A computer-implemented method of generating an item number for an item is disclosed. First, an item-type table is created and a sequence of specification codes on the item-type table is determined. After creating a code table for each of the specification codes, a specification name for each of the specification code is input into the code table. After inputting representative codes into the code table, an item-type code is input into the item-type table. After inputting a specification description into the item-type table, an item-number-encoding table is created and an item type of the item is selected on the item-number-encoding table. Next, an item-type code of the item is input into the item-number-encoding table, and then specification descriptions of the item type is shown on the item-number-encoding table. After deciding the representative codes according to real properties of the item, the item number of the item is generated.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a computer-implemented method of generating an item number for an item, and more particularly, to a computer-implemented generation system allowing an user to create his/her personal encoding way for a variety of kinds of items.
2. Description of the Related Art
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems plan and control all resources (such as items and materials) in an enterprise. A typical ERP system provides applications for a user to control production/material management, quality management, plant maintenance, sales and distribution, human resources, and project management.
Material requirement planning (MRP) is the engine of the ERP system that plans the schedules for the purchase and manufacturing of materials. The plans for other resources are generally derived from it. MRP calculates the planned order released from the fundamental data. Key fundamental data for MRP includes the item master, bill of material, routing, and bill of resources.
The item master file describes the attributes of a company""s items, which include raw materials, works-in-process, semi-finished goods, and finished goods. The number of attributes of an item is generally very large, and thus they are normally divided into five groups: general attributes, attributes for planning, attributes for inventory, attributes for inspection, and attributes for costing. These include parts number, name specification, unit of measurement for quantity, product line, product sub-line, inventory type, inventory sub-type, drawing number, engineering change number, etc. The product line and sub-line are used to sort out the items for item master reports, material requirement reports, sales amount reports, cost reports, etc. The inventory type is usually defined as the material of the parts, such as iron, steel, brass, plastic, etc., and is used to analyze the cost of the parts. Inventory sub-types are generally used when further classification is required. The drawing number is used to fetch the drawings from the computer aided design (CAD) system and attach them to the manufacturing or purchasing documents. The engineering change number is used to link the ERP system to an outside workflow control system for monitoring the documents of an EC (Electronic Commerce) in progress, or for retrieving the record of the last EC when it has been closed.
However, the conventional ERP systems generally have the following drawbacks:
1. Each ERP system has its encoding way for a variety of kinds of items. The encoding methods between different ERP systems have large differences. Therefore, it is necessary to perform a transformation procedure between two ERP systems when a user or an industry chooses a new ERP system. The transformation procedure is terribly troublesome.
2. Because it is necessary to perform a transformation procedure between two ERP systems according to the prior art, a long transitional period is required for the user or the industry to adapt the new ERP software. For this reason, the education period and cost for the purchase people, the production management people, and the material management-people can be very large.
3. ERP systems are also used by research people, purchase people, and sales people. For the industries having plenty of items, it""s very hard for users to remember the item number of each item. For this reason, when the research people, purchase people, and sales people are filling out purchase orders, they can find out the necessary item numbers only by manually checking a table book. It""s very troublesome for them.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a computer-implemented method of generating an item number for an item.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a computer-implemented system of generating an item number for an item.
It is further another object of the present invention to provide a computer-implemented system for querying an item number for an item.
A method of generating an item number for an item is disclosed in the present invention. First, an item-type table is created and then a sequence of specification codes is determined on the item-type table. Next, a code table for each kind of the specification codes is created. After inputting a specification name for each kind of the specification code into the code table, a several of representative codes are input into the code table in sequence. After that, an item-type code is input into the item-type table, and then a specification description is input into the item-type table for each kind of the specification codes.
Thereafter, an item-number-encoding table is created, and an item type of the item is selected from the item-number-encoding table. After inputting an item-type code of the item into the item-number-encoding table, specification descriptions of the item type are shown on the item-number-encoding table. After deciding the representative codes according to the real properties of the item, the item number of the item is generated by clicking a button positioned on the item-number-encoding table.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, after generating the item number for each of the items, steps of querying an item number of a specific item are disclosed. First, an item-number-querying table is created. After choosing an option of inputting an item number directly, a part of the item number of the specific item is input into the item-number-querying table. Thereafter, items with item numbers containing the part are disclosed. Finally, the item numbers of the items are shown on the item-number-querying table.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, after generating the item number for each of the items, steps of querying an item number of a specific item are disclosed. First, an item-number-querying table is created. After choosing an option of querying item numbers from specifications, an item-type code of the specific item is decided. After showing corresponding specification properties of the item-type code on the item-number-querying table, the specification properties are filled according to the real properties of the specific item. Finally, the item number of the specific item is shown on the item-number-querying table.
According to the present invention, the item number is composed of the representative codes, and the representative codes represent all of the important specifications of an item. For this reason, it is not necessary for a user to realize the important specifications and properties of an item by querying on the computer. The convenience and efficiency of purchasing, checking, importing and exporting items can be significantly enhanced. The present invention allows a user to create his/her personal encoding way for a variety of kinds of items. The user can use the customary encoding way of his/her industry without transformation. No transitional period is required for the user to adapt the new ERP software. For this reason, the education period and cost for the purchase people, the production management people, and the material management people can be largely decreased.

Method and system of generating an item number for an item


A therally processed image forming material less causative of adhesion during storage in a form of commercial product is provided. The thermally processed image forming material has on only one side of a support an image forming layer, in which the outermost layer on the same side with the image forming layer contains a binder different from that contained in the outermost layer on the opposite side of the support.

The present invention relates to a thermally processed image forming material less causative of adhesion in a form of commercial product.
A strong need for reducing the volume of waste process solution has arisen in recent field of printing from viewpoints of environmental preservation and space saving. Thus a recording material requiring no conventional step for solution development, fixation nor water washing is desired.
A thermally processed image forming material for producing photographic image based on heat development is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,152,904 and 3,457,075 and xe2x80x9cThermally Processed Silver Systemsxe2x80x9d written by D. Morgan and B. Shely, Imaging Processes and Materials, Neblette""s 8th ed., edited by Sturge, V. Walworth and A. Shepp, Item 2 (1989). Such thermally processed image forming material is hopeful of applications in various fields for the advantages of its mono-sheet constitution and development only by a heat processing.
The image recording material based on the heat development process is generally developed at 80 to 150xc2x0 C., so that when the material is intended for use in printing purpose, using gelatin as a binder as being practiced in the conventional photographic photosensitive material, will raise a problem that a significant dimensional change may occur due to shrinkage of the gelatin. While such dimensional change has been suppressed to a level of no problem in the practical use by using a polymer binder not shrinkable by heat, there is occurring a new problem that the material in a product form of rolled sheet or stacked sheets may result in adhesion between the outermost layers when allowed to stand under high temperatures (for example, 30xc2x0 C. or above).
It is therefore an object of the present invention to solve the foregoing problems. That is, the present invention is to provide a thermally processed image forming material less causative of adhesion in a form of commercial product.
The present inventors found after extensive investigations for solving the foregoing problem that an thermally processed image forming material less causative of adhesion can be obtained by specifying binders used in the outermost layers on both planes of the material; which led us to propose the present invention.
That is, the present invention is to provide a thermally processed image forming material having on only one side of a support an image forming layer characterized in that the outermost layer on the same side with the image forming layer contains a binder different from that contained in the outermost layer on the opposite side of the support.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention include such that the binder contained in the outermost layer on the same side with the image forming layer and the binder contained in the outermost layer on the opposite side of the support have a common monomer composition to a degree less than 75 wt %; such that a ratio of an I/O value of the binder contained in the outermost layer on the same side with the image forming layer and an I/O value of the binder contained in the outermost layer on the opposite side of the support is within a range from 0.1 to 0.90, or within a range from 1.10 to 10; such that the binder contained in the outermost layer on the opposite side of the support has a softening point of 100xc2x0 C. to 250xc2x0 C.; such that the binder contained in the outermost layer on the opposite side of the support has a softening point higher than a glass transition point of said binder by 30xc2x0 C. or more; such that a ratio of a Vickers hardness of the binder contained in the outermost layer on the same side with the image forming layer and a Vickers hardness of the binder contained in the outermost layer on the opposite side of the support is within a range from 0.1 to 0.95, or within a range from 1.05 to 10; such that the binder contained in the outermost layer on the same side with the image forming layer or on the opposite side of the support contains a polymer latex in an amount of 50 wt % or more of the total binder; such that the outermost layer on the same side with the image forming layer or on the opposite side of the support contains a fluorine-containing surfactant; such that the outermost layer on the same side with the image forming layer or on the opposite side of the support contains a slipping aid; and such that the image forming layer contains an organic acid silver salt and a reducing agent.

