Portable refrigeration devices (1) including methods for preparing evaporator chambers (10) for use in such devices, and the evaporator chambers (10) prepared in this way. The methods relate to the dispersion of refrigerant for the maximization of efficiency of vaporization of refrigerant vapor from the evaporator chamber (10) of such refrigeration devices (1).

The invention relates to self-refrigerating devices employing evaporation/condensation processes. Specifically the invention relates to methods for the preparation of refrigerant materials useful in such devices, and the refrigerant materials resulting from these preparation methods.
Self-refrigerating devices are known in the art. Many products, including liquid products, have more favorable properties when cold than when at ambient temperatures. Thus, cooling of these products to temperatures of between about 0xc2x0 C. and 20xc2x0 C. is desirable. Generally, such cooling is carried out by electrically-powered refrigeration units, or by means of a phase change material such as ice. The use of these units to cool such foods and beverages is not always practical because refrigerators generally require a source of electricity, they are not usually portable, and they do not cool the food or beverage quickly.
An alternate method for providing a cooled material on demand is to use portable insulated containers. However, these containers function merely to maintain the previous temperature of the food or beverage placed inside them, or they require the use of ice cubes to provide the desired cooling effect. When used in conjunction with ice, insulated containers are much more bulky and heavy than the food or beverage. Moreover, in many locations, ice may not be readily available when the cooling action is required.
Ice cubes have also been used independently to cool food or beverages rapidly. However, use of ice independently for cooling is often undesirable because ice may be stored only for limited periods above 0xc2x0 C. Moreover, ice may not be available when the cooling action is desired.
In addition to food and beverage cooling, there are a number of other applications for which a portable cooling device is extremely desirable. These include medical applications, including cooling of tissues or organs; preparation of cold compresses and cryogenic destruction of tissues as part of surgical procedures; industrial applications, including production of cold water or other liquids upon demand; preservation of biological specimens; cooling of protective clothing; and cosmetic applications. A portable cooling apparatus could have widespread utility in all these areas.
Most attempts to build a self-contained miniaturized cooling device have depended on the use of a refrigerant liquid stored at a pressure above atmospheric pressure, so that the refrigerant vapor could be released directly to the atmosphere. Unfortunately, many available refrigerant liquids for such a system are either flammable, toxic, harmful to the environment, or exist in liquid form at such high pressures that they represent an explosion hazard in quantities suitable for the intended purpose. Conversely, other available refrigerant liquids acceptable for discharge into the atmosphere (such as carbon dioxide) have relatively low heat capacities and latent heats of vaporization. As a result, some cooling devices which release carbon dioxide are more bulky than is commercially acceptable for a portable device.
An alternate procedure for providing a cooling effect in a portable device is to absorb or adsorb the refrigerant vapor in a chamber separate from the chamber in which the evaporation takes place. In such a system, the refrigerant liquid boils under reduced pressure in a sealed chamber and absorbs heat from its surroundings. The vapor generated from the boiling liquid is continuously removed from the first chamber and discharged into a second chamber containing a sorbent that absorbs or adsorbs the vapor.
The invention provides methods for the preparation of refrigerant materials used in evaporation/condensation-type self-refrigerating devices, and refrigerant materials which are produced with these methods. The invention is born out of the requirement for high efficiency vaporization of the refrigerant in such devices.
In one aspect, the invention provides a method for preparing an evaporator chamber for use in a portable, single-use, non-releasing evaporation-type refrigerator. The method includes forming a mixture of a volatile non-aqueous solvent (for example, short chain alcohols, including methanol) and a refrigerant dispersant (for example, acrylic-based polymers and copolymers, starch-graft polymers and copolymeric acrylates, including copolymer of acrylamide and an alkali salt of acrylic acid), depositing this mixture (which can be of from about 10 to about 70% by weight of volatile solvent, and from about 30 to about 90% by weight of polymeric material). On the inner surface of an evaporator chamber (in some instances, deposited on substantially the entire inner surface of said evaporator chamber, which, in some circumstances, is covered with a protective lacquer, and which also may be aluminum), over which the refrigerant dispersant is deposited), evaporating the volatile solvent to leave a substantially even coating of refrigerant dispersant on the inner surface of the evaporator chamber, loading the coating of refrigerant dispersant with a refrigerant (for example, water)to produce a substantially even layer of refrigerant intimately associated with the coating of refrigerant dispersant (the layer thickness of refrigerant and dispersant can be up to about 0.03 inches), removing gas from the evaporator chamber by evacuating the evaporator chamber (for example, to a pressure of riot more than about 20 milliTorr), and, sealing the evaporator chamber to prevent re-introduction of gas to the evaporator chamber. The evaporator chamber is also equipped with a means for controlling fluid communication between the interior of the evaporator chamber and an external vessel of lower pressure, for example a sorber chamber separated from the evaporator chamber by a valve and an actuator for preventing fluid communication between the sorber chamber and evaporator chamber until activation of the device. The evaporator chamber is also adapted to provide thermal transfer between its interior and exterior surfaces.
In another aspect, the invention provides a sealed and evacuated evaporator chamber including a gas-tight chamber evacuated to a pressure of not more than about 20 milliTorr, a substantially even layer of refrigerant dispersant coating at least a portion of the inner surface of the gas-tight chamber, a substantially even layer of refrigerant adhered to that layer of refrigerant dispersant; and a means for controlling fluid communication between the interior of the chamber and a lower pressure vessel. The evaporator chamber can be equipped with a means for controlling fluid communication between the interior of the evaporator chamber and an external vessel of lower pressure. The evaporator chamber can be adapted to provide thermal transfer between its interior and exterior surfaces. In another aspect, the invention provides a method of cooling a product with the portable, single-use, non-releasing evaporation-type refrigerator by operating the means for preventing refrigerant vapor flow, thereby permitting this flow. The pressure in the evaporator chamber is reduced subsequent to such operation, causing the refrigerant to vaporize and form a refrigerant vapor, the vapor is collected by the sorbent material in the sorber, and heat is generated in the sorbent. Then, by removing the vapor from the evaporator chamber by collecting the vapor until an equilibrium is reached, where the sorbent is substantially saturated or substantially all the refrigerant has been collected in the sorbent material and containing the heat generated in the sorbent within the sorber by means of the phase change-type heat sink material, the product is cooled.
The invention provides a self-contained and disposable refrigeration device. The device according to the invention does not vent a gas or vapor of any kind. There are no hazardous or toxic materials or components included in the device, and recycling of the materials of the device is facilitated. There are no pressurized gases present in the device and no environmentally objectionable materials such as unstable refrigerants. The device does not explode, even when consumed by fire, and is not flammable.
The methods of refrigerant dispersion provided by the invention are designed to allow for highly efficient and controlled vaporization of refrigerant in portable, single use, non-releasing evaporation-type refrigeration devices. The materials and methods of the present invention allow a substantially even layer of refrigerant to be vaporized from the inner surfaces of evaporator chambers of such refrigeration devices. This substantially even layer of refrigerant is maintained throughout the entire storage life of the refrigeration device despite the influence of gravity and the inevitable jarring that occurs in normal handling of such refrigeration devices.
As used in the specification, a xe2x80x9csubstantially even layerxe2x80x9d refers to layers of refrigerant materials and refrigerant dispersants which are not more than about twice as thick in one location of the surface they cover as in another such location. The refrigerants are to be dispersed on refrigerant dispersants when dispersants are employed, otherwise the refrigerant materials are to be dispersed on the inner surfaces of evaporator chambers, whether the surface is coated or not. The refrigerant dispersants, when employed, are to be dispersed on the inner surfaces of evaporator chambers, whether the surface is coated with any type of protective coating or not. As used in the specification, xe2x80x9cshort chainxe2x80x9d refers to organic molecules containing from one to four carbon atoms. As used in the specification, xe2x80x9ccopolymersxe2x80x9d include both random and block copolymers.
Unless otherwise defined, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. Although methods and materials similar or equivalent to those described herein can be used in the practice of the present invention, suitable methods and materials are described below. All publications, patent applications, patents, and other references mentioned herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety. In case of conflict, the present specification, including definitions, will control. In addition, the materials, methods, and examples are illustrative only and not intended to be limiting.
Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description, and from the claims.


