Mass storage devices and methods for securely storing data are disclosed. The mass storage device includes a communication interface for communicating with a connected host computer, a mass-memory storage component for storing data, a secure key storage component adapted to securely store at least one master secret, and an encryption-decryption component different from the secure key storage component and connected to the secure key storage component and the mass-memory storage component. The encryption-decryption component may be adapted to encrypt data received from the host computer using an encryption algorithm and at least one encryption key and to write the encrypted data into the mass-memory storage component. The encryption-decryption component may also be adapted to decrypt encrypted data stored in the mass-memory storage component for returning the data to the host computer in response to a read data command from the host computer using a decryption algorithm and at least one decryption key the security of which is protected using a master secret securely stored in the secure key storage component.

Small portable electronic devices that are capable of storing relatively large amounts of data (e.g. hundreds of megabytes or several gigabytes, sometimes tens of gigabytes) and that can be easily connected to and disconnected from computers are becoming ever more popular as they provide a convenient way for users to transport computer data. In many cases such devices can be easily connected to a host computer by means of plug-and-play technology and present themselves to the host computer's operating system as a mass storage device (MSD) with a standard file system. In many cases the interface to connect the device to the host computer is of the USB (Universal Serial Bus) type. So called USB keys or USB memory sticks are examples of such devices. In some cases the device offers other functionality or the mass storage functionality is integrated into a device with another main functionality. For example, some USB keys also contain a smart card or smart card chip and offer security functions (often in the context of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)), while many digital cameras can be connected to a computer via a USB connection and are then visible to the host computer as a mass storage device.
Because they are so convenient for transporting computer data, these portable mass storage devices are often used to store and transport confidential or otherwise sensitive data. As such they may represent a security risk that is exacerbated by their relatively small size, which makes them prone to theft or loss.

Mass storage device memory encryption methods, systems, and apparatus


A semiconductor bridge die may have an “H-design” or “trapezoidal” configuration in which a center bridge segment is flanked by one or more angled walls on each side of the bridge segment. Each wall is plated with a conductive material, thereby providing a continuous conductive path across the top surface of the die. A bottom surface of the die may be connected to a top surface of a header by epoxy in various configurations. The plated angled walls facilitate the solderable connection of the walls to a plated top surface of each of several pins on a top surface of the header, thereby providing a continuous electrical connection between the pins and the die. Also, a method is provided for manufacturing a semiconductor bridge die in accordance with the various embodiments of the die.

A semiconductor bridge ("SCB") die device has typically been configured to include a pair of conductive lands connected together by a narrower conductive bridge segment. The bridge segment may be formed from doped or undoped silicon, either alone or having an upper layer of a metal such as tungsten or titanium disposed thereover. The lands may also comprise silicon, oftentimes covered with a layer of, e.g., aluminum. Other configurations of the die exist in the art. The conductive lands are commonly connected to a source of electrical energy (e.g., an active power source or a stored charge device such as a capacitor). For use as an explosive initiator or igniter, the bridge segment is typically placed in close physical contact with an explosive charge (e.g., a pyrotechnic material charge). In various embodiments of these devices, an electrical current passing through the bridge causes plasma to form from the electrically activated bridge material, wherein the plasma subsequently initiates or ignites the explosive charge. The explosive charge may be connected by, e.g., a shock tube, to a detonator device that detonates upon initiation or ignition of the explosive charge by the SCB device.
In addition, the SCB die is typically connected to a header device. The header may comprise ceramic, glass, metal or other suitable material. The bottom surface of the SCB die may connect to the top surface of the header by, e.g., a soldered connection or epoxy. Besides this physical connection of the SCB die to the header, an electrical connection from the electrically conductive SCB die to pins (typically two pins) on the header also exists. The header pins are then connected to the electrical power source.
Prior art SCB devices typically utilize bondwires (e.g., 5 mils in diameter) to make an electrical connection from the top surface of the die (i.e., from the metallized conductive lands on the die) to the pins or other suitable contact areas on the header. However, issues regarding the use of bondwires may include bondwire cutoff smearing aluminum across the glass seal which surrounds the pin to be wirebonded, sub-optimal bondwire configuration for relatively small geometry applications, minimum powder load requirements to assure the bondwires do not touch the output cup, added header cost due to the unique features required for wirebonding, electrostatic discharge issues, and with respect to high volume applications the cost of capital equipment required for wirebonding at high speed.
For these and other reasons, it is known to eliminate the bondwires and use some type of electrically conductive surface connection between the bottom surface of the SCB die and the top surface of the header. Such a surface mounted SCB die enables igniters with relatively smaller charges to be readily manufactured since the header can be made with a smaller diameter and the minimum powder bed above the die can be reduced, as there are no bondwires that might contact the output cup. However, these and other common known approaches for connecting the SCB die to the header without bondwires (e.g., submounts and wraparound metallization) are relatively limited in their applicability, for example, in that they require relatively tightly controlled header dimensions. Also, these methods are of relatively high cost and not easily manufacturable.
Vertical holes have been manufactured but fabricating die with metal on the insides of the holes has proven problematic. What is needed is a tapered or "slope-sided" SCB die and method for making such a die wherein the resulting die is relatively more easily solderable to the header through use of a surface mounting technique without the use of bondwires, the connection between the die and the header being relatively more reliable, the dimensional requirements of the header are relaxed to a certain degree, and the manufacture of the SCB die and header, along with the soldering of the die to the header, are all of relatively lower cost.

Surface mountable semiconductor bridge die

ENSIGN-BICKFORD AEROSPACE & DEFENSE COMPANY


A surface material rendering system and method are disclosed. In particular, a surface material rendering system includes a user input part for receiving user inputs; a material information preprocessor for converting surface material information inputted from the user input part in a form of B-spline volumes; a sampling information preprocessor for producing sampling information in proportion to the converted surface material information; and a surface material renderer for rendering surface materials based on the converted surface material information and the sampling information. The system and method can be applied for realistic surface rendering in computer graphics, CAD, and visualization.

Recent rapid advances in 3D computer graphics technologies have enabled synthesis of images comparable in quality to photographed images. However, synthesis of high-quality images still requires both excessive calculation times of computers and working hours of designers. Much research and development efforts have been made to solve this problem.
The sense of realism in computer generated imagery (CGI) is affected by various factors, in particular, surface materials of scene elements. Rendering materials having complex physical surface phenomena, such as skins or hairs of a body, fine cloths and mixed paints, requires many considerations. In case of objects composed of these materials, the color and brightness of them may look differently depending upon viewing directions and lighting directions. In some cases, material properties are obtained as raw data by photographing surfaces of real objects, or modeled using algebraic equations, and then reproduced through computer graphics.

System and method for rendering surface materials

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


A spiral pipe cleaner including coil sections defined by turns and interspaces is rotatable about its axis by means of a drive machine to thread it through a guide housing 1 with an inlet opening 9 and an outlet opening 10. Several engaging jaws 18, 19, 20 in the housing are received in the interspaces between the individual coil turns, which jaws are distributed on the circumference of the coil axis and axially offset. In order to permit passing coil sections joined by means of couplings, the axial distance of two successive engaging jaws 18, 20 and 20, 19 is larger than half of the distance between the ends of two adjacent coil sections joined by coupling elements. Preferably, the axial distance of two successive engaging jaws 18, 19, 20 is larger than the distance between coil sections. In the preferred embodiment at least one engaging jaw 20 is aligned centrally between two engaging jaws 18, 19 disposed on the other side of the coil axis.

