An assembly for joining ends of a drive track of an endless track drive system includes at least one connector member or connector member belt situated within the endless drive track, one or two retaining rods situated between abutting ends of the endless drive track, and a master link with a one-piece upper part and a one-piece lower part. The connector member(s) or connector member belt(s) is situated within the endless drive track in such a way that substantially parallel lengths of the connector member(s) or connector member belt(s) extend longitudinally of the endless drive track and loops of the connector member(s) or connector member belt(s) extend from ends of the endless drive track. The loops extending from abutting ends of the endless drive track are looped around an individual retaining rod, or two different retaining rods, and the retaining rod(s) and loops are sandwiched between the upper and lower master link parts by a fastening device which holds the upper and lower master link parts to one another. The retaining rod(s) is circumferentially grooved and connector member loops are disposed within the groove(s) so as to lie below the outer circumferential surface of the retaining rod(s), such that compression is exerted by the master link upon the retaining rod(s) and not upon the connector member loops. The simplified, high strength joint assembly can be utilized for interconnecting one or more drive track modules to form an endless drive track.

The present invention relates to an endless track drive system, and particularly to an assembly for joining ends of a drive track utilized in an endless track drive system. Endless track drive systems are used on vehicles such as tractors, bulldozers and tanks.
Many efforts have been made to improve endless track drive systems. In Edwards U.S. Pat. No. 4,093,318, issued June 6, 1978 (fully incorporated herein by reference), an endless track drive system is disclosed and claimed which includes a plurality of endless track drive sections, each section having a substantially flat contact surface and sloped surfaces to distribute weight and shed dirt and other foreign objects. Although U.S. Pat. No. 4,093,318 represented a marked improvement in endless track drive systems existing prior to that time, the pivotal means of connecting the endless track drive sections was subject to excessive wear, and the endless track drive system there disclosed continued to be excessively difficult and time-consuming to make, install and repair. It was further found that dirt and foreign objects continued to interfere with proper operation of the endless track drive system, although again not to the extent of track drive systems existing prior thereto.
In further recent developmental work, Edwards and his partners/co-inventors Harper and McNew have further improved upon the endless track drive system disclosed in Edwards U.S. Pat. No. 4,093,318. Their U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,569,561 issued Feb. 11, 1986, and 4,616,883 issued Oct. 14, 1986 (both fully incorporated herein by reference), disclose and claim an endless track drive system made up of a number of drive sections interconnected by cable connector sections As there disclosed, the drive sections have sloping sides with removable rubber wear pads, and the cable connector sections include cables encased in rubber or other similar suitable material As a result of such features, the endless track drive system disclosed and claimed therein experiences improved flexibility and tensile strength, reduced noise, and reduced maintenance. The detrimental effects of dirt and debris are likewise mitigated.
Despite the marked improvement in endless track drive systems resulting from the recent work of Edwards, Harper and McNew, as represented in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,569,561 and 4,616,883, there remained a need for simplification in the manufacture and use of even that improved endless track drive system. Furthermore, there remained a need for higher strength connector sections, since those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,569,561 and 4,616,883 experienced undue stress and fatigue at bolt and nut fasteners 38, 40 thereof.


An improved patient transfer and toileting sling comprising an additional flap 3 fabric and adjustment strap 4. The additional fabric and adjusting means allows for enhanced security during transfers and can be easily and quickly removed to facilitate access to patient's clothing during toileting. Adjustment buckles 6 allow the sling to be secured and fitted around a patient's bottom for enhanced comfort and security during transfers. They can also be used to secure the additional flap 3 fabric up and out of the way during toileting to allow for improved access to a patient's clothing.

1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to disabled patient lifting slings used with mechanical patient lifts, specifically to such slings used for toileting.
2. Description of Prior Art
Slings used for toileting of disabled individuals, commonly referred to as "split" slings, often consist of a generally U-shaped fabric, as shown in FIG. 1. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional split sling 1 is a substantially U-shaped fabric comprising a central span 2 that serves as a back support section and substantially vertical fabric 8 extending from either side of the central span and substantially perpendicularly to the central span. The vertical fabric 8 is placed under the thighs of the patient and comes up between the legs of the patient, as illustrated in FIGS. 2 & 3. Referring to FIGS. 2 & 3, leg straps 11 extend from the ends of vertical fabric 8 and connect to a lifting device 13. The purpose of the sling is to provide a safe and secure means of transferring a disabled individual to a toilet, while also providing access for lowering clothing so that toileting can be effected. These two primary purposes of the sling are to some degree conflicting as will be explained below. It is also desirable to be able to place the sling on someone who is already sitting in a wheelchair without having to first raise the person out of the chair to place the sling underneath them.
To effect toileting, which requires partial removal of clothing, it is desirable to maximize access to the persons' clothing by leaving their buttocks area maximally exposed and accessible. However this is in conflict with the need to transfer them safely and securely from a wheelchair to the toilet, since the larger the opening in the sling to provide access to clothing, the less support the sling provides and the greater the tendency for a patient to slide through the sling, as illustrated in FIG. 4. In addition, the large variation in body shapes and sizes among the disabled patient population requires that there be a range of sling sizes available to accommodate this variation. An individual patient may therefore be assigned a sling that is not optimally sized for them specifically, which may further increase the tendency to slide through the sling or alternatively may not provide sufficient access to clothing. The need to stock a wide variety of sling sizes is also an added cost for health care facilities. The need to select a sling for an individual patient creates an opportunity for an incorrect selection to be made, increasing the risk to the patient. In addition, since toileting is after time-sensitive, it is necessary to be able to place the sling and effect the transfer in a minimum amount of time.
While this field contains considerable prior art, these slings have proven inadequate. U.S. Pat. No. 7,624,458 B2 to Felling describes a conventional "split" transfer sling design. While this design of split sling does provide increased support underneath the patient's buttocks to minimize the tendency for the patient to slide through the sling, the opening in this type of sling does not provide sufficient access to clothing to effect lowering/removal of the clothing for toileting.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,289,534 B1 to Hakamiun and U.S. Pat. No. 5,530,975 A to Firebaugh show a lift using a similar conventional "split" transfer sling with insufficient access to clothing.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,883,190 B2 to Carbonneau presents a variation on a "split" sling with additional patient securing means, but it also does not provide for clothing accessibility.
U.S. Pat. No. D602224 S1 to Liljedahl describes a conventional "split" toileting sling. The opening in this sling is enlarged to allow the patient's buttocks to protrude through the sling and allow better access to the patient's clothing. Great care must be used however to prevent the patient from slipping through the sling. The sling must therefore be sized and carefully adjusted to the individual patient, requiring additional time and a well trained nursing staff. Even so, patients with poor body tone tend to slip through the opening.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,530,975 A to Hickerson attempts to improve the access to clothing by using a support strap just behind the knees and a support strap which is cinched around the patient's waist along with supports underneath the armpits to prevent the patient from sliding down. While providing good access to clothing, this sling design is uncomfortable and impractical for a wide variety of patients, particularly those without good muscle tone. U.S. Pat. No. 6,578,210 B2 to Erickson describes a similar two-piece sling. It also concentrates the lifting force on relatively small areas and is therefore uncomfortable and only suitable for individuals with good muscle tone.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,944,057 A to Shaw is typical of solid-bottomed slings with an aperture to facilitate toileting. While these address the issue of the tendency of patients to slide through conventional "split" toileting slings, they do not provide access to clothing.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,945,975 B2 to Clifford and U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,778 A to Cohen describe vests worn by a patient having handholds for lifting a patient. This approach requires the patient to wear an additional garment of clothing of the appropriate size.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,214,945 B2 to Simon and U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,538 A to Fulford describe complicated and expensive mechanical frames that are fitted to an individual and then connected to a lifting apparatus. The rigid design presents difficulty in terms of initially placing the patient in the fixture.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,192,534 B1 to Restivo and U.S. Pat. No. 7,287,288 B2 to Simon use a frame with pads to squeeze the patient's sides underneath the arm pits and leg supports behind the knees.
The design is not suitable for patients with breathing difficulties.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,435,863 to Lerich describes a transporting device consisting of a pivoting chest pad to which the patient is strapped. The patient is transferred in a bent-over orientation and pivoted down onto a receiving surface. The design results in part of the weight being carried on the patient's chest, making it inappropriate for patients with breathing difficulties, who use ventilators or who wear cervical spine stabilization devices.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,581,222 B1 to Liljedahl describe a back support sling used with standing aid lifters. These do offer good clothing access but are not suitable for amputees or individuals who can not bear weight on their legs.