Thermally processed image forming material


In a storage device incorporating a plurality of kinds of disk drives with different interfaces, the controller performs sparing on a disk drive, whose errors that occur during accesses exceed a predetermined number, by swapping it with a spare disk drive that is prepared beforehand.

The present invention relates to a disk array incorporating different kinds of disk drives. More specifically the present invention relates to a disk array which, in the event of a failure of a part of the disk drives, can perform sparing by using different kinds of disks and also to a sparing method.
A disk array accommodates a large number of disk drives. Should a part of these disk drives fail, a normal operation of the disk array cannot be guaranteed. As a means for improving a fault tolerance of the disk array, sparing may be used. The sparing involves preparing spare disk drives in a disk array in advance and, when a failure is detected, quickly disabling the failed disk drive and placing a spare disk drive in operation. After sparing is effected, an anomaly is notified to an administrator to prompt him to perform a maintenance service. By replacing the failed disk drive with a normal spare disk drive in this manner, the disk array can be maintained without stopping its operation.
JP-A-5-100801 discloses a technique which, when the number of access errors in a disk drive exceeds a predetermined value, disables the disk drive preventively before it fails and swaps it with a spare disk drive. JP-A-2002-297322 discloses a technique which, in the event of a failure, distributively stores data from the disabled disk drive in a plurality of spare disk drives.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Anomaly notification control in disk array


A hydraulic oscillation damper has a piston rod with a piston that is inserted into a damper tube filled with damping fluid, and divides the damper tube into first and second working chambers. First and second continuously adjustable damping valves are disposed in a common housing that is attached to the damper tube, and are connected hydraulically in parallel with the working piston. The housing has a first hydraulic chamber that is connected to the first working chamber via a first bore, and a second hydraulic chamber that is connected to the second working chamber via a second bore. A flow guiding element, which separates the two hydraulic chambers, guides the damping fluid flow to the first or second damping valve in response to a retraction or extension movement of the piston.

The invention relates to an oscillation damper of the type having a working piston that is disposed in a damper tube that is at least partially filled with a damping liquid.
An oscillation damper of this general type is disclosed, for example, in European patent document EP 1 538 366 A1. In this known oscillation damper, two electromagnetic control valves are provided which are disposed hydraulically in parallel with the working piston, one which one has a flow passing through it only when the piston rod performs a retraction movement, with the other having a flow passing through it only when the piston rod performs an extension movement. The electromagnetic control valves are formed as so-called backpack valves; i.e., they are disposed in housings which are flanged to the damper tube of the oscillation damper.
The damping force can be continuously varied by the two electromagnetic control valves. In the case of the known oscillation damper, the damping forces can thus be continuously varied independently of each other in the traction stage and in the compression stage of the oscillation damper.
A disadvantage of this known oscillation damper is that each damping valve requires two connection bores in order to ensure the necessary inflow and outflow of the damping liquid. As a consequence, a total of four connection bores are to be introduced into the damper tube, which is complex in terms of manufacturing technology and causes the damper tube to weaken. Furthermore, in the known oscillation damper two independent housings are provided, wherein one damping valve is disposed in each housing. By arranging two damping valves in separate housings on the outer circumference of the damper tube, the oscillation damper requires on the whole a considerable amount of installation space which is not available in all vehicles to the chassis frame design engineers. The applicability of the known oscillation damper is thus restricted.
One object of the invention, therefore, is to provide an oscillation damper of the type described above, which obviates the described disadvantages.
This and other objects and advantages are achieved by the oscillation damper according to the invention, in which both damping valves are disposed in a common housing having a first and a second hydraulic chamber. The first hydraulic chamber is connected via a first bore to the working chamber remote from the piston rod and the second hydraulic chamber is connected via a second bore to the working chamber on the piston rod-side. A flow guiding element separates the two hydraulic chambers from one another, such that the damping liquid flowing into the first hydraulic chamber when the piston rod performs a retraction movement is supplied to the first damping valve in the valve through-flow direction, and the damping liquid flowing into the second hydraulic chamber when the piston rod performs an extension movement is supplied to the second damping valve in the valve through-flow direction.
The inventive arrangement of the damping valves in a single housing ensures that in comparison with the solution disclosed in European patent document EP 1 538 366 A1, a considerably smaller amount of installation space is required for the purpose of accommodating the oscillation damper. As a consequence, it is possible to utilize the oscillation damper according to the invention in vehicles in which oscillation dampers having only a single backpack valve have hitherto been used. In the case of vehicle chassis frames which provide only a small amount of installation space for the oscillation damper, the inventive arrangement of the two damping valves in a single housing can ensure a separate damping adjustment in the traction stage and in the compression stage of the oscillation damper in spite of the small installation space.
It is also advantageous that the oscillation damper in accordance with the invention requires only two connection bores to connect the housing to the damper tube inner space. Therefore, the inventive housing can be connected to the damper tube inner space merely via two connection bores because, due to the arrangement of the flow guiding element, during a retraction movement of the piston rod the first hydraulic chamber forms an inflow chamber and the second hydraulic chamber forms an outflow chamber for the damping liquid. In a similar manner, the arrangement of the flow guiding element ensures that during an extension movement of the piston rod the second hydraulic chamber forms an inflow chamber and the first hydraulic chamber forms an outflow chamber for the damping liquid. Therefore, with the oscillation damper in accordance with the invention, both hydraulic chambers can essentially be both the outflow chamber and also the inflow chamber, depending on the movement direction in which the piston rod and the working piston attached thereto move (traction direction or compression direction).
In accordance with the invention, the damping valves are formed preferably as electromagnetically operable, continuously adjustable control valves. The basic structure of damping valves of this type is already known from European patent document EP 1 538 366 A1 (above). The damping liquid must flow against these damping valves centrally in the middle. This central middle flow against the damping valves is ensured by means of the inventive flow guiding element for both valves, i.e., for both movement directions of the piston rod.
In the continuously adjustable damping valves, the damping force is generated by virtue of the fact that the hollow-cylindrical adjusting gate valve is displaced along its longitudinal axis on the cylindrical part of the deflection element, through which a flow can pass and with which the adjusting gate valve cooperates. By the axial displacement of the adjusting gate valve, a throttling opening disposed in the cylindrical part of the deflection element is revealed to a greater or lesser extent so that, depending upon the position of the adjusting gate valve, this throttle opening provides a certain degree of flow resistance for the damping liquid.
Basically, in the oscillation damper in accordance with the invention it is sufficient to provide only the continuously adjustable damping valves. However, in order to achieve damping which satisfies the requirements of driving comfort, it can be expedient to connect an additional passive valve element into the flow path in a hydraulic manner upstream of the active (adjustable) valve element which is formed by the adjusting gate valve and the cylindrical part of the deflection element. Depending upon the design of this additional passive valve element, the damping force progression can be influenced in a desired manner, and can be adapted e.g., to specific manufacturer specifications or wishes.
The flow guiding element can be produced essentially from different materials. Cost-effective production can be achieved if the flow guiding element is formed as a pressed sheet metal part or as a sintered component. However, it is also possible to produce the flow guiding element from synthetic material. In this case, the synthetic material injection molding method can be deployed for producing the flow guiding element.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the housing in which the damping valves are disposed is cylindrical. In this case, it is possible in a particularly simple manner to dispose the damping valves coaxially with respect to each other in the housing, and also the circular disk-shaped flow guiding element can be disposed conveniently, coaxial with respect to the damping valves and between same.
To permit installation of the entire arrangement of the two damping valves and the flow guiding element that is disposed therebetween, securely and firmly in the housing, the latter can comprise a shoulder which protrudes radially towards them and on which the flow guiding element is supported. In order to seal the first hydraulic chamber with respect to the second hydraulic chamber, a seal can be disposed in an advantageous manner between the radial shoulder of the housing and the flow guiding element. This seal can be formed as a simple 0-ring seal.
However, the radial shoulder can also alternatively be dispensed with and the flow guiding element can be sealed on its outer circumference against the cylindrical inner wall of the housing.
In accordance with the above-described embodiment of the invention, the sole objective of the flow guiding element is to supply the damping liquid to the respective damping valve, without a damping force being generated when a flow passes through the flow guiding element. However, in accordance with another embodiment of the invention, the flow guiding element is already equipped with pressure limiting valves which (as seen in the through-flow direction) are connected hydraulically upstream of the damping valves, which in turn are disposed hydraulically in parallel with the working piston. Therefore, the flow guiding element has a dual function: on the one hand it supplies the damping liquid to the respective damping valve, and on the other hand it actually generates a damping force which influences the damping characteristic. For this purpose, the flow guiding element comprises at least two channels to allow damping liquid to flow through, and the flow guiding element has pressure limiting valves disposed on it, wherein one pressure limiting valve can be influenced by damping liquid which flows through one channel and the other pressure limiting valve can be influenced by damping liquid which flows through the other channel. In a preferred manner, the pressure limiting valves disposed on the flow guiding element are formed as disk valves, in particular pretensioned disk valves.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, each of the damping valves comprises a passive valve element in the form of a pressure limiting valve, and the additional pressure limiting valves which are disposed on the flow guiding element and generate a damping force are connected in a hydraulic manner upstream of these passive valve elements. Therefore, in the case of this embodiment two passive valve elements are each connected hydraulically in series one behind the other, in both through-flow directions. The two passive valve elements which are connected one behind the other in series preferably have different opening pressures.
In accordance with the invention, each of the first and the second damping valves comprises a non-return valve, to ensure that the damping liquid flows through the first damping valve only when the piston rod performs a retraction movement, and that the damping liquid flows through the second damping valve only when the piston rod performs an extension movement. In a preferred manner, each continuously adjustable damping valve comprises a passive valve element which in the valve through-flow direction is connected hydraulically upstream of the control valve, wherein as seen in the through-flow direction a non-return valve is connected hydraulically upstream of each passive element. These non-return valves can be formed as simple disk valves which do not generate any noteworthy damping force when a flow passes through them. By virtue of these non-return valves, the damping liquid is prevented from flowing through the damping valves in the respective undesired directions, when the control valves are open.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Oscillation damper having a backpack valve


