An ice mold of the type comprising a tray (10) incorporating a plurality of cavities (11) for ice formation, each two adjacent cavities (11) being separated by a corresponding tray portion (12), at least part of said tray portions (12) being provided with a window (20), which is dimensioned in order to allow the formation and the ascending passage of a convective air current between each two adjacent cavities (11), at least part of the opposite lateral walls (13a) of each cavity (11) being formed by double walls, which are laterally spaced from each other and define a receptacle (30) that will be filled up with water to be frozen and solidified.

The present invention refers to an ice mold construction of the type provided with a plurality of cavities for the formation of ice cubes and which is obtained in a single piece of plastic material.
The molds for producing ice cubes to be used in refrigerators and freezers usually have longitudinal and/or transversal rows of cavities or receptacles for the formation of ice cubes, said cavities being dimensioned so that each may produce an ice cube having determined characteristics of shape and dimensions within a known pattern, conventionally searched by the user.
An ice mold construction known in the art is made of a metallic material, usually aluminum. This construction has some advantages, such as the quick formation of ice, due to the high speed of heat exchange between the mold material, which is a good heat conductor, and the environment where said mold is placed, usually a portion of the evaporating plate of a freezing compartment.
However, the constructions using a mold in a metallic material have some disadvantages, such as the lower surface of the mold cavities being easily adhered to the adjacent surface of the evaporating plate, difficulty in dislodging the formed ice cubes from the molds, rigidity of the piece, and cost of the product. In order to solve these problems, molds of plastic material have been developed. However, these constructions have some deficiencies, such as the low speed in which the ice cubes are formed, due to the reduced thermal conductibility of the plastic.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide an ice mold obtained in a single piece and which allows a higher speed of ice cube formation.
This and other objectives are achieved by an ice mold of the type comprising, in a single piece, a tray incorporating at the lower part thereof a plurality of cavities for ice formation, which are superiorly open and have lateral walls and a bottom wall, and which are spaced from each other by a respective tray portion.
According to the present invention, each cavity has, at least in part of its lateral walls, a double wall forming a respective receptacle, which is inferiorly and laterally closed and superiorly open, and which will be filled up with water to be frozen and solidified, each receptacle incorporating at least one anchoring means for retaining the ice formed therein, even when the ice cubes formed in the cavities are removed.


The invention concerns a method for hygienically and automatically producing from a beverage dispensing device a frothed whitened beverage in a receptacle comprising upon the actuation of a command on the device the following operations controlled by a control unit of said device: —a. metering and delivering a pre-warming volume of heated water in a receptacle for prewarming a whitening food component already contained in the receptacle and forming a warmed liquid in said receptacle, —b. metering and delivering a frothing volume of heated water in the form of at least a pressurized jet directed toward the receptacle for frothing the warmed liquid, —c. producing and delivering in the receptacle a liquid mixture made of a second food component and a metered mixing volume of water. The invention also concerns a device for implementing said method.

The invention relates to a method for producing a whitened liquid with a stable top layer of froth in an hygienic and automatic manner. The invention also relates to a device for carrying out such method
There is a need for providing a simple method through a beverage producing device that enables to deliver in a term of a few seconds a whitened coffee base beverage with a stable foamy top such as a cappucino-type beverage. All the existing methods encounters important drawbacks. Usually, frothing of the whitening liquid, such as a milk-based liquid, requires the use mechanical rotating elements in the device. Such elements must be cleaned after use to avoid bacterial growth and degraded food odor and taste to develop in the system.
Therefore, it exists systems that remove the need for cleaning of whipping elements. For instance, WO 02/087400 relates to a method for the preparation of a foamed drink from a capsule comprising the operations of injecting liquid in the capsule to mix with the foamable food component and allowing the foamable food component mixed with the liquid to escape from the capsule into the receptacle followed by injecting a high-velocity jet of liquid into the receptacle.
GB 2 379 624 relates to a beverage making apparatus comprising a liquid injection low diameter nozzle with a tapered bore for reducing risk of blocking the bore with solid scale residue. U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,338 relates to a method for preparing beverages from powder food component in portions by first filling the container partially with water under slight overpressure and by adding cold pressure water to the container while immediately after the container is partially filled with water under slight pressure for effectively mixing the liquid.
There is a need for a simpler method than existing methods, in particular, that requires minimal intervention of the user for the preparation of a stable, frothed whitened beverage, in particular, a cappuccino-type beverage.
There is also a need for preparing a hot frothed beverage from a portion of refrigerated liquid food component poured in the receptacle while ensuring a reduction of gradient of temperature in the whole beverage, which is unpleasant for the drinker.
There is also a need for a device with a simple water feed circuit.

Device and method for producing a frothed whitened beverage


An insect attractant and elimination device comprising a base, reservoir and shield, each of which cooperates to house, protect and provide a liquid bait which is dispensed from the reservoir to the base in a selected quantity for the consumption by targeted insect groups. The reservoir is made cooperable with the base by an adapter which may be easily removed from each thereof so as to facilitate replenishment of the bait supply and otherwise servicing the device, and to permit use of third party containers, with or without bait included, and containers of varying capacity and shields and bases of different configurations accommodating differing insect control applications.

Applicants of the instant application have previously spoken to a form of the device mentioned above and, in doing so, have noted the prior art and bait formulation either used therewith or separately, such discussion being detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,467,216 B2, issued Oct. 22, 2002, the entire content of which is now incorporated herein by reference.
It is desirable, however, particularly in agriculture, to provide a device that permits and facilitates its user to mount and un-mount the bait container and weather shield from the base stabilizing platform by a push and twist to mount and thereby open the bait communication between the bait reservoir and the middle ring of the base where the insects feed, and a twist and pull to un-mount the bait container and weather shield from the stabilizing base thus interrupting the above described bait communications, and permitting the internal cleaning of the device.
In addition, it is desirable to provide a device that permits its user to utilize the containers of the bait in the form of bottles or the like to provide a supply of the bait for the device to be used to attract and eliminate insects such as ants. By being able to use the container it is then not necessary to provide a housing for containing the bait as a part of the device and it eliminates the step of pouring the contents of the purchased bait from the original container to the container of the device, and permits use of containers of different size and bait capacity for varying insect control applications.

Liquid gravity feed ant elimination device


A portable sensor device incorporates a low-power, nanostructure sensor coupled to a wireless transmitter. The sensor uses a nanostructure conducting channel, such as a nanotube network, that is functionalized to respond to a selected analyte. A measurement circuit connected to the sensor determines a change in the electrical characteristic of the sensor, from which information concerning the present or absence of the analyte may be determined. The portable sensor device may include a portable power source, such as a battery. It may further include a transmitter for wirelessly transmitting data to a base station.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to chemical sensors for remote monitoring, using nanostructures as low-power sensor elements.
2. Description of Related Art
Advances in integrated circuit technology have enabled complex computers to be made small, lightweight, and relatively inexpensively, often as integrated microprocessors. In addition, they can be made to consume relatively small amounts of power. Computers in this class are not as sophisticated as state-of-the-art personal computers, but are powerful enough to process 16-bit data and do floating-point arithmetic. Because they require so little power, they can be used in devices that run on batteries for relatively long periods of time. Thus, for example, they are useful for applications as diverse as burglar alarms and cell phones.
At the same time, modern communications technology enables computers to exchange information wirelessly. Various protocols for radio communication allow data transmitters to use radio spectrum for brief periods of time in limited regions of space. Using such protocols, computers can communicate using weak radio transmitters that transmit and receive in short pulses. This approach minimizes the power requirements of radio communication. As a result, battery-powered devices can transmit data wirelessly to base stations, while remaining in operation for a relatively long period of time without changing or recharging their batteries. Such devices can be used together as a network of remotely located computers.
One important application for a sensor remote network is monitoring of conditions over a wide area. The use of batteries and radio communication eliminates the need to install wires to connect widely deployed monitors. For example, remote battery-powered sensors are known for monitoring electromagnetic radiation along the length  of electric power lines, or the monitoring of water quality over a wide area, using distributed optical sensors. However, it is generally believed that a power source is needed to recharge the batteries to maintain such remote sensors operational for sufficiently long periods.
One type of sensor is a chemical sensor, which measures the presence or absence of a chemical species. A variety of chemical sensors are known in the art; for example optical sensors and catalytic bead sensors. Sensors of this type are often relatively inexpensive, sensitive and specific to particular chemicals. However, they are large, and often operate at high temperature, and require large amounts of power. Another type of chemical sensor is a surface acoustic wave detector. These sensors are often smaller and lighter, but they often respond to a range of chemicals rather than to a specific chemical. Yet another type of chemical sensor is a field-asymmetric ion mobility spectrometer. These sensors are often small, but require large amounts of power, and they are relatively expensive. They are often reasonably specific sensors, but often they are not very sensitive. This list is not exhaustive of the known chemical sensors. It is meant to illustrate that the types of sensors differ widely with respect to their size, sensitivity, resolution, specificity, power requirements, cost, and other properties. Most sensors are not appropriate for use in low-cost, battery-powered, remotely communicating devices.
It is desirable, therefore, to provide a remote sensing device with wireless communication capability, that is both compact and inexpensive. It is further desirable to provide a device that can operate for extended periods on a limited power resource.