A consolidating device for an additive manufacturing system is provided. The consolidating device includes at least one first energy beam generator, at least one second energy beam generator, at least one first lens, at least one second lens, and at least one reflective element. The first energy beam generator is configured to generate a first energy beam. The second energy beam generator is configured to generate a second energy beam. The first lens has a first entrance pupil and is positioned between the first energy beam generator and the layer of material. The second lens has a second entrance pupil and is positioned between the first lens and the layer of material. The first entrance pupil and the second entrance pupil substantially overlap. The reflective element is positioned between the first lens and the second lens, and is configured to reflect the second energy beam onto the layer of material.

The field of the disclosure relates generally to additive manufacturing systems and, more particularly, to methods and systems for fabricating a component using a consolidating device including multiple energy beam generators sharing lenses.
At least some additive manufacturing systems involve the buildup of a particulate material to make a component. Such techniques facilitate producing complex components from expensive materials at a reduced cost and with improved manufacturing efficiency. At least some known additive manufacturing systems, such as Direct Metal Laser Melting (DMLM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS), and LaserCusing® systems fabricate components using a focused energy source, such as a laser device or an electron beam generator, a build platform, and a particulate, such as, without limitation, a powdered metal. (LaserCusing is a registered trademark of Concept Laser GmbH of Lichtenfels, Germany.) The focused energy source device melts the particulate material on the build platform in and around the area where the focused energy source is incident on the particulate material, resulting in at least one melt pool in a process known as "scanning." Each melt pool cools and consolidates to form at least a portion of the next layer in the build process.
In at least some DMLM systems, the laser beam or electron beam is directed across a layer of powder to sinter and melt the desired pattern in the layers of the powder bed. The typical scanning time for such systems per layer is in the range of 70-100 seconds. For certain parts, the build time requires days of processing time, at least partially due to the need to scan both simple, open areas and complex, contoured areas of a component. The time required to scan the component per layer prevents significant cost benefits associated with additive manufacturing from being fully realized. Additionally, at least some DMLM systems utilize a plurality of laser devices arranged to scan different portions of the component surface to decrease scanning times for each layer, but the energy and mechanical requirements of operating all of the laser devices decreases the cost savings and efficiency associated with the DMLM system.

System and methods for fabricating a component using a consolidating device


The present invention relates to a compressed sensing apparatus for compressed sensing of a set function consisting of a plurality of input sets containing a group of data. The apparatus includes: a plurality of sensing units acquiring a group of sampling data representing a plurality of sampling sets selected out of the plurality of input sets; a compression and computation unit enabling a compression to the group of data based on the group of sampling data in accordance with a Fourier basis set generated on the basis of the plurality of input sets and sampling sets, and a computation to compute a Fourier coefficient set based on a sparse regression technique which is in relation with the Fourier basis set; and a reconstruction unit predicting the group of data based on the Fourier coefficient set.

In the state of the art, the compressed sensing, which is also referred to as the compressive sensing, the compressive sampling, or the sparse sampling, is a signal processing technique that is capable of efficiently reconstructing and estimating a population consisting of original signals based on very few sampling signals concluded as a subset of a set function forming the population. In alternative, the compressed sensing is defined as a mathematical issue to find solutions to the underdetermined linear system. It magically exploits the sparsity of sampling signals to recover and predict original signals depending upon a few of sampling signals.
Due to its powerful potential to reduce to practice and strong utility applicable to various industries of, such as, information & communication, computation, electronics and electrical engineering, etc., the compressive sensing technique has been widely applied in various fields, such as, image processing, signal processing and computation, to manage a verity of issues such as, imaging, image compression, underdetermined linear system, group testing, heavy hitters, sparse coding, multiplexing, and sparse sampling, inverse problem, design of radiating systems, design of radar system, design of antenna, computational photography, etc.
However, although the compressed sensing seems quite efficient and feasible for most circumstances in various technical fields, it is yet to deal with a set function, values, data or signals in a set or concluded as a set function, and certainly fails to deal with practical engineering issues defined and described via a set function. For instance, when a compressed sensing technique is applied to a set function concludes lot of signals or data acquired from N input sets that are respectively corresponded to multiple sensors discretely distributed within a specific geographical or environmental area. Under such circumstance, the total number of possible output values n for a set function is as large as n=2N.
In the above set-function case, it is apparent the number of input sets N is easy to be increased up to over 100 in reality world. For example, it is easily necessary to deploy 100 or more monitoring sensors over such a relatively large area for an oceanic monitoring application. In consequence, the total number of possible output values n or namely the size of the set function is rapidly expanded over 30 orders of magnitude (of 1×1030) that is undoubtedly a huge amount of numbers at all, for which the current technologies of data storage and computation can hardly or impossibly manage, and the compressed sensing schemes in the prior art fail to deal with such cases as well.
Hence, there is a need to solve the above deficiencies/issues.

Compressed sensing apparatus, system and method for processing signals in set function


A vehicle powered by a fuel cell power plant to conserve water includes a fuel cell to generate electricity and at least one of water or water vapor. The vehicle further includes one or more electric motors operatively coupled to the fuel cell to receive the electricity and propel the vehicle and an auxiliary system operatively coupled to the fuel cell to utilize the at least one of the water or water vapor generated by the fuel cell.

A vehicle uses a power plant, such as an internal combustion engine, to burn fuel, creating emissions, heat and output rotational power. The output rotational power is provided to a drivetrain and used to propel the vehicle. Vehicles can include other auxiliary systems, such as sprayers and concrete mixers, that require water to operate.


A system for routing a food product using an image of the food product, according to one embodiment, includes a processor and logic integrated with and/or executable by the processor. The logic is configured to cause the processor to receive an image of a food product, receive an environmental condition on or near the food product. evaluate the food product using the image and the environmental condition and determine a delivery destination for the food product based at least in part on the evaluation of the food product.

The use of photo analytics offers significant advantages for food quality assurance, as much of the current practice includes visual inspection. The challenge for visual inspection of fresh food is twofold: first, the inspector must be highly trained to identify the visual feedback, and interpret according to the specific of the food type and possible variety specifics, and second, the inspector needs to be as objective as possible to enable consistent evaluation across different inspectors potentially in different environments. The use of photo analytics can improve upon inspector visual inspection, by performing consistent evaluations from images of food products. However, the image capture may not be consistent due to a number of potential factors, such as (but not limited to) lighting of the food product, camera filters or optical biases, background color influences, air borne particle interference, non-visible light variability, the type of camera used, and so on.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A modified cellulose has a structure represented by the formula ##STR1## Cell is the framework of the unmodified cellulose molecule or of the chitin molecule, in each case without hydroxyl groups. Z is a nitrogen or sulfur atom. In the case where Z is a nitrogen atom, T and Z together are an acylamide or urea group and Q is (X'-Y') and/or together with the O an ester group and/or together with the O a carbamate group. In the case where Z is a sulfur atom, T is omitted and Q together with the O is an ester group and/or together with the O a carbamate group and, as desired, (X'--Y'). The relationships 0<n<m and 0.ltoreq.s<m are obeyed and (n+s) indicates the mean degree of substitution. m=3 in the case of the unmodified cellulose molecule and m=2 in the case of the chitin molecule. As desired, --X-- can be omitted or --X-- and --X'-- denote specific divalent groups and --Y and --Y' denote --H and/or specified univalent radicals and X is identical to or different from X' and Y is identical to or different from Y' .

