The present invention relates to a method for preventing or treating obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia, fatty liver or insulin resistance syndrome, comprising: administering to a mammalian subject in need thereof a therapeutically effective amount of a composition comprising adipic acid. The present composition containing adipic acid as an active ingredient is very effective in preventing or treating obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia, fatty liver (preferably, non-alcoholic fatty liver) or insulin resistance syndrome. The composition of the present invention useful as pharmaceuticals compositions or functional food compositions has therapeutic efficacies for obesity, dyslipidemia or fatty liver, and also induces significant decrease in fasting glucose level and blood insulin level to improve type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance and related metabolic diseases.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to novel uses of adipic acid, in particular, a method for preventing or treating obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia, non-alcoholic fatty liver or insulin resistance syndrome.
2. Background of Technique
At present, 1.7 billion people amounting to about 25% of the world population are overweight (BMI>25) and more than 300 million people including 120 million in the US, Europe and Japan are classified as obese (BMI>30). Among the OECD countries, the US has the highest obesity rate of 31% of population, followed by Mexico (24%), England (23%), Greece (22%), Australia (22%), New Zealand (21%), Hungary (19%), Canada (14%), Spain (13%), Ireland (13%), Germany (13%), Portugal (13%), Finland (13%), Turkey (12%) and Belgium (12%). The number of obese people in China is 70 million and the body weight control-related market is expanding, estimated at about 10 billion yuan. Childhood obesity is also increasing rapidly worldwide, with 1 in 5 children being obese. As such, childhood obesity is becoming a serious social issue. Since childhood obesity is the main cause of the life style diseases including diabetes, hypertension, stroke, etc. with increased blood cholesterol and triglyceride level, 80% or more of obese children are likely to become obese adults. Further, since increased fat stimulates secretion of sex hormones and induces early adolescence, childhood obesity may cause growth problems. Also, it negatively affects blood circulation and nourishment.
According to statistics of Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, the socioeconomic loss caused by obesity and obesity-related complications in 2006 is estimated at 2.1 trillion won including medical cost and indirect cost such as loss of earning. Thus, in 2010, the Korean government has decided to reduce the obesity rate down to 20% in adults and to 15% in youth, and is exploring ways to accurately define and diagnose obesity and metabolic diseases. To strategies for achieving objective, the government has been looking for the exact definition and measuring method about obesity and metabolic diseases.
Obesity drugs that are marketed inside and outside Korea include 'Xenical' (Roche Korea) with orlistat as main ingredient and approved by the FDA, 'Reductil' (Ilsung Pharmaceuticals) with sibutramine as main ingredient, 'Exolise' (Guju Pharma) with green tea catechol as main ingredient, or the like. Xenical, which reduces absorption of fat by inhibiting lipase, has the gastrointestinal-related side effects such as steatorrhea, gas generation and reduced absorption of oil-soluble vitamins. Reductil, which increases serotonin and noradrenaline levels in the sympathetic nervous system, has side effects such as headache, dry mouth, loss of appetite, insomnia, constipation, etc. Besides, a large number of anti-obesity drugs have been withdrawn from the market due to severe side effects. For example, aminophylline is reported to have various side effects in the nervous, circulatory and digestive systems despite its excellent effect of reducing body fat. Also, fenfluramine, dexfenfluramine, topiramate, ephedrine, etc. have been banned from being marketed as obesity drugs. As the synthetic drugs show limitations in side effects and in overcoming chronic diseases, foods and drugs derived from natural sources are drawing attentions.
NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease) refers to a liver disease associated with triglyceride accumulation in the liver regardless of drinking alcohols, including steatosis and NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis). Steatosis is considered benign diseases with good prognosis in clinic, but NASH accompanied with fatty liver, inflammation or fibrosis is recognized as progressive liver diseases inducing cirrhosis or liver cancer.
The obesity and the insulin resistance are representative of risk factors for NAFLD. The risk factors of hepatic fibrosis progression are, for example, obesity (BMI>30), ratio of liver function parameters detected in serum (AST/ALT>1) and diabetes. Hepatitis C carriers having the non-alcoholic fatty liver would be progressed to liver cancer; and therefore there are emerging needs for prevention and treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver. 69-100% of patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver have obesity and 20-40% of patients in obesity are accompanied with fatty liver. Especially, prevalence of liver disease in the male obesity patients is higher than obesity women patients. There has been reported that 3-30% of adults with normal weight as well as obesity patients have fatty liver diseases in the Western society. In Japan having similar diet patterns to Korea, the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver is estimated to be approximately 20% and 1% of them is estimated to be NASH. Non-alcoholic fatty liver became problems in obese children as well as adults. 10-77% of obese children (inhabited in Europe, USA and Asia) show non-alcoholic fatty liver lesions, because the most important risk factor for non-alcoholic liver disease is obesity.
The pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty liver may be explained by two mechanisms. The first mechanism is that the increase in free fatty acids inhibits fatty acid oxidation in hepatocytes, thereby accumulating fatty acids in hepatocytes to cause non-alcoholic fatty liver. The second mechanism involves a variety of physiological factors associated with inflammation and fibrosis progression. More specifically, the increase in levels of fatty acid induces to elevate the expression of cytochrome peroxidase 2E1 and CYP2E1 and to generate reactive oxygen species resulting in lipid peroxidation of liver cell membrane and the increase in LPS and oxidative stress, increasing the level of TNF-α being responsible for apoptosis of hepatocytes, finally inducing liver damage. The insulin resistance and the accumulation of fatty acids contribute to mitochondrial dysfunction, and the latter increases reactive oxygen species and nitric oxide synthase (NOS), thereby inducing cell death.
The best way to treat NAFDL may be considered a weight loss through lifestyle changes (e.g., the exercise). However, when it is difficult to treat NAFDL with only exercise, chemotherapeutics may be combined with exercise. Chemotherapeutics for non alcoholic fatty liver are classified: First, there are drugs with remediation of risk factors for treating and improving fatty liver, including obesity drugs (e.g., orlistat), insulin resistance drugs (e.g., metformin, pioglitazone and rosiglitazone), and hyperlipidemia drugs (e.g., clofibrate, gemfibrozil, bezafibrate, atorvastatin and simvastatin). Metformin increases oxidation of fatty acids, decreases lipogenic enzymes and improves hyperinsulinism and insulin resistance. Meanwhile, thiazolidinedione, rosiglitazone and pioglitazone are capable of activating PPARγ as nuclear hormone receptors to promote the glucose uptake in muscles. Secondly, there are drugs with potentials to recover liver cell damage being independent on remediation of risk factors of non-alcoholic fatty liver, including hepatocyte protectors (e.g., ursodeoxycholoc acid and taurine), antioxidants (e.g., Vitamins E and C), and nutritional supplements (e.g., lecithin, betaine, and N-acetylcysteine). Unfortunately, there are no more plausible drugs with excellent therapeutic effects without adverse effects.
Adipic acid contained in sugar beet, beetroot and gambir is carboxylic acid compound, which is called as 1,4-butanedicarboxylic acid, 1,6-hexanedioic acid, acifloctin, acinetten, adipinic acid, hexanedioic acid, octafluorohexanedioic acid or molten adipic acid. Adipic acid has the molecular formula of C6H10O4 and a molecular weight of 146.1 g/mol, represented by the following chemical formula:

Adipic acid has been registered as "acidity regulator" in the food additives database of Domestic Food Code. It is also registered as acidity regulator in the Food and Color Additive Database of the U.S. FDA. In addition, it has been also reported to have anti-ketogenic effect and anti-hypertensive effect. In the rat, adipic acid is known to be effective for improving ketosis caused by long-chain (long-chain) and short-chain monocarboxylic acids (Mortensen P B, Biochim Biophys Acta 664: 335˜48, (1981)). Furthermore, a clinical study conducted in South Korea revealed that patients treated with amlodipine adipate for 8 weeks exhibited alleviated symptoms of hypertension (Lee H Y. Et al, Clinical Therapeutics., 27728-739, (2005)).
Adipic acid is an edible substance with a significant high safety. It is noteworthy that the reported LD50 of adipic acid is more than 11,000 mg/kg (rats) and 4,175 mg/kg (mice), respectively (Kennedy G L Jr, Drug Chem Toxicol. 25 (2):191-202, (2002)).
Throughout the specification, a number of publications and patent documents are referred to and cited. The disclosure of the cited publications and patent documents is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety to more clearly describe the state of the related art and the present disclosure.

Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation, Yonsei University


A takedown mechanism for disassembly of a striker-fired pistol, including a takedown release comprising a spring and a pin disposed in the pistol frame adjacent its rear end, the spring to bias the pin towards the barrel end of the frame and disposed against a hard stop on the frame; a takedown bar having a sear contact surface and movable along the longitudinal axis of the frame from a first position to a second position, wherein the takedown release biases the takedown bar towards the barrel end of the frame, wherein, in the first position, the takedown bar is disposed between the takedown release and the slide stop, wherein longitudinal movement of the takedown bar towards the barrel end is limited by the slide stop, wherein, in the second position, the takedown bar is disposed in a forward position toward the barrel end of the frame to cause the sear contact surface on the takedown bar to contact the second leg of the sear to cause the sear to rotate away from the tab of the pistol striker such that the first leg of the sear no longer contacts the tab of the striker.

The present invention is directed to striker fired pistols. In particular, the present invention is directed to ease and safety of disassembly of striker fired pistols without requiring the pulling of the trigger of the pistol.
In striker fired pistols, when the pistol is in a battery position, a seer engages the striker (i.e., the pistol element that springs forward to strike a pistol cartridge to discharge the firearm). The seer is caused to rotate by movement of the pistol's trigger. In the past, when disassembly of the pistol is desired, generally, the trigger must be pulled such that the sear releases the striker. However, if proper safety procedures are not taken and the pistol is inadvertently left loaded in the barrel, a dangerous condition may be present. It would be beneficial to have a mechanism to avoid the requirement to pull the trigger to disengage the sear from the striker.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,303,936 (Toner) is one invention that attempts to resolve this issue. Here, the frame assembly includes a takedown safety lever and takedown actuation lever.
Movement of the takedown safety lever causes the sear to be moved such that subsequent slide motion will not result in storage of striker energy. Movement of the takedown safety lever is only possible when the slide is retracted beyond a point at which a chambered round would be ejected. Removal of the slide does not require pulling the trigger.
All references cited herein are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.


OP/BMP morphogen may be combined with GDNF/NGF neurotrophic factors to promote the survival or growth, or inhibit the death or degeneration, of mammalian cells, particularly neural cells, which express OP/BMP-activated serine/threonine kinase receptors and GDNF/NGF-activated tyrosine kinase receptors. Also disclosed are methods for the treatment of such cells, including treatments for mammals afflicted with, or at imminent risk of, damage or injury to, such cells, as well as new pharmaceutical preparations for such treatments.

During development of the mammalian nervous system, differentiating neurons from the central and peripheral nervous systems send out axons that must grow and make contact with specific target cells. In some cases, neurons stay confined entirely within the central nervous system. In other cases, however, growing axons must cover enormous distances, extending from the CNS into the periphery of the body. In mammals, this stage of neurogenesis is completed during the embryonic phase of life and, it is believed, neuronal cells do not multiply once they have fully differentiated.
Dendritic growth occurs in two phases: initial extension followed by elongation and ramification. Purves et al., Nature 336:123-128 (1988). Some molecules, including neurotransmitters and hormones, have been shown to regulate expansion of an existing dendritic arbor. Much less is known, however, about the factors that influence early events, and cause a neuron to initially form dendrites. In certain classes of neurons, initial dendritic sprouting occurs as part of an intrinsic developmental program which is relatively independent of trophic interactions. Dotti et al., J. Neurosci. 8:1454-1468 (1988). In other classes of neurons, however, the regulation of the initial stages of dendritic growth appears to be quite different. For example, rat sympathetic neurons fail to form dendrites and extend only axons when they are cultured in the absence of non-neuronal cells. In contrast, co-culture with Schwann cells or astrocytes causes these neurons to form dendritic processes and to eventually generate a dendritic arbor which is comparable in size to that observed in situ. Tropea et al, Glia 1:380-392 (1988). Thus, it would appear that specific trophic interactions are required to allow sympathetic neurons to form dendrites.
The foregoing observations have been taken to support a theory that the in situ environment specifies formation of a dendritic arbor. The environment in the vicinity of neural cells or developing neural processes is thought to include electromagnetic, electrochemical and/or biochemical fields or gradients which positively and negatively influence the extent and specificity of dendritic outgrowth as well as the formation of synapses between dendrites and nerve cell bodies and axons. This theory, however, suffers from a paucity of identified mediators which have the capacity to cause neurons to sprout dendrites.
A host of neuropathies, some of which affect only a subpopulation or a system of neurons in the peripheral or central nervous systems have been identified. The neuropathies, which may affect the neurons themselves or the associated glial cells, may result from cellular metabolic dysfunction, infection, exposure to toxic agents, autoimmunity dysfunction, malnutrition or ischemia. In some cases the cellular dysfunction is thought to induce cell death directly by apoptosis. Oppenheim, Ann Rev. Neurosci. 14:37-43 (1991). In other cases, the neuropathy may induce tissue necrosis by stimulating the body's immune system, resulting in a local inflammatory response and cell lysis at the initial site of neural injury.
The ability of neurons within the peripheral nervous system to regenerate a damaged neural pathway is limited. Specifically, new axons and dendrites extend randomly, and are often misdirected, making contact with inappropriate targets that can cause abnormal function. In addition, where severed nerve processes result in a gap of longer than a few millimeters, e.g., greater than 10 millimeters (mm), appropriate nerve regeneration does not occur, either because the processes fail to grow the necessary distance, or because of misdirected axonal growth. Efforts to repair peripheral nerve damage by surgical means has met with mixed results, particularly where damage extends over a significant distance. In some cases, the suturing steps used to obtain proper alignment of severed nerve ends stimulates the formulation of scar tissue which is thought to inhibit axon regeneration. Even where scar tissue formation has been reduced, as with the use of nerve guidance channels or other tubular prostheses, successful regeneration generally is still limited to nerve damage of less than 10 millimeters in distance.
It is now well established that various trophic factors play a critical role in regulating the survival and differentiation of developing neurons. Snider et al., Ann. Neurol. 26:489-506 (1989). Most of the characterized actions of nerve trophic actors relate to developmental events and suggest that the temporal and local regulation of expression of these proteins plays a role during maturation of the nervous system. Nerve trophic factors are also important in the function of the adult nervous system for the maintenance of structural integrity and regulation of plasticity. Such processes are altered in neurodegenerative diseases and neurodegenerative events following acute injury to the nervous system. This has prompted speculation that nerve trophic factors are involved in the structural alterations which occur in response to injury and disease.
Several well-characterized trophic factors have been shown to enhance the survival and differentiation of dopaminergic neurons in tissue culture and/or following transplantation to the anterior chamber of the eye. These trophic factors include fibroblast growth factor (FGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF), platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), transforming growth factor-α (TGF-α), and glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), as well as several Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) Related Neurotrophins.
Nerve trophic factors are found among several protein superfamilies of polypeptide growth factors based on their amino acid sequence homology and/or their three-dimensional structure. MacDonald et al, Cell 73:421-424 (1993). One family of neurotrophic factors is the neurotrophin family. This family currently consists of Nerve Growth Factor (NGF), Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), Neurotrophin-3 (NT-3), Neurotrophin-4/5 (NT-4/5), and Neurotrophin-6 (NT-6). These neurotrophic factors affect specific neuronal populations in the central nervous system. The loss of such specific neurotrophic factors may be responsible for age-related declines in cell survival and/or function. While the cellular source remains unclear, there is evidence to suggest that neurons and glial cells are both capable of secreting neurotrophic factors.
The osteogenic protein/bone morphogenetic protein (OP/BMP) proteins form a family, or subfamily, within the larger TGF-β superfamily of proteins. That is, these proteins form a distinct subgroup, referred to herein as the "OP/BMP family of morphogens" or "OP/BMP morphogens," within the loose evolutionary grouping of sequence-related proteins known as the TGF-β superfamily. Members of this protein family comprise secreted polypeptides that share common structural features, and that are similarly processed from a pro-protein to yield a carboxy-terminal mature protein. OP/BMP morphogens have been identified in developing and adult rat brain and spinal cord tissue, as determined both by northern blot hybridization of morphogen-specific probes to mRNA extracts from developing and adult nerve tissue and by immunolocalization studies. For example, northern blot analysis of developing rat tissue has identified significant OP-1 mRNA transcript expression in the CNS. The mRNA of another OP/BMP family member, GDF-1, appears to be expressed primarily in developing and adult nerve tissue, specifically in the brain, including the cerebellum and brain stem, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. BMP4 (also referred to as BMP2B) and Vgr-1 transcripts also have been reported to be expressed in nerve tissue.
The morphogen OP-1 was found to be localized predominantly to the extracellular matrix of the grey matter (neuronal cell bodies), distinctly present in all areas except the cell bodies themselves. In white matter, formed mainly of myelinated nerve fibers, staining appears to be confined to astrocytes (glial cells). A similar staining pattern also was seen in newborn rat (10 day old) brain sections.
In addition, OP-1 has been specifically localized in the substantia nigra, which is composed primarily of striatal basal ganglia, a system of accessory motor neurons whose function is associated with the cerebral cortex and corticospinal system. Dysfunctions in this subpopulation or system of neurons are associated with a number of neuropathies, including Huntington's chorea and Parkinson's disease.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Synergistic effects of OP/BMP morphogens and GDNF/NGF neurotrophic factors


