A sliding door is provided for a rail car of the type having a floor, a side wall along one side of the floor and standing upwardly from the floor and an opening in the side wall. The sliding door is mounted on top and bottom rails at the opening extending parallel to a plane of the opening with the door movable from a closed position at the opening to an open position spaced along the rails from the opening. The sliding door is formed of modular panel sections which are replaceable independently of one another when damaged. The sliding door includes a flexible portion being movable between a relaxed position and a flexed position in which the flexible portion is deflected in a direction transversely to the plane of the opening in relation to the relaxed position in order to minimize damage to the, door when impacted.

A sliding door is provided for a railcar which is formed in modular sections and more particular which includes a flexible portion permitting the modular sections to be deflected relative to one another.
Box rail cars of the type having sliding doors are commonly loaded using various lifting and handling equipment. Known sliding doors for these types of rail cars generally are not suitably arranged to absorb impacts which are known to occur from the lifting and handling equipment used for loading the boxcars. As a result damage to sliding doors is one of the most common repairs required in the maintenance of box rail cars. Among the repairs to doors of this type, straightening the doors as a result of impacts from lifting and handling equipment is the most common.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a sliding door for a rail car construction comprising a floor, a side wall along one side of the floor and standing upwardly from the floor and an opening in the side wall, the sliding door comprising:
a sliding door member arranged to be mounted on top and bottom rails at the opening extending parallel to a plane of the opening with the door movable from a closed position at the opening to an open position spaced along the rails from the opening;
the sliding door member including a flexible portion being movable between a relaxed position and a flexed position in which the flexible portion is deflected in a direction transversely to the plane of the opening in relation to the relaxed position.
Providing a sliding door for a rail car having a flexible portion permits the door to absorb the impacts known to occur when loading a rail car, thus preventing permanent deformation of the door which would otherwise require costly repair when no flexible portion is provided. Having only a portion of the door being flexible permits the door to remain sufficiently structurally rigid to contain cargo within the rail car as required.
The door member is preferably divided into at least two panel sections and includes a flexible coupling connecting said at least two panel sections together so as to permit deflection of the sliding door member at an intersection of said at least two panel sections in a direction transversely to the plane of the opening.
The door member may include at least one lateral intersection extending between respective sides of the door member and dividing the door into panel sections being connected one above the other by the flexible coupling or at least one longitudinal intersection extending between respective top and bottom ends of the door member and dividing the door into panel sections being connected laterally adjacent one another by the flexible coupling.
The intersection between said at least two panel sections preferably comprises an end plate on each panel section adjacent the intersection and a resilient material mounted between the end plates. The panel sections may be connected by the flexible coupling using threaded fasteners such that the panel sections are selectively separable from one another.
There may be provided a plurality of panel sections, each coupled to adjacent panel sections by a flexible coupling, preferably at least two panel sections being substantially identical to one another.
Edges of the panel sections preferably each comprise a mounting flange oriented perpendicularly to a plane of the respective panel section having a plurality of mounting apertures therein, the mounting apertures being arranged for alignment with the mounting apertures of an adjacent panel section when the panel sections are abutted one adjacent the other for receiving respective fasteners therethrough.
There may be provided a peripheral guard supported on each side of the door member, the peripheral guard spanning plural panel sections along respective sides of the door member.
When the door is divided horizontally into a plurality of panel sections, each peripheral guard preferably comprises a rigid member spanning substantially a full length of the respective side of the door member.
According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a sliding door for a rail car construction comprising a floor, a side wall along one side of the floor and standing upwardly from the floor and an opening in the side wall, the sliding door comprising:
a door member arranged to be supported on top and bottom rails at the opening extending parallel to a plane of the opening, movable from a closed position at the opening to an open position spaced along the rails from the opening;
the door member comprising a plurality of panel sections, each panel section having top, bottom and side edges selectively mounted to corresponding edges of respective adjacent panel sections each having a similar configuration; and
top and bottom rail guides arranged to be selectively mounted on the respective top and bottom ends of the sliding door member, the top and bottom rail guides being arranged to support the door member on the respective top and bottom rails.
Providing a sliding door for a rail car formed of modular sections permits the door to accommodate the impacts known to occur when loading a rail car by permitting individual damaged sections to be replaced-independently of one another. The resulting repair costs for impacted and damaged doors are dramatically reduced by replacing individual sections of the door instead of the entire door. By forming the sections of the door identical to one another, costs can further be reduced as only a single modular section design is required to be manufactured and supplied to customers.
The panel sections may all be identical to one another. In one arrangement, only the top edges of the respective panel sections may be all substantially identical to one another, or alternatively, the bottom edges of the respective panel sections may be all substantially identical to one another. In yet a further arrangement, side edges of the panel sections are all substantially identical to one another. It is preferred for simplicity however, that all edges of the panel sections be similar in configuration to one another.
The top rail guides are preferably supported on the top edges of respective panel sections at the top end of the door member by threaded fasteners for ease of replacement if required. Similarly, the bottom rail guides are preferably supported on the bottom edges of respective panel sections at the bottom end of the door member by threaded fasteners
When there is provided a base section selectively mounted on the bottom edge of each panel section adjacent the bottom end of the door member, the bottom rail guides are preferably supported on the base sections by threaded fasteners.
There may be provided a plurality of side panel sections mounted along respective sides of the door member and a plurality of intermediate panel sections mounted between the respective side panel sections, the side panel sections all being identical to one another.
There may be provided a peripheral guard supported on each side of the door member, the peripheral guard also being arranged to be supported on the respective side edges of the panel sections along the respective sides of the door member using threaded fasteners.


The invention relates to a method and composition for treatment of oxidative stress resulting from hemodialysis treatment in patients suffering from chronic kidney failure or End-Stage Renal Disease by administration of cystine, cysteine or mixtures thereof.

Oxidative stress is defined as an imbalance between the physiological systems of antioxidant protection and increased production of oxygen or nitrogen radicals by the cells of the immune system. The result can be damage to the molecular structure of proteins, sugars and lipids together with damage to the cell functions, which also prejudices the functions of the body's vital organs. Oxidative stress has been observed to be particularly evident in patients suffering from kidney failure and undergoing haemodialysis. This phenomenon is attributed to bioincompatibility between the patient's circulating blood cells and the dialysis membranes, together with other factors such as a chronic uraemic state. This bioincompatibility leads to excessive production of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) by the immune system, and at the same time a reduction in the antioxidant capacity of the body due to losses of antioxidant molecules such as glutathione (GSH), vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin E through the filters of the dialysis membranes.
One of the consequences of this abnormal immune response is a condition of oxidative stress, which leads to greater susceptibility to infection due to the defective immune response, amyloidosis and accelerated atherosclerosis due to continual activation of the immunocompetent cells. This triggers an inflammatory response, with consequent continual release of cytokines and lysosomal proteolytic enzymes, and stimulation of free radical production; in practice the oxidative stress becomes a self-replicating process, and generates a condition of chronic inflammation.
The main consequence of oxidative stress is cardiovascular complications, which are the main cause of death in patients suffering from chronic kidney failure. At local level these complications are manifested by alterations of the endothelium, accumulation of lipids, formation of clots and occlusion of the lumen.
At systemic level, chronic oxidative stress stimulates acute-phase protein synthesis by the liver at the expense of synthesis of other proteins, such as albumin and transferrin: the result is malnutrition, which is exacerbated by catabolic breakdown of muscle proteins and reduced appetite.
The chronic renal failure (CRF) is a progressive disease of kidney; when the kidney has lost all its ability of clear the blood, the patients cannot survive and have to be submitted to the dialysis procedure. Such a last condition is defined End-Stage Renal-Disease (ESRD).
Examples of the treatment of oxidative stress by administering products with antioxidant activity are reported below. The product most often used for the prevention and treatment of oxidative stress at present is N-acetylcysteine (see, for example, Kidney Int., Vol 64 (2003), pp. 82-91; Current Med. Chem., 2003, 10, pp. 1241-53). In particular, WO 01/02004 describes the use of N-acetylcysteine by intravenous injection before and/or during haemodialysis treatment.
According to Nakanishi et al., Kidney Int. 2003 March; 63(3): 1137-40, the plasma concentration of cysteine and homocysteine increases in patients with chronic kidney failure who undergo dialysis. It consequently does not seem logical to further increase the cysteine concentration in these patients.
Santangelo F., Current Med. Chem., 2003, 10, 2599-2610, has recently reviewed the therapeutic uses of cysteine pro-drugs such as N-acetylcysteine and its esters, thiazolidines, γ-glutamylcysteine and glutathione esters, particularly discussing the importance of intracellular GSH concentration. The oral administration of cysteine or cystine rather than derivatives thereof has been however neither disclosed nor suggested by this review.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method for treating hemodialysis-related oxidative stress using cystine or cysteine


A guide bar (1) for the saw chain (2) of a motor-driven chain saw includes a longitudinal bar base body (3) of solid material having a reversal section (5) and a mounting section (8). A weight recess (11) is formed in a flat side (13) of the bar base body (3). The weight recess (11) extends essentially along the bar base body (3) and is closed by a cover plate (12). A light-weight, torsion-resistant guide bar is produced in that a longitudinal rib (14, 15) supporting the cover plate (12) is arranged in the weight recess (11) and extends in the longitudinal direction (19) of the guide bar (1).

