A method for manufacturing a lighting device includes the steps of: preparing a substrate having at least one lighting chip, a frame for surrounding the lighting chip, and a cover body for covering one side of the frame; bonding the frame and the substrate so that the lighting chip is located within a region surrounded by the frame; and bonding the cover body and the frame so that the cover body and the frame cooperatively define a receptacle to cover the lighting chip. A bonding force between the cover body and the frame is configured to be smaller than a bonding force between the frame and the substrate so that when the cover body is separated from the frame, the bonding between the frame and the substrate is not destroyed.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a lighting device, and more particularly to alighting device having a removable cover body and a method for manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Following the evolution of technology, many electronic products progress toward miniaturization and lightweight to facilitate hand carry and use of the same. A microprojector is also a new generation miniaturized portable product. Since the light-emitting diode (LED) is small, and has an energy-saving function and a long service life, it is suitable for use in a light source of the microprojector.
A light source system of the microprojector is an etendue-limited system. Hence, the smaller the etendue of a light source, the higher the use efficiency of light. Further, the etendue is related to the refractive index of a medium which the light rays pass through. The lower the refractive index of the medium, the smaller the etendue. Usually, the refractive index of air is smaller than that of a transparent material, such as glass or optical grade resin. Hence, the etendue of light source which directly emits light to transmit to air is relatively small.
Thus, to develop a lighting device having a small etendue is the current trend.

Lighting device and method for manufacturing the same


Ventilated disc brake rotors are presented that have significantly increased surface areas for cooling in comparison with currently manufactured disc brake rotors. In an embodiment, the rotors utilize a matric of cooling channels disposed between opposing outside surfaces of friction rings of the rotors. The plurality of cooling channels may be in the form of a three-dimensional lattice or matrix (e.g., repeating or stacked rows of cooling channels). When utilizing such a lattice or matrix, at least a portion of the cooling channels do not directly interface with either friction ring. Rather, at least a portion of the cooling channels interface with (e.g., are surrounded by) other cooling channels. As a result, the total cooling surface area of the rotor may be greatly increased compared to existing rotors.

Disc brakes are utilized with a majority of vehicles. Braking system utilizing disc brakes include friction rings on either the front wheels or all wheels of a vehicle. Each friction ring is attached to and rotates with its respective wheel. During braking, the friction ring is gripped by caliper-operated brake pads converting kinetic energy of a moving vehicle into heat. This results in the brake disc becoming hot during use, which can result in reduced braking efficiency (i.e., brake fade) if the brake discs become excessively hot.
To enhance heat dissipation from the brake disc, most brake discs or 'rotors' are ventilated. That is, the rotors have each have two spaced friction rings with an air-gap there between. Air may pass through this air-gap to assist in heat dissipation/cooling. Most commonly, the two annular friction rings are joined by vanes or pillars that extend between facing surfaces (e.g., inside surfaces) of the two friction rings. When utilizing vanes, the vanes may be straight extending radially outward or may be curved (e.g., spirally). Other shapes are known. When utilizing pillars, a plurality of individual pillars may extend between the friction discs in various configuration. Spaces between the vanes or pillars define air or cooling channels through which cooling air may pass to assist in removing heat from the friction rings.
The typical process of forming disc brake rotors involves casting gray iron in a process where a resin-impregnated sand mold in the form of the cooling channels is disposed in a rotor mold prior to casting. The sand mold is located at a position that will be between the friction rings after casting. Once the disc rotor is cast and cooled, the sand mold between the friction rings is removed (i.e., destroyed) leaving open cooling channels between the friction rings. This process, while long utilized and effective, limits the geometry of the cooling channels to what can be produced in a sand mold.

Three-dimensional printed disc brake rotor


A bearing assembly is disclosed having a pair of bearing members movable relative to one another. A space is defined between the bearing members, and a relatively thin coating of a greaseless, self-lubricating material is applied to the surface of at least one of the bearing members. A grease lubricant is disposed in the space defined between the bearing members such that both the grease lubricant and the greaseless material act to substantially lower the friction-generated heat that is encountered during operation.

Various bearing assemblies and methods of lubricating these assemblies can be found in many applications. Typical bearing assemblies include a pair of bearing members that are movable relative to one another. More specifically, a bearing or bushing is typically a cylindrical shell, with or without a flange, installed in a structural housing in conjunction with a mating shaft, pin, or bolt. Bearings having pinned joints typically are used for cyclic and oscillatory motion, such as used in landing gear joints, control surface hinge points, and actuating linkages.
The advantages of bearings are numerous. Bearings are relatively economical replacement elements which extend the useful life of major structural elements by providing protection from wear, corrosion, deformation, and other service-limiting or failure-initiating damage. The two basic considerations for successful service performance of a bearing are strength and life. Strength is the capability of the bearing to resist deformation and structural failure under static load. The life of the bearing is determined by its ability to resist wear, fretting, galling, and seizure under cyclic or oscillating motion.
FIG. 1A shows a typical bearing structure assembly 100, wherein grease 106, such as Royal MS 11 manufactured by Royal Lubricants, Inc. of East Hanover, N.J., is applied between bearing assembly members comprising a bearing 101 and pin 103 to lubricate the members as they move relative to one another. Specifically, the grease 106 is disposed between the inner surface 102 of the bearing 101 and the outer surface 104 of the pin 103. While grease is suitable for many applications, extreme pressure and movement by the bearing assembly members may cause the grease to lose its lubricity, which may lead to overheating and eventual failure of the bearing assembly and surrounding structures.
One application where this may occur is on a landing gear apparatus of an aircraft, and more particularly on a truck pivot joint bearing assemblies for an aircraft landing gear. The bearing assemblies used in this type of application typically include a relatively thick coating of grease between the moving surfaces of the bearing. This is acceptable for most circumstances because the dynamic bearing pressures and sliding velocities of the moving surfaces are relatively low. However, rough landing conditions, such as runways with deep cracks, crevices, potholes, and/or uneven surfaces, can cause excessive use of and wear on the truck pivot joint bearing assemblies from the rapid shocks and extreme oscillations these surface abnormalities transfer to the bearing assemblies. In some cases, it has been discovered that these rough conditions create as much as ten (10) times more energy than is generated under normal conditions. This additional energy is absorbed as heat by the bearing assemblies, which accounts for the damage that occurs when using conventional bearing assemblies in these environments. As a result, the high temperatures generated in these conditions cause the grease packed between the moving surfaces of the bearing assemblies to melt away and thus lose its effective lubricity. This is shown in FIG. 1B, wherein the grease 106 is no longer occupying the entire space between the opposing bearing members 101, 103, which allows the inner surface 102 of the bearing 101 to have intimate contact with the outer surface 104 of the pin 103.
As the grease loses lubricity and the surfaces 102, 104 of the bearing assembly 100 begin to directly move against each other, severe damage or failure of the bearing assembly components is likely. To prevent failure of the bearing assembly, time-consuming maintenance must be performed more frequently, which further adds to the cost of maintaining the aircraft in addition to the lost profits while the aircraft is under maintenance or repairs. Thus, it is desirable to provide a lubricant to bearing components that is more resistant to dynamic bearing pressures and heat generation in extreme conditions.
FIG. 2A shows another type of conventional bearing assembly. In particular, the bearing assembly 110 includes a bearing 111 and a pin 113 having opposing surfaces 112 and 114, respectively. A dry, greaseless coating material 116 is applied to a desired surface by spraying or coating the surface, such as the inner surface 114 of the bearing 111. The greaseless, self-lubricating material 116 occupies the space between the opposing bearing surfaces 112, 114 such that the surfaces are only separated by the greaseless material. One example of a greaseless self-lubricating material 116 is a polyester, thermosetting, resin-based material incorporating polytetrafluoroethylene or TEFLON® particles, such as the material manufactured under the name KARON by Kamatics Corporation of Bloomfield, Connecticut. This type of material is proclaimed as self-lubricating, meaning no external grease is required to lubricate the bearing assembly 110. Indeed, greaseless lubricants such as shown in FIG. 2 were designed to overcome the disadvantages of grease lubricants shown in FIG. 1, particularly in terms of load capacity and service life. Other types of greaseless lubricants are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,929,396 and 3,996,143.
In particular, greaseless, self-lubricating materials operate at lower friction levels, which reduces the heat generated during operation. If heat does build up, the polytetrafluoroethylene particles typically expand more rapidly than the underlying surfaces to fill the space between the bearing surfaces, so that frictional contact between bearing surfaces 112, 114 is thwarted or delayed, at least temporarily. Conventional practice teaches that a thicker coating of the greaseless material 116 will provide more lubrication for the bearing 110. While true for most applications, the extreme loading conditions mentioned above may cause the greaseless material to break down. And because the greaseless material 116 allows the bearing surfaces 112, 114 to be essentially in contact with each other separated only by the greaseless lubricant, any reduction in the thickness of the greaseless lubricant can reopen the space between the bearing surfaces, which can damage the bearing or cause the bearing to fail. This is shown in FIG. 2B, wherein the greaseless material 116 has worn down in certain areas, which allows unwanted and damaging rattling or movement between the bearing assembly members 111, 113. Thus, while greaseless lubricants provide advantageous qualities over grease lubricants, there is a need to provide a bearing assembly having a lubricant that offers even better wear and heat resistance, which leads to longer operational life of the bearing. There is also a need to provide a bearing assembly having a lubricant that is resistant to extreme loading conditions, such that the lubricant provides longer protection to the bearing in these environments compared to protection from conventional lubricants before service is required.