Remotely communicating, battery-powered nanostructure sensor devices


A method for induction sealing a plastic part to a composite container using a pair of linear coils electrically connected to low frequency generators. The linear coils produce overlapping electromagnetic fields on either side of the container. Rotating the container assures even heating of the polyethylene liner and plastic part. The method produces a reliable seal between the liner and plastic part and can be used at high production speeds.

1. Field of the Invention
This patent relates to a method for attaching a plastic part to a composite container using induction heating. More particularly, this patent relates to a method for induction sealing a plastic part to a composite container by positioning the plastic part onto the top portion of the container and exposing the top portion of the container to electromagnetic fields generated by a pair of linear shaped coils.
2. Description of the Related Art
Composite containers are commonly used to hold drink mixes, snacks and other foods. A typical composite container has a cylindrical body, a plastic or metal bottom and a plastic overcap. The container body is comprised of a polyfoil inner liner, a paperboard structural layer and a paper outer label. The polyfoil inner layer has a moisture-proof thermoplastic layer that contacts the container contents, a metallic foil layer adjacent the thermoplastic layer, and an outer paper layer. A plastic seal may be positioned under the plastic cap and sealed to the top edge of the container to help maintain the freshness of the contents and extend its shelf life. Alternatively, the plastic cap may be sealed directly to the container body.
Sealing a plastic seal or cap to a composite container body is often accomplished by heating the plastic seal or cap while pressing it onto the container body. Various means of heating the plastic seal or cap are known, including radiant heating and conductive heating, but the most successful means, at least with respect to composite containers, is induction heating.
Induction heating is a process that relies on electrical currents within a material to produce heat. Induction heating requires a source of electrical energy, an induction coil and an electrically conductive target material (the material to be heated). As electricity passes through the induction coil, an electromagnetic field is generated around the coil. The shape of the electromagnetic field depends on the shape of the coil. When the target material is exposed to the electromagnetic field, eddy currents are created in the target material, causing the target material to heat up because of resistance losses. The heat from the target material is transferred to adjacent plastic materials, causing them to soften and fuse together. The plastic materials form a seal upon cooling.
When sealing a plastic cap onto a composite container, it is desirable to obtain a broad seal to prevent breaching of the seal. A broad seal is defined as a seal at least xc2xc inch wide, and preferably at least xc2xd inch wide. It is also desirable to be able to seal containers at high production speeds. High production speed is defined as at least 100 containers per minute. Unfortunately, most commercially available induction sealing machines provide extremely localized heating. As a consequence, it is difficult to obtain a broad seal between a plastic part and a composite container at high production speeds.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for induction sealing a plastic part to a composite container.
Another object is to provide a process for forming a broad seal between a plastic part and a composite container at faster speeds than conventional induction sealing processes.
Further and additional objects will appear from the description, accompanying drawings, and appended claims.
The present invention is a method and apparatus for induction sealing a plastic part to a composite container. The method includes the steps of:
providing a composite container having a body, the body having a top portion terminating in a top edge, the body defining a cylinder extending beyond the top edge, the body comprising an outer structural layer, an intermediate layer of electrically conductive material and an innermost layer of thermoplastic adjacent the electrically conductive layer;
positioning a plastic part onto the composite container such that it forms a friction fit with the inside of the top portion of the container body;
exposing the top portion of the container body to a pair of electromagnetic fields created by a pair of induction coils arranged in parallel on either side of the container, each coil doubling back on itself so as to form two substantially parallel linear sections, one linear section of each coil being positioned above the container top edge and intersecting the cylinder defined by the container body, the other linear section being positioned below the top edge and lateral to the container body, whereby said exposure induces an electrical current in the electrically conductive layer of the container body, thereby generating heat that raises the temperature of the adjacent thermoplastic layer to a temperature suitable for adhering the thermoplastic layer to the plastic part;
rotating the container while it is being exposed to the electromagnetic fields; and
forming a seal between the plastic part and the thermoplastic inner layer of the container by removing the top portion of the container from the electromagnetic fields and allowing the thermoplastic layer to cool and solidify.
The parallel linear sections of each coil create overlapping electromagnetic fields. As the container is exposed to the overlapping electromagnetic fields, the container is carried on a moving conveyor belt and rotated to assure even heating of the thermoplastic liner and plastic part.

Method for induction sealing a plastic part to a composite container


On/off timing of an amplifier and timing of antenna selection are accurately adjusted. When adjusting the on/off timing of the amplifier, modulation of a transmit signal is stopped, and a switch is set so as not to select any one of the antennas, thereby totally reflecting the transmit signal; in this condition, the timing is controlled so that the average value of the output level of a mixer becomes a minimum. When adjusting the antenna selection timing, modulation of the transmit signal is stopped, and a reflective object is placed in close proximity to the antenna; in this condition, the timing is adjusted so that the average value of the output level of the mixer becomes a maximum.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for adjusting amplifier on/off control timing and antenna selection control timing in a radar and, in particular, in an FM-CW radar that uses a duplexer, and also relates to a radar apparatus having an automatic timing adjusting function.
2. Description of the Related Art
An FM-CW radar projects forward a transmit wave frequency-modulated by a triangular wave, produces a beat signal by mixing a reflected wave from a target with a portion of the transmit wave in a mixer, and computes the distance and relative velocity of the target simultaneously from the beat frequencies produced during the increasing section and the decreasing section of the triangular wave. Such radars are commercially implemented as automotive radars.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-122661 describes an FM-CW radar that uses a single antenna for both transmission and reception, by using a duplexer, and discloses that a bias voltage to a transmitting amplifier and a bias voltage to a receiving amplifier are turned on and off in alternating fashion in order to prevent the transmit wave from leaking into the receiving side in the duplexer and interfering with the received signal.
In this case, if the end point of the ON period of the transmitting amplifier is separated from the start point of the ON period of the receiving amplifier by, for example, 3.3 nsec or more, reflected waves from a target located within a range of 1 m cannot be captured, and thus the short-range detection performance degrades. Conversely, if the end point of the ON period of the transmitting amplifier overlaps the start point of the ON period of the receiving amplifier, the transmit signal leaks, which increases noise in the short-range detection area and may result in the detection of a false target. If the leakage of the transmit signal becomes excessively large, a device failure may result. Accordingly, the relative timing of the two amplifiers must be accurately adjusted.
Further, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H11-160423 discloses an FM-CW radar employing a DBF (Digital Beam Forming) method that sequentially switches between a plurality of receiving antennas and determines the target direction by detecting the phase difference between the reflected waves received from the same target. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-155171 discloses how an effect equivalent to using more receiving antennas than actually used, can be achieved by using a plurality of receiving antennas in an DBF system. Further, though not published at the time of this patent application, Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-164122 discloses a radar apparatus that achieves further reductions in size and weight by using a plurality of antennas for both transmission and reception in a DBF system.
In connection with the foregoing, if a configuration such as shown in FIG. 1, in which a duplexer 14 is used in conjunction with a switch 12 that selects one of a plurality of antennas 10 for transmission or reception and if the on/off timing of the transmitting amplifier 16 and the receiving amplifier 18 can be adjusted accurately as shown in parts (a) and (b) of FIG. 2 by some kind of means, it is still necessary to make the timing for setting the switch 12 to select the transmitting antenna or the receiving antenna (parts (c), (d), and (e)) match the on/off timing of the transmitting amplifier 16 and the receiving amplifier 18.

Timing adjustment method for radar, and radar apparatus having automatic timing adjusting function


A light-sensitive silver halide photographic material having a support and, provided thereon, photographic component layers including at least one light-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing silver halide grains having a silver chloride content of not less tha 90 mole % and having been subjected to gold sensitization, said photographic component layer containing a gelatin of which isoelectric point being 4.0 to 5.0 and the film pH of said photographic component layer being not more than 6.0.

In recent years, what has been sought in light-sensitive silver halide photographic materials is that they can perform rapid processing, can have high image quality and yet superior processing stability, and can be of low cost. Particularly sought after are light-sensitive silver halide photographic materials that can be processed rapidly.
Light-sensitive silver halide photographic materials are usually continuously processed by an automatic processing machine, installed in all photofinishing laboratories. However, as an improvement in service to users, it is desirable to finish processing and to return the products to users on the day the development orders were received, and, nowadays, it is further desired even to return products within a few hours after the receipt of an order, whereby there is an increasing necessity for rapid processing. Development of rapid processing has also been hastened because a shortened processing time may bring about an increase in production efficiency and a cost decrease may thereby be made possible.
To achieve rapid processing, approaches have been made from two directions, i.e., the light-sensitive material and the processing solution. In respect of color developing processing, it has been attempted to raise the temperature, the pH and the concentration of a color developing agent, and also it is known to add additives such as development accelerators. The above development accelerators may include 1-phenyl-4-pyrazolidone, as disclosed in British Patent No. 811,185, N-methyl-p-aminophenol, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,417,514, and N,N,N',N'-tetramethyl-p-phenylenediamine, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter referred to as Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) No. 15554/1975. The method in which these are used, however, cannot achieve sufficient rapidness, and may be often accompanied by a deterioration of performance such as an increase in fog.
On the other hand, the shape, size and composition of silver halide grains of a silver halide emulsion used in the light-sensitive material are known to greatly affect the development speed and so forth. In particular, it is known that the halogen composition may greatly affect the same, and that a very remarkably high development speed can be shown when a silver chloride-rich silver halide is used.
However, the silver chloride-rich silver halide is poor in long-term storage stability, and seriously susceptible to fog, particularly when stored under conditions of high temperature and high humidity. It also has a much lower speed compared with silver bromide-rich silver chlorobromide, silver bromide or silver iodobromide. To increase the speed of the silver chloride-rich silver halide, gold sensitization is most suitable (as well as sulfur sensitization), which, however, brings about an increase in fog as a property inherent in gold compounds, and also soft gradation at the toe of the characteristic curve. Increasing the amount of gold compounds may bring about suppression of the fog, but on the other hand may result in greater soft gradation, additionally accompanied by desensitization.
Another possibility known as a means for improving the fog in storage stability of raw stocks, is to use cyanuric acid (Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 201335/1985), but this is disadvantageous in that although the fog can be suppressed the desensitization becomes greater.
Therefore, the development of a light-sensitive silver halide photographic material having high speed, high gradient and low fog, and also being superior in stability and yet suited for rapid processing, is energetically sought.