U.S. Pat. No. 4,794,696 discloses a solid-material guide bar whose base body has openings for weight reduction. These openings are closed by cover plates which lie flush on the corresponding flat sides of the guide bar base body. In order to ensure sufficient stability, the cover plates must be precisely adapted to, inserted in, and fixed to the countersinks of the openings. This involves high production costs.

Weight-reduced guide bar of solid material


A hashing data storage and retrieval arrangement whose storage capacity is unaffected by collisions. A first memory serves as a hash index table, for storing pointers at each address location corresponding to a hash value generated by hashing a key data word. Each pointer is the address of a location in a second memory, which has a separate storage location for each key data word, its associated data, and a further pointer which is the address of the next key data word resulting from a collision during hashing. Preferably a pipeline register between the two memories permits hashing of a subsequent key data word while accessing of the second memory is still in progress.

The present invention relates to a memory architecture optimized for hashing, and to a method of organizing data which is optimized for hashing, and more particularly optimized for carrying out the Lempel-Ziv data compression algorithm.
The problem of organizing and storing data in a manner to allow quick retrieval is constantly encountered. A large variety of techniques known as hashing have been used to solve tile data organization and retrieval problem.
Frequently, a data element will have a value range that makes retrieval by searching by simple look-up impracticable. For example, a small five character ASCII word can have over a trillion possible values, and would require an equally large space of memory addresses if every possible value were allocated a unique address in the memory address space.
Hashing involves the application of a many-to-one function to the data element to map it from a larger to a smaller address space. The smaller address space will be the space of memory addresses in which the data is to be stored. A data element, called a key, is used as the argument of the many-to-one function, called the hash function. Storage of information associated with the key is accomplished by computing the hash function and storing the key, and associated data, in a memory at an address, called the hash address, corresponding to the hash function value. Because of the many-to-one property of the hash function, a smaller address space is required than if each of the possible data elements were to be assigned a unique address in memory. Retrieval of stored data associated with a particular key then involves simply computing the hash function value for the key and reading out the stored data from the memory.
Because of the many-to-one mapping by the hash function, more than one key can be hashed to the same memory address. This condition is called a collision, and a large number of techniques have been developed for resolving collisions. Good summaries of hashing techniques including collision resolution can be found in D. E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. 3: Sorting and Searching (1973) and J. S. Vitter, Analysis of Coalesced Hashing, Stanford University Department of Computer Science, Report No. STAN-CS-80-817, August 1980, reprinted in part at J. S. Vitter, "Tuning the Coalesced Hashing Method to Obtain Optimum Performance", Proceedings of Twenty-first Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, October 1980.
Many of the collision resolution methods utilize a technique called chaining. In the chaining method a dynamic linked list is maintained at each memory address corresponding to a hash function value or hash address. The hash addresses are stored in a table. The key and associated data is organized as a record which includes a key field, fields for data associated with the key, and a link field. After hashing a key, if there is a collision a sequential search is performed in the list to locate the particular record containing the key value being searched. If the list terminates without the key being found, and if it is desired to add the key and any associated data to the stored data, a new list element is added in the form of a record with that key as its content.
The chaining method has two principal advantages and two drawbacks. Because on the average the linked lists associated with each of the hash addresses are small, the search time for data retrieval is short. This remains true even as the hash address table begins to fill up. Knuth (cited above) has shown that even width the table completely full the chaining method requires only about 1.5 to 1.8 probes in order to locate the key. In addition, the hash address of the key is uniquely associated with it, that is, a key always hashes to the same hash value even though other keys may hash to that same value, and does not depend on the order in which the key is inserted in the hash address table. This uniqueness allows the use of abbreviated keys and a resultant reduction in storage requirements and in search time.
One possible problem with the chaining method is that the overhead of the link field could create severe memory requirements. A second problem is that an additional block of memory, used as overflow memory, is required in order to ensure adequate storage of the linked lists associated with each of the hash addresses. These two problems are intertwined.
If, because of the nature of the data, or because of Foot hash function properties, many keys are hashed to the same hash address, the overflow memory will have to be big enough to store a substantial part of the entire key space. Even for well behaved hash functions, Vitter (cited above) has shown that the overflow memory can increase the overall memory requirements from about 37% to 100%.
Hashing efficiency can be increased by expanding the memory available for hash addresses. The larger the hash table that can be used for a given number of entries, the less the likelihood of a collision. However, because each hash address requires an associated link field, increasing the memory available to the hash table will expand the memory requirements by more than just the additional memory allocated to the hash table.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a memory architecture and a method of data organization optimized for hashing which permits collision resolution by chaining and which also minimizes the amount of memory which must be allocated.

Memory architecture and method of data organization optimized for hashing


In a voice-application creation and deployment architecture, a system for preprocessing text strings for VXML view generation and subsequent voice rendering has a text-to-speech preprocessing logic; a software table accessible to the preprocessing logic, the table for serving text dialog options related to one or more text entities; a rules base for serving dialog selection constraints; and a data store for storing the dialog options and text entities. In a preferred embodiment the preprocessing logic accesses the software table during client interaction with a deployed voice application and selects a specific dialog option from more than one dialog options related to a single text entity and inserts the selected option into the VXML page rendering process, the selection made according to the served constraints.

