A disk drive is described that uses a vibration sensor to generate a compensating feed-forward control signal to synchronize the write clock frequency with the modulated data island frequency. A linear vibration sensor is positioned with its sensitivity axis aligned with the tangential direction of a track at the radial position of the write head. The tangential component of the external linear vibration is measured by the sensor. The feed-forward control signal derived from the linear vibration sensor modifies the control voltage input to VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) in the write clock generator to adjust the write clock frequency to compensate for the modulated data island frequency caused by the tangential component of the linear vibration.

Hard disk drives (HDD) use rotating disks with thin film magnetic coatings to record data. The read and write heads for each disk surface are found in a slider that is selectively positioned over the rotating disk using a rotary actuator driven by a voice coil motor controlled by a servo system. External vibrations can interfere with the drive's ability to properly write and read data in the tracks. Therefore, to improve the drive's ability to overcome problems caused by vibrations, vibration sensors can be mounted on the drive to allow the servo system to compensate for certain vibrations. A rotational vibration (RV) sensor is commonly used in disk drives. The sensors are typically mounted on the printed circuit board along with other electronic components. The mounting should be rigid to reduce sensor noise. One type of RV sensor uses two linear accelerometers oriented on different axes as linear vibration sensors. The two uniaxial acceleration sensors can detect vibration and rotation in an in-plane direction.
Rotational vibration (RV) cancellation uses detected rotational vibration to improve the position error signal (PES) for the actuator by canceling the off-track motion induced by the rotational vibration. The measured RV is input to a feed-forward control circuit that creates a feed-forward compensation signal that is summed with the control signal to the voice coil motor (VCM) for the actuator.
This method is sometimes called RV feed-forward (RVFF). The two vibration sensors should have similar gains in their primary-axis sensitivities and minimal off-axis sensitivities.
In published US patent application 20100067357 Huang, et al. (Mar. 18, 2010) describe a disk drive that compensates for rotational vibration by adaptively modifying the gains of two separate linear vibration sensors. The two sensors provide two signals to the disk drive's servo control processor which generates the control signal to the voice coil motor (VCM) that controls the positioning of the read/write head. The servo processor uses the two signals and the head position error signal (PES) as inputs to run an adaptive rotational vibration feed-forward (RVFF) algorithm to derive the control signal for the VCM actuator.
In conventional disk drives the magnetic thin films are continuous so the circular tracks are magnetic constructs created by writing magnetic transitions as the disk rotates under the head. In patterned magnetic media for disk drives, the thin film magnetic recording layer on the disk can be formed with isolated data islands that have a single magnetic domain in each island which is used to record a binary bit of data. The data island magnetic domains can consist of one grain or a small group of grains that are strongly coupled and therefore, switch together. Various methods of fabricating the data islands have been described including physical removal of the magnetic material around the islands. However, physical removal is not required. See, for example, Fullerton , et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,383,598 which describes the fabrication of patterned magnetic recording media with regions between the islands rendered nonmagnetic by ion irradiation.
The writing of data in data islands are timed (clocked) to synchronize with movement of the data islands under the write head. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,754,017 Rettner, et al. (Jun. 22, 2004) describe a magnetic recording disk drive with patterned disk media, wherein the data islands are used as the source of the clocking signal to the write head. The slider with the read/write head also includes a special pattern sensor that senses the data islands in the tracks just before they pass beneath the write head. The pattern sensor output serves as the clocking signal to precisely control the timing of the write pulses supplied to the write head. A time delay is calculated using a timing mark on the patterned disk to delay the write pulses so that a data block sensed by the pattern sensor is the same data block to which the write pulse is applied. In this manner the previously recorded magnetic data provides the synchronization or clocking signal to control the writing of the new data.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,675,703 Albrecht, et al. (Mar. 9, 2010) describe a disk drive with patterned media and a system for clocking write data. The precise time intervals between successive timing marks in the data tracks are measured by a timing mark detector that counts the integer number of write clock cycles between successive timing marks and the fractional part of a write clock cycle by detecting the phase difference between a timing mark and a reference signal. The resulting timing error is output to a write clock compensator. The write clock is capable of generating equally spaced primary phases and phases intermediate to the primary phases. The compensator includes a phase rotator that controls which write clock phase is selected for output. The value in a phase register of the compensator is used to control the phase rotator to advance or retard the write clock phase, and thus to adjust its frequency and phase so as to be synchronized for writing to the data blocks.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,961,578 Hideo Sado (Jun. 14, 2011) describes a disk drive with a synchronous clock generator that inputs the rotational acceleration of the spindle motor as feed-forward control value to the feedback control system provided in the drive disk, thereby generating a clock that is synchronous with the rotational speed of the disk.
Published US patent application 20100118426 by Vikramaditya, et al. (May 13, 2010) describes a write clock control system that includes a clock controller that determines a phase offset based on a phase difference between a write clock signal and a media pattern corresponding to a given timing synchronization field being read, and a phase interpolator that produces an updated write clock signal by updating the phase of the write clock signal in accordance with control signals that are based on the phase offset signal.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,947,243 Dang, et al. (Sep. 20, 2005) describe a disk drive that senses a rotational vibration without using any external sensor by measuring the time shift of the magnetic transitions (e.g., time jitters or bit jitters) for reference bits on the rotating disk.
Write clock compensation for write head track misregistration (TMR) from the track centerline is described in US patent application 20100309576 by Albrecht, et al. (Dec. 9, 2010). As the disk rotates, the read head detects angularly spaced servo sectors and generates a position error signal (PES) which is used by the servo control system to maintain the read head on track. As the disk rotates, the read head also detects angularly spaced synchronization marks, which are used to control the write clock so that magnetization reversal of the magnetic write field from the write head is synchronized with the position of the data islands. If there is TMR of the write head, there will be an effective shift in the timing of when the center of the data islands pass through the write field. The disk drive includes write clock phase adjustment circuitry that correlates the PES with the timing shift to compensate for TMR of the write head.
Another US patent application 20090244765 by T. Albrecht (Oct. 1, 2009) describes a patterned magnetic recording disk drive that compensates for circumferential misalignment of data island patterns among the data tracks as a result of errors in fabrication of the master template used to make the disks. To compensate for pattern circumferential misalignment (PCM) the phase of write clock for writing to the data islands is adjusted.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,133,229 Tetsuo Semba (Nov. 7, 2006) describes a magnetic recording disk drive with patterned media with data islands and compensation for write-clock timing error caused by rotational disturbances. A rotational vibration sensor is used in conjunction with a write-clock-generation circuit to adjust the timing of the write pulses to correct for errors caused by rotational disturbances. The write-clock-generation circuit receives a reference clock signal synchronized to disk rotation and multiplies it to generate a higher-frequency write-clock signal. The write-clock-generation circuit includes a phase detector that compares the phase of the reference clock signal and the write-clock signal and provides an error signal. The output of the rotational vibration sensor is summed with the phase detector error signal to compensate for disk rotation speed changes caused by rotational disturbances.

Disk drive with write clock frequency compensation for external vibration disturbance


[Problems] To provide a marker which is useful in diagnosing leukemia and a method of using the same.

Leukemia is a disease which belongs to hematologic malignancy, in which tumorigenic hemopoietic cells proliferate unlimitedly and appear in the blood. The disease called leukemia is mostly caused by tumorigenic leukoblasts, as well as by tumorigenic erythron and thrombocytic cells. In leukemia, there is a case that blood cells stop differentiation at a certain stage of differentiation or maturation, and undifferentiated blast cells in an upstream thereof proliferate to form tumor, while there is another case that blood cells retain an ability of differentiation or maturation despite deviation of biological regulatory ability and sign of autonomous growth. The former case corresponds to acute leukemia and the latter case to chronic leukemia or myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Though causes and pathogenic mechanisms are mostly unknown, it is vital to detect and treat leukemia at an early stage.
Leukemia is diagnosed e.g. by morphological observation of a blood cell, chromosomal test, or surface antigen analysis of a blood cell using flow cytometry. Meanwhile, concerning leukemia having chromosomal aberration or genetic aberration, PCR using disease-specific primer or RT-PCR is performed. It is also reported that the findings of quantitative RT-PCR of Wilms tumor gene 1 (WT-1) reflect the amount of tumor cells in leukemia (Non-Patent Document 1).
As stated above, leukemia treatment essentially requires early identification/detection, specifically that of leukemia or leukemia cells. Accordingly, this medical treatment heavily involves information of residual tumor cells (minimal residual disease (MRD)), found in e.g. the blood, particularly a bone marrow fluid, and its volume to judge therapeutic effects and determine required treatment policies.
Nevertheless, since morphological observation of a blood cell can confirm the existence of a tumor cell when its volume comes to a considerable amount, it is not appropriate for early detection of leukemia or detection of residual tumor cells. Surface antigen analysis of a blood cell using flow cytometry is expected to be effective in e.g. early detection of a tumor cell due to its favorable detection sensitivity and so on. Also, this analysis technique needs selecting a combination of cell surface antigens which are specific to a tumor cell and found on the surface thereof to be diagnosed. According to a quantitative RT-PCR of Wilms tumor gene 1 (WT-1), some cases demonstrated no expression level of the gene.
From the above observations, a method of examining leukemia in an easy and correct manner, particularly a method of examining leukemia having quantitativeness and less false positive, which is common to many kinds of leukemia, is constantly desired to be established.
Non-Patent Document 1    K. Inoue et al., Blood, 84 (9) 3071-3079 (1994)

Abstract: [Means for Solving Problems] A method of detecting a leukemia cell which comprises detecting a CD34-positive cell being negative in DOCK180 expression from a blood specimen. According to this method, a DOCK180 expression pattern specific to a tumor cell in leukemia, in particular, acute leukemia is confirmed so that information which is useful in diagnosing leukemia and monitoring and determining the severity and degree of recovery of the same by a doctor can be obtained by a convenient procedure using blood specimens and thus provided.