A digital receiver is disclosed. In one aspect, the receiver includes a receiving module for receiving packetized data. The receive may further include a first processing module for packet detection having a first programmable processor. The receiver may further include a second processing module for demodulation and packet decoding having a second programmable processor. The receiver may further include a first digital receive controller having a third processor arranged for being notified of detection of data by the first processing module and for activating the second processing module.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital receiver structure suitable for a software-defined radio platform.
2. Brief Description of the Related Technology
Software-defined radio (SDR) is a collection of hardware and software technologies that enable reconfigurable system architectures for wireless networks and user terminals. SDR provides an efficient and comparatively inexpensive solution to the problem of building multi-mode, multi-band, multi-functional wireless devices that can be adapted, updated or enhanced by using software upgrades. As such, SDR can be considered an enabling technology that is applicable across a wide range of areas within the wireless community.
Handheld digital receiver cost reduction and time-to-market improvement call for software defined radio (SDR) implementation. To be viable in portable handheld devices, SDR needs to be low power. SDR low cost and low power requirements implies:                reactive multi-mode operations: the receiver should be able to be configured to detect, possibly concurrently, transmission according to a multitude of communication standards. When those transmissions are detected, they must be decoded.        scalability: multiple versions of the platform, matching demand and silicon process technology evolution, must be derived from an initial, scalable design.        programmability and retargetability: the development time to deploy an application based on a SDR platform must be minimized. This is only possible by implementing integrated platform-instantiation and application-mapping flows based on high-level languages.As programmability and energy efficiency must be carefully traded off to maintain energy efficiency at the level required for mobile device integration, programmability may only be introduced where its impact on the total average power is sufficiently low or at those places where the resulting extra flexibility can be exploited to yield an average energy gain through better matching of the system behavior to the utilization and the environment.
State-of-the-art solutions tackle multiple standards and future-proof SDR platforms with e.g.:                master-slave general purpose processor (GPP)—digital signal processing (DSP) with multiple radio interface,        single or homogeneous multi-core System on Chip (SoC),Power consumption is tackled at computer architecture and/or circuit level, but not at system level (except for dynamic power management).
Many different architecture styles have already been proposed for SDR. Most of these are designed keeping in mind the most important characteristics of wireless physical layer processing: high data level parallelism (DLP) and data flow dominance. For the first characteristic, hybrid VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) and vector/SIMD (Single Instruction/Multiple Data) architectures are often considered to exploit the data level parallelism with limited instruction fetching overhead. However, directly mapping C-code, even with high DLP, on such architectures remains a challenge for the compiler. The second characteristic is exploited by fine-grain reconfigurable arrays (FGA) and coarse grain reconfigurable arrays (CGA). The main bottleneck of the FGAs is the high interconnect cost that hampers their scalability and that yields significant energy overhead. CGAs improve on this point proposing less but more complex functional units.
Although several proposals (see e.g. also 'Finding the optimum partitioning for multi-standard radio systems', Bluethgen, Proc. Int'l SDR Technical Conference, November 2005) have contributed significantly to the integration of SDR in personal communication handhelds, none of the proposed platforms has the required features to enable reactive radio. Specifically, no solution has been proposed for multi-mode reactivity. Also their computing power at reasonable energy-efficiency is still too limited to exploit multiple signalling dimensions. This is mainly due to the fact that only the characteristics of the modulation/demodulation baseband processing are considered. In practice, a radio standard implementation also contains functionalities for medium access control and, in case of burst-based communication, signal detection and time synchronization. The desired characteristic of data level parallelism (DLP) does not hold for medium access control (MAC) processing which is, by definition, control dominated and, hence, better fits on RISC processors. Besides, packet detection and coarse time synchronization of burst-based transmission have a significantly higher duty cycle than packet modulation and demodulation. They hence require another flexibility/efficiency trade-off.
One possible application of such a reactive digital receiver relates to a mechanism for a hand-over operation between two base stations or access points of a mobile terminal comprising such receiver. The base stations are each arranged to cover a particular coverage area or cell. The coverage areas are partly overlapping, such that the arrangement supports a cellular network.
A hand-over can be a hard hand-over whereby the mobile terminal is (physically) connected to only one base station at a time, so that the connection to the current base-station must be terminated before the connection to the new base-station can be achieved. This implies an unconnected period (a "break") during the hand-over. The hard hand-over is also referred to as "break-before-make". On the contrary, a soft hand-over is a hand-over mechanism where the mobile terminal can be connected to two base-stations at the same time. This is also called "make-before-break".
With seamless hand-over is meant a hand-over going by unnoticed from a user perspective, i.e. without interruption of ongoing services. Seamless hand-over does not necessarily imply soft-handover (though soft-handover makes seamless handover easier).
Soft handover is possible between two 3G base stations operating at the same frequency and distinguished by two different CDMA scrambling codes. In the 3G cellular systems, a scrambling code, associated to each base station, is super-imposed to the usual CDMA code that separates the mobile terminals. One mobile terminal can make use of the scrambling codes to receive the signals of two base stations simultaneously with a single front-end.
Seamless hard handover can be achieved through synchronization of the base stations. Based on this synchronization the base station allows the terminal to scan neighboring cells during a limited time and if needed it triggers a hard hand-over that can happen relatively fast. This technique is not possible for hard hand-over between different network technologies on one hand, and requires complex network synchronization for a single network on the other hand.
For 802.11 wireless LAN, there is the possibility of connecting one terminal to multiple access points at the same time, through a time division scheme using the power save mechanism provided by the 802.11 protocol. This technique is useful for protocols and applications where the protocol provides a power-save feature with a time constant smaller than the latency bound of the application.
In EPO patent application EP1328066-A2 a semiconductor device is disclosed that is functionally divided into blocks. The power supply systems of the blocks are divided into a non-controlled power supply group in which power is always on and a cascade of controlled power supply groups in each of which groups a supply of power can be turned on/off independently, but in a chained way. This means that the power of a given block is controlled by the predeceasing block in the cascade. The blocks that are not necessary for performing a specific piece of processing are not supplied with power. For example, the decoding block is only switched on when the processing in the preceding demodulation block has been done. The division into various blocks is purely functional and does not take into account any consideration regarding the actual static or dynamic power of the blocks, their duty cycle, nor their trade-off between energy efficiency and flexibility. By construction, the higher the hierarchical level of a block, the higher the duty cycle is.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,978,149-B1 relates to a transceiver the receiver part of which is switchable between a sleep mode and an active mode. A control circuit is provided for switching the receiver from sleep mode to the active mode when an information signal to be received is detected. The control circuit takes a decision to switch based on a power level of the information signal, the power level being represented by a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) signal. Here again, a cascaded activation chain is foreseen, with a purely functional partitioning.
It is desirable to have a scalable, energy-efficient digital receiver structure enabling spectrum environment awareness and gradual system wake-up in response to incoming radio transmissions.


An improvement in gasoline octane without substantial decrease in overall yield is obtained in an integrated process combining a fluidized catalytic cracking reaction and a low severity fluidized catalyst olefin oligomerization reaction when crystalline medium pore shape selective zeolite catalyst particles are withdrawn in partially deactivated form from the oligomerization reaction stage and added as part of the active catalyst in the FCC reaction.

