A method and system for running application code originally developed as simple Java Beans, in an Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) environment, without modifying the original application code is described. This is accomplished by running one or more original Java beans in an EJB environment based on control from an external program, using at least the steps of defining a single generic EJB and installing the single generic EJB in an EJB container; generating EJB support code for each of the one or more original Java beans, and executing the EJB support code to drive the generic EJB to perform the functions of the one or more original Java beans in an EJB environment.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of object-oriented programming for building component-based distributed business applications using the Enterprise JavaBeans(trademark) architecture and, more particularly, to a method and system for running application code originally developed as simple Java beans, in an Enterprise JavaBean (EJB) environment, without modifying the original application code.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Java programming system is an object-oriented system utilizing the Java programming language and is particularly valuable for use in a distributed environment such as the Internet. The convergence of the electronic entertainment and consumer industries with data processing exponentially accelerated the demand for wide ranging communications distribution channels, and the explosion of the World Wide Web propelled the Java system and language to the forefront of computer technology. For details and background with respect to the Java system, reference may be made to a typical text, xe2x80x9cJust Javaxe2x80x9d, Second Edition, Peter van der Linden, Sun Microsystems, 1997. Throughout the 1990s, thousands of programs were written to exploit the abilities of the Java system and language. A specific example of one such program is the IBM product called xe2x80x9cHost Publisherxe2x80x9d, discussed in more detail below.
The Java programming system involves the definition, creation, and use of xe2x80x9cobjectsxe2x80x9d. These objects are software entities, comprising data elements (called xe2x80x9cpropertiesxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cattributesxe2x80x9d), and xe2x80x9cmethodsxe2x80x9d which manipulate the data elements. The Java programming language can be used to create complete applications that can be run on a single computer or be distributed among servers and clients in a network.
The JavaBeans(trademark) API (Application Programmer""s Interface) is a widely used API in Java programming. A Java bean is a basic Java object which adheres to certain naming conventions for its methods and properties; namely, Java beans have properties (i.e., data fields) and provide access to those properties via xe2x80x9csetterxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cgetterxe2x80x9d methods. Generically known as xe2x80x9caccessorsxe2x80x9d, setters modify the value of a data field and getters obtain the value of a field from a location identified in the bean. Java beans and their common properties and functions are described in detail in the text, xe2x80x9cJava in a Nut Shell,xe2x80x9d 2nd. Edition by David Flanagan, published by O""Reilly and Assoc. Inc., California, 1997, particularly Chapter 10, pp. 178-189.
The goal of the Java bean model is its commonality and interoperability with other beans to form a combination component or bean, and the Java bean, like Java itself, was widely accepted in the industry and was (and is) utilized to develop and enhance thousands of computer programs. Beans have defined common interfaces and thus, when beans are connectable via their common interfaces, the interfacing beans may export to each other 1) properties or attributes, 2) events and 3) methods.
IBM""s xe2x80x9cHost Publisherxe2x80x9d is an example of a program that was developed based on the Java bean model. It is a solution, specifically designed for building Web applications, that extracts information from xe2x80x9clegacyxe2x80x9d terminal-oriented applications based on 3270, 5250, and VT data streams, as well as relational databases. A legacy application is an application based on languages, platforms, and/or techniques earlier than the currently-available technology. Legacy applications present a significant challenge to enterprises, in that the legacy applications often perform operations critical to the enterprise and must be kept running while being converted to the current technology.
For terminal-oriented applications, Host Publisher provides tools for building Java beans that can extract information from those applications without modifying the applications themselves. Using Host Publisher, a legacy application, e.g., one based on a 3270 data stream, can be navigated through its various screens by a Host Publisher Java bean known as an xe2x80x9cIntegration Objectxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cIOxe2x80x9d.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical Java bean environment according to the prior art. A client Java application/JSP 100 (a Java Server Pages (JSP) page is an example of a client Java application) creates instances of Java beans JB101, JB102, JB103 . . . , Jbn. The client Java application/JSP 100 invokes the setter methods of Java bean JB101 to provide the xe2x80x9cinput propertyxe2x80x9d values. Input properties could be, for example, the last and first name of a person whose directory information is being accessed by running a Host Application 130. Next, the client Java application/JSP 100 invokes the xe2x80x9cexecution methodsxe2x80x9d of the Java bean JB101 to direct it to perform the required functions with regard to the Host Application 130. An execution method is typically an instruction or instruction set that directs the Java bean to run a xe2x80x9cmacroxe2x80x9d that would run the Host Application 130. This execution of the Host Application 130 causes data to be retrieved from a legacy data source or program and presented on a screen, which data is then extracted and placed in the output properties of the Java bean. In the context of the example discussed above, the output data could be specific information from the directory of the person identified by the input properties; this information is called xe2x80x9coutput properties.xe2x80x9d Processing control is then returned to the Client Java application/JSP 100, which invokes the getter methods of the Java bean JB101 to retrieve the data in the output properties.
The information from various screens is extracted in this manner and can be can be used to generate a Web page dynamically. The Web page can then be presented to a browser user who is not familiar with the 3270 application""s user interface. This enables legacy application rejuvenation, and allows the investment in the existing application to be exploited for competitive advantage. Host Publisher has been an extremely useful and successful product and is utilized by many for building dynamic Web pages based on legacy applications.
In connection with Sun Microsystems"" delivery of the Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform in December of 1999, a technology known as EJB (Enterprise Java Bean) technology was developed, and EJB support is the cornerstone of the J2EE platform. Despite its name, an EJB is not a Java bean; it is an industry standard architecture for running server-side business logic, providing additional benefits of locatability in a network, and scalability. Among other improvements, EJB technology reduces time to market for enterprise-class applications. J2EE and EJB""s have received widespread industry support and growing customer acceptance and increased investment focus has been placed on EJB and J2EE technology by the industry. A problem exists, however, since many products, such as Host Publisher, are based on Java bean technology and will not readily function with EJB technology.
One method of enabling a Java bean (such as a Host Publisher IO) to run in an EJB environment involves a very cumbersome process of rewriting and compiling each Java bean to follow EJB coding conventions and use supporting APIs, i.e., creating a custom EJB that performs the same functions as the Java bean, and repeating this step for each Java bean. For example, when attempting to utilize a Host Publisher IO to screen-scrape a program operating in an EJB environment, the IO, which as mentioned above, is a Host Publisher-specific Java bean, cannot run in an EJB environment. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating this rewriting and compiling process. Referring to FIG. 2, a series of Java Beans JB201, JB202, JB203 . . . , JB2n are shown. Since these Java beans will not function in an EJB environment, the code of each Java bean JB201, JB202, JB203, . . . , JB2n is rewritten following EJB coding conventions and recompiled using the standard Java compiler. This can be accomplished by a Java programmer using standard Java tools. Thus, JB201 is rewritten and compiled as EJB 216; JB202 is rewritten and compiled as EJB 217; JB203 is rewritten and compiled as EJB 218; . . . , and JB2n is rewritten and compiled as EJB 2n.
FIG. 3 illustrates the operation of the rewritten and compiled Java beans, now EJB""s, in an EJB environment. As shown in FIG. 3, once the rewriting/compiling process is complete for each Java Bean, the respective EJB""s can be deployed in an EJB container 315 of an EJB server 310 in a known manner. The EJB""s are then available for use as needed to perform the same functions on a Host Application 330 as those of the Java beans.
While the above-described rewriting/compiling process works adequately, it is time consuming. Further, typical EJB containers can only hold a relatively small number of EJB""s and still remain effective. As the number of unique EJBs in the container increases, the amount of processing required to run any one EJB can increase exponentially, thereby degrading performance and scalability.
Another method of enabling a Java bean to run in an EJB environment is to, rather than rewriting and compiling the Java bean as an EJB, instead, write a new EJB for each Java bean which will, during operation, create an instance of the original, unmodified Java bean and drive the getters and setters and execution methods of the newly-created Java bean instance. While this has the advantage of not having to change the original Java bean (since it is used xe2x80x9cas isxe2x80x9d by the EJB), this is still a time-consuming process and has the same disadvantage of producing a potentially large number of unique EJBs, one per unique Java bean, which would not run efficiently in typical EJB containers.
In both of the above methods of creating unique EJBs, one per unique Java bean, the method revolves around creating an EJB that provides the same properties and Java execution methods as the original Java bean. That is to say, EJB X would have the same getter/setter and execution methods as Java bean X whose functionality it is to perform.
While the above-described methods work adequately, they may not work well for an EJB environment. In particular, for those Java beans which contain a large number of input and/or output properties, requiring a separate invocation of the EJB""s setter method for each input property value and/or getter method for each output property value would be inefficient and excessively network-intensive, given the apparent client/server nature of the EJB architecture.
In both the above methods of creating unique EJBs, one per original Java bean, there is a further requirement to change the client Java application or the JSP to invoke the unique EJB instead of the original Java bean. In addition to being time-consuming and cumbersome, the skill required to change the client code to invoke the EJB is specialized and may not be readily available.
Accordingly, a need exists for a method for easily and efficiently enabling a client Java application, which uses the functions provided by a Java bean, to perform the same functions in an Enterprise JavaBeans environment, thus reaping the benefits of EJB technology.
The present invention provides a method for enabling the operation of object-oriented programs based on Java bean technology in an EJB environment. It is a method and system for running application code originally developed as simple Java beans, in an Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) environment, without modifying the original application code. This is accomplished by running one or more original Java beans in an EJB environment based on control from an external program, using at least the steps of defining a single generic EJB and installing the single generic EJB in an EJB container; generating EJB support code for each of the one or more original Java beans, and executing the EJB support code to drive the generic EJB to perform the functions of the one or more original Java beans in the EJB environment
In a preferred embodiment, the step of generating EJB support code comprises at least the steps of: introspecting each of the one or more original Java beans to determine their setter/getter and execution methods; generating, for each of the one or more original Java beans, an access bean class having the same signature (the same input and output properties and execution methods) as the original Java bean class; generating, for each of the one or more original Java beans, a properties class containing input and output properties matching those of the original Java bean class, and thus, the access bean class; generating, for each of the one or more Java beans, a helper class that subclassess the original Java bean; and setting a static variable in each of the properties classes to correlate it with its associated helper class.
In a more preferred embodiment, the external program is modified so that for each of the original Java beans it was using, it drives the access bean instead of the original Java bean, and the execution step comprises at least the steps of: creating an access bean object (an instance of a class) and a properties object for the original Java bean; setting the input properties of the properties object; and invoking the execution method of the access bean; creating an instance of the generic EJB, calling the generic EJB""s business method, and passing to it the properties object containing the input property values of the access bean which corresponds to the input property values of the original Java bean; the generic EJB creates the helper object corresponding to the original Java bean using Java reflection; passing to the helper object the properties object passed to the generic EJB""s business method; and calling the main execution method of the helper object; the helper object executing the original Java bean which is an instance of its parent class by using the original Java bean""s input properties from the corresponding properties object that was passed to it by the generic EJB; the helper object creating a second properties object after the Java bean execution is complete, the second properties object containing the original Java bean""s output properties; passing the second properties object back to the generic EJB when the main execution method of the helper object completes; passing the second properties object from the generic EJB, to the corresponding access bean object when the EJB business method execution completes; and saving the second properties object and returning control to the external program.

