A method of producing a textile product, including the steps of: receiving order information from a customer over a network, the order information including an image to be reproduced on the textile product; processing the order information to create an order record readable by an automated weaving machine; and causing the weaving machine to weave the textile product according to the order record so as to have a representation of the image on a face of the textile product.

The present invention relates generally to a system and method for textile production. In particular, the invention relates to a system and method for producing a textile based on an image received from a customer.
Mass production of textiles occurs in many manufacturing centres around the world. In most cases, the manufacturer chooses to produce, or is contracted to produce, a textile having a particular visual appearance or xe2x80x9cdesignxe2x80x9d and proceeds to manufacture large quantities of the textile having that design. For example, for a particular beach towel design, the manufacturer may produce one thousand beach towels having that design. It is generally not economically viable for the manufacturer to produce low quantities of a textile of a particular design as there are set-up costs associated with setting up the textile weaving machinery for each different design.
If a customer desires to have a particular design or image applied to a beach towel, for example, he must bear the time costs of consulting the manufacturer or manufacturer""s agent in relation to that design and the costs of having the towel weaving machinery set up specifically for that towel design, with the result that that particular towel is inordinately expensive relative to most towels available on the market. Additionally, it is generally not possible to manufacture only one towel at a time and if the weaving machinery is set up to produce one particular design, there is usually a set number of towels which must be produced in weaving a design cycle by the machinery. Therefore, if the consumer only wants one towel of the particular design, the remaining towels are wasted.
The present invention provides a method of producing a textile product, including the steps of:
receiving order information from a customer over a network, the order information including an image to be reproduced on the textile product;
processing the order information to create an order record readable by an automated weaving machine; and
causing the weaving machine to weave the textile product according to the order record so as to have a representation of the image on a face of the textile product.
By this method, it is possible to provide for automatic production of the textile product such that a number of customer orders may be processed and woven within a batch of textile products. Each customer can order a customized textile product but because the individual customer designs are processed within a single batch, it is not necessary for the customer to pay for the entire batch set-up cost. As the method is automatic and does not require a human operator to be involved during the set-up phase of production of the textile product, the production cost is advantageously made more economically viable. Advantageously, by processing a number of different customer orders within a single batch, the cost of each textile product is commensurately reduced and becomes affordable to the consumer.
Advantageously, the method can be used to process a number of different customer orders using a number of weaving machines.
Preferably, a plurality of automated weaving machines is provided, each being set up to provide textile products of a different binary colour selection and/or size selection whereby a plurality of batches of textile products, each batch having a particular binary color selection and size selection associated therewith, can be woven by respective weaving machines. Accordingly, a customer is able to select a particular binary color selection and/or size from the range offered by the set up of the different weaving machines. The plurality of weaving machines may be distributed among a number of different manufacturing locations, either within a single country or around the world.
To put this in to effect, preferably the order information further includes the following:
(a) payment information to enable the customer to be charged a payment for the production of the textile or account information relating to a pre-existing account that that customer may have for the purposes of ordering the production of textiles;
(b) information as to any text which is to be placed adjacent the image on the textile, including size, style and font of the text;
(c) information as to which of a predetermined set of binary colors is to be used for representing the image on the textile product (eg. black/white, blue/red, green/yellow);
(d) information as to the preferred size of the textile product, selected from a predetermined set of size options;
(e) information as to the preferred textile material to be used for the textile product, selected from a predetermined list of materials;
(f) address and contact information of the customer.
Preferably, the automated weaving machine includes a jacquard machine. Reference hereinafter to ajacquard weaving machine is a reference to ajacquard machine in a controlling relationship with the mechanical weaving functions of the weaving machine (also called a xe2x80x9cloomxe2x80x9d).
Preferably, the step of receiving is performed by a web server in communication with the network Preferably, after the step of receiving, the method further includes a step of confirming the validity of the payment information and registering a charge against the customer in accordance with that payment information if it is confirmed to be valid. Preferably, the step of confirming also includes parsing the order information to check that it constitutes valid order information.
Preferably, the step of processing further includes the step of downloading the order information to a design station for conditioning the image. Preferably, the conditioning includes filtering to enhance the contrast of the colors within the image and cropping of the borders of the image.
Preferably, the conditioning includes converting the image to a 41 point grey scale. Preferably, the step of processing includes the step of creating a weave in accordance with the converted 41 point grey scale image, such that:
weave number zero corresponds to all pile loops on the face of the textile being of the first binary colour;
weave number 40 corresponds to all pile loops on the face of the textile being of the second binary color;
weave number 5 (for example) corresponds to 35 of the 40 loops being of the first binary colour and 5 of the loops being of the second binary colour.
Preferably, in the example regarding weave number 5 above, the five loops of the second binary colour are evenly but irregularly distributed among a block of 40 loops. Preferably, the step of processing further includes a step of converting the 41 point grey scaled image to a file format for reading by the weaving machine. For example, a so-called xe2x80x9cCard Imagexe2x80x9d (CI) file format may be appropriate for reading by some jacquard weaving machines.
Preferably, the method further includes the step of forwarding the order information to a production management system for tracking the production of the textile product ordered by each customer. Preferably, the web server interfaces with the production management system for reporting to the customer which stage of production the textile product is in at the time of a customer request for such a report via the web server.
Preferably, the method further includes, prior to the step of causing the weaving machine to weave, the steps of scheduling a plurality of order records for weaving by the weaving machine in one batch and scheduling a further plurality of order records for weaving by the weaving machine in a second batch of textile products. Preferably, each of the order records in a batch of textile products has the same binary color selection and size selection as the other order records in that batch.
Preferably, the jacquard weaving machine includes a computer processor and memory and is adapted to store a plurality of order records for producing a batch of textile products. Preferably, following the step of causing the weaving machine to weave, the method further includes the step of feeding the batch of textile products to an automatic cutting and sewing machine to separate each of the textile products from each other. Preferably, the method farther includes the steps of automatically inspecting, packing and labelling the textiles and shipping each textile product to the consumer by whom that product was ordered.
The present invention also provides a system for producing a textile product, including:
means for receiving order information from a customer over a network, the order information including an image to be reproduced on the textile product;
means for processing the order information to create an order record readable by an automated weaving machine; and
means for causing the weaving machine to weave the textile product according to the order record so as to have a representation of the image on a face of the textile product.
Preferably, the textile product is a towel. Alternatively, the textile product is a rug or other loop pile textile. Alternatively, the textile product is a non-loop pile textile, for example such as upholstery fabric, a tea towel or a flat xe2x80x98throw rugxe2x80x99. Preferably, the image includes one or more graphics and/or text images.
The present invention also provides a method of producing a textile product, including the steps of:
receiving order information from a customer over a network, the order information including an image to be reproduced on the textile product;
processing the order information to create an order record readable by an automated weaving system;
transmitting the order record to the weaving system to enable the weaving system to weave the textile product according to the order record so as to have a representation of the image on a face of the textile product.
Preferably, the weaving system includes a server for receiving the order record and at least one automated weaving machine responsive to the server for weaving the textile product.
The weaving system may be located locally or remotely relative to where the order information is processed. Multiple textile products of the same or a different kind can be produced by the system and method, using one or more automated weaving machines as appropriate.
Advantageously, preferred embodiments of the invention provide the following features:
1. The customer can order a single textile, or another small number such as four, according to a design chosen by that customer without incurring the inordinate expense and wastage of having the weaving machines set up especially for that particular design, thereby allowing the customer to order a personalized towel or a rug at a normal price for a towel or a rug.
2. The customer can place his or her order over the Internet by using a web based application hosted by the web server. Advantageously, the web based application allows the customer to upload the image and modify it to be of the appropriate size or scale so that he or she can see an example of how the textile product would look once it had been woven by the system.
3. The automatic processing of the order information and operation of the weaving machine allows for each batch of towels, for example, to include a number of different product designs within the same batch of towels and enables fast and efficient processing of the orders.
The invention is described in greater detail hereinafter, by way of example only, with reference to embodiments thereof illustrated in the accompanying drawings which are briefly described below.

System and method for textile production


A method of wireless communication includes determining a number of symbols for uplink control information (UCI) on each of a plurality of layers, multiplexing symbols for the UCI with data on multiple layers such that the symbols are time aligned across the layers, and sending the multiplexed symbols on the multiple layers on uplink. In some designs, the number of symbols for the UCI may be determined based on a spectral resource parameter.