This invention relates to a catalytic technique for cracking heavy petroleum stocks and upgrading light olefin gas to heavier olefinic hydrocarbons. In particular, it provides a continuous integrated process for oligomerizing olefinic light gas byproduct of cracking to produce C.sub.5.sup.+ hydrocarbons, such as olefinic gasoline or high quality distillate. Ethene, propene and/or butene containing gases, byproducts of petroleum cracking in a fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) unit, may be upgraded by contact with a crystalline medium pore siliceous zeolite catalyst.
Developments in zeolite catalysis and hydrocarbon conversion processes have created interest in utilizing olefinic feedstocks for producing C.sub.5.sup.+ gasoline, diesel fuel, etc. In addition to basic chemical reactions promoted by zeolite catalysts having a ZSM-5 structure, a number of discoveries have contributed to the development of new industrial processes. These are safe, environmentally acceptable processes for utilizing feedstocks that contain lower olefins, especially C.sub.2 -C.sub.4 alkenes. Conversion of C.sub.2 -C.sub.4 alkenes and alkanes to produce aromatics-rich liquid hydrocarbon products were found by Cattanach (U.S. Pat. No. 3,760,024) and Yan et al (U.S. Pat. No. 3,845,150) to be effective processes using the zeolite catalysts having a ZSM-5 structure. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,960,978 and 4,021,502 (Plank, Rosinski and Givens) disclose conversion of C.sub.2 -C.sub.5 olefins, alone or in admixture with paraffinic components, into higher hydrocarbons over crystalline zeolites having controlled acidity. Garwood et al. have also contributed to the understanding of catalytic olefin upgrading techniques and improved processes as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,150,062, 4,211,640 and 4,227,992. The above-identified disclosures are incorporated herein by reference.
Conversion of lower olefins, especially propene and butenes, over HZSM-5 is effective at moderately elevated temperatures and pressures. The conversion products are sought as liquid fuels, especially the C.sub.5.sup.+ aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. Product distribution for liquid hydrocarbons can be varied by controlling process conditions, such as temperature, pressure, catalyst activity and space velocity. Gasoline (C.sub.5 -C.sub.10) is readily formed at elevated temperature (e.g., up to about 400.degree. C.) and moderate pressure from ambient to about 5500 kPa, preferably about 250 to 2900 kPa. Olefinic gasoline can be produced in good yield and may be recovered as a product or fed to a low severity, high pressure reactor system for further conversion to heavier distillate-range products.
Recently it has been found that olefinic light gas can be upgraded to liquid hydrocarbons rich in olefins or aromatics by catalytic conversion in a turbulent fluidized bed of solid medium pore acid zeolite catalyst under effective reaction severity conditions. Such a fluidized bed operation typically requires oxidative regeneration of coked catalyst to restore zeolite acidity for further use, while withdrawing spent catalyst and adding fresh acid zeolite to maintain the desired average catalyst activity in the bed. This technique is particularly useful for upgrading FCC light gas, which usually contains significant amounts of ethene, propene, C.sub.1 -C.sub.4 paraffins and hydrogen produced in cracking heavy petroleum oils or the like.
Economic benefits and increased product quality can be achieved by integrating the FCC and oligomerization units in a novel manner. It is the primary object of this invention to eliminate the olefins upgrading catalyst regeneration system which results in significant process investment saving and improved process safety. Another object of this invention is to eliminate the olefins upgrading spent catalyst stripper which results in significant process investment/operating cost saving. Another object of the present invention is to further extend the usefulness of the medium pore acid zeolite catalyst used in the olefinic light gas upgrading reaction by withdrawing a portion of partially deactivated and coked zeolite catalyst and admixing the withdrawn portion with cracking catalyst in a primary FCC reactor stage. Prior efforts to increase the octane rating of FCC gasoline by addition of zeolites having a ZSM-5 structure to large pore cracking catalysts have resulted in a small decrease in gasoline yield, increase in gasoline quality, and increase in light olefin byproduct.

Multistage integrated process for upgrading olefins


An eyeglasses includes a lens part, and a frame having a front; the lens part has rearwards extending wings at two ends, and an engaging hole on a middle; each wing has a slot having rear and front sections; the front has a post fitting with the engaging hole, and insertion portions fitting with the slot rear sections on inward sides of two folded ends; stopping portions are formed on the insertion portions, and are shaped such as to be passable through the slot front sections; the stopping portions are longer than the slot rear sections such that the lens can be firmly coupled to the front by means of displacing the lens part rewards relative to the front to insert the post in the engaging hole and fit the insertion portions in respective slot rear sections after the stopping portions have been passed through respective slot front sections.

1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a mounting structure for lenses and a frame of an eyeglasses, more particularly one, which allows the lenses to be easily coupled to the frame, and which can effectively prevent the lenses from becoming loose.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
People usually wear eyeglasses to correct their vision errors caused by nearsightedness, farsightedness etc, and will also wear safety glasses or sport and leisure glasses to protect their eyes when they are engaged in certain activities.
Referring to FIGS. 5, and 6, a conventional structure for safety glasses and glasses for sport and leisure includes a lens part 3, and a frame, which consists of a front 5, and a pair of temples 4 pivoted to respective ones of two ends of the front 5; the front 5 is formed with receiving rooms 51 for the lens part 3, and a holding trench 52 around the receiving rooms 51; the edge of the lens part 3 is inserted in the holding trench 52 so that the lens part 3 is held in position in the receiving rooms 51.
However, the above mounting structure for the lens part and the frame is found to have disadvantages as followings:
1. The frame can only be connected with those lenses that are made in the shape of the receiving rooms of the front thereof. In other words, the user can""t fit lenses of various different shapes to the frame for a change.
2. It takes relatively much material to manufacture the front of the frame because the frame front has to be formed with such an edge as to fit around a lens part. And, the lower edge of the frame front will unnecessarily cover some portions of the user"" face under the eyes.
3. It takes skill, carefulness, and more time to fit the lens part 3 in the receiving room of the front 5 of the frame otherwise either the lens part 3 or the frame front 5 will be damaged.
4. In order for allowing the lens part 3 to be more easily fitted in the front 5, the holding trench 52 is usually made such that there will be space between it and the edge of the lens part 3 after mounting. Consequently, the lens part 3 is not firm enough, and can possibly fall off after the eyeglasses have been slightly deformed after extended period of time of use.
5. The front 5 is relatively thick as compared with the lens part 3, and is likely to cause discomfort to the wearer. The whole glasses can""t be used any longer once either one of the lens part and the front is damaged while there is higher possibility of safety glasses getting damaged.
It is a main object of the present invention to provide a mounting structure for lenses and a frame of an eyeglasses that will overcome the above disadvantages.
The eyeglasses according to the present invention include a lens part having left-eye and right-eye parts connected together, and a frame having a front and temples pivoted to the front. The lens part has rearwards extending wings at two ends, and an engaging hole on a middle of a nosepiece thereof. Each wing has a slot having rear and front sections. The front of the frame has a post fitting with the engaging hole, and insertion portions, which are formed on inward sides of two folded ends, and which fit with the slot rear sections; stopping portions are formed on the insertion portions, and are shaped such as to be capable of being through the slot front sections. The stopping portions are longer than the slot rear sections. Thus, the lens can be firmly coupled to the front of the frame by means of displacing the lens part rewards relative to the front to insert the post in the engaging hole and at the same time fit the insertion portions in respective slot rear sections after the stopping portions have been passed through respective slot front sections.

Mounting structure for lenses and a frame of an eyeglasses


Trellis structure including a frame body and a roof. The frame body is composed of multiple upright columns, press beams and support rods. The roof is composed of a ridge beam, multiple press beams and multiple support rods. The press beam is a hollow beam having an opening on one side. By means of multiple fixing members and bolts, the press beams are fixedly connected with the columns and the ridge beam to form a pattern of a house. The other side of the press beam is formed with a recessed insertion section. In cooperation with a press bar and a clamping plate, a light shading mesh is fixed around the frame body and on the top face of the roof to form a trellis with shading effect.

The present invention is related to an improved trellis structure that can be conveniently assembled.
With reference to FIGS. 27-29, a conventional greenhouse trellis for culture is composed of multiple upright columns 71, transverse beams 72 and a ridge beam 73 which are connected by various patterns of connecting members, such as screws. The trellis is covered by a light shading mesh (not shown) or plastic sheet (not shown) for achieving shading effect. In order to prevent the light shading mesh or plastic sheet from being broken during drilling or screwing, a fixing member 8 is provided for connecting the columns with the beams. The fixing member 8 has an insertion channel 81 defined therein. The fixing member 8 is first connected with the upright column 71, transverse beam 72 or the ridge beam 73. Then the light shading mesh or plastic sheet is inserted into the insertion channel 81 of the fixing member 8 for fixing the light shading mesh or plastic sheet. Accordingly, multiple fixing members 8 are necessary to the trellis during assembling. This complicates the assembly of the trellis and leads to increment of cost.
The fixing member 8 is connected with the column 71, transverse beam 72 or the ridge 73 by connecting members 9 and the connecting member of the preferred embodiment of the convention trellis structure is a screw. Consequently, the exposed heads of the screws often hook and break the light shading mesh or plastic sheet when the light shading mesh or plastic sheet is inserted into the fixing member 8.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide an improved trellis structure in which a press beam is used instead of the conventional fixing member. The press beam of the trellis of the present invention has double functions of supporting the trellis and fixing the light shading mesh or plastic sheet. Therefore, the components of the trellis are simplified and the assembling procedure of the trellis is facilitated and the cost for the trellis is lowered.


A pointing device and a controlling method thereof are provided. The controlling method of the pointing device includes transmitting an identification signal to an external device that is targeted by the pointing device according to a user input, receiving a reflected signal that is generated by reflecting the identification signal from a reflective surface attached to a surface of the external device, and analyzing the reflected signal and identifying the external device.