A removable, protective book cover is provided which includes a jacket portion removably mountable in operative relationship with the binding of a book and having transparent overlay sheets secured thereto which may be disposed in operative relationship with the relevant pages of the book with which the cover is associated, said sheets incorporating hinges which facilitate the juxtaposition of the underside of the transparent overlay sheets in operative relationship with the relevant pages of the book so that maximum perception of the printed or other material on the page may be achieved by the person utilizing the book. Retaining element is provided to retain the cover in a desired closed, protective configuration between periods of usage.

This invention relates to book covers of the character which are utilized to provide protection for the binding of a book and further characterized by the fact that they may be readily installed upon or removed from the binding of said book. Furthermore, the removable, protective book cover of the invention is characterized by the provision of one or more transparent overlays secured in operative relationship with said cover whereby said overlays may be disposed in operative relationship with said book, and being transparent, may be utilized to make temporary notations upon the surface thereof relevant to the subject matter of the page with which said overlay or overlays are associated.
Illustrative of the utilization of the device of my invention is its association with a conventional map book consisting of a plurality of sectional maps devoted to a particular geographic area such as a county, city, or state and consisting of a plurality of pages suitably bound in operative relationship whereby contiguous pages may be disposed in side to side relationships. Map books of this character are customarily intensively used by sales persons and individuals whose occupations entail frequent recourse to such map books to ascertain the location of their destinations which may be the offices of customers or the like.
Since the maps incorporated in conventional map books are imprinted on relatively fragile paper, making notations or inscriptions thereupon will ultimately obscure the surface of the map page and result in limited utility of the relevant section of the book.
Therefore, the provision of the overlays in conjunction with the removable cover of the invention eliminates this undesirable consequence of making notations on the surface of the map itself since relevant notations can be made upon the surface of the transparent overlay.
Frequently, it is necessary to utilize two map sections in conjunction with each other, and the provision of a plurality of overlays, secured to opposite edges and/or to the same edge of the cover of my invention, permits the overlays to be disposed in operative relationship with the relevant surfaces of the map sections being utilized with corresponding notations thereupon.
Prior art overlays intended to be utilized with an imprinted surface are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,791,040 and 1,510,110. The U.S. Pat. No. 2,791,040 teaches of the provision of a transparent envelope in which a drawing or other imprinted material can be installed, with notations being made upon the transparent portion of the envelope, while the U.S. Pat. No. 1,510,110 teaches a book binding having a permanent overlay associated with one edge thereof.
Among other things, overlays in prior art devices tend to "gap" away from the pages of the book, making it difficult to transfer information from the page to the overlay. This problem is exacerbated for thick books, and is particularly acute when the overlay is used on pages which are relatively far away from the cover of such a book, or when the desired information is at the outer edges of the pages of the book.

Protective, removable book cover with transparent marking overlays


A method for the calculation and storage of a computer-generated multilayer hologram with more than or equal to 2 holograms includes the following steps. Field AO of a readout beam and field AR in the reflection plane are preset as mathematical functions. Except for the hologram to be calculated, all the other holograms of the layer structure are also preset as mathematical functions. Fields A+/A− are then calculated on both sides of hologram hi, as a result of which hologram function hi, is calculated by forming a quotient from fields A+/A−.

The invention relates to a method for the calculation of multilayer holograms, a method for the production of multilayer holograms as well as a holographic storage medium with a multilayer hologram produced according to this method. With multilayer holograms, it concerns in particular so-called computer-generated multilayer holograms. The latter exhibit special properties which can be used in numerous applications, in particular as security features. The properties are, in particular, angular selectivity, wavelength selectivity, blazing (only one order is visible), phase selectivity and others.
Various experimental techniques are known from the prior art of producing holograms. Mention may be made, on the one hand, of experimentally generated multilayer holograms and, on the other hand, of volume holograms.
Experimentally recorded two-layer holograms are known from the article from Optica Acta, 1986, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp 255-268. For these, two thin photosensitive layers (8 μm) are deposited on the opposite sides of a thick glass plate (1.34 mm). This glass plate is then illuminated with two plane waves which are at a certain angle to one another. The developed hologram is illuminated with readout waves which are varied both in angle as well as in wavelength. The theory developed in this article is based on splitting up a sine grating into Bessel functions and is in very good agreement with experiment. The two-layer holograms thus produced exhibit a higher diffraction efficiency than is permitted by the theoretical limit for single-layer holograms. They exhibit a high angular and wavelength selectivity, which however is periodic. They do not exhibit any blazing effect, i.e. positive and negative orders are of the same order of magnitude in intensity. As an application, an analog-to-digital converter is presented, which relies above all one of the property of angular selectivity.
Volume holograms display many properties that can be exploited in applications. Hitherto, however, they can neither be calculated closed, nor is there any possibility known for exposing a calculated volume hologram into a voluminous carrier material. For this reason, they have to be exposed experimentally, which involves all the drawbacks of experimental holography.
Thin computer-generated holograms can be calculated in a known manner and exposed in a simple fashion, but they do not possess important properties that are known with volume holograms.
Multilayer holograms exhibit very similar properties to volume holograms. They can be exposed in a similar manner to thin holograms. Hitherto, however, there has not been a suitable method for calculating such holograms.

Methods for calculating multilayer holograms, method for producing multilayer holograms and storage medium comprising a multilayer hologram


The present invention provides an adhesive patch comprising a support, an adhesive layer on at least one surface of the support, and a release liner on a surface of the adhesive layer opposite from the support, wherein

In recent years, various adhesive patches and adhesive preparations have been developed. Adhesive preparation and adhesive preparation are highly superior in terms of protection of wound surface, continuous transdermal administration of a drug, drug metabolism by first-pass through the liver, and avoidance of various side effects.
In general, adhesive patches and adhesive preparations have a support made of a woven fabric, a non-woven fabric, a plastic film and the like and an adhesive layer laminated on the support, and are generally provided with a release liner laminated on the adhesive layer. They are provided in a package made of a packaging material such as a resin film and the like.
In such adhesive patches and adhesive preparations, the adhesive layer is required to have a certain thickness in consideration of the wound surface protection effect, and the effective drug content. However, when the adhesive layer becomes thick, the end of the adhesive patch and the like is easily rubbed against clothes and the like and turned up, as well as the components of the adhesive layer ooze or protrude from the end of the adhesive patch and the like, i.e., cold flow, thus posing problems during adhesion to the skin.
Cold flow occurs depending on the property of the adhesive layer. It often occurs when, in particular, an adhesive patch or adhesive preparation is under a load for a long time, that is, when an adhesive patch and the like are contained in a package and stored for a long period and the like.
Adverse effects of cold flow include, for example, difficulty in taking out an adhesive patch and the like from a package, which is caused by adhesion of oozed or protruded adhesive layer components to the inside of the package, turning and staining of adhesive patch and the like during adhesion to the skin, a lower medicinal effect of the adhesive preparation due to an outflow of the drug and the like. Therefore, adhesive patches and adhesive preparations desirably have an end not easily rubbed against clothes, do not permit easy cold flow, and have an adhesive layer retaining the original shape.
As a technique to handle such problem, JP-A-11-1432 (patent document 1) discloses an adhesive patch having a dry edge, which has a release liner extended from the end of a support and an adhesive layer. In such adhesive patch, oozing and protruding of an adhesive layer component from the end of an adhesive layer in contact with a release liner can be suppressed to some extent. However, in such adhesive patch, oozing and protruding of an adhesive layer component from the end of an adhesive layer in contact with a support may occur, and the preparation is not entirely satisfactory.
JP-A-6-63071 (patent document 2) discloses a covering material for wound (dressing material) which is contoured and has an adhesive layer fitting to the skin. In one example of this covering material for wound, the end is cut flatly, and therefore, oozing and protruding of an adhesive layer component from the end may occur, which results in the attachment of the component to the inner surface of the package.
In another example described in patent document 2, the end of the covering material is covered with a support. In such adhesive patch, however, the end of a support covers the end of an adhesive layer and, at the end of the adhesive patch, the end of the support aligns with the end of the release liner. Therefore, when in use, the release liner may not be easily detached from the end thereof with fingers. In addition, since the end of the support needs to be able to bend and cover the end of an adhesive layer, the degree of freedom of selection of the material and shape thereof, particularly thickness and the like, is low. Particularly, when the adhesive layer is thick, it is not easy to cover the end of the adhesive layer with the end of the support extended therefor in an industrial production stage. In fact, the thickness of the end of the adhesive layer of the adhesive patch in this example is molded to be thinner than that of the central part, and the thickness of the end of the adhesive layer is inferred to be difficult to maintain.