I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to transmitting uplink control information multiplexed with data on multiple layers in wireless communication.
II. Relevant Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communication system can simultaneously support communication for multiple wireless terminals. Each terminal communicates with one or more base stations via transmissions on the forward and the reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from the base stations to the terminals, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from the terminals to the base stations. This communication link may be established via a single-in-single-out, multiple-in-single-out or a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system.
A wireless communication system may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of user equipments (UEs). A base station may include multiple transmit and/or receive antennas. Each UE may include multiple transmit and/or receive antennas. The UEs may transmit uplink control information (UCI) on a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH). However, if UCI needs to be fed back when there is concurrent physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) transmission, and there is only a single layer for uplink, the UCI may be multiplexed with data and sent in PUSCH in order to maintain the single-carrier waveform in the uplink.
A MIMO system employs multiple (NT) transmit antennas and multiple (NR) receive antennas for data transmission. A MIMO channel formed by the NT transmit and NR receive antennas may be decomposed into NS independent channels, which are also referred to as spatial channels, where NS≦min{NT, NR}. Each of the NS independent channels corresponds to a dimension. The MIMO system can provide improved performance (e.g., higher throughput and/or greater reliability) if the additional dimensionalities created by the multiple transmit and receive antennas are utilized. For example, multiple spatial layers may deliver multiple data streams on a given frequency-time resource. The streams may be transmitted independently on separate antennas. Thus, in order to benefit from the improved performance of a MIMO system, there may be a need for multiplexing UCI with data in PUSCH when there are multiple spatial layers for the uplink.

Method and apparatus for control and data multiplexing in wireless communication


The present invention relates to a compact, concentric auto thermal hydrogen/syngas generator for production of hydrogen/syngas without any external heating. Further, the auto thermal hydrogen/syngas generator of the present invention involves combination of reactions such as partial oxidation, steam reforming, dry reforming, auto thermal reforming, dry autothermal reforming, water gas shift, preferential oxidation or methanation that takes place without external heating, for converting air, steam and fuel into a reformate mainly containing CO, CO2, N2, CH4 and H2O which is subsequently converted to hydrogen/syngas as a feed for fuel cell or syngas applications.

A hydrogen/syngas generator or fuel processor is a device that can convert a fuel into a product gas containing hydrogen/syngas rich gas stream. The syngas can be converted to hydrogen rich gas using a series of water gas shift, preferential oxidation or methanation reactors. There are several designs available for a fuel processor or hydrogen/syngas generator in various prior art documents, but few relate to compact, thermally integrated, fuel processor for producing hydrogen rich gas for directly delivering it to fuel cell or syngas requiring applications. Also current designs are complicated, require external heating, have low thermal efficiency, and are bulky and expensive. Also, the product gas has to be processed before feeding it to the fuel cell or syngas applications.
Reference may be made to patent US 2002/083646 titled "Fuel processor for producing hydrogen rich gas" relates to a compact processor for producing a hydrogen rich gas stream from a hydrocarbon fuel for use in a fuel cell comprising a first heat exchanger, a first desulphurization reactor, a manifold for mixing the hydrocarbon fuel with an oxygen containing gas to give a fuel mixture, a second heat exchanger, an autothermal reactor, a second desulfurization reactor, a water gas shift reactor, a selective oxidation reactor and a heat exchanger.
Reference may be made to patent US 2003/0051405 discloses an apparatus for converting a hydrocarbon fuel into a hydrogen rich gas, comprising a plurality of modules stacked end to end along a common axis.
Reference may be made to patent US2003/0021742 titled "Single chamber compact fuel processor" relates to an apparatus for carrying out a multi step process of converting a hydrocarbon fuel to a substantially pure hydrogen gas feed including a plurality of reaction zones in a common reaction chamber.
Reference may be made to U.S. Pat. No. 7,066,973 titled "Integrated reformer and shift reactor" disclose a hydrocarbon fuel reformer for producing diatomic hydrogen gas. The reformer includes a first reaction vessel, a shift reactor vessel annularly disposed about the first reaction vessel, including a first shift reactor zone, and a first helical tube disposed within the first shift reactor zone having an inlet end communicating with a water supply.
Reference may be made to patent WO/2008/063485 titled "Process for production of hydrogen from carbohydrate feedstock" discloses a process for producing hydrogen from a plant source wherein a crude plant source is treated with water and a catalyst at a temperature and pressure sufficient to decompose carbohydrate material to form a vapor mixture of gases including hydrogen, and separating hydrogen mixture.
No prior art document discloses the combination of reactions selected from partial oxidation, complete oxidation, steam reforming, dry reforming, dry auto thermal reforming, auto thermal reforming, water gas shift, preferential oxidation or methanation and water condenser and separator along with CO/CO2 clean-up in a single compact unit.
Further, prior designs of fuel processor require external heating for the entire process of operation from start up till shut down.
Also, the fuel processors of the prior arts generate hydrogen rich gas or syngas which needs additional equipment and/or steps to process it before it can be fed to the fuel cell/syngas feed applications.
No prior art document has disclosed the use of at least one part of a fuel processor/hydrogen or syngas generator that can be used in any combination with the others to generate hydrogen, hydrogen rich gas or syngas. The feed can also be selected from hot syngas, coal gasifier gas or any other gas stream containing H2, CO, CO2, CH4, H2O.

Hydrogen/syngas generator with sampling ports

COUNCIL OF SCIENTIFIC & INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH


An electric tool including: a motor having a stator coil; and a circuit board, wherein the stator coil includes a coil main body and an extending part extending from the coil main body and electrically connected to the circuit board, and wherein the extending part is slacked.

Recently, a brushless DC motor has been used for an electric tool in which a tip tool such as a drill or driver is rotationally driven by a motor to perform a desired operation. The brushless DC motor is a DC (Direct Current) motor which has no brush (brush for rectification). The brushless DC motor includes a coil on a stator side and a magnet on a rotor side. The brushless DC motor is so configured that a power driven by an inverter is sequentially energized to a predetermined coil to rotate the rotor. In the brushless DC motor, a switching element for turning on/off the energization of the coil wound around a stator is placed on a circuit board near the motor. The switching element is located on an approximately circular circuit board attached to a rear side (a side opposite to the tip tool) of the motor (for example, see, JP-A-2010-99823).
An electric tool using the brushless DC motor typically includes a star-connected three-phase coil and a total of six switching elements are used in such a way that one switching element is respectively provided on the positive side and the negative side of each phase. Since a relatively large current flows in the brushless DC motor, a heating value of the switching element increases. In order to effectively cool the switching element, an air inlet is provided to a portion of a housing near the inverter circuit board. The circuit board is arranged perpendicular to a rotating shaft of the motor and the switching element is placed on the circuit board. A fan is mounted on the rotating shaft of the brushless DC motor. Outside air is suctioned through the air inlet by the fan to cool the switching element or the brushless DC motor.
In a related-art electric tool, an inverter circuit board mounted with a switching element is disposed at rear to the motor. The circuit board is mounted with an inverter circuit or hall IC, etc., and is held on a protrusion of an insulator. Such structure will be described by referring to FIGS. 5 and 6.
FIG. 5 is a side view illustrating an inverter circuit board and a stator of a motor in a related-art electric tool. FIG. 6 is a rear view of FIG. 5. In these drawings, a rotor and a rotating shaft of the parts constituting the motor have been omitted. In the brushless type motor, an end of a stator coil 3c passes inside an insulator 15, passes thorough an opening formed in an inverter circuit board 4 and is fixed at an opposite side of the inverter circuit 4 by a solder 9. A total of six stator coils 3c are soldered to the inverter circuit board 4. In addition, six switching elements 5 are mounted on the inverter circuit board 4.


There are provided a radiation detector module, a radiation detector, and a radiographic imaging apparatus which make it possible to increase the row number while suppressing a length in a body-axis direction. The radiation detector module includes a detector substrate on which a scintillator, a photodiode, and AD conversion chips are loaded, and a control substrate which supplies power to the detector substrate and controls the operation of an AD conversion unit (AFE) of each AD conversion chip of the detector substrate. The plurality of radiation detector modules configure a radiation detector which suppresses the length in the body-axis direction by connecting together the two substrates so as to form a two-stage structure by stacking connectors.

The present invention pertains to a radiation detecting technology and relates to a radiation detector module, a radiation detector, and a radiographic imaging apparatus which includes the radiation detector.
Nowadays, a multi-slice type radiation detector which makes wide-range imaging possible in a short period of time is mainstream. In the multi-slice type radiation detector, it is requested to increase the row number. However, on the other hand, there is such a problem that it becomes difficult to take an analog signal out of a photodiode with an increase of the row number. Accordingly, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-66149, there is disclosed a technology of realizing an increase in row number by loading a scintillator, a photodiode, and an AD conversion chip on the same substrate so as to facilitate connection of an analog signal line from the photodiode to an AFE (Analog Font End) which is an AD conversion unit.

Radiation detector module, radiation detector, and radiographic imaging apparatus


A method and apparatus where network-layer devices use host-provided, detailed, per-packet, semantic information (DPPS information), which describes the content, meaning, importance, and/or other attributes of particular application data and is associated with each packet, to provide enhanced network services. In some embodiments of the above method, network-layer devices use DPPS information that includes QoS-related information to provide fine-grained, content-aware, and/or complex QoS assurances or similar services. In some embodiments, network-layer devices use DPPS information to provide network-based, application-protocol-independent, rate-adaptation services. In some embodiments, network-layer devices use DPPS information to provide highly efficient, application-protocol-independent, publish/subscribe dissemination services.

