A cartridge acting as a dispenser for liquid treatments of a human or animal body is U shaped or hoop shape. The cartridge has a container containing a liquid treatment which when required to be dispensed is ejected through one or more nozzles projecting through the wall of the cartridge into the centre of the U or of the hoop. A base is provided for cartridges, the base controlling timing and quantity of treatments.

Provision of drugs and other medical veterinary treatments has been usually by injection, pills, and nasal sprays; more recently transdermal patches have been used to deliver a measured amount of the drug or other treatment concerned. In this specification "treatment" includes pre-treatments of persons to minimise their risk of reaction if subsequently exposed, for example, to hazardous gases.
A small number of drugs are available in spray-on formulations, but these require significant dexterity to apply and give very inconsistent doses due to variation in the accuracy of the user, the distance of the spray from the target and the number of times and force with which the nozzle is pressed.
PTL 0001: WO WO 2015/028787.                (AAN MEDICAL LIMITED) May 3, 2015 addressed the issue of ensuring the accuracy of delivery of the drug or other treatment concerned avoiding the need, in the case of transdermal treatments, to use patches ensuring that the patch continues to adhere sufficiently to enable the drug or other treatment to cross the skin barrier for a long enough time for the treatment to be effective.
However, if the device of WO2015/028787 is used for different drugs (or with different patients), there will be a need in many cases to clean the components of the device to medical standards after use and before subsequent use because of the risk of cross contamination between treatments administered on different occasions. This can be a time consuming task. Furthermore, the pressures at the nozzles of the device of WO2015/028787 may differ running the risk of uneven application on the surface of the body to be treated.


A method for generating movement rotation information includes: acquiring a jaw image including a plurality of teeth; specifying first position information indicative of positions of three or more points individually corresponding to three or more types of teeth included in the jaw image; acquiring, in accordance with positional relationship information that associates types of teeth with second position information indicating positions of reference points, the second position information corresponding to three or more reference points individually corresponding to the three or more types of teeth; calculating movement rotation information so that a plane including the three or more points is made coincide with a reference plane including the three or more reference points, the movement rotation information including at least either of a movement amount and a rotation amount with respect to the plane including the three or more points; and outputting the movement rotation information.

Tooth type data indicative of a tooth form including a shape of a tooth crown of a plurality of teeth is utilized in CAD (Computer-Aided Design) and CAM (Computer-Aided Manufacturing) software for dental use including various functions. For example, arrangement information indicative of a positional relationship at least between a first molar and a second molar of a subject is acquired from a picked up image of the oral cavity of the subject and predict an eruption date of the second molar of a different subject is predicted from the acquired arrangement information. Further, the position and the orientation of an object is detected for recognition and capture a spatial relationship between the upper jaw and the lower jaw of a dental patient using the object for recognition whose position and orientation have been detected.
Further, the coordinates of motion measurement data at a cusp joint position acquired from a masticatory locus of a dentition and the coordinates of shape data acquired from dental plaster models of the upper jaw and the lower jaw in a basic state are made coincide with each other using a transformation matrix. Further, a collision between 3D (three dimensional) models is calculated using a boundary volume hierarchy such as AABB (Axis-Aligned Bounding Box) trees or a spatial distribution structure such as a BSP (Binary Space Partitioning) tree, an octree, or a k-d (k-dimensional) tree to detect an occlusion position at which a virtual upper jaw and a virtual lower jaw contact with each other.
Examples of the related art include Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2012-45247, Japanese National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2009-501616, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 09-238963 and Japanese National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2013-520251.

Medium, apparatus, and method for generating movement rotation information


A method for producing tagatose comprises: a) performing epimerization of fructose using hexuronate C4-epimerase to obtain an epimerized product comprising tagatose; b) purifying the epimerized product; and c) crystallizing the purified epimerized product. The hexuronate C4-epimerase is an enzyme derived from Thermotoga maritima, Thermotoga neapolitana, Thermotoga thermarum or mutants thereof. The hexuronate C4-epimerase is produced from strains Escherichia coli, Corynebacterum glutamicum, Aspergillus oryzae, or Bacillus subtilis.

Tagatose has a natural sweet taste which is hardly distinguishable from sucrose and has physical properties similar to sucrose. However, ingested tagatose is not well absorbed in the small intestine and thus has a minimal impact on blood glucose level. Further, tagatose is a low calorie sweetener having about 30% the calories of sucrose. In addition, tagatose has a prebiotic effect that promotes growth of beneficial lactic acid bacteria through fermentation by intestinal microflora.
Only about 20% of ingested tagatose is absorbed in the small intestine and the remaining 80% fraction of tagatose reaches the large intestine where the intestinal microflora lives, and selectively promotes the production of lactic acid bacteria, thereby producing short chain fatty acids. Particularly, tagatose has a prebiotic property capable of producing large amounts of butyrate (up to 50% of the total short chain fatty acids) which can prevent colon cancer. Furthermore, tagatose is a natural sugar having a low-calorie value of 1.5 kcal/g and has attained GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, thereby permitting use as a functional sweetener in foods, beverages, health foods, diet additives, and the like.
However, tagatose is not often found in nature and is a rare sugar present only in small amounts in dairy products and some plants. In order to use tagatose as a low-calorie and functional sweetener, it is essential to develop a method for mass production of tagatose from inexpensive raw materials.
Tagatose has conventionally been produced by isomerization of galactose. In order to economically afford galactose, studies have been carried out to develop various raw materials containing galactose, methods for attaining galactose and methods for producing tagatose using the raw materials. Lactose has been used as the most representative raw material for tagatose. However, the prices of lactose or lactose-containing products show a unique price pattern of repeating fall and rise due to various factors such as amounts of raw milk produced according to weather, demand for powdered milk, changes in lactose amount consumed in developing nations, and the like. Such price fluctuations in the raw milk market make the stable supply of raw materials for producing tagatose difficult. Accordingly, there is a need for a new method for producing tagatose using common raw materials (glucose, sucrose, fructose, and the like).
Korean Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-2009-0125004 discloses a method for producing galactose by epimerization of glucose. Korean Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-2006-0125971 discloses C3-epimerization of ketohexose. However, both documents fail to disclose a method for producing tagatose through C4-epimerization of fructose.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


Provided is a polycarbonate-based resin composition containing a polycarbonate-based resin containing a predetermined polycarbonate-polyorganosiloxane copolymer, and 0.5 to 5 parts by mass of a white pigment with respect to 100 parts by mass of the polycarbonate-based resin, in which the molecular weight distribution of a polyorganosiloxane block in the polycarbonate-polyorganosiloxane copolymer is controlled within a specific region.

A polycarbonate resin is excellent in mechanical strength, electrical characteristics, transparency, and the like, and hence has been widely utilized as an engineering plastic in various fields, such as the field of electrical and electronic equipment, and the field of automobiles. And also, the polycarbonate resin is utilized in a casing for a cellular phone, a mobile personal computer, a digital camera, a video camera, an electric tool, or the like. In these applications, impact resistance is important because of a possibility of dropping during handling in these application. In addition, a design property (especially a color) is also an important factor.
A resin material can be relatively easily colored and a colorful resin material has been used in many everyday things. In particular, a resin material having, for example, a white or gray color is frequently used. Meanwhile, a polycarbonate-polyorganosiloxane copolymer (hereinafter sometimes referred to as "PC-POS") obtained by copolymerizing a polyorganosiloxane has been known. The PC-POS has been expected to find use in the above applications because the PC-POS is excellent in properties, such as impact resistance. Titanium oxide is desirably used as a pigment in the applications because while impact resistance is important, a design property is also important.
A composition obtained by combining a PC-POS and titanium oxide, the composition having a white external appearance and a satisfactory impact strength, has been known. For example, a polycarbonate-based resin composition that is excellent in mechanical properties, such as impact resistance and rigidity, optical characteristics, and the like, and that is also excellent in reflectance characteristic (see Patent Document 1) has been known. According to Patent Document 1, a PC-POS-containing composition whose titanium oxide content has been set to 5 to 10% shows a satisfactory reflectance and a satisfactory mechanical strength. In another example, a polycarbonate-based resin composition that shows excellent flame retardancy without a phosphorus-based flame retardant nor a halogen-based flame retardant, that has high reflectivity and a high light-shielding property, and that is excellent in thermal stability has been known (see Patent Document 2). According to Patent Document 2, a PC-POS-containing composition whose titanium oxide content has been set to 5 to 50% shows a satisfactory reflectance, a satisfactory Izod impact strength, and satisfactory flame retardancy.
The compositions disclosed in those Documents show high light-reflecting characteristics, but meanwhile, their strengths are lower than a strength inherent in a PC-POS because their titanium oxide contents are large. In addition, in the above applications, the specific gravities of the compositions were larger than a proper value. Accordingly, the development of a PC-POS-containing composition reduced in titanium oxide content while having a satisfactory reflectance, a satisfactory mechanical strength, and the like has been desired.
A composition containing a relatively small amount (e.g., 1 to 2.5 wt %) of titanium oxide and a PC-POS has also been known (see Patent Document 3).
In the PC-POS-containing composition disclosed in Patent Document 3, titanium oxide has been used in a small amount as means for improving its flame retardancy. In this Document, however, there is no disclosure concerning its color appearance.
In Patent Document 4, there is a disclosure of a polycarbonate-based resin composition excellent in appearance and impact resistance of a molded product as a result of the use of a PC-POS whose polyorganosiloxane (hereinafter sometimes referred to as "POS") moiety has a short chain length and a PC-POS whose POS moiety has a long chain length. In Patent Document 4, a polycarbonate-based resin composition that is free of the occurrence of a black streak or the like and is hence excellent in surface appearance can be obtained, but a problem in that its impact resistance, in particular its impact resistance at low temperature is not sufficient occurs.

