The invention provides a system for solid-phase synthesis of oligosaccharides, based on the discovery that a 2-substituted-1,3-dioxocycloalkyl linker group of general formula (I) can be used to couple saccharide groups of both the O-glycoside and N-glycoside type to a polymer support. The invention provides reagents, reagent kits and methods for solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis.

This invention relates to methods for synthesis of oligosaccharides, and in particular to methods for solid phase or combinatorial synthesis of oligosaccharides. The invention provides a novel linker-resin, linker-saccharide, or resin-linker-saccharide complex, which in one embodiment enables a saccharide residue to be linked to a soluble or insoluble polymeric support for use as a basis for solid-phase synthesis of oligosaccharides. In a second embodiment, the complex of the invention enables oligosaccharides to be linked to a solid polymeric support for use as an analytical reagent.
Oligosaccharides constitute a major class of bioactive polymers, implicated in biochemical processes (Lasky, 1992; Varki, 1993) as diverse as cellular differentiation, hormone-cell recognition and cell-cell adhesion, especially viral-host cell (Gambaryan et al, 1995) and bacteria-host cell attachment (Boren et al, 1993). Involvement of oligosaccharides in diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disorders, microbial infections, graft rejection and autoimmune disorders has therefore, been strongly suggested. Conjugation of carbohydrates to bioactive peptides has also been demonstrated to stabilise the peptides against degradation, and, in more specific circumstances, to facilitate peptide transport across biological barriers (Lee, 1989; Fisher, 1991; Rodriguez, 1989). Thus the ability to synthesise oligosaccharides in a facile and efficient manner is now becoming an extremely important area within organic chemistry.
The highly labour intensive solution phase strategies hitherto utilised in oligosaccharide syntheses require an extremely specialised knowledge and a high degree of chemical skill. This situation was mirrored within the area of peptide synthesis, until Merrifield et al proposed and developed Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis (SPPS) over thirty years ago (Merrifield, 1963). In SPPS immobilisation of the first amino acid of the required sequence to an insoluble resin enabled large excesses of reagents to be used to achieve the coupling of the second amino acid. Any unused materials remaining at the end of the coupling step could then be removed simply by washing the resin beads. This technology meant that the chemist could drive each coupling reaction to almost quantitative yields, and since the peptide intermediates formed were still bound to the resin, purification after each acylation step was not required. SPPS enables peptide and polypeptide synthesis to be employed as a routine research and synthetic tool, and permits large-scale combinatorial synthesis of peptides for screening of potential pharmaceutical agents.
For many years chemists have attempted to transpose this solid-phase methodology to oligosaccharide synthesis, with varying degrees of success. The first attempt was approximately 25 years ago (Frechet and Schuerch, 1971; Frechet and Schuerch, 1972; Guthrie et al, 1971; Guthrie et al, 1973). However, the ozone-mediated deprotection product was an aldehyde-substituted glycoside. Danishefsky and coworkers described the solid phase synthesis of the Lewis b Antigen (Randolph et al, 1995) and N-linked glycopeptides (Roberge et al, 1995) by initial attachment of the primary sugar unit of the oligosaccharide to a 1% divinylbenzene-styrene co-polymer support via a silyl ether linkage. The resin-bound sugar moeity was in this instance a glycal, with on-resin activation achieved via epoxidation of the double bond, and the resulting glycal residue acting as a sugar donor through nucleophile ring-opening of the epoxide. Since there are no calorimetric methods available to the sugar chemist to monitor on-resin glycosylations, the only means of assessing the progress of the reaction is by lysis of the oligosaccharide-resin bond and subsequent analysis of the cleavage product, usually by thin layer chromatography. The tetra-n-butylammonium fluoride-mediated deprotection conditions required to cleave Danishefsky""s silyl ether linker are both hazardous and slow. This coupled with the requirement for on-resin activation of the tethered glycals, makes the overall strategy and methodology far from ideal.
In an alternative approach, Douglas and coworkers described the synthesis of D-mannopentose using a polyethyleneglycol xcfx89-monomethylether co-polymer and a succinoyl or an xcex1,xcex1xe2x80x2-dioxyxylyl diether linker (Douglas et al, 1995). The reactions were carried out in solution phase, with removal of unused reactants being achieved by precipitation of the oligosaccharide-polymer complex and subsequent washing. In the latter example, cleavage of the oligosaccharide-polymer bond was achieved through catalytic hydrogenation, which required exposure of the conjugate to 1 atm of H2 for 48 h to achieve respectable yields. This again is far too slow to allow effective monitoring of individual glycosylation reactions. Yan et al reported sulphoxide-mediated glycosylation on a Merrifield resin, using a thiophenol linker for the attachment of the primary sugar residue (Yan et al, 1994). This method resulted in the construction of (1-6)-linked oligosaccharides, and was suitable for synthesis of both xcex1- and xcex2-glycosidic linkages. However, the thioglycosidic linkage to the resin dictates that similar sugar donors cannot be employed in this strategy.
Recently Rademann and Schmidt reported the use of trichloroacetimidate sugar donors to a resin bound sugar tethered via an alkyl thiol (Rademann and Schmidt, 1996); once again, however, this method precludes the use of the far superior thioglycoside sugar donors. Meanwhile, Adinolfi et al described the synthesis of disaccharides using a polyethyleneglycol-polystyrene resin, with connection of the first sugar to the polymeric support through a succinate spacer (Adinolfi et al, 1996). However, the acid lability displayed by this linker means that the primary sugar cannot be linked to the resin via the glycosidic position.
The above examples serve to illustrate that the critical element in solid phase synthesis is the nature of the linker between the solid support and the initial synthon. The linker must display excellent stability to the conditions of coupling and deprotection, yet in the case of solid phase oligosaccharide synthesis, it should also be rapidly and efficiently cleaved to allow monitoring of the progress of individual coupling reactions. The cleavage should ideally be achieved by the use of a relatively innocuous chemical reagent.
It is clear, then, that there remains a need in the art for simple, efficient and economical methods for solid-phase synthesis of oligosaccharides.
A hydrazine-labile primary amino-protecting group, N-1-(4,4-dimethyl-2,6-dioxocyclohexylidene)ethyl (Dde), has been reported for protection of lysine side chains during SPPS (Bycroft et al, 1993). This group was modified for use as a carboxy-protecting group in SPPS when the 2-(3-methylbutyryl)dimedone analogue of 2-acetyl-dimedone was condensed with 4-aminobenzylalcohol to afford 4-[N-[1-(4,4-dimethyl-2,6-dioxocyclohexylidene)-3-methyl-butyl]-amino]benzyl ester (ODmab)(Chan et al, 1995).
The two protecting groups were reported to be stable to the deprotecting conditions widely used in SPPS, ie. trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) or 20% piperidine in dimethyl formamide (DMF). The ethyl ester, 4-[N-(1-(4,4-dimethyl-2,6-dioxocyclohexylidene)ethyl)amino]benzyl ester (ODab) showed small but significant instability to 20% piperidine-DMF. Both Dde and ODmab are linked to groups on amino acids, rather than directly to the solid-phase support. Their use in solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis has not been suggested.
We have now surprisingly found that protecting groups similar to Dde and ODmab can be coupled to a polymeric support, thereby generating a system for the immobilisation of sugars. To this end we have immobilised N- and O-glycosides to the solid support and synthesised oligosaccharides using various sugar donors. The linkers display excellent stability to most acids and secondary/tertiary bases encountered in modern synthetic chemistry, yet are rapidly and efficiently cleaved with either ammonia, hydrazine or primary amines.
Bannwarth et al have independently developed a different solid phase linker around the Dde protecting group, which they have utilised for the immobilisation of amino acids and primary amines for combinatorial library synthesis (Bannwarth et al, 1996). However, the synthesis of this linker is both protracted and inefficient, and the linker only displays a limited stability to secondary bases such as piperidine. There has been no suggestion that this linker could be used for oligosaccharide synthesis. The linkers we have developed demonstrate a far greater stability than those of Bannwarth et al.
In one aspect, the invention provides a support for solid-phase synthesis of oligosaccharides, said support comprising:
a) a resin,
b) a linker covalently attached to the resin, and
c) one or more saccharide groups covalently attached to the resin via the linker,
wherein the linker is a 2-substituted-1,3-dioxocycloalkane compound, and
said support having general formula I:
in which
R1 and R2 may be the same or different, and is each hydrogen or C1-4 alkyl;
Rxe2x80x2 is an amino sugar, a glycosylamine, or a glycosylamine of an oligosaccharide; a mono or oligosaccharide coupled through an alkyl-, substituted alkyl-, aryl-, substituted aryl-, cycloalkyl-, or substituted cycloalkyl-amino group; or a mono or oligosaccharide coupled through a carboxyalkyl-, substituted carboxyalkyl-, carboxyaryl-, substituted carboxyaryl-, carboxycycloalkyl-, or substituted carboxycycloalkyl-amino group; and