A tool 1 comprises a single rib dressing roll 5 and two semi-rib dressing rolls 10, 11 separated by spacers 13. The two flanks 31, 33 of a first lead 32 of a grinding worm 30 are dressed by the two flanks 6, 7 of the single rib dressing roll, and the two flanks 35, 38 of a second lead 36 are dressed by the two flanks 14, 16 of the semi-rib dressing rolls. Fast dressing with a long service life and a short dressing stroke are thus obtained.

To date the following solutions are known for dressing doublelead grinding worms.
a) Dress both starts of the grinding worm in succession with the advantage of uncomplicated, single rib dressing tools and the drawback of longer dressing periods and greater deviations in the dressing pitch. PA1 b) Dress both starts of the grinding worm simultaneously with multi-rib compact dressing rolls with the advantage of short dressing periods and the drawback of the lack of subsequent machining possibilities due to space reasons, in order to compensate for inaccuracies in production or the wear of the dressing rolls, so that they have only a tool life during the service period, thus resulting in high dressing tool expenses. PA1 c) Dress both starts of the grinding worm with two separate pairs of diamond wheels for the left and right flanks, which are oriented by means of spacers relative to the spacing of the teeth and thus combine the possibility of simultaneously dressing both starts of the grinding worm and the possibility of subsequent machining. For subsequent machining, the spacing between the two diamond wheels can be reproduced only by replacing or adjusting one spacer per set of diamond wheels. The drawback with this solution is the installation length of both sets of diamond wheels, which are arranged side-by-side and result in large dressing stroke lengths and thus longer dressing times.

Tool for dressing double-lead, cylindrical grinding worms


A proposed device is composed of a smartwatch unit, including at least a display unit of the smartwatch, and a box, including a housing to accommodate the smartwatch. The box has a cover being openable and closeable to cover the display unit, wherein the cover has at least one hole so that a corresponding portion of the display unit is visible to a user when the cover is in closed position, and wherein when the cover is in closed position, the smartwatch unit displays the output of the smartwatch in/on the corresponding portion of the display.

Smartwatches are electronic devices that hardly can replace a traditional and/or luxury watch on the wrist. A number of attempts to produce and promote smartwatches by electronic device manufacturers have been provided but the smartwatch have never became mainstream like a wristwatch because of several factors such as its appearance, the life of the battery, etc. In fact, unlike the traditional wristwatch, the screen of a smartwatch is most of the times turned off automatically to save power or many times turned off because the power source (e.g. herein may be referred to as the battery) is empty making the current smartwatches unusable and therefore undesirable by most of the public. In order to become mainstream, the smartwatch must become a luxury item resembling to a traditional smartwatch and be distributed by watch, jewelry and fashion manufacturers and/or channels. For such purpose, preferably, the technology manufacturers (e.g. OEMs, ODMs) may produce smartwatch components and the corresponding software (e.g. Operating System) preferably in form of a module/unit (e.g. and, and the watch/fashion manufacturers preferably may dress said module by accommodating it within a luxury envelope/case (e.g. herein may be referred to as a box) by giving to the combined module and box the appearance of a luxury wristwatch which functions like a smartwatch. Such a combined product may herein be referred to as a luxury watch.


A device comprising an adhesive material and a fiberglass mesh located in direct planar contact with the adhesive material. The adhesive material is tacky in its green state and includes an epoxy, an epoxidized cashew nut shell oil, and at least about 20% by weight of a component containing a core shell polymer material to improve the adhesion capability to surfaces that are contaminated and/or exposed to high pressure spraying or chemical treatments, heat and humidity.

