Provided are a system and methodology for iteratively transforming data, as between multiple sets thereof, that account for underlying data generation sources and bases. Doing so, via normalization of the data, enables uniformity of interpretation and presentation of the data no matter the machine learning model that produced the data.

In today's business environment, almost all businesses have an online presence. It's also very likely that these businesses permit their customers to conduct transactions online. These transactions almost always involve either a financial component or otherwise require a trust based element. For example, when some form of currency is being used by a customer to purchase a good or a service, it is critical to ensure that the person (or machine) initiating and conducting the transaction is who they say they are. This is important to ensure that the form of payment (e.g. credit card) is authorized for use by the purported purchaser.
If it turns out that this is not the case, then a variety of undesirable results can occur. This can include, but is not limited to, chargebacks and other revenue losses. Even when there is no financial component to a transaction, negative consequences can still result if the user on the other end of the transaction is not who they say they are. For example, businesses may offer other types of online services which provide access to data/content/information, access to sensitive systems or resources, the ability to conduct non-financial transactions impacting the operation of the business as well as other rights and abilities which are intended to be limited only to authorized persons or entities. For obvious reasons, it is very important to do whatever is possible to ensure that the person, entity or machine seeking to conduct these types of interactions are who they say they are and that the purported activity is not fraudulent.
Various fraud detection and identity verification methodologies and related systems for implementing the same exist. While these offerings are generally helpful and effective, they tend to become less so over time and there exists a need for novel approaches to the problem of verifying identities and preventing fraud in connection with online activities. This need exists as online fraud becomes more prevalent and more sophisticated due to the rapid advances in technology which are usually available to fraudsters.
In traditional approaches to fraud detection, static rules-based systems or models are employed and implemented in real time in connection with decision making associated with online transactions. However, these approaches suffer from a number of drawbacks. For one, the set of rules that make up the model require frequent updates to remain functional and effective. In a static rules-based system, these updates are generally made manually and there is often a lag between the time that a need for a new or changed rule is identified and the time that it is implemented. In other words, such static rules-based systems are unable to both immediately recognize bases for flaws in originally issued fraud decisions and immediately correct those flaws prior to issuance of subsequent decisions. This is especially the case since it can be extremely difficult for such manual updates to be timely implemented during the course of accommodating multiple (e.g., thousands) of requests for fraud decisions. Resultingly, less than ideal decisions can fail to appropriately identify occurrences of fraud.
These conventional systems are also very dependent on relatively expensive human effort. Risk analysts must be hired and deployed to identify fraud patterns and implement rules designed to protect against them. Similarly, when these large rule sets are created and managed by humans, they are subject to error and omissions due to their complexity as fraud patterns increase and number and complexity.
Other problems also arise with respect to existing fraud detection solutions. One such problem results from changing demographics due to societal trends. Many millennials as well as individuals falling into other age categories have limited data available which can be used in decision support regarding transactions that these individuals purport to make. This may be due to different attitudes with respect to banking relationships, the use of credit and other financial matters. With limited data available, it is much more difficult for existing models to generate high confidence fraud scores and, again, bad decision making can result.
Yet another concern associated with current fraud identification systems is the impact that they can have on the user experience. In some cases, the process can slow down the transaction and/or add additional confusion. This can result in abandonment of the transaction by the user and possibly loss of revenue and/or other negative impacts to the customer relationship specifically and/or the business in general. Online merchants and other businesses which conduct and offer online transactions are seeking a seamless experience where fraud identification activities occur in the background and are essentially invisible to the user.
Due to the inherent operational characteristics of existing systems, both false positives and false negatives which result from existing models can occur. This can result in preventing a transaction that should be permitted to occur or permitting a transaction to occur when it should not be permitted, respectively. Both situations are undesirable from a business perspective as well as from a customer relations standpoint.
One aspect of fraud prevention relates to the interpretation of fraud scoring generated by one or more machine learning models that may be implemented. That is, such interpretation is key to appropriate identification of fraud and to preventing instances thereof from arising when vetting transactions.
Factors that may impact the interpretation of output generated among the one or more machine learning models include bias drawn and rooted in a Prior Probability Distribution expressing a preformulated conception of whether fraud, for instance, may have occurred absent evidence of the same. Other factors may include a given type or implementation of the one or more machine learning models, including variability of their input(s) such as given, predetermined predictors and/or data sources.
In other words, as scoring is to be interpreted from one model to the next, representation(s) of that scoring, and thus the interpretation thereof, may shift so as skew utility of the scoring generated from machine learning.
Thus, it would be desirable to evolve the interpretation of machine learned data to encompass versatility of input such that as that input is processed from one model to the next uniformity of generated scoring for underlying scores bases may be achieved and easily understood by a recipient.

Self learning machine learning transaction scores adjustment via normalization thereof accounting for underlying transaction score bases


A computer-readable storage medium stores a control program for an information processing apparatus that includes a process unit capable of executing an application program. The control program causes the information processing apparatus to execute a process. The process includes acquiring control information included in the application program, generating association information associating the application program with response performance information in accordance with the control information acquired in the acquiring, type information associating a combination of control information with a type of the application program, and response performance information associated with a type of the application program, and controlling operating frequency of the process unit in accordance with the response performance information corresponding to the application program when the application program described in the association information is operating.

In an information processing apparatus, typically, whether a user is manipulating the apparatus is determined and operating frequency of the CPU is changed automatically. If performance information to be used for the operation of the an application is already identified, operating frequency of the CPU for the operation of the application without any trouble is calculated and the calculated value is applied to the operating frequency of the CPU. With the thus calculated value, the operating frequency of the CPU does not have to be set too high. Therefore, it is possible to reduce power consumption of the information processing apparatus. In the OS often employed by portable terminals such as smartphones, operating frequency of the CPU is changed in accordance with the rate of utilization of the CPU. In this system, the maximum count ability that the application uses is provided to the CPU.
In smartphones, however, there are situations in which real-time performance is important even when the user is not manipulating the smartphone. For example, a user may connect a headset to the smartphone for the music reproduction, telephone call on the VoIP, reproduction of audio content by streaming and so forth, and places the main body of the smartphone in, for example, a bag. Therefore, it is desirable to detect that an operation for which a response is important is operating on the smartphone although the user is not manipulating the terminal, and to switch control or release of operating frequency of the CPU.
A user of a smartphone may install applications downloaded from an online market. Performance information of the application or type information of the application used to determine whether that application calls for real-time performance are not included in packages of these applications.
Therefore, it is desirable for the achievement of real-time performance even when a user is not manipulating the smartphone, to add, to all the applications, a field in which information for controlling or releasing operating frequency of the CPU is described or to describe type information of the application installed by the user in, for example, a configuration file.
However, since change in a format of an application package or a registering operation by a user is not easily performed, type information of the application has to be estimated only from information included in the current application package.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 08-76874 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-285093 are examples of the related art.

Medium, control method and information processing apparatus


A computer-implemented method is disclosed for encouraging an accurate chronological organization of radio frequency identification (RFID) tag data gathered from distributed servers. The method includes limiting the processing of RFID tag data based at least in part on the operational status of a plurality of sources of RFID tag data.

The present invention pertains to computer networks configured support the processing of reader inputs from radio frequency identification tags ("RFID tags"). More specifically, the present invention pertains to systems and methods for supporting the accurate chronological organization of RFID tag data gathered from distributed deployments of an RFID services platform.
In a network designed to receive reader inputs from RFID tags and transfer the inputs to a program designed to analyze and process the information, it is important to support an accurate chronological organization of the inputs. Correct information as to the sequence of events is difficult to monitor across a broad network with multiple servers that may be distributed in multiple locations. Further, some servers in the network may not always be on-line, which can have a negative impact on the accuracy of input chronology. An accurate chronological organization of RFID inputs can be critical to ensuring an accurate execution of related business processes.

Supporting the accurate chronological organization of RFID tag data from distributed sources


An apparatus and method of manufacturing a trim strip with an outer heat settable molding bonded to a base with an adhesive attaching member. The method includes heating a liquid heat settable material to be bonded to a hard base with an adhesive member at very low pressures to form a trim strip.