Guiding device for spiral pipe cleaners including steel wire coils coiled up with interspaces and rotatable around their axes by means of a drive machine separate from the guiding device. A guiding housing with an inlet opening at one end and an outlet opening for the coil at the other end has several jaws disposed in the guiding housing and positively engaging in the interspaces of the individual turns of the coil. These jaws are distributed on the circumference of the coil axis (A--A) and axially offset corresponding to the inclination of the helix.
Among experts, such cleaning devices are referred to as "spiral cleaners", although, strictly speaking, they are coils which are formed by coiling up a steel wire along a helical line.
Devices to guide coils are known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,447,926. These are tubes, drums or adaptor magazines which serve to hold coils but do not apply any feeding power to these coils.
Operating such devices is very difficult if such a driven spiral pipe cleaner or coil is to be used for a correspondingly long downpipe. The vertical length of such downpipes can indeed exceed 15 to 20 stories which requires a total length of the spiral pipe cleaner of approximately 60 m. During the cleaning process the spiral cleaner is assembled by joining parts together by means of couplings, and during removal of the coil these parts are disassembled again. The parts have a lengths between 4 and 5 meters and, depending on the coil diameter, a weight between 2 and 8 kg. For a total length of 60 m this results in a total weight between approximately 30 and 120 kg. The operator can handle such a weight only with great physical effort or even not at all. This increasingly creates problems when using these pipe cleaning machines with downpipes of great vertical length. It should also be considered that the cleaning coils are wet and/or dirty when they are retracted from the pipe after use which also accounts for difficult handling.
It is known to combine pipe cleaning machines having a driven holding drum during manufacture with an additional feeding device which positively engages in the coil for greater lengths.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 3,246,354, such a drum machine includes a feeding device which is equipped with a special belt drive; the speed of this belt drive is matched to the speed of the drum (differential effect). Such a machine involves a great deal of labor and costs and is difficult to transport.
In an another drum machine according to the U.S. Pat. No. 3,882,565 the advance feed is generated by a jaw chuck and controlled by a manually operated brake which demands total attention of the operator.
Due to large stored coil length, these drum machines do not involve the problem of assembling a long coil of relatively short parts by using couplings. However, what must be accepted is the heavy weight combined with unwieldy shape which must not be underestimated during transport and use as well as the risk of coil breaking; this occurs if the coil gets stuck during use and the drum continues rotating for several more revolutions due to its high moment of inertia.
The advance coupling of the drum machine in accordance with the British Patent No. 1,409,301 does not facilitate the operator's task during retraction of the coil since it is a mere manual device which requires manually compensating the retracting force in any case.
From the U.S. Pat. No. 3,329,044 a guiding device of the aforesaid kind is known, a "passive" device which uses the rotation of the coil generated by a separate drive machine, which is necessary in any case in order to produce a advance feed effect in the one direction and a retraction effect in the other direction, i.e. reverse direction of rotation. However, this device cannot be used with such a pipe cleaning machine where the coil in its entire length is assembled by combining parts by means of couplings. These couplings cannot pass through the guiding device during advance or retraction. Opening the housing so as to pass through the coupling would result in the loss of positive engaging and the coil axially slides through. The axial offset of the engaging elements corresponds only in a fraction to coil inclination since the engaging elements must be disposed on a helical line so as to avoid jamming. Hence, the axial offset of the three engaging elements corresponds just to one third of the coil inclination; this means it amounts only to a few millimeters. Hence, the engaging elements absolutely block the passing of a coupling.

ROWO Rohr und Kanal Reiningungsgeraete GmbH


An apparatus and method for reducing the strength of the nearbottom offsh directed current inside the surfzone thereby promoting and sand accretion on the beach. An arrangement of pipes is placed in the surfzone and operates to sequester a portion of surfzone fluid. The sequestered surfzone fluid is conveyed out to sea by way of the piping system thereby reducing the velocity and quantity of surfzone fluid reducing sand erosion.

This invention relates to a method for artificially reducing the strength of the nearbottom offshore directed current inside the surfzone thereby promoting sand accretion on the beach.
Beach erosion is a significant problem throughout the industrialized world. Although there can be a variety of causes, beach erosion can often be traced back to the construction of dams and flood control structures which cut off the natural supply of sand to the beach. This results in a gradual reduction of beach width, first manifesting itself near the mouth of the affected river or stream, and slowly spreading down coast. Eventually beaches become so narrow that winter storm waves begin to directly threaten beachfront structures.
Traditional beach erosion solutions have included seawalls, groin fields, offshore breakwaters and artificial beach nourishment. With the exception of seawalls, these solutions act to widen the beach, either by increasing the sand supply (beach nourishment), or slowing the rate of longshore sand transport (groins and offshore breakwaters). Seawalls simply shield the shoreward property from wave action, while doing nothing to address the ongoing beach erosion problem. In addition, all of these approaches are expensive and time consuming to construct.
The present invention seeks to limit beach erosion by altering the nearbottom velocity field within the surfzone thereby promoting onshore sand transport and widening the beach.

Undertow reduction system for shoreline protection

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy


An apparatus comprising a first core layer having a first thickness and a first refractive index; a second core layer formed on the first core layer, the second core layer having a second thickness and a second refractive index; and a grating formed at the interface between the first core layer and the second core layer. Corresponding process and system embodiments are disclosed and claimed.

The need for fast and efficient optical-based technologies is increasing as Internet data traffic growth rate is overtaking voice traffic and pushing the need for fiber optical communications. Transmission of multiple optical channels over the same optical fiber in a wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) system provides a simple way to use the unprecedented capacity (signal bandwidth) offered by fiber optics. Commonly used optical components in the system include WDM transmitters and receivers, optical filters such as diffraction gratings, thin-film filters, fiber Bragg gratings, arrayed-waveguide gratings, optical add/drop multiplexers, and tunable lasers.
Bragg gratings integrated with waveguides are especially useful in optical systems because they can be used as transmission or reflection filters, as multiplexers/de-multiplexers in WDM communication systems, or to stabilize the spectra as part of the laser's cavity in a cavity-type laser. One of the common ways of integrating Bragg grating in a waveguide is to have the desired periodicity as surface corrugation at the interface between the core and the cladding of the waveguide. The core has a different refractive index (ncore) than the cladding (ncladding), so that the optical mode traveling along the waveguide is affected by these surface corrugations as a periodic function of the waveguide's effective refractive index. Bragg gratings formed at the interface between core and cladding, however, have only a limited number of degrees of freedom and therefore a limited number of design parameters with which a designer can work to design a Bragg grating for a particular application. As a result, this type of Bragg grating has limited design flexibility.


A hybrid rocket motor includes a solid propellant fuel grain component which incorporates fuel strengthening agents or mechanical retention devices. In one embodiment, the hybrid fuel formulation is a modified elastomeric polyurethane reaction product based on a liquid hydroxyl-terminated homopolymer of butadiene. A reinforcing agent is added which increases the tensile and tear strength of the grain by 50%. By so strengthening the grain, separation of the grain during the last portion of the burn is minimized. In a second exemplary embodiment, mechanical web stiffeners are provided in the form of a core configuration about which the fuel grain is cast. The web stiffeners are in the form of an open tetrahexagonal truss structure which mechanically traps and adheres to the fuel and becomes an integral part of the fuel grain geometry. In both embodiments, the integrity of the webs is maintained throughout the burn. Foam slivers may be added to the radially inner ends of web stiffeners to further inhibit undesired separation during the last part of the burn.