A speech application is one of the most challenging applications to develop, deploy and maintain in a communications (typically telephony) environment. Expertise required for developing and deploying a viable application includes expertise in computer telephony integration (CTI) hardware and software, voice recognition software, text-to-speech software, and speech application logic.
With the relatively recent advent of voice extensive markup language (VXML) the expertise require to develop a speech solution has been reduced somewhat. VXML is a language that enables a software developer to focus on the application logic of the voice application without being required to configuring underlying telephony components. Typically, the developed voice application is run on a VXML interpreter that resides on and executes on the associated telephony system to deliver the solution.
As is shown in FIG. 1A (prior art) a typical architecture of a VXML-compliant telephony system comprises a voice application server (110) and a VXML-compliant telephony server (130). Typical steps for development and deployment of a VXML enabled IVR solutions are briefly described below using the elements of FIG. 1A.
Firstly, a new application database (113) is created or an existing one is modified to support VXML. Application logic 112 is designed in terms of workflow and adapted to handle the routing operations of the IVR system. VXML pages, which are results of functioning application logic, are rendered by a VXML rendering engine (111) based on a specified generation sequence.
Secondly, an object facade to server 130 is created comprising the corresponding VXML pages and is sent to server 130 over a network (120), which can be the Internet, an Intranet, or an Ethernet network. The VXML pages are integrated into rendering engine 111 such that they can be displayed according to set workflow at server 110.
Thirdly, the VXML-telephony server 130 is configured to enable proper retrieval of specific VXML pages from rendering engine 111 within server 110. A triggering mechanism is provided to server 110 so that when a triggering event occurs, an appropriate outbound call is placed from server 110.
A VXML interpreter (131), a voice recognition text-to-speech engine (132), and the telephony hardware/software (133) are provided within server 130 and comprise server function. In prior art, the telephony hardware/software 130 along with the VXML interpreter 131 are packaged as an off-the-shelf IVR-enabling technology. Arguably the most important feature, however, of the entire system is the application server 110. The application logic (112) is typically written in a programming language such as Java and packaged as an enterprise Java Bean archive. The presentation logic required is handled by rendering engine 111 and is written in JSP or PERL.
An enhanced voice application system is known to the inventor and disclosed in the U.S. patent application entitled "Method and Apparatus for Development and Deployment of a Voice Software Application for Distribution to one or more Application Consumers" to which this application claims priority. That system uses a voice application server that is connected to a data network for storing and serving voice applications. The voice application server has a data connection to a network communications server connected to a communications network such as the well-known PSTN network. The communication server routes the created voice applications to their intended recipients.
A computer station is provided as part of the system and is connected to the data network and has access to the voice application server. A client software application is hosted on the computer station for the purpose of enabling users to create applications and manage their states. In this system, the user operates the client software hosted on the computer station in order to create voice applications through object modeling and linking. The applications, once created, are then stored in the application server for deployment. The user can control and manage deployment and state of deployed applications including scheduled deployment and repeat deployments in terms of intended recipients.
In one embodiment, the system is adapted for developing and deploying a voice application using Web-based data as source data over a communications network to one or more recipients. The enhanced system has a voice application server capable through software and network connection of accessing a network server and Web site hosted therein and for pulling data from the site. The computer station running a voice application software has control access to at least the voice application server and is also capable of accessing the network server and Web site. An operator of the computer station creates and provides templates for the voice application server to use in data-to-voice rendering. In this aspect, Web data can be harvested from a Web-based data source and converted to voice for delivery as dialogue in a voice application.
In another embodiment, a method is available in the system described above for organizing, editing, and prioritizing the Web-based data before dialog creation is performed. The method includes harvesting the Web-based data source in the form of its original structure; generating an object tree representing the logical structure and content type of the harvested, Web-based data source; manipulating the object tree generated to a desired hierarchal structure and content; creating a voice application template in VXML and populating the template with the manipulated object tree; and creating a voice application capable of accessing the Web-based data source according to the constraints of the template. The method allows streamlining of voice application deployment and executed state and simplified development process of the voice application.
A security regimen is provided for the above-described system. The protocol provides transaction security between a Web server and data and a voice portal system accessible through a telephony network on the user end and through an XML gateway on the data source end. The regimen includes one of a private connection, a virtual private network, or a secure socket layer, set-up between the Web server and the Voice Portal system through the XML gateway. Transactions carried on between the portal and the server or servers enjoy the same security that is available between secure nodes on the data network. In one embodiment, the regimen further includes a voice translation system distributed at the outlet of the portal and at the telephone of the end user wherein the voice dialog is translated to an obscure language not that of the users language and then retranslated to the users language at the telephone of the user.
In such as system where templates are used to enable voice application dialog transactions, voice application rules and voice recognition data are consulted for the appropriate content interpretation and response protocol so that the synthesized voice presented as response dialog through the voice portal to the user is both appropriate in content and hopefully error free in expression. The database is therefore optimized with vocabulary words that enable a very wide range of speech covering many different vocabulary words akin to many differing business scenarios.
According to yet another aspect of the invention, vocabulary recognition is tailored for active voice applications according to client parameters. This is accomplished through a vocabulary management system adapted to constrain voice recognition processing associated with text-to-speech and speech-to-text rendering associated with use of an active voice application in progress between a user accessing a data source through a voice portal. The enhancement includes a vocabulary management server connected to a voice application server and to a telephony server, and an instance of vocabulary management software running on the management server for enabling vocabulary establishment and management for voice recognition software. In practice of the enhanced vocabulary management capability, an administrator accessing the vocabulary management server uses the vocabulary management software to create unique vocabulary sets or lists that are specific to selected portions of vocabulary associated with target data sources the vocabulary sets differing in content according to administrator direction.
It will be appreciated by one with skill in the art of voice application deployment architecture that many users vying to connect and interact with a voice portal may in some cases create a bottleneck wherein data lines connecting voice application components to Web-sources and other data sources become taxed to their capacities. This problem may occur especially at peak use periods as is common for many normal telephony environments. It has occurred to the inventor that still more streamlining in terms of traffic optimization is required to alleviate potential line-use issues described above.
A particular enhancement to the voice application distribution system known to the inventor addresses the traffic challenges described in the above paragraph. Application logics are provided for determining which portions (dialogs) of a voice application for deployment are cached at an application-receiving end system based on static and dynamic rules and in some cases (dynamic caching), statistical analysis results are used in the determination. The application logic utilizes a processor for processing the voice application according to sequential dialog files and rules of the application. Logic components include a static content optimizer connected to the processor for identifying files containing static content; and a dynamic content optimizer connected to the processor for identifying files containing dynamic content. The optimizers determine which files should be cached at which end-system facilities, tag the files accordingly, and prepare those files for distribution to selected end-system cache facilities for local retrieval during consumer interaction with the deployed application.
Being able to retrieve dialog portions of a voice application from a local cache facility increases response time at the voice portal by decreasing the load on the network connection to the voice application server. However, in addition to reduced traffic requirements, it is also important that text to speech recognition and speech to text renderings are clear and accurate. Accuracy of synthesized speech delivered to a caller is key to creating a successful voice application that can be interacted with in a dynamic fashion at both ends.
As voice application distribution architectures expand to cross regional boundaries and even cultural boundaries the prospect of standardizing speech recognition rules dealing with terms and phrases that are commonly spoken becomes increasingly difficult. For example, pronunciations of certain terms in a same language will vary significantly according to region. Common labels such as the way major roads and highways are written and spoken can also vary significantly. There are many examples of phrase and term variations that need to be addressed if voice application interaction is practiced on larger architectures spanning large geographic regions.
What is clearly needed is a method and apparatus for preprocessing text-to-speech renderings according to prevailing locally-dependant parameters and rules that address the types of variances in specific terms, pronunciation parameters, and phonic variations in spoken phrases. Such a method and apparatus would increase accuracy in voice synthesizing of text renderings thereby increasing caller and enterprise satisfaction and further reducing network traffic associated with error message propagation and interaction re-starts.

Method and apparatus for preprocessing text-to-speech files in a voice XML application distribution system using industry specific, social and regional expression rules


A static random access memory device is provided with an internal activation signal generator and circuit means for overriding application of the internal activation signals to the memory circuit under predetermined circumstances. In normal read/write operation modes, word lines and a sense amplifier are activated only during a predetermined period in response to the internal activation signals in order to reduce power consumption. On the other hand, in a test mode, since the circuit means detects a higher voltage level of a predetermined external terminal of the device, the internal activation signals from the pulse generator are not used to limit the operating time of the word lines and sense amplifier. Therefore, during the test mode, the word lines and the sense amplifier are activated for a longer period than during the normal read/write operation mode. Because of this, the device is able to shorten aging time which occurs in the test mode.

Recently static RAMs employing an automatic power-down system have been developed which make word lines and sense amplifiers inoperative after completion of a series of read operations by use of an address signal change detection signal. Examples of such static RAMs include devices "HM62256, HM628128" marketed by Hitachi, Ltd.
The automatic power-down system described above makes word lines and sense amplifiers inoperative at the time of completion of a data read operation even if a chip select signal CS or the like is under the low level active state, and thereby reduces current consumption. However, since the automatic power-down function operates even in an acceleration test such as aging, the actual operation time of an internal circuit becomes shorter than the test cycle of the acceleration test. This results in the problem that the time necessary for the acceleration test becomes extended.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a static RAM which can shorten the test time of such an acceleration test while still accomplishing the low power consumption advantages of an automatic power-down system in an ordinary operation mode.
The abov and other objects and novel features of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.


According to one embodiment, an electronic device includes a first camera, a first polarizer, a second polarizer, and a liquid crystal panel disposed between the first polarizer and the second polarizer. The liquid crystal panel includes a first scanning line, a first signal line intersecting the first scanning line, a first switching element electrically connected to the first scanning line and the first signal line, and a first control electrode electrically connected to the first switching element. The first control electrode overlaps the first camera, and is disposed in an annular first region.

Recently, electronic devices such as smartphones comprising a display portion and a camera on the same side have been widely put into practical use. In these electronic device, the camera is disposed outside the display portion, and it is increasingly required to expand the display portion while securing a space for installing the camera. In addition, it is required to be capable of taking a clear picture.


It is an object to reduce a difference in temperature of a refrigerant between an upstream side and a downstream side of a flow path even in a case where all semiconductor elements generate heat due to inverter operation and the like. A semiconductor device includes at least one semiconductor element, a base plate, a plurality of cooling fins, a jacket, and a partition. The partition is disposed below the plurality of cooling fins in the jacket. The partition has at least one inflow opening to allow the refrigerant having flowed in through the refrigerant inlet to flow through the plurality of cooling fins, and has a portion abutting the jacket on the side of the refrigerant inlet. The at least one inflow opening is located to correspond to the at least one semiconductor element.

In a semiconductor device, a direct-cooled cooling structure in which cooling fins are disposed on a lower surface of a base plate on which semiconductor elements are mounted is sealed to a jacket through a sealing structure. To make a flow rate of a refrigerant flowing through the cooling fins uniform, a partition to allow the refrigerant to flow through the cooling fins is typically disposed on an inflow side and an outflow side of the refrigerant of the cooling fins, that is, horizontally relative to the cooling fins.
The partition is disposed below the cooling fins in some cases. In a semiconductor device disclosed in Patent Document 1, for example, a T-shaped header partition including a horizontal partition and a vertical partition is disposed below cooling fins. A refrigerant having flowed in through a refrigerant inlet flows into the cooling fins through a refrigerant inflow-side gap formed between one end of the horizontal partition on a side of the refrigerant inlet and an inner wall of a jacket in a sealed region between the jacket and a base plate, flows through a refrigerant outflow-side gap formed between the other end of the horizontal partition on a side of a refrigerant outlet and the inner wall of the jacket, and flows out through the refrigerant outlet.

Semiconductor device with partition for refrigerant cooling


A delivery vehicle has separate compartments with a common sidewall. Doors that are interchangeable between the compartments close the compartments. A latching assembly between the doors and sidewall limits movement of the sidewall when only one of the doors is closed. The compartments are combined into a single compartment by moving the sidewall when the doors are open. A hinge assembly connects the doors. A contact and wiper assembly between the doors carries power and commands for the hinge assembly.