A cap-like tip element is shaped and sized to fit over an energy-delivering distal end portion of an optic fiber conveying a flux of optic energy from a selected energy source. Optic energy emitted from an energy-emitting surface of the enclosed distal end of the optic fiber is received at a surface inside the tip element. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the tip element is optically transmissive, and is shaped to facilitate precisely directed application of optic energy emitted therefrom. The material of the tip element is selected to be durable in prolonged use through repeated thermal cycling. In another aspect of the invention the tip element material is selected to be electrically conductive and is connected to an independently controlled electrical voltage source so that the tip element may be used as a cauterization tool by direct contact to selected tissue. In another aspect of the invention the material of the tip element is optically opaque, hence the received optic energy is converted into heat applicable by contact with tissue. In yet another aspect of the invention, a primary optic energy flux is focused into a small quantity of gas contained between a lens-shaped end of the optic fiber and the inside of the tip element, the primary optic energy flux being focused to generate a high temperature plasma emitting optic energy at a wavelength characteristic of the selected gas.

Numerous surgical devices are known which utilize laser light as the primary form of energy conveyed by an elongate optic fiber and delivered it at selected locations for ablation or vaporization of tissue. Such devices can generally be divided into two principal categories: first, devices which have an end of the optic fiber itself shaped to emit laser energy in focussed form, e.g., for performing surgical incisions; and, second, devices which include in addition to the optic fiber a tip element which is heated by the laser energy. Such tip elements typically are formed of a ceramic material such as YAG, sapphire or silica, which materials are generally different from the material of the optic fiber. Both types of devices offer advantages and are deemed suitable for specific surgical applications, but both also pose certain problems in their manufacture and subsequent use. Laser surgical devices of these and other types are problems in their manufacture and subsequent use. Laser surgical devices of these and other types are becoming commonly available tools for a variety of surgical operations.
For use with each of these available tools, there are a variety of laser light energy sources capable of controllably delivering continuous or pulsed laser energy fluxes in selected wavebands, ranging from X-rays to infrared. Different advantages are realized by proper selection of the laser energy wavelengths and laser energy delivering tip designs. Copending applications U.S. Ser. Nos. 07/723,984; 07/723,987; 07/724,019; and 07/812,449 teach a variety of tip element forms, structures and improvements, each particularly suited to specific surgical applications.
A single optic fiber is often employed to delivery laser light energy emitted directly from a distal end contacted to tissue to perform incisions, coagulate blood, and/or cauterize severed blood vessels. Such an optic fiber end often degenerates and becomes structurally weak. This may be due to thermal cycling at very high and relatively low local temperatures in the course of repeated contacts with friable tissues.
If the optic fiber is connected to a separate tip element to avoid this, the material of the tip element must be such as to transmit the laser light energy very efficiently to the tissue. Also, Fresnel losses may occur in the interface between the optic fiber and the tip element where optic energy is transmitted between them. Copending applications U.S. Ser. Nos. 07/724,019 and 07/944,384 teach a simple solution to this problem. If the tip element material has a relatively low operating temperature, the same kind of physical degradation can occur as with a directly applied optic fiber end.
Furthermore, in the manner disclosed in the above-cited copending applications, e.g., U.S. Ser. No. 07/723,984, the tip element must be shaped not only to efficiently receive laser light energy from the optic fiber energy delivering end but also to accommodate to and permit certain types of surgical procedures. Such shaping of the energy delivering tip element, considering the materials involved, can be quite expensive even if economies of scale are realized in producing large numbers of such elements.
There is, therefore, an existing need for a way to deliver through a single optic fiber optic energy, e.g. from a laser source, in any of a variety of wavebands, precisely and repeatedly, over prolonged use at high efficiency. The present invention is intended to meet this need.

Energy delivering cap element for end of optic fiber conveying laser energy


A package delivery system includes a door access panel that is moveable between an open position and a closed position, and a frame configured to be carried by a door adjacent a passageway and configured to movably mount the door access panel. The system includes an actuator, a motor, and a controller to control selective actuation of the door access panel. The system also includes a wireless communication interface to communicatively couple the controller and a smart device for receiving a remote input to actuate the door access panel between the closed and opened positions. The system further includes a user interface configured to receive local input for actuation of the door access panel. A sensing unit is also included and has a position sensor to generate position signals to the controller. A scanning unit is coupled to the controller to scan packages delivered through the passageway.

Online shopping has resulted in more packages being delivered to homes and businesses. Packages may be delivered when the recipient is not present. The contents of the package may be valuable and/or important. Such packages delivered on a doorstep or other location outside of a residence are exposed to theft and/or damage from weather. Valuable packages may require a signature for security or require insurance against loss or theft. Such a signature requirement may complicate or delay the delivery when the recipient is unavailable to receive the shipment from the deliverer, which may result in additional costs.
Various approaches for securing delivered packages exist. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 10,653,262 to Israel is titled "Parcel securing assembly" and is directed to a parcel securing assembly that includes a box that is positionable on a horizontal support surface proximate an entrance to a building. The box has a delivery opening therein for receiving a delivered parcel. A door is hingedly coupled to the box and the door is aligned with the delivery opening for opening and closing the delivery opening. A locking unit is coupled to the box, and the locking unit is operationally coupled to the door. The locking unit is urgeable into a locked condition when the door is opened such that the locking unit locks the door when the door is subsequently closed. In this way the locking unit secures the delivered parcel in the box until an authorized user unlocks the locking unit.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,619,955 to Eichenblatt is titled "Systems and methods for facilitating package delivery or pickup" and is directed to a system for facilitating package delivery or pickup at premises of senders or recipients having a package door that is used for receipt and collection of packages. The package door includes an input device for entering package information and an image capture device for visually recording the arrival of a courier. The system may automatically unlock the package door if the package information matches a predetermined value. A user may remotely monitor the package information and/or information from the image capture device to determine whether to provide inputs for unlocking the package door.
Current package delivery approaches may be inconvenient and/or unreliable. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved package delivery experience.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.

Secure package delivery system and associated methods


An improved stacked rotary connector assembly wherein each connector comprises a pair of rings and the rings of each rotary connector thereof are individually split and mechanically separable. Because the input and output rings are each split and separable, any one rotary connector may be removed from the stack without requiring removal of any other rotary connector and without disturbing the input/output buses of the assembly.

The patent applications from which this application claims continuation-in-part priority, disclose disc-shaped electrical connectors which are configured to have male and female components that are interconnected along a common plane regardless of their respective angular positions. This feature permits electrical connection in a wearable snap connector without requiring visual observation during the connection process. It also permits interconnection of such connector components in an automated robotic environment where precise angular orientation may not be easily controlled. Further, this feature facilitates secure electrical interconnection of very large and very heavy connector components such as those required on the deck surface of ships for installation of different deck modules.
As disclosed herein, such disc-shaped connectors have also been used advantageously as rotary connectors where their independence of angular orientation is exploited to maintain contact even after interconnection. Such rotary connectors are typically used where It is necessary to rotate an assembly such as in submarine periscope assemblies and in conjunction with surveillance cameras and the like. Where such rotary disc-shaped connectors are employed in making numerous, multiple interconnections, it is typical to provide such connectors in a stacked configuration with a central common passage as shown for example in prior art FIG. 1.
As seen in FIG. 1, a rotary connector stack assembly comprises five rotary connectors co-axially aligned and having a common central passage. Each rotary connector comprises a pair of coaxial rings including a fixed upper input ring and a rotatable lower output ring. A plurality of inputs is received at the uppermost (first) rotary connector, one of the inputs being connected at the upper fixed input ring of the first connector and a corresponding output available at the lower rotatable output ring of the first connector. The remaining inputs are channeled through the passage toward the second rotary connector. The inputs and outputs may be low frequency electrical signals carried on conventional wires, as well as microwave signals carried on coax cable and optical signals carried on optical fibers. This arrangement is repeated at each rotary connector in the stack, a different input being affixed to the corresponding input ring at each connector. All of the outputs are available adjacent the stack below the fifth rotary connector. In this manner, the various inputs may be fed to receivers, meters, lights, scopes, etc. connected to the respective rotatable output rings and which rotate synchronously with the rotatable rings. Typically, all of the rotatable output rings are tied together mechanically so that they all rotate synchronously. Furthermore, it will be understood that all of the rings are axially contiguous to one another as shown in FIG. 1A, the apparent gap in FIG. 1 between the lower ring of each rotary connector and the upper ring of each subsequent rotary connector, being for purposes of illustration only. It will also be understood that the number of such rotary connectors in a stack assembly can be considerably greater than five. For example, in a typical periscope application, the number of connectors in a stack can be 15 to 20 more. Moreover, a typical rotary connector stack will have an outer cylindrical housing which may be a unitary structure.
One significant problem associated with the prior art rotary connector stack assembly of FIG. 1, arises when for maintenance or repair purposes, it becomes necessary to remove a connector from the stack. This task will require disassembly of the entire stack including removal of the inputs, outputs and at least all other rotary connectors above or below the connector to be removed. At the very least this can be a daunting and very inconvenient task requiring a significant amount of manual labor and downtime. At its worst, this can be a major interruption. For example, where the rotary stack is in a periscope, the need to remove a connector may require a return to a base with facilities for a major overhaul of the entire periscope assembly. The extent of the interruption with submarine deployment anywhere in the world, can be incredibly inconvenient, to say the least. It would be highly desirable if there were a solution to this problem, namely, a way to remove any of the rotary connectors without having to also remove any other of the rotary connectors and without having to remove or otherwise disturb the input and output bus.

