compared to a discharge lamp, an LED, which is a solid-state light source, has the advantages of being mercury-free, capable of quick-start/quick-off lighting operation, and highly durable. An LED projector of this type of the prior art is made up of a light source device, illumination optics into which light from the light source device is irradiated, a light valve having a liquid crystal display panel into which light from the illumination optics is irradiated, and projection optics for projecting light from the light valve onto a projection surface.
In order to increase the luminance of a projected image in this type of LED projector, it is desirable that all possible measures be taken to limit optical loss in the optical path from the light source device to the projection surface.
The two chief causes of optical loss that can be considered are as described below.
The first cause is polarization loss that arises from polarization dependence of a liquid crystal display panel or dichroic prism.
The second cause is the occurrence of light that diverges and does not enter each optical element arranged on the optical path, i.e., optical loss resulting from eclipse in each optical element. This occurs because light from a light source device cannot be used as projection light unless the product of the angle of radiation (solid angle) of emitted light from optical elements belonging to the light source device and the light emission area (etendue) is made lower than the value of the product of the area of the display element and the acceptance angle (solid angle) that is determined by the f-number of the projection lens.
As one countermeasure for solving the above-described problems relating to optical loss, the use of an optical element made up of a hologram and a light guide body has been proposed with the object of generating light that is irradiated into a liquid crystal display element.
As one example of an optical element that uses a hologram and a light guide body, Patent Document 1 discloses optical element 101 that is provided with: light guide body 103 into which light from light source LED 102 is irradiated; hologram 104 that diffracts light from this light guide body 103; polarization-conversion layer 105 that imparts a predetermined phase difference to mutually orthogonal polarization components of light that is transmitted through; and polarization-separation layer 106 that emits only linearly polarized light having a polarization component of a specific direction from this polarization-conversion layer 105, as shown in FIG. 1.
As another example of an optical element that uses a hologram and a light guide body, Patent Document 2 discloses optical element 111 that is provided with: light guide body 113 into which light from cold-cathode tube 112 as the light source is irradiated; hologram 114 that diffracts only linearly polarized light having a polarization component of a specific direction from this light guide body 113; quarter-wave plate 115 into which light that was diffracted by this hologram 114 is irradiated; and reflection plate 116 that reflects light that has been transmitted through this quarter-wave plate 115, as shown in FIG. 2. In addition, in this optical element 111, diffuser plate 117 into which polarized light that has been diffracted by hologram 114 is irradiated, polarization plate 118, liquid crystal cell 119, and polarization plate 120 are each arranged along the optical path. In this optical element 111, reflection plate 121 that reflects light from cold-cathode tube 112 is provided, and light from cold-cathode tube 112 is converted to parallel light by reflection plate 121 and irradiated into light guide body 113.

Optical element, light source device, and projection-type display device


A drive system between a master cylinder, a form roller and a distributor roller in a moisture system of a printing, duplicating or like machine. The surface of the master cylinder has a longitudinal gap within which master clamping hardware are disposed. The drive system includes a first gear train, including a lost motion mechanism, between the master cylinder and the form roller for rotating the form roller only during an interval of a revolution of the master cylinder when the surface of the form roller is juxtaposed in the gap of the master cylinder. A second gear train independent of the first gear train is disposed between the form roller and the distributor roller for rotating the distributor roller continuously at the same surface speed as the form roller.

Printing machines, such as rotary offset lithographic duplicating machines, rotary printing presses, or the like, normally include a printing couple which comprises a number of cylinders and/or rollers such as impression cylinders, master cylinders, blanket cylinders, form rollers, ductor rollers, transfer rollers, distributor rollers, regulator rollers, oscillating rollers, and the like. An ink fountain is disposed generally at the rear of the machine for feeding ink to the various rollers of the printing couple which transfers images to copy sheets. In such printing machines as rotary offset lithographic duplicating machines, a moisture fountain also is disposed adjacent the printing couple for feeding moisture to the printing couple.
A typical moisture feeding system includes a moisture fountain with a fountain roller for picking up moisture from the fountain. The moisture is fed to a master cylinder from the fountain roller to a ductor roller, from the ductor roller to a distributor roller, from the distributor roller to a form roller, and, finally, from the form roller to the master cylinder. The moisture transfer is accomplished through surface contact between the peripheral surfaces of the respective rollers. The ductor roller reciprocates bodily in an arc between the fountain roller and the distributor roller and, therefore, intermittently rotates and consequently is not directly affected by down-line rotation of the master cylinder. On the other hand, the distributor roller is in continuous surface contact with the form roller which, in turn, is in surface contact with the master cylinder. The master cylinder actually drivingly rotates the form roller through surface contact.
A continuing problem with moisture systems of the character described is to maintain, as close as possible, equal surface speed between the master cylinder and the form roller and between the form roller and the distributor roller. Any slippage, particularly abrupt slippage, results in what is termed in the art "skid marks" in the moisture and/or ink film which is transferred to the copy sheets and which results in poor copy quality.
This problem is magnified when considering that a typical master cylinder does not have a cylindrical surface, a full 360.degree. about the periphery of the cylinder. A "gap", which actually is a recessed area of the cylindrical surface, is provided for mounting various hardware for holding or clamping the master onto the peripheral surface of the master cylinder. When this gap rotates into juxtaposition with the form roller, there no longer is any surface contact between the master cylinder and the form roller and, consequently, the surface of the cylinder does not rotatably drive the form roller during this rotational increment. Consequently, it has become conventional to provide gears between the master cylinder and the form roller, the gears having lost motion means built into them. In other words, when the gap in the master cylinder becomes rotatingly juxtaposed with the form roller, the gears take over to rotate the form roller during an increment of rotation equal to the arc of the gap and, when the cylindrical surface of the master cylinder again engages the form roller, the lost motion means in the gears allows the master cylinder to surface drive the form roller until the gap again becomes juxtaposed with the form roller.
Because the above-described gear train between the master cylinder and the form roller is only intermittently effective, the gear train cannot be used to rotate the distributor roller. Therefore, in order to control the rotation of the distributor roller, electronic sensors have been used to monitor the speed of rotation of the distributor roller. Such sensor monitoring systems must be continuously maintained and calibrated and repeatedly have timing problems. Such systems often provide too tight of a control and often result in intermittent variances in surface speed between the distributor roller and the form roller.
This invention is directed to solving the above problems by a very simple drive system between the distributor roller and the form roller which is totally independent of the lost motion drive system between the form roller and the master cylinder and which obviates all of the maintenance, monitoring and timing problems of conventional systems described above.