The present invention relates to trim strips or molding and, more particularly, to a trim strip or molding manufactured from an injection process or extruding with a post form process.
In commonly known injection molding operations, generally the molds or dies utilized in the operation are very heavy, sturdy and durable. This is due to the fact that the material injected into the molds or dies is at elevated temperature and pressure. Thus, the molds must be very strong and durable to endure the increased temperature and pressure which also explains their high cost.
During the manufacturing of trim strips or molding, especially trim strips for vehicles, which utilize adhesive strips to position the trim strips onto the vehicle, a primer or barrier must be positioned between the outer plastic molding and the adhesive tape. The barrier is needed to prevent eventual migration of plasticizer from the molding to the adhesive tape which would, in time, destroy the bond of the adhesive tape to the molding. Thus, a very thin film of aluminum or the like including chemical barrier coatings have been utilized to prevent migration of plasticizer to the adhesive tape.
Another problem associated with trim strips which have been extruded or injection molded is known as metallic flop. Metallic flop is a phenomena which occurs during the extrusion or injection molding process which provides the trim strip with unidirectional characteristics. That is, the trim strip may only be positioned onto a surface in one direction to provide desired color characteristics. If the trim strip is applied to the vehicle in a reverse direction, the color characteristics of the material are different, e.g., the color of the strip does not match the color of the surface, indicating that the material has been flopped. Particularly, if two parts are laid side by side in the same orientation which they came out of a mold or extruder, that is their forward ends are positioned side by side and their rearward ends are positioned side by side, there would be no apparent difference in color between the two. However, if one of the strips were to be flipped such that the rearward end of one strip was positioned side by side the forward end of the other strip there would be a noticeable difference in color between the two parts. This is known as metallic flop. To alleviate the metallic flop problem, the trim strips are marked as they leave the factory to indicate which direction they should be applied onto the surface.
Another problem existing in current trim strip manufacturing is that with respect to coloring the trim strip. Since the color formulation of the plastic to manufacture the trim strip is ordinarily color checked in small quantities in a research laboratory by a researcher utilizing different apparatus than is utilized in the production of the trim strips, there sometimes is a difference in color. This coloring difference is generally due to the fact that the apparatus or machinery used to produce the color of the plastic of the trim strip in the laboratory is different than the machinery utilized for mass production of trim strips. Thus, once production trim strips are manufactured, if the color does not match the vehicle color, the color formulation of the trim strip must be modified so that the production machinery will produce the desired color appearance.
Trim strips made with current injection molding processes, with hollowed out portions on the underside that are irregular in position, are difficult to make. "Sinks" appear on the top finished surface in the areas where the cross section thickness undergoes a considerable change. These "sinks" degrade the appearance of the finished part surface.
Current trim strips are molded or shaped and then undergo additional processing to apply the adhesive tape and then trim the tape. These operations add to the total manufacturing cost of the molding.
Thus, it is desirous to have trim strips and a method of manufacturing trim strips which overcome the above disadvantages. Accordingly, the present invention provides the art with a trim strip which overcomes the above disadvantages.
The present invention provides the art with a trim strip which is manufactured by a molding process. The molding occurs at very low pressure, if any, to enable utilization of low cost lightweight molds or dies. The trim strip or molding is formed by dispensing liquid plastic into a mold and applying heat to solidify the plastic. Adhesive tape is applied to a hard plastic strip to form a separate laminate, and this laminate is bonded to the solidified plastic soon after completion of the heating cycle. Alternatively the liquid plastic could be solidified and, after cooling, adhesive tape along with a barrier applied thereto. The hard plastic strip effectively acts as a barrier and prevents plasticizer from migrating from the solidified plastic which in time would destroy the bond between the adhesive tape and the solidified plastic. Plastics that can be used in this invention may be liquid vinyls such as plastisols. The hard plastic strip may be vinyl made in conventional extruding or calendering methods. The above tape processing steps are much less costly than those used on current moldings. The present invention, which is molded at very low pressure, produces trim strips which are color non-directional and substantially eliminate metallic flop.
Also, on account of the low pressure, trim strips with large abrupt changes in thickness may be manufactured without "sinks" on the finished surface. This characteristic is becoming more important due to the trend of new designs requiring high gloss smooth surfaces on new automotive applications where sinks are more noticeable. It is also important for the new designs to incorporate weight saving features which can be achieved by hollowing out bottom portions of the trim strip.
This molding process also exhibits advantageous surface adherence capability when the molding is finally attached to a surface. A suitable tension force may be applied to the adhesive tape when the laminate is manufactured so that the completed molding is either straight or lengthwise curved so that the taped surface is lengthwise concaved.
From the subsequent detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying claims and subjoined drawings, other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art.


A collapsible support stand is disclosed. The support stand includes a first support section and a second support section. The first support section includes a first side frame and a plurality of first bars extending perpendicularly from the first side frame. The second support section includes a second side frame parallel to the first side frame, a first centre frame defining a plurality of holes, and a plurality of second bars extending between the second side frame and the first centre frame, wherein axial movement of the plurality of first bars through the plurality of holes moves the first support section between an extended position and a retracted position relative to the second support section. The support stand includes a pair of first foldable legs connected to the first side frame and a pair of second foldable legs connected to the second side frame.

Various support structures, such as barbecue grills and drying racks, include horizontal support surfaces that have a plurality of openings. For example, a plurality of spaced apart bars defining slotted openings may provide a horizontal support surface for such a structure. The openings may, for example, allow objects supported on the support surface to be exposed to an external heat source positioned underneath the support surface, or allow various substances (e.g. air, water, oil, etc.) to pass through the support surface.
It would be desirable to provide a support structure that is portable and that can be easily set up to provide a horizontal support surface having a plurality of openings.
Like reference numerals are used in the drawings to denote like elements and features.


A system and method for controlling the temperature of a process tool uses the vaporizable characteristic of a refrigerant that is provided in direct heat exchange relation with the process tool. Pressurized refrigerant is provided as both condensed liquid and in gaseous state. The condensed liquid is expanded to a vaporous mix, and the gaseous refrigerant is added to reach a target temperature determined by its pressure. Temperature corrections can thus be made very rapidly by gas pressure adjustments. The process tool and the operating parameters will usually require that the returning refrigerant be conditioned and processed for compatibility with the compressor and other units, so that cycling can be continuous regardless of thermal demands and changes.

Thermal control units (TCUs), such as heating and chilling systems are widely used to establish and maintain a process tool or other device at a selected and variable temperature. Typical examples of a modem thermal or temperature control unit are found in highly capital intensive semiconductor fabrication facilities. Stringent spatial requirements are placed on the TCUs, in order to preserve expensive floor space as much as possible. Reliability must be assured, because the large capital equipment costs required do not tolerate downtime in operation if profitable performance is to be obtained. The target temperature may be changed for different fabrication steps, but must be held closely until that particular step is completed. In many industrial and common household refrigeration systems the purpose is to lower the temperature to a selected level, and then maintain the temperature within a temperature range that is not highly precise. Thus even though reliable and long-lived operation is achieved in these commercial systems, the performance is not up to the demands of highly technical production machinery.
In most modern TCUs actual temperature control of the tool or process is exercised by use of an intermediate thermal transfer fluid which is circulated from the TCU through the equipment and back again in a closed cycle. A thermal transfer fluid is selected that is stable in a desired operating range below its boiling temperatures at the minimum operating pressure of said fluid. It also must have suitable viscosity and flow characteristics within its operating range. The TCU itself employs a refrigerant, usually now of an ecologically acceptable type, to provide any cooling needed to maintain the selected temperature. The TCU may circulate the refrigerant through a conventional liquid/vapor phase cycle. In such cycles, the refrigerant is first compressed to a hot gas at high pressure level, then condensed to a pressurized liquid. The gas is transformed to a liquid in a condenser by being passed in close thermal contact with a cooling fluid; it is either liquid cooled by the surrounding fluid or directly by environmental air. The liquid refrigerant is then lowered in temperature by expansion through a valve to a selected pressure level. This expansion cools the refrigerant by evaporating some of the liquid, thereby forcing the liquid to equilibrate at the lower saturation pressure. After this expansive chilling, the refrigerant is passed into heat exchange relation with the thermal transfer fluid to cool said thermal transfer fluid, in order to maintain the subject equipment at the target temperature level. Then the refrigerant is returned in vapor phase to the pressurization stage. A source of heating must usually be supplied to the thermal transfer fluid if it is needed to raise the temperature of the circulated thermal transfer fluid as needed. This is most often an electrical heater placed in heat exchange with the circulated fluid and provided with power as required.
Such TCUs have been and are being very widely used with many variants, and developments in the art have lowered costs and improved reliability for mass applications. In mass produced refrigerators, for example, tens of thousands of hours of operation are expected, and at relatively little cost for maintenance. However, such refrigeration systems are seldom capable of operating across a wide temperature range, and lower cost versions often use air flow as a direct heat exchange medium for the refrigerated contents.
In contrast, the modern TCU for industrial applications has to operate precisely, is a typical requirement being ±<1° C. , at a selected temperature level, and shift to a different level within a wide range (e.g. −40° C. to +60° C. for a characteristic installation). Typical thermal transfer fluids for such applications include a mixture of ethylene glycol and water (most often in deionized form) or a proprietary perfluorinated fluid sold under the trademark "Galden" or "Fluorinert". These fluids and others have found wide use in these highly reliable, variable temperature systems. They do not, however, have high thermal transfer efficiencies, particularly the perfluorinated fluids, and impose some design demands on the TCUs. For example, energy and space are needed for a pumping system for circulating the thermal transfer fluid through heat exchangers (HEXs) and the controlled tool or other equipment. Along with these energy loss factors, there are energy losses in heat exchange due to the temperature difference needed to transfer heat and also losses encountered in the conduits coupling the TCU to and from the controlled equipment. Because space immediately surrounding the device to be cooled often at is a premium, substantial lengths of conduit may be required, which not only introduces energy losses but also increases the time required to stabilize the temperature of the process tool. In general the larger the volume of the TCU the farther the TCU needs to be located remotely from the device to be controlled. The fluid masses along the flow paths require time as well as energy to compensate for the losses they introduce. Any change in temperature of the device to be controlled must also affect the conduits connecting the TCU and the controlled device along with the thermal transfer fluid contained in said conduits. This is because the thermal transfer fluid is in intimate thermal contact with the conduit walls. Thus, the fluid emerging at the conduit end nearest the controlled device arrives at said device at a temperature substantially equal to that of the conduit walls and these walls must be changed in temperature before the controlled device can undergo a like change in temperature.
Under the continuing demand for improved systems and results, there is a need for a TCU which minimizes these losses. If possible, the system should also be compact, of low capital cost, and preserve or even increase the long life and reliable characteristics which have become expected.
To the extent that straightforward refrigeration systems may have hitherto employed a refrigerant without a separate thermal transfer fluid, it has been considered that the phase changes imposed during the refrigeration cycle prohibit direct use of the refrigerant at a physical distance outside the cycle. A conventional refrigerant inherently relies on phase changes for energy storage and conversion, so that there must also be a proper state or mix of liquid and vapor phases at each point in the refrigeration cycle for stable and reliable operation of the compressor and other components. Using a saturable fluid such as a refrigerant directly in heat exchange with a variable thermal load presents formidable system problems.
The present application teaches for the first time a system which directly employs the high thermal transfer efficiency of a refrigerant mixture of liquid and vapor in a highly efficient system capable of very fast temperature change response. It eliminates the need for substantial delay times to correct temperature levels at the device being controlled, as well as for substantial energy losses in conduits and HEXs, and the need for substantial time delays in shifting between target temperatures at different levels.