Polycarbonate-based resin composition and molded article thereof


A molding die for molding glass and renewal method thereof. The molding die includes a substrate, a nickel-phosphorous alloy layer, with phosphorous content 30 wt % or less, overlying the substrate, an intermediate layer overlying the nickel-phosphorous alloy layer, and a passivation film overlying the intermediate layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a molding die, and more specifically to a glass molding die and renewal method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A molding die disclosed in JP2003-277074 by Yokoyama et al. sequentially provides a chromium layer and platinum-iridium alloy layer, or a chromium layer, a chromium nitride layer, and platinum-iridium alloy layer overlying a tungsten carbide substrate. The chromium layer is hard chromium, having high hardness and wear resistance. The ground molding die can maintain good surface accuracy (low peak to valley value) and low roughness resulting from the wear of the platinum-iridium alloy layer during predetermined time being as five times as that of the chromium layer, accelerating renewal thereof. When the surface profile of the chromium layer deviates, however, the chromium layer quickly can damage a diamond tool because chromium is a transition element, having unshared electrons in d orbital with resulting chemical wear to the diamond tool. When correcting the surface profile of the chromium layer using grinding, the renewing process is difficult and time-consuming resulting from the high wear resistance of the chromium layer.

Glass molding die, renewal method thereof, and glass fabricated by the molding die


A method for online learning from a data stream with an ensemble of meta-trees includes: observing a data instance from the data stream; for each of the meta-trees, replicating the data instance to generate a number of replicated data instances; for each of the meta-trees, updating meta-tree components using the number or replicated data instances; and inducing each of the meta-trees based on the data instance and the updated meta-tree components. Inducing each of the meta-trees includes employing inequality concentration bound to determine whether a split criterion is satisfied.

Classical batch learning considers inducing models from fixed sets of training data, where these models are then deployed in the test environment. This learning paradigm is justified under the assumption of independent and identically distributed samples. In online learning, however, the data is not available as a whole at any point in the learning process, but it is only observed one example at a time. In other words, a stream of data is generated at a high throughput from the underlying hidden processes. One example of such a setting is where a learner faces a problem of learning and predicting electricity prices while observing hundreds of instances (e.g., request for price estimation and the actual prices) per second. Other example settings include online learning in sensor networks and for system event logs.
Learning from data streams poses challenges, particularly because it is carried out under hard constrains (e.g., limited memory, time, and computational power). (See e.g., Babcock et al., "Models and issues in data stream systems," 21st ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symposium on Principles of Database Systems, pp. 1-16 (2002), the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein). For example, one challenge is the infeasibility of storing all the data (e.g., because the data stream may be infinite). Also, in online learning, each instance of the stream can be observed only once, where it is then processed and discarded. Furthermore, the data-generating processes are subject to change, which is also known as concept drift. (See, e.g., Kifer et al., "Detecting change in data streams," 13th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, pp 180-191 (2004); Gama et al., "A survey on concept drift adaptation," ACM Computing Surveys 46(4), 44:1-44:37 (2014), the entire contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety). These limitations demand highly adaptive systems that fundamentally overcome these challenges where their batch counterparts would fail. (See, e.g., Domingos and Hulten, "A general framework for mining massive data streams," Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 12(4), pp. 945-949 (2003), the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein). Furthermore, online learners have to overcome these challenges while still inducing models that are accurate and competitive.
Those skilled in the art may consider using existing ensemble learning methods for learning from data streams. Ensemble learning aims at inducing a set of several base learners to solve a specific problem. The idea behind most ensemble methods is to minimize the generalization error by exploiting the bias-variance trade-off, for example, by reducing the variance component while keeping the bias term unchanged (which is true when all base learners are chosen from the same hypothesis class). Because training the set of learners on the same data would lead to clones of the same model, different ensemble methods focus on how to diversify the ensemble and how to aggregate the decisions taken by the different learners into a single prediction.
Bagging is a type of ensemble learning that generates a diverse set of learners by applying bootstrapping on the learning process. (See e.g., Breiman, "Bagging predictors," Machine Learning 24(2), pp. 123-140 (1996), the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein). To this end, each base model is learned on a replica ′ of the training data  that is sampled with replacement such that |′|=||. Sampling with replacement, however, does not simply carry over to the streaming setting because the size of the data stream is not known in advance. Sampling with replacement allows each training instance to be selected with probability: 1−(1−1/, which also means that the probability for each replica to contain k copies of an instance is
      (                                 ❘        "\[LeftBracketingBar]"              𝒟               ❘        "\[RightBracketingBar]"                                     k               )             (         1                  ❘       "\[LeftBracketingBar]"            𝒟             ❘       "\[RightBracketingBar]"                   )      k                  (           1      -             1                        ❘         "\[LeftBracketingBar]"                𝒟                 ❘         "\[RightBracketingBar]"                               )                          ❘       "\[LeftBracketingBar]"            𝒟             ❘       "\[RightBracketingBar]"                -     k          .   Thus, k tends to follow a Poisson distribution Pois(λ=1) when ||→∞, i.e.,
          P        (    k    )      =       1         e     ·           k      !                . Oza-Bagging exploits this fact in order to apply bagging in the online setting. This is achieved by taking each newly observed instance (xi, yi) in the stream ki(t)˜Pois(λ) times for each base learner Bi. (See, e.g., Oza and Russell, "Online bagging and boosting," 8th International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (2001), the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein).
Recently, MetaBags (or meta-bagging) has been introduced, which uses bagging and meta-learning. Specifically, MetaBags applies bagging in order to induce meta-decision trees for regression, with the objective of reducing the error when selecting a learner over the others. (See e.g., Khiari et al., "Bagged metadecision trees for regression," ECML PKDD Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases European Conference (2018), the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein).
Meta-learning deals with learning from the learner's performance and behavior. Meta-learning is the type of learning that considers both the declarative and the procedural bias, which are introduced by the hypothesis space the preference relation on the hypothesis space, respectively. (See, e.g., Brazdil et al., "Metalearning: Applications to data mining," (2008), the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein). Common features that characterize meta-learning include: (i) the ability to adapt with more experience; (ii) the exploitation of the data's meta-knowledge; and (iii) the consideration of meta-knowledge from multiple domains. (See, e.g., Lemke et al., "Metalearning: a survey of trends and technologies," Artificial Intelligence Review 44(1), pp. 117-130 (2015), the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein). A meta-decision tree (MDT) is a structure that defines a hierarchical algorithm recommender that selects a learner to be used for an instance reaching a leaf node of the decision tree. (See. e.g., Todorovski and Dzeroski, "Combining classifiers with meta decision trees," Machine Learning 50(3), pp. 223-249 (2003), the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein). MDTs are induced by applying stacking that uses the base learners' confidences as landmarkers and have been proposed primarily for the classification setting. (See, e.g., Pfahringer et al., "Meta-learning by landmarking various learning algorithms," ICML (2000); Bensusan and Giraud-Carrier, "Discovering task neighbourhoods through landmark learning performances," 4th European Conference on Principles of Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery PKDD, pp. 325-330 (2000), the entire contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein). In order to make generalizations about the learning process of different data sets, the meta-learning system needs to describe these data sets adequately. These characteristics are called meta-features, and include, for example, statistical and information-theoretic measures of the data.
Ensemble learning methods, such as Bagging and MetaBags, however, cannot simply be carried over to the data stream learning scenario because the base models are not capable of being trained "online". That is the ensemble learning methods cannot handle instances arriving one at a time, and training the base models on-the-fly.
State-of-the-art methods for online learning primarily include works that focus on categorical predictions (classification), with only a few for real-valued predictions (regression)—e.g., AMRules (see, e.g., Almeida et al., "Adaptive model rules from data streams," ECML PKDD Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases European Conference, pp. 480-492 (2013); Duarte et al., "Adaptive model rules from high-speed data streams," ACM Trans. on Knowledge Discovery from Data 10(3), pp. 30:1-30:22 (2016) the entire contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein) and FIMTDD (see e.g., Ikonomovska et al., "Learning model trees from evolving data streams," Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery 23(1), pp. 128-168 (2011), the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein). While adaptive approaches try to cope dynamically with the nature of incremental accumulation of knowledge, algorithm recommendation (as a branch of meta-learning) is concerned only with providing a recommendation after the learning has finished (e.g., by learning from the learners' performance).
In the realm of learning from data streams, being incremental and adaptive are important because they allow for one-pass learning that maintains a good performance even when changes happen. Hoeffding trees (see, e.g., Domingos and Hulten, "Mining high-speed data streams," 6th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, pp. 71-80 (2000), the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein) and adaptive Hoeffding trees (Bifet and Gavaldá, "Adaptive learning from evolving data streams," 8th International Symposium on Intelligent Data Analysis, pp. 249-260 (2009), the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein) adhere to the steaming requirements and achieve good results for classification on data streams. These approaches exploit statistical guarantees provided by the Hoeffding bound. (See e.g., Hoeffding, "Probability inequalities for sums of bounded random variables," Journal of the American Statistical Association 58(301), pp. 13-30 (1963), the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein). Similarly, AMRules and FIMTDD apply the same guarantees for the variance reduction as a splitting criterion when learning from regression streams.
The state-of-the-art online data learning methods, however, suffer from poor efficiency and accuracy.