Distribution roller drive system for printing or duplicating machines


An apparatus for implementing a game having a deterministic component and a non-deterministic component wherein a player uses the game through at least one player interface unit. Each player interface unit generates a player record indicating player-initiated events. A random number generator provides a series of pseudo-random numbers and a rules library stores indexed rules for one or more games. An interface registry stores mapping records where the mapping records are used to associate the player-initiated events to pre-selected rules in the rules library. A control means is coupled to the player interface to receive the output of the player interface unit, coupled to the interface registry, the rules library, and the random number generator. The control means processes the player record and returns an output record to the player interface unit where the output record is determined by executing the game's rules with reference to the pseudo-random numbers and predefined combinatorial algorithms for selecting sets of the pseudo-random numbers.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to gaming machines, and, more particularly, to an electronic gaming engine supporting multiple games and multiple users.
2. Statement of the Problem
Casino gaming has grown rapidly in the United States. Casino gaming is experiencing similar growth throughout the world. An important segment of this developing industry is electronic games. An electronic implementation of a game requires a method for interpreting human actions as they occur within the constraints of the rules as well as the ability to respond with chance events.
Microprocessors allow games that formerly relied on analog devices for generating chance events, such as dice, to be simulated digitally. Simulating a die roll with a computer would seem to be a contradiction because the microprocessor is the embodiment of logic and determinism. With care, however, it is possible to create deterministic algorithms that produce unpredictable, statistically random numbers.
Contemporary games consist of a framework of rules that define the options for how a user or random event generator may change the game state. Play begins with an initial state. Subsequent play consists of user initiated events that trigger the execution of one or more rules. A rule may proceed deterministically or non-deterministically.
Typical games consist of deterministic and non-deterministic rules. A game progresses by the interaction of these rules. There are two sources for non-determinism player decisions and chance events. In the game of Poker, for example, deciding to replace three instead of two cards in a hand is a player decision that is limited, but not predetermined, by rules. The rules limit the range of options the player has, but within that set of options the player is free to choose. An example of a chance event is the random set of cards received by the poker player. Shuffled cards do not produce a predictable hand.
Other examples that illustrate determinism and non-determinism in gaming are popular casino pastimes such as Blackjack, Keno, and Slot machines. The first Blackjack hand a player receives is two cards from a shuffled deck. The number of cards dealt is two, but the cards could be any from the deck. Keno is essentially a lottery. In Keno, a player attempts to guess twenty balls chosen from a basket of eighty balls. The rules dictate that to participate, a player must fill out a Keno ticket indicating the balls he believes will be chosen in the next round. the selection of balls, however, is a purely random event. Slot machines require the player to pull a handle for each round. Slot wheels stop at random positions.
The non-deterministic problem in most parlor games is random sampling without replacement: given a set of n elements, randomly choose m of them without replacement where m is less than or equal to n. Although sampling without replacement covers most popular games, it would be easy to conceive of games that required replacement. For example, consider a variant of Keno that replaces each chosen ball before selecting the next ball. Until now, no device is available that services the needs of multiple games by providing algorithms for sampling with and without replacement as well as others such as random permutation generation, sorting, and searching.
A casino player must know the likelihood of winning a jackpot is commensurate with the stated theoretical probabilities of the game. Moreover, the casino would like to payout as little as possible while maximizing the number of their game participants. Because each game sponsored by a casino has a built-in theoretical edge for the house, over time and with repeated play, the house will make money. In other words, the casino does not need to cheat the customer because it has a built-in edge. The customer, who is at a disadvantage in the long run, will want to know the game is fair in order to manage risk. In is a theoretical fact that bold wagering in Roulette increases a players odds of winning. A player who cannot know the odds of winning cannot formulate a strategy.
Provided that the deterministic rules of a game are implemented correctly, it is essential that the chance events of a game are indeed random. an important subproblem for generating random events is uniform random number generation. If the underlying uniform random number generator does not generate statistically independent and uniform pseudo-random numbers, then either the house or customer will be at a disadvantage. A poorly designed system might favor the house initially and over time turn to favor the player. Certainly the house would not want this situation because it makes revenue projection impossible. Any regulatory body would like to ensure that neither the house nor customer have an advantage beyond the stated theoretical probabilities of the game. In the context of fairly implemented rules, the only way for the house to increase its revenue is to increase the number of players participating in their games.
Typically, an engineer creating an electronic game generates a flow chart representing the rules and uses a random number generator in conjunction with combinatorial algorithms for generating chance events. Representing rules is one problem. Generating chance events to support those rules is another. Creating pseudo-random numbers is a subtle problem that requires mathematical skills distinct from other problems of gaming. In other words, a skilled game programmer may be unable to solve the problems of developing a proper random number generator. Even if given a quality random number generator, problems can occur in hardware implementations that render the generator predictable. One example is using the same seed, or initial state, for the generator at regular intervals and repeatedly generating a limited batch of numbers. Without attending to the theoretical aspects of a uniform random number generator, it is not possible to implement the rules of a game perfectly. The result is a game unfair to the house, players, or both. Hence, there is a need for a gaming system, apparatus, and method that separate the problem of implementing game rules from that of random event generation.
The need for such a device is also evident at the regulatory level. Gaming is a heavily regulated industry. States, tribes, and the federal government have gaming regulatory agencies at various levels to ensure fairness of the games. The gaming regulatory authority certifies that a particular implementations of a game reflects the underlying probabilities. Because electronic games are implemented in often difficult to understand software, the problem of verifying fairness of a game is challenging. Further, there is little uniformity in the implementation of fundamental components of various games. To determine fairness, the gaming authority subjects each game to a battery of tests. No set of statistical tests performed on a limited portion of the random number generator period can ensure that the generator will continue to perform fairly in the field. The process of testing is both expensive and of limited accuracy. Hence, a regulatory need exists for a uniform, standardized method of implementing games that reduce the need and extent of individual game testing while increasing he reliability of detecting and certifying game fairness.
3. Solution to the Problem
The Universal Gaming Engine (UGE) in accordance with the present invention is a gaming apparatus providing a consistent game development platform satisfying the needs of the gaming authority, house, player, and game developer. The UGE separates the problems of developing game rules from the difficulty of producing chance events to support those rules. Functions that are common to a number of games are included in the gaming engine so that they need not be implemented separately for each game. By including basic functions shared by a number of games, hardware costs are greatly reduced as new games can be implemented merely by providing a new set of rules in the rules library and the basic hardware operating the game remains unchanged.


