An apparatus and method for cooling components within a housing, such as those of a computer system. Multiple chambers are created within the housing, each having at least one cooling fan and a corresponding air inlet. These chambers are segregated by an internal divider or baffle element which effectively eliminates airflow between the chambers. Cooling fans within the housing are utilized as exhaust fans such that, in conjunction with the effect of the baffle element, substantially linear airflow is maintained within each chamber. Certain critical heat-producing components of the system are placed in proximity to the air inlets in each chamber, thereby maximizing the cooling of the components for a given fan rating and inlet air temperature, and increasing cooling system efficiency by substantially reducing the cooling of components that are insensitive to heat.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems for controlling the cooling of components in an enclosed environment, such as those in a micro- or mini-computer system. More specifically, the invention relates to the use of cooling baffles and arrangement of various system components to enhance the cooling of certain heat-sensitive internal components.
2. Description of Related Technology
Many electrically powered systems include environments having heat-producing elements contained within a substantially enclosed area. For example, within a typical computer system, the heat generated internally by certain components such as integrated circuit devices, power supplies, motors and transformers, may be substantial. Such heat must be dissipated at a rate sufficient to maintain the temperature of critical system components at an acceptable level in order to preclude premature component and system failure. While small increases in operating temperature may not be immediately detrimental to the operation of such components, long term operation at these elevated temperature levels may adversely impact their longevity and reliability. This is particularly true of comparatively sensitive integrated circuit or data storage devices such as the central processing unit (CPU) or disk drives, respectively, which may suffer disproportional reductions in longevity with incremental increases in operating temperature. Additionally, mechanical effects resulting from wide variations in temperature and high peak temperatures may eventually induce component failures.
It has been recognized that temperature-sensitive components such as ICs and disk drives often act as significant heat sources themselves. In such cases, it may not be sufficient to simply maintain the ambient air within the computer chassis at a temperature below the maximum allowable temperature for these devices, since each device may not dissipate heat effectively enough to maintain its temperature within acceptable limits. Localized or forced cooling of these components often must be used to increase the rate of heat transfer.
Generally, increased cooling of computer components may be accomplished by enhanced convective, radiant or conductive heat transfer out of the component. Heat sinks are sometimes used to enhance conductive heat transfer by conducting heat from the component into the sink, which is then cooled by convective (and to a much lesser degree, radiative) heat transfer. Assuming air as the cooling medium and a constant inlet temperature, convective cooling of a component, whether it has a heat sink or not, can be facilitated by increasing the airflow over the component and, depending upon the component and system configuration, inducing more laminar or more turbulent flow around the component.
Increased airflow can be obtained by increasing fan capacity, or alternatively, by reducing the obstructions to airflow around the components of concern. Hence, for a given fan capacity, simply relocating the heat-producing components with respect to existing air flow and making the flow path less tortuous can significantly enhance heat transfer. This is particularly true when these components are placed in direct proximity to the inlet of the cooling air, which has the lowest temperature of any region within the housing.
With respect to turbulence, inwardly blowing fans induce substantial turbulence in the chassis, especially in the vicinity of the fan discharge. Turbulent flow is generally more useful for removing heat from large surface-area components such as finnned heat sinks, while laminar flow is often preferable for other components. Discharge or exhaust systems create a more laminar flow within the chassis than do inlet systems, since the turbulence produced by the fan discharge is outside the chassis. Therefore, since most internal computer components are not equipped with heat sinks which can benefit from turbulence, laminar or linear flow is generally preferable.
In addition to the factors discussed above, dedicating the airflow created by a fan/inlet combination to a limited number of components can even further increase the cooling of those components. For example, providing a power supply with its own fan and source of inlet air is obviously more effective in terms of cooling than simply disposing the power supply within the interior of the computer (along with all of the other components) somewhere between the fan and the air inlet.
Taking the aforementioned concepts together, it can be seen that the cooling of internal computer components may generally be optimized through the use of a plurality of dedicated cooling fans placed in an exhaust orientation, and the location of critical components in direct proximity to dedicated air inlets.
A substantial number of cooling system configurations aimed at enhancing the cooling of heat producing components within the computer chassis are described in the prior art. These systems utilize a variety of different combinations of fan placement, internal component/board arrangement, ventilation hole placement, and electrical cable routing. For example, the prior art system of FIGS. 1 and 2 introduces air into the housing 120 via air inlets 10 and an inlet ventilation fan 20 located in the top, sides, or front of the chassis, and exhausts comparatively hotter air via one or more cooling fans 30 located at the rear of the chassis.
The placement of the critical components within these prior art systems, including the CPU 40, floppy disk drive cage 50, power supply 60, hard disk drive cage 70, and CD-ROM drive 80, is not optimized in that the components are only indirectly cooled by the inlet air, and/or some of the cooling air is diverted to components which do not require cooling. Furthermore, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, prior art computer systems do not coordinate the placement of heat-producing components with that of the fan and the air inlets such that substantially linear airflow is maintained throughout the interior volume of the computer; many systems create a tortuous airflow path 90 thereby effectively reducing the flow of air for a given fan capacity.
Other attempts at improving the air cooling of electrical components within an enclosed environment are disclosed in several United States patents, which are discussed below.
U.S Pat. No. 5,218,514 discloses a personal computer housing system having a plurality of air intakes located around the sides and front of the housing, with a fan mounted at the rear which draws air through the intakes. System I/O and expansion cards are mounted longitudinally from front to back at various orientations and elevations such that air drawn in the front and side intakes passes over the cards before being exhausted by the cooling fan. However, this arrangement provides a somewhat tortuous airflow path, thereby increasing flow resistance. Furthermore, air may circulate within substantially all of the interior volume of the enclosure, potentially cooling components which do not require cooling.
U.S Pat. No. 5,440,450 discloses a housing having an integrated cooling channel running linearly through one dimension of the computer chassis. A fan is mounted at one end of the channel, and heat radiating fins run the length of the channel. The heat producing power supply is mounted directly in contact with the channel. The motherboard is mounted adjacent to the channel such that some of the air being drawn into the intake of the channel by the cooling fan is ultimately passed over the motherboard (and CPU) before changing direction and being ingested into the channel. This air is drawn into the chassis through a series of perforations in the rear of the chassis. Hence, this arrangement suffers disabilities as those previously described in that the cooling airflow path is tortuous, and system efficiency is reduced through the cooling of non-critical components.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,432,674 discloses a computer tower unit having an internal airflow control baffle. The unit has two cooling fans (one "system" fan and one dedicated to the power supply unit) which draw air through a pair of exterior openings generally opposed from the fans. This arrangement obviates the need for a separate (i.e., third) disk drive cooling fan since the baffle redirects a portion of the air drawn in by the upper fan through the upper inlet to pass over the disk drive unit Air drawn in through the lower and upper inlets passes in part over the motherboard and CPU after being redirected. The baffle pivots outward during maintenance to permit access to the motherboard. In this system, the primary function of the baffle is redirection of the internal airflow of the unit (especially that originating from the lower inlet), which changes directions in several parts of the housing.
In view of the foregoing, it can be appreciated that existing enclosure cooling systems have not adequately solved the problems of optimizing the operating temperature of certain heat-sensitive components while maintaining high cooling system efficiency and minimizing electrical power requirements. Therefore, it would be most desirable to provide an improved cooling apparatus for a computer system which would overcome the limitations of the prior art and provide for the optimized cooling of critical system components while maintaining a high overall efficiency. Furthermore, it would be desirable to design such an apparatus to facilitate both the routing of internal system wiring and periodic system maintenance.