Method and system for adaptive online meta learning from data streams


An intelligent magic cube, and a sensing shaft center structure and a timing method used thereby. The sensing shaft center structure comprises a main body; the main body comprises a core (1) having an internal cavity, and several tubular shafts (2) communicated with the core (1). An internal central control module (3) is provided inside the cavity, and comprises a state obtaining unit. Each tubular shaft (2) is provided with a state signal sending set (4). The state signal sending set (4) comprises a signal selector and multiple signal exciters. The signal selector may be paired with any signal exciter, and generate a corresponding state signal. The state obtaining unit is configured to be able to receive the state signal sent from the state signal sending set (4).

Playing a magic cube is a kind of elegant body-building activity, it can train to use both hands and brain for human and is very effective in training people's movement skills. Moreover, it can enhance people's memory and spatial imagination, and it can cultivate people's endurance and perseverance. There are a number of organizations that regularly organize magic cube players to perform various competitions, such as speed twist, blind twist, and minimum step reduction, etc. However, in order to participate in these competitions, players have to go to the playing field in person, so that some players with disabilities or at a long distance may be unable to attend and be excluded.

Intelligent magic cube, and sensing shaft center structure and timing method used thereby


The present disclosure is related to a semiconductor device and a method of manufacturing the said semiconductor device. The semiconductor device comprising a stacked configuration of a plurality of semiconductor layers. At least one of the semiconductor layers is a III-V compound semiconductor layer, and at least one of the III-V compound semiconductor layers has formed thereonto a corresponding crystalline terminating oxide layer, wherein the at least one of the plurality of semiconductor layers interfaces via its crystalline terminating oxide layer to a neighbouring epitaxial semiconductor layer thereto. The semiconductor device is a quantum well device.

Semiconductor quantum well structures, for example compound semiconductor quantum well structures, are well known structures and are contemporarily used in optoelectronic devices, such as lasers and light emitting diodes, detectors or photovoltaic devices, e.g. solar cells. These optoelectronic devices that comprise quantum well structures are inherently heterostructure devices which provide quantum well interfaces (i.e., layers or regions) between two different crystalline semiconductors. A quantum well is a thin layer which can confine quasi-particles (typically electrons or holes) in the dimension perpendicular to the layer surface, whereas the movement in the other dimensions is not restricted, and is often realized with a thin layer of a semiconductor medium, embedded between other semiconductor layers of wider bandgap, for example, GaAs quantum well embedded in AlGaAs, or InGaAs in GaAs.
III-V semiconductor devices are especially useful for manufacturing optoelectronic devices, such as LED's, LASERS, Mach-Zehnder optical modulators and the like. Furthermore, III-V compound semiconductors are obtained by combining group III elements (essentially Al, Ga, In) with group V elements (essentially N, P, As, Sb). In such devices, a given semiconductor material is grown epitaxially as a layer on top of another given semiconductor material, thereby generating a heterostructure. Moreover, by using epitaxial-growth fabrication techniques, III-V semiconductors can be fabricated into quantum wells and similar stacked structures, for example for implementing LASER structures. Furthermore, quantum wells are formed in semiconductors by having a material, such as indium gallium nitride, sandwiched between two layers of a material with a wider bandgap, for example gallium nitride. Other possible examples of material combination may include layer of gallium arsenide sandwiched between two layers of aluminium gallium arsenide, and the like. These structures can be grown by processes like, molecular beam epitaxy or chemical vapour deposition.
In aforementioned quantum heterostructures, where the material composition is spatially altered in a layered heterostructure stack (e.g. GaN—InGaN—GaN, GaAs—GaInAs—GaAs), the electronic valence and conduction band characteristics also change spatially along the heterostructure stack creating band discontinuities at interfaces between layers of semiconductor materials employed. From an application perspective, such quantum wells in a given semiconductor optoelectronic device usually act as an active layer. Specifically, photon generation occurs in operation when charge carriers confined between potential energy barriers induced by band discontinuities, recombine to generate a photon. The photon has a wavelength that depends upon the energy difference between the quantum wells corresponding conduction band minimum and valence band maximum.
In general, in optoelectronic devices, especially in light emitting devices, there is a requirement for a high current injection into active quantum well regions of the optoelectronic devices. However, it is known that LED device efficiency significantly drops as operating current density increases in LED devices. This drop is referred to as being "efficiency droop". The efficiency droop is thought to be caused by the several factors: (i) Shockley-Read-Hall recombination of electrons/holes; (ii) Auger recombination; and (iii) electron overflow from the quantum well.
Notably, in the electron overflow, there arise conduction mechanisms wherein electrons are lost from a given active layer to one or more non-radiative recombination centres, thereby reducing light generation and output. Moreover, this recombination process generates excess heat which reduces an operating lifetime of a given optoelectronic device. The inherent reason behind aforementioned electron overflow is an insufficient potential barrier height in a given active quantum well (QW) structures, namely a band offset between a given quantum well material and a corresponding neighbouring barrier material. An additional problem that is encountered is a technical challenge to grow layers epitaxially on top of conventional oxide layers that tend to be amorphous in nature and therefore not effective at seeding monocrystalline epitaxial growth of layers thereupon during device manufacture.
Contemporarily known semiconductor production facilities address aforementioned problems, when fabricating optoelectronic device, by employing some known techniques. One such technique is to fabricate optoelectronic devices as epitaxially-grown heterostructures wherein there are employed relatively thick barriers and electron blocking layers, and thus prevent electrons overflowing out of the active region. Another technique employed to fabricate optoelectronic devices is by inserting thin large-band-gap materials as a thin barrier layer, for example as in AlInN on InGaN—GaN quantum well LEDs. One another technique employed for fabricating optoelectronic devices is by inserting multi-quantum barrier layers to increase an effective barrier height between a given well and a given barrier neighbouring thereto. However, some of these approaches for fabricating optoelectronic device are subject to undesired positive polarization charges which can pull down the conduction band near the interface and thus make the electron blocking layers less efficient. Meanwhile, positive charges attract parasitic electrons, which cannot contribute to the desired light-emission but are irretrievably lost to heat.
Document US 2017/263,729 discloses a high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) and a method of forming the same. The HEMT includes a first III-V compound layer having a first band gap and a second III-V compound layer having a second band gap over the first III-V compound layer, wherein the second band gap is greater than the first band gap. The HEMT further includes a first oxide layer over the second III-V compound layer; a first interfacial layer over the first oxide layer; and a passivation layer over the first interfacial layer.
Therefore, in light of the foregoing discussion, there exists a need to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks associated with conventional semiconductor devices and conventional manufacturing techniques.

Semiconductor device and manufacturing method


A bin for mushroom culture for cultivating mushrooms such as shiitake that comprises upper half bin 2 and lower half bin 3 so arranged as to be able to elongate and contract by sliding upward and downward when fitted. Fitting part C of upper half bin 2 and lower half bin 3 is so arranged as to form a ventilating route F connecting the inside and outside at an elongated position P2 compared with the most contracted position P1. Thereby, ventilation is performed through ventilating route F and carbon dioxide, which is heavier than air, is exhausted.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bin for the culture of mushroom that is suitably used for cultivating mushrooms such as shiitake (Lentinus edodes (Berk.) Sing.).
2. Description of the Relevant Art
The growth stage of mushrooms in a bed cultivation generally comprises vegetative growth and reproductive growth. At the cultivation step of the vegetative growth, holes are provided for inoculation of the substrate which is filled in the bin for culture; mushroom spawn are inoculated in these holes and in a culture room; hyphae are allowed to spread into substrate in the bin for culture that are capped for preventing miscellaneous harmful fungi from entering. On the other hand, at the reproductive growth step, the substrate is taken out and only the removed mushroom culture medium is placed in the culture bin for growing in a growth room. The bin for culture are composed divided in the upper half bin and lower half bin; both can be attached and detached by a screw mechanism so that the substrate can be taken out during the growing process.
In the culture process of hyphae, enough ventilation into the bin for culture is required in order to exhaust a large volume of generated carbon dioxide while it is necessary to prevent harmful fungi from entering. Poor ventilation in the culture bin may obstruct breathing of the hyphae and their efficient propagation, thereby making the cultivation period longer and deteriorating the mushroom quality.
In view of this, conventionally, a permeable cap was fitted to the mouth provided to the culture bin to ventilate inside the bin. Among known caps for this purpose, for example, Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 27402/'91 (Hei-3) has proposed a cap for culture bin that has a zigzag air flow path in the cap body whereby the internal part of the culture bin communicates with the outside when the cap is fitted to the bin; Japanese Utility Model Provisional Publication No. 91945/'87 (Sho-62) has disclosed a cap for a culture bin that has an open part and a ventilating part in the cap body, both parts being covered with permeable material under which absorbents of carbon dioxide are accommodated.
However, these known caps have been unsatisfactory for adequate and efficient ventilation because: the ventilation is secured only through a cap located at the bin mouth of the bin for culture; the ventilation is made through permeable material provided on the cap but is not satisfactory from the viewpoint of permeability; and carbon dioxide is heavier than air. The breathing activity is highest in the cultivating step, when the substrate swells by the hyphae's spread during the whole cultivation process, and carbon dioxide tends to accumulate in the bin.