Abstract: (a) the lateral end of the adhesive layer is exposed,

Abstract: (b) in at least one lateral end, the lateral end of the adhesive layer is located toward the central part side of the adhesive patch from the lateral end of the support, and

Abstract: (c) when placed horizontally with the release liner facing down, a distance A between the upper end of the support and the lower end of the release liner at said lateral end of the adhesive patch is greater than a thickness B of the central part of the adhesive patch.


The present invention identifies methods and procedures for correlating control plane and user plane data, consolidating and abstracting the learned and correlated data in a form convenient for minimizing and exporting to other network devices, such as those in the Core Network and the Access Network, or the origin server, CDN devices or client device. These correlation methods may use Control Plane information from a plurality of interfaces in the RAN, and User plane information from other interfaces in the RAN or CN. IF the device is deployed as an inline proxy, this information may be exported using in-band communication, such as HTTP extension headers in HTTP Request or Response packets, or another protocol header, such as the IP or GTP-U header field. Alternatively, this information can be exported out-of-band using a separate protocol between the RAN Transit Network Device (RTND) and the receiving device.

Wireless Mobile networks, such as UMTS, CDMA, LTE, and WIMAX, use layered network architectures that are broadly partitioned as an Access Network (AN) that deals with authorizing a user's access to a specific wireless network, his service plans, and his level of authorization (for example Adult vs. Child); and a Core Network (CN) that connects user plane sessions to the internet and other networks while enforcing the operator policies determined during the session establishment through the access network. After a session, such as a PDP Context or EPC Session, is established, the network devices in the access network, such as the NodeB, eNodeB, BTS, BSC, and RNC, are unaware of the type of application being used or the content type. These devices are also unaware of the corresponding network bandwidth/delay/jitter requirements of applications that are transported over the established user-plane tunnels. Similarly, network devices in the core network, the internet and content servers are unaware of the transit network conditions. These transit network conditions may include congestion in a specific sector, or a specific device, such as NodeB, or RNC. Other conditions include that the user may have moved to a location where the wireless coverage is poor, or the voice call volume in the specific sector/location has increased, thus reducing the available capacity in certain location. Network protocols, such as TCP, attempt to adjust to the maximum available capacity that the underlying transport could support by using end-to-end acknowledgements. However, each of these TCP sessions is unaware of other sessions in that sector or congestion point. Moreover, all of the TCP sessions associated with a specific UE, or with multiple UEs in the same sector, NodeB, or RNC may not be traversing the same Core Network devices, such as SGSN, or GGSN. Attempts by each TCP session to maximize network usage may not be suitable for certain applications and other TCP connections through the same congestion point.
As stated above, the congestion of the radio access network (RAN) is a major concern for operators of high-speed 3G networks. The problem is further exacerbated by the proliferation of smart phones and USB dongles to laptops that drive increasingly large amounts of data through the network compared to the older handsets. Such congestion could be due to small number of users running high bandwidth applications or due to the increased number of circuit switched (CS) users in a sector, the increased number of packet switched (PS) sessions, increased signaling rates in control plane (CS or PS), increased SMS or MMS usage during events or frequent RAB establishment and releases by certain devices or applications. In addition to congestion, wireless channel quality for a subscriber, which changes rapidly with mobility or due to contention with other users in the same sector/site, also makes it difficult for applications to deliver traffic consistently through the Radio Access Network (RAN). Devices in the RAN, such as NodeB, eNodeB, and RNC, are responsible for establishing user plane sessions (circuit switched or packet switched) and delivering packets to the established session by managing RAN/RF resources. These devices are unaware of the user application protocols, the network domains that the users access and the service requirements while accessing these domains. While 3GPP defines four broad categories of service classes (conversational, streaming, interactive, and background), the majority of user access patterns show conversational class for voice service, and interactive class while accessing internet. The rapid growth of mobile applications and the access density of the diverse applications in certain locations and during busy hours make the limited service classes inadequate for mobile operators to control and optimize RAN so that a user's quality of experience (QOE) is not severely degraded. Additionally, TCP/IP and the majority of applications that use TCP/IP are reservation-less protocols that use the network bandwidth to the extent that the underlying transport can support. The devices in the operator public land mobile network (PLMN) that process user application layer packets, such as TCP/IP/HTTP, and UDP, do not have the visibility of aggregation and congestion points in the operator wireless RAN. U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,111,630 and 8,208,430, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, identify methods of placing a transparent proxy in RAN that intercepts Control Plane (CP) and User Plane (UP) in a plurality of domains (circuit switched and packet switched domains) and delivers cached content and performs other service delivery optimizations. The proxy identified in these patents proposes inline caching of accessed data and other application-specific optimizations that reduce the burden on the operator's core network, while improving the QoE of the end user.
FIG. 1 shows a sample inline network device deployed between the RNC and the SGSN. These inline network devices are usually transparent, and, when deployed outside of a base station or a radio network controller, do not have access to the congestion level within a network element or the user channel quality or the radio utilization. It is also not easy to estimate the RAN congestion level just by measuring the traffic flow to the RAN through the proxy device, because RAN capacity and user channel capacity are highly variable entities that depend on the distribution of users in the sector and the radio power allocation with voice and data among other things. However, proxies can benefit immensely from knowing the current RAN state, because they can tailor their services to the requirements of the RAN. For example, assume that a RAN cache proxy has two versions of a cached video, one in a higher resolution than the other. If the proxy could know that the user requesting the video is in a congested sector or has a bad radio channel, it can avoid overloading the RAN by serving the user with a lower resolution video. Many such optimizations are possible with an awareness of the RAN state.
Devices within the RAN, such as the RNC, NodeB, and eNodeB, deal with packet delivery over established user plane tunnels, and are unaware of the application/content types, and application needs. As described above, 3GPP standard define four service classes, (1) Conversational, (2) Streaming, (3) Interactive, (4) Background. Most application start by using the interactive service class using HTTP transport, and migrate to other application types based on user selection of a link on a web object. Additionally, the growth of mobile applications/widgets and their network usage pattern makes the above 3GPP defined services classes inadequate. More dynamic methods of identifying per flow short term network usage, longer term usage by the subscriber, subscriber-device, domain (web-site) and exporting in a consolidated way to RAN and core devices in the operator's mobile network facilitates network tuning and policy control of the network are required. This also facilitates better content adaptation for optimal QOE by the applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,111,630 defines methods and procedures for optimized content delivery by caching, split-TCP, transit buffering etc., in a transit network device placed in RAN that intercepts User Plane and Control plane protocols.
It would be beneficial if the transit network congestion information were propagated in a timely fashion to the core network devices that perform Policy Control Enforcement function (PCEF) or to a load balancer or to application/content delivery optimization devices. In this way, these devices could perform admittance control or video transcoding/transrating etc. functions better. Similarly, if the type of user application and its bandwidth expectations are known to devices in the RAN that are allocating Radio Resources, these devices could prioritize channel allocation based on content knowledge. Thus, it would be beneficial if there were methods that summarize the learned and estimated information from Control Plane and User Plane flows in the RAN, associate that information with sectors that they correspond to and export the consolidated information to other devices in RAN, CN, client device and Internet.

RAN analytics, control and tuning via multi-protocol, multi-domain, and multi-RAT analysis


A milking system for animals. In particular, the present invention relates to a milking system implantable within the teat of an animal which provides improved milking rapidity and decreased mastitis incidence.