A hybrid rocket engine or motor is a cross between a solid propellant rocket motor and a liquid propellant rocket motor. In its more common configuration, a hybrid utilizes a fluid oxidizer to burn a solid fuel element. The hybrid rocket propellant can be ignited by an igniter such as an electrically generated spark, or by initial injection of an ignition fluid which exothermically reacts with the liquid oxidizer. A "reverse" hybrid, on the other hand, applies a combustible liquid fuel to a solid oxidizer. This application relates to the solid fuel/fluid oxidizer form of hybrid which, generally, is well known. Many examples of various hybrid rocket configurations appear, for example, in the patent literature. Representative are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,424,679; 3,789,610 3,782,112; 3,323,308; 3,302,403; 3,274,771; 3,214,906; 3,164,093; 3,178,885; 3,144,751; 3,142,152; 3,137,128; 3,132,475; 3,116,599; 3,115,007; 3,083,527; 3,068,641; 2,984,973; 2,791,883; and 2,753,801.
A more recent example of a hybrid rocket motor is disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,627, issued Jun. 9, 1992.
Some of the more well known advantages of a hybrid rocket motor over a purely solid or purely liquid fuel rocket motor are: (1) the complete separation of fuel from the principal oxidizer, thus eliminating the potential for uncontrolled mixing; (2) the capability of optimizing the combination of propellant ingredients regardless of whether these are solid or liquid, and (3) the capability of easily stopping and restarting the motor. In addition to its on-off capability, the engine is easily throttleable since there is only one liquid component. In addition, since the solid fuel component need not contain any oxidizer, it is easily mass produced under less hazardous conditions and at less cost.
A conventional hybrid rocket motor includes a hollow housing or combustion chamber in which an elongated solid fuel component, or "grain", is secured. The solid fuel grain may have a "wagon wheel" cross sectional shape as disclosed in the above-identified U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,627, with a central hollow hub, an outer rim, and a plurality of spokes joining the hub to the rim. The wedge-shaped spaces between the spokes, known as combustion "ports", extend the axial length of the grain, thereby allowing combustion gas to flow through the grain.
The liquid or gaseous oxidizer is provided in a tank or container mounted forward of the fuel grain, and is caused to flow through the fuel grain passages. Ignition causes combustion of the fuel-oxidizer mixture at the exposed surfaces of the fuel grain, resulting in the generation of thrust as the high pressure combustion products are discharged through the rocket nozzle.
A significant problem inherent in conventional hybrid rocket motor design is that it is difficult to burn all of the solid fuel grain in a controlled manner. When it is attempted to burn the entire fuel grain, a point is reached where a central unburned portion separates from the main body from the grain, and is moved by the combustion gas flow into the nozzle area, causing a major reduction in thrust, and potentially significant damage to the nozzle and/or rocket. This may be avoided by burning the fuel grain only down to a point at which the undesirable separation will not occur. This is not a completely satisfactory solution, however, since the remaining portion of the fuel grain, and hence also precious space and weight in the rocket motor, is wasted.
While the wagon wheel grain configuration can provide an optimal ratio of exposed surface area to cross sectional area, the disadvantage of the wagon wheel design is that because of the slow burning rate of the fuel, the webs become very thin during the last portion of the burn and again, subject to separation. It has been attempted to reinforce the wagon wheel fuel grain by incorporating solid stiffening sheets in the spoke or web portions of the grain. This too has not proven satisfactory since the fuel grain tends to separate from the solid sheets during burning.


Ceiling fan energy consumption efficiency is enhanced with fan blades that have an angle attack that decreases from root end to tip end at higher rates of decrease nearer their tip ends than at their root ends.

This invention relates generally to ceiling fans, and specifically to electrically powered ceiling fans and their efficiencies.
Ceiling fans powered by electric motors have been used for years in circulating air. They typically have a motor within a housing mounted to a downrod that rotates a set of fan blades about the axis of the downrod. Their blades have traditionally been flat and oriented at an incline or pitch to present an angle of attack to the air mass in which they rotate. This causes air to be driven downwardly.
When a fan blade that extends generally radially from its axis of rotation is rotated, its tip end travels in a far longer path of travel than does its root end for any given time. Thus its tip end travels much faster than its root end. To balance the load of wind resistance along the blades, and the air flow generated by their movement, fan blades have been designed with an angle of attack that diminishes towards the tip. This design feature is also conventional in the design of other rotating blades such as marine propellers and aircraft propellers.
In 1997 a study was conducted at the Florida Solar Energy Center on the efficiencies of several commercially available ceiling fans. This testing was reported in U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,541. It was found by the patentees that energy efficiency, i.e. air flow (CFM) per power consumption (watts), was increased with a fan blade design that had a twist in degrees at its root end that tapered uniformly down to a smaller twist or angle of attack at its tip end. For example, this applied to a 20-inch long blade (with tapered chord) that had a 26.7xc2x0 twist at its root and a 6.9xc2x0 twist at its tip.
It has now been found that a decrease in angle of attack or twist that is of a uniform rate is not the most efficient for ceiling fans. The tip of a 2-foot blade or propeller travels the circumferences of a circle or 2Π(2) in one revolution. Thus its midpoint one foot out travels 2Π(1) or half that distance in one revolution. This linear relation is valid for an aircraft propeller as its orbital path of travel is generally in a plane perpendicular to its flight path. A ceiling fan however rotates in an orbital path that is parallel to and located below an air flow restriction, namely the ceiling itself. Thus its blades do not uniformly attack an air mass as does an aircraft. This is because xe2x80x9creplacementxe2x80x9d air is more readily available at the tips of ceiling fan blades than inboard of their tips. Air adjacent their axis of rotation must travel from ambience through the restricted space between the planes of the ceiling and fan blades in reaching their root ends.
With this understanding in mind, ceiling fan efficiency has now been found to be enhanced by forming their blades with an angle of attack that increases non-uniformly from their root ends to their tip ends. More specifically, it has been found that the rate of change in angle of attack or pitch should be greater nearer the blade tip than nearer its root. This apparently serves to force replacement air inwardly over the fan blades beneath the ceiling restriction so that more air is more readily available nearer the root ends of the blades. But whether or not this theory is correct the result in improved efficiency has been proven. By having the change in angle of attack at a greater rate at their tip than at their roots, fan efficiency has been found to be substantially enhanced.


In a method for grounding a metal tube (2) sheathed with an electrically non-conducting plastic layer (1), has the plastic layer (1) of the metal tube (2) completely removed at an area of connection (3) the area of connection (3) is connected to the motor vehicle part in an electrically conducting fashion by a conductive covering section (4) is closed in the circumferential direction of the metal tube (2) which covers the area of connection (3) on all sides or more than covers the area of connection (3) on all sides, i.e. in the form of a crimp sleeve or a heat-shrinkable sleeve. It is first pushed onto the metal tube (2) and is then pressed onto the metal tube (2) at least at its ends under radial pressure applied along at least part of the circumference without any gaps. In one form, the tube has a bead in the area where the plastic layer is removed and the bead is in contact with the conductive covering section.