Stacked rotary connector assembly using a split ring configuration


An electron gun cathode and a manufacturing method therefor includes a unitary cylindrical sleeve having a bottom with through-holes for the passage of the terminals of a heater. The heater is disposed in a closed space formed by the sleeve and a base joined to the sleeve opposite its bottom. The heater is sealed in the closed space of the sleeve and base to promote thermal efficiency, reduce heat loss between the base and the sleeve, and reduce power consumption of the cathode.

The usual heater type cathode, as shown in FIG. 1, includes a cathode material 1 as a source of electrons, a metal base 2 for spreading the cathode material thereon, a sleeve 3 for supporting the base 2 and for enclosing a heater 5, and a holder 4 for supporting the sleeve 3. The above mentioned components are separately manufactured, assembled by spot welding, and the cathode material 1 is spread on the surface of the base 2 by spraying.
In such a cathode, the heat energy is transmitted from the heater 5 to the metal 2 and to the cathode material 1 forming the surface layer of the base 2 to cause thermal electron emission. To obtain a desired thermal electron emission, the transmission efficiency of heat from the heater 5 to the base 2 has to be maximized.
However, a heater type cathode employs an indirect heating method and, consequently, increases in thermal efficiency are limited. In such a heater type cathode, there are many causes for heat loss such as the thermal resistance between the sleeve and the base, heat radiation resistance, and leakage of the radiated heat between the sleeve and the heater. Particularly, the thermal resistance and the radiated heat leakage are large factors reducing thermal efficiency.
The thermal resistance is further increased because the base metal and the sleeve are spot-welded at a plurality of spots, thereby leaving small gaps other than at the welded spots. Meanwhile, the radiated heat leakage occurs through the lower opening of the sleeve. An experiment demonstrated that the radiated heat leakage accounts for the greater part of the total heat loss.
Such heat losses, increase the time required for heating up the cathode material to the operating temperature through the heat energy of the heater. If this time increase is to be prevented, the amount of the current supplied to the heater has to be raised, increasing power consumption, but there are many restrictions against increasing consumption of electric power.

Electron gun cathode and manufacturing method therefor


A multiple DC-to-AC inverter system, which is suitable for an electric or hybrid vehicle application, includes a plurality of inverters controlled by a single controller. One example embodiment includes four three-phase inverters driving one six-phase motor, where the output of the first inverter is coupled to the output of the fourth inverter and the output of the second inverter is coupled to the output of the third inverter. In response to the failure of an inverter, the drive signals to the inverter that is coupled to the faulty inverter are updated such that the partner inverter can remain active without being driven into an over-current condition.

An inverter is an electrical component that can be configured to convert a DC signal into an AC signal. The prior art is replete with different inverter designs, inverter controller designs, and electromechanical systems that incorporate inverters. For example, an electric (or hybrid) vehicle may employ one or more DC-to-AC inverters as a power source for the motor. Some heavy duty vehicles utilize multiple inverters in a combined arrangement that is capable of powering a high power/torque multiphase AC motor.
Conventional multiple inverter systems utilize separate controllers for each inverter. For example, a four-inverter system typically includes four distinct controllers. The use of additional controllers in this manner results in increased cost, increased weight, and increased physical size requirements, which is undesirable in most practical deployments.
In some multiple inverter systems the outputs of two or more inverters may be connected together for purposes of driving the motor. In conventional systems, if one of the "combined" inverters fails, then the remaining inverters may be overdriven into an undesirable and potentially damaging over-current condition. To address this situation, conventional systems might shut down the remaining inverters, thus protecting them. Unfortunately, the disabling of healthy inverters results in a loss of drive power, which can render some heavy duty vehicles inoperable.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a multiple DC-to-AC inverter system that can be realized with less physical components, resulting in cost savings, reduced weight, and reduced size. In addition, it is desirable to have a multiple DC-to-AC inverter system having an automatic redundancy and protection feature. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.

Multiple inverter system with single controller and related operating method


A cutting insert comprises a rake face, a plurality of flank faces including clearance faces having a positive clearance angle. A cutting edge is formed at an intersection between the rake faces and the flank face and a convex wiper cutting edge formed on the cutting edge. A method for forming the cutting insert comprises the steps of placing a powdered material into a die and pressing the powdered material in the die to achieve a form having a convex portion on the rake face and at least one substantially flat clearance face having a positive clearance angle. Next, the form is removed from the die and sintered.

The present invention pertains to a cutting insert to be used in cutting tools during machining operations. More particularly, the present invention relates to an insert having a convex wiper cutting edge defined between two surfaces wherein one of the surfaces is a clearance face having a positive clearance angle.
It is well known to provide cutting inserts with wiper cutting edges by creating a straight edge or facet on the insert cutting edge. This facet is located after the major cutting edge and creates an improved surface finish by reducing the magnitude of the high points on the machined surface.
When creating a straight edge or facet on the insert cutting edge, the width of the facet must be greater than the advance per revolution to allow the cutting edges to overlap. Moreover, the spindle must be tilted at a critical angle because excessive spindle tilt causes the insert to dig into the work surface due to the sharp ends on the insert. Thus, this configuration does not allow for the rotational angular tolerance of the insert when mounted in the insert pocket.
This design has been improved upon by grinding the side surface of the facet so that it is radiused, thereby creating a radiused wiper cutting edge. The ground radius allows for the angular tolerance without having a detrimental effect on the resulting surface finish by insuring that the ends of the cutting edge do not contact and scratch the work surface.
Instead of grinding the side surface of the facet, the radius on the wiper cutting edge can be formed by grinding the top, chip breaking surface of the insert. An example of such an insert is the MICRO MILL insert available from Ingersoll as Part No. YCE434-01. However, this type of insert requires a negative axial rake to produce the convex wiper cutting edge. In addition, the grinding of the top surface and the accuracy with which it is ground create additional manufacturing operations and costs. Thus, it would be desirable to provide an insert having a generated convex cutting edge (wiper), or a convex cutting edge (wiper) that is formed without grinding.
The present invention is directed towards a cutting insert comprising a rake face including a convex portion, a flank face including a clearance face having a positive clearance angle, a cutting edge formed at an intersection between the rake face and the flank face, and a convex cutting edge formed on the cutting edge.
The invention is also directed towards a method for forming a cutting insert. The method comprises the steps of placing a powdered material into a die and pressing the powdered material in the die to achieve a form having a convex rake face and at least one flank face including a clearance face having a positive clearance angle. Next, the form is removed from the die and sintered.

Cutting insert and method of making the same


A computerized method for determining an objective tumor response to an anti-cancer therapy using cross-sectional images includes receiving a cross-sectional image of digital medical image data, identifying a set of pixels within the cross-sectional image corresponding to a target lesion, and analyzing the set of pixels with an image processing module to identify an upper and lower threshold of pixel intensities within a total range of pixel intensities, define a subset of pixels from the set of pixels that correspond to vascularized tumor and that have pixel intensities greater than or equal to the lower threshold and lower than or equal to the upper threshold, and derive a vascular tumor burden for the set of pixels. The method further includes determining the objective tumor response for the target lesion, wherein the objective tumor response is based on the vascular tumor burden.

Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to the collection, evaluation, and transformation of digital image files.
Background and Relevant Art
Advances in computing technology have resulted in a concomitant advance in medical device technologies, including within the field of diagnostic medicine. Particularly, the past century has demonstrated significant advances in medical imaging devices. Such advances have been hallmarked by the advent of radiologic devices such as computed tomography (CT; also known as x-ray computed tomography (x-ray CT) and computerized axial tomography scan (CT scan)), magnetic resonance imaging, and other radiologic devices that allow for the non-invasive viewing and exploration of internal structures of the body. These medical imaging devices allow physicians and clinicians to better document, treat, and understand pathologies, including cancer.
A variety of tumor response criteria have been developed to predict and/or evaluate the effects of anti-cancer therapies. However, there are issues with the known tumor response criteria being inconsistent, difficult to implement, narrowly tailored, expensive, and not reliably reproducible across multiple different institutions and readers. Further, the effects of some newer anti-cancer treatment therapies are difficult to determine with the current tumor response criteria.
Accordingly, there are a number of disadvantages in the art of data collection and management that can be addressed.