Embodiments of the present invention enable processing of tasks within a service-oriented architecture (SOA). In embodiments, an echo mediator is a mediator SOA component that acts as a service provider by processing a service request associated with a service requester and returning the result to the service requester. In embodiments, an echo mediator handles a received sequential service request by synchronously processing it. In embodiments, an echo mediator handles a received parallel service request by storing it in a persistent store, and an echo mediator with processing capacity retrieves the stored parallel service request and asynchronously processes it. In embodiments, a group of echo mediators may be distributed among the nodes of a grid, forming an echo mediator grid in which each of the echo mediators interfaces with a common data store deployed within the grid. In embodiments, the grid of echo mediators balances the processing of stored service requests.

A. Technical Field
The present invention pertains generally to a grid computing environment, and relates more particularly to parallel processing of service-oriented tasks within a grid computing environment.
B. Background of the Invention
The use of distributed systems for information processing has become commonplace for business enterprises and other organizations, due in part to the rise of the Internet, the World Wide Web, advanced network security, and networking protocols that facilitate network communications. There are many types of distributed systems, ranging from small clusters of identical computing processor nodes occupying one physical location to large global systems that contain many different types of nodes and operating environments.
Developing, deploying, and managing a set of software applications within a distributed system environment become more challenging as the size and complexity of the distributed system environment increases. An approach to meet these challenges is the creation of a grid computing environment ("grid") from a distributed system. A grid typically is created and managed by installing grid middleware, a set of software components and protocols, onto a distributed system platform. A grid provides a virtual single execution platform having a single set of interfaces to common platform services such as application administration, data access, and security, but it also allows exploitation of the parallelism and fault-tolerance that are inherent in the underlying distributed system environment.
In recent years, the predominant structure of enterprise software applications has been adapted to facilitate the performance and management of enterprise information technologies (IT) within distributed system environments. One such adaptation is a service-oriented structure, in which an application is composed of a set of software components that co-operate to execute an application by providing functionality ("services") to each other.
A service-oriented grid environment is a grid that hosts a set of service-oriented applications. It would be advantageous for enterprise IT management if the parallelism and fault-tolerance advantages of the grid environment could be leveraged for a deployed service-oriented application without requiring re-design and/or re-implementation of the application components in order to meet the specific requirements of the grid middleware.

Processing of service-oriented tasks within a grid computing environment


Methods and arrangements for task scheduling. At least one job is assimilated from at least one node, each job comprising at least a map phase and a reduce phase, each of the map and reduce phases comprising at least one task. Progress of a map phase of at least one job is compared with progress of a reduce phase of at least one job. Launching of a task of a reduce phase of at least one job is scheduled in response to progress of the reduce phase of at least one job being less than progress of the map phase of at least one job.

An effective framework involves distributed parallel computing, which operates to disperse processing tasks across multiple processors operating on one or more computing devices such that parallel processing may be executed simultaneously. Important implementations of large scale distributed parallel computing systems are MapReduce by Google®, Dryad by Microsoft®, and the open source Hadoop® MapReduce implementation. Google® is a registered trademark of Google Inc. Microsoft® is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Hadoop® is a registered trademark of the Apache Software Foundation.
Generally, MapReduce has emerged as a dominant paradigm for processing large datasets in parallel on compute clusters. As an open source implementation, Hadoop has become popular in a short time for its success in a variety of applications, such as social network mining, log processing, video and image analysis, search indexing, recommendation systems, etc. In many scenarios, long batch jobs and short interactive queries are submitted to the same MapReduce cluster, sharing limited common computing resources with different performance goals. It has thus been recognized that, in order to meet these imposed challenges, an efficient scheduler can be helpful if not critical in providing a desired quality of service for the MapReduce cluster.
Conventionally, efforts have been made to effect such service, but significant shortcomings have been noted. First, it is usually the case conventionally that only the fairness of the map phase is guaranteed, without guaranteeing fairness for reducers in that reducers are launched greedily to a maximum. As such, to allocate excess computing resources without balancing with map progress can will lead to underutilization. Secondly, most of the scheduling schemes on data locality only consider local inputs for map tasks and ignore a need for intermediate data generated from mappers to be fetched by reducers, through either networks or local disks. A consequence is that future run-time information becomes unavailable when scheduling reducers. A greedy approach for launching reducers, as undertaken by conventional schedulers, can make wrong decisions at the beginning in its detachment from evolving job dynamics.
In conventional arrangements where a type of delayed scheduling is used to improve the data locality for map tasks, it can be seen that the introduced delays degrade performance in heterogeneous environments, e.g., when the input data are not distributed evenly over a large fraction of nodes in the computing cluster. This can cause under-utilization and instability, in that the number of mappers running simultaneously will not reach a desired level, and will vary greatly over time.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Sequential cooperation between map and reduce phases to improve data locality

International Business Machines Corporation


An adjustable holding device for sensors includes a main body, on and opposite of which, a bearing body supporting a sensor is adjustably held by a spherical joint. The spherical joint includes a threaded stud, fastened to the main body, that protrudes through an opening in the bearing body, and to which an opening in a body having a spherical outer surface is screwed. The outer surface is held pivotably in and co-rotatably with, about an axis coaxial with the threaded stud, complementarily spherical inner surfaces of two combined half-shells. Through rotation under external force of the combined half-shells, the body having the spherical outer surface can be screwed relative to the threaded stud by displacing the half-shells and the bearing body in the threaded stud direction.

An adjustable holding device for motor vehicle headlamps is discussed, for example, in German patent document DE-A-29 16 225. A motor vehicle headlamp is held there in a frame which is mounted, inter alia, by a ball and socket joint, on a base plate. The ball and socket joint comprises a threaded stud with a ball socket on the end side, in which a ball connected to the frame is accommodated. The ball is pressed here into the ball socket by elastic deformation thereof. The threaded stud is screwed into the main body such that the frame supporting the headlamp is pivotable about the ball and socket joint. In order to set a certain pivoted position of the frame supporting the headlamp in relation to a vertical and a horizontal pivot axis intersecting the ball and socket joint, two adjusting screws are provided. The frame is therefore held in relation to the main body via the ball and socket joint and the two adjusting screws and therefore by three receptacles. The set position of the headlamps is merely secured here by the friction of the adjusting screws in the associated internal threads on the main body. Furthermore, the deformation of the elastic joint socket causes a certain flexibility of the ball and socket joint, which is detrimental to precise setting or long-term maintaining of the sensor position.