FIG. 1 is a highly simplified view of a conventional packet-switched computer network, ("computer network"). The computer network includes "routers", which are intelligent devices that control the flow of information through the network. The routers are interconnected by transmission facilities, ("links"), such as electrical cables, fiber-optic cables, or wireless-transmission facilities. The computer network enables "hosts", which are typically the source or destination of information transported by the network, to exchange information with each other. To exchange information with another host, an origination host places the information to be transported, ("application data," which is typically data from the application-layer software of the system) into a "packet", (a specially formatted sequence of bits typically handled by the network-layer software and/or hardware), and transmits the packet to a router in the network. This packet is "forwarded" from one router to another until the final router transmits the packet to the destination host (See "The Catenet Model for Internetworking" by Vint Cerf, Internet Engineering Note 48 (IEN48), July 1978, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Information Processing Techniques Office; available at www.isi.edu/in-notes/ien/ien48.txt, which is incorporated herein by reference).
FIG. 2 illustrates the structure of a typical packet that includes a "packet header" and "packet data". The packet header contains control information that influences how the packet is processed, while the packet data is the information that the packet is transporting. The packet header may include several sequences of contiguous bits ("fields"), such as a field that identifies the origination host or a field that identifies the destination host. In some protocols, the packet header includes two components: a fixed-length header, which is always present, and a variable-length header, which is optional.
The processing of packets by hosts and routers is controlled by network protocols, ("protocols"), which specify the format of packets and the procedures for exchanging packets. The protocols used in the Internet are often referred to as "the Internet protocol suite". The Internet protocol suite employs the concept of "protocol layering", where the packet-data portion of a packet may contain a complete packet of another, generally "higher layer" protocol.
FIG. 3 illustrates the protocol layering that is used by the Internet protocol suite. A "link protocol" controls the transfer of packets between adjacent network nodes, (e.g., hosts or routers); a wide variety of link protocols are used with the Internet protocol suite. A "network protocol" controls the transfer of packets between the origination network node and the destination network node; only one network protocol is included in the Internet protocol suite, namely the Internet Protocol (IP). A "transport protocol" ensures that information is transferred reliably between the origination and destination network nodes; many transport protocols are included in the Internet protocol suite, such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), (which is specified by POSTEL, JON, ed., "Transmission Control Protocol", RFC 793, September 1981, University of Southern California, Information Sciences Institute; which is incorporated herein by reference). An application protocol is, from the perspective of the Internet protocol suite, the ultimate originator or consumer of data; numerous application protocols are included in the Internet protocol suite, such as the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), (which is specified by FIELDING, ROY T., et. al, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol—HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999, Internet Engineering Task Force; which is incorporated herein by reference), which controls the transfer of information between a Web server and a Web browser.
Two major versions of the Internet Protocol have been specified, IP Version 4, ("IPv4"), (specified by POSTEL, JON, ed., "Internet Protocol", RFC 791, September 1981, University of Southern California, Information Sciences Institute; which is incorporated herein by reference), which is widely deployed, and IP Version 6, ("IPv6"), (specified by DEERING, STEPHEN and HINDEN, ROBERT, "Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998, Internet Engineering Task Force; which is incorporated herein by reference), which may become widely deployed in the future. The IPv4 and IPv6 packet headers contain both a fixed-length header and a variable-length header. The IPv4 variable-length header is called the "IP Options", while the IPv6 variable-length header is called the "Extension Headers".
An important security component of the Internet protocol suite is the Internet Security (IPsec) protocols, (which are described by KENT, STEPHEN and SEO, KAREN, "Security Architecture for the Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005, Internet Engineering Task Force; which is incorporated herein by reference). The Encapsulating Security Protocol (ESP), (which is specified in a document by KENT, STEPHEN, "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)", RFC 4303, December 2005, Internet Engineering Task Force; which is incorporated herein by reference), one of the IPsec protocols, transports or "encapsulates" an IP packet that is to be protected within another, "encapsulating" IP packet. The encapsulated IP packet may be encrypted, which prevents the disclosure of the contents of the encapsulated IP packet, either its packet header or its packet data, to any system that does not possess the appropriate cryptographic keys.
FIG. 4 is a highly abstracted summary of the major components of a typical router, (a summary of the structure and operation of a router can be found in a document by BAKER, FRED, ed., "Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers", RFC 1812, June 1995, Internet Engineering Task Force; which is incorporated herein by reference). An "interface" connects the router to a link; a router may have several interfaces and be connected to several links. An interface has associated with it one or more "transmit queues", which hold packets that are waiting to be transmitted on the interface. These transmit queues may have different priorities, such that packets in a higher-priority queue are likely to be transmitted before packets in a lower-priority queue. A router generally contains one or more programmable computers, and as a result contains "router software". The router software performs many functions, include "forward incoming packet". A "router configuration" is information that guides the overall operation of a specific router, is typically created manually, and is generally fairly static. A "route information base" contains information about which router a packet should be forwarded to in order to eventually reach a particular destination, and is often updated dynamically to quickly reflect changes in the network.
Routers process network-layer-protocol packets, such as IP packets in the Internet protocol suite. The forward-incoming-packet software processes a packet received from an interface, (an "incoming packet"). The forward-incoming-packet software determines how an incoming packet should processed based on information contained in the packet header of the IP packet, information contained in the router configuration, information contained in the route information base, and possibly other information. This software may determine that an incoming packet should be placed in a particular transmit queue for transmission on a specific interface, that an incoming packet should be discarded, ("dropped"), that some other packet should be dropped, or that some other action should be taken. Because the principal function of routers is to process network-layer packets, they are sometimes referred to as "network-layer devices".
As the speed of links has increased dramatically over the last two decades, the time within which the forward-incoming-packet software must process an incoming packet has decreased correspondingly. As a result, router vendors have traditionally strived to simplify the decisions that the forward-incoming-packet software must make. This is particularly true in very high-speed routers that must support link speeds of many gigabits-per-second, where the computational capacity of the router, rather than the bandwidth of the links, is often the scarce resource that needs to be conserved.
A. Quality of Service (Qos) Background
In many environments, it is highly desirable for a network to treat some packets differently than others, based on one or more characteristics of the packets. One important characteristic of a packet is the type of application data that it is transporting. For example, it is often beneficial to ensure that packets carrying voice data (e.g., real-time telephone calls) are moved through the network more quickly than packets that are carrying application data that are less sensitive to delay. When a network provides different levels of services to different packets based on some of their characteristics, the network is said to provide "quality-of-service (QoS) assurances". In order to make the task of providing QoS assurances more tractable, packets are sometimes grouped into "flows", where a flow is all of the packets that are part of a particular connection between an application on one host and another application on another host. Another approach is to categorize packets into different "traffic classes" or "classes of traffic". For example, packets carrying voice data may be considered one class of traffic, while packets carrying file-transfer data may be considered another class of traffic.
Numerous QoS objectives have been previously described, such as ensuring that all of the packets in a particular flow or traffic class receive at least a certain amount of bandwidth, ensuring that certain packets are transported through the network within some specified period of time, or ensuring that the variance in the time that it takes certain packets to be transported through the network is below some specified value. Many other QoS objectives could be and have been described, although most of them have been fairly simple.
Numerous techniques have been developed that enable a router to implement or "enforce" QoS assurances. These techniques include assigning multiple, prioritized transmit queues to each interface; managing the transmit queues (such as deciding which packets to discard when a queue starts to become full); measuring and controlling the amount of bandwidth that is made available to a particular flow or traffic class; as well as numerous other techniques.
The Internet architecture includes two QoS models, or general strategies for providing QoS assurances: the Integrated Services model and the Differentiated Services model.
The Integrated Services model, (described by BADEN, ROBERT, DAVID CLARK, and SCOTT SHENKER, "Integrated Services in the Internet Architecture: an Overview", RFC 1633, June 1994, Internet Engineering Task Force; which is incorporated herein by reference), enables an application to reserve network resources, such as link bandwidth or transmit queue space, for a flow. An application may reserve network resources by sending a request through the network to the application with which it intends to communicate. The routers along the path may reserve for the flow resources, if they are available, in response to the request. All packets within a flow receive the same level of service. The level of service received by the packets within a flow is only indirectly related to the content, meaning, importance, and/or other attributes of the application data transported by the packets. The Integrated Services model has not been widely deployed, in large part because it does not scale well, (i.e., it impedes the deployment and operation of very large networks because the routers in the core of a very large network must manage a very large number of reservations). Additionally, the Integrated Services model does not respond well to changes in the route that the packets of a flow take through the network, because after a route changes, the locations of the reserved resources no longer match the routers through with the packets are forwarded.
The Differentiated Services model, (summarized by BLAKE, STEVEN, et. al, "An Architecture for Differentiated Services", RFC 2475, December 1998, Internet Engineering Task Force; which is incorporated herein by reference), classifies all packets into as many as sixty-four different traffic classes and potentially provides a different level of service to each of these traffic classes. A six-bit field in the fixed header of IP packets, called the Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP), identifies the traffic class to which a packet belongs. All packets within a traffic class receive the same level of service. The level of service received by the packets within a traffic class is manually configured, generally does not change once the network has been configured, and is only indirectly related to the content, meaning, importance, and/or other attributes of the application data transported by the packets. The Differentiated Services model scales well, because even routers in very large networks need to support at most sixty-four different classes of traffic. However, because the differentiated services model can support only a limited number of traffic classes, it can provide only very coarse-grained QoS assurances. The initial version of the IPsec ESP interfered with the use of the Differentiated Services model because the DSCP field in the original, encapsulated packet was inaccessible to routers when encryption was employed. An updated version of the ESP specification permits the encrypting node to copy the DSCP field from the header of the encapsulated IP packet into the DSCP field of the header of the encapsulating IP packet. This permits routers to access the copy of the DSCP field that is in the packet header of the encapsulating packet, without necessarily being able to decrypt the encrypted, encapsulated packet.
B. Ad Hoc Networks Background
Technology advances have enabled the development of mobile, ad hoc, wireless networks, ("ad hoc networks"). The behavior of ad hoc networks contrasts sharply with that of traditional, wired networks. In ad hoc networks, network nodes, (which generally perform the functions of both hosts and routers), configure themselves into a network without manual intervention, whereas the topologies, (the global structure of the links, the routers, and the interconnections between them), of wired networks are generally designed and configured manually. The topologies of ad hoc networks may change repeatedly and rapidly as nodes move or wireless propagation changes, which contrasts with the much more stable topologies of wired networks. The error rates of wireless links are generally many orders of magnitude higher than those for most wired links, and the bandwidth of wireless links may change over time as propagation conditions change, unlike the fixed bandwidth of wired links.
Developing technologies to provide QoS assurances in the highly dynamic environments presented by ad hoc networks has proven to be difficult. Efforts have been made to adapt the Integrated Services model, (such as that described by LEE, SEOUNG-BUM and ANDREW T. CAMPBELL, "INSIGNIA: In-Band Signaling Support for QoS in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks", Proc. of 5th International Workshop on Mobile Multimedia Communications (MoMuC '98), Berlin Germany, October 1998; which is incorporated herein by reference), and the Differentiated Services model, (such as that proposed by GAHNG-SEOP, AHN, ANDREW T. CAMPBELL, ANDRAS VERES and LI-HSIANG SUN, "SWAN: Service Differentiation in Stateless Wireless Ad Hoc Networks", Proc. IEEE INFOCOM 2002, New York, N.Y., June 2002; which is incorporated herein by reference), for use in ad hoc networks. However, these efforts have not been particularly effective. Topology changes quickly make reservations, such as those used in the Integrated Services model, moot. The limited number of traffic classes supported by the Differentiated Services model often does not provide enough granularity to quickly adapt to rapidly changing network topologies or link bandwidths. Furthermore, any QoS architecture that relies upon a node knowing or predicting the current network topology, current traffic patterns or current link bandwidths beyond its immediate vicinity is not likely to be effective in these potentially highly dynamic environments.
The bandwidths of the wireless links typically used in ad hoc networks are generally substantially lower that those used in wired networks, often tens or hundreds of kilobits-per-second, rather than as much as many gigabits-per-second. As a result, link bandwidth, rather than the computational capacity of the router, is often the scarce resource that needs to be conserved.
Publish/Subscribe Background
The "publish/subscribe" model for information dissemination describes a means by which an originator can disseminate information to multiple receivers that have expressed a desire to receive that information, (such as the specification by OBJECT MANAGEMENT GROUP, Data Distribution Service for Real-Time Systems Specification, December 2005, Object Management Group, Inc.; which is incorporated herein by reference). In the publish/subscribe model, a node "publishes", or makes available, updated information from time to time. This updated information is transported in "messages". Other nodes "subscribe" to, or request to receive, certain information updates as they are published. An underlying dissemination infrastructure isolates a publisher and its subscribers, and ensures that published information is efficiently transmitted to all subscribed nodes. The publisher is generally not aware of the identity or, or even the number of, active subscribers. The published information is categorized into "topics", and nodes can subscribe to one or more specific topics, for example, stock market quotes. A message related to a specific topic may have several "attributes" associated with it. For example, messages that are part of the "stock market quote" topic may include an attribute that contains the name of the company for which the stock price is quoted. The publish/subscribe model permits a node to subscribe to receive only those messages within a topic whose attributes match some criteria. For example, a node might subscribe to receive only those messages in the "stock market quote" topic for which the "company name" attribute matches some specific value.
Many protocols and architectures have been developed to provide publish/subscribe services. These specifications generally focus on the behavior of applications (application-layer software) and application-layer protocols. In particular, most publish/subscribe specifications are silent on precisely how messages should be disseminated to subscribers and even whether messages should be disseminated efficiently.
A number of prior art works relate to the packet-forwarding part of the present invention: U.S. Pat. No. 6,044,080 to Antonov (filed Nov. 19, 1996, issued Mar. 28, 2000), U.S. Pat. No. 6,046,980 to Packer (filed Nov. 24, 1997, issued Apr. 4, 2001), U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,679 to Dally et al. (filed May 26, 1998, issued Sep. 4, 2001), U.S. Pat. No. 6,452,933 to Duffield et al. (filed Nov. 18, 1997, issued Sep. 17, 2002), U.S. Pat. No. 6,975,638 to Chen et al. (filed Oct. 13, 2000, issued Dec. 13, 2005), U.S. Pat. No. 7,187,679 to Dally et al. (filed Sep. 18, 2002, issued May 6, 2007) and U.S. Pat. No. 7,274,700 to Jin et al. (filed Sep. 26, 2002, issued Sep. 25, 2007), each of which is incorporated herein. However, these works are neither necessary nor sufficient for all embodiments of the present invention to achieve the objectives and advantages of the present invention.