A timing analysis mechanism allows defining a clock alias that correlates a clock that is not present in an integrated circuit design to a real clock in the integrated circuit design. In a first implementation, when an existing user assertion references a clock alias, the timing analysis mechanism generates a new user assertion that references the real clock specified in the clock alias. The new user assertion is then used in the timing analysis and the existing user assertion is not. In a second implementation, when an existing user assertion references a clock alias, the timing analysis mechanism generates a duplicate clock in the timing database, preserving all its attributes, and then passes the assertion using the alias name as well as any assertions using the corresponding real clock name to the timing engine to be used in the timing analysis.

1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to integrated circuits, and more specifically relates to timing analysis of integrated circuit designs.
2. Background Art
The proliferation of modern electronics is due in large part to the development of the integrated circuit. Integrated circuits allow many different circuit elements to be implemented on a single chip. As technology advances, the number of circuit elements on a chip of a given size increases, enhancing the performance and reducing the cost of integrated circuits.
The design of integrated circuits is typically performed in three stages. The first stage is logic design, wherein the desired operation of the integrated circuit is defined. The second stage is logic synthesis, wherein the desired operation is translated into the required circuit elements for a given technology. The third stage is physical design, which assigns the placement of these elements and routing which creates the wire interconnect of these elements on the integrated circuit. Placement defines the location of the circuit elements on the integrated circuit. Routing defines interconnections between circuit elements.
At the logic synthesis stage, a static timing tool is typically used to perform a static timing analysis. Static timing analysis generally takes into account best-case and worst-case delays of various circuit elements, thereby generating a list of problems that need to be corrected. One common static timing tool developed by IBM is known as EinsTimer. EinsTimer is a sophisticated timing tool that performs static timing analysis on an integrated circuit design to identify potential timing problems with the design. EinsTimer includes sophisticated methods for performing the static timing analysis.
Static timing analysis tools typically operate based on technology rules and user assertions. For a sample design of a circuit, the circuit will have some delay as defined by the technology rules. User assertions define the performance target for the design. Known static timing analysis tools bind user assertions to a "clock" or "phase." For example, the input of a design may expect a signal to arrive at time 100 if it is launched by clock A, but time 200 if launched by clock B. These different user assertions are applied at the same point and are differentiated by their clock. Known static timing analysis tools require clocks to be defined according to an arbitrary name. This can cause problems when two parts of the same design expect the same clock, but under different names. This can happen when a designer imports a logic block provided by a third party into a design. The design may have a clock named CLKA, but the third party logic block may have existing user assertions written in terms of a clock named CLKB. There are two solutions to this problem. The first is to rewrite the existing user assertions for the third party logic block to refer to CLKA instead of CLKB. This is not a viable solution because of the time required to rewrite all of the existing user assertions. In addition, if the third party supplier provides an updated set of user assertions, the effort to rewrite the user assertions will have to be repeated to take advantage of the updated user assertions. A second solution is for a designer to manually create a clock in the design named CLKB that mimics the characteristics of CLKA. However, it is common to have many hundreds of clocks in a design, which puts a significant burden on a designer to manually create many duplicate clocks that mimic the behavior of many other clocks. In addition, the process for manually defining duplicate clocks that mimic other real clocks is time-consuming and prone to user errors.

