The present disclosure relates to methods and systems for obtaining a nutraceutical composition. The method comprises the use of genome-scale metabolic networks of microorganisms to identify nutraceutical compositions for one or more health conditions.

The human gut microbiome comprises a heterogenous collection of microorganisms, predominantly bacteria, that contribute to the host metabolism in several ways. Interactions between gut microbiota and the host have significant roles in conferring host protection against invading pathogen, regulation of diverse host physiological functions including metabolism, development and homeostasis of immunity and the nervous system. Changes within the gut microbiota are now understood to contribute to the development of several diseases including, for example, metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity, immunological disorders, cancer, and allergies among others.
These microorganisms live symbiotically within the human gut. Essentially, the microbiome is able to metabolise many of the metabolites and molecules produced by the human body and utilise them for the microorganisms' physiological functions. Alternatively, these microorganisms are also able to produce several metabolites that have therapeutic function within the human body and therefore contribute to the overall health and well-being of the individual.
Owing to the diversity in the composition of the human microbiome and the complexity in the metabolic interactions between metabolites and microorganisms, coupled with the interactions between the microorganisms themselves, studies have now utilized large scale genome sequencing projects to sequence the human microbiota and apply metabolomics to attribute genome level information into the network of metabolic pathways functioning with the microorganisms. This has been successful in providing a route to examine the potential impacts of diet, antibiotics, and environmental toxicants, on the microbiota and disease manifestation, due to changes in microbiota composition, transcriptomes, proteomes or metabolomes. The information retrieved from such studies is then used to optimize disease treatment and dosage requirements of different nutraceuticals.
Such studies, however, primarily rely on in vivo experimentation to optimize and validate the dosage requirements of different metabolites and nutraceuticals to accurately predict the effect of such treatments on specific health conditions. Such experiments are time consuming and subject to human error. Further, although in silico models exist (Magnúsdóttir, Stefanía, et al., Nature biotechnology 2017, 35.1, 81), these may not predict the effects of different metabolites and nutraceuticals due to their limited functional capability owing to their incompleteness.
There is therefore a need to accurately determine the effects of different compositions on the gut microbiota to alleviate disease symptoms and promote health and wellness.

In silico methods for obtaining nutraceutical compositions


A method is provided for making a fluid-circulating heat exchanging garment, the method including providing a fabric panel for assembly of the heat exchanging garment, defining a tubing layout on the fabric panel with straight portions and bend portions defined in a flexible tubing. The straight portions of the tubing are affixed to the fabric panel and a mold is inserted into the inner radius of each bend portion. The mold has a shape corresponding to each bend portion and a channel having a radius adapted to closely fit over the tubing. The fabric panel and tubing are heated to an annealing temperature of the tubing. After cooling the fabric panel, the molds are removed, leaving the tubing reshaped at the bend portions to a desired radius.

Members of the military, fire fighting personal and other emergency responders, and others who are required to operate in extreme temperature environments, for example, in the desert, near fires, or at latitudes approaching the Polar Regions, frequently rely on garments that have heat exchanging liquids flowing therethrough in order to maintain a safe body temperature. In addition, workers in hazardous chemical, thermal and manufacturing environments must wear personal protective equipment (PPE) to minimize their exposure to hazardous substances, however, the PPE can limit the body's ability to shed excess heat. Flexible heat exchangers have proven to be one of the most effective methods of adding or extracting heat from the human body. These garments include flexible tubing that is incorporated into the garment to carry cooling or heating fluids in close contact with the wearer's body. In general, heating or cooling garments are exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,451,812; 3,425,486; 3,419,702; 4,691,762; 4,718,429; and 4,998,415. Other types of systems for body heating and cooling are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,114,620 and 5,062,424.
A liquid cooled garment ("LCG") is an over-garment normally consisting of a fabric shell and a labyrinth of flexible tubing affixed in some fashion to the shell. LCG's are flexible heat exchangers used to assist in control of human body temperature where a person's physiology may not adequately control the body temperature because of the environmental conditions or because Personal Protective Clothing (PPE) is being worn. A liquid is cooled and circulated through the LCG. The liquid is cooler than the skin temperature of the user so that heat is transferred from the user to the liquid. Liquid chillers can be as simple as a water/ice bath or as complicated as a vapour compression refrigeration device. Whichever device is used, it lowers the temperature of the liquid below the skin temperature of the user and mechanically re-circulates the liquid through the LCG.
The conduit or tubing used in heat exchanging garments is typically formed from flexible polyvinylchloride (PVC), polyurethane, or similar polymers, which can be attached to the base fabric using any of three methods. The first and most common uses a standard zigzag sewing machine with a custom foot to keep the tubing centered. The second method, which was introduced by NASA, uses a base garment formed from a mesh material with the tubing "woven" through the fabric. The third and most current method was developed at the U.S. Army Garrison—Natick. This microclimate cooling garment ("MCG"), which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,320,164 of Szczesuil, et al., uses specialty tooling and fabric to create a two layer lamination with the PVC tubing locked between the layers in a complex pattern employing ten separate flow circuits. The Natick technology is the most widely deployed to date.
The MCG is designed to remove 180 watts of heat when fluid is circulated at a temperature of 65° F. and a rate of 12 gallons per hour. The MCG consists of two cooling panels, one that covers the front of the user's torso, and one that covers the back. Five hook and loop straps are located on the front panel for fit and size adjustment—three on the torso and one at each shoulder, as illustrated in FIG. 1.
The tubing network is distributed across the user's torso and is typically divided into ten parallel circuits. No matter how the cooling garment is constructed, all require the use of manifolds or miniature fittings to create individual flow circuits. An example of a simple multi-circuit construction is provided in FIG. 2, which illustrates a typical prior art tubing/manifold assembly with two four-port manifolds 2 and 4, for connection to inlet line 14 and outlet line 18, respectively, via barbed fittings 12 and 16. Manifold 2 has four ports 6a-6d, the barbed ends of which insert into tubes 8a-8d, respectively. The outlet ends of tubes 8a-8d are fitted over ports 10a-10d of manifold 4 after which the flexible tubing 8a-8d is secured to the manifold using a cyanoacrylate adhesive and a NYLON® cable tie (not shown). Such construction is intended to minimize back pressure (resistance to flow) and optimize heat transfer. Most cooling garments, whether zigzag sewn or woven, use miniature barbed fittings. The two cooling panels are attached to one another by a manifold pocket, which accommodates two manifold assemblies. The MCG uses a ten port barbed manifold, an example of which is shown in FIG. 3. Such manifolds provide the interface between the supply/return tubing and the individual tubing circuits. The manifold pocket and the supply/return tubing are located on the right side of a standard garment. An improved manifold with improved flexibility and reduced backpressure is described in co-pending application Ser. No. 12/910,821, which is incorporated herein by reference.
There are advantages to both sewn and laminated technologies. Referring to FIG. 4, laminated technology uses a "pattern board", in which the circuit design is transferred to a flat plate 22 (normally phenolic) in the form of grooves 23 are machined into the board. Lightweight fabric 24, pre-coated with fusible material, is placed across the pattern board and tubing 28 is forced into the grooves, on top of the fabric 24. An outer layer 25 of fusible coated fabric (the coating is shown as a separate adhesive layer 26) is then placed over the tubing and the layers are subjected to heat and pressure to produce the lamination, thus sealing the tubing into the same pattern as the grooves.
One advantage of the laminated technology is that close radius bends can be formed without tubing distortion or kinking. Because the tubes are secured and supported in the grooves of the pattern board, the tubes retain their original aspect ratio until they are subjected to the heating process. During the heating process the tubing approaches the plastic temperature of the resin and the tubing is annealed to the new geometry. Because the tubing has been re-shaped by the annealing process, the short radius bends, on the order of 0.5 inch (˜12.7 mm), are stress relieved, as shown in FIG. 5.
Disadvantages of laminated technology include the cost of the tooling, including the pattern boards and thermal press, and the specialized treatment required for the fabrics to make them fusible. One pattern board is required for each front and back of each design/size. Most MCG designs are produced in at least three sizes, requiring a minimum of six pattern boards for production. For an efficient and cost-effective manufacturing process, three sets of pattern boards are needed, making a total of eighteen pattern boards for each design. Design changes to laminated MCG's can be costly and time consuming because the new design must be transferred to a machine program and new pattern boards fabricated. In addition, fabrics used in the lamination process include a fusible material (polyamide or polyurethane) to facilitate thermal lamination. This process is specialized and requires that large batches of fabric be treated to be cost effective. The lead time for the treatment may be weeks or months, such that accurate demand and manufacturing projections are required to meet production schedules.
Sewn technology is usually accomplished with a zigzag sewing machine. These machines are standard throughout the sewing industry and require only a custom presser foot, such as that shown in FIG. 6, to guide the tubing during the sewing process. One disadvantage to the sewn technology is that a long radius is required, as shown in FIG. 7. Any radius smaller than 0.75″ can distort and kink over time, which can restrict flow through the LCG circuit and adversely affect cooling performance.
One advantage to sewn technology is its simplicity. Although a custom presser foot is required, only standard sewing and marking equipment is necessary to produce reliable and repeatable results, an example of which is shown in FIG. 8. Design changes require only a revised pattern which can be quickly and cost effectively produced.
Given the drawbacks of the existing methods, the need remains for a method for manufacturing heat exchanging garments that is not limited by the radius bends in the tubing that carries the heat exchanging fluid.

