Exemplary embodiments are directed to a pedal for a bicycle that includes a body, a spindle rotatably secured to the body and for connection with the bicycle, a first magnetic platter non-rotatably secured within the body, and a second magnetic platter rotatably secured within the body and overlaying the first magnetic platter. The first and second magnetic platters each include two magnetic blocks that are separated and magnetically charged by a respective permanent magnet plate positioned therebetween. The second magnetic platter includes a keyed protrusion configured to be engaged by a ferrous metal cleat, which can rotate the second magnetic platter between a first position where the pedal is in a magnetically inactive state and a second position where the pedal is in a magnetically active state magnetically securing the cleat to the second magnetic platter.

Users of recreational and/or transportation apparatuses, e.g., bicycles (indoor and outdoor), skis, and snowboards, are often secured to their respective apparatus while also being able to reliably disengage therefrom. In the case of a bicycle, "clipless" pedals are utilized which include clip-in pedals secured to the bicycle and a cleat attached to the bottom of each of the cyclist's shoes. "Clipless" pedals allow for the bicyclist to removably secure their shoes (and feet) to the bicycle pedals. The clip-in pedals can be spring loaded and permit the user to insert the cleat, depress the spring-loaded portion of the pedal, and secure the cleat to top plates of the pedal. By being clipped in, the cyclist will have increased power transfer through the pedal stroke, increased efficiency, and better control, among other benefits. However, when a cyclist wishes to stop they must unclip their shoe from the pedal instead of simply taking their feet off of the pedals. Additionally, if the cyclist is in an accident they will want to be able to unclip from the pedals quickly and effortlessly. To unclip and release the cleat from the pedal, the cyclist will generally twist their heel outwards until the cleat is released from the pedal. This unclipping process can at times be difficult and the cleat can become stuck in the pedal. In the case of an accident, the failure of a cleat to disengage a pedal can increase the risk or severity of an injury. Accordingly, what is needed is a "clipless" pedal that is secure but can also be easily and reliably disengaged.
Modular permanent magnet workpiece chucks are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,161,451, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses a permanent magnet chuck for holding or lifting workpieces. This type of chuck can include two magnetic layers that are stacked over one another and encased in a housing. Each of the magnetic layers are made up of a series of soft magnet blocks that are positioned about a center and divided by permanent magnet plates. That is, each magnetic layer comprises alternating soft magnetic blocks and permanent magnet plates. The magnetic layers can be, for example, square or circular shaped. If square shaped, the magnetic layers can contain an even number of soft magnet blocks, for example, two or four, that are shaped as cubes or rectangular prisms. If circular shaped, the magnetic layers can contain an even number of soft magnet blocks, for example, two, four, six, etc., that are shaped as circular sector prisms, e.g., extruded pie slices. The permanent magnet plates have two major faces that are positioned adjacent the interposed soft magnetic blocks. The first major face has a north magnetic polarity and the second major face, which is opposite the first major face, has a south magnetic polarity. The permanent magnet plates are positioned between adjacent soft magnetic blocks extending generally from the center of the magnetic layer to the perimeter, and such that each soft magnetic block is adjacent either only north magnetic faces or south magnetic faces of the two bordering permanent magnet plates, but not a north magnetic face and a south magnetic face. The soft magnetic blocks that are adjacent north magnetic faces will have a north polarity while the soft magnetic blocks that are adjacent south magnetic faces will have a south polarity. As a result, the soft magnetic blocks alternate between north polarity blocks and south polarity blocks, e.g., a first block has a north polarity, a second subsequent block has a south polarity, a third subsequent block has a north polarity, and soon. One of the magnetic layers can be connected to an external lug-nut that allows for the magnetic layer to be rotated by a tool, e.g., a wrench.
Each of the magnetic layers are configured as described above, and are placed on top of one another. The first and second magnetic layers can be overlapped in two different positions, an unaligned position and an aligned position. In the unaligned position, the polarity of the soft magnetic blocks of the first and second magnetic layers that overlap each other are of opposite polarity, e.g., the north polarity soft magnetic blocks of the first layer overlay the south polarity soft magnetic blocks of the second layer, and the south polarity soft magnetic blocks of the first layer overlay the north polarity soft magnetic blocks of the second layer. In this unaligned position, the magnetic flux lines are close-circuited, which prevents the magnetic force from extending beyond the first and second magnetic layers. As such, this unaligned position is known as a magnetically inactive state since the permanent magnet chuck will not exert a significant magnetic force on an external workpiece made of a ferromagnetic material. In the aligned position, the polarity of the soft magnetic blocks of the first and second magnetic layers that overlap each other are of the same polarity, e.g., the north polarity soft magnetic blocks of the first layer overlay the north polarity soft magnetic blocks of the second layer, and the south polarity soft magnetic blocks of the first layer overlay the south polarity soft magnetic blocks of the second layer. In this aligned position, the magnetic circuits are incomplete and open, allowing magnetic force to extend beyond the first and second magnetic layers. As such, this aligned position is known as a magnetically active state since the permanent magnet chuck will exert a magnetic force on an external workpiece made of a ferromagnetic material and thus secure the external workpiece to the permanent magnet chuck.
The permanent magnet chuck can be switched between the active and inactive positions by rotating one of the magnetic layers with respect to the other magnetic layer by using a tool to rotate the external lug-nut so that the polarity of the soft magnetic blocks is either aligned or unaligned. The degree of rotation to switch between positions is determined by the number of soft magnetic blocks. If four soft magnetic blocks are used then the first magnetic layer will have to be rotated 90° (e.g., one quarter of a full circle) with respect to the second magnetic layer to switch between active and inactive positions. If six soft magnetic blocks are used then the first magnetic layer will have to be rotated 60° (e.g., one sixth of a full circle) with respect to the second magnetic layer to switch between active and inactive positions.
The permanent magnet chuck as described above and in U.S. Pat. No. 7,161,451 is known to be implemented with a work-holding device used in machining operations, e.g., for grinders, lathes, and mills, and for material handling purposes. For work-holding applications, the permanent magnet chuck would hold a material that is being worked on, e.g., a piece of metal that is being lathed. However, the permanent magnet chuck of the prior art is not directed to magnetically securing the device or tool that is used to activate the permanent magnet chuck.
The present disclosure addresses the foregoing drawback and others by providing magnetic engagement mechanisms for recreational and/or transportation apparatuses, and/or by providing same that can be activated and de-activated by a user's foot or other appendage and releasably secures the user's foot or other appendage to the apparatus so that it can be quickly and reliably connected and disconnected through rotational activation of two magnetic platters.

Magnetic engagement mechanism for a recreational and/or transportation apparatus


Managing energy capacity in an electric vehicle based on a driver profile. This is achieved by various means, including interactively determining a travel plan with a user, calculating a total travel distance for the travel plan, determining how far the electric vehicle can travel based on its current energy level, and creating an energy replenishment plan based on the travel plan, the total travel distance, how far the vehicle can currently travel, and the driver profile.

1. Field
Embodiments of the invention are generally related to vehicle navigation systems. And more specifically, embodiments are related to techniques for creating an energy utilization plan based on a user's travel plan.
2. Description of the Related Art
As global oil resources are limited, the current petroleum-based transportation system cannot continue indefinitely, and thus the need for alternative fuels and energy sources is apparent. Currently, a number of petroleum-alternatives exist. One such alternative is electric vehicles, which are capable of operating on battery power alone and with no fuel whatsoever.
However, while petroleum-based vehicles can be refueled relatively quickly, electric vehicles may take a substantial amount of time to recharge their batteries. While it may take a matter of minutes for a driver to refuel a petroleum-based vehicle, it may take several hours to fully recharge an electric vehicle. Additionally, the infrastructure for recharging electric vehicles is still developing and thus electric recharging stations are not as common as, for example, petroleum refueling stations. Thus, it can be difficult for a driver of an electric vehicle to even find a recharging station, and then once he finds one, the driver must still wait a substantial amount of time for the vehicle to recharge.
A further limitation of electric vehicles is that their range is currently limited compared to petroleum-based vehicles. Thus, if a driver wishes to drive an electric vehicle over an extended distance, the driver will have to recharge the vehicle more frequently. Because of this range limitation, drivers may feel range anxiety when driving electric vehicles. That is, drivers of electric vehicles may be uncertain that the capacity of their battery is sufficient for their planned (or unplanned) usage of the vehicle. For example, a driver may wish to stop at a grocery store on his way home from work, but may be uncertain whether his electric vehicle can travel the extra distance without recharging. Furthermore, factors such as traffic and road closings may influence the driver's travel time and make the driver more uncertain as to whether his electric vehicle can complete the trip.
To combat this range limitation, drivers may opt to drive a hybrid electric vehicle. A hybrid electric vehicle, as defined herein, is a vehicle capable of operating exclusively on electric power for shorter distances, and may use a fuel-based mechanism for travelling longer distances. Alternatively, drivers of electric vehicles may use a range extender module. The range extender is a pluggable component that allows the electric vehicle to run on fuel (e.g., petroleum) for a limited amount of time. In other words, the range extender module effectively converts a fully electric vehicle into a hybrid electric vehicle. However, even with a hybrid electric vehicle, it can be difficult for the user to optimally manage his battery recharging, given the limitations discussed above. For instance, if a user is very poor at managing his battery power level, the hybrid electric vehicle will operate almost entirely on liquid fuel, and thus gain none of the advantages of an electric vehicle. Thus, even with a hybrid electric vehicle, drivers may be insecure and inefficient with regard to maintaining the energy level in their vehicle.