Method and apparatus for providing semantically aware network services


In an example embodiment, a computer-based contract-management approach processes transactions involving at least one supplier (i.e., seller or sellers) fulfilling one or more sub-components of the transaction. Each of the suppliers (e.g., as well as other transaction parties) reference the transaction when communicating transaction information such as invoices, regardless of which sub-component of the transaction the seller is involved with. The invoices are associated with the transaction using the transaction referenced in each invoice and each supplier is accordingly paid for its performance of the sub-component of the transaction with which it is involved. From a buyer's perspective, the transaction is processed in accordance with the sub-components associated with the at least one supplier. Per each supplier, the transaction is processed generally two-dimensionally (via buyer and via suppliers), thus generally isolating (where desirable) each supplier from the sub-components of the transaction for which it is not a participant.

Operational management of contractual and transactional interactions between buyers, sellers, financial institutions and others involved in the exchange of products and/or services for purposes of commerce have typically been labor and time intensive. Generally, the processes of managing transactions between business entities have been unduly burdensome and inefficient.
Many transactions involve a variety of parties interacting at different hierarchical levels and in connection with different aspects of the transactions. For example, transactions involving different facets of performance (e.g., the provision of products or services) that can be fulfilled by different entities often involve two or more suppliers. For instance, when a transaction involves the provision of a multitude of goods, the goods may be sourced from different suppliers under the guise of the same transaction. Similarly, a service-based transaction may involve the provision of different aspects of service under the same contract. Further, transactions involving the purchase of a product often involve the provision of a product as well as shipping services for delivering the product from a seller to a buyer. These transactions also may involve processing services and/or fees along the delivery route, such as customs clearance at port of export, import/export duty fees, and insurance during transit, the responsibility for which can change amongst the parties depending on where the goods are actually located at a point in time. Using the shipping example, for many shipping transactions (e.g., that are separate from the purchase of goods being shipped), there is often a shipper (the entity arranging for shipment of the goods), a carrier (the entity carrying the goods), a seller (the entity selling the goods), an insurer (the entity providing transit insurance to the shipper, the carrier and/or the buyer), and a buyer (the entity receiving the goods). In this regard, the shipment itself can be considered a single shipping portion of a more complex transaction beginning with an agreement between a buyer and a seller. In some instances, the seller acts as the shipper and arranges and pays for shipment of the goods separately from the buyer and with the cost of the shipment effectively built into the cost of the goods. In other shipping transactions, the seller arranges for shipment of the goods per the buyer's instructions and the buyer pays for the shipping services directly to the party selected by the seller.
In the above-discussed and other types of transactions, the seller sometimes performs by providing goods and/or services directly and, at other times, the seller contracts with a performing party to perform some or all of the transaction aspects. In this instance, the seller acts as an intermediary, with the buyer agreeing to pay an amount contracted between the intermediary seller and the buyer. The seller in turn agrees to pay the performing parties (e.g., subcontractors) an amount contracted between the seller and each performing party.
In each of the above examples, various invoices and related activities (accounting, adjustments, etc.) are required for each contract in the chain of contracts between buying, selling, intermediary or performing parties. In addition, tracking activities for commercial and regulatory purposes often require that records be kept for the transaction. These activities are time consuming, subject to error and often duplicative in nature. For example, at the payment step, financial institutions for different parties to the transaction must interact with each other. This interaction typically involves complex agreements and associations that facilitate the transfer of funds. At times, there can be delays in payment or disputes regarding terms of payment. In addition, this process is highly susceptible to error. Interaction complexity, delay, error and a multitude of other characteristics of transaction payment can cost one or more parties to a transaction (including financial institutions) a significant amount of funds.
Most industries are quite competitive and any cost savings are therefore important. Administrative costs are targeted for reduction as no revenue is directly generated from administrative functions. However, administrative costs associated with commercial transactions have been difficult to reduce in the current business environment with widely diffused data.
The above and other difficulties in the management and coordination of business transactions have presented administrative and cost challenges to business entities involved in various aspects of transactions, including financial institutions and others.