The present invention relates to flexible storage compartments and in particular to a flexible storage compartment system for use with an autonomous delivery vehicle.
Delivery vehicles, such as trucks or vans, are typically driven by a driver, and have a cargo area in which packages to be delivered are stored during transit. The cargo area is typically a single, common space into which the packages are loaded for transit and then unloaded from for delivery. The cargo area may have shelves for holding the packages, an internal aisle between the shelves, and front and rear doors for the driver to access this area. When delivering packages, the driver drives the delivery vehicle to each recipient, retrieves the recipient's package from the cargo area, and then personally delivers the package to the recipient.
For an autonomous—i.e., self-driving—delivery vehicle, a driver is not needed for driving. Instead, the autonomous delivery vehicle drives itself to each of the recipients. The recipient then retrieves the package from the autonomous delivery vehicle. To prevent the recipient from mistakenly taking an incorrect package, the autonomous vehicle may have a plurality of individual shipping compartments. Each package is loaded into a separate compartment that is then locked prior to sending out the autonomous vehicle for deliveries. When the delivery is made, only the compartment corresponding to the present delivery is unlocked for the recipient to remove the package.
However, most packages loaded into the compartments have sizes smaller than a maximum capacity of the corresponding compartment into which it is loaded. Indeed, many of the packages may be significantly smaller than the maximum capacity of the bins. This results in wasted space in the compartments and wasted capacity for the autonomous delivery vehicle. While different sized compartments may be provided for the different sizes of packages, space is again wasted because the packages typically vary significantly in size from day to day while the compartments remain fixed in size.


A method is disclosed for treating wastewater from a suspension styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN) copolymerization process. The wastewater contains SAN and polyvinyl alocohol (PVA) as a suspensing agent. The method includes the steps of adding to the wastewater a floc forming effective amount of a) a water soluble borate salt, preferably sodium metaborate and b) a water soluble ferrous salt, preferably ferrous sulfate, and separating the resulting floc which contains the SAN particles and PVA from the treated wastewater.

1. Field of the Invention
A method of reducing the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) of wastewater generated in the production of styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer (SAN) made by the suspension process. The method includes the step of treating the wastewater with a boric acid salt and a ferrous salt both being water soluble.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
In the manufacture of SAN by the suspension process, the monomers are charged into an aqueous mixture containing a suspending agent, usually polyvinyl alcohol. After the copolymer is recovered, the large amounts of polyvinyl alcohol and finely divided SAN particles remaining in the wastewater make pretreatment of the water very difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,078,129 issued on Mar. 7, 1978 (Yamagata et al) describes a method of separating polyvinyl alcohol from solution by coagulating it with a "salting agent" and a salt of boric acid. The salting agent is defined as an inorganic salt of Group I or II metals, an inorganic ammonium salt or an inorganic aluminum salt. While the present invention does use a boric acid salt, it is used in conjunction with a ferrous salt (Group VIII) rather than the class of "salting agents" described in Yamagata et al.

Method of treating wastewater from polymerization process


The invention provides for a medical imaging system (100, 400) comprising: a memory (112) for storing machine executable instructions and a processor (106) for controlling the medical imaging system. Execution of the machine executable instructions cause the processor to: receive (200) a preliminary segmentation (124) from a preliminary magnetic resonance image (122) of a region of interest (409), wherein the preliminary segmentation comprises preliminary segmentation edges; reconstruct (202) a first QSM image (124) for the region of interest from QSM magnetic resonance data (122), wherein the reconstruction of the QSM image is at least partially performed using a regularization function, wherein the regularization function is dependent upon the preliminary segmentation edges during reconstruction of the first QSM image; calculate (204) a first segmentation (126) by segmenting the first QSM image using a QSM image segmentation algorithm (134), wherein the first segmentation comprises first segmentation edges; and reconstruct (206) a second QSM image (128) for the region of interest from the QSM magnetic resonance data, wherein the reconstruction of the second QSM image is at least partially performed using the regularization function, wherein the regularization function is dependent upon the first segmentation edges.

Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) is a magnetic resonance imaging technique in where the voxel intensity is linearly proportional to the underlying tissue apparent magnetic susceptibility. This may be useful for identifying certain biomarkers or contrast agents, such as gadolinium, which cause local changes in the magnetic susceptibility. The bulk magnetic susceptibility distribution of tissue in vivo is calculated from gradient echo magnetic resonance phase images. These images may be particularly useful in showing anatomical contrast between white and gray matter in the brain.
The journal article Tang et. al., "Improving Susceptibility Mapping Using a Threshold-Based K-Space/Image Domain Iterative Reconstruction Approach," Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 69: 1396-1407 (2013) describes a method of improving magnetic resonance imaging qualitative susceptibility maps by using geometric information from the susceptibility map itself as a constraint to overcome the ill-posed nature of the inverse filter. This paper illustrates applying this approach to vessels and other structures with lower susceptibility to reduce streaking artifacts.
The conference abstract Meineke, "Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping using Segmentation-Enabled Dipole Inversion," Proc. 23rd ISMRM, p. 3321 (2015) (herein "Meineke et. al.") discloses a QSM reconstruction which uses a binary map to define tissue boundary edges to improve gradient-based edge detection. The US-patent application US2015/0338492 concerns quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) in which edge information is employed in an L1-norm regularisation to calculate the magnetic susceptibility image. The edge information is calculated by way of and edge mask.

Segmentation of quantitative susceptibility mapping magnetic resonance images


An elevated hunting blind has a hunting blind housing with a support frame. The elevated hunting blind has a substantially upright position, such that the support frame supports the housing, and a substantially level position, such that the support frame embodies a load-bearing trailer. Wheels may be attached to the support frame, such that when the elevated hunting blind is in the level position, the wheels are in contact with the ground to support the load-bearing trailer. An elongated hinging member has a first end having a trailer tongue suitable for attachment to a tow hitch and a second end rotatably connected to the support frame, so the trailer tongue can maintain constant attachment to the tow hitch on a vehicle in both the upright position and the level position.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, generally, to hunting blinds. More particularly, it relates to a hunting blind that can also be engaged as a load-bearing, usable trailer for portability.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hunting blinds and deer blinds are well-known in the art. There are a multitude of types of hunting blinds, including elevated blinds, ground blinds, trailer blinds and situational blinds, such as deer blinds and duck blinds. Each has varying degrees of usability, portability and complexity. For example, ground blinds are designed to cover hunters on the ground and in many cases can be folded up into a small pouch for portability.
However, elevated blinds inherently are not as easily portable because they require the support structure to sustain its housing up to dozens of feet in the air. Elevated blinds must also be made of a material that is sustainable in varying weather and also be comfortable for users to remain inside the housing for long periods of time.
Elevated hunting blinds that are portable are also known in the art. However, in many cases, when using a truck to transport the hunting blind, the truck bed is used for the hunting blind, thereby limiting storage space for other hunting and non-hunting materials.
Moreover, elevated hunting blinds that are portable tend to be cumbersome to erect upon reaching the desired destination point. Often, these hunting blinds require multiple people to safely erect the hunting blind to its maximum height. Those blinds that do not require multiple people to erect tend to be too small to accommodate multiple people in its elevated housing. Thus, users have less flexibility with regards to the dangers of erecting an elevated hunting blind, the ability to accommodate multiple persons, and the ability to transport other items with the elevated hunting blind.
Further, conventional portable elevated hunting blinds use hydraulics or motors, or both, to erect the blinds and collapse them for transportation. Several problems tend to arise with this aspect of these conventional blinds. Hydraulics and motors require constant maintenance and repair to prevent malfunction or deterioration. Users incur extra costs and labor in maintaining the automated hunting blinds. Additionally, hunting blinds that collapse generally provide no function other than occupying space during transportation. Thus, hunters must often choose between bringing a hunting blind and bringing other cargo, for example a 4×4 vehicle, when going on a hunting trip.
Accordingly, what is needed is a multi-functional, more portable elevated hunting blind. However, in view of the art considered as a whole at the time the present invention was made, it was not obvious to those of ordinary skill how the art could be advanced.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate disclosure of the invention, Applicants in no way disclaim these technical aspects, and it is contemplated that the claimed invention may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.
The present invention may address one or more of the problems and deficiencies of the prior art discussed above. However, it is contemplated that the invention may prove useful in addressing other problems and deficiencies in a number of technical areas. Therefore, the claimed invention should not necessarily be construed as limited to addressing any of the particular problems or deficiencies discussed herein.
In this specification, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge, or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which this specification is concerned.


Systems, methods and computer software are disclosed for resolving multiple contexts for a User Equipment (UE) in a wireless network. In one embodiment a method includes maintaining, for a coordinating node hosting a first Radio Access Technology (RAT) controller and a second RAT controller simultaneously, a centrally maintained database; determining, based on the contents of the centrally maintained database, when the UE is registering with the second RAT controller while currently registered with the first RAT controller; and sending, by the second RAT controller, a deregistration command to the first RAT controller the UE was registered with, wherein context is freed and wherein resources held at both the coordinating node and at a base station are freed.