Method for running existing java beans in an enterprise java bean environment

International Business Machines Corporation


A pager includes a display mounted on the front side of a pager housing. On the back side of the housing is mounted a clip which is used for carrying the pager on the user's belt. The display displays a received message and inverts the displayed message in response to a switch signal. The inverted message is reflected at a foldable mirror to produce a noninverted message that the user can see from the upper side of the housing. A switch produces the switch signal to invert the displayed message with the unfolding movement of the foldable mirror.

The present invention relates to a paging receiver and, more particularly, to a display pager having a supplemental display means.
A conventional display pager receives a message and displays it on a display thereof. The display can be mounted on any side of the pager housing if the size of displayed messages is not very large. However, if the displayed message is large in size, the size of the display must be big and thus the display can be mounted on only the front of the housing, for that side is of a size wide enough to accommodate a big display. If a pager with a front mounted display is attached to a user's belt by a clip on the back side of the pager housing, the user must detach the pager from his belt to view a displayed message and the pager to his belt. This procedure is cumbersome and may cause excessive wear of the belt clip.

Display pager with supplemental display means

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A method and apparatus for scaling interlaced video data allows the video data to be scaled to any desired size, either larger or smaller than the original image. The method considers each line of input data in each field sequentially, and determines whether the line is to be saved and whether the data lines in each successive field will also be saved, discarded, or duplicated, saving space in the output buffer for the saved and duplicated data lines to come as necessary. The method can accommodate interlaced data with N field and a scaling factor M. An apparatus for implementing the method for two header fields and scaling factor N is also described.

This invention relates to the production and display of interlaced video images. A method and apparatus for scaling interlaced video images is disclosed.
Most known display devices, including cathode ray tubes (`CRTs`) and liquid crystal displays (`LCDs`), have picture elements which must be refreshed every few moments to prevent image flickering and the consequent loss of the image. A common method to prevent this flickering and loss of picture, which has been in use for many decades, is to interlace the video data. As shown in FIG. 1, video data is stored and/or transmitted sequentially in two fields, the first field containing all the data for the even display lines and the second field containing all the data for the odd display lines. For purposes of this description, the first line of the display will be line 0 and it is even. This designation is arbitrary and can be changed without in any way altering the substance of the invention. In operation, all the data for the even numbered lines contained in the first field is displayed first, followed by all the data for the odd-numbered lines contained in the second field. Using this alternation of even and odd fields results in adjacent picture elements being refreshed often enough to prevent or to minimize the effects of the fading or "flickering" of the individual picture elements. This technique is commonly called interlacing.
Although interlacing video data produces acceptable picture quality with relatively inexpensive components, it is not without problems. In particular, scaling the video data to produce scaled video images presents several difficulties. In this description, scaling includes both the enlargement or shrinkage of the image. In order to scale down or reduce the image, a certain number of input pixels must be mapped to a smaller number of output pixels. This can be done by either discarding some pixels according to the difference in the size of the input image and the desired output image or performing a weighted arithmetic averaging to reduce the total number of pixels. Obviously, using either technique requires the knowledge of which pixels are to be dropped or combined by averaging.
As the shape of the output image can be any rectangular shape (with or without the same aspect ratio as the input window), the scaling factor must be applied independently in both the vertical (`Y`) and horizontal (`X`) direction. Also, it is desirable to be able to scale the image independently in both the X and Y directions.
A simple way of shrinking an image is to drop some pixels. To improve the quality of the image so produced, the pixels should be dropped uniformly across the input image. For example, the determination as to whether a pixel in the X-direction is to be dropped can be made by having a simple counter that generates a periodic pulse by dividing the input pixel rate (pixel clock) by a variable scaling factor. With a programmable divider, the image can be scaled in the X-direction by any desired factor.
To scale the image in a vertical direction, some lines of the image will have to be skipped entirely. This can be done by dividing the line rate by the vertical scale factor and using the output of the division operation to determine if the next line should be dropped. Circuits to perform both the horizontal and vertical divisions have been known and used for many years.
The scaling process can be done at several different times. In one method, the entire image is stored in a frame buffer. The image is then selectively copied, using the horizontal and vertical divisions, into a second frame buffer. Although this process works, it is slow. Also, as parts of the image which will not be displayed are stored, albeit temporarily, a system using this process requires extra memory and is more expensive. A better method is to perform the scaling process as the image is placed in the frame buffer. This method is particularly attractive as almost all images are generated by a raster scan process.
In a raster scan process, the image is broken down horizontally and vertically and transmitted to the buffer in serial fashion. To scale the image, each pixel as it reaches the frame buffer is either stored and the frame buffer address pointer incremented, or the pixel is ignored and the frame buffer address pointer remains the same.
As discussed, many images are produced using an interlaced data format. The simple scaling techniques mentioned previously, when used on interlaced video data, can result in either the dropping of adjacent lines or the display of lines in an inappropriate order.
FIG. 2 shows how the 50% scaling of an interlaced image having two fields can result in an undesired granularity in the final image. With 50% scaling, every other line in each field is discarded. When the beginning of the second odd field is detected, the scaling counter is reset and the first and successive, alternating lines from that field are displayed. The result is that lines 0,1,4,5,8 and 9 are displayed. Thus, lines 2 and 3 and lines 6 and 7 are discarded. With two successive lines missing, the output image appears to have annoying discontinuities.
In the special case of reducing the image by 50%, a known technique which works well is to discard all the information contained in either the first or second field. Although the technique works well in the special case of 50% reduction, it obviously cannot be used with other scaling factors. Consequently, the machine performing the scaling will need to store at least two algorithms: a first for the special case of 50% reduction and a second for other scaling requirements.
One attempt to correct the noted discontinuities requires that the scaling counter not be reset when moving from the first to second field. As shown in FIG. 3, when a two field image of 16 total lines is scaled by 2/3, this technique results in three pairs of lines (3/2, 9/8, 15/14) being displayed in the wrong order. Output of this type is also undesirable.
In general, known scaling methods for interlaced data only function well when the scaling factor is a binary factor (e.g. 50%, 25%, 12.5%, etc.) of the original image. The use of non-binary scaling factors with known scaling methods results in discontinuities and misplaced display lines.