A remote control may be included with an electronic device to help the user to operate or use the device. The remote control is configured to provide input of the specific functions that are performed by that one electronic device.
Users would prefer a single remote control rather than multiple remote controls.
The most widely used device to provide a common input for multiple electronic devices is an integrated remote control. Such an integrated remote control integrates all the functions or data of the different electronic devices into that one device. For one example, the integrated remote control may include power buttons for the external devices, with the buttons of the integrated remote control being mapped to the functions of the external devices. When a user distinguishes and operates certain buttons, the mapped function signals of the external devices are transmitted. Thus, only the external device intended to be operated by a user operates while the other devices do not respond.
Because such an integrated remote control integrates all the functions to distinguish and operate into one device, a user may experience inconveniences. Further, while the number of the electronic devices to be operated increases, a number of the buttons also increases, and further increases user inconvenience.
Another related method is to install a signal transmitting module to devices to distinguish electronic devices, and transmit a signal to one device. This method may have an advantage in that the external devices installed with the specific signal transmitting modules can be easily distinguished. However, the method may have a disadvantage in that the specific signal transmitting module has to be attached to the external devices to be distinguished. Thus, there is a drawback that it is necessary to additionally install the existent devices with specific hardware and signal transmitting modules.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.

Pointing device and controlling method thereof


An improved method and apparatus is disclosed for adding fluids to, or removing fluids from, a body part or organ of an animal which minimizes animal trauma and permits rapid, easy, repeated fluid or low viscosity gel transfers. The apparatus includes a tubular fluid-conveying element adapted for fixed connection to the animal, along with a flexible fluid conduit connected between the element and a specific internal body part or organ, such as a cow's uterus. In use, a syringe is employed to introduce or remove fluids from the body part, through the tubular element and connected conduit. The invention is especially adapted for introducing and recovering cell lines producing monoclonal antibodies or other biologically active products in large mammals, and fascilitates monitoring of antibody production as well as administration of nutrients to enhance cell line growth. In preferred monoclonal antibody production procedures, the cells are initially educated through in vitro contact with ambient fluid of the selected organ (e.g., allantoic fluid from a pregnant host and fetal calf serum), whereupon the educated cells are inoculated and allowed to incubate in the host. It has been found particularly advantageous to employ the allantois of a pregnant mammal for antibody production, and some or all of the cell incubation period therein should occur after the onset of immunocompetency of the fetus.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is broadly concerned with a method and apparatus designed to greatly facilitate addition of fluids to, or removal of fluids from, an internal body organ or part of an animal. More particularly, it is concerned with such a method and apparatus which is especially suited for the large scale production of monoclonal antibodies in large mammals, and which permits repeated monitoring and/or nutritional enhancement of the in vivo monoclonal antibody production procedure. In preferred methods, monoclonal antibody production is enhanced by in vitro education of the cells using fluid characteristic of the host organ; moreover, use of the allantois of a pregnant host (e.g., cow, horse, sheep or pig) after the onset of fetus immunocompetency is especially advantageous.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When a foreign substance enters the body of a vertebrate animal or is injected into it, one aspect of the immune response is the secretion by plasma cells of antibodies. Quite apart from the natural function of antibodies in the animal's immune response, such antibodies have long been an important tool for investigators, who capitalize on their specificity to identify or label particular molecules or cells and to separate them from a mixture. The antibody response to a typical antigen is normally highly heterogeneous, and even the best of antisera are really heterogeneous mixtures of many different antibody molecules that vary in charge, size, and in such biologic properties as the ability to fix complement or to agglutinate or precipitate antigen. It is extremely difficult to separate the various antibodies in antisera, and therefore conventional antisera contain mixtures of antibodies, and such mixtures vary from animal to animal.
It is also known that malignant tumors of the immune system (called myelomas) are characterized by rapidly proliferating cells producing large amount of abnormal immunoglobulines called myeloma proteins. A tumor itself is considered to be an immortal clone of cells descended from a single progenitor, and so myeloma cells can be cultured indefinitely, and all the immunoglobulins they secrete are identical in chemical structure. They are in effect monoclonal antibodies, but there is no way to know what antigen they are directed against, nor can one induce myelomas that produce antibody to a specific antigen. However, in recent years researchers have learned how to fuse myeloma cells of mice with lymphocytes from the spleen of mice immunized with a particular antigen. The resulting hybrid-myeloma, or "hybridoma" cells express both the lymphocyte's property of specific antibody production and the immortal character of the myeloma cells. Such hybrid cells can be manipulated by the techniques applicable to animal cells in permanent culture. Individual hybrid cells can be cloned, and each clone produces large amounts of identical antibody to the single antigenic determinant. The individual clones can be maintained indefinitely, and at any time samples can be grown in culture or injected into animals for large scale production of monoclonal antibody. Highly specific monoclonal antibodies produced by this general method have proved to be a versatile tool in many areas of biological research and clinical medicine.
While the utility of specific monoclonal antibodies is manifest, a problem has arisen because of the difficulty of producing significant (e.g., liter) quantities of the antibodies. Obviously, the production of such antibodies in mice is not at all suited for large scale production.
In response to this problem, it has been suggested to employ large mammals such as cattle or sheep for in vivo production of monoclonal antibodies. In one such procedure, the cells of hybridoma clones are introduced into the amniotic fluid of a cow in the early stages of gestation prior to the onset of fetal immunocompetency and are allowed to multiply. After a suitable growth period, quantities of monoclonal antibodies can be harvested. While the above described technique shows considerable promise, a number of practical problems remain. For example, it is desirable to monitor the production of monoclonal antibodies during incubation thereof, and the problems of obtaining samples of the amniotic fluid on a frequent recurrent basis are formidable. The straightforward procedure of simply making a laparotomy incision in the cow's body, manipulation of the uterus, introducing or withdrawing materials, can create multiple insults to the cow, uterus and fetus, which may lead to premature death, infection, or abortion of the fetus. By the same token, in order to enhance antibody production in the amniotic fluid, it is oftentimes desirable to introduce nutrient fluids into the uterus. Here again, the conventional techniques for such introduction, if used repeatedly, can cause severe problems to the animal and uterine environment.
Prior art patents describing various types of percutaneous transport tubes and related structure include: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,315,513, 3,401,689, 3,515,124, 3,570,484, 3,583,387, 3,961,632 and 3,333,588. All of the structures described in the aforementioned patents are deficient in important respects, and would present serious problems if it were attempted to use the same in the context of in vivo monoclonal antibody production.
In addition, the prior practice of simply placing a cell line in amniotic fluid often leads to rapid death of a large proportion of cells. That is to say, cell lines of interest are typically cultured in highly specific and optimized media, and under relative critical conditions. For example, many cell lines are cultured and allowed to multiply at incubation temperatures of 37 degrees centigrade in specially prepared media, with periodic screening and feeding at regular intervals (e.g., every 48-72 hours). Prior to inoculation, the cells are concentrated into a fixed volume of their media plus fetal calf serum and are surgically implanted. However, this procedure gives only mediocre results, and can often fail completely in that the cells do not multiply or do not produce the desired antibody. One problem with this approach is that the cells, when inoculated, can experience severe "shock" owing to the radically different ambient environment of the amniotic fluid as compared with the previous in vitro culture media and scrupulously maintained growth conditions.
Finally, use of amnionic fluid of a pregnant host as a growth media for hybridoma cells leads to a number of additional difficulties. Specifically, in the case of cattle, it is known during the second trimester of gestation the amnionic fluid consistency changes and it becomes gel-like. Moreover, the fetus swallows substantial quantities of the amniotic fluid, especially during the first trimester of gestation. For the foregoing reasons, prior in vivo attempts to produce monoclonal antibodies using amnionic fluid have been conducted during early stages of gestation so that the entire procedure is accomplished prior to the onset of fetal immunocompetency. If the procedure is carried on after the fetus becomes immunocompetent, the fetus will treat the inoculated cells as antigens and will develop appropriate antibodies, thereby killing the cells. Accordingly, the gestational time frame for cell growth is severely limited and critical in the case of amnionic fluid. Also, surgical manipulation of the fetus and amnionic sac during the early stages of pregnancy is difficult (because of uterine anatomical positioning, flank incisions, high paralumbar fossa, must be utilized), and this can lead to spontaneous abortion and/or fetal infection. Thus, while use of the amnionic fluid of a pregnant host is theoretically possible, a number of practical problems remain.
It will therefore be seen that there is a real and unsatisfied need in the art for methods and apparatus which permit easy, rapid addition to fluids to, or removal of fluids from, specific body parts or organs of animals, so as to facilitate the production and monitoring of monoclonal antibodies, while at the same time avoiding repeated insults to the animal and other internal organs and problems of unintended cell death and low levels of antibody production.

Composition and method for in vitro cell culture


The invention relates to a friction lining of a clutch plate which is constructed with an encircling reinforcing ring to increase the stability of speed. This annular part is arranged outside the wear volume and has a considerably smaller radial dimension than the friction lining.