A silicone rubber composition having improved mold release properties comprising (A) silicone rubber base compound, (B) organopolysiloxane having no aliphatic unsaturated groups, (C) higher fatty acid or higher fatty acid metal salt, (D) water, and (E) curing agent.

The present invention concerns a heat curing silicone rubber composition which can be used, for example, for a wire harness sealer and connector. In more detail, the present invention concerns a heat curing silicone rubber composition having excellent mold release properties which is suitable for use for molding in a metallic mold having an intricate structure.
It is known that silicone rubber compositions lack in mold release properties. Therefore, the rubber tears when it is removed from the mold, and the mold becomes contaminated during operation over an extended period of time. A method has been formerly proposed as a means to solve this problem in which an internal mold release agent, such as stearic acid, zinc stearate, or calcium stearate is added to the silicone rubber composition (Japanese Kokai Patent Application No. Sho 491974!-124151). However, even in silicone rubber compositions in which an internal mold release agent is added, the mold release properties are not sufficient for obtaining silicone rubber molded products having a protruding structure and having an intricate structure, such as a hollow curved structure. The existing silicone rubber composition is not adequate particularly for the molding of multiple silicone rubber products having such intricate structures by one metallic mold. For example, with a mold designed to yield several hundred products per one shot when molding waterproof seal packing for a wire harness connector, a tremendous amount of time is required to remove the product from the mold with existing silicone rubber compositions. Therefore, poor performance in production efficiency is a factor for an increase in cost.
As a result of a search for a solution for the aforementioned problems, the inventors of the present invention have discovered that a silicone rubber composition to which water is added and mixed has excellent mold release properties, and have described this composition in Japanese Kokai Patent Application No. Hei 71995!-126592. They have further discovered that a silicone rubber composition, which is the composition of the aforementioned Japanese Kokai Patent Application to which a specific compound is added and mixed, has superior mold release properties and have completed the present invention. Specifically, the objective of the present invention is to offer a silicone rubber composition having excellent mold release properties which greatly exceeds the mold release properties of existing silicone rubber compositions.


A technique for expediting the unloading of an operating system kernel module that executes read-copy update (RCU) callback processing code in a computing system having one or more processors. According to embodiments of the disclosed technique, an RCU callback is enqueued so that it can be processed by the kernel module's callback processing code following completion of a grace period in which each of the one or more processors has passed through a quiescent state. An expediting operation is performed to expedite processing of the RCU callback. The RCU callback is then processed and the kernel module is unloaded.