Computer-assisted tumor response assessment and evaluation of the vascular tumor burden


A buffering protective handheld controller, mainly with a buffering protective configuration for direction buttons and a number of functional buttons on one side of the main unit. It composes a multiple-layer cushion as a protective mechanism. Further, the handheld main unit has the rigid plastic base in an appropriate hollow shape, which may be enclosed by a sticking soft pad with a proper size. Thus, it can provide a cushion air-bag effect and fits the user's palm in any shape and any size. Particularly, because the user can hold the unit with a firm grasp by fingers, the grasping force is minimized during use. Such a handheld controller not only has the most comfortability but also reduced holding pressure. Therefore, it can provide fatigue reduction, blistering prevention and benefits like finger protection from callus and deformation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a handheld controller, especially a configuration that provides buffering protection to hands.
2. Description of the Related Art
Current handheld controllers use plastic material to make the touch buttons on the main unit. However, under a long period of pressing time, the rigid plastic material around the button makes the user feel discomfort due to an opposite force. Usually this results in ache, blistering, callus, or finger deformation, as the worst. Besides, because the handheld part of the main unit is made of injection molded ABS or rigid plastics, the user feels discomfort at the holding hands. Therefore, the comfortability of current handheld controller needs to be improved.

Buffering protective handheld controller device


The present invention provides a .beta.-carotene hydroxylase and a DNA coding for the enzyme. The DNA of the invention codes for the following recombinant protein (a) or (b):. (a) a protein consisting of the amino acid sequence as shown in SEQ ID NO: 2; PA1 (b) a protein which consists of the amino acid sequence as shown in SEQ ID NO: 2 having deletion, substitution or addition of one or several amino acids and which has .beta.-carotene hydroxylase activity.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a .beta.-catotene hydroxylase, a DNA coding for the .beta.-catotene hydroxylase, a recombinant vector comprising the DNA, a transformant transformed with the vector, a method for preparing the .beta.-catotene hydroxylase and a method for preparing .beta.-cryptoxanthin.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In carotenoids synthesized by animals, plants and microorganisms, there are a group of compounds with a hydroxyl group(s) generically called xanthophyll. These compounds are generated from carotenoids (starting substances) by the catalytic action of hydroxylase. For example, one hydroxyl group is introduced into .beta.-carotene to yield .beta.-cryptoxanthin, into which another hydroxyl group is introduced to yield zeaxanthin via the biosynthetic pathway shown below (see arrow (1) in FIG. 1):
.beta.-carotene .fwdarw..beta.-cryptoxanthin .fwdarw.zeaxanthin PA1 (a) a protein consisting of the amino acid sequence as shown in SEQ ID NO: 2; PA1 (b) a protein which consists of the amino acid sequence as shown in SEQ ID NO: 2 having deletion, substitution or addition of one or several amino acids and which has .beta.-carotene hydroxylase activity. PA1 (a) a protein consisting of the amino acid sequence as shown in SEQ ID NO: 2; PA1 (b) a protein which consists of the amino acid sequence as shown in SEQ ID NO: 2 having deletion, substitution or addition of one or several amino acids and which has .beta.-carotene hydroxylase activity.
This .beta.-cryptoxanthin is obtained by introducing a hydroxyl group into one of the two ionone rings present in .beta.-carotene. When another hydroxyl group is introduced into a position symmetric to the former position, zeaxanthin is produced (FIG. 1).
In a large number of plants and microorganisms, metabolism proceeds from .beta.-carotene to zeaxanthin, producing little .beta.-cryptoxanthin, the intermediate into which only one hydroxyl group is introduced.
This reaction is controlled by a hydroxylase gene called Crt Z. In this enzyme reaction, it is considered that two hydroxyl groups are introduced almost simultaneously. For example, under the control of a hydroxylase gene cloned from a bacterium belonging to the genus Erwinia, zeaxanthin is produced which is obtainable by introducing two hydroxyl groups into .beta.-carotene.
In Citrus unshiu (Satsuma mandarine) which is a major citrus fruit in Japan, .beta.-cryptoxanthin obtainable by introducing one hydroxyl group into .beta.-carotene is considered to be one of the most important carotenoids. In particular, .beta.-cryptoxanthin occupies 60-70% of the total carotenoid content in the edible part of this fruit.
Considering this high .beta.-cryptoxanthin content of Citrus unshiu, it is hard to think that the .beta.-cryptoxanthin in Citrus unshiu is produced by a gene involved in the above-mentioned metabolic pathway. Also, it is still unknown whether .beta.-cryptoxanthin is produced by those genes which have been already cloned.

Director General of National Institute of Fruit Tree Science, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

Bio-Oriented Technology Research Advancement Institution


A new and distinct variety of white flat nectarine tree, denominated ‘CAKEREDAL’, has a large flat fruit of very long shelf life without alteration after harvesting, a semi-sweet white flesh of high eating quality and an attractive homogenous purple red skin color. The tree is of large size and is vigorous. Fruit can be consumed crunchy or at maturity.

The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of white flat nectarine tree, Prunus persica L. Batsch var. nucipersica, which has been given the variety denomination 'CAKEREDAL'. This new tree produces flat fruit with a long shelf life without alteration both on the tree after growth completion and after harvesting, large fruit with very good eating quality, fresh fruit for fresh market in late July in the Pyrénées-Orientales department, France. Contrast is made to 'FLATPRETTY' (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 21,389) and ASFNBF0680 (non-patented) and 'CAKESWIT' (non-patented), standard varieties, for reliable description. 'CAKEREDAL' is a promising candidate for commercial success in that it has a medium period flowering, a flat fruit with very long shelf life without alteration after harvesting, and so a very durable fruit.


A main clutch is disposed radially outward on a differential mechanism. There is no need to reserve space to install the main clutch at the end of the differential mechanism opposite from a differential case. Thus, the axial length of an LSD can be reduced, providing easier installation in the vehicle. Also, the LSD is installed in the vehicle to the rear of a transmission. This location provides spatial leeway in the radial direction. As a result, ease of installation is maintained if the main clutch is disposed radially outward from the differential mechanism and the outer diameter of the LSD is increased. The present invention provides a drive force transmission device with reduced axial length, thereby improving ease of installation.

The present invention relates to a drive force transmission device that distributes a drive source for a vehicle or the like to a plurality of output shafts while allowing torque differentials.
Conventionally, drive force transmission devices equipped with a differential restriction device that restricts differential operations of a differential device are well known, e.g., see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication Number Hei 9-144845 (JP '845). The differential restriction device in JP '845 includes differential means equipped with: a differential case connected to a drive shaft of an engine that rotates in tandem with the drive shaft; a sun gear and internal gear rotatably housed in the differential case; and a pinion gear meshing with the sun gear and the internal gear. A friction clutch is interposed between the differential case and the sun gear or the internal gear of differential means and is clamped by clamping means.
In the differential restriction device disclosed in JP '845, a friction clutch is disposed between the members forming differential means so that the shafts at the ends of the pinion gear (elements 119 and 121 in FIG. 2 of JP '845) are eliminated. This makes it possible to reduce the space needed to install the pinion gear, thus allowing a compact design.
However, in the differential restriction device disclosed in JP '845, differential means, the friction clutch, and clamping means are aligned along a single axis. This makes it difficult to reduce the total length along the axis. For example, if the total axial length of a differential restriction device installed in a transfer case is too long, the transfer must have a longer total length, resulting in increased weight. As a result, shorter axial lengths for differential restriction devices are preferable for improving the ease of installation of the differential restriction device.


A method, device, system, and module associate subscriber identity information with terminals in a communication network. For example, the method includes establishing a connection between a first terminal and a second terminal and communicating a software subscriber identity module from the first terminal to the second terminal. The software subscriber identity module includes a standard component and an active component. The standard component is communicated only when needed.

The systems, apparatus, and methods described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Generally, a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card is a small printed circuit board that must be inserted in a GSM-based mobile phone when signing on as a subscriber. The SIM card typically contains subscriber details, security information and memory for a personal directory of numbers. The card can be a small plug-in type or sized as a credit-card but has the same functionality. The SIM card also stores data that identifies the caller to the network service provider.
The SIM card is not movable between devices without utilizing a manual process. Indeed, a person owning multiple mobile devices has to manually move the SIM card containing subscriber identification information from one terminal to another. Typically, this long and cumbersome process includes: switching off the terminal, removing the back cover of the device, removing the battery, removing the SIM card, replacing the battery, replacing the cover, opening the cover of the second terminal, removing the battery of the second terminal, putting the SIM card into the second terminal, replacing the battery of the second terminal, replacing the cover of the second terminal, and powering up the second terminal.
This manual process of transferring a SIM card from one device to another only works if both devices are available. Also, if the device or terminal is lost or stolen, the user also loses the SIM card. Heretofore, there are no solutions that address these problems.
Published patent application WO 02089449, which is assigned to the same assignee as the present application, describes a software SIM. However, this published application handles SIM as one software component and consumes a lot of network bandwidth when the identity is changed from one device to another.
Thus, there is a need for SIM that can be easily transferred from device to device. Further, there is a need for an improved software SIM. Even further, there is a need for an improved method for associating subscriber identity information with multiple terminals.