Managing electrical power utilization in an electric vehicle

International Business Machines Corporation


There is provided a radio receiver including: a first matched filter, a second matched filter, a first frame synchronization determining unit and a first phase determining unit. The first matched filter performs matching processing on the basis of N first tap coefficients and sign information of a received digital signal to obtain first output data. The second matched filter performs matching processing on the basis of M (M is a natural number smaller than the N) second tap coefficients, the sign information and amplitude information of the received digital to obtain second output data. The first frame synchronization determining unit determines a first frame synchronization timing of the received digital signal on the basis of the first output data. The first phase determining unit determines a first phase amount of the received digital signal on the basis of the second output data and the first frame synchronization timing.

In a conventional radio receiver, a processing time is shortened by concurrently performing frame synchronization processing and frequency synchronization processing using a common matched filter.
As described above, in the conventional radio receiver, frame synchronization processing and frequency synchronization processing are realized by a common matched filter. Accordingly, there is the need to adopt a configuration in which the matched filter has both a sufficient number of taps and sufficient bit accuracy. This causes a circuit scale (number of taps·bit accuracy) to become large. That is, there has been the problem that the circuit scale of the matched filter has to be made to meet a stricter condition, either the required accuracy of frequency synchronization or the required accuracy of frame synchronization. There is also the problem of an increase in power consumption associated with circuit scale expansion.


An apparatus and method suitable for use in inflating a vehicle occupant restraint are provided. The apparatus stores a gas generating material in a first chamber and stores a supply of gas under pressure in a second chamber. When ignited, the gas generating material produces a hot gas which contains particulate material. To effect particulate removal, housed within the container and extending about the gas exit nozzle of the first chamber is a filter structure. The filter structure forms inner and outer mixing zones within the second chamber wherein portions of the stored gas mix with the appropriately generated and/or treated gas, forming inflation gas. The inflation gas in turn is passed through a diffuser and into the vehicle occupant restraint.

This invention relates generally to inflatable restraint systems and, more particularly, to the type of inflator known as a hybrid inflator and the treatment of gases therein.
Many types of inflators have been disclosed in the art for inflating an air bag for use in an inflatable restraint system. One type involves the utilization of a quantity of stored compressed gas which is selectively released to inflate the air bag. Another type derives a gas source from a combustible gas generating material which, upon ignition, generates a quantity of gas sufficient to inflate the air bag. In a third type, the air bag inflating gas results from the combination of a stored compressed gas and the combustion products of a gas generating material. The last mentioned type is commonly referred to as an augmented gas or hybrid inflator.
Hybrid inflators that have been proposed heretofore have, in general, been subject to certain disadvantages. For example, the burning of the pyrotechnic (gas generating) and initiation materials in such inflators invariably results in the production of particulate material. The use of such a particulate-containing inflator emission to inflate an air bag can in turn result in the particulate material being vented out from the air bag and into the vehicle.
Typically, the particulate material is variously sized and includes a large amount of particulate within the respirable range for humans. Thus, the passage of the gas borne particulate material into the passenger compartment of the vehicle, such as via conventional air bag venting, can result in the undesired respiration of such particulate material by the driver and/or other passengers which in turn can cause consequent respiratory problems. Also, such particulate can easily become dispersed and airborne so as to appear to be smoke and thereby result in the false impression that there is a fire in or about the vehicle.
It has also been proposed to screen the gaseous emission coming from the pyrotechnic portion of such hybrid inflators. For example, the above-identified U.S. Pat. No. 5,131,680 discloses the inclusion of a circular screen "128" between the body of pyrotechnic material and the orifice through which the pyrotechnically produced emission is passed to the pressurized gas-containing chamber of the hybrid inflator.
Also, U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,914 discloses the inclusion of a metal disk having a plurality of suitably sized openings therein. The disk is disclosed as functioning to trap large particles such as may be present in the generated gas.
Such techniques of filtering or screening the gaseous emission of the pyrotechnic section of the hybrid inflator prior to contact with the stored, pressurized gas of the inflator generally suffer such as from undesirably slowing or preventing the transfer of heat to the stored gas from the relatively hot generated gas and particulate material. In general, such a transfer of heat to the stored gas is desired in hybrid inflators in order to produce desired expansion of the gas. Consequently, the slowing or preventing of desired heat transfer can result in a reduction in the performance of the inflator. Also, the screening or filtering of particulate at this location within the inflator can undesirably effect gas flow within the inflator. For example, such treatment can undesirably restrict the flow of gas out of the pyrotechnic chamber, causing the pressure inside the pyrotechnic chamber to increase and thereby increase the potential for structural failure by the pyrotechnic chamber.
The above-identified U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,914 also discloses constraining gas flow to a tortuous path whereby additional quantities of relatively large particles produced by combustion of the gas generating material are separated from the commingled gases as the gases flow toward the inflatable vehicle occupant restraint. As disclosed, various component parts of the vehicle occupant restraint system cooperate to form the described tortuous path. These component parts include the openings in the container which direct the gas into an outer cylindrical diffuser, the container itself which preferably contains gas directing blades positioned therein as well as burst disks to control the flow of the gas generated by ignition of the gas generating material. The patent also discloses that in a preferred embodiment, a coating material, e.g., a silicone grease, is coated onto the inner surface of the container to assist in the fusing of particles thereto rather than allowing the particles to rebound into the nitrogen gas jet stream.
Such surface coatings, however, generally suffer in several significant aspects with respect to effectiveness and functioning when compared, for example, to the use of a filter to effect particulate removal.
First, as the nature of such fusion or adhesion of particles onto a coating is a surface phenomenon, the effectiveness of such removal is directly related to the amount of available surface area. In practice, such a surface coating provides a relatively limited amount of contact surface area and, further, the effectiveness of such surface treatment typically is decreased as the available surface area is occupied.
Also, though such an internal surface coating may be of some use in the fusing of solid particles, such a coating would normally be relatively ineffective in trapping liquid phase particles. Furthermore, the process of condensation of liquid phase particles in an inflator normally involves a transfer of heat to the subject contact surface. In the case of such a surface coated with such a grease, such a transfer of heat could undesirably result in the off-gassing of the coating material, e.g., production of gaseous byproducts of the coating material, which in turn would undesirably contribute to the toxicity of the gases emitted from such an inflator.
In addition, the effect of the flow of gases within the inflator can raise concerns about the use of inflators which utilize such coatings. For example, the impingement onto such a coating of the hot combustion gases produced within an inflator would normally tend to displace the coating material, particularly since such coatings tend to become softer at elevated temperatures.
Thus, even for the short time periods associated with the operation of such devices neither exclusive nor primary reliance is made by this patent on the use of such a coating to effect particle removal.
There is a need and a demand for improvement in hybrid inflators to the end of preventing, minimizing or reducing the passage of particulate material therefrom without undesirably slowing or preventing heat transfer to the stored, compressed gas while facilitating proper bag deployment, in a safe, effective and economical manner.
The present invention was devised to help fill the gap that has existed in the art in these respects.


The present invention relates to methods for treating pancreatitis and/or organ failure comprising administering, to a subject in need of such treatment, an effective amount of a lipase inhibitor. It is based, at least in part, on the discoveries that lipotoxicity contributes to inflammation, multisystem organ failure, necrotic pancreatic acinar cell death and in acute pancreatitis, and that inhibition of lipolysis was able to reduce indices associated with these conditions. Accordingly, in various embodiments, the present invention provides for methods and compositions for limiting lipotoxicity and thereby reducing the likelihood of poor outcomes associated with acute pancreatitis and other severe systemic conditions, especially in obese individuals.

Obesity is a well documented risk factor for worse outcomes in acute pancreatitis (Martinez, et al., Pancreatology 2006, 6:206-209; Papachristou, et al., Pancreatology 2006, 6:279-285; Sempere, et al., Pancreatology 2008, 8:257-264; Karimgani, et al., Gastroenterology 1992, 103:1636-1640), including the risk of local complications (Tsai C J, Dig Dis Sci 1998, 43:2251-2254; Funnell, et al., Br J Surg 1993, 80:484-486), systemic complications such as the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), multisystem organ failure (MSOF) and mortality (Papachristou, et al., Pancreatology 2006, 6:279-285; Karimgani, et al., Gastroenterology 1992, 103:1636-1640; Funnell, et al., Br J Surg 1993, 80:484-486; Johnson, et al., Pancreatology 2004, 4:1-6) and the risk of local complications. The sites of visceral fat deposition include the mesentery, omentum, liver (Park, et al., J Gastroenterol Hepatol 2008, 23:900-907), the pancreas, and the peripancreatic space (Olsen T S, Acta Pathol Microbiol Scand A 1978, 86A:367-373; Rosso, et al., J Gastrointest Surg 2009, 13:1845-1851; Saisho, et al., Clin Anat 2007, 20:933-942; Schmitz, et al., Pathol Res Pract 1981, 173:45-53). It has been suggested that visceral adipose tissue, as measured by waist-to-hip ratio and waist circumference above ideal cut-off value, may be a greater risk factor for worse outcomes in acute pancreatitis than total body fat (Mery, et al., Pancreatology 2002, 2:543-549; Martinez, et al., Pancreas 1999, 19:15-20). Mechanisms of this may include an elevated baseline proinflammatory state (Ghanim, et al, Circulation 2004, 110:1564-1571) and an exaggerated inflammatory response (Sempere, et al., Pancreatology 2008, 8:257-264) associated with obesity. Levels of proinflammatory cytokines such as Interleukin-1β and tumor necrosis factor-α are increased in pancreata of obese mice (Mathur, et al., Nonalcoholic fatty pancreas disease, HPB (Oxford) 2007, 9:312-318). Increased fat accumulation in the pancreas and peripancreatic space has been noted in association with increased body weight (Olsen T S, Acta Pathol Microbiol Scand A 1978, 86A:367-373; Saisho, et al., Clin Anat 2007, 20:933-942; Schmitz, et al., Pathol Res Pract 1981, 173:45-53).
Intrapancreatic fat has been shown to increase with BMI in studies evaluating autopsy samples (Olsen T S, Acta Pathol Microbiol Scand A 1978, 86A:367-373; Saisho, et al., Clin Anat 2007, 20:933-942; Schmitz, et al., Pathol Res Pract 1981, 173:45-53) surgically resected samples (Rosso, et al., J Gastrointest Surg 2009, 13:1845-1851) and radiological appearance of the pancreas (Saisho, et al., Clin Anat 2007, 20:933-942; Matsumoto, et al., Radiology 1995, 194:453-458). The distribution of fat is fairly uniform in the dorsal pancreas and is reduced in the ventral pancreas (Schmitz, et al., Pathol Res Pract 1981, 173:45-53). Uneven fatty replacement in the pancreas is infrequent (3.2%), and the pattern of fat distribution is not influenced by obesity (Matsumoto, et al., Radiology 1995, 194:453-458).
The pancreas produces enzymes that aid in digestion and absorption of food; one such enzyme is lipase, which digests fat. A number of inhibitors of pancreatic lipase, which can inhibit absorption of ingested fat and thereby reduce caloric intake, have been developed as anti-obesity drugs. Examples of pancreatic lipase inhibitors include orlistat (marketed as the prescription drug Xenical by Roche and as an over-the-counter drug, Alli, by GlaxoSmithKline), cetilistat, and lipstatin. Orlistat has been reported to promote apoptosis and reduce cell grown and lymph node metastasis in a mouse melanoma model (Carvalho et al., Int. J. Cancer 2008, 123:2557-2565).