In certain situations, User Equipment (UE) context is maintained in two Radio Access Technology (RATs) at the same time leading to inefficient usage of resources. When a UE enters in 3G cell, it registers with Home NodeB Gateway (HNBGW) via a Radio Network Controller (RNC) via a Converged Wireless System (CWS) (Home NodeB). After releasing the Iu, to optimize the reregistration, the UE stays with HNBGW till Idle UE timeout. While Idle UE timeout is running, if the UE moves to 2G cell, it registers in 2G RAT with BSC.
Since UE has changed the RAT in Idle mode, the old RAT doesn't get any indication as controllers are independently handling the respective RATs. So, it leads to multiple UE contexts maintained in the network (two RATs). If Idle timer is high and with smaller cells, it may lead to multiple contexts for a single UE, hence, resource waste.

Multiple context issue for single UE in the network


An electrical connector includes a shell with a chamber and an insert assembly received in the chamber. The insert assembly has cavities therethrough that are configured to receive contacts. The contacts are configured for electrical connection to mating contacts of a mating connector. The insert assembly has resilient latches extending from an outer periphery of the insert assembly that engage the shell to hold the insert assembly in the chamber.

The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical connectors.
Electrical connectors generally include an insert that houses contacts, and the insert is retained in a shell. Electrical connector assemblies are often used in military and aerospace applications, and are also used in industrial, marine, and automotive applications, among others. The connectors, therefore, must be designed to withstand harsh environments, including extreme temperatures, pressures, physical forces like shock and vibration, corrosive contaminants, radiation, and electromagnetic interference. Therefore, the electrical connectors must be designed and assembled such that the contacts and insert do not become dislodged from the shell during operation in these harsh environments.
Currently, inserts are retained in the shells by adding an additional device to hold the inserts in position. Examples of these additional devices include composite retention clips and metal snap rings. These additional devices are added after the insert is loaded within the shell. Adding a separate snap ring or retention device requires special tooling, stocking of additional part numbers, additional time to add a secondary item, and potential dislodging of the retention mechanism due to improper seating or insertion process variations.
A need remains for an electrical connector that effectively retains an insert assembly within a shell while avoiding the problems associated with conventional electrical connectors.

Electrical connector having resilient latches


An electric coil assembly is formed from an annular bobbin having a circumferential channel formed therein for receiving an electrically conductive coil. A pair of raised portions are integrally formed on one side of the bobbin and a pair of terminals are embedded in the raised portions. Each terminal is in the form of a U-shaped member having opposite ends protruding from the raised portion for connection with one end of respective spring strips which are mounted on said raised portions, the opposite ends of which are adapted to be slidably engaged with electric current supply members.

Field Of The Invention
The present invention is directed to an electric coil assembly and more particularly to an improved terminal structure to which the ends of the wires of the electric coil are connected for receiving current from a suitable power supply.
Electromagnetic coil assemblies such as those used with electromagnetic clutches or electromagnetic sensors are basically provided with an electrically conductive wire coil wound on a bobbin and connected to an electrical terminal The coil bobbin generally has a concave portion in one surface thereof in which the electrically conductive wire is wound to form a coil. The electrical terminal is usually formed of one piece construction with the bobbin and terminal poles are embedded in the bobbin. One end of the wire coil would be connected to an input terminal and the other end of the wire coil would be connected to an output terminal and input and output wires would also be connected to the input and output terminals respectively.
In this type of well known electromagnetic coil assembly the ends of the wire coil and the input and output wires are connected to the terminal individually thereby providing a complicated electrical connecting structure which lacks stability and which is time consuming to assemble.


A disposable safety syringe designed to prevent syringe handlers from being pricked by a needle by covering the needle with a needle shield, is provided. Special attention should be given to syringe needles because they are sharp enough to cause needle stick injuries before and after use. In particular, if a user is accidentally injured by a blood-stained needle, serious infections might be caused through the needle. Accordingly, the needle is covered with the needle shield after use. The needle shield is fitted over a syringe cylinder. A stopping tab prevents the needle shield from sliding off the cylinder. Inserting tabs are formed by cutting part of shield walls, and locking grooves are formed in the end of the inserting tabs. A fixing adapter has an engagement sill formed in the inner side thereof and a number of elastic fins in the outer side thereof, which is fitted on the locking tab of the needle fixer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disposable safety syringe designed to prevent syringe handlers from being pricked by a needle by covering the needle with a needle shield.
2. Description of the Related Art
Disposable safety syringes are widely used due to the concerns that infectious diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS virus may be transmitted to a third party via needles of used syringes. However, the needles should be handled with much care before and after use because they are very sharp.
In particular, blood-stained needles may cause infections or injuries to medical practitioners such as doctors and nurses, or a third party who are pricked by the needles due to careless handling.
Thus, it is required that a safety syringe that is used single-time and disposable safely. That is, it is required that the safety syringe is designed to prevent sharp needles from causing injuries to medical practitioners or a third party by covering the needles with needle shields.
The prior art inventions of the same inventor as that of this invention are Korea Utility Model Registration Nos. 254002 entitled "Disposable safety syringe," 195390 entitled "Safety syringe," and 166124 entitled "Safety syringe," and 245065 entitled "Disposable safety syringe."


A switching power supply includes a first switching element connected between a primary winding of a transformer for the switching power supply and the ground, a shunt regulator serving as an output voltage detection circuit configured to detect an output voltage on a secondary winding side of the transformer, a photocoupler configured to transmit the output voltage to a control circuit, a second switching element configured to receive a stop signal for stopping operation of the switching power supply, and a photocoupler drive circuit configured such that when the second switching element has received the stop signal, power output from a low-frequency transformer power supply or the switching power supply is supplied to the photocoupler, and the stop signal is transmitted to the control circuit via the photocoupler.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power supply system, and particularly relates to a power supply system using a photocoupler for signal transmission.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a switching power supply configured such that a power input side and a power output side are electrically insulated from each other, an electrically-insulated signal transmission unit such as a photocoupler is used when an output voltage value is fed back to the power input side.
Japanese Patent No. 4682438 describes a switching power supply device. In order to stabilize output voltage, a voltage detection signal of an output voltage detection circuit is transmitted to a control circuit by a photocoupler, and is fed back to control of the pulse width of a drive signal of a MOSFET serving as a switching element in the control circuit. Moreover, when excess output voltage is caused, an overvoltage detection signal of an overvoltage detection circuit is transmitted to the control circuit by another photocoupler to stop operation of the MOSFET.
In some cases other than overvoltage detection as described in Japanese Patent No. 4682438, ON/OFF of a switching power supply may be performed. In order to transmit a command signal for ON/OFF of the switching power supply to a control circuit on a power input side, an electrically-insulated signal transmission unit such as a photocoupler is used, as was expected. In this case, two photocouplers are required, which include a photocoupler for output voltage value feedback and a photocoupler for signal transmission for ON/OFF of the switching power supply.

Power supply system with photocoupler drive circuit


Nucleic acid molecules and compositions comprising one or more nucleotide sequences that encode a consensus Merkel Cell Polyomavirus (MCV) T antigen. Immunomodulatory methods and methods of inducing an immune response against MCV are disclosed. Method of treating infection by MCV and methods of treating or preventing Merkel Cell Carcinoma associated with MCV are disclosed. Modified consensus MCV T antigens are disclosed.

Merkel Cell Polyomavirus (MCV) has gained recent attention due to its link with Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MCC), an aggressive human skin cancer. Approximately 1,500 new cases of MCC are diagnosed per year in the United States, and the mortality rate for subjects with MCC remains at 46%. MCC kills more patients than cutaneous T cell lymphoma and chronic myeloid leukemia. A majority (approximately 75%) of MCCs contain clonally integrated viral DNA and express viral T antigen transcripts and protein.
Currently there are no vaccines against MCC being tested in clinical trials. Therefore, there is need in the art for therapeutic vaccines against MCV and MCC. The current invention satisfies this unmet need.

Large and small T antigens of merkel cell polyomavirus, nucleic acid constructs and vaccines made therefrom, and methods of using same

THE WISTAR INSTITUTE OF ANATOMY AND BIOLOGY


Technology for protective helmets is provided, with a particular focus on rear opening full-face helmets. Embodiments are primarily focussed on an emergency release mechanism for such helmets, which allows the helmet to be separated into a front and rear shell thereby to facilitate removal from a wearer's head with minimal stress to the neck.

Any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
Known protective helmets typically consist of a protective shell that is secured to a user's head by way of a chinstrap. Known chinstrap systems used in conventional helmets are by no means ideal. For example: the helmet is susceptible, during an impact, to being moved out of the intended alignment with the head. This misalignment is known to increase the risk of injury of the user—for example if the temple region is exposed. In addition, chinstraps are known to break. This results in further adverse positioning—or indeed inadvertent compete removal of the helmet.
One approach for avoiding complications associated with chinstraps is to use a rear-opening helmet design, such as that disclosed in PCT/AU2006/001770. Such a helmet includes a front shell a rear shell moveable with respect to the front shell to provide an open configuration for receiving within the helmet or removing from the helmet a head; and a closed configuration wherein the rear shell is releasably lockingly engaged to the front shell for securely containing the head within the helmet.