National University Corporation Hokkaido University


A method and apparatus for surface approximation without cracks. In one or more embodiments, a surface to be rendered is split into multiple adjacent regions (e.g., subdivision surfaces or patches). A data structure is associated with each boundary edge between two regions for storage of adjacency information in the form of a sequence of tessellation vertices. Adjacency information for a given edge is written into the data structure when an adjacent region is first tessellated. When the remaining adjacent region is tessellated, the adjacency information is read from the data structure and used to achieve tessellation without cracks. In one embodiment, visible cracks due to T-vertices are prevented by forming an overlap of adjacent regions at the location of each T-vertex. This technique allows regions to be tessellated and rendered without any advance knowledge of how the adjacent regions will be split. The regions may be tessellated and rendered separately and in any order, reducing time and memory requirements for rendering.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of computer graphics, and, more specifically, to graphical rendering of surfaces.
2. Background Art
In computer graphics, images are often created from three-dimensional objects modeled within a computer. The process of transforming the three-dimensional object data within the computer into viewable images is referred to as rendering. Typically, objects are modeled as one or more surfaces. Ideally, these surfaces comprise continuous curves for best visual realism. However, in practice, these surfaces are approximated with a mesh of less complex surface components, such as parametric surfaces or patches, to reduce the computational complexity of the rendering process. These patches are further subdivided or "diced" into triangles or polygons for rendering purposes. For example, bicubic patches are often rendered by subdividing their parameter space into rectangular grid of quadrilaterals, which are then further subdivided into triangles for rendering. A higher dicing rate provides greater modeling resolution and a better surface approximation. The dicing rate of a given patch may depend on factors such as the distance of the patch from the viewing plane and the local feature complexity of the patch.
An undesirable phenomenon known as "cracking" occurs when surfaces are split into multiple patches that are rendered independently. The shared boundaries between patches are tessellated and displaced by each side independently, which often creates narrow gaps or "cracks" between the two sides. Adjacent patches can compute different positions for their shared boundary curve for several reasons:                Two adjacent patches may dice at different rates, generating different numbers of vertices along a shared edge.        The adjacent patches may compute different positions for a vertex at the same parametric location, due to numerical errors. For example, this can occur if one patch has split into two pieces along the adjacent edge while the other patch has not.        Vertices along a shared edge may have different positions in the two patches due to displacement mapping (a technique whereby the diced vertex positions are modified according to a given formula, such as a texture map lookup, in order to add geometric detail to a smooth underlying surface). For example, this can happen when finite difference techniques are used in the displacement calculations (to estimate surface normals, derivatives, or texture filtering information). This is because finite difference techniques cause the position of a vertex to depend on the position of its neighbors, which are different in the two patch tessellations.
An example of crack formation is illustrated in FIGS. 1A and 1B. FIG. 1A depicts an idealized surface comprising regions 100 and 101, having a continuous seam 102 between the regions. FIG. 1B depicts an approximation of the surface of FIG. 1A, wherein region 100 is now 100A comprising several parametric surfaces with piecewise linear edge 102A corresponding to seam 102. Similarly, region 101A comprises several parametric surfaces having piecewise linear edge 102B corresponding to seam 102. Edge 102A models seam 102 with higher dicing rate than edge 102B. As shown, edge 102A contains four vertices within the same span in which edge 102B has three vertices. The mismatch in dicing rates as well as the displacement differences between vertices in edges 102A and 102B form a crack 103 between regions 100A and 101A. Crack 103 represents a rendering error that may be visually apparent in the final rendered image, particularly where there is high contrast between the color value associated with regions 100A and 101A and the color value associated with the background visible through the crack.
Previous techniques for eliminating cracks fall into several categories. First there are methods that render parametric surfaces as a restricted quad-tree. That is, tessellation is limited to a pattern of quadrilaterals wherein the variation in dicing rates between patches is strictly constrained. These techniques store the entire tessellated surface in memory and do not support surfaces of arbitrary topology.
A second set of techniques are based on the idea that the tessellation of a boundary should be based only on the boundary curve itself. However, these methods do not eliminate all sources of cracking. In particular, if the patches on one side of a shared boundary have split more often than those on the other, then there is no single dicing rate for the unsplit patch that can match the multiple rates on the other side. Furthermore these techniques cannot handle the problems caused by displacement mapping, in which case the two sides can have different vertex positions even if the dicing rates match.
In another variation, the boundary curves are tessellated before patches are split. This technique has several drawbacks. It generates highly irregular tessellations that cannot be evaluated efficiently; it requires a substantial amount of time and memory to split patches that may eventually be occluded (and discarded) anyway; and, furthermore, this technique cannot render patches whose boundaries are simple (e.g. flat) but have complex features in their interiors.
Finally, some prior art techniques are based on the idea of splitting all patches and determining dicing rates in a preprocessing phase. For each portion of a shared boundary edge, one of the two adjacent patches is arbitrarily chosen to be associated with that edge. The main drawback to this approach is that the entire surface must be tessellated (or at least all dicing rates must be determined) in advance, which has significant time and memory expenses.

Method and apparatus for surface approximation without cracks


Metal gate high-k capacitor structures with lithography patterning are used to extract gate work function using a combinatorial workflow. Oxide terracing, together with high productivity combinatorial process flow for metal deposition can provide optimum high-k gate dielectric and metal gate solutions for high performance logic transistors. Surface treatments can be inserted at three possible steps during the formation of the MOSCAP structures. The high productivity combinatorial technique can provide an evaluation of effective work function for given high-k dielectric metal gate stacks for PMOS and NMOS transistors, which is critical in identifying and selecting the right materials.

Advances in semiconductor processing have demanded ever-increasing high functional density with continuous size scaling. This scaling process has led to the adoption of high-k gate dielectrics and metal gate electrodes in metal gate stacks in semiconductor devices.
High-k gate dielectrics can offer a way to scale the thickness of the gate dielectric with acceptable gate leakage current. The use of high-k gate dielectrics is often accompanied by a metal gate electrode, since thin gate dielectric layers may cause poly depletion, affecting the device operation and performance. Metal gate electrodes further have an advantage of higher electrical conductance, as compared to poly gates, and thus can improve signal propagation times.
The manufacture of devices using high-k dielectric materials entails the integration and sequencing of many unit processing steps (some of them new) since high-k gate dielectrics are more sensitive to process conditions than silicon dioxide. Gate stacks formed using high-k dielectric materials often include multiple interfaces between the various layers. These interfaces can affect the final device performance. For example, different combinations of high-k dielectric materials and metal electrode materials can exhibit different device characteristics such as effective work function, flatband voltage, dielectric constant, capacitance, etc. affecting the performance of the high-k gate structures. The precise sequencing and integration of the unit processing steps enables the formation of functional devices meeting desired performance metrics such as power efficiency, signal propagation, and reliability.
Therefore, there is a need to develop and investigate the influence of interface characteristics on electrical properties such as effective work function for the manufacture of high-k devices in an efficient manner.

Methods to characterize an embedded interface of a CMOS gate stack


An apparatus for processing video signals to produce a combined picture video signal from which a large picture and one or more small pictures being inset in the large picture are simultaneously reproduced on a display screen. Video signals providing image information for small pictures are stored in a memory mainly on the basis of a storage control signal produced from a result of a phase comparison between a reference signal and a vertical sync signal separated from each of the video signals providing image information for small pictures. The reference signal has pulses recurrent with a period twice the repetition period of pulses of the vertical sync signal in the video signal or identical with the repetition period of pulses of a horizontal sync signal in the video signal, and assumes a relatively high level and a relatively low level alternately with a duty factor of 50%.