Rxe2x80x3 is an alkyl, substituted alkyl, aryl, substituted aryl, cycloalkyl, or substituted cycloalkyl spacer group which is directly coupled to the resin support, or which may optionally be coupled to the resin support via a suitable covalent linkage, which is stable to conditions of oligosaccharide synthesis and cleavage.
The covalent linkage to the resin may suitably be provided by a xe2x80x94CONHxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94Sxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94COOxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94CHxe2x95x90Nxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94NHCONHxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94NHCSNH, or xe2x80x94NHNHxe2x80x94 grouping, eg. Spacer-CONH-resin, Spacer-O-resin, Spacer-S-resin, Spacer-CO2-resin, Spacer-CHxe2x95x90N-resin, Spacer-NHCONH-resin, Spacer-NHCSNH-resin, Spacer-NHNH-resin. Other possible covalent linking groups will be known to those skilled in the art.
Preferably both R1 and R2 are methyl.
Preferably Rxe2x80x2 is an oligosaccharide-Oxe2x80x94CH2xe2x80x94(C6H4)xe2x80x94NH, monosaccharide-Oxe2x80x94CH2xe2x80x94(C6H4)xe2x80x94NH, amino-oligosaccharide-CO2CH2xe2x80x94(C6H4)NH, or amino-monosaccharide-CO2CH2xe2x80x94(C6H4)xe2x80x94NH group.
In a particularly preferred embodiment the 2-substituted-1,3-dioxocycloalkane linker is functionalised Dde, Ddh or ODmab. In one very particularly preferred embodiment the support comprises a resin, a linker and a monosaccharide, an oligosaccharide, an aminosaccharide or an amino-oligosaccharide.
In a second aspect, the invention provides a support for solid-phase synthesis comprising a resin and a linker group, wherein the linker is a 2-substituted-1,3-dioxocycloalkane of general formula II:
in which
X is OH or NH2;
R1 and R2 may be the same or different, and is each hydrogen or C1-4 alkyl; preferably both R1 and R2 are methyl; and
Rxe2x80x3 is an alkyl, substituted alkyl, aryl, substituted aryl, cycloalkyl, or substituted cycloalkyl spacer group which is directly coupled to the resin support, or which may optionally be coupled to the resin support via a suitable covalent linkage, which is stable to conditions of oligosaccharide synthesis and cleavage. The covalent linkage may suitably be provided by a xe2x80x94CONHxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94Oxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94Sxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94COOxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94CHxe2x95x90Nxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94NHCONHxe2x80x94, xe2x80x94NHCSNH, or xe2x80x94NHNHxe2x80x94 grouping, eg. Spacer-CONH-resin, Spacer-O-resin, Spacer-S-resin, Spacer-CO2-resin, Spacer-CHxe2x95x90N-resin, Spacer-NHCONH-resin, Spacer-NHCSNH-resin, Spacer-NHNH-resin. Other possible covalent linking groups will be known to those skilled in the art.
In a third aspect, the invention provides a linker-saccharide complex, comprising a linker group of general formula II as defined above and a saccharide group as defined above for Rxe2x80x2.
In a fourth aspect the invention provides a linker compound carrying functional groups suitable to attach a primary amine to a resin via covalent bonds which are stable to conditions of oligosaccharide synthesis and cleavage, said compound having general formula III
in which
X is OH or NH2;
R1 and R2 may be the same or different, and is each hydrogen or C1-4 alkyl, and
Rxe2x80x3 is an alkyl, substituted alkyl, aryl, substituted aryl, cycloalkyl, or substituted cycloalkyl spacer group, which carries a functionality capable of reacting with a functionalised resin.
Preferably the linker compound is 6-hydroxyl-6-(4,4-dimethyl-2,6-dioxocyclohexylidene)-hexanoic acid or an ester thereof. Preferably the ester is a benzyl, methyl, or t-butyl ester.
For the purposes of this specification the term xe2x80x9csubstitutedxe2x80x9d in the definitions of substituents within this specification means that the substituent is itself substituted with a group which does not change the general chemical characteristics of the substituent. Preferred such further substituents are halogen, nitro, amino, hydroxyl, and thiol; preferred halogens are chlorine and iodine. The person skilled in the art will be aware of other suitable substituents of similar size and charge characteristics which could be used as alternatives in a given situation.
For the purposes of this specification a compound is regarded as xe2x80x9cstable to conditions of oligosaccharide synthesis and cleavagexe2x80x9d if there is less than 10% loss of the compound after exposure at room temperature to ammonia, hydrazine or a primary amino compound in water or DMF. The person skilled in the art will readily be able to determine whether the stability of a particular compound is adequate for it to be useful for the purposes of the invention, using conditions appropriate for his or her particular needs.
The linker compound of the invention may be synthesized on the resin, or may be synthesized in solution.
The invention also provides kits useful in solid phase synthesis or combinatorial synthesis of oligosaccharides, comprising either
a) a resin-linker-saccharide support,
b) a linker-saccharide complex, or
c) a resin-linker support,
according to the invention, as described above. The kit may optionally also comprise one or more further reagents such as protecting agents, deprotecting agents, and/or solvents suitable for solid phase or combinatorial synthesis. The person skilled in the art will be aware of suitable further reagents. Different types of kit can then be chosen according to the desired use.
The resin may be any resin which swells in water and/or in an organic solvent, and which comprises one of the following substituents: halogen, hydroxy, carboxyl, SH, NH2, formyl, SO2NH2, or NHNH2, for example methylbenzhydrylamine (MBHA) resin, amino or carboxy tentagel resins, 4-sulphamylbenzyl AM resin. Other suitable resins will be known to those skilled in the art.
The invention also provides a method of solid-phase synthesis of oligosaccharides, comprising the step of sequentially linking mono- or oligosaccharide groups to a support as described above. Similarly the mono- or oligosaccharide building blocks may be as described above.
This method is particularly useful for combinatorial synthetic application.
The linker compound may be synthesised in solution or directly on the resin in a stepwise manner prior to the coupling of the initial sugar group, or the linker-initial sugar conjugate may be synthesised in solution phase and subsequently coupled to the solid support, with subsequent sugars being sequentially attached. Preferably the second and all subsequent sugar groups are coupled to the oligosaccharide chain-resin conjugate after the last sugar in the oligosaccharide chain is partially deprotected.
The invention accordingly provides a method of synthesis of a linker group according to general formula I as defined above, comprising the step of C-acylation of a 2-substituted 1,3-dioxocyclohexane compound with a dicarboxylic acid. Preferably the dicarboxylic acid is mono-protected by ester formation. More preferably the reaction is activated with carbodiimide and catalysed by N,Nxe2x80x2-dimethylaminopyridine.
The product of the reaction may optionally be reacted with 4-aminobenzyl alcohol, to form the 4-aminobenzyl derivative.
The invention also provides a method of synthesis of a resin-linker support, comprising the step of swelling a resin in a suitable solvent, treating the swollen resin with a dicarboxylic acid, and reacting the thus-produced product with a 2-substituted 1,3-dioxocycloalkane compound. Preferably for both synthesis of the linker and synthesis of the resin-linker support the 2-substituted 1,3-dioxocyclolkane compound is 5,5-dimethyl-1,3-cyclohexanedione. Also preferably the dicarboxylic acid is adipic acid.
The first sugars attached to the resin-linker unit may be unprotected, partially protected or fully protected glycosides, aminoglycosides, or ether- or amino-linked sugars, where the coupling takes place through a non-glycosidic position.
The building block mono- or oligosaccharide-donors may be any activated sugar, including but not limited to orthoesters, thioorthoesters, cyanoalkylidene derivatives, 1-O-acyl sugars, amino sugars, acetimidates, trichloroacetimidates, thioglycosides, aminoglycosides, amino-oligosaccharides, glycosylamines of oligosaccharides, glycosyl thiocyanates, pentenyl glycosides, pentenoylglycosides, isoprenyl glycosides, glycals, tetramethylphosphoro diamidates, sugar diazirines, selenoglycosides, phosphorodithioates, glycosyl-dialkylphosphites, glycosylsulphoxides and glycosylfluorides.
Preferably the first sugar coupled to the resin is an aminosugar, an aminoglycoside, or an amino-oligosaccharide or a glycosyl amine of an oligosaccharide.
Preferably partial sugar deprotection is achieved by using acyl-type, trityl, benzyl-type, acetal-type, or various silyl and/or photolabile protecting groups in addition to permanent protecting groups. This permits the synthesis of branched oligosaccharides by using two orthogonal hydroxy-protecting groups on a single sugar donor.
The synthesised oligosaccharide can be cleaved from the resin using ammonia, hydrazine or a primary amine, such as butylamine or cyclohexylamine. For the preparation of aminoglycosides, ammonia or a suitable primary amine in an organic solvent is preferably employed. For the preparation of hydrazides, hydrazine in water or in an organic solvent is preferably employed. For the preparation of oligosaccharides, ammonia in water or in an organic solvent is preferably employed, followed by acidification. When the linker contains a 4-aminobenzyl moiety, after cleavage as described above the first sugar is released still protected by the aminobenzyl group; this can be removed by hydrogenation if desired.
The person skilled in the art will appreciate that the oligosaccharide can be retained on the resin for use as an analytical or preparative reagent, for example in affinity chromatography or for bulk-scale affinity separation.