This invention relates to a method for earthing (grounding) a metal tube sheathed with an electrically non-conducting plastic layer, which is used in a motor vehicle for transporting liquid or gaseous media, especially fuels, on a metal motor vehicle part, especially the chassis of the motor vehicle, wherein the plastic layer of the metal tube is completely removed at an area of connection and said area of connection is then connected to the motor vehicle part in an electrically conducting fashion.
Within the scope of the invention, the metal tube is preferable made of single-layer welded or multi-layer soldered steel tube which is provided on the outside with a base-metal layer (e.g. AI, Zn or Galfan) as an anti-corrosion layer.
In a method of said type known from practice which is not confirmed in detail in publications, the area of connection is connected directly to the motor vehicle part in an electrically conducting fashion. As a result of the plastic layer being partly missing in the area of the joint, the corrosion and abrasion resistance of the metal tube unfortunately deteriorates.
The object of the invention is to provide a perfect electrical join between metal tube and the other motor vehicle part such as chassis within the framework of the measures specified initially without impairing the corrosion and abrasion resistance.
For this purpose the present invention teaches that a covering section which covers the area of connection on all sides or preferably more than covers said area of connection is first pushed onto the metal tube and is then pressed onto the metal tube at least at its ends under radial pressure applied along at least part of the circumference without any gaps, and the covering section is then connected to the motor vehicle part in an electrically conducting fashion. The covering section can be pressed onto the metal tube without any gaps at least at its ends under radial pressure applied along the total circumference.
The invention in this case starts from the reasoning that the problem of inadequate corrosion and abrasion resistance of the metal tube can be eliminated by the fact that sealing of the exposed metal surface can be provided by an additional covering section so that the product is protected against external environmental influences such as contact with spray water, and the corrosion effects associated therewith.
The metal tube especially comprises a steel tube. As has already been described initially, an electrically conductive anti-corrosion layer, which consists of a base metal, for example, of zinc or aluminum, is suitably located on the metal tube. It is within the scope of the invention that the anti-corrosion layer is arranged between the metal tube and the plastic layer.
The plastic layer is removed at a certain point on the tube at a certain width. In this case, according to one embodiment, the plastic layer can be removed mechanically, for example, it can be peeled off. According to another embodiment of the invention, the plastic layer can however also be removed with the aid of laser treatment. The plastic layer can be removed either over the total circumference of the tube (360°) or over a partial area of the circumference (for example, 90°). The depth to which the plastic layer is removed in the radial direction of the tube either extends as far as the surface of the metal tube or as far as the electrically conductive anti-corrosion layer.
Within the scope of the invention there are a plurality of possibilities for the shaping of the electrically conductive covering section. According to one embodiment, the covering section is constructed as closed in the circumferential direction of the metal tube. According to a first preferred embodiment, the covering section consists of a metal crimp sleeve, especially of aluminum or stainless steel. It is recommended that this crimp sleeve is pressed on mechanically.
In a second, very preferred embodiment, the covering section consists of a heat-shrinkable sleeve made of an electrically conductive plastic or a plastic made conductive by additives. This heat-shrinkable sleeve is advantageously shrunk onto the metal tube by heat treatment. In this case, according to one embodiment, this heat-shrinkable sleeve is also provided on the inside with an electrically conductive adhesive coating.
According to a particular embodiment of the invention, a bead or upset, which runs around the circumference of the tube is first produced on the tube. The bead projects radially from the surface of the tube. It is especially within the scope of the invention to produce such a bead at one section of the tube. At least the plastic layer covering the bead is suitably removed and preferably over the total circumference of the bead. This exposed metal surface of the bead then forms the area of connection of the metal tube. The area of connection at such a bead has the advantage that the exposed metal surface is larger than a corresponding area of connection of the same width in another region of the tube. According to the invention, a heat-shrinkable sleeve made of electrically conductive plastic is applied/pushed onto the metal tube or onto the bead. This heat-shrinkable sleeve is then shrunk onto the metal tube or onto the bead by heat treatment. In this case, the heat-shrinkable sleeve can be provided on the inside with an electrically conductive adhesive coating.
The subject matter of the invention is also a sheathed metal tube according to the claims 10.


The present invention relates generally to methods for identifying and using organ-specific proteins and transcripts. The present invention further provides compositions comprising organ-specific proteins and transcripts encoding the same, detection reagents for detecting such proteins and transcripts, and diagnostic panels, kits and arrays for measuring organ-specific proteins/transcripts in blood, biological tissue or other biological fluid.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to organ-specific proteins and polynucleotides that encode them. In particular the invention relates to diagnostic and prognostic panels, sets, and individual agents comprising reagents or probes to detect organ-specific proteins or polynucleotides and methods of identifying and using organ-specific proteins.
2. Description of the Related Art
The ability to monitor normal health and to detect the onset of disease at a very early and treatable stage is critical to diagnostic medicine. Early detection for most diseases, including diseases of the lung, cardiovascular disease, cancer, hematological disease (including most hematological cancers), inflammatory disorders, metabolic disease and neurological disease may permit treatment at an earlier stage that will produce healthier and typically more successful outcomes for the patient. Accordingly, there is a great need for more sensitive and accurate assays and methods to measure health and detect disease and monitor treatment at earlier stages.
Diagnostic assays are often incapable of identifying truly informative proteins for analyses and, to be useful, often require significant changes in protein composition in for example, blood, at the cellular level to detect the presence of disease or to define a change in health from normal. Current diagnostic assays may not detect disease until it has progressed to a stage where it is too late for effective treatment. For example, most cancers may be cured if diagnosed at the earliest stage. If cancer is diagnosed at later or advanced stages, effective treatment may be difficult or impossible and lead to reduced patient survival. In general, current diagnostic assays have severe limitations that prevent early detection and diagnosis.
In the context of blood protein diagnostics the major impediment to use in the early detection of disease is that most proteins are not disease-specific in that multiple organs synthesize them and different diseases may perturb their expression in different ways. Moreover, the specific proteins that are released in the disease state that are markers of the disease may be difficult to identify or to measure because of the enormous dynamic range of protein expression in the blood and because of the enormous protein complexity in the blood. These proteins must be distinguished from other protein markers found in the blood that are not likely to be disease markers. Other protein markers that are present in the blood that are not typically considered indicators of disease include proteins released due to: cellular damage, normal cellular turnover, stress responses (liver proteins) or other slight protein changes in the plasma. Additionally, 22 proteins constitute about 99% of the total blood protein mass. Indeed, one protein, albumin, comprises about 51% of this total blood protein mass. Most of these abundant blood proteins are not useful diagnostic markers. Useful diagnostic proteins are present in much lower abundance and typically in 1% of the remaining proteins (Lee et al., Curr Opin in Chem Bio (2006) 10:1-8). Many proteins are released into the blood following physiological changes from normal to the disease state and are likely present in plasma as low abundance proteins. Furthermore, blood proteins exhibit large differences in the concentration of the most abundant and least abundant proteins that range over many orders of magnitude. Proteins are expressed in blood across a range of about 1010 between the numbers of proteins. This means that one protein may be present at one copy in a given volume of blood, whereas another may be present at 1010 copies (Anderson and Anderson Mol and Cell Proteomics (2002) 1:845). Low abundance proteins may be hidden or dwarfed by the more prevalent high abundance proteins. Additionally, many proteins that are low abundance proteins are not indicative of disease. Distinguishing between the low abundance proteins that indicate disease from the low abundance proteins that are found in the normal cellular state is a major challenge to modern protein diagnostics. A major obstacle in diagnostic protein analysis of the blood is the numerous blood proteins and an inability by current methods to distinguish proteins from one another. Determining which blood proteins are predictive of disease at the earliest stages is very difficult at best, because the diagnostician must distinguish which low abundance protein is a marker of disease within the mass of proteins that are circulating in the blood.
Different approaches for identifying blood proteins are known in the art and have been used with varying and limited degrees of success. In particular, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) has been used for analysis of proteomic patterns in blood, but it is difficult to resolve large numbers of proteins such as are expressed in the average cell (up to 10,000 proteins). Moreover, 2-DE is incapable of identifying low abundance proteins without enrichment techniques. Another method known in the art for blood protein diagnostics is capillary isoelectric focusing electrophoresis (CGE) although, the lack of reproducibility of protein patterns limits its use (Corthals, G. L., et al. Electrophoresis, (1997), 18:317, Lopez, M. F., and W. F. Patton, Electrophoresis, (1997), 18:338). Consequently, protein pattern analysis using techniques such as 2-DE, CGE and other similar techniques cannot generally be used for the analysis of blood proteins due to the inability to detect very low abundance proteins, irreproducible gel patterns, and the inability to quantify or identify individual spots (e.g., proteins). Further, the ability to extend these techniques to reproducible, consistent, easy to use and accurate high throughput diagnostic assays has been extremely limited. Thus, current assays that detect proteins do not provide the accuracy to use levels of blood (or other biological fluid or tissue) proteins, polypeptides or nucleic acids to monitor health and disease.
It is evident that a new diagnostic strategy is needed to distinguish between the many proteins that are found in the blood that reflect the normal health of a mammal and the organ-specific proteins that reflect a state of disease.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need in the art to provide diagnostic and prognostic assays, nucleic acid and protein panels and arrays as well as methods to monitor health and diagnose disease. The present invention provides compositions, methods and assays that fulfill these and other needs.