Due to ongoing challenges with fuel economy requirements, the gauge of metal used in the automotive industry has reduced dramatically over the past 5 years. Specifically the gauge of metal used to make doors, sliding doors, tailgates and truck bed sides has decreased from about 1.2 mm to about 0.7 mm over the past 5 years. A class of materials known as panel stiffeners (e.g., reinforcing patches) has been used to help stiffen these areas of the vehicle. Most of the time these materials are made of a pressure sensitive adhesive with a constraining layer on top. The adhesive can be any thermosetting adhesive that provides good green state adhesion and good cured properties such as modulus. Epoxy based adhesives are often utilized due to their great adhesion to metal and high modulus. The constraining layer can be metal, glass or thermoplastic sheets to name a few. However, glass weaves tend to give the highest modulus for the panel stiffener. Pressure sensitive adhesives with foaming capabilities are particular desirable given that the cured thickness increases the moment of inertia and ultimately decreases deflection of the panel.
However, the currently available solutions lack the desired combinations of properties needed to meet all of the needs. One particular draw back of the current panel stiffeners is the fact that their rheological behavior is such that they will delaminate from the panel upon exposure to excessive contamination (e.g., stamping lubricants and the like), chemical baths high pressure rinses in between baths during vehicle manufacture. These panel stiffeners not only wash off of the metal substrate (eliminating the reinforcement), but also contaminate the chemical baths.
There is thus a need for a wash-off resistant panel stiffener. The challenge is that the chemical baths are typically heated to around 150° F. This elevated temperature is well above the glass transition temperature of the uncured adhesive causing the adhesive to soften and more easily wash off the substrate. When one changes the material characteristic in such a way as to increase the glass transition temperature of the adhesive to prevent wash-off, the green state adhesion (e.g., adhesion prior to any expansion/activation/curing of the adhesive) can be reduced. In addition to wash-off difficulty and excessive stamping lubricant, the need to adhere to aluminum substrates is very important. Further, exposure to extreme high pressure from sprays during the manufacture process are create additional need for improved adherence. There is a thus further need for such reinforcing materials that sufficiently adhere to cavity walls, especially when the walls are contaminated with various oils and other lubricants utilized during vehicle manufacture. Sufficient adhesion is also an issue when cavity walls are exposed to coating treatments, high pressure spray treatments, chemical baths, or high heat and high humidity, such as that which occurs during electro coating and paint bake operations.

Epoxy patch having improved adhesion characteristics


Methods, systems, and devices for preemptively loading code dependencies are described. In some systems, an application server—which may be a software component of a user device—may perform a loading process for an application framework module (e.g., based on receiving an execution request for a corresponding application). To reduce the latency of loading the framework module, the application server may perform one or more preemptive non-framework network requests to retrieve code dependencies for the framework or the application code. These requests may be sent prior to the framework loading process, or in parallel with the framework loading process. The application server may receive the code dependencies in response, and may store these dependencies in a memory cache. When the framework loading process needs these code dependencies, the application server may efficiently access the dependencies locally in the memory cache rather than remotely requesting the dependencies over the network.

A cloud platform (i.e., a computing platform for cloud computing) may be employed by many users to store, manage, and process data using a shared network of remote servers. Users may develop applications on the cloud platform to handle the storage, management, and processing of data. In some cases, the cloud platform may utilize a multi-tenant database system. Users may access the cloud platform using various user devices (e.g., desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, or other computing systems, etc.).
In one example, the cloud platform may support customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. This may include support for sales, service, marketing, community, analytics, applications, and the Internet of Things. A user may utilize the cloud platform to help manage contacts of the user. For example, managing contacts of the user may include analyzing data, storing and preparing communications, and tracking opportunities and sales.
The cloud platform may support users running applications, such as CRM applications, on user devices. In order to run an application at a user device, an application server associated with the user device may first need to load the application code, a framework for the application code, and any dependencies (e.g., dependent code, data, network requests, etc.) for the application code and the framework. However, loading the code dependencies may introduce a large amount of latency (e.g., on a scale of seconds or milliseconds) before the application code is available for execution due to the imbedded dependencies within an application or framework loading process. For example, the framework loading process may include a chain of sequential loads for code dependencies, where any further loading functionality may not occur until the code dependencies are loaded (e.g., remotely over a network).

Preemptive loading of code dependencies for improved performance


A lysimeter probe which may be inserted into the ground is provided with a tubular basic body (1) and a tubular body (4), the latter of which is made of a porous material. It has a connecting sleeve (10) for the application of a negative pressure to the interior space (5) of the tubular basic body (1) and the porous tubular body (4). The basic body (1) is implemented in two pieces and includes on both parts (2, 3) detachable means of connection (14, 15) between which the porous tubular body (4), which is implemented in the way of a pipe-section, is arranged between the two parts (2, 3) of the basic body (1), which are turned towards each other, in a way it may be clamped relieved from pressure.

The conventional lysimeter probes are provided with a tubular basic body to which a suction cup, made of porous material, e.g. of ceramics, sintered metal or the like, is affixed on the end which is turned towards the ground. The suction cup itself forms the tip of the lysimeter probe and is mostly cylindrically or conically shaped, the free end of the suction cup being conically or roundly tipped. The suction cup is fragile, whereas the basic body is mostly made of plastics. Thus, the suction cup, which is permeable to liquids and sensitive to pressure, is in danger of being destroyed upon the insertion into the ground. Also during the removal of the lysimeter prober, for instance when it is to be used again or another site, the suction cup is in danger of being destroyed. To prevent this danger it has been known to first pilot-drill with a soil auger and then to insert the lysimeter probe into this pilot-drilled hole. However, this only reduces the danger of the destruction of the porous cup, but does not completely eliminate it. Since the porous cup must have contact with the ground in order that the solution from the ground may be taken in by the lysimetric method, forces act between the ground and the suction cup. These forces are directly transferred to the basic body so that in any way suction cup and basic body are equally stressed. Taking into consideration that such a lysimeter probe has to be driven also into rather hard soils, for instance, into pebbles, it is understandable that the destruction of the suction cup is rather the rule than the exception. As a consequence of the considerable ground contact in the area of the rounded or otherwise tapered tip, the surface of the suction cup is also considerably soiled, i.e. the soil clings to the surface of the suction cup. Thus, the suction cup is no longer appropriate for measurements on other sites, not to mention that the measurement taken on a second site may be falsified as a consequence of soil from a first place of measuring clinging to the probe. Thus, it has been known either to remove the porous suction cup from the basic body or replace it with another porous suction cup.

Lysimeter probe which may be inserted into the ground


A data path optimization element is used in a behavioral synthesis process to optimize portions of an algorithmic description of a digital logic circuit. Directives are provided in the algorithmic description to identify subsets of the algorithmic description that can be extracted and optimized. The optimization includes identification of certain operators, function calls, conditional statements, or other relationships in the subset, and then compression of the extracted subset into or more data path components in a building block. The building block thus generated is substituted back into the algorithmic description and used in subsequent operations during the behavioral synthesis process, thereby leading to a more optimum design in terms of area, performance, power characteristics, or other characteristic(s).

Behavioral synthesis is a technology that allows circuit designers to express hardware design functionality in algorithmic terms, and then transform that functionality into a structure that permits implementation in actual hardware, such as logic circuits. Behavioral synthesis is used as part of a behavioral design flow that promises to raise the level of abstraction of the design process for modern digital circuits. Through behavioral synthesis, designer productivity can be increased and the opportunity for error can be reduced.
Starting with an algorithmic description of a digital design function in a high-level language, behavioral synthesis tools automatically create, from the algorithmic description, the cycle-by-cycle detail needed for hardware implementation. Typically, the high-level algorithmic description of a design is encoded using C or C++ or another high-level language, and is then converted by the behavioral synthesis tools into lower-level abstractions that can be used by other parts of the process. An example of a lower-level abstraction is a register transfer level (RTL) implementation, which may be embodied in a description language such as Verilog or others. Another example of a lower-level abstraction is a gate-level description comprising of an interconnected network of models for primitive logic devices.
The behavioral synthesis tools transform un-timed or partially timed functional code into fully timed models. These RTL and gate-level models are used directly in a conventional logic synthesis flow to create a gate-level implementation for the entire design function. Further details about behavioral synthesis can be found throughout existing technical and academic publications.
Improvements, however, are needed in order to optimize the behavioral design process. For example, during the behavioral design process, the C/C++ code in the algorithmic description is often interpreted sequentially or in series by the behavioral synthesis tool(s). The behavioral design process can therefore become lengthy and/or inefficient if the algorithmic description involves hundreds (if not thousands) of lines of code and many repetitive operations, each of which may need to be individually interpreted in sequence/series by the behavioral synthesis tool(s).

