Compounds useful for attaching a fluorescein label to an oligonucleotide are disclosed. The compounds are fluorescein-linked phosphoramidites where the hydroxyl groups on the fluorescein moiety are protected by isobutyryl groups. An example of this class of compound is ##STR1##

DNA sequencing can now be performed automatically by machine. See generally, W. Ansorge et al., 13 J. Biochem. Biophys. Methods 315-323 (1986). The disclosures of this publication and the disclosures of all other publications recited herein are incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
One type of commercially available machine for automated sequencing is the A.L.F. DNA Sequencer, sold by Pharmacia LKB Biotechnology. This sequencer uses a primer, which is a small oligonucleotide of known sequence. The primer hybridizes to a section of a DNA molecule that is to be sequenced and thereby creates a short double-stranded region that enables DNA polymerase to replicate the single-stranded portion of the DNA. In accordance with the Sanger dideoxy sequencing method, four types of dideoxy terminators are separately added during synthesis to create different length fragments, and these fragments are then separated on a gel by length. The gel positions of the fragments provide sequence information.
This method of automated sequencing relies on the addition of labels to the primer so that after separation on the gel the position of the labels can automatically be read by the machine. Labelled primers include those with fluorescent, bioreactive, chemiluminescent, or photolabile labels.
Labels have usually been attached to an oligonucleotide in a multi-step procedure. The first step requires synthesis of an oligonucleotide bearing a protected amine by attaching a protected phosphoramidite/linker to the oligonucleotide. Then, the resulting compound is deprotected. After that, the compound is linked to a fluorescent label.
This procedure requires partial purification of the deprotected oligonucleotide, reaction with the label, removal of the excess reagent, and then purification of the labelled oligonucleotide. The overall process is tedious, and usually requires two days to produce a labelled oligonucleotide. Additionally, there are yield losses at each step in the multi-step process. Further, this work must normally be done by the user of the automated sequencer since the user usually wants to custom design an appropriate short nucleotide to prime a sequence of interest.
To avoid these problems, the art prepared label-linked phosphoramidites which could later be reacted with oligonucleotides. Amidites linked to a chemically inert bathophenanthroline-ruthenium complex, W. Bannwarth, et al., 30 Tet. Let. 1513-1516 (1989) have been prepared. Biotin-containing amidites have also been prepared. A. Alves, et al., 30 Tet. Let. 3089-3092 (1989). Also, amidites linked to dinitrophenyl, dansyl, and pyrenyl labels have been prepared. A. Roget et al., 17 Nuc. Acids Res. 7643-7651 (1989). European Patent Application 89116946.8 (Publication No. 359,255) discloses a xanthene dye-linked amidite.
However, fluoresceins are highly preferred labels. They have exceptionally high fluorescent emission/mol, excellent solubility, relatively low cost, and other useful characteristics. F. Schubert et al., 18 Nucl. Acids Res. 3427 (1990) attempted the synthesis of a phosphoramidite linked to fluorescein, albeit through one of the fluorescein phenolic hydroxyls. Unfortunately, this approach significantly reduced fluorescence and shifted absorption and emission wavelengths from desired regions.
Thus, the normally used method to obtain fluorescein labelled oligonucleotides still is the multistep approach, an example of which is described in FIG. 1. Addition of linker phosphoramidite A to the 5' end of an oligonucleotide on a DNA synthesizer yields B. After deprotection and desalting of B to yield D, the active nucleophile in D reacts with fluorescein isothiocyanate or carboxyfluorescein, N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS) ester to yield a labelled oligonucleotide in which fluorescein is bound to the oligonucleotide through a thiourea or amide group and a six carbon linker. This procedure suffers from the problems described above for multi-step approaches, but yields a product with the characteristic fluorescein absorption and emission wavelengths.
Complicating matters is the fact that fluorescein has two active oxygen sites that when unprotected will interfere with a phosphoramidite attempting to link to fluorescein. Moreover, linkages to phosphoramidites can be adversely affected by deprotection conditions used for many protecting groups. Also, many conditions will affect or cause a reaction with a carboxyl group on the fluorescein ring.
As such, a need exists for labelled fluorescein phosphoramidites having good stability characteristics, which can readily be synthesized at high yields, and which confer high fluorescent emission/mol at desired wavelengths when linked to oligonucleotides.


Methods for extracting metabolites from mushroom comprising dispersing a sample of the mushroom; contacting the sample with a first solvent system at a temperature of 80° C. or greater to extract at least a first portion of metabolites from the sample; and contacting the sample with a second solvent system at a temperature of 80° C. or greater to extract at least a second portion of metabolites from the sample, wherein the combined first portion of metabolites and the second portion of metabolites include primary and secondary metabolites from the mushroom. A high-throughput process for establishing a metabolic profile of a mushroom, such as Amanita mushroom, can comprise extracting metabolites from mushroom and analyzing the extracted metabolites by automatic peak recognition or peak integration. Assay for identifying and/or assessing candidate metabolites extracted from Amanita mushroom are also disclosed.

Natural products remain a rich source of biologically active compounds and many plant/fungal and bacterial metabolites are investigated for their pharmacological and toxicological effects. Interestingly, when investigating biological effects of a complex matrix, using animal feeding assays, most studies attribute the observed experimental effects to one compound or a set of known compounds and disregard the other secondary metabolites in the sample. Furthermore, secondary metabolite profiles vary from sample to sample and depend on many factors, such as collection site, drying and storing conditions or extraction method. Thus, the observed biological effect from such feeding assays can only be attributed to the specific sample used in the experiment.
Amanita phalloides mushrooms (Death Caps), for example, contain a mixture of cyclopeptide toxins that are the source of the mushroom's toxicity. Cyclopeptides are defined by the presence of a sulfur-linked tryptophan and unusual hydroxylated amino acids. There are three cyclopeptide subclasses (i.e., amatoxins, phallotoxins, and virotoxins) that differ based on chemical structure (bicyclic octapeptides, bicyclic heptapeptides, and monocyclic heptapeptides respectively). Of these subclasses, only amatoxins are readily absorbed through the digestive tract; thus, amatoxins, such as α-amanitin, are primarily responsible for fatalities attributed to cyclopeptides. Amatoxins act by binding to RNA polymerase II, which leads to cell death by inhibiting mRNA production. Within A. phalloides, 14 amatoxins and phallotoxins occur, and both the tissue type and life stage of the mushroom influence the concentration of these toxins. For example, Enjalbert et al. (Toxicon: official journal of the International Society on Toxinology, 1993, 31, 803-807) determined that α-amanitin constitutes 17% of the toxin load in the cap, but only 8.8% of the toxin load in the bulb.
While A. phalloides and other mushrooms that contain cyclopeptides are lethal to many eukaryotic organisms, 17 mushroom-feeding Drosophila species use these toxic mushrooms as developmental hosts along with other non-toxic Basidiomycota mushrooms. Little is known about cyclopeptide tolerance in these fly species, but their toxin tolerance is not due to mutations in RNA polymerase II that would prevent the toxin binding. Thus far, studies examining cyclopeptide tolerance in the mushroom-feeding Drosophila focused exclusively on α-amanitin. There is a need for methods to characterize toxin tolerance using feeding assays that more closely resemble the wild mushrooms. Also, as there are multiple reports describing the effects of co-extracted compounds on pharmacological activity of selected metabolites, there is a need to extract all toxins including secondary metabolites from toxic mushrooms that could interact synergistically or antagonistically with the toxins.
There are currently no standardized operational procedures describing the use of complex matrices in animal feeding assays exist. Additionally, the available extraction protocols for mushrooms were optimized to extract polar cyclopeptides, disregarding less polar metabolites including some phallotoxins present in the sample. In an ideal experimental setup, the model organism, mushroom-feeding Drosophila, should be reared in its natural habitat with unlimited access to freely-growing mushrooms. Additionally, the secondary metabolite profile of each mushroom used in the study should be strictly monitored, to correctly interpret the experimental outcomes. Since the implementation of this model may be complex, feeding assays using natural product extracts need to be developed. One of the greatest challenges associated with feeding assays using complex natural mixtures is the complexity of these samples. Further, the secondary metabolite profile of natural extracts varies from sample to sample and contributes greatly to the experimental outcome. In addition, the complexity and variability of natural products is one of the most commonly overlooked problems in designing experiments with animal feeding assays. Thus, the absence of any regulations when using extracts in animal feeding assays results in a lack of reproducibility of experiments involving the use of these complex natural mixtures. Furthermore, correct interpretation of experimental data is also jeopardized by the lack of detailed information related to extraction and secondary metabolite profile of the natural sample.
There is a need for an exhaustive extraction protocol for cyclopeptides and other secondary metabolite. There is also a need for recommendations of best practices when utilizing natural product extracts in feeding assays. There is a need to detail the conserved fragmentation pattern of cyclopeptides found in mushrooms. The compositions and methods disclosed herein address these and other needs.