Method and device for making a heat exchanging garment


A method and system are provided in a wireless communications system comprising a plurality of nodes (users) working cooperatively. The system provides cooperative diversity by allowing nodes to actively share their antennas and other resources to obtain spatial diversity. The nodes receive the same message (information data) from a common source. Each node enhances the reliability of the message with a modern forward error correction (FEC) code, converts the FEC encoded message into an ensemble of symbols, divides the ensemble of symbols into packets, modulates, dithers and transmits the packets to a receiving node. The dithering process is performed by varying the signal amplitude, phase, frequency and/or symbol timing of the modulated packets. A unique dither pattern is assigned to each node. The receiving node captures a composite signal comprising the transmitted packets of all or most of the transmitting nodes in the cooperative communications system. Because the transmitted packets are dithered independently in phase and/or amplitude, spatial diversity is transformed into temporal diversity.

There is currently great interest in enabling several radio transmitters, which are not collocated, to cooperate in communicating a message to a receiver or several receivers. This concept is known as cooperative communications and it offers several advantages including increased communication range, increased robustness to channel fading and other impairments (e.g., jamming) and robustness in multi-hop routes in networks with little or no centralized control (i.e., so called ad-hoc networks).
Cooperative communication is conceptually similar to transmission from multiple antennas that are collocated, or collocated antennas arrays (commonly referred to as antenna arrays). In this context the term collocated means that the transmitters, which may be complete radios or antennas, amplifiers and other portions of a radio, are located in close enough proximity of each other in order to enable simple, joint control of these components. Although in most abstract models the difference between collocated and non-collocated transmitters is minimal, this distinction is critically important in practice since methods developed for collocated arrays assume various levels of coordination between the transmitted signals. This distinction is illustrated in FIG. 1 through FIG. 3. In FIG. 1, a collocated array is shown, where the individual transmitters are connected by a reliable communications bus that can be used to send low-latency, highly reliable coordination communication signals. The coordination required for the collocated array is shown by a connecting line which may physically correspond to a highly-reliable and synchronized communications bus (e.g., a bus within a chassis housing several boards, wired connections on a single board, etc.).
FIG. 2 shows a coordinated non-collocated array with a method for coordination communication. This method for coordination communication is expected to be less capable than the bus shown in FIG. 1. For example, coordination communication messages in FIG. 2 may experience delay, errors, and limited data rates. FIG. 3 illustrates an uncoordinated cooperative communication system wherein each transmitter operates completely autonomously from the others and no coordination communication channel is assumed.
Coordination between multiple transmitters that are not collocated is difficult to achieve in practice. Even in approaches where the required level of coordination between transmitters is possible, the application scenario may make it prohibitive. Some specific examples of coordination include                Knowledge of the number of transmitters with this information available at one or more transmitters and/or the receiver;        An ordering of the transmitters known to the transmitters;        Knowledge of the channel characteristics from a given transmitter to the receiver by one or more of the transmitters;        Synchronization of the transmitters carrier frequency, phase, gain, and/or timing.
Different methods proposed for cooperative communications require some or all of these types of coordination as will be illustrated in the examples that follow.
When multiple transmitters send the same signal to a common receiver, they are superimposed at the receiver into a composite signal. This can result in constructive interference, in which the power of the composite signal is larger than that of any of the individual signals or it may result in destructive interference, in which the power of the composite signal has power less than one of the individual received signals. This is because radio transmissions are typically performed by modulating a sinusoidal carrier signal. When several such signals arrive at different relative phases, they create an interference pattern. If the phases of the signals are equal (or nearly equal), the signals will constructively interfere. This is commonly referred to as coherently combining the signals. The worst case scenario is that the signals arrive with opposite phases. For example, if two sinusoidal signals with the same frequency and amplitude, but with a 180 degree phase difference are combined, the composite signal is zero, i.e., this is complete destructive interference. These concepts are illustrated in FIG. 4 where the sinusoidal signals are represented by their amplitude and phase in a plane (i.e., the inphase/quadrature plane).
There are several aspects of the system that may affect the characteristics of the received signal such as amplitude, frequency, phase, etc. These include the reference phase and frequency of the transmitter and the propagation channel. The propagation channel (or, for brevity, the channel) naturally adds a phase offset due to the time it takes for the waveform to propagate from the transmitter to the receiver. The channel, in open space, typically attenuates the signal amplitude. In some cases, relative mobility between the transmitter and the receiver will cause a shift in frequency (Doppler shift). In some other cases, multiple paths for propagation (multipath) will introduce Rayleigh or Ricean fading effects. As consequence, the channel between each transmitter and the receiver will face several impairments such as signal attenuation along the transmission path, phase offset due to propagation delay, carrier frequency offset due to Doppler shift, frequency selective fading due to multipath effects.
Consider, for example, two transmitters sending the same signal without coordination. In such cases, the two signals will be superimposed with random carrier phases. This results in a probability distribution on the received signal pattern. There is some probability of constructive interference and some probability of destructive interference. If the channel and transmitter characteristics are time invariant (e.g., stable oscillators, no mobility, etc.) then the realized interference pattern will be stable. This means that the effective received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) will be fixed and under a large number of operational scenarios, this SNR will be too small for effective communication. This will be referred to as the naïve uncoordinated method. Note that even in this case, it may be assumed that the signals are synchronized in time. This assumption may be relaxed to some extent depending on the channel model considered as will be explained later.
This suggests that coordination between transmitters is desirable for effective cooperative communication. In the ideal case, the channel characteristics from each transmitter to the receiver would be available at each transmitter. For example, transmitter 1 in FIG. 2 would have knowledge of channel 1. Each transmitter would then compensate for the channel effects (e.g., a carrier phase rotation) so each transmitted signal would arrive at the receiver aligned in phase and frequency (e.g., all arrive with zero-phase difference). In this case, perfectly constructive interference would be obtained. This method will be referred to as distributed beam forming since it is analogous to coherent beam-forming methods in collocated arrays. In practice, not only do the transmitters need to know the channel characteristics, but the transmitter oscillators must be very stable and controlled to maintain this coherent relationship. This is often challenging even in collocated arrays, and therefore extremely challenging in the case of non-collocated transmitters. This issue is further exacerbated by the presence of mobility between transmitters and the receiver, mobility in the propagation environment, and/or the desire to have inexpensive RF circuit components.
In collocated arrays, the method of space-time coding provides an alternative to beam-forming. Specifically, space-time coding typically does not require the transmitters to know the channel characteristics from transmitter to the receiver. An example of space-time coding is the simple, effective Alamouti code. In this case, two transmitting antennas are used to send two data symbols consecutively in a coordinated manner. Specifically, transmitting antenna 1 sends the complex-baseband symbol s[1], followed by s[2]. During the same time, synchronized at the symbol time level, transmitting antenna 2 sends symbols −s[2], followed by s[1]. Here s* denotes the complex conjugate of the complex baseband symbol s. This Alamouti space-time code is an example of a code with two antennas and a block length of two symbols. By transmitting data in this manner, diversity is obtained, i.e., it ensures that destructive interference over the entire block will not occur. Note that the channels are used twice to communicate 2 symbols s[1] and s[2]. Note that transmitted signals are described in a complex baseband signal notation. The actual transmitted signal is related to the complex baseband signal by the relation: z(RF)=Re{z[t]exp(j2πfct)} where Re(.) represents the real part of a complex variable, and fc denotes the carrier frequency. Baseband signals may generally be characterized by digital data that may have been encoded, interleaved, and/or symbol mapped, and may include frequencies that are equal to or very near zero. Passband signals or any modulated baseband signals are signals that are in the radio frequency (RF) ranges (3 kHz to 300 GHz) and can be transmitted wirelessly. Passband signals may be intermediate RF signals that will be modulated over a higher frequency for transmission or they may be RF signals that can be directly transmitted. Passband signals are often modeled mathematically as an equivalent complex-value baseband signal. In practice, a complex baseband signal can be presented in the form of z(t)=I[t]+jQ[t] where I[t] is the inphase signal and Q[t] is the quadrature signal. The physical passband signal corresponds to I[t] cos(2πfct)−Q[t] sin(2πfct) or z(RF)=Re{z[t]exp(2πfct)}. In the following description, passband signals, i.e., both transmitted and received modulated signals, data, or symbols, will be modeled as an equivalent complex-value baseband signal for the purpose of illustration.
Such space-time coding methods may also be considered for the case of non-collocated arrays. This method is referred to as distributed space-time coding. Distributed space-time coding thus requires several levels of coordination. First, the transmitters and the receiver must have knowledge of the number of transmitters. Second, an ordering of the transmitters must be established. This ordering is required so that the appropriate symbol sequence can be assigned to each transmitter. In the space-time coding literature, it is conventional to express the space-time code as a matrix of symbols, each row corresponding to the sequence of symbols to be transmitted. Thus, the ordering of transmitters corresponds to assigning a specific row of the space-time code matrix to each transmitter. A third level of coordination is time synchronization. The transmitters must be synchronized at the symbol time level and also must be synchronized at the space-time code block level. This level of coordination is likely easier to achieve in practice than that required for distributed beam-forming. A small loss in performance will be suffered relative to distributed beam-forming, however, since perfect constructive interference is not achieved.
The level of coordination required for distributed beam-forming and distributed space-time coding is undesirable for a number of practical systems of interest. In fact, it may be impossible to provide this level of coordination in many cases. One specific example is the case of an ad-hoc, mobile network of radios. Consider the case where one node (a node means the same as a user, a transceiver device, a mobile handset, a transmitter, a receiver, or a base station hereinafter) in such a network transmits a message (in the form of a complex baseband signal) that is received by two or more other nodes; these are hop-1 nodes. It is then desirable for these hop-1 nodes that received the initial message to cooperate to send the message to another set of nodes, i.e., hop-2 nodes. This is illustrated in FIG. 5. Consider the case when the nodes are moving and when it is necessary to disseminate the message through the network with low-delay. These requirements are consistent with applications such as emergency response and tactical squadron communications.
In this case, it is impractical or impossible for the nodes to be coordinated effectively in a rapid manner. For example, in order to coordinate for distributed space-time coding, the hop-1 nodes that successfully received the initial transmission would need to send an acknowledgement message back to the originating transmit node. This transmit node would then send a second message to indicate the number of nodes that received the initial transmission and some ordering, possibly based on identification information included in the acknowledgement messages. Since the nodes are mobile and the wireless propagation channel is inherently random, it is possible that during this round of coordination transmission errors can occur. For example, suppose 4 nodes successfully received the original transmission and sent acknowledgements, but of those 4, only 3 successfully receive the order assignment. This will result in transmission of 3 of the 4 required rows of a space-time code matrix possibly resulting in a significant loss in performance. Even if the coordination communication is perfect, it requires additional delay which is undesirable in many applications.
Using space-time beam-forming requires similar coordination communication to establish knowledge of the channel conditions at the nodes to be coordinated. Specifically, each hop-1 node would need to identify the channel from itself to a hop-2 node. Conceptually, this could be achieved with a round of coordination communication. Then, the hop-1 nodes could use distributed beam-forming to communication with a hop-2 node. This is difficult in practice because the effective channel characteristics are likely to change during this process due to factors such as node mobility and oscillator drift. Another limitation of this approach is that it may be desired to relay the message from hop-1 nodes to many hop-2 nodes, i.e., not just one hop-2 node. This is the case when, for example, it is desired to have several hop-2 nodes cooperate to send the message further out into the network. With distributed beam-forming, however, it is difficult for cooperating transmitters to simultaneously align their signals coherently at more than one node. Thus, in the scenario considered, a separate round of coordination communication and coordinated cooperative transmissions would be required for each hop-2 node. This introduces further delay and complexity.
In the given exemplary scenario, the less coordination required the better. For example, of the techniques described, one may select the naive uncoordinated method. In that case there is no coordination communication required and cooperation occurs autonomously and without additional delay. Specifically, the hop-1 nodes would simply transmit the message and the resulting composite signal would be received at each hop-2 node. The drawback with this approach is that there is a significant probability of a stable destructive combining pattern at specific nodes that will prevent successful reception.
Thus, the number of hop-2 nodes will be reduced relative to that in the case of distributed space-time coding or distributed beam-forming.
This establishes the need for a method of performing cooperative communications with no coordination, but in a manner that is robust against stable destructive interference patterns at the receiver.