Data path synthesis apparatus and method for optimizing a behavioral design description being processed by a behavioral synthesis tool


A way of delivering recipe preparation instruction to disabled individuals is provided using an interactive cooking preparation device. The device retrieves an instruction delivery preference that corresponds to a user with a disability, such as a hearing or sight disability. The user then selects a recipe from list of recipes. Preparation steps that correspond to the selected recipe are retrieved from a data store, such as a database. The retrieved preparation steps are provided to the user using the interactive cooking preparation device that provides the preparation steps in an alternative delivery mode based on the user's delivery preference.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an approach for using a computerized interactive instruction device that provides interactive recipe preparation instructions to disabled individuals.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various sources are available to assist a user in preparing meals and following a recipe. These sources include books, television programs, videos, and Internet sources. These sources provide cooking guidance and teaching assisting users with a variety of skill levels. These sources often provide step-by-step instructions.
A challenge of these sources is that they are not interactive and they are not generally tailored to the needs of disabled individuals, such as individuals with sight or hearing impairments. One approach to this challenge is a live cooking instructor with whom the user can interact. However, cooking instruction is quite costly, especially personal instruction, and is generally provided at a location outside the user's home, such as at a cooking school or restaurant. Implements and ingredients found at cooking schools and restaurants is often quite different from the implements and ingredients found at the user's home. These differences make it challenging to apply the instruction provided at the cooking school or restaurant with recipe preparation at the user's normal location, such as the user's home kitchen. Moreover, instructors at these types of cooking schools are often ill-equipped and not trained for the specific needs of disabled individuals.
Another challenge is that traditional sources do not provide additional computerized intelligence to assist the user during meal preparation. In addition, traditional sources do not interface with the user's appliances in order to further assist the user. Finally, traditional sources do not monitor the user's performance nor do they alert the user when the user is not following the recipe correctly.

Interactive recipe preparation instruction delivery to disabled indiviuals

International Business Machines Corporation


The invention is intended to improve the durability and durability of a diaphragm of centrally convex form. A diaphragm comprises a substantially circular woven base fabric (1) formed of warp yarns (1a and 1a') radially extending in centrally convex form from the central region and weft yarns (1b) helically interwoven with the warp yarns (1a), and a rubber member (2) of centrally convex membrane form molded integrally with the base fabric (1).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a diaphragm of centrally convex form used where pressure resistance is required.
2. Prior Art
Diaphragms are usually molded of rubber in membrane form and, where pressure resistance is required, they are reinforced by a base fabric of plain weave disposed in the rubber member.
In the case where the diaphragm is of centrally convex form, it has been common practice to mold such diaphragm of centrally convex form by setting a base fabric of plain weave and rubber in a press die or the like, and pressing the assembly.
However, since the base fabric is of plain weave, the warp and weft yarns constituting the portion of the base fabric in and around the centrally convex region are drawn toward the centrally convex region during press molding operation, resulting in variations in the density of warp and weft yarns, wrinkles, overlaps and the like, thus making the pressure-resisting strength nonuniform. As a result, some of the yarns constituting the base fabric are broken prematurely owing to repetitive vibrations, thus degrading the durability.


Methods are provided for treatment of hematologic cancers, particularly lymphomas and leukemias, including without limitation myelogenous and lymphocytic leukemias. A combination of antibodies specific for CD47; and specific for a cancer associated cell surface marker are administered to the patient, and provide for a synergistic decrease in cancer cell burden. The combination of antibodies may comprise a plurality of monospecific antibodies, or a bispecific or multispecific antibody. Markers of interest include without limitation, CD20, CD22, CD52, CD33; CD96; CD44; CD123; CD97; CD99; PTHR2; and HAVCR2.

The idea of a "magic bullet" was first proposed by Paul Ehrlich who at the beginning of the 20th century postulated that if a compound could be made that selectively targeted a disease-causing organism or cell, then a toxin for that organism or cell could be delivered along with the agent of selectivity. The discovery of antibodies as specific targeting agents has allowed the actual working of this concept, although the implementation in clinical therapy has required significant modifications.
Therapeutic antibodies have proven effective at fighting cancer, especially in cases where conventional therapy fails: Out of the 21 marketed therapeutic antibodies, 9 are for the treatment of cancer. Even more encouraging is that antibodies for cancer generally operate in a distinct mechanism from traditional chemotherapy or radiotherapy, so they can often be combined with traditional therapies to generate a synergistic effect. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement, in that even the most effective cancer antibodies rarely cure the disease, especially in its more advanced stages.
The first patient treated in the United States with monoclonal antibody therapy was a patient with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, using a murine monoclonal antibody designated AB 89. Although treatment was not successful in inducing a significant clinical response, it did represent the first proof of principle in humans that a monoclonal antibody could induce transient decreases in the number of circulating tumor cells, induce circulating dead cells, and form complexes with circulating antigen, all with minimal toxicity to the patient. Although there was much excitement about this new treatment modality there were also problems and limitations, including the modulation of antigens off the cell surface and into circulation or internalization.
Monoclonal antibodies achieve their therapeutic effect through various mechanisms. They can have direct effects in producing apoptosis or programmed cell death. They can block growth factor receptors, effectively arresting proliferation of tumor cells. In cells that express monoclonal antibodies, they can bring about anti-idiotype antibody formation. Indirect effects include recruiting cells that have cytotoxicity, such as monocytes and macrophages. This type of antibody-mediated cell kill is called antibody-dependent cell mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC). Monoclonal antibodies also bind complement, leading to direct cell toxicity, known as complement dependent cytotoxicity (CDC).
Rituximab became the first monoclonal antibody approved specifically for cancer therapy, and a number of other naked or immunoconjugated antibodies have followed, including a humanized monoclonal antibody to CD33 conjugated to calicheamicin, and radiolabeled antibodies specific for CD20 (ytrrium-90 ibritumomab tiuxetan and iodine-131 tositumomab).
Rituximab has become the largest-selling biologic drug in clinical oncology, and is active in a variety of human lymphomas and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. This is a chimeric monoclonal antibody targeting the CD20 antigen found on both normal B cells and on most low-grade and some higher grade B-cell lymphomas. It can be effective as a single agent in induction and maintenance therapy. It is primarily used, however, in combination with standard chemotherapies in the treatment of patients with non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphomas and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Alemtuzumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody targeting the CD52 antigen found on B lymphocytes and is used primarily for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and is effective as induction and maintenance therapy. Alemtuzumab is also reactive with T lymphocytes, and is typically not combined with chemotherapy because of the increased risk of infection. The CD22 antigen is also targeted by a number of antibodies, and has recently demonstrated efficacy combined with toxin in chemotherapy-resistant hairy cell leukemia.
While monoclonal antibodies are now clinically important in the treatment of cancer, particularly leukemias, there remains considerable room for improvement in therapeutic methods. The present invention addresses this need.

Synergistic anti-CD47 therapy for hematologic cancers

The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University


An automatic focusing apparatus includes: a focus lens unit; a focus driver; a first focus detector that detects an in-focus state based on a phase difference; a second focus detector that detects an in-focus state using a signal from an image pickup element; a focus controller that controls the focus driver to perform focusing based on a first focus detection result and a second focus detection result; a movement detector that detects a movement of an object with components in a direction perpendicular to an optical axis based on an image signal obtained from the first focus detector; and a re-execution determination unit that determines whether to control the focus driver to re-execute focusing based on the first focus detection result and the second focus detection result that are newly detected after the execution of focusing and based on a movement detection result detected by the movement detector.