Method for comprehensive extraction of cyclopeptide toxins and other metabolites

The Board of Trustees of The University of Alabama


An active flow control system for use with a wind turbine is provided. The wind turbine includes at least one blade. The active flow control system includes an air distribution system at least partially defined within said at least one blade. The air distribution system includes at least one aperture defined through the at least one blade. An aperture control system is in operational control communication with the air distribution system. The aperture control system includes an actuator at least partially positioned within the at least one blade and configured to control a flow of air discharged through the at least one aperture.

The embodiments described herein relate generally to a flow control system for use with a wind turbine and, more particularly, to a flow control system having an aperture control system.
Active flow control (AFC) is a general term for technologies and/or systems that actively attempt to influence an aerodynamic response of an object in reaction to given in-flow conditions. More specifically, at least some known AFC systems are used to manipulate flow conditions across an airfoil. As used herein, the term "airfoil" refers to a turbine blade, a wing, and/or any other suitable airfoil. Although the embodiments described herein refer to a turbine blade, it should be understood that the embodiments described herein may be used with any suitable airfoil. In contrast to known passive flow control systems that provide substantially constant flow control, known AFC systems enable flow control to be selectively applied to an airfoil.
At least some known AFC systems use air distribution systems to manipulate a boundary layer of air flowing across a surface of an airfoil. For example, AFC systems discharge air into the boundary layer to reduce skin friction between a flow across the blade and a surface of the blade. Known AFC systems include actuators that can be divided in two categories, depending on their net-mass-flow. The first category is zero-net-mass-flow actuators, such as synthetic jet actuators, and the second category is nonzero-net-mass-flow actuators, such as air ejection actuators, which may be steady or unsteady and/or blowing and/or suction actuators.
Some known AFC systems can cause boundary layer blow-off by discharging air with such force that the AFC air flow blows through the boundary layer and creates drag at the point of discharge. Such discharged air generally does not return into a near wall region to provide skin friction reduction until far downstream from the discharge point. As such, a relatively large amount of air is required to be discharged from the AFC system because a relatively large fraction of the AFC air flow does not flow along the near wall region to reduce skin friction.
Further, when at least some known AFC systems are deactivated such that no AFC air flow is discharged from the AFC system, debris and/or insects can enter the AFC system and foul an air distribution system of the AFC system. Moreover, wind gusts suddenly increase an effective angle of attack of the blade, which can yield high, unsteady loads on the blade. Such high and/or unsteady loads can adversely affect a structure of the blade.

Aperture control system for use with a flow control system


A method of electrically qualifying high speed printed circuit board (PCB) connectors includes mounting a PCB connector on a test card, sending bit patterns through a first portion of the test card, evaluating a waveform on a sense signal on a second portion of the test card for the bit patterns launched on said first portion of the test card to measure common mode noise, and comparing the measured common mode noise of the second portion of the test card to a golden standard performed on a pre-qualified connector. The first portion of the test card comprises connectors to inject bit patterns. The second portion of the test card includes a split plane which induces common mode noise on a sense signal, the sense signal, and a termination pack. If the measured common mode noise on the PCB connector is worse than the golden standard, then the PCB connector is disqualified. If the measured common mode noise on the PCB connector is as good as or better than the golden standard, then the PCB connector is qualified. A first section of the PCB connector connects to the first portion of the test card and a second section of the PCB connector connects to the second portion of the test card. Transmission lines in the test card and the sense line are tightly coupled by shortening a distance between the sense line and the transmission lines.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method and apparatus to electrically qualify high speed printed circuit board (PCB) connectors, and more specifically to a method and apparatus for evaluating quality of a PCB connector by testing parasitic effects through its common mode noise generation.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the ever increasing frequencies of operation, high speed PCB designs are becoming more and more challenging. Signal integrity issues like conductor loss, material loss, reflections, and crosstalk are becoming ever more important. PCB connectors are one such source causing signal integrity problems in these high speed systems. Connectors with proper pin assignment can minimize reflections, crosstalk and other parasitic effects, but they cannot totally remove these effects. That is the reason that high speed connectors that minimize signal integrity effects are very expensive.
One common problem that PCB electrical designers encounter regularly on their products is how to qualify a connector (also second source connector) for a particular design. It is especially tough to qualify when the design(s) is close to margin. Currently, equipment like a time-domain reflectometer (TDR) and a vector network analyzer (VNA) is used to extract loss and crosstalk profiles of connectors. Although these techniques seem adequate, these approaches depend on factors like good calibration, expensive instruments, and expensive cables. Any measurement without proper calibration or good cables would result in inferior results. Also, the learning curve involved with these techniques is very steep.

Method and apparatus to electrically qualify high speed PCB connectors

International Business Machines Corporation


A system and method for policy based management for a high security MANET comprises policy managers, each performing policy decision-making and policy enforcement using multiple policies, containers, each related to an application and each container having one policy manager, nodes, each having an infrastructure and at least one container, and dynamic community building blocks associating the containers having a same application, the containers being in different nodes, the associated containers maintained by the dynamic community building blocks on a secure network. Each container can define a security boundary around the node. Each container can be a lightweight virtual machine. The system can also have a special container having a policy manager only evaluating policies for conflicts. In one embodiment, a node can consist of multiple network devices and each network device is a container of its own.

With the development of increasingly complex systems, policies are widely used to allow users a level of customization and automation of a system without the need for rebuilding or restarting. Existing policy-based management systems (PBNM or PBMS) define customization for access control, obligated behavior, and/or flow control, but do not address architecture security. Most existing policy systems have a centralized approach to security and are defined with centralized policy control, where security is provided by the network authentication process, though some may utilize authentication information as part of the policy condition. Typically, both connectivity and trust are assumed, allowing the deployment of a centralized or hierarchical system for both distribution and evaluation of policies. Generally, one trusted node is assumed to exist in the PBNM. However, any node in the network may be an undetected attacker.
In the established Policy Decision Point (PDP) to Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) model, e.g., IETF's COPS-PR and NetConf for obligation policies, such as Smart Firewalls for authorization policies, policy decisions are made at a logically central point and then each decision is dispatched to the endpoints. Existing systems attempt to secure the PDP-to-PEP communication with transport-level security and user-level authentication (e.g., ssh for NetConf). The hierarchical paradigm has been adapted for use in MANETs, by providing dynamic service discovery and redundancy.
In an alternative approach, policies are created and processed centrally on the node rather than being isolated by application.
Any dispatching of policy decisions over the network increases chances of decision hijacking or interference and allows hostile network traffic observers to perform traffic analysis and deduce system behavior. Since the policy decision is made by one node, an attacker can target one node to compromise the whole network. Additionally, making policy decisions for an entire node from a single PDP increases the ability of an attacker who compromised a single application to compromise an entire node. Both policy distribution and policy enforcement are protected, at best, only by transport-level security, and authenticated only at the user level. The protection is insufficient in a hostile environment and authentication is too coarse-grain for a secure network with application-specific policies.
Typically, most policy languages support any combination of conditions. A potential security concern is implicitly allowing unexpected conditions when using the negate operation in the condition.
To illustrate this concern, the following is a sample policy condition. In a system with only "blue" and "purple" tracks, this policy condition allows only "blue" tracks to join the group A, B, or C. However, when a new track, say "red", is introduced to the system, the policy implicitly permits both the "red" and "blue" tracks to join the group, which is potentially undesirable.
...Conditions : (request == "join" ) &&( group == "A" ∥ group == "B" ∥ group == "C" ) &&( track != "purple" ) −> "true" ;...
Accordingly, to provide a high-security MANET, several new challenges are identified for the design of its PBMS.
First, strict enforcement of communication restrictions necessitates a highly decentralized network management, even within a node, with a PBMS instance for each container, shared resources and secure infrastructure. This in turn creates more pressure on the resource consumption of a given instance, as node resources are typically scarce.
Second, high security requires explicit protection of policy integrity in transit, authentication of policy creators and authorization before a policy is enforced.
Third, policies must be made available to the PBMS instances in a timely manner to ensure enforcement. Given the dynamic nature of community building block creation and the intermittent connectivity in MANETs, this requires appropriate policy distribution mechanisms.
Fourth, the general policy deconfliction problem is complicated by the fully decentralized nature of policy creation and enforcement, and by the need to deconflict policies for a particular communication domain against shared resource and node policies within each node.
Thus, there exists a need for a PBNM system that is resilient to insider and external attacks. An inventive solution to this need includes identification of the security, performance and usability requirements of PBMS for high-security MANETs, and architectural and design solutions to meet these requirements.