The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and more particularly to a memory control means which is suitable to simultaneously display a large picture and small pictures inset in the large picture which are provided by processing an input video signal in a reduction and division manner using a digital technique such as a memory.
Conventionally, there have been proposed systems for simultaneously displaying a plurality of pictures by reducing a picture image through digital processing. This technique has been applied to a magnetic recording/reproducing device. For example, this technique has been implemented for functions such as the viewing a TV broadcasting program while reproducing a video tape on the same display screen, a multi-picture screen (or picture-in-picture screen) in which a plurality of TV broadcasting programs are displayed on a single display screen, etc.
As an example of the conventional systems, the picture-in-picture technique in TV broadcasting reception is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,249,213, issued to Imaide et al on Feb. 3, 1981, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. The technique disclosed in this reference is to combine two pictures using a memory. More specifically, by setting the period of the memory read shorter than that of the memory write to reduce the image, or controlling the read timings, two asynchronous video signals are aligned in their time base. Thus, a reduced picture, referred to as a small picture, can be inset in a portion of a picture, referred to as a large picture, displayed on the entire screen of a picture tube.
The above proposed technique is to inset one small picture in a large picture. By increasing the number of small pictures to 2, 3, . . . , many pictures can be simultaneously viewed on the same screen. However, only arranging in parallel the systems including tuners in order to increase the number of small pictures gives rise to a remarkable increase in the production cost. Additionally, there is proposed a technique of using a tuner, an A/D converter, etc. as a single system so that they are time-divisionally changed over. This technique, however, provides the problem of fluctuations of small pictures in the vertical direction. This is because one frame of a video signal in the NTSC System is constituted by two fields, i.e., ODD- and EVEN-numbered fields, and mere use of the above time-division change-over may cause vertical shifts of the entire small images owing to a difference of 0.5 H (1/2 of the horizontal scanning period) between the odd- and even-numbered fields.

Picture-in-picture television apparatus with sync controlled memory addressing


Formulation F comprising    A) 50 to 90 parts by weight of at least one block copolymer P of ethyleneoxide and propylene oxide,    B) 0.5 to 10 parts by weight of at least one salt of an alkyl sulfate S,    C) 0.05 to 0.5 parts by weight of a composition C comprising            C1) 5 to 10 parts by weight of at least one polydimethylsiloxane bearing only terminal alkyl groups,        C2) 1 to 3 parts by weight of at least one polydimethylsiloxane bearing at least alkoxylated hydroxy group,        C3) at least one solvent,wherein said formulation F is an aqueous formulation.

Defoamer agents play an important role in many industrial processes. Especially in thermal desalination processes for water the formation of foam may limit the efficiency of such processes. It is therefore of high importance to efficiently control the formation foam. On the other hand such thermal desalination pose especially high challenges to defoamer agents due to the technical complexity of such processes.
While many commercially available defoamers are available, there is a constant need for improved defoamers that can control the formation of foam effectively, efficiently and at low concentrations of defoamers. Also, the defoamer needs to be miscible with water.
M. H. Auerbach et al. (Desalination, 38 (1981), 159-168) disclose foam control agents based on polyglycol alkyl ethers.

Antifoam formulations for the thermal desalination process of water


A fiber feeder apparatus includes a driven endless supply conveyor belt having a coneveying surface for supporting a fiber pile and an endless spiked lattice arranged at one end of the supply conveyor belt and extending at an upward inclination therefrom. The spiked lattice has spikes arranged to penetrate into the fiber pile for effecting removal of fibers from the fiber pile. The supply conveyor belt is driven such that the fiber pile is being fed by the conveying surface into contact with the spikes. There is further provided a control device which is connected to the drive of the supply conveyor belt for effecting a nonuniform driving thereof.

This invention relates to a method and an apparatus for operating a feeding device for fiber material, such as a boxed feeder assembly in which the fiber material is deposited on the upper side of an endless supply belt which is supported by two rotary end rollers and which is driven at low speed. As the upper (conveying) flight of the supply belt is moved in a forward direction, the fiber material thereon is advanced to a steeply upwardly inclined spiked lattice which carries the fiber material upwardly.
It has been found that as the spiked lattice carries away material from the fiber pile, in the upper zone of the fiber pile the material is not removed as satisfactorily by the spiked lattice as in the lower zone where the empty spikes may penetrate into the fiber pile from below and where a relatively large pressing force prevails. This leads to a rolling in the upper zone and to an undesired increase of the pile material immediately adjacent the spiked lattice. This leads to disadvantages in the blending of the fibers and to operational difficulties in the machine, particularly at high outputs.
In a known method the fiber supply belt is driven at constant speed which affects in a large measure the output of the machine. The speed of the spiked lattice, the fill height as well as the pressure of the piled-up fiber material also have an effect on the output. The above-noted rolling causes nonuniform pressing forces and continuously fluctuating fill heights. It is particularly of disadvantage that the upper, lighter layers of the fiber pile have significantly reduced chances to be entrained by the spikes since the latter have already been filled in the lower zones, particularly because of their favorable arrangement and the high pressing forces there. Such high pressing forces are present in the lower zone because of the greater, weight-caused compression and the closer proximity of the material to the supply belt where the feeding forces are still highly effective.

Method and apparatus for operating a fiber tuft feeder


First and second support members 6, 7 are mounted intermediate the opposite ends of elongate, helically curled stretch cords 4, 5 connecting the defibrillator electrodes 2, 3 to an apparatus housing 1. Such first members are retentively engaged by second support members 8, 9 on the sides of the housing such that the cord bights, when the apparatus is not in use, lie against the housing wherefrom they are readily releasable by removing the electrodes and pulling on them.

This invention relates to a defibrillator apparatus for treating a patient in an urgent or extremis situation, embodying means for releasably storing the electrode cords against the sides of the apparatus housing.
When a heart stoppage or ventricular fibrillation occurs, it is essential that the patient be immediately treated to prevent death. Such treatment typically involves applying the two electrodes of a defibrillator apparatus to the breast of the patient, and applying a high voltage pulse to the patient through the electrodes to stimulate the heart to resume its pumping action. In such extremis situations, it is essential that the electrodes, which are connected to the defibrillator apparatus housing by elongate. helically curled cords, be readily and immediately removable from their stored position such that they can be quickly brought into engagement with the patient.
Several prior art arrangements are illustrated in the partial perspective views of Figs. 1A, 1B and 1C. In the arrangement of Fig. 1A. an electrode 105 of a defibrillator 100 is connected thereto by an elongate, curled "stretch" cord 104, whose bight is stored against a side 101 of the defibrillator housing by engagement in a pair of trough-like holders 102. 103. With this arrangement, however, the operator must independently disengage the cord from both of the holders, which involves an unacceptable loss of time in the emergency conditions under which defibrillators are used. A simple pulling on the cord will not suffice, as its curls or turns can easily become entangled in the retention hooks at the ends of the holders.
In the arrangement of Fig. 1B. the cord 104, when not in use, is wrapped around the electrode 105, while in the arrangement of Fig. 1C, the cord bight is simply left hanging down. In the former case, the cord can easily become entangled with the electrode itself when the electrode is rapidly removed for use in an emergency situation, while in the latter case, the suspended or hanging bight of the cord can easily become caught on surrounding equipment and pulled loose from the housing or the electrode when the electrode is rapidly removed and manipulated.

Defibrillator with cord storage support means


In a light source unit (210) serving as an embodiment of an illuminating apparatus, when P is a light-emitting element pitch [mm], and H is an optical axis distance [mm] between light-emitting elements (212) and an original (G), and when, in an illuminance cycle (T) representing repetition of bright and dark areas in a main scanning direction (X) on a light-irradiated face (Gs) of the original (G) caused by the light-emitting elements (212), the light-emitting element pitch (P) and the optical axis distance (H) are set such that unevenness [%] (M) (=(L1−L2)/L3 [%]) obtained by dividing a value obtained by subtracting a minimum illuminance value (L2) from a maximum illuminance value (L1) by an average illuminance value (L3) and an inter-unevenness distance [mm] (N) which is a half cycle of the illuminance cycle (T) satisfy the relation M≦N/2−5.5, and more preferably, M≦N/2−7.5.