Clock alias for timing analysis of an integrated circuit design

International Business Machines Corporation


Methods and systems that can detect GNSS spoofing attacks and that do not require explicit or implicit knowledge of exact position or attitude and that provide hypothesis test statistics, threshold values, and probabilities of false alarm and missed detection.

The U.S. government has been aware of the vulnerability of unencrypted civilian GNSS signals to spoofing at least since the Department of Transportation released its Volpe report in 2001. A spoofer intentionally broadcasts signals that look like true signals to User Equipment receivers (UE). These false signals can fool a receiver into an incorrect determination of its position, receiver clock time, or both.
Spoofing of civilian GNSS signals is straightforward because their full characteristics are publicly available. It is relatively easy to synthesize false signals with the same characteristics. Encrypted military signals, such as the GPS P(Y) and M codes, are much harder to spoof. One must break their encryptions or use a meaconing-type attack, an attack which involves reception and rebroadcast of actual encrypted signals.
Spoofing of OPS receivers has been in the news recently. In December 2011, Iran captured a highly classified stealth drone that belonged to the U.S. government. An Iranian engineer claimed that they spoofed the drone's GPS in a way which fooled it into thinking that it was landing at its home base in Afghanistan. In reality, it was descending into the hands of waiting Iranian military personnel. It remains unclear how much of the Iranian claims are true, but their claims are not outlandish and have to be taken seriously.
In June 2012, a group led by Todd Humphreys of UT Austin spoofed a small helicopter Uninhabited Air Vehicle (UAV) using live, on-air spoofing signals as part of a specially authorized test at White Sands Missile Range, N. Mex. The UT Austin team caused the UAV to execute unintended maneuvers by spoofing its GPS-derived position and velocity. One of the untended maneuvers involved a near landing when the UAV had been commanded to hover about 20 m above the ground.
Existing anti-spoofing technology known as Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) will not suffice to detect sophisticated spoofing attacks. Therefore, a number of recent and on-going efforts have sought to develop advanced spoofing detection methods that can alert a user to a sophisticated attack. These methods include advanced RAIM algorithms that operate at the correlator/discriminator/tracking-loop level, algorithms that cross-correlate the unknown encrypted parts of a signal between a potential victim receiver and a secure receiver, Navigation Message Authentication (NMA) that relies on proposed insertions of encrypted authentication elements within the low-bandwidth navigation message, multiple-antenna techniques, and moving-antenna techniques
Other references have described multiple-antenna techniques that do not perform spoofing detection. Rather, this class of techniques is used to mitigate spoofing by attenuating it without the need to formally detect it.
Each of the newer techniques has strengths and weaknesses. Advanced RAIM methods require only modest changes to receiver software and hardware, but they may only be able to detect spoofing at the onset of an attack. If an advanced RAIM algorithm misses the attack during this short window, then it may go undetected. The cross-correlation techniques can detect spoofing rapidly at any time during an attack, perhaps in as little as 0.2 seconds, but they rely on a high bandwidth communications link between the defended receiver and a secure receiver. NMA introduces encryption-level security into the civilian GNSS community, but it requires changes to GNSS message structures that are difficult to bring about. It may require additional signal processing in order ensure against estimation-and-replay by the spoofer of the NMA message components. NMA techniques may be slow, requiring 10 seconds or more in order to detect an attack. A UAV may already be in the hands of an enemy by the time such a method discovered the attack. Multiple-antenna methods can be made reliable and fast if implemented well, but they require a significant amount of additional hardware and signal processing. The multi-receiver cross-correlation technique and the NMA technique share an additional drawback: they offer no protection against a meaconing-type receive-and-replay attack. Even an encrypted military signal is vulnerable to a meaconing attack.
The moving antenna technique can be implemented using simple hardware and algorithms, but the method of conventional teachings requires long observation intervals, and it does not develop a clearly defined hypothesis test. Furthermore, its reliance on signal amplitude variations as an indication of spoofing may prove unreliable. A spoofer could easily create time-dependent amplitude variations between its false signals, and this particular moving-antenna detection method might interpret these variations as indicating a non-spoofed situation.
There is a need for methods and systems that do not require explicit or implicit knowledge of exact position or attitude. There is a need for methods and systems that can detect spoofing attacks in a stand-alone mode, without the need for aiding data from some external source or for the implementation of a new GPS navigation data message. There is a need for methods and systems to provide clear spoofing detection hypothesis test statistics, threshold values, and probabilities of false alarm and missed detection.