1. Field
The present disclosure relates to computer systems and methods in which data resources are shared among data consumers while preserving data integrity and consistency relative to each consumer. More particularly, the disclosure concerns an implementation of a mutual exclusion mechanism known as "read-copy update" in a computing environment wherein loadable modules contain code that is used to process read-copy update callbacks.
2. Description of the Prior Art
By way of background, read-copy update (also known as "RCU") is a mutual exclusion technique that permits shared data to be accessed for reading without the use of locks, writes to shared memory, memory barriers, atomic instructions, or other computationally expensive synchronization mechanisms, while still permitting the data to be updated (modify, delete, insert, etc.) concurrently. The technique is well suited to both uniprocessor and multiprocessor computing environments wherein the number of read operations (readers) accessing a shared data set is large in comparison to the number of update operations (updaters), and wherein the overhead cost of employing other mutual exclusion techniques (such as locks) for each read operation would be high. By way of example, a network routing table that is updated at most once every few minutes but searched many thousands of times per second is a case where read-side lock acquisition would be quite burdensome.
The read-copy update technique implements data updates in two phases. In the first (initial update) phase, the actual data update is carried out in a manner that temporarily preserves two views of the data being updated. One view is the old (pre-update) data state that is maintained for the benefit of read operations that may have been referencing the data concurrently with the update. The other view is the new (post-update) data state that is seen by operations that access the data following the update. In the second (deferred update) phase, the old data state is removed following a "grace period" that is long enough to ensure that the first group of read operations will no longer maintain references to the pre-update data. The second-phase update operation typically comprises freeing a stale data element to reclaim its memory. In certain RCU implementations, the second-phase update operation may comprise something else, such as changing an operational state according to the first-phase update.
FIGS. 1A-1D illustrate the use of read-copy update to modify a data element B in a group of data elements A, B and C. The data elements A, B, and C are arranged in a singly-linked list that is traversed in acyclic fashion, with each element containing a pointer to a next element in the list (or a NULL pointer for the last element) in addition to storing some item of data. A global pointer (not shown) is assumed to point to data element A, the first member of the list. Persons skilled in the art will appreciate that the data elements A, B and C can be implemented using any of a variety of conventional programming constructs, including but not limited to, data structures defined by C-language "struct" variables. Moreover, the list itself is a type of data structure.
It is assumed that the data element list of FIGS. 1A-1D is traversed (without locking) by multiple readers and occasionally updated by updaters that delete, insert or modify data elements in the list. In FIG. 1A, the data element B is being referenced by a reader r1, as shown by the vertical arrow below the data element. In FIG. 1B, an updater u1 wishes to update the linked list by modifying data element B. Instead of simply updating this data element without regard to the fact that r1 is referencing it (which might crash r1), u1 preserves B while generating an updated version thereof (shown in FIG. 1C as data element B′) and inserting it into the linked list. This is done by u1 acquiring an appropriate lock (to exclude other updaters), allocating new memory for B′, copying the contents of B to B′, modifying B′ as needed, updating the pointer from A to B so that it points to B′, and releasing the lock. In current versions of the Linux® kernel, pointer updates performed by updaters can be implemented using the rcu_assign_pointer( ) primitive. As an alternative to locking during the update operation, other techniques such as non-blocking synchronization or a designated update thread could be used to serialize data updates. All subsequent (post update) readers that traverse the linked list, such as the reader r2, will see the effect of the update operation by encountering B′ as they dereference B's pointer. On the other hand, the old reader r1 will be unaffected because the original version of B and its pointer to C are retained. Although r1 will now be reading stale data, there are many cases where this can be tolerated, such as when data elements track the state of components external to the computer system (e.g., network connectivity) and must tolerate old data because of communication delays. In current versions of the Linux® kernel, pointer dereferences performed by readers can be implemented using the rcu_dereference( ) primitive.
At some subsequent time following the update, r1 will have continued its traversal of the linked list and moved its reference off of B. In addition, there will be a time at which no other reader process is entitled to access B. It is at this point, representing an expiration of the grace period referred to above, that u1 can free B, as shown in FIG. 1D.
FIGS. 2A-2C illustrate the use of read-copy update to delete a data element B in a singly-linked list of data elements A, B and C. As shown in FIG. 2A, a reader r1 is assumed be currently referencing B and an updater u1 wishes to delete B. As shown in FIG. 2B, the updater u1 updates the pointer from A to B so that A now points to C. In this way, r1 is not disturbed but a subsequent reader r2 sees the effect of the deletion. As shown in FIG. 2C, r1 will subsequently move its reference off of B, allowing B to be freed following the expiration of a grace period.
In the context of the read-copy update mechanism, a grace period represents the point at which all running tasks (e.g., processes, threads or other work) having access to a data element guarded by read-copy update have passed through a "quiescent state" in which they can no longer maintain references to the data element, assert locks thereon, or make any assumptions about data element state. By convention, for operating system kernel code paths, a context switch, an idle loop, and user mode execution all represent quiescent states for any given CPU running non-preemptible code (as can other operations that will not be listed here). The reason for this is that a non-preemptible kernel will always complete a particular operation (e.g., servicing a system call while running in process context) prior to a context switch. In preemptible operating system kernels, additional steps are needed to account for readers that were preempted within their RCU read-side critical sections. In current RCU implementations designed for the Linux® kernel, a blocked reader task list is maintained to track such readers. A grace period will only end when the blocked task list indicates that is safe to do so because all blocked readers associated with the grace period have exited their RCU read-side critical sections. Other techniques for tracking blocked readers may also be used, but tend to require more read-side overhead than the current blocked task list method.
In FIG. 3, four tasks 0, 1, 2, and 3 running on four separate CPUs are shown to pass periodically through quiescent states (represented by the double vertical bars). The grace period (shown by the dotted vertical lines) encompasses the time frame in which all four tasks that began before the start of the grace period have passed through one quiescent state. If the four tasks 0, 1, 2, and 3 were reader tasks traversing the linked lists of FIGS. 1A-1D or FIGS. 2A-2C, none of these tasks having reference to the old data element B prior to the grace period could maintain a reference thereto following the grace period. All post grace period searches conducted by these tasks would bypass B by following the updated pointers created by the updater.
Grace periods may be synchronous or asynchronous. According to the synchronous technique, an updater performs the first phase update operation, invokes an RCU primitive such as synchronize_rcu( ) to advise when all current RCU readers have completed their RCU critical sections and the grace period has ended, blocks (waits) until the grace period has completed, and then implements the second phase update operation, such as by removing stale data. According to the asynchronous technique, an updater performs the first phase update operation, specifies the second phase update operation as a callback using an RCU primitive such as call_rcu( ) then resumes other processing with the knowledge that the callback will eventually be processed at the end of a grace period. Advantageously, callbacks requested by one or more updaters can be batched (e.g., on callback lists) and processed as a group at the end of an asynchronous grace period. This allows the grace period overhead to be amortized over plural deferred update operations.
Modern operating systems, including current versions of the Linux® kernel, use loadable modules to implement device drivers, file systems and other software. Loadable modules allow software functionality to be installed on an as-needed basis and then removed when the software is no longer required. This reduces the memory footprint of the base kernel. In operating systems that implement read-copy update with asynchronous grace period detection, some or all of the callback function code that processes a callback following the end of a grace period may be located within a loadable module. If the module containing the callback function code is unloaded before a pending callback that requires such code can be invoked, problems will arise when an attempt is made to implement the callback function because its code is no longer part of the running kernel.
A response to this scenario was the development of the "rcu_barrier( )" primitive, which can be called by a module's exit code during module unloading. The rcu_barrier( ) primitive waits for the end of the current grace period and for all RCU callbacks associated with the grace period to be invoked. When using the rcu_barrier( ) primitive, the sequence of operations performed by a kernel module's exit code is to (1) prevent any new RCU callbacks from being posted, (2) execute rcu_barrier( ) and (3) allow the module to be unloaded. The rcu_barrier( ) primitive is for use by process context code. For the non-preemptible uniprocessor version of RCU known as TINY_RCU, the rcu_barrier( ) primitive is set forth at lines 41-44 of the Linux® version 3.1 source code file named Linux/include/linux/rcutiny.h. This primitive is a wrapper function for a helper function called "rcu_barrier_sched( ), which is set forth at lines 298-309 of the Linux® version 3.1 source code file named Linux/kernel/rcutiny.c. For the preemptible uniprocessor version of RCU known as TINY_PREEMPTIBLE_RCU, the rcu_barrier( ) primitive is set forth at lines 700-711 of the Linux® version 3.1 source code file named Linux/kernel/rcutiny_plugin.h. For the hierarchical multiprocessor versions of RCU known as TREE_RCU and TREE_PREEMPTIBLE_RCU, the rcu_barrier( ) primitive is set forth at lines 854-857 of the Linux® version 3.1 source code file named Linux/kernel/rcutree_plugin.h. This is a wrapper function that calls a helper function named rcu_barrier( ) which may be found at lines 1778-1807 of the Linux® version 3.1 source code file named Linux/kernel/rcutree.c.
In many instances, it is desirable to expedite module unloading so that the module's kernel memory can be reclaimed for other uses. Unfortunately, the rcu_barrier( ) primitive can delay module unloading due to the latency associated with waiting for the end of a current RCU grace period and for all prior RCU callbacks to be invoked. The present disclosure presents a technique for improving this situation by speeding up RCU grace period detection and callback processing operations during module unloading.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Expedited module unloading for kernel modules that execute read-copy update callback processing code