Method and system for cooperative communications with minimal coordination


Cross-site request forgeries (“XSRF”) can be prevented using a client-side plugin on a client computer. The client computer accesses a content provided by a third party host via a network and generates a request to a web application as directed by the content. The client-side plugin determines whether the request is associated with suspicious activities based on the content, a source of the request and a list of approved hosts associated with the target host. In response to a determination that the request is associated with suspicious activities, the plugin removes authentication credentials from the request and sends the request to the web application.

Cross-site request forgery (XSRF) is a class of attacks that depend on the inaccurate assumption made by most "secure" web applications that proof of identity is equivalent to proof of intent. This vulnerability is implicit in the way web browsers operate, and it is worsened by scripting languages embedded in the browser.
For example, a vulnerable site may host a web application where a client has current, active authentication credentials. If an attacker can induce the client's web browser to submit a request to the vulnerable site, the attack can occur without any active participation by the user of the client. The user of the client may not even be aware of the activity until well after the fact. In one scenario, the request that the client's web browser is tricked into submitting may be a request to a bank for transferring money from the user's account to the attacker's account.
When executed properly, an attack can be virtually undetectable. Given the appropriate circumstances, victims may not see any evidence of illegitimate activities in their browser window. From the logs of the vulnerable web application, it typically looks like a completely intentional transaction. Victims normally cannot even prove that they are victims. By destroying the trust required for commerce to function, it is possible that this problem will completely undermine web commerce.

Client-side prevention of cross-site request forgeries


A wound therapy system includes a wound dressing fluidly connected to a fluid canister. The fluid canister is attached to a canister receiving attachment of a housing structure. A pump is fluidly coupled to the canister and is configured to draw a negative pressure within an interior of the canister. A controller of the wound therapy system is configured to operate the pump to apply a vacuum to the interior of the canister and to obtain one or more measurements representative of at least one or a flow rate of air that is exhausted from the canister interior, a pressure within the canister interior and pump ripple. The controller is configured to estimate the volume of the canister based on the comparison of the measured parameters against model data stored by the controller that is representative of the operation of the therapy system with canisters of varying volumes.

The present disclosure relates generally to a wound therapy system, and more particularly to a wound therapy system configured to estimate a volume of a canister that is attached to a negative pressure wound therapy ("NPWT") device.
During operation of a NPWT system, exudates and other fluids from a wound may be collected in a canister detachably mated with the NPWT system. If the canister reaches capacity during therapy, a caregiver may replace the full canister with a new canister. NPWT systems may be used with canisters of different sizes, such as 300 ml, 500 ml, and 1,000 ml. In various situations, it may be desirable to know the volume of the canister that is in fluid communication with the NPWT system. Accordingly, in some NPWT systems, a canister may be provided with one or more markings or other identifiable features representative of the volume of the canister. The canister size is then entered into the NPWT system manually or by electronically scanning marking on the canister.
It may be advantageous to provide a NPWT system configured to estimate a volume of an attached canister without requiring any user input and/or a scanning element.

Wound therapy system with fluid canister volume detection


A reed drive of a loom includes a reed shaft connected to a reed. A conversion gearing having an input element and an output element is provided at each end of the reed shaft. The input elements are coupled to driven shafts of electromotive rotary drives to produce a common rotational motion with the same rotational speed as the driven shafts. The conversion gearings convert the rotating motion of their input elements into a reversible rotation of the output elements, and the output elements are coupled to the reed shaft in a rotationally fixed manner. Thus, the number of complete rotations of an input element is equal to the number of complete motion cycles of the reed shaft per unit of time.

In the prior art, proposals have for some considerable time been noted to replace the central drive of looms by means of a single drive motor by a plurality of individual drives, each of which is drive-active in a very specific part region of the loom. So that these individual electromotive rotary drives cooperate appropriately during the weaving operation, synchronizing devices in the manner of electric shafts are required and are known. The invention is concerned particularly with the individual drive of the reed.
Examples of this may be gathered from EP 796 360 B1 and EP 1 312 709 A1. According to EP 796 360 B1, the reed has mounted on or connected to it a reed shaft which is set in a reciprocating pivoting movement via two gears located at its ends. Said gears are located outside the reed width and have input shafts which are set in rotation via reduction gears by electromotive rotary drives located still further outside. The input shafts of the gears thus rotate at a speed other than that of the output shafts of the electromotive rotary drives. Further, it is also assumed that the gears acting on the reed shaft serve not only as conversion gears for achieving a reciprocating pivoting movement of the reed shaft, but, furthermore, also as additional reduction gears. This is customary in the prior art. Moreover, the drive for gripper mechanisms serving for the insertion of the weft threads is derived via rotating cam disks from the input shafts of the gears located outside the reed width. The two electromotive rotary drives of the reed drive are driven in parallel by one or two frequency converters. Synchronization is additionally provided, for which may also serve a connecting shaft which runs at a distance from and parallel to the reed shaft and which runs coaxially with the input shafts of the gears.
In the reed drive of EP 1 312 709 A1, a drive shaft consisting of two parts is provided, which is arranged so as to run parallel to the reed shaft. The electro-motive rotary drive of the reed is arranged in the middle of the two part shafts and also in the middle of the reed-width longitudinal center of symmetry of the loom. Said electromotive rotary drive has at its ends two output shafts which are connected to the part shafts of the drive shaft. At the outer ends of the two part shafts are located cam disks which serve as conversion gears and convert the rotational movement of the electromotive rotary drive into a reciprocating movement of the reed shaft. In EP 1 312 709 A1, particular reference is made to the advantage to be afforded by the symmetrical design of the drive with the arrangement of the electromotive rotary drive in the plane of symmetry of the loom running in the longitudinal direction. It is in this case considered particularly important that the torsion of two part shafts is, overall, lower than the torsion of a continuous overall shaft of double the length of a part shaft. It is also already pointed out that the torsional and flexural stress on the drive shaft presents a problem, as do inertia forces and the risk of vibration problems. In this context, it is proposed to arrange the single electromotive rotary drive in a "barycentric" position, in which the stress due to inertia forces is to be the lowest. However, this barycentric arrangement is likewise to be adapted to the arrangement in the longitudinal center of the loom which is considered the greatest advantage and the actual feature of the solution of this known reed drive.