A shelving apparatus includes a vertically extending first leg having a first end with a frusto-conical outer surface. A horizontal shelf has a frusto-conical hole. A vertically extending second leg has a first end with (a) a frusto-conical inner surface having a taper shaped to engage the frusto-conical outer surface of the first leg, and (b) a frusto-conical outer surface having a taper shaped to engage the frusto-conical inner surface of the shelf hole. Preferably, all engaging frusto-conical surfaces and holes are coaxial and cofrustal. Alternative tapered structures for the first and second legs and shelf hole may be provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present application is directed to a shelving system in which several cooperating components are formed with two sets of locking tapers, and particularly to a shelving system in which frusto-conical shapes are provided to upper and lower legs, and to a shelf in order to provide a simple, effective interlocking design.
Shelving systems are widely known and commonly used in both the business, commercial, and residential environments. Traits of commercially successful shelving systems include economical manufacture, efficient packaging, easy assembly, and stability in use. However, many of the known shelving systems fall short of meeting all of the requirements described above. For example, U.S. Pat. 543,422 (Ernest) describes a system adapted for use as a folding voting booth. FIG. 2 shows a table body having four metal angle braces, one at each corner. As seen in FIG. 6, each angle brace has a frusto-conical hole therein. In addition, a roof covers a portion of the top of the hole to provide a smaller opening. The frusto-conical end of a lower wooden leg is inserted into the bottom of the hole in each brace. Then, the end of an upper wooden leg is inserted into the opening in the roof of the hole and then into a bore in the frusto-conical end of the lower leg, as depicted in FIG. 4. When weight is placed on the table, the brace will be pressed downward onto the lower support leg, thereby tightening the grip of the brace on the lower leg. However, this will not readily tighten the grip of the lower leg on the upper leg.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,512,867 (Sutter) discloses a pie rack in which frusto-conical hollow legs are stacked upon each other in telescoping fashion, as depicted in FIG. 3. Openings are provided in the side walls of each leg for receiving lugs formed on a shelf. This apparatus is difficult to assemble and places great stress on the shelf lugs. Therefore, the lugs must be reinforced, and assembly time can be lengthy.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,220,773 (Burns) discloses a multiple use knockdown unit in which frusto-conical legs pass through round holes in a horizontal shelf, as shown in FIG. 5. However, no provision is made for stacking multiple units, and imprecise tolerances on either the legs or the shelf holes will result in an unstable shelving system.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,873,511 (Maslow), which is assigned to the assignee of the subject invention, discloses a shelving system having a removable corner structure. As shown in FIG. 6, the corner structure 24 is coupled to a horizontal shelf 12 and adapted for coupling to the support post 50. A sleeve 60 is positioned on the support post 50 by an annular rib and groove structure 66. The sleeve 60 has an external frusto-conically shaped tapered surface adapted to mate with the tapered internal surface of the corner structure 24. Thus, a tight and secure fit is obtained between the sleeve 60 and the corner structure 24.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,424,111 (Maslow), also assigned to the assignee of the subject invention, discloses a shelving system that uses an annular rib and groove structure to position a sleeve on a vertical post thereby to mount a horizontal shelf. As shown in FIG. 2, a post 34 includes a plurality of horizontal grooves 36 which are adapted to mate with a corresponding rib on mating frusto-conical sleeve members 40 and 42. The members 40 and 42 are secured to the post 34. The sleeve members 40 and 42 have a frusto-conical outer surface which is adapted to support the horizontal shelf 10 through a similar frusto-conical surface therein.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,138,953 (Tashman) discloses an adjustable shelf assembly in which a shelf 11 has a hole in each corner thereof. As shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, a leg 12 is inserted in the hole until a groove 13 on the leg is disposed therein. Then, a collar 39 is inserted into the hole, from the bottom, about the leg until a tongue 42 on the collar mates with the groove 13. The collar 39 has a frusto conical outer surface adapted to engage a frusto-conical inner surface of the shelf hole. The difficulty of assembly of this system can be readily appreciated since forcing the collar 39 into the shelf hole may be difficult and require precise tolerances.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,664,274 (Bustos) discloses an adjustable merchandise support with molded shelves. Shelf 12 includes a plurality of corner holes 16, each having tapered surfaces 20. Each leg 26 is provided with a corresponding tapered wedge 22 which is adapted to engage the tapered surface 20 within each corner hole 16. Weight placed upon the shelf will tend to tighten the connection between the horizontal shelf 12 and the legs 26. However, when adding additional legs and additional shelving, no provision is made for tightening the grip of an upper leg onto a lower leg. In addition, the many requisite parts of this shelving apparatus make it expensive to manufacture and difficult to assemble.
Therefore, the known shelving devices such as those mentioned above share one or more of the disadvantages at least in certain applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 557,174 (Turner) discloses a rail bond connection mechanism utilized in a wholly unrelated field. As shown in FIG. 6, a first conductor A has a frusto-conical outer surface adapted to fit within a complementary frusto-conical inner surface of a sleeve C. Sleeve C also has a frusto-conical outer surface which is tapered in a direction and sense opposite than is its frusto-conical inner taper and adapted to mate with a frusto-conical inner surface of hole in a rail D. Thus, as force is applied on conductor A, it tightens the connection between conductor A and sleeve C, and at the same time, causes the connection between sleeve C and rail D to be tightened in turn.

Shelving system having two sets of locking tapers


The invention relates to the use of metal salts of ricinoleic acid or solutions thereof in water or in organic solvents in producing polyurethane foams.

The invention relates to the use of metal salts of ricinoleic acid and solutions thereof in producing polyurethane foams (PU foams).
1. Field of the Invention
The excellent mechanical and physical properties of polyurethane foams lead to their use in a very wide variety of sectors. The automotive industry is a very important market for a great variety of PU foam grades, such as conventional flexible foams based on ether polyol or on ester polyol, cold-cure foams (also frequently termed HR foams) and rigid foams, and also foams whose properties lie between these classifications, e.g. semirigid systems. Examples are the use of rigid foams as headliners, ester foams for internal door trims and also for die-cut sun visors, and cold-cure foams and flexible foams for seat systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years there has been a marked tightening of the requirements placed by automotive manufacturers on their foam suppliers, in particular in relation to an emission specification. Whereas previously the sole emphasis was the permanent fogging performance of the foams (DIN 75 201, Determination of the windscreen fogging characteristics of trim materials in motor vehicles), nowadays the content of volatile organic constituents (VOC=volatile organic compounds) is also analyzed (Volkswagen central standard 55 031 and Daimler Benz PB VWT 709). The Daimler Benz method requires classification of the individual chemical compounds in the emissions as well as quantitative determination of the VOC value and fogging value.
A conventional flexible foam with a density of 25 kg/m.sup.3 typically has the following VOC emissions: overall value 800 ppm, comprising 550 ppm of BHT (bis-2,6-tert-butyl-4-hydroxytoluene), 200 ppm of 2-ethylhexanoic acid, 20 ppm of tertiary amines, 10 ppm of siloxanes and 20 ppm of unidentified compounds. The emissions are, of course, highly dependent on the particular mixing specification used, but BHT and 2-ethylhexanoic acid are always the main components. BHT typically derives from the polyol and isocyanate. The manufacturers of these raw materials have recently begun to supply their products also as BHT-free grades. Using these raw materials it is possible to produce foams with a VOC value of about 250 ppm. 2-ethylhexanoic acid is a decomposition product of the stannous octoate which acts as catalyst for the polyurethane reaction. Since there is no industrially available alternative to stannous octoate which fully covers its application profile, the VOC value cannot be significantly reduced in the prior art, and certainly not to a value<100 ppm.
Since automotive manufacturers have now specified a guideline VOC value of 100 ppm to be achieved in the coming years, there is an urgent requirement in the industry to reduce the emission of 2-ethylhexanoic acid.
Related to the problem of emissions, the automotive industry is attempting to reduce the odor from PU foams. One sign of this is the implementation of tests on PU foam products received, using what is known as an "electronic nose" (Aroma Scan, UK), automating the work of panels of odor testers.
The substances responsible for odor in foams have not yet been clearly identified. It is certain that a wide variety of classes of substance is involved, and these may be necessary constituents of the formulation (e.g. tertiary amines), contaminants in the raw materials (e.g. aldehydes in the polyetherol) or products of side reactions during foam production.
There is currently no industrial solution for meeting this requirement. In the automotive industry, and in particular in aircraft construction, specifically flame-retardant foam qualities are needed. To this end, flame retardants are added to PU foams. The chemicals used here are in most cases halogenated phosphoric esters. In 1986 in the U.S. alone, 13,000 metric tons of flame retardant were mixed into PU foams (J. Troitzsch, International Plastics Flammability Handbook, 1990). It is known that specifically these flame retardants contribute considerably to the emissions from foams. Foams produced with the widely used flame retardant TDCPP (tris(1, 3-dichloroisopropyl) phosphate) give off a large number of volatile compounds, the majority of which are chlorinated propyl alcohols. There is therefore a requirement to comply with flame-retardancy specifications while reducing, or eliminating, the use of flame-retardants.