U.S. Pat. No. 4,278,790 discloses cellulose solutions using lithium chloride and dimethyl acetamide as solvent. The solutions can contain up to 8% of lithium chloride and up to about 3% of cellulose. It is also possible to prepare cellulose derivatives in these cellulose solutions. According to this patent, the solutions are prepared by introducing cellulose into a mixture of dimethyl acetamide and lithium chloride and initially heating the mixture at about 150.degree. C. for an extended period. Subsequently, the solution which has then formed is cooled to room temperature, while stirring.
In addition German Offenlegungsschrift 3,312,022 and German Offenlegungsschrift 3,246,417 disclose cellulose ester filaments which are insoluble in water. They have an extremely high adsorptive capacity for water and physiological fluids. This may be an advantage for some areas of use but for many it is a disadvantage.
German Patent 2,705,735 discloses a dialysis membrane for hemodialysis, having antithrombogenic compounds chemically bonded thereto, the dialysis membrane consisting of two or more layers of a cellulose regenerated from cuprammonium cellulose solution, each of which has been obtained from separately fed orifices of a spinneret, which cellulose contains chemically bonded substances having antithrombogenic activity.
However, it has also been proposed in German Offenlegungsschrift 1,720,087 that by reacting the polymeric material of the membrane with an alkyl halide and then reacting the resulting material with an alkali metal salt of an anti-thrombogenic compound having a cationic residue (for example heparin or a heparinoid compound) the risk of blood coagulation is diminished. The possible alkyl halides in this context also include haloalkyldialkylamines. Moreover cellulose, but most importantly cellulose acetate, is among the possible polymers.
An antithrombogenic effect of these known dialysis membranes is observed only when the degree of substitution of the modified cellulose is high, i.e., greater than at least 0.1, and a preheparinization with a relatively high heparin concentration (0.1 to 1% by weight solutions) is carried out in separate stage.
German Offenlegungsschrift 3,524,596 discloses a dialysis membrane with improved biocompatibility, which is distinguished in that the mean degree of substitution of a modified cellulose is 0.02 to 0.07. The known dialysis membrane composed of modified cellulose preferably contains such a modified cellulose which has a structure represented by the formula EQU cellulose-R'-X-Y
where
X represents --NR"-- and/or --N.sup.+ R".sub.2- and/or --S-- and/or --SO-- and/or --SO.sub.2 -- and/or --CO--NR--and/or --CO--O-- and/or --0--, Y represents --R and/or --NR.sub.2 and/or --Si(OR").sub.3 and/or --SO.sub.3 H and/or --COOH and/or --PO.sub.3 H.sub.2 and/or --N.sup.+ HR.sub.2 and the salts thereof, R' represents an alkylene group and/or cycloalkylene group and/or arylene group having a total of 1 to 25 C atoms, R" represents a hydrogen atom or R, and R represents an alkyl group having 1 to 5 C atoms and/or a cycloalkyl group and/or aryl group.
This known dialysis membrane is capable of reducing to a considerable extent blood coagulation, leukopenia and complement activation. However, no noteworthy extent of adsorption of beta-2-microglobulin has been detected.
German Patent Application P 3,723,897.3 describes cellulose derivatives having the general formula ##STR2## in which --Z-- denotes an alkylene, alkenylene, alkynylene, cycloalkylene or benzylene or xylylene radical which may or may not be substituted, X denotes --H, --NR.sub.2, --N.sup.+ R.sub.3, --CN, --COOH, --SO.sub.3 H, --PO(OR).sub.2, --CONR.sub.2 or --Si(OR).sub.3, where R denotes a hydrogen atom or an alkyl or alkenyl group having 1 to 25 C atoms, or a cycloalkyl, toluyl or phenyl group, and Y is an alkyl, alkenyl or alkynyl group, which may or may not be substituted, having 1 to 36 C atoms, a cycloalkyl group or a phenyl, toluyl or benzyl group or a ##STR3## or (--CH.dbd.CH--COOH) or NH--R radical and R has the same meaning, and
r=1-20,
m=0-2.5,
n=0.2 to 2.95, with the proviso that, where m=0, n.gtoreq.1.55 when Y is an alkyl radical having 1--5 C atoms, a --(CH.sub.2).sub.r --COOH radical with r=0, 1 or 2 or a radical of phthalic acid, and the degree of polymerization is more than 400, and which can be prepared by homogeneous reaction in a mixture of dimethyl acetamide and/or N-methylpyrrolidone with LiCl after activation of the cellulose starting material without the presence of LiCl, the preparation thereof and the use thereof for membranes and filaments.
Apart from the circumstance that dialysis membranes composed of synthetic or natural polymers can, when used in artificial kidneys, very easily induce blood coagulation, which is substantially prevented by appropriate drug treatment, in the case of dialysis membranes composed of regenerated cellulose there is frequently a transient fall in leukocytes in the first period of dialysis treatment when a kidney patient is treated with dialyzers having cellulose membranes. This effect is called leukopenia. Leukopenia is a reduction in the number of leukocytes (white blood corpuscles) in the circulating blood. The number of white blood corpuscles in humans is about 4,000 to 12,000 cells/mm.sup.3.
Leukopenia associated with dialysis is most pronounced 15 to 20 minutes after the start, it being possible for the neutrophils (which are the leukocytes which can be stained with neutral or simultaneously with acidic and basic dyes) to disappear almost completely. Subsequently, the number of leukocytes recovers again within about one hour to almost the initial level or exceeds it.
If, after the leukocytes have recovered, a new dialyzer is connected, leukopenia occurs again to the same extent.
Cellulose membranes cause pronounced leukopenia. Even though the clinical significance of leukopenia has not been scientifically elucidated, there is nevertheless a desire for a dialysis membrane for hemodialysis which does not exhibit the leukopenic effect, without this adversely affecting the other very desired properties of dialysis membranes composed of regenerated cellulose.
During hemodialysis using membranes composed of regenerated cellulose, beside the leukopenia there has also been found a distinct complement activation. The complement system within the blood serum is a complex plasma-enzyme system which consists of many components and acts in various ways to prevent damage due to invading foreign cells (bacteria, etc.). When antibodies against the invading organism are present, there can be complement-specific activation by the complex of the antibodies with antigenic structures of the foreign cells, otherwise complement activation takes place by an alternative pathway due to special surface features of the foreign cells. The complement system is based on a multiplicity of plasma proteins. After activation, these proteins react specifically in a defined sequence with one another and, finally, a cell-damaging complex which destroys the foreign cell is formed.
Individual components release peptides which induce inflammatory manifestations and occasionally can also have undesired pathological consequences for the organism. It is assumed that in the case of hemodialysis membranes composed of regenerated cellulose the activation takes place by the alternative pathway. These complement activations are detected objectively by determination of the complement fragments C3a and C5a.
In this context, reference is made to the following studies: D. E. Chenoweth et al., Kidney International vol. 24, pages 746 et seq., 1983 and D. E. Chenoweth, Asaio-Journal vol. 7, pages 44 et seq., 1984.
The carpal tunnel syndrome is affected by modified cellulose derivatives. Yet, there is a considerable need for further modifications of the cellulose in order to eliminate this phenomenon too as completely as possible.

Modified cellulose for biocompatible dialysis membranes


The brush head of the toothbrush has filaments that are pointed at one end and led through clearances in the bristle carrier. These filaments have a length of about 10-20 mm. The tips of the pointed filaments produce a height profile other than that of a plane and the ends of the pointed filaments that are remote from the tips are melted.

The disclosure relates to a brush head for an electric or manual toothbrush and to a method for producing such a brush head.
Electric toothbrushes usually have a handle, in which a motor is accommodated, and a generally exchangeable brush head. A brush head with a bristle carrier which can be driven in a rotationally movable manner is known for example from DE-U 295 20 230. An electric toothbrush of which the brush head is made to vibrate is disclosed by WO 01/28452. Furthermore, electric toothbrushes of which the brush heads perform a pivoting movement about their longitudinal axis in the manner of a rocker are also known, for example from CH 421 049. Known electric toothbrushes have a brush head which is provided with clusters of conventional bristles. These are rounded off at their end to avoid injuries.
Manual toothbrushes with a bristle arrangement which entirely comprises pointed filaments are known for example from EP-A 0 596 633 and DE-U 90 12 603. The pointed filaments serve for the handling or cleaning of fine structures in the surface of the tooth, for example fine cracks, which cannot be effectively treated with conventional cylindrical bristles. Furthermore, thanks to the narrower tips, the pointed filaments penetrate better into the spaces between the teeth and clean them better. Electric toothbrushes with pointed bristles are not known.
However, pointed bristles react poorly to mechanical abrasion in the region of the tip. Under excessive mechanical loading, the tips of these bristles break and may, on the one hand, no longer bring about the cleaning effect and, on the other hand, entail the risk of injuring the gums by the edges and corners that are produced when they break off.

Brush head for a toothbrush and method for producing the brush head


An electromagnet and plunger assembly including a ring-shaped solenoid coil having a fixed pole component which extends from the one end into the interior of the solenoid coil. Movable in the axial direction, the plunger extends from the other end into the interior of the solenoid coil. A control device serving the adjustment of the armature pull comprises a sensor element measuring the magnetic induction. The pole component is subdivided in two pole parts which are coaxially nested and between which an annular gap is formed. The annular gap is sealed with a magnetically nonconductive material on its end facing toward the plunger. The sensor element is located in the annular gap in the interior of the solenoid coil.