Damage to the teats of dairy cows through the use of milking machines causes substantial economic loss to the dairy industry. These losses occur from physical teat damage, increased incidence of mastitis, and increased culling rates.
Typical milking machines comprise a teat cup that includes a hollow, rigid outer shell or sleeve having a port that is adapted to be attached to a pulsating vacuum line. A resilient, tubular liner or inflation typically extends from a top to a bottom of the sleeve, concentrically disposed within the shell. The ends of the inflation make sealing engagement with the shell to form an annular vacuum chamber between the shell and the inflation. The pressure in the annular chamber is alternated between a lower pressure, typically a sub-atmospheric pressure, and a higher pressure, typically atmospheric, by the pulsating vacuum line attached to the shell at the port. A milk-collecting vacuum line is connected to a milk-receiving cup attached to the shell and in communication with the interior of the inflation, positioned at the lower end of the inflation. This line is to draw milk from the cow's teat and convey it to a collection tank. The valve distal opening of the milking system is received through an upper end of the inflation. The interior of the inflation is maintained at a sub-atmospheric pressure, and the alternating pressure in the annular chamber periodically forces the walls of the inflation outwardly and inwardly resulting in a massaging action on the teat as well as periodically collapsing the walls of the inflation below the teat. The collapse of the inflation periodically relieves the teat from exposure to the vacuum within the inflation due to the negative pressure in the milk-collecting vacuum line. The teat cup is made heavy enough that it draws the teat downward, and the combination of the effects of the weight of the teat cup and the variation of geometry of the inflation and variation of the amount of vacuum to which the teat is exposed, causes the inflation to ride up and down on the teat by a small amount. Such systems exert damaging physical and vacuum pressure on the teat and cause the teat to be immersed in milk that can contain bacteria washed off of the surface of the teat and udder.
As cows are genetically selected to produce more milk, standard machine milking time is increased. Each time a cow is milked, severe mechanical forces of vacuum and physical pressure are exerted on the teat and its structures. These adverse forces can cause skin damage to the teat, teat end erosions, and hyperkeratosis.
Irritations of the teat and teat canal ultimately increase the cow's risk of mastitis infections and decrease her lifetime productivity within the herd. During the standard milking process, the teat end of the cow is continually bathed in milk. Microorganisms on the teat of the cow are washed into the milk stream and can be injected into the teat canal via the repeated inflation/deflation cycles of the automatic milking machine. These microorganisms can cause mastitis. Clinical mastitis cases can cost as much as $300.00 per episode and subclinical mastitis greatly reduces milk production within a herd.
Additionally, increased culling rates of dairy cattle due to mastitis infections can cripple the financial performance of a dairy farm. Culling rates can easily exceed the capacity of the herd to sustain itself thus forcing the dairyman to purchase additional animals to maintain the herd at a desired number of animals.
Accordingly, what is needed is a milking system that results in less damage to the cow's teat and that reduces exposure of the mammary gland to infective agents. It would also be desirable to decrease the time required for milking.


A device for anchoring components or parts to a rigid element, such as an engine block, for example, or to intermediate elements which are in turn fixed to rigid elements, such as an intermediate pin mounted on the engine block, for example. The anchor consists of a structure which can be manufactured from stamped and punched sheet metal parts giving rise to an inexpensive and easy-to-manufacture component. The particular configuration based on stamped and punched sheet metal parts shows high rigidity and is particularly suitable for anchoring heavy components. The fixing anchor is suitable for bolted joints of the components or parts.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for anchoring components or parts to a rigid element, such as an engine block, for example, or to intermediate elements which are in turn fixed to rigid elements, such as an intermediate pin mounted on the engine block, for example.
More specifically, the anchor according to the invention comprises a structure which can be manufactured from stamped and punched sheet metal parts giving rise to an inexpensive and easy-to-manufacture component. The particular configuration based on stamped and punched sheet metal parts shows high rigidity, and the resulting anchor is particularly suitable for anchoring heavy components.
The fixing anchor of the invention is suitable for bolted joints of the components or parts.
2. Description of the Related Art
Securing a part or a component to any rigid element of an internal combustion engine, or to an intermediate element which is in turn fixed on a rigid element, requires a suitable anchoring system.
Particularly, the anchoring system allows securing components such as a heat exchanger of an EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) system to a rigid component, such as the engine block, for example, or to an intermediate component, such as an intermediate pin, for example.
An anchor suitable for anchoring the components is obtained by means of a bolted joint, requiring a housing for housing the fastener which allows the joining. The bolted joint allows suitable support if the components to be fixed are heavy.
A known way to provide a housing serving as a guiding support for the fastener in the bolted joint is to manufacture same as an integral part of the component to be secured by means of molding or casting techniques. The drawback of this anchoring system manufacturing technique is that since the element is obtained by casting, it is heavy and has a high manufacturing cost. In many cases, the existence of through holes or cavities involves the use of cores and moving parts in molds, making manufacture considerably more expensive.
The anchor for the components can also be obtained through an angle bracket-type support. The support can be obtained in one piece by means of stamping and allows the bolted joint of both components acting only as a support. The drawback of the support is its low rigidity, so it is not suitable for securing heavy components.
The guiding support for a bolted joint according to the present invention is suitable for anchoring any component and prevents the problems existing in the previously mentioned solutions.

Borgwarner Emissions Systems Spaion, S.L.U.


Mesoporous oxide nanoparticles, compositions comprising such nanoparticle, and methods of making and using such nanoparticles. The nanoparticles (e.g., compositions comprising the nanoparticles) have an average size of less than 15 nm and a narrow size distribution. The nanoparticles can be used in imaging applications and delivery of molecular cargo (e.g., a drug) to an individual.

Cancer has become a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for over 7.5 million deaths in 2008. While one of the most important forms of cancer treatment, chemotherapeutic drugs often also kill healthy cells and cause toxicity to the patient. In the search for improved alternatives nanocarriers have become an emerging platform for cancer therapy enabling drug delivery specifically into tumors. Beginning in the mid-1980s, several types of targeting nanocarriers, based on polymer-protein conjugates and lipids, have successfully reached clinical trials. However, there are still many challenges remaining, including rapid clearance, burst drug release and non-specific uptake. In order to overcome these challenges, nanocarriers with better properties need to be designed. A promising alternative material to polymers is mesoporous silica due to its high-surface area, stability and bio-compatibility. Surface-functionalized mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) can deliver multiple types of cargo, such as DNA, drug molecules or even quantum dots, into cells and tissues of plants or animals. However, in the current state of development such MSN-based nanocarriers have not yet reached clinical trials. One of the reasons is that silica typically needs a fairly long time to dissolve under physiological conditions, resulting in potential particle accumulation in the body, which may in turn cause long-term toxicity. Even in cases where MSNs dissolve quite rapidly, questions about the dissolution mechanism, bio-distribution and toxicity remain.
In order to endow ultra-small silica nanoparticles with additional, e.g. therapeutic properties for clinical applications it is desirable to develop mesoporous particles with sizes smaller than 10 nm. Although recently the size of MSNs has been pushed down to less than 20 nm, the synthesis of fluorescent MSNs smaller than 10 nm and with narrow particle size distributions still remains a challenge.

Mesoporous oxide nanoparticles and methods of making and using same


A node having a node input is configured to receive a plurality of transactions intended for a plurality of different targets. The node has multiple node outputs. At least one target is provided, that target including an input configured to receive a respective output of the node. The node is configured to direct transactions to the at least one target or an output (for passing to a different partition) depending on whether the transactions are intended for the target or a different target. This determination is made in response to a conversion operation which converts a target address of the transaction to an identification associated with the target or the output.

Integrated circuits have an ever increasing number of components on them. A System-on-Chip (SoC) provides multiple computer components or in some cases entire electronic systems on a single chip. Further, modern SoCs in application domains integrate several peripherals in order to meet the requirements of a wide range of applications. The level of integration is being increased by the usage of smaller silicon feature technology, for example at the moment 32 nanometers.

Method and apparatus for routing transactions through partitions of a system-on-chip


A loudspeaker configured to provide asymmetrical beam coverage. A first group of drivers to outputs a first beam pattern. A second group of drivers, which is different from the first group of drivers, is configured to output a second beam pattern. A transmission line is adapted to output signals to the first driver group and the second driver group to provide an asymmetrical beam pattern. The first driver group outputs a beam pattern different than the second driver group. This can improve acoustic coverage, e.g., sound pressure levels, in the acoustic environment. In an example, the transmission line is separated into two distinct parts that feeds the first driver group and the second driver group respectively.

Loudspeaker systems have been implemented as arrays of loudspeakers, or drivers; stacked and aligned vertically, aligned horizontally, or in two dimensions. The drivers in such configurations may be of the same type, such as tweeters, midrange speakers, or wideband speakers. The drivers may also be connected to cross-over networks, or filters to generate sound in particular frequency ranges.
One problem with loudspeaker systems arranged in an array is that the sound generated by multiple drivers does not create a consistent sound field or pattern. This inconsistency in the sound field or pattern distorts the sound and impairs the listening experience of the listener.

Asymmetrical passive group delay beamforming

Harman International Industries, Incorporated


Systems, methods, and storage media for determining the probability of cyber risk-related loss within one or more computing systems composed of computing elements are disclosed. Exemplary implementations may: assess vulnerability by determining an exposure window for a computing element based on the number of discrete times within a given time frame where the computing element is in a vulnerable state; determine a frequency of contact of the computing element with threat actors; normalize the exposure window and the frequency of contact; calculate a threat event frequency by dividing the normalized exposure window by the normalized frequency of contact; and repeat the steps for multiple elements. When combined with liability data that describes the loss magnitude implications of these events, organizations can prioritize the elements based on loss exposure and take action to prevent loss exposure.