Methods and apparatus for detecting spoofing of global navigation satellite system signals using carrier phase measurements and known antenna motions


A coating apparatus includes a die coater that supplies a coating liquid to a web. The die coater includes a die main body, a manifold, a slot, a lip face, a mount, a decompression chamber, and a container. The container includes a guide plate guiding the coating liquid or a solvent ejected from the slot of the die coater without bringing the coating liquid or solvent into contact with the mount and the decompression chamber in a non-steady state, in which the coating liquid is not supplied from the die coater to the web. The container collects the coating liquid or the solvent guided by the guide plate. The coating apparatus also includes a liquid discharge tube that is connected to the container and discharges the coating liquid or solvent to an outside of the decompression chamber.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coating apparatus and a coated film manufacturing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the manufacturing of a coated film, for example, an optical film, a coating liquid is supplied to a continuously traveling web by a die coater. Generally, in a steady state, i.e., in a state in which the die coater and the web are brought into close contact with each other, coating is performed while forming a bead between a tip of the die coater and the web. An upstream side of the web is decompressed by a decompression chamber so as to continuously stabilize the bead.
In the coating using the die coater, so as to avoid trapping of air bubbles into a manifold of the die coater, a solvent is made to flow from the die coater in a non-steady state, i.e., in a state in which the die coater is detached from the web, that is, prior to the supply of the coating liquid from the die coater to the web. Then, switching from the solvent to the coating liquid is performed immediately before the steady state, i.e., the state in which the die coater and the web are brought into close contact with each other (JP2007-283260A).
During the coating by the die coater, when a joint portion at which the webs are jointed approaches the die coater, the die coater enters the non-steady state in which the die coater is retreated from the web, while ejecting the coating liquid. When the joint portion passes the die coater, the die coater returns the steady state in which the die coater approaches the web (JP2004-141806A).

Coating apparatus and coating film manufacturing method


Substituted 1-propiolylpiperazine compounds corresponding to formula I

The present invention relates to substituted 1-propiolylpiperazines, to processes the preparation thereof, to medicinal drugs comprising said compounds, and to the use of said compounds in the preparation of medicinal drugs.
Pain is one of the basic symptoms found in the clinical field. There is a worldwide need effective pain therapies. The urgent need attaining patient-friendly, target-orientated treatment of chronic and non-chronic states of pain, by which is to be understood the successful and satisfactory treatment of pain in the patient, is also documented by the large number of scientific papers which have recently been published in the field of applied analgesics and basic research on nociception.
Conventional opioids, such as, example, morphine, are active in the therapy of severe to very severe pain, but often lead to undesirable concomitant symptoms, such as, example, respiratory depression, vomiting, sedation, constipation or development of immunity. Furthermore, they are often not sufficiently effective on neuropathic pain, from which tumor patients suffer in particular.

Substituted 1-propiolylpiperazine compounds, their preparation and use

Abstract: in which X denotes N or C—R2, and n is an integer from 0 to 8, a method for producing such substituted 1-propiolylpiperazine compounds, pharmaceutical compositions containing such substituted 1-propiolylpiperazine compounds, and the use of such substituted 1-propiolylpiperazine compounds for modulating mGluR5 receptor activity or for treating or inhibiting pain and various other conditions, especially conditions at least partly mediated by the mGluR5 receptor.


In accordance with an embodiment, a method of operating an electronic system includes detecting an incoming transmission on a power line, and modifying a switching behavior of a switched-mode power supply coupled to the power line upon detecting the incoming transmission. Modifying reduces the level of interference produced by the switched-mode power supply.

Digital and analog data communications over conventional utility and premises electric power lines is an established method for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communications between devices. In such communications, a communication signal carrying data is superimposed on a 50 to 60 Hz alternating current (AC) power line using higher frequencies. A central computer may use such a power line communications system to control remote power applications, to monitor remote utility usage, or to support energy conservation. For example, the central computer may control the operation of heaters, air-conditioners, electric lighting and the like. The power line communications system may also be used to support high-speed broadband data to support Internet, multimedia and home entertainment systems, using a power line communication network such as IEEE 1901, IEEE P1901.2, HomePlug GP/AV/AV2/1.0, G.hn, G.hnem, and other similar technologies.
The throughput of a power line communication link, such as a link between two modems or network nodes, may be affected by environmental electrical interference and may suffer degradation when the level of interference is high. For example, when an appliance, such as a television or computer, is attached to the power line in the general proximity of the point where the modem is attached to the same power line, switching noise from the switched-mode power supply of the appliance may create disturbances on the power line that reduce the signal to noise ratio and the bandwidth available to the power line modem. In some cases, these disturbances may be exacerbated when there is high attenuation of data signals superimposed on the power line.