The invention concerns an electromagnet with a plunger. An electromagnet of this type is known from the German Patent No. 27 20 877 (GB 1571769) and serves preferably as the control of a hydraulic pressure control valve. The control device of the prior art, as well as of the electromagnet of the present invention serves the automatic adaptation of the magnetic force to a set value. The adaptation is to occur independently from the travel, i.e., of the position of the plunger within its stroke length. To that end, a measured value representing the current magnetic induction is transmitted to the control device, the measurement being performed by the sensor mentioned in the preamble of claim 1. The measured value and the set value are compared with each other in the control device; in case of a variation between the measured value and the set value, the control device automatically triggers a change of the excitation current, in such a way that the measured value will approach the set value.
In the prior electromagnet, the sensor element is arranged in the working air gap, that is, between the movable plunger and the fixed pole component. The advantage of this arrangement is constituted by the fact that the active area of the sensor element (which preferably is fashioned by a Hall generator) will be passed by the magnetic flow perpendicularly. The active area of the sensor element is the plane in which the charge carriers move, and this plane is located parallel to the working gap. Under these conditions, the induction measured in the gap has an optimum correlation to the magnetic force. Therefore, this prior arrangement of the sensor element provides optimum prerequisites for enabling the said control device to fulfill the purpose described above. However, a disadvantage of the prior arrangement of the sensor element is that it is located at a point where it is mechanically rather vulnerable and where, under certain conditions, it is exposed to an aggressive fluid ingressing from the pressure control valve.
An attempt at solving this problem is known from German Patent disclosure 36 05 216. It arranges the sensor element sideways and outside the interior space enveloped by the solenoid coil, and at that, in the area of that end face of the coil from which the plunger extends into the interior of the coil. The sensor element is located there in an area which is sealed against fluid access. However, this arrangement of the sensor element is associated with the disadvantage that not only the useful magnetic flux relevant for the onset of the magnetic force is measured but also a so-called stray flux, the magnitude of which depends on the current width of the air gap. Said stray flux decreases with a reduction of the air gap. Once the control device goes into action, this causes an undesirable contingency of the magnetic flux (and thus of the magnetic force) on the width of the air gap between the plunger and pole component.
Therefore, the problem underlying the invention is to improve the electromagnet known from the German Patent document 27 20 877 to the effect that the sensor element can be accommodated at a location which is safer than heretofore, and at that, without losing the previous advantage that the magnetic flux (and thereby the magnetic force) can be measured with high accuracy. Specifically sought is the avoidance of an adulteration of the measuring result by a so-called stray flux.
In other words, according to the invention, an annular gap subdivides the pole component in two pole component parts which essentially lie coaxially with one another and are magnetically insulated from each other. As a result, a rather exactly radial direction of the magnetic flux results in the annular gap, which now accommodates the sensor element. The latter is so inserted in the annular gap that its active surface lies parallel to the annular gap. As a result, the active surface of the sensor, in turn, is passed perpendicularly by the magnetic flux.
Furthermore, the sensor element (compared to the German Patent Disclosure 36 05 216) lies no longer in the area of that end of the solenoid coil from which the plunger extends into the interior of the coil. Instead, the sensor element now is located in the area of the opposite end of the solenoid coil, i.e., where the fixed pole component extends into the interior of the solenoid coil. All of these measures cause the sensor element (which preferably is fashioned as a Hall generator) to be passed exclusively (or nearly exclusively) by the useful magnetic flux, i.e., by the flux passing through the plunger. Thus, the sensor element is at least extensively free of interfering stray flux. At the same time, in contrast to the German Patent Document 27 20 877, it is located at an extremely well protected point. The risk of injury to the sensor element is now nearly zero. Moreover, the arrangement offers the advantage that the magnetic resistance of the annular gap (which accommodates the sensor element) remains relatively small, due to the rather large cylindrical surface of the annular gap.
Additionally, the sensor element can now be protected from fluids, specifically aggressive fluids. For that purpose, the annular gap will be sealed at the end of the pole component that faces toward the plunger with a nonmagnetic material. This is especially important when the solenoid is used to control a hydraulic pressure control valve and, thus, is installed directly on it.
The annular gap may have various shapes, for instance conical and/or with a shoulder. The cylindrical shape is preferred in order to simplify the manufacture. The clearance of the annular gap can vary across the length of the solenoid but is preferably made constant.
The effect described above, namely measuring on the sensor element the flux passing through the plunger, can be further improved by making the magnetic resistance in the fixed pole component on both sides of the annular gap at least approximately identical, provided the air gap (i.e., the distance between the plunger and the pole component) assumes a minimum value. This adaptation of the magnetic resistance in the two areas of the pole component can be effected in an especially simple way by providing in the plunger a ring-shaped recess in the end face facing toward the fixed pole component. The depth of the recess can be determined by trial or by computation. What can be accomplished thereby is that the magnetic force will be entirely independent of travel. Or, if desired, a specific contingency on travel of the magnetic force can be accomplished.
The above control and the pertaining components are preferably arranged (as known from the German Patent Document 27 20 877) between the outer end face of the pole component and the device to be controlled (for instance the pressure control valve) in a so-called electronic space. The annular space is suitably open toward the electronic space, at least where the sensor element is arranged. This greatly facilitates the assembly of the sensor element and of the pertaining electric lines.


A multi-resolution representation is generated of at least one color component of a color image in a selected color space by applying a decomposition procedure to the color component. The multi-resolution representation(s) is (are) modified by application of at least one non-linear modifying function. Next, modified color component images are generated by applying the inverse of the decomposition step to the modified multi-resolution representations(s).

The present invention relates to a method of enhancing colour images.
Digital radiographic images are acquired with a large dynamic range (usually 12 bits per pixel). Because the human visual system is not able to distinguish all the available grey level differences and because the image has to be brought back to 8 bits per pixel for printing and displaying, post-processing of the image is often necessary.
Multi-resolution image enhancement is being used routinely nowadays for processing of digital radiographs, i.e. for grey tone images. A multi-scale image enhancement method for radiographic images has for example been described in European patent 527 525 and European patent application 1 001 370.
An iterative processing method of the above-described kind has been described in European patent application 610 603.
As acquisition techniques improve for all kinds of images, the need for effective dynamic range compression still increases.
For colour photographic images, especially for those taken in outdoor scenes, one is very often confronted with a very wide dynamic range. When reproduced this often results in an image having areas that are too dark or too light.
Effective dynamic range compression without loss of important information is then required. As many different colours as possible have to be visualised.
Especially for photographic images it is furthermore unacceptable that the applied image processing wound result in an unnatural appearance of the processed colour image
In the article xe2x80x98Multiscale color image enhancementxe2x80x99, by Toet A. in Pattern Recognition Letters, NL, North Holland Publ. Amsterdam, Vol. 13, No. 3, (Mar. 1, 1992), a multiscale image decomposition method has been disclosed for application to color images.
In this method the luminance and saturation components of an image are first decomposed into contrast detail images of different spatial scales. The contrast is defined here as the ratio of the image or a low resolution version of the image and a successive lower resolution version of the image. Next, a new set of multi-scale luminance contrast primitives is then constructed by modulating the original luminance primitives at every location in the image and at every spatial scale by their corresponding saturation contrast primitives. Reconstruction of the color image from the resulting set of multiscale primitives provides a representation of the original image in which local luminance contrast is enhanced at all resolution levels.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for enhancing the image quality of colour images.
The above mentioned object is realised by an image processing method as described in claim 1. Specific features for preferred embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the dependent claims.
The method of the present invention is advantageous in that effective dynamic range compression can be obtained in combination with subtle feature enhancement.
The method of the present invention comprises the steps of
decomposing at least one of the colour component images of a colour image into a multi-resolution image representation comprising bandpass detail images at multiple resolution levels and a residual image,
modifying the multi-resolution image representation of at least one colour component image at at least one resolution level so as to obtain (a) modified multi-resolution image representation(s),
reconstructing said colour component image(s) from the multi-resolution representation(s) by applying a reconstruction algorithm to the residual image and the modified and unmodified bandpass detail images of the respective colour component image(s), said reconstruction algorithm being such that if it were applied to the residual image and unmodified bandpass detail images of a colour component image, the colour component image or an approximation thereof would be obtained.
Preferably the modification is non-linear. At least one non-linear modifying function is applied to the detail image(s)
In a specific embodiment the multi-resolution image representation(s) is/are modified by multiplying the value of a detail image at pixel i and at resolution level j with a factor which is obtained by evaluating a non-linear modifying function in an argument value which depends on pixel values of detail images of said colour components at pixel i and resolution level j.
The multi-resolution image representation(s) is/are for example modified by multiplying the value of a detail image at pixel i and at resolution level j with a factor which is obtained by evaluating a non-linear modifying function in an argument value which depends on pixel values of detail images of said colour components at resolution level j and pixel i.
In one embodiment the multi-resolution representation comprises directional bandpass detail images. The multi-resolution representation is e.g. a multi-resolution gradient representation.
In a specific embodiment the argument of the modifying function is the norm of the colour gradient in a specific pixel and specified resolution level.
The modifying function may for example have the form set out in claim 8. It may depend on a pixel value in the vaginal image.
Further details on the modifying function are described further on.
The colour component images may be defined in a perceptual colour space such as the L, u, v colour space.
A gamut may be defined and the colour component images may be re-scaled to that defined gamut after reconstruction. The gamut may be the gamut of the original image.
The present invention as well as specific and/or preferred embodiments thereof will be explained in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.