International Business Machines Corporation


An electrical device includes a plurality of single-phase power cells electrically connected to receive power from a source and deliver power to a load. The single-phase power cells include a first rank of regenerative power cells and a second rank of non-regenerative power cells. Each non-regenerative power cell may include an inverter bridge, a capacitor set electrically connected across terminals of the inverter bridge, and a three-phase bridge rectifier electrically connected across the terminals. The non-regenerative power cells may provide reactive power when the plurality of cells are used for braking of a motor.

In recent years, circuits for medium-voltage variable frequency drive (VFD) applications have received attention. Several novel methods have been introduced in the past decade. For example, in a circuit comprising series-connected inverters as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,545 to Hammond, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, an inverter or power cell 110 includes a three-phase diode-bridge rectifier 112, one or more direct current (DC) capacitors 114, and an H-bridge inverter 116. The rectifier 112 converts the input 118 alternating current (AC) voltage to a substantially constant DC voltage that is supported by the capacitors 114 that are connected across the rectifier 112 output. The output stage of the inverter 110 includes an H-bridge inverter 116 includes two poles, a left pole and a right pole, each with two devices. The inverter 110 transforms the DC voltage across the DC capacitors 114 to an AC output 120 using pulse-width modulation (PWM) of the semiconductor devices in the H-bridge inverter 116.
A circuit including power cells such as 110 in FIG. 1, when connected to a load, such as a motor, can provide power from an input source to the motor when operating in the motoring mode. However, when the motor speed needs to be reduced, power from the motor needs to be absorbed by the inverter. This mode of operation, when power must be absorbed by the inventor, is referred to as the regeneration mode. The diode-bridge rectifiers 112 in each power cell do not allow power to be transferred back to the source. Hence, the power absorbed by the circuit is strictly limited by the losses in the inverter and the capacitors within each power cell and is usually in the range of about 0.2% to about 0.5% of rated power.
The disclosure contained herein describes attempts to solve one or more of the problems described above.

Variable-frequency drive with regeneration capability


In an operation control method of an engine using a mixed fuel of a mixture of a plurality of fuels having different properties, operation condition of the engine being controlled according to a detection signal from a fuel blend ratio detector for detecting the blend ratio of the plurality of fuels in the mixed fuel, and when a malfunction occurs in the detection by the fuel blend ratio detector, the engine is provided with blend ratio storage for storing a plurality of emergency blend ratios for ignition timing control and for air fuel ratio control, and operation condition of the engine is controlled according to the plurality of emergency blend ratios.

An internal combustion engine using gasoline as a fuel which involves resource problems is able to use chemically producible methyl alcohol (hereinafter simply referred to as "alcohol"), as is, as a fuel by merely adjusting the combustion conditions such as ignition timing and air fuel ratio, without mechanical modification.
Use of alcohol, which has a possibility to have lower market prices than gasoline in other than oil producing countries, has the advantages that release of noxious substances in the exhaust gas can be remarkably reduced compared to the use of gasoline as a fuel. However, considering the current fuel supply system, use of a mixture of gasoline and alcohol as a mixed fuel would be more practicable than the use of alcohol alone as a fuel.
A vehicle equipped with an engine adaptable to such mixed fuel incorporates fuel blend ratio detection means in a fuel supply system of the vehicle for detecting a blend ratio of alcohol to gasoline, setting the ignition timing, air fuel ratio and the like according to the alcohol blend ratio supplied to the engine.
As the fuel blend ratio detection means, there are known a fuel blend ratio sensor, which detects the alcohol blend ratio of the mixed fuel by any method, and an O.sub.2 sensor, which detects the oxygen concentration of exhaust gas to indirectly estimate the alcohol blend ratio of the mixed fuel.
Even if the engine is adaptable to the mixed fuel, it is necessary to detect the alcohol blend ratio of the mixed fuel and correct the ignition timing and air fuel ratio according to the detection results, not so far as the alcohol blend ratio of the mixed fuel is constant.
Therefore, when a malfunction occurs in the detection by the fuel blend ratio detection means, the engine tends to be in poor operation condition or undergo a stalling and, in the worst case, may be damaged due to occurrence of frequent knocking.
To prevent such a problem, when a malfunction occurs in the detection by the fuel blend ratio detection means, the engine must be immediately stopped operating and repaired. However, it is impossible to perform this during running of the vehicle, and any other counter-measures are required.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,241 proposes a method in which, when a malfunction occurs in detection of fuel blend ratio by blend ratio detection means, the fuel blend ratio is temporarily fixed to a predetermined emergency blend ratio, and operation condition of the engine is then detected to correct the emergency blend ratio. However, in this method, since feedback control to correct the emergency blend ratio is complicated, a high processing power, expensive calculation apparatus is required.

Engine fueled with mixed fuel and operation control method thereof

Mitsuishi Jidosha Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha


A lighting device for a motor vehicle, includes a light guide for total-reflective guiding of light along a direction of light propagation. The light originates from at least one light source and can be coupled-in via at least one coupling surface on one end face of the light guide. The light guide further includes a coupling-out surface disposed along the direction of light propagation for coupling out light that exits from the light guide where the total-reflection condition no longer exists at the exit surface disposed along the direction of the light propagation. The lighting device is characterized in that the at least one light source, the light from which can be coupled in on the at least one coupling-in surface, is a laser light source.