Multi-supplier transaction and payment programmed processing approach with at least one supplier


Disclosed are a single-side image forming device with a sheet inverting unit attached thereto for image forming on the reverse side of a sheet, and a double-side image forming apparatus that employs such a sheet inverting unit. The sheet inverting unit is detachable from an image forming apparatus, which has a sheet cassette; an image forming mechanism; a stacker; and a feeding path along which the sheet supplied from the sheet cassette is conveyed first to the image forming mechanism and then to the stacker. The sheet inverting unit comprises a switching lever for selectively guiding the image bearing sheet either toward the stacker or upward of the image forming device; switchback rollers for feeding the sheet guided upward by the switching lever and then inversely feeding the sheet; a guide path, which extends from the switchback rollers to a terminus in the vicinity of an inserting port of the image forming device; and feeding rollers provided along the guide path. The double-side image forming apparatus comprises: an image forming device, which has a sheet cassette, an image forming mechanism, a stacker, a feeding path along which the sheet is conveyed first to the image forming mechanism and then to the stacker, a manual inserting port, and a manual inserting path along which is conveyed an inserted sheet from the manual inserting port to the upstream origin of the feeding path for the image forming mechanism; and a sheet inverting unit that is structured as described above.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet inverting unit that inverses a sheet for image forming on a reverse surface and to a double-side image forming apparatus, which is equipped with a single-side image forming device, that employs the sheet inverting unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently available, to satisfy a demand for plain paper image recording, are image forming apparatuses, such as copying machines, printers, and facsimiles, that employ a latent image forming recording apparatus similar to an electrophotographic apparatus. According to this image forming principle, a photosensitive drum, which is used as an image carrier, is charged, and the photosensitive drum is then exposed to a light image to form an electrostatic latent image on it. When the electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum is developed by a developing unit, a toner image is formed on the photosensitive drum. Then, the toner image is transferred from the photosensitive drum to a sheet of paper.
Such an image forming apparatus, however, normally forms an image on only one surface of a sheet, but there has recently arisen a demand for image forming apparatuses that can perform double-side image forming. If, however, paired image forming mechanisms were provided to print both sides of a sheet, the size of an image forming apparatus would increase and its per unit manufacturing cost would rise. A sheet inverting unit is therefore incorporated in an image forming apparatus to enable double-side image forming. After one surface of a sheet has been printed, this sheet inverting unit inverts the sheet, returns it to an image forming mechanism to print an image on the reverse of the sheet, and discharges it.
The above described image forming apparatus should be made compact. Particularly desirable is a small image forming apparatus that can perform double-side image forming while keeping its size.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are explanatory diagrams for conventional techniques. Of the conventional double-side image forming apparatuses, one type, described in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,814,743, incorporates a sheet inverting unit, and another, described in, for example Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 138262/1986 and No. 42774/1986, has an attached a sheet inverting unit.
A general arrangement for a double-side image forming apparatus that incorporates a sheet inverting unit will now be described while referring to FIG. 1A. In single-side printing, an image forming apparatus 1 feeds a sheet from a hopper 153, which protrudes from the image forming apparatus 1, along a feeding path to an image forming process mechanism 151, and prints the obverse side of the sheet. The sheet is then discharged to a tray 152.
In double-side printing, however, the image forming apparatus 1 employs a switching lever LV to guide a single side printed sheet to a feedback path FP where the sheet is inverted. The inverted sheet is fed to and switched by an externally provided inverting guide 154, and is refed to the image forming process mechanism 151. After the reverse of the sheet has been printed, the sheet is discharged to the tray 152.
A general arrangement for an image forming apparatus that has an externally attached sheet inverting unit will now be explained while referring to FIG. 1B. In single-side printing, a sheet inverting unit 155 is provided beneath an image forming apparatus 150. A sheet from the hopper 153, which protrudes from the image forming apparatus 150, is guided along a feeding path to the image forming process mechanism 151 and the obverse of the sheet is printed. The printed sheet is then discharged to the tray 152.
In double-side printing, however, the single-side printed sheet is guided by a switching lever LV from the discharge port of the image forming apparatus 150 to a sheet inverting unit 155. After the sheet is switched back by a sheet inverting mechanism 156 of the sheet inverting unit 155, it is guided to a feedback path FP and inverted. The inverted sheet is carried to the insertion port of the image forming apparatus 150, and from there is refed to the image forming process mechanism 151. Printing is performed on the reverse of the sheet and the double-side printed sheet is discharged to the tray 152.
According to the well known techniques, as the sheet feedback path extends beyond either side of the image forming apparatus 150, the size of a double-side image forming apparatus is increased. Also, since mechanisms for double-side image forming, such as a switching lever, must be installed within the image forming apparatus 150, the cost of the image forming apparatus 150 will rise and its size will increase. Further, because of the long feeding path provided for the image forming apparatus shown in FIG. 1A, more time is required for double-side image forming. And as the image forming apparatus shown in FIG. 1B cannot be opened to provide access to the feedback path FP in the sheet inverting unit 155, it is difficult to remove a jammed sheet from the sheet inverting unit 155.

Sheet inverting unit and an imaging forming apparatus employing the same


Disclosed herein is an electrophotographic photoreceptor having on a conductive base at least one charge generation layer and at least one charge transfer layer, which comprises a sulfonate ester compound represented by the general formula (I): ##STR1## wherein R.sup.1, R.sup.2, R.sup.3, R.sup.4 and R.sup.5 are independently hydrogen atom, halogen atom, cyano group, nitro group or alkyl group; R.sup.6, R.sup.7, R.sup.8 and R.sup.9 are independently hydrogen atom or halogen atom; and X is cyano group, alkoxycarbonyl group, optionally substituted aryloxycarbonyl group or optionally substituted aryl group, in the charge transfer layer. The electrophotographic photoreceptor according to the present invention has the excellent durability.

In recent years, the electrophotography has been applied to copying machines as well as various printers since they can give images with high qualities without delay. As an photoreceptor which plays an important role in the electrophotography, the photoreceptor comprising an inorganic photoconductive material such as selenium, arsenic-selenium alloy, cadmium sulfide, zinc oxide and the like has been used. More recently, the photoreceptor comprising an organic photoconductive material was proposed. The latter has the advantages which is not a pollutant and which has a film-formability and a shapability.
As one of the organic photoreceptors, the so-called "laminated-type photoreceptor" in which a charge generation layer and a charge transfer layer are successively laminated was developed. The laminated-type photoreceptor is increasingly interested in and is expected to be widely used in the near future because it has the following advantages:
(1) the photoreceptor having high sensitivity can be obtained by suitably selecting and combining the charge generation material and the charge transfer material; PA0 (2) the photoreceptor having high safety can be obtained because the charge generation material and the charge transfer material can be selected from a wide range of the materials; and PA0 (3) the photoreceptor can be prepared by simple coating and thus it can be prepared with low costs.
However, the prior laminated-type photoreceptors cause the electric problems such as the lowering of the charged potential, the accumulation of the residual potential and the change in the sensitivity by their repeated use. The problem as to the accumulation of the residual potential is especially serious because if the residual potential is accumulated, much copies could not be obtained. Such an accumulation of the residual potential is considered to arise from some causes, among which impurities present in the charge transfer layer are important. That is, impurities trap carriers so as to produce unmovable space charges which remain as the residual charges in the charge transfer layer. The increase of the thickness of the charge transfer layer is effective for reducing the effects of the thinning down of the charge transfer layer caused by the abrasion such as blade cleaning on the electric properties and increasing the sensitivity of the photoreceptor, but it is accompanied with the increase of the amounts of impurities so that the accumulation of the residual potential makes more remarkable.
For preventing the accumulation of the residual potential caused by the impurities present in the charge transfer layer, an addition of an electron attractive compound in the charge transfer layer is attempted. Generally the addition of the electron attractive compound in the electron donative compound forms a charge transfer complex and as the result a new absorption band appears in the long wavelength region. Thus, it is considered that the accumulation of the residual potential could be prevented by irradiating the light having the wavelength which corresponds to the absorption band of the charge transfer complex to the photoreceptor so as to form a few movable carriers in the charge transfer layer, which carriers neutralize the unmovable space charges. The known electron attractive compounds are not satisfactory for preventing the accumulation of the residual potential. Further they have another disadvantages such as the increase in the dark decay, the lowering in the surface voltage and the lowering in the sensitivity by the repeated use.
The present inventors have been investigated the electron attractive compounds which can prevent the accumulation of the residual potential without affecting the other electric properties and now they found that specific sulfonate ester compounds satisfy the above requirements.