Lipase inhibitors for the treatment of pancreatitis and organ failure

University of Pittsburgh—of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education


A general purpose processor architecture (methods and apparatuses) that can discern all subsets of a serial data stream which fulfill an arbitrarily complex reference pattern. The invention comprises an ordered set of Detection Cells conditionally interconnected according to the reference pattern and operationally controlling one another's states through the network. The invention preferably includes a Host Interface to enable reporting of Results from a search session as well as the input and control of reference patterns and source data.

1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to the field of digital electronic devices for recognizing specified patterns in a data stream, specifically claimed is a general purpose architecture and device for set theoretic processing.
2. Description of Related Art
In the pattern recognition field, whether in searching textual data or other form of source data, four problems persist, notably acuity, throughput, scalability and cost. Accordingly, these are the measures of effectiveness for any new technology in this field.
Acuity is measured as the sum of False Positives and False Negatives in the results of a scan. False positives occur when the scan results in irrelevant patterns. False Negatives occur when the scan fails to identify patterns that are, in fact, relevant. The ideal pattern recognition device will not make such errors. The next best device will enable a user to control the amount of error as well as the ratio of False Positives to False Negatives and to trade off acuity vs. throughput and/or cost for each user situation.
As to scalability, pattern matching involves identifying symbols and syntax identical to the user's expression of interest. Pattern recognition goes further by enabling the specification of a class of equivalent terms and by aggregating all qualifying instances. This distinction became important as search technology progressed from text search to imagery search to detection of malware for cybersecurity and for detection of evolving patterns in biocomplexity informatics. Accordingly, minimizing False Positives and False Negatives may entail reference patterns that specify upwards of 100 terms each averaging 10 features. The vaunted Google search engine experienced an average query of 2.3 terms, circa 2004. Modern recognition devices should have the capacity to compare upwards of 1000 features to the source data stream and be scalable to 1 million features. Other dimensions of scalability include implementation of a personal-scale device to a federated system of millions of devices throughout the World Wide Web.
Throughput is the speed at which the source data is examined and results reported. The typical measure of throughput is characters per second. Constant or at least predictable throughput is best, not dependent on the complexity of the reference pattern nor the number of recognitions per unit time.
Cost is the total cost of ownership of a search episode regardless of how the costs are allocated. For example, a user pays nothing for a Google search episode but somebody is paying for the MIPS (millions of instructions per second), bytes and baud that are used to accomplish the search. Cost includes the preprocessing of source data as well as the actual search episode.
Starting approximately in the mid-1900's, various strategies have sought to improve performance in one or more of the measures by leveraging technologies and innovating architectures. The state of the art is still far from realizing, simultaneously, specifiable acuity, throughput at the speed of silicon, scale from single user to federated users and cost levels that small and medium enterprises and even individuals can afford.
The following paragraphs summarize the field to date.
The general purpose computer, designed to perform arithmetic, has been used since the 1950's for comparison of digital data in the form of characters, character strings and combinations of character strings. A straightforward program can utilize the memory and CPU (central processing unit) to input a reference character then compare it, sequentially, to multiple characters of various kinds as presented by a source data stream. The presence in the source data stream of a matching character can be flagged for subsequent reference. More than one such character may be found and flagged and more than one instance of any specific character may be found and flagged. Each such operation consumes several clock cycles of a modern microprocessor.
If the reference is a string consisting of multiple characters in a specific sequence, i.e., representing a word of text, or a music melody or a genomic pattern, then a more complicated program is required. Character-level comparison proceeds as before then the interim results are stored for subsequent processing to determine whether the characters that qualified are in the sequence required for a word-level match. This is known as the combinatorial explosion problem because the number of machine cycles increases as the square of the number of conditional matches. Such operations typically consume thousands of clock cycles and there is no upper limit.
If the reference consists of a phrase, e.g., a string of words in a specific order, then the program, using recursion, is only somewhat more complicated but the combinatorial explosion can become even more dramatic and can consume billions of clock cycles. Although grid configurations of megaflop processors can supply the clock cycles the expense of the device quickly becomes prohibitive and throughput can be in the range of only a few characters per second.
The dismal acuity exhibited by pattern matching machines to date stems from attempts to avoid the combinatorial explosion problem. Most text applications use key words to surrogate the source data. Then searches compare the reference pattern to only the key word file, not to the actual text. This approach invokes the well known problem of retrieving citations that are irrelevant (false positives) thus incurring waste and cost. A not so well known but worse outcome is that are truly relevant patterns in the data being scanned are not recognized (false negatives) because the content was not represented with sufficient fidelity by the key words used.
Attempts to extract meanings from text are frustrated by the complexity of the problem but more so by the indexing to terms as noted in the previous paragraph. Implementations of pattern recognition have been demonstrated with pre-processing and post-processing software, such as statistical clustering and Latent Semantic Indexing. In essence these seek to overcome the limitations inherent in indexed or censored text streams by further processing of the term matches found by the hardware. This approach to recovery of meanings in the censored text can never overcome the limitations imposed by the censoring in the first place.                United States Patent Publication 2005/0154802, Parallel pattern detection engine. Multiple processing units (PUs) customized to do various modes of pattern recognition. Each pattern has an Opcode e. PUs may be cascaded to enable longer patterns to be matched or to allow more patterns to be processed in parallel for a particular input data stream. Cost and throughput are highly suspect. Also, the application appears to implement nesting but not equivalence classes.
SIMM, SIMD and similar hardware CPU embellishments have been invented for data flow applications. These have demonstrated speed improvements in the single digit range but also increased cost.                United States Patent Publication 2005/0257025, State engine for data processor. Uses parallel processors, such as SIMD array processors. Claims that a read/modify/write operation can be performed in only two cycles and a complete command in only three to five cycles. These performances appear to be for fundamental pattern matching but not for partial matches and consideration of variants such as plurals.
Supercomputer configurations and more recently grid configurations of microprocessors have been programmed for set theoretic processing both for Very Large Data Base situations and genomic research. Cost inhibits most potential users from this option.
In the limit, the basic Von Neuman stored program computer simply cannot exhibit the speed/cost ratios available with other implementations.
The special purpose processor category contains many examples of prior art. Early examples include the General Electric series;                U.S. Pat. No. 3,358,270, December 1967.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,001, Digital logic circuits for comparing ordered character strings of variable length, Jun. 6, 1978.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,451,901. High speed search system. May 29, 1984.Also in this category are the TRW series;        U.S. Pat. No. 5,051,947, High-speed single-pass textual search processor for locating exact and inexact matches of a search pattern in a textual stream, Jun. 6, 1978.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,760,523, Fast search processor, Jul. 26, 1988.
Being complex logic devices, special purpose processors are not only expensive to produce (product cost exceeding $10,000) but also subject to failure rates that frustrated operational users. Further, the designs were neither scalable nor extensible. The method of performing character/character set comparisons limited them to pattern matching rather than pattern recognition.                U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,072, Pattern addressable memory, May 24, 1988. Performance shortfall from rule based active construction of variable content in key words. Does not accommodate equivalence classes.        United States Patent Publication 2003/0055799, Self-organizing data driven learning hardware with local interconnections. Does not handle equivalence classes. Throughput shortfall.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,531,201. Patterns limited in length to size of shift registers.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,295. Can handle 16-bit characters at loss of throughput. Length of shift registers limits length of words. Cannot detect Kleen Closures. Decoder requires a delay to decode a character. Does not handle equivalence classes.
Being ever more complicated, logic devices using parallelism for throughput in various string pattern matching scenarios each exhibited cost limitations were limited in scalability as well. Also, precise internal timing of the logic circuits made it nearly impossible to re-implement them as semiconductor technology advanced.
Associative Memories and Contents Addressable Memories have been used to reduce the number of clock cycles required to fetch data into registers. While improving performance these approaches do not reduce costs and none to date have yielded significant improvements regarding the acuity measure of effectiveness.                United States Patent Publication 2004/0123071, Cellular engine for a data processing system. Matching device. Does not support Boolean, semantic or set theory logic.        United States Patent Publication 2004/0080973, Associative memory, method for searching the same, network device, and network system. Associative memory carries out a search operation in plural fields. Does not appear to support complex reference patterns. Three memories, three cycles indicates shortfalls in throughput and acuity        United States Patent Publication 2003/0229636, Pattern matching and pattern recognition system, associative memory apparatus, and pattern matching and pattern recognition processing method. Word-level, multiple cycles.        United States Patent Publication 2003/0014240, Associative memory device with optimized occupation, particularly for the recognition of words. Spreadsheet approach, relationships among classes not supported. Logic limited,        United States Patent Publication 2004/0250013, Associative memory system, network device, and network system. Includes Reset to find second instance of a pattern. Does not support equivalence classes.
Neural Net based recognizers have been used for string pattern matching in order to implement rapidly adaptive reference patterns. These have proven effective in specific applications such as email spam signature identification and adaptive tracking but do not exhibit the speed and performance for general application.                United States Patent Publication 2005/0049984, Neural networks and neural memory. Does not support equivalence classes.        United States Patent Publication 2002/0059152, Neural processing module with input architectures that make maximal use of a weighted synapse array. Symbol syntax but not semantics.        United States Patent Publication 2002/0032670, Neural network processing system using semiconductor memories. Aggregations are linear.
Application-specific devices have been devised for pattern matching of 2D and 3D images, but do not have the Boolean, semantic and set theory logic.                United States Patent Publication 2002/0125500, Semiconductor associative memory. Emphasizes processing versus use of memory and systolic operations. Shortfall in throughput and cost.        United States Patent Publication 2002/0168100, Spatial image processor. Assumes location implicit relationships in data stream (e.g., pixels).        United States Patent Publication 2003/0194124, Massive training artificial neural network (MTANN) for detecting abnormalities in medical images. Uses sequential stored program.        United States Patent Publication 2004/0156546, Method and apparatus for image processing. Defines three categories of processing, object-independent processing a plurality of processors each of which is associated with a different one of the pixels of the image, object-dependent processing using a symmetric multi-processor. The plurality of processors may form a massively parallel processor of a systolic array type and configured as a single-instruction multiple-data system, and object composition, recognition and association, using a unified and symmetric processing of N dimensions in space and one dimension in time. The plurality of processors is formed on a semiconductor substrate different from the semiconductor substrate on which images are captured.
Systolic Arrays use pulse propagation through preformed switching networks to parallelize logical relationships without resorting to the von Neumann paradigm. These are much faster and less expensive than sequential processors. Inventions and embodiments to date have been application specific and have not allowed sufficiently quick reconfigurations of the switching network.
The more particularized field of the present invention started with machines that detected Match or No Match, one term at a time. Next came full Boolean operators across collections of terms. Then the addition of Don't Care logic to the Match, No Match choices allowed detection of partial matches. Delimiters enabled detection of syntactic clues such as end of word, end of sentence, end of paragraph, end of section, end of file, end of record, etc. Next came detecting strings of terms (e.g., phrases). Throughout was the presumption that the search would be composed and expressed by humans in the form of queries. Search engines or adjunct software did not greatly aid how humans formulated queries. Linguists created very sophisticated preprocessing and post processing software but these did not make significant improvements in acuity, throughput, scalability or cost, let alone improving all at the same time. The field of artificial intelligence paralleled the search engine field but without significant cross-disciplinary sharing.
The field started with machines that detected Match or No Match, one term at a time. Next came full Boolean operators across collections of terms. Then the addition of Don't Care logic to the Match and No Match choices allowed detection of partial matches. Delimiters enabled detection of syntactic clues such as end of word, end of sentence, end of paragraph, end of section, end of file, end of record, etc. Next came the capability to detect strings of terms (e.g. phrases).
Throughout was the presumption that the search would be composed and expressed by humans in the form of queries. Search engines or adjunct software did not greatly aid how humans formulated queries. Meanwhile, linguists created very sophisticated preprocessing and post processing software but these did not make significant improvements in acuity, throughput, scalability or cost, let alone improving all at the same time.
Many of the advancements were paced by Moore's price/performance law in the semiconductor field. The field of artificial intelligence paralleled the search engine field but unfortunately without significant cross-disciplinary sharing. The advent of knowledge management in the 1990's made many more people aware of lexicons and taxonomies, the [then] means of expressing the relationships among entities in addition to describing the entities. The advent of semantic web development in 2001 intended to enable computers to interchange data based on the meaning of the data instead of just on its location in a format has fostered expressions of knowledge models as formal ontologies.
Set theory has proven useful for making assertions about relationships. The advent of digital image patterns search has advanced its use considerably. Currently, set theoretic expressions are as prevalent as Boolean logic and algorithmic operators. This has prompted distinctly new machine architectures featuring systolic arrays and data flow-facilitation examples. Now interest increasing from facilitation of computer system data interchanges to facilitation of human knowledge interchanges and to facilitation of interchanges among diverse, distributed systems of humans. Applying digital devices to the disambiguation of human communications is the next wave in this field. The astounding complexity of this challenge motivates development of a general purpose machine that can execute a variety of such expressions. The present invention provides such a method and apparatus.
In order to locate all of the data objects relevant to a given referent and only those objects it is necessary to overcome the heterogeneity of the subject data. Heterogeneity exists on two levels. The first level for digital text is transcription variation such as differences in spelling, spelling errors, typographical errors, punctuation differences, spacing variation, the presence of "special" bytes used to control the display or transmission medium but which themselves carry no meaning, and recently, obfuscation characters intended to spoof spam detectors. A popular example of the latter is:                "Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the Itteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and Isat Itteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey Iteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
Cognates in other types of digital data are, for example: DNA spelling errors, Background noise, and Varying pronunciation.
The second level of heterogeneity is the semantic level. Humans are gifted inventors of different ways of expressing the same idea. This means that for every component of a referent many variations may be possible (varying sentence and paragraph structuring, and many figures of speech (synonyms, allegory, allusion, ambiguity, analogy, eponym, hyperbole, icon, index, irony, map, metaphor, metonym, polysemous meaning, pun, sarcasm, sardony, sign, simile, synecdoche, symbol, token, trope) and class, subclass, idioms, and super class words and expressions).
Accordingly, rather than looking for the occurrences of a word or phrase, or even a few words or phrases, in a body of text, Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety (for appropriate regulation the variety in the regulator must be equal to or greater than the variety in the system being regulated) demands a way of finding all of the expressions equivalent to a set of referents. A responsive machine must be able to process set theoretic operators as well as Boolean operators and semantic operators such as precedence and aggregation. In this document the set of strings equivalent to a referent is called an equivalence class. A description of the members of an equivalence class is called a Referent Pattern.
Acuity is achieved by providing a means to scan a data stream for content fulfilling Reference Patterns of sufficient selectivity and sensitivity to perceive just the digital objects of interest. Simultaneously, throughput, scalability and cost must be achieved as well.