Method and system for associating subscriber identity module


In some aspects, the disclosure is directed to methods and systems for an advanced computer input device with a rotational degree of freedom (zrot) in addition to two translation degrees of freedom (x and y), in an easy and intuitive fashion. A plurality of independent position sensors may be arranged on a lower surface of the computer input device, each determining a direction and velocity of motion of the input device when in use. The detected directions and velocities may be compared to determine whether a rotational motion of the input device has been applied as opposed to (or in addition to) a translation.

Software developers would frequently like to provide interfaces that allow further degrees of freedom for realism or greater control, such as three rotational degrees of freedom (pitch, roll, and yaw) for flight simulators, or three translational degrees of freedom (e.g. x, y, z) for control over camera positions within three-dimensional computer aided design (CAD) programs. However, computer input devices are typically limited to two degrees of freedom, such as x-axis and y-axis translations of a standard computer mouse; or are large, expensive, and unwieldy, such as joysticks with rotatable grips, or "3D mice", such as the Space Navigator manufactured by 3DConnexion of Munich, Germany, which provides six degrees of freedom through a pressure-sensitive knob or ball. Worse, while such joysticks and knobs may provide additional degrees of freedom beyond conventional mice, when used for translational degrees of freedom, they operate as rate-control devices rather than position-control devices, as with conventional mice. Specifically, position-control input devices directly change a position of a cursor according to the displacement of the input device—that is, move a mouse a particular distance and the cursor moves a corresponding distance. Joysticks and 3D knobs, on the other hand, change the speed and direction of the cursor according to their rotation—that is, if the joystick is held to one side, the cursor will continuously move in that direction at a corresponding speed (until encountering an edge, or potentially "wrapping around", depending on the user interface). This may be less intuitive and difficult to use in instances where accuracy is important, such as clicking on small buttons in a user interface, "first-person shooter" video games, drawing programs, etc. Other input devices, such as graphics tablets and styluses, touchpads, and tracked motion controllers (e.g. the Wii Remote or "Wiimote" wireless motion controller manufactured by the Nintendo corporation of Kyoto, Japan.
The details of various embodiments of the methods and systems are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Computer input devices having translational and rotational degrees of freedom


In one embodiment, a sortation system has a conveyor system and mobile drive units. The conveyor system has a conveyor surface that carries payloads along a direction that extends from a first conveyor end to a second conveyor end. The conveyor system has support structure that supports the conveyor surface above a floor so as to define a space between the conveyor surface and the floor. The space is sized so that the mobile drive units can drive under the conveyor surface towards the second conveyor end. The conveyor system has sensors supported that are positioned to detect positions of the mobile drive units under the conveyor surface. The conveyor system moves at least a portion of the conveyor surface based on the sensors detecting the presence of each mobile drive unit so as to synchronize movement of the payloads from the conveyor surface to the mobile drive units.

Movement of products in a modern warehouse environment, such as but not limited to a package sort center, in which packages are moved within a facility, occurs on a vast scale. One method of sorting packages (i.e., payloads) includes using mobile drive units to deliver packages to local destinations at the facility that correspond the ultimate final destination of the package outside of the facility such as a customer address. For example, mobile drive units can be used to organize packages based on delivery route, as determined based on a postal code or other package features. Mobile drive units are self-powered robotic devices that travel on the floor of the warehouse guided by, for example, fiducial markers in or on the floor. In this manner, mobile drive units may follow a grid-like pattern to traverse from a starting point to a destination point, such as a drop-off location for a package.

Conveyor system having sensors to time transfer of payloads onto moving mobile drive units


A system and method for integrating traffic light violation related vehicle information with court date scheduling information, which employs one or more digitized video recordings of alleged violations. The system provides end-to-end violation processing using the digitized video recordings of the event, and using vehicle database information, as may for example be provided from a department of motor vehicles (DMV) database. The system potentially also interfaces to a court date scheduling database, which includes indications of various available times at which hearings regarding traffic violations may be scheduled. A user interface may provide a display of one or more perspectives on the violation event, as well as access to the vehicle and court date scheduling database. An evaluator, for example a police officer, uses the interface to 1) view the recorded views of the event, 2) determine whether a citationable violation has occurred, 3) extract any necessary vehicle identification information from the recording, 4) obtain owner information regarding the vehicle from the vehicle database, based on the extracted vehicle identification, 5) generate a citation with regard to the violation, and 6) schedule a hearing date with regard to the violation in response to the available court dates in the court date database.

The disclosed system relates generally to automated systems for traffic violation enforcement, and more specifically to a system for integrating digital video recordings of potential traffic violations with a vehicle information database, as may be provided by department of motor vehicles (DMV) vehicle registration database, in order to generate traffic citations.
Traffic violation enforcement in general, including generation of citations and court date scheduling, is a costly, resource intensive endeavor. Police departments facing budget restrictions have been hard pressed to allocate sufficient officers and other personal to perform the related tasks of traffic intersection monitoring, traffic citation generation, and court date scheduling.
In recent years, attempts have been made to automate traffic light violation enforcement. Existing systems have included fixed position cameras for taking still photographs of potential violation events, and vehicle detectors located in proximity to a monitored intersection. However, such systems have included no mechanism with which a citation could be conveniently generated using automatically collected information regarding the alleged violation, in combination with vehicle information from a database. Accordingly, citation generation and court date scheduling have involved much costly and time consuming manual processing.
For the above reasons it would be desirable to have an automated traffic light violation citation generator and court date scheduling system, which provides convenient access to information regarding the violation event, as well as to vehicle information from a vehicle database. The system should further be secure with regard to protecting the privacy of persons involved in events which are determined to be non-violations.

Integrated traffic light violation citation generation and court date scheduling system


A self-contained medication apparatus which includes a first container having a first semi-spherical portion, and a second container having a second semi-spherical portion and a cylindrical portion formed with the second semi-spherical portion. At least one type of medication disposed within the first container, such as one or more pills, and a consumable liquid disposed within the second container. The first container is pivotally connected to the second container by a hinge member between an open position and a closed position. A first seal is connected to the first semi-spherical portion of the first container, and a second seal is connected to the cylindrical portion of the second container. The first seal and the second seal are removed to allow the medication to be removed from the first container and allow access to the consumable fluid such that the medication and the consumable fluid may be ingested.

It is common for travelers to take medication on trips so the medication is available when needed. Some types of medication is prescription, other types of medication are available over the counter. Many types of over the counter drugs are sold in pill form, and as many as a few hundred pills are stored in a container, such as a bottle. However, there are times when it is inconvenient to carry an entire bottle of pills all the time, especially when only one or two pills may be needed. Furthermore, most pills are taken with water or some other type of consumable fluid, which may not be readily available when traveling. Furthermore, when traveling by airplane, there are limits to the amount of liquid which may be brought to the airport and taken on a plane. It is commonplace for only one or two doses of medication to be necessary throughout the day, therefore making it unnecessary to carry an entire bottle of pills. Additionally, if only one or two doses of medication are necessary, then it may not be cost-effective to buy an entire bottle of pills and water.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a device which is usable for carrying medication in pill form as well as a consumable fluid, provides a single-dose of the medication, and is disposable.


A self-powered electric lock includes a lock bolt and a first engagement element having disengaged and engageable positions. An electric actuator includes an output operative to move the first engagement element to its engageable position. A manually operated rotatable member is operatively coupled to the first engagement element when the first engagement element is in its engageable position. A lock bolt drive mechanism is coupled to the lock bolt and to the first engagement element when the first engagement element is in its engageable position. The movable output moves the first engagement element to its engageable position upon input of correct electronic data. An electricity generator is coupled to the manually operated rotatable member. The electricity powers the electric actuator and an electronic data input device. The manually operated rotatable member is also used to actuate the lock bolt drive mechanism and retract the lock bolt.