KNORR-BREMSE SYSTEME FUER NUTZFAHRZEUGE GMBH


A circuit and method for automatically compensating display contrast for temperature changes allowing user preference setting. The invention can be applied to any device having a display, but in one embodiment, portable electronic devices such as palmtops, other portable computers, personal digital assistants, cellular telephones, portable web browsers, remote controls, pagers, etc. are described herein. The invention allows a user to set a desired contrast preference and provides display feedback to the user as the preference setting is being made. Once the preference is set, the invention automatically compensates the contrast adjustment based on variable temperature conditions to maintain the display according to the user preference. For instance, as the temperature falls, the invention automatically detects this and adjusts the contrast in a first direction to maintain the user preference. Alternatively, as the temperature rises, the invention automatically adjusts contrast in a second direction to maintain the user preference.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of portable devices such as personal digital assistants or palmtop computer systems. Specifically, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling contrast on displays of such devices to maintain user preference settings, automatically compensating for changes in temperature with no required user action.
2. Related Art
As the components required to build a computer system have reduced in size, new categories of computer systems have emerged. One of the more recent categories of computer systems is the portable or "palmtop" computer system, or personal digital assistant (PDA). A palmtop computer system includes a palm-held device and a cradle device to which it ports and which connects and synchronizes it to other computers. Due to the small size and portability of the palm-held devices, they may be brought into and used in any environment, and thus experience widely different ambient temperatures while in operation.
As the temperature changes, the contrast of the portable computer unit's LCD display changes. Under certain conditions, particularly with wide variations in temperature, the resulting change in contrast may cause the LCD display to become unreadable, perhaps either completely bright, if the temperature becomes too cold, or completely dark, if the temperature becomes too hot, and thus render the portable computer unusable, unless and until the contrast is readjusted by the user. For example, when the user leaves a heated building in the winter and goes outside and waits at a bus stop, they go from a warm to a cold temperature. If the display was set for the heated building, when the user is waiting at the bus stop, the display could get very bright so it could look like the screen never came on. Therefore, such display conditions may result in users mistaking their temperature-errant contrast display for a broken or inoperable display or computer, causing them to fear they have lost potentially important data, striving to replace such data and/or returning the units for repair or replacement unnecessarily. This is inconvenient and costly.
One method for solving this problem has been to simply rely upon manual contrast correction by the user upon temperature varying contrast. However, this solution is error prone and inconvenient as the user must realize that the contrast has varied due to temperature change and act accordingly, and this has resulted in confusion and error as discussed above.
Another method has been to limit the contrast range, such that the portable computer's display will never go either completely light or completely dark. However, the user would still have to adjust the contrast depending on the temperature of the environment in which they were operating the portable computer. Furthermore, this method does not allow the use of the full range of the contrast, and at the high and low ends of the operable portable computers' temperature range, the user could not set the unit's contrast optimally, because the controls become confusing to the user.
Yet another method has been to utilize a thermistor to provide automatic temperature contrast control with user manual contrast control potentiometer settings. However, thermistors have proven substantially incompatible with the potentiometers used for manual contrast control. This is because thermistors have relatively limited ranges and the resistance ranges available for thermistors do not overlap well with the resistance ranges available for the potentiometers used for manual contrast control.

Circuit and method for temperature compensated contrast


A vehicle lamp includes: a light source; and a scanner configured to scan light emitted from the light source, and configured to irradiate the scanned light toward outside a vehicle. The light source includes a plurality of visible light sources configured to emit visible light, and at least one infrared light source configured to emit infrared light, and the infrared light source is arranged between the visible light sources.

In an effort to enhance the safe driving of a vehicle such as an automobile, for example, a vehicle lamp has been proposed which illuminates the front area of the automobile with visible light, irradiates infrared light toward the front area, and detects an object based on the infrared light reflected by the object. Further, in order to enhance the visibility of the driving area of the vehicle or the peripheral area thereof, a technique of scanning with visible light to illuminate the front area has also been proposed.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2009-018726 proposes a technique in which a visible light source together with a light emitter and light receiver of an infrared sensor are arranged in a lamp housing, and visible light emitted from the visible light source and infrared light emitted from the light emitter (infrared light source) are scanned by a scanning mirror to irradiate the front area of a vehicle. According to the technique, an object (obstacle) present in the front area may be detected using infrared light and visible light may be irradiated to the detected object so that an occupant may visually recognize the object.


A device and method to diagnose an internal abnormality in a living subject by sensing a passively occurring electromagnetic radiation signal associated with the abnormality and inside an orifice of the subject. Diagnosis includes detection, imaging or identification of the abnormality. An instrument is used either to bring a sensor into the orifice or to transmit the signal to a sensor located outside of the orifice. An example of the instrument includes a prior art endoscope.