Organ-specific proteins and methods of their use


A circular saw has one or more louvers in the housing which direct air exiting the housing toward a work piece, together with openings in other components of the saw located between the louvers and the work piece so that sawdust and other debris that is produced during operation of the saw will be blown out of the way and will not interfere with the line of sight of the user.

The present invention generally relates to power hand tools and more particularly to circular saws.
Power hand tools such as circular saws have been commonly known for decades and generally have a foot plate that slides on a work piece that is being cut, a circular saw blade that may have a diameter as small as a few inches or as large as seven or more inches, with the saw blade extending through an opening generally perpendicular to the plane of the foot. The saw is typically driven by an electric motor that is powered by either an AC or DC power source, the DC power source often being a battery pack or the like.
Circular saws are commonly used on construction sites to saw boards that are used in framing a building or for cutting large plywood or other material sheets into smaller pieces, all of which are known to those skilled in the power hand tool art. Such circular saws have been the subject of much research and development and significant improvements have been made in their design and construction over the many decades that they have been used.
Significant developments have included improved blade guards, both above and below the blade for protecting a user from injury, with the lower blade guards being designed to be moved out of the way when a board or the like is to be cut. Ergonomic developments have been made so that user handles, including main handles or auxiliary handles, facilitate the easy cutting of a sheet or board along a desired path. The early circular saws were designed to only make perpendicular cuts relative to the work piece, but later developments included an adjustable bevel angle capability.
Even with the many improvements that have been made in the design of circular saws, a common problem that continues to exist is the accumulation of sawdust and/or other debris on the line of cut which hinders the user from following the desired cut line to produce a straight and accurate cut. Improvements in motors that are used in circular saws and other hand tools have resulted in the motors being smaller in size relative to the power that they develop. Because cutting of some materials, particularly those which are relatively thick, put a significant load on the motor, it is necessary to have an adequate flow of air near the motor to dissipate heat during operation. Because of this requirement, many motors have an internal fan blade driven by the motor to expel air from the motor enclosure or housing for the purpose of cooling the motor. The air has been expelled through openings that have been positioned at many different locations in circular saws of the prior art.
While the circular saw designs are sufficient to expel the air and dissipate heat during operation, little regard has heretofore been made in directing the air in any particular direction or for any apparent purpose other than to expel the air from inside the motor housing.

Bevel quadrant and gearbox louver blower system


A system is described in which one or more loops of single mode optical fiber are buried in a face or crest of a slope such as a tailings dam. An optical interrogator such as a Brillouin frequency domain interrogator sweeps the optical fiber to measure strain and temperature at locations distributed along the length of the optical fiber.

Slopes, including those of tailings dams, other types of impoundment structures, pipeline slopes, natural slopes and/or engineered slopes, any of which may be composed of soil, sand or clay (e.g. retaining walls, dykes, highway embankments) may present a potential threat of instability or failure. Deterioration of the slope can result from natural causes, such as seismic events, abnormal weather conditions and the like or from a failure of the owner/operator of the slope to recognize decreasing stability. Monitoring systems may be used to predict and even prevent catastrophic failures.
The majority of geotechnical and geological processes develop in an incremental manner. Dam and slope failures are progressive and tend to commence with small precursor events, which may increase in magnitude over time. Accordingly, strain data from the dam or slope may provide engineers with the desired information for identifying small incremental changes in the dam structure.
Brillouin optical methods, such as Brillouin optical time domain analysis and Brillouin optical frequency domain analysis, have been used to measure strain and temperature on surfaces of bridges, and dams. Measurement of strain and temperature has been used to identify deterioration and changes in structural integrity.
There is a general desire to monitor the structural integrity of slopes including impoundment structures and, where possible, provide early warning of possible stability risks and/or possible failure of the slope.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related thereto are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.

Systems and methods for monitoring structural integrity of slopes


A control apparatus of a valve opening/closing timing control mechanism, configured by including driving side and driven side rotating bodies; a stopper unit; and an electric motor, includes: a phase controller controlling an electric motor to reduce, when a target phase is set, a deviation between the target phase and a current first actual phase and reducing power to be supplied to the electric motor as the deviation decreases; and a control target setting unit setting a first target phase displaced to a side of the first actual phase in an operation direction where the deviation is reduced when the target phase is set to a most retarded or most advanced angle phase, in which the phase controller executes a first phase control of reducing a deviation between the set first target phase and the current first actual phase.

As a valve opening/closing timing control mechanism having the above-described configuration, JP 2005-132178 A (Reference 1) discloses a technology that includes a driving side rotating body (driving rotating body in the document) that rotates synchronously with a crankshaft of an internal combustion engine, a driven side rotating body (driven rotating body in the document) that rotates integrally with a camshaft that opens and closes a combustion chamber of the internal combustion engine, and an electric motor that sets a relative rotation phase between the rotating bodies, and further includes a controller (control unit in the document) that controls the electric motor.
In Reference 1, a stopper structure is provided, which stops displacement of the relative rotation phase by mechanical contact even when the relative rotation phase of the driven side rotating body with respect to the driving side rotating body reaches any of the most retarded angle and the most advanced angle. Then, when a control is performed to set the relative rotation phase to the most retarded angle or the most advanced angle, a control is performed to reduce a contact speed in the stopper structure by repeating second energization and third energization in an on-off control after performing first energization by the control unit.
As described in Reference 1, the technology of having the stopper structure in order to determine an operation limit when the relative rotation phase between the driving side rotating body and the driven side rotating body reaches the most retarded angle and when the relative rotation phase reaches the most advanced angle is common.
In the internal combustion engine, the relative rotation phase may be set to, for example, the most retarded angle based on the operating state of the engine, and in the control of setting in this way, when the relative rotation phase is displaced at a high speed, mechanical impulsive sound may be generated in the region of a stopper.
For example, in a case where the controller is capable of setting a control form so as to reduce a voltage to be supplied to the electric motor when a deviation of the relative rotation phase is smaller as in PID control, for example, using an electric motor the rotational speed of which increases in proportion to an increase in the voltage of power to be supplied, such as a brushless DC motor, it is considered that it is possible to match the rotational speed of the electric motor with the rotational speed of the camshaft at the time at which the relative rotation phase reaches the most retarded angle, and as a result, to reduce an impact in the stopper.
However, in consideration of a delay in detection by a sensor that detects the relative rotation phase between the driving side rotating body and the driven side rotating body and a delay in control by the controller, it is also considered that the stopper generates impulsive sound when a control target is the most retarded angle or the most advanced angle. In such control generating impulsive sound, it is also considered that the valve opening/closing timing control mechanism may be damaged and that the performance of controlling the opening/closing timing of a valve may deteriorate.
Thus, a need exists for a control apparatus which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.