Method and apparatus for scaling interlaced images


The successful authenticating of a Network Access Identifier (NAI) process is enabled by an authenticating method and a mobile terminal for a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) EVolution to packet Data Optimized (EVDO) network. The authenticating method for the EVDO network includes an NAI authenticating and a Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) authenticating, in which the NAI authenticating method includes: when it is determined that the identifier supporting a Message-Digest 5 (MD5) authenticating method is stored in a User Identity Model (UIM) (S101), the NAI of a user is read from the UIM (S102); a judgment is made whether the NAI is correct when the NAI of the user is read from the UIM (S103); if the result of the judgment is yes, the read NAI is transmitted to an authentication server to perform an authentication (S104); if the result of the judgment is no, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) of the user is read from the UIM; and the NAI of the user is obtained according to the IMSI and the obtained NAI is transmitted to the authentication server to perform the authentication (S105).

a Code Division Multiple Access single-carrier system (CDMA 1X) network and an EVDO network have coexisted for a long period of time during evolution of a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) carrier system network toward the 3rd Generation (3G) wireless communication network. An authentication method for the EVDO network and that for the CDMA 1X network differ in that a Message Digest 5 (MD5) authentication method is adopted for the EVDO network and a Cellular Authentication and Voice Encryption (CAVE) authentication method is adopted for the CDMA 1X network and hardened in a User Identity Model (UIM) card. In order to be able to support the use of the UIM card for the CDMA 1X network in the EVDO network, it is necessary for the existing authentication method for the EVDO network to support both the MD5 authentication method and the CAVE authentication method concurrently.
The authentication method for the EVDO network is performed generally in two processes: firstly a mobile terminal initiates Network Access Identifier (NAI) authentication, and then an authentication server initiates Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) authentication. Processing flows of the two processes in a current general platform are as follows:
In the NAI authentication process, the mobile terminal firstly performs an operation of reading the UMI card, and if an identifier supporting the MD5 authentication method stored in the UIM card is read out, that is, if the value at the N5 position is 11, then the mobile terminal retrieves an NAI from the UMI card and transmits the retrieved NAI to the authentication server for authentication; otherwise, it is determined that an authentication method supported by the UIM card is the CAVE authentication method, and the mobile terminal retrieves an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) from the UIM card and adds @mycdma.cn resulting in the NAI in the format of firstname.lastname@example.com, and the mobile terminal transmits the resulting NAI to the authentication server for authentication.
In the CHAP authentication process, the authentication server transmits to the mobile terminal a CHAP authentication request including a name of the CHAP authentication request, a description of the CHAP authentication request and a key value for authentication with a length of, e.g., 16 bytes. Upon reception of the CHAP authentication request, the mobile terminal retrieves the key value and then invokes the MD5 authentication method for calculation if an identifier supporting the MD5 authentication method is stored in the UIM card as determined in the NAI authentication process; otherwise, the mobile terminal invokes the CAVE authentication method for calculation if the UIM card supports the CAVE authentication method. A calculated authentication key value with the same length as that of the key value is transmitted to the authentication server and passes CHAP authentication after being verified by the authentication server without any error.
Next the authentication server transmits to the mobile terminal a username and a password for the mobile terminal to log on the EVDO network, and the mobile terminal logs on the EVDO network, so that the entire authentication process ends.
Since some inevitable human mistakes may occur in the existing hybrid network, the foregoing authentication process suffers from some obvious drawbacks, thus failing to pass authentication in the EVDO network.
Firstly in the NAI authentication process, there are a large number of UIM cards on the current market in which an identifier supporting the MD5 authentication method is stored incorrectly because No NAI is written or an NAI is incorrectly written into the cards due to a mistake occurring in a production process, so that NAI authentication will fail.
Secondly in the CHAP authentication process, the authentication server of the EVDO network may have a drawback because the authentication server may support only the CAVE authentication method but not the MD5 authentication method, so that in the CHAP authentication process, when the MD5 authentication method is invoked to calculate and transmit a set of authentication key values to the authentication server for authentication if an identifier supporting the MD5 authentication method is stored in the UIM card, CHAP authentication may fail because the authentication server does not support the MD5 authentication method. Furthermore there are some UIM cards on the market in which an identifier supporting the MD5 authentication method is stored incorrectly because such a mistake occurs in a production process that the MD5 authentication method is not written into the UIM cards although an identifier supporting the MD5 authentication method is stored therein, that is, the value at the N5 position is 11, so that the MD authentication method may fail to be invoked in the CHAP authentication process and thus CHAP authentication will fail.

Authenticating method and mobile terminal for code division multiple access (CDMA) evolution to packet data optimized (EVDO) network

Hisense Mobile Communications Technology Co., Ltd.


A robot has a robot structure, preferably a plurality of interconnected arms. The robot also has drives for driving the arms, and a plurality of electronic drive units for operating and controlling the drives. The electronic drive units generate heat when in operation and are distributed on the robot structure at spaced locations from each other. A thermal insulation is arranged between the robot structure and the drive electronics. A cooling device is arranged on the drive electronics and is spaced from the robot structure.

The invention relates to a robot with drive electronics arranged in distributed manner.
DE 198 46 960 A1 discloses a handling device on a plastics processing machine with on the latter drive motors associated in conventional manner with the parts to be driven, as well as a central control console on which are located both a central feed unit for supplying power to the drive motors and a central control unit for supplying the drive motors with control information.
It has repeatedly been proposed in the case of a robot to position electronic components, particularly components of the drive electronics, such as inverters, servo amplifiers, power semiconductors, drive circuits, ammeters and regulating circuits in distributed manner on the robot structure instead of centrally in a base or separate switch cabinet. As such power electronics generate heat, the heat dissipation problem arises. In view of the fact that the robot structure and the robot carrying elements are made from metal and the latter has a good thermal conductivity, it has been proposed that the power electronics be connected in good heat conducting manner to the robot structure or a gearbox and to dissipate or remove heat via the latter. The disadvantage is that the materials used have a considerable thermal expansion coefficient and therefore can lead to the heating of the robot structure or to different temperatures as a function of the loading condition and consequently to mechanical and geometrical changes. There can also be an increase in the motor temperature, which can lead to a power reduction and increased hazards in the case of contact, as well as to the gear temperature leading to a change in the lubricant and therefore to a reduction in the load carrying capacity and service life.
The same applies for the remote control device in the form of a manipulator according to DE 40 19 217 C2, where a printed circuit carrying electronic components is connected in heat conducting manner by means of the support to a metal base. Thus, here again the heat is dissipated by means of the supporting structure.
Therefore the problem of the invention is to provide an improved robot, whilst avoiding the indicated disadvantages.
According to the invention the set problem is solved in the case of a robot of the aforementioned type in that each drive electronics is thermally insulated with respect to the robot structure and is provided with a cooling device.
Thus, according to the invention the heat generated by the drive electronics distributed over the robot structure in the form of a drive amplifier is not introduced into the robot structure or parts thereof and instead is removed via the cooling device, which is separate to the robot structure, directly into the environment, so that there are no mechanical and geometrical changes to the robot structure due to the thermal expansion coefficients of the material thereof.
According to a preferred development each drive electronics is also mechanically connected to a passive cooling device associated therewith and in particular each drive electronics is held on the robot by means of its cooling device.
The cooling device can be constructed in different ways. However, in a preferred development the cooling device has a cooling body, particularly with cooling ribs or plates.
According to preferred developments of the invention, the cooling body has a fastening edge and by means thereof is fastened to the robot and the cooling device is in particular secured to the robot accompanied by the interposing of a thermal insulator. From the outset it is also possible for the fastening edge to be thermally insulated against the cooling body. In this case no separate thermal insulation is required. The thermal insulation can also be integrated into the fastening edge on the cooling body.
So that the complete robot contour takes not take up an excessive amount of space as a result of the decentral distribution of drive electronics thereon, particularly on the rocker arm and at the same time to utilize the contour and shape resulting from the necessary construction of the robot structure or the individual mechanical robot elements, according to a further development of the invention a drive electronics projects into a recess or a cavity of the robot structure and then fulfils the function of a housing (of a conventional control cabinet) and therefore mechanically protects and electrically shields the drive electronics, thereby ensuring a corresponding protective system particularly according to IP 67, so that the drive electronics can be constructed in casing-free manner, without any complicated casing.
According to another preferred development the mechanical connection of the drive electronics, which can take place by means of the fastening edge of the cooling device to the robot structure is separated from the electrical contacting of the drive electronics with its electric power supply lines. IN a preferred development a breadboard connected to the supply cables is provided having plug contacts by means of which the drive electronics is electrically contacted.
Alternatively either the breadboard is connected directly to the robot structure or the cooling device is fastened, whilst interposing the breadboard, with the latter to the robot structure.
As stated, the drive electronics in particular include power semiconductors and the circuit parts directly associated therewith such as drive units, ammeters and a microprocessor, which generates PWM signals, which implements the current regulation, the necessary monitoring and communications with the control means. An intermediate circuit supply unit can be implemented both centrally, e.g. in the drive box on the carousel or distributed over all the drive electronics. The invention permits a cost saving, open construction of the drive amplifier and the use of inexpensive connectors for connection to the back plane. For the cables running in the interior and the connectors it is possible to use inexpensive constructions. As a result of the plugging principle a simple replaceability of the drive amplifier is possible and servicing is greatly facilitated. It is also possible for two or three low power drive amplifiers to be mechanically combined into a unit, which leads to cost and space savings through the omission or joint use of some parts.