A heating device for a floor includes a membrane, a plurality of heating elements attached to the membrane, at least one positively charged electrode attached to each of the heating elements and at least one negatively charged electrode attached to each of the heating elements, where the at least one positively charged electrode and the at least one negatively charged electrode are connected to an electrical power source and supply electrical power to the heating elements. The heating elements, the at least one positively charged electrode and the at least one negatively charged electrode are arranged on the membrane so that cutting of the membrane along a cutting line in any direction across the membrane does not disrupt the supply of electrical power to the heating elements.

The present invention relates to a flooring system, and more specifically, to a heating device for a flooring system that generates radiant heat underneath a floor so that the floor is at a comfortable temperature for directly receiving a user's bare feet, along with other body parts directly contacting the floor.
There are two basic ways to supply heat to a floor: hot water or electricity. Hot-water or "hydronic" systems circulate water from a boiler or water heater through loops of tubing installed beneath a floor. The flexible tubes are installed in a variety of ways, such as on top of a subfloor in grooved panels or snap-in grids, or embedded in poured concrete. Once the heating system is in place, the heating system can be covered by finished flooring, including hardwood or tile. The issues with these systems are that they are complex, require significant time and effort to install and are expensive.
An electric system provides radiant heat from one or more heating elements connected to an electrical power source. Referring to FIG. 1, one type of electrical heating system is shown and includes thin resistors, namely, thin film resistors, positioned between and electrically connected to two bus bars acting as a positively charged terminal and a negatively charged terminal, the bus bars being located on opposing sides of a base substrate. Typically, the base substrate is made of a flexible material, such as a flexible plastic or fiberglass, so that the heating system can be rolled up and transported to a location for installation. After installation, electricity is supplied to the heating elements, which causes the heating elements to generate heat that is directed to the bottom surface of a finished floor installed above the heating system.
FIG. 2 shows an alternative known electrical heating system in which an electrical wire or cable is attached to a base substrate and winds between the opposing sides of the base substrate. The electrical wire is attached to a power source which supplies electricity to the wire to cause the wire to generate heat beneath a finished floor. Since the electrical heating systems shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 do not require a boiler, water, or tubing as with the hot water heating system, less space is needed underneath the finished floor to install the electrical heating systems.
FIG. 3 is an example of a conventional electrical heating system that includes a positively charged electrode or anode 52a attached to one side of a base substrate and a negatively charged electrode or cathode 52b attached to an opposing side of the base substrate. Typically, the positively charged electrode and the negatively charged electrode are bus bars attached to the opposing sides of the base substrate. The anode and the cathode are electrically connected to heating elements 50a, which are spaced apart at different locations on the base substrate, and supply electricity to the heating elements from an electrical power source (not shown). Alternatively, in other examples, a single heating element 50b extends between the anode 54a and the cathode 54b, or the heating elements 50c are formed as elongated strips that extend between the anode 56a and the cathode 56b. In these systems, the configuration and positioning of the heating elements depends on the layout of the floor and the size and shape of the room.
A problem with the above-described known electrical heating systems is that the base substrate typically must be cut to size to accommodate a corner or other obstacle in a room where the electrical heating systems are being installed. Given that the heating elements and associated electrical connections extend in only one direction between the opposing electrodes on the base substrate, the base substrate must likewise be cut in a single direction along a cutting line 58 (FIG. 3) that is parallel to the heating elements, otherwise the electrical circuit will be cut or severed thereby breaking the electrical connection between the positive and negative electrodes and preventing the heating elements from generating heat underneath the finished floor. As such, more time and materials are used to install such electrical heating systems, and more waste materials are generated.
Accordingly, there is a need for a heating system for placement underneath a floor that can be cut to size in any direction to accommodate different floor layouts.


In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a frame for attaching to a module with contacts of the module exposed for mating with a connector operable to couple the module to a printed circuit board, the frame comprising a seal for positioning on opposing faces of the module adjacent to the contacts to protect a module to connector interface from contaminants passing through a network device with the module installed in the network device.

Network communications systems utilize network devices that include complex and sensitive electronic components. The network devices are typically designed to operate in a controlled environment such as data centers and central offices with controlled temperature, humidity, and air quality. However, network equipment is being deployed closer to a user base and deployments are often exposed to non-protected outdoor environments. Network devices deployed in uncontrolled remote areas with high humidity, salt fog, hygroscopic dust, and other contaminants in the air often exhibit severe corrosion problems, which may reduce the operational life of the equipment or FRUs (Field Replaceable Units) within the equipment.
Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the drawings.

Contamination protection for module and connector interface in a network device


A digital controlled clock provides ultra fine resolution for a sampling clock signal for recovering data from a received signal, the phase jump of the sampling clock signal being determined the number of stages in a multiphase clock generator that generates a number of equally-spaced phase clock outputs based on a reference clock signal. Phase selection is performed through a very low overhead phase commutator in response to phase advance/retard inputs. A clock deglitcher matched to the stages of the ring oscillator eliminates spikes generated when the phase commutator switches.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunications systems and, in particular, to a digital controlled clock that utilizes a multi-phase ring oscillator to provide extremely fine resolution on the clock stepping utilized for recovering data from a received signal.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
To reliably recover data from a received signal in some transmission systems, such as in Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) U-interface applications, there must be very stringent jitter control on the clock utilized for sampling the received signal. "Jitter" is a term used to describe short term variations of a digital signal from its ideal position in time.
It has been common in the past to use an analog phase locked loop for recovering sampling clocks from a received signal. However, analog phase locked loops are not easily integratable due to their large RC requirements for obtaining the necessary loop time constant. Therefore, extreme care must be taken in the fabrication of these integrated circuits to ensure consistent performance.
Digital phase locked loops that utilize a single phase clock do not provide fine enough resolution, resulting in unacceptably high jitter in the recovered sampling clock in some applications.
Digital phase locked loops that utilize multiphase clocks are also typically difficult to integrate due to the high speed and complexity of the conventional phase commutator circuitry required to switch among the multiple phases. Furthermore, proportional control is crude in these loops because only a single bit is controlling the phase advance/retard mechanism.
U S. Pat. No. 4,584,695, issued Apr. 22, 1986 to Wong et al, discloses a digital phase locked loop decoder that generates a sampling clock having both an effective sampling interval and clock stepping resolution that is shorter than the driver clock period. The Wong et al sampling clock generator relies on a three-stage oscillator that provides three clock signals having an equally-spaced phase relationship. A phase commutator responds to an advance/retard input to select one of the three phase clocks as the driver clock for the received signal sampler.
More specifically, each of the three stages of the Wong et al clock generator consists of an invertor and a series-connected amplifier. Thus, the period of each of the three phase outputs of the oscillator is six stage delays. Given this configuration, any phase output of the oscillator is paralleled by a phase step one-third of a period later in a second phase and a phase step one-third of a period earlier in the remaining phase. Each of the three phase output pulse trains is buffered by an amplifier and then reshaped by a set-reset flip-flop. The outputs of the three flip-flops are provided to commutator circuitry which makes corrections to the drive clock by selecting a leading or lagging phase to replace the current phase used as the driver clock signal. The commutator phase selection is implemented by providing each of the three oscillator phase outputs to a corresponding D-type flip-flop. A phase decoder provides an advance/retard signal to multiplexing circuitry indicating whether the driver clock signal is leading or lagging the data clock signal of incoming Manchester encoded data. The multiplexing circuitry drives the D flip-flops, the outputs of which are then processed by NOR gate logic to provide either an advanced or a retarded driver clock signal.
Although the sampling clock generator disclosed in the above-identified Wong et al patent represents a significant improvement over the prior art and is useful in a wide variety of applications, because of the limited number of stages utilized in the multiphase clock generator, it does not provide the degree of resolution required for data recovery in ISDN applications. Furthermore, the synchronous commutator technique utilized by Wong et al, if expanded to provide more clock phase stages and, thus, finer resolution, would require an inordinate and costly number of components to implement the required flip-flop/multiplexor scheme.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have available a simple, inexpensive sampling clock generator that provides high resolution phase stepping.

High resolution sample clock generator with deglitcher


A robotic arm system includes a robotic arm having at least one stepper motor and operable to move an end of the robotic arm in X-, Y-, and Z-dimensions, a camera attached to the robotic arm, and a controller coupled to the robotic arm and to the camera. During configuration, the controller moves the end of the robotic arm to a reference point to obtain initial reference coordinates and a reference image, and to a target location to obtain initial target coordinates. During operation, the controller moves the robotic arm according to the initial reference coordinates, adjusts a position of the robotic arm to an actual reference location using the camera to determine actual reference coordinates, and moves the robotic arm to an actual target location using the initial target coordinates and a difference between the initial reference coordinates and the actual reference coordinates.