System and method for policy based management for a high security MANET


A universal dual power telescope comprises two concentrically mounted telescopes combining functions of a tube-mounted finder and a regular telescope. The finder rotating inside the telescope includes a truncated prism for switching the telescope modes of operation. The dual function prism reflects images into the eyepiece either through the finder or telescope, while deflecting light rays and blocking formation of images through the other non-selected optical assembly. Both telescopes share the same eyepiece and focusing system. A low magnification finder or a high magnification telescope can be selectively engaged by changing an angular position of the prism's silvered plane.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a prismatic telescope optical system employing two concentrically mounted telescopes with different magnifications and sharing the same eyepiece and focusing device for a telescope and a viewfinder rotatable inside the telescope.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art is replete with prismatic telescope optical assemblies. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,598,296 issued to Imizumi in 1997 disclosed a prismatic telescope optical system including a series of telescopes having different magnification but equal in overall length. The prism optical system of one telescope has a hollow mirror prism and that of another telescope has a glass prism having a proper refractive index.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,548,442 issued to Devenyi et al. in 1996 disclosed an optical sight assembly including a plurality of optical elements moveable into an optical path and a permanent magnet indicating the position of the first or the second set of said optical elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,749,271 issued to Nagler in 1998 disclosed a finder scope for use with and spaced apart from the attendant astronomical telescopes.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,572,886 issued to Curtiss et al. in 1971 disclosed a dual power telescope with two portions of a field of view being simultaneously observed and the magnification of each portion differing from that of the other portion.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,530,081 issued to Humbrecht in 1925 disclosed a periscope with entrance and deflection prism with moveable lenses.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,294,365 issued to Bedell in 1919 disclosed a bi-focal periscope with shiftable elements and optical elements operated by power from the compressed air line of the submarine.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,187,818 issued to Cooke in 1916 disclosed a telescope with two powers of magnification and two or more eyepieces or equal length brought to the prism.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,669,883 issued to Mise in 1987 disclosed a spotting scope with a viewer mounted on the telescope.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,619,874 issued to Lane in 1952 disclosed a telescope a viewfinder with prismatic system including four reflecting surfaces and two prisms.
U.S. Pat. No. 841,262 issued to Martin disclosed a binocular prism-telescope with a toothed wheel and a knurled wheel for operating the toothed rims and the tubes.
However, none of the known prior art patents revealed a unique prismatic telescope incorporating a rotating finder scope in its structure as shown in the attached drawings and described herein.


According to the present invention, a method of working material with high-energy radiation is provided, wherein a polymer matrix (1) is irradiated with high-energy radiation, in particular with a laser beam (9), wherein the radiation is focused onto a focal point (11) and the focal point (11) is set such that the focal point (11) lies behind the surface (3) of the polymer matrix (1) facing the radiation, and material removal is brought about at the polymer matrix (1), and consequently a reaction space (13) is created within the polymer matrix (1).

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of working material with high-energy radiation, wherein a polymer matrix is irradiated with high-energy radiation, in particular with a laser beam.
(2) Description of Related Art
Working material with a laser beam is an established method in industry and is used, inter alia, for welding, cutting, drilling and removing various materials. The variety and complexity of the interacting mechanisms involved in the working of materials with a laser beam are the reason for using a laser beam with process parameters that have been tried out experimentally or in a simulation. When considering how the parameters relate to the adjustable variables of the laser used and the resultant outcome of working, the laser intensity and the time of exposure to the radiation are of particular significance.
It is known that, when working materials by means of a laser, a focused laser beam is directed onto the surface of a workpiece to be worked. The position of the focus is typically chosen such that the distance of the focusing lens makes it possible to obtain the smallest radial extent of the laser beam in relation to the surface of the workpiece. This provides the greatest intensity of the laser at the surface of the workpiece.
As from a certain ratio of the laser power to the extent of the focal spot, the energy density transferred to the workpiece increases abruptly. The coupling in of the laser energy results in phase transformation processes at the surface of the workpiece, making it possible to obtain a specific result of the working.
In the area of surface treatment, the removal of material from the surface of a workpiece by bombardment by means of a pulsed laser beam is referred to as laser ablation.
The energy of the laser photons transferred to the workpiece can lead to the breaking up of chemical bonds, in the case of non-metals it is also possible for short laser pulses to cause a Coulomb explosion. This means that the electrons leave the solid body and some of the remaining positive ions are accelerated out of the surface by Coulomb repulsion.
With laser pulses in the nanosecond range, the energy of the laser leads to heating up of the surface (in the sense of thermal movements of the atoms) during the laser pulse. Since the limited heat conduction allows only a slow energy transfer into the volume, the energy radiated in is concentrated on a very small area. Therefore, the workpiece reaches very high temperatures in this area and abrupt vaporizing of the material can occur. With a high power density of the laser, a plasma of electrons and ions of the material removed may be produced by thermal ionization or ionization induced directly by laser photons, it being possible for the ions of the plasma to be accelerated to energies in excess of 100 eV.
The minimum power or energy density at which ablation is possible (with a given wavelength and pulse length) is known as the ablation threshold. With energy densities above this threshold, the ablation rate increases greatly.
Laser ablation can therefore be used for targeted removal of materials, for example instead of mechanical engraving of hard materials or for drilling very small holes. Alternatively, the material removed may also be used for coating a surface of another workpiece, these techniques being referred to as Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) or Laser Transfer Film (LTF).
A disadvantage of laser ablation is that, during and shortly after the laser irradiation, finely thrown up particles of melt, spatter and substances produced by cooling and condensation are often deposited as debris around the working zone. It may be that these decomposition products are removed from the working site by means of process gases. Generally, however, they represent an undesired effect during the working by the laser process and constitute a decisive factor for the quality of the result of the working.
It is usually attempted to minimize these effects by means of laser parameter settings and reactions with process gases. In the case of many materials to be worked, it is possible to use the absorption characteristics to irradiate them with high laser intensities in a short time. The greatest coupling in of the laser energy is usually achieved by the focus of the laser lying on the surface of the workpiece. Energy conversion of the radiation into heat has the effect of forming a heat influencing zone there, in which the thermal effects lead to the desired working results. As a consequence, however, strong thermal processes caused by heat conduction and convection as well as evaporation and plasma formation may produce adverse effects in the surrounding regions.
In the case of poor heat distribution due to a low material-specific coefficient of heat conduction, overheating may occur at boundary surfaces and/or surrounding regions, with the consequence that the material undergoes an undesired structural change. In particular in the case of amorphous and crystalline materials, such as glass, ceramic and crystalline metals such as silicon, it is problematic that this high energy input can lead to adverse effects such as stresses and cracks, which impair the quality of the material to be worked.
A laser beam can be focused in the best possible way if it oscillates in the fundamental mode (TEM00 mode) and its energy distribution follows a Gaussian curve. It is possible by appropriate setting of the focal length by means of the focusing lens to achieve the smallest beam diameters of 40 μm to 120 μm and to direct them onto the surface of the workpiece. Conventionally, the highest pulse power density (J/cm2) of the laser beam is brought onto the workpiece when the focus is set to the surface of the workpiece. If the focal plane of the laser beam does not lie on the surface of the workpiece, the pulse power density may be too low, with the result that the laser beam merely heats up the surface but does not bring about any permanent changes in the material.
If, when focusing on the surface, the absorbed energy exceeds a threshold value, the energy input leads to phase transformations in the material. Although the changes brought about as a result do not necessarily have to be accompanied by a change in the state of aggregation of the material, heating up of the surface of the material causes a temperature field to form in the workpiece. Great temperature gradients lead to thermal stresses, which often remain in the workpiece after the cooling phase as residual stress. Mechanical stresses may, however, also remain in the solid body on account of plastic deformations (for temperatures below 450° C.) in the heating-up phase as a result of thermal expansions. The structural changes forming in the heat influencing zone may, however, also leave optically visible defects behind, such as crater formations, cavities and microcracks.
All known methods for working materials with a laser beam share the common feature that a laser beam is directed onto the surface of a material that absorbs the wavelength of the laser and allows as little light as possible to pass through. This has the effect that the light only penetrates into the material to a small depth and the heat influencing zone is decisively determined by the irradiated surface. The local delimitation of the heat influencing zone also has the effect of restricting the absolute energy transfer to the material. Furthermore, the amount of material that can be removed per unit of time is dependent on how large the heat influencing zone is. On the other hand, it is often not desirable to increase the irradiated surface and to compensate this by increased laser power in order to obtain the necessary pulse power density. The reason for this is that the working of the material with a laser beam is often used precisely when particularly accurate working results are to be achieved, for example in the case of particularly fine or microscopic cuts, bores, marks or the like.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide an improved method of working material with high-energy radiation in which the heat influencing zone is increased, without significantly impairing the result of the working.