The invention relates to a clutch plate for a friction clutch and, in particular, a clutch plate with at least one closed reinforcing ring at least partially embedded in the material of the friction lining.
A clutch plate for a friction clutch is known from DE-A-36 43 273, of which the annular disc-shaped friction linings arranged axially on both sides of a carrier disc carry similarly annular disc-shaped reinforcing rings oh their rear and therefore outside the wear volume of the friction lining. The reinforcing rings are sheet metal discs which extend over the radially greatest portion of the friction lining and are riveted together with the friction lining on the carrier disc. The edges of the sheet metal discs are folded and engage in the material of the friction lining. However, the known reinforcing plates are expensive as they have to be punched from large sheet-metal plates and a large amount of waste is therefore generated. Furthermore, they increase the mass moment of inertia of the clutch plate, which is undesirable.


This invention relates to a method, devices and system for distributing rights to a digital content and for accessing said digital content. Further, the invention relates to a voucher structure defining rights to said digital content. Still further, the invention relates to a digital content structure adapted for arranging the distribution of rights to the digital content.

U.S. patent application Ser. No. US 2002/0013772 and International patent applications no. WO00/58811 and no. WO00/59150 (all emanating from U.S. provisional application 60/126,614) disclose ways of distributing and binding a digital licence to a user device using Digital Rights Management (DRM). A DRM system operates on a computing device when a user requests a digital piece of content to be rendered by the computing device. The system has a license store, a licence evaluator, and a state store, and keeps track of possible content rendering. The digital content is encrypted according to a content key (KD) on a user device having a public key (PU) and a corresponding private key (PR). To render digital content a digital licence corresponding to the content is obtained, where the digital licence includes the content key (KD) therein in an encrypted form. The encrypted content key (KD) from the digital license is decrypted to produce the content key (KD), and the public key (PU) of the user device is obtained there from. The content key (KD) is then encrypted according to the public key (PU) of the user device (PU(KD)), and a sub-license is composed corresponding to and based on the obtained license, where the sub-license includes (PU(KD)). The composed sub-license is then transferred to the user device, wherein the user device can decrypt (PU(KD)) with the private key thereof (PR) to produce the content key (KD), and can render the encrypted content on the user device with the produced content key (KD).
The disclosed system requires a separate license for each computing device ordering a particular digital content, thus effectively limiting the fast distribution of content throughout a plurality of computing devices. Hence when a plurality of users request an identical content every user must have a separate licence.
International patent application no. WO01/98903 discloses methods and systems for distributing content via a network using distributed conditional access agents to perform DRM. These include a watermarking operation to watermark content distributed to a content consumer. Further, an encryption operation encrypts content using a key associated with the content consumer. The content provider generates a set of session keys, encrypts the content using the set of session keys, and communicates the session keys to a content distributor. The content distributor encrypts the set of session keys using a user key so as to generate a set of encrypted keys, which are subsequently communicated to the content consumer. The content distributor further communicates the user key to the content consumer, which upon receipt decrypts and extracts the set of session keys and uses the set of session keys to decrypt the encrypted content. The set of session keys can be a time-varying sequence of session keys. The process can include authentication and verification of the user credentials against content access criteria. As described above with reference to US 2002/0013772, WO00/58811 and WO00/59150 these systems and methods are directed to one user/one device concept.
The patent applications US 2002/0013772, WO00/58811, WO00/59150, and WO01/98903, which patent applications are incorporated by reference in present specification, introduce problems since users want to experience the same right with digital media as with conventional media.

System and method for locally sharing subscription of multimedia content


A surface acoustic wave device, comprising a lithium-tantalate substrate and an IDT electrode that excites a pseudo-longitudinal wave type leaky surface acoustic wave in the surface of the lithium-tantalate substrate, wherein a normalized substrate thickness t/λ, which is a thickness t of the lithium-tantalate substrate normalized by an IDT wavelength λ, is in a range of 1≦t/λ≦22.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a surface acoustic wave device using a pseudo-longitudinal wave type leaky surface acoustic wave, a method of manufacturing the surface acoustic wave device, and an electronic apparatus using the surface acoustic wave device.
2. Related Art
A surface acoustic wave device is comprised of a surface acoustic wave element having an IDT electrode provided in the surface of a piezo-electric substrate, and is used in telecommunications apparatus and the like as circuit elements, such as a resonator and a filter.
As the surface acoustic wave used for the surface acoustic wave device, Rayleigh wave and a leaky surface acoustic wave (Leaky wave) are mainly used.
The Rayleigh wave is a surface wave propagating in the surface of an elastic body, and the energy thereof propagates without radiating into the piezo-electric substrate. Although there exist three types of volume waves (bulk waves); a "slow transversal wave", a "fast transversal wave", and a "longitudinal wave" in the piezo-electric substrate, this Rayleigh wave propagates with a phase velocity further slower than the "slow transversal wave."
Moreover, the leaky surface acoustic wave is a surface acoustic wave propagating while radiating energy in the depth direction of the elastic body (a piezo electric crystal), and can be used in a specific cut-out angle and in a specific propagation direction of the piezo-electric substrate. This leaky surface acoustic wave propagates with a phase velocity of between the "slow transversal wave" and the "fast transversal wave."
Properties of the surface acoustic wave device depend on the propagation properties of the surface acoustic wave propagating in the piezo-electric substrate, and use of the surface acoustic wave with a fast phase velocity is being required in order to cope with the direction of higher frequencies of the surface acoustic wave device.
Recently, the theory of the leaky surface acoustic wave has been developed to disclose applications to surface acoustic wave devices of the pseudo-longitudinal type leaky surface acoustic wave, which propagates with a fast phase velocity of between the "fast transversal wave" and the "longitudinal wave" while radiating two transversal-wave components into the piezo-electric substrate as the volume wave, and wherein most of the displacements in the substrate surface are composed of longitudinal wave components.
Because the phase velocity of the pseudo-longitudinal wave type leaky surface acoustic wave is fast, there is a possibility to easily realize higher frequencies of the surface acoustic wave device, which has been difficult to realize with the Rayleigh wave, the leaky surface acoustic wave or the like.
In particular, the higher frequency of the surface acoustic wave device is expected to be attained by employing lithium tantalate (LiTaO3), lithium niobate (LiNbO3), and tetraboric-acid lithium (Li2B4O7) having a large electromechanical coupling coefficient, as the substrate material.
For example, it has been disclosed that a pseudo-longitudinal wave type leaky surface acoustic wave having a large phase velocity of 5,000 (m/s) through 7,500 (m/s) and a small propagation loss can be used by specifying the cut-out angle of the substrate surface in the tetraboric-acid lithium substrate (refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-112763).
Furthermore, there has been disclosed the cut-out angle of the substrate surface whereby the pseudo-longitudinal wave type leaky surface acoustic wave having a fast phase velocity and a small propagation loss can be used also in the lithium-tantalate substrate or the lithium-niobate substrate (refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-316781 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-84245.)
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-112763 is a first example of related art.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-31678 is a second example of related art.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-84245 is a third example of related art.
However, it has been confirmed that when using the pseudo-longitudinal wave type leaky surface acoustic wave using the lithium-tantalate substrate, the lithium-niobate substrate, or the tetraboric-acid lithium substrate having an advantage of a large electromechanical coupling coefficient, a spurious frequency occurs in the range of the conventionally disclosed cut-out angle of the piezo-electric substrate, which is practically disadvantage.
For example, if the spurious occurs near the principal vibration in using the surface acoustic wave device as a resonator, CI (crystal impedance) value and Q value will be reduced, and also in the case of an oscillator forming an oscillator circuit, the spurious will be the causes of producing problems such as an abnormal oscillation, a frequency jump, and the like. Furthermore, when used as a filter, there is a problem that the spurious frequency has to be suppressed as much as possible over a wide range of the pass band from the need for securing a flat delay characteristic.

Surface acoustic wave device, method of manufacturing the same, and electronic apparatus


A circuit board assembly includes a flexible circuit board, a conductive adhesive, and a number of reinforcing plates. The flexible circuit board includes a first surface and a second surface. A number of board pads are mounted on the first surface. The conductive adhesive is coated on the first surface and entirely covers all of the board pads. The reinforcing plates are positioned on the second surface. Each of the reinforcing plates spatially corresponds to a respective one of the board pads. The reinforcing plates provide both physical grounding and stiffening of the circuit board assembly.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a circuit board assembly and a camera module using the same.
2. Description of Related Art
A typical camera module includes a flexible printed circuit board and an image capturing device. The flexible printed circuit board includes a supporting surface. The image capturing device is supported on the supporting surface and electrically connected to the flexible printed circuit board. However, because the flexible printed circuit board is easily deformed, this leads to the image capturing device
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a circuit board assembly and a camera module which can overcome the above-mentioned limitations.