System and method for a power line modem


An oxygen indicator comprising. (a) at least one aliphatic organic compound having 3 or more carbon atoms and containing at least one primary amine group and at least one hydroxy group and optionally an organic or inorganic acid or the chemically bonded material of the organic compound and the acid, and PA1 (b) at least one dyestuff selected from the group consisting of thiazine dyestuffs, indigo dyestuffs and mixtures thereof is disclosed. The oxygen indicator of this invention can be used under anhydrous conditions and under presence of light.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an oxygen indicator indicating the presence or absence of oxygen in a gaseous atmosphere for maintaining foodstuffs, electronic parts, electrical products having electronic parts, metallic parts or products having metallic parts.
By the "oxygen indicator" in the specification and claims is meant an oxygen indicator composition, a tablet comprising an oxygen indicator composition and film or sheet on which an oxygen indicator composition is coated. The presence or substantial absence of oxygen in the gaseous atmosphere surrounding the indicator is indicated by reversible color change of the indicator.
2. Prior Art
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,169,811 and 4,349,509 disclose an oxygen indicator containing a reducing agent glucose. However, water or moisture is necessary for these indicators to exhibit the function of the Indicator. When these indicators are used under anhydrous conditions, the function of the indicator is not sufficiently exhibited.
Even when water is previously added to the oxygen indicator in order to avoid the Inconvenience, the moisture is absorbed in a desiccant or a dried foodstuff, whereby the function of the indicator is reduced. In addition, the water in the indicator moistens the dried foodstuffs to be maintained in good state.
Japanese Patent Publication (Kokai) Nos. 61-144568 and 62-12853 disclose an oxygen indicator comprising a thiazine dyestuff and an organic acid salt of ethanol amine as essential components in order to overcome the above mentioned shortcoming. However, when the oxygen indicator is exposed to light, there is possibility that the indicator will show the color indicating the absence of oxygen in spite of the presence of small amount of oxygen.
In other words, prior oxygen indicators do not sufficiently function in the absence of moisture or when exposed to light.


An antenna module for a RFID reader is provided, the antenna module being configured for operation with a plurality of transceivers of different impedance. The RFID reader includes an antenna and at least two terminals, with the antenna being connectable via at least a first of the terminals along at least two different contact points. A switch may also be provided for enabling switching between the at least two contact points. A RFID reader and a method for assembling a RFID reader are also provided. The antenna module and associated RFID reader are advantageously configured for use with a number of different transceivers.

So-called RFID transmission refers to contactless and automatic identification and localization of objects by radio waves in the near-field range. A transceiver equipped to send and receive data is thereby used. This transceiver can transmit data to a transponder using an antenna, whereby the radiated electromagnetic waves thereby supply the transponder with sufficient energy to send data back to the transceiver without requiring an additional energy source.
Adjusting the impedance between a transceiver and its antenna to ensure the most loss-free antenna-based transmission possible from the transceiver to the transponder and vice versa is known from the prior art.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,490,883 discloses a system having a RFID antenna configured to communicate with a RFID tag. This system further comprises an antenna tuner electrically coupled to the RFID antenna, which is thereby configured to adjust the inductance between the RFID antenna and the RFID tag.
It is desirable to further improve these conventional designs for antenna modules and RFID readers.


A scalable multicast protocol buffers the multicast messages at a subset of xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9d members, where C is selected to reduce to an acceptable level the probability that a given message will be lost before it reaches at least one of the C members. When a member receives a multicast message, the member determines whether or not it should buffer the message by manipulating a string of bytes that is unique to both the message and the member and determining if the result is less than a calculated value C/n, where xe2x80x9cnxe2x80x9d is the number of known members. When one of the C bufferers thereafter receives a gossip message that indicates that the multicast message has been lost to the gossiping member, the bufferer retransmits the message to the gossiping member. When a member that is not one of the C bufferers receives such a gossip message, the member determines which members are bufferers of the lost message and requests that one of the bufferers retransmit the message to the gossiping member. The selected member identifies the bufferers by manipulating the byte strings associated with the lost message and the respective members that are known to the selected member. The selected member then sends to one of the identified bufferers a request for retransmission of the lost message to the gossiping member. The multicast protocol may further include a mechanism to detect catastrophic failures in the multicast transmission. Each member includes the buffer discussed above and a relatively small, fixed-size xe2x80x9cshort-termxe2x80x9d buffer that holds a limited number of the received messages in the order in which the messages are received. A member monitors any holes or gaps in the sequences of incoming messages, and detects a catastrophic failure when a received gossip message identifies one of the same holes or gaps. When such a failure is detected, the member sends a request for multicast retransmission of the associated missing message to the sender, and the sender multicasts the message to the group from the short term buffer.