Method of working material with high-energy radiation


An apparatus for supplying power to a controller has a main power switch provided on a power supply path of a main power to a controller, a sub power switch provided on a power supply path of a sub power to the controller, and a power supply controller that opens the main power switch and closes the sub power switch so that the sub power is supplied to the controller when not receiving the main power. Accordingly, the power supply to the controller can be more stably switched. Additionally, an over-discharged battery is not used in power supply, and the controller can have a more stable reset operation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power supply apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a power supply apparatus which supplies power to a controller using main and sub batteries as a power source.
2. Description of the Related Art
A controller is an element which drives and controls electrical parts according to user instructions, and is often considered to be the most essential part of an electronic device. Even when the electronic device is not in operation, that is, even in a power-off state, the controller sometimes remains operating. For example, the controller may be on to drive a timer to keep user-set time during the power-off of the electronic device.
Accordingly, power supply must continue to supply power even in the power-off of the electronic device. Meanwhile, in a general electronic device, there are two batteries used as a power supply for the electronic device and the controller. In the normal operation, the main battery is used to supply power to the controller. However, in the absence of main battery or main battery discharge, a sub battery is used to supply power to the controller.
FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram of a conventional apparatus for supplying power to the controller. Referring to FIG. 1, the power supply apparatus includes a main battery 10, a sub battery 20 and a diode 30 as a switching element.
In the presence of the main battery 10, power of the main battery 10 is supplied to the controller, while the power of the sub battery 20 is blocked by the diode 30.
In the absence of the main battery 10 or in case of main battery discharge, power is supplied from the sub battery 30 to the controller through the diode 30.
Because only the diode 30 operates to switch supply power supply to the controller, the power supply switching was not stable enough in the conventional power supply apparatus.
Additionally, when the sub battery 20 is insufficiently charged, that is, when the electrical potential of the sub battery 20 is lower than the potential barrier of the diode 30, power of the main battery 10 is supplied to the controller even when the main battery 10 is discharged. As the discharged battery is used, the lifespan of the battery 10 shortens.
Accordingly, a more stable power switching method of the main and sub batteries 10 and 20 is required, and also, a method to prevent use of main battery 10 in the case of discharge is also required.
Additionally, a method of using a controller power supply apparatus to stabilize reset of the controller, is also required.

Apparatus for supplying power to controller


The invention relates to a device for the mixing, homogenizing, extraction, or slurrying of materials, in particular infectious, or malodorous or chemically-aggressive materials (71) in a laboratory test vessel (70) which may be hermetically sealed with a lid (10). A stirrer element (30) is provided in the lid (10) for processing of the material (71) placed in the laboratory test vessel (70), with the stirrer element being connected to a coupling piece (50). Cutting and/or crushing elements (31; 33, 35) arranged directly adjacent to cutting edges (42, 44; 41, 43, 45) on a retainer sleeve (40), comminute the material. The stirrer element (30) is a hollow cylinder (53) and is provided with a central sealing cap (32) such that the homogenate (71) can be manually or automatically diluted or pipetted from the laboratory test vessel (70) by means of a pipette or a needle or disposable tip without removing the disposable lid (10), or analyzed with a sensor or heated or cooled by means of a heating or cooling bar.

The present invention relates to a device for mixing and homogenizing materials, in particular infectious or malodorous or chemically aggressive materials, in a laboratory test vessel.
Magnetic stirrers and mechanical stirrers are generally known and generally used in laboratories. During the comminution of infectious tissue fragments in vessels that are not hermetically sealed, there is a great risk of infection through uncontrolled spraying that can proceed outward through the opening of the laboratory test vessel, through accidental tipping over of the laboratory test vessel, and through the use of reusable mixers. This is the case particularly for test tubes and mixers known for use therewith.


A semiconductor integrated circuit device has an on-chip processor and at least one on-chip digital register for storing plural bits therein. The bit contents of the register are written, selectively transformed, and read out of the register during processing of data by the processor and related circuitry. Peripheral instructions such as those from an interrupt source may contend with instructions from the processor for setting and clearing one or more bits in the register. To permit setting and clearing a unique bit in the register without affecting other bits in the register or the capability of the contending source to perform its instructions on one or more of these other bits, three separate addresses are provided for bit set, bit clear, and direct write of the register.

The present invention relates generally to semiconductor logic circuits, and more particularly to techniques for setting and clearing on chip registers.
Semiconductor processor devices typically include peripheral registers that are located on the integrated circuit chip and require selective setting and clearing of their stored contents. Most processors use instructions for bit set (in the binary sense, make the bit a "1") and bit clear (make the bit a "0"), or an OR "1" which is tantamount to a bit set, and an AND "0" which corresponds to a bit clear, or a combination of both, to set or clear the registers. The processor brings data from the affected location into the central processing unit (CPU), specifically the arithmetic logic unit (ALU), transforms it by setting or clearing the corresponding bit, and then sends it back. This is commonly referred to as a read/modify/write operation.
In most instances, this technique of executing a bit set and clear does not create a problem. However, in the case of peripheral or status registers there may be circumstances in which the CPU is setting or clearing at the same time that some other instruction, such as an interrupt, an opposite operation. In such circumstances there is a conflict, or a contention; for example, the CPU desires to clear a bit and the interrupting peripheral source desires to set the same or a closely positioned bit.
By way of a specific example, if the register contains four bits, namely, 0, 0, 1, 0, at the time the data is read into the ALU, the intention may be to clear the bit which is the "1" without affecting the other three bits in any way. If, however, while this process is taking place a peripheral source sets the first bit to a "1", so that the register contents after write should be 1, 0, 0, 0, the ALU will write the value of the register back as 0, 0, 0, 0. This is incorrect, since there should have been no effect on the bit that was just set by the peripheral source.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide improvements in techniques for achieving bit set and bit clear of on-chip registers.


The disclosure provides methods for treating major depressive disorder in a human patient having moderate or severe anhedonia. The methods comprise administering to the patient in need thereof an effective amount of aticaprant, or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof. In some embodiments, the patient had an inadequate response to other antidepressant therapy prior to treatment with aticaprant. In other embodiments, the other antidepressant therapy comprised a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI), or a combination thereof.

Kappa opioid receptors (KOR) and their native ligand dynorphin are localized in areas of the brain that effect reward and stress and may play a key role in mood, stress, and addictive disorders. Chronic stress, substance abuse, and acute withdrawal lead to increased dynorphin expression, activating KORs and subsequent downstream signaling pathways to inhibit mesolimbic dopamine surge, contributing to negative affective states. The behavioral pharmacology of KOR antagonism has been tested in animal models of anhedonia, depression, and anxiety and found to have meaningful effects that may translate to therapeutic benefit in humans. KOR antagonists may be effective for the treatment of patients with mood disorders, perhaps by modulating the negative affective state associated with stress response.
Anhedonia is one of the core symptoms of depression. At least mild symptoms of anhedonia are present in about 90% of patients suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD). Only about 50% of patients with MDD show a meaningful response (>50% improvement to a first line antidepressant treatment), leaving many patients with substantial persistent impairment. Therapeutic strategies such as switching antidepressants and using adjuvant drug treatments can improve response, however almost 40% of patients remain symptomatic and fail to achieve full remission.
What is needed are treatments for patients having depression and anhedonia.

Compositions and methods for the treatment of depression


A microprogrammable electronic device has a code memory storing a software and/or firmware code having instructions. The microprogrammable electronic device is configured to compute a signature of the code stored in the code memory, and to detect any corruption of the code stored in the code memory on the basis of the computed signature. The microprogrammable electronic device is characterized by being further configured to operate according to instruction cycles, each divided into a respective first and a respective second operating phase; to read a first instruction from the code memory at the first operating phase of an instruction cycle; to decode and execute the read first instruction at the second operating phase of the instruction cycle; to read a second instruction from the code memory at the second operating phase of the instruction cycle; and to compute the signature on the basis of the read second instruction.

As is known, a microprogrammable device is an electronic device comprising: a processor; a code memory storing a software and/or firmware code which, when the microprogrammable device is in use, is executed by the processor; and a data memory, in which values of variables used in executing the code are stored.
As is also known, the content of the code memory, i.e. the code, of a microprogrammable device may be altered, i.e. corrupted, by electromagnetic interference (EMI) to which the microprogrammable device is exposed.
To determine corruption of the code, a code signature is therefore computed cyclically and compared with a reference signature.
More specifically, signature computation comprises a logic-mathematical calculation involving all the elements stored in the code memory, and which is performed by the processor on the basis of a signature computation function normally forming part of the code stored in the code memory.
The reference signature, on the other hand, is computed when compiling the microprogrammable device code, and is stored in the microprogrammable device code memory at the same time as the code.
The signature computation function is executed periodically by the processor and normally has the lowest priority, i.e. is executed by the processor when it is not executing other code functions.
If the processor-computed signature does not match the reference signature stored in the code memory, the microprogrammable device is disabled to prevent damage.
The Applicant has observed, however, that, in the event the code is corrupted, developments in execution of the code are impossible to be predicted, which means execution of the signature computation function is no longer assured once the code is corrupted.
More specifically, in the event the code is corrupted, the signature may be computed wrongly or, worse still, may cease to be computed by the processor, so that corruption of the code may never be detected.