The present invention relates to a method and device to detect and identify pathologies inside orifices of a living subject and more specifically to a method and device to detect and identify cancer. Particular embodiments are configured for detection of colon cancer, cervical cancer, lung cancer, cancer of the esophagus, and stomach cancer. More specifically the present invention relates to a method and device including passive detection and identification of different kinds of internal tumors, lesions and cancers by combined analyses of visible and infrared optical signals based on integral and spectral regimes for detection and imaging leading to early warning and treatment of potentially dangerous conditions.
A few common cancers associated with orifices and the current art methods of diagnosis follow:
Gastric cancer is the seventh most frequent cause of cancer mortality in the US. The main screening methods for gastric cancer are:
Upper endoscopy imaging—A small visible spectrum camera and light source are attached to a flexible guide and inserted through the throat and into the stomach of a patient. A doctor examines the resulting images to detect abnormalities. Some improvements such as zoom capable cameras are in development. Nevertheless, all current visible imaging techniques have a few significant limitations. Firstly, detection of abnormalities is subjective and dependent on the expertise and the alertness of the examining doctor. Furthermore, while observed images are useful for detecting abnormal lesions, positive identification requires a biopsy to determine the lesions' status.
Endoscopic confocal microscopy—A conventional visible light endoscope is fitted with a probe capable of producing microscopic images. A pathologist uses the microscopic images to identify cancer in-vivo (without requiring examination of tissue in a biopsy). The technique is still in the stage of development and is currently exceedingly expensive. Furthermore, the method is based solely on visible inspection by a doctor and therefore the detection and identification are subjective and dependent on the alertness and subjective judgment of the examining doctor. Also, since the field of few the microscopic image is about 300 μm, there is a danger (depending on the expertise of the operator) that the microscopic imaging will miss an important feature of the abnormality.
Barium upper gastrointestinal radiography—A patient drinks a barium-containing solution that coats the lining of the esophagus, stomach and first portion of the small intestine. Then the resulting distribution of the barium is measured using x-rays. In and of itself, this test is not accurate, but it is useful in helping to identify lesions detected using other tests.
Endoscopic ultrasound—A transducer probe placed into the stomach through the mouth or nose uses sound waves to produce images of internal organs. The transducer emits sound waves and detects the echoes bounced off internal organs. Endoscopic ultrasound is useful for staging depth of tumor invasion. Nevertheless, endoscopic ultrasound cannot be used to for early detection or identification of tumors because ultrasound cannot detect young tumors smaller than the wavelength of sound (of order 1 cm) and because many different objects produce similar ultrasound echoes.
Computed tomography (CT)—The subject is scanned with x-rays over successive cross-sections. The procedure produces good sensitivity and accuracy, but has the major drawback of exposing the subject to significant quantities of potentially dangerous x-radiation.
Positron emission tomography (PET)—Radioactive glucose is injected into the subject's vein. Because cancers use sugar much faster than normal tissues, locations of high concentrations of the radioactive glucose are associated with cancer. Thus, by scanning the subject one can spot cancer that has spread beyond the stomach. PET is a useful test for staging the cancer. Nevertheless, PET scans are currently unable to detect or identify stomach cancer in its early stages.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)—The subject is scanned using radio waves after exposure to strong magnets. A computer translates the pattern of radio waves given off by the tissues into a very detailed image of parts of the body. The procedure is extremely expensive and at present MRI appears to perform well in evaluating the local and distant extents of cancer but less well at detecting unsuspected primary tumors.
Endoscopic auto fluorescence spectroscopy—A new technique based on active excitation of tissue by applying UV light via an endoscope. Endogenous visible fluorescence spectra emitted by the tissue is collected with a fiber optic probe and analyzed with a spectrograph. While auto fluorescence spectroscopy has shown promise when applied to detection of skin cancer, auto fluorescence spectroscopy has disadvantages in internal studies. Firstly auto fluorescence spectroscopy requires subjecting potentially sensitive internal tissues to ultraviolet light stimulation. Secondly, auto fluorescence signals are masked by reflected visible light. Thus current art reflected light measurements cannot be made simultaneously to auto fluorescence measurements. This means that auto fluorescence cannot be used in addition to current reflected light techniques for improved detection of abnormalities. Attempts to apply auto fluorescence for diagnosis of internal abnormalities [see Mayinger, B., M. Jordan, T. Horbach, et al., "Evaluation of in vivo endoscopic auto fluorescence spectroscopy in gastric cancer", Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, vol. 59, No. 2, 2004, pp. 191-198] have not provided satisfactory results.
Colorectal cancer is the third most common malignant neoplasm worldwide; the following methods are used for colorectal screening:
Fecal Occult Blood test—The presence of hidden blood is detected in the stool. Blood in the stool that is not visible is often the first warning sign that a person has a colorectal disorder. The disadvantages of this method are that it detects blood in stool, but not its cause and False-positive and false negative results are common. Thus a more sensitive and precise test is needed.
Flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy—These techniques are similar to upper endoscopy except that the endoscope is called a sigmoidoscope or colonoscope and is inserted in the rectum rather than the throat. These techniques can discover 50% to 65% of polyps and are subject to all of the limitations of upper endoscopy.
Virtual Colonoscopy (CT Colonoscopy)—Refers to examination of computer-generated images of the colon from data obtained by CT or MRI machines. The performance of this non-invasive method depends heavily on the size of the lesion; it can miss polyps smaller than 10 mm and generally suffers from the limitations of CT and MRI imaging mentioned above.
DNA Mutation in the Stool—This new non-invasive method is based on the detection of mutations in faucal DNA. At present the cost of this technique is high and sensitivity results are the same as colonoscopy.
Barium Enema—Flow of barium is monitored on an x-ray fluorescence screen. This method has a low rate of detection even of large adenomas, but the technique is valuable in cases in which the colonoscopy does not reach the lesion.
Cervical cancer is cancer of the uterine cervix, the portion of the uterus attached to the top of the vagina. Ninety percent of cervical cancers arise from the flattened or "squamous" cells covering the cervix. Most of the remaining 10% arise from the glandular, mucus-secreting cells of the cervical canal leading into the uterus. This cancer is the 2nd most common cancer in women worldwide. The following methods are used for cervical screening/detection:
Pap smear—This screening examination is obtained by collecting a sample of cells from the cervix with a wooden or plastic spatula and brush. Specimens are placed on glass slides and examined by a special pathologist/cytologist. If abnormalities are found, women are typically asked to return for colposcopy. The quality of the Pap smear can be compromised by inflammatory exudate, or failure to sample the transformation zone. As a result, a relatively high false-negative rate of 20% pap smears might cause failure to diagnose pre-invasive disease.
Colposcopy—Colposcopy uses a magnifying lens to view the surface of the cervix under white and green light after a mild vinegar solution is applied. If pathologic areas are seen, a biopsy is taken. This method is not performed in real time and has the disadvantages of other forms of visible light endoscopy as described above. Particular, visible light endoscopy is subjective and depends on physician experience and alertness.
None of the above techniques of detection are capable of positively identifying tumors. Therefore according to current art distinguishing tumors from other benign or pathological conditions requires biopsy. Biopsies have many obvious disadvantages: firstly a biopsy requires intrusive removal of tissue that can be painful and expensive. Particularly in internal cavities and more particularly in the stomach and intestines, biopsies run a high risk of serious complications. These complications can lead to very painful conditions (including ulcers), they can force limiting diet or activity of a patient for significant periods of time and complications may even require treatment and drastic intervention (for instance surgery). Only a very limited number of sites can be biopsied in one session. Furthermore, biopsy samples must be stored and transported to a laboratory for expert analysis. Storage and transportation increase the cost, increase the possibility that samples will be mishandled, destroyed or lost, and also cause a significant time delay in receiving results. This time delay means that examination follow up requires bringing the patient back to the doctor for a separate session. This increases the inconvenience to the patient, the cost and the risk that contact will be lost or the disease will precede to a point of being untreatable. Furthermore, the waiting period causes significant anxiety to the patient. Finally, interpretation of biopsies is usually by microscopic analysis, which results in qualitative subjective results that are not well suited to consistent interpretation.
Therefore, in medical diagnosis, there is great interest improved sensitivity, safe non-operative detection technologies capable of revealing internal cancers in their early stages and also in improved techniques for identification to differentiate between cancer, benign conditions and other pathologies of internal tissue.
Optical methods for have long been applied to early detection and identification of skin cancer [Gniadecka, M., H. C. Wulf, N. Nymark Mortensen, O. Faurskov Nielsen and D. H. Christensen "Diagnosis of Basal Cell Carcinoma by Raman Spectroscopy", JOURNAL OF RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY, 28, 125-129, 1997; Brooks, A., N. I. Afanasyeva, V. Makchine, R. F. Bruch, S. F. Kolyakov, S. Artjushenko and L. N. Butvina, "New Method for Investigations of Normal Human Skin Surfaces in vivo Using Fiber-optic Evanescent Wave Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FEW-FTIR)", Surf. Interface Anal., 27, 221-229, 1999]. Visible light examination, spectral analysis, digital imaging using active regimes, and thermal imaging methods have been applied.
In the spectral regime electromagnetic radiation signal intensities are measured in various frequency bands generally based on perceiving reflected light in the visible to NIR bands. Identification of specific abnormalities is based on information about the corresponding "signature" of radiation associated with the corresponding anomaly measured in the frequency domain.
In skin cancer studies, the method of thermal imaging has been used to produce color images of skin tumors or skin pathological abnormalities. This passive integral regime detects differences in patterns of MIR emissions from normal and pathological tissues. The results of this imaging are generally classified according to certain parameters and used for detection of skin abnormalities and identification of the abnormalities whether they are pathological (e.g. tumors, melanoma, lesions) or benign (nevi). Changes in properties (like temperature of color) mark the boundaries between normal and abnormal (suspected cancerous) regions.
Recently, medium infrared MIR spectral methods have also been used to improve accuracy and reproducibility of biopsy evaluation for both gastric cancer [Naoko Fujioka, Yuji Morimoto, Tsunenori Arai, Makoto Kikuchi, "Discrimination between normal and malignant human gastric tissues by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy", Cancer Detection and Prevention 28, 32-36, (2004)] and lung cancer [Yang, Y., Josep Sule-Suso, Ganesh D. Sockalingum, Gregory Kegelaer, Michel Manfait, Alicia J El Haj, "Study of Tumor Cell Invasion by Fourier Transform Infrared Microspectroscopy", Biopolymers, Vol. 78, 311-317 (2005); Wang, H. P., H. C. Wangb, and Y. J. Huang, "Microscopic FTIW studies of lung cancer cells in pleural fluid", The Science of the Total Environment 204. 283-287, (1997)]. Samples, for spectral analysis, may be smaller than traditional biopsies. This makes the sampling procedure significantly less traumatic for the patient. Spectral analyzers may even be brought to a doctor's office or an operating room to allow real time diagnosis and treatment considerably increasing the efficiency of treatment as well as reducing expensive and dangerous time delays and reducing the chance of losing contact with patients.
Nevertheless, with the exceptions of visual inspection of reflected visible radiation (endoscopy) (for example see U.S. Pat. No. 6,975,898 B2 Seibel) and some limited research on auto fluorescence spectroscopy (for example see U.S. Pat. No. 5,876,995 Bryan and U.S. Pat. No. 7,172,553 Ueno et al.), optical analytical techniques have not been applied to in-vivo intra-orifice cancer detection and identification. Furthermore current art intra-orifice optical techniques use an active regime, applying radiation in the ultraviolet UV, visible or near-infrared NIR wave bands from an external source and measuring the reflection, absorption, refraction or fluorescence of the rays in the visible spectrum. There may be risks involved in exposing internal tissue to electromagnetic radiation even in the optical spectrum (because internal tissue is not naturally exposed to such radiation). Many of the widely known techniques of detection and identification of external pathologies have disadvantages making them not fully appropriate for detection and identification of internal cancers and cancer precursors. Furthermore new instruments have yet to be developed (and licensed) to permit application of these techniques to internal tissue in-vivo.
Although it has long been known that in-vivo heat differentials can be used to detect and identify cancer both in the lungs [Stefanadis, C., Christina Chrysohoou, Demosthenes B Panagiotakos, Elisabeth Passalidou, Vasiliki Katsi, Vlassios Polychronopoulos and Pavlos K Toutouzas, Temperature differences are associated with malignancy on lung lesions: a clinical study", BMC Cancer, 3:1 doi:10.1186/1471-2407-3-1, (2003)] and in the gastrointestinal tract [Stefanadis C., Christina Chrysohoou, Emmanouel Paraskevas, Demosthenes B. Panagiotakos, Demetrios Xynopoulos, Dimitris Dimitroulopoulos, Kalliopi Petraki, Constantina Papadimitriou, Kyriakos Karoutsos, Christos Pitsavos and Pavlos K. Toutouzas, "Thermal Heterogeneity Constitutes A Marker for the Detection of Malignant Gastric Lesions In Vivo", J Clin Gastroenterol 36(3):215-218, 2003], measurement of heat differentials of internal tissue has been limited to highly complex experimental studies using thermistors which must actually contact the area of measurement. Thermistor based temperature measurement may, in the future, be useful for identification of lesions, but measuring a temperature differential alone is not sufficient for positive identification of specific pathologies. Furthermore, for the purpose of detection, use of a thermistor is not at all feasible. Simply put, it is unthinkable that one would drag a thermistor across the entire inner surface of a subject's intestines to screen for pathologies. On the other hand, the use of heat cameras to sense temperature anomalies, as has been proposed for detecting skin cancer [for example using Forward Looking Infrared Sensors (FLIRS) and MIR pyroelectric cameras] with current art endoscopic techniques is not feasible because these cameras are heat sensitive and too large to be fit into an endoscope. Thus, current art techniques of endoscopic detection, which are based on imaging using a miniature camera located in the endoscope or a doctor using his eyes to detect a visible electromagnetic radiation signal through an optical fiber, are not applicable in the MIR spectrum.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a non-invasive methodology to detect and identify pathologic conditions of internal tissue in-vivo. The current invention fills this need.