A hybrid airfoil for a gas turbine engine is provided that includes a body and a panel. The body has a first side and a second side orientated opposite the first side. The first and second sides extend between a tip, a base, a leading edge and a trailing edge. The body includes a plurality of cavities disposed in the first side of the body, which cavities extend inwardly toward the second side. The cavities collectively form an opening. At least one rib is disposed between the cavities. A shelf is disposed around the opening. The panel is attached to the shelf first mounting surface and to the rib, and is sized to enclose the opening. The panel is a load bearing structure operable to transfer loads to the body and receive loads from the body.

1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to gas turbine engine airfoils in general, and to a hybrid airfoil utilizing composite and/or metallic materials in particular.
2. Background Information
Lightweight fan blades such as hybrid fan blades have been developed to reduce weight, centrifugal forces and inertial stress and strain in gas turbine engines. Some fan blades include a unitary hollow metallic airfoil portion formed by casting, forging and other forming techniques followed by milling to final dimensions. Other fan blades include metallic leading edge, trailing edge, and tip portion, independent of one another, fixed to a composite body. The metallic leading and trailing edges are bonded to the composite airfoil to provide erosion and impact resistance. The metallic cap is bonded to the tip of the composite airfoil to provide rubbing resistance. Both the first and the second approaches typically result in a weight reduction over a traditional titanium solid fan blade, but dramatically increase the cost of the fan blade.
Advancements in gas turbine engines have increased the need for fan blades having greater weight reductions (e.g. weight reductions of 40% or higher). Consequently, there is a need for a lightweight fan blade that is not cost prohibitive.


Disclosed are an uplink control information transmission method and device for addressing a lack of a solution that a terminal provides feedback of downlink carriers scheduled by different base stations in a dual-connectivity scenario. The method in an embodiment of the present application comprises: a terminal receives data over a first carrier and a second carrier, the data over the first carrier being scheduled by a first base station and the data over the second carrier being scheduled by a second base station; the terminal generates first uplink control information for the first carrier, and/or the terminal generates second uplink control information for the second carrier; the terminal transmits the generated uplink control information over one uplink carrier according to a TA value and a reference carrier, the uplink control information comprising at least one of the first uplink control information and the second uplink control information. Therefore, the terminal can simply transmit over one uplink carrier the uplink control information corresponding to the downlink carriers scheduled by different base stations scheduling data for the terminal.

Along with the technical evolvement and emerging data services, such a scenario may occur in later releases of the Long Term Evolution-Advance (LTE-A) system that a user equipment is configured to operate while being served by a plurality of base stations (i.e., dual connectivity).
For example, a user equipment is configured with a Master Evolved NodeB (MeNB) and at least one Secondary base station (SeNB), where in the dual connectivity application scenario, at least an S1-MME (wherein MME stands for a Mobility Management Entity (MME), and S1 stands for an S1 interface to the MME) is terminated at the MeNB, so from the prospective of a core network, the MeNB can be regarded as a mobile anchor; and the SeNB is responsible for providing the user equipment with additional radio resources in addition to the MeNB.
In the dual connectivity scenario, frame structures applied to cells and/or carriers scheduled by different base stations may or may not be the same. For example, a Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) frame structure is used on the respective carriers scheduled by the different base stations for the user equipment; or a Time Division Duplex (TDD) frame structure is used on the respective carriers scheduled by the different base stations for the user equipment (wherein TDD uplink/downlink configurations applied to the respective carriers scheduled by the different base stations may or may not be the same); or an FDD frame structure is used on respective carriers in one frequency band for the user equipment, and a TDD frame structure is used on respective carriers in another frequency band for the user equipment.
In the dual connectivity scenario, the plurality of base stations which the user equipment is connected schedule their respective sets of downlink carriers separately, where data can be scheduled and transmitted for the user equipment in the following three options:
Option 1: bearers of the MeNB are routed directly to the MeNB from a gateway (e.g., a Serving Gateway (S-GW)); and bearers of the SeNB are routed directly to the SeNB from the gateway, that is, the bearers of the SeNB are not routed through the MeNB, as illustrated in FIG. 1;
Option 2: bearers of the MeNB are routed directly to the MeNB from a gateway; and firstly bearers of the SeNB are routed to the MeNB from the gateway, and then all the bearers are split by the MeNB to the SeNB, that is, the bearers of the SeNB are not split, as illustrated in FIG. 2; and
Option 3: bearers of the MeNB are routed directly to the MeNB from a gateway; and firstly bearers of the SeNB are routed to the MeNB from the gateway, and then a part of the bearers are split by the MeNB to the SeNB, whereas the other part of the bearers are still transmitted at the MeNB side, that is, the bearers of the SeNB are split, as illustrated in FIG. 3.
In the dual connectivity scenario, the user equipment may receive data on the sets of downlink carriers scheduled by the different base stations, so the user equipment needs to feed back Uplink Control Information (UCI) corresponding to the downlink carriers scheduled by the different base stations. However in the dual connectivity scenario, a solution to making a feedback by the user equipment for the downlink carriers scheduled by the different base stations has been absent so far.

Uplink control information transmission method and device

China Academy of Telecommunications Technology


A flat coreless vibrator motor includes a casing for housing the motor, a shaft rotatably supported by the casing, a rotor mounted on the shaft and being generally in the shape of a sector, the shaft being disposed at the center of a circle, along which a generally arc-shaped outer periphery of the sector generally extends. At least three armature coils are provided on the rotor and are angularly arranged in such a manner that these armature coils do not overlap each other. A magnet is mounted on the casing so as to generate a magnetic flux. A commutator and brushes cooperate with each other to supply electric power to the armature coils. Since the rotor is eccentric, vibrations are produced during the rotation of the rotor.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a flat coreless vibrator motor suitable for use as a silent alerting source for a portable card-type device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is a conventional vibrator motor in which an eccentric plate is mounted on an output shaft of a rotary motor of the ordinary type. Such a conventional vibrator motor is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-290153. However, it is difficult to make such a vibrator motor thin because of the provision of the eccentric plate.
There is a conventional flat coreless vibrator motor in which one of three armature coils arranged on a rotor at an equal angular interval, i.e. pitch angle of 120.degree., is removed. Such a vibration motor is disclosed in the above Japenese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-290153. However, this conventional vibrator motor has a problem in that since there are only two armature coils, those portions which contribute to the production of torque cannot be sufficiently large, and therefore in order to obtain the required torque, a large amount of current is required. Another problem is that the rotor, having the two armature coils angularly spaced 120.degree. from each other, can not provide a sufficient weight unbalance which contributes to the production of vibrations.
There is known another flat coreless vibrator motor in which one of three armature coils arranged on a rotor at an equal angular interval, i.e. pitch angle of 120.degree., is smaller in size than the other two. Such a vibrator motor is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,864,276. However, in this conventional vibrator motor, since the rotor, having the three armature coils (one of which is smaller in size) angularly spaced 120.degree. from one another, has a disk-shaped configuration, weight unbalance of the rotor which contributes to the production of vibration is small. As a result, the amplitude of the vibration produced during the rotation of the rotor is small, and the vibration frequency becomes high. Therefore, when such a vibrator motor is used as an alerting source for a portable card-type device, users of the device feel unpleasant.


Conventional internal combustion engine technology has been around for decades and historically has been the primary power source for virtually all industrial equipment. It relies on carbon-based fuels, is loud, polluting, and the machines it powers are expensive to operate and maintain. A self-contained, rechargeable battery system is provided that possesses improved power than comparable diesel and gas engines and it generates zero emissions, is virtually maintenance free, is quiet, and recharges overnight via a standard electrical outlet. The rechargeable battery power system can be installed in new and used construction equipment and may be used wherever a source of power is required including smart grid application. It can be safely used indoors, in neighborhoods and other locations sensitive to the side effects of internal combustion engines. There is a battery management system that controls sequential shutdown system and a power reserve system to control operation of the battery.

Energy is in constant need for powering equipment of all types and kinds. Recently, there has been a trend to power a plurality of different machines, for example automobiles, motorcycles, and construction equipment with electric. Typically these electrically powered devices will carry a power source in the form of a battery to power them.
However, there are needs for improved battery designs that have a more universal applicability so that the battery is capable of powering devices from light towers to bulldozers.

Rechargeable battery power system having a battery with multiple uses

OSC Manufacturing & Equipment Services, Inc.