An axle bolt has a shaft with a pair of opposed ends. An axle passage extends within the shaft and a transverse passage extends radially outwardly from the axial passage. A head attached to one end of the shaft has an outer face. A recess extends in from the outer face and the bottom of the recess is in communication with the axial passage. A lubrication fitting in the recess has one end in communication with the bottom of the recess and another end designed to be connected to a lubrication device. The recess in the bolt head is sufficiently deep that the second end of the lubrication fitting is within the recess and does not extend beyond the outer face.

The present invention relates to an axle bolt to rotatably mount a wheel or the like to an axle, which includes means for lubricating the bearings which rotatably support the wheel.
There are a number of arrangements for lubricating bearings for wheels or other rotating parts, but most are complicated and require structures other than that needed to accomplish the rotatable movement between a shaft and the wheel or the like.
Previous axle bolts have been provided which include an axle passage for the necessary lubricant and a transverse passage connected to the axle passage to direct the lubricant to a bearing mounted outwardly of the axle bolt. Fittings have been provided to receive the lubricant and to prevent it from flowing out of the axle passage before being delivered to the transverse passage.
A problem heretofore associated with such prior art axle bolts has been that the fittings had a tendency to be loosened and even broken off during use of the axle bolt. When that happens the fitting must be tightened or replaced before the axle bolt can be used to lubricate the bearing.
The present invention provides a simple means for permitting lubrication of the bearings without requiring additional and complicating structures. Close tolerances are provided between the fitting and the hole formed in the axle bolt to receive the fitting. This as well as the means provided to protect the fitting mounted to the axle bolt prevent it from being loosened or broken.
This is accomplished by providing an axial passage in the axle bolt which communicates with a lubrication fitting such as a ZERK grease fitting in the cap of the axle bolt and with a transverse passage at the end opposite the ZERK grease fitting. The ZERK grease fitting is mounted in a conical recess formed in the head of the bolt. In this way it is protected and the danger of it being accidentally loosened or broken is substantially diminished.
Lubrication provided at the ZERK grease fitting is transmitted through the axial passage to the transverse passage to the exterior of the axle bolt to lubricate the bearings or the like carried by the axle bolt.


A support for a shed type dryer comprises a plurality of feet (1) arranged under a heater housing (2) of the dryer. The foot (1) is curved on the whole, and comprises a first part (11), a second part (12) and a third part (13) successively connected; wherein an end of the first part (11) is located at a bottom of the heater housing (2), and the first part (11) is connected with the heater housing (2); the second part (12) is arched; and an end of the third part (13) has a horizontal bottom surface (13a) to stand up on the ground. As compared with the prior art, the present foot can not only shorten the distance between the heater in the dryer and the ground, so as to lower the gravity centre of the dryer, so that the dryer can stand up more stably and is helpful to arrange a drying room with a relatively large size.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technical field of a shed type dryer, in particular, to a support for the shed type dryer.
2. Description of the Related Art
The shed type dryer is a domestic electrical appliance to dry clothes with hot wind. This is particularly applicable for the rainy south, to bring convenience to people's lives. Chinese Utility Model patent with patent number of ZL200620018906.7(published number CN2895492Y), entitled "a shed type dryer", being a previous patent of the applicant, disclosed such a dryer. The shed type dryer includes a foot/feet, a heater located on the foot/feet, a lower support pipe and an upper support pipe connected with the lower support pipe. An arched supply-air shed is disposed on an upper end of the heater; and the lower support pipe is fixed by a nut of the arched supply-air shed. An outer casing is fixed on the support pipes, while sheet-shaped baffles are uniformly disposed on an air outlet of the supply-air shed in a circumference direction thereof. Upon operating, the heater heats up air from an air inlet thereof, which is exported through the air outlet of the supply-air shed. Then, the air will be blown upwardly toward clothes placed within the outer casing, thereby achieving the aim of drying clothes.
The foot/feet in the existing shed type dryer all are straight rod shaped and titled, i.e., the inclined supporting and straight rod feet. The dryer is typically provided with three straight rods, thereby forming a tripod at a bottom of the dryer. The tripod will lift the heater from the ground, and support the heater, support pipes and the clothes thereon altogether.
Particularly, there is a pair of correlated relationships between an inclination angle of the inclined supporting and straight rod feet to a vertical direction of the dryer and an inclination angle of the straight rod feet to the ground.
When the straight rod feet tend to be in parallel to the vertical direction of the dryer, the inclination angle of the straight rod feet to the ground will became closer to 90°. In this case, although it is beneficial for the feet to bear saging gravity from the overall dryer, it is disadvantageous for the overall dryer to stand up stably. If it is intended to allow the overall dryer to stand up stably, it is necessary to correspondingly lengthen the straight rod feet. However, the lengthened straight rod feet will increase manufacturing cost, and the drying room of the dryer will also rise too high, which will cause inconveniences for the user to perform the operation of hanging up the clothes. On the other hand, the lengthened straight rod feet will decrease bending rigidity of the straight rod feet either, and enhancing the straight rod feet will incur increase of the cost. Moreover, if the gravity centre of the dryer is too high, then the dryer will tend to sway in usage. This is adverse for the dryer to stand up stably.
When the inclination angle of the straight rod feet to the vertical direction of the dryer tends to become 90°, the straight rod feet and the ground will become substantially in parallel with each other. In this case, position of the gravity centre of the dryer falls down, but there is a more rigorous requirement on the bending rigidity of the straight rod feet. Connection between the straight rod feet and the heater will be easily broken down, due to the outwardly expanding force therebetween. There is a potential trouble on a safe connection between them. It is necessary to reinforce the bending rigidity of the straight rod feet, and the connection firmness between the straight rod feet and the heater. Therefore, there is a higher demand on material of the straight rod feet and a certain restriction is applied on weight of the clothes to be dried.
In the existing dryer with the inclined supporting and straight rod feet, an inclination angle of the straight rod feet to the ground is in a range of 60°-70°. The straight rod feet have a height of 40-50 cm, and the heights of the heater and the drying room are respectively 20-30 cm and 90-110 cm. The clothes-bar has a height of 150-190 cm above the ground. In living, the clothes having longer length such as one-piece dress of adult female, typically have a length of 130-150 cm. Therefore, upon drying, it is needed to fold them and hang up them, which often wrinkles the clothes. However, if the height of the drying room is increased to adapt the height and size of the one piece dress, the radial span of the straight rod feet under the heater and the distance of the feet from the ground also should be increased, so as to facilitate the standing up stability of the overall dryer. As such calculated, the height of hanging up the cloths will be up to the range of 190-230 cm. As for an adult having normal stature, it is not very convenient to perform a hanging or picking operation at such height of the drying room, without any climbing tools. Therefore, it is not advantageous for the inclined supporting and straight rod feet to provide a drying room having a relatively large size/height.
Concerning the above, it is needed to further improve the existing inclined supporting and straight rod feet.


A method of electron beam lithography for producing wafers and masks. To reduce the impacts of the disturbing proximity effect, an expanded correction algorithm that enables a more accurate correction is used to control the electron beam. To create an improved correction method by means of which the contrast and the feature width (CD) of all figures of a pattern can be optimally controlled additional contrast frames (KR) and remaining figures (R) are produced using a geometric method for the purpose of contrast control with respect to all figures (F). Then smaller figures (KRsize-S and Rsize-S) are produced from the contrast frame figures (KR) and remaining figures (R) by means of a negative sizing operation, and subsequently figures (KRsize-S and Rsize-S) are transferred to the proximity correction algorithm with the condition that the resist threshold is reached at the edges of the figures (KR, R) by the dose assignment.