Many integrated circuit designs must be characterized after first production to ensure that the manufactured integrated circuit will operate properly and reliably across all specified operating conditions. The integrated circuits are characterized by running a series of functional and electrical tests and measuring the results using a very large-scale integration (VLSI) tester. The VLSI tester is a large and expensive computer-based system, and the characterization needs to be completed as soon as possible so the chip can be re-designed if problems are discovered, or offered for sale if the characterization is satisfactory. The characterization process of each chip may last several hours. Human operators can improve the utilization of the VLSI tester by promptly replacing a chip that has completed characterization with a new chip to be tested. However, operators are not always readily available, such as during the overnight hours, and it would be desirable if the removal of the chip and its replacement with another chip could be automated, such as by using robotics.
Modern robotics has flourished in recent years due to the availability of sophisticated electronics, motors, and machine vision. Modern robotic arm systems generally fall into two types. The first type uses sophisticated motors and electronic control systems to manipulate objects in certain high-value activities, such as automotive assembly. These robots' motors allow precision movements, and the electronics are programmed to control the robot arm to perform these precision movements. These robotic systems must be operated by experienced operators due to the safety issues caused by the programmed movements of the strong robotic arms. Moreover, these systems tend to be expensive.
The second type of robotic arm systems is the novelty robot arm. The novelty robot arm usually operates with low-cost stepper motors that allow slippage, improving safety when used by inexperienced operators because the movement will not crush the user's fingers. While the movements are less precise, the novelty robotic arm based on stepper motors is significantly less expensive. It can be operated using a human operator and a joystick, or the movements can be automatically controlled.
However, neither type of known robotic arm systems appears to be particular useful to solve the problem of automating chip replacement during characterization at comparatively low cost.
In the following description, the use of the same reference numerals in different drawings indicates similar or identical items. Unless otherwise noted, the word "coupled" and its associated verb forms include both direct connection and indirect electrical connection by means known in the art, and unless otherwise noted any description of direct connection implies alternate embodiments using suitable forms of indirect electrical connection as well.

Control of low-cost robotics and method therefor


A universal dust shroud is mountable to many high speed gas powered concrete cutting saws while remaining strong and stable. The dust shroud is adjustable to properly fit the saw and effectively collect dust and debris.

Dust shrouds have become more commonly used for multiple purposes. Many tasks, such as grinding or cutting cement for example, would particularly benefit from the use of a dust shroud because of the mess which is made while working or because of the potentially hazardous nature of the debris which is generated. Saws, for example, are commonly used for cutting cement, stone, tile or other similar tasks. Without a dust shroud, cement debris is scattered over a wide area. It is desirable to contain the dust which is created for several reasons. It is desirable to contain the dust and debris to keep the workplace cleaner and to minimize the time necessary to clean up afterwards. Fine dust is often created while grinding cement, for example, which spreads a large distance and can be quite difficult to clean up afterwards. It is also desirable to contain the dust and debris to keep the same from getting into the tool itself, causing premature failure of the bearings, motor, etc. Additionally, debris such as concrete dust poses a health risk to the machine operator and others who may breathe it. It is thus desirable to collect the dust to minimize any exposure to the dust.
One difficulty in providing dust shrouds is the fact that each particular tool will have different mounting requirements. For high speed gas powered saws, each saw will typically have a motor, a blade guard, and a handle. For each saw, however, the shapes and positions of the motor, blade guard, and handle vary. As such, the dust shroud must accommodate the particular mounting requirements of the desired tool. Another difficulty in providing dust shrouds is in providing a dust shroud which does not overly interfere with the use of the saw itself.
It is thus appreciated that the requirements for a dust shroud vary according to the particular saw with which the dust shroud is being used. Additionally, a particular model of saw will typically change every few years as new models are introduced. Many stores, however, do not wish to stock many different models of dust shrouds. It is similarly not desirable for a manufacturer to make many different models of dust shrouds, as it increases the tooling and production costs. Individual consumers do not wish to special order a dust shroud and wait for weeks for it to arrive. While universal dust shrouds have become available for some machines, universal shrouds are often limited by the fact that they are marginally suited to any particular saw and often lack the stability and effectiveness which is necessary.
There is thus a need for universal dust shrouds which allow a single shroud to be used with many different brands of tools while still performing properly. Such a universal dust shroud should safely and securely mount to a wide variety of saws while effectively collecting dust and debris and without interfering with the use of the saw.

Universal dust collection shroud for high speed gas powered saws


A media cassette for a media dispenser includes a cassette body which includes a storage space in which media are filled and a discharging opening through which the media are discharged. A door selectively opens and closes the discharging opening. A solenoid and locking member are installed in the storage space to selectively lock and unlock the door in response to an external electrical signal. A gear unit is formed at an external surface of the door, and an opening/closing gear of the media dispenser is engaged with the gear unit to open and close the door. The solenoid is installed in the cassette body, and the locking member is also installed in the cassette body to lock and unlock the door via a driving force of the solenoid.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a media dispenser, and more particularly, to a media cassette for a media dispenser, wherein the media cassette with media filled therein is detachably installed in the media dispenser.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of a related art media dispenser. Referring to this figure, a media cassette 3 is installed at a lower rear end of a media dispenser 1. The media cassette 3 is beforehand filled with media that should be discharged or provided to a customer. In general, the media cassette 3 can be detached from the media dispenser 1.
A media pickup part 5, for separating the media filled in the media cassette 3 sheet by sheet, is provided in the media dispenser 1. The media in the media cassette 3 are separated sheet by sheet and discharged to the outside.
As illustrated in bold lines in FIG. 1, the media which are separated and discharged from the media cassette 3 by means of the media pickup part 5 are sorted and transferred to a discharging part 11 or a reject box 13 through a feed module 7 and a delivery module 9. The discharging part 11 supplies the media from the media cassette 3 to a user. The reject box 13 collects inferior media or the media supplied in a state where a plurality of media are fed together (e.g., a misfeed of two or more stacked media sheets).
However, the aforementioned related art has drawbacks.
To fill the media cassette 3 with media, the media cassette 3 should be detached from the media dispenser 1 and then again mounted into the media dispenser 1. Thus, to prevent the media from being stolen while the media cassette 3 is carried after being detached from the media dispenser 1, a door of the media cassette 3 should be locked generally using an additional locking mechanism.
However, there is a problem in that an operator sometimes gains access to the media cassette 3 while its door is inadvertently unlocked or a person other than the operator intentionally steals the media from the media cassette 3. Also, if a structure for locking the door of the media cassette 3 is installed at the outside of the media cassette 3, there is another problem in that the media stored in the media cassette 3 may be easily stolen by picking or breaking the lock.


A coaxial cable connector for coupling a coaxial cable to an electronic component includes a body, a post in the body, and a coupling nut mounted for movement on the post. A continuity member is disposed radially between the post and the coupling nut, and an electrical continuity is established and maintained among the coupling nut, the continuity member, and the post. The electrical continuity is maintained in a radial direction only, regardless of the tightness of the coupling nut on the post, and regardless of compression of the continuity member beyond a pre-loaded compression.