Generally, in image reading apparatuses provided in image forming apparatuses such as copiers, fax machines or digital multi-functional peripherals, or image reading apparatuses connected to a computer via communication means such as a network, light reflected from an original that is illuminated by an illuminating apparatus including a light source is read as the original image.
For example, a conventional image reading apparatus includes an illuminating apparatus in which a light source for illuminating an original placed on a platen glass and a first mirror are arranged, second and third mirrors, an imaging lens and an imaging element (for example, a line sensor such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device)). Many of such image reading apparatuses are configured to read an original image by causing light reflected from the original illuminated by a light source to travel via a first mirror, a second mirror, a third mirror and then an imaging lens to form an image on an imaging element.
Also, an image reading apparatus is used as an image reading means when information of an image formed on an imaging element such as a CCD is converted to electronic signals and subjected to image processing, and transferred to an image forming portion that prints image information or to a computer (for example, personal computer) connected to a network, for example.
Conventionally, a bar-shaped light source such as a halogen lamp or a xenon lamp, or a light source in which a plurality of light-emitting elements such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are arrayed may be employed as a light source provided in illuminating apparatuses.
In the case where a light source in which a plurality of light-emitting elements are arrayed is employed, light-emitting elements such as LEDs have strong directivity characteristics in a predetermined direction, and thus uneven illuminance corresponding to the pitch between the light-emitting elements may occur on the light-irradiated face of the original.
For example, as the pitch between the light-emitting elements increases, uneven illuminance on the light-irradiated face of the original becomes more noticeable. Therefore, it is preferable to decrease the pitch. However, if the pitch is decreased, the number of necessary light-emitting elements increases, which invites an increase in cost.
Also, as the optical axis distance of the light-emitting elements to the original decreases, uneven illuminance becomes more noticeable. Therefore, it is preferable to increase the optical axis distance. However, if the optical axis distance is increased, the illuminance on the light-irradiated face of the original decreases, and thus it is necessary to increase the light amount emitted by the light-emitting elements.
From a viewpoint of mitigating uneven illuminance described above, Patent Document 1 described below discloses an illuminating apparatus in which a diffusion member for diffusing light is provided between an original and a light source in which a plurality of light-emitting elements are arrayed. Also, Patent Document 2 described below discloses a light irradiating apparatus in which a plurality of light-emitting elements are arranged in a zigzag manner.
However, with the illuminating apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1, although uneven illuminance on the light-irradiated face of the original caused by the light-emitting elements can be mitigated by providing the diffusion member between the original and the light source, it is necessary to newly provide the diffusion member, which increases the manufacturing cost. In addition, the illuminance on the light-irradiated face of the original is reduced by the diffusion member, which causes a loss in the light amount when light from the light source is irradiated onto the original. For this reason, it is difficult to apply the illuminating apparatus to image reading apparatuses whose original reading speed is comparatively fast. Also, there is an issue that if the light amount of the light-emitting elements is increased for covering the loss in the light amount, the power consumption increases.
Also, with the light irradiating apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 2, even if the light-emitting elements are disposed in a zigzag manner, if the pitch between the light-emitting elements and the optical axis distance from the light-emitting elements to the original are not in an optimal relationship in the state in which uneven illuminance on the light-irradiated face of the original caused by the light-emitting elements is mitigated, it is impossible to efficiently irradiate light from the light-emitting elements onto the light-irradiated face of the original, while the uneven illuminance is mitigated.
Accordingly, it is desired to achieve an optimal relationship between the pitch and the optical axis distance such that the light from the light-emitting elements is efficiently irradiated onto the light-irradiated face of the original, in the state in which the uneven illuminance on the light-irradiated face of the original caused by the light-emitting elements is mitigated, without providing the diffusion member between the original and the light source in which a plurality of light-emitting elements are arrayed.
In this respect, Patent Document 3 described below discloses an illuminating apparatus which is capable of irradiating an original with light without uneven illuminance, while suppressing an increase in cost, by setting the light amount of a single light-emitting element when reading an image (indicated by "A"), the total light amount (indicated by "B"), the irradiation angle of the light-emitting element (indicated by "a" (rad)), the pitch between the light-emitting elements (indicated by "P"), and the distance from the emission face of the light-emitting element to the original face (indicated by "H") so as to satisfy the relational expressions, A/B≧0.5 and P/H≦0.6α+0.25.

Illuminating apparatus, image reading apparatus, and image forming apparatus


A flexible tubular pipe comprising a metal carcass helically coiled about a longitudinal axis of said flexible pipe and the carcass comprises a seamed profiled hollow tube.

The present invention relates to a flexible tubular pipe which can be preferably used in deep-sea applications, for depths of between 1000 and 3000 m, although it can also be used for depths of less than 1000 m. Such flexible tubular pipes are used in subsea oil production installations for transporting fluids such as hydrocarbons.
The present invention relates to a flexible tubular pipe which can be preferably used in deep-sea applications, for depths of between 1000 and 3000 m, although it can also be used for depths of less than 1000 m. Such flexible tubular pipes are used in subsea oil production installations for transporting fluids such as hydrocarbons.
Several types of flexible tubular pipes are used at the present time and are described in API (American Petroleum Institute) 17 J. In certain flexible pipes, there is a pressure vault which consists of a helical winding with a short pitch of a shaped wire which may be self-interlockable or interlockable by means of a fastener. Likewise, the metal carcasses used in flexible pipes called "rough bores" are formed from a crush-resistant doubly interlocking profiled metal strip.
In all cases, it has been attempted to improve the moment of inertia/weight ratio of the interlocked strips or shaped wires used for producing the various metal layers of the flexible pipes.
For deep-sea applications and in the case of pressure vaults, the reinforcing wires must have a high moment of inertia in order to withstand the external pressure and a low weight in order to reduce the total weight of the flexible pipe so as to improve the performance of the pipelaying means and allow the flexible pipe to be self-supporting.
Several solutions have been proposed.
A first solution has consisted in using a shaped wire, the cross-section of which is in the form of an I, as described in FR-A-2 782 142. Such a shaped wire has an acceptable moment of inertia/weight ratio but the manufacturing cost is very high because of the fact that it is obtained by rolling or wire drawing.
Another solution is described in FR 2 654 795. The internal carcass is formed from doubly interlocking metal strips, by making a flat metal tape, such as a stainless steel strip, undergo plastic deformation in order to give it the shape of a doubly interlocking profiled strip, and then by spiraling the profiled strip, that is to say winding it helically with a short pitch with interlocking of the profiled metal strips. After two consecutive turns have been interlocked, a final plastic deformation of the strip is carried out in order to complete the interlocking.
In Patent FR 2 665 237 it is recommended to produce a tubular metal carcass comprising at least one box section wound in a helix with a short pitch, said metal carcass being obtained by means of two complementary profiled strips wound helically with a short pitch. Many examples of profiled strips are described and shown in that document, some of which, such as for example those in FIGS. 8 and 9, consisting of a strip in the form of an elongated S and having a box section at a first end and an upwardly curved fastening edge at the other end, the fastening edge penetrating a dish formed by the box section and the transverse bar of the of the preceding turn. The curved fastening edge may rest on the bottom of the dish (FIG. 9) or it may not be in contact with said bottom (FIG. 8).
It should be noted that all the cross-sections of the box sections provided at one or both ends of each profiled strip are square or rectangular cross-sections.
Although such box-section profiled strips have been satisfactory, they have been found to have certain drawbacks. When one considers that a box section is formed by parts of the same turn of the profiled strip and comprises an upper wall, a lower wall and side walls and when an external force is applied to one of the upper and/or lower walls, such as a compressive or crushing force or else a force generated by the underpressure fluid, buckling of the side walls or faces and/or the upper or lower walls of the box section may then occur, thereby reducing, at least locally, the crush resistance of the internal carcass.
For forces or pressures exceeding a certain value, buckling of the side walls of the box section occurs.
For lower forces or pressures and when the side walls are not strictly perpendicular to the upper and lower walls of the box section, crushing of said box section may occur, resulting in the side walls moving further apart or closer together (opening or closing of the box section). To prevent this opening or closing phenomenon, it has been recommended in certain cases such as, for example, in FR 2 665 237 to weld one end of the box section at one point on the strip. However, such a solution increases the manufacturing cost and it is difficult to implement.
In a prior embodiment, the box-section strip adopts the shape of a pair of spectacles. This profile is produced from a strip whose free edges are welded to this same profile so as to give the profile good stability for laying. However, the welding operation is difficult to implement and considerably increases the manufacturing cost.
In another prior embodiment, the spectacles-shaped profile is similar but produced from two tubes, of square cross-section, said tubes being joined together by a strip which is welded to these tubes. The welding operations again considerably increase the manufacturing cost.
In addition, these various shapes of the profile do not make it possible to limit the creep of an adjacent sealing sheath. It is sought to prevent such creep as far as possible, mainly in the case of the pressure vault. It should also be noted that no information is provided regarding the width/thickness ratio of the strip, although this has become important in order to ensure stability of the profile during pipe laying, so as to prevent the buckling effect.
This is because if the profile has too large a width with respect to its thickness, the side walls of the box section will buckle during spiraling or winding with a short pitch.
In French Patent No. 2 808 070, the profiles that are described give good results but sometimes have drawbacks, especially because of the great lack of symmetry of the profile.


A fuel cell system and a fuel consumption system verify the location of a filling failure at a time that a fuel gas filling process suffers from such a filling failure. Either one of encoded data indicating an infrared radiation signal related to the fuel gas filling process, which is sent from a vehicle to an external hydrogen station, and a drive signal, which comprises a train of binary pulses converted from the encoded data, is recorded in a recording unit of the vehicle.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel cell system and a fuel consumption system. In such a fuel cell system, e.g., a fuel cell vehicle, or such a fuel consumption system, e.g., a hydrogen engine vehicle or a CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) vehicle, a fuel storage unit such as a gas tank or the like disposed in the system is filled with a fuel gas from an external fuel gas supply apparatus such as a gas station or the like for storing the fuel gas in the fuel storage unit, and thereafter the fuel gas stored in the fuel storage unit is consumed, by way of reaction or combustion, in order to generate and utilize energy.
Description of the Related Art
Fuel cells such as solid polymer electrolyte fuel cells operate in the following manner. A fuel gas, such as a hydrogen-containing gas, which is supplied to an anode electrode, is ionized by an electrode catalyst into hydrogen ions. The hydrogen ions then move through an appropriately humidified electrolyte membrane to a cathode electrode. Electrons, which are generated while the hydrogen ions move from the anode electrode to the cathode electrode, are supplied to an external circuit, which makes use of the electrons as DC electric energy. Since the cathode electrode is supplied with an oxygen-containing gas such as air, the cathode electrode allows the hydrogen ions, the electrons, and the oxygen to react with each other, thereby producing water.
Fuel cell vehicles have been proposed, which are propelled by an electric motor energized by an energy source including electric energy generated by a fuel cell and electric energy stored in an electric energy storage device.
Hydrogen engine vehicles and CNG vehicles have also been proposed, which are propelled by an engine which operates in such a manner that a fuel gas is injected into the engine and combusted in order to rotate a crankshaft. Rotational energy of the crankshaft is shifted in speed through a transmission, and transmitted to enable the vehicles to travel.
Fuel cell systems such as fuel cell vehicles or the like and fuel consumption systems such as hydrogen engine vehicles or the like preferably include a fuel storage unit such as a gas tank or the like, which can be filled up completely with a fuel gas in a single fuel filling process.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2011-033068 (hereinafter referred to as "JP2011-033068A") discloses a gas filling system. The disclosed gas filling system operates in the following manner. When a fuel gas supply apparatus supplies a fuel gas to fill a system-side fuel storage unit, a system-side filling control unit, also referred to as a filling ECU (Electronic Control Unit), sends information concerning characteristics of the fuel storage unit as well as the temperature and pressure in the fuel storage unit through a system-side communication unit to the fuel gas supply apparatus via an infrared communications link. Such information is sent at the time that the fuel gas starts to fill the fuel storage unit, as well as while the fuel gas is filling the fuel storage unit, i.e., during the fuel gas filling process.
The fuel gas supply apparatus receives the information concerning the characteristics of the fuel storage unit as well as the temperature and pressure in the fuel storage unit, determines a filling rate, etc., based on the received information, and continues to fill the fuel storage unit with the fuel gas.
If the filling ECU detects that a filling failure has occurred, e.g., if the temperature in the system-side fuel storage unit is unduly high, then the fuel gas supply apparatus, which has received information concerning the detected temperature, etc., performs a control process in order to lower the filling rate based on the received information, and then continues to fill the fuel storage unit while the temperature in the fuel storage unit is prevented from increasing further (see paragraphs [0012], [0015], [0017], and [0025] of JP2011-033068A).