Method of infrared thermography for earlier diagnosis of gastric colorectal and cervical cancer

Passive Imaging Medical Systems Engineering Ltd. (PIMS)


A semiconductor structure is provided. The semiconductor structure comprises a doped substrate, a gate structure, a source, a drain and a field doped region. The source and the drain are in the doped substrate on opposing sides of the gate structure respectively. The field doped region has a conductivity type opposite to a conductivity type of the source and the drain. The field doped region is extended from the source to be beyond a first gate sidewall of the gate structure but not reach a second gate sidewall of the gate structure opposing to the first gate sidewall.

1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates in general to a semiconductor structure, and particularly to a MOS structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the semiconductor technology, the feature size of the semiconductor structure has been reduced. In the meantime, the rate, the efficiency, the density and the cost per integrated circuit unit have been improved.
For example, many methods have been proposed for increasing a breakdown voltage (BVD) of a semiconductor structure such as a MOS and so on. However, an on-state resistance (Ron) of the semiconductor structure would be increased due to the conventional methods. Therefore, the semiconductor structure could not obtain a trade off between the BVD and the Ron for obtaining a desired small figure of merit (FOM=Ron/BVD).


The present invention relates to a fermentation process for preparing erythritol with high productivity with novel mutant of Trigonopsis variabilis, more specifically, for preparing erythritol under optimal fermentation conditions for maximum erythritol production by optimizing the environmental conditions of culture such as pH, temperature and controlling osmotic pressure. A two-stage fermentation was performed to control osmotic pressure. Osmotic pressure was adjusted to a low level during growth phase and to a high level during production phase by adding glucose and NaCl. Therefore, erythritol production could be increased due to the increased mutant cells.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fermentation process for preparing erythritol with high productivity using novel mutant of Trigonopsis variabilis, more specifically, for preparing erythritol under optimal fermentation conditions for maximum erythritol production by optimizing the environmental conditions of culture such as pH and temperature, and controlling osmotic pressure using a two stage fermentation, in which osmotic pressure was adjusted to be a low level during growth phase, and to be a high level during production phase.
2. Description of Prior Art
Erythritol, a four carbon sugar alcohol, is a naturally occurring substance and is widely distributed in nature. Like most of the other polyols, it is a metabolite or storage compound for seaweeds and mushrooms. Fruits like melons, grapes and pears also contain erythritol. As it is often produced by bacteria, fungi, and yeasts, erythritol also occurs frequently in fermented food systems like wines or beers, and processed vegetables such as soy sauce and the oriental miso bean paste.
Erythritol is a moderately sweet bulking agent with 60.about.70 percent of the sweetness of sucrose in a 10 percent solution. Its high negative heat of solution provides the crystalline material with a strong cooling effect. As it has a taste which is very close to sucrose and with no bitter aftertaste, it is ideal to improve the taste by combination with intense sweeteners like aspartame.
Being a small molecule, erythritol has strong colligative properties, i.e. a strong freezing point depression and a boiling point elevation effect as well as a high osmotic pressure. In combination with its low hygroscopicity and viscosity in solution, it is very useful to reduce and control the water activity of foodstuffs.
Erythritol production from natural sources such as fruits and vegetables is not practical due to their relative small amounts. Erythritol can be chemically produced by reduction of meso-tartarate, oxidation and reduction of 4,6-o-ethylidene-D-glucose, hydrolysis of dealdehyde starch, or hydrogenation process. Since erythritol production by the chemical methods has been found to be expensive, it is worthwhile to explore an alternative method for the effective production of erythritol using microorganisms.
Erythritol can be produced by microbial methods with the osmophilic yeasts, especially species of the genus Torulopsis, such as T magnoliae, T. veratilis, and T. candida; Endomycopsis chodati; Hansenula supelliculsa; Pichia miso; Monilliella tomentosa var. pollinis; Trigonopsis variabilis; Trichosporonoides; Candida zeylanoides; and Aureobasidium. Some bacteria such as Leuconostoc oenos can also produce erythritol. Monilliella tomentosa var. pollinis produced erythritol on a medium containing 35.7% glucose with 45.6% yield.
Erythritol production using this strain has not been applied to industrial scale due to the formation of by-products such as glycerol and ribitol. Industrial production of erythritol has been performed by the mutant of Aureobasidiumn. The mutant was isolated and developed by cooperative study of Nikken Chemical and National Food Research Institute of Japan. The mutant produced erythritol with 47.6% yield on a medium containing 22.5% glucose and 2 g/L-h volumetric productivity.
It was found that most of polyols producing strains can grow under the conditions of high osmotic pressure such as the high concentration of sugars and salts. This fact suggests that polyols production has the relation to osmotic pressure. Reed et al. reported that glycerol productivity was improved by culturing a glycerol producing strain under the conditions of high osmotic pressure. However, erythritol production by controlling osmotic pressure has not been reported.
Therefore, in this invention, a wild strain of Trigonopsis variabilis KCCM 35523 without producing by-products was selected to produce erythritol. The wild strain was mutated with NTG(N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitroguanidine) treatment. One of mutants has superior properties in erythritol yield from glucose, volumetric productivity, and sugar tolerance compared to the wild strain. By using the mutant of T. variabilis, the effect of osmotic pressure on erythritol production was investigated, and two-stage fermentation in which osmotic pressure was adjusted to be a low level during growth phase and to be a high level during production phase was performed in order to increase erythritol production.

Fermentation process for preparing erythritol using mutant cells by controlling osmotic pressure


A noise filtering system provides adaptive noise filtering in the physical layer of serial and parallel interfaces for storage protocol applications. The system provides adaptive noise filtering for both hot plug and hot removal applications.

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) devices are commonly used in mobile computers due to their small footprint. However, SATA devices are sensitive to noise that may occur due to mechanical vibrations and via SATA connector movement. For example, when a mobile computer is placed on top of a desk, a mechanical vibration may result in glitches/noises on the SATA interface which may result in falsely detecting signal loss of synchronization. Glitches or noise may be generated due to hot-plug and hot-removal of SATA devices which may result in a false detection of loss of synchronization.
The SATA architecture includes a phy layer that performs a phy reset sequence after power on or reset to initialize a SATA link to be operational. After the SATA link is operational, the phy layer also performs the phy reset sequence upon detecting a loss of synchronization which may be due to detecting noise on the SATA link. The operations performed by the phy reset sequence may result in unsaved data being lost.
In order to protect against false detection of loss of synchronization, a SATA host typically delays initiating the phy reset sequence for a fixed time period. Typically the fixed time period is selected to ensure that intermittent noise on the SATA interface does not result in the initiation of a phy reset sequence. If the fixed time period is too short, the SATA host may initiate a phy reset sequence for each intermittent noise period. However, if the fixed time period is too long, the SATA host waits longer than necessary after detecting noise on the SATA interface before resuming normal operation.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments of the claimed subject matter, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, it is intended that the claimed subject matter be viewed broadly, and be defined only as set forth in the accompanying claims.

Signal noise filtering in a serial interface


A security system comprises a host system, a plurality of master controllers and a plurality of sub-controllers, wherein each sub-controller is assigned a specific master controller as well as alternate master controllers for communication access upon failure of the primary master controller. The host, master controller and sub-controllers are all coupled by a series of primary communication networks and paths and have multiple alternative communication network paths which function should there be a failure of the primary communication network. The host system comprises system and application software, data storage devices and communication ports to support the application requirements of the master controller, sub-controller network and access control devices attached thereto necessary to support a fault tolerant network. The system is configured with backup communication networks between the components so that upon failure of one or more components or communication paths the function of the failed component or path is assumed by alternative predesignated components or paths such that the operations of the system is not interrupted.