Items of extremely sensitive nature or very high proprietary value often must be stored securely in a safe or other containment device, with access to the items restricted to selected individuals given a predetermined combination code necessary to enable authorized unlocking thereof. It is essential to ensure against unauthorized unlocking of such safe containers by persons employing conventional safe-cracking techniques or sophisticated equipment for applying electrical or magnetic fields, high mechanical forces, or accelerations intended to manipulate elements of the locking mechanism to thereby open it.
Numerous locking mechanisms are known which employ various combinations of mechanical, electrical and magnetic elements both to ensure against unauthorized operation and to effect cooperative movements among the elements for authorized locking and unlocking operations.
One example of such recently-developed devices is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,945, to Sanderford, Jr., which relates to an electronic lock actuated by a predetermined input through a keyboard outside a safe to a programmable control unit within a housing of the safe. The device has an electric motor for driving a lock-bolt for locking a safe door to the safe housing, and means for displaying codes entered by the user, with a facility for selectively changing the necessary code. The device also has a battery-powered backup circuit maintained in a dormant state to conserve energy until an actuation key is operated. A microprocessor of the unit is programmed to activate a relatively high frequency of power output pulses at the start of movement of a locking bolt by the electric motor, to overcome inertia and any sticking forces on the bolt, and a lower frequency of power pulses to complete the movement of the bolt.
Another example is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 4,674,781, to Reece et al., which discloses an electric door lock actuator and mechanism having manual and electrically driven locking means. This device utilizes a combination of a lost motion coupling and resilient springs for driving a motive means to a neutral position, to thereby isolate an electric motor and gearing from the locking means so that the locking means may be operated manually without back-driving of the electric motor and intermediate gearing.
A major problem with such devices is that they require substantial amounts of electric power to perform their locking and unlocking functions. For securely storing and accessing highly sensitive or valuable items, it is important to avoid depending on the ready availability of sufficient electrical power for driving the locking mechanism. In fact, for many applications, the use of long-life batteries, even to power a small microprocessor, may also be deemed unacceptable.
The stringency of relevant U.S. government specifications is readily appreciated from Federal Specification FF-L2740, dated Oct. 12, 1989, titled "FEDERAL SPECIFICATION: LOCKS, COMBINATION" for the use of all federal agencies. Section 3.4.7, "Combination Redial", for example, requires that once the lock-bolt has been extended to its locked position "it shall not be possible to reopen the lock without completely redialing the locked combination", and defines the locked position as one in which the bolt has been fully extended. Section 18.104.22.168, "Emanation Analysis", requires that the lock shall not emit any sounds or other signals which may be used to surreptitiously open the lock within a specified period. Section 220.127.116.11.4, "Surreptitious Entry", requires that for any lock to be deemed acceptable, attempts shall be made to unlock the lock through manipulation, radiological analysis and emanations analysis, further including the use of computer enhancement techniques for signals or emanations. Even further, Section 6.3.2 defines surreptitious entry as a method of entry such as manipulation or radiological attack which would not be detectable during normal use or during inspection by a qualified person.
In short, for high security storage of sensitive or valuable material, in light of the availability of sophisticated computer-assisted means and methods for unauthorized operation of locking mechanisms, there exists a need for an autonomous locking mechanism that does not require batteries or external sources of power for any purpose, receives and recognizes only specific user-selected combination code information for access, emanates no information useful to persons attempting unauthorized operation, and is made to resist unauthorized operation even when subjected to strong externally imposed electrical, magnetic or mechanical forces, and satisfies other U.S. government specifications. Most important, once the mechanism is put in its locked position it loses all "memory" of the input combination code and requires a totally new and correct provision of the complete combination code to be unlocked again.
The present invention, as more fully disclosed hereinbelow, meets these perceived needs at reasonable cost with a geometrically compact, electrically autonomous, locking mechanism.


An apparatus and method for video encoding/decoding considering impulse signal are disclosed. The method for video encoding includes generating a predicted block from predicting a current block and subtracting the predicted block from the current block to generate an M×N residual block, and encoding an A×B residual block containing residual signals of an impulsive component in the M×N residual block to generate a bitstream. The apparatus and the method of the present disclosure improve coding efficiency by efficiently encoding or decoding the residual signals of the impulse component in encoding or decoding videos.

The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) have developed an improved and excellent video compression technology over existing MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.263 standards. The new standard is named H.264/AVC (Advanced Video Coding) and was released simultaneously as MPEG-4 Part 10 AVC and ITU-T Recommendation H.264.
The video compression in such H.264/AVC (hereinafter referred to as 'H.264') involves various techniques of discrete cosine transform (DCT) of integer type, variable block size motion estimation and compensation, quantization, and entropy coding.
Video data encoding methods according to H.264 may be classified generally by prediction types into an intra prediction encoding and an inter-prediction encoding. Intra prediction predicts the current block to be encoded in a reference picture by using pixels of neighboring blocks with the current block. Inter-prediction uses the current block's closest block pixels in unidirectional or bidirectional reference pictures in predicting the current block.
Instead of encoding and compressing the entire image data, most video image compression techniques like the H.264 simply process the difference of the original pixels to the pixels predicted through the inter-prediction, intra prediction or the like in a way to remove the temporal and spatial redundancy. The smaller the difference of the predicted pixels from the original pixels, the smaller the image data becomes to be compressed which is translated into higher compression efficiency.
Therefore, in the video image compression space to improve the compression efficiency, there have been various prediction and encoding methods suggested to increase the prediction accuracy such as by determining either the inter-prediction or intra prediction depending on the image characteristics, prediction accuracy enhancement techniques, etc.
However, there are numerous reasons that the pixels cannot always be predicted accurately. In such a case, the deviations of the inaccurate pixels from the original pixels are excessive compared to other pixels. A residual signal of impulsive component refers to a larger one of the residual signals, which are the differences between the original pixels and predicted pixels, and the impulsive components have adverse effects on the video compression efficiency.

Apparatus and method for image encoding/decoding considering impulse signal


An anti-counterfeit method includes: obtaining raw data to be encoded; collecting fingerprint data by analogue acquisition to obtain initial fingerprint feature information and encrypting the initial fingerprint feature information to obtain a random feature secret key, the random feature secret key comprising a first sub secret key and a second sub secret key and the first sub secret key is encoded into a micro-texture image while the second sub secret key is embedded in an encryption program; encrypting, through the random feature secret key, the raw data to be encoded to generate an information code image, the information code image comprising the micro-texture image; passing an anti-counterfeit authentication when an image sensor succeeds in integrating the first sub secret key and the second sub secret key to generate the random feature secret key; and succeeding in decrypting, by the image sensor, the information code image through the random feature secret key.

Data encryption refers to converting plaintext into ciphertext through an encryption algorithm and an encryption secret key, and data decryption refers to restoring the ciphertext to the plaintext through the decryption algorithm and the decryption secret key. A core of the data encryption and the data decryption is cryptography.
In cryptography, to prevent the secret key from being decoded, encrypting and decrypting a two-dimensional bar code in different phases may constitute different solutions. A first solution is first encrypting an information source and then encoding the information source. In this solution, ciphertext is obtained after the two-dimensional bar code is decoded, and the ciphertext can be read only through a decryption program. A second solution is first encoding the source code into a code word and then encrypting the code word. Other solutions may be formed from a combination of the preceding solutions to encrypt the two-dimensional bar code. Since a two-dimensional bar code reader has been commercialized, any two-dimensional bar code meeting national standards can be decoded into information by the two-dimensional bar code reader.
In the related art, it is common to use a random number as the secret key. A lot of researches on a random number generator have been conducted. However, up to now, no one has proved that a digital sequence is completely random; however, it is difficult to find out the law of the random number. The random number generator used for the secret key includes ANSIX9.17 and FIPS186 of Federal Information Processing Standards. Although the random number generator supports for the problem of deciphering the secret key, but it does not solve an authentication problem of who generates the random number.
In the related art, a common practice in information management is storing information about an item in a two-dimensional bar code, and the information about the item can be read automatically through recognition of the two-dimensional code. However, the two-dimensional code is easy to be recognized and counterfeited, so the two-dimensional code has a poor anti-counterfeit function.

SHENZHEN QIANHAI QUANTUM CLOUD TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


An apparatus and method for tracking physical locations from which a service is provided are disclosed. The apparatus comprises a communication module operable to send and receive messages, a location identifier and a query element operable to request the communication module to send a location request message for a service. The communication module is operable to receive a location response message responsive to said location request message, said location response message comprising location information for the service; and forward the location information of the service to the location identifier. The location identifier is operable to identify the physical location associated with the location information of the service.