Coaxial cables transmit radio frequency ("RF") signals between transmitters and receivers and are used to interconnect televisions, cable boxes, DVD players, satellite receivers, modems, and other electrical devices and electronic components. Typical coaxial cables include an inner conductor surrounded by a flexible dielectric insulator, a foil layer and/or a metallic braided sheath or shield, and a flexible polyvinylchloride jacket. The RF signal is transmitted through the inner conductor. The conductive sheath provides a ground and inhibits electrical and magnetic interference with the RF signal in the inner conductor.
Coaxial cables must be fit with cable connectors to be coupled to electronic components. Connectors typically have a connector body, a threaded fitting or coupling nut mounted for rotation on an end of the connector body, a bore extending into the connector body from an opposed end to receive the coaxial cable, and an inner post within the bore coupled in electrical communication with the fitting. Generally, connectors are crimped onto a prepared end of a coaxial cable to secure the connector to the coaxial cable. The connectors must maintain electrical connection and signal shielding with the cable despite rotation, tugging, bending, or other movement of the cable and the connector. Movement of the cable and the connector may occur suddenly if an object contacts the cable or connector, but may also occur slowly over time, such as from cyclical heating and cooling or wind loads on outside installations.
Some approaches to maintaining continuity have focused on maintaining a connection between the coupling nut and the post by biasing the nut in an axial direction so as to force the nut into continuity. This has generally been accomplished by loading the nut axially with a spacer, washer, or other shimming device. Typically, such biasing devices are disposed axially between the nut and the body of the connector and urge the nut axially forward into contact with a forward flange on the post. However, should the biasing device not provide an even force continuously around the entire device, the nut may not mate continuously flush against the post, which can lead to leaks in signal, degradation of continuity, and impingement of RF interference into the connector. Further, if the connector is bent, such as frequently occurs when the cable extending from the connector flexes or is bent, the nut will not mate continuously flush against the post, leading to the above-stated problems.
Other biasing devices have been used to shim the nut against the post. Such devices are typically disposed annularly between the nut and the post and have a ramped or wedge-like profile. When the nut is tightened onto the mating port of an electronic component, the biasing device is compressed and exerts an axial bias along its ramp against the nut, thereby causing the nut to move forwardly into contact with the forward flange on the post so as to establish continuity. U.S. Pat. No. 8,517,763 describes an integrally conductive locking coaxial connector that relies on such operation for continuity: a rear flange of the nut has an inclined inner surface that roughly corresponds to a ramped outer surface of a washer disposed between the nut and the post which the washer surrounds. When the nut is not applied to the mating port, the washer is loose in a space between the nut and post: it can wobble and lose contact and be free of either the nut or the post. Thus, when the nut is not applied to the mating port, electrical continuity between the nut and the port is not established and maintained. When the nut is applied to the mating port but not tightened, the same problem exists: the washer is loose and does not maintain continuity between the nut and the mating port. The connector in the '763 patent requires the coupling nut to be tightened on the mating port; when the nut is threadably engaged and tightened onto a mating port, the nut advances forward on the post and its inclined inner surface encounters the ramped outer surface of the washer, thereby forcing the washer forward as well, into confrontation with a forward flange of the post and against which the washer is axially compressed. This axial compression of the washer between the post and the nut maintains electrical continuity in an axial direction through the connector.
Other connectors rely on compression in a similar fashion. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 9,343,855 discloses a spring-like washer element disposed between the post and the coupling nut mounted on the post. The washer element there includes a number of obliquely-projecting flexible fingers. These fingers roughly correspond to an inner chamfer or inclined surface of a rear flange on the coupling nut. An annular base portion of the washer element encircles the post, and the fingers project radially outward and axially forward from that base portion. When the connector is free of the mating port, the washer element is loose and does not maintain continuity between the coupling nut and the post. Likewise, the washer element is still loose when the connector is applied to the mating port but not tightened. Only when the connector is tightened is continuity established. As with the connector of the '763 patent, continuity through tightness requires the washer to be compressed. In the case of the '763 patent, the washer is compressed both axially and radially by the inclined surface of the rear flange on the coupling nut. This causes the washer to lock the coupling nut with respect to the post and body of the connector.
The connectors of the '763 and '855 patents exemplify the problem experienced by connectors that rely on compressing a washer in order to maintain continuity: they bind, seize up, are difficult to use, and are vulnerable to exterior forces backing the connector of mating port. When the connector binds, it becomes increasingly difficult or impossible to turn, which makes installation difficult: many technicians rely on the feel of increased rotational resistance when applying a connector to the post of an electronic component to determine when the connector is fully seated on the mating port. This "feel" leverages what is known as high free nut torque: essentially, the torque required to rotate the nut on the connector even before the nut is mated and seated to the mating port. When free nut torque is low, the nut is easy to rotate and it is very easy to tell when the nut is properly seated and mated with mating port of the electronic component: the torque required to turn the nut suddenly and dramatically increases. When free nut torque is high, the nut is difficult to rotate and it becomes difficult for an installer to determine whether the connector is properly seated with a mating port because the torque required to rotate the coupling nut increases by a relatively minor amount, but yet still binds. Most conventional continuity connectors have very high free nut torque.
When the nut binds prematurely because of the axial forces imparted by a shim or other biasing device, the technician can be fooled into thinking that the connector is properly installed on the mating port, when it may only be partially installed. This is a lack of continuity which leads to a degradation of signal quality. Further, should the nut be cross-threaded or not be evenly applied on the threads of the post of the electronic component, the coupling nut may not mate continuously flush against the mating port, which can further lead to leaks in signal, degradation of continuity, and impingement of RF interference into the connector. And again, if the connector is bent, the nut will not mate continuously flush against the mating port, leading to the above-stated problems. The reliance of such connectors on the existence and exertion of compression and/or axial forces to establish continuity is at best undesirable and at worst impractical and forces a corresponding dependence on perfect and precise design dimensioning and manufacturing dimensional tolerances, perfect assembly, and proper installation and operation, which is rarely possible in the real world. A connector that provides improved connectivity and continuity is needed.

Coaxial cable connector with continuity member


An infusion or injection solution of Levodopa containing at least 10 mg/mL of Levodopa, or at least 5 mg/mL of Levodopa together with at least 0.5 mg/mL of at least one inhibitor of a Levodopa-metabolising enzyme is disclosed. The solution further contains a buffer, a physiologically acceptable sugar, such as glucose, a physiologically acceptable acid, such as hydrochloric acid, and optionally a stabilizer, and has a pH of lower than or equal to 6. There are also described a disposable syringe containing an infusion or injection solution of Levodopa, optionally together with a Levodopa-metabolising enzyme, and an infusion pump cassette containing an infusion or injection solution of Levodopa optionally together with a Levodopa-metabolising enzyme.

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is very common and is contracted by approximately 15 out of 10,000 people in the Western world. The age of debut is usually between 55 and 60 years. The disease is characterised by rigidity and tremors caused by a massive loss of nigrostratial neurones and subsequently a lack of dopamine [3,4-dihydroxyphenylethyl-amine] (1). The symptoms of Parkinson's Disease appear upon a loss of approximately 80% of dopamine neurones.
Tyrosine hydroxylase is the enzyme which transforms tyrosine into Levodopa [Levodopa=3-(3,4-dihydroxiphenyl)-L-alanine] (2), which then is metabolised into dopamine by dopadecarboxylase (DDC) both in the brain and in the peripheral circulation. Dopamine is metabolised into 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC), 3-methoxytyramine and Homovanilic acid (HVA) by the two enzymes monoamino oxidase (MAO) and catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) (3).
Levodopa is still the most important treatment for Parkinson's disease and intermittent oral Levodopa treatment achieves good relief of the symptoms at early stages of the disease. In spite of the massive loss of neurones there still is an adequate storage capacity, which makes possible an even release of dopamine into the synaptic spatium during interval dosage. Levodopa given orally is, however, metabolised to 90% in the first passage before reaching the brain. Bioavailability can be increased by simultaneous administration of DDC-inhibitors, such as carbidopa [L-2-hydrazino-3-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-2-methylpropanoic acid] or benserazide [2-amino-3-hydroxy-N′-(2,3,4-trihydroxybenzyl) propionohydrazide], which both compete with Levodopa for the metabolising DDC- and thus allow more of the administered Levodopa to reach the brain before it is metabolised into dopamine.
Levodopa is a neutral amino acid, which must pass the blood-brain barrier before it reaches the central nervous system. This transport is energy consuming. The half-life of Levodopa is short, 30 to 60 minutes. Under the influence of the enzyme dopadecarboxylase (DDC), the greater part of Levodopa is metabolised into dopamine. This enzyme is found in a number of organs but above all in muscles, red blood cells and in the skin where it is an important component in the formation of melanin pigment (5). Upon the intake of Levodopa alone, more than 90% is metabolised before it reaches the brain (6).
In order to increase the bioavailability of Levodopa, and reduce its secondary effects on the system, Levodopa is therefore given in combination with a decarboxylase inhibitor (benserazide or carbidopa) in the same oral dosage form. In both the intestine and the blood-brain barrier Levodopa has to compete for the enzyme transport with other amino acids from, for example, protein-rich meals (7). The absorption of Levodopa takes place primarily in the proximal third part of the small intestine (8). Variations in the emptying of the ventricle can, therefore, result in large variations in the serum concentration in the same patient despite intake of the same amount of Levodopa. The inhibition of dopadecarboxylase does not, however, increase the half-life for Levodopa very greatly, which points to the metabolising of Levodopa being shunted to the smaller COMT pathway. This leads to the formation of the metabolite 3-0-methyldopa (OMD) which because of its long half-life (9) is accumulated in plasma and reaches manifestly higher levels as compared to Levodopa (10). The metabolite OMD is also a neutral amino acid and can therefore compete with Levodopa for the passage over the two barriers.
Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic problems concerning Levodopa treatment arise after approximately five years of treatment in the form of fluctuations—from dyskinesia (involuntary movements) to akinesia (totally inhibited movements). When clinical fluctuations begin a distinct parallel can be seen between the decreasing plasma concentrations and the declining clinical response to the Levodopa dose administered. Yet, at an advanced stage in the disease rapid "on-off" fluctuations can be seen without any visible relation to the plasma concentration of Levodopa. This can be explained by there being a certain delay of about 90 minutes in the concentration levels between plasma and the central nervous system (CNS), where the CNS concentration is directly correlated to clinical status.
After suffering from the disease for 5-10 years, the storage capacity of the patient has, however, decreased somewhat due to the continuous loss of neurones, and "wearing off" problems occur. At this stage the storage capacity for dopamine is not adequate until the next dose is due, and Levodopa must therefore be administered at shorter intervals.
At a later stage of the disease, fluctuations occur too with both dyskinesia and bradykinesia (partially inhibited movements) in spite of increasingly frequent doses of dopamine, and sometimes seemingly with no relation to the intake of medicine. This is assumed to be caused by hypersensitivity of the postsynaptic dopamine receptors, resulting in a narrowing of the therapeutic window. This entails a much smaller difference between effective dose and overdose.
Levodopa belongs to the group of neutral amino acids and is absorbed by oral administration only in the proximal third of the small intestine via competitive active transport. It has been shown that approximately 10% of the total dose enters the blood circulation. By avoiding protein-rich meals during the daytime, and in close proximity to the individual times of dosage, it is possible to facilitate Levodopa absorption from the intestine and to a certain degree relieve clinical fluctuations. There is not always a direct correlation between the serum concentration of Levodopa and clinical fluctuations. This is probably due to the fact that the passage over the blood-brain barrier also takes place through active transport and even there competes with other neutral amino acids. An overview of the analysis methods for Levodopa has been published (11)
Experimentally it has been possible to show in animals that hypersensitivity of the postsynaptic dopamine receptors takes place upon interval stimulation, as well as it being possible to achieve hyposensitivity with continuous stimulation of these receptors with Levodopa. Such treatment of human patients should bring about a widening of the therapeutic window and a decrease in the clinical fluctuations (12), a treatment strategy that has not been possible, due to the insolubility of Levodopa in aqueous solutions at approximately neutral pH.
Oral dosage forms of Levodopa for treatment of Parkinson's disease have been used since the 1960ies and the progress of the disease and the treatment thereof follows the description above. In order to improve the treatment of the patients new treatment approaches have been developed such as dopamine agonists and enzyme inhibitors. However, these have not been able to solve all the problems encountered with the traditional Levodopa treatment.
A new Levodopa formulation comprising carbidopa in the form of a viscous gel, Duodopa®, has recently become available from NeoPharma AB, Uppsala, Sweden, for treatment of Parkinson's disease. This treatment is given directly to the duodenum with a nasoduodenal probe or with a percutaneous probe. With this system a continuous administration of Levodopa is possible but the limitations of the gastric transport barrier remains.
There are at present no commercially available pharmaceutical preparations for intravenous, subcutaneous or intrathekal administration due to the poor solubility of Levodopa at neutral pH. Large quantities of Levodopa-containing liquid would be required to give a therapeutic effect at a near neutral pH, and further, Levodopa auto-oxidises rapidly. However, the Swedish patent 512 655 describes the preparation of a Levodopa infusion solution containing 5 mg/mL Levodopa as the only active ingredient. The Levodopa is dissolved in HCl and diluted with glucose, but at higher concentrations than 5 mg/mL the Levodopa precipitates. For a daily dosage of e.g. 600 mg Levodopa, a patient would need 120 mL of said infusion solution per day. It would be desirable to have an infusion solution or injection solution that is therapeutically effective in lower daily volumes.