Circuit board assembly and camera module using same

Hong Fu Jin Precision Industry (ShenZhen) Co., Ltd.


An airbag module for a motor vehicle includes an airbag, an inflow orifice, a continuously running marginal region, a gas generator, a generator carrier having a base and emerging from an output orifice, a surface defined by the marginal region, and a continuous running wall protruding from the base. The wall has at least one first outflow orifice through which gas emerging from the gas outlet orifice of the gas generator can pass into the outside space of the airbag module. A cylindrical ring with a clearance is arranged displaceably on the wall in a movement direction running around the wall. The clearance is able to be brought into congruence with the outflow orifice as a result of a displacement of the cylindrical ring in the movement direction to open the first outflow orifice.

The invention relates to an airbag module for a motor vehicle.
An airbag module of typically includes an airbag that can be inflated with gas in order to restrain an occupant and, upon deployment, is moved in a main deployment direction toward the occupant. The airbag module typically also includes an inflow orifice of the airbag through which gas introduced to inflate the airbag and a continuously running marginal region that defines a surface of the inflow orifice. The surface may characterize the position of the marginal region in space. The airbag module also includes a gas generator to generate the gas for inflating the airbag. The gas emerges from at least one gas outlet orifice of the gas generator and is introduced through the inflow orifice into the airbag. The gas generator is fastened to a base of a generator carrier. The base extends along the surface and separates an inside space of the airbag module, away from the main deployment direction, from an outside space surrounding the airbag module. The main deployment direction of an airbag is generally the direction that the airbag presses against a covering upon deployment such that the covering is opened and the airbag can deploy in the main deployment direction into an outside space surrounding the airbag module. For example, the main deployment direction of a driver's airbag typically coincides with the steering axis of the steering wheel.


A penetration-type monitor includes a casing pipe and sensor penetration scissors, the sensor penetration scissors are arranged in a shear shape, and a first blade and a second blade rotate close to each other or away from each other in the vertical direction so as to define an initial position and a monitoring position of the sensor penetration scissors; when the sensor penetration scissors are located at the initial position, ends of pressed portions of the first blade and the second blade are arranged at an interval one above the other, when the sensor penetration scissors are located at the monitoring position, the pressed portions move close to each other, and shearing portions penetrate out of a mounting hole to shear a sliding mass; and a monitor arrangement system drives the sensor penetration scissors to move from the initial position to the monitoring position.

As a common geological disaster, landslide most frequently and widely occurs in nature, seriously threatening our living environments, natural resources, water conservancy projects, etc. It is reported that since the initial impoundment of the Three Gorges Reservoir in 2003, a large number of ancient landslides re-slide owing to periodic water level fluctuation of the Reservoir and rainfall, which has great potential danger. The deformation of landslide is evolved dynamically and spatiotemporally, basic landslide features are closely correlated and matched with evolution stages and evolution models, and the evolution process is usually accompanied with multi-field coupling features.
Single-hole multi-sensor integrated arrangement has become an important aspect in continuous development of the technology for monitoring landslide multi-field information in recent years. In view of the defects of low efficiency, high cost, poor correlation, etc. in an existing multi-instrument independent distribution type integrated monitoring method, a concept of "multi-measurement in one hole" has been gradually proposed in recent years and considered promising by the engineering geologists. Although the "multi-measurement in one hole" is generally considered promising and has developed substantially, it still has technical defects. For example, a monitoring instrument is installed in a hole in an existing monitoring method, which is suitable for deep inclination measurement and underground water level measurement, but cannot accurately measure parameters of pore water pressure and water content etc. in situ. Moreover, the method has poor environmental adaptability, and when the landslide deformation is increased, the instrument in the hole is prone to damage and malfunction, so a multi-information parameter monitoring technology of "multi-measurement in one hole" is not workable under the in-situ condition. Meanwhile, under the condition that soil on the side wall of the borehole is compact and part of sliding mass is made of gravel soil or more compact materials, arrangement of the multi-parameter sensor in the borehole is often challenging. Therefore, it is important to develop the multi-information parameter monitoring technology capable of achieving "multi-measurement in one hole" in situ and a corresponding arrangement device for an underground multi-parameter monitoring sensor.

Arrangement apparatus for multiple integrated sensors in deep position of sliding mass and arrangement method


A method of communicating between a first device and at least one second device, includes determining whether the at least one second device includes first individual user interface information and first function information; sending the first function information from the at least one second device to the first device if it is determined that the at least one second device includes the first function information; and performing communication between the first device and the at least one second device based on the received first function information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a home network system, and more particularly, to a method for controlling a home network system to automatically upload user interface (UI) and function information of slave appliances to a master appliance and a personal video recorder (PVR) to use the uploaded information.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In earlier stages of the development of home automation systems that automatically control various kinds of appliances in a home or at a place far away from a home, each appliance was controlled independently through a telephone line or infrared rays. However, such appliances could not be controlled as a group even if they were in some way associated with one another. In more recent years, home network systems have been developed in which a network is constructed among the respective home appliances using a communication means and in which a controller is provided to control and manage the appliances.
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a background art home network system. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a master appliance that uploads UI and function information of a slave appliance in the background art home network system shown in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, a home network is constructed by connecting a plurality of home electronic appliances such as, for example, refrigerators, air conditioners, microwave ovens, washing machines, and personal computers (PCs) through a communication bus.
The microcomputers included in many home appliances have serial communication capabilities, and they can communicate with other microcomputers or appliances. Memories can be used in the microcomputers having sizes that vary according to the characteristics of the appliances.
In a network that includes one or more PCs and their peripheral appliances or multimedia appliances including digital television receivers (DTVs), high-grade hardware specifications are adopted to operate their basic functions. Thus, a standard for a high-speed communication with a large amount of data is required.
However, in home appliances such as, for example, refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens, electric lamps, gas alarms, desk lamps, and boilers, microcomputers that have relatively low-grade functions of less than 8 bits are generally used in order to perform their storage and other functions. In a home network composed of such home appliances, a remote control that monitors the operating state of the appliances is the main device for managing the appliances in the network. Thus, a standard for communication using relatively small-scale microcomputer resources is required, unlike the network composed of a PC or multimedia-series appliances.
A home network control protocol (HNCP) is a communication standard that defines the connection method of signal lines and the order of signal flow for communication among appliances in the home network. Communications with other appliances or the Internet can be performed using a network manager that serves as a bridge between the HNCP and other external protocols to control the home network.
FIG. 1 shows a DTV as a master appliance that uses the HNCP standard. The HNCP standard is a home networking standard for performing communications between master appliances such as DTVss and slave appliances through the RS232C standard of a PLC modem using the existing power lines without incurring the cost of installing an additional line.
In the background art system, as shown in FIG. 2, the UI and function information used in communicating with a slave appliance 22 is basically predefined when a master appliance such as DTVs is developed, and is stored in an internal memory such as a flash ROM 23. Any additional UI or functions cannot be used without separate measurements. Thus, in order to use them, a separate procedure is used in upgrading the software of the master appliance 21.
As described above, according to the background art system, the UI and functions for communications with the slave appliances are predefined irrespective of the characteristics of the slave appliances. This means that only particular kinds of items and slave appliances can be used, and the independent UI and function information of the slave appliances should be stored in separate memories provided in the respective slave appliances.
The background art home network system and the operation method thereof have the following further problems and disadvantages. According to the background art system, since the UI and functions for communications with the slave appliances are predefined irrespective of the characteristics of the slave appliances, non-defined slave appliances cannot be used through the home network. This means that only particular kinds of items and slave appliances can be used, and it is difficult to use appliances in the home network system that may, for example, be a product of a different manufacturer and therefore be incompatible with one another. Also, in the event that the memory capacity of the master appliance is insufficient, the UI cannot be used.

Method for controlling home network system


Disclosed herein is a music service that enables consumers listen to a broadcast radio station without commercials. The service operates by shifting the source channel of a radio from the broadcast radio to a streaming audio service for the duration of the commercial. In some embodiments, the service utilizes any of: a radio including native firmware/software, a mobile device such as a smart phone executing an application, cooperative integration of a radio and a mobile device, or master/slave relationship between a mobile device and a radio. The mobile device listens to the radio broadcast and determines when to shift between the radio broadcast and the streaming audio via any of audio fingerprint analysis, radio station behavioral analysis, radio station metadata, and/or radio station voice recognition analysis.

Broadcast radio is essentially a one to many medium where music is curated by station programming directors and sent to listeners via their tower. Streaming music is different in that anyone can stream music, but the plays of streaming audio are treated differently from a copyright use perspective. This is why broadcast radio has not completely shifted into streaming.
Consumers want to avoid commercials and they have a number of options to obtain commercial free music. That said, only so many people want to pay the fees for these services and only so many people want to do the work to build playlists, discover music, etc. The vast majority of consumers would prefer to just play a radio station and skip to another station when they hear a song they don't like or when a commercial stop set plays. As a result, many broadcasters have coordinated their commercial stop sets to be played at the same time.