A visual data transfer channel is established between a mobile device and a computing entity to facilitate a decoupled cryptographic scheme. The mobile device stores a private key. In operation, a first code is received by the mobile device over the channel. The first code encodes a cryptographic value that secures other information that has been received or generated at the computing entity. The mobile device private key is then applied to the cryptographic value to generate a second cryptographic value, which is encoded to generate a second code. The second code is then rendered on the mobile device display, from which it can then be transmitted back over the visual channel to the computing entity. At the computing entity, the second cryptographic value is recovered from the second code.

1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to information security and, in particular, to cryptography schemes that are implemented using mobile devices.
2. Background of the Related Art
The recent past has seen an enormous growth in the usage and capabilities of mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and the like. Such devices comprise fast processors, large amounts of memory, gesture-based multi-touch screens, and integrated multi-media and GPS hardware chips. Many of these devices use open mobile operating systems, such as Android. The ubiquity, performance and low cost of mobile devices have opened the door for creation of a large variety of mobile applications.
User-oriented cryptography usage, both for confidentiality and integrity, has an intrinsic problem, namely, key storage. A user needs to keep the key safe, but the key also needs to be easily available to perform key-related operations. Keys may be kept on user's computer or on a special device, such as a smart card. Both solutions are not ideal and, as a consequence, performance of cryptographic operations often is difficult and may require special hardware (such as a smart card reader) that is often not installed.
A quick response (QR) code is a matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by QR scanners, mobile phones with a camera, and smartphones. QR code-based authentication for logging into a secure online account is well-known. In one such scheme, the user opens a web browser to a page that includes a QR code. The user scans the code with his or her mobile device, which triggers the appearance on the device's browser of a link to a web page. Once the link is followed to an account login page and the user enters his or her login credentials on the phone, the computer browser redirects the user to his or her logged-in account.
Mobile device-based authentication often relies on a private key stored on the device. It would be desirable to provide cryptographic schemes that enable use of such a private key while at the same time ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of the key. This disclosure addresses this need.

Decoupled cryptographic schemes using a visual channel

International Business Machines Corporation


Synthetic abrasive stones and method for making same. A mixture of glass and 10-20% by weight foaming agent is provided. The mixture is heated to a temperature of from 788.degree. to 899.degree. C., and is then cooled to room temperature.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to novel synthetic abrasive stones based on a novel foamed glass composition and method for making the same based on waste glass, foaming agents, binders and mixtures thereof. This invention also relates to the novel use of said synthetic abrasive stone to replace pumice in the process known as "stone-washing" as used in the garment industry. Pumice is added to the washing process to soften, and abrade, the fabric, and to impart variations in the appearance of the fabric. Pumice is often impregnated with bleach and various chemicals which are released during the washing cycle to create variations in the appearance of the fabric. This process results in treatments of fabric known to the industry as "acid washed", "ice washed", "electric washed", etc. The present invention in particular relates to a method of stone washing fabric.
There are many disadvantages associated with the use of pumice for stone washing. 1) Mined pumice varies widely in its density, abrasive qualities, absorptive qualities and in the size of the stones, making it difficult to maintain a supply of consistent material to the industry. A wide range of these variations occur from mine site to mine site and often times within one site. 2) Locations of pumice that are deemed suitable by the garment industry are very limited. The majority of the pumice used by the industry is imported from Turkey, Greece, Ecuador, and Indonesia, at great expense. 3) Great environmental damage results from strip mining pumice. 4) Due to the high attrition rate of pumice in the stone washing process, the broken down pumice or sludge must be trapped and then hauled to a land fill at great expense. As a result of the problems associated with using pumice for stone washing, there has been a growing demand for a consistent less expensive replacement material. This has resulted in much experiment ranging from the use of bottle caps to pumice grit mixed with cement. These attempts have proved to be largely unsuccessful.
Foamed glass can be made into synthetic abrasive stones and can be used as a substitute for the pumice that is currently used by the garment industry, resulting in better abrasion, lower attrition rate, good absorptive properties, and significantly lower cost. The desirable properties of foamed glass can be widely varied and manufactured with consistency to meet the garment industry's needs. Foamed glass can also be molded into a block to fit over the agitation fins of the washing machine which would further lower the attrition rate and eliminate the need to pick pumice out of the pockets of the finished garments. The trapped grit or sludge resulting from the use of foamed glass synthetic stones for stone washing can be remade into said stones. Synthetic abrasive stones made from waste glass can provide a significant market for recycled glass, which is currently very limited.
2. Prior Art
Foamed glass has long been known as a heat and sound insulating material. Prior art in this field is extensive and has been the subject of many patents. The National Technical Information Service, Publication No. AD/A-05 819, Demidevich, Manufacture and Uses of Foam Glass, discloses many methods for making foamed glass and foamed glass compositions utilized throughout the world up through 1972. The subject of most of the patents and research in the field relates to improved methods of manufacture and improved glass compositions. The object of these improvements is to produce a material that is extremely low in density, that provides for good heat and sound insulating properties, is impervious to water, and is acid resistant. Other uses of foamed glass relate to a skin or glazed surface composition used as a building facing material, an aggregate or filler material used in construction products, the making of blocks or tiles for construction purposes, and as a filtering material.
Foamed glass can be produced utilizing many methods of production and numerous glass and foaming agent compositions. These include, by way of example only, glass compositions comprising waste glass (including waste foamed glass), soda lime glass, borosilicate glass or aluminosilicate glass, and foaming agents such as carbonates and sulfates of the various alkali and alkaline earth metals such as calcium carbonate, potassium carbonate, sodium carbonate, barium carbonate, strontium carbonate and the like, and calcium sulfate, potassium sulfate, sodium sulfate, barium sulfate, strontium sulfate and the like as well as carbon black, sulfur, dolomite and the like.

Method of stone washing fabric with a synthetic abrasive stone


A method is provided for reading data in a nonvolatile memory device. The method includes performing a first read operation on multiple multi-level memory cells (MLCs), performing a first sensing operation on at least one flag cell corresponding to the MLCs, selectively performing a second read operation on the MLCs based on a result of the first sensing operation, and performing a second sensing operation on the at least one flag cell when the second read operation is performed. Read data is output based on results of the first read operation and the first sensing operation when the second read operation is not performed, and the read data is output based on result of the first read operation, the first sensing operation, the second read operation and the second sensing operation when the second read operation is performed. The read data corresponds to programmed data in the MLCs.

Examplary embodiments relate to semiconductor memory devices, and more particularly to methods of reading data in nonvolatile memory devices and methods of operating the nonvolatile memory devices.
Semiconductor memory devices can be generally divided into two categories, according to whether they retain stored data when disconnected from power. These categories include volatile memory devices, which lose stored data when disconnected from power, and nonvolatile memory devices, which retain stored data when disconnected from power. Memory cells of a nonvolatile memory device, such as a flash memory device, may be classified into single-level memory cells (SLCs) that store one bit of data per memory cell and multi-level memory cells (MLCs) that store more than one bit of data per memory cell. MLCs may have different patterns of threshold voltage distributions depending on the number of bits of data programmed in the MLCs. Typically, a nonvolatile memory device including MLCs may include at least one flag cell that represents the number of bits of data programmed in corresponding MLCs.

Nonvolatile memory device and method of reading data in nonvolatile memory device


Provided are methods for detecting bladder cancer in a subject. In some aspects, methylation of one or more of MYO3A, CA10, NKX6-2, SOX11, DBC1, NPTX2, and/or A2BP1 in DNA sediment from a urine sample may be evaluated to detect the presence or absence of a bladder cancer in a human patient.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the fields of molecular biology and medicine. More particularly, it concerns the proteomic diagnosis, classification and grading of bladder cancer based on the presence or absence of methylation in certain genes.
2. Description of Related Art
Bladder cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the United States and causes approximately 3% of all cancer-related deaths (Jemal et al., 2009). More than 90% of bladder cancers are derived from the transitional epithelium and are thus called transitional cell carcinoma (TCC). Most (75-85%) bladder cancers are non-muscle invasive tumors (pTa, Tis and pTl) at first diagnosis (Babjuk et al., 2008). Generally, the prognosis of non-invasive tumors is good, although up to 80% of cases will recur after complete transurethral resection and up to 45% of cases will progress to invasive cancer in 5 years (Babjuk et al., 2008; Kurth et al., 1995; Allard et al., 1998; Sylvester et al., 2006).
Significant costs and limitations are associated with current methods for the detection of bladder cancer. Currently, diagnosis of bladder cancer typically involves urinary cytology in combination with cystoscopy, including biopsy of suspicious lesions. Unfortunately, cystoscopy can miss 10% to 30% of malignancies and the procedure is invasive and uncomfortable (Kriegmair et al., 1996; Denzinger et al., 2007; Zaak et al., 2001). Voided urine cytology is the most common noninvasive method for detecting bladder tumors in symptomatic patients and population screening (Papanicolaou and Marshall, 1945) and has been reported to have 34-35% median sensitivity and 94-99% median specificity by meta-analyses (Lotan and Roehrborn, 2003; van Rhijn et al., 2005). Significant costs are also associated with urinary cystoscopy and urinary cytology. Clearly, there is a need for new methods for the diagnosis of bladder cancer.