A water-glycol hydraulic fluid comprising a higher aliphatic acid in a ratio of 2 to 15% by weight, alkali hydroxide in an amount less than an equivalent amount of the higher aliphatic acid, and an organic alkaline compound containing nitrogen atoms in an amount sufficient to adjust the pH of the whole fluid to 10 to 12 is disclosed.. This hydraulic fluid has excellent wear resistance and also excellent sludge solubility.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a water-glycol hydraulic fluid, or more particularly to a water-glycol hydraulic fluid having high wear resistance and excellent sludge solubility.
2. Description of the Prior Arts
In general, water-glycol hydraulic fluid is widely used as hydraulic fluid for various kinds of equipment such as hydraulic instruments since it is fire resistant or flame retardance. But it has a problem such that its wear resistance is unsatisfactory. It is known that an aliphatic acid can be mixed to the water-glycol hydraulic fluid in order to solve the problem. For example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 59159/1987 discloses that a higher unsaturated aliphatic acid and a higher saturated aliphatic acid are used in combination, and alkali hydroxide in an amount of more than the neutralization equivalent amount is mixed therein to prepare a water-glycol hydraulic fluid with improved wear resistance.
However, in the water-glycol hydraulic fluid with improved wear resistance by addition of a higher unsaturated aliphatic acid, the higher unsaturated aliphatic acid is liable to be deteriorated, and as a result, sludge solubility of the hydraulic fluid is lowered to precipitate a solid material dissolved therein in some cases.


A client on a network includes a file system that includes various non-streamable software applications. A streaming support system in the client enables a streamable software application to be located in the file system and executed in a streaming mode without being isolated from the non-streamable software applications in the file system. Non-streamable software applications can invoke the streamable software application, and vice versa. Multiple streamable software applications can be concurrently located throughout the file system and can be executed in the client in the streaming mode without restriction to any particular portion of the main file system. Streamable applications can be located anywhere in the file system that the corresponding non-streamable versions of the applications would be able to be located. The main file system does not need to contain complete copies of the required files for any streamable applications.

Application streaming is a technique in which a software application is downloaded from a server to a client on a network and executes on the client before the application has been completely downloaded to the client. As an alternative to the conventional ways of installing and executing software, application streaming has numerous benefits, including allowing centralized and streamlined application management and control, lowering application total cost of ownership (TCO), centralized license allocation management and compliance, reducing information technology (IT) operational expenses, improving service levels, and enabling software suppliers to distribute new capabilities for immediate use across an entire network.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,311,221 of Raz et al. ("Raz"), which is incorporated herein by reference, describes various methods of application streaming. As described by Raz, a computer application can be divided into a number of blocks. After a set of initial blocks are delivered to the client, the application begins to execute while additional blocks are streamed to the client in the background.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,574,618 of Eylon et al. ("Eylon"), which is also incorporated herein by reference, describes client-side software that can be used in conjunction with the techniques described in Raz to facilitate application streaming. As described by Eylon, a client system can be provided with streaming support software that establishes a virtual file system ("VFS") on the client, operatively connected to the client's operating system, such that the VFS appears to be a local storage device. The VFS is accessed via a dedicated streaming file system driver (FSD) and is configured as a sparsely populated file system which appears to the operating system to contain the entire set of application files but, in practice, will typically contain only portions of selected files.
In the technique described by Eylon, all streamable files are stored in the VFS, at least partially; the remaining portions of such files are stored on the streaming server. Consequently, all streamable files are isolated from other (non-streamable) files in the client's file system. Other known application streaming techniques all require streamable files to be isolated from non-streamable files, restricting the streamable files to a special package, a VFS, or a predetermined portion of the client's file system at all times. This isolation provides more control over the streaming process at the client. However, it also undesirably prevents streamable applications and non-streamable applications from invoking or cooperating with each other; i.e., the isolation prevents "sharing" between streamable applications and non-streamable applications.
For example, assume a given client includes a non-streamable version of Microsoft Office in its file system and further includes a streamable version of Adobe Acrobat in its VFS. Using current known streaming technology, such as in Eylon, it is impossible in this situation for (non-streamable) Microsoft Office to invoke or otherwise cooperate with (streamable) Adobe Acrobat. For application streaming to become a complete alternative to the conventional way of executing software, it is important for such sharing of streamable applications to be possible.

Method and apparatus for allowing sharing of streamable applications


An audio processing system (100) accepts an audio bitstream having one of a plurality of predefined audio frame rates. The system comprises a front-end component (110), which receives a variable number of quantized spectral components, corresponding to one audio frame in any of the predefined audio frame rates, and performs an inverse quantization according to predetermined, frequency-dependent quantization levels. The front-end component may be agnostic of the audio frame rate. The audio processing system further comprises a frequency-domain processing stage (120) and a sample rate converter (130), which provide a reconstructed audio signal sampled at a target sampling frequency independent of the audio frame rate. By its frame-rate adaptability, the system can be configured to operate frame-synchronously in parallel with a video processing system that accepts plural video frame rates.

Audio and video frame rates (or frame frequencies) used in most commercial applications available today follow separate established industry standards manifesting themselves both in recording and playback software products, hardware components as well as agreed formats for transmitting audio and video between communicating parties. Audio frame rates are typically specific to different coding algorithms and associated with audio sampling frequencies, such as 44.1 and 48 kHz, which are as notorious as the video frame rates 29.97 fps (NTSC) and 25 fps (PAL) in their respective geographical areas; further standard video frame rates include 23.98, 24 and 30 fps, or in a more generalized form 24, 25, 30 fps and (24, 25, 30)×1000/1001 fps. Attempts to unite or harmonize audio frame rates have not yet been successful despite the shift from analogue to digital distribution, which implies that an audio frame (e.g., a packet or a coding unit suitable for transmission over a network) does not in general correspond to an integer number of video frames.
The need to synchronize audiovisual data streams arises continually, as a result of clock drift or when several streams are received from different sources for common processing, editing or splicing in a server, a situation frequently encountered in broadcast stations. In the situation illustrated in FIG. 3, audio frames (A11, A12, . . . in stream S1 and A21, A22, . . . in stream S2) and video frames (V11, V12, . . . in stream S1 and V21, V22, . . . in stream S2) do not match, an attempt to improve the video-to-video synchronicity between the streams by duplicating or rejecting video frames in one of the streams (in an attempt to e.g. splice the streams) typically leads to an audio-to-video asynchronicity within that stream. In general, the asynchronicity persists—at least to some extent—even if corresponding audio frames are deleted or duplicated.
At the cost of more processing, a larger room for maneuver could be created by temporarily decoding the audio during synchronization into a low-level format that is independent of the division into frames, e.g., baseband format, or pulse-code modulation (PCM) resolved at the original sampling frequency. Such decoding however blurs the exact anchoring of metadata to specific audio segments and creates an information loss that cannot be remedied by decoding into a 'perfect' intermediate format. As one example, dynamic range control (DRC) is typically mode-dependent and equipment-dependent, and can therefore be consumed only at the moment of actual playback; a data structure governing the characteristics of DRC throughout an audio packet is difficult to restore faithfully after synchronization has taken place. Hence, the task of preserving metadata of this type past consecutive decoding, synchronization and encoding stages is no simple task if subjected to complexity constraints.
Even more serious difficulties may arise in connection with legacy infrastructure that is designed to carry two-channel PCM signals and is therefore capable of handling multi-channel content only in coded form.
It is certainly more convenient to encode audio and video data frame-synchronously in the sense that data in a given frame exactly correspond to the same time segment in the recorded and coded audiovisual signal. This preserves audio-to-video synchronicity under frame-wise manipulation of an audiovisual stream, i.e., duplication or rejection of one or more entire independent coding units in the stream. The frame lengths available in the Dolby E™ audio format match video frame lengths. With a typical bit rate of 448 kbps, this format was designed primarily for the purpose of professional production, with hard media like digital videocassettes as its preferred storage modality.
There is a need for an alternative audio format suitable for distribution purposes as part of a frame-synchronous audiovisual format (or format family), as well as coding and decoding equipment suitable for use therewith.
All the figures are schematic and generally only show parts which are necessary in order to elucidate the invention, whereas other parts may be omitted or merely suggested. Unless otherwise indicated, like reference numerals refer to like parts in different figures.