Use of metal salts of ricinoleic acid in producing polyurethane


A plasma diagnosing apparatus for performing plasma diagnosis witch probes having a high degree of cleanliness by removing contamination caused by reactive plasma, etc., while quantitatively detecting a degree of the contamination of the probes. The disclosed apparatus avoids the disadvantages of conventional apparatuses, in which the voltage-current characteristics of the probes are deteriorated by growth of the contaminant film formed on the probes, making it difficult to measure the parameters of the plasma conditions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a plasma diagnosing apparatus, and more specifically to a plasma diagnosing apparatus capable of detecting and removing contamination of the probe.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, the plasma processing techniques such as plasma CVD, plasma polymerization, etc., have been widely adopted in various fields of technology. Since most of these techniques employ the reactive plasma, a problem will arise as to contamination of a probe at the time of diagnosing the plasma using such probe.
Recently, not only the basic study in the plasma has made its advancement, but also its applications in various industrial fields have been broadened. As the result, it has become necessary to diagnose instantaneously from outside various parameters within the plasma, in particular its electron temperature and electron density. The so-called "triple probe direct viewing method", as the method of diagnosis, is the most effective way, with which these parameters are instantaneously indicated on the gauges.
In general, there are two principal methods of diagnosing the plasma parameters: the one is a probing method, by which electrodes are directly intromitted into the plasma to take out electric current from it, and then the current is analyzed to find out the parameters of the plasma; and the other is an electromagnetic wave method, by which microwaves, lasers, and others are put into the plasma to directly sense out the results of their interaction, or to detect, by spectroscopy, a beam to be emitted from the plasma, to thereby find out these parameters.
While this latter method, i.e., the electromagnetic wave method is excellent in its horological resolution, it has disadvantages such that the device becomes complicated in its structure, hence expensive in its manufacture. In contrast to this, the former method, i.e., the probing method is characteristically excellent in its spatial resolution, simple in the device construction, and can be manufactured at a low cost, although the plasma to be diagnosed is limited to one having a relatively low temperature and low density.
In general, since most of the plasma used in laboratories, etc. is of relatively low temperature and low density, probing method is the fundamental for diagnosing the plasma having its electron density Ne of as low as 10.sup.14 cm.sup.-3 or below and its electron temperature Te of as low as a few tens of electron volts (eV) or below.
In case the parameters of the reactive plasma are to be diagnosed by the probing method, the surface of the probe becomes covered with a contaminant film as the time passes by, with the consequence that the exposed part of the probe is required to be cleaned.
There has heretofore been adopted a method for cleaning the probe with it being installed in the vacuum device, wherein, after a reactive gas is exchanged for an inactive gas as the case may be, a negative voltage is imparted to the probe with respect to a reference electrode to bring it to a red heat condition by the ion bombardment for removal of the contaminant film.
When, however, the ionic energy increases, the heat generation on the surface of the probe also increases, so that, for avoiding destruction of the probe due to heating, the voltage and other parameters should be controlled with care. The manual control of these parameters was fairly difficult and cleaning of the probe was often unsatisfactory, or the probe becomes molten due to excessive voltage application, hence good result could not always be obtained.
In the diagnosis of the reactive plasma by means of the conventional plasma diagnosing apparatus, if the reactive plasma is silane gas plasma, for example, an amorphous silicon film is produced on the surface of the probe with passage of time, and, if the plasma is styrene plasma, a styrene polymer film is produced on the surface of the probe. On account of this, the voltage-current characteristic of the probe changes with growth of the film, its shape becomes distorted, and the measurement finally becomes impossible.
When the abovementioned conventional plasma diagnosing probe was used, no reliable results of measurement could be obtained, because there was no quantitative method of detecting cleanliness of the probe, on account of which the probe had to be used without warranty of its cleanliness, and further, magnitude, imparting time, etc. of the negative voltage to be imparted to the probe at the time of removing the contaminant film by the ion bombardment were irregular and not consistent. As to the contamination detecting method, trials have so far been done in some area such as observation of the ionosphere by a rocket, wherein an alternating current is applied to the probe in a thin plasma to detect contamination of the probe in utilization of the hysteresis phenomenon due to the polarity in the electric potential. This detection method, however, was limited only to such thin plasma, and there were also many uncertain factors such that, depending on the type of contaminants, no hysteresis phenomenon appears, or inversely, depending on electric potential, frequency for voltage application, etc. , the hysteresis phenomenon varies, and so forth. As the consequence, it was difficult to adopt this contamination detection method as the general method for detecting the contamination of probe under extensive plasma conditions.
Also, as to cleanliness of the probe, the applicant has already proposed, in his prior patent application No. 149221/1989 (Laid-Open Patent Application No. 15197/1991), a method for automatic cleaning of a probe for measuring the plasma parameters. The invention is directed to obtain an appropriate cleaning effect with a ratio between the measuring time (diagnosing time) and the cleaning pulse width being made constant.
However, while the cleaning method is effective in the case where the diagnosing time using the voltage-current characteristic is long, as is the case with the general probing method, it is not necessarily effective for the triple probing method.
That is to say, the triple probe method is one which carries out the diagnosis by first placing three probes, each having an equal area, in mutually adjacent relationship at positions in the plasma where the equipotential seems to exist, and then by applying electric voltages of different potentials to each of these probes. While this method is an excellent one capable of directly reading the parameters of the plasma instantaneously, it is still not suitable for the abovementioned cleaning method, because of shortness in its diagnosing time.


Signals to be used for receiving a service according to position are appropriately selected from a plurality of positioning signals received by a moving device.

In recent years as smartphones and wearable devices have become popular, there have been proposed many services that are provided based on the position to which they move (augmented reality, navigation, communication, maintenance, sales support applications, or the like) (e.g. Non-patent document 1).
There are various positioning methods for locating an object on the move. GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) is a method in which navigation signals transmitted from satellites are received to determine the current position and direction. QZSS (Quasi-Zenith Satellite System), a method that uses satellites that orbit almost directly over Japan, is a technology that complements GPS, which is a kind of GNSS.
In a Wi-Fi (registered trademark) method, a radio wave transmitted from a Wi-Fi base station is received to estimate the current position from the radio field intensity or the SSID. iBeacon (registered trademark) is a communication function using short-range wireless communications developed by Apple, and conforms to Bluetooth (registered trademark) 4.0LE. In a sound wave signal method, a transmitter (speaker) that generates a sound wave or ultrasonic including an ID is installed, a receiver (microphone) attached to the device receives it, and the position is detected from the ID (e.g. Patent document 1). NFC (Near Field Communication (also called RFID)) is a near field wireless communication technology known as FeliCa (registered trademark), MIFARE, or the like, and can identify the subject by bringing the device close to the system. These methods involve determining in advance the positions corresponding to positioning signals (e.g. the positions of devices that transmit positioning signals), receiving a single or plurality of positioning signals, and estimating the current position from information on the position corresponding to each positioning signal.
PDR (Pedestrian Dead Reckoning) is a method that integrates a very small change detected by sensors of the device to estimate distance and direction, and can estimate the current position using the relative travel distance and direction from the previous position. It can therefore be used in combination with the above-described various methods that involve receiving positioning signals.

Device with position determination means, server apparatus for communicating with that device, method for receiving service in accordance with position, and program

Abstract: A device capable of being used while moving and of receiving a service according to a position to which the device has moved comprises: positioning means for, based on positioning signals for location identification separately received from a plurality of positioning devices, determining their respective positional information; holding means for holding positional information determined by the positioning means for each type of the plurality of positioning devices; and notification means for, regarding positional information newly determined by the positioning means, determining with reference to the holding means whether to provide notification of the position in order to receive the service or not, and providing the notification according to the determination.


The present invention refers to the field of shoemaking industry and discloses a replacement shoe, a process for adding shoes to a user shoes collection, a shoes vending machine, a shoes distribution process and a shoes replacement process, more specifically, an automation and optimization of the current logistic process between the industry and/or shoes distributors and resellers until product delivery to the final customer. The present invention also allows the supply of one shoe only since the shoe distributed together with objects of the present invention comprises a geometry that adapts both to the left foot and the right foot. Thus, throughout the manufacturing, sales and products distribution logistic chain, the present invention advantageously discloses the offer of a larger variety of product ranges to the final customer, also allowing stock replenishment using small vehicles, for example, motorcycles.