Truck pivot joint bearing and method of lubricating


A group messaging system enabling anonymous collective communications in a group which is locally defined in association with a group owner's messaging account, wherein messaging software at the group owner converts a group message into multiple one-to-one group messages destined to each group member in collaboration with the said group membership resolution process. The invention further includes a group message reply process wherein the messaging software at a recipient's side composes a reply message and transmits it to the group owner messaging software which then forwards it to the group members in collaboration with said group membership resolution process, thereby providing a means of designating the identity of a group in the group owner messaging account, sending a group message, and hiding the identities of individual recipients during the lifetime of the group message. The group owner side can additionally perform access control for group communications.

Modern messaging systems and collaborative environments, such as Lotus Notes, are dispatched across large enterprise systems as a distributed application. Messaging accounts or IDs are typically assigned to one particular server. Traditionally, to communicate with a set of receiving clients, the sender of a message would need to delineate all client IDs in the message header. A typical message header would include the following address fields.                From: sid        To: rid-1, rid-2, . . . , rid-n        Cc: rid-n+1, . . . rid-n+m        Bcc: rid-n+m+1, . . . rid-n+m+k
The prior art messaging format is not only cumbersome, but it also exposes the IDs of each recipient to all other recipients, with the exception of the "blind carbon copy" field (the <Bcc:> field). A recipient replying to the sender and to all receivers would send a message to the <From:>, <To:>, and the <Cc:>, but will not be able to see and reply to <Bcc:>. While the <Bcc:>feature ensures that the sender can inform recipients of matters without exposing their identity, relevant feedback may not be provided to all appropriate parties.
One way to eliminate the problems associated with the above-described approach is to utilize a group concept. The group concept can be implemented in one of the following three ways:                (a) the sender maintains a group name that is associated with a list of recipients, whereby the messaging client software replaces the group name issued in the <To:>, <Cc:>, or <Bcc:> sections with the list of recipient IDs;        (b) the sender and recipients utilize a global messaging resource such as a mailing list, which is a special mail ID which reflects all messages sent to it to the members that have subscribed to the mailing list; or        (c) the messaging client does not replace the group name in the recipient list; however, the sending software, identifies the recipients and sends them the message, with the group name still showing up in the recipient field.
There are disadvantages to all three of the group messaging approaches. In (a), the IDs of recipients must be exposed to all recipients to enable the recipient to reply. If a <Bcc:> section is utilized those IDs are not sent to the recipients, hence they cannot receive any reply. In (b), the anonymity of the recipients is maintained during a sequence of message transmissions where the initial message and all replies to it are sent to the mailing list which then reflects them to all subscribers. The group members need to be added to the mailing list by themselves or by a central administrator with appropriate privileges. With the mailing list, however, it is difficult to create the messaging group that is defined with the semantic context, the management domain, and the naming scope of the individual messaging user account in a highly dynamic way. As a result, it is too cumbersome to use the mailing list as the per-account messaging group mechanism. In (c), the anonymity of the recipients is maintained as well; however, the recipients are unable to respond to the group since the group is defined only in the sender's context and does not bear meaning in the recipients' contexts.
To summarize, in (a) and (c) above, the group has the naming scope only in the local context of the original sender, and as a result, either the identity of the group members is not kept anonymous, as in (a), or successive reply message exchanges within group members are not possible, as in (c). On the other hand, in (b), an anonymous group messaging method is provided, but only with the introduction of the special group IDs having non-local, or global, naming scope as the per-account messaging group mechanism. The use of the global mailing list for per-account messaging account makes the naming and the membership definition difficult. In an enterprise messaging environment, for example, a local messaging group "managed by" can be defined per messaging user account representing the messaging users who are managed by the user account. Such grouping mechanism is based on the relationship between the group owner and the group members. Moreover, the group membership determined by the relationship is highly dynamic in nature—the group members are dynamically determined according to the attributes of the group members. The prior art mailing list does not support the notion of the group owner nor the relationship of the group members to the group owner. In order to emulate per-account message groups by using the mailing list, it would be required to have a prohibitively large number of mailing list accounts and to make virtual associations between the messaging accounts and the mailing lists. This method would incur resource usage overheads and administrative burdens.
Although there exist prior art approaches that provide secrecy of message contents or anonymity of group members on the sender side, none of them provides the capability of anonymous group messaging whereby anonymity of group members is kept throughout the entire lifetime of group message exchange; none provides seamless continuation of message exchanges which is maintained through simple replies to the original group message; and, none provides access control that defines the capability of sending, replying to, and receiving group messages according to role models of the participant. The foregoing, therefore, are objectives of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,266,420, of Langford, et al, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Secure Group Communication" provides the notion of the group public key and the group private key. In the patented method, the sender encrypts the symmetric key once per group using the group public key. A recipient uses the group private key to extract the symmetric key from the wrapped symmetric key encrypted by the sender. As a result, the approach eliminates the computing overhead and storage/transmission overhead of previous approaches which perform encryption, transmission, and decryption of the symmetric key multiple times, one per each receiver. However, this prior invention only focuses on the secrecy of the message contents in group communications. On the other hand, it is desirable to focus on the anonymity of the recipients, too. It is not practical to enforce anonymity by using the symmetric and asymmetric keys, as in the prior art, since all the message routers or exchangers en route from the sender to the recipients decipher the recipient information to further route the message.
In another prior art approach, detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,256,733, of Thakker, et al, entitled "Access and Storage of Secure Group Communication Cryptographic Keys", group credentials required in secure group communication systems are dynamically administrated for enhanced manageability. Each group member can generate security credentials, can store them in a repository that can be accessed by multiple parties, and can retrieve a portion of them. Means of membership management are also provided to cope with the case of member addition and deletion. The patented method also focuses on the secrecy of the message contents and not on the anonymity of the recipients.
Japanese Patent Publication JP2001-339381, entitled "Anonymous Recipient Information Delivery System and Delivery Method", tries to keep both the secrecy of message contents and the anonymity of the correspondents at the server side. To maintain secrecy, the server transmits the encrypted message using the public keys of the clients. Since the public key itself can become a means to extract identity information of clients, a gateway is provided to relay messages between the server and client, whereby the server does not manage the public keys of clients but the gateway manages the public keys. The gateway randomizes the public keys when it communicates with the server, so that the identities of clients are kept concealed. The gateway then relays the message from the server to the clients. The gateway should transform the message encryption from one using the randomized public key to one using the original public key of the individual client. This prior art intends to provide anonymity, yet, it provides anonymity from third parties and not among recipients. Moreover, the requirement for a special gateway for transformation is burdensome and introduces a high computational overhead. Finally, the prior art approach does not provide a means for a client to reply to a group message without knowing the recipient's individual identity.
Japanese Patent publication JP201-186169, entitled "Electronic Mail Management System and Recording Medium for Storing Electronic Mail Management Program", provides a way of dynamically creating sub-mailing list within a mailing list according to the membership information of subscribers in order to deliver electronic mails of local interest only to the group of subscribers in the sub-mailing list. When a client subscribes to a mailing list, a client may not want to receive all of the messages on the mailing list, since there may be multiple independent topics being discussed in the mailing list and the client may be indifferent to some of those topics. The cited Japanese patent publication facilitates the creation of sub-mailing lists within a mailing list and the creation of sub-mailing lists out of the predefined sub-mailing lists in the whole list. While this prior art provides a way to limit the delivery of messages to a subset of the original group, it does not provide a means of enforcing anonymity of recipients of the message. Although it can be said that limiting message delivery only to the sub-mailing list is a form of a secrecy provision, it does not provide content secrecy or recipient anonymity among recipients and on the wire.
Japanese Patent publication JP2001-160007, entitled "Electronic Mail Device" suggests a group mailing system that can automatically fill in the recipient addresses from a predefined group of addresses if the corresponding recipient names appear in the message body in order to improve operability and to eliminate possible input errors. Because this prior art approach does not address anonymity issues in the group communication environment, it does not provide the needed solution which is an object of the present invention.
Hence, what is needed, and is an objective of the present invention, is a method of collaboration and message exchange that is flexible and is based on per-account group definition without the need for a centralized, global messaging account resource.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide a method and system which maintains the anonymity of the recipients from other recipients and enables a recipient to reply to the sender and the group members, without knowing their identity by utilizing the group name provided in the original message.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a method and system for anonymous group messaging whereby anonymity of group members is kept throughout the entire lifetime of group message exchange, providing seamless continuation of message exchanges through simple replies to the original group message.
It is also an objective of the present invention to provide the foregoing with access control that defines the capability of sending, replying to, and receiving group messages according to role models of the participant.

Method and apparatus for anonymous group messaging in a distributed messaging system

International Business Machines Corporation


The present invention relates to a tampon (1) having an insertion end (11), a withdrawal end (14) and a tampon body in between whereby said tampon body essentially consists of liquid absorbing material and has an outer circumferential surface which is provided with longitudinal grooves (4, 4′) that are separated from each other by longitudinal ribs (3, 3′), wherein at least one tampon groove (4) is defined an outer longitudinal path (2) on the surface of the tampon that diverges from the longitudinal path of the groove below the surface of the tampon. It also relates to a press, press jaw and process for its manufacture.