Board of Regents, The University of Texas System


Embodiments of the present invention disclose a memory device having an array of flash memory cells with source contacts that facilitate straight word lines, and a method for producing the same. The array is comprised of a plurality of non-intersecting shallow trench isolation (STI) regions that isolate a plurality of memory cell columns. A source column is implanted with n-type dopants after the formation of a tunnel oxide layer and a first polysilicon layer. The implanted source column is coupled to a plurality of common source lines that are coupled to a plurality of source regions associated with memory cells in the array. A source contact is coupled to the implanted source column for providing electrical coupling with the plurality of source regions. The source contact is collinear with a row of drain contacts that are coupled to drain regions associated with a row of memory cells. The arrangement of source contacts collinear with the row of drain contacts allows for straight word line formation.

A flash or block erase memory (flash memory), such as, Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (Flash EEPROM), includes an array of cells which can be independently programmed and read. The size of each cell and thereby the memory as a whole are made smaller by eliminating the independent nature of each of the cells. As such, all of the cells are erased together as a block.
A memory of this type includes individual Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET) memory cells, each of which includes a source, a drain, a floating gate and a control gate to which various voltages can be applied to program and erase each cell. Programming occurs by using hot electron injection to trap electrons on the floating gate, thereby raising the threshold voltage of the cell. Erasing employs the Fowler-Nordheim tunneling effect to decrease the number of electrons on the floating gate, thereby lowering the threshold voltage of the cell. Upon reading, each programmed cell reads as a binary 0, and each erased level within a cell reads as a binary 1. Flash memory cells provide for nonvolatile data storage.
The cells are connected in an array of rows and columns, with the control gates of the cells in a row being connected to a respective wordline and the drains of the cells in a column being connected to a respective bitline. The sources of the cells are connected together. One example of this kind of arrangement is a NOR memory configuration.
FIG. 1 illustrates a planar view of a typical configuration of a section of a memory array 100 in a NOR memory configuration. FIG. 1 is not drawn to scale. As shown in FIG. 1, the array 100 is comprised of rows 110 and columns 120 of memory cells. Each of the memory cells is isolated from other memory cells by insulating layers (e.g., a plurality of shallow trench isolation regions (STI) 150.
The control gates of each of the memory cells are coupled together in each of the plurality of rows 110 of memory cells, and form a plurality of word lines 130 that extend along the row direction.
Bit lines extend in the column direction and are coupled to drain regions via drain contacts 160 in an associated column of memory cells 120. The bit lines are coupled to drain regions of memory cells in associated columns of memory cells 120.
A plurality of source lines 140 extend in the row direction and are coupled to the source regions of each of the memory cells in the array of memory cells 100. One source line is coupled to source regions in adjoining rows of memory cells, and as a result, one source region is shared between two memory cells. Similarly, drain regions are shared amongst adjoining rows of memory cells, and as a result, one drain region is shared between two memory cells.
Each of a plurality of source contacts is coupled to the plurality of common source lines 140. Each of the plurality of source contacts 145 is formed in line with the associated common source line to which it is coupled. The source contacts are formed in a column 147, and may be connected with each other. The column 147 is isolated between two STI regions and forms a dead zone in which no memory cells are present.
As shown in FIG. 1, due to current photolithography limitations in forming contact vias, the space required for each of the plurality of source contacts 145 is larger than their associated common source lines 140. As a result, the common source lines 140 need to be widened in the region surrounding their associated source contacts 145. This is to accommodate the wider source contacts 145. As such, word lines on either side of the common source line 140 are bent to accommodate for the increased area for the common source line surrounding an associated source contact 145.
However, as the size of each memory cell and correspondingly, the array 100 itself is reduced, the bending of the word lines to accommodate for the size of the source contacts is limited by current photolithography and chemical vaporization deposition (CVD) techniques. For example, as the size shrinks, it becomes more difficult to form a pronounced bend in each of the plurality of word lines 130 at current pitches achievable by current photolithography techniques. As a result, the size of the overall array 100 is limited by the ability to bend the word lines 130.
Furthermore, the inability to form straight word lines in the region surrounding the source contacts 145 effects the uniformity of cells throughout the array 100. Specifically, the memory cells bordering the column 147 of source contacts that includes the source contacts 145 may have electrical characteristics (erase and program) that are different than those memory cells that do not border a column of source contacts. Threshold voltage and current leakage are specific problems. In particular, a change in the erasing characteristics of a memory cell bordering the column 147 of source contacts can alter the threshold voltage of the cell into the negative region. This causes cell current to always flow (leakage) irrespective of the associated word line potential. As such, memory cells lying on the same bit line as the defective cell will have an erroneous state being read.

Method and system for forming straight word lines in a flash memory array


A portable light reel system holding electro-luminescent (EL) wire and self-contained electronics, providing a stand-alone and self-contained light reel. The rotatably mounted cylindrical hub about which the EL wire is wound accommodates a battery and inverter. A waterproof switch is operative to impress a high frequency A.C. voltage upon the EL wire providing an xe2x80x9cONxe2x80x9d state or a xe2x80x9cBLINKINGxe2x80x9d state. An external power connector is provided the means for charging the batteries as well as supplying power to the inverter.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to storage reels for electrical wire. More specifically, the present invention is a portable self-contained light reel that holds electro-luminescent (EL) wire and houses a power supply for the wire.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable reels storing strings of lights are often used for decorative purposes during holidays for decorating both the interior and exterior of houses. They also serve a utilitarian purpose when used by law enforcement and other emergency action personnel for cordoning off or otherwise illuminating a specific area.
In the most basic embodiment of light reels known in the related art, a string of discrete, wire-mounted lights is wound around a storage reel, the reel being operative to unwind the string of lights from the reel to a desired length. An electric plug disposed on one end of the string is inserted into a source of electricity.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,695,148, issued to K. R. Christensen in 1997, discloses a light string storage reel comprising at least one reel including a center section and first and second side sections, the center section having an essentially hollow interior for storage of the lights. U.S. Pat. No. 6,299,095, issued to M. J. Murfin in 2001, discloses a storage device for light strands, which includes a hollow housing having a rotatably mounted shaft. A hand crank is rotatably mounted to the sidewall of the housing and is attached to the shaft for selectively rotating the shaft to wind a light strand around the shaft.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,401, issued to P. S. O""Donnell in 1999, discloses a hand reel storage device for a holiday light string, having an elongated cord, a plurality of light sockets with light bulbs, a plug on a first end and an outlet on a second end.
Reels for storing and dispensing wire capable of conducting electricity are not limited to light strings. Canadian Patent No. 1,237,469, discloses a reel for electric fence wire in which the hub or support for the reel accommodates an electric fence energizer device which provides a high voltage impulse to the electric fence. The hub may also accommodate batteries for supplying power to the energizer device.
Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 6,433,279, issued to Doss et al. in 2002, discloses two juxtaposed reels which retract an output power plug cable and an input power cable connected to an accessory power input plug.
In addition, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2002/0100652, issued to T. G. Loyd in 2002 discloses a system for supplying power to a marine vessel that comprises at least one battery charger device, at least one battery and at least one retractable cord device. The battery charger is connected to the battery and adapted to transmit voltage to the battery. The retractable cord device is connected to the battery charger and is adapted to transmit voltage to the battery charger.
The more prevalent use of wire storage reels is for storing and dispensing electric power cords, some with automatic retraction mechanisms and some without. A brief list of U.S. Patents in the field of reels for storing and distributing electrically conducting cable includes: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,835,267, 3,837,448, 4,143,746, 4,244,536, 4,284,180, 4,721,833, 6,035,983, and 6,059,081.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed. Thus, a portable light reel system solving the aforementioned problems is desired.
The present invention is a portable light reel system for storing, dispensing and illuminating EL wire. EL wire is an electronic component that can only be activated by a voltage driver. The brightness intensity level depends on the voltage and frequency applied to it. The higher the voltage and frequency, the brighter the EL wire illuminates. The present invention utilizes a DC to AC inverter designed to generate a certain voltage and frequency, optimized for a specific length of EL wire.
The system has a housing containing a rotatably mounted cylindrical hub around which the wire is wound. The cylindrical hub is hollow, waterproof, and is adapted to accommodate a battery and the DC to AC inverter. A switch disposed on the hub selectively connects the output of the inverter to the EL wire. An external power connector mounted on the hub is provided for recharging the battery and provides an alternate way of supplying power to the inverter.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of the invention to provide a lightweight, low profile structure that contains a plastic light reel which holds EL wire and which contains a power supply for the EL wire, thereby providing a stand-alone and self-contained, portable light reel.
It is another object of the invention to provide a portable light reel, which can control the xe2x80x9con-offxe2x80x9d rate at which the EL wire is illuminated.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a portable light reel on which EL wire can be easily stored, unwound and rewound.
Another object of the invention is to provide a light reel that holds EL wire, which can be used for lighting when no ac mains power is available.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a portable light reel for EL wire that can be used emergency purposes, such as landing lights for helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft, marking crime scenes, firefighting and police operations.
It is an object of the invention to provide improved elements and arrangements thereof for the purposes described which is inexpensive, dependable and fully effective in accomplishing its intended purposes.
These and other objects of the present invention will become readily apparent upon further review of the following specification and drawings.