Conventionally, there are various proposals related to an automatic focusing technique used in a still camera, a TV camera, and a video camera.
For example, contrast based automatic focusing (hereinafter "contrast AF") is proposed, in which high frequency components of the image picked up by a picked up image element is extracted and the focus position is controlled by maximizing an evaluation value corresponding to the sharpness of the image to perform focusing. In the contrast AF, a search operation, that is, changing the position of the focus lens, is required to determine the direction of the movement of the focus lens where the evaluation value corresponding to the contrast of the image relative to the focus position is the maximum and to determine the maximum point. It is known that the focusing accuracy of the contrast AF is high, because focusing is determined using an image signal obtained based on an output signal from the image pickup element that picks up an image of an object.
So-called external measuring AF is also proposed, in which a distance measuring sensor is arranged independently from an image pickup lens, and the in-focus position of the focus lens is calculated from an obtained object distance to control the focus lens to perform focusing. Phase difference system automatic focusing (hereinafter, "phase difference AF") is also proposed, in which a split optical system splits a beam passed through an image pickup lens, an in-focus state with respect to the object is detected from the split beams, and focusing is performed based on the result.
Among these, in the external measuring AF and the phase difference AF, the beam from the object is divided into two beams in an in-focus state detecting apparatus to form two images on sensors. Correlation computing is applied to photoelectrically converted signals of two images to detect the phase difference. A defocus amount and an object distance are calculated from the phase difference, and the defocus amount and the object distance are converted to a drive target position of the focus lens to control the focus lens to perform focusing.
In the external measuring AF and the phase difference AF, it is known that there is no need to perform a search operation performed in the contrast AF, and the focusing speed is fast.
To utilize the high focusing accuracy of the contrast AF and the high focusing speed of the external measuring AF and the phase difference AF, a hybrid AF system in which a combination of the contrast AF and external measuring AF and phase difference AF is further proposed.
To maintain the in-focus state with respect to the target object by automatic focusing, an automatic focusing operation needs to be executed every time the object distance changes to cause the object being out of focus.
In the automatic focusing apparatus including only the contrast AF, if the evaluation value of the contrast AF for an object for which a focusing operation was once performed to obtain an in-focus state, decreases by a value greater than a predetermined value, an automatic focusing operation is executed again (hereinafter, focusing operation executed again after focusing will be described as "re-execution operation").
In this case, if the object moves without involving a change in the object distance, such as when the object moves in a parallel direction (horizontal direction) relative to the imaging plane or when panning operation is performed, the evaluation value of the contrast AF may reduces when the object is moving while the object is in in-focus state.
Therefore, based only on the condition that the contrast AF evaluation value reduces by more than a predetermined value, it is difficult to determine whether the object distance is changed or the object has moved without involving a change in the object distance. The re-execution operation of AF that would not be necessary if the object is in in-focus state is executed, and it is significantly uncomfortable to view the picked up image if a search operation is performed.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-174521 discloses a technique of using a blur detector to detect a change in the composition and controlling not to perform the focus adjustment during the change in the composition. When there is a change in the composition during shooting of a video, such as by panning, unstable focusing caused by the AF following the change in the distance status of the object in the screen can be prevented.
In the conventional technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-174521, the AF is terminated during the detection of the change in the composition. Therefore, unstable focusing can be prevented as described above when there is panning.
However, when the object moves parallel to the imaging plane instead of the change in the composition, the AF search may be performed and the focus may become unstable if the contrast AF evaluation value reduces during the movement of the object, because the change in the composition is not detected.
An object of the present invention is to provide an automatic focusing apparatus that can attain both the stability and the followability in AF by appropriately executing an AF re-execution operation when there is a movement of an object or a change in a composition.

Automatic focusing apparatus and lens apparatus including the automatic focusing apparatus


An ink jet printer has a line print type recording heads, respectively extending in a width direction of a recording medium, for jetting ink to the recording medium, and ultraviolet ray irradiating devices, having ultraviolet ray sources, for irradiating the ink arriving at the recording medium with ultraviolet rays to cure the ink. The ultraviolet ray irradiating devices are arranged on a downstream side of the recording heads in a feeding direction of the recording medium. A quantity of the ultraviolet rays emitted from the ultraviolet ray sources of the ultraviolet ray irradiating device, which is arranged on the most downstream side in the feeding direction of the recording medium, is set to be larger than that of the ultraviolet rays emitted from the ultraviolet ray sources of each of the other ultraviolet ray irradiating devices.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet printer, and particularly to an ink jet printer in which ultraviolet ray curable ink is used.
2. Description of Related Art
An ink jet printer is used to record an image on a recording medium by jetting ink from nozzles arranged on one surface of a recording head and making the ink collide with the recording medium. In this ink jet printer, an ink jet recording method of using ultraviolet ray curable ink has been known as a method of forming an image even on a recording medium having the property of a low ink absorption such as a resin film or the like (for example, disclosed in Published Japanese Patent Publication (Tokkaisyou) 60-132767). In the ink jet printer according to the ink jet recording method, ultraviolet curable ink, which includes a photochemical initiator having a predetermined sensitivity to ultraviolet rays, is used, the ink arriving at the recording medium is irradiated with the ultraviolet rays, and the ink is cured and fixed to the recording medium. In case of the ink jet printer using the ultraviolet curable ink, in the period of time from the arriving of the ink at the recording medium to the curing and fixing of the ink through the irradiation with the ultraviolet rays, a change in the image quality is caused by the enlarging of the diameter of dots of the ink arriving at the recording medium, the blurring of the recording medium with the ink between the dots and the permeation of the ink to the recording medium. Therefore, to form an image of the high quality by preventing the enlarging of the diameter of dots of the ink and the blurring of the recording medium with the ink, it is preferred that the period of time from the jetting of the ultraviolet ray curable ink to the irradiation of the ink with the ultraviolet rays is set to be as short as possible to cure and fix the ink in a short time.
Therefore, as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, in the earlier developed ink jet printer, each of a plurality of recording heads having nozzles, from which the ultraviolet ray curable ink is jetted onto the recording medium, extends in the width direction of the recording medium, and the recording heads are arranged at predetermined intervals so as to make the longitudinal directions of the recording heads be parallel to one another, and a plurality of ultraviolet ray irradiating devices close to the recording heads respectively and having the same width and size as one another are arranged on the downstream side of the recording heads in the feeding direction of the recording medium respectively.
As described above, in the earlier development, each ultraviolet ray irradiating device emits a quantity of ultraviolet rays sufficient to almost perfectly cure the ink jetted onto the recording medium.
However, to obtain the quantity of ultraviolet rays required to almost perfectly cure the ink, large-sized ultraviolet ray irradiating devices are required, and the devices become large in size and complicated in structure. On the other hand, the change in the image quality caused by the enlarging of the diameter of dots of the ink, the blurring of the recording medium with the ink and the like occurs in dependent on the quantity of the ultraviolet rays, the irradiation timing of the ultraviolet rays, the wavelength of the ultraviolet rays, the intensity of the ultraviolet rays and the like. To form the image of the high quality while preventing the change in the image quality, the quantity in the ultraviolet rays required to cure the surfaces of the dots of the ink is sufficient when the ink is irradiated with the ultraviolet rays just after the jetting of the ink, and the quantity of the ultraviolet rays for curing the ink almost perfectly is not required. Therefore, the quantity of the ultraviolet rays is excessive in the earlier development to irradiate the ink with the ultraviolet rays. As a result, problems are arisen that the size of the device is enlarged, the cost of manufacturing the device is heightened, and electric power consumed to irradiate the ink with the ultraviolet rays is enlarged.
Further, generally, the ultraviolet ray irradiating devices and the recording heads are alternately arranged to place each ultraviolet ray irradiating device between two recording heads. Therefore, when the large-sized ultraviolet ray irradiating devices are used, the interval of two recording heads adjacent to each other is enlarged. As a result, because the irradiation timing of the ultraviolet rays is delayed, another problem is arisen that the enlarging of the diameter of dots of the ink, the blurring of the recording medium with the ink and the like easily occur.