The invention relates generally to computer networks and, more particularly, to networks that support multicast messaging protocols.
Known reliable multicast protocols typically require that each participant, or member, of a group buffer a received multicast message, to allow for retransmission of the message. This ensures delivery of the multicast message to all members, even if the sender of the message ultimately fails. A given member retains a received multicast message until the message is xe2x80x9cstable,xe2x80x9d that is, until it becomes known that the message has been delivered to every member with at least a relatively high probability.
The multicast protocols operate in three phases. First, in an initial multicast phase, a sender multicasts the message over the group and attempts to provide the message to as many members as possible. Next, in a repair phase, the members detect message losses and request retransmission of the message from the sender or other members, as appropriate. Finally, in a garbage collection phase, the members release the buffer space assigned to the message once the message becomes stable. Most multicast protocols perform the repair and garbage collection phases using a combination of positive and/or negative acknowledgement messages.
Known epidemic multicast protocols use gossiping in the repair phase. Each member periodically selects another member at random and sends to that member a gossip message that includes a list of the messages that the gossiping member has retained in its buffer and/or has delivered. The selected member then determines if it has in its buffer any messages that are not on the list, that is, any messages that are lost to the gossiping member. If so, the selected member retransmits the lost messages to the gossiping member. Also, the selected member may request that the gossiping member retransmit any messages from the list that the selected member has not yet delivered, that is, any messages that are lost to the selected member. The members thus perform point-to-point repair.
The garbage collection phase of the epidemic multicast protocol is typically performed by having each member release the buffer space allocated to a given message a predetermined time after the member delivers the message. The predetermined time is based on a prediction of how long it takes to disseminate a lost message to the membership through gossiping. Accordingly, the predetermined time the message must be retained depends largely on the number of members in the group.
As the number of members in the group increases, the time to both accomplish and detect message stability increases. Further, depending on the application, the combined rate of sending may also increase as the size of the membership increases. Accordingly, each member must buffer more and more messages at any given time, which means that each member must maintain and operate larger and larger buffers. These multicast protocols thus do not scale well.
A scalable multicast protocol includes a mechanism that allows a given multicast message to be stored by a subset of the entire group membership. The buffered messages are spread over the membership, so that any given member buffers only a portion of the messages.
More specifically, a subset of xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9d members buffers a multicast message, where C is selected to reduce to an acceptable level the probability that a given message will be lost before it reaches at least one of the C members. When a member receives a multicast message, the member determines whether or not it should buffer the message by manipulating a string of bytes that is unique to both the message and the member. In the exemplary system, the byte string, which consists of a message identifier that is included in the message and the member""s address, is manipulated in accordance with a hash function. As discussed in more detail below, the member buffers the message if the result is less than C/n, where n is the number of known members. A member that buffers a message is hereinafter referred to as a xe2x80x9cbuffererxe2x80x9d of the message.
When one of the C bufferers receives a gossip message that indicates that the multicast message has been lost to the gossiping member, the bufferer retransmits the message to the gossiping member. When, however, a member that is not one of the C bufferers receives such a gossip message, the member determines which members are bufferers of the lost message and requests that one of the bufferers retransmit the message to the gossiping member.
The selected member identifies the bufferers by manipulating the message identifier associated with the lost message and the respective addresses of the members known to the selected member. The selected member then picks one of the identified bufferers at random, and sends to it a request for retransmission that identifies the message and specifies the gossiping member as the destination address. The bufferer that receives the request then retransmits the lost message to the gossiping member, assuming that the selected bufferer has not already released the buffer space allocated to the message. The members then continue to gossip and the lost message should, with very high probability, be supplied to all of the members by the bufferers through this process.
The system trades off reduced buffer space at each member against an increase in traffic due to the sending of requests for retransmission. In a system with a low probability of lost messages, there is a relatively small increase in the associated traffic, and a rather significant reduction in required buffer space at each member. Further, as the size of the membership increases, the size of the buffer decreases since the number of members that buffers a given message, C, is essentially fixed.
The multicast protocol may further include a mechanism to detect, in the initial phase of the multicast operation, xe2x80x9ccatastrophic failuresxe2x80x9d in which none or few of the members receive a multicast message. Each member includes the buffer discussed above and a relatively small, fixed-size xe2x80x9cshort-termxe2x80x9d buffer that holds a limited number of the received messages in the order in which the messages are received. A member monitors any holes or gaps in the sequences of incoming messages, and detects a catastrophic failure when a received gossip message identifies one of the same holes or gaps, as discussed in more detail below.
When such a failure is detected, the member sends a request for multicast retransmission of the associated missing message to the sender, and the sender again multicasts the message to the group. If a catastrophic failure has occurred, the multicast retransmission request is sent relatively soon after the initial transmission, and thus, the request for multicast retransmission can be handled from the sender""s short term buffer. If the initial multicast transmission did not involve a catastrophic failure, the point-to-point repair is handled in the manner discussed above.

Multicast protocol with reduced buffering requirements


To program a robot, without requiring action by specially qualified staff, electronic cards (called chip cards) are used. A handling workman stacks chip cards in an automatic distributor. These chip cards correspond to a set of tasks to be performed. The robot is designed to come and stand in queue before this distributor to receive the chip card which is located at the bottom of the stack and has the program of instructions which it has to carry out.