A power converter controller includes a primary controller that is galvanically isolated from a secondary controller. The primary controller controls a state of a power switch during a first mode of operation according to a switching pattern defined by the primary controller. During a second mode of operation, the primary controller controls the state of the power switch in response to control signals received via a communication link. The secondary controller operates in a powered down state during the first mode of operation. The secondary controller initiates a transition operation with the primary controller that transitions the primary controller and the secondary controller from the first mode of operation to the second mode of operation. In the second mode of operation, the secondary controller transmit the control signals to the primary controller via the communication link.

1. Field of the Disclosure
The disclosure relates to power converters, and more particularly, to control circuits for power converters.
2. Background
Switch mode power converters are widely used in household or industrial appliances for converting a low frequency (e.g., 50 Hz or 60 Hz) high voltage alternating current (ac) input voltage to a required level of direct current (dc) output voltage. For example, switch mode power converters may be included in commonly used electronic devices, such as battery chargers for mobile electronic devices. Various types of switch mode power converters are popular because of their well regulated output, high efficiency, and small size along with their safety and protection features. Popular topologies of switch mode power converters include flyback, forward, boost, buck, half bridge, and full bridge, among many others including resonant types.
Switch mode power converters lay include an energy transfer element, a power switch, and control circuits that operate to regulate the value of the power converter output, voltage. The energy transfer element (e.g., coupled inductor) may include a primary winding and a secondary winding that are galvanically isolated from one another. The primary winding may be coupled to circuits on the input side of the power converter, such as the power switch. The secondary winding may be coupled to circuits on the output side of the power converter that deliver the regulated output voltage to the electrical load.
The power switch (e.g., a high voltage power switch) may be coupled to the primary winding of the energy transfer element to control current through the primary winding. The control circuits of the power converter may sense the output voltage and control the state of the power switch to control the transfer of energy from the primary winding to the secondary winding in response to the sensed output voltage.
Corresponding reference characters may indicate corresponding components throughout the several views of the drawings. Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present disclosure. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in commercially feasible embodiments are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of the various embodiments of the present disclosure.