Large scale computer systems may be used to provide a number of different services. A service may be any software, hardware or software and hardware implemented function provided at one or more computers for consumption at another computer. Examples of services may include, but are not limited to, web page services, email services, database access services, secure portal services, authentication services, search services and network monitoring services. Any given service may be provided in such a way that a number of individual server computers simultaneously provide the service under a load balanced or other workload distribution arrangement, for example a cluster. Any given service may also be provided in such a way that a number of individual servers are configured for active provision of the service and a further number of individual servers are configured for fall-back (also known as contingency) provision of the service. The fall-back provision may be invoked, for example as part of a testing or proving process, if one or more of the active provision servers cease operation and/or if a demand for the service exceeds a threshold or a current service provision capacity of the active provision servers. Similarly, one or more active provision servers may be reassigned to fall-back provision if a demand for the service is smaller than a threshold or than a current service provision capacity of the active provision servers or if one of the active provision servers starts operation again. Additionally, at any time, a different combination of all available servers may be allocated to either the active or fall-back provision for any given service. Any such changes in the servers allocated to a service and any such changes in the active and fall-back status of servers for a service may be carried out manually by an operator or automatically by a computer management system. Thus it can be seen that between any two points in time, the individual servers providing a given service may change significantly.
This low-level, high-volume detail is often unnecessary to determine the business-level configuration of a service. In addition, the technical nature of the information is often inappropriate for business areas involved in service management activities. Business continuity needs drive physical infrastructure to be distributed across discrete physical locations, meaning that the information driving service management is not which infrastructural component or components is providing the service, but physically where those components are located. The roles of those locations may differ from service to service and change over time, preventing the role of an individual physical component from being inferred directly.
The present invention has been conceived in the light of drawbacks and limitations of conventional systems.


Metal corrosion and substrate contamination can be suppressed, and process quality and yield can be improved. A substrate processing apparatus comprises: a process chamber; a substrate holder; a cover part closing and opening the process chamber; a substrate holder stage; a rotary mechanism rotating the substrate holder stage; a rotation shaft inserted through the cover part and connected to the substrate holder stage and the rotary mechanism so that a first gas ejection port is formed therebetween; a first gas stagnant part surrounded by the rotary mechanism, the cover part, and the rotation shaft; a second gas ejection port formed at the substrate holder stage; a second gas stagnant part formed at the rotation shaft and communicating with the process chamber via the second gas ejection port; and a flow port formed at the rotation shaft for connecting the first and second gas stagnant parts.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus and a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, which are adapted to manufacture a semiconductor device by performing processes such as a thin film forming process, an oxidation process, an impurity diffusion process, an annealing process, a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process, and an etching process on a substrate such as a silicon wafer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As a substrate processing apparatus, there is a batch type substrate processing apparatus capable of processing a predetermined number of substrates at a time. In a batch type substrate processing apparatus, a desired process is performed by charging a predetermined number of substrates in a substrate holder, loading the substrate holder into a process furnace, and introducing process gas into the process furnace in a state where the substrates are heated.
An exemplary batch type substrate processing apparatus is disclosed in Patent Document 1.
The substrate holder (boat) is placed on a furnace port cover (seal cap) that is used for air-tightly closing a furnace port. By lifting the seal cap using a lift unit (boat elevator), the boat can be loaded into the process furnace. During a process, the boat is rotated by a boat rotary mechanism so that process quality can be uniformly maintained.
In the process furnace, the boat is simply supported only by the seal cap. Therefore, if a transversal force is applied to the boat due to, for example, an earthquake, the boat may fall down. Particularly, if the boat falls down during a loading or unloading work or when the boat is placed outside the process furnace, the falling of the boat becomes a significant accident by which the operation time of the substrate processing apparatus is largely affected: for example, the substrate processing apparatus cannot be operated for a long time.
For this reason, in another substrate processing apparatus, a boat is mechanically shackled on a seal cap for preventing falling of the boat. In the case of a process furnace of such a substrate processing apparatus, a mechanically strong metallic material is used for making a boat fixing part and a boat fixing unit. The fixing part and fixing unit are configured to be loaded into the process furnace together with a boat.
In a substrate processing process such as a film forming process, for example, if a corrosive gas (e.g., chlorine (Cl)-containing gas) is used or etching is performed by using a corrosive gas, the fixing part and the fixing unit may be corroded, and thus substrates may be contaminated.
In the related art, a metallic part is covered with a quartz member so as not expose the metallic part directly to the inside of a furnace. However, eventually, metal corrosion occurs due to corrosive gas permeated through a narrow gap.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 06-168904.

Substrate processing apparatus and method of manufacturing semiconductor device


A feminine hygiene article and method of making same so that back-attached wings have adhesive areas for attachment to an undergarment, that are substantially offset from the adhesive areas of the main body portion, also used to attach the undergarment.

Disposable feminine hygiene articles, which are understood herein to include sanitary napkins, pantiliners, and incontinence pads, feature a main body portion comprising an absorbent material mounted on an impervious backing sheet, the main body portion being bounded by a peripheral edge. (As used herein, "peripheral edge" refers to the extreme outside edge of the main body, however that edge happens to have been formed.) Frequently, such articles further include attachment wings or flaps contiguously extending from said backing sheet from opposite sides thereof. Because portions of both the backing sheet and the wings support adhesive areas, when the article is placed with the backing sheet in contact with one side of the crotch area of an undergarment, and the wings are wrapped around the other side of the crotch area, the two opposing adhesive areas hold the article in proper location on both sides of the undergarment.
Such wings are either contiguous extensions of the backing sheet, in which case they hinge and fold primarily about said peripheral edge of the main body portion, or, they are hingedly attached to the backing sheet along a fold line located inside the peripheral edge of the main body portion, hereinafter, "backattached". A preferred manner of constructing the latter is to form the wings as a contiguous extension of the backing sheet, and then to fold them about the peripheral edge and adhesively secure a portion of the wing to a portion of the backing sheet inside the peripheral edge. This is preferred because it biases the wings to fold back towards the main body portion, exactly as the user does when wrapping the wings about an interposed undergarment. It has been found that such a bias renders easier the wrapping of the wings about the undergarment. Indeed, in the absence of the bias so provided, the wings may have a tendency to unfold and pull their adhesive areas off the undergarment.
Nevertheless, the helpful bias noted above has its own disadvantage. The adhesive areas on both the backing sheet and the wings are temporarily covered by release paper until the user is ready to install the article. However, once the release paper is removed, if the adhesive area of a wing inadvertently contacts directly the adhesive area of the backing sheet, the two stick together so well (in the absence of the intended undergarment), that they cannot be pulled apart without damaging the article. The noted bias of the wings towards the backing sheet has the disadvantage of making such inadvertent contact more, rather than less, likely.
Thus, there has been a need prior to this invention to prevent wing adhesive areas from sticking to the adhesive areas of the backing sheet, particularly when the wings are made by folding them about the peripheral edge and adhesively secured to the backing sheet to create the bias.


A hybrid vehicle may include an engine controller that determines an activation state of an oxygen sensor when the engine controller is requested to operate an engine and controls a voltage applied to the oxygen sensor depending on whether or not the oxygen sensor is in an activated state, and a vehicle controller that controls a voltage of a battery of the hybrid vehicle and applies the voltage of the battery to the engine controller. The engine controller outputs an activation demand signal for the oxygen sensor to be activated to the vehicle controller when it is determined that the oxygen sensor is not in the activated state.

A hybrid vehicle may operate in an electric vehicle (EV) mode in which the vehicle travels using a motor or in a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) mode in which the vehicle travels using an engine and the motor.
In the HEV mode, the hybrid vehicle operates the engine by burning fuel. In order to prevent environmental pollution due to exhaust gas caused by the burning of fuel, the vehicle controls the air-fuel ratio using an oxygen sensor to maintain the concentration of oxygen in the exhaust gas at a predetermined level or higher. Hence, for a transition from the EV mode, in which the engine is turned off, to the HEV mode, the oxygen sensor has to be activated to operate the engine.
Because the oxygen sensor is activated at a predetermined temperature or more, the vehicle applies a maximum voltage to a heater of the oxygen sensor for a predetermined period of time to minimize heating time of the oxygen sensor.
However, because the vehicle controls the application of the maximum voltage for heating the oxygen sensor with respect to the predetermined time period, the vehicle may continually apply the maximum voltage even after the oxygen sensor is activated, or may lower the voltage applied to the heater, with the oxygen sensor deactivated.

Hybrid vehicle and method for controlling the same


If telecommunication devices in a group are associated with different network technologies, a use status of one telecommunication terminal in the group is still transmitted to a second telecommunication terminal of the group. Thus, for example, a busy signal is output by one device of the group even if the telephone call is conducted using another telecommunication terminal of the group.

A social real-time collaboration system (also called social collaboration system) is a system in which different devices or terminations for different types of communication are synchronized, in which corresponding signaling occurs between the devices. Within the social real-time collaboration systems, like in the "Circuit®" system, in particular multiple terminals belonging to the same user are linked together for communication. In this way, the user can chat and telephone simultaneously (parallel), or data can be transmitted in part via a desk telephone belonging to the social real-time collaboration system on one hand and via a personal computer connected in parallel on the other hand. It is characteristic of the centralization of these participants under one system that such advantages are provided by means of synchronization between the terminals. Such synchronization is not known in an open environment (heterogeneous environment), that is, if two different network systems that work with different network technologies are connected.
In everyday communications, often a first person would like to call a second person and first attempts it using the landline telephone. At the same time, the other person is using the cellular network to telephone a third person, so the person calling on the landline does not notice this. Instead it will just go unanswered. If necessary, the caller will attempt the cellular telephone as an alternative, and find out only then that it is busy.