Control apparatus of valve opening/closing timing control mechanism


Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium for selecting actions for an agent in an environment. In one aspect, a system comprises receiving an agent trajectory that characterizes interaction of an agent with an environment to perform one or more initial tasks in the environment; processing the agent trajectory to generate a classification output that comprises a respective classification score for each agent category in a set of possible agent categories, wherein each possible agent category is associated with a respective task selection policy; classifying the agent as being included in a corresponding agent category based on the classification scores; selecting tasks to be performed by the agent in the environment based on the task selection policy of the corresponding agent category; and transmitting, to the agent, data defining the selected tasks to be performed by the agent in the environment.

This specification relates to selecting tasks for an agent to perform in an environment.
An environment can be, e.g., a real-world environment or a simulated environment, and an agent can accomplish tasks in an environment, e.g., by performing actions to interact with the environment. A task defines a goal-oriented objective to be achieved by an agent as a result of interacting with an environment.

Learning agent categories using agent trajectory clustering


An engine control system for controlling the engine to transition between an activated mode where all cylinders are active and a deactivated mode where less than all cylinders are active is provided. The system includes: a noise vibration and harshness (NVH) limit module that determines a noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) torque limit based on the engine speed and the vehicle speed; and a mode transition module that enables the engine to transition between the deactivated mode and the activated mode while limiting noise, vibration, and harshness based on the NVH torque limit and a requested torque.

The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Some internal combustion engines include engine control systems that deactivate one or more cylinders during operation. The deactivation typically occurs under low load situations. For example, an eight cylinder engine can be operated using four cylinders to improve fuel economy by reducing pumping losses. This process is generally referred to as displacement on demand or DOD. Operation using all of the engine cylinders is referred to as an activated mode. A deactivated mode refers to operation using less than all of the cylinders of the engine (one or more cylinders not active).
Conventional methods of controlling the engine to transition between the activated mode and the deactivated mode are based on engine vacuum. Some methods include an engine vacuum hysteresis pair to prevent toggling between the activated and deactivated modes. These methods neglect engine torque and have a negative impact on fuel economy during low engine torque conditions. Likewise, the methods tend to have a negative impact on noise, vibration, and harshness during high engine torque conditions.

Cylinder deactivation torque limit for noise, vibration, and harshness


A central air conditioning system includes a compensating control function in which the prescribed target temperature Tfs of the conditioned air supplied from the air conditioning apparatus to a main duct is changed from the original value to a prescribed value of a modified target temperature Tfm to establish the target temperature Tfs when the actual room temperature Ta in each room does not achieve a corresponding desired room temperature Ts even though the damper of the corresponding air volume control unit is positioned at either the fully opened position or the closed position. The temperature of the conditioned air from the air conditioning apparatus is controlled in accordance with the target temperature Tfs, and the target temperature Tfs of the conditioned air is further changed to successive values of the modified target temperature Tfm until the actual room temperature Ta in each room achieves the corresponding desired room temperature Ts.

1. Field of the invention
This invention relates, in general, to air conditioning systems. In particular, the invention relates to a system in which a conditioned air is simultaneously supplied to a plurality of rooms to be air-conditioned from one air conditioning apparatus through a duct.
2. Description of the related art
A conventional central air conditioning system typically includes one air conditioning source and a duct which communicates with a plurality of rooms to be air-conditioned through corresponding paths to simultaneously control the temperature in the rooms. The conventional air conditioning system usually is provided with an automatic air volume control function, i.e., a so-called VAV (variable air volume) unit. In VAV unit, a damper and an air volume sensor are arranged in the path formed between the duct and each room, and the opening degree of each damper is controlled on the basis of the heat load of the corresponding rooms. In other words, the volume of the conditioned air fed from the air conditioning source to each room is determined based on the difference between a desired room temperature set by the thermostat provided in each room and a detected room temperature (actual room temperature).
In the above-described conventional air conditioning system including the VAV unit, the temperature of the conditioned air fed from the air conditioning source is previously set at a desirable level through the operation panel or the remote controller of the air conditioning source, and the temperature of each room is controlled by each damper which varies the volume of the conditioned air fed to each room. During the operation, the capacity of the compressor of the air conditioning source is controlled to maintain the temperature of the conditioned air fed from the air conditioning source at a set level. The total flow rate of the conditioned air is controlled by the fan device. Furthermore, in this system, a minimum volume of air fed to each room is set to secure a suitable volume of air ventilating each room, and the volume of air fed into each room is controlled such that it is not reduced below the minimum volume of air. In other words, a damper is not fully closed even though further supplying of the conditioned air in the corresponding room is not required. Thus some conditioned air is always supplied into the room until the air conditioning source stops. Thus, if the heat load in each room is smaller than the heating/cooling capacity of the air conditioning source corresponding to the previously set temperature of the conditioned air fed from the air conditioning source, each room may be heated or cooled in excess as long as the air conditioning source is operating even though each damper is at the closed position and the capacity of the fan device is at the minimum value. When the heat load in each room becomes greater than the heating/cooling capacity of the air conditioning source, the temperature of each room may not reach the desired temperature set by the thermostat even though each damper is fully opened and the capacity of the fan device is at the maximum level.

Central air conditioning system having compensating control function for total heat load in a plurality of rooms


A semiconductor memory device includes an I/O circuit suitable for inputting and outputting data signals, and a control logic suitable for controlling the I/O circuit. The control logic includes a flip-flop suitable for operating in response to a dock signal, which is irrelevant to the data signals, and feed a first output signal back, a first pulse generation circuit suitable for generating a data output control pulse in response to a second output signal of the flip-flop which is an inverted signal of the first output signal, and a second circuit suitable for generating a strobe signal in response to the second output signal.

1. Field of Invention
Various embodiments of the present invention relate to a semiconductor design technology, and more specifically, to a semiconductor memory device and a method of operating the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Semiconductor memory devices are memory devices implemented using a semiconductor such as silicon (Si) germanium (Ge), gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP), or the like. The semiconductor memory devices may be broadly classified into volatile memory devices or non-volatile memory devices.
A volatile memory device may lose stored data when a power is blocked. The volatile memory device includes a static random access memory (SRAM), a dynamic RAM (DRAM), or the like. A non-volatile memory device may retain the stored data even when not powered. The non-volatile memory device includes a read-only memory (ROM), a mask ROM (MROM), a programmable ROM (PROM), an erasable programmable ROM (EPROM), an electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), a flash memory, a phase-change RAM (PRAM), a magnetic RAM (MRAM), a resistive RAM (RRAM), a ferroelectric RAM (FRAM), and the like. Flash memories are classified into a NOR-type flash memory and a NAND-type flash memory.
Recently, the semiconductor memory device has tendencies of a high integration and a high speed operation. The semiconductor memory device has concerns in operation stability.