A phase-difference detecting method is for detecting phase difference between a first signal and a second signal of the same frequency. First, generate a detection signal. Next, sample the detection signal respectively according to the first signal and the second signal to obtain a first sample value and a second sample value. Then, determine whether a determination condition that the first and the second sample values are respectively equal to the previous first and second sample values is satisfied. When the determination condition is unsatisfied for the first time, record a delay time of the detection signal as a first time. When the determination condition is unsatisfied for the second time, record a delay time of the detection signal as a second time. Obtain the phase difference between the first signal and the second signal according to the first time and the second time.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a phase-difference detecting apparatus, and more particularly to a phase-difference detecting apparatus, which detects phase difference between several targeted signals by delaying the phase of a detection signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring to FIGS. 1A and 1B, a block diagram of a conventional phase-difference detecting apparatus and a timing diagram of relevant signals of the phase-difference detecting apparatus of FIG. 1A are respectively shown. To obtain phase difference between the timing signals CK1 and CK2 with the same frequency and different phases, the timing signals CK1 and CK2 are inputted to an exclusive or (XOR) gate to obtain an exclusive signal XS and the exclusive signal XS and a sample signal SS generated by the signal generator 130 are inputted to a flip-flop 120 to sample the exclusive signal XS by the sample signal SS and obtain a sample result SO. Afterwards, how many periods of the sample signal SS are included in the time when the sample result SO has a high signal level is counted to obtain a delay time TD corresponding to the phase difference between the timing signals CK2 and CK1. Then, the phase difference between the timing signals CK1 and CK2 can be obtained according to the delay time Td and the period of the timing signal CK1. However, the conventional phase-difference detecting apparatus 100 has several disadvantages.
In order to precisely detect the phase difference between the timing signals CK1 and CK2 via the conventional phase-difference detecting apparatus 100, the frequency of the sample signal SS should be very much higher than the frequency of the timing signals CK1 and CK2, such as by more than 20 times. However, in a normal electronic apparatus, most of the timing signals have a frequency close to the maximum frequency permitted in the circuit hardware condition. Therefore, in a normal practical application, the phase difference between the timing signals CK1 and CK2 can be only measured by using a measuring signal SS with a frequency slightly higher than those of the timing signals, which results in lower precision of the measurement result. Besides, to generate the measuring signal SS with a frequency higher than those of the timing signals CK1 and CK2 requires an expensive timing-signal generator 130, which in turn increases the cost of the phase-difference detecting apparatus 100.

Phase-difference detecting apparatus and method


A transceiver for a CAN bus system and a method for detecting a short circuit using a CAN transceiver. The transceiver includes a transmitter for transmitting a transmission signal to a first bus wire of a bus of the bus system, exclusive, collision-free access to the bus of the bus system of a user station being at least temporarily ensured in the bus system, and for transmitting the transmission signal to a second bus wire of the bus, a receiver for receiving the bus signal transmitted on the bus wires, and a diagnostic unit for detecting a short circuit in the bus system, the diagnostic unit being designed to carry out a diagnosis only in a predetermined communication phase of the bus signal.

The CAN bus system is used for message or data transmission in some technical applications. Examples include communication between sensors and control units in a vehicle, or a technical production facility, etc. In such a bus system, messages are transmitted via the CAN protocol and/or CAN FD protocol, as described in the ISO-11898-1:2015 standard as a CAN protocol specification with CAN FD. In a CAN FD bus system, a data transmission rate of greater than 1 Mbit per second (1 Mbps) is possible, for example 2 Mbit/s, 5 Mbit/s, or some other data transmission rate greater than 1 Mbit/s, etc. In addition, a CAN high-speed (HS) bus system is known for which a data transmission rate of up to 500 Kilobit per second (500 kbit/s) is possible.
The CAN bus system is a communication system in which a bus state is actively driven. In the process, a signal for a bus signal CAN_H and a signal for a bus signal CAN_L are separately driven. Transceivers, also referred to as CAN transceivers, CAN FD transceivers, etc., are generally used for transmitting and receiving in a CAN bus system for the individual communication users.
The transceiver is supplied with voltage via a voltage VCC of 5 V that is applied against ground GND. In a vehicle, for example, voltage VCC is delivered by a battery with a voltage Ubat having a value in particular of 12 V or 14 V.
In a CAN bus system, a transceiver for gateway control units requires a so-called diagnostic capability. Accordingly, the transceiver must detect the following errors for CAN as well as for CAN FD:                short circuit of the bus wire for CAN_H to Ubat        short circuit of the bus wire for CAN_H to VCCSV        short circuit of the bus wire for CAN_H to GND        short circuit of the bus wire for CAN_L to Ubat        short circuit of the bus wire for CAN_L to VCCSV        short circuit of the bus wire for CAN_L to GND.

Transceiver for a can bus system and method for detecting a short circuit using a can transceiver


A transmissive photonic crystal fiber ring resonator employing single optical beam-splitter comprises: a first fiber-optic collimator, a second fiber-optic collimator, a first photonic crystal fiber collimator, a second photonic crystal fiber collimator, an optical beam-splitter, and a fixture. The first fiber-optic collimator, the second fiber-optic collimator, the first photonic crystal fiber collimator, the second photonic crystal fiber collimator, and the optical beam-splitter are fixed on the fixture; the fiber pigtails of the first fiber-optic collimator and the second fiber-optic collimator are the input/output ports; the fiber pigtails of the first photonic crystal fiber collimator and the second photonic crystal fiber collimator are connected. The number of components of the photonic crystal fiber ring resonator is reduced by half: only one optical beam-splitter and two photonic crystal fiber collimators besides two fiber-optic collimators; therefore, the resonator structure can be simplified and the size can be reduced.

Optical resonator is a research highlight of laser optics, optical sensing and etc. One of the key parameters of optical resonator is finesse or quality factor, which generally determines the ultimate performance of the system. As for the resonator optical gyro, the finesse of the passive ring resonator determines the fundamental limit of the system, and meanwhile the nonreciprocal error of a transmissive-type system is lower than that of a reflective-type system; therefore, a transmissive optical ring resonator with high-finesse is important for resonator optic gyro to reach high precision.
Photonic crystal fiber (PCF) has many excellent properties but, it is completely different from the traditional optical fibers, so do the fiber optic components such as fiber ring resonator. A variety of PCF ring resonator structures have been proposed. Developing a high-performance PCF ring resonator and applying it to the resonator optic gyro becomes a research highlight of inertial sensing in recent years.
The principle of ring resonator is multi-beam interference. For a transmissive ring resonator, the constructive interference among the light beams circulated in the resonator forms a series of interference peaks at the output port, so its transfer function can be regarded as discrete bright fringes in dark background. For a reflective ring resonator, the destructive interference between the incident light beam and the sum of the light beams circulated in the resonator forms a series of interference dips at the output port, so its transfer function can be regarded as discrete dark fringes in bright background.
Limited by the principle of wave guiding in photonic crystal fiber, the PCF ring resonator is generally assembled with individual components at present. A conventional transmissive PCF ring resonator consists of two optical beam-splitters, four fiber-optic collimators and four PCF collimators—so many components would lead to an increase of round-trip loss of resonator and difficulty of regulation, which was not good for increasing the finesse of resonator.

Transmissive photonic crystal fiber ring resonator employing single optical beam-splitter


An optical fiber storage apparatus is disclosed having a tray and a take-up spool rotatably mounted on the tray. The spool includes upper and lower disk portions separated by a plurality of columns. Opposing surfaces of the columns define an outer circumferential track and an interior track disposed within said outer track and in communication therewith. Axial openings are formed through at least one of the plates to provide exposure of the tracks for insertion of a cable within the tracks and surrounding the outer circumferential track.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to a communication system in which signals are carried through an optical fiber. More particularly, this invention pertains to a storage container for taking up and temporarily storing excess amounts of optical fiber.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The telecommunications industry is rapidly proceeding with the development and installation of optical fiber transmission systems. An optical fiber network requires numerous techniques for managing and connecting a large number of optical fibers.
In the management of optical fibers, it is necessary from time to time to provide slack or excess amounts of optical fiber cable lengths. In order that optical fiber network systems are neatly arranged and manageable, the excess amounts must be stored in a neat and orderly manner for facilitating ease of use of the network apparatus.
Devices for storing excess amounts of optical fiber cables are known in the art. For example, commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,203 to Nelson et al. issued Dec. 20, 1988 teaches an optical fiber distribution apparatus which includes a spool for holding excess fiber from a trunk cable. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,432 to Becker et al. dated Jan. 17, 1989 teaches a storage container for a section of an optical fiber.
Notwithstanding advances made in the art, there is a continuing need for improvement in optical fiber storage apparatus. One disadvantage of the prior art apparatus is illustrated in the aforesaid U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,203. In that apparatus, only multiples of predetermined fixed lengths of excess fiber can be stored on the spool. Namely, any complete winding requires approximately the same amount of excess fiber as any prior winding around the spool. Accordingly, the spool does not accommodate a wide variety of excess cable lengths.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,432, the loading is difficult requiring use of a pincers (see FIG. 46, item 16 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,432). Also, and perhaps more importantly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,432 is not conveniently used with fiber optic patch cords terminating at attached connectors. In the aforesaid patent, the hole through which the fiber is to be fed is too small to accommodate a connector. If the part were made larger to accommodate a connector, the storage density of the system would be reduced to an impractical level.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved storage container for fiber optics telecommunication systems with enhanced performance while maintaining low manufacturing costs.