A hose for pumping heated liquids therethrough is disclosed which has, in combination, an interior hose construction which is adapted to prevent kinking and collapse of said hose, a heating element which has abrasive protection layers associated therewith, an insulator, a moisture barrier and a safety and containment barrier. At least two hose fittings are positioned at each end of the hose with at least one of said hose fittings having electrical connections in electrical communication with the heating element and a source of electrical power.

At present, hoses are often called upon to carry materials which need to be heated to be applied at a point of usage. Such heating can be required in a manufacturing process as, for example, in the plastics industry, or in road construction to pump asphalt to a desired location for application. At present, the majority of such hoses will utilize heating blanket technologies whereby the hose is wrapped with a heating element, typically an electric resistance heater of some sort. In addition, such hoses are often constructed using thin polytetrafluoroethylene tubes to allow for good flow of the liquids therethrough.
However, current technologies do suffer drawbacks. For example, the thin polytetrafluoroethylene tubes without inner support often kink. For support, present users add square lock liners which, themselves, do not support more than about 20 pound loads. In addition, heavy outer casings employed on such hoses are excessively heavy, are very stiff and do not insulate well resulting in injury to workers handling same.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,049,658 entitled "Flexible Hose for a Flowable Material Application" which issued on Apr. 11, 2000 to Schave et al. discloses a melter for asphalt including a heated hose 74 coupled to a supply line 72, a heating element and a sensor (FIG. 1).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,974,227 entitled "Hot Melt Mix Applicator with Electrically Heated Hose" which issued on Oct. 26, 1999 to Schave shows an electrically heated hose 22 for hot melt mix applications including a heating element 30 and a temperature sensor 122 (FIGS. 4, 4A).
U.S. Pat. No. 4,553,023 entitled "Thermally Insulated Electrically Heated Hose for Transmitting Hot Liquids" which issued on Nov. 12, 1985 to Jameson et al. provides an electrically heated hose 10 including Aramid thermal insulation 84, a Polytetrafluoroethylene tube 20 with a stainless steel wire braiding 21 and heater wires (23a-23d)(FIGS. 1-3).
U.S. Pat. No. 6,043,466 entitled "Hot Runner Heating Clamp," which issued on Mar. 28, 2000 to Jenko et al. has a system for clamping a heater to a cylindrical member including a heater coil 120 with coiled portions (122, 14) and a removable thermocouple 128 (FIGS. 7A-7C).
Thus, there is a need for a hose having a heating element which eliminates the shortcomings of the prior art.

Hose for hot liquids having heating element


A method for producing a panel made of a composite material of substantially three layers including a first cover layer and a second cover layer, at least one of which cover layers is made of glass, and an intermediate layer of a synthetic resin, into which a decorative material which differs from the synthetic resin has been embedded. The method comprises the steps of providing a mesh having an upper side covered with discrete particles, adhering the underside of the mesh to a surface of the first cover layer, applying a liquid synthetic resin to the discrete particles and the mesh, applying the second cover layer on the liquid synthetic resin while the edges are sealed, and curing the liquid synthetic resin.

Composite glass panels are known, which are designed as safety glass and/or have a decorative character. Solids consisting of noble or base metals, gold foil, stones, glass, wood, plastic materials, etc. are introduced into the intermediate layer of synthetic resin. The decorative material can also be liquid or gaseous. It is also possible to mix various color pigments with the synthetic resin. However, this should not be considered to be decorative material in the present case.
The decorative materials can be arranged in the form of inserts or enclosures in the synthetic resin layer. In the case of solid material inserts, the synthetic resin layer constitutes the matrix for the solid material inserts, which can be differently shaped, for example as grains, in the shape of small plates, or threads. Gaseous enclosures in the synthetic resin layer can be constituted by air bubbles.