The cyber risk landscape is complex and dynamic, and there are limited resources for managing it. The inescapable implication is that organizations have to prioritize the many cyber-related risks they face in order to pragmatically address risks. Once this prioritization has taken place, organizations can evaluate and compare the cost-benefit propositions of the many risk mitigation options that are available. The first step in prioritization requires measuring the frequency of cyber-related loss events.
As an example, a hypothetical enterprise could have a thousand assets within its cyber risk landscape and the vulnerability of these systems is likely evaluated daily using a common scanning technology (e.g., QUALYS™). An asset can be a computing system, an application, a computing environment, or a computing device. Furthermore, imagine that QUALYS reports the existence of 3,457 vulnerabilities in total for these assets on a given day, with a third of those vulnerabilities rated Critical or Very High using the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) scoring system, or some derivative thereof.
CVSS is a known mechanism for producing a numerical score reflecting vulnerability severity. The numerical score can then be translated into a qualitative representation (such as low, medium, high, and critical). However, the CVSS model is known to be inaccurate (e.g., it ignores the frequency side of a risk equation, it uses complex math on ordinal scales, etc.), which means these tools are not reliable for determining the frequency of loss from these events. In the absence of being able to prioritize its mitigation efforts based on frequency, the enterprise in this example would be forced to try to remediate over a thousand vulnerable conditions. It is not pragmatic to address these many vulnerabilities in a timely fashion, especially given the highly dynamic nature of a cyber risk threat landscape.
Because empirical data related to loss event frequency (LEF) are often sparse and difficult to come by for most cyber-related loss events, an analyst has to estimate frequency based on a manual decomposition of the underlying factors. This estimate can then be applied within the Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR) model, which is a common ontology and methodology for quantifying and managing cyber risk in financial terms.
When using the FAIR model, determining LEF boils down to estimating Threat Event Frequency (TEF) and Vulnerability, which further break down into Contact Frequency and Probability of Action (under TEF) and Threat Capability and Difficulty (under Vulnerability). FIG. 1 is a diagram of the relevant portion of the FAIR ontology. However, it is difficult to reliably estimate Threat Capability and Difficulty, which reduces the reliability of some analyses. Furthermore, many organizations must prioritize amongst hundreds or even thousands of vulnerable conditions (e.g., missing software patches), which can't reasonably be accomplished through manual analysis methods. Therefore, the current state of threat analysis methodologies, and thus the current state of addressing cyber threats, is very cumbersome and inefficient.

Systems, methods, and storage media for calculating the frequency of cyber risk loss within computing systems


A method for characterizing dielectric loss tangent of a dielectric material. The method includes: introducing an incident wave in a mismatched transmission line; measuring a first insertion loss from a first resulting standing wave, at a given frequency; augmenting the mismatched transmission line with the dielectric material; introducing the incident wave in the transmission line augmented with the dielectric material; measuring a second insertion loss from a second resulting standing wave, at the given frequency; and calculating the dielectric loss tangent based on the differences between the first and second measured insertion losses.

Loss tangent is a parameter of a dielectric material that quantifies electromagnetic energy dissipation in the dielectric material. More specifically, the term refers to the angle in a complex plane between the resistive component of an electromagnetic field and its reactive component. For many applications, such as antenna design, printed circuit boards (PCB), hermetic packaging, etc, the electromagnetic energy can be considered as electromagnetic waves propagating either through free space, in a transmission line, in a waveguide or in a microstrip line. For mechanical or structural support of electrical conductors, dielectric materials are often used in these applications.
For example, in the case of an antenna system, because the electromagnetic wave travels through different parts of the antenna system (radio, feed line, antenna, free space, etc.), it may encounter differences in impedance. At each interface, depending on how well the impedance is matched, some portion of the wave's energy reflects back to the source of the wave, forming a standing wave in the feed line. Here, a standing wave is an electromagnetic wave that remains in a constant position, because of interference between two waves (one being the reflection of the other one) traveling in opposite directions. However, for waves having equal amplitudes and traveling in opposing directions, there is no net propagation of energy. Impedance matching deals with minimizing impedance differences at each interface to reduce ratio of maximum power to minimum power, that is, the standing wave ratio (SWR), and to maximize power transfer through each part of the antenna system.
Complex impedance of an antenna is related to the electrical length of the antenna at the wavelength in use. The impedance of an antenna can be matched to the feed line and radio by adjusting the impedance of the feed line, for example, by adjusting the length and width of the feed line. A Smith chart is a graphical chart to assist in solving problems with transmission lines and matching circuits. The Smith chart is used as a graphical indication of how many radio frequency (RF) parameters behave at different frequencies. It can also be used to represent many parameters including impedances, admittances, reflection coefficients, and Snn scattering parameters, among others.
There have been many attempts to measure or characterize the dielectric loss tangent of dielectric materials for different applications by complicated methods. These methods include filling a waveguide with the dielectric material of interest and measuring the radiation loss in the material. The measured radiation loss with the dielectric material is then compared with the measured radiation loss in the waveguide without the dielectric material to determine the loss due to the dielectric material of interest. Once the radiation loss to the dielectric material is determined, a loss tangent of the determined loss is calculated, for example, by a computer program. Other methods include resonant techniques such as waveguide resonators filled with the dielectric material, and resonant ring measurements.
However, these complicated methods are either not accurate and/or hard to implement, especially at higher frequency ranges. Resonant techniques typically measure insertion loss at very low signal resonant peaks. These methods are not adequate in measuring differences in loss involving small changes in dielectric material. At higher frequencies, measurement calibration inaccuracy limits the accuracy of the measurement for small signals levels. Therefore, a very limited frequency set is measured per structure with these conventional techniques. Furthermore, conventional techniques include filling waveguide with the dielectric material of interest and measuring antenna radiation loss. However, a coating is usually too thin to use in these bulk measurement techniques.
Therefore, there is a need for a less complicated and more accurate method for characterizing dielectric loss tangent of dielectric materials.

Method for characterizing dielectric loss tangent


A hand carry type portable curing apparatus using a long-arc UltraViolet (UV) lamp for concentrating the external air on the long-arc UV lamp and enhancing cooling efficiency by disposing a fan at a tilt angle and in addition installing a means for forcibly inducing a flow of air inside is provided. The apparatus includes a housing having an accepting part therein, the long-arc UV lamp installed in the accepting part of the housing, and a fan installed in the housing and cooling the long-arc UV lamp. The fan is installed on the slant to tilt toward the front in a front surface of the housing.

Today, environmental-friendly material (e.g., plastics, metals, etc.) treatment technologies are under development. And, a portable UV treatment (i.e., UV curing, drying, coating, and printing) apparatus enabling free movement and worker's own carrying when coating, drying, and printing curved surfaces of building accessory materials (a bathtub, a marble bottom and wall body, etc.), industrial materials (e.g., car plastic parts, car exterior cladding frames), etc. capable of meeting the above consumer's demand is under development and deployment as the recent consumer's demand changes to environmental-friendly materials occupying a small installation space and also capable of providing material treatment (curing, drying, coating, printing, etc.) enabling easy movement and worker's own carrying.
For specific local or curved part surfaces of the above products, materials need the curing, coating, drying, and printing apparatus. In detail, the apparatus irradiates UV into a coated or printed product with the listed materials using a cylinder type oval condenser mirror making use of a high pressure mercury or metal long-arc lamp that is a high pressure UV lamp or a metal and mercury lamp, and irradiates UV (particularly, 'i' rays of 365 nm) at an illumination necessary for UV photo reaction and executes operations such as UV curing, drying, printing, and coating. Generally, a conventional apparatus using a long-arc lamp is of a fixed type, and another kind is a spot curing apparatus using a short-arc lamp for irradiating UV and curing an area of 3 to 10 mm.
However, in the above conventional fixed and portable UV curing apparatus using the long-arc lamp, a cooling structure is of a type in which a fan (i.e., a cooling unit) is installed in a right-angled direction or vertical direction of the long-arc lamp. Because of this, a high pressure long-arc lamp has a short lifetime and consumes a high replacement cost. Also, in case of a high pressure metal UV lamp or a high pressure mercury lamp, as cooling non-uniformity occurs, substances within a high pressure UV lamp (i.e., mercury, and metals for UV radiation) can suffer abnormal convection and thus, can deteriorate the quality of UV curing, drying, coating, and printing. In case of a spot curing UV apparatus using a short-arc lamp, movement is difficult and a fixed type is used. The spot curing UV apparatus is used for a very small area below 10π.
Accordingly, in recent years, a curing work using a long-arc UV lamp is becoming a new alternative.
The present invention presents a UV curing system using the long-arc UV lamp that can be hand carried by a worker.
The UV curing, printing, drying, and coating refers to a scheme of inducing a chemical UV reaction dependent on the addition of a kind of synthetic resin and hardening a product surface. In case of a curing reaction, a chemical component of resin is transformed from monomer to polymer, and a micro hand carry type curing unit is mainly used for the car exterior coating curing and surface curing treatment for a building interior bottom or tile, a bathtub, a marble, etc.
Conventional ink and coating (with water or solvent base) is dried through an evaporation process (i.e., heat curing and heat drying) for eliminating about 40% of a capacity of a coated ink. The UV curing ink and coating includes a photoinitiator that is a special composition sensitive to UV radiation rays. An exposure to UV radiation rays causes a polymer net knot in which ink is crosslinked beginning a rapid reaction, and is transformed from liquid to solidification state. A UV curing (drying, coating, and printing) process is a chemical reaction called a 'photopolymerization', and is a technology of changing monomer into polymer by UV light. UV curing materials are generally composed of monomer, oligomer (prepolymer), photoinitiator, and other additives. If irradiated by UV light, the photoinitiator is excited and, by this excitation energy, monomer (liquid) converts into polymer (solid). This process does not need a solvent. Products are not dried by heat but are cured by UV light. Thus, an energy loss is very small compared to heat drying and heat curing. For this reason, a contribution to the recent green (environmental-friendly production and manufacturing process) energy field is very large.
It is basically different from heat drying, i.e., a method of gasifying a solvent by heat energy and solidifying the solvent.
The prior art provides a substantial matter of a UV curing apparatus including a UV lamp, a reflection mirror surrounding the UV lamp, a lamp unit composed of a lamp house embedding the lamp and the reflection mirror, a rotary shaft installed in the lamp unit, a lamp installation mount embedding the lamp unit, and a handle installed in an end of the rotary shaft, wherein a shaft support means for supporting both-side ends of the rotary shaft is installed in the lamp installation mount, and the rotary shaft is fixed to a side wall of a lamp house to which the UV lamp of the lamp unit is fixed and in addition, is extended outside the shaft support means of the lamp installation mount and on the other hand, a rotation locking unit installed to press and fix the other end of the rotary shaft extending and protruding outside is provided in an outer wall of the lamp installation mount in which the shaft support means is installed.
However, the above prior art needs a cooling means for cooling a UV lamp gradually increasing in temperature during a long-time use process. But, the prior art does not disclose this cooling means and thus, can cause a disadvantage of disabling a long time use of a curing apparatus and UV irradiation non-uniformity resulting from cooling non-uniformity. For products presented from this technology, the currently developed curing equipment provides high efficiency in a cooling flow design compared to the prior art, and can make cooling constant for a length direction of a long-arc lamp because it is of a structure optimizing a cooling flow rate.