A fail-safe circuit for preventing an inadvertent communication of a signal from an input terminal to an output terminal includes a series switching network electrically connected between the input terminal and the output terminal. The series switching network contains two switching circuits electrically connected in series. One switching circuit is an electrical switching circuit and the other is an electromechanical switching circuit. The switching circuits are chosen such that defects causing the electrical switching circuit to short circuit do not affect the electromechanical switching circuit and defects causing the electromechanical switching circuit to short circuit do not affect the electrical switching circuit. The fail-safe circuit also includes circuitry for preventing inadvertent communication of the signal from the input terminal through the series switching network to the output terminal when one of the switching circuits is in a short circuited state or condition. This circuitry includes a circuit system for detecting a short circuit condition in the series switching network. Also included is another circuit system that is responsive to a short circuit condition within the series switching network for preventing the closing of the switching network to prevent communication of the signal from the input terminal through the series switching network to the output terminal.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a system for sending a signal to a device and in particular, to a system for safely sending an electrical signal to a device. Still more particularly, the present invention provides an improved system for safely sending an electrical signal to a device by preventing the inadvertent sending of the electrical signal to the device.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is desirable to prevent the inadvertent jettison of weapons from military aircraft. Presently, circuits for preventing the inadvertent jettison of weapons employ additional electromechanical or solid state relays and test cables in the pylons; and, modification of the existing flight line testers is also required. The relays are added to the pylon to fulfill a single point failure requirement and the test cables and tester changes are required to detect the single point failure. The disadvantage of this system is the necessity for additional wiring, additional installed relays, and changes to standard test equipment.
One alternative method for preventing the inadvertent switching of power is illustrated in Fisher et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,599,675. A switching system is utilized which comprises two transistors in series with a solenoid coil. A monitoring system is utilized to monitor the state of the two switches such that no single electrical fault can result in an inadvertent energization of a control valve. Specifically, in the event that one of the switches is off while the other is conducting, the monitoring system inhibits switching on the switch that is in the "off" state. Although such a system is useful in the event that one of the transistors fails, situations exist, such as current spikes, wherein the event that causes one transistor to fail will also Cause the other transistor to fail. In such a situation, the circuit has failed in a "on" state. Additionally, such systems typically pass current through the load (generally a solenoid coil) in order to test the state of the transistors. Allowing current to pass through a weapon or other pyrotechnic device is not a desirable situation.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have an improved switching system to prevent the inadvertent switching of power or a signal to a device and to reduce the potential for accidental release of weapons or firing of pyrotechnic devices,


A microstructure relay is provided, having a body that includes upper and lower portions. The lower portion is formed from a substrate, and the upper portion is formed on the substrate to avoid bonding of the lower portion to the upper portion. A support member is fixed to the body at a first end of the support member to form a cantilever, wherein an upper surface of the support member and a lower surface of the upper portion of the body form a cavity. A first contact region is located on the upper surface at a second end of the support member. The first contact region comprises a first contact, wherein pivoting the support member toward the lower surface causes the first contact to be electrically coupled to a counter contact.

The invention relates generally to microstructures and particularly to relays and switches or valves formed from microstructures.
Electrical relays are widely used in various applications. Such applications include, for example, the selection of different electrical paths or the opening or closing of an electrical circuit.
Typically, relays include a coil and mechanical components for engaging and disengaging a pair of contacts. Upon energizing the coil, an electromagnetic field is generated to engage the contacts, forming the electrical connection.
There is now a demand for the miniaturization of consumer goods (e.g., electronic and telecommunication products) or electronic equipments (e.g., automated test equipment), which creates a corresponding need to reduce the size of relays. However, conventional electromechanical relays do not lend easily to miniaturization. For example, there is a limit as to the size of coils that can be reduced. Such limitations reduce the extent of miniaturization of products using relays.
The above discussion evidences a need to provide a relay design that allows for further miniaturization.


A pipe bending machine accurately controlling bent angle of material pipes includes a base, a material feeding device fixed on the base, an arm-turning shaft fixed in front of the base, a bending mold fixed on the arm-turning shaft, a turning arm rotated by a transmitting device. The turning arm has a clamp mold fixed thereon for clamping a material pipe with help of the bending mold. The transmitting device includes a threaded rod rotated by a motor, a threaded nut screwing with the threaded rod and connected with a pull block, and an interactive device positioned between the pull block and arm-turning shaft. Rotation force of the motor is converted into straight pushing force by means of the threaded rod and the threaded nut. At this time, counter pressure of the ball threaded rod can easily reach zero, so even if a speed reducer of high counter-pressure is provided, the threaded rod can reduce largely the counter-pressure of the speed reducer because of the counter-pressure produced before the threaded rod changes speed. Then the pipe bending machine can accurately bends pipes with high speed.

This invention relates to a pipe ending machine, particularly controlling accurately bending action with high speed by means of a ball threaded rod and a ball threaded nut.
Conventional pipe bending machines uses air or oil pressure cylinders or motors as power source for bending straight pipes into preset angles. Air pressure cylinders have a drawback of leak in use, and oil pressure cylinders may easily leak oil and have oil temperature problems. In general, air or oil pressure cylinders used as power source involves bad stability in bending process, so motors are preferable for pipe bending machines. However, pipe-bending machines using motors as power source still may be influenced by counter-pressure of the component such as a speed reducer, causing accuracy hard to ensure.
A pipe-bending machine disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,346 is shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, bending a pipe 10 to form a bent portion 101, including a base 11 laid on the ground, a material feeding device 12 fixed on the base 11 for moving a pipe 10. The feeding device 12 has a clamp head 13 in the front portion, a bending device 14 fixed at the most front (in the left side in FIG. 1) to form a bent portion 101. The bending device 14 has an arm-turning shaft 141 for the pipe 10 to rest on, and a turning arm 142 to hold the pipe 10. A clamp mold 143 to clamp the pipe 10 is fixed on the turning arm 142, which is moved by a transmitting device 2 deposited in a lower portion of the base 10.
As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the above patent has the transmitting device including a speed reducer 21 fixed in a lower portion of the base 11 and a motor 22 under the speed reducer 21 to move together. The speed reducer 21 has an output shaft 211 protruding up an upper side and in parallel with the axis of the arm-turning shaft 141. A disc 212 is fixed on the output shaft 211 to move together, and two cranks 23 are connected between the disc 212 and the turning arm 142. When the motor 22 drives the speed reducer 21, the output shaft 211 transmits power to turn the disc 212, and then the cranks 23 to force the turning arm 142 rotate with the arm-turning shaft 141 as a pivot. Then the pipe 10 clamped between the clamp mold 143 and the arm-turning shaft 141 is bent to form the bent portion 101.
The conventional pipe-bending machine 1 utilizes the motor 22 and the speed reducer 21 to directly move the two cranks 23, and then rotates the turning arm 142 to achieve the objective to bend a pipe. But a common speed reducer 21 may produce counter-pressure problem owing to accuracy of a component in the process of operation. In order to enhance accuracy of high speed bending, a low counter-pressure (or good process accuracy) speed reducer may be chosen, but this kind of speed reducer must have its gears to be coordinated with cutting, grinding, hardening, choosing and assembly. Manufacturing may cost very high, and take much time. If a speed reducer 21 of common counter-pressure is used in a pipe bending machine, error in counter-pressure is directly transmitted by the two cranks 23 to the turning arm 142, letting the arm-turning shaft 141 also have the same counter-pressure to cause inaccuracy in pipe bending action with high speed. Besides, the two cranks 23 are designed to interact with each other, the speed reducer and the motor 22 have to positioned vertical, so the height of the base 11 has to be increased, with the dimensions of the pipe bending machine difficult to reduce.

Pipe bending machine accurately controlling bent angles of pipes


A method in a wireless communication terminal supports aggregated carrier access. The terminal is configured to transmit a power headroom report of a first type, determine that a condition for transmission of a power headroom report of a second type is satisfied, and transmits a power headroom report of the second type. In other embodiments, essential power headroom reports are prioritized over non-essential power headroom reports.

In multi-carrier systems with carrier aggregation, a user terminal may be coupled to or monitor adjacent multiple carriers associated with the same or multiple base stations. The user terminal may also be coupled to or monitor multiple carriers associated with the same or different base stations in different frequency bands. Additionally, asymmetric carrier aggregation is possible in frequency division duplex (FDD) mode with different numbers of downlink and uplink carriers aggregated for a user terminal. Under these circumstances, one or more of the downlink/uplink carriers do not have a corresponding or associated uplink/downlink carrier (fixed channel spacing). It may also be possible that only a subset of carriers being aggregated (e.g., carriers served by a base station) have a common scheduler (possibly a common MAC entity) resulting in multiple independent schedulers for different subsets of the aggregated carriers. When configured to monitor multiple carriers, the user terminal may have a designated "primary carrier". The other carriers of the multiple carriers are referred to as "secondary carriers". Thus the user terminal may have a downlink primary carrier, a uplink primary carrier, one or more downlink secondary carriers and one or more uplink secondary carriers. A downlink carrier and the associated uplink carrier (if such an uplink carrier is configured) are referred to as paired carriers.
In some multi-carrier systems, generally, transmit power control (TPC) can be configured independently for different aggregated uplink carriers or a subset of aggregated uplink carriers. Independent TPC may be used to support different quality of service (QoS) requirements, different traffic types with different block error rate (BLER) operating points and different interference levels (IoT) levels across different aggregated carriers. In some implementations, multiple PAs serve multiple aggregated carriers, for example, aggregation across different frequency bands with a power amplifier for each band.
Per-component carrier TPC and closed-loop power control (PC) commands also provide an additional degree of freedom to adjust UE power in addition to modulation coding scheme (MCS) adaptation, for example, near the lowest/highest MCS settings. In 3GPP LTE, per-component carrier TPC requires the definition and signaling of carrier-specific open loop power control parameters such as P0, α and PL and possibly closed loop PC command δPUSCH/δPUCCH. In the following description independent power control for the different carriers is assumed. However, the details are also applicable for the case when common power control is performed for a group or subset of carriers.
A component carrier specific power control has also been proposed in R1-090738. The LTE Rel-8 power control for a single carrier can be straightforwardly extended to support component carrier specific power control as suggested in R1-090738.
The various aspects, features and advantages of the invention will become more fully apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon a careful consideration of the following Detailed Description thereof with the accompanying drawings described below. The drawings may have been simplified for clarity and are not necessarily drawn to scale.