A contact lens is provided with an indicator that is visible when placed in contact with a solution, but substantially transparent when removed from that solution. The indicator may be of the type to designate whether the contact lens is to be worn on the right or left eye.

Contact lenses have been available for decades, and offer a useful way to improve a user's vision without the encumbrances of eyeglasses. Presently, there are many types of commercially-available contact lenses, including silicon hydrogel contact lenses which are made of a soft, pliable material and have good oxygen permeability. Contact lenses, such as silicon hydrogel contact lenses, may come in a variety of prescription strengths, and may also be used to alter or enhance a user's eye color.
Despite the fact that contact lenses have been available for decades, there are numerous problems with commercially-available contact lenses. First, many people have different prescription strengths for their left and right eyes, respectively. Commercially-available contact lenses do not, however, contain an easy-to-read indicator that identifies which eye a contact lens is to be worn in, or for example, the prescription of the contact lens. Once a contact lens is removed from packaging which designates the eye in which that contact lens should be worn and/or the prescription strength of that contact lens, it may be difficult for a user to thereafter determine into which eye that contact lens should be placed. A common solution to this problem is to provide a contact lens storage case that has an "R" or an "L" label on a well for a right or left eye, for which the right and left contact lenses are to be placed, respectively. However, this solution still suffers from drawbacks. For example, if a user mistakenly places a contact lens into the wrong well of the storage case, it may be difficult to determine into which eye that contact lens should be placed.
Second, soft contact lenses, such as silicon hydrogel contact lenses, are made of soft, pliable material, and therefore may be turned inside out. When a contact lens is turned inside out, and placed on the eye, it may be uncomfortable and result in visual impairment. Often times, when removing a contact lens from its storage case, it becomes difficult to determine if that contact lens is in the correct orientation. Commercially-available contact lenses do not, unfortunately, contain an easy-to-read indicator that identifies whether the contact lens is in the proper orientation for placement on the eye.
There is also a known problem that two or more persons may mix up their contact lenses. For example, if a husband and wife both place their contact lenses in the same storage case (e.g., two contact lenses in a single well) it may be difficult to thereafter determine whether a particular contact lens is the husband's or the wife's.
While it is known to place markings or etchings on contact lenses to distinguish, for example, a lens for the right eye or left eye, such as small dots, commercially-available contact lenses do not contain such markings. This is likely because markings, such as small dots, may be difficult to see on contact lenses, and are therefore unhelpful to the user. It is also likely that commercially-available contact lenses do not incorporate larger markings because they would interfere with the user's vision when the lens is placed in the eye, or may look unsightly.
There is a significant need for a contact lens that incorporates an easy-to-read indicator that is visible under certain conditions, but will not interfere with a user's vision or be noticeable when worn by a user. For example, there is a need for a contact lens that incorporates an indicator, such as one indicating that the contact lens is a "left" or "right" contact lens (e.g., "L" or "R"), or indicating that the contact lens is in the proper orientation (e.g., "UP"), that is visible when in contact with a solution, but once removed from that solution, is not visible and does not interfere with a user's vision when the lens is placed on the eye.
The easy-to-read indicator of the present invention overcomes these problems of the prior art.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A contactless communication medium includes a base made of an insulating material, an antenna coil section including a conductor wound in a planar shape on the base, an inductance adjusting conductor pattern that is connected in parallel to a part of the conductor in the antenna coil section, and is placed on the base, a capacitor connected to the antenna coil section, and a communication processing section that is connected to the antenna coil section and the capacitor to perform contactless communication processing.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a contactless communication medium that performs contactless radio communication with a nearby reader/writer, an antenna pattern-placed medium included in the contactless communication medium, a communication apparatus in which the contactless communication medium is built in, and an antenna adjusting method applied to contactless radio communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
Contactless communication media called contactless IC cards are in widespread use as contactless communication media for performing contactless radio communication with a nearby reader/writer. For example, such contactless IC cards are widely used for railway ticket gate systems, bill payment systems for convenience stores, and entrance and exit control systems. Such contactless IC cards are also called radio frequency identification (RFID) or radio IC tags.
Such contactless IC cards come with an embedded IC chip, allowing for quick response and processing for purposes such as management of entrance and exit, billing, and so on. Thus, contactless IC cards are of very high utility in comparison to magnetic cards or the like.
FIGS. 8A and 8B show an example of the configuration of a contactless IC card according to the related art. FIG. 8A shows a state in which the circuit for contactless communication is placed on a resin base. A contactless IC card as the actual product has a film or the like as an outer covering material placed on its surface so that the internal circuit is hidden.
The configuration shown in FIG. 8A will be described. On the front surface of a base 10, an antenna coil section 20 is placed at a location near the outer perimeter of the base 10. The antenna coil section 20 is formed by winding a conductor pattern of a predetermined width made of a conductor such as copper or aluminum a plurality of times (about four times in this example), and placing the windings at a predetermined interval, on the front surface near the outer perimeter of the base 10.
One end 21 and the other end 22 of the antenna coil section 20 are connected to an IC chip 11, which is an integrated circuit component that performs communication processing. In this case, the one end 21 of the antenna coil section 20 is brought into electrical continuity with the back side of the base 10, and is connected to the IC chip 11 that performs communication processing, via a conductor pattern 14 on the back side. The other end 22 of the antenna coil section 20 is connected to the IC chip 11 via a conductor pattern 13.
The one end 21 and the other end 22 of the antenna coil section 20 are connected to a capacitor 12 and an adjusting capacitor 30. The capacitor 12 and the adjusting capacitor 30 are also connected by using the conductor pattern 14 on the back side.
The capacitor 12 is used to store electric charge generated by a carrier wave received by the antenna coil section 20, and obtain electric power for driving the IC chip 11. The capacitor 12 includes a first electrode section formed by a conductive pattern on the front side, and a second electrode section formed by a conductive pattern on the back side. The capacitor 12 stores electric charge on the first electrode section and the second electrode section that are opposed to each other via the base 10. Each of the electrode sections forming the capacitor 12 has a relatively large area so as to enable storage of relatively large electric charge.
The adjusting capacitor 30 is used for the purpose of changing resonant frequency. The adjusting capacitor 30 includes a first conductor pattern 31 on the front side which is connected to the other end 22 of the antenna coil section 20, and a second conductor pattern 32 on the back side which is connected to the conductor pattern 14. The first conductor pattern 31 on the front side is placed in comb-tooth form, and the second conductor pattern 32 on the back side is placed so as to orthogonally intersect the comb-toothed portion. Electric charge is stored at their orthogonal intersections. The adjusting capacitor 30 is a small capacitance capacitor in comparison to the capacitor 12. The adjusting capacitor 30 is provided for the purpose of cutting off the comb-toothed conductor pattern partway to reduce the capacitor's capacitance when adjusting resonant frequency during the manufacturing process of the contactless IC card, thereby raising resonant frequency.
FIG. 8B shows an equivalent circuit of the configuration of the contactless IC card shown in FIG. 8A.
As shown in FIG. 8B, the IC chip 11, the capacitor 12, and the adjusting capacitor 30 are connected in parallel to the antenna coil section 20.
An adjustment process to raise resonant frequency with the adjusting capacitor 30 is performed by cutting off the first conductor pattern 31 and the second conductor pattern 32 partway. This process is performed by, for example, boring a hole all the way through the base 10 at the cutting location of the first conductor pattern 31, and drawing out the first conductor pattern 31 or the second conductor pattern 32.
This adjustment process of resonant frequency during the manufacturing process is performed automatically using an adjusting apparatus (not shown). The adjusting apparatus is configured to previously hold data on the cutting position for correcting the resonant frequency of the communication medium, determine the cutting position on the basis of the actually measured resonant frequency, and adjust the resonant frequency by boring a hole in the base at the determined position. Through this adjustment, a contactless IC card with an appropriate resonant frequency can be provided.
FIGS. 9A and 9B show an example of configuration with a center tap, different from the example shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B.
The configuration shown in FIG. 9A will be described. On the front surface of the base 10, the antenna coil section 20 formed by winding a conductor pattern a plurality of times is placed at a location near the outer perimeter of the base 10. The one end 21 and the other end 22 of the antenna coil section 20 are connected to the IC chip 11, which is an integrated circuit component that performs communication processing. The one end 21 of the antenna coil section 20 is connected to the IC chip 11 that performs communication processing, via the conductor pattern 14 on the back side.
On the back side, the capacitor 12 is connected to the one end 21 of the antenna coil section 20. On the front side, the capacitor 12 is connected to an end 24 of an antenna extension 23 that is extended from the other end 22 of the antenna coil section 20.
For the adjusting capacitor 30 as well, the conductor pattern 14 on the back side is connected to the second conductor pattern 32, and the end 24 on the front side is connected to the first conductor pattern 31.
FIG. 9B shows an equivalent circuit of the configuration of the contactless IC card shown in FIG. 9A.
As shown in FIG. 9B, the IC chip 11 is connected to the antenna coil section 20, and the capacitor 12 and the adjusting capacitor 30 are connected via the antenna coil section 20 and the antenna extension 23. The other end 22 that is the connecting point of the antenna coil section 20 and the antenna extension 23 serves as a center tap. The adjustment process with the adjusting capacitor 30 is the same as that in the example shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B.
In the case of the configuration shown in FIGS. 9A and 9B, by making an adjustment using the adjusting capacitor 30, it is possible to change the overall inductance value without changing the value of inductance connected to the IC chip 11. In the case of the example shown in FIGS. 9A and 9B as well, an adjustment to raise resonant frequency is made.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-67693 describes about a configuration for performing communication using a contactless IC card.