Nowadays, LED lighting devices are increasingly used in motor vehicles, by means of which suitable light distributions are generated for signal lights or headlights of the vehicle.
LEDs are used in motor vehicles also in combination with optical waveguides, into which the light of the LEDs is coupled and is guided through the optical waveguide. A coupling-out surface is formed in the longitudinal direction of the optical waveguide, which coupling-out surface deflects light in the optical waveguide, so that the light exits by way of an exit surface of the optical waveguide. German Patent document DE 103 17 062 A1 shows an LED lighting device having an optical waveguide, in which lighting device the coupling-out surface coincides with the light exit surface. A light distribution can be generated by use of this lighting device, which extends in the longitudinal direction of the optical waveguide. Because of the low luminance of the LEDs used for generating light, however, only optical waveguides of a limited length and/or of a minimal cross-sectional surface can be used.
It is an object of the invention to create a lighting device for a motor vehicle by which a light distribution can be efficiently generated by using an optical waveguide.
This and other objects are achieved by a lighting device, according to the invention, for a motor vehicle, particularly for a passenger car and optionally also for a commercial vehicle. The device includes an optical waveguide for the totally reflective guiding of light along a light propagation direction, in which case the light originates from at least one light source which is a component of the lighting device. In this case, the light is coupled in by way of at least one coupling-in surface at a face of the optical waveguide, in which case the optical waveguide further includes a coupling-out surface arranged along the light propagation direction for the coupling-out of light from the optical waveguide, so that the decoupled light exits from the optical waveguide on an exit surface arranged along the light propagation direction while the total reflection condition is eliminated. The coupling-out surface and the exit surface therefore also have a dimension transversely to the light propagation direction. The optical waveguide is preferably further developed to be oblong and optionally rod-shaped, in this case, the longitudinal direction of the optical waveguide corresponding to the light propagation direction. The lighting device according to the invention is distinguished by the fact that at least one light source, whose light can be coupled in by way of the at least one coupling-in surface, is a laser light source. This laser light source preferably generates monochromatic light.
The use of a laser light source in combination with optical waveguides has the important advantage that, because of the high luminance of the laser light source, the light can be coupled out with sufficient intensity over long distances in the optical wave guide. Furthermore, optical waveguides with a small cross-section can be installed in the lighting device.
The optical waveguide of the lighting device according to the invention may be constructed in different fashions. In particular, the optical waveguide may be further developed precisely as in the lighting device of German Patent document DE 103 17 062 A1. The entire disclosure of DE 103 17 062 A1 is hereby expressly incorporated by reference as non-essential matter.
In a particularly preferred embodiment, the laser light source of the lighting device is a punctiform light source, and/or a converter device is provided for converting the light of the laser light source to a punctiform light source. The converter device comprises particularly a front lens system and/or a phosphor conversion layer which generates, from monochromatic laser light, a punctiform white light source or a punctiform light source with a wavelength different from that of the laser light. Phosphor conversion layers per se are known from the prior art. For example, in the case of a blue laser light source with an emission wavelength of 450 nm, a phosphor conversion layer of Ce:YAG phosphor can be used for generating white light. For violet laser light with a wavelength of 405 nm, particularly a phosphor conversion layer of cerium-doped nitride phosphor or cerium-doped oxynitride phosphor is used.
Within the meaning of the invention, a "punctiform light source" is a light source having a very small radiating surface which, with respect to the dimensions of the lighting device in a very good approximation can be assumed to be punctiform such that all rays of the light source originate from a single point. The maximal dimension of the punctiform light source in the top view, i.e. in the main radiation direction with the greatest intensity of the light source, in a particularly preferred embodiment, amounts to 500 μm or less, preferably 100 μm or less, and particularly preferably 20 μm or less. Furthermore, in the top view, the punctiform light source preferably has an emitting surface of 0.5 mm2 or less, particularly of 0.01 mm2 or less, and particularly preferably of 0.0002 mm2 or less. The punctiform light source includes particularly an emitting cornered surface whose edges each have a length of 500 μm or less and preferably 20 μm or less. Nevertheless, the punctiform light source may also have a round emitting surface. The punctiform light source with the above-described dimensions is preferably further developed such that it generates a light flux of 100 lm or more and particularly of 200 lm or more and/or has a radiant power of 1 watt or more and/or a luminance of at least 108 Cd/m2 and particularly of 109 Cd/m2 or more. Such punctiform light sources can only be obtained by laser light, for example, by using laser diodes.
In a particularly preferred embodiment, the light of the laser light source and, particularly of the punctiform light source, is converted at the at least one coupling-in surface of the optical waveguide by way of a collimator to a collimated luminous beam. In this case, the collimator may be formed by a curved face, on which the light of the punctiform laser light source is diffracted or reflected. The curved face may form a transmitting lens on which the light of a laser light source provided outside the optical waveguide is incident. Likewise, as required, there is the possibility that the laser light source is arranged in the optical waveguide, for example, in a recess at the coupling-in surface and radiates in the direction of the boundary surface formed by the coupling-in surface between the optical waveguide and the surrounding medium, the light being reflected at this boundary surface and guided back into the optical waveguide as a collimated luminous beam.
In a further embodiment, the lighting device according to the invention is further developed such that, by way of a front lens system, a collimated laser beam is generated from the light of the laser light source. In this case, the laser light source and the front lens system may optionally form a unit for generating the laser beam, which conventionally is also called a laser. The collimated laser beam is coupled by way of the preferably plane coupling-in surface into the optical waveguide, in which case the laser beam is preferably guided to the coupling-in surface by way of a beam deflection. In a very flexible manner, the light of a laser light source can thereby be coupled from different initial positions into the optical waveguide. The installation space in the vehicle can therefore be efficiently utilized. Furthermore, by way of the laser light, a ray beam is generated which has a high luminance and which can also be coupled into optical waveguides of compact dimensions and particularly with a small cross-section and can be guided there over long distances.
In a further, particularly preferred embodiment, the laser light source and, particularly the punctiform light source, is a laser diode. The laser light source preferably is a monochromatic light source whose light is converted by a phosphor conversion layer to white light or to light of a different wavelength than the light of the monochromatic light source, in which case the phosphor conversion layer is particularly arranged in front of the face of the optical waveguide, is mounted in a recess of the optical waveguide, and/or is formed on the coupling-out surface of the optical waveguide. The phosphor conversion layer may optionally also form the coupling-out surface and/or be mounted following the coupling-out surface outside the optical waveguide.
In a further, particularly preferred embodiment, the coupling-out surface has a deflecting device and particularly a prism arrangement or a roughened surface, by way of which light impinging on the coupling-out surface is deflected in the optical waveguide to the exit surface. In this case, the roughened surface may be further developed analogous to that in the optical waveguide of German Patent document DE 103 17 062 A1.
In a particularly preferred embodiment, the deflecting device is further developed such that the intensity of the light exiting by way of the exit surface remains essentially constant along the light propagation direction or longitudinal direction of the optical waveguide, which can be achieved, for example, by a continuous widening of the dimension of the prism arrangement or the roughened surface transversely to the light propagation direction while the distance from the coupling-in surface is increased.
In a further preferred embodiment of the lighting device according to the invention, the exit surface of the optical waveguide is curved in such a manner that collimated light exits from the exit surface. However, an (additional) deflection arrangement, particularly in the form of a reflector and/or of a lens, may be provided, which generates collimated light from the light exiting from the exit surface. In particular, the deflection arrangement described in German Patent document DE 103 17 062 A1 can be used for this purpose.
Depending on the further development, the lighting device may have an optical waveguide with a rectangular or round cross-section. In this case, the maximal dimension of the cross-section preferably is 10 mm or less. However, the optical waveguide may also be further developed such that one edge in the rectangular cross-section of the optical waveguide has a length of 10 mm or more, whereas the other edge has a length of 4 mm or less, so that a laminar optical waveguide is formed. The light exiting takes place particularly essentially perpendicular to the longer edge and essentially parallel to the shorter edge. Particularly, flat optical waveguides can therefore be used in the lighting device according to the invention.
The lighting device according to the invention can be provided for generating arbitrary light distributions. The lighting device is preferably used as a signal light, such as a daytime running light, a marker light, a turn signal light, an indicator light, a tail light and/or a brake light. The lighting device may, however, optionally also form a headlight for the active illumination of the environment of the vehicle, such as a low-beam light or a high-beam light.
In a further variant of the lighting device according to the invention, the coupling-out surface and the exit surface are identical, which is also the case in the lighting device of German Patent document DE 103 17 062 A1.
In addition to the above-described lighting device, the invention further relates to a motor vehicle which includes one or more lighting devices according to the invention.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of one or more preferred embodiments when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft


Provided is a feature extraction that extracts a feature that represents a characteristic of a subject, the feature being extracted from an image that has imaged the subject, the feature being extracted without relation to the shape of the subject. The feature extraction extracts the feature from the image of the subject, the subject having been imaged by an imaging means.

Today, mechanization has progressed in a variety of fields due to technological advancements. When an object is operated using a robot, there is a need to identify the position, type, and other attributes of the object; therefore, an image obtained by a CCD camera or other means is processed and analyzed, thereby fulfilling a function corresponding to the human eye.
A variety of types of objects exist in the everyday environment of human lifestyle, from rigid bodies that have shapes that do not change at all to objects such as cloth or paper that change to a variety of shapes. When performing automation using a robot, there is a need to identify what the object is from an image irrespective of the shape of the object.
In recent years, SIFT (non-patent document 1) is commonly used for identification of objects by image processing. This method enables image processing even when the manner in which the object is visible changes to a certain degree, but is image processing that basically assumes that the object is a rigid body, and is therefore difficult to apply for identification of, e.g., (1) soft items such as clothing that may assume a variety of shapes through folded overlapping, bending, creasing, or the like, (2) asphalt portions of roads and bare earth or grass portions on the shoulder, (3) foreign objects that are mixed in or layered onto the subject, such as dust on a floor, or (4) vegetables and fruits, which assume different outer shapes even between the same type due to, e.g., bending or the shape of leaves. Therefore, in order to provide lifestyle assistance in the everyday environment of humans, there is a need for, e.g., (1) an image processing method for appropriately identifying soft items, in light of cases in which automated machines such as robots handle laundry, which is a soft item; (2) an image processing method for an automated travel system in which electric wheelchairs or automobiles used by the visually impaired travel along designated positions; and (3) an image processing method for identifying soiled portions on the floor when an automatic vacuum cleaner cleans the floor. In addition, there is also a need for (4) an image processing method for accurately classifying and/or identifying objects that may assume a variety of outer shapes in industry settings such as classification of vegetables and fruits in a food factory.
With regards to image processing methods in relation to soft items, a variety of image features have been conventionally used. For example, Kakikura et al. realized an isolation task using color information (see non-patent document 2). Ono et al. proposed a method for expressing, with regards to a square cloth product such as a handkerchief, a state in which a part of the product is folded (see non-patent document 3). Kita et al. proposed a method for using a three-dimensional variable shape model, and applying the model to a group of three-dimensional points obtained by measurement (see non-patent document 4). However, in these existing studies, the type of cloth product is provided in advance, or identification information for specifying the cloth product is defined as, e.g., the color of the material, and information for specifying the cloth product or the like is necessary in advance.
If there is a method making it possible to extract feature descriptions of a cloth product or the like from an image that can be generically used without requiring information for specifying the product as described above, it is possible to classify a plurality of types of products into identical products for lifestyle support or in a cleaning plant. In addition, if there is a method making it possible to identify the classified product, the method might be useful for automation using a robot or the like. Accordingly, Osawa et al. (see non-patent document 5), and Abbeel et al. (see
non-patent document 6) propose methods for identifying the outline or the position of the bottom end point of a cloth product while a robot is operating the cloth product, and identifying the type of the cloth product.

Feature extraction method, object classification method, object identification method, feature extraction device, object classification device, object identification device, feature extraction/object classification/object identification program, and recording medium on which the program is recorded


A modular double-sided display panel including multiple slat members. Each slat member has an upper engagement portion and a lower engagement portion. A panel may be constructed from multiple slat members by serially interconnecting generally horizontally disposed slat members in a vertical chain. In particular, the serial interconnection between adjacent slat members occurs by placing the lower engagement portion of a first slat member over the upper engagement portion of an adjacent second slat member in a substantially vertical chain until a suitable number of slats have been thus interconnected. The assembled slat members will define two opposing surfaces, each of which can receive hooks, supports or other display apparatus.