Methods for producing patterns by means of an electron beam exposure device have been known in the art for a long time. The required pattern is broken down into small elementary figures and projected onto a layer of photosensitive dye. After development of the resist the pattern should be imaged in the resist as accurately as possible. The exposure of a resist with an electron beam of a certain shape (Gaussian profile beam or shaped beam or multi-pixel beam) produces a dose distribution in the resist which does not correspond to the dose profile for the electron beam. The reason for that is the scattering of the electrons by the atoms or molecules of the resist and the substrate. This is called the proximity effect.
There a short range effect (ca. 20 nm . . . 40 nm, forward-scattering) and a considerably longer range effect (ca. 5,000 nm . . . 30,000 nm, back-scattering) occur. Said effects result in a widening of the electron beam ("smearing of the dose distribution") and a mutual interference of the dose distributions of different elementary figures, so that in the end, if all desired elementary figures are exposed with the same dose and unchanged geometry, the dose distribution produced in the resist is so distorted that the structures produced in the resist do not have the CDs of the desired pattern. Usually the pattern produced becomes useless for the desired purpose. To correct this effect, a mathematical model of the proximity effect must first be developed.
It is widely accepted that the effect can be described as a superposition of two Gaussian functions (Formula (1)), wherein alpha and beta represent the forward- and back-scattering ranges and eta describes the ratio of one effect to the other.
Formula 1
      f              (      r      )        =            1              π                          (                      1            +            η                    )                                (                                    1                          α              2                                                      ⅇ                                          r                2                                            α                2                                                    +                              η                          β              2                                                      ⅇ                          -                                                r                  2                                                  β                  2                                                                        )
This function is also called the Point Spread Function (PSF). To utilize it in a not-yet-determined correction method, the parameters a and b have to be determined. For this purpose, exposures with predefined test patterns are carried out using various methods and the CDs of the figures are measured on the test patterns in the resist. However, the results of these measurements include not only the PSF but also other influences which are thus included in the calibration.
Said influences are, in particular, the so-called beam blur caused by Coulomb interaction between the electrons and lens aberrations in the electromagnetic imaging systems, as well as effects during exposure and development caused by the chemical properties of the resist. For this reason, the function calibrated over the entire process will be hereinafter called "Process Proximity Function" (PPF). In defining the PPF it may be necessary to superpose more than two Gaussian functions.
The resulting dose distribution can then be calculated as the result of the convolution operation of the PPF with the pattern itself. As can be easily seen, said function is radially symmetric, position-independent and monotonically decreasing towards the outside.
To ensure that the resist pattern produced by electron beam lithography is usable, the proximity effect, which is unavoidable (for physical reasons), must be corrected. The usual procedure in an electron beam exposure device that supports dose control of the electron beam is to cut the figures of the pattern into smaller figures and to calculate individual doses for said smaller figures until it is ensured that the figures of the pattern have the desired CD after completion of the entire process (exposure and development of the resist).
A method with dose and geometry correction that is suitable for any pattern is described in DE 4317899 C2 and implemented in the known and commercially available PROXECCO software. This method is based on the mathematical technique of "deconvolution by suitable Fourier transforms", hereinafter referred to in brief as "deconvolution". A further method is disclosed in DE 198 18440 C2.
All correction methods in accordance with the state of the art suffer from some problems. The proximity correction methods known to us work satisfactorily only as long as the CDs of the figures in the pattern are greater than approximately 1.3 times the alpha parameter (cf. Seo) of the PPF. The current state of the art in semiconductor technology, however, requires CDs of about 35 nm, and by 2016 even 22 nm will be required (ITRS Roadmap). Lithography processes which are currently available and applicable in semiconductor production have (in particular due to the resists belonging to the respective process) an alpha parameter of about 25 . . . 30 nm, i.e. direct exposure is only possible down to about 38 . . . 45 nm. A number of suggestions for further improving the imaging quality in existing processes are known in the art, cf. for example US-PS 2008/0067446 A1. All of these suggestions for improving the correction begin with modifying the correction algorithm based on "deconvolution" and have so far not succeeded in improving quality significantly.

Method for controlling the electronic beam exposure of wafers and masks using proximity correction


In the case of a spinning machine having a plurality of spinning units which are arranged next to one another and to each of which a sliver is fed from a container, a movable servicing device is provided which contains devices for the picking-up of the starting portion of a new sliver from a readied container and for the connecting of this sliver with the end portion of the old sliver entering into the respective spinning unit.

The invention relates to a spinning machine having a plurality of adjacently arranged spinning units, each containing a sliver feeding device for the withdrawal of a sliver from a container and for the introduction of the sliver into the respective spinning unit. Devices are provided for picking up the starting portion of a new sliver of a readied container and for connecting it with the old sliver entering into the respective spinning unit. Devices are also provided for stopping the sliver feeding device in order to leave an end portion of the old sliver which remains outside the spinning unit to be connected with the new sliver.
Reference is also made to our application Ser. No. 07/302,411, filed on Jan. 27, 1989, titled A SLIVER SPINNING ARRANGEMENT FOR SPINNING MACHINES and based on German Application No. P 38 02 413.6 filed on Jan. 28, 1988 in the Federal Republic of Germany.
In the case of a known spinning machine of the initially mentioned type (DE-A No. 35 01 875), it is provided that either the connecting of the end portion of the old sliver with the starting portion of the new sliver takes place such that approximately the same number of fibers exist in the connecting point, or that, before a silver piecing or connection, the fiber feeding device first remains switched on until the connection point between the slivers has entered into the spinning point, the fibers which are fed to the spinning point not being used for the spinning process but being removed as waste.
It is also known (DE-C Nos. 25 36 435 and 26 46 313) to first completely use up the sliver in the respective spinning units and then, as a result, generate a signal by means of which a following is triggered of a container with a new sliver and, if necessary, an automatic threading of the starting portion of the new sliver into the respective spinning unit.
It is also known (DD-PS No. 107 952) to feed the sliver to a fine-spinning machine in large containers which, at the fine-spinning machine, are transferred to smaller containers circulating on a conveying device. The sliver will then enter into the spinning units from the smaller containers. Two of these smaller spinning cans are assigned to each spinning unit, these spinning cans being arranged above one another. The end portion of the sliver of the just-serviced spinning can is connected with the starting portion of the sliver of the spinning can that is located in the supply position or is brought into the supply position, so that a continuous feeding of the sliver is possible.
In the case of drafting units with automatic conveying systems (EP-A No. 0069 087), it is known to grip a starting portion of a sliver hanging down over the edge of a container by means of gripping elements which contain suction devices or pairs of clamping rollers.
It is also known (EP-A No. 0212 979) to arrange an automatic can changing device between two drafting units or frames which is also connected with an automatic device for the joining of the slivers. The filled cans, which leave the first drafting unit, arrive at a revolving table on which they are revolved slowly. The sliver starting portion hanging down over the can edges is then taken off by a suction gripper equipped with a sliver detector which passes this starting portion on to a transfer device which then places the starting portion of this sliver in the intake elements of the second drafting unit.
An object of the invention is to further develop an arrangement of the initially mentioned type by bringing the starting portion of the new sliver into a position in which it can be easily connected with the end portion of the old sliver.
This object is achieved according to the invention in that the devices for picking up the starting portion of the new sliver of the spinning unit and of the end portion of the old sliver remaining outside this spinning unit can be applied such that the end portion of the old sliver and the starting portion of the new sliver overlap one another.
By producing an overlapping of the end portion of the old sliver and the starting portion of the new sliver, a connection can easily be established between the two slivers.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Sliver connecting arrangement for a spinning machine


This invention relates to computer implemented methods and systems for content mobilization, and in particular, methods and systems for mobilization of video, music, photos and other media, including processes for application in mobile search, mobile messaging, mobile editing of media, and combinations thereof. Upon a user of a mobile device selecting a web content item corresponding to a media file, the media file is dynamically transcoded based on the mobile device to receive the media and sent to the mobile device.