Intravaginal tampons are in common use by women for the retention of fluids or menses discharged along the walls of the vagina during the menstrual cycle. The menstrual discharge, comprising endometrial cells, secretions and blood, is intermittent and takes place over hours and days. The blood and other matter exude following the line of gravity. Sometimes the flow is light, sometimes heavy. Intravaginal tampons are usually formed of absorbent materials such as cotton, rayon cellulose wading, synthetic sponge, cellulose fluff, synthetic fibres or combinations of these materials and compressed or moulded usually to a generally cylindrical configuration of a size to fit within the vaginal tract.
Tampons having an insertion end, a withdrawal end, a withdrawal cord and a central section extending therebetween are well known in the art. From the prior art, cylindrical shaped tampons are known having ribs defined by grooves, said ribs extending outwards. Such tampons are known for example from WO 02/078586, EP 0 422 660, US 2002/0157222, U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,725, U.S. Pat. No. 5,895,408, EP 1 108 408, US 2003/0208180, WO 00/53141 and EP 0 639 363. For instance, WO 02/078586 and WO 02/076357 disclose tampons having inclined shaped grooves. The outer surface of the tampons provided with inclined shaped, pressed longitudinal grooves describing a straight path in the longitudinal direction of said tampon. EP 1 459 720 describes a vaginal tampon having sinusoidal grooves along the outer surface, separated by longitudinal ribs.
However, a disadvantage of tampons known in the art is that its absorption of fluid is generally insufficient and relatively slow, such that by-pass and leakage problems may occur after the tampon has been put into use.
In view hereof, there is a need in the art for a tampon, which overcomes one or more of these problems of the prior art. There is a need in the art for a tampon having improved absorption capacity compared to tampons known in the prior art.
The present invention aims to provide a tampon having improved absorption capacity compared to typical inclined-grooved or straight groove tampons known in the prior art. It is further an aim of the invention to provide a tampon that is soft to the touch and therefore comfortable to insert into the body cavity.
The advantages of the present tampons will become clear to the persons skilled in the art from the description and the accompanying figures provided below.

Tampon with improved absorption capacity


The present invention relates to a multi-luminous element and a method for manufacturing the same. The present invention provides the multi-luminous element comprising: a buffer layer disposed on a substrate; a first type semiconductor layer disposed on the buffer layer; a first active layer which is disposed on the first type semiconductor layer and is patterned to expose a part of the first type semiconductor layer; a second active layer disposed on the first type semiconductor layer which is exposed by the first active layer; and a second type semiconductor layer disposed on the first active layer and the second active layer, the first and second active layers being repeatedly disposed in the horizontal direction, and the method for manufacturing the same.

LED (Light Emitting Diode) is a sort of semiconductor device that converts an electric current into a light, and is used as a light source for illumination or display devices. In comparison with a conventional light source, LED has relatively excellent characteristics such as an ultra-small size, low power consumption, a long life, a fast reaction time, and the like. Additionally, no use of mercury or any other discharge gas is environmentally friendly.
Meanwhile, LED is used as a white light source, which is formed of a combination of red, green and blue LEDs, a combination of a blue LED and yellow phospher, or a combination of an UV LED and RGB phospher.
However, use of a conventional LED for a white light source may cause a complex structure, a complicated manufacturing process, a poor luminous efficiency, or the like.

Multi-luminous element and method for manufacturing same


The present invention is directed to catalysts obtained by mixing alkali fluorides with quaternary ammonium or phosphonium salts.. The present invention is also directed to a process for the production of these catalysts by stirring alkali fluorides and quaternary ammonium or phosphonium salts in alcohol, separating any deposits formed, removing the alcohol and converting the catalyst into useful form by dilution in solvents or absorption onto support materials.. Finally, the present invention is directed to the use of the new catalysts as trimerization catalysts for the production of polyisocyanates containing isocyanurate groups.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to new catalysts of alkali fluorides and quaternary ammonium or phosphonium salts, to a process for their production and to their use as trimerization catalysts for the production of polyisocyanates containing isocyanurate groups.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Catalysts for the trimerization of organic isocyanates are known (J. H. Saunders and K. C. Frisch, Polyurethanes, Chemistry and Technology, pages 94 et seq. (1962)). Suitable trimerization catalysts are strong organic bases such as the alkali metal salts of carboxylic acids, metal alcoholates, metal phenolates, alkali metal carbonates, tertiary amines, tertiary phosphines and the "onium" compounds of nitrogen and phosphorus and also basic heterocycles of these elements
The use of quaternary ammonium hydroxides as catalysts for the trimerization of isocyanurate groups has often been o described. Thus, according to JP-PS No. 601 337 (U.S.Pat. No. 3,487,080), quaternary ammonium hydroxides are used together with certain co-catalysts. While the examples primarily illustrate the partial trimerization of aromatic diisocyanates, some examples illustrate the partial trimerization of aliphatic diisocyanates. However, the catalysts used for the trimerization of HDI in these examples result in predominantly cloudy products which are not suitable for coatings applications.
EP-A-10 589 is a further development of the Japanese patent specification cited above. According to this prior publication, quaternary ammonium hydroxides containing hydroxyalkyl substituents are used as catalysts for the trimerization of HDI. With these catalysts, HDI can be excellently trimerized to form products with no cloudiness. The disadvantage is that the hydroxyalkyl ammonium hydroxides are extremely difficult to produce in colorless form and have to be used in relatively large quantities of up to 0.6%. As a result, the end products of the process, i.e., the isocyanurate polyisocyanates freed from excess starting diisocyanate, may possibly show a yellowish coloration.
EP-A-47,452 describes the production of mixed trimers based on HDI and IPDI. Again, as can be seen from the examples, comparatively large quantities of catalysts are necessary.
Other known catalyst systems for the production of polyisocyanates containing isocyanurate groups also have serious disadvantages. For example, GB-PS No. 920,080, DE-OS No. 3,100,262, DE-OS No. 3,219,608 and DE-OS No. 3,240,613 describe the trimerization of HDI using metal-containing catalysts and co-catalysts such as phenols, alcohols or tertiary amines. The metal compounds can only be removed from the end products by elaborate processes, if at all, and can adversely affect subsequent applications and also the stability of the end products. In addition, the use of cocatalysts containing active hydrogen atoms leads to secondary reactions in which valuable isocyanate groups are consumed. The same also applies to EP-A-155,559, in which ammonium salts of organic acids are used as catalysts together with large amounts of alcoholic compounds.
EP-A-57,653, EP-A-89,297 and EP-A-187,105 describe organosilicon compounds which are used in comparatively large quantities. These compounds also cannot be completely removed from the end product and adversely affect its subsequent use.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide new catalysts for the partial trimerization of the isocyanurate groups of organic isocyanates which afford the following advantages.
The quantity of catalyst required is minimal. PA1 There is no need to use large quantities of cocatalysts. PA1 The new trimerization catalysts for the production of isocyanurate polyisocyanates result in colorless, noncloudy end products when colorless, noncloudy starting isocyanates are used.
It has now surprisingly been found that this object can be achieved by the catalyst systems described in detail hereinafter.

New catalysts, their use for the production of isocyanurate polyisocyanates


Systems and apparatuses protect subsurface conduit. Specifically, the systems and apparatuses protect subsurface conduit by disposing one or more rigid caps over a length of the subsurface conduit under a roadway for decreasing and/or eliminating impacts and/or damage to the subsurface conduit caused by automobiles and other vehicles utilizing the roadway. Methods of making and using the same are further provided.

It is, of course, generally known to utilize subsurface conduit for relaying information or transmitting power under a surface of a roadway. Specifically, the network of roads and highways, for example, allow for the placement of conduit that may reach many different locations around the world. The conduit may be utilized for the transport of electricity and electrical signals, such as via communication cables and the like. Typically, the power and/or communication cables may be transported in an assembly, called a duct bank, that may be utilized to hold a plurality of such cables. The cables may be encased in any material known to one of ordinary skill in the art, such as in metal or plastic conduit, cement and/or fired-clay. Subsurface conduit may be assembled together to form a tile of duct, which generally has a square cross-section and may measure approximately 5 inches by 5 inches, formed of cement or fired clay. Typically, tiles may be assembled together to form multiple tile duct ("MTD"), including two or more blocks or tiles of ducts encased together, such as in cement or fired clay.
As noted, roads and highways provide ideal placement of subsurface conduit, generally because of the large network of roads and highways, allowing the conduit to be laid under the roads and highways. Indeed, conduit has been buried under roadways for many years, since the dawn of the modern roadway system. However, buried conduit may be subject to damage from a number of sources. For example, the pressure of vehicles on roadways may impact subsurface conduit deleteriously. Specifically, a typical vehicle may weigh approximately 3000 to 4000 pounds or more. When driven over a roadway, the impact on the roadway surface by the automobile may be transferred to the conduit causing damage to the conduit. Tractor trailers and other large vehicles, such as 18-wheeler semi-trucks may have an even more pronounced effect on subsurface conduit. Specifically, it is estimated that the damage to a roadway surface caused by one 18-wheeler truck having a legal weight limit may be equivalent to 9,600 average automobiles.
In many instances, conduit may be protected from the impact caused by vehicles when buried an adequate distance below the roadway surface, since surrounding substrate may more adequately absorb the impact and damage caused by vehicles. However, in many cases, subsurface conduit may be buried too close to the surface of a roadway, affording inadequate protection for the conduit.
Moving the conduit may not be an option in many circumstances. For example, there simply may not be enough space to move the conduit to protect the conduit fully. Moreover, there may be other structures that may interfere with the movement of the conduit, such as other subsurface conduits, pipes, sewers, gas lines, subways or other like structures. Therefore, moving the conduit may not be practical or even possible. In many cases, it may be more practical to abandon the existing conduit, and construct a new conduit instead. In either event, the conduit may need protection as it rests beneath the pavement of a road or highway.
A need, therefore, exists for systems and apparatuses for protecting subsurface conduit, such as conduit located under a roadway surface. Moreover, a need exists for systems and apparatuses for disposing over subsurface conduit to protect the same.
Moreover, a need exists for systems and apparatuses for protecting subsurface conduit, such as conduit located under a roadway surface, thereby preventing the need to move the conduit, such as if the conduit is subject to damage from vehicles traveling on the surface of the roadway. A need further exists for systems and apparatuses for protecting subsurface conduit, such as electrical and/or communication cables disposed within subsurface ductwork.
Further, a need exists for systems and apparatuses for protecting subsurface conduit, especially in circumstances when it is impractical or impossible to move the conduit. Still further, a need exists for systems and apparatuses for protecting subsurface conduit, wherein the conduit may be tiled together to form multiple tile duct.