Retailers and other persons frequently use slatwall panels or similar fixtures to hold and display merchandise. A conventional slatwall features panels which are fabricated from wood, metal or another suitable material and typically have slots or other structures milled into a face of the slatwall. The slots or other structures are configured to receive display hooks, shelves or other merchandise supports.
Typical slatwalls may be fabricated as panels of various sizes which are secured to existing interior building walls or, alternatively, assembled into free-standing structures. Typical slatwall panels can be large or heavy and thus inconvenient to move, limiting the utility of conventional slatwall structures for temporary use such as at a tradeshow.
DePottey, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,164,467, addresses some of the shortcomings exhibited by typical slatwall panels for use as temporary or mobile displays. In particular, DePottey teaches a modular system where a freestanding slatwall structure is made up of individual slat members stacked one upon the other and supported by appropriately spaced upright support members. Each of the panels assembled from individual slat members has a front side which is configured to receive support hooks or other attachment devices and a back side which will not receive hooks. Thus, if a two-sided display panel is desired, DePottey expressly teaches that two separate panels be attached to a support structure in a back-to-back fashion.
Radek, U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,753, teaches a similar modular slatwall structure which includes horizontally oriented slats held in a vertical arrangement by supports. As was the case with the structure taught by DePottey, the Radek structure, when assembled, forms a panel which is only suitable for receiving slatwall hooks or other supporting devices on one side.
Mayer, U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,783, does teach a two-sided slatwall advertising panel. The individual slats of Mayer are however relatively complex extruded shapes which have flanges and channels formed therein which provide for interconnection between adjacent slats. The Mayer slats must be relatively precisely fabricated to provide for appropriately rigid interconnection. In addition, the slats must be slid transversely or lengthwise with respect to each other to interconnect. Thus, the apparatus of Mayer may be relatively difficult to assemble.
The present disclosure includes embodiments directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems discussed above.


Optically active polycarbonate, polyester, and polyurethane polymers prepared from monomers containing optically pure spirobiindane moieties are disclosed. The chiral spirobiindane polymers are of high molecular weight and exhibit high optical rotations. In addition, the optically active polymers are useful in the fabrication of optoelectronics devices and as polarizing coatings or filters or as polarized lenses.

Chiral materials exhibiting no center of symmetry are isotropic birefringent materials having a "handed" molecular structure. This handedness makes them optically active and capable of rotating a plane of polarized light transmitted through them. Polarizing coatings and filters comprise birefringent materials capable of transforming light into polarized light. Thus, chiral materials may be used as polarizers in the fabrication of plane polarized lenses and polarizing coatings and filters.
Recently, Pelet and Engheta in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation 38, 90-98 (1990) have suggested the use of optically active materials in guided-wave structures to produce chiral waveguides. A chiral waveguide, also known as a chirowaveguide, comprises a cylindrical waveguide or parallel conducting plates filled with a homogeneous isotropic chiral material. Applications for chiral waveguides include integrated optical devices, telecommunications electronics systems, printed-circuit elements, and optoelectronics devices.
Organic polymers are known to be compatible with semiconductor electronics technology, can withstand high temperatures during processing, and have a large capacity for engineered properties. In addition, it is well-known that high molecular weight polycarbonates are excellent materials for optical applications because of their inherent toughness, durability, resistance to heat and cold, and clarity. The most familiar linear polycarbonates are homopolymers derived from 2,2-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)propane, commonly known as bisphenol-A (also referred to herein as "BPA"). Polycarbonates derived from BPA are optical quality plastics that can be injection molded to form optical materials such as lenses, substrates for optical storage media including compact disks, and automotive tail lights, for example.
Less familiar polycarbonates are those reported by Wimberger Friedl et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,424,389 and European Patent Application 0621297A2 and disclosed by Faler et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,950,731. These polycarbonates comprise random copolycarbonates of BPA and 6,6'-dihydroxy-3,3,3',3'-tetramethyl-1,1'-spirobiindane (also referred to herein as "SBI") which also exhibit the requisite properties necessary for such optical applications. Random copolycarbonates comprising BPA and SBI are also reported by K. C. Stueben in J. Poly. Sci., Part A, 3, 3209-17 (1965). Copending commonly assigned application, U.S. Ser. No. 08/920931, discloses alternating linear polycarbonates derived from spirobiindanols and dihydroxyaromatic compounds. The aforementioned polycarbonates are also transparent and exhibit excellent thermal and mechanical properties.
Poly(aryl)esters, or polyarylates, are high molecular weight aromatic polyesters derived from aromatic dicarboxylic acids and phenols. Polyarylates are known to exhibit mechanical and thermal properties similar to those of polycarbonates. In particular, they are thermally stable at high temperatures, resilient, tough, durable, hydrolytically resistant, transparent, and exhibit excellent processability. The most common polyarylates are those prepared by the reaction of isophthaloyl and terephthaloyl chlorides with BPA.
Brunelle et al. disclose in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 34,431 cyclic polymers prepared from racemic spirobiindane compounds. These cyclic polymers include high molecular weight cyclic spirobiindane polycarbonates and polyesters, which can then be converted to linear polymers.
Polyurethane polymers are high molecular weight thermoplastic polymers useful in a variety of forms, such as fibers, coatings, elastomers, and foams. As coatings, the polyurethanes exhibit excellent hardness, flexibility, abrasion and hydrolytic resistance, and adhesion. In addition, they are tough, durable, and thermally stable at high temperatures. Polyurethanes are often used as wire coatings in electrical applications. The Stueben reference mentioned above discloses polyurethane polymers prepared from racemic SBI.
In general, most applications of synthetic polymers require good thermal stability to withstand high temperature processing (>150.degree. C.), but do not require optical activity. However, for use in the formation of polarizing coatings, lenses, or filters and for utility as chiral waveguides in optoelectronics devices, birefringent materials having polarizing properties must be employed. Due to the low birefringence of the achiral prior art polycarbonate, polyester, and polyurethane polymers mentioned above, they are not useful in such applications.
A need therefore exists for optically active organic polymers that retain the same advantageous properties associated with high molecular weight polycarbonates, polyesters, and polyurethanes. In particular, such chiral polymers should have excellent processability and high molecular weight, and should be durable, tough, thermally stable and water resistant. The novel chiral polycarbonate, polyester, and polyurethane polymers of the present invention meet the above need.