Semiconductor memory device and method of operating the same


The present invention includes a method and apparatus for controlling data link layer access to protected servers on a computer network by a client device. Address resolution requests broadcast on the network by the client device seeking access to any network device are received and then processed to determine whether the client device is unknown. If the client device is unknown, restriction address resolution replies are transmitted to the protected devices to restrict access by the client device to the protected devices and allow access to an authentication server. The authentication server is monitored to determine if the client device is authorized or unauthorized by the authentication server. If the client device is authorized, access is allowed to the protected devices. If the client device is unauthorized, blocking address resolution replies are transmitted on the computer network to block access by the client device to all other network devices.

With the introduction of low-cost wireless networking technologies, companies are now more vulnerable to intrusion than ever before. Local area networks (LANs) can become compromised from inside the building by misguided employees installing unauthorized access points, malicious hackers hundreds of yards (up to several miles) away, or ordinary people using the company's resources for free Internet access. The nature and proliferation of wireless networking has opened holes behind corporate and consumer security lines by allowing people to view, without detection, and control network traffic at the lowest layer (layer 2/data link layer).
Wireless network equipment was initially made for consumers and therefore was designed to be cheap and easy to use while security was sacrificed for these features. Given the price point and ease of installation, wireless network's adoption into the corporate environment quickly spread. However, this also made it relatively cheap for anyone, employee or not, to add access points to the LAN. Since these devices are bridges (no routing is involved) restricting users can be difficult. Similarly, their lack of IP addresses makes access points hard to notice from an administrative view.
Another issue exacerbating the problem of wireless networking is that access points are Ethernet devices. The nature of the Ethernet standards, specifically address resolution protocol (ARP), is completely insecure and trusting to all commands. This allows anyone with a connection to an access point to perform man-in-the-middle attacks on anyone else in the same segment, wireless or not.
Adding to the problem of foreign hardware in the corporate environment and the trusting nature of ARP is the fact that as long as the range of both emitting and receiving equipment touch, a connection is made. This results in possible intrusion from miles away.
Organizations that do not use wireless LAN devices are also susceptible to the same dangers. It only takes one (perhaps well meaning) employee to compromise LAN security. For example, that employee might consider having a meeting in another office that does not have LAN connectivity. It then becomes apparent that by bringing their personal wireless access point from home, they could solve this problem. With the connection of that consumer wireless LAN device, the corporate LAN is now available outside of the building. In even worse cases, someone with the intent to harm the organization could hide an unknown wireless access point in the building. This is very feasible, since some access points are no larger than a paperback novel. LANs can become compromised from inside the building by misguided employees installing unauthorized access points, malicious hackers hundreds of yards (up to several miles) away, or ordinary people using the company's resources for free Internet access.
Current strategies to securing the LAN include Wired Equivalent Protection (WEP), multiple Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), or Distributed Name Address Translation (DNAT).
In cases where an organization proactively uses wireless LAN products, encrypting the wireless link presents obstacles. The current method for wireless LAN data security is called WEP, which uses an algorithm called RC4. Recently a group of engineers found a weakness in the RC4 keying algorithm, and published a paper detailing this weakness entitled, "Weaknesses in the Key Scheduling Algorithm of RC4" (Scott Fluhrer, ltsik Mantin, and Adi Shamir, Cisco Systems and The Weizmann Institute, 2001). Since this discovery, several programs have surfaced which allow hackers to take advantage of this security flaw and decrypt WEP frames. Once the key has been obtained, wireless devices often allow access to the wired LAN, which in turn gives an intruder the chance to launch attacks against internal servers, or other sites via the organization's Internet connection.
Because the security built into wireless devices has now been compromised, there is a need to augment wireless LANs with security that is more powerful. One approach is to re-engineer or upgrade WEP so that it accounts for the current security flaws. This will likely require the replacement of 802.11 chipsets currently in use. The cost involved with this plan will be considerable, since both wireless cards and access points will have to be repurchased. Because this solution is accomplished through the use of hardware, another consideration must be the possibility of another security exploit in the new encryption. If there were to be another exploit, it would bring wireless LAN security back to the present condition. Most importantly, however, is the fact that 802.11 security does not address the threat of unauthorized (rogue) access points.
Other approaches involve the use of VPNs. These devices create an encrypted tunnel between themselves and their clients. In the case of a wireless LAN, a properly installed VPN would be installed directly behind a wireless access point. If multiple access points are used in different locations of the LAN, multiple VPNs must be purchased, and placed behind each access point. The common type of VPN installation is much less secure. In most cases, the VPN is installed into the wired LAN without regard to the access point. In this scenario, the VPN acts as a peer to the access point, making its use optional. This means that no VPN authentication is required to access the wired LAN through the wireless access point.
Yet another approach focuses on the use of Distributed Name Address Translation, or DNA T. This method creates a one-to-one association between multiple usable IP addresses and one client-side address. This allows the user to roam throughout the organization, but requires the configuration of another subnet space. This method is more focused on ease-of-use, and authentication appears to be susceptible to common LAN attacks such as man-in-the-middle.
In a network optimally configured for security purposes, the network is divided into trusted and distrusted segments. For example, a locked server room could be considered a trusted segment, while other portions of the LAN could be potentially distrusted. This allows for the placement of gatekeepers physically between the trusted and distrusted segments to ensure that all devices on distrusted segments are authenticated before access is permitted to the trusted segments. This architecture prevents access to the internal LAN, as well as the use of unauthorized or "rogue" access points.
However, in large corporate networks there is widespread implementation of flat network topologies. Flat networks are networks in which every device is connected to switches and there is no limitation on who can connect to the LAN. Networks with flat topologies are devoid of trusted and distrusted physical segments. In such a topology, there is no physical location where an in-line security device can be placed to secure sensitive components, such as data servers and e-mail servers. Organizations that use this form of networking are extremely resistant to change. Placing devices in-line with network traffic is extremely difficult and usually results in resistance from system administrators.
One example of a device for blocking unwanted connections within a larger network is the network connection blocker (NCB) disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,044,402 issued to Jacobson et al. The NCB is a device located proximate to the gateway of a protected subnet in order to passively monitor connections between the subnet and the rest of the network. Unwanted connections are actively blocked by the NCB. In order to block connections, the NCB generates connection packets in accordance with the network protocol suite to cause closure of the detected unwanted connections and transmitting the connection packets to the corresponding host computers within the protected subnet. The NCB operates on the network IP layer (layer 3) in order to monitor and close TCP connections. This allows the NCB to work across subnets. However, by operating on the network IP layer, the NCB is ineffective against data link layer attacks.
The present invention avoids the complexity and cost of these other LAN security approaches, while meeting the needs of flat topology networks.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Security apparatus and method for local area networks


A method for structuring video by probabilistic merging of video segments includes the steps of obtaining a plurality of frames of unstructured video; generating video segments from the unstructured video by detecting shot boundaries based on color dissimilarity between consecutive frames; extracting a feature set by processing pairs of segments for visual dissimilarity and their temporal relationship, thereby generating an inter-segment visual dissimilarity feature and an inter-segment temporal relationship feature; and merging video segments with a merging criterion that applies a probabilistic analysis to the feature set, thereby generating a merging sequence representing the video structure. The probabilistic analysis follows a Bayesian formulation and the merging sequence is represented in a hierarchical tree structure.