Audio decoder utilizing sample rate conversion for audio and video frame synchronization


A system and method for operating a large single engine sweeper includes a transfer case assembly inserted into the chassis drive train of the vehicle on which a package of sweeping equipment is mounted. In road mode operation, power from the chassis engine passes through a chassis automatic transmission, through a transfer case assembly to the differential and real wheel assembly. In sweep mode, power passes from a propel hydraulic motor into the transfer case assembly and then to the differential and real wheel assembly.

Powered mechanical sweepers typically come in three sizes. The smallest size is used for sweeping sidewalks and factory floors. Operators of small sweepers may either walk behind the sweeper or ride on a small seat positioned behind the sweeping mechanism. Medium size sweepers are used for cleaning parking lots and small roads such as private roads or long driveways. Large sweepers are typically found on large public roads or on vast expanses of concrete surfaces such as found in commercial airports.
A medium size sweeper is one in which the sweeper is either pulled behind a tractor or where the sweeping equipment is mounted on the chassis of a small truck. The operator of a medium size sweeper will travel at road speeds to the location to be swept. Once at the location to be swept, the operator of the medium size sweeper engages the sweeping mechanism. With the sweeping mechanism engaged, the operator of the medium size sweeper uses the engine and the transmission of either the tractor or small truck to control both the direction and speed of the sweeper when passing back and forth over the area to be swept. Speed control of the medium sized sweeper over the surface being swept is typically accomplished by the foot pressure applied by the operator of the sweeper on the accelerator pedal or the foot brake to slow the sweeping vehicle using an automotive type friction braking system.
A large size powered sweeper typically includes a dedicated or modified truck chassis. However, the size of the areas to be swept, along with the type and quantity of debris expected to be encountered necessitate the use of large brooms, large fans and the capacity for picking up large pieces of debris along with a debris body for transporting a large amount of swept-up debris. One example of such a large sweeper is the VacAII™ Legacy model sweeper which is manufactured and marketed by the Gradall Division of the Alamo Group, the assignee of this U.S. patent application.
Because of the size of a large sweeper, as distinguished from a medium size sweeper, and the additional power needed to operate the sweeping equipment on large sweepers, prior art large sweepers have typically included two internal combustion engines. One internal combustion engine is the truck chassis engine. As on the medium size sweepers described above, the truck chassis engine is always mechanically connected to the chassis drive train. As will be well understood by those of ordinary skill in the art, attached to the chassis engine is a transmission; typically an automatic transmission. The chassis automatic transmission is connected by a driveshaft to the chassis differential and a rear wheel drive assembly. The chassis differential and the rear wheel drive assembly provide the necessary power to turn the rear wheels. The rear wheels propel the large sweeper to travel both at road speed to the location to be swept and then at sweeping speed over the surface being swept. Thus, whether traveling along a highway or working at a location that needs to be swept, the input by the operator of the sweeper to change the ground speed of the sweeper is by both placing foot pressure on the accelerator pedal to control the engine rpm and the selection of the gear in the chassis automatic transmission.
The second internal combustion engine in a large sweeper, typically referred to as an auxiliary engine, is usually mounted on the vehicle chassis behind the driver's compartment. This second internal combustion engine provides power to the sweeping equipment. When the large sweeper arrives at the large area, runway, or road to be swept, the second internal combustion engine is put into operation. The operator of the vehicle with the sweeping equipment mounted thereon then drives the vehicle over the area to be swept.
The chassis internal combustion engine that comes with the vehicle chassis is used to propel large prior art sweepers using the chassis drive train. In some prior art sweepers, the sweeper moves too fast over the surface being swept. Accordingly, the operator of the sweeper must control the speed of the sweeper by maintaining continuous variable pressure on the brake pedal.
The second internal combustion engine is used to provide the power needed to operate all of the sweeping mechanisms. Unlike the chassis internal combustion engine, the second internal combustion engine typically bears an EPA rating as an off road engine. The second internal combustion engine typically has its own cooling and air intake systems. The fuel tank and batteries for the second internal combustion engine are typically shared with the chassis internal combustion engine. Controls available to the operator provide for operating the variable speed broom motors and some of the sweeping functions; however, most everything regarding the sweeping operation runs at a speed directly proportional to the speed of the second internal combustion engine.
The disadvantages of operating a large sweeper having two internal combustion engines are the large amount of fuel consumed from the operation of two internal combustion engines, the wear and associated maintenance required to keep two internal combustion engines in operating condition as opposed to one internal combustion engine, and the noise and vibration from two internal combustion engines. Such noise and vibration has been shown to result in driver fatigue. In addition, since the brakes which are part of the vehicle chassis assembly are used to control the speed of the large sweeper in sweep mode, more frequent replacement of the brake pads, brake drums or brake rotors on the wheel brakes is required.
Accordingly, there is a need for a large sweeper that reduces fuel consumption, reduces wear and maintenance, reduces noise and vibration, and does not require frequent replacement of part of the wheel brake assemblies.
Attempts have been made to create a street cleaning vehicle with a single engine. One such example is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,073,720 to Vanderlinden. Therein, a power take-off from the chassis transmission is connected to a hydraulic pump. The hydraulic pump is connected to a hydraulic motor which is mounted on and is mechanically connected to the rear chassis differential. Power from the single chassis engine is also used to drive the sweeping equipment mounted on the chassis of the vehicle. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that the system disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,073,720 to Vanderlinden requires modifying the chassis transmission and the rear chassis differential. Such modification of chassis component by a sweeper manufacturer is both expensive and typically voids the warranty on the chassis drive system components by the manufacturer of the vehicle chassis assembly. Because of these problem, the single engine sweeper proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,073,720 to Vanderlinden has not been generally accepted by the sweeper industry in the United States.
Thus, the need still remains in the art for a large sweeper having a single internal combustion engine. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that as more demands are put on a single internal combustion engine in a large sweeper, more control inputs are required of the vehicle operator to manage both the distribution of power between the vehicle and the sweeping equipment while guiding and controlling the speed and the direction of the large sweeper over the large area to be swept. Accordingly, there is an additional need to retain all of the advantages of a large vehicle chassis when not sweeping and to provide a separate system for controlling the speed of the vehicle when sweeping.

System and method for operating a large single engine sweeper


A method for manufacturing curved glass sheet includes the following: an equipment, including a matching first mold core and a second mold core, is provided; a raw glass sheet is provided and placed on the second mold core covering second mold cavity; a pressure is controlled in the first and second mold cavities to a first pressure; the mold cores are closed and heated, to raise the raw glass sheet to a temperature of about glass transition temperature of raw glass sheet; a gas is supplied into the first mold cavity to raise the pressure in the first mold cavity to a second pressure which is greater than first pressure, in which the raw glass sheet is bent to the second forming surface of second mold core under pressure; mold cores are opened and cooled down to obtain the curved glass sheet.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to a method and an equipment for manufacturing a glass sheet, and particularly to a method and an equipment for manufacturing a curved glass sheet.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, curved glass sheets are employed as glazing display panels in electronic devices such as mobile phones. Such curved glass sheets are conventionally produced by gravity bending methods. In a typical gravity bending method, a raw glass sheet is heated to a temperature which is equal to or higher than a glass transition temperature of the raw glass sheet, and then the glass sheet is conveyed to a lower mold having an inner concave surface. The raw glass sheet is pressed to the inner concave surface by gravity to form the curved glass sheet. However, in the gravity bending method, a profile deviation of the curved glass sheet is unduly great. In order to lower the profile deviation of the curved glass sheet, the gravity bent glass sheet supported by the lower mold is further pressed by an upper mold to a desired shape. However, a roughness of the inner and outer concave surfaces of the curved glass sheet is relatively high because an inner concave surface of the obtained curved glass sheet contacts the upper mold, and an outer convex surface of the obtained curved glass sheet contacts the lower mold. Additionally, surface defects on the surfaces of the obtained curved glass sheet are increased due to the contact between the molds and the surfaces of the glass sheet.
Therefore, there is room for improvement within the art.

Method and equipment for manufacturing curved glass sheet

Fu Tai Hua Industry (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.


An adaptive time/frequency-based encoding mode determination apparatus including a time domain feature extraction unit to generate a time domain feature by analysis of a time domain signal of an input audio signal, a frequency domain feature extraction unit to generate a frequency domain feature corresponding to each frequency band generated by division of a frequency domain corresponding to a frame of the input audio signal into a plurality of frequency domains, by analysis of a frequency domain signal of the input audio signal, and a mode determination unit to determine any one of a time-based encoding mode and a frequency-based encoding mode, with respect to the each frequency band, by use of the time domain feature and the frequency domain feature.