In the field of shoemaking, searching for technical solutions is a topic of high interest, not only for users' new shoes and accessories, but also for developing new manufacture, distribution and product sales strategies.
Unequal wear between the right and left shoes that compose a pair of shoes is a common problem due to several factors that may be mentioned during its use. However, market demand for a pair of shoes is much higher than the demand for one of the sides of the pair (right or left), so that when a customer has only one of the sides of the pair worn out, he/she is obliged to purchase a new full pair.
Currently, shoes are commonly sold in pairs, so that one interested in purchasing only one of the sides of the pair, that is, only the right or only the left, is obliged to purchase new full pair to replace the side of interest.
Additionally, a user that does not primarily need a pair of shoes, for example, a handicapped user who does not have one of the feet, is also obliged to purchase a pair of shoes instead of having the possibility to purchase only the shoe side of interest.
Additionally, in general, the sale of shoes is limited to physical and online stores; in the first case, it is necessary to pay for expenses such as public attendance location, qualified personnel to sell and manage the store, in addition to expenses related to the storage and marketing of the products for sale. Regarding online stores, they require expenses for maintenance, update, security and advertisement of the online store website, in addition to expenses related to the storage and marketing of the products for sale. High expenses make physical and online stores (not only shoe stores) to raise the product prices to the final customer, aiming to guarantee its profit margin. In some cases, this fact directly affects the sales considering a product demand, and, in general, it is inversely proportional to the product price.
As an alternative to reduce and control the expenses, stores tend to replenish their stocks in large lots; this strategy impacts the freight price, however, it is necessary to perform this operation using large vehicles, such as box trucks and/or truck-trailers.
Thus, efficient interface means are constantly sought that offer at the same time a larger variety of options to the customer and further facilitates the distribution and logistics among everyone involved in the products manufacturing, sale and delivery chain, for example, manufacturing sites and distribution centers, distribution centers and stores, stores and customer, distribution centers and customer, etc.
When searching prior art in scientific and patent literatures, the following documents regarding this theme were found:
WO 2008/109660 discloses a shoe article to be worn on the right foot and on the left foot. In one aspect of WO 2008/109660, the shoe article comprises an upper including an inner region configured to adjust to the right foot and to the left foot, and an insert also configured to adjust to the right foot and to the left foot, where the insert is made of a deformable material offering side and central support to the foot during use. However, WO 2008/109660 suggests the application of an insert in order to accommodate the user foot (which adjusts both to the right foot and the left foot) and further comprises an inner front portion disclosing a void region so that both the user right foot and left foot may fit inside the upper of the present invention. Said void region or recess existing in the prior art shoe causes discomfort and lack of firmness to the user since the user foot may move inside the upper. The existing clearance causes the lack of firmness when fixing the shoe to the user foot and may not only cause discomfort, but it is also inconvenient when wearing the shoe while walking or running. Thus, the present invention proposes a solution completely different from that of WO 2008/109660, since WO 2008/109660 does not seek to solve the problem regarding distribution logistics and the possibility of selling only one article of footwear for replacement purposes.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,386,074 refers to a products vending machine comprising: a housing for storing the product with a support structure; a plurality of supports fixed to the support structure for all products; a plurality of RFID sensors, being one for each type of product support; a payment means; a display for the product; and a computer control system. Said solution, however, comprises a complex structure requiring more than one type of display as communication interface with the customer, as well as more than one type of support, in addition to not allow the shoe sale, the machine of said document being limited to shoe accessories. Further, said document does not disclose a solution to control the stock of said shoes vending machine.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,317,965 refers to a vending machine and shoe manufacturing, more specifically sandals. The machine disclosed in said document comprises: a compartment for sandal soles having a plurality of soles; a compartment for uppers having a plurality of uppers; a size selection means, so that the user select the sole size and the upper size; a payment means; a mechanism for assembling the upper on the selected sole; and a means for ejecting the assembled shoe for the user. Said solution, however, does not disclose a solution for shoes not comprising assemblable parts, not even shoes consisting in a single layer. Additionally, said document does not disclose a solution to control the stock of said shoes vending machine.
Thus, from what is understood in the searched literature, no documents anticipating or suggesting the teachings of the present invention were found, so that the solution proposed herein is provided with novelty and inventive activity when compared to the prior art.
Thus, it is evident the need of shoes and related systems that offer more versatile options to the customer and, at the same time, simplify the distribution logistics chain of the shoemaking industry.

Replacement footwear, process for addition of footwear to a user's footwear collection, footwear vending machine, footwear distribution process and footwear replacement process


A method including accessing a test case that tests one or more user interfaces associated with another device, wherein the test case is defined in a spreadsheet; interpreting the test case; executing the test case with respect to the one or more user interfaces associated the other device; and outputting a test result.

Graphical User Interface (GUI) testers test a system that includes a GUI to ensure that the system meets certain specifications. Typically, a GUI tester will execute test cases, written as scripts, to validate the functionality of the system. For example, the test cases can test various keyboard and mouse inputs and capture how the system responds.


A drive control system controls travel of an electric vehicle, the drive control system including a plurality of induction motors, one inverter that drives the plurality of induction motors, and a controller that controls the inverter. The controller includes a coupling disconnection detecting unit that calculates an estimated torque value on the basis of a total current and a voltage command value at the start of the induction motors, and detects disconnection of a coupling provided between the induction motors and a drive mechanism of the electric vehicle on the basis of the estimated torque value calculated and a torque command value.

As illustrated in Patent Literature 1 below, a conventional electric vehicle controller typically drives an electric vehicle by controlling torque generated by a motor that is connected to an axle of wheels mounted on a bogie of a motor car via a gear and a coupling. An induction motor is typically used as the motor.
Patent Literature 2 below discloses an electric vehicle controller that prevents an abnormal increase in the rotational speed of a motor by stopping the operation of an inverter when the rotational speed of the motor detected by a speed sensor exceeds the maximum speed set value.


A method and memory medium in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network that communicates multiplexed signals representing a plurality of communication channels to determine received signal quality are disclosed. Generally, the signals format the plurality of communication channels to impart a distinctive noise profile in time or frequency for each channel; and collectively process the channels at a digital signal processing device to measure the signal-to-noise ratio.

Wave division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks are well known in the art. A WDM channel is typically transmitted by a single mode semiconductor laser. Information to be communicated is imposed on the light by modulating the laser current or by externally modulating the light by applying a voltage to a modulator coupled to the laser source. A receiver employs a photo-detector that converts the light into electric current. Typically, modulation may affect the amplitude of the light or the phase of the light, or both.
Regardless of whether signaling is based on phase-shift-keying (PSK), Amplitude-Shift Keying (ASK), or the simplest form of ASK, On-Off Keying (OOK), the most universal impairment of the optical signals is due to the accumulation of noise. Electrical noise can arise in the transmitter or especially in the receiver, but in optical communication networks covering long distances, the dominant source of noise is usually the buildup of Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) from the optical amplifiers used to overcome transmission and switching losses. At the receiver end of an optical link, this spontaneous emission interacts with itself and with the optical signal to create electrical noise known as spontaneous-spontaneous beat noise or signal-spontaneous beat noise. The degradation due to ASE is often characterized by the Optical Signal-to-Noise Ratio (OSNR), defined as the ratio of the signal power in a single wavelength channel, divided by the noise power within a band of 0.1 nm, in the same wavelength channel.
Multipoint optical networks present a challenging environment for signal quality measurements, such as OSNR measurements. FIG. 1 shows a graph 100 of optical power density as a function of wavelength in a multipoint optical network. The noise level around a wavelength will vary, as shown by the height of the local noise levels 102. Additionally, for each WDM signal 104, the OSNR for each wavelength channel may be quite different from adjacent channels, due to the different path traversed by each wavelength channel through the network. Thus, in order to measure OSNR (or other measures of signal quality) in a multipoint WDM network, a narrow optical filter is typically used to select a single channel, or a part of a channel, to sample the signal quality of one optical wavelength at a time. The filter is a relatively expensive element, so it must be shared and tuned sequentially among a plurality of wavelengths to share its cost. Alternatively, a dispersive element may be used to direct wavelength channels to multiple photodetectors in parallel, adding to the photodetector cost.
Measuring OSNR should be possible by inspecting the time dependence of the signal-spontaneous (SSP) beat noise, provided the signal is known. FIGS. 2a through 2d show waveforms of photocurrent vs. time for an amplified optical link in which the signal is a simple on-off square wave. The received waveform as shown in FIG. 2a can be decomposed into the sum of the non-stochastic components (signal plus the time-averaged ASE power as an offset) as shown in FIG. 2b, the time-stationary noise components (i.e. thermal noise and spontaneous-spontaneous beat noise) as shown in FIG. 2c, and finally the noise components which switch on and off in time synchronously with the signal, comprising shot noise and signal-spontaneous beat noise as shown in FIG. 2d. For this example, it is assumed that the received power is reasonably high, thus the shot noise and thermal noise are negligible. FIG. 2d shows an obvious repetitive pattern at the period of the signal square wave, so it may be expected to observe a conspicuous feature in the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of the photocurrent at modulation frequency Δ.
A paper by Rossi, Dimmick, and Blumenthal (Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 18, pp. 1639-1648, and included herein by reference) discusses a scheme to extract OSNR values in WDM systems from the Carrier-to-Noise Ratio (CNR) of RF subcarriers. However, Rossi's method does not appear to work in a network where the noise level varies from one channel to another. Standard analysis of the CNR (see, for example, the book chapter by Mary Phillips and Ted Darcie 'Lightwave Analog Video Transmission', chapter 14 in Optical Fiber Telecommunications IIIA, Academic Press 1997, and included herein by reference) shows no frequency peak in the PSD of the SSP term, computing the SSP noise as a constant appropriate to the time-averaged signal power.
OSNR measurement also becomes extremely challenging as systems move towards higher spectral efficiency. As data rates per channel rise, the wavelength range occupied by each modulated signal increases. At the same time, systems are being designed with closer channel spacing, in order to pack more channels within the wavelength range accessible to practical optical amplifiers. Both of these developments tend to eliminate the well-defined noise shoulders framing each channel as shown in FIG. 1. In high spectral-efficiency systems, there may be no wavelengths where the noise can be measured separately from the signal, prohibiting the traditional method of interpolation from being used.
Thus, there exists a need for a method of signal quality measurement that can be implemented in WDM optical networks, providing rapid, accurate and low-cost measurements of multiple wavelength channels without requiring a narrow optical filter or a wavelength-dispersive element. There also exists a need for a method of OSNR measurement which can measure both noise and signal at exactly the same wavelength, without the need to interpolate from noise-only measurements of flat channel shoulders.