A method by which optical filter structures may be applied onto a substrate that is transparent to light at least in the visible wavelength range suitable for a barrier filter.

Filters that have a complex structure normal to the optical axis play an important part in many fields of optics. For example, so-called barrier filters are used to enable the viewer of a display screen to have a three-dimensional vision without further aids, provided that the picture contents to be displayed on the screen have been processed accordingly. Such filter structures can consist, for example, of an array, normal to the optical axis, of areas that are opaque and such that are transparent to light in the visible wavelength range, i.e. in a wavelength range from about 400 nm to 800 nm, arranged in a specified complex pattern. Areas that are transparent only to specified wavelengths or wavelength ranges are also feasible, just as are grid structures, although the latter are less used in connection with the implementation of three dimensional presentations.
These filter structures are commonly applied onto a substrate transparent to light. Glass or a suitable plastic are examples of eligible substrate materials.
First, the substrate is laminated with a cold laminating film on top. For this purpose, the cold laminating sheet is provided with an adhesive coating on its bottom side, which is joined with the glass substrate. The top side of the cold laminating sheet also has such an adhesive coating. On the latter, a photographic film is laminated as a next step. Alternatively one can do without the carrier sheet, using a single adhesive coating only.
Such a photographic film comprises, as a rule, a base film made, for example, of cellulose or polyester, and a thin layer that is at first sensitive to light, known as photographic emulsion layer, which is actually a suspension, i.e. a mixture of a liquid and solid matter dispersed in it, to be precise, a slurry of crystals finely dispersed in gelatin. Usually, the crystals are some silver halide, i.e. silver chloride, silver bromide or silver iodide. The photographic emulsion layer is then exposed to light so that a pattern corresponding to the complex optical filter structure is imaged on the film. This can be done, for example, with the aid of a prefabricated mask. Subsequently, the photographic filter is developed and fixed—as is common and long well-known in prior art—to make the optical filter structure impressed into the photographic emulsion layer permanently light-fast.
In the next step, the side of the film carrying the photographic emulsion layer is laminated to the adhesive coating of the cold laminating sheet. Thus one obtains a system of layers of glass-adhesive-cold laminating sheet-adhesive-photographic emulsion layer-base film.
The two laminating operations generally involve the risk that dust particles, fluff or other flaws such as, for example, air bubbles, get embedded into the photographic emulsion layer, which may lead to noticeable impairments of the optical action of the filter structure. In the worst case, this makes the filter unserviceable. Especially in case of large-area photographic films, the pressure of between 50 and 70 kPa that has to be applied for laminating, commonly by means of a roller or a cylinder, leads to a slight distortion or tensile strain of the film especially in the rolling direction. In the case of filter structures for screens for three-dimensional display, which feature a periodicity, this will impair the accuracy of periodicity, which may make such a filter unserviceable. This is because the optical filter structures have to be precisely matched to the pixel spacing of the display screen—as a rule, a liquid crystal display (LCD).
The method of fabrication described above causes problems also if several of these optical filter structures are applied onto the substrate simultaneously. Smaller structures can be used, for example, for the display screens of mobile phones, navigation systems or portable game consoles. If several filter structures are applied, for example, onto a glass substrate, the different filter structures need to be separated; i.e. the common glass substrate has to be cut, together with all other layers, from the base film to the cold laminating sheet to the lower adhesive coating. This can be done by means of suitable carbide-tipped glass cutters, but time and again this causes unforeseeable, irregular break edges and chips so that the entire, already manufactured optical filter has to be scrapped. Sometimes, the system of layers as a whole prevents clean separation and also causes sharp-edged fractures that not only make the product unfit for further use but also involve a severe risk of injury. It is known that operators, even though they wear gloves, frequently get their fingers cut.
Printing the optical filter structures onto the glass surface as an alternative fabricating method is unsuccessful, as the filter structures will not properly adhere to the optically smooth glass surface. The screen printing process will not produce optical structures of the necessary smallness and accuracy either. Structure edges and corners will flow out due to the surface tension of the viscous glass inks before curing or heat-fusing.

Method for applying optical filter structures onto a carrier substrate

Abstract: In such a method, an adhesive is applied onto the substrate; then, a photographic film comprising a base film and a photographic emulsion layer applied on it is brought into contact with the adhesive. The optical filter structures are impressed in the photographic emulsion layer by exposure, development and fixation. The side of the film brought into contact with the adhesive is the one that bears the photographic emulsion layer. The adhesive is then spread between film and substrate by means of a roller rolling across the film at a specified contact pressure and a specified feed rate of the roller and thus pressing the film against the substrate. A permanent joint between substrate and photographic emulsion layer is then established by the curing of the adhesive. In a further step, the base film may be thermally separated and removed from the photographic emulsion layer.


The present invention resides in a guide for a reticulate electrode bus connector. The guide comprises a body portion having an upper surface. A pair of spaced apart legs depend downwardly from a body portion and define with the body portion a guide longitudinal dimension. The legs define a longitudinally extending slot dimensioned to accommodate the reticulate electrode. The legs comprise planar, facing inner surfaces adapted to press against opposite sides of the electrode. A longitudinally extending ductway extends from the body portion upper surface to a slot. The ductway is aligned with a center line of the slot intermediate the planar facing inner surfaces. A plurality of openings extend through each of the legs communicating with the slot. The openings expose a substantial portion of the surface area of the reticulate electrode within the confines of the slot and are substantially uniformly disposed along the legs.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a reticulate electrode bus connection, and particularly to a novel guide for attaching a wire bus connection to a reticulate electrode. The present invention is particularly applicable to attaching a wire bus connection to a reticulate cathode for an electrochemical cell or a battery.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Reticulate electrodes are well known and disclosed in numerous prior patents and publications. The common dictionary definition of the term "reticulate" is resembling a net or network having a plurality of crossing fibers. A reticulate electrode is a form of "high surface area" or "flow-through" electrode. In use, the electrode is immersed in an electrolytic solution of an electrochemical cell or battery. Reticulate electrodes are particularly useful with dilute electrolytic solutions because they provide more surface area for the capture of ions in the solutions. The electrodes are "flow-through" in the sense that they have an interconnected open-cell structure through which the electrolytic solution flows.
Prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,515,672, assigned to the assignee of the present application, discloses reticulate electrodes and methods for making them. The reticulate electrodes are made from an open cell polymer foam such as a polyurethane foam which has been made conductive, for instance by coating with carbon particles. The conductive foams typically have a resistivity in the range of about 50-500 ohm-cm, a pore size in the range of about 10 ppi (pores per inch) to about 100 ppi, the pores ranging from about 2 mm to about 0.15 mm in diameter, and a void fraction in the range of about 0.5 to about 0.98. The conductive foams are in the shape of a parallelepiped having a thickness which may range from about 0.2 inch to about 0.5 inch. The width and height of the foams are arbitrary since the electrodes are adapted for the particular cell box or battery casing with which they are used. The surface area of a conductive foam is substantial. A conductive foam which has a thickness of about 0.25 inch, a width of about 18 inches and a length of about 14.19 inches has a volume of about 63.9 cubic inches. A foam of about 25 ppi of this volume has an active surface area of about 425 square feet.
The conductive foams can be plated with a conductive metal, for instance copper or nickel. The thickness of the metal plating can vary widely. The reticulate electrodes, following plating, may be pyrolyzed to remove the polymer substrate leaving a reticulate metal structure. Alternatively, they may be used without pyrolysis. The reticulate electrodes may or may not be subjected to metal annealing, depending upon application. The disclosure of prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,515,672 is incorporated herein by reference.
Electrically connecting the reticulate electrodes to a battery or electrolytic cell bus has been a substantial problem in the art. It is necessary for any connection to have a large area of contact with the reticulate electrode because of the large amount of the current flow through the electrode. In addition to being electrically adequate, the connection must be mechanically strong. Any reduction in the contact area with the reticulate electrode during use can result in the corrosion of component parts. Such corrosion, by way of example, has been experienced with the use of alligator clamps positioned at or just above the air-liquid interface level in a cell or battery.
Prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,515,672 discloses one mode of connecting a reticulate electrode to a battery or cell bus. A support comprises a solid metal plate which overlies the entire surface area of at least one face of the reticulate electrode. The plate is affixed to the reticulate electrode by a plurality of staples, pins or other fastening means. A connector tab protrudes upwardly from the support plate to provide a convenient connection with the battery or cell bus. The support plate is provided with apertures through which the cell electrolyte or solution ions can flow.
Prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,399,020 discloses reticulate electrodes and their use in electrochemical cells and batteries. This patent also discloses methods for the manufacture of the reticulate electrodes. As with the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,515,672, the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,399,020 is incorporated herein by reference.
The '020 patent discloses contact bars with extensions which serve as a means for electrical connection with the electrode bus bar. The contact bars are formed of U-shaped galvanized sheet metal. They are secured to a reticulate electrode by slipping them over the upper edge of the electrode and pinching or pressing the sheets together at selected areas along the length of the electrode. A wire lead extends between the electrode bus bar and the contact bar extensions.
Prior application Ser. No. 308,907, entitled "Reticulate Electrode and Cell for Recovery of Metals From Waste Waters", assigned to the assignee of the present application, discloses the use of reticulate cathodes in an electrolytic cell. The reticulate cathodes extend across the width of the cell and seat in aligned vertical slots on the inside of side walls of the cell. The cell is provided with elongated anode and cathode bus bars adjacent the upper edges of the cell side walls. Each bus bar has a plurality of bus terminals spaced along the bus bar. The cathode bus terminals are aligned with the cathode slots. A hook-shaped wire connector pin extends between each reticulate cathode and its cathode bus terminal. At the hook end, the connector pin can seat within a hole in the bus terminal. The bus terminal is externally threaded. A lock nut threaded onto the bus terminal is turned to press the connector pin hook end against the bus bar. An advantage of the cathode assembly of prior application Ser. No. 308,907 is that it provides excellent electrical connection between the reticulate cathode and the connector pin. In addition, the assembly provides a high resistance against accidental separation of the reticulate cathode and the connector pin. The disclosure of prior application Ser. No. 308,907 is also incorporated herein by reference.