Hand carry type portable curing apparatus using long-arc UV lamp


Method and computer-readable medium embodiments provide for sourcing current to a series of light-emitting diodes in a plurality of series of light-emitting diodes. A method comprises generating a current, sequentially and separately switching the current to each of the series of light-emitting diodes in the plurality of series of light-emitting diodes for a corresponding period of time, and predicting an output voltage across a selected series of light-emitting diodes using a plurality of parameters stored in a memory.

Arrays of light-emitting diodes ("LEDs") are utilized for a wide variety of applications, including for ambient lighting. To achieve emission of light perceived as white light, LED arrays typically utilize a combination of red, green, and blue ("RGB") LEDs (and, occasionally, amber LEDs), usually as a first series connection (a first "string") of a plurality of red LEDs, a second series connection (a second string) of a plurality of green LEDs, and a third series connection (a third string) of a plurality of blue LEDs, which are typically referred to as "multistring LEDs".
For driving an array of LEDs, electronic circuits typically employ a converter to transform an AC input voltage (e.g., "AC mains") and provide a DC voltage source, with a linear regulator then being used to regulate LED current. For example, in Mueler et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,016,038, entitled "Multicolored LED Lighting Method and Apparatus", the LEDs may be controlled by a processor to alter the brightness and/or color of the generated light, such as by using pulse-width modulated ("PWM") signals.
Multistring LED Drivers with PWM regulation are known, e.g., Subramanian Muthu, Frank J. P. Schuurmans, and Michael D. Pashly "Red, Blue, and Green LED for White Light Illumination", IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vol. 8, No. 2, March/April 2002, pp. 333-338. Such multistring LED drivers typically require redundant drivers for every LED string. For example, in the system illustrated in FIG. 1, three separate and independent flyback converters 10 operating at a constant switching frequency of 100 kHz drive a corresponding string of an RGB LED light source 15, with a PWM 20 driving scheme operating at a frequency of 120 Hz. Each flyback converter 10 contains a current loop to maintain a constant peak current for the PWM pulses. The color control system is implemented in a DSP controller 25 (TMS320F240), which supplies the PWM turn-on and turn off signals for the power supply.
A similar approach using redundant drivers for multistring LEDs is suggested in Chang et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,369,525, entitled "White Light Emitting Diode Lamp Driver Based on Multiple Output Converter with Output Current Mode Control," which utilizes a white LED array driver circuit with a multiple output flyback (or forward) converters with output current mode control, as illustrated in FIG. 2. The circuit 40 comprises a power supply source, and a transformer having a primary winding 41 and multiple secondary windings 42, with each light-emitting diode string coupled in the circuit to one of the secondary windings. A main controller 43 is coupled to a first of the light-emitting diode strings 46 and is configured to control a flow of current to the primary transformer winding 41. The circuit also comprises an additional plurality of secondary controllers 44, 45, each of which is correspondingly coupled to another light-emitting diode string 47, 48 to control a flow of current to its corresponding light-emitting diode string.
An analog implementation of this teaching can be found in the AS3691 product from Austriamicrosystems (LEDs Magazine 2005). The AS3691 includes four independent high precision current sources each capable of sinking 400 mA. The operating current per LED channel can be set via an external resistor, while the LED brightness is controlled by four independent pulse width modulated inputs. The AS3691 integrates four independent current sinks per chip, enabling it to drive either four white LEDs each sinking 400 mA or a single white LED with up to 1.6 A.
Another method utilizes multiple, separate linear regulators, with each regulator separately coupled to an LED string of an LED array. For example, an AC-to-DC converter, for transforming AC input voltage into a DC voltage source, is coupled to multiple, dedicated linear regulators, with one regulator coupled to each LED string to regulate the current in that corresponding LED string. This approach represents a multistage power system with low efficiency of power conversion, in addition to already low efficiency of series pass current regulators, particularly when the DC voltage is constant and does not depend on current. This method of multiple and separate linear regulators is illustrated in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,064,498 Light Emitting Diode Based Products; 7,038,399 Methods And Apparatus For Providing Power To Lighting; 6,965,205 Light Emitting Diode Based Products; 6,806,659 Multicolored LED Lighting Method And Apparatus; 6,801,003 Systems And Methods For Synchronizing Lighting Effects; 6,788,011 Multicolored LED Lighting Method And Apparatus; 6,720,745 Data Delivery Track; 6,636,003 Apparatus And Method For Adjusting The Color Temperature Of White Semiconductor Light Emitters; 6,624,597 Systems And Methods For Providing Illumination In Machine Vision Systems; 6,548,967 Universal Lighting Network Methods And Systems; 6,528,954 Smart Light Bulb; 6,459,919 Precision Illumination; 6,340,868 Illumination Components; 6,292,901 Power/Data Protocol; 6,211,626 Illumination Components; 6,166,496 Lighting Entertainment System; and 6,150,774 Multicolored LED Lighting Method And Apparatus.
Similarly, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,016,038, entitled "Multicolored LED Lighting Method and Apparatus," each LED string of the LED array is controlled by a separate current regulator with a processor, to alter the brightness and/or color of the generated light using pulse-width modulated signals. In this case, an additional, current sink stage is added in series with each LED string current regulator, resulting in a further decrease in efficiency, particularly when the current sink is used to bypass the LED current to ground when the LED should be off. This multistage power system, with dedicated current converters and controllers in each LED channel, in addition to low efficiency, has a large size, many expensive components, and is expensive to manufacture.
Lastly, in Archenhold et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,963,175, entitled "Illumination Control System," a light-emitting diode illumination control system is disclosed for driving a current circuit for energizing one or more LED light sources. The system comprises a control system including a microprocessor, arranged to control a pulse amplitude modulated (PAM) voltage controlled current circuit, and may employ a monitor for monitoring at least one ambient condition and a microprocessor operable to control the current circuit in response to the monitored conditions. This proposal has several significant problems: (1) the system is very complex, inefficient (for power conversion), has many expensive components, and is expensive to manufacture; (2) the current to emission (color) transfer function in emitting diodes is substantially nonlinear, leading to poor color control or requiring additional, undisclosed technical means for compensation for this nonlinearity (not suggested in the patent); and (3) the disclosed current source operates poorly, suffering from thermal dependency and requiring correction by a microprocessor.
The multi-output or separate power converters and controllers for each LED string of an LED array increases the cost and size of the LED driver, and reduces the functionality and efficiency of the driver. Accordingly, a need remains for a multistring LED driver which utilizes a single power converter and controller for an entire LED array and does not utilize these multiple, separate power converters and controllers for each LED string. Such a multistring LED driver should provide for independent current control for each LED string of the array, for corresponding effective color and brightness control. In addition, such an LED array driver should provide for local LED regulation, providing local compensation of LED emission due to age and drift of functional parameters, temperature changes of the LED junction, LED production characteristics variation, and variations of devices produced by different manufacturers. Such an LED array driver also should be backwards-compatible with legacy LED control systems.

Time division modulation with average current regulation for independent control of arrays of light-emitting diodes


A system for and method of system for performing dynamic extension assignment is presented. In one exemplary embodiment, the method may comprise receiving, via a network, an extension assignment request associated with a network endpoint, identifying the network endpoint based on one or more properties of the network endpoint, applying one or more rules to identify an extension to be assigned to the network endpoint based on the one or more properties of the endpoint, and assigning the extension to the network endpoint.

Extensions for multimedia communications may be assigned to network endpoints in packet switching networks. These extensions are statically assigned and are associated with a device. Assignment of extensions is used by many applications to regulate usage of multimedia applications. For example, a Voice Over IP ("VOIP") based application, such as a call center application, may limit logged-in users to those with licenses. The licenses are associated one a one-to one basis with extensions. Because extensions are assigned to a device statically, a license is assigned to every terminal in a call center even though a much lower number of terminals are in use at any one point in time. Assigning an extension to every terminal prevents administrators from having to reassign statically assigned extensions among terminals to provide a license; however, it results in having to purchase significantly more licenses than are required at any one point in time. Additional applications, for example, video conferencing, are also assigned extensions and licenses for each terminal regardless of the total number of terminals used at any one time.