Fuel cell system and fuel consumption system


A computer-implemented method for providing a user interface to a user includes receiving wearable article data describing wearable articles for physical shipment to users via electronic interactions; generating a user interface for an electronic transactions platform based at least on the received wearable article data; causing display of the user interface depicting one or more of the wearable articles; receiving a selection of a wearable article of the displayed one or more wearable articles via the user interface; determining a condition of the selected wearable article at least based on the received wearable article data in response to the selection; reserving the selected wearable article for a predetermined period of time in response to the selection; updating and causing display of the user interface depicting the selected wearable article and the determined condition; and determining whether the selected wearable article is purchased or borrowed during the predetermined period of time.

Services for providing articles, including electronically-presented services, typically adhere to an established, conventional structure. In these services, entities such as retailers design and manufacture, or otherwise obtain, a series of products that are offered for purchase. In the example of wearable articles including garments, a group of products can be offered for a period of time, such as a season, after which the articles are offered at a reduced price. Entities offering articles via one or more electronic destinations, such as a website, employ conventional allocation strategies, allotting each individual article to a particular purpose. For example, articles are allocated for purchase so that when stock of a particular article is exhausted, the website can be updated appropriately. When a large number of articles are present (e.g., unsold) after a period of time, the website or other electronic destination, can be updated with a reduced price to encourage selection of these articles. Each article, and often the electronic destination itself, is typically dedicated to a specific purpose, such as one-time purchases, auction-style purchases, rentals, etc.
While article subscriptions have recently experienced increased visibility and market importance, there are circumstances where a one-time rental system is desirable. However, implementing new systems, to enable a new service, presents numerous technical challenges that involve significant design efforts and infrastructure to support new inventory systems, user experience design, cost structure, and others. Thus, conventional systems lack the capabilities to flexibly and dynamically link a plurality of service types (e.g., one-time purchases, one-time rentals, and/or subscription services), guide a user through a plurality of different interfaces associated with a plurality of different entities, identify different users across these services, and facilitate interactions between different types of entities involved in management of these services. Additionally, transitions between different services are often jarring, and lead to user frustration, or even cause a user to abandon a planned interaction.
The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art, or suggestions of the prior art, by inclusion in this section.

Systems, non-transitory computer-readable mediums, and methods for providing a user interface for an eletronic transactions platform


A system, computer-readable medium, and method for identifying similarities in network traffic are provided. Hash values are calculated from Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in a group of IP addresses that request a domain name, a hash signature is generated from the hash values and paired with the domain name, and the domain name is then clustered with another domain name having a paired hash of the same value. The clustered domain names are then extracted and used in a similarity calculation.

Traffic on networks, such as the Internet, has grown significantly in recent years. Monitoring trends and similarities in the characteristics of network traffic can provide useful information for a variety of different entities, such as providers of network services and products. One specific area where this information is of use is in the field of malware detection.
Malware, short for malicious software, is software that is designed for hostile or intrusive purposes. For example, malware may be designed with the intent of gathering information, denying or disrupting operations, accessing resources without authorization, and other abusive purposes. Types of malware include, for example, computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, adware, and botnets. Malware developers typically distribute their software via the Internet, often clandestinely. As Internet use continues to grow around the world, malware developers have more incentives than ever for releasing this software. In fact, studies indicate that the release rate of malicious software today could even be exceeding that of legitimate software.
In order to protect computers from malware, there has been a growing demand for anti-malware software, including secure web gateways (SWGs). A SWG is software designed and optimized for controlling whether to permit transmission of incoming or outgoing content on a network. SWGs are typically installed locally in a corporate office or other entity that expects incoming and outgoing network traffic. SWGs assign scores to traffic destination sources and/or origination points based on the suspiciousness of a destination source and/or origination point. These scores are then used to determine whether or not to allow transmission of packets transmitted to a particular destination source, or from a particular origination point.
Botnets are one example of malware that has become a major security threat in recent years. A botnet is a network of "innocent" host computers that have been infected with malicious software in such a way that a remote attacker is able to control the host computers. The malicious software used to infect the host computers is referred to as a "bot," which is short for "robot." Botnets operate under a command and control (C&C) architecture, where a remote attacker is able to control the infected computers, often referred to as "zombie" computers. An attacker may control the infected computers to carry out online anti-social or criminal activities, such as e-mail spam, click fraud, distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), or identity theft.
FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary C&C architecture of a botnet 100. The C&C master 101, often referred to as a "botmaster" or "bot herder," distributes malicious bot software, typically over the Internet 102. This bot software stores information or has an algorithm identifying a future time and domain names to contact at the indicated future time. The bot software infects a number of host computers 103 causing them to become compromised. Users of host computers 103 typically do not know that the bot software is running on their computers. C&C master 101 also registers temporary domain names to be used as C&C servers 104. Then, at the indicated future time, the bots instruct host computers 103 to contact C&C servers 104 to get instructions. The instructions are sent over a C&C channel. The ability to send instructions to host computers 103 provides C&C master 101 with control over a large number of host computers. This enables C&C master 101 to generate huge volumes of network traffic, which can be used for e-mailing spam messages, shutting down or slowing web sites through DDoS attacks, or other purposes.
Botnets exploit the domain name system (DNS) to rally infected host computers. DNS is the Internet's hierarchical lookup service for mapping character-based domain names meaningful to humans into numerical Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Domains exist at various different levels within the DNS hierarchy. For example, a top-level domain (TLD), such as .com or .net, is a domain at the highest level in the DNS hierarchy. A second-level domain (SLD) is a subdomain of a TLD that is directly below the TLD in the DNS hierarchy. For example, "com" is the TLD and "example" is the SLD for the domain name "www.example.com."
A name server is a server that translates domain names into IP addresses. Each domain has at least one authoritative DNS name server that publishes information about the domain. Domain name resolvers determine appropriate domain name servers for a domain name by performing a sequence of queries beginning with the right-most domain, which is the TLD. In domain name resolution, a query is submitted to one of the root servers to find the authoritative server for the TLD. A query is then submitted to the TLD server for the address of an authoritative server for the second-level domain. This process is continued through the levels of the DNS hierarchy until the IP address sought is returned. For example, in resolving a query for "www.example.com," a query would be submitted to one of the root servers to find the authoritative server for "com." A query would then be sent to the server for "com" requesting the address of the authoritative server for "example.com." A query would then be sent to the server for "example.com," and this server would respond with the IP address corresponding to "www.example.com."
Many C&C masters dynamically change the IP addresses associated with the domain names of the C&C servers to avoid detection. Infecting the host computers with bots containing domain names of the C&C servers allows the host computers to contact the appropriate C&C servers through DNS resolution, even if the IP addresses of the C&C servers have changed. Thus, bots may locate C&C servers according to their domain names. Some remote attackers also change the domain names of the C&C servers to even further avoid detection. Nevertheless, bots in a botnet usually act as a group, sending periodic DNS queries to join C&C channels. Because bots within the same botnet are likely to generate similar DNS traffic, analyzing DNS traffic data to detect this behavior is an effective way of detecting botnets.
When a network device queries for a domain name, DNS resolution determines whether or not the domain name exists. These queries leave resource request information indicating the network device requesting the domain name. Some botnets frequently change the domain names they use for resolution, and these domain names may even be randomly assigned. When this is the case, each bot is programmed to query for a multitude of domain names in hopes that the C&C master has registered at least one or more of them via DNS. Because the C&C master will likely only register a few of these domain names at most, the rest of the domain name requests will be for domains that don't exist. These requests may return nonexistent domain (NXDomain) replies and leave NXDomain records in the DNS. Alternatively, if a requested domain name does exist, the request may return an existent domain (YXDomain) reply and leave a YXDomain record in the DNS.
Approaches have been taken to utilize DNS record data to detect suspicious DNS behavior. However, these approaches have been conducted by computing a similarity matrix using small sets of data. Analyzing a larger set of data would provide for a more accurate and comprehensive means of detecting suspicious DNS behavior. Nevertheless, computing similarity of DNS behavior with a large amount of data, such as the NXDomain data from a TLD, requires a large amount of processing power and can take a long time.
As botnet domain names and IP addresses can change quickly over time, it is important to compute this similarity as quickly as possible. Thus, an effective system performing this type of similarity matrix computation would be difficult and expensive to implement. What is needed is a scalable approach for detecting network traffic exhibiting similarities associated with specific behaviors, such as suspicious DNS behavior, and that can quickly perform similarity computation on a large amount of data with reduced processing requirements.