Systems and apparatus for protecting subsurface conduit and methods of making and using the same


A new short-day strawberry plant named ‘A13-72’ is disclosed, with exceptional yield and flavor characteristics.

'A13-72' is a product of a controlled breeding program carried out by the inventor in the Andalucia region of Spain. 'A13-72' was one of several seedlings resulting from an uncontrolled cross made in the year 2013. The seeds resulting from the uncontrolled cross were germinated indoors and the resulting seedling was transplanted to the trial seedling field. 'A13-72' was selected in the Andalucia region of Spain in the year 2014 based on observations of its fruiting characteristics. In 2015, 'A13-72' was asexually propagated by rooting stolons and was expanded to 30 plants which were planted in replicated trials in the Andalucia region of Spain. The plants were observed and evaluated, and the next year they were expanded for further observation and evaluation. The breeders of 'A13-72' has sold the variety commercially under the Trademark name "Chelsea WB" or "Chelsea Circle R Brand". Contrast is made with the 'San Andreas' (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 19,975) variety in reference to the color of the fruit; 'A13-72' fruit is orange red in color whereas 'San Andreas' presents a medium red fruit. Comparison is made with strawberry variety 'BG-4316' (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 23,255) known commercially in Europe as 'Victory'. The plants of 'A13-72' variety produce a yield of 694.67 g per plant while 'BG-4316' presents a higher yield of 810.66 g per plant. The fruit of 'A13-72' has a firmness of 382 in the penetrometer while 'BG-4316' variety has a greater firmness of 414 in the penetrometer. The fruit of 'A13-26' has a sweeter flavor with a brix of 8.9, while 'BG-4316' contains a brix of 7.6. Fruit of the variety 'A13-72' is very unique for its characteristic flavor, good content of sugars during the harvest and for being a juicy, soft fruit. These characteristics allows for commercial use in premium quality markets, giving it a differentiation. Throughout several generations of asexual propagation, 'A13-72' has been observed to retain its distinctive characteristics and remain true to type.
The colors of these illustrations may vary with lighting conditions and, therefore, color characteristics of this new variety should be determined with reference to the observations described herein, rather than from these illustrations alone.


A network of satellites delivers communications through bi-directional communication links between individual ones of the satellites. Each satellite terminates a plurality of links. All satellites are synchronized to recognize a constant duration frame structure. For each link in the network, satellites at both ends of the link simultaneously transmit data communications into their respective ends of the link using the same frequency band. Transmissions into all links supported by a satellite occur simultaneously. The transmissions continue for a duration that is responsive to the distance between the satellites. Transmissions cease for all links supported by a satellite when the communications from the opposing link nodes have nearly propagated the entire distances between the satellites. After ceasing transmissions, each satellite receives the communications previously transmitted from the opposing satellites into the links therebetween.

Bi-directional communications may use communication links or channels through which signals are delivered. Such signals may be sent over wires, optical fibers, or be modulated for delivery through space in the form of RF communications or for delivery through water or air in the form of acoustic communications. Bi-directional communications address interference problems. For example, when two nodes exchange communications, each node must be able to distinguish its own transmitted signals from the signals transmitted by the other node.
Conventional bi-directional communications contemplate full duplex or half duplex operation. Full duplex operation uses two, oppositely directed, simplex or unidirectional links which operate simultaneously. No interference results because the two links operate independently from one another. For example, one link may use an entirely separate set of wires or fibers from the other link, or one link may use an entirely separate frequency band or set of frequencies from the other link. With full duplex operation, each party transmits over one link while simultaneously receiving over the other link. Half duplex operation utilizes only a single link. Communication may travel in either direction over this single link so long as it travels in only one direction at a time. Interference is avoided because nodes which utilize the link refrain from transmitting and receiving at the same time.
Full duplex operation is often preferred over half duplex operation. Assuming that a single half duplex link and the two simplex links used by a full duplex operation have the same capacity, a greater amount of data may be communicated using full duplex operation. Moreover, with full duplex operation, link management and timing concerns become trivial. On the other hand, with half duplex operation the communication system must devise schemes to determine when to allow different nodes to transmit over the link.
When RF communication links are established through space, and particularly outer space, the desirability of full duplex operation fades. For example, even though two simplex links may utilize different portions of the spectrum, transmission circuits adapted to operate in one portion of the spectrum must be isolated from receive circuits that are adapted to operate in another portion of the spectrum. This isolation is often accomplished at the cost of massive shielding and increased circuit complexity. When the node operating one end of the link is a satellite, the weight of shielding and increased circuit complexity can make satellite costs excessive.
Moreover, when a node operates more than one bi-directional link, the total number of independent spectrum bands needed to carry non-interfering communications increases. Thus, a given amount of spectrum may be divided into a greater number of closely spaced independent frequency bands. As the number of frequency bands increases, so do the isolation problems discussed above.
While conventional half duplex operation does not suffer from the isolation problems associated with full duplex operation, it has its own problems. The half duplex requirement that only one node use the link at a time results in an inefficient use of the link. Nodes may be required to wait between transmitting one communication and receiving another. The wait is imposed by the time it takes the communications to travel between nodes, and is often greater than the duration of a communication signal's round trip between the nodes. For example, a first node that has just completed a first transmission into a link must wait for a second node to finish receiving the first transmission, for the second node to begin a second transmission, and for the second transmission to reach the first node, before receiving data from the link. When nodes are located hundreds or thousands of miles apart, this wait can impose significant delays on communication. Moreover, as more nodes engage in half duplex communication among each other, the amount of data that can be delivered between any two nodes decreases.


A steering control apparatus includes a first wire and a second wire extending from a distal end of a catheter to a steering assembly. The steering assembly includes a steering knob disposed at an exterior of the handle, a cylindrical steering shaft projecting from the steering knob and into the interior of the handle, a first cylindrical drum disposed within the handle and connected to the first wire, and a second cylindrical drum within the handle and connected to the second wire. The first drum is configured to engage the steering shaft to produce tension on the first wire. The first drum is coaxial with the steering shaft. The second drum is configured to engage the steering shaft to produce tension on the second wire. The second drum is coaxial with the steering shaft and axially adjacent to the first drum.

Medical catheters are widely used to provide access to locations within a body to treat diseases. Medical therapy devices may be connected to an end of the catheter and the catheter steered within the body to position the therapy device at the treatment location. For example, cardiac arrhythmias may be treated by the ablation of specific heart tissue found to be causing arrhythmia. Ablation may be performed by a number of techniques, including the local application of energy, for example, radio frequency energy, or by the application of cryogenic temperatures to the site of the problem tissue. An ablation electrode may be a therapy device at or near the end of the catheter for providing the radio frequency energy. An ablation balloon may be a therapy device at or near the end of the catheter to for providing the cryogenic temperatures.
The specific heart tissue responsible for arrhythmia in a patient may be identified by moving a mapping catheter having one or more electrodes around the interior of the heart and measuring cardiac signals to sense changes in the electrical fields. A map of the electrical conductivity of the heart may be formed from the measurements to identify abnormalities which may be candidates for ablation. Some mapping catheters are designed such that the electrodes may physically contact the heart wall, including flexible designs that are inserted in a compact form and later deployed into a basket-like array. Such an electrode array may be a therapy device at or near the end of the catheter for mapping the electrical conductivity of the heart.
Particularly useful steerable catheters are those in which the end with the therapy device may be deflected in two different directions. Such catheters require a steering control apparatus able to reliably deflect the end of the catheter in both directions.

Bidirectional steering control apparatus for a catheter


In a printing device, it is possible to automatically place a print head on the peripheral positions of the print area without actual printing operation.. By employing the above arrangement, an operator can exactly determine a proper size of print sheet for the text to be printed, with no waste of sheet and printing time.