Contactless communication medium, antenna pattern-placed medium, communication apparatus, and antenna adjusting method


A dispensing insert is configured to friction fit within a neck of a bottle and to selectively receive an oral syringe. The dispensing insert includes a hollow cylinder, a top plate capping one end of the hollow cylinder, a raised deck extending substantially parallel to and spaced from the top plate, and an annular side wall extending from the top plate upwardly toward the raised deck. The raised deck has a smaller outer diameter than the top plate and defines an opening therethrough configured to provide access to contents of the pharmacy bottle through the dispensing insert. The annular sidewall substantially encompasses an outer perimeter of the raised deck.

Virtually everyone consumes prescription pharmaceuticals at one time or another. A large number of prescription pharmaceuticals are for liquid medications, especially in the area of pediatrics. Pouring and measuring individual doses of liquid medications has long been a less than precise task prone to spilling or waste of the liquid medication or other messy interactions. As such, oral or needleless syringes have been developed to provide cleaner and more accurate means for measuring individual doses of liquid medication.
To provide for selective reception of needleless syringes in a substantially airtight manner, adapters are typically placed in medication containment vessels, such as bottles, to limit the size of an opening providing access to the liquid medication while still enabling a tip or nozzle of the needleless syringe to be connected in fluid communication with an interior of the bottle and the liquid medicine contained therein. Improvements in adapters are desired that both contribute to increased accuracy in measuring individual dosages of medicine, lessened amounts of wasted or inadvertently dispensed liquid medicine, and address other shortcoming of conventional bottle adapters.

Dispensing insert for a medicine containment and dispensing system and associated method


A method and apparatus for depositing metals and metal-like substances in two and three dimensional form without a substrate in a safe, rapid and economical fashion using gas shielded arc welding equipment and programmable robotic motion. The method and apparatus includes the use and application of robotic controls, temperature and position feedback, single and multiple material feeds, and semi liquid deposition thereby creating near net shape parts particularly well suited to rapid prototyping and lower volume production.

Fabrication of three-dimensional metal articles by deposition of successive layers of metallic powder or weld beads, where the layers are heat bonded together to build the object, is well known in the field.
Processes using plasma or laser fused deposited metals have been used for many years to produce a layered structure on a substrate, but are typically very energy intensive and extremely slow. The required equipment is expensive to purchase and operate as a high energy plasma generator is needed to vaporize the powder stream or high energy laser beam is needed to generate the melt-pool on the growth surface.
Similarly, processes using energetic wire deposition enable the rapid prototyping and manufacture of fully dense, near-net shape components on a substrate. However, the deposition must be done slowly to allow each layer to cool prior to the next layer being added. In addition, the resulting items produced by these deposition methods often require the removal of the substrate as a secondary operation, which can increase the cost, destroys the substrate when being removed, can damage the object from which the substrate is being removed, or require careful engineering to incorporate the substrate into the structure of the item being manufactured, thereby limiting the configurations that can be produced.
The bonded layers from these current processes are sometimes milled to a final shape either after each layer is formed, or after all layers have been made. Those knowledgeable in the art accept that parts fabricated using this welding method, are either small—due to the large amount of heat inputted through the welding process- or extremely expensive due to the long time needed to fabricate them.
Sintered metal processes use powdered materials and a high power laser beam to selectively melt the powdered material, layer upon layer. Although relatively accurate, these processes are also slow and require a high temperature post processing operation to obtain a usable part. Even after post processing, the resulting part has the physical properties of a sintered metal part rather than being homogeneous. Furthermore, post processing can result in significant distortion and the required equipment is expensive. Laser melting of powered materials can be used and thus eliminate the need for oven post heating, but are even slower due to the increased heat.
These processes used to fabricate three dimensional metallic items by adding layers of material have many disadvantages. Similarly, processes such as casting and forging require large investments in tooling and equipment and thus fundamentally suited only for large volume production Processes such as welding are generally labor intensive, require highly skilled personnel and require a great deal of pre-assembly preparation and post assembly finishing. In addition, these processes typically require long periods of time to complete the production of a single part due to all the drawings and preparation required for the individual components. What is needed, therefore, is a method and apparatus to reduce the amount of capital equipment investment, process expense, and time needed to fabricate a 3 dimensional part, including the amount of time needed to form the part and the amount of time to finish the part for final use.

Method and apparatus for fabrication of articles by molten and semi-molten deposition


The present invention relates to a CD43 epitope expressed on human acute leukemia and lymphoblastic lymphoma cells and its use. More particularly, the present invention relates to a CD43 epitope expressed on human acute leukemia, lymphoblastic lymphoma cells, but not on mature hematopoietic cells, hematopoietic stem cells and non-hematopoietic cells, and to its diagnostic and therapeutic application on acute leukemia and lymphoblastic lymphoma.

The CD43 molecule, also called sialophorin or leukosialin, is a cell-surface molecules expressed on most of hematopoietic cells except erythrocytes. Human CD43 has a mucin-like extracellular domain of 235 amino acids (aa), a transmembrane domain of 23 as and a 123 as intracytoplasmic domain, all encoded by one exon (Pallant et al., Proc Nall Acad Sci USA. 1989, 86:1328-32; Shelley et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1989, 86:2819-23). The extracellular domain of human CD43 is rich the amino acids serine (46 residues) and threonine (47 residues), most of which carries about 80 0-linked carbohydrate chains. In addition, CD43 carries 1 N-linked carbohydrate chain. The structure of these O-glycans varies from one cell type to another (Carlsson et al., J Biol. Chem. 1986, 261:12787-95).
The CD43 gene consists of two exons, separated by a 378 by intron, whereby the entire translation product is encode by the second exon (Shelley et al., Biochem J. 1990, 270:569-76). CD43 has been believed to be a specific leukocyte-type marker restricted to most of leukocytes, platelets and hematopoietic stem cells, except for erythrocytes (Remold-O'Donnell et al., Blood 1987, 70:104-9; Fukuda, Glycobiology. 1991, 1:347-56). However, the expression of CD43 in human tumor cells of non-hematopoietic origin, such as a human uterine cervix cancer cell line (CaSKI), a human lung cancer cell line (A549), a human breast adenocarcinoma cell line (MCF7), a human fibrosarcoma cell line (HT 1080), and human colonic adenocarcinoma cell lines (COLO 205, HT 29, Caco-2, DLD-1 and SW480), has been demonstrated (Fernandez-Rodriguez et al., Tumour Biol. 2002, 23:193-201). CD43 is also expressed in human colon cancer tissue (Sikut et al, Int J Cancer. 1999, 82:52-8; Jung et al, Korean J Pathol. 38:8-14).
Biosynthetic studies show that the CD43 precursor, with a predicted size of around 40 kDa (including one N-glycan), migrates with an apparent molecular mass of 54 kDa upon electrophoresis. This precursor is subsequently converted to a mature glycosylated molecule with sized from 115 kDa to up to more than 200 kDa due to variable glycosylation. Thymocytes, CD4+ T lymphocytes and monocytes express more of a 115 kDa isoform, whereas a 130 kDa form is found mostly on activated CD4+ T cells, CD8′ resting and activated T cells, neutrophils, platelets and B cells (Rosenstein et al., Immunol Res. 1999, 20:89-99). It seems that more than one isoform can be co-expressed on the surface of the same cc 11. A tightly regulated post-translational 0 glycosylation pattern results in these characteristic molecular weight isoforms that are differentially expressed in different cell types. Especially, expression of core 2 p-1,6-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase (C2GnT) results in expression of the 130 kDa CD43 isoform in thymocytes and T cells (Piller et al., J Biol. Chem. 1988, 263:15146-50).
Until recently, more than 17 anti-human CD43 antibodies had been reported. Most of these antibodies react with carbohydrate epitopes on the extracellular domain and all known anti-CD43 antibodies detect the CD43 protein expressed on mature hematopoietic cells (Table 1). Thus, they are not efficient at detecting or eradicating leukemic or lymphoma cells.
TABLE 1Anti-CD4antibodyCD43-positive cellsCD43-negative cellsEpitope*ReferenceT305Activated CD4+ cells,Granulocytes,Core-21, 2CD8+ T cells,erythrocytes, plateletsthymocytes, myeloidcarbohydrateprecursors in bonemarrowL10T cells, thymocytes, BErythrocytes1-78 Sialidase-3cell lines, monocytes,resistantneutrophils, platelets178L2T cells, thymocytes, BErythrocytescell lines, monocytes,neutrophils, platelets84-3C1Bone marrow cells,Platelets,Sialidase-sensitive4thymocytes, T cells,erythrocytescarbohydratemonocytes,granulocytesMEM-59Most of leukocytes,Neuraminidase-5, 6CD34+ bone marrowsensitivecellscarbohydrateMT-1, L60T cells, monocytesB cellsNeuraminidase-7DFT1T cells, monocytesB cellssensitivecarbohydrate1G10T cells, NK cells,B cells, Erythrocytes8granulocytesCBF.78T cells, subsets ofNeuraminidase-9monocytes andresistantgranulocytesRDF/AD-9T cells, monocytes,B cellsNeuraminidase-granulocytessensitivecarbohydrate161-46T cells, monocytes,B cellsNeuraminidase-granulocytesresistant4D2COLO 205, K562,Intracellular (337-34310 Jurkat4D1Activated CD4+ T cells,B cellsCore-2Mukasa et al.,monocytescarbohydrate1999*1. Fox et al., J Immunol. 1983, 131: 762-7; 2. Saitoh et al., Blood. 1991, 77: 1491-9; 3. Remold-O'Donnell et al., Blood. 1987, 70: 104-9; 4. Borche et al., Eur Jlmmunol. 1987, 17: 1523-6; 5. Stefanova et al., Folia Biol (Praha). 1988, 34: 255-65; 6. Alvarado et al., Eur J Immunol. 1995, 25: 1051-5; 7. Stross et al, J Clin Pathol. 1989, 42: 953-61; 8. Horejsi et al., 1997, In Kishimoto T, et al, Leucocyte Typing, Vol. VI: White Cell Differentiation Antigens 494. Garland, New York and London; 9. Tkaczuk et al., Tissue Antigens. 1999, 54: 1-15; 10. Sikut et al., Int J Cancer. 1999, 82: 52-8; 11. Mukasa et al, Int Immunol. 1999, 11: 259-68.