Prior methods of moving digital media and data from one computer to another computer required a physical connection, e.g. a communications cable or a portable storage medium or a network. For example, media and data could be transferred with a communications cable and specialized software called PC Link. For example, media and data could be transferred with a portable storage medium such as CF, SD, and so on. As an alternative, media and data could be transferred using a network and required communications devices, e.g. a network card, modem, and so on, and specialized communications software. With the advent of wireless networks, e.g. WIFI, Bluetooth, etc., digital media and data could be transferred without a physical connection. However, the sending computer and the receiving computers still require modems or their wireless equivalent.
Similarly, prior methods of moving digital media and data from a computer to a mobile device required a communications device on-board the mobile device. For example, some mobile devices, e.g. notebooks, have traditional modems and/or wireless equivalents such as Bluetooth to connect to the internet. For example, other mobile devices, e.g. mobile phones, have radio frequency (RF) transmitters and receivers to connect to wireless networks such as PCS, GSM, 3G, and so on.
Due to the potential demand for substantial network bandwidth, wireless providers are encouraging the return to use of physical connections for transference of media and data to mobile phones as an alternative to wireless networks. For example, media and data may also be transferred to mobile devices using physical connections, e.g. a communications cable (e.g. USB or Firewire) or a storage card (e.g. CF or SD), and specialized communications software. Prior methods teach users to depend on physical connections, and thus, forsake an essential part of cell phone mobility.
Initially, network capacity was a perceived problem for transmission of music and video media. The demand for network capacity was alleviated in part by the increasing bandwidth capacity of wireless networks, e.g. 3G. Yet, wireless providers still consider network capacity to be a problem for transmission of music and video media despite plan for increased network capacity, e.g. 5G, 10G, etc. One issue that affects bandwidth is the predominance of "streaming" media, e.g. real time radio and newcasts, via the internet. Streaming media requires bandwidth each time the media is played whereas downloaded media only requires bandwidth when it is initially downloaded.
Even if network bandwidth were not a problem, a mobile device still requires sufficient on-board memory to store media, e.g. a playlist. Unlike many newer mobile devices with removable storage cards, older mobile phones do not have substantial onboard memory. Thus, on-board memory remains an issue for transference of media, including music media.
Although most wireless carriers allow download or streaming videos to capable mobile phones on their networks, the mobile services of carriers are actually very limited. For example, carriers offer services such as messaging, email, and web browsing but not internet search. Although carriers offer keyword search, the search functionality is generally limited to their walled garden and none offers internet search such as internet videos, music, and other media. For example, carriers do not offer search of internet websites such as Flickr or YouTube.com but users have to utilize the browser and "go to url" to find internet search because that functionality does not exist within their walled gardens.
Although wireless carriers often distribute third party content and media, carriers do not typically create original content and restrict the distribution of user created content to specific communication channels. Further, carriers do not offer services for editing content regardless of whether content is original content, third party content, or user created content. For example, carriers do not offer services for editing documents (e.g. doc or ppt files) or media files (e.g. videos). Even the new mobile service for sharing live video offered by ATT Wireless does not allows editing of video. Hence, the extent of services offered by carriers is very limited.
Many online services offer users the ability to download music to their computers through the internet and then transfer to mobile devices, e.g. a mobile phone, using a physical connection. For example, such an online service is offered by Yahoo! Music of Santa Clara, Calif. Another online service offered by Digeo, Inc. of Kirkland, Wash. allows users the ability to download music directly to their mobile phone over the wireless provider network. However, the service allows only downloads of radio programs or downloads of newly purchased digital media. In addition, the Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., allows downloads of music directly to its new iPhone using the iTunes service and videos directly from the youtube service. However, the iPhone restricts the user's ability to download music and videos from other websites. Other online services allow streaming of videos to various devices that have installed applications or embedded viewers for viewing streaming video. Such devices include desktops, notebooks and some mobile devices, e.g. smartphones. For example, YouTube and many other online services allow streaming of videos to such devices (but not all mobile phones). A few online services allow either download or streaming of videos to some mobile phones (but not all mobile phones) because these services require an application on the mobile phone. For example, cellfish.com and mywaves.com allow either downloads or streaming to mobiles phones (but not all mobile phones). In addition, several services such as mywaves.com allow users to 'search' for videos on the desktop and make them accessible to the user. However, these online services are not true search of the internet but are in reality querying a database having a limited number of 100's of videos. Further, none of the online services allows users to search for videos from their mobile phones except for blueapple.mobi delivers a video of only 5 fps and also in reality querying a database.
Owners of content sites have existing media libraries that they wish to mobilize. The prior art methods, such as that used by YouTube and others, requires owners of websites to convert the video and then put it into their mobile system for people to view. The video is not available to view until it is converted and added to their mobile system. Their mobile videos do not reflect their full content library. However, there may not be interest in every media file (especially user created content) uploaded by every user of a content site. Thus, mobilizing their whole content library is inefficient and resources are wasted in mobilizing every media file. Even if a relatively small content site could afford to mobilize every file in a batch process, new files are continuously being added, and thus, the mobile content would not be up to date.
Still other online services eliminate the need for installed applications and are known as "software as a service" (SaaS). For example, companies are offering enterprise applications as online services such as that offered by salesforce.com of San Francisco, Calif. In another example, companies are offering consumer applications for editing documents such as Virtual Office offered by office.com of Washington, D.C. Virtual Office enables editing of typical office documents by providing the online functionality of a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation editors, etc. but does not include a module for editing video and other media. Still other examples include Jumpcut, Grouper, and Motionbox for editing video via a web browser using a Flash player of the type made under the Macromedia tradename. However, none of these online services allows users to edit videos or other media without an installed application such as a Flash player embedded in the browser or otherwise installed on the device. One service Grouper gave up video editing on the desktop due to a lack of users which teaches away from a mass market consumer service. Further, no browser for mobile phones (other than smartphones) supports a Flash application which typically requires a Flash player. Moreover, even if one version of a browser or other mobile application such as Flash Lite did support some Flash applications through a web interface, the browser or mobile application may not support every Flash application such as those for editing video(s) or media without a full Flash player and/or periodically requiring an update to the browser or mobile application, and thus, leading to maintenance and support issues.
Heretofore, no online service enables users the ability to search the internet for any available videos (e.g. breaking news, live broadcasts, user created videos, archived videos, and so on) at one or more websites and deliver them (or clips of them) to any web-enabled mobile phone. Currently, mobile users of existing online services are offered only a limited selection of videos (from hundreds to thousands) which are transcoded and stored in advance for retrieval by a user's query. No existing online service enables mobile users to perform a keyword search of in real time for videos and other media accessible on the internet (up to millions of videos).
Heretofore, no online service enables users the ability to edit video and/or other media without installing an application. Currently, users have to download media from an online source to a local device, e.g. desktop or laptop, in order to edit the media using a program installed on their computers. Further, an application embedded in a browser such as a Flash player is still an application. Since prior methods necessitate installation of a program, it is difficult to use on all portable devices due to hardware constraints including available memory and operating system compatibility as well as carrier restrictions on applications. This is particularly difficult for mobile devices such as mobile phones. Even if a program can be installed on a portable device, prior methods necessitate download of the media file from an online source even if the post-edited media file will be uploaded to an online source, and thus, the prior methods are inefficient.
Thus, a long felt need is an online service that allows users to search for videos and other media through a web interface on any mobile phone as well as to retrieve and play any media item from the search results and/or to send the retrieved media item to any mobile phone.
Another long felt need is an online service to edit videos and other media through any web interface using any device including desktops, notebooks, and mobile phones without the need to install any application.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Methods and systems of content mobilization, mobile search, and video editing through a web interface