A vehicle pose sharing diagnostic system includes a first communication module and a first pose module in communication with the first communication module. The first pose module is configured to generate a pose signal corresponding to the first machine. The system further includes a first sensing module configured to generate a pose signal corresponding to at least one of a second machine and an infrastructure. The system includes a control module communicably coupled to the first communication module. The control module is configured to determine an operational error in the first communication module and the first pose module. The control module is also configured to generate diagnosis information corresponding to the determined operational error. Further, the system includes a feedback device communicably coupled to the control module. The feedback device is configured to receive the diagnosis information from the control module and display the diagnosis information thereon.

A machine, such as a construction machine, operating at a worksite typically includes a pose module and a communication system associated therewith. The pose module may generate signals pertaining to a current position and/or orientation of the machine whereas the communication system may allow transmission of this pose information with other machines or infrastructures present at the worksite, a back-office, or a service personnel.
The pose information may be used to assist the machine in positioning, road safety, traffic efficiency, etc. For example, the pose information that is generated by the pose module and transmitted by the communication system may be used in a collision avoidance system. As the pose module and the communication system are used to detect and transmit important machine related information, it is imperative to identify any faults in the pose module and the communication system.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,834,223 describes a system including a processor programmed to receive a first data value from a first data collector as an input to operate a first vehicle. The processor is further programmed to determine to exclude the first data value as the input to operate the first vehicle. The computer is further programmed to receive a second data value from a second data collector as the input to operate the vehicle, the second data value being provided by a source remote to the first vehicle; and actuate a first vehicle component based in part on the second data value.


Data channels of a computer system may be remotely monitored to detect data channel degradation. A monitoring agent on a client may execute script commands on the remote computer system to monitor input/output (I/O) rates of a set of channels. The monitoring agent may compute an average data rate of the data channels and compare the I/O rate of each channel to the average. When the I/O rate of a channel falls below the average by at least a threshold amount, an alert may be generated to indicate to an administrator a possible failure with the data channel.

Computer systems, and servers in particular, form an information backbone upon which companies now rely on almost exclusively for data storage, data mining, and data processing. These systems are indispensable for the improved efficiency and accuracy at processing data as compared to manual human processing. Furthermore, these systems provide services that could not be realistically accomplished by human processing. For example, some computer systems execute physical simulations in hours that would otherwise take decades to complete by human computations. As another example, some computer systems store terabytes of data and provide instantaneous access to any of the data, which may include records spanning decades of company operations.
Monitoring these computers systems is a top priority for their operators and administrators to ensure that the computer systems are continuously available without interruption. These computer systems may demonstrate a coming problem, but if certain parameters of the computer system are not monitored, the corning problem may not be recognized in time for an administrator to take corrective action before a complete failure. For example, data channels in a computer system may experience a reduction in data rate prior to a complete failure of the data channel. However, conventionally there is no monitoring of the data channel data rate. Only after a complete failure would an administrator be alerted to a problem with the data channel, Even then, the administrator would likely not be aware of a problem until several users complained of the data channel failure. Waiting for a total failure of the data channel before taking corrective action causes downtime during which the data channel was unavailable and users were unable to access data.

Data rate monitoring to determine channel failure


A system provides verification of image content in software modules within a system of software under development. Embodiments retrieve image data from a software module written in a native or first computer program type or language. The retrieved image data may be evaluated so that a conversion image space is prepared as a new coordinate space that will be used to render the image data into an image object outside of the native computer program type or language. In an exemplary embodiment, a bit-per-pixel value may be applied to the image data during conversion to a second computer program format/language. The converted image data may then be rendered into an image object in the new coordinate space according to the new readable format. The rendered image object may then be displayed to provide convenient and quick visual verification of the accuracy of the unrendered image data content.

Imaging systems and the software associated with imaging systems sometimes requires multiple team members working on various parts of a project system. As is common in software development, the different parts of the system may not always behave according to plan when various modules are interfaced. As is well-known in software development, much time is spent on debugging lines of code, whether it is performed manually or by automated tools. However, many times the result of data content problems are not seen until a software system is benchmarked and simulations are run. At which time, if expected images are not produced, it may require extensive labor and time to troubleshoot the source(s) of error in the data content.
Considering that sources of error may arise from multiple software modules within the system being verified, fixing one module may not necessarily result in a fix to the expected output. The below further explains how in a real-world setting, software modules depend on the accuracy of content from other modules, which may not be ready for testing. Thus, a subject software module may be tested in a simulation with software stubs with assumed correct content being temporarily substituted in for live, tested software modules. As may be expected, working with assumed correct content does not necessarily mean that image content in a software module being developed is indeed accurate when the subject software module and overall system is placed into live testing. Thus, the problems associated with troubleshooting each nodular part of the system remains.
As can be seen, there is a need to improve on the manner in which imaging system software system content is verified at the software module level prior to system testing.

Systems, processes, interfaces, and computer program products for verification of image content in software development systems


A field modulated doubly salient motor and a design method for a distribution of salient pole teeth thereof are provided. The motor includes a stator and a mover, wherein the stator includes a stator core, two sets of windings, and two sets of permanent magnets. Each of the stator teeth is split into two field winding teeth, and each of the field winding teeth is split into two salient pole teeth. The two sets of windings are respectively armature windings and field windings, wherein the armature windings are wound around stator teeth, and the field windings are wound around adjacent field winding teeth that are split from different stator teeth. The two sets of tangentially magnetized permanent magnets are respectively placed on openings and bottoms of field winding slots, and permanent magnets placed in the same slot or at the same positions of adjacent slots have opposite polarities.

With the continuous development of switched reluctance motors, American scholars Professor Lipo et al. have introduced permanent magnets into switched reluctance motors and proposed doubly salient permanent magnet motors. Due to the high price of permanent magnet materials, in order to reduce manufacturing costs of motors, doubly salient electro-magnetic motors have been developed on this basis. The doubly salient electro-magnetic motor has windings all placed on a stator side, with a mover side being a simple salient structure, so that the motor has desirable temperature management and high-speed operation capabilities. As compared with the doubly salient permanent magnet motors, the doubly salient electro-magnetic motors can have field winding magnetic fields controlled by changing field winding currents, which has a simple control and high reliability, and have a broad application prospect in fields such as aerospace, transportation, and wind power generation.
The Chinese Invention Patent Application No. CN201910270245.9 has disclosed a loss-of-excitation fault-tolerant double-stator doubly salient electro-magnetic motor and a method thereof. In this motor, a set of inner stator windings is additionally arranged through a double-stator structure, to make full use of the motor space, and a rotor is provided with a magnetic isolation bridge, the main magnetic flux is closed by an outer stator, the rotor, and an inner stator, so that the motor can also provide a sufficient reluctance torque at a loss-of-excitation fault to realize a loss-of-excitation fault-tolerant operation of the motor. Although the motor has the fault-tolerance, due to the limitation of the electro-magnetic motor itself, in order to further improve the thrust of the motor, permanent magnets are introduced into the electro-magnetic motor, so that the motor can have both a high thrust density of a permanent magnet motor and a wide speed range.
The Chinese Invention Patent No. CN201010592364.5 has disclosed two axial excitation doubly salient motors. The two motors each include at least two doubly salient monolithic structures that are axially arranged. In the first structure, a stator core and a rotor core each form an axial magnetic path through an axial magnetically conductive back iron. In the second structure, a stator core, an axial magnetically conductive back iron of a stator, and permanent magnets are all are structures. The invention has a high space utilization, no additional air gaps, and has a high excitation efficiency. Although the invention effectively saves space, and the introduction of the permanent magnets also increases the thrust density and excitation efficiency of the motor, the complex structural design also brings difficulty to production and manufacturing.
The Chinese invention Patent Application No. CN202010097798.1 has disclosed a doubly salient permanent magnet motor with an adjustable effective permanent magnet pole number. In the motor, a pulse current is applied to field windings to change a magnetization direction of a low-coercivity permanent magnet, and the number of permanent magnet poles of the doubly salient permanent magnet motor is adjusted, so that the motor has a wide magnetic regulation range, and is efficient in a wide area. Although the motor has the wide magnetic regulation range and a high thrust density, the application of the pulse current to the field windings also increases the design difficulty of a control circuit. In addition, it is also a problem to be faced that the excessive pulse current causes the risk of irreversible demagnetization of permanent magnets.
Based on the current researches, for the research on the performance of doubly salient motors, complex structural designs are generally adopted to improve the fault-tolerance or thrust capabilities of the motors, alternatively or the shape of introduced permanent magnets and the current of field windings are investigated, but the characteristics of salient pole teeth of the doubly salient motors themselves have not been studied.