Systems and methods for detecting similarities in network traffic


An electric machine for a motor vehicle, includes a rotor, and a stator. The stator has a coil device for generating a magnetic rotary field for driving the rotor. the coil device has a soft magnetic flux-guiding device for guiding the rotary field, wherein the coil device is only partially arranged in the flux-guiding device, wherein at least one winding overhang of the coil device extends out of the flux guiding device into an environment of the stator. The electric also includes and an electrically conductive shielding element arranged on the at least one winding overhang and configured to electrically and/or electromagnetically shield the winding overhang against an environment, wherein the shielding element is connected to a frame potential connection of the electric machine.

The present invention relates to an electric machine for a motor vehicle. The electric machine has a rotor and a stator. For driving the rotor, the has a coil device for generating a rotary field. At least one winding overhang of the coil device protrudes from a flux-guiding device of the stator, i.e., for example the laminated core, into an environment of the stator. The invention also includes a motor vehicle with the electric machine.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
In an electric machine a torque is generated by the stator by means of a magnetic rotary field and is applied to the rotor. For generating the rotary field, individual electric coils of a coil device are alternately impinged with an electric current. Switching of the currents can be accomplished by an inverter. During the switching, switching edges occur in the form of high-frequency AC current signals and/or AC voltage signals, i.e., generally in the form of electrical disturbances in the electric machine.
A particular problem encountered in a motor vehicle is that the electric machine is surrounded by a plurality of electrically conducting components into which the electrical disturbances can be transmitted, for example via capacitive coupling. In particular in hybrid vehicles and battery driven electric vehicles (BEV—battery electric vehicle—electric car) it was found that due to the high-voltage supply voltage of more than 60 Volt and/or due to the drive currents for the electric drive motor of more than 10 ampere, in particular more than 50 ampere, the electrical disturbances are of a magnitude so as to be emitted as electromagnetic interference radiation after being transmitted by the components, and as a result may for example interfere with radio reception in the motor vehicle.
In other words in such a case the electromagnetic compatibility (EMV or EMC electromagnetic compatibility) is no longer ensured.
The measures known from the state of the art do not allow reducing an electrical disturbance originating from the electric machine, i.e., an electric field of interference or electromagnetic radiation, without adversely affecting the efficiency of the electric machine.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an EMC measure for a motor vehicle by which introduction of electrical disturbances into the motor vehicle can be reduced below a predeterminable threshold value

Electric motor for a motor vehicle with EMC measure


A testing container is described having a vessel with a first end, a second end, and a sidewall extending between the first end and the second end. The first end forms an opening into the vessel. The sidewall has one or more protrusions extending inwardly therefrom. The one or more protrusions form a gap having a width in a range between 2-4 mm, and the one or more protrusions have sufficient strength to withstand lateral pressure of a swab positioned in the gap relative to the one or more protrusions and to remove a head of the swab.

The collection, preservation, and processing of biological samples for DNA testing often requires a number of devices that could introduce DNA contamination and sample mix-up as transfers are made. Biological samples, such as those for forensic DNA analysis, are usually collected from blood, saliva, semen, and other bodily fluids by wiping onto a cotton-tipped swab or a cotton pad. The swabs, pads, or other collection devices are placed into plastic or paper containers or bags for storage, preservation and future analysis. Wet samples could be prone to microbial action and biological degradation if not dried or preserved properly. Cotton swabs or cotton pads may obtain small samples with a limited amount of biological materials which can be contaminated or diminished when the swab or pad comes in contact with the container or bag, or when the swab or pad is transferred to a processing or testing container.
The biological samples are then transferred to microtiter plates or tubes like microfuge tubes for testing or processing. Microfuge tubes are small plastic tubes capable of holding between 0.4-2.0 ml of liquid and are constructed to be placed into racks for automated manipulation and withstand the forces exerted by a centrifuge during centrifugation. Biological samples that may have dried in the previous container may be removed from the previous container, inserted into the microfuge tubes, and combined with a solution to separate DNA, for instance. The microfuge tubes usually have caps sized and shaped to protect and cover the tube opening, while maintaining the inside of the tube in an aseptic condition. The caps are usually attached by a flexible hinge and are closed and secured by press fit. Closing the cap often causes an annular sealing portion of the underside of the cap to be pushed downward into the tube. The caps are secured against accidental opening by a number of means which vary in effectiveness, including friction, integrated lid catches, or separate lid clamps. The caps are often provided with an unsealing portion opposite the cap hinge extending horizontally beyond the outer diameter of the tube's cap flange to provide a standard lifting tab. A thumb, thumbnail, or opener device may be used to lift upward on the lifting tab, but may lead to contamination of the sample held within the microfuge tube. Even the use of surgical gloves may not prevent cross-contamination between successively opened microfuge tubes. Container opener tools may reduce incidence of contamination however may not preclude contamination.
Biological samples that are not immediately processed and tested may be stored in the collection container for indefinite periods of time, in which case, the biological samples will benefit from drying or other preservation techniques to prevent degradation of the sample. Traditionally sample drying has been allowed to occur naturally, or aided by the use of protected holes in the cap of a container whereby air is allowed to circulate while limiting potential contact between the sample and contaminants. Drying or preservation agents, such as desiccants, may be used. However drying or preservation agents present contamination problems where the agent is placed in the same container as the biological sample.
There is a need for a container which may serve as the collection, processing, and testing container for biological samples, preventing the possibility of contamination of samples through transfer between containers. Further, there is a need for a container which aids in drying and preservation of biological samples without the potential contamination effects of exposing the biological sample to outside airflow or contamination by contact with a drying or preservation agent.


A table game system for a game of chance includes a card shuffling machine for randomly selecting a single card from among a defined set of cards, the single card having indicia relevant to an outcome for the game of chance. The card shuffling machine is rotatable about an axis of rotation and includes a plurality of trays uniformly spaced about an outer periphery thereof. Each of the defined set of cards is located in a respective one of the plurality of trays. A card retrieval device is disposed adjacent the card shuffling machine and configured to at least partially remove the single card from its tray. A controller is in communication with the card retrieval device to effectuate engagement of the card retrieval device with the single card.

Games of chance are well known activities whose outcomes are strongly influenced by randomizing devices and upon which contestants may wager money as they forecast outcomes. Common randomizing devices include dice, spinning tops, playing cards, roulette wheels, prize wheels, and numbered balls drawn from containers. Games of chance have been played throughout all of human history and are considered to be a popular pastime by many. Players of games of chance are attracted to new and exciting methods of game play as well as new and exciting randomizing devices. For this reason, the gaming industry is continuously developing new games and new randomizing devices to maintain player interest and attract new players.
Games of chance that include money wagers are typically regulated by governing authorities. These governing authorities enforce laws and regulations that are enacted to curtail certain kinds of games as well as certain kinds of randomizing devices. For example, in some jurisdictions, the use of dice or roulette wheels to resolve a game outcome, i.e., as the randomizing device, have been curtailed while other randomizing devices are permitted. Randomizing devices that use playing cards have been utilized more frequently as they enjoy fewer restrictions in games of chance played for money as compared to dice and roulette wheel randomizing devices.
While randomizing devices that employ cards have fewer restrictions, they generally still require some dealer involvement, which can have negative implications in some jurisdictions. For example, in some jurisdictions, the utilization of a live Dealer can impact how the game is characterized and therefore the requirements with which it must comply. This is because when live Dealers are involved, table game managers still must combat employee mistakes that cost the casino money (known as bleed). As casinos get busier and the tables get fuller, the decisions per hour that will be required by a live Dealer can decrease dramatically and the potential for bleed increases significantly. These factors can impact a casino's desire to carry a game.
Therefore, there is a desire within the gaming industry to develop new and interesting methods of game play and randomizing devices which utilize playing cards in unique and interesting ways and which can eliminate the need for live Dealer involvement and thus reduce bleed.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Mark Hamilton Jones and Sheryle Lynn Jones


Methods, apparatuses, and systems for managing power of a processing unit are described herein. Some embodiments include determining a voltage variation of a subset of current components of a current consumed by a processing unit. Other embodiments include detecting architectural events on a processing core of the processing unit and instituting various actions to reduce an input rate of instructions to the core. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Today's central processing units (CPUs) have significant variability in their dynamic current consumption as a function of the application workload. Their potential current consumption is very high, while their typical current consumption is much lower. In order to provide sufficient voltage to the CPU throughout the entire range of current consumption a power delivery system typically provides a voltage with a significant voltage guard band. That is, the power delivery system provides the CPU with extra voltage to handle sudden changes in current consumption, which affect a corresponding voltage drop. While providing a large voltage guard band ensures adequate processing functionality from the CPU, it also results in higher costs, greater power consumption, and shorter product lifetime of CPUs.