Method and apparatus for power headroom reporting during multi-carrier operation


The invention relates to a semiconductor memory device, which can be operated in a normal operating mode and a test mode, comprising: data terminals and data clock terminals; input receivers for processing the signal arriving via the respective terminal, a respective input receiver being assigned to a data terminal and/or data clock terminal; at least one test circuit, a respective test circuit being assigned to an input receiver and the test circuit being designed for determining at least one predetermined property of the assigned input receiver.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a semiconductor memory device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A semiconductor memory device in accordance with the prior art will be described with reference to FIG. 2. FIG. 2 shows a schematic partial view of a packaged semiconductor memory device.
An incoming data signal DQ is transferred via a pin 1 on the package to the pad 2 of the semiconductor memory device 3. An input receiver 4 provided on the semiconductor memory device 3 amplifies the incoming signal and outputs this to a flip-flop 5. A similar construction is provided for the data clock signals DQS in the semiconductor memory device 3. In this case, the output signal of the input receiver 4 for the data clock signal DQS serves as a clock signal for the flip-flop 5. The internal data signal DQint output by the flip-flop 5 is processed further in the semiconductor memory device 3.
Testing such a semiconductor memory device typically involves, inter alia, also checking the accuracy of the interface timing, and in particular the so-called setup time and hold time. When a semiconductor memory device is operated or tested at high frequency, e.g. with a clock frequency of more than 500 MHz, however, it becomes increasingly more difficult to check the accuracy of the interface timing since it is necessary to use test devices which can generate such high clock frequencies with a high accuracy and can also measure frequencies with a high accuracy.
Consequently, what is needed is a semiconductor memory device which enables simpler and more cost-effective testing of the semiconductor memory device in particular at high clock frequencies.


A system and method for providing a mobile interface for marking and organizing images is described herein. In some instances, the system may present, on a display device, an image region that displays a capturable image that is capturable by an image sensor of the wireless mobile electronic device and a preview region including a series of one or more annotatable image previews. The system may receive an input instructing the wireless mobile electronic device to capture a second image using the image sensor of the wireless mobile electronic device, generate a second image preview representing the second image, and update the graphical user interface to include the second image preview at the preview region. The system may receive an input including an annotation using an input device of the wireless mobile electronic device and update the graphical user interface to represent the annotation at the preview region.

The present specification generally relates to providing an improved graphical interface for organizing and documenting a walk-through of an environment.
Individuals in various industries perform tours of facilities in which they assess the products and services used in those facilities. Currently, the individuals spend multiple hours traveling around a building or campus taking photos and videos of many facets of buildings, products used in buildings, etc. For example, an individual may take photos of supplies, such as towel racks, soap dispensers, faucets, cleaning supplies, etc., in bathrooms or other areas of a building. The individuals may alternatively take physical notes on paper.
Typically, the individuals spend substantial amounts of time going back through the photos, videos, and notes at a later time. For instance, an individual may later review the images and notes, determining which notes match which images, as well as, in some instances, taking additional notes on a physical notebook.
Some applications for taking notes on computers exist, but they are not optimized for small displays, such as are present on smart phones or tablets, are not optimized for real-time annotation and mobility, and do not automatically or easily organize or link various types of notes with images, for example.
Taking photos, notes, etc., and creating presentations using these traditional methods consumes massive amounts of time, display size, and computing resources.

Mobile interface for marking and organizing images


A composition for preventing or treating hearing loss, containing a Vitis vinifera leaf extract as an active ingredient, is disclosed. A pharmaceutical composition for preventing or treating hearing loss, containing the extract (a Vitis vinifera leaf extract) as an active ingredient, protects auditory hair cells in the cochlea and spiral ganglion cells from damage caused by noise and the like and effectively reduces the hearing threshold measured in the auditory nerves, thereby being usable as an agent for preventing or treating hearing loss.

Hearing loss is a very common disorder which affects about 15 to 20% of the global population. The population suffering from hearing loss is further increasing due to environmental pollution and population aging in modern society. Since hearing impairment is permanent, its prevention is very important before its occurrence.
Hearing loss is mostly caused by environmental and genetic factors such as sudden, drug (antibiotic, anticancer drug), noise, traumatic, senile, and congenital factors, and hearing problems are mainly caused by sensorineural hearing loss characterized by auditory cell damage and death. For the treatment of sensorineural hearing loss, many signal pathway mechanisms involved in inner ear hair cell regeneration and hair cell proliferation and differentiation have been identified. In addition, along with the development of technologies such as gene editing or cell transplantation have been developed, great progress in the study of hair cell regeneration has been made in recent years. However, the development of a clear mechanism for suppression or prevention of hearing loss or agents for prevention and treatment of hearing loss is still insignificant (Hanyang Med Rev, vol 35(2); May 2015).
Recently, as the society is industrialized, the population suffering from hearing loss caused by noise is also increasing rapidly. Not only occupational noise-induced hearing loss in workers and soldiers working in noise environments, but also noise-induced hearing loss caused by cultural and leisure life is increasing. The Korean Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act stipulates that exposure to environmental noise above 90 dBA can damage hearing. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has conducted noise management for noise environments above 85 dBA. Human hearing organs have been reported to be affected by noise above 75 dBA. Noise of 75 dBA is similar to the noise on the sides of vehicle roads, and thus it appears that all people in the industrial society live in environments with noise at a level harmful to hearing organs.
In addition to environmental noise, adolescents are frequently exposed to loud sounds in their free time, including the use of MP3, and thus noise-induced hearing loss has recently appeared in various age groups. Noise-induced hearing loss in younger days leads to hearing loss from the age of 40 so that conversation is only possible with hearing aids. When aging is accompanied, the degree of hearing loss becomes more severe. Assistive devices such as hearing aids are also less effective as the degree of hearing loss becomes severe, so that a severe degree of hearing loss causes serious problems in verbal communication. In other words, when the current young generation experiencing noise-induced hearing loss becomes elderly, the degree of hearing loss becomes more severe, and hearing loss has a significant effect on determination of the quality of life of various generations, from the elderly to the young.
Recently, as studies conducted to find effective substances for the prevention and treatment of hearing loss, preclinical studies on antioxidants, N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonists, apoptosis inhibitors, growth factors, etc. have been reported, but their progress to clinical trials has been limited (Prasher D., Lancet, 352, pp 1240-1242, 1998). To date, no drugs have been approved for the prevention and treatment of noise-induced hearing loss, and only drugs such as Mg, NAC (N-acetylcysteine) and Ebselen in the clinical stage and studies in the preclinical stage, have been reported to the academic community (Meister A., Pharmacol. Ther., 51, pp 155-194, 1991; Attias J. et al., Am. J. Otolaryngol., 15, pp 26-32, 1994; Yamasoba T. et al., Neurosci. Lett., 380, pp 234-238, 2005).
Meanwhile, it has been disclosed that a grape leaf extract has an antioxidant effect, but it is not known that the grape leaf extract has the effect of preventing hearing loss (Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2010-0114349).
Accordingly, the present inventors have made extensive efforts to prevent and treat noise-induced hearing loss using natural products having excellent safety, and as a result, have found that a Vitis vinifera leaf extract effectively suppresses the increase in hearing threshold caused by noise or the like, thereby completing the present invention.

Composition for preventing or treating hearing loss, containing

AJOU UNIVERSITY INDUSTRY-ACADEMIC COOPERATION FOUNDATION


The present invention discloses a structure of pixel arrangement and a display device. The structure of pixel arrangement includes a first sub-pixel, and second sub-pixels and third sub-pixels that are provided surrounding the first sub-pixel, the first sub-pixel, portions of the second sub-pixels and portions of the third sub-pixels constituting a virtual rhombus, wherein a center of the first sub-pixel coincides with a center of the virtual rhombus; a center of the second sub-pixel coincides with a first vertex of the virtual rhombus; and a center of the third sub-pixel coincides with a second vertex of the virtual rhombus. Compared with the prior art, the number of sub-pixels required to achieve high resolution display in the present invention is smaller, so that the number of the sub-pixels is decreased.

With applications of high resolution display devices being more and more widely, requirements on a resolution of the display device is increasingly higher. Currently, the resolution of the display device is increased by reducing pixel size and pitch between pixels. However, with refinement of process technology, process difficulty and cost for manufacturing the display device are also increased.
In a display device of the prior art, a pixel is generally consisted of three sub-pixels, e.g., a pixel is consisted of a red sub-pixel R, a green sub-pixel G and a blue sub-pixel B. In a case where a display device requires a large number of pixels to realize high resolution display, the number of required sub-pixels is also large, so that the number of the sub-pixels is increased.