The invention relates to a base station of a communication network which comprises a casing, a transmitting and receiving device housed in the casing, and an antenna connected to the transmitting and receiving device. The antenna is formed as a patch antenna which comprises at least one receiving antenna patch and at least one transmitting antenna patch spatially separated from the receiving antenna patch. The receiving and transmitting antenna patches are preferably attached to the outside of the casing of the base station. Two or more separate receiving antenna patches may be connected to a common receiving feed line for connection to a receiving circuit of the base station. Likewise, two or more separate transmitting antenna patches may be connected to a common transmitting feed line for connection to a transmission circuit of the base station.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a base station of a communication network, preferably a mobile telecommunication network such as an GSM (Global System for Mobile Telecommunication) network, or a packet-switched network such as UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), or GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) network.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Telecommunication systems for mobile telecommunication are widely used and require one or more base stations for covering a larger area by high frequency (rf) signals so as to allow serving of e.g. moving subscribers.
The base stations are equipped with an antenna for radiating and receiving rf signals. The antenna increases the outer dimensions of the base station and may also negatively affect the design and visual appearance of the base station. In particular, in case of base stations of a small size such as base stations to be mounted inside a building (e.g. for microcellular structures for indoor applications, or external installations in well visible places), the antenna may hinder the installation at a desired small place.
Furthermore, the physical size of present base stations may be rather small so that it may be difficult to connect the external antennas to the internal components of the base station in an efficient and yet uncomplicated manner. Furthermore, the transmitting and receiving requirements of base stations may be different so that it is difficult to optimize the antenna for these different requirements.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,742,255 discloses an antenna system for a mobile communication which is mounted on the window glass of a vehicle. The antenna system comprises a radiating antenna connected to a conductive plate cooperates with an inner layer, and a microstrip feedline for coupling the rf energy into the interior of the vehicle. The antenna system is quite bulky and necessitates appropriate mounting space.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,724,443 describes a patch antenna having a stripline feed element which is arranged in parallel between two conductive plates of the antenna. One of the plates is a ground plane and connected to the outer shielding of a coaxial cable. The inner conductor of the coaxial cable is connected to the stripline feed element and, at the other side, to an rf source. The antenna is a radiating antenna for transmitting energy to other devices.

Base station of a communication network, preferably of a mobile telecommunication network


Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to an apparatus comprising a memory and at least one processor. The at least one processor is configured to: dynamically obtain a plurality of metadata from a global memory of a storage system; dynamically predict anticipated metadata based on the dynamically obtained metadata, wherein anticipated metadata is relevant to anticipated input/output (I/O) operations of the storage system; and dynamically instruct the storage system to load anticipated metadata into the global memory.

Metadata is information about information. It is a description of what a piece of data is about, when and how it was made, how it is connected to other information, etc. Metadata includes information to define data stored in a storage device or system. Metadata is also the information that is used for indexing and searching content in a search engine and it is an important component in big data analytics. It can be appreciated that fast access to metadata can lead to faster response in a storage system.

Metadata management in data storage systems


A method and device for creating ciphertext from plaintext, and for decoding ciphertext, utilizing a tree structure for both encoding and decoding, the tree having leaves which are associated with plaintext symbols and the branches having assigned thereto a member of the ciphertext alphabet so that when encoding, a traversal is made between the root and the leaf corresponding to the plaintext and recording the ciphertext associated with each branch traversed, and when decoding, using the ciphertext to determine the branches to be traversed until a leaf is reached and recording the plaintext associated with that leaf.

The need for sending messages secretly has led to the development of the art and science of encryption, which has been used for millennia. Excellent surveys of the field and the state of the art can be found in Menezes et al. (Handbook of Applied Cryptography, CRC Press, (1996)), Stallings (Cryptography & Network Security: Principles & Practice, Prentice Hall, (1998)), and Stinson (Cryptography: Theory and Practice, CRC Press, (1995)).
The hallmark of a perfect cryptosystem is the fundamental property called Perfect Secrecy. Informally, this property means that for every input data stream, the probability of yielding any given output data stream is the same, and independent of the input. Consequently, there is no statistical information in the output data stream or ciphertext, about the identity and distribution of the input data or plaintext.
The problem of attaining Perfect Secrecy was originally formalized by C. Shannon in 1949 (see Shannon (Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems, Bell System Technical Journal, 28:656-715, (1949))) who has shown that if a cryptosystem possesses Perfect Secrecy, then the length of the secret key must be at least as large as the plaintext. This restriction makes Perfect Secrecy impractical in real-life cryptosystems. An example of a system providing Perfect Secrecy is the Vernam One-time pad.
Two related open problems in the fields of data encoding and cryptography are:
1. Optimizing the Output Probabilities
There are numerous schemes which have been devised for data compression/encoding. The problem of obtaining arbitrary encodings of the output symbols has been studied by researchers for at least five decades. Many encoding algorithms (such as those of Huffman, Fano, Shannon, the arithmetic coding and others) have been developed using different statistical and structure models (e.g. dictionary structures, higher-order statistical models and others). They are all intended to compress data, but their major drawback is that they cannot control the probabilities of the output symbols. A survey of the field is found in Hankerson et al. (Introduction to Information Theory and Data Compression, CRC Press, (1998)), Sayood (Introduction to Data Compression, Morgan Kaufmann, 2nd. edition, (2000)), and Witten et al. (Managing Gigabytes: Compressing and Indexing Documents and Images, Morgan Kaufmann, 2nd. edition, (1999)).
Previous schemes have a drawback, namely that once the data compression/encoding method has been specified, the user loses control of the contents and the statistical properties of the compressed/encoded file. In other words, the statistical properties of the output compressed file is outside of the control of the user—they take on their values as a consequence of the statistical properties of the uncompressed file and the data compression method in question.
A problem that has been open for many decades (see Hankerson et al. (Introduction to Information Theory and Data Compression, CRC Press, (1998) pp.75-79)), which will be referred to herein as the Distribution Optimizing Data Compression (or "DODC") problem, (or in a more general context of not just compressing the plaintext, it will be referred to herein as the Distribution Optimizing Data Encoding (or "DODE") problem), consists of devising a compression scheme, which when applied on a data file, compresses the file and simultaneously makes the file appear to be random noise. The formal definition of this problem is found in Appendix A. If the input alphabet is binary, the input probability of '0' and '1' could be arbitrary, and is fully dictated by the plaintext. The problem of the user specifying the output probability of '0' and '1' in the compressed file has been considered an open problem. Indeed, if the user could specify the stringent constraint that the output probabilities of '0' and '1' be arbitrarily close to 0.5, the consequences are very far-reaching, resulting in the erasure of statistical information.
2. Achieving Statistical Perfect Secrecy
The problem of erasing the statistical distribution from the input data stream and therefore the output data stream, has fundamental significance in cryptographic applications. It is well known that any good cryptosystem should generate an output that has random characteristics (see Menezes et al. (Handbook of Applied Cryptography, CRC Press, (1996)), Stallings (Cryptography & Network Security: Principles & Practice, Prentice Hall, (1998)), Stinson (Cryptography: Theory and Practice, CRC Press, (1995)), and Shannon (Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems, Bell System Technical Journal, 28:656-715, (1949))).
A fundamental goal in cryptography is to attain Perfect Secrecy (see Stinson, Cryptography: Theory and Practice, CRC Press, (1995))).
Developing a pragmatic encoding system that satisfies this property is an open problem that has been unsolved for many decades. Shannon (see Menezes (Handbook of Applied Cryptography, CRC Press, (1996)), Stallings Cryptography & Network Security: Principles & Practice, Prentice Hall, (1998)), Stinson (Cryptography: Theory and Practice, CRC Press, (1995)), and Shannon (Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems, Bell System Technical Journal, 28:656-715, (1949))) showed that if a cryptosystem possesses Perfect Secrecy, then the length of the secret key must be at least as large as the Plaintext. This makes the development of a realistic perfect secrecy cryptosystem impractical, such as demonstrated by the Vernam One-time Pad.
Consider a system in which X=x[1] . . . x[M] is the plaintext data, stream, where each x[k] is drawn from a plaintext alphabet, S={s1, . . . sm}, and Y=y[1] . . . y[R] is the ciphertext data stream, where each y[k]εA of cardinality r.
Informally speaking, a system (including cryptosystems, compression systems, and in general, encoding systems) is said to possess Statistical Perfect Secrecy if all its contiguous output sequences of length k are equally likely, for all values of k, independent of X. Thus, a scheme that removes all statistical properties of the input stream also has the property of Statistical Perfect Secrecy. A system possessing Statistical Perfect Secrecy maximizes the entropy of the output computed on a symbol-wise basis.
More formally, a system is said to possess Statistical Perfect Secrecy if for every input X there exists some integer j0≧0 and an arbitrarily small positive real number δ0 such that for all
      j    >          j      0        ,            Pr                    [                                            y                              j                +                1                                                                                …                                                                                y                              j                +                k                                              |          χ                ]              =                  1                  r          k                                              ±                        δ          0                                                          for                                                  all                                                  k              ,      0    <    k    <          R      -                        j          0                .
A system possessing this property is correctly said to display Statistical Perfect Secrecy. This is because for all practical purposes and for all finite-lengthened subsequences, statistically speaking, the system behaves as if it indeed, possessed the stronger property of Perfect Secrecy.
It is interesting to note that Statistical Perfect Secrecy is related to the concept of Perfect Secrecy. However, since the property of Statistical Perfect Secrecy can characterize any system and not just a cryptosystem, there is no requirement of relating the size of the key to the size of the input, as required by Shannon's theorem.