The invention provides a jet expelling assembly comprising a reservoir and an impulse chamber assembly. The impulse chamber assembly comprises a chamber portion defining a cavity having a general axis, a piston received in the cavity along the general axis and comprising a fluid inlet, thereby defining a variable-volume impulse chamber with an outlet nozzle. The inlet comprises a conduit adapted to slidably engage a reservoir outlet during relative movement therebetween. The chamber portion is arranged stationary relative to the reservoir, whereby expelling an amount of drug from the reservoir to the impulse chamber via the inlet causes the piston to move towards the reservoir, the impulse chamber thereby receiving the expelled amount of drug.

Subcutaneous and intramuscular delivery of liquid drugs by injection is common in the medical arts. As some medications, such as insulin, must be given frequently by injection to an individual, it is desirable that the injections can be performed easily.
Many patients dislike needle injections due to pain or fear for needles. Further, blood-borne pathogens, such as HIV and hepatitis, can be transmitted to health care workers by accidental needle-sticks. Also, the disposal of used needles is a growing concern. This disposal presents a problem to individuals other than healthcare workers. Children, for example, may find used needles in the trash, putting them at risk of contracting infection. Discarded needles likewise pose a risk to waste disposal workers.
In efforts to minimize the fears and risks associated with needle injections, several types of needle-free jet injectors have been developed. These devices penetrate the skin using a high velocity fluid jet, and deliver medication into the tissue of a patient. In order to accomplish this, a force is exerted on the liquid medication. Jet injectors, in general, contain a fluid drug which has been transferred into a chamber having a small orifice at one end. A driver, e.g. a ram, is accelerated using either a coil spring or a compressed gas energy source. The ram impacts a plunger, which in turn creates a high pressure impulse within the chamber. This pressure impulse ejects the fluid medicament through the orifice at high velocity, piercing the skin. The energy source continues to apply a force to the plunger, which quickly propels the drug through the opening in the skin, emptying the syringe in a fraction of a second. The driver may be adapted to provide a two-stage injection, i.e. a first penetrating burst of drug at a high pressure followed by a subsequent delivery of the remaining amount of drug at a lower pressure.
Injectable drugs may be supplied in glass vials sealed with an inert rubber stopper. To administer the fluid drug, the user must transfer the fluid drug from the vial to a fluid drug delivery device, such as a syringe and needle, or a needleless jet injector syringe. Transferring the fluid drug adds cost to administering injections in a hospital or clinic because of the labor expense. Immunizing large populations requires administering many injections per hour, hence transferring the fluid drug presents a significant time constraint. For the patient who must self-administer fluid drugs, such as a diabetic patient requiring several insulin injections a day, transferring the fluid drug can be an inconvenience. Also, with each transfer, there is an opportunity for error in the amount of fluid drug being transferred and administered.
In an effort to eliminate transferring a fluid drug from a vial, pre-filled glass cartridges have been developed. These pre-filled cartridges are similar in design to a syringe. One end is closed and includes either a needle or an inert rubber septum. If a needle is not integral, then a needle subassembly that penetrates the rubber septum is attached prior to use. A movable rubber piston closes the end opposite the needle. To administer the fluid drug, the pre-filled cartridge is placed in a device consisting of a holder and a driver that meets the movable rubber plunger. The user depresses the plunger to dispense the medication.
An example of the use of pre-filled cartridges is in the treatment of diabetes with multiple daily injections of insulin by use of an injection device, e.g. pen-shaped, in which a pre-filled cartridge containing an amount of insulin sufficient for several days can be mounted, the injection device comprising means for setting a desired dose and subsequently expelling the dose. A disadvantage of pre-filled cartridges, however, is that they still require using a needle to penetrate the skin and deliver the medication to the target tissue.
Neither glass vials containing multiple doses of a drug nor pre-filled cartridges can be used with traditional jet injectors. For example, if the force generated by the jet injector drive means was applied directly to the piston the cartridge would in most cases burst. This is because a significant amount of impulse energy is transmitted from the energy source. Although not directly impacted, the glass walls of the cartridge do not have sufficient strength to withstand the large amplitude pressure waves that result when the ram impacts the piston.
Addressing this problem, US patent application 2002/0055707 discloses a jet injection device comprising a reservoir in the form of prefilled drug cartridge, an impulse chamber to which an amount of drug to be expelled by jet action is transferred through a fluid connection between the reservoir and the impulse chamber. The impulse chamber has an injection nozzle at a distal end, and a drive piston adapted to engage a ram member at the proximal end. JP-2001-346878A discloses a similar arrangement in which the drug cartridge is in fluid communication with the impulse chamber through an inlet opening in the impulse piston, fluid communication between the opening and the cartridge being provided by a flexible hose member. U.S. Pat. No. 3,507,276 discloses a jet injector comprising an impulse chamber with a piston, a reservoir being attached to the piston with the piston and reservoir moving as a unit, and WO 2003/105934 discloses an impulse chamber unit with a fixed inlet and a moveable internal piston.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide an impulse chamber configuration which allows a cartridge (e.g. conventional) to be used in combination with a jet injection (or nebulizing) device. In the alternative, it is a further object to provide an impulse chamber unit which can be used in combination with a jet injection device adapted to receive a conventional cartridge containing a liquid drug, the impulse chamber unit being simple and compact in design, thus allowing for cost-efficient manufacture, e.g. as a single-use disposable unit.
In the alternative, it is an object to provide an impulse chamber with a nozzle which can be placed against the skin of a subject, the configuration of the impulse chamber allowing for visual inspection of the jet injection site.
In the alternative, it is an object of the invention to provide an impulse chamber and reservoir configuration which allows a small and handy jet injection device to be provided.
In the alternative, it is an object to provide a jet injection device that can be modeled similar in function and form with a conventional pen type injector, to make the patient comfortable with the jet injection device, and so that the jet injection device can easily be utilized by a non-professional user, e.g. a insulin requiring diabetic.


The patent application discloses a personal audio entertainment system, which comprises five major parts: entertainment play equipment, Bluetooth transmitter, gaming chair with audio play devices, Bluetooth receiver with charging function, and audio play equipment with a subwoofer and a Bluetooth receiver integrated in the main speaker.

As the Internet application technology becomes more and more mature, individual users have higher and higher demands for watching movies and singing at home, that is, the use of personal audio entertainment systems is becoming more and more widespread. The personal audio entertainment system achieves high-quality effects through multiple speakers simultaneously outputting different channels of audio.
Existing personal audio entertainment is to drill in the wall, wiring, and construction to hang large audio equipment on the ceiling or wall. However, this method is costly, requires construction, and involves damage. The original decoration also has potential safety hazards. For this reason, we propose a personal audio entertainment system.

Abstract: The top of the Bluetooth audio gaming chair is connected with a neck pillow, one end of the neck pillow is fixedly connected with a lace, and one end of the lace is connected with a plug buckle, one end of the gaming chair is provided with a backrest, the bottom end of the backrest is connected with a cushion, the bottom end of the cushion is rotatably connected with a bracket, the bottom end of the bracket is connected with rollers, and one end of the gaming chair is connected with audio play devices; The audio play devices comprise speakers, wire, and a Bluetooth receiver, and the Bluetooth receiver and the speakers are connected by wire; The audio play equipment is composed of a main speaker, a sub-speaker, a subwoofer, wire and a Bluetooth receiver, and the Bluetooth receiver is integrated in the main speaker.

Abstract: The personal audio entertainment system connects the entertainment play equipment with Bluetooth audio gaming chair and Bluetooth audio using Bluetooth transmitter, and have 4-channel stereo surround sound including front left sound, front right sound, rear left sound, and rear right sound. The personal audio entertainment system is highly efficient and convenient. There is no need to put independent speakers in the back of the chair to take up moving space.


The present invention relates to an anisotropic complex sintered magnet including MnBi with magnetic characteristics enhanced and an atmospheric sintering method for preparing the same. The anisotropic complex sintered magnet including MnBi according to the present invention may implement excellent magnetic characteristics, and thus may replace rare earth bond magnets in the related art, and a continuous process is enabled because the magnet is prepared by an atmospheric sintering method, and a sintering method used in the permanent magnet process in the related art is used as it is, so that the anisotropic complex sintered magnet is economical.