Security systems that are designed to create a barrier against unauthorized persons entering dwellings or enclosed areas such as, homes, offices, places of business, fenced properties and the like are common. The typical security systems architectures are referred to as stand alone systems, some times also referred to as off-line systems, and host-based, real time systems. Stand alone systems provide access decisions via, a self contained electrical or electronic control module with connected to a data entry device. host-based, real time systems Typical data entry devices include keypads and proximity, magnetic strip or biometric readers. Once the information provided by the entry device is verified by the control module an electrical or electronic signal is transmitted to power controlled door locks, allowing entry. The stand alone systems may also include exit control devices, such as request to exit (REX) systems, door open status detectors, movement or occupancy sensors and local door alarm output and may hard wired connections, wireless communication arrangements or a combination thereof.
With reference to FIG. 1, a host based, real time security system 100 comprises application software, one or more a controllers 104, and one or more user identification entry devices 106. The application software resides on a host computer 102, such as a server located at a host site, that is in electronic communication with the controller at the protected site. The application software provides user interfaces with the controller to provide access data parameters, alarm monitoring and output control. Other functions that can be provided by the application software include photo badging, video display and management, graphical alarm displays, visitor control, etc. The data is sent from the host to the controllers via the controller communication network 108. The controller or controllers 104 are installed adjacent to or in the vicinity of the access point being controlled, such an entry latching mechanism 109, where it is further connected to the data input device, such as a card reader or other means to identify the user. The controller has limited intelligence and is configured to make and execute decisions based upon user access information previously supplied to the system. The user provides the appropriate access information to data reader 102 at the entry point which transmits the user identification information to the controller 104 for an access authorization decision. Based on authorization parameters of the cardholder within the controller 104, access is granted or denied and access management processed accordingly.
Referring to FIG. 2 a host system is shown with a master controller 110 and two sub controllers 112. The master controller 110 is an intelligent controller with database information necessary for the system to make access and security decisions for the sub controllers 112. Each sub controller 112 is connected to user ID and entry control devices 106 such as a card reader, door lock control, request to exit, door status and other input and output controls connected directly to the sub controller 112. The user's entry data fed to the entry control device 106 is transmitted to the sub-controller 112. The identification information is than re-transmitted from the sub-controller to the master controller 110 for an access authorization decision. Based upon authorization parameters within the master controller 110 instructions regarding access grant or denial is sent from the master controller to the sub-controller 112 which then implements the instructions regarding entry.
In either architecture, the Host system disseminates access control, door management, alarm monitoring, sense input monitoring, and output control parameters to the various controllers via a secured communication network.
Although current systems are popular and extensively used a major deficient of these systems is that a failure in communication between system components, or a failure of either the master controller 110 or a sub-controller 112 translates to a failure of the system with respect to the components controlled by the failed controller. The failure of a master controller 110 is a single point of failure in the system, resulting in a failure of all sub-controllers 112 assigned to the failed master controller. A need in the industry exists for a fault tolerant security system architecture that eliminates the denial of access as a result of a single point of failure. A further need exists for a system which is configured to automatically recover from a failure. A still further need exists for a security system with redundancy so that when there is a single failure in the system a non-failed controller can automatically assume the tasks of a failed controller.

Fault tolerant security system, method and apparatus

Proprietary Controls Systems Corporation


A user equipment (UE) device for programmatic runtime generation of an application. The UE device receives a UI definition file that includes definitions indicating visual appearance attributes of portions of the application, a set of components that are UI building blocks to be presented within the application, and a set of behaviors that may be performed by the components, where the definitions include attribute-value pairs. The UE device receives a set of component definition files that include code for implementing components that includes the components indicated by the UI definition file and after a beginning of an execution of the application, the UE device parses the UI definition file to identify the visual appearance attributes, the set of components, and the set of behaviors; and dynamically instantiates the set of components based upon the parsed UI definition file and the set of component definition files to create the application.

IPTV is a multimedia delivery platform that utilizes a packet-based network infrastructure (e.g., broadband Internet access networks) to deliver video content to customers, typically as an alternative to delivery by traditional over-the-air television, satellite television, and cable television. A typical IPTV solution includes head-end video acquisition equipment for receiving television content, intermediate IPTV facilities (e.g., Ericsson Mediaroom™) including server platforms and associated IPTV middleware, networking devices (e.g., routers, switches) for content distribution between various nodes of the IPTV system, access nodes (e.g., very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL or VHDSL) or passive optical network (PON) equipment) to enable high-bandwidth transport to and from the customer premises, and operator-provided applications that manage the IPTV system and/or provide end-user IPTV applications.
Consumers (also referred to as users, end users, viewers, customers, or subscribers) of IPTV services utilize user interfaces of operator-provided applications on User Equipment (UE) devices (such as set-top boxes (STBs), tablets, smartphones, laptops, personal computers, etc.) to access IPTV content. However, these applications are difficult to create, as they are often tremendously complex systems including many layers of abstraction and rely upon customized code bases. Further, it is also desired, by operators, to provide custom application user interfaces (UIs) for different users or devices, and it has proven tremendously difficult to both generate and maintain such custom UIs.
The appearance and behavior of UIs for web applications are typically pre-defined. The code that defines it—CSS, for the most part—is fixed past compile-time and typically statically referenced by a web application.
Although some applications may permit "skinning" for the purposes of app customization, many applications (e.g., those of large companies) require a great deal of customization far beyond what "skinning" can provide, as there is a need to be able to control how user interface elements should look and/or behave—perhaps radically differently. To satisfy such requirements, some application developers have turned to digging into code bases and (statically) applying such customizations. This usually requires expert knowledge of the code base, and can lead to many unintended bugs being created. Accordingly, there is a need for a solution for modifying complex web applications that allows creating widely differing UI experiences, depending on developer preference, without requiring code base changes.
Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) pre-processors have been one approach recently used to more easily build rich web technology based applications that can be customized. However, CSS pre-processors are typically designed to be run as part of a build step to produce static CSS files that can then be used directly by browsers without additional customization. Additionally, some CSS pre-processors perform all parsing, transforming, and variable replacement in one computationally expensive step on the client side, thereby degrading the performance and user experience. Accordingly, there is still a need for generating and maintaining per-user (or per-device) style customization of web application, at a significantly smaller footprint such that it could be suitable for highly customized CSS that can be generated on-demand by web servers or by web browsers.

Methods and systems for dynamic runtime generation of customized applications


A water-conducting domestic appliance includes a housing having an interior, and a door which is connected to the housing to provide access to a treatment region in the interior of the housing. A ventilation valve controls ventilation of the treatment region of the housing. A door closure is provided to close the door and has an actuator which is connected to the ventilation valve. The door closure is actively connected to the ventilation valve in such a manner that the actuator opens the ventilation valve when the door is released and closes the ventilation valve when the door is closed, so that the ventilation valve is closed when the door is closed during operation.

The invention relates to a water-conducting domestic appliance, in particular a laundry treatment appliance for washing and/or drying laundry, having a housing, a door connected to the housing, by way of which a treatment region in the interior of the housing can be accessed, a door closure, which serves to close the door, and a ventilation valve, which serves to control ventilation of the treatment region. The invention relates specifically to the field of washing machines, tumble dryers and washer-dryers.
Such an appliance is disclosed in DE 44 22 736 A1. With this known domestic appliance, which is configured as a washing machine, a tub with a ventilation channel is provided, the ventilation channel being configured with a closing apparatus, which only opens when an underpressure occurs in the tub.
A domestic appliance in the form of a dishwasher is disclosed in EP 0 239 012 A1. This has, inter alia, a venting channel, to which a check valve is assigned, which can be controlled to an open position or a locking position according to the program.
A door arrangement for a washing machine is known from DE 10 2009 004 422 A1, which prevents a tub being closed when the washing machine is not in operation. The prior art assumes here that the user often keeps the door of the washing machine in a closed state when the laundry operation has been completed. If the door remains closed, even when the washing machine is not in use, harmful mold or similar can start to form in the tub due to the water remaining in the tub. Therefore with the known washing machine the door is kept in an open state when the washing machine is not in use to prevent harmful mold or similar starting to form in a tub. For this purpose the door arrangement has a hook hole to maintain a closed door state, a door with a hook shank to be positioned in the hook hole and a holding mechanism between the hook hole and the hook shank to hold the door in a state in which the door is open with a predefined gap. The holding mechanism has a first holding mechanism to engage with the door and a second holding mechanism to engage with the hook hole. The second holding mechanism here can have a hook part with an identical form to the hook shank. If the user closes the door in a state in which the holding mechanism holds the hook shank, the hook part is positioned in the hook hole in the housing with the result that the door is fastened to the housing. It is also possible for the holding mechanism to have a second holding mechanism with a magnetic part. If the user closes the door in a state in which the holding mechanism holds the hook shank, the magnetic part holds the metal housing by magnetic force, with the result that the door is held by the housing. This means that the door and housing are held at a predefined distance from one another, so that ventilation is ensured through the gap between the door and the housing.
The door arrangement known from DE 10 2009 004 422 A1 for a washing machine has the disadvantage that the user has to position the holding mechanism on the hook shank of the washing machine after washing. Only when the holding mechanism is positioned between the door and the housing does the now only partially possible closure of the door mean that ventilation is ensured through the gap between the door and the housing. However this is complex for the user. The user will therefore sometimes not position the holding mechanism. Also the user may forget to position the holding mechanism.

Water-conducting domestic appliance comprising a treatment region which can be ventilated


A method and apparatus for establishing a communication session with a user in a telecommunications network. The session is to be established between a remote device and one of a plurality of communication clients. Each of the clients is on a user device at which the user may participate in the session. A communication session control system located in a signalling path for the session transmits a session establishment request to a given client to place that client in a prior-to-answer session state. In response, the system receives a request from that client that the option to establish the session with the remote device be made available to at least one client of the plurality of clients other than the given client. The system transmits notification data to the at least one other client to notify that the session is available for retrieval by the at least one other client.