Method for operating a communication system, telecommunication apparatus and computer program product


A surgical implant and a method for the making the surgical implant is provided. The surgical implant includes various granules incorporated into an upper surface and a lower surface of a body portion thereof. The granules can be pressed into the upper surface and the lower surface via physical force using at least one mold portion. The physical force applied by the at least one mold portion can deform and/or extrude the upper surface and the lower surface to impregnate these surfaces with the granules. The granules can provide the implant with bioresorbable and/or mechanically-reinforced properties.

Surgical implants have been used in the human body to aid repair of anatomical deficiencies such as a damaged vertebral columns and broken bones. When such surgical implants are used, it is typical to rely on fasteners and/or interactions of the implants themselves with surrounding anatomical structures to hold the surgical implants in position in the body. For example, spinal implants can include surface structures or surface roughenings for interacting with the surrounding anatomical structures to hold the spinal implants in position in the body. To illustrate, such surface structures or surface roughenings could afford insertion and resist migration of the spinal implants in a disc space between adjacent vertebral bodies. However, given the need to prevent migration of surgical implants in the body, there is a need for further ways to prevent migration that do not interfere with insertion of such implants.

Porous surgical implant and method of making same


A new and distinct rose plant having a strong fragrance and deep pink-colored flowers.

The present invention comprises a new and distinct cultivar of rose plant known by the varietal name 'RNF Pink 01'. The new variety was discovered in April of 2010 in Gifu, Japan. The new variety is the result of a planned breeding program between a Rosa L. variety named 'Bridal Pink' (female parent, U.S. Plant Pat. No. 2,851) and an unnamed and unpatented Rosa rugosa variety (male parent) from the breeder's own collection. 'RNF Pink 01' is similar to its female parent in thorn shape and upright growth habit, but 'RNF Pink 01' has a deeper pink flower color, fewer thorns, and more buds per stem that bloom like a bunch that differentiate it from its female parent. Additionally, 'RNF Pink 01' exhibits a similar petal shape to its male parent, but differs from its male parent in its actual fragrance and the fact that 'RNF Pink 01' has an upright growth habit versus its male parent's spreading growth habit. When 'RNF Pink 01' is compared to Rosa L. 'Evera 186' (currently unpatented in the U.S., Japanese Patent No. 20884), the varieties are similar in that they both exhibit an upright growth habit and double flowers, but 'RNF Pink 01' has a slightly lighter pink flower color and different petal shape than 'Evera 186'. When generally compared to other rose varieties known to the breeder, the new variety differs in its strong fragrance, its type of fragrance, and in flower color. 'RNF Pink 01' has been trial and field tested and has been found to retain its distinctive characteristics and remain true to type through successive propagations.


An intervertebral prosthesis, particularly for percutaneous minimally-invasive surgery having a substantially disc-like geometry with a thickness equal to the intervertebral distance to be restored is provided. In a lateral elevation view, in the intervertebral prosthesis there is a through-hole adapted to allow its sliding along a guiding wire inserted previously in the patient through a percutaneous minimally-invasive anterolateral access.

Numerous disorders affecting the spinal column and in particular affecting the intervertebral discs are currently known in medicine.
Some of these disorders produce a degeneration of the fibrous capsule of the intervertebral disc, which reduces its elasticity and becomes damaged, allowing part of the nucleus pulposus to escape.
This phenomenon is commonly known as "hernia".
There are also other disorders, of a progressive type, which entail the thinning, over time, of the intervertebral disc owing to the loss of its ability to retain water inside it. This thinning often also produces the thinning of the facet capsules, with consequent pain.
In some cases, this thinning can lead to the reduction of the medullary canal, with a severe risk of chronic claudication.
In many cases, progressive deterioration of the intervertebral disc requires the implantation of an intervertebral prosthesis, which substantially replaces said disc.
Among the various known types of intervertebral prosthesis, one is available which has the main function of facilitating the fusion of two adjacent vertebrae.
This type of prosthesis generally comprises one or two bodies made of osteoconductive material which are arranged, by way of a surgical procedure, in mutually opposite positions between the two adjacent vertebrae.
The materials used to provide the two bodies facilitate the growth and adhesion of bone tissue so as to cause the fusion of the two vertebrae, which can no longer move with respect to each other.
This type of conventional intervertebral prosthesis, which is generally applied at the level of the lumbar vertebrae, which are the ones subjected to the greatest load determined by body weight, is not free from drawbacks, which include the fact that generally it requires an extremely invasive surgical procedure for implantation.
The surgeon in fact proceeds by preparing the intervertebral disc to accommodate the intervertebral prosthesis and inserts the prosthesis itself by creating initially a percutaneous anterolateral access of such size as to be able to accommodate a cylindrical retractor instrument, which, once inserted in the patient through said percutaneous anterolateral access, affords a maneuvering channel that is of width comprised generally between six and nine centimeters, is delimited laterally by the retractor instrument, and is fully free from the organic tissues that are present between the access created and the intervertebral disc to be operated on.
In this manner, the surgeon can operate on the disc by working visually and by inserting the various surgical instruments, as well as the prosthesis itself, through the maneuvering channel that has been created.
In greater detail, the method described above involves entry with a first small cylindrical instrument, then cannulas that have the function of expanding the first access, and finally the retractor, which also expands further the first access.
It should be stressed that this surgical procedure, in addition to being inherently laborious and time-consuming, can lead to severe consequences for the patient since, although the procedure is monitored at the neurological level by a device that detects if there is a nervous structure proximate to the surgical instrument, it does not allow the surgeon to detect and therefore monitor the compression of tissues and muscles (against the transverse apophyses) caused by the divarication or expansion of the retractor instrument, which very often leads to the stretching and/or compression of the femoral plexus throughout the duration of the procedure.
This can sometimes lead to temporary dysesthesias of the associated femoral nerve and to paresthesias, motor deficits of the quadriceps, weakness in hip flexion, and in some cases to actual permanent damage of the plexus itself, all the consequences cited above being permanent.
Indeed, recently manufacturers have recommended closing the retractor every ten minutes and waiting another ten minutes before resuming the procedure.
Another drawback of the background art, discussed in some studies, consists in that in a lateral position at the L4-L5 and L3-L4 level the veins and aortas approach the space affected by the procedure.
A further drawback of the background art consists in that it requires the removal also of a portion of annulus that is as wide as the implant that will be positioned in addition to the internal part of the disc (nucleus pulposus), which leads to an incorrect placement of the implant in said disc.
A further drawback of the background art consists in the onset, a short time later, of inguinal hernias caused by the access (tissue stress).
A further drawback of the background art consists in that, if it is necessary to remove the implant owing to infections, incorrect placement or size, et cetera, then surgery to remove and/or replace the implant is highly invasive and complex.
A further drawback of the background art consists in that, if it is necessary to provide posterior stabilization (70% of cases), with the background art first of all lateral access is provided in order to position the implant and then the patient is turned over to perform the arthrodesis procedure via a posterior pathway; this entails removing all the surgical sheets from the patient, repositioning him/her on the operating table, placing the new sheets again with the posterior access and continuing with the procedure. If efficient operating room staff is available, this procedure requires 25 minutes, extending all operating times (anesthesia, etc.).

Intervertebral prosthesis, apparatus for implanting intervertebral prostheses and surgical method for implanting intervertebral prostheses, particularly for percutaneous minimally-invasive surgical procedures


A vacuum sealable container for baked or cooked food including a base section to receive the food in its entirety, the base section having at least one runner where the at least one runner divides the base section into equally sized portions and a lid shaped to fit the base section, the lid having at least one blade where the at least one blade slots into the at least one runner when the lid is placed over the base to close the container and where the at least one blade performs at least one of: cutting the food into the equally sized portions and holding the food in place between the at least one blade and the at least one runner and where the container is at least one of: sealed with a vacuum when used with a vacuum sealing bag and a vacuum machine and self-sealing.

Vacuum packaging is known in the art and provides a convenient solution for extending the shelf life of foods and/or reducing the volume of the package. Vacuum packaging involves removal of air from the package prior to sealing. It reduces the amount of atmospheric oxygen in the packaging and thus inhibits the growth of aerobic bacteria or fungi. It is used for storage of dry foods, such as cereals or coffee, over a long period of time and for storage of fresh foods, such as vegetables, or fish, or meat, over a shorter period of time. Vacuum packaging comes in various shapes and can be rigid or flexible.