1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an audio encoding and/or decoding apparatus and method, and particularly, to an adaptive time/frequency-based audio encoding apparatus and a method of determining an encoding mode of the apparatus, in which time-based encoding or frequency-based encoding is adaptively applied according to a data property, thereby acquiring high compression efficiency with the use of a coding advantage of the time-based and frequency-based encoding modes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional voice/audio compression modes are largely classified into two types. One type is audio codec and the other type is voice codec. The audio codec, such as aacPlus, is an algorithm to compress a signal in a frequency domain, to which a psychoacoustic model is applied. When the audio codec is used to compress a voice signal instead of an audio signal, timbre is deteriorated much more than if the voice signal was compressed with the voice codec mode, even if a same amount of data is encoded. Particularly, there is greater timbre deterioration around a frequency of an attack signal. On the other hand, the voice codec such as AMR-WB is an algorithm to compress a signal in a time domain. When the voice codec is used to compress an audio signal instead of a voice signal, timbre is deteriorated much more than if the audio signal was compressed with audio codec mode, even if a same amount of data is encoded.
Considering the aforementioned conventional problems with the voice/audio compression modes, there has been provided an Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband codec (AMR-WB)+mode (3GPP TS 26,290) as a conventional technology to efficiently perform voice/audio compression simultaneously. In the AMR-WB+mode (3GPP TS 26,290), Algebraic Code Excited Linear Prediction (ACELP) is used to compress a voice, and Transform Coded Excitation (TCX) is used to compress an audio. The AMR-WB+ mode (3GPP TS 26,290) determines whether to apply the ACELP mode or the TCX mode to encode, for each frame. Particularly, the AMR-WB+ mode (3GPP TS 26,290) operates efficiently when compressing an object similar to a voice signal. However, deterioration of timbre or a compression ratio, caused by an encoding process for each frame, occurs when the object to be compressed is similar to an audio signal.
Accordingly, when input audio data is encoded by selectively applying an encoding mode, an encoding mode determination as well as standards associated with the encoding mode determination are very important factors which have a great effect on encoding performance.

Adaptive time and/or frequency-based encoding mode determination apparatus and method of determining encoding mode of the apparatus


A method and apparatus for adding trophy support games that do not have trophies without modifying the original game. The method and apparatus are used to detect particular disk access, use the detected disk access as potential trophy triggers in games, and recognize the triggers while a game is played. Trophies are awarded based on the triggers, and the awarded trophies are stored.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a system and method of awarding trophies in previously released or sold video games, without modifying the original game. More specifically, the present invention relates to defining, detecting and awarding a set of trophies for the players of the previously released games.
2. Background Discussion
Generally, trophies are an important part of modern gaming. However, often, older games do not have the capability to award trophies to player. In order to enhance the gaming experience, it would be desirable to be able to award trophies to users playing older games that were not introduced with the trophy feature.

Method and apparatus for awarding trophies


This invention relates to a navigation device (200) comprising: a processor (210) that is configured to generate a navigation map of a local environment (497); and a display (240) controllable by said processor (200) to display said navigation map and any markers (489) that relate to marked locations within said local environment (497); characterized in that the navigation device (200) further comprises: an indicator generation module (490) for generating an indicator (491) for each of any marked locations outside of said local environment, said processor (210) being responsive to said indicator generation module (490) to control said display (240) to display any generated indicators (491) in said navigation map (497).

Portable navigation devices (PNDs) that include GPS (Global Positioning System) signal reception and processing functionality are well known and are widely employed as in-car or other vehicle navigation systems.
In general terms, a modern PNDs comprises a processor, memory (at least one of volatile and non-volatile, and commonly both), and map data stored within said memory. The processor and memory cooperate to provide an execution environment in which a software operating system may be established, and additionally it is commonplace for one or more additional software programs to be provided to enable the functionality of the PND to be controlled, and to provide various other functions.
Typically these devices further comprise one or more input interfaces that allow a user to interact with and control the device, and one or more output interfaces by means of which information may be relayed to the user. Illustrative examples of output interfaces include a visual display and a speaker for audible output. Illustrative examples of input interfaces include one or more physical buttons to control on/off operation or other features of the device (which buttons need not necessarily be on the device itself but could be on a steering wheel if the device is built into a vehicle), and a microphone for detecting user speech. In a particularly preferred arrangement the output interface display may be configured as a touch sensitive display (by means of a touch sensitive overlay or otherwise) to additionally provide an input interface by means of which a user can operate the device by touch.
Devices of this type will also often include one or more physical connector interfaces by means of which power and optionally data signals can be transmitted to and received from the device, and optionally one or more wireless transmitters/receivers to allow communication over cellular telecommunications and other signal and data networks, for example Wi-Fi, Wi-Max GSM and the like.
PND devices of this type also include a GPS antenna by means of which satellite-broadcast signals, including location data, can be received and subsequently processed to determine a current location of the device.
The PND device may also include electronic gyroscopes and accelerometers which produce signals that can be processed to determine the current angular and linear acceleration, and in turn, and in conjunction with location information derived from the GPS signal, velocity and relative displacement of the device and thus the vehicle in which it is mounted. Typically such features are most commonly provided in in-vehicle navigation systems, but may also be provided in PND devices if it is expedient to do so.
The utility of such PNDs is manifested primarily in their ability to determine a route between a first location (typically a start or current location) and a second location (typically a destination). These locations can be input by a user of the device, by any of a wide variety of different methods, for example by postcode, street name and house number, previously stored "well known" destinations (such as famous locations, municipal locations (such as sports grounds or swimming baths) or other points of interest), and favourite or recently visited destinations.
Typically, the PND is enabled by software for computing a "best" or "optimum" route between the start and destination address locations from the map data. A "best" or "optimum" route is determined on the basis of predetermined criteria and need not necessarily be the fastest or shortest route. The selection of the route along which to guide the driver can be very sophisticated, and the selected route may take into account existing, predicted and dynamically and/or wirelessly received traffic and road information, historical information about road speeds, and the driver's own preferences for the factors determining road choice (for example the driver may specify that the route should not include motorways or toll roads).
In addition, the device may continually monitor road and traffic conditions, and offer to or choose to change the route over which the remainder of the journey is to be made due to changed conditions. Real time traffic monitoring systems, based on various technologies (e.g. mobile phone data exchanges, fixed cameras, GPS fleet tracking) are being used to identify traffic delays and to feed the information into notification systems.
PNDs of this type may typically be mounted on the dashboard or windscreen of a vehicle, but may also be formed as part of an on-board computer of the vehicle radio or indeed as part of the control system of the vehicle itself. The navigation device may also be part of a hand-held system, such as a PDA (Portable Digital Assistant) a media player, a mobile phone or the like, and in these cases, the normal functionality of the hand-held system is extended by means of the installation of software on the device to perform both route calculation and navigation along a calculated route.
Route planning and navigation functionality may also be provided by a desktop or mobile computing resource running appropriate software. For example, the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) provides an on-line route planning and navigation facility at http://www.rac.co.uk, which facility allows a user to enter a start point and a destination whereupon the server to which the user's PC is connected calculates a route (aspects of which may be user specified), generates a map, and generates a set of exhaustive navigation instructions for guiding the user from the selected start point to the selected destination. The facility also provides for pseudo three-dimensional rendering of a calculated route, and route preview functionality which simulates a user travelling along the route and thereby provides the user with a preview of the calculated route.
In the context of a PND, once a route has been calculated, the user interacts with the navigation device to select the desired calculated route, optionally from a list of proposed routes. Optionally, the user may intervene in, or guide the route selection process, for example by specifying that certain routes, roads, locations or criteria are to be avoided or are mandatory for a particular journey. The route calculation aspect of the PND forms one primary function, and navigation along such a route is another primary function.
During navigation along a calculated route, it is usual for such PNDs to provide visual and/or audible instructions to guide the user along a chosen route to the end of that route, i.e. the desired destination. It is also usual for PNDs to display map information on-screen during the navigation, such information regularly being updated on-screen so that the map information displayed is representative of the current location of the device, and thus of the user or user's vehicle if the device is being used for in-vehicle navigation.
An icon displayed on-screen typically denotes the current device location, and is centred with the map information of current and surrounding roads in the vicinity of the current device location and other map features also being displayed. Additionally, navigation information may be displayed, optionally in a status bar above, below or to one side of the displayed map information, examples of navigation information include a distance to the next deviation from the current road required to be taken by the user, the nature of that deviation possibly being represented by a further icon suggestive of the particular type of deviation, for example a left or right turn. The navigation function also determines the content, duration and timing of audible instructions by means of which the user can be guided along the route. As can be appreciated a simple instruction such as "turn left in 100 m" requires significant processing and analysis. As previously mentioned, user interaction with the device may be by a touch screen, or additionally or alternately by steering column mounted remote control, by voice activation or by any other suitable method.
A further important function provided by the device is automatic route re-calculation in the event that: a user deviates from the previously calculated route during navigation (either by accident or intentionally); real-time traffic conditions dictate that an alternative route would be more expedient and the device is suitably enabled to recognize such conditions automatically, or if a user actively causes the device to perform route re-calculation for any reason.
It is also known to allow a route to be calculated with user defined criteria; for example, the user may prefer a scenic route to be calculated by the device, or may wish to avoid any roads on which traffic congestion is likely, expected or currently prevailing. The device software would then calculate various routes and weigh more favourably those that include along their route the highest number of points of interest (known as POIs) tagged as being for example of scenic beauty, or, using stored information indicative of prevailing traffic conditions on particular roads, order the calculated routes in terms of a level of likely congestion or delay on account thereof. Other POI-based and traffic information-based route calculation and navigation criteria are also possible.
Although the route calculation and navigation functions are fundamental to the overall utility of PNDs, it is possible to use the device purely for information display, or "free-driving", in which only map information relevant to the current device location is displayed, and in which no route has been calculated and no navigation is currently being performed by the device. Such a mode of operation is often applicable when the user already knows the route along which it is desired to travel and does not require navigation assistance.
Devices of the type described above, for example the 720T model manufactured and supplied by Tomtom International B.V., provide a reliable means for enabling users to navigate from one position to another.
However, one problem with these existing devices is that whilst it is easy for a user to orientate the direction in which their destination lies (relative to their start position) when looking at a relatively low magnification generated map (i.e. a map of a relatively large area), at this level of magnification the detail associated with the map (such as names of road, or particular road layouts) is lost.
Conversely, at higher levels of map magnification where the user of the device is provided with detailed information (such as street names and pseudo three-dimensional renderings of road layouts) concerning the immediate vicinity of the device, any information concerning roads or other points of interest lying outside of the particular region of the map displayed at the time (such as the final destination for example) is lost.
FIGS. 5 and 6 of the accompanying drawings illustrate this problem. In FIG. 5 there is shown a relatively low magnification depiction of a notional route 400 from a start point (a marked location) denoted by the arrow marker 410 in Parliament Square, London to a destination (another marked location) denoted by the flag marker 420 at the Aintree racecourse near Liverpool. As shown in FIG. 5, the relative position of the destination marker with respect to the start marker is clearly represented to the user (namely the destination marker is north of and to the west of the start marker).
However, when the user commences their journey the route is depicted in higher magnification (the default (for vehicle guidance) higher magnification being shown in FIG. 6), and at this magnification the user is not provided with any information as to relative position of the destination with respect to the start.
This problem is not limited solely to destinations, but also applies to points of interest and other marked locations en route, and also applies when the device is being used in a "free driving" mode. For example, referring again to FIG. 6 and to FIG. 7 (FIG. 7 being a similar view to that shown in FIG. 6 but at a lower map magnification) the user is unaware from the view provided in FIG. 6 that, as shown in FIG. 7, there are points of interest—in this instance a car park 430 and cash dispensers 440—relatively close by.
Of course, it is eminently possible for the user to control the device to reduce the map magnification and hence display a greater proportion of the map in the display of the device, but it is inconvenient for the user to repeatedly move between different levels of map magnification—even with functionality that automatically returns the view back to the original view a short period of time after a reduced magnification map has been displayed.
Furthermore, in the particular example of a user who has the device mounted in their vehicle, manipulating map views whilst the vehicle is moving is distracting to the user (who should actually be concentrating on driving the vehicle) and hence could potentially be dangerous.
In another scenario, when a user of the device (or indeed any type of computing device that has some sort of route planning and navigation instruction generation function) at a given position operates the device to browse away from their current position (i.e. so that the device generates maps that do not include the device's current position), it can be difficult for the user to remember in which direction they need to browse the map to move backwards towards their initial position.
It is an aim of the present invention to address these problems.