Acute leukemia and lymphoblastic lymphoma-specific CD43 epitope and use thereof


A closure having a base and a lid is provided. The lid is movable between a closed and an open position. The closure comprises retaining means for stably retaining the lid in the open position.

The present invention relates generally to a closure and particularly to a closure with two or more parts which need to be held stably in a set position with respect to each other.
It is known to provide closures with two or more parts which are movable with respect to each other, for example a lid and a base.
In many cases it would be an advantage to be able to hold two parts of such closures in a required relative position or orientation with respect to each other. For example, where a closure comprises a lid and a base it might be desirable to be able to hold the lid stably in an open position with respect to the base in order to help with dispensing product.
In known closures the parts may be articulated or otherwise movable with respect to each other and capable of being held stably in a closed position. However the open position of such closures is not defined and is not stable.
The present invention seeks to address the problems with known closures.

Closure with means for retaining the lid in an open position


An implantable medical lead includes an adaptor coupled to a body of the lead. The adaptor holds a sensor capsule between a first portion and a second portion of the lead body.

Cardiac rhythm management (CRM) systems often employ an implantable medical device (IMD) coupled to an endocardial surface of a patient's right heart via one or more medical electrical leads. Typically the one or more leads include electrodes for both stimulating the heart and sensing electrical activity of the heart. Alternatively, or in addition to the electrodes, leads may include means for therapeutic and/or diagnostic fluid infusion. In order to provide better management of cardiac conditions, the one or more leads may also include a physiological sensor. In many cases, it is desirable that all the necessary elements, including electrodes and/or fluid infusion ports and a physiological sensor, be carried on a single lead body wherein locations of each element along the lead body accommodate proper function to meet the therapeutic objectives of the CRM system. In order to accommodate the proper positioning of all the desired elements along a lead body, a sensor assembly includes an adaptor to route conductors past the sensor to additional elements carried by the lead body.


The invention relates to a gas diffusion electrode (1) comprising a hydrophobic gas diffusion layer (3b), a reaction layer (3a), and a hydrophilic layer (5) arranged in the mentioned order wherein the reaction layer (3a) is arranged to a barrier layer (4), which barrier layer (4), on its opposite side, is arranged to the hydrophilic layer (5). The invention also relates to a method for manufacturing such a gas diffusion electrode (1), and to an electrolytic cell, and use thereof.

The present invention relates to a gas diffusion electrode suitable for production of chlorine and alkali metal hydroxide. The invention also concerns a method for manufacturing such a gas diffusion electrode. The invention further concerns an electrolytic cell comprising such gas diffusion electrode and the use thereof.
Electrolysis of alkali metal chlorides to produce chlorine and alkali metal hydroxide has been known for a long time.
In the past, hydrogen evolving cathodes have been used for this purpose. The principal chemical reaction taking place in the electrolytic cell can be represented by the following scheme: 2NaCl+2H2Oxe2x86x92Cl2+2 NaOH+H2. This electrolysis reaction, having a theoretical cell voltage of 2.24 V, requires a considerable amount of energy.
Previously, also oxygen consuming gas diffusion electrodes have been disclosed for the production of chlorine and alkali metal hydroxide, as further described in e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 4,578,159. The term xe2x80x9cgas diffusion electrodexe2x80x9d, as used herein, relates to an electrode, comprising a hydrophobic gas diffusion layer and a reaction layer, and suitably an electrode substrate, to which gas diffusion electrode oxygen-containing reactant gas is supplied to undergo electrolysis. Electrolyte is supplied to one area of the electrode, different from the area to which reactant gas is supplied. The principal reaction taking place at the reaction layer of the electrode may be represented by the following reaction scheme: 2NaCl+H2O+xc2xdO2xe2x86x92Cl2+2NaOH, the theoretical cell voltage being 0.96 V, i.e. only about 40% of the cell voltage of the hydrogen evolving electrode. Therefore, the gas diffusion electrode considerably reduces the energy costs of the operation of the electrolytic cell.
In previously employed partitioned electrolytic cell arrangements, wherein gas diffusion electrodes have been directly contacted to an ion exchange membrane, dividing the electrolytic cell into a cathode compartment and an anode compartment, electrolyte flooding problems have been faced due to the fact that the diffusion of oxygen-containing gas supplied to the gas diffusion electrode has been impeded by electrolyte present in the cathode compartment. This problem can, however, be overcome by arranging a hydrophilic layer between the reaction layer and the ion exchange membrane, thereby providing a flood-preventing gap in between.
In this type of electrode arrangements, however, it has been noticed that the catalytic material present in the reaction layer of the electrode in contact with the hydrophilic layer, undesirably catalyses an oxidation reaction of the hydrophilic layer, usually comprising carbon, which causes formation of carbonates. Carbonates, in turn, undesirably increase the hydrophilicity of the hydrophobic gas diffusion layer, leading to a decreased diffusion of supplied gas to the reaction layer of the electrode. This fact results in an increase of the cell voltage and destabilises the operation of the electrolytic cell.
The present invention intends to solve the above problems.
The present invention relates to a gas diffusion electrode comprising a hydrophobic gas diffusion layer, a reaction layer, a barrier layer, and a hydrophilic layer, arranged in the mentioned order.
It has been surprisingly found that the problems referred to above concerning unwanted catalytic oxidation of the material in the hydrophilic layer can be solved by providing a barrier layer between the hydrophilic and reaction layers. The barrier layer thus provides a barrier preventing unwanted oxidation processes to occur by impeding contact between the two layers. The barrier layer also secures stable operation of the electrolytic cell, in which the gas diffusion electrode is arranged, thereby preventing any substantial fluctuation in cell voltage or current density. Moreover, it has been found that the inventional gas diffusion electrode can be operated substantially without any other deteriorating effects. The barrier layer further provides good adhesion to its adjacent layers.
According to one preferred embodiment, the hydrophobic gas diffusion layer is arranged to one side of an electrode substrate. The electrode substrate is further, on its opposite side, suitably arranged to the reaction layer.
The hydrophobic gas diffusion layer is suitably made of silver, or silver-plated metals, e.g. silver-plated nickel, and hydrocarbon polymers such as vinyl resins, polyethylene, polypropylene, or other hydrocarbon polymers; halocarbon polymers containing chlorine, fluorine, or both, including fluoropolymers such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), fluorinated ethylene-propylene copolymer (FEP), polychlorofluoroethylene or mixtures thereof, preferably PTFE. The polymers suitably have a molecular weight of 10,000 g/mole or more.
The reaction layer suitably comprises at least one catalytically active material for the production of alkali metal hydroxide. The material may include silver, platinum, platinum group metals, or mixtures thereof, preferably platinum, silver or mixtures thereof. Also a polymeric binder may be included in the reaction layer such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), fluorinated ethylene-propylene copolymer (FEP), fluoro polymers such as nafion(trademark) (perfluorocarbon sulfonic acid resin) and derivatives thereof, or other halocarbon polymers such as polychlorofluoroethylene or mixtures thereof, preferably polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) or nafion(trademark) or mixture or derivatives thereof.
According to one preferred embodiment, the reaction layer is arranged to the electrode substrate on the opposite side of the hydrophobic gas diffusion layer. The electrode substrate is suitably made of a conductive expanded metal, a mesh or the like. The substrate material may be silver or silver plated metals such as silver plated stainless steel, silver plated nickel, silver plated copper, gold, gold plated metals such as gold plated nickel, or gold plated copper; nickel, cobalt, cobalt plated metals such as cobalt plated copper, or mixtures thereof, preferably silver or silver plated metals. Polymers such as halocarbon polymers can also be incorporated in the electrode substrate as very finely divided particulate solids, e.g. micron-sized particles.
By barrier layer, is meant to include any layer comprising a material functioning as a layer separating the hydrophilic and reaction layers, thereby preventing contact between the hydrophilic and the reaction layer, especially to impede the catalyst particles in the reaction layer to catalyse the oxidation of carbon present in the hydrophilic layer to form carbonates. The barrier layer suitably is substantially made of a ceramic material such as zirconium oxides, e.g. zirconia (ZrO2), titanium oxides, e.g. TiO2, Ti4O7, and hafnium oxides, e.g. HfO2, or mixtures thereof, preferably of zirconia (ZrO2) or mixtures thereof. Further suitable barrier materials include other materials resistant to alkaline environment, such as SiC, BN, TiN, SiO2. Binder material such as PTFE or nafion(trademark) or the like may also be mixed with ceramic or barrier materials to form a barrier layer, suitably forming a barrier layer comprising less than 30 wt % binder material.
The hydrophilic layer is suitably a porous material resistant to electrolytes present in the cathode compartment e.g. alkaline solutions such as caustic soda or the like. Suitably, the hydrophilic layer comprises carbon such as carbon cloth, porous carbon, sintered carbon, or mixtures thereof. The hydrophilic layer is suitably, on the opposite side of the barrier layer, arranged to a separator partitioning an electrolytic cell into a cathode compartment, containing the gas diffusion electrode, and an anode compartment.
According to one preferred embodiment, the layers of the gas diffusion electrode of the invention are arranged to one another by means of coating.
According to a further preferred embodiment, the inventional gas diffusion electrode comprises an electrode substrate made of a silver mesh substrate, a silver paste mixture comprising silver powder and PTFE sintered to the substrate, a reaction layer arranged to one side thereof comprising a silver and/or platinum layer, on which reaction layer is deposited a barrier layer of 70 wt % ZrO2 powder mixed with a 30 wt % PTFE, nafion(trademark), or mixtures thereof to which barrier layer a hydrophilic layer is arranged. A conventional hydrophobic gas diffusion layer is arranged to the opposite side of the reaction layer.
Any other embodiment of a gas diffusion electrode, suitably an oxygen depolarised gas diffusion electrode, provided with a barrier layer as above described also is part of the this invention, e.g. semihydrophobic, liquid or gas permeable gas diffusion electrodes.
The invention also relates to a method for manufacturing a gas diffusion electrode comprising arranging a hydrophobic gas diffusion layer, a reaction layer, a barrier layer and a hydrophilic layer to each other in the mentioned order.
The layers of the gas diffusion electrode are preferably arranged one to the other by means of coating.
According to one preferred embodiment, the method comprises arranging the hydrophobic gas diffusion layer to one side of an electrode substrate, and arranging the reaction layer to the opposite side of said electrode substrate. Preferably, the hydrophobic gas diffusion layer and the reaction layer are arranged to the electrode substrate by means of coating.
According to yet a further preferred embodiment of the invention, the method for manufacturing the gas diffusion electrode comprises:
1) providing a substrate, suitably by spreading a powder paste over a net, paste is subsequently sintered to the net at a temperature of suitably from about 150xc2x0 C. to about 500xc2x0 C., preferably from about 200 to about 240xc2x0 C., thereby providing an electrode substrate;
2) applying an electrocatalytic powder paste and/or solution on one side of the electrode substrate to form a reaction layer, and a gas diffusion hydrophobic layer on the opposite side thereof, and optionally simultaneously applying a binder solution on both sides of the substrate. The electrocatalytic powder paste and/or solution and the optional binder solution is suitably baked at a temperature from about 100 to about 120xc2x0 C.
3) applying a barrier layer to the reaction layer; and
4) arranging a hydrophilic layer to the barrier layer.
Suitably, the powder paste of step 1 is silver powder paste, gold powder paste, or mixtures thereof, preferably silver paste. The net, on which the powder paste is sintered, is suitably made of silver or silver plated metals such as silver plated stainless steel, silver plated nickel, silver plated copper, gold, gold plated metals such as gold plated nickel, gold plated copper; nickel, cobalt, cobalt plated metals such as cobalt plated copper, or mixtures thereof, preferably silver or silver plated metals. The optionally applied binder solution of step 2 suitably is polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), fluoro polymers such as nafion(trademark) or derivatives thereof, which suitably comprise perfluorocarbon sulfonic acid type resin, fluorinated ethylene-propylene copolymer (FEP), or other halocarbon polymers such as polychlorofluoroethylene or mixtures thereof, preferably polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), preferably nafion(trademark). The applying of an electrocatalytic powder paste and/or solution can also be performed simultaneously with step 1 or 3. To impart good affinity avoiding direct contact between the reaction layer and the hydrophilic layer, the reaction layer is provided with a barrier layer of e.g. ZrO2.
The obtained gas diffusion electrode structure is subsequently arranged to a hydrophilic layer, which hydrophilic layer is suitably directly arranged to a separator partitioning the cathode and anode compartments of an electrolytic cell.
The invention further concerns an electrolytic cell comprising an anode compartment and a cathode compartment partitioned by a separator, wherein an anode is arranged in the anode compartment and the above described gas diffusion electrode is arranged in the cathode compartment. Any suitable anode may be employed in the anode compartment. The gas diffusion electrode may be arranged as plural belt-shaped electrode members or in an electrode patchwork configuration, as further described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,938,901.
The separator, suitably is a commercially available ion exchange membrane, such as Nafion(trademark), preferably a cation exchange membrane, made of a solid polymer electrolyte that transfers ionic charge due to fixed ion exchange groups attached to backbone chains. The membrane used suitably is an inert, flexible membrane, substantially impervious to hydrodynamic flow of the electrolyte and the passage of gas products produced in the cell. The ion exchange membrane may comprise a perfluorinated backbone coated with attached fixed ionic groups such as sulphonic or carboxylic radicals. The terms xe2x80x9csulfonicxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9ccarboxylicxe2x80x9d are meant to include salts of sulfonic and carboxylic acids which are suitably converted to or from the acid groups by processes such as hydrolysis. Also non-perfluorinated ion exchange membranes or anion exchange membranes comprising quaternary amines on a polymeric support may be used.
The invention also concerns a process for the production of chlorine and alkali metal hydroxide in an electrolytic cell as described above comprising
a) supplying an oxygen-containing gas to the cathode compartment
b) supplying an aqueous solution of alkali metal chloride to the anode compartment
c) passing an electric current through the cell from the anode to the gas diffusion electrode thereby forming alkali hydroxide and in the cathode compartment and chlorine in the anode compartment.