Seamless integration of radio broadcast audio with streaming audio


An apparatus for roulette table games aims to dynamically increase payout odds of a roulette table game. The apparatus includes an electronic display panel which has at least one display zone to indicate a corresponding betting area and display a dynamic raised odds. Banker can give a payout for player's bet according to the dynamic raised odds. By providing frequent changes of the dynamic raised odds which might be greater than the payout odds of the betting area the odds is greater, therefore increases the expected value of the roulette table game and offers more incentives for players to continuously place bets. The players are motivated to expect extra awards from the roulette table game, hence the appeal of the game is greater. As a result higher utilization of roulette table game can be achieved and idle time can be reduced to avoid wastes.

Roulette table games provide many appealing features such as higher odds, simple to play and less cheating chance, thus are quite popular among players. They mainly rely on a wheel and a colored ball for playing. The wheel is divided into thirty seven pockets marked by numbers from 0 to 36. During playing the wheel is driven to spinning and the colored ball is cast to spin with the wheel until losing the spinning momentum and falling on one of the 37 pockets. In order to match at least one of a plurality of game results, the roulette table game also provides a betting table to allow players to place bets according to different game results. The betting table offers different payout odds for the different game results based on their appearing probability. In the event that the game result matches a player's bet, a payout based on the payout odds and player's wager is made to the player.
The present common roulette table game usually has the game results shown in a single number, odd number, even number, designated numbers or the like. Different game results have official payout odds. For instance, if the game result is any one of single numbers among "1-36", the odds generally is 35 to 1, and the converted player's profit rate is about 94.59%.
Due to player's profit rate of betting the game results of various roulette table games is constant and lower than 100%, after a period of time the players could feel bored and not eager to participate. Hence after the novelty and excitement of the game decline, utilization of the roulette table games gradually decreases and results in not satisfactory business outcome.

Apparatus for roulette table games with dynamic raised odds


The present invention discloses an antenna structure and ensures an all-metal housing feature of the mobile terminal device. The antenna structure includes a housing and a feed plate, where the housing includes a main housing, a first floating object, a second floating object, and an antenna radiator; and the first floating object, the second floating object, and the antenna radiator are separated from the main housing by a first slot; there is a second slot between the first floating object and one side of the antenna radiator, and a third slot between the second floating object and the other side of the antenna radiator; the main housing, the first floating object, the second floating object, and the antenna radiator are connected as a whole by an insulator; and the feed plate is disposed opposite to the main housing, the first floating object, and the antenna radiator at an interval.

With the rapid development of a mobile terminal such as a mobile phone, people pay more attention to an appearance of the mobile phone, and in particular, to a material of the mobile phone. A plastic housing is generally used for a common mobile phone, for example, Polycarbonate (PC), Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), or ABS+PC. In recent two years, a mobile phone made of a metal material has gradually drawn people's attention. The mobile phone made of a metal material is fashionable and has a fine texture, a metal housing is more durable than a plastic housing, and heat conductivity of metal is better; a long-time operation does not cause overheating of the mobile phone, which extends a service life of the mobile phone. These advantages interest people in purchase of a mobile phone made of a metal material.
A demand stimulates a market, and in a current industry, a design difficulty of a mobile phone that has a metal-material housing lies in an antenna. For a common antenna, a metal housing shields antenna radiation, and therefore, no signal is available for the mobile phone or a call drop occurs. In the prior art, a solution is removing metal within an antenna area, and the mobile phone uses a regular Inverted F Antenna (IFA)/Planar Inverted F Antenna (PIFA)/Loop antenna as a radiator, instead of using a metal housing as a radiator; therefore, the metal housing within the antenna area of the mobile phone needs to be replaced with a plastic housing. In the technical solution, a plastic housing needs to be used, and in terms of appearance, metal is in the middle and plastic is at the two ends, which has a splicing effect; in addition, there is no sense of an all-metal housing. If a plastic material that has a metal spraying color is used as a replacement, an overall effect of a product is damaged.
In the prior art, there is also a solution in which dual antennas are used for switching to avoid impact on an antenna caused by a metal housing. The antenna is disposed on an external face of the housing of the mobile phone, and when one antenna is held by a hand during a call, a detection apparatus is started, and a signal is switched to the other antenna; therefore, in the antenna solution, multiple antennas need to be used and costs are relatively high. For an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) multi-carrier aggregation technology in a 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, the antenna switching solution is not applicable, because a signal carrier is equivalent to serial transmission, and an antenna may be switched for serial transmission; but LTE OFDM is equivalent to multi-carrier parallel transmission, and consequently the antenna switching solution is not applicable.
In the prior art, an active-antenna solution may also be used, that is, a metal housing is involved in radiation as a part of an antenna. In a switch switching solution, antenna matching is dynamically switched, to achieve an objective of implementing communication by an antenna in a head-hand mode (that is, a state in which a head and a hand of a person use a mobile phone is simulated). Although the solution in the prior art can be used in an LTE solution, components such as a switch and an adjustable capacitor need to be introduced; therefore, application costs are quite high.

Antenna structure and mobile terminal device


A work piece includes a copper bump having a top surface and sidewalls. A protection layer is formed on the sidewalls, and not on the top surface, of the copper bump. The protection layer includes a compound of copper and a polymer, and is a dielectric layer.

Die-to-wafer bonding is a commonly used bonding method, wherein semiconductor dies sawed from wafers are bonded to semiconductor chips in un-sawed wafers. With the die-to-wafer bonding, known-good-dies may be selected and bonded to wafers. The yield is thus improved over that of wafer-to-wafer bonding.
The conventional die-to-wafer bonding methods suffer from drawbacks. A wafer may include many chips (referred to as bottom chips hereinafter), sometimes as many as one thousand chips or more. Accordingly, more than one thousand top dies need to be bonded to the bottom chips one by one. This may take up to two hours. During the entire period of the bonding process, the wafer needs to be heated. The temperature of the wafer, however, is difficult to control. If the temperature is high, the copper bumps in the bottom chips suffer from serious oxidation, and the flux applied on the bottom chips may be baked/evaporated. On the other hand, if the temperature is low, cold joints may be formed. As such, the yield of the die-to-wafer bonding is adversely affected.

Copper bump structures having sidewall protection layers

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.


A method, system, and article for compressing an input stream of uncompressed data. The input stream is divided into one or more data segments. A hash is applied to a first data segment, and an offset and length are associated with this first segment. This hash, together with the offset and length data for the first segment, is stored in a hash table. Thereafter, a subsequent segment within the input stream is evaluated and compared with all other hash entries in the hash table, and a reference is written to a prior hash for an identified duplicate segment. The reference includes a new offset location for the subsequent segment. Similarly, a new hash is applied to an identified non-duplicate segment, with the new hash and its corresponding offset stored in the hash table. A compressed output stream of data is created from the hash table retained on storage media.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to data compression in a computer storage environment. More specifically, the invention relates to management of virtual machines and a data compression tool for images of the virtual machines.
2. Background of the Invention
A virtual machine is a self contained operating environment that behaves as if it is a separate computer, while allowing the sharing of underlying physical machine resources between multiple virtual machines. More specifically, each virtual machine operates as a whole machine, while a host of the virtual machine(s) manages resources to support each virtual machine. One of the challenges associated with employment of multiple virtual machines is that each machine requires storage space. While storage costs are decreasing, storage still remains an expense.
Data compression tools are known to address data storage and to alleviate concerns with storage capacity limitations. More specifically, data compression enables storage devices to store the same amount of data with fewer bits. However, prior art storage techniques do not effectively address the storage needs of the virtual machine environment, or other environments which require archiving of many gigabytes or more of data.
Accordingly, there is a need for a data compression tool that addresses the needs for compressing large quantities of data, such as that known in the virtual machine environment. More specifically, such a compression tool should identify and remove global redundancies within a large input window, without placing an undue burden on memory and data processing requirements. In one embodiment, a global redundancy is present between different virtual machines that are based on the same operating system, wherein the footprint of the files are the same, but only the user data changes between the different versions. In another embodiment, additional virtual machines can be added to an existing archive, benefiting from the global redundancies between the existing archive and the newly added virtual machines. In another embodiment, the differences between a reference data set and a target data set are detected using global redundancies. These differences can be used to create the target data set based on the reference data set, which is especially valuable in networked environments, where instead of transmitting the target data set, only the differences can be transmitted if the receiver already has the reference data set. Accordingly, the data compression tool needs to address the global redundancies by referencing them during the compression process.

Method and apparatus for data compression

International Business Machines Corporation