A method and apparatus for digital predistortion of power amplifiers are disclosed. Successful digital predistortion parameter settings are correlated with the operating conditions that affect the distortion of an amplifier. These operating conditions may include input power level, carrier frequency, temperature, DC supply voltage, or others. The successful predistortion parameter settings along with the corresponding operating conditions are stored in a list that is indexed using multi-dimensional attribute vectors. The elements of the list are generated automatically.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital transmitters, RF power amplifiers and amplification methods. More particularly, the present invention relates to digital transmitters, amplifiers and related methods that use adaptive techniques to linearize the gain transfer characteristics or reduce distortion emissions, such as digital predistortion.
2. Description of the Prior Art and Related Background Information
Wireless transmitters employed in RF communications systems employ RF power amplifiers as a key component and these are a major source of nonlinearity in the overall system. RF power amplifiers are devices that attempt to replicate an RF signal present at an input, producing an output signal with a much higher power level. The increase in power from the input to output is referred to as the 'gain' of the amplifier. When the gain is constant across the dynamic range of the input signal, the amplifier is said to be 'linear'. Amplifiers have limited capacity in terms of power delivered because of gain and phase variances, particularly saturation at high power, which makes all practical amplifiers nonlinear when the input power level varies. The ratio of the distortion power generated relative to the signal power delivered is a measure of the non-linearity of the amplifier.
In RF communication systems, the maximum allowable non-linearity of the amplifier is specified by government agencies such as the FCC or the ITU. Because amplifiers are inherently nonlinear when operating near saturation, the linearity requirements often become the limitation on rated power delivering capability. In general, when operating near saturation, the linearity of the amplifier degrades rapidly because the incremental signal power delivered by an amplifier is proportionally less than the incremental distortion power generated.
Various compensation approaches are conventionally applied to reduce the distortion at the output of the system, which in turn increases the rated power delivering capability. One approach is digital predistortion. In digital predistortion, the RF power amplifier is part of a RF transmitter where a digital input signal is converted to an analog signal (DAC), up-converted in frequency to create a RF signal, then amplified by the RF power amplifier. The predistortion is applied to the signal while it is in a digital format to compensate for nonlinearities later in the transmit path.
The most significant nonlinearity tends to be the gain of the RF power amplifier. Gain of the power amplifier relates the amplitude and phase of the RF output signal to the RF input signal. Nonlinear gain means that the amplitude and/or phase components of the gain vary as a function of the input signal amplitude. For the gain to be linear, the amplitude and phase components must be constant over the range of input signal amplitudes. Digital predistortion compensates for these gain fluctuations by predicting the RF gain fluctuation from the digital input signal and generating a digital gain that makes the overall gain of the transmitter, the series combination of the digital and RF gains, more linear than the RF gain alone. In order to accurately predict the RF gain variations from the digital input signal, a digital model of the inverse of RF gain is required. In general, the digital model—whether it is based a look-up-table, polynomial expansion, or both—has a parametric form where the inverse gain is the sum of basis waveforms derived from the input signal weighted by a vector of complex predistortion parameters. The predistortion parameters are adjusted using an adaptive controller for optimal distortion correction and gain linearization.
Most end users of power amplifiers have specifications limiting the time that the adaptive portion can take to achieve sufficient distortion correction. As a result, it is important to have good initial predistortion parameter settings when the adaptive controller begins its search for the best (or sufficient) predistortion parameters. Some such specifications have times as low as 10 seconds.
There have been numerous prior approaches to predistortion. In earlier approaches, the compensating gain was implemented using static analog circuitry, hand-tuned to be optimal for nominal operating conditions. Later digital approaches were introduced allowing greater flexibility in the inverse gain model. Look-up-tables and polynomial expansions dependent on the instantaneous input magnitude or power only were used to model memoryless distortion. As the bandwidths of the input signal increased, usually as a result of multi-carrier signal formatting, models were expanded to be functions of both the instantaneous and past input magnitudes, capturing a type of distortion referred to as "memory-based". Amplifiers exhibiting memory-based distortion are said to have "memory effects".
The nonlinear gain of the RF amplifier is not only a function of the instantaneous and recent past input magnitudes (referred to as the "envelope" of the input signal), it is also influenced by other input and environmental quantities such as the average input power, the number of carriers and their center frequencies within a multi-carrier format, temperature, and DC supply voltage (collectively referred to in this disclosure as "attributes"). These attributes are characterized as measurable quantities, largely independent of the power amplifier, that vary slowly or change infrequently relative to changes in the instantaneous magnitude (envelope) of the input signal. In prior art approaches, adaptive methods are applied to re-adjust the coefficients of the inverse gain model in response to changes in the RF gain due to changes in the input or environmental quantities. A means of measuring of output signal and converting it into a digital format is required. The digital input and digitized output signals are compared to estimate the residual distortion within the output signal from which the adjustments in the predistortion parameters are computed that reduce the output distortion. In such systems, the convergence time is dependent on the size and abruptness of the change in the attribute quantities and the sensitivity of the power amplifier gain to the attributes. During the transient (converging predistortion parameter) periods, the distortion at the output might exceed the spectral mask specifications, which is not desirable.
To avoid transient distortion, the prior art has relied on look-up tables (LUT's) that are indexed using one or more of the attribute quantities. For the case where the inverse gain model is represented using a polynomial expansion, the entries of the LUT are coefficients of the expansion considered optimal for the corresponding attribute (index) quantity. For the case where the inverse gain model is also represented by LUT structure indexed to the instantaneous amplitude (envelope) of the input signal, a multi-dimensional table is formed. However, in the context of this invention, the dimensions indexed by the attribute, and not those of the envelope of the input signal, are of interest.
As indicated above, look-up tables in the past have used a fixed structure. The input, such as temperature, is an index to an array. The indices are equally spaced across the range in ascending order, and the corresponding predistortion parameters are stored within the array. The array of vectors forms a two-dimensional LUT. This structure is well suited to memory chips because the index is equivalent to an address and the predistortion parameters are equivalent to the data. However, the look-up tables are usually based on experimental data (calibration) requiring significant time to fill-in the elements of the table. In addition, drift from component aging can make any look-up table obsolete, necessitating a re-calibration.
Another difficulty with look-up tables is that it can be extremely difficult to manage multi-dimensional arrays, which would be required if many operating conditions are present which affect the optimal predistortion parameters. One can imagine the number of elements present in an equally spaced four-dimensional array. For example, 10 samples per dimension produces 10000 elements.
One technique of managing multiple indexing dimensions is to assume that the effects are separable. Separable conditions would allow the use of individual arrays for each operating condition, and the composite effect would be the sum of the individual adjustments. (Not unlike a Taylor series expansion where the partial derivatives are specified). Unfortunately, this approach is valid only for small (differential) alignment adjustments because any cross-correlation between dimensions is ignored. The largest error would occur at the corners of the multi-dimensional array. For example, a troublesome corner in the temperature, DC supply index space would be high temperature and low voltage. It is these corner locations that are tested, typically, by sophisticated customers for determining if the amplifier is compliant with specifications.
A related problem with the array-based look-up table is the selection of the sampling interval (separation between adjacent indices) within the index space. In general, the sensitivities of the predistortion parameter settings vary over the index space. The sampling density must be selected based on the most sensitive region of the index space. The remaining regions will be over-sampled. This problem of over-sampling is made more significant for multi-dimensional arrays.
There have been attempts to make look-up tables self-calibrating or self-generating. However, the fixed array structure is difficult to manage. The key problem encountered is 'update fragmentation'. Consider the previously-mentioned four-dimensional array case. When the look-up table is updated, only one element of 10000 is changed. If the source of the degradation is global (due to component drift, for example), then all 10000 elements are affected. However, the changes must propagate as each index is visited. The potential for neighboring indices to have large differences exists, simply because one of the indices is older.
Accordingly, a need presently exists for a system and method for rapid predistortion parameter control in a digital predistortion amplifier system which avoids the above noted limitations of the prior art.

Digital transmitter system employing self-generating predistortion parameter lists and adaptive controller


A method for communication between a wireless device node in a wireless sensor network (WSN) and control apparatus or control processes of an industrial control system is used to determine a method of radio transmission which provides a greater or a lesser measure of transmission quality between nodes. Thus a transmitter node measures a transmission quality metric of at least one packet received from two or more different switching branches, identifies which of the two or more switching branches has the greater transmission quality metric, distributes data packets with a first priority to the switching branch with the greater transmission quality metric, and transmits data packets with the first priority such as real-time data on the switching branch with the greater transmission quality metric. A wireless node, a sensor network system and a computer program for carrying out the method are described.

Industrial control systems, process control systems, distributed control systems and the like in process industries often comprise both hard-wired data networks and wireless data networks. Wireless sensor networks are used to communicate measurements and some control data between wireless field devices such as sensors, and/or actuators, and the industrial control system. Wireless sensors are often battery powered.
It is known that the environment in industrial plants and installations is harsh which can make reliable wireless communication a challenge. In this description industrial plants may include oil and gas (petroleum) exploration, production or processing installations in oil and gas production/extraction installations; pulp and paper mills, metal rolling mills, cement works, electrical power generation, transmission and distribution installations, processes or equipment on a ship or on an oil platform, mines both above ground and underground, and so on. In some cases the signal strength in an industrial plant may fluctuate by around 40-50 dB. And in addition, in some cases the signal strength may drop even further due to shadow fading (for instance when a truck is parked in front of the wireless device). Despite the challenges posed by a harsh wireless environment, the use of industrial wireless sensor networks is predicted to increase exponentially within the industrial automation domain and they will be deployed in very harsh industrial environments which will make it difficult to ensure reliable communication.
Such a harsh wireless environment liable to temporary changes in wireless transmission/reception conditions makes radio communication in industrial plants a challenge, especially for real-time communication with strict delay requirements and deterministic behavior. Available Industrial Wireless Sensor Network standards such as IEEE 802.15.4 [1], ISA100 [3], WIA-PA [4] and Industrial WLAN [5] provide guidance for normal transmission and reception. However these standards do not provide information on how to improve the reliability in wireless sensor networks used in industrial installations.
From another technical field, the field of mobile wireless communication networks, a patent U.S. Pat. No. 6,982,987, entitled Wireless communication network including data prioritization and packet reception error determination features and related methods, assigned to Harris Corp., describes a method to prioritize communications in a mobile communication network. It further discloses a mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) wherein data is assigned a priority level with a respective Quality of Service (QoS) requirement. A QoS metric, which is said to be e.g. the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR), is determined for different transmission time slots and is used to map prioritised data to the best time slot. Similarly another patent, U.S. Pat. No. 7,142,866, entitled Load leveling in mobile ad-hoc networks to support end-to-end delay reduction, QoS and energy leveling; and also assigned to Harris Corp., also discloses a mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) where data is prioritised according to type-of-service (ToS) and transmitted on routes that are ranked according to their quality-of-service (QoS). The QoS is said to be based on e.g. link reliability, the meaning of which term is, however, not further explained.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,864,682, entitled Method for routing data in networks, assigned to Samsung Electronics, a wireless mesh network is disclosed, wherein different types of traffic have different requirements and are therefore routed differently. In this disclosure, the metrics used are link latency or link bandwidth. In another disclosure relying on route identification, US2012099587, entitled "Forwarding and routing in sensor networks" and assigned to Toshiba K.K., a wireless mesh sensor network and a method is disclosed wherein traffic is classified into two different levels of priority (standard or critical). The critical priority data is routed in the most reliable route, which is determined by measuring a signal-to-interference-plus-noise (SINR) value of each route. The disclosure describes that the most reliable route is identifiable by the node on the basis of previous successful transmissions, success being determined on the receipt of an acknowledgement from a packet recipient node.
However although there are some known methods to make a static determination of an identified best route there is room in the field of industrial wireless sensor networks for improvement in the reliability of wireless communication.

Method for providing reliable wireless communication in a wireless sensor network


A tunable optical transmitter, comprising a tunable laser comprising a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) section, a phase section, and a gain section, a photodiode detector (PD) optically coupled to the tunable laser, wherein the tunable optical transmitter lacks a temperature controller, and wherein the tunable optical transmitter is configured to lock onto a wavelength at different operating temperatures.

A passive optical network (PON) is a point-to-multipoint, fiber to the premises network architecture in which unpowered optical splitters are used to enable a single optical transmitter to serve multiple premises. A PON may consist of an optical line terminal (OLT) at the service provider's central office and a number of optical network units (ONUs) near end users. A PON reduces the amount of fiber and central office equipment required compared with point-to-point architectures. A number of ONUs may share the same wavelength over the optical fiber.

Self-characterization tunable optical network unit