Techniques for controlling a power converter using multiple controllers


A membrane receptor reagent and assay is disclosed in which liposomes are bound to an evanescent wave emitting surface. Membrane receptors on the liposome's fluid lipid bilayer membrane are labeled with a fluorescent or luminescent moiety. These membrane receptors are free to diffuse randomly throughout the liposome surface, and thus tend to redistribute according to externally applied forces. The evanescent wave-emitting surface additionally contains reagents that reversibly bind to the membrane receptors, tending to bring them closer to region of high evanescent wave intensity. Test analytes that disrupt or promote the association between the membrane receptors and the surface reagents act to change the average distance between the membrane receptors and the evanescent wave emitting surface, resulting in a change in the fluorescent or luminescent signal. This reagent and assay system functions with physiologically important membrane receptors such as GPCR receptors, other 7-tm receptors, drug transport proteins, cytochrome P450 membrane proteins and other clinically important membrane components. The reagent and assay methods may be incorporated into microarrays, capillaries, flow cells and other devices, and used for drug discovery, ADMET, and other biomedically important assays.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally concerns reagents and methods useful for membrane receptor-ligand binding assays.
2. Description of the Related Art
Much of modern pharmacology and biochemistry is focused on the interactions between different types of biological signaling molecules and their corresponding membrane receptors. Structurally, these membrane receptors are often G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCR) from the 7-transmembrane (7tm) protein family, and other types of related 7-transmembrane proteins such as ion channels.
Biological signaling molecules and membrane receptors are present in many physiological processes, and are particularly important for nervous system function. Indeed, nervous system membrane receptor systems, such as the dopamine, serotonin, and opioid receptor families, have been found to be involved in many mental disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and drug abuse. Furthermore, these membrane receptors have been found to be excellent drug targets. GPCR reactive drugs are involved in many other biological processes as well. Kenakin, Annu Rev Pharmacol Toxicol 2002;42:349–79).
To date, however, only a small number of the many possible interactions between the millions of potential candidate drug ligands, and the thousands of different membrane receptors, have been well characterized. With the recent advances in both genomics and nucleic acid microarray technology, the cellular distribution and sequence of these membrane receptors and receptor families are now readily available. As a result, one of the key challenges going forward is to utilize this new knowledge to aid in the development of next generation drugs.
Modern drug discovery and development is a multi-step process. Usually, one or more medically important target receptors are identified, a large number of prototype lead drugs are synthesized, and appropriate High Throughput Screening (HTS) assays are conducted to assess the proper differential binding to an initial set of selected target and non-target receptors. Those lead candidates that survive the process are then subjected to progressively more expensive and stringent assays; whole cell assays, animal studies, Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion, Toxicity (ADMET) studies, and finally human Phase I, II, and III studies. The expense and time involved in the later stages, typically hundreds of millions of dollars and many years, are such that it is enormously important that optimal leads be found as early in the process as possible.
One of the best ways to exploit the recent advances in genomics is to use the information to clone and express these membrane receptors in a pure state, and use these cloned receptors for HTS lead identification and optimization. In theory, the later stages of drug development could be significantly streamlined if low-cost and efficient HTS methods were developed to initially optimize a lead's specific binding to its target receptor, and to detect any unwanted cross-reaction with non-target receptors.
At present, however, membrane HTS screening methods are sub-optimal. Membrane proteins are hydrophobic, and typically only assume their correct physiological conformation in a lipid bilayer membrane environment. Moreover, many membrane receptor proteins rely upon certain aspects of lipid bilayers, such as receptor lateral mobility, association with lipid rafts, association with other proteins, small molecule cofactors etc., for proper function. Such faithful recreations of native membrane structures are difficult to reproduce in a synthetic, in-vitro, environment.
As a result, present membrane HTS screening methods usually rely upon the binding of radioactively labeled ligands to natural membrane receptors (e.g. receptors obtained from natural sources such as cultured cells). These natural membrane receptors are often bound to a solid phase, such as a filter or microwell plate. Radioactive ligand is applied to the sample, followed by one or more washing steps. The bound radioactive ligand is then detected by its radioactive scintillation signal. Thus relatively large quantities of membrane proteins and candidate drug ligands are required for each assay. For example, even the optimized Packard Bioscience FlashPlate™ system requires 25 to 50 ul of fluid for each assay point.
Although the use of natural membranes has strong physiological merit, it is slow, expensive, and cumbersome. An alternate membrane receptor HTS methodology that could return physiologically useful data with cloned membrane receptors would be highly advantageous, as it would enable the many recent genomic insights to be easily and rapidly used.
An ideal membrane-receptor HTS methodology would have a number of other characteristics as well. At present, HTS methods are typically restricted to large, well-financed, commercial organizations. This is because the present methodologies require the use of large quantities of expensive membrane receptors, expensive synthetic drug candidates, and expensive automation. If alternative methods could be devised to reduce the quantities of receptors and synthetic drug candidates by several orders of magnitude, the financial and logistical burden of HTS studies would be greatly eased. This would enable a much larger number of receptors and drug candidates to be screened, and could also make HTS methods feasible in smaller scale settings, such as academic laboratories. One good way to accomplish this goal is by the development of suitable membrane receptor microarray technology.
Microarray technology: In recent years, microarrays have become widely used for genomic and proteomic biotechnology, biomedical research, and biomedical diagnosis. In particular, microarray methods have become widely used for nucleic acid research, and a large number of nucleic acid microarrays are commercially available from Affymetrix Inc., Incyte Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and many other companies. These methods (reviewed in Schena, Microarray Biochip Technology (2000) Eaton Publishing, Natick, Mass.) generally work by binding a large number of nucleic acid microsamples to the surface of a flat support. Samples containing one or more unknown complementary nucleic acids are then exposed to the nucleic acid microarray, and the sample is allowed to hybridize to the microarray. Hybridized nucleic acids are then detected by various means, and the overall nucleic acid composition of the unknown sample is assessed.
The general principle has been that to detect two biologically interacting elements that form a pair, such as complementary nucleic acid strands, the microarray will contain one-half of the pair, the unknown analyte will contain the other half of the pair, and the interaction between the two elements will generate a detectable signal.
A good overview of protein microarray technology in general, as it exists at the time of this patent application, can be found in the article by Mitchell, "A perspective on protein microarrays", Nature biotechnology (20), 2002, 225–229, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
There have been some previous attempts to produce membrane receptor microarrays, such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,228,326; and Salafsky et. al., Biochemistry (1996) 35: 14773–14781. One approach, pioneered by Boxer and coworkers (Groves et. al., Science (1997), 275: 651–653) relies upon the formation of an artificial planar lipid membrane parallel to a microarray surface. The microarray uses a series of mechanical barriers to separate one lipid region from another, enabling multiple regions to be patterned. The microarray is analyzed by fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) techniques. Here, fluorescent membrane components are exposed to a localized region of intense laser irradiation. Following irradiation, a bleached region forms, which can be observed by a fluorescence microscope. This gradually disappears as unbleached membrane components from surrounding regions gradually migrate into the bleached region.
Although useful for demonstration purposes, one fundamental critique of this approach is that due to the close (1 nm) association between the inner leaflet of the artificial membrane lipid bilayer, and the solid phase support, the physiology of the artificial membrane is highly distorted. In particular, larger membrane proteins, such as GPCR proteins, are large enough that they can interact with the solid phase support, resulting in distorted conformations and inactivity. Additionally, the narrow aqueous layer is too thin to enable GPCR proteins to interact with other cytoplasmic side cofactors, which play a key role in the proper function of the receptor.
A second critique of this approach is that FRAP detection techniques are too crude to spot many interesting types of interactions. For example, these methods are of marginal utility for drug discovery purposes. This is because the binding of the relatively small (low molecular weight) drug candidates to relatively large (high molecular weight) membrane receptors will have a negligible impact on the FRAP mobility of the receptors, and thus will be poorly detected by FRAP techniques.
An alternative type of membrane microarray has been proposed by Ziauddin and Sabatini that relies on DNA uptake (Ziauddin J, Sabatini D M, "Microarrays of cells expressing defined cDNAs", Nature, 2001, 411:107–10). Here, DNA coding for receptor genes is spotted on a microarray surface. After spotting, cells are cultured on the microarray. Those cells located above the DNA spots take up the DNA, and express the appropriate receptor on the cell surface. This is a relatively new approach, and more work will be needed before the relative utility of such microarrays can be accurately assessed.
The "L1" chip produced by Biacore Corporation represents a third technique (Williams, C., Cook S., Knoppers M., "Advances in Lipid Immobilization: The L1 Chip", BIAjournal 2000, 7 (1)). In this technique, membrane fragments from mammalian cells are bound to the surface of a flow-cell. Samples containing potential ligands are injected into the flow cell, and after a washing step, retained material is eluted and analyzed by mass spectroscopy.
Although this technique is clearly useful for certain analytical needs, it has some drawbacks. The present L1 chip design has hydrophobic moieties on the surface of the chip. These interact with membrane samples, causing liposomes and membrane vesicles to rupture. As a result, the applied membranes become firmly attached to the surface of the chip with no aqueous separation layer (Erb E, Chen X, Allen S, Roberts C, Tendler S, Davies M, Forsen S. "Characterization of the surfaces generated by liposome binding to the modified dextran matrix of a surface plasmon resonance sensor chip" Anal Biochem 2000, 280(1):29–35). Thus, as is the case for the Boxer design, ligand-binding reactions are distorted. Additional drawbacks are the relatively slow throughput of the single element flow-cell design, and a large number of false positives produced by the mass-spectrometer detection methodology.
Evanescent wave technology: Evanescent waves are generated when a light wave undergoes total internal reflection at a surface (a junction between two media with different indexes of refraction). A light wave travels through the first media until it encounters the surface boundary, and, at the appropriate angle of incidence (the critical angle), bounces back from the surface and continues traveling through the first media, rather than entering into the second media. Here, a small amount of energy, termed an evanescent wave, penetrates an extremely short distance into the second media, and rapidly decays in intensity as distance from the boundary increases. For optical frequencies and media types commonly used in biological research, the evanescent wave decreases in intensity by about 1/e (that is, about 1/2.71) over a distance of about 260 nm. Thus, over distances of a few hundred nanometers, evanescent wave excitation is a good way to determine the relative distance between an excitable moiety, and a surface boundary.
Evanescence biosensor techniques are known in the art, but have not been generally used for membrane bound analytes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,316,274 teaches multi-analyte biosensor methods using fluorescence moieties excited by evanescence illumination. Other representative prior art includes U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,274,872; 5,512,492; and 6,395,558.
Lipid membrane and liposome technology: As first described by Singer and Nicolson (Science 1972 Feb. 18; 175(23):720–31), biological membranes are composed of a hydrophobic lipid bilayer, with membrane proteins existing as compact "ice berg" like structures floating embedded in this lipid bilayer, which is about 6 nm thick. Due to the weak nature of hydrophobic bonds, lipids and integral membrane proteins are able to move freely (lateral mobility) within the plane of the lipid membrane. In particular, when exposed to forces from external ligands, such as bivalent antibodies, lectins, etc., membrane proteins and other lipid components are able to diffuse together to form "patches" or "caps" on the membrane surface.
Because biological lipid membranes are highly complex structures with many different types of membrane proteins, biochemists and molecular biologists typically find it preferable to work with simplified synthetic lipid membranes, reconstituted from purified components. Such synthetic membranes can be synthesized by simple methods, since they tend to spontaneously form when lipid mixtures (which may also contain membrane proteins) are dissolved in detergents, and the detergent then gradually removed by dialysis or other process. The resulting synthetic membrane structure typically forms as a "soap-bubble-like" structure called a "liposome" or "phospholipid vesicle". The walls of the liposome consist of lipid bilayers, and the membrane proteins typically insert themselves into the artificial lipid bilayer with the correct, or nearly correct, conformation. Depending upon the synthetic process, liposomes can be formed with diameters ranging from about 50 nm to 5,000+ nm.
Artificial liposomes (phospholipid vesicles) containing lipids and protein can be created by a number of methods, including cadmium synthesis (Thromb Haemost 1980 Aug. 29; 44(1): 12–5); dialysis against octyl glucoside (Biochemistry 1986 Jul. 15; 25(14): 4007–20); deoxycholate (Biochem J 1977 Jul. 1; 165(1): 89–96), and numerous other methods.
Membrane proteins: Many biologically relevant proteins are transmembrane proteins. These proteins exist embedded in membrane lipid bilayers, and typically can best be studied while associated with intact membranes. These transmembrane proteins include the 7-transmembrane proteins (reviewed by Kilpatrick et. al. J Cell Sci 2001 February;114(Pt 4):629–41), and their medically relevant subfamily, the G-protein cell receptors (GPCR family), (reviewed by Woodside, Sci STKE 2002 Mar. 19;2002(124):PE14). Other relevant transmembrane proteins include the integrin family, the cadherin family (reviewed by Angst, et. al, J Cell Sci 2001 February;114(Pt 4):629–41), and many others.
ADMET assays: The current art in in-vitro ADMET assays is described by Darvas and Dorman in High-Throughput ADMETox Estimation: In Vitro & In Silico Approaches, (2002) BioTechniques Press, Eaton Publishing, Westborough, Mass.
An ideal membrane receptor microarray would be both physiologically realistic and biochemically well defined. To do this, an ideal microarray should present membrane targets in an environment that, from both sides of the lipid bilayer, enables receptor binding proteins and other cofactors to interact in a normal manner. Additionally, an ideal membrane microarray should be able to detect the binding reactions between large numbers of different low molecular weight drug candidate ligands, and different membrane receptors. Finally, an ideal membrane receptor microarray should function using ultra-small quantities of candidate drug ligands, and ideally also be reusable.


A display panel with reduced power consumption is described. An example of the display panel includes an array of light emitting elements that are controllable to form an image, and a Thin-Film-Transistor (TFT) backplane comprising circuitry to drive the array of light emitting elements. The TFT backplane includes a plurality of field effect transistors (FETs). Each FET includes a source electrode, a drain electrode, a channel layer contacting the source electrode and the drain electrode, and a gate electrode adjacent to the channel layer and separated from the channel layer by an insulator. The channel layer includes a layer of metal phosphide.

Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) and displays based on light-emitting diodes (LEDs) such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and/or inorganic micro light-emitting diodes (also referred to as micro LEDs or μLEDs) may be used for applications in emerging portable electronics and wearable computers (for example, head mounted displays, head worn displays, wristwatches, wearable watch displays, Virtual Reality displays, Augmented Reality displays, OLED displays, micro LED displays, etc). One consideration in the design of such electronic devices is power savings. Power savings is particularly important for mobile devices, due to the limited power storage capacity. The display may consume a considerable portion of the total power consumption of any electronic device.
The same numbers are used throughout the disclosure and the figures to reference like components and features. Numbers in the 100 series refer to features originally found in FIG. 1; numbers in the 200 series refer to features originally found in FIG. 2; and so on.