Infusion and injection solution of levodopa


A method and concomitant apparatus for generating pulses comprising providing a laser light source, disposing a voltage electrode between ground electrodes, generating laser sparks using the laser light source via laser spark gaps between the voltage electrode and the ground electrodes, and outputting pulses via one or more insulated ground connectors connected to the voltage electrode.

1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to methods and apparatuses for pulsed power switching.
2. Description of Related Art
Switching can be considered to be the essence of pulsed power. Time accurate switch/trigger systems with low inductance are useful in many applications. It can be challenging to generate high voltage (more than 50 kilovolts) into impedances less than 10Ω, from a low voltage control signal with a fast rise time and high temporal accuracy. The required power amplification is large, and is usually accomplished with multiple stages. The multiple stages can adversely affect the temporal accuracy and the reliability of the system. In certain applications, a highly reliable and low jitter trigger generator is required.
The large investment in certain applications demands low prefire probability and low jitter simultaneously. For example, a system described herein is based on a 100 kV DC-charged high-pressure spark gap, triggered with an ultraviolet laser. The system uses a single optical path for simultaneously triggering two or more adjacent, axially spaced parallel switches, allowing lower inductance and electrode erosion with a simple optical system. Performance of the system includes 6 ns output rise time into 5:6Ω, 550 ps one-sigma jitter measured from the 5 V trigger to the high voltage output, and misfire probability less than 10−4.
The present invention provides a unique switch geometry coupled with a low-inductance capacitive energy store. The system provides a fast-rising high voltage pulse into a low impedance load.

High reliability low jitter pulse generator


A system ranks documents based on contexts associated with the documents. The system identifies a reference in a first document, where the reference is associated with a second document. The system analyzes a portion of the first document associated with the reference, identifies a rare word (or words) from the portion, creates a context identifier based on the rare word(s), and ranks the second document based on the context identifier.

1. Field of the Invention
Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention relate generally to information retrieval and, more particularly, to ranking documents based on the context of references associated with the documents.
2. Description of Related Art
The World Wide Web ("web") contains a vast amount of information. Search engines assist users in locating desired portions of this information by cataloging web documents. Typically, in response to a user's request, a search engine returns links to documents relevant to the request.
Search engines may base their determination of the user's interest on search terms (called a search query) provided by the user. The goal of a search engine is to identify links to relevant search results based on the search query. Typically, the search engine accomplishes this by matching the terms in the search query to a corpus of pre-stored web documents. Web documents that contain the user's search terms are considered "hits" and are returned to the user.
The quality of the documents returned to the user depend on the quality of the ranking process used to rank the search results. For example, some ranking processes rank documents based on the number of links pointing to them, the ranks of the documents pointing to them, or the anchor text associated with the links pointing to them. Several techniques have arisen to artificially inflate the rank of a document, thereby degrading the quality of the search results.
One such technique relates to link-based spamming. Link-based spamming involves obtaining a large number of links to a particular document to increase the rank of the document. Link farms, for example, provide a network of web documents that are heavily cross-linked to each other so as to increase the ranks of the documents. Some spammers pay owners of highly ranked documents to include a link to their document so as to increase the rank of their document.
Another technique relates to anchor text spamming. Anchor text spamming involves obtaining a large number of web documents to link to a particular document using the same anchor text with which the document is to be associated. The desired result is that if a user provides a search query with terms that match the anchor text, then the document will be provided highly ranked in the search results.
Yet another technique relates to bombing (e.g., Google bombing). Bombing involves setting up a large number of documents with links that point to a specific document so that the document will obtain a high rank when users enter particular text associated with the link. One popular bomb involved a large number of documents including the anchor text "miserable failure" associated with a link to President Bush's biography. Therefore, whenever a user entered the search query "miserable failure," the highest ranked result was a link to President Bush's biography.
A further technique relates to the use of standard frames that are associated with a number of web documents. Standard frames sometimes include "products" links, "jobs" links, "investor" links, etc. that are typically associated with business web sites. Oftentimes, the business will include these same links on every document associated with its web site. This duplication of links may artificially inflate the ranks of the documents associated with these links, especially when the web site includes a large number of documents.
All of these techniques degrade the quality of the search results returned by a search engine.


Described embodiments provide a device controlling at least one of components of a vehicle in response to a control command from user equipment. The device may be configured to assign a first control level and a control state to each component of the vehicle, to assign a second control level to user equipment, and to allow the user equipment to control a target component of the vehicle when a first control level of the target component is equivalent to a second control level of the user equipment and a control state of the target component is equivalent to a state of the vehicle.

The present disclosure relates to controlling vehicle components through user equipment. A driver is a person who has the most control over components in a vehicle. In general, a driver controls such vehicle components while driving a vehicle. Such multitasking operation of the driver may be cumbersome and raise safety issues.


A process for forming isolation regions (20) having a self-aligned channel-stop (22) formed by implanting dopant atoms (24) through the isolation regions (22). An isolation mask (15) is formed over an active region (16) in a semiconductor substrate (10). The isolation mask can be constructed from a variety of materials including silicon nitride, silicon oxynitride, boron nitride, polysilicon, and germanium oxide. Thick isolation regions (20) are formed on either side of the isolation mask (15) and an ion implant process is carried out to form doped regions (22) in the substrate (10) immediately below the isolation regions (20). The isolation mask (15) prevents dopant atoms (24) from entering the active region (16) of the substrate (10).