The invention relates to a railway vehicle comprising a fire-fighting system having a supply container for extinguishing agent, a system of pipes, means for dispensing extinguishing agent, and a pressure-generating means. To improve the reliability of this system, it is proposed that the pressure-generating means be coupled to a compressed-air supply belonging to the railway vehicle, that a quiescent pressure can be generated in the system of pipes with the help of the pressure-generating means, and that a case of fire can be detected by means of a pressure drop in the system of pipes.

In a modern-day society, increasing use is being made of railway vehicles to perform infrastructural tasks in the area of passenger transport. Particularly stringent fire protection requirements have, of course, to be laid down for the relevant passenger trains. Hitherto, this has been reflected in stringent requirements for the material and equipment used in the trains. Corresponding standards and other requirements relating to the design of trains and to their construction and to the materials and equipment selected constitute not inconsiderable restrictions on the makers and operators of trains when new projects are being carried out. When vehicles belonging to old rolling stock are being brought up to a fit state, it is only with difficulty, or not at all, that the conditions imposed by the authorities can be met.
It can be expected that, in the next few years too, rail systems are increasingly going to be laid wholly or partly underground. Because of the particular problems that fire protection poses in tunnels, there will therefore continue to be a steady rise in the requirements that railway vehicles have to meet.
Added to this is the fact that it is only the way in which the rolling stock itself behaves in fires that can be influenced by the design of the vehicles and by the materials and equipment selected. There is on the other hand no way in which the fire loads such as clothing and luggage which the passengers take on with them can be influenced. Even the taking on of incendiary materials by arsonists is almost impossible to prevent.
The fire-fighting systems for the spaces occupied by passengers which have hitherto been installed in railway vehicles, which has only happened anyway in exceptional cases, have mostly been of the "open system" or "wet system" types.
In the first case, it is necessary in addition for a fire detection and alarm system to be installed which will detect fires and will then give the fire-fighting system an activating signal for the area affected. To keep down the system costs in terms of valves controlling the area, the particular devices for dispensing extinguishing agent are not activated individually but, regularly, in groups. The result of this is that the amount of extinguishing agent used is greater than it would be in the case of selective individual activation. This in turn means that the supply of extinguishing agent, and hence the weight which has to be carried, turns out to be higher.
In the wet system, the devices for dispensing extinguishing agent are activated by thermal triggering elements in the individual devices. This gives individual activation. However, the entire pipe network out as far as the devices for dispensing the extinguishing agent has to be pre-filled with extinguishing agent in this case. This is not without its problems, because in certain circumstances the vibration typical of railway vehicles might causes leaks of greater or lesser severity in the network of piping, allowing the extinguishing agent to escape, as a result of which not inconsiderable damage might be done even though the amounts were very small.
The above-mentioned measures for improving fire protection are what are called passive measures. As described, they are a considerable restriction on makers and operators. There are significant imposed tasks which cannot be performed at all by passive fire protection measures.


A clocked first-in first-out (FIFO) memory includes interleaved dual-port static random access memories (SRAM's) 32 and 36. The FIFO has status flags 44 to indicate empty and full conditions and two programmable flags, almost full and almost empty, to indicate when a selected number of words is stored in memory. In accordance with the present invention, the FIFO has retransmit capability, allowing previously read data to be accessed again. The FIFO is put in retransmit mode by providing a retransmit mode (RTM) input signal. This event causes the current read address stored in the read address registers 52 and 54, the interleave status in toggle circuit 22, the data in the data output latches 18 and 20 and in the pipeline latch 42, and the status flags 44, to be saved in shadow registers 64, 66, 24, (30, 62, 70, 116 and 120. While the FIFO is in the retransmit mode, the occurrence of a Read From Mark input signal initiates the retransmit process, during which the saved read address count, output data and status flags are restored from their respective shadow registers, and the data from this restored starting point is retransmitted on the data out buffer 46. Data may be repeatedly retransmitted from the saved starting position. A new retransmit starting position may be selected after taking the FIFO out of retransmit mode by removing the RTM input signal.

The present invention relates generally to digital electronic circuits and, more particularly, to a first-in, first-out memory buffer having the capability of retransmitting previously-read data.
The wide acceptance and current popularity of data transmission is evinced by the proliferation of digital peripheral equipment which is connectable to computer processors or the like. The transmission of data from one piece of equipment to another frequently requires communication between extremely fast operating equipment, such as processors, and relatively slower operating peripheral equipment such as disk storage systems and printers.
The most efficient use of such a system is realized when the several interconnected components of the system can communicate asynchronously, so that the faster operating equipment need not be delayed in order to communicate with the slower peripheral equipment.
It is a well-known practice to employ memory devices as intermediate buffers between the components of the system for storing data written therein by the transmitting equipment at one speed and for reading therefrom by receiving equipment at another speed. With this arrangement, it is imperative that memory storage space is available when the transmitting equipment transmits data. Moreover, when the memory storage space is full, it is necessary that the transmitting equipment be signaled so that further transmission cannot be accomplished. It is equally important that the destination equipment be signaled by the intermediate buffer when the memory storage space is empty so that further reading therefrom cannot be accomplished until additional data has been written therein by the transmitting equipment.
In the past, such requirements have been met by shift registers which serially write digital words therein at a desired speed, and which read serially therefrom at a different speed. Such devices are of limited storage and have unacceptable delay times. More recently, random access memories (RAM's) have been developed which have a first-in first-out (FIFO) characteristic. These memories can be quickly accessed to read out the oldest data stored in the memory. The movement of data within such memory is managed by a control section which maintains an account of which storage cells hold effective data. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,151,068 and 4,459,681.
Such asynchronous FIFO memories are normally equipped with status flag circuitry to detect various degrees of fullness of the memory array including EMPTY, FULL, HALF-FULL and various other fractions of the total memory capacity. However, there is often a need for a status flag to detect degrees of fullness other than these fixed fractions. As such, the users frequently desire the status flags that can be programmed and reprogrammed into the FIFO. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,084,841, "Programmable Status Flag Generator FIFO Using Gray Code," issued Jan. 28, 1992, and assigned to the same assignee as the present invention.
FIFO's are frequently used in data communications systems which include error detection schemes in the receiving module. In such a system, it is often desired to have a data transmission sequence repeated in the event that a burst or random error along the communications link may have corrupted the transmitted data. For this reason, FIFO's having a retransmit mode are currently available.
In currently available FIFO memory devices having retransmit, the implementation of this function has had several disadvantages. The usual way to offer this feature has been to allow the user to reset the read address pointer to an initial location (Word 0) of the FIFO when a retransmit was desired. This is not useful if the total number of write operations since the reset exceeds the depth of the FIFO. For example, assuming a FIFO having a depth of 1,024 words, a write process may start at Word 0 and write up to Word 1023. If five hundred read operations and four hundred write operations occur during the next time interval, the FIFO will then be one hundred write operations short of being full. At this instant, the write address pointer will be directed at Word 400 and the read address pointer at Word 500. If retransmit is now asserted, the read address pointer will be reset to Word 0, and the FIFO will read Words 0 through 499. The important thing to note here is that the first four hundred words read during this retransmit operation are newer than the last one hundred words. This should not occur since, by definition, the first four hundred words sent during the retransmit operation should be older than the last one hundred words written.
Other problems also occur with previous retransmit methods, such as the condition of the ALMOST FULL, ALMOST EMPTY and HALF FULL status flags which are present on many FIFO's. Status flag logic commonly performs a full subtract to establish status flags, or maintains comparisons of the read and write address pointers to look for specific differences, such as reads being 512 words behind writes. The former method is typically slower for deep FIFO's due to the size of the subtract. Where a retransmit function is provided, the latter method becomes difficult to implement because the compares look only for specific flag differences to establish status of the flags. If, for example, the compares look for an exact difference of 512 and the retransmit occurs, the HALF FULL may not represent the flag status correctly. Another disadvantage of the current retransmit method is the time delay between the assertion of the retransmit and the appearance of the retransmitted data at the data outputs, as well as the timing problems with the asynchronous assertion of retransmit and the write clock.
In view of the above, it is clear that there exists a need to develop a FIFO apparatus which provides improved retransmit capability over what is currently known in the art.