Display panel with reduced power consumption


A beverage dispenser system includes a dispensing valve and an additive injector assembly linked with the dispensing valve. The additive injector assembly includes an injector unit for introducing additive flavoring to beverage fluid passing through the additive injector assembly from the dispensing valve. Moreover, a nozzle assembly linked with the additive injector assembly is provided by the beverage dispenser system for receiving beverage fluid and additive flavoring from the additive injector assembly. A base beverage with additive flavoring is thus dispensed from the beverage dispenser system via the nozzle assembly.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to dispensing equipment and, more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to an additive injector assembly for introducing additive flavoring to a base beverage dispensed from a beverage dispenser.
2. Description of the Related Art
Beverage dispensers provide a wide variety of beverages by combining beverage fluids. Typically, concentrate is combined with diluent to form a beverage of choice or "base beverage". For example, juice, coffee, and punch concentrate is combined with water as the diluent so that a beverage dispenser may provide juice, coffee, and punch therefrom, respectively. Similarly, cola flavored beverage flavored syrup is combined with carbonated water as the diluent to obtain a cola flavored carbonated beverage.
Specifically, concentrate and diluent beverage fluids are each drawn from a respective beverage fluid source by a pump. Each beverage fluid is carried by a separate beverage fluid line from the beverage fluid source to a dispensing valve assembly. Beverage fluids are then combined as they pass through a nozzle assembly provided by the dispensing valve assembly to form the base beverage.
Increasing consumer demands for convenience, personalized service, and expediency now require that beverage dispensers provide additive flavoring or "condiments" for the base drink dispensed, such as cream for coffee as well as cherry, vanilla or chocolate flavoring to be added to cola to create an old fashioned, soda fountain-style beverage. Unfortunately, as evidenced in prior art, past attempts to satisfy these consumer demands has imposed unreasonable economic burdens on the industry in terms of manufacturing and maintaining such condiment dispensing beverage dispensers.
In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 2,880,912, which issued to Fisher and is entitled "System for Dispensing Flavored Beverages", and U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,997, which issued to Forsythe and is entitled "Beverage Dispensing Apparatus", each provide a highly specialized beverage dispenser for dispensing condiments. Costs are higher for manufacturing this specialty item apart from standard beverage dispensers. Moreover, standard beverage dispenser owners must undergo added expenses of purchasing another beverage dispenser only for the option of providing condiments for a base beverage.
Furthermore, current beverage dispensers that dispense condiments unfavorably feature exposed parts, such as the Forsythe application as well as U.S. Pat. No. 2,949,933, which issued to Adler and is entitled "Dispensing Machines". If not properly maintained, dirt, grime, and potentially hazardous microorganisms can accumulate on these exposed parts, thereby compromising the health of consumers.
Accordingly, there is a long felt need for a low cost, low maintenance additive injector that integrates with existing beverage dispensers for delivering condiments thereto.

Additive injector for a dispensing valve


A method processes a data packet in a first sequence of disjoint original segments of the same length. The method includes modifying a first of the original segments of the first sequence by modifying one or more symbols therein. A start of the data packet is located in the first of the original segments and is positioned after a first digital data symbol therein. The method also includes modifying a last of the original segments of the first sequence by modifying one or more digital data symbols therein. An end of the data packet is located in the last of the original segments and is located before the last digital data symbol therein. The method also includes determining a remainder sequence by effectively performing a polynomial division on a second sequence of disjoint segments that are derived from the first sequence. Each segment of the second sequence corresponds to and is derived from one of the original segments of the first sequence. The segments of the second sequence have the length of the original segments of the first sequence. A first of the derived segments of the second sequence is the modified first of the original segments. A last of the derived segments of the second sequence is derived from the modified last of the original segments.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to detecting transmission related errors in a packet-based communication system.
2. Discussion of Art
This section introduces various aspects that may aid the reader in obtaining a better understanding of various aspects of the inventions and should not be understood to include statements about what is prior art or what is not prior art.
One goal of communication systems is to ensure that messages received by intended recipients are unaltered copies of the transmitted messages. For that reason, communication systems often employ error detection techniques that enable a recipient to determine whether a received message was altered during transmission. One technique for detecting channel-induced message errors is based on a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) code. A CRC code typically transforms a sequence of digital data symbols, e.g., representing a data message, to produce a sequence of digital check symbols. The sequence of digital check symbols is transmitted with the sequence of digital data symbols and a recipient uses the sequence of digital check symbols to evaluate whether the received sequence of digital data symbols is the same sequence that was originally transmitted.
Some systems generate such a sequence of digital check symbols and detect transmission errors from the transmitted sequence of digital check symbols by using a feedback shift register. For example, a binary CRC code can be implemented with a shift register that is controlled by feedback via exclusive-OR (XOR) logic. The contents of memory elements of the shift register typically correspond to a remainder sequence that is produced by the division of the sequence of digital data symbols by a fixed generator polynomial. The remainder sequence is typically appended to the end of the sequence of digital data symbols for transmission to recipients of the data packet. In such systems, the remainder sequence is typically serially computed on a bit-by-bit basis prior to transmission of the data packet.

Method and apparatus for error detection in a communication system


Enclosed is a self-powered telescoped ammunition revolver gun, including a frame which mounts a revolver cylinder having circumferentially spaced chambers and a cylindrical exterior surface on which is formed at least two U-shaped open cam channels, each having forward facing open entrance and exit ends spaced apart by the same angular distance as the chambers. First and second elongated drive cylinders extend forward from the frame on separate axes disposed outboard of the revolver cylinder and circumferentially spaced apart by their same angular distance as the chambers. Each drive cylinder mounts a spring loaded operating rod having a gas piston at its forward end and an exposed cam driver/follower proximate its rear end for successively engaging the U-shaped open cam channels to rotate the revolver cylinder and drive the gun as the rod reciprocates linearly in its drive cylinder. Gas channeling and diverting means is coupled between the gun barrel and the forward ends of the drive cylinders for tapping gas from the barrel bore and alternately directing the gas to the first and second drive cylinders responsive to the firing of successive rounds and to the rotary position of the revolver cylinder.

Conventional military revolver guns such as the M 39 20 mm self-powered revolver gun rely on a gas actuated piston to move an elongated cam which engages a series of cam followers attached to the revolver cylinder. Some revolver gun designs use a full parabolic cam with spring loaded cam followers and others use "half-cams" and a switch mechanism to select different cam followers during recoil and counter-recoil.
Also, the typical revolver gun fires conventionally shaped ammunition, with the typical revolver cylinder chamber including the profile of the ammunition case and a short forward section of reduced straight bore diameter to accommodate the projectile of the round. When the normal revolver gun is fired, the projectile travels the short distance of straight bore at the forward end of the revolver chamber before it "jumps the gap" and enters the actual barrel. The hot, burning propellant gasses follow the base of the projectile and "wash" on the straight bore section of the revolver chamber. At sustained firing rates, the revolver cylinder gets very hot because of this gas wash with serious potential for causing premature detonation of rounds, referred to as "cook-off". To maintain barrel gas pressure and projectile velocity, as well as to avoid undesirable emission of large amounts of barrel gasses at the revolver cylinder, in the typical revolver gun the gap between the revolver cylinder and the rear end face of the barrel must be sealed by a separate delicate component that causes extra machining expense, extra maintenance and can be troublesome operationally.
The geometry of normal revolver guns is such that a fired conventional ammunition case must be extracted out the rear of the revolver chamber and be clear of the area before significant rotation of the revolver cylinder is possible. For high firing rates the conventional revolver gun relies upon high velocity ejection and high velocity ramming of new rounds into the revolver chambers by complex mechanisms responsive to the gas actuated piston and associated operating rod and cams. Further, the typical revolver gun requires high velocity charging to initially load the revolver cylinder in preparation for firing, a further complication.
In the past few years there has been increasing interest in the advantages offered by cylindrically cased telescoped ammunition rounds, and various gun mechanisms have been proposed for firing such rounds: See, for example, the gun mechanism shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,791,851. However, so far as is known, revolver guns have not been adapted to the use of cylindrically cased telescoped ammunition rounds, except by the present invention. Although they provide significant advantages, such telescoped ammunition rounds require gentler handling by the gun mechanism than do conventional rounds.
In accordance with the present invention, a self-powered revolver gun is provided which is lighter weight, significantly less complex, more reliable, and capable of higher sustained firing rates than a conventional revolver gun while also having the advantage of firing telescoped ammunition rounds.
Also, the gun design, according to the present invention, provides a revolver gun having considerable advantages in various applications as compared to present conventional machine guns which fire conventional ammunition of the same caliber.
For example, by comparison with a Browning M2 HB (0.50 CAL) Machine Gun, a corresponding revolver gun of the present design firing the same caliber projectiles in cylindrically cased telescoped ammunition, is much more compact, much lighter weight, has a significantly higher rate of fire, an equal or higher muzzle velocity and about one-third fewer parts. Moreover, there is a large reduction in ammunition weight for the same number of ammunition rounds. These factors can be very significant for guns mounted on helicopters, for example.
For general reference, a cylindrical, plastic cased telescoped ammunition round is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,770,098.