Compounds of formula (I): ##STR1## (wherein: R.sup.1 is alkyl; R.sup.2 and R.sup.3 are each alkyl or alkoxy, or R.sup.2 and R.sup.3 together form an optionally substituted benzene ring and, when R.sup.2 and R.sup.3 together form said benzene ring, R.sup.1 is hydrogen, halogen or alkyl; R.sup.4 and R.sup.5 both represent hydrogen, or together represent a single carbon-carbon bond; W is a single bond or alkylene; and Z is a hydrogen atom or a cation) have valuable therapeutic and prophylactic activities, including anti-diabetic activities.

The present invention relates to a series of thiazolidine derivatives which are characterised by the presence, inter alia, of a quitone group in their molecules. These compounds have valuable therapeutic and prophylactic activities, including anti-diabetic activities, and the invention therefore also provides methods and compositions using these compounds for the treatment and prophylaxis of diabetes and diabetic complications, as described in greater detail hereafter. The invention also provides processes for preparing these novel compounds.
A number of compounds in which a substituted alkoxy-benzyl group is attached to the 5-position of a thiazolidine-2,4-dione group is known. These compounds can be generally represented by the formula (A): ##STR2##
For example, European Patent Publication No. 8 203 discloses a series of compounds of the type shown in formula (A) in which R.sup.a may be an alkyl or cycloalkyl group. European Patent Publication No. 139 421 discloses such compounds in which the group equivalent to R.sup.a in formula (A) above is a chroman or similar group, and Y. Kawamatsu et al. [Chem. Pharm. Bull., 30, 3580-3600 (1982)] disclose a wide range of such compounds of formula (A) in which R.sup.a may be various phenyl, substituted phenyl, alkylamino, cycloalkyl, terpenyl and heterocyclic groups.
All of the prior thiazolidine derivatives referred to above are said to have the ability to lower blood glucose levels, and it is thought that this is achieved by reducing insulin resistance in the peripheral system.
However, it is currently thought that the compounds of the prior art which are closest to those of the present invention are disclosed in European Patent Publication No. 441 605, assigned to the present assignees, as these, like the compounds of the present invention may contain a quinone group, although attached in a different manner to the alkylene group of formula --(CH.sub.2).sub.n --.
We have now discovered a series of novel compounds which, in addition to the ability to reduce insulin resistance in the peripheral tissues (which is the sole basis of the antidiabetic activity of most of the prior art compounds) also exhibits other activities, for example, like the compounds of European Patent Publication No. 441 605, the present compounds have the ability to suppress hepatic gluconeogenesis in the liver, which is one of the causes of diabetes. These additional activities, combined with a low toxicity, mean that the compounds of the present invention will be more effective than the prior art compounds and able to treat a wider range of disorders. The compounds of the present invention have been surprisingly found to have a substantially better activity than do the compounds of prior art European Patent Publication No. 441 605.

Thiazolidine compounds containing a quinone group, their preparation and their therapeutic uses


Disclosed herein is an apparatus for predicting movement of a user of a vehicle. The apparatus may include an acceleration sensor that senses an acceleration of the vehicle, a braking controller that automatically controls a deceleration of the vehicle, a steering controller that automatically controls a direction of the vehicle, and a control circuit electrically connected to the acceleration sensor, the braking controller, and the steering controller, where the control circuit may monitor an operation of the braking controller, and predict a movement of the user of the vehicle based on a longitudinal acceleration of the vehicle sensed by the acceleration sensor and a first predetermined parameter when braking by the braking controller is detected.

The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
With the development of the automotive industry, an autonomous driving system and a driving assistance system which enables partial autonomous driving have been developed. The driving assistance system may provide a variety of functions, such as a speed control function, an inter-vehicle distance maintenance function, a lane departure warning function, a forward collision avoidance function, and a lane change function. In particular, the lane departure warning function and the forward collision avoidance function may actively protect a driver and a passenger from collision with the outside. For example, the lane departure warning function may prevent a collision due to lane departure by steering control, and the forward collision avoidance function may prevent a collision with a front object by deceleration control. Meanwhile, the vehicle may be equipped with an airbag system to protect the driver and the passenger from the impact in the event of a collision.
A user (driver and passenger) of a vehicle may be protected by the driving assistance system for collision avoidance before a collision occurs and may be protected by an airbag system for shock mitigation after the collision occurs. When the driving assistance system is operated for collision avoidance, the position of the user may be greatly changed due to the acceleration that the user does not expect. When the position of the user is greatly changed, the protective effect may be greatly reduced even when the airbag system is operated. That is, the user may not be protected by the airbag system due to the operation of the driving assistance system for collision avoidance.

Apparatus and method for predicting movement of user of vehicle


A method for content-aware image retargeting generates an energy image from a source image according to an energy function. From the energy image, one or more seams are determined according to a minimizing function such that each seam has a minimal energy. Each seam is applied to the source image to obtain a target image that preserves content and a rectangular shape of the source image.