Structure of pixel arrangement and display device


A biopsy probe assembly is configured for installation on a driver assembly. The biopsy probe assembly includes a plurality of components, each of the plurality of components being movable relative to another of the plurality of components, and each of the plurality of movable components having a respective alignment feature, wherein collectively the biopsy probe assembly has a plurality of alignment features. The plurality of alignment features of the plurality of components is aligned to form a continuous passage. A safety alignment pin is inserted into the continuous passage so as to lock relative positions of the plurality of components.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a biopsy apparatus, and, more particularly, to a biopsy probe assembly having a mechanism to prevent misalignment of components of the biopsy probe assembly prior to installation, so as to aid in the proper mounting of the biopsy probe assembly to the driver assembly of a biopsy apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A biopsy may be performed on a patient to help in determining whether the cells in a biopsied region are cancerous. One type of vacuum assisted biopsy apparatus includes a hand-held driver assembly having a vacuum source, and a disposable biopsy probe assembly configured for releasable attachment to the driver assembly. One biopsy technique used to evaluate breast tissue, for example, involves inserting a biopsy probe into the breast tissue region of interest to capture one or more tissue samples from the region.
The biopsy probe typically includes a biopsy cannula, e.g., a needle, having a cylindrical side wall defining a lumen, and having a side sample notch located near the distal end that extends though the side wall to the lumen. A cutting cannula is positioned coaxial with the biopsy cannula to selectively open and close the sample notch. Vacuum is applied to the lumen, and in turn to the sample notch, for receiving the tissue to be sampled when the sample notch is opened, after which the sample notch is closed by the cutting cannula to sever the tissue, and the severed tissue is transported by vacuum out of the lumen and collected.
To insure proper operation of the biopsy apparatus, the biopsy probe must be properly mounted to the driver assembly, with the various mechanical drive components of the driver assembly being properly engaged with the various mechanical driven components of the biopsy probe.

Biopsy probe assembly having a mechanism to prevent misalignment of components prior to installation


In a golf ball having a plurality of dimples on its surface, twelve pentagonal groups each consisting of five dimples arranged about one central dimple are dispersively distributed over the ball surface excluding the polar areas, and hexagonal groups each consisting of six dimples arranged about one central dimple are distributed over the remaining area of the ball surface. The dimples are arranged uniformly and densely so as to reduce the air resistance in flight of the ball, resulting in increased flight distance.

This invention relates to a golf ball having dimple groupings optimized for excellent aerodynamic performance.
In general, golf balls have a plurality of dimples on their surface for improving the aerodynamic performance thereof. In order that the golf ball as launched travel a longer carry, the rebound upon impact of the ball itself and the reduced air resistance of the ball in flight due to the arrangement of dimples on the ball surface are key factors as is well known in the art. In connection with the reduction of air resistance, a number of methods have been proposed for arranging dimples throughout the ball surface as uniformly and densely as possible. One typical dimple arrangement uses as base units hexagonal groups each having seven, in total, circular dimples assembled together, establishing a high density dimple arrangement.
However, the above-mentioned dimple arrangement is still insufficient in uniformity of dimple distribution and difficult to distribute dimples uniformly and closely throughout the ball""s spherical surface. Besides, regular polyhedral dimple arrangement patterns such as regular octahedral and icosahedral patterns are also known, but yet somewhat deficient in close packing of dimples.
An object of the present invention is to provide a golf ball having a plurality of dimples arranged as uniformly and densely as possible for imparting improved flight uniformity and flight performance.
The invention relates to a golf ball having a pair of opposed poles and a plurality of dimples on its surface. It has been found that when pentagonal groups each consisting of five dimples arranged about one central dimple are dispersively distributed at twelve locations over the ball surface excluding the polar areas, and hexagonal groups each consisting of six dimples arranged about one central dimple are distributed over the remaining area of the ball surface, the dimples can be arranged uniformly and at a high density so that the ball is endowed with uniform behavior in flight and significantly improved in distance.
According to the present invention, there is provided a golf ball having a pair of poles and a plurality of dimples on its surface, wherein twelve pentagonal groups each consisting of five dimples arranged about one central dimple are dispersively distributed over the ball surface excluding the polar areas, and hexagonal groups each consisting of six dimples arranged about one central dimple are distributed over the remaining area of the ball surface. The term xe2x80x9cdispersivelyxe2x80x9d means that the pentagonal groups are spaced apart from each other.
In a preferred embodiment, the central dimple of the hexagonal group is located at or near either pole of the ball.
In another preferred embodiment, a portion of the pentagonal group constitutes a portion of the hexagonal group.
The dimples are circular in most cases. In one embodiment, except for those dimples located at the center of the pentagonal groups, the dimple edges delimiting each dimple define together a hexagonal shape.
The golf ball has between the pair of poles an equator by which the ball is divided into a pair of hemispheres. In a preferred embodiment, six pentagonal groups are dispersively distributed on one hemisphere and six pentagonal groups are dispersively distributed on the other hemisphere.
Preferably, the pentagonal groups are distributed in symmetry with respect to an axis of rotation that connects the pair of poles.
Also preferably, the total of dimple areas accounts for at least 77% of the entire surface area of the golf ball.
In the pentagonal group, the central dimple is smaller than the surrounding dimples. In an alternative embodiment, the central dimple in the pentagonal group is not smaller than the surrounding dimples.


The present disclosure relates to a method (10) for characterizing a wideband RF device-under-test (DUT) by means of a narrowband RF source or a narrowband RF receiver, the method (10) comprising: selecting (11) a bandwidth of the wideband RF DUT to be analyzed; dividing (12) the selected bandwidth into at least two overlapping sub-bands, the respective sub-bands having a frequency range that corresponds to a bandwidth of the narrowband RF source or the narrowband RF receiver; acquiring (13) a response of the wideband RF DUT for each of the at least two overlapping sub-bands by means of at least two narrowband measurements using the narrowband RF source or the narrowband RF receiver; and calculating (14) a continuous amplitude response and a continuous phase response of the wideband RF DUT in a frequency range that corresponds to the combined bandwidth of the at least two overlapping sub-bands, said calculation making use of the overlap of the sub-bands.

Wideband radio frequency (RF) receivers, such as spectrum analyzers, should measure an RF spectrum over a wide bandwidth as accurately as possible. However, the hardware of a RF receiver can influence the measured spectrum to some degree. Therefore, it is important to know and consider the exact frequency response of a wideband RF receiver to perform accurate measurements. The same is true for wideband RF signal sources, which can also influence a generated signal by their hardware in an unwanted way.
It is therefore important to characterize the frequency response of such wideband RF devices over their entire bandwidth, for example for a calibration of the devices. In particular, it is important to know both the amplitude and the phase response of the wideband RF devices over the entire bandwidth.
Known solutions to characterize a frequency response of an RF device include the use of a power sensor, or a classical channel estimation. However, a power sensor may only characterize the amplitude but not the phase response of the wideband RF device. To perform a classical channel estimation, a reference source or receiver with the same bandwidth as the wideband RF device is required.
However, often only reference sources or receivers with a lower bandwidth than that of the wideband RF devices are available. Trying to compensate for the lower bandwidth of the reference sources or receivers by making multiple measurements may lead to problems coming from the measurement setup. For example, multiple measurements at different frequencies cannot be combined easily, because a phase offset between a wideband RF device and the reference receiver or signal source varies for each measurement.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 9,851,383 B1 discloses a method for performing vector spectral measurements of a radio frequency signal having a repetitive waveform, using a receiver having a frequency span less than a total bandwidth of the RF signal. The method includes capturing multiple frequency segments of the RF signal corresponding to waveforms of the repetitive waveform synchronized to corresponding external triggering, and performing at least one instance of phase stitching and at least one instance of amplitude stitching between adjacent captured frequency segments.

Wideband frequency response characterization with a narrowband source or receiver


An apparatus for manufacturing a semiconductor device includes an out-heater including a heater element formed in an annular shape with a disconnected portion at one place, a first electrode component connected to a first heater electrode part of the heater element, a second electrode component connected to a second heater electrode part of the heater element, and a base including a first groove in which the first electrode component is fixedly disposed, and a second groove in which the second electrode component is movably disposed and a groove width in a circumferential direction of the heater element is formed such that a width of a second gap formed between a side of the second electrode component and an inner wall of the groove is wider than a width of a first gap formed between a side of the first electrode component and an inner wall of the first groove.