Telephony users have long had to deal with a proliferation of user devices (sometimes referred to as 'user equipment' or 'endpoints') through which third parties may contact them. For example, a user might have a fixed-line (or 'wireline') telephony user device for use at home, a further fixed-line telephony user device for use in the office, and a mobile telephony user device for use whilst on the move. Each type of telephony device has associated advantages; whilst a mobile telephony device provides the user with mobility, a fixed-line telephony device can provide more reliable communications with no battery recharge concerns.
Users may also have a number of different access technologies available through which their telephony user devices may conduct communications. For example, a telephony user device may be equipped with a circuit-switched communication interface and one or more circuit-switched communication clients for conducting communications via suitable circuit-switched networks. Likewise, a telephony user device may also/alternatively be equipped with a packet-switched communication interface and one or more packet-switched communication clients for communicating via suitable packet-switched networks.
A circuit-switched telephony device may comprise a fixed-line Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) telephone equipped with a circuit-switched interface and communication client for conducting communications via a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). A circuit-switched telephony user device may comprise a mobile (or 'cellular') telephone equipped with a wireless circuit-switched interface and communication client for conducting communications via a cellular network such as a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network or Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) network.
More recently, packet-switched telephony devices have proliferated which may take the form of a fixed-line Internet Protocol (IP) telephone equipped with a fixed-line packet-switched interface and communication client for communicating via an Internet Protocol (IP) network, such as the internet or an IP Private Branch Exchange (IP-PBX). Similarly, a user may conduct communications via a personal computer (PC) equipped with a packet-switched communication client for conducting communications over the internet via a fixed-line internet connection. A mobile packet-switched telephony device may take the form of a portable computing device, such as a laptop or tablet, equipped with a wireless packet-switched interface and communication client for communicating via an IP network, such as the internet, using a WiFi™ or Bluetooth™ compliant wireless access point. A packet-switched communication client may conduct communications according to an internet telephony protocol, commonly referred to as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), with associated setup and/or control protocols such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) or H.323.
Increasingly, telephony user devices are available that are equipped with multiple communication interfaces to facilitate communication via multiple access technologies. For example, a modern "smartphone" is typically equipped with a circuit-switched interface for communicating via a cellular network and a packet-switched interface for communicating via the internet. Commonly, a smartphone may be equipped with several packet-switched interfaces, for example, a short-range radio interface, e.g. WiFi or Bluetooth™ compliant, and/or or via an interface for communication of packet data through a cellular network, such as 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) or Mobile WiMax etc. In such cases, a packet-switched communication client may also be deployed for conducting communications via one or more of the available wireless packet-switched interfaces. In cases such as this where a device is equipped with more than one communication client, the various clients deployed in that device are referred to as co-located. A suitable packet-switched communication client may be deployed on a user equipment prior to sale, or could be deployed subsequently through an application distribution portal such as the Apple® App StoreSM or Android™ Market etc.
To avoid confusing originating parties with identifiers such as telephone dialling numbers for each of the various communication clients of a user, a one-telephone dialling number telephony service allows the user to publish a single telephone dialling number on which they can be contacted. Using a simultaneous ringing service, when the single telephone dialling number is terminating, more than one of the user's communication clients will ring simultaneously. The user is then able to establish the communication session using the communication client of his choosing.
Although one-telephone dialling number telephony services have provide the benefits associated with being able to publish a single telephone dialling number, they have typically left the user interface and function only minimally updated from a basic voice service.
It would be desirable to provide additional telephony service features to improve usability and user-experience in particular, but not exclusively, where the user has a plurality of communication clients or devices.


A shoulder anchor height adjusting apparatus is provided to adjust height of a shoulder anchor. A long bolt disposed at an upper portion of a side wall of a vehicle, has its axis in a vertical direction of the vehicle, and is provided so as to be rotatable about the axis. A nut is screwed to the long bolt, and moved in the vertical direction of the vehicle according to rotation of the long bolt. A slider fitted to the shoulder anchor, is supported by the nut, and moves in the same direction as moving direction of the nut as the nut moves in the vertical direction of the vehicle so as to move the shoulder anchor in the vertical direction. An engaging apparatus is provided between a slider and the long bolt. Normally, the engaging apparatus is in a disengaged from the slider. When the vehicle rapidly decelerates, load applied to the shoulder anchor causes the nut to displace the slider in the vertical direction of the vehicle resulting in the engaging apparatus being in an engaged with the slider so as to prevent the slider from moving in the vertical direction of the vehicle.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shoulder anchor height adjusting apparatus for adjusting the height of a shoulder anchor by moving the shoulder anchor through which a longitudinal intermediate portion of a webbing is inserted, at an upper portion of a side wall of a vehicle in a vertical direction of the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a three point seat belt for securing a passenger, one end of a webbing is wound up onto a webbing retractor which is mounted at a lower portion of a side wall of a vehicle. Further, the other end of the webbing is anchored by an anchor plate secured to the lower portion of the side wall of the vehicle through a shoulder anchor which is positioned at an upper portion of the side wall of the vehicle. A tongue plate is slidably fitted to the webbing between the shoulder anchor and the anchor plate. The tongue plate engages a buckle apparatus so that the webbing secures the passenger to the seat. The webbing between the shoulder anchor and the tongue plate forms a shoulder webbing, and the webbing between the tongue plate and the anchor plate forms a wrap webbing.
In order to adjust the shoulder webbing so as to conform to the body of the passenger, there is provided a shoulder anchor height adjusting apparatus for adjusting the height of the shoulder anchor.
In a conventional shoulder anchor height adjusting apparatus, as shown in FIG. 9, a long bolt 90 serving as a feed screw is disposed so as to have a vertical direction of the vehicle as its axial direction. Axial both ends of the long bolt 90 are rotatably supported at the upper portion of the side wall of the vehicle. A nut 92 serving as a screw member is screwed to the long bolt 90. A shoulder anchor 94 is mounted to the nut 92 by using an anchor bolt 98. The long bolt 90 is rotated by the driving force of a motor so that the nut 92 is moved with the shoulder anchor 94 in the vertical direction of the vehicle.
In the conventional shoulder anchor height adjusting apparatus, the inertia of the passenger causes forward movement when the vehicle rapidly decelerates. Accordingly, a fairly large load is exerted on the shoulder anchor 94 via the webbing 96. In this case, load in the vertical direction of the vehicle is absorbed by the feed screw. Consequently, the long bolt 90 and the nut 92 must be made of metal having high rigidity so as to ensure sufficient rigidity to resist the load in the vertical direction of the vehicle. However, if the long bolt 90 and the nut 92 are made of metal as described above, large frictional resistance is generated between the long bolt 90 and the nut 92 when adjusting the height of the shoulder anchor 94. Therefore, a large rotation torque is required for the long bolt 90. As a result, a large-sized motor becomes necessary, the weight of the shoulder anchor height adjusting apparatus increases, and production cost rises. In addition, operation noise becomes especially loud when a metal bolt 90 and metal nut 92 come in contact with each other.

Shoulder anchor weight adjusting apparatus


In a container-filling machine, a filling element includes a housing, a sealing tulip, and a bellows. The housing has a housing section and an orifice. The sealing tulip moves relative to the housing section along an axis between a raised and a lowered position. The bellows surrounds the axis. The bellows' two ends connect tightly to the housing and the tulip respectively. As a result, the bellows seals a transition between the tulip and the housing.

A variety of filling machines for filling containers are known. These container include cans. These cans are usually filled with a liquid filling material, such as beer, or soft drinks. These filling machines include, in particular, pressure-filling machines, in which there is a sealed contact between a filling element and the can.
In typical machines, a sealing tulip causes the sealed contact between the filling element and a container. This is achieved by lowering the sealing tulip against the container to form a seal against an edge of the container's orifice. This creates a space that encloses the container orifice and the delivery orifice of the filling element. This space is sealed off from the exterior.
A sealing tulip is formed by an annular body that is disposed on a section of the filling element housing so as to be displaceable along a direction parallel to a filling element axis between a raised position and the lowered position. A seal encircles the filling element axis between the annular body of the sealing tulip and the outer face of the housing section so as to seal off the transition between the annular body and the filling element housing. Because the tulip is constantly moving up and down, this seal is a sliding seal.
While the filling machine is in operation, the sliding seal, like most moving parts, must constantly be lubricated to minimize wear. The lubricant is typically water.
A difficulty that arises with sliding seals is that it is difficult to prevent this lubricating water from also dripping into the containers being filled. Inevitably, bacteria and dirt particles manage to get past the sliding seal. This lubricating water can thus carry bacteria and dirt into the drink. Not surprisingly, consumers tend to regard the introduction of seal-lubricating water into their drink as rather undesirable.