Field modulated doubly salient motor and design method for distribution of salient pole teeth thereof


A method and system for monitoring a mandrel. A first plurality of transmitting devices is positioned with respect to the mandrel. Signals from a portion of the first plurality of transmitting devices are received at a receiving device. The signals are processed to determine a configuration of the mandrel.

1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to manufacturing and, in particular, to manufacturing parts for vehicles using a mandrel. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a mandrel configuration monitoring system.
2. Background
Manufacturing parts for an aircraft is a complex and time-consuming process. Hundreds of thousands of parts may be designed and assembled to complete an aircraft.
Manufacturing different parts for the aircraft involves performing operations on the parts in forming the parts for use in manufacturing the aircraft. These operations may include, for example, without limitation, drilling, countersinking, fastening, coupling, sealing, coating, inspection, or other suitable types of operations. These operations may be performed by a tool such that each part is ready for assembly with other parts in the aircraft.
With composite parts, one or more layers of composite material are typically laid up on a mold. This mold may take the form of a mandrel. The different layers may be laid up in different orientations and different numbers of layers may be used for the composite part being manufactured.
After the different layers of composite material have been laid up on the mandrel, the layers of composite material may be consolidated and cured upon exposure to temperature and pressure, thus forming the composite part. Various operations may be performed on the composite layers after curing. For instance, holes may be drilled in the composite structure such that the composite part may be attached to a frame for a fuselage. As another example, a portion of the composite part may be cut out to form a door.
In manufacturing aircraft parts, guides are used to maintain a desired position for an aircraft part during manufacturing. With composite parts, the position of the composite part on the mandrel is important in forming features on the composite parts. For instance, a mechanical guide, or target, is sometimes used to maintain the desired position for a composite part during various stages of manufacturing. Targets may be used to determine a proper location to perform operations to form features on the composite part. In some cases, the features may be used to align the composite part with another composite part, a metal part, or some other suitable type of part. In other cases, these features are used to fasten parts together. These features may be, for example, holes, channels, slots, posts, and other suitable features that may be used to align composite parts with each other.
After manufacturing, parts are then assembled to form an aircraft. During the assembly of the aircraft, placement of parts relative to each other is important. For example, properly aligning one part with respect to another part allows assembly of the aircraft to be completed in an efficient manner. Precise locations of the features formed in the parts are needed for proper assembly. For instance, holes in two parts should align to properly fasten the parts together.
If parts are misaligned, however, undesired inconsistencies may occur. For example, if a hole is drilled in an undesired location, the part may not be fastened to another part in the assembly as desired. In another illustrative example, if a mandrel is deformed, the corresponding composite part also may be deformed.
Because the aircraft is made up of hundreds of thousands of parts, even small inconsistencies can result in parts being reworked or discarded. As a result, assembly of an aircraft may take more time than desired, the cost may be greater than desired, or both. Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that take into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as other possible issues.


A semiconductor device and method for making such that provides improved mechanical strength is disclosed. The semiconductor device comprises a semiconductor substrate; an adhesion layer disposed over the semiconductor substrate; and a porous low-k film disposed over the semiconductor substrate, wherein the porous low-k film comprises a porogen and a composite bonding structure including at least one Si—O—Si bonding group and at least one bridging organic functional group.

The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. However, these advances have increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs and, for these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC processing and manufacturing are needed.
In the course of IC evolution, functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per chip area) has generally increased while geometry size (i.e., the smallest component (or line) that can be created using a fabrication process) has decreased. This scaling down process generally provides benefits by increasing production efficiency and lowering associated costs. Such scaling-down also requires ultra low-k materials to realize the scaled-down features. To achieve suitable ultra low-k materials, large quantities of porosity have been introduced into dielectric materials. However, the addition of porosity has resulted in deteriorating the mechanical properties of these materials (e.g., hardness, rigidity, etc.), leaving the materials unable to handle subsequent processing during semiconductor fabrication. For example, the weak mechanical strength of the porous low-k materials results in peeling after chemical mechanical planarization processes and delamination after packaging of the semiconductor devices.
Accordingly, what is needed is a semiconductor device that improves the mechanical strength of porous low-k materials.

High mechanical strength additives for porous ultra low-k material

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.


An image processing method and to an arrangement for implementing the method. The method includes filtering the original image with a low-pass filter for forming a low-pass filtered image, creating a high-pass filtered image by subtracting the low-pass filtered image from the original image, forming intermediate values from the created high-pass filtered image based on column-wise selection of pixel values in the suppression of column noise and row-wise selection of pixel values in the suppression of row noise, and subtracting formed intermediate values column-by-column and row-by-row from the original image. The arrangement includes a non-linear, one-dimensional digital finite impulse response filter, a computing unit for column-wise or row-wise formation of intermediate values, an image storage unit and a subtraction unit.

US 20020159648 A1 shows the creation of a high-pass filtered image in a manner similar to that described in the previous paragraph.
It is a known fact that insufficient stability of the offset level for individual columns or rows over a focal plane array for IR detection, IR-FPA, can cause serious image disturbances in the form of pattern noise. In the case of low signal-to-noise ratios, the image is perceived as striped. In general, the offset level of the columns and rows deviates over time, which means that the resulting noise is spatio-temporal in nature. Usually, offset errors are calibrated over an IR-FPA, by having the array illuminated with a uniform radiator and then digitally deducting the offset level for the individual pixels, so-called image unevenness correction.
A problem in eliminating pattern noise according to the above-described process is that the pattern noise must be stable over time. This is seldom the case, however, as regards the offset level for columns and rows. Furthermore, an IR-FPA, apart from an offset correction, must also be corrected for errors in the amplification of individual pixels. This is done by digitally multiplying the amplification of the pixels by correction factors measured by illuminating an IR-FPA with uniform radiators at different temperatures. For this correction to be effective, it is also required that the pattern noise caused by offset errors is unchanged over time. Since this often is not the case for column and/or row noise, there is a risk that the offset error affects the measurement of the amplification corrections. This error will also appear in the form of a static column and/or row noise.

Image processing method for suppressing spatio-temporal column or row noise


A method for partitioning of input vectors for coding is presented. The method comprises obtaining of an input vector. The input vector is segmented, in a non-recursive manner, into an integer number, NSEG, of input vector segments. A representation of a respective relative energy difference between parts of the input vector on each side of each boundary between the input vector segments is determined, in a recursive manner. The input vector segments and the representations of the relative energy differences are provided for individual coding. Partitioning units and computer programs for partitioning of input vectors for coding, as well as positional encoders, are presented.

Examples of positional coding schemes e.g. for encoding of an audio signal are Factorial Pulse Coding (FPC) and Pyramid Vector Quantization (PVQ). A positional coding could result in large codeword indices, especially for a long input vector, because of the rapidly increasing number of combinations by increasing dimensions. For low complexity implementations, a pre-processing step of clustering of the input vector can be used. Another reason for this type of pre-processing can be quantizer restraints. However, a conventional clustering may result in that different parts of the input vector have very different sizes, which could make the positional coding very inefficient. Thus, there is a need to provide an improved pre-processing of the input vector at positional encoding.

Methods and devices for vector segmentation for coding