This invention relates to a printing device, and more particularly, to a printing device capable of confirming a print area prior to executing an actual printing operation so that an operator is able to select a suitable sheet form.
Conventionally, a printing device such as an electronic typewriter has been provided with a print head unit operated for printing characters, symbols and/or figures on a printing medium such as a paper sheet. The print head unit is mounted on a carriage so as to be movable by a carriage drive mechanism in a direction perpendicular to a sheet feed direction.
Further, recent electronic typewriters have been arranged such that right and left margins as well as top and bottom margins can be freely set so far as it is physically allowed. This makes it possible to execute a printing operation in consideration of the interval ruled lines, and the length of a header or a footer, provided on a printed form sheet.
However, when a text data, for instance, which has already been prepared and stored in a text file memory is to be printed out, it is necessary to confirm the margins of the print area, having been set, of the text file to decide on the type of the print sheet for use. That is, without specifying how wide the margins of print area are, printing may go outside the print sheet or over the header or the footer.
In order to solve the above problem, selection of the sheet type may be done by checking the file information on a display before a printing operation is executed. For instance, the text itself may be shown on the display or the values assigned to the margins may be indicated, whereby the result of printing can be estimated by referring to the scale provided on a printer. However, a real state of printing could hardly be obtained by this way, because it has been unlikely that the carriage is moved exactly as indicated by the values or the indication on the display because of possible hardware errors or software incompatibilities.

Non-printing carriage movement to indicate margin size


Embodiments are directed to techniques to determine dataflow graph instructions comprising one or more pick/switch instruction pairs and generate a reverse static single assignment graph based on the dataflow graph instructions, the reverse static single assignment graph comprising strongly connected components, each of the strongly connected components associated with at least one of the one or more pick/switch instruction pairs. Embodiments also include traversing the reverse static single assignment graph depth-first, and replace pick/switch instructions associated with strongly connected components having configuration values with compound instructions.

Exascale systems are projected to integrate on the order of 100,000 processor nodes to achieve enormous processing goals, as defined by the Department of Energy, of 1 ExaFLOPs within an aggressive power budget (20 MW). However, simultaneously improving the performance and energy efficiency of program execution with classical von Neumann architectures has become difficult and incur high energy cost. To achieve performance and energy requirements simultaneously, a new kind of architecture is required which targets high performance computing (HPC).

Sequence optimizations in a high-performance computing environment


Disclosed is a portable table assembly having a table top, a solid elongate cylindrical stem that receives and carries the table top. The portable table assembly is easily assembled and adaptable for a wide variety of uses including, but not limited to, outdoor/lawn gaming, parks and general recreation, outdoor sporting and concert events, tailgate parties, camping, gardening, and beach use (with or without a beach umbrella).

Current tables and table tops are restricted to either indoor or outdoor uses and have very little versatility. For example, certain existing tables and table tops have restricted portability due to their size and/or weight. Most of the currently existing portable table tops have permanently attached, collapsible/foldable legs, but are incapable of being disassembled for transport purposes. Alternatively and when configured for disassembly, existing portable tables are difficult to disassemble often requiring tools for disassembly as well as a prolonged time period for doing so. Furthermore, many of these portable table tops are not readily adaptable for different activities including, but not limited to, patio/porch use, outdoor/lawn gaming, parks and general recreation, outdoor sporting and concert events, tailgate parties, camping, gardening, and beach use.
Therefore a need exists to provide table(s) and table assemblies that overcome the limitations of the above mentioned portable tables and table tops and that allows for an entire variety of uses including at least, but not limited to, patio/porch use, outdoor/lawn gaming, parks and general recreation outdoor sporting and concert events, tailgate parties, camping, gardening, and beach use.


A zero insertion force connector basing on surface contact having a connector base with multiple connecting terminals installed thereon in array form, a sliding cover, and a clamping lever for securing the sliding cover in position. Each connecting terminal is appropriately bent at the lower end to form a contact surface, so that when the connector is placed on a substrate, each connecting terminal is matched by a corresponding solder pad leading to the internal circuit inside the substrate. With only a small amount of applied force to join the connecting terminals onto the substrate by soldering, the connector can thus be mounted onto the substrate with reliability.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a zero insertion force connector, in particular to a structural design of the connecting terminals on the connector that can prevent PGA package pins from damaging the plated through holes and poor contacts of solder balls for BGA packages, basing on surface contact to join the zero insertion force connector and the substrate.
2. Description of Related Arts
For Intel""s Pentium(trademark) series of CPU, with the exception of Pentium II(trademark), the new generation of Pentium CPUs has used the zero insertion force connector to mount onto the substrate as shown in FIG. 4. The connector comprises a connector base (70), a sliding cover (71), and a clamping lever (72)
The connector base (70) having multiple connecting terminals (701) in PGA form (as shown in FIG. 5) is to be inserted into corresponding through holes (81) in the substrate (80) and joined with the substrate (80) after soldering the projections on the back side. The connector could also be adapted for solder ball type BGA packages.
The sliding cover (71) is to be placed over the connector base (70), allowing the cover (71) to be shifted horizontally over the surface of the connector base (70). The cover (71) has multiple insertion holes (711) on the surface in array format (as shown in FIG. 4). Each insertion hole (711) is matched by a corresponding connecting terminal (701) on the connector base (70). However, the insertion holes (711) and the connecting terminals (701) on the connector base (70) are in alternately arranged positions before shifting of the sliding cover (71). The cover (71) has to be slid horizontally from the first position to the second position, so that the insertion holes (711) are lined up with the connecting terminals (701) on the substrate (80), and the CPU with the projections are inserted onto the insertion hole (711) of the sliding cover (71). When the cover (71) is initially placed in the first position, the PGA package pins of the CPU are kept separate from the connecting terminals (701), but when the cover (71) is moved into the second position, the PGA package pins can be inserted through the insertion holes (711) and make contact with the connecting terminals (701) for electrical connection.
The clamping lever (72) is installed on the common end of the connector base (70) and the sliding cover (71) on the lateral side, clamping together the opposing faces of the sliding cover (71) and connector base (70) separated by a small distance. The clamping lever (72) is used for securing the sliding cover to prevent any horizontal shifting after mounting of the connector.
The mechanical components and the operating principles of the zero insertion force connector have been widely publicized in related literature, so this part therefore will not be further discussed. The focus of the present disclosure is on how to install the zero insertion force connector onto the substrate with good reliability and the structure associated therewith.
A typical connecting terminal (701) of zero insertion force connector for a pin grid array (PGA) package, as shown in FIG. 5, are designed with the connecting terminals (701) directly inserted into the substrate (80) through the plated through holes (81). Since the projected ends of the connecting terminals (701) are quite sharp, the pointed terminals (701) often cause physical damage to the electroplated layer on the through holes (81), thereby affecting the electrical performance of the substrate (80).
Another kind of commonly used zero insertion force connector is constructed for ball grid array (BGA) packages (as shown in FIG. 6). The connecting terminals (701) of this kind of package are connected to the substrate by means of solder balls. These solder balls acting as terminals are so tiny and densely packed in a relatively small grid that an abnormal phenomenon will develop when the surface of the substrate (80) is not smooth. That is, a small portion of the solder balls cannot form solid contact with the solder pads on the substrate.
Thus the installation of zero insertion force connectors on the substrate, for both PGA and BGA packages, still has certain flaws using the conventional techniques mentioned above. There are risks of damaging the internal circuit on the substrate for PGA packages and poor electrical contact for BGA packages. To overcome the above-mentioned situations an improved connecting apparatus and technique is needed.
The main object of the present invention is to provide a zero insertion force connector that is capable of preventing physical damage to the internal circuit connected through plated through holes as well as eliminating poor contacts for ball grid array packages.
The zero insertion force connector in accordance with the present invention comprises:
a connector base having multiple connecting terminals in array format;
a sliding cover which can shift horizontally over the connector base into predetermined position; and
a clamping lever with an xe2x80x9cLxe2x80x9d shape construct, the horizontal portion of which is fixed on the common end of the connector base, used for clamping against the sliding cover to prevent the cover from shifting in the horizontal direction.
Each connecting terminal on the connector base is formed as in a strip having one end bent to form a contact plate matching against the circuit junctions at predetermined positions on the substrate.
When the connector is appropriately placed over the substrate and a small amount of pressure is applied, the connecting terminals come into contact with the circuit junctions on the substrate, so that the connector can join with the substrate with good reliability after soldering of the joints at the back of the substrate has been performed.
The lower portion of the connecting terminals forming the contact plate is bent at a predetermined angle to ensure good contact with the corresponding pad on the substrate.
The features and structure of the present invention will be more clearly understood when taken in conjunction with the accompanying figures.