1. Field of the Invention
An object of the present invention is a system for controlling a robot. It concerns, more particularly, robots for which the control is of the electronic type. The use of robots of this type is becoming widespread, especially for the handling of articles stored in warehouses. The invention is essentially aimed at making it easier for personnel, in principle unskilled, to manage and use robots of this type.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are, for example, known handling robots which have the task of taking objects from a store, conveying them and putting them down at another place where they are designed to be taken up for distribution to a consignee or customer. There are two types of automated installations to control these robots. In a first type of installation, the warehouse is laid out so that electrical wires are embedded in the positions through which the robot passes. These wires are designed to supply power this robot as well as to control it. The drawback of installations of this type is that they are not flexible: they cannot be easily modified or complemented and, moreover, they are costly. For, they call for a major infrastructure in the warehouses. This infrastructure is far more demanding than the mere setting up of smooth surfaces on the ground of the warehouse to enable the robots to move about. In another, more flexible, type of installation, the robots are remote controlled by electromagnetic waves. While this latter type of installation is less costly, it has numerous disadvantages: essentially, the electromagnetic waves cannot be propagated efficiently in every industrial environment. It is not certain that the performance instructions to the robots will be transmitted.
Irrespective of the system for transmitting instructions to the robot, another problem appears. This problem relates to the qualifications of the workmen entrusted with managing the robots. With some of them, these qualifications are inadequate. In practice, these workmen are not capable of dictating the instructions to be carried out by the robots, even in a highly developed computer language. The result of this is that the workmen assigned to tasks of this type should be more qualified. This entails greater wage costs.
Furthermore, if there is an automatic installation designed to handle several robots, it becomes necessary to perfect the definition of a complicated system to manage all these robots. This definition takes a great deal of time. Of itself, it necessitates the centralization of the control of the robots and, to an even greater extent, it warrants the appointment of qualified workment to manage operations which are not very complicated in themselves and could normally be performed by handlers. The subsequent modification of this complicated system is itself a complicated process. Choosing a centralized management mode of this type ultimately implies the choice of a system whose development will always be hindered by its specific character.
An object of the invention is to cope with these drawbacks by proposing a robot controlling system with a universal character, wherein the robots come and get served by an automatic distributor. From this distributor, they take up electronic cards, called chip cards, having a memorized program of instructions to be carried out by this robot. Then, the handlers' task is simply, depending on the job commands to be carried out, to stack, in the distributor, those memory electronic cards corresponding to the chronology of these commands. To make their task easier, these memory cards, which are substantially flat, have a location on one their faces, designed to receive understandable indications. These indications may, if necessary, symbolically represent the program to be carried out. The recording of the programs in the chip cards simplifies the handlers' work. The reading of the instruction programs contained in these cards, by a card reader carried by the robot, then provides for the simple transmission of the instructions to be carried out. For its movements, the robot may then make use of markers placed in its path.

System for controlling a wandering robot


This invention relates to a surgical apparatus having four general embodiments: (1) the use of an ultrasonic vibrator and a radio frequency generator to simultaneously cut and cauterize tissue, (2) the use of an ultrasonic vibrator to cut tissue coupled with the independent use of a radio frequency generator to cut tissue, (3) the exclusive use of a radio frequency generator to cut and cauterize tissue, and (4) the use of a laser to fulgerate tissue. An aspiration system is preferably combined with these embodiments to facilitate surgery and biopsy.

The use of radio frequency current to cut and cauterize human tissue in surgical procedures was developed by W. T. Bovie and Harvey, Surg. Gyn. and Obs., 47:751-84 (1928). This technique is well known and commonly employed today in many different types of operations.
In endoscopic surgical procedures, an instrument is inserted through a narrow opening made in the body, or through an available natural orifice, such as the throat, rectum or urethra. This instrument contains an integrally illuminated telescope which is used to provide the surgeon with a view of the tissue under consideration. In addition to the telescope, endoscopic instruments usually have working channels to admit one of several different implements: grasping forceps, punches, and electric cutting loops. Of particular interest to this invention is the resectoscope commonly used in urology to remove the prostate and bladder tumors. This instrument is also used in gynecology to remove fibroids of the ureterus as well as to perform percutaneous hysterectomies.
The resectocope is enveloped by a sheath, which is first introduced into the body of the patient. The working implements are then passed through the sheath whose sole function is to act as a conduit of safe passage to the targeted tissue. The working implements are usually joined together into one appliance consisting of: (1) a channel for the telescope, (2) a channel for the electric wire loop and (3) a channel to permit the flow of fluid out of the patient. The space within the sheath not occupied by the appliance is used to provide a passageway for the flow of irrigating fluid into the patient at the surgical site.
Although provision has been made to permit egress of fluid, and thereby to regulate the pressure exerted by the irrigating fluid upon the patient's tissues, the outflow channel can not accommodate the passage of dissected tissue. In procedures in which the resectoscope is used, cut tissue is flushed from the site by the irrigation flow to adjacent open voids, such as the bladder, and later removed using a suction/irrigator, or by simply washing the dissected fragments out of the body using copious irrigation, through the original opening used or made to reach the tissue.
If tissue could be aspirated as it is dissected, several beneficial results would be obtained:
1. Enhanced visibility of the dissection site; PA0 2. A shortened operative time; and PA0 3. The ability to biopsy selected tissue sites. PA0 1. Electrical cutting can be used to dissect tissue found resistant to ultrasonic attack as, for example, connective tissue of low water content interlacing a tumor or benign growth whose entire removal is sought; PA0 2. Ultrasonic cutting can be employed on tissue near sensitive structures, such as the bladder neck and prostatic capsule, whose removal is never intended, that are resistant to the ultrasonic technique but easily dissected electro-surgically; PA0 3. The simultaneous application of ultrasonic vibration and coagulating current to dissect and seal bleeding tissue; and PA0 4. The use of a laser allows the tissue to be fulgerated: i.e., unwanted cells are destroyed while bleeding of adjacent tissue is stopped.