Abstract: A method of generating a navigation map and a computer program are also disclosed.


A fibrinogen receptor antagonist of the formula: ##STR1## wherein A, B, C, D, E, R, R.sup.1 and X-Y are preferably defined as follows:. A is acylamido; PA1 R and R.sup.1 are H; PA1 X-Y is S--S; PA1 B is L-asparagine; PA1 C is proline or thioproline or .beta., .beta.-dimethylthroproline PA1 D is arginine; and PA1 E is COOH.

The invention relates generally to modulating cell adhesion and to inhibiting the binding of fibrinogen and other proteins to blood platelets, and inhibiting the aggregation of blood platelets specifically to the IIb/IIIa fibrinogen receptor site. Fibrinogen is a glycoprotein, present in blood plasma, which participates in platelet aggregation and in fibrin formation. Platelets are cell-like anucleated fragments, found in the blood of all mammals, which participate in blood coagulation. Interaction of fibrinogen with the IIb/IIIa receptor site is known to be essential for normal platelet function.
When a blood vessel is damaged, platelets adhere to the disrupted subendothelial surface. The adherent platelets subsequently release biologically active constituents and aggregate. Aggregation is initiated by the binding of agonists, such as thrombin, epinephrine, or ADP to specific platelet membrane receptors. Stimulation by agonists results in exposure of latent fibrinogen receptors on the platelet surface, and binding of fibrinogen to the glycoprotein IIb/IIIa complex.
Attempts have been made to use natural products and synthetic peptides to study the mechanism of platelet aggregation and adhesion.
Rouslahti and Pierschbacher, Science, 1987, 238, pp. 491-497, describe adhesive proteins such as fibronectin, vitronectin, osteopontin, collagens, thrombospondin, fibrinogen, and von Willebrand factor present in extracellular matrices and in the blood. The proteins contain the tripeptide arginine-glycine-aspartic acid as their cell recognition site. The tripeptides are recognized by at least one member of a family of structurally related receptors, integrins, which are heterodimeric proteins with two membrane-spanning subunits. The authors state that the conformation of the tripeptide sequence in the individual proteins may be critical to recognition specificity.
Cheresh, Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 1987, 84, pp. 6471-6475, describes an Arg-Gly-Asp directed adhesion receptor expressed by human endothelial cells that is structurally similar to the IIb/IIIa complex on platelets but antigenically and functionally distinct. The receptor is directly involved in endothelial cell attachment to fibrinogen, von Willebrand factor, and vitronectin.
Pierschbacher and Rouslahti, J. of Biol. Chem., 1987, 262, 36, pp. 17294-17298 describe stereochemical influence of the sequence Arg-Gly-Asp-Xaa, where Xaa is one of the 20 natural L-amino acids other than Met, Cys, His, Trp or Gly on binding specificity of peptides containing the tripeptide sequence Arg Gly Asp. The authors showed that cyclization of the sequence Gly-Pen-Gly Arg-Gly-Asp-Ser-Pro Cys-Ala (where Pen is penicillamine), by forming a disulfide bridge between Pen and Cys, rendered the peptide ineffective at inhibiting attachment to fibronectin. In Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 1984, 81, pp. 5985-5988, the same authors describe variants of the cell recognition site of fibronectin that retain attachment-promoting activity. The tetrapeptide Arg-Gly Asp-Ser is described as the minimal structure recognized by cells in the large, adhesive glycoprotein fibronectin. Peptides having portions Arg Gly Asp Ser- are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,589,881 and 4,614,517. Peptides having portions -Arg-Gly-Asp-R wherein R is selected from Thr or Cys or other amino acid having the same cell-attachment activity as fibronectin, are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,578,079.
Ruggeri et al., Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 1986, 83, pp. 5708-5712, describes a series of synthetic peptides, designed in lengths to 16 residues, that contain the sequence Arg-Gly Asp-Val, which inhibit fibrinogen binding to platelets.
While it is known that the tripeptide sequence Arg-Gly-Asp is present in certain polypeptides which can duplicate or inhibit the cell attachment-promoting effects of fibronectin and vitronectin, the tripeptide Arg Gly-Asp has low activity. There is little understanding of the influence on binding specificity of other amino acids in the polypeptide. Applicants have prepared small cyclic heptapeptides which contain the tripeptide sequence Arg Gly Asp which are platelet aggregation inhibitors.