Zero insertion force connector basing on surface contact


A computer-based method for improving the timely delivery of telemetry or other application-to-application data. A telemetry routing table is stored in memory that includes entries for a plurality of communication pathways for delivering a telemetry message from a telemetry application running on a first computer system to a telemetry reception application running on a second computer system. The table entries include a latency and a measured data delivery rate for transmittal of data over the corresponding pathway. The method includes generating a telemetry message having a particular data payload using the telemetry application and then selecting one of the communication pathways using the telemetry application based on a size of the data payload, the latencies, and the data delivery rates for the pathways (e.g., determining a total transit time for the payload for each pathway and selecting the pathway corresponding to the shortest transit time).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to communications and data transfer among computers and network nodes, and, more particularly, to software, hardware, and computer systems for analyzing communication performance between applications, such as telemetry data generation and reception/monitoring applications, running on networked computing devices and for managing data transfer between the applications to provide enhanced performance or maintain desired levels of performance.
2. Relevant Background
In today's society, a huge amount of digital data is transferred over communications networks that may be made up of local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), intranets, the Internet, other communication channels and networks, and any combination of such networks. For network designers and operators and for those using these networks for the transfer of their messages and data, an ongoing and difficult problem is how to control communications over these complicated networks to obtain not only predictable and secure communications but also so as to achieve the most prompt delivery of the message or data. In other words, it is often important that the information transmitted from an application or computing device be received in a timely manner by another application or computing device.
There are numerous sources of latency (i.e., time delay or the time it takes to get information through a network) and/or slow throughput in digital communications networks. Often congestion may occur in the middle transport or public network portion of the network between two communicating applications. However, congestion also may occur on the portions of the network that are within the control of the entities operating computer device or node running the source application and/or the target destination application. For example, congestion may occur on the LAN segment of the source device or occur on the WAN segment to which the source device connects (e.g., a pre-existing high utilization condition on a WAN link or the like). Additionally, the source network may use a WAN protocol that introduces latency such as would be the case if a high-overhead or high-correction protocol (e.g., the X.25 protocol). Further, general WAN latency may be experienced by a connection or channel selected by the source application due to multi-hop Internet pathways, committed information rates of variable network types such as Frame Relay Committed Information Rate (CIR), efficiency of connection based on values such as Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU), and fragmentation and re-transmits experienced across a WAN path. Similarly, congestion and latency may be introduced within networks and/or communication channels under the control of operators or entities maintaining a destination network. For example, congestion may occur on the WAN segment of the target destination network or on the LAN segment of the destination network and/or host/system. Other causes of latency may be directly related to the source or destination application such as high operating system layer utilization bottlenecks on generating or processing a message or such as performance issues related to a particular source or target application.
Controlling or limiting latency and slow throughput on a network may be important in many cases where two applications need to communicate over a network. For example, a number of companies have developed systems in which they monitor operating computer systems by gathering telemetry data at a host or source system or network with a telemetry generation application, transferring this data over a communications network to another computer device linked to the network, and using a monitoring/analysis application to process the received telemetry data. These systems may be thought of as telemetry systems that collect and store telemetry data on behalf of their customers. During operation, the telemetry systems monitor generated or incoming data streams in real time for significant events and analyze the data using complex pattern recognition and statistical analysis formulas to predict possible faults. The nature and definition of telemetry data may vary but typically includes alarm messages or utilization statistics for which message sizes are typically only a few hundred bytes and may include large quantities of system configuration data that is transmitted in messages whose payloads can easily be several megabytes in sizes. A useful definition of telemetry data or messages may be any data or messages that may be polled, received, or analyzed regardless of its size that may provide benefit in terms of maintaining and/or increasing availability or performance of a particular computer device or system, e.g., any data collected from a source system by a source telemetry application for use in monitoring and/or analyzing performance of the source system.
In telemetry systems, telemetry data is considered time-sensitive data, and it is generally desirable to provide the fastest possible collection of the data at the source system and delivery of the data to a telemetry analysis system (e.g., an analysis application running on a node or device linked to a network). Ideally, a telemetry connection channel used to communicate the telemetry data between the source and analysis system (e.g., telemetry source and destination) should have adequate bandwidth, low latency, and zero or very low downtime. The value of the telemetry data collection process diminishes rapidly as delivery time to the destination increases. For example, for an online retailer, discovering that a critical event occurred in their environment or computer network/system and is having a financial impact (e.g., buyers cannot complete purchases and the like) to their revenue stream is highly valuable data that needs to be put to immediate use to correct a problem. In this case, a delay of even a few minutes or seconds may mean many lost sales, irritated customers, or worse. In another example, complex predictive modeling algorithms that are used in telemetry analysis may produce differing results if one or more data points are lost or delayed. This may result in a significant failure or operating problem in a computer system not being predicted prior to its occurrence or prior to a time when it may be prevented. In these and other similar application-to-application communication environments, the fastest possible delivery to data is often a critical factor in being able to use the data in a meaningful way.
Existing communication techniques generally involve a source application generating a message or data payload, selecting a source for the message, and transmitting the message with its data payload over a communications network. The source application has no control over the latency, bandwidth, and availability of the communication channels used to transmit the generated message. Hardware solutions are sometimes implemented by building LANs, WANs, and connections that provide desired latencies and bandwidths. However, congestion may still occur in such networks, and differing communication paths in the LANs, WANs, and connections between the source application and the connection to the middle transport such as the Internet may have differing transmission characteristics such as differing bandwidth and latency that result in data transmitted on such communication paths reaching the destination or target at differing throughput rates. Similar differences in throughput rates may occur at the destination or target system such as between a connection to the middle transport and the destination (e.g., in the destination LAN, WAN, or the like). Efforts have been made to enhance data transfer within the middle transport such as between routers. Such efforts typically include complex algorithms and counters implemented at lower layers of the data transfer protocol stack (e.g., in the network layer of the TCP/IP protocol stack). While improving communication rates and reliability within the middle transport such as the Internet, these efforts may still result in application-to-application communications varying significantly and having undesirable delays in message receipt by a target or destination application such as when a communication channel is out of service or when there is a problem within a source or destination system rather than in the public network.
Hence, there remains a need for improved methods and systems for optimizing network communications between two applications. Preferably, such methods and systems would be particularly well suited for analyzing and optimizing telemetry streams or telemetry signals transmitted from a telemetry generation application to a destination analysis application to enhance real time analysis of telemetry data.

Telemetry stream performance analysis and optimization


An exercise device 12 is presented wherein a user 14 exercises the abdominal muscles and/upperbody strength training by throwing a ball 16 into a ball shoot 18 or against a rebound surface 20. The user 14 places back 22 on a horizontal fixed back rest portion 24 and buttocks 26 on a pivotal seat 28 and feet 30 on an adjustable device 32 provided for securing the feet. Springs 34 provides shock dissipation while the user 14 catches ball 16 in a downward position. The user 14 throws ball 16 in an upward movement into a ball shoot 18 retrieving ball 16 located at bottom ball ramp 36.

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for strength training the upper body of a user, particularly the abdominal region, and more particularly to a method and apparatus which utilizes ball throwing and retrieving repetition to effect such strengthening of the abdominal and upper body muscles An apparatus has been previously suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 6,280,367 10 issued to Arsenault on Aug. 28, 2001, incorporated herein by reference for details relating to the general construction and functionality of an apparatus suitable for use in deflecting a ball thrown by a seated user in a direction back to the user, in which as disclosed therein, a user exercises the abdominal muscles by throwing a ball against a net system. As described therein, the user places his buttocks 15 and feet on a stationary platform (seat), and his head and back on a pivotable platform (backrest) which pivots about a hinge, spring biased in a raised position relative to the stationary platform. The spring provides lift assistance when the user throws the ball and shock dissipation when the user catches the ball. Foot straps are provided for securing the feet of the user. Nets are mounted 20 on supports, which are vertically adjustable. When used as intended, the user lies on his back upon the base platform with his feet secured within the foot straps located in the proximity of the deflection net. The user's feet and buttocks reside on the stationary portion of the base platform while his back and head are supported by the pivoting backrest which is at approximately a 45 degree angle to the floor and stationary portion The user begins the exercise by holding a ball and leaning back against the pivoting backrest to provide tension on the spring mechanism so he is propelled forward when he begins the sit-up. As the user is moving upward he throws the ball towards one of the deflection nets (i.e., center, right or left) depending upon which abdominal-muscle group is selected to be worked
In accordance with the disclosure of the aforementioned prior art reference, the user attempts to time the throw so that the rebounding ball can be caught as he is heading back down to the reclined position where the tension spring provides resistance to dissipate impact and then reverses momentum to provide upward impetus for the next throw. While effective if performed properly, such timing may be difficult to achieve in practice for the novice or for individuals not in possession of sufficient muscle strength or coordination skills.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus which facilitates practicing a method in which a ball is repeatedly thrown and retrieved by a user for purposes of upper body strength training with particular emphasis on the abdominal muscle groups, and which is readily implemented by even the most inexperienced of individuals
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus which overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art. It is a further object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus which allows a user to effectively and reliably strengthen many of the muscles of the upper body, particularly including the abdominal region, in a manner that is easy to implement even by the most inexperienced novice.

Method and apparatus for abdominal and upper body strength training


A method for controlling a snow-trail grooming vehicle for grooming snow trails and especially for distributing the driving power which is made available by a drive motor of a snow-trail grooming vehicle onto a chain or track drive thereon and further consumers. According to the invention, the distribution of the driving power or control by a central processing system occurs as the central processing system varies distribution of the driving power in dependency of a specifiable, changeable prioritizing of the drive and at least one consumer or groups of consumers.