A quantization matrix adjusting method for quality improvement by scaling down the default quantization matrix. The adjusting method comprises the steps of: updating a used bits BB_X and an average quantizer scale Avg_Q; allocating a bit budget BB_C for a current picture; calculating an estimated quantizer scale EstQ_C according to the used bits BB_X, the average quantizer scale Avg_Q and the bit budget BB_C deciding the operation mode, when the estimated quantizer scale EstQ_C is smaller than a threshold Th_Q, assigning the operation mode as an adjusting mode, otherwise remaining at normal mode; scaling down a default quantization matrix as a new quantization matrix when the operation mode is the adjusting mode; and coding the current picture using the new quantization matrix and default quantization matrix in the adjusting mode and normal mode, respectively.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a quantization matrix adjusting method, and more particularly to a quantization matrix adjusting method for quality improvement by scaling down the quantization matrix at an adjusting mode.
2. Description of the Related Art
Compressing methods are typically used to compress the pictures in order to reduce the data amounts, for example coding pictures by MPEG. The basic unit of coding within a picture is the macroblock. If the sampling is in 4:2:0 format, there are six blocks within a macroblock: four Y blocks, one Cb block and one Cr block. Each block is first DCT (discrete cosine transform) transformed, and then the DCT coefficients have to be quantized into integer. A zigzag scan or other alternate scanning method is utilized to arrange the two-dimensional quantized coefficients into one-dimensional. Finally, a variable-length coding (VLC) method is employed to do an entropy coding.
The quantization step is where the compression happened. Generally, the quantization of a DCT coefficient F[v][u] can be represented as:QF[v][u]=16*F[v][u]/(Q*W[v][u])  (1)
Where the v, u are the indexes for the two dimensional matrix, ranged from 0 to 7. The Q is the quantizer scale for the blocks within a macroblock, which can be varied for each macroblock. The W[v][u] is a quantization matrix defined for the whole pictures, which is used to assign a weighting factor for different DCT coefficients. FIG. 1 is a default quantization matrix for intra blocks defined in MPEG-2. Referring to FIG. 1, the W[v][u] is getting larger when the v and u indexes are increasing. This causes that the quantized coefficients with higher frequency more easily becomes zero. This is based on the study of human visual system that human is more sensitive to lower frequency signal and less sensitive to higher frequency.
The inverse-quantization step is used to recover the DCT coefficients. Generally, the inverse-quantization of a quantized DCT coefficient QF[v][u] is defined as:F′[v][u]=QF[v][u]*Q*W[v][u]/16  (2)
where F′[v][u] is the recovered DCT coefficient. The difference between the original DCT coefficient F[v][u] and the inverse-quantized DCT coefficient F′[v][u] is called quantization error, which is defined as:E[v][u]=F[v][u]−F′[v][u]  (3)
The adaptive quantization adapted in MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 can freely change the Q from one macroblock to the next macroblock, but can only slightly adjust the Q between adjacent macrobloeks in MPEG-4. The MPEG-2 has a non-linear quantizer scale mapping the quantizer scale code (from 1 to 31) to a real quantizer scale (from 0.5 to 56).
Adjusting the quantizer scale Q can control the bit consumption and coded quality of a macroblock. Given a larger Q will cause the quantized DCT coefficients getting smaller, and more quantized DCT coefficients became zero. Thus, the coded bit stream after VLC becomes shorter. However, the consequence is that the quantization error is getting larger, and the decoded image quality getting worse. If we want to have a better image quality, setting a smaller Q can reduce the quantization error, but the coded bit stream will getting longer.
In typical applications, the bit-rate of MPEG bit stream is constrained. For example, the DVD standard defines that the bit-rate of a MPEG-2 video stream can not higher than 9.8 Mb/sec, so the encoder have to control the bit-rate consumption to satisfy the constrain.
The picture contents vary from picture to picture in a video sequence. The coding complexity in a portion of video sequence may be different to other portions. The video buffer verifier (hereinafter called VBV) employed in MPEG-1 can offer somewhat flexibility in bit-rate consumption for different pictures, but overall bit-rate in a long term should be a constant bit rate (hereinafter called CBR). The MPEG-2 introduces the variable bit rate (VBR) operation mode to provide more flexibility on the variation of bit-rate consumption for each picture. The VBV buffer is used to emulate the input buffer of the MPEG decoder, and the bit stream produced by a MPEG encoder can not violate the constraint on the VBV buffer, otherwise the bit stream will not be properly decoded. The CBR operation of the VBV is shown by example in FIG. 2. FIG. 2 depicts the fullness of the decoder buffer over time. The sloped line segments show the compressed data entering the buffer at a constant bit-rate. The vertical line segments show the instantaneous removal from the buffer of the data associated with the decoded picture.
For the bit stream to satisfy the MPEG rate control requirement, the data for a picture must be already available in the buffer when the decoder has to decode the picture, and the decoder buffer does not overfill. By referencing to FIG. 2, if a picture consumed too many bits, the VBV buffer may be underflow, therefore the upper bound of the allocatable bits is UB. Similarly, if a picture used too few bits, the VBV buffer may be overflow, and thus the lower bound of the allocatable bits is LB. The VBR operation of the VBV is shown by example in FIG. 3. The difference between VBR and CBR is that the compressed bit stream enters the buffer at a specified maximum bit-rate until the buffer is full, when no more bits are input. This translates to a bit-rate entering the buffer that may be effectively variable, up to the maximum specified rate. As shown in the FIG. 3, there is only a constraint on the allocatable maximal bit rate UB, but no minimal bit rate.
To satisfy the constraint of VBV, the encoder has to allocate a bit budget for each picture, and then try to control the actually consumed bits close to the allocated bit budget. Typically, a virtual buffer mechanism is employed to control the bit consumption. If the buffer occupancy lower than zero, it maps to the quantizer scale 1, and if the buffer occupancy higher than a threshold R, it maps to the quantizer scale 31. The R is called the reaction factor. Before coding a picture, the virtual buffer has an initial occupancy D=d