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for manufacturing a semiconductor device, which are used to perform a film formation, for example, by supplying reaction gas to a surface of a semiconductor wafer while heating from a backside of the semiconductor wafer.
Recently, due to the request of price reduction and high performance of semiconductor devices, quality enhancement such as improved film thickness uniformity or the like has been required together with high productivity in a film formation process.
A backside heating method has been employed, which supplies process gas using a single-wafer type epitaxial film formation apparatus, for example, while rotating at a high speed of 900 rpm or more within a reaction chamber, and heats from a backside using a heater.
Generally, a heater element constituting a heater is fixed and connected to an electrode component being a base inside the surface of the heater element by using a bolt or the like. However, since heat causes the deformation of the connected region or the increase of resistance accordingly, a heater electrode part integrated with a heater element is provided and connected to an electrode component below the heater element.
Generally, a heater is mainly provided with an in-heater configured to heat a wafer and an out-heater configured to prevent a temperature decrease (heat loss) from an outer periphery of a wafer.
In the in-heater, a heater element with a slit engraved in a circular flat plate is used, and a heater electrode part is provided at a symmetrical position centering on the heater element. When the slit is engraved, for example, at an angle of 90° with respect to a center line connecting the heater electrode part, a deformation due to a temperature increase occurs in a direction of the center line. Since the heater electrode part, for example, is provided with a gap between a bolt for fixing to the elect rode component and a connected region, the heater electrode part moves while following the deformation of the heater element, so that the damage of the heater element may be prevented.
On the other hand, in the out-heater, a heater element having an annular shape with a disconnected portion at one place (C-shape) is used, and heater electrode parts are provided in parallel at both end portions. Therefore, the deformation of the heater element due to a temperature increase occurs in a direction (circumferential direction) in which the end portions expand.
Recently, due to an increase in temperature of a film formation process, a deformation amount of a heater element increases. For this reason, the following of a heater electrode part in a circumferential direction is difficult, and therefore, the heater element may be damaged, or the heater element or the heater electrode part may contact an adjacent member to cause short circuit. In other words, productivity is lowered and it is difficult to perform a stable and excellent film formation.
Therefore, the invention is directed to provide an apparatus and method for manufacturing a semiconductor device, in which a heater electrode part follows a circumferential-direction deformation of a heater element of an out-heater, so that the heater element or the heater electrode part may be prevented from being damaged or contacted with an adjacent member.

Manufacturing apparatus and method for semiconductor device


A monitoring device for an elevator includes a plurality of switching devices connected in a series safety chain. Each switching device has an active unit generating a pattern and a passive unit that responds to the pattern within a defined spacing between the units.

The present invention relates to a monitoring device for an elevator, which device includes at least one contactlessly actuatable switching device.
In elevator installations, individual actions, for example travel of an elevator, are in general monitored with the assistance of switching devices. Several such switching devices must have a specific state in order to be able to undertake the proposed action. In particular, in the case of an elevator installation it must be ensured that before the start and during the travel of the elevator car all doors remain closed and mechanically locked.
There is known from the European patent document EP 0 535 205 B1 a monitoring device for a control device which comprises a safety chain and which is provided with a switching device comprising a sensor and able to be triggered in contactless manner. The switches or sensors are actuated by approach or movement away of a magnet.
The fact that the switch or the sensor reacts to each magnet independently of whether this magnet is the correct magnet intended for the selected switch or sensor is disadvantageous in this solution. The approach of an appropriate material is sufficient to trigger a valid signal. As soon as the switch is disposed in the working range of the magnet, it triggers a valid signal. A faulty function (false triggering) of the switch or the sensor can hardly be excluded without considerable cost. Erroneous triggering can also be caused by, for example, articles and/or external interferences, which put at risk the safe operation of the elevator installation.
The present invention has the object of proposing a monitoring device for a elevator of the kind stated in the introduction, which does not have the aforesaid disadvantages and which enables reliable monitoring free of disturbance. Moreover, the monitoring device is insensitive with respect to articles and external manipulations. The components to be monitored are unambiguously identifiable by means of the monitoring device.
One advantage is that a valid signal can be triggered only by, for example, a globally unique passive unit. The active unit cannot generate a valid signal without having the correct passive unit in range. A further advantage consists in that the monitoring is guaranteed by elements able to be produced economically.
A further advantage is that several switching devices can be monitored simultaneously with respect to functional capability and state. The interlinking of several active units takes place in the manner that the responses of all passive units are so linked that a mutual influencing in the sense of a false interpretation can be excluded.
The fact that a data exchange between active and passive unit can take place only through proximity of the coils operating as antennae is of further advantage.
Moreover, it is advantageous that the passive unit does not need an energy supply or battery. This is achieved by the fact that it comprises an energy store in which the energy transmitted by the active unit can be stored. Energy is thus saved. As the energy for generation of the response has to be transferred, spontaneous activity is not possible.
All explained features are usable not only in the respectively stated combination, but also in other combinations or by themselves without departing from the scope of the invention.

Contactless switching device for an elevator safety chain


The invention provides a computer-implemented method for estimating the cost of translating a body of text associated with a software application, wherein the software application is configured to perform one or more tasks. In particular the method comprises: determining one or more content types associated with the body of text, wherein each content type has an average word count per content unit; assigning a number of tasks associated with the software application to each content type, wherein each task has an associated number of content units; generating an estimated word count for each content type based on the number of tasks assigned to each content type and the average word count per unit for each content type; summing the estimated word count for each content type to generate an estimated word count for the body of text; and calculating an estimated translation cost based on the estimated word count.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of application design. In particular, the present invention provides a computer implemented method of estimating translation costs before or during the design stage of a software application.
2. Description of the Related Art
When developing a software application, an important consideration is the cost of translating text information associated with the software application. This text may be embedded help, on-line help, user and/or technical manuals, and/or implementation documentation. Due to the growth of the Internet and the forces of globalization, an application developer is now able to distribute a software application globally to a number of different countries with different linguistic requirements. Additionally, it is also possible to provide a web based interface for an on-line application that can be accessed over the Internet by users speaking a plurality of languages; for example, a global firm may wish to provide a common software application to users in the United States of America, India and China. For complex software applications, distributed to a large number of heterogeneous users, the cost of translating related text can be considerable.
A software application is typically developed in a primary language and text related to this application is then translated into one or more secondary languages. As the text relating to the application is typically written in line with the development of the application, in the prior art, the problems of translation were typically addressed at the end of product development. For example, in the past, the word count of user assistance text in the primary language has been counted only on the completion of the software development. At that point, a translation budget was announced and decisions were made retrospectively about translation priorities in the light of how much translation was affordable. It was, therefore, impossible for user assistance writers to estimate the overall translation cost at any point prior to the end of software development.
Hence, in the art, there is a requirement to provide a solution that allows the translation cost of a software application to be predicted in advance of the development and/or release of the application; predetermined budget requirements to be met; and certain text content to be prioritized for translation.


In at least one embodiment, a circuit board assembly that includes a printed circuit board is provided. The printed circuit board includes a top surface and a bottom surface for supporting at least one through-hole electrical component. The printed circuit board defines at least one component hole extending from the top surface to the bottom surface for receiving the at least one through-hole electrical component. The at least one component hole includes a first section having a first diameter and a second section having a second diameter. The first diameter is different from the second diameter. Each of the first and the second sections are configured to receive solder paste for forming a solder joint with the at least one through-hole electrical component.

1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments of the present invention generally relate to at least one multi-diameter unplugged component hole on a printed circuit board.
2. Background Art
A PCB is generally flat, and is a multi-layer board made of fiberglass with copper tracks extending between the layers of the board. The PCB includes a plurality of component holes that connect the copper tracks from one layer of the board to other layers of the board. The component holes generally extend from a top surface of the board to a bottom surface of the board. Each component hole is cylindrical and includes a constant diameter therethrough (e.g., from the top surface of the PCB to the bottom surface of the PCB). Each component hole is configured to receive a lead of an electronic component (or through-hole electrical component). The lead of the electronic component may include a cross section that is cylindrical, square shaped, trapezoidal, or rectangular. Each component hole couples the lead to a corresponding track in a corresponding layer of the PCB. Solder is applied to the component hole to fixedly couple the lead of the electronic component to the corresponding track(s) of the PCB and to facilitate electrical communication therethrough.
It is also known that PCBs may include a plurality of pads positioned on the top surface that connect the copper tracks from one layer of the board to other layers of the board. A surface mount device (SMD) may be positioned on top of the pad (or lie on top of the pad). The pad is generally solid and fixedly couples the SMD to the corresponding track with solder to facilitate electrical communication between the SMD and the tracks. The process of coupling the SMDs and the through-hole electrical components to the PCB generally include two solder operations.
In a first operation, solder paste is applied to the pads of the PCB to temporarily hold the SMDs to corresponding pads. After the solder paste is applied, the PCBs with the SMDs positioned thereon are subjected to a reflow soldering process. The reflow soldering process generally includes applying heat in a controlled manner to solder the SMDs to the pads of the PCB. The source of the heat applied in the reflow process may include one or more of infrared lamp, oven, or hot air pencil.
In a second operation, the through-hole electrical components are inserted into corresponding component holes of the PCBs. Solder paste is generally applied to each component hole to temporarily hold the through-hole electrical components therein. The PCB with the through-hole electrical components is then drawn over the surface of a pool of molten solder in which all of the through-hole electronics are soldered to the component holes of the PCB at once. Such a process is known as a wave solder. Areas on the PCB around the component holes that do not need solder are protected by a solder mask. While the first and second operations are generally useful in soldering PCBs equipped with SMDs and through-hole electrical components, the second operation adds cycle time to the manufacturing process of generating a populated and soldered PCB. Further, the second operation may expose the through-hole electrical components and the SMDs to higher temperatures than that of the reflow solder process. Such exposure to increased levels of thermal exposure may decrease reliability.

Multi-diameter unplugged component hole(s) on a printed circuit board (PCB)