A snow-trail grooming vehicle is known from the international patent publication WO 01/55511 A2, with which a vehicle speed can be detected above a snow surface by means of a radar speed detector arranged on the vehicle. The chain speed is compared with this vehicle speed and a slip is calculated from these values. Based on the calculated slip a chain tension can be automatically adjusted. The snow-trail grooming vehicle described in this reference provides furthermore that an operator specifies, when using a half-pipe shaver, a target angle and a tolerance for the half-pipe shaver. The actual operating angle of the half-pipe shaver is monitored and the half-pipe shaver can be automatically controlled in view of a maintaining of the target angle. The thickness of the snow under the vehicle can be determined by means of radar penetrating through the snow to the earth, and a map with snow-thickness informations can be set up by combining the thickness of the snow determined by means of the radar and by means of position data collected by a GPS navigation system. The snow-trail grooming vehicle has detecting and indicating devices for a slope incline and for the adjustment of snow-trail grooming devices.
The operation of a snow-trail grooming vehicle is simplified with the invention.

Snow-trail grooming vehicle and method for controlling same


A pharmaceutical composition for nasal administration comprising: a nanoemulsified curcumin component; a liquid medium for the curcumin component; and a pharmaceutically acceptable excipient. The curcumin component is a natural curcuminoid, a synthetic curcuminoid, a metabolite of a natural or synthetic curcuminoid, or a mixture thereof. The excipient is effective in increasing the bioavailability of the curcumin component.

The eye is a complex and sensitive organ of the body, which can experience numerous diseases. The eye poses many barriers to protect any damage to its tissues. This also means that the anterior portion of the eye is more susceptible to diseases. The first and foremost barrier is the conjunctiva, which is the mucous membrane surrounding the eye ball. It is constantly exposed to many harsh conditions/allergens through the environmental factors it encounters. This leads to the allergic reactions in the eye mediated by mast cells through the release of histamine leading to the condition called allergic conjunctivitis or other associated inflammatory conditions like redness and swelling of the eye. These allergic conditions are either seasonal which occurs only during specific time of the year and is termed seasonal allergic conjunctivitis (SAC) or perennial that occurs throughout the year and termed perennial allergic conjunctivitis (PAC). Some allergic conditions extend even to the cornea such as atopic keratoconjunctivitis, vernal conjunctivitis and giant papillary conjunctivitis.
These conditions are typically characterized by red, itchy and swollen eyes with watery discharge. This is largely attributed to the degranulation of mast cells due to the cross-linking of IgE upon allergen sensitization leading to an outburst of histamine in the conjunctiva. The conjunctiva being rich in mast cells, experiences an overdose of histamine upon allergen sensitization, resulting in the itching and redness of the eye. Current treatment methods involve anti-histamine drops (emedastine difumarate and levocabastine), topical mast cell stabilizers (olopatadine, ketotifen), decongestants and topical anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID's and corticosteroids).
Allergic rhinitis is an inflammation of the nasal passages, usually associated with watery nasal discharge and itching of the nose and eyes. The symptoms occur in the nose and eyes and usually occur after exposure to dust, danders, or certain seasonal pollens. Patients can be severely restricted in their daily activities, resulting in excessive time away from school or work. Millions of dollars are spent each year on physician services and medication for treatment of this chronic illness. Many perennial and seasonal allergens cause allergic rhinitis the former giving rise to perennial allergic rhinitis (PAR) and the latter giving rise to seasonal allergic conjunctivitis (SAR).
Dust mites, cockroaches, molds and animal dander, are examples of year-around allergens.
Characteristic symptoms include repetitive sneezing; rhinorrhea (runny nose); post-nasal drip; nasal congestion; pruritic (itchy) eyes, ears, nose or throat; and generalized fatigue. Symptoms can also include wheezing, eye tearing, sore throat, and impaired smell. A chronic cough may be secondary to postnasal drip, but should not be mistaken for asthma. Sinus headaches and ear plugging are also common.
Anti-Histamines and Decongestants for Allergic Conjunctivitis
Anti-histamines are available for treating Allergic Conjunctivitis and are available in the market as tablets, capsules and liquids, and may or may not be combined with decongestants. Common anti-histamines include brompheniramine or chlorpheniramine, and clemastine. Non-sedating (less likely to cause drowsiness) long-acting anti-histamines include loratidine and fexofenadine. Oral decongestants alone may be helpful, including pseudoephedrine.
Nasal Sprays
For rhinorrhea, a nasal spray of cromolyn sodium (Nasalcrom) or a steroid nasal spray, such as flunisolide (Nasalide), beclomethasone dipropionate (Beconase, Vancenase), triamcinolone acetonide (Nasacort), and fluticasone (Flonase), may work so well that additional anti-histamines or decongestants are unnecessary. It is important to remember that improvement may not occur for one to two weeks after starting therapy with steroid nasal sprays. Short courses of oral corticosteroids may usually be indicated when severe nasal symptoms prevent the adequate delivery of topical agents. But due to their unpleasant side-effects, there has been a tremendous surge in demand for non-steroidal, plant based anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic agents and their potential use in various therapeutic applications. Curcuminoids are one such class of compounds that have proven anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic properties.
Curcuminoids are natural, polyphenolic compounds present in turmeric in three different forms a) Curcumin b) Bisdemethoxy curcumin and c) Demethoxy curcumin. Curcumin is the principal curcuminoid and has exceptionally potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity, which can prevent cell damage caused by free-radicals (oxidative stress) and inflammation. The current level of interest on curcumin and its analogs/derivatives is known from the below mentioned articles.
Process for producing enriched fractions of bis-o-demethylcurcumin and tetrahydrotetrahydroxy-curcumin from the extracts of curcuma longa is disclosed in our earlier PCT Application #WO/2007/043058. According to this publication, bis-o-demethyl curcumin shows most potent anticancer, anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory activity when compared to other curcuminoids and the natural mixture of curcumins.
However, the use of natural curcuminoids, such as curcumin, bisdemethoxycurcumin demethoxycurcumin and synthetically derived bis-o-demethyl curcumin and/or other demethylated curcuminoids either alone or in combination in ophthalmic formulations is not known in the prior art. Natural curcuminoids, such as curcumin, bisdemethoxycurcumin demethoxycurcumin and synthetically derived bis-o-demethyl curcumin and/or other demethylated curcuminoids either alone or in combination being a lipophilic drug have low aqueous solubility, and hence restrict the therapeutic availability of the same.
All curcuminoids, both natural and synthetic have lipophilic structures with conjugated double bonds with a keto group thus rendering them to have a dielectric constant which will interact with negatively charged membranes making it unable to permeate through the biological membrane. Thus, for these curcuminoids to pass through membranes, it is necessary to encapsulate these molecules with lipophilic molecules. Moreover, it is necessary to make the lattice of molecules as a single entity so that these encapsulated molecules can be transported across membranes.
Anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory drugs are classified into analgesics, anti-histamines, anti-microbials, corticosteroids and non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). These classes of drugs are used to treat variety of ocular disorders. Prolonged use of corticosteroids, NSAIDs, and the other groups of above mentioned classes of drugs results in glaucoma, optic nerve damage, vision problems, cataract, or secondary ocular infections.
Accordingly, the current disclosure provides a potential successor in the field of ophthalmology with a novel phytopharmaceutical composition for the treatment of ocular and nasal diseases/disorders. Surprisingly, preliminary experiments conducted have demonstrated the use of surfactants and cosolvents in solubilizing curcuminoids up to 200 mg w/v thereby aiding effective solubilization in aqueous medium. The current method involves coating of curcuminoids using surfactants and a cosolvent in order to enhance the curcuminoids aqueous solubility and hence its permeation across the cell membrane.
Therefore, the current disclosure describes hitherto unexploited and novel ophthalmic composition(s) comprising natural curcuminoids, such as curcumin, bisdemethoxycurcumin demethoxycurcumin and synthetically derived bis-o-demethyl curcumin and/or other demethylated curcuminoids either alone or in combination, together with surfactants and/or cosolvents as aqueous ophthalmic composition(s) in the form of gel/suspension/ointment for ocular diseases or disorders.

Curcuminoids and its metabolites for the application in allergic ocular/nasal conditions


An integrated protection circuit is provided to protect an integrated component against an electrostatic discharge with a conductive structure between the integrated component and a housing terminal, whereby two substantially parallel conductive sections of the conductive structure guide the electrostatic discharge in a preferential direction by inductive coupling.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated protection circuit to protect against an electrostatic discharge current (ESD) and an integrated oscillator circuit of a global positioning system (GPS).
2. Description of the Background Art
A protection structure for an integrated protection circuit to protect against an electrostatic discharge (ESD—electrostatic discharge) is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,873,505 B2, which also explains a protection circuit for electrostatic discharges. The protection structure is connected to a common discharge line (CDL). In an exemplary embodiment of U.S. Pat. No. 6,873,505 B2, the semiconductor component comprises a plurality of bond pads, each of which is assigned a protection circuit with a protection structure. For protection, a controlled semiconductor rectifier (SCR), which can also be called a thyristor, is provided, whose triggering voltage is reduced by a Zener diode as the triggering element.


A compressor is provided. The compressor may include a fixed wrap, and an orbiting scroll having an orbiting wrap engaged with the fixed wrap to form compression chambers. The fixed wrap and the orbiting wrap may have irregular wrap curves. At least one interference avoiding portion at which a spacing between the wraps is greater than an orbiting radius or at least one gap compensating portion at which the spacing between the wraps is smaller than the orbiting radius, in a state in which a center of the fixed scroll and a center of the orbiting scroll are aligned with each other, may be provided on a sidewall surface of the fixed wrap or the orbiting wrap, whereby frictional loss or abrasion due to interference between the wraps or a refrigerant leakage due to a gap between the wraps may be prevented.