System for and method of dynamic extension assignment


An apparatus is disclosed where a Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) circuit is used to transmit data into the photovoltaic network, where the PLC communication is pulling the required transmit energy from the photovoltaic network, where the transmit chain is using the MPPT transistor of the photovoltaic DC Optimizer, where the transmit chain is transmitting data using Standard modulation such as ASK, FSK, S-FSK, BPSK, OFDM, etc. . . . where the transmitted data are passed on to the powerline network by the use of an “Input signal” adaptation stage, where signals summation is performed to create a command signal used to control the transmission of data by providing enough voltage to polarize the Transistor (i.e: MOS FET) used in the powerline path.

The focus of our invention is on powerline communication within individual DC/DC micro-converters (also called DC Optimizer) use to convert the unregulated generated DC power from the PV into a fixed DC output voltage. This output voltage is fed into to a centralized DC/AC inverter using the power wires of the various photovoltaic strings (DC bus). One-way of making sure DC Optimizers are efficient is by adding some communication capabilities, like PLC, between the multiple DC Optimizers on the different string of the PV installation. Unfortunately, most of the communication system used today in the DC Optimizers are: a) an add-on communication system to the existing DC/DC converter making the overall solution not cost efficient; b) an energy inefficient communication solution reducing the performances of the overall PV installation. Advantages of having communication capabilities in a photovoltaic system are security, safety, remote management, etc. . . .
As a continuation of the U.S. pending patent application Ser. No. 13/227,891 entitled "Powerline Control Interface for Frequency and Amplitude Modulation Transmitter", the focus of our invention remains at the Physical Layer in PowerLine Communications (PLC) environment.
Consequently the present invention was conceived to take advantage of the existing electronics of the MPPT function within a DC Optimizer to: a) improving the performances over a traditional Powerline Interface to transmit data on the power line by using ("pulling") the required current from the DC Bus and therefore reducing the overall power consumption of the transmit system to only few milli-watts required by the electronics of the PV Coupler; b) eliminating the cost of the Powerline interface and therefore reducing the overall BOM of the system.
Furthermore, the use of the present invention is independent of the type of PHY modulation (ASK, FSK, S-FSK, BPSK, OFDM, etc. . . . ) and with proper adaptation of some of the electronics; the invention can be used in any frequency band. Only limitation of the created system will be to have a different communication frequency band from the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) frequency use by the MPPT electronics. Frequency bands relevant to the smart grid market can be used, such as:                CENELEC, ARIB and FCC bands (<500 KHz),        SAE bands,        Broadband Powerline communications frequency bands

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Powerline control interface in photovoltaic environment for frequency and amplitude modulation transmitter


Exemplary systems and methods enable efficient and reliable positioning, assembly, retention, interconnection, and management of battery cells in battery packs, for example battery packs utilized in electric vehicles.

A battery pack contains a number of batteries (also referred to as cells). The cells are interconnected in parallel and/or series to achieve desired current and voltage performance for the battery pack. Often, a large number of cells are interconnected to obtain the desired power from the battery pack. Prior approaches to interconnecting the cells, particularly in vehicle applications, involve welding or soldering a first wire to the positive terminal and a second wire to the negative terminal of the cell. The other ends of these wires are connected to other wires or bus bars to combine the cells in parallel/series. However, these prior approaches are time consuming and subject to undesirable variability in manufacturing. Additionally, the use of wire harnesses for voltage sensing, temperature sensing, and cell balancing is often unreliable and a common point of failure. Accordingly, improved systems and methods for interconnecting cells of battery packs remain desirable.

Systems and methods for battery structure, interconnects, sensing, and balancing


Some demonstrative embodiments include devices, systems and/or methods of configurable frequency signal generation. For example, a device may include at least one configurable local-oscillator (LO) generator to receive an input frequency signal and one or more configurable input values and to convert the input frequency signal into at least one output frequency signal according to a configurable conversion ratio, which is based on the configurable input values.

Various devices may include one or more frequency generation circuits.
A frequency generation circuit may include a Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) controlled by a Phase-locked-loop (PLL), to generate a source frequency, and a Local Oscillator (LO) generator to convert the source frequency into a frequency signal according to a preset conversion ratio.
Some devices may include a plurality of frequency generation circuits to generate a respective plurality of frequency signals.
For example, a wireless communication device may include a plurality of frequency generation circuits to generate a plurality of carrier signal frequencies corresponding to a plurality of wireless communication frequency channels.

Device, system and method of configurable frequency signal generation


The present invention discloses a method for deduplication of a file, a computer program product, and an apparatus thereof. In the method, the file is partitioned into at least one composite block, wherein the composite block includes a fixed-size block and a variable-size block, the variable-size block being determined based on content of the file. Then a deduplication operation is performed on the at least one composite block.

The present invention relates to deduplication techniques, and more specifically, to a method for deduplication of a file and an apparatus thereof.
Deduplication is a widely used data reduction technique in the process of backing up and archiving data, which eliminates redundant data by deleting duplicate data in data sets (for example, a file), so as to reduce a storage capacity used in the storage space.
Typically, the redundant data can be divided into three types: File Level, Block Level and Byte Level. In the type of File Level, the redundant data is entire files, which means one file is a duplicate of at least one other file. In the type of Block Level, the redundant data is blocks within the file, which means there are identical data blocks among different files. In the type of Byte Level, the redundant data is more fine-grained data in bytes.
There are some deduplication methods for these three types of redundant data. Single Instance Storage is a deduplication technique for the File Level, which can effectively detect duplicate files. When each file is stored onto a content addressable memory (CAS) device, the CAS device will generate a hash for the file content stored therein. If there are already files having an identical hash in the CAS device, the CAS device will recreate a pointer representing a duplicate to point to the already existing files, without saving the duplicate files. The deduplication technique for the Byte Level may effectively eliminate the redundant bytes by data compression technology.
A commonly used deduplication method is a hash-based method. In this method, firstly, the data file is segmented into a set of data blocks, and for each data block, a fingerprint (i.e. a hash value) is calculated. Then the fingerprint is used as a keyword for hash retrieving. If matching, it indicates that the data block is a duplicate data block, and only an index number of the data block is stored. If not matching, it indicates that the data block is a new data block, and the data block will be stored and the associated metadata will be created.
There are three kinds of chunking methods, namely, fixed-size partition (FSP), content-defined chunking (CDC) and sliding-window blocking (SB). The FSP method is to partition a file into data blocks with a fixed length, so as to quickly detect the redundant data. The CDC method and the SB method are to partition a file into data blocks with a variable size based on content of the file, so as to effectively find the redundant data.
However, when the deduplication is performed on a file, if the file has deduplication executed previously and is modified later, for example, new data is inserted into the file, or the original data is deleted from the file, or the data is modified in the file, which changes the length of the file, the FSP method is very sensitive to such modification, and is very inefficient. This is because the FSP method partitions the file into the fixed-size blocks. One or some data blocks obtained by partitioning the modified file will contain the modified data. Compared with the data blocks obtained by partitioning the file before the modification, the contents of the data blocks change and they become the new data blocks. Since the length of the data block is fixed, the contents in the subsequent data blocks also change due to the change in the length of the file, and these data blocks also become the new data blocks. In this way, the redundant data blocks in the file will not be actually detected, so the deduplication rate for the file is reduced.
Although the CDC method and the SB method can solve such a problem, it is relatively difficult to determine the size of the data blocks, which renders the deduplication speed lower than that of the FSP method.

International Business Machines Corporation


An image-forming device has a main casing, a cartridge, and a guiding unit. The main casing has a cartridge access opening and a cartridge loading section in communication with the cartridge access opening. The cartridge access opening has an opening plane. The cartridge is detachably counted in the cartridge loading section through the cartridge access opening. The guiding unit provides a loading path to load/unload the cartridge with respect to the cartridge loading section. The guide unit is configured to orient the loading path toward a direction substantially parallel to the opening plane outside of the main casing, thereby curving a track of the cartridge.

In a conventional image-forming device, such as a laser printer, having a main device body, a process cartridge including a photosensitive drum and a developer unit is detachably mounted in the main device body. An access opening is formed in a prescribed surface of the main device body, while a cover is disposed on the main device body for exposing and covering the access opening. This cover is rotatably supported about a shaft extending along the prescribed surface of the main device body. By rotating the cover open about the shaft, the access opening is exposed, enabling a user to linearly remove a process car-ridge from or mount a process cartridge into the main device body through the access opening. When the cover is closed about the shaft, the cover covers the access opening.
However, in an image-forming device having this construction, the cartridge cannot be mounted in or removed from the main device body unless the cover is opened wide. To open the cover wide, a large space is needed around the periphery of the main device body. Hence, the image-forming device occupies a greater space than the space required for installation, resulting in restrictions on installation locations.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide an image-forming device and a cartridge mounted in the image-forming device that are capable of Increasing the flexibility of choosing an installation location.

Image-forming apparatus including a cartridge loading section in communication with a cartridge opening