Neodymium magnets are a molding sintered product including neodymium (Nd), iron oxide (Fe), and boron (B) as main components, and exhibit excellent magnetic characteristics. The demands for these high-performance neodymium (Nd)-based bulk magnets are sharply increasing, but the imbalance problems between demand and supply of rare earth element resources have become a big obstacle to the supply of high-performance motors required for the next-generation industry.
Ferrite magnets have stable magnetic characteristics and are an inexpensive magnet used when a magnet having strong magnetic force is not required, and usually display black. Ferrite magnets have been used for various uses such as D.C motors, compasses, telephones, tachometers, speakers, speedometers, TV sets, reed switches, and clock movements, and are advantageous in lightweight and low prices, but have a problem in that the ferrite magnets fail to exhibit excellent magnetic characteristics capable of replacing expensive neodymium (Nd)-based bulk magnets. Therefore, there is a need for developing a novel high-performance magnetic material capable of replacing rare earth magnets.
MnBi is a rare earth-free material permanent magnet, and has a characteristic of having a larger coercive force than an Nd2Fe14B permanent magnet at a temperature of 150° C. because the coercive force has a positive temperature coefficient at a temperature interval of −123 to 277° C. Therefore, MnBi is a material suitable for being applied to motors which are driven at high temperature (100 to 200° C.). When compared to other magnets in terms of the (BH)max value which exhibits a magnetic performance index, MnBi is better than ferrite permanent magnets in the related art in terms of performance and may implement a performance which is equal to or more than that of rare earth Nd2Fe14B bond magnets, and thus is a material capable of replacing these magnets.
Meanwhile, sintering is a heat treatment intended to obtain mechanical and physical properties required for powder molded bodies by heating compressed or uncompressed powder molded bodies at a temperature which is equal to or less than the melting point of a main constituent metal element to allow bonds to be formed by the action of sufficient primary binding force between atoms among powders in the molded bodies which are initially maintained by only a weak binding force. That is, sintering refers to a process in which powder particles are subjected to thermal activation process to become a lump.
The driving force of sintering is to thermodynamically reduce the surface energy of the entire system. Since there is an excess energy at the interface unlike the bulk, the surface energy during the sintering is reduced in a process in which particles are densified and coarsened. The sintering process parameters are temperature, time, atmosphere, sintering pressure, and the like. The process in which particles are sintered generally goes through an initial bonding step in which particles are aggregated with each other to form a neck, a densification step in which blocking of pore channels and spheroidization, shrinkage, and termination of pores proceed, a subsequent coarsening step of pores, and the like.
Methods of sintering a molded body may be largely classified into atmospheric (normal pressure) sintering methods; or pressure sintering methods. Hot-press sintering, hot isostatic pressure sintering, and the like belong to pressure sintering methods. Among these sintering methods, pressure sintering has advantages in that the densification close to nearly 100% may be obtained by minimizing the amount of residual pores in a sample, the mechanical processability is excellent due to the pressurization during the sintering in the initial stage, and densified complex materials may be prepared, whereas the production costs are accordingly increased and the pressure sintering cannot be applied to continuous processes, so that it is difficult for the pressure sintering to be commercialized.
Throughout the present specification, a plurality of documents are referenced, and citations thereof are indicated. The disclosure of each of the cited documents is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety to describe the level of the technical field to which the present invention pertains and the content of the present invention more apparently.

Anisotropic complex sintered magnet comprising MnBi and atmospheric sintering process for preparing the same


This invention relates to a method for rapid production of PCV2 such that an optimum yield of the virus can be obtained. This invention also relates to the vaccine useful against PCV2 which includes the PCV2 propagated using such a method.

A family of viruses, named Circoviridae, found in a range of plant and animal species and commonly referred to as circoviruses, are characterized as round, non-enveloped virions with mean diameters from 17 to 23.5 nm containing circular, single-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (ssDNA). The ssDNA genome of the circoviruses represents the smallest viral DNA replicons known. As disclosed in WO 99/45956, at least six viruses have been identified as members of the family according to The Sixth Report of the International Committee for the Taxonomy of Viruses (Lukert et al. 1995, The Circoviridae, pp. 166-168. In Murphy, et al. (eds.) Virus Taxonomy, Sixth Report of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, Arch. Virol. 10 Suppl.).
Animal viruses included in the family are chicken anemia virus (CAV); beak and feather disease virus (BFDV); porcine circovirus (PCV); and pigeon circovirus. PCV was originally isolated from porcine kidney cell cultures. PCV replicates in the cell nucleus and produces large intranuclear inclusion bodies (Murphy et al., 1999, Circoviridae p. 357-361, Veterinary Virology, 3rd ed. Academic Press, San Diego). There are currently two recognized types of PCV, PCV type 1 (PCV1) and PCV type 2 (PCV2). PCV1, isolated as a persistent contaminant of the continuous porcine kidney cell line PK-15 (ATCC CCL31), does not cause detectable cytopathic effects in cell culture and fails to produce clinical disease in pigs after experimental infection (Allan G., 1995, Vet. Microbiol 44: 49-64; Tischer et al., 1982, Nature 295:64-66; Tischer et al., 1986, Arch. Virol 91:271-276).
Unlike PCV1, PCV2 was initially associated with clinical diseases in the 1990s (Allan et al., 1998, J. Vet. Diagn. Invest. 10 (1), 3-10; Harding et al., 1998, J. Swine Health Prod. 6, 249-254; Le Cann et al., 1997, Piglet wasting disease, Vet. Rec. 141, 600; Segalés et al., 1997, Vet. Rec. 141, 600-601) and today it remains of economic importance in the swine industry worldwide.
Clinical signs of PCV2 infection manifest in a variety of ways including postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS), respiratory disease (porcine respiratory diseases complex, PRDC), porcine dermatitis and nephropathy syndrome (PDNS), enteritis, sometimes a combination of these in growing pigs, and reproductive failure in breeding age animals (Opriessnig et al., 2007, J. Vet. Diagn. Invest. 19 (6), 591-615). All these syndromes are often referred to as porcine circovirus diseases (PCVD) (Kekarainen, 2014, J. General Virology, 95, 1734-1742). There is evidence that PCV2 is ubiquitous and was present many years prior to the onset of clinical PCVD (Rose et al., Virus Research, 2012, 164, 78-89). Even though PDNS was reproduced in gnotobiotic pigs in the absence of PCV2 (Krakowka et al., 2008, Am. J. Vet. Res. 69, 1615-1622), pigs with clinical PDNS possess high levels of PCV2-specific antibodies, which are implicated in disease progression (Thomson et al., 2002, J. Vet. Med. A: Physiol. Pathol. Clin. Med. 49, 430-437; Wellenberg et al., 2004, Vet. Microbiol. 99 (3-4), 203-214). A more subtle manifestation of PCV2 infection is poor growth performance in apparently healthy herds (Horlen et al., 2008, J. Am. Vet. Med. Assoc. 232 (6), 906-912). More recently, a novel peracute syndrome has been described, termed acute pulmonary edema (APE), which appeared in vaccinated herds (Cino-Ozuna et al., 2011, J. Clin. Microbiol. 49 (5), 2012-2016). Unlike previously described syndromes, which are slow and progressive, APE is characterized by acute respiratory distress in apparently healthy animals followed by almost immediate death.
As many as thirteen open reading frames (ORFs) have been identified in the PCV2 genome. ORF1 (Meehan et al., 1998, Journal of General Virology 79(9):2171-2719; Meehan et al., 1997, J Gen Vir. vol. 78, pp. 221-227) comprises the nucleotides 398-1342 (GenBank Accession No. AF055392) and has the potential to encode a protein with a predicted molecular weight of 37.7 kD. ORF2 (Meehan et al., 1998; Meehan et al., 1997) comprises the nucleotides 1381-1768 joined to 1-314 (GenBank Accession No. AF055392) and may encode a protein with a predicted molecular weight of 27.8 kD. Further description of the PCV2 ORFs 1-13 may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,144,698, 7,192,594, 7,504,206, and 7,741,039. ORF1 gene encodes Rep and Rep′ proteins, which are related to virus replication. It is known that ORF2 gene encodes immunogenic structure capsid protein of PCV2, which is used to induce immune response in organisms.
Based on sequence analyses of PCV2 isolates, they can be further divided into three main genotypes (PCV2a-c). PCV2a and PCV2b have been documented worldwide (Segalés et al., 2008, Vet. Rec. 162 (26), 867-868), PCV2c has been documented in archived samples from Denmark (Dupont et al., 2008, Vet. Microbiol. 128 (1-2), 56-64).
Inactivated PCV2 vaccine is the most common commercially available PCV2 vaccine, such as CIRCOVAC (Merial), INGELVAC CircoFLEX (Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica), SUVAXYN PCV2 (Fort Dodge), which are based on inactivated PCV2. Published studies to date on PCV2 used either tissue homogenate or cultured virus derived from field isolates. Tischer et al. (1987, Arch Virol. 96:39-57) report that porcine kidney cells are stimulated to entry to the S phase in the cell cycle by D-glucosamine treatment. However, the treatment must be performed with caution because D-glucosamine is toxic for cell culture (see, Allan et al., 2000, J. Vet. Diagn. Investigation 12:3-14).
There is a remaining need for methods for culturing circovirus including, for example, PCV1, PCV2 and other circoviruses, such that circovirus in high yield is possible. Such methods would be advantageous, in particular for preparation of PCV2 antigens as vaccines directed against PMWS. The present invention addresses that need.
Citation or identification of any document in this application is not an admission that such document is available as prior art to the present invention.

Method for porcine circovirus production and PCV2 vaccines