1. Field
A scroll compressor is disclosed herein.
2. Background
In general, scroll compressors are widely used for refrigerant compression in air-conditioners, to obtain a relatively higher compression ratio in comparison to other types of compressors, and acquire a stable torque resulting from smooth strokes of suction, compression, and discharge of the refrigerant. A behavior of the scroll compressor is dependent on shapes of a fixed wrap and an orbiting wrap. The fixed wrap and the orbiting wrap may have a random shape, but typically they have a shape of an involute curve, which is easy to manufacture. An involute curve refers to a curve corresponding to a track drawn by an end of a thread when unwinding the thread wound around a basic circle with a predetermined radius. When such an involute curve is used, the wrap has a uniform thickness, and a rate of volume change of the compression chamber is constantly maintained. Hence, a number of turns of the wrap should be increased to obtain a sufficient compression ratio, which may, however, cause the compressor to be increased in size corresponding to the increased number of turns of the wrap.
The scroll compressor may be provided with a rotation-preventing member, such as an Oldham ring, provided between the orbiting scroll and a frame that supports the orbiting scroll or a fixed scroll, so as to induce an orbiting motion by preventing rotation of the orbiting scroll. However, when the Oldham ring is provided in the scroll compressor, a gap is formed between a key and a key groove, which are located at or on the Oldham ring and the orbiting scroll, respectively. The gap may cause the orbiting scroll to be temporarily rotated or inversely rotated during operation. Due to the rotation or inverse rotation of the orbiting scroll, an interference or gap may be formed between an orbiting wrap and a fixed wrap according to a crank angle in each of a compression chamber (hereinafter, referred to as "a first compression chamber") formed outside of the orbiting wrap, and a compression chamber (hereinafter, referred to as a "second compression chamber") formed inside of the orbiting wrap. This results from the fact that an orbiting radius of the orbiting wrap changes without remaining still at a moment of the rotation or the inverse rotation of the orbiting scroll. When the fixed wrap and the orbiting wrap have an involute or algebraic spiral shape, in which a wrap curve of the fixed wrap and the orbiting wrap has a uniform shape along a turning direction of the wrap, the interference or gap is minorly generated. However, in a scroll compressor in which the wrap curve of the fixed wrap and the orbiting wrap is irregular in the turning direction of the wrap, a great interference or gap may be generated. In this manner, if such interference or gap is generated at a specific portion between the orbiting wrap of the orbiting scroll and the fixed wrap of the fixed scroll, abrasion due to interference between the wraps or compression loss due to the gap between the wraps may be caused.

Scroll compressor with recesses and protrusions


A shock and vibrations isolator having a support plate with opposing ferrules slidably mounted on spaced apart guide bars. The guide bars have a slight radius of curvature in a plane perpendicular to the plane of the support plate. The radius of curvature is selected to be collinear with the direction of the shocks. Springs are provided to bias the support plate to a lateral center position. A mounting plate disposed over the support plate is slidably attached to spaced apart guide rails. The mounting plate is also biased towards a longitudinal center position by springs. The ends of the guide rails and the ends of the guide bars are joined at connecting blocks.

The field of the present invention is shock and vibration isolators. More particularly, the invention relates to an isolator for isolating a device or instrument from shock and/or vibration occurring during movement of the instrument.
During filming sequences with a motion picture or video tape camera, it is often necessary for the camera to be moved in space over a floor or supporting surface. For proper filming, the camera movement must be accomplished smoothly. Even small amounts of shock or vibration of the camera can result in unsatisfactory filming due to shaky or erratic recorded images. Consequently, it is necessary to provide a steady platform for the camera by isolating the camera from shock and vibration.
The prior art isolators have various disadvantages. In some instances, specific weights or counterweights must be added to provide balancing and to compensate for the weight of the camera. Other known isolators can handle only cameras in specific weight ranges. In addition, highly trained and experienced camera operators may be required especially with operator carried systems. In addition, certain of these known isolators are mechanically complex, expensive, and difficult to use.
Commonly, a motion picture or video camera is mounted on an extendable elevation arm of a wheeled dolly to facilitate camera movement and angle changes, as required by the filming sequence. As the dolly wheels roll over the supporting or floor surface, irregularities (for example cracks, bumps, depressions, debris particles, etc.) generate shock and/or vibration which can be transmitted through the structure of the dolly to the camera. These transmitted mechanical impulses degrade steady filming ability. Since the camera may be elevated substantially above the surface on the dolly arm, the effects of a small crack or bump in the floor surface are amplified at the camera position.


Hydraulic fracturing of subterranean formations has become more complex and detailed as information increases. Methods for calculating and monitoring reservoir pressures during treatment provide unique opportunities to adjust treatments on the fly. Treatments include acid fracturing, fracture acidizing, acid stimulation, propped acid fracture stimulation, hydraulic fracturing, slick water based hydraulic fracturing, foamed based hydraulic fracturing, foam based acid fracturing, foamed based acid diversion, any other physical particulate and fiber based hydraulic fracturing or matrix treatment.

Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" is the propagation of fractures in a rock layer by a pressurized fluid. The oil and gas industry uses hydraulic fracturing to enhance subsurface fracture systems to allow oil or natural gas to drain more freely from the reservoir to production wells that bring the oil or gas to the surface. However, there many uses for hydraulic fracturing outside of the petroleum industry, including to stimulate groundwater wells, to precondition rock for cave in mining, to enhance waste remediation processes, to dispose of waste by injection into deep rock formations, including CO2 sequestration, to measure the stress in the earth, and for heat extraction in geothermal systems.
In hydraulic fracturing, an injection fluid, usually including water or brine and a polymer, is injected into a reservoir at pressures high enough to fracture the rock. The two main purposes of fracturing fluid or "frack fluid" in oil reservoirs is to extend fractures in the reservoir and to carry proppants, such as grains of sand, into the formation, the purpose of which is to hold the fractures open after pressure is removed without damaging the formation or production of the well. The polymer thickens the fracturing fluid, allowing it to more effectively carry the proppant deeper into the reservoir.
Without hydraulic fracturing, the time needed to drain a field would be inordinately long—in a tight field it could be in the order of hundreds of years. The only way to drain the oil in a reasonable time is to drill more wells—e.g., up to 40 wells per square mile in a tight field—a very expensive undertaking, or to fracture the field. The existence of long fractures allows the fields to be drained in a reasonable time, with fewer wells, and in a cost-effective way.
Since hydraulic fracturing was introduced in 1949, close to 2.5 million fracture treatments have been performed worldwide. Some believe that approximately 60% of all wells drilled today are fractured. Fracture stimulation not only increases the production rate, but it is credited with adding to reserves—9 billion barrels of oil and more than 700 Tcf of gas added since 1949 to US reserves alone—which otherwise would have been uneconomical to develop. In addition, through accelerating production, net present value of reserves has increased. Subterranean hydrocarbon bearing formations are routinely fracture stimulated to enhance well productivity and improve well performance.
The current process, involves pumping non-reactive fluid often termed as "pad" under high pressure down the well tubular to the target hydrocarbon-bearing formation in order to generate a hydraulic fracture which creates a conductive pathway to enable easy flow of fluids (oil/gas/condensate, etc.) into the well during production phase. While in traditional "propped" fracture treatments the fracture is held open using proppants after the pumping stops, in the acid fracturing case, the dissolution of rock face during the treatment phase result in surface asperities that help retain conductive pathways after the pumping stops.
However, in acid fracturing treatments, as the acid contacts the soluble rock and dissolves it, the in-situ stresses are simultaneously relieved and the reservoir face pressure drops. This causes the net pressure to decrease, which below a pre-defined threshold, will cause the fracture to stop propagating and ultimately lead to fracture closure even while the fluids are being injected. To prevent this rapid closure, changes may be required to the pumping parameters to keep the fracture open, but this requires accurate knowledge of fracture entry or reservoir face pressures during injection. If the fracture closes during injection phase, the acid will spend in the near wellbore region which can (a) limit well productivity as desired etched fracture geometry will not be achieved and (b) dissolve excessive formation in near wellbore region which can have a negative impact on the well integrity in the long term.
To improve Acid Fracturing treatments, the effective pressures applied to the formation must exceed the stresses that tend to close the fracture as the in situ stresses are continuously relieved because of acid-formation reaction and subsequent rock dissolution. If during the treatment, the effective reservoir face pressures fall below the known closure stresses of the formation, the hydraulic fractures will cease to extend and the injected acid is no longer effectively transported deeper along the fracture face. The desired fracture geometry will thus not be achieved resulting in a sub-optimal well performance. Knowledge of effective bottomhole treating pressures during the treatment is thus critical to the success of any Acid Fracturing treatment because they can help in taking appropriate decisions and steps to maximize the benefit from the treatment. Current tools available in the industry do not perform these calculations accurately which often leads to incorrect conclusions and compromised well productivity.
Unfortunately, current tools do not provide the combination of live-streaming data, data processing and conversion, graphical display and correlate those changes with well treatment as it occurs. In order to respond to well conditions in an efficient and effective way a better method of analyzing and displaying well conditions in real time is required.

Dynamic interpretation of data from hydraulic fracturing