In the manufacture of semiconductor devices, typically thousands of individual transistor devices are formed upon a single silicon substrate. These devices are interconnected to form complex circuits, also known as integrated circuits, as required for a particular circuit design. Because the transistors are formed within the same substrate, the transistors must be electrically isolated except as interconnected according to the circuit design; otherwise, undesired electrical connections between the transistors would cause circuit shorts. Several methods exist for device isolation and vary with the type of device being manufactured. One device isolation method widely used in the manufacture of insulated gate field effect transistors (IGFET) is the well known localized oxidation of silicon, or LOCOS, process.
In a typical LOCOS process, a thin silicon oxide layer, or pad oxide, is grown over a silicon substrate, and then a silicon nitride layer is deposited over the silicon oxide layer. Next, the pad oxide and nitride layer are patterned by known photolithographic techniques to partially expose the substrate. The exposed regions of the substrate are known as the field regions. Regions of the substrate still covered with the pad oxide and nitride are known as the active regions and will eventually contain the transistors for the integrated circuit. A thick silicon oxide insulator, or field oxide, is grown in the field regions of the silicon substrate by placing the substrate in a steam ambient, typically at a temperature in the range of 900.degree. to 1100.degree. C., for an extended time. The steam reacts with the exposed silicon to form silicon oxide. The thick field oxide provides electrical isolation by increasing the threshold voltage in the field region, thereby preventing the formation of a conductive path in the surface of the underlying silicon substrate. The active regions remain unoxidized and covered by nitride during the field oxide growth. Finally, the nitride and pad oxide are removed. Transistors are then formed by additional processing in the active region.
The continuing trend in integrated circuit design is to further increase the packing density of active devices on the silicon substrate. The density of active devices can be increased by shrinking some or all of the dimensions of the devices. One approach for increasing the packing density is the reduction of lateral separation distance between the active regions. However, as the lateral separation distance is reduced, the electrical isolation of adjacent active regions becomes more difficult. While the conventional field oxide structure is adequate to provide electrical insulation between adjacent active regions when the device separation distances are quite large, additional measures must be taken to ensure electrical isolation as the separation distances are reduced.
A well known technique for increasing the electrical isolation capability of a field oxide region is to place a doped region in the substrate below the field oxide region. This doped region is known as a channel-stop. The channel-stop functions to prevent electrical current from traversing between adjacent active regions below the field oxide. Typically, the channel-stop region is formed by implanting dopant atoms into the substrate region after patterning the nitride and pad oxide layers, and prior to growing the field oxide. In this way, the dopant is placed in the same locations of the substrate in which the field oxide regions will be formed. Although the dopant atoms are placed into the substrate using the patterned nitride and oxide layers as a doping mask, the dopant atoms can laterally diffuse through the substrate during the oxidation process used to form the field oxide regions.
The lateral diffusion process has the effect of dispersing the dopants in the substrate. At the elevated temperatures necessary to grow the field oxide regions, considerable lateral dopant diffusion can occur under the patterned nitride and pad oxide. Once the field oxidation process is complete and the nitride layer and pad oxide layer are removed, the active region of the substrate now contains a considerable dopant concentration from the lateral diffusion of implanted dopants. Additionally, the initial implanted concentration of dopants in the substrate region beneath the field oxide layer is reduced by the segregation of boron into the growing oxide layer. If the dopant concentration in the channel-stop region becomes too low, the channel-stop will not be able to perform its electrical current blocking function. This can lead to device failure from electrical coupling between adjacent active regions, known as punch-through. Although the channel-stop and field oxide structures remain viable isolation techniques, improvement in the isolation process is necessary to ensure adequate electrical isolation as the separation distances between adjacent active regions are reduced.

Process for fabricating isolation regions in a semiconductor device


Various aspects include audio devices with a capacitive sensing interface along a compound curved wall. Some aspects of the disclosure relate to wearable audio devices with a capacitive sensing interface and a flexible printed circuit board (PCB) for detecting a touch command at the interface. In certain cases, the flexible PCB has at least one slit for conforming to the compound curve of the wall. In additional implementations, the inner surface of the wall is faceted and the flexible PCB conforms to the facets in the wall.

Audio devices, for example wearable audio devices such as earbuds, can include compound curved surfaces. In particular form factors, it is beneficial to integrate capacitive sensing interfaces along these compound curved surfaces. However, conventional capacitive sensing interfaces employ circuitry including a planar, flexible printed circuit board (PCB). Fastening the planar, flexible PCB to a compound curved surface can create stresses in the flexible PCB, impacting performance and potentially causing the interface to fail.

Audio device with flexible circuit for capacitive interface


Disclosed are a channel state information (CSI) based processing method, and a terminal, a base station and a computer storage medium. The method comprises: a terminal acquiring channel measurement process configuration information, wherein at least one CSI process configuration includes configuring M sets of channel state information reference symbols (CSI-RSs) for channel measurement, with M being an integer greater than or equal to 1; and the terminal determining m sets of CSI-RSs for CSI measurement, wherein the m sets of CSI-RSs are a sub-set of the M sets of CSI-RSs, with m being an integer.

In a wireless communication system, a sending end and a receiving end may generally adopt multiple antennas for sending and receiving so as to acquire a higher rate. One principle of multi-antenna technology is to form multi-layer transmission matching with channel characteristics by taking advantage of some characteristics of a channel, and a radiation direction of a signal is highly targeted, which may effectively improve performance of a system, and the performance is significantly improved without increasing bandwidth and power. The multi-antenna technology is a very promising technology and has been widely applied to existing systems. Data transmission performance of a multi-antenna system mainly depends on measurement and feedback of channel information. Therefore, the measurement and feedback of the channel information are core contents of the multi-antenna system, and it becomes an important problem on how to ensure accuracy of channel measurement and channel information feedback, overhead and robustness.
The measurement and feedback of CSI are designed simply in an early long term evolution (LTE) system. However, with increasing requirement of accuracy, a pilot overhead, a feedback overhead and quantification complexity are not expected to increase significantly. Therefore, a measurement and feedback technology of the CSI becomes more and more complicated so as to achieve higher quantification efficiency. In addition, a plenty of new designs are introduced because a good adaptability is required for a variety of scenarios and antenna configurations.
The inventors, during inventing the disclosure, find that the measurement and feedback of the CSI in the conventional art has at least following disadvantages.
A base station periodically sends a precoding pilot (beamformed channel state information reference signal, BFed CSI-RS) and each feedback is based on identical CSI-RS resource configuration. However, the sending of the CSI-RS and the feedback of the CSI cannot be changed flexibly according to a channel state.
In addition, the base station semi-statically configures a BFed CSI-RS through a radio resource control (RRC) signaling. The BFed CSI-RS does not be changed for a long time after the configuration, which accordingly lacks flexibility of adapting dynamic changes of the channel.

Channel state information based processing method, and relevant devices and computer storage medium


Systems and methods for providing network interface controllers (NICs) with memory-mapped buffers are described. A processing system includes a plurality of processing cells, each including at least one processor and at least one system memory. A NIC is associated with each of the processing cells for transmitting and receiving data between the processing cells. Each of the cells further includes a memory interconnect to which the NIC is directly connected and the NIC includes at least one memory-mapped buffer.

The present invention relates generally to data communication systems and methods and, more particularly, to data communication systems and methods in which memory-mapped receive and transmit buffers are provided to network interface controllers.
A network interface controller (NIC) is a hardware device that supports the transmission of data between computers as illustrated in FIG. 1. Therein, a symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) system 10 includes a number of central processor units (CPUs) 12 which share memory unit 14 via a memory interconnect 16. Although SMP 10 is shown as having four CPUs (cores), those skilled in the art will appreciate that SMP 10 can have more or fewer CPUs. SMP 10 sends messages to other SMPs 20, 30 and 40 under the control of NIC 18 via Ethernet connections and a fabric (switch) 22. The NIC 18 will typically have a processor (not shown) associated therewith, either as an integral part of the NIC or in the form of a helper processor, so that the NIC has sufficient intelligence to interpret various commands. The NIC 18, as well as various I/O devices 42, 44, are connected to the rest of the SMP via an I/O interconnect 46. The I/O interconnect 46 communicates with the memory interconnect 16 via an I/O adapter 48 (e.g., a bridge).
A common source and destination for transmitted data in such systems is paged virtual memory. Paged virtual memory provides for virtual addresses which are translated or mapped onto physical pages and enables virtual pages to be swapped out to disk or removed from main memory and later swapped in from disk to a new physical page location. An operating system can unilaterally perform page swaps of so-called "unpinned" virtual pages. Thus, application software operating on such systems typically accesses main memory using address translation hardware that ensures that the correct physical page is accessed, e.g., that the operating system has not initiated a page swap for the page that the application software needs to access. Software access pauses during time intervals when needed data is swapped out and resumes by accessing a new physical location when data is swapped in at that location.
Some networking solutions address the downtime associated with software suspension during virtual page swapping by providing for software to copy data from unpinned virtual memory to pinned interface memory. Pinned memory consists of pages that cannot be swapped to disk by the operating system. In such systems, the NIC 18 will typically access only pinned interface memory. This simplifies direct memory access (DMA) transfers performed by the NIC 18, since data is never swapped during a network operation which, in turn, guarantees that data remains accessible throughout a NIC's DMA data transfer and that the physical address of the data remains constant. However, such solutions require extra overhead in the form of data copying (e.g., copying from unpinned virtual memory to a pinned system buffer accessible by the NIC 18) that utilizes important system resources.
Another solution to the issue posed by unpinned virtual memory eliminates the above-described data copying but instead requires that the NIC 18 invoke an operating system function to pin a virtual page prior to transmitting data directly from or to that page. Additionally, the page must later be unpinned by a further NIC/operating system interaction in order to allow page swapping after network activity is finished. While this eliminates copies to pinned pages, the NIC 18 must now invoke expensive page pinning and page unpinning functions. Each of these operations requires communication between the NIC's processor and the operating system. When these communications require interrupts or polling of the I/O interconnect 46, they are very expensive in terms of resource utilization efficiency.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide mechanisms and methods which enable a NIC to more efficiently deal with data transfer issues.

Memory-mapped buffers for network interface controllers

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.