The coupling between a sub-sea pipeline valve and its actuator is brought about by the adoption of a device (4) associated rigidly with the housing of the valve and provided with a hollow shaft (6) into which the valve shaft is keyed. The top of the hollow shaft affords a ring of dogs (7) designed to engage matching dogs (8) carried by a sleeve (9) driven by the pistons of the hydraulic actuator through a mechanical linkage, so that the movement which opens and closes the valve is transmitted through an easily coupled and decoupled dog-clutch; the stationary part of the device (4) is provided with torque reaction lugs (20, 21) which occupy sockets (22) formed in the casing of the actuator.

The present invention relates to an actuator for sub-sea valves.
Valve assemblies in sea-bed pipeline installations comprise a valve housing proper, generally with a ball element, and a separate actuator, that is, a directly or remotely controlled device by which the valve is opened and closed.
Conventional actuator systems are mostly hydraulic, comprising a hydraulic pump and a control circuit by which oil is forced into a chamber accommodating a piston; the piston operates a rack-and-gear drive of which the gear is keyed to a shaft, this shaft being coupled in turn to the shaft of the valve. Such actuators require periodic maintenance, which must be effected out of water, and therefore have to be removed from the pipeline at given intervals. Accordingly, the coupling between the shafts of the actuator and the valve must be such as to enable swift removal of the actuator, not least in the event of malfunction or breakdown occurring.
The conventional systems used currently to couple actuators and valves are notably time-consuming, in particular when connecting the components together; these are underwater operations repeated many times over and at considerable depth, where, as is well known, the ability of a person to operate at full physical and mental capacity is notably impaired. More exactly, the conventional systems in question involve coupling the shaft of the actuator to the keyed shaft of the valve; to facilitate alignment of the two parts, use is made of frames, bolted to the valves, by which the actuator is guided onto the valve shaft until fully home.
With the coupling effected, a plurality of bolts must be tightened to clamp together two flanges associated respectively with the actuator and the valve. This tightening operation requires a certain expenditure of physical energy on the part of the diver, besides taking time to complete; both are factors contributing ultimately to produce a high maintenance cost per actuator.
The object of the present invention is to bring about a notable reduction in the amount of time required to fit and remove sub-sea actuators, and to facilitate the task of the diver considerably by eliminating the need for energy-sapping maneuvers and decisions or calculations, the difficulty of which increases at depth.
A further object of the invention is to enable a simple diagnosis of the working efficiency of the actuator or the valve without the need to detach the one from the other.


A host computer is coupled to a first fabric, a source storage apparatus is coupled to a second fabric, and a destination storage apparatus is coupled to a third fabric. A destination port of the destination storage apparatus comprises a same WWPN as a WWPN of a source port, and is logged in to the fabric beforehand. Duplicate WWPNs are allowed to exist because an inter fabric router separately manages the second fabric and the third fabric. When a switchover is instructed, the inter fabric router switches a coupling destination of the host computer to the destination storage apparatus.

In a conventional data center, a large number of servers and multiple storage apparatuses are coupled via a fibre channel (FC) interface. For example, a server, a network apparatus or a storage apparatus may be replaced with a new apparatus, a new apparatus may be added, or an old apparatus may be removed from the computer system due to a degrade in apparatus performance, the end of apparatus service life, a shortage of apparatus capacity, a shortage of network bandwidth, or the scaling up of a system.
In conventional server virtualization technology, multiple virtual machines can be operated by running virtualization software on a physical server. In this server virtualization technology, a virtual machine, which is running on one physical server, can be temporarily suspended, and migrated to the virtualization software running on another physical server. Management operations according to the addition, replacement or removal of a server are implemented using this technology.
As described above, in the prior art, it is possible to run multiple virtual machines on a physical server. In order to operate a virtual machine that is running on one physical server on another physical server, it is preferable to virtualize a fibre channel port so as to enable the FC port to also be migrated in terms of virtual machines. Accordingly, a technology (NPIV: N_Port Identifier Virtualization) for virtualizing the name of an FC node port (N_Port), which is an FC protocol expansion technique, is used. It is possible to migrate an FC port in virtual machine units by using a switch and host bus adapter (HBA) corresponding to NPIV.
In NPIV, it is preferable not to change the name identifier (WWPN: World Wide Port Name) allocated to a virtual node port (VN_Port) between the pre-migration server WWPN and the post-migration server WWPN. The reason for this will be explained. A zoning function, which is an FC switch security function, implements access control using either the WWPN, which is the name identifier of the N_Port, or a N_Port ID, which is calculated from either an FC switch domain number or a physical port number. When the FC switch zoning changes, a configuration change of the entire change-targeted fabric occurs, temporarily suspending IO (Input/Output) of all other N-Ports unrelated to the zoning setting target N_Port. Therefore, the greater the increase in the number of switches (number of domains) or the number of nodes that belong to the fabric, the longer the IO suspension time. For this reason, the zoning setting cannot be easily changed in a large-scale FC fabric configured using multiple FC switches.
Furthermore, there are two types of FC zoning. The one is based on a Port identifier (N_Port ID), and the other is based on the name identifier (WWPN). In a case where the Port identifier-based zoning is used, the zoning must always be changed in a virtual machine migration. The reason for this is because the N_Port ID always changes when a virtual machine is migrated to another physical server, and frame transfer related to a post-migration virtual machine is not allowed by the zoning function based on the FC switch Port identifier. Therefore, in order to implement the migration of a virtual machine across physical computers using server virtualization technology, the user managing the computer system must implement settings that base the FC port zoning function on WWPN. The user passes on the same WWPN as the pre-migration WWPN to the VN_Port (NPIV virtual N_Port) before and after the virtual machine migration. In doing so, the user is able to migrate the virtual machine to another physical server without changing the FC switch WWPN-based zoning setting at all.
In the past, most network equipment was configured redundantly. In a redundantly configured network, subsequent to replacing network equipment (an FC switch or the like) of the one system with new network equipment, it is possible to replace the network equipment of the other system with new network equipment as well. Due to this, it is possible to achieve a network with higher performance and/or higher bandwidth.
In a storage addition operation or migration operation as well, it is conceivable that the user is able to migrate a storage without changing the FC switch zoning setting by having a function in which the destination storage N_Port assumes the WWPN of the source storage the same as in the migration of the server virtual machine. However, there have been no disclosures with regard to technology related to the problem of IO processing suspension time becoming longer in accordance with the FC switch processing time ([Patent Literature 1]).
Furthermore, in conventional FC, there is a Virtual Fabric (VF) and technology for routing between Virtual Fabrics. The Virtual Fabric is technology for minimizing the scope of Zoning changes. Specifically, it is similar to Ethernet (registered trademark) virtual LAN (VLAN: Virtual Local Area Network) technology, and is technology for minimizing the extent of the impact of IO suspension in accordance with topology changes and setting changes of another fabric by logically dividing the FC fabric. Also, since virtual fabrics are not able to communicate with one another when virtual fabrics are used, an Inter Fabric Router (IFR) has been standardized as technology for implementing routing between virtual fabrics for the purpose of communicating between virtual fabrics. However, since zoning information is also sent and received between fabrics and the zoning settings change from one fabric to the other when different fabrics are coupled via a router, the extent of the impact on IO suspension increases in accordance with the zoning changes ([Patent Literature 2], [Non-patent Literature 1]).

Computer system control method and computer system


The luminous wall system has translucent panels, frame hardware, light fixtures and a reflective plenum. The system includes individual, preferably translucent panels, which are aligned by interconnecting frame extrusions. Stand-off compression brackets are mounted on the supporting subwall and provide for mounting vertical extrusions, as well as for creating sufficient space between the subwall and the system to allow for lighting components, which are mounted on the subwall. Horizontally extending extrusions are aligned and interlocked by an alignment bracket that fits over and fastens to the horizontal extrusions and an intervening vertical extrusion. The panels can be attached to the extrusions via threaded fasteners applied to threaded channels in the extrusions. Alternatively, the panels can fit into unthreaded extrusion channels and be held in place by attachment of a series of overlaying battens.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wall systems, and more specifically to a luminous wall system that provides a back-illuminated wall system utilizing extrusions as support members for a succession of panels, such as translucent wall sections.
2. Description of the Related Art
Light diffusing structural panels, as of the type disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 93,02,840, published Nov. 25, 1997, are described within a system that provides support of the panel by inner and outer frames.
Although the aforementioned Japanese patent describes a system that can be employed in a store or showroom, the patent does not appear to disclose the specific configurations contemplated by the present invention.
It would be desirable to describe a luminous wall system that could be used in a variety of environmental configurations, not just storefronts and the like, as described in the aforementioned Japanese patent.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed. Thus, a luminous wall system solving the aforementioned problems is desired.