Method for measuring signal quality in WDM optical networks


A wearable device includes a device main body and a connection structure. The device main body includes a snap portion configured to snap with the connection structure. The connection structure includes a main body, a fastening assembly, and a pressing member. The main body defines a fastening groove. The fastening assembly is rotationally mounted within the fastening groove. The fastening assembly includes a first end portion and a second end portion. The fastening assembly includes a latching portion protruding from the first end portion. The latching portion is configured to snap with the snap portion. The pressing member is arranged on the second end portion of the fastening assembly. When the second end portion is pressed, the first end portion is rotated away from the snap portion to disengage the latching portion from the snap portion.

Smart wearable devices, such as smart watches, bracelets, glasses, and necklaces, are becoming more and more popular. The existing smart necklaces in the related art include a lanyard detachably coupled to a necklace body. The lanyard is wrapped around a user's neck, and the necklace body may be used while walking or running. However, the main body of the smart necklace is prone to rotate relative to the lanyard when the main body is not held in place.

HONGFUJIN PRECISION ELECTRONICS (ZHENGZHOU) CO., LTD.


To provide a calibration jig which can perform three-dimensional calibration of measurement errors in a spectacle frame shape measuring apparatus. The calibration jig is used for calibrating measurement errors of the spectacle frame shape measuring apparatus for measuring a shape of a spectacle frame, etc. A trace groove traced by a measuring probe of the spectacle frame shape measuring apparatus is a frame groove formed in an inner circumference of rims of the spectacle frame and provided for engaging with the bevel of a spectacle lens. The rims are secured to a frame body having rigidity higher than that of the rim. The frame groove has a displacement r in the radial direction, a displacement θ in the rotational direction, and a displacement z in the height direction.

In a spectacle frame shape measuring apparatus for measuring a shape of a spectacle frame, etc., a measurement error is generated due to long-term use, and such a measurement error is generally calibrated by using a calibration jig.
Such a calibration jig (reference frame) 100 is described in Patent Document 1, and as shown in FIG. 9, reference holes 102 being through holes are formed through a metal plate 101 of the calibration jig corresponding to the plan-view shape of rims of a spectacle frame. The inner circumferential surfaces 103 of the reference hole 102 is traced with the tip portion of a measuring probe 104 of a spectacle frame shape measuring apparatus being a measurement object, with the tip portion of the measuring probe 104 kept in contact with the inner circumferential surfaces 103. A measurement error of the spectacle frame shape measuring apparatus being a measurement object is calculated by comparing measurement data measured by the way in which the measuring probe 104 of the spectacle frame measuring apparatus being a measurement object traces the inner circumferential surface 103 of the reference hole 102 in the calibration jig 100 with reference data obtained in advance by accurate measurement of the inner circumferential surface 103 of the reference hole 102 in the calibration jig 100.    Patent Document 1: Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H4-13539

Jig, method and data generating apparatus for calibrating spectacle frame shape measuring apparatus, spectacle frame shape measuring apparatus and spectacle frame shape measuring calibrating system


A new carnation cultivar particularly distinguished by its relatively short plant height and its profuse production of very small, generally magnolia purple flowers having a ruby red heart and borne in clusters on strong, erect, but relatively short flowering stems emitted near the soil and reaching a height of about 20 cm., the plant itself having a height of about 20 to 25 cm. with abundant foliage and a shape particularly adapted to pot plant culture.

This new carnation variety originated as a seedling of a hybrid resulting from my crossing a pair of unnamed and unpatented carnation varieties selected by me from my collection of carnation plants maintained by me for breeding purposes at my nursery in Aalsmeer, The Netherlands, the object of this crossing being to develop new plants which would improve the range of carnation varieties for commercial production by having a more rapid growth habit, new flower colors and improved production rate. This particular seedling was selected by me for propagation because of the light magnolia purple color of the flower petals, each of which is particularly distinguished by having a ruby red heart at its base and also because the plant itself had a rapid growth rate and reached a terminal height of only about 25 cm., which appeared to me to be an ideal subject for pot plant culture. This new plant was propagated by me at Aalsmeer by means of cuttings with such very satisfactory results that I promptly directed that this particular variety be propagated through several successive generation, by means of cuttings, to determine whether its distinctive characteristics would hold true from generation to generation and so that its homogenetic character could be assured for commercial production.


A head actuator design for a low profile tape drive is configured with a damping system for a head suspension system having flexure springs to accommodate a half-high form factor. The damping system employs hall sensors, for example, mounted on the head carriage that moves with the head carriage to provide position signals that are differentiated to form velocity signals used by a servo loop control system to dampen suspension system resonance. A flexible circuit routing is provided that is manageable for half-high form factors by combining the fine positioner loop and course positioner loop into a single loop, and preventing the head flexible printed circuit from contacting a top cover in the routing to a printed circuit board near the top cover.

Tape drives have been widely employed in industry for over thirty years due to their ability to store large amounts of data on a relatively small, inexpensive removable format. The data is stored on tape drives utilizing a variety of designs, but in all cases, magnetic tape media is wound between a pair of tape reels as data is transferred to or from the tape media. The standard tape media employed in many applications is a one half-inch wide tape media housed in a tape cartridge measuring at or near 1 inch in height. The most common form factor for tape drives measures 8 inch.times.5.75 inch.times.3.25 inch in width, length and height respectively. Therefore, typical half-inch tape drives occupy two drive bays when installed in a conventional computer housing.
In the art of data storage, the physical space required to store data is an important concern. Thus, it is desirable to have a half-inch tape drive that is constructed with a half-height form factor that can be installed in a single drive bay in a conventional computer housing. The form factor of the half-high tape drive measures the same as the full high form factor in width and length. However, the height is ½ of the full high size, namely 1.625 inch. Due to this height limitation, the majority of the sub-assemblies must be changed from their full high version to accommodate the substantial height reduction.
For example, the conventional head flexible printed circuit routing is unmanageable in a half-high form factor configuration, due to the space limitations. Two separate loops are conventionally provided, one for the coarse actuator and one for the fine actuator, making up the head actuator. Because of the space limitations, it is difficult to provide two separate loops. In addition, the head flexible printed circuits are routed to a printed circuit board that is located at the bottom side of the tape drive.
Prior systems which describe damping use relatively large devices, such as bulky linear tachometers. Half-high drives do not have the space available for such large devices. Furthermore, in addition to the increase in mass and height, the linear tachometer devices described in the prior art use additional wiring to connect to a printed circuit board.

Head actuator design for a low profile tape drive


A sewing machine includes a timing pulse generator, a thread feeding device, thread sensor, and microcomputer. The timing pulse generator generates a timing pulse when a main shaft is rotated by a predetermined rotational increment by a main motor. The thread feeding device feeds out a needle thread toward a needle. The thread sensor is disposed in a path of the needle thread between the thread feeding device and the needle, and generates a thread breakage signal when the needle thread is out of the path. The microcomputer drives the thread feeding device based on the timing signal generated by the timing pulse generator if the thread breakage signal is not generated by the thread sensor. The microcomputer counts the timing pulses after the thread breakage signal has been generated by the thread sensor. The microcomputer stops the main motor when a count value has reached first predetermined value. The microcomputer stops the thread feeding device when the count value has reached a second predetermined value which is smaller than the first predetermined value.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sewing machine having an automatic needle thread control device and a thread breakage detecting device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional sewing machine having an automatic needle thread control device is, for example, disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 47869/1985. In this sewing machine, the feed amount of the needle thread necessary and sufficient for forming a stitch in a work fabric is calculated based on a needle swing amount and the feed pitch, and the thickness of the work fabric, and the thus calculated amount of the needle thread is fed out by means of rollers driven by a pulse motor.
A conventional sewing machine having a thread breakage detecting device is, for example, disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 9191/1984. This type of sewing machine includes a thread detecting circuit for detecting movement of a thread take-up spring which is put into engagement with a needle thread by means of the thread take-up motion of a thread take-up lever, thereby generating a thread detection signal. In order to prevent a malfunction, it is determined that a thread breakage has occurred and a motor is caused to stop when the thread detection signal has not been generated even once while the main shaft of the sewing machine has made a predetermined number of rotations.
However, if such a thread breakage detecting device is attached to a sewing machine having the related art automatic needle thread control device, there arises the following problem. At the time when sewing has just been started, over casting is made, or a thin fabric is sewn with a slippery, thin thread, the needle thread between the automatic needle thread control device and the needle may become loose. Even when the needle thread is in such a loose state, the automatic needle thread control device feeds out the needle thread continuously and, hence, the needle thread does not recover from the loose state. As a result, even if the thread take-up lever makes the thread take-up motion, the needle thread will not engage the thread take-up spring while the main shaft makes a predetermined number of rotations. Thus, the thread detecting circuit detects no movement of the thread take-up spring, and therefore, such a problem arises that the thread breakage detecting device mistakes the loose thread for a thread breakage and thus stops the main motor.

Sewing machine with automatic thread control and thread breakage detecting devices


Approaches presented herein enable optimization of a network and component configuration in a dense server environment. Specifically, an approach includes: constructing a plurality of populated racks, each selected so as to contain an optimized size and configuration of components constrained according to a set of user-selected requirements that specify a type, a quantity, and one or more characteristics of at least one of the set of components; optimizing a configuration of the populated racks to minimize a cable length between populated racks, the configuration adhering to, e.g., power requirements, cooling requirements, and weight requirements for the populated racks; and optimizing a position of a set of cable trays and corresponding junctions by reducing a number of cable tray channels associated with the cable length between populated racks. Taken together, these elements provide a repeatable approach for optimizing the number of cables, quantity of multiplexed connections, cable lengths, and switch/component placement.

The design of a networked cluster or cloud hardware infrastructure (e.g., a compute datacenter) that minimizes cost and satisfies performance requirements is becoming evermore complex given the trend toward centralized servers packed into dense configurations. A network designer has to consider a vast number of design choices including, but not limited to: the number of interfaces per switch, the size of the switches, and the type and length of network cabling (e.g., cables and connectors such as optical, copper, 1G, 10G, or 40G) interconnecting the network components. In addition, network designers also need to consider the physical space where the datacenter network is located, such as, a rack-based datacenter organized into rows of racks.
A portion of datacenter network costs can be attributed to the network cabling interconnecting the network components. For example, in large-scale Infiniband-based networked clusters, an individual cable can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on the length and type. This is multiplied by the existence of potentially thousands of such cables deployed in a single cluster or cloud. Currently, the ad hoc methods used for cable planning and network capability often generate incorrect cable lengths and/or errors in connectivity/capacity. This has frequently resulted in massive re-cabling resulting in significant material and labor costs. The cumulative cost over thousands of installs can be substantial if these systems were improperly designed. Therefore, designing a datacenter network while reducing cabling and capacity costs is one of the key challenges faced by network designers today.

Optimized placement design of network and infrastructure components

Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.


The present invention concerns a thermal liner sub-assembly comprising crimped, heat resistant fibers held in a state of compression by a binder adhered to at least one thermally stable flame resistant stabilizing fabric wherein, when the thermal liner is exposed to heat or flame, the liner increases its thickness by at least one hundred percent and the shrinkage of the liner is no more than ten percent.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention concerns thermal liners having good thermal insulation and breathability under non-emergency conditions but, when under high thermal exposure, the liners provide an increase in thermal insulation and flame resistance thereby enhancing protection. The invention also covers a composite fabric system incorporating an outer shell fabric, a liquid barrier and the thermal liner. The invention further covers a protective garment.
2. Background of the Invention
The thermal liners or barriers used in firefighter's turnout coats have two thermal property needs that are in opposition to each other. During non-emergency conditions, the thermal liner should have good thermal insulation and breathability to provide maximum comfort for the wearer. However, in the event of a high thermal exposure such as encountered in an emergency condition, the thermal liner must have high thermal insulation in order to protect the wearer from burns. Turnout coats that provide high levels of thermal insulation are typically bulky during all conditions. The bulk of these coats inhibits the ability of the user to perform effectively due to movement inhibition and fatigue related to the garment weight. Thus, there is a need to provide adequate protection with reduced coat bulk during non-emergency conditions.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,229,937 to Bascom at al describes a non-woven fire blocking fabric comprising an open mesh scrim having crimped heat-resistant organic fibers compressed thereon and held in a compressed state by a thermoplastic binder. U.S. Pat. No. 7,247,585 also to Bascom at al describes a modification of the concept patented above wherein then fire-blocking fabric has ridges and grooves. U.S. Pat. No. 7,226,877 to Bascom et al teaches an impermeable polymeric film laminated to an open mesh scrim having crimped heat-resistant organic fibers compressed thereon and held in a compressed state by a thermoplastic binder. U.S. Pat. No. 6,955,193 to Hainsworth et al discloses a fire resistant woven fabric material comprising a front face woven from meta-aramid fiber and a back face woven from para-aramid fiber.
Despite the functionality of these fabrics, there is still a need for further improvements particularly in the areas of flame resistance of the finished garment, minimizing shrinkage reduction of the thermal liner and reducing abrasion resistance of the thermal liner.

Thermal liner subassembly, fabric and method of use

Abstract: The invention also relates to use of such liners in protective fabrics, garments, and articles.


The preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a novel method of forming MOS devices using hydrogen annealing. The method includes providing a semiconductor substrate including a first region and a second region, forming at least a portion of a first MOS device covering at least a portion of the first active region, performing a hydrogen annealing in an ambient containing substantially pure hydrogen on the semiconductor substrate. The hydrogen annealing is performed after the step of the at least a portion of the first MOS device is formed, and preferably after a pre-oxidation cleaning. The method further includes forming a second MOS device in the second active region after hydrogen annealing. The hydrogen annealing causes the surface of the second active region to be substantially rounded, while the surface of the first active region is substantially flat.

With scaling of VLSI circuits, more devices are put into a chip. This not only requires the shrinking of the device size, but it also puts higher requirements on each component of the semiconductor devices.
Reducing equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) of a gate dielectric is important for a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) device to have high performance. Many methods have been explored to reduce the EOT of the gate dielectric. However, when the EOT of a MOS device is reduced, leakage current often increases. Conventionally, this problem is solved by incorporating nitrogen into the gate dielectrics.
The incorporation of nitrogen into the gate dielectrics, however, comes with cost. The carrier mobility of the MOS device is reduced due to the introduction of nitrogen. The drive current of the MOS device is thus reduced, which partially offsets the benefit of the improvement of the equivalent oxide thickness. Among various approaches to compensate for the carrier mobility degradation, rounding the surface of the active regions on which MOS devices are formed is commonly used. As a result, more nitrogen can be introduced (if necessary) into the gate dielectric without concern for reduction of the carrier mobility, so that the performance of the MOS devices can be better adjusted.
In conventional integrated circuit manufacturing processes, surface rounding is performed after the formation of shallow trench isolation regions, and all exposed active regions on a wafer are rounded, including those non-core device regions, which typically do not need to be rounded. This may cause unexpected (adverse) effects on devices formed in those regions. There is the need, therefore, for an improved manufacturing method that restricts the rounding effects locally.

Pre-gate dielectric process using hydrogen annealing

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.


The present disclosure relates to an airflow management system, particularly for a lawn mower, especially a robotic lawn mower. A battery-operated robotic lawn mower has an active airflow management system that includes at least one first air vent positioned on an underside of the mower, at least one second air vent, an internal housing surrounding a motor, a fan, and at least one cooling air channel located within the housing and around said motor. An air flow path is defined between the first and the second vents, and the at least one second vent has a lower air flow capacity than an air flow capacity of the at least one cooling air channel such that, in operation, a greater volume of air is drawn through the first vent than the second.

Existing lawnmower designs can easily lead to overheating of the electrical components, as a result of high cutting loads, high ambient temperatures or a combination of both. Overheating can affect both the electronics and the batteries, particularly Lithium-ion batteries. This is particularly true for robotic lawn mowers. They will typically will be out in the sun most or all of the time especially when they are coupled to a docking station either having the batteries recharged or simply waiting for their next scheduled cutting operation. Using Lithium-ion batteries, the electronics in these devices are typically configured to prevent the product operating if the cells are above a certain limit temperature (usually 70° C.) to prevent permanent damage or, in extreme cases catching fire. There is therefore a need for additional cooling steps for these devices, particularly to prevent them from simply not operating in hot climates. Robotic devices typically have an outer shell, which is used in collision detection. This outer shell will provide some shading effect against ambient high temperatures, but will also mean that venting is required to allow air cooling of the device. Some cooling effect will be provided by the fan effect of rotating blades. However, this will be insufficient due to the low power provided to the cutting blades in such mowers. Attention also needs to be paid to the cooling of the device when it is not in operation.
Cooling fans have not been used in previous designs for battery operated robotic lawn mowers, because of the additional power requirements of the fan in operation. However, it will be shown that careful design and placement of vents in combination with a fan or impeller allow advantages in both cooling and debris removal.