A direct load indicating fastener assembly includes a flange fastener of one-piece construction having a head with an integral flange. A load indicator has a flat base, a plurality of protuberances on the base and a peripheral rim. At least a portion of the peripheral rim overlies the fastener flange and captures the fastener in assembly with the load indicator while permitting free rotation of the fastener with respect to the indicator. The fastener preferably is a flange nut or a flange bolt. A hardened metal washer may be disposed between the load-indicating protuberances on the base and an undersurface of the fastener head.

U.S. Pat. No. 7,635,243 and 2009/0047060 disclose direct load indicating fastener assemblies, also called direct tension indicating fastener assemblies, that include a fastener assembled to a direct load indicating washer. Fabrication of means on the nut or bolt for rotatably mounting the washer is expensive. Furthermore, such washer-mounting means do not accommodate a hardened metal washer between the head of the fastener and the load indicating washer, which is desirable in many applications. A general object of the present disclosure is to provide a direct load indicating fastener assembly that addresses one or more of these shortcomings in the prior art.
The present disclosure embodies a number of aspects that can be implemented separately from or in combination with each other.
A direct load indicating fastener assembly, in accordance with one aspect of the present disclosure, includes a flange fastener of one-piece construction having a head with an integral flange. A load indicator has a flat base, a plurality of protuberances on the base and a peripheral rim. At least a portion of the peripheral rim overlies the fastener flange and captures the fastener in assembly with the load indicator while permitting free rotation of the fastener with respect to the indicator. The fastener preferably is a flange nut or a flange bolt. A hardened metal washer may be disposed between the load-indicating protuberances on the base and an undersurface of the fastener head.

Direct load indicating fastener assembly


A combined cycle plant includes: a gas turbine having a compressor, a combustor, and a turbine; a supplementary firing burner configured to raise a temperature of an exhaust gas of the gas turbine; a heat recovery steam generator configured to generate a steam using an exhaust heat of the exhaust gas; a steam turbine configured to be driven by the steam generated by the heat recovery steam generator; and a control device configured to change both an output of the combustor and an output of the supplementary firing burner when an output of the combined cycle plant is to be changed.

Combined cycle power generation involves first driving a gas turbine with natural gas etc. as fuel to generate electricity the first time, and then recovering exhaust gas of the gas turbine and generating steam by a heat recovery steam generator and driving a steam turbine with this steam to generate electricity the second time. A combined cycle plant is a power generation plant to perform this combined cycle power generation.
Some combined cycle plants have a supplementary firing burner provided in the heat recovery steam generator. Specifically, the supplementary firing burner is disposed at an exhaust gas inlet of the heat recovery steam generator, and fuel is supplied to this supplementary firing burner and ignited to form a flame, which raises the temperature of exhaust gas and thereby promotes steam generation in the heat recovery steam generator.
Examples of combined cycle plants having a heat recovery steam generator provided with such a supplementary firing burner include the one described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 11-022419.

Combined cycle plant, control device thereof, and steam turbine startup method


An optical measurement device includes a light source, a first detector, and a second detector. The light source emits light to a measurement site of a patient and one or more detectors detect the light from the light source. At least a portion of a detector is translucent and the light passes through the translucent portion prior to reaching the measurement site. A detector receives the light after attenuation and/or reflection or refraction by the measurement site. A processor determines a light intensity of the light source, a light intensity through a tissue site, or a light intensity of reflected or refracted light based on light detected by the one or more detectors. The processor can estimate a concentration of an analyte at the measurement site or an absorption or reflection at the measurement site.

Oximetry is the measurement of the oxygen status of blood. Early detection of low blood oxygen is critical in the medical field, for example in critical care and surgical applications, because an insufficient supply of oxygen can result in brain damage and death in a matter of minutes. Pulse oximetry is a widely accepted noninvasive procedure for measuring the oxygen saturation level of arterial blood, an indicator of oxygen supply. A pulse oximetry system consists of a sensor attached to a patient, a monitor, and a cable connecting the sensor and monitor. Conventionally, pulse oximetry sensors include a light source(s) characterized by a plurality of wavelengths of known spectra transmitting optical radiation into or reflecting off a measurement site, such as, body tissue carrying pulsing blood and/or interstitial fluid. After attenuation by tissue and fluids of the measurement site, a photodetection device(s) detects the attenuated light and outputs a detector signal(s) responsive to the detected attenuated light. A signal processing device(s) process the detector(s) signal(s) and outputs a measurement indicative of a blood constituent of interest, such as glucose, oxygen saturation, methemoglobin, carboxyhemoglobin, glycated hemoglobin, respiration rate, pulse rate, total hemoglobin, other physiological parameters, or other data or combinations of data useful in determining a state or trend of wellness of a patient.
The sensor is typically attached to a patient's finger or toe, or a very young patient's foot. For a finger, the sensor is configured so that the light source (for example, an LED) projects light through the fingernail and into the blood vessels and capillaries underneath. The photodiode is positioned at the fingertip opposite the fingernail so as to detect the transmitted light as it emerges from the finger tissues.

Methods and devices for detecting intensity of light with translucent detector