The diversity and versatility of print and display devices imposes demands on designers of multimedia content for rendering and viewing. For instance, designers must provide different alternatives for web-content and design different layouts for different rendering applications and devices, ranging from tiny "thumbprints" of images—often seen in selection menus; small, low resolution mobile telephone screens; and slightly larger PDA screens—to large images—often seen in high resolution, elongated, flat panel displays and projector screens. Adapting images to different rendering applications and devices than originally intended is called image retargeting.
Conventional image retargeting typically involves scaling and cropping. Image scaling is insufficient because it ignores the image content and typically can only be applied uniformly. Scaling also does not work well when the aspect ratio of the image needs to change because it introduces visual distortions. Cropping is limited because it can only remove pixels from the image periphery. More effective resizing can only be achieved by considering the image content as a whole, in conjunction with geometric constraints of the output device.
Image resizing is an alternative tool for image retargeting. Image resizing works by uniformly resizing a source image to a size of a target display. While resizing an image, there is a desire to change the size of the image while maintaining important features in the content of the image. This can be done with top-down or bottom-up methods. Top-down methods use tools such as face detectors to detect important regions in the image, whereas bottom-up methods rely on visual saliency methods to construct a visual saliency map of the source image. After the saliency map is constructed, cropping can be used to display the most important region of the image.
One method automatically generates thumbnail images based on either a saliency map or the output of a face detector, Suh et al., "Automatic thumbnail cropping and its effectiveness," UIST '03: Proceedings of the 16th annual ACM symposium on user interface software and technology, ACM Press, New York, N.Y., USA, 95-104, 2003. A source image is cropped to capture the most salient region in the image. Another method adapts images to mobile devices, Chen et al., "A visual attention model for adapting images on small displays," Multimedia Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, 353-364, 2003. In that method, the most important region in the image is automatically detected and transmitted to the mobile device.
Another method use eye tracking, in addition to composition rules, to crop images intelligently, Santella et al., "Gaze-based interaction for semiautomatic photo cropping," Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, 771-780, 2006, incorporated by reference. In that method, a user looks at an image while eye movements are recorded. The recordings are used to identify important image content and can then automatically generate crops of any size or aspect ratio.
All of the above rely on conventional image resizing and cropping operations to retarget the image.
Another method uses an adaptive grid-based document layout that maintains a clear separation between image content and a template, Jacobs et al., "Adaptive grid-based document layout," Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, 838-847, 2003. A designer constructs several possible templates. When the content is displayed, the most suitable template is used.
A compromise between image resizing and image cropping is to use non-linear, data-dependent scaling for image retargeting, Liu et al., "Automatic Image Retargeting with Fisheye-View Warping," ACM UIST, 153-162, 2005. They use image information, such as low-level salience and high-level object recognition, to find important regions in the source image. Then, they apply a non-linear image warping function to emphasize important aspects of the image while retaining the surrounding context.
Another method uses an automatic, non-photorealistic method for retargeting large images to small size displays, Setlur et al., "Automatic Image Retargeting," Proceedings of the 18th annual ACM symposium on user interface software and technology, 153-162, ACM Press, 2005. They decompose the image into a background layer and foreground objects. Their retargeting method segments an image into regions, identifies important regions, removes them, fills in the resulting gaps, resizes the remaining image, and re-inserts the important regions.
Another method uses a feature-aware texture mapping that warps an image to a new shape, while preserving user-specified regions, Gal et al., "Feature aware texturing," Eurographics Symposium on Rendering, 2006. They solve a particular formulation of the Laplace editing technique suited to accommodate similarity constraints in images. However, local constraints are propagated through the entire image to accommodate all constraints at once, and may sometimes fail.
Another method composes a novel photomontage from several images, Agarwala et al., "Interactive digital photomontage," ACM Trans. Graph. 23, 3, 294-302, 2004. A user selects ROIs from different input images, which are then composited into an output image. Another method uses drag-and-drop pasting, Jia et al., "Drag-and-drop pasting," Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 2006. They determine an optimal boundary between the source and target images. Another method generates a collage image from a collection of images, Rother et al., "Autocollage," Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 2006. None of these compositing methods address image retargeting.
Another method simultaneously solves matting and compositing, Wang et al., "Simultaneous Matting and Compositing," Microsoft Research Technical Report, MSR-TR-2006-63, May 2006. They allow the user to scale the size of a foreground object and paste the object back onto the original background.
Another method "stitches" images together based on a cost functions, Zomet et al., "Seamless image stitching by minimizing false edges," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing 15, 4, 969-977, 2005. They minimize an L1 error norm between the gradients of a stitched image and the gradients of the input images.
Changing the appearance of an image has been extensively described in the field of texture synthesis, where the goal is to generate an output image that has different texture than an input image, while preserving the basic idea of the content, U.S. Pat. No. 6,919,903, "Texture synthesis and transfer for pixel images," issued to Freeman et al. on Jul. 19, 2005. That method does not consider image retargeting.
Another method performs object removal, Bertalmio et al., "Simultaneous structure and texture image inpainting," Proceedings IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 707-714, 2000. They use image inpainting to smoothly propagate information from the boundaries inwards, simulating painting restoration.
Patch based methods, approaches use automatic guidance to determine synthesis ordering, are known: "Fragment-based image completion," Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, 303-312, 2003, and Criminisi et al., "Object removal by exemplar-based inpainting," IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 417-424, 2003.
Another interactive method provides inpainting for images missing strong visual structure by propagating structure along user-specified curves, Sun et al., "Image completion with structure propagation," Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, 2005.

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.


The DGA n-MOSFET layout of the present invention can properly operate in a radioactive environment by blocking leakage current paths that may be created by radiation. Hence, the DGA n-MOSFET layout can be applied to design of electronic components operable in radioactive environments, such as outer space, planetary exploration, and in nuclear reactors in nuclear power plants. In addition, semiconductor design efficiency can be increased by enabling rapid modeling of electrical characteristics of a semiconductor device such as a DGA MOSFET when the channel region geometry is diversified according to design of the semiconductor device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiation tolerant unit metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) and a method and apparatus for modeling a channel of a semiconductor device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a radiation tolerant dummy gate-assisted (DGA) unit MOSFET wherein the transistor layout of a unit MOSFET is modified so that the unit MOSFET is resistant to radiation, and to a method and apparatus for modeling a channel of a semiconductor device that can enhance semiconductor design efficiency by enabling rapid modeling of electrical characteristics of the channel region of a semiconductor device such as a DGA MOSFET when the channel geometry is varied according to design of the semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a unit MOSFET (metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor) is exposed to radiation for a long time, leakage current is induced and turn-off operation of the MOSFET may be blocked. Hence, electronic components operated in radioactive environments (such as outer space, planetary exploration, and in nuclear reactors in nuclear power plants) must be resistant to radiation.
In typical circuit design, operating characteristics of a semiconductor circuit are determined by adjusting the width over length (W/L) ratio of a semiconductor device. For example, to design a circuit using a unit MOSFET having a given channel region geometry, it is necessary to develop a model with an effective W/L ratio suitable for the channel region geometry. However, an analytical solution for a desired channel region geometry may not exist. In this case, only numerical analysis using a computer may be utilized. Designing and computing a channel region model with a specific geometry on a three-dimensional simulator may require a lot of time and effort. Circuit design may need various types of semiconductor devices with different structures, and hence it may be practically infeasible to perform three-dimensional simulation for each unit semiconductor device for realistic circuit design.

Radiation tolerant dummy gate-assisted n-MOSFET, and method and apparatus for modeling channel of semiconductor device


The present application is directed to a method and apparatus for monitoring soil hydraulic properties, and for collecting soil pore-water samples, in relatively undisturbed soil conditions, by means of a vadose zone probe (10) adapted to be mounted on an inflatable sleeve (18) for installation in a borehole (14) formed in the vadose zone, said vadose zone probe comprises a fluid cell (15) having one or more conduits (13a, 13b, 13c) connected thereto for externally accessing its interior, and a porous medium (11) installed in, or formed on, one of its walls for allowing passage of liquid between the interior of said fluid cell and the borehole soil, wherein said vadose zone probe is made from an elongated body having a front (10f) and rear (10r) sides, and wherein said rear side is substantially flat and said front side is made from a deformable and permeable material, or having a curvature corresponding to the curvature of said borehole.

The monitoring of ground chemical and hydraulic properties is advantageously employed in different applications, such as for example, monitoring pore-water and ground contamination, irrigation control systems of agriculture crops, and for the study of soils and plants. For this purpose special tools are needed to provide accurate information on the fluids contained in the ground, and for monitoring the chemical properties of the water and/or contaminants percolating therein. The monitoring of the vadose zone, which is the layer of land above the zone of saturation (i.e., above the water table), is of particular interest in such applications. The vadose zone connects sources of on land surface pollution with the groundwater in the saturation zone, such that real-time monitoring of the vadose zone may substantially assist in controlling groundwater quality.
Instruments such as tensiometers and suction cups are commonly used nowadays to measure the soil water potential, and to obtain samples of soil pore-water. These instruments are based on the generation of hydraulic continuity between the soil pore-water and water within a cell, through a porous medium (such as porous ceramic, porous metal or porous polymer). While, tensiometers and suction cups may be effectively used in soil science and agricultural practice, their use is relatively limited to very shallow soil depths. Typically, the porous tip, which is usually made of brittle ceramic material, is pushed into the ground, if the soil is soft enough, or installed in a small-diameter hole specially drilled for that purpose, and thus these devices can not be used to collect information from deeper ground layers in the vadose zone.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,956,381 discloses a method and system for measuring permittivity and electrical conductivity in deep soil levels using a flexible TDR (time domain reflectometry) probes attached to the outer side of a flexible sleeve disposed in a borehole. The flexible sleeve is sealed to prevent leakage of a filling material, such that improved contact of the TDR probes with the walls of the borehole is obtained after placing said sleeve in the borehole and filling it with said filling material.
The methods described above provide solutions for continuous monitoring of the ground water content in deep sections of the vadose zone. Though water content is one of the most important hydraulic parameter required for the study of hydrological process in the vadose zone it is most important to have a method that would enlarge the range of monitored parameters and add real time information on the ground water potential and pore water chemical properties. Therefore there is still a need for suitable means for sampling and monitoring chemical and hydraulic properties in deep soil levels.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for collecting real-time continuous information from deep vadose zone layers.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for monitoring infiltration processes in deep soil levels, and for determining the hydraulic conditions and chemical properties of the percolating water.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide sampling probes configurations adapted for installation in deep soil levels.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus which allow real time monitoring of contaminant migration in the vadose zone while enabling to obtain pore water samples from various depths for chemical analysis and measure the ground water potential.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.

Method and system for monitoring soil properties

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Research and Development Authority


An image forming apparatus includes an engine to form an image on an image forming medium, a paper transfer device to pick up a printing paper and transfer the paper to a transfer path, a sensor to sense a printing paper at a predetermined position on the transfer path, and a processor to determine whether a transfer delay occurs, when the printing paper is sensed, and adjust a pickup timing to advance a pickup of a printing paper of a next page.

An image forming apparatus is an apparatus that performs image data generation, printing, reception, transmission, and the like. Representative examples of this apparatus include a printer, a copier, a facsimile, and a multifunctional apparatus which implements a function of them in an integrated manner.
Such an image forming apparatus picks up the printing paper loaded in the loading tray to a transfer path, forms an image on the picked-up printing paper, and performs a printing operation.

Adjusting a pickup time of a printing medium when a transfer delay occurs or is anticipated to occur

HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P.