Among all the sources of video content, unstructured consumer video probably constitutes the content that most people are or would eventually be interested in dealing with. Organizing and editing personal memories by accessing and manipulating home videos represents a natural technological extension to the traditional still picture organization. However, although attractive with the advent of digital video, such efforts remain limited by the size of these visual archives, and by the lack of efficient tools for accessing, organizing, and manipulating home video information. The creation of such tools would also open doors to the organization of video events in albums, video baby books, editions of postcards with stills extracted from video data, multimedia family web-pages, etc. In fact, the variety of user interests suggests an interactive solution, which requires a minimum amount of user feedback to specify the desired tasks at the semantic level, and which provides automated algorithms for those tasks that are tedious or can be performed reliably.
In commercial video, many moving image documents have story structures which are reflected in the visual content. In such situations, a complete moving image document is referred to as a video clip. The fundamental unit of the production of video is the shot, which captures continuous action. The identification of video shots is achieved by scene change detection schemes which give the start and end of each shot. A scene is usually composed of a small number of interrelated shots that are unified by location or dramatic incident. Feature films are typically composed of a number of scenes, which define a storyline for understanding the content of the moving image document.
In contrast with commercial video, unrestricted content and the absence of storyline are the main characteristics of home video. Consumer contents are usually composed of a set of events, either isolated or related, each composed of one or a few shots, randomly spread along time. Such characteristics make consumer video unsuitable for video analysis approaches based on storyline models. However, there still exists a spatio-temporal structure, based on visual similarity and temporal adjacency between video segments (sets of shots) that appears evident after a statistical analysis of a large home video database. Such structure, essentially equivalent to the structure of consumer still images, points towards addressing home video structuring as a problem of clustering. The task at hand could be defined as the determination of the number of clusters present in a given video clip, and the design of an optimality criterion for assigning cluster labels to each frame/shot in the video sequence. This has indeed been the direction taken by most research in video analysis, even when dealing with storylined content.
For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,821,945, a technique is described for extracting a hierarchical decomposition of a complex video selection for browsing purposes, and combining visual and temporal information to capture the important relations within a scene and between scenes in a video. Thus, it is said, this allows the analysis of the underlying story structure with no a priori knowledge of the content. Such approaches perform video structuring in variations of a two-stage methodology: video shot boundary detection (shot segmentation), and shot clustering. The first stage is by far the most studied in video analysis (see, e.g., U. Gargi, R. Kasturi and S. H. Strayer, "Performance Characterization of Video-Shot-Change Detection Methods", IEEE CSVT, Vol. 10, No. 1, February 2000, pp. 1-13). For the second stage, using shots as the fundamental unit of video structure, K-means, distribution-based clustering, and time-constrained merging techniques have all been disclosed in the prior art. Some of these methods usually require setting of a number of parameters, which are either application-dependent or empirically determined by user feedback.
As understood in the prior art, hierarchical representations seem to be not only natural to represent unstructured content, but are probably the best way of providing useful non-linear interaction models for browsing and manipulation. Fortunately, as a byproduct, clustering allows for the generation of hierarchical representations for video content. Different models for hierarchical organization have also been proposed in the prior art, including scene transition graphs (e.g., see the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,821,945), and tables of contents based on trees, although the efficiency/usability of each specific model remains in general as an open issue.
To date, only a few works have dealt with analysis of home video (e.g., see G. Iyengar and A. Lippman, "Content-based Browsing and Edition of Unstructured Video", IEEE ICME, New York City, August 2000; R. Lienhart, "Abstracting Home Video Automatically", ACM Multimedia Conference, Orlando, October, 1999, pp. 37-41; and Y. Rui and T. S. Huang, "A Unified Framework for Video Browsing and Retrieval", in A. C. Bovik, Ed., Handbook of Image and Video Processing, Academic Press, 1999). The work in the Lienhart article uses time-stamp information to perform clustering for generation of video summaries. Time-stamp information, however, might not always be available. Even though digital cameras include this information, users do not always use the time option. Therefore, a general solution cannot rely on this information. The work in the Rui and Huang article for generation of tables-of-contents, based on very simple statistical assumptions, was tested on some home videos with "storyline". However, the highly unstructured nature of home video makes the application of specific storyline models quite limited. With the exception of the Iyengar and Lippman article, none of the previous approaches have analyzed in detail the inherent statistics of such content. From this point of view, the present invention is more related to the work in N. Vasconcelos and A. Lippmann, "A Bayesian Video Modeling Framework for Shot Segmentation and Content Characterization", Proc. CVPR, 1997, that proposes a Bayesian formulation for shot boundary detection based on statistical models of shot duration, and to the work in the Iyengar and Lippmann article that addresses home video analysis using a different probabilistic formulation.
Nonetheless, it is unclear from the prior art that a probabilistic methodology that uses video shots as the unit of organization could support the creation of a video hierarchy for interaction. In arriving at the present invention, statistical models of visual and temporal features in consumer video have been investigated for organization purposes. In particular, a Bayesian formulation seemed appealing to encode prior knowledge of the spatio-temporal structure of home video. In a departure from the prior art, the inventive approach described herein is based on an efficient probabilistic video segment merging algorithm which integrates inter-segment features of visual similarity, temporal adjacency, and duration in a joint model that allows for the generation of video clusters without empirical parameter determination.

Video structuring by probabilistic merging of video segments


Disclosed herein is an external airbag deployment method of determining whether to deploy an external airbag. The method includes setting, by a controller, a detection area that has a predetermined range and tracking physical characteristics of objects entering the detection area. The detection area is a predetermined area located in front of a vehicle and is set by the controller based on a full deployment time of the external airbag and a relative velocity upon colliding with another object.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to an external air bag deployment method, for a vehicle which is configured to predict a potential collision and deploy an external airbag at a time of the collision based on the results of the prediction, without causing false operation.
More particularly, the present invention relates to an external airbag deployment method, which limits a front detection area to a predetermined area related to the characteristics of an external airbag, thus improving the implementation of a control method by eliminating the need to monitor a larger amount of data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, an external airbag that is outwardly deployed from the front or rear side of a vehicle has been developed and presented as a technology for improving vehicle safety. This technology is configured to deploy an external airbag by detecting and predicting a vehicle collision. However, in this technology maximum shock absorption effects must be obtained by deploying the external airbag at a precise time of the collision, and stability must be improved by correctly deploying the external airbag at a time point at which the airbag must be deployed, and system reliability must be improved by preventing the airbag from being falsely deployed at a time point at which the airbag must not be deployed.
A conventional method of controlling an airbag module using information a obtained prior to a collision includes detecting pieces of information regarding an object located in front of a vehicle using an ultrasonic sensor and radar sensor mounted in the vehicle; comparing information regarding a distance to the object detected by the ultrasonic sensor with information about a distance to the object detected by the radar sensor; selecting at least one of the information regarding the object detected by the ultrasonic sensor and the information about the same object detected by the radar sensor based on the results of the comparison of the distance information, and determining whether the object is located in an area where there is a possibility that the object may collide with the vehicle, based on the selected information; and the fourth step of deploying an airbag module installed within the vehicle, based on the results of the determination of whether the object is located in the area where there is a possibility that the object may collide with the vehicle.
The foregoing is intended merely to aid in the better understanding of the background of the present invention, and is not intended to mean that the present invention falls within the purview of the related art that is already known to those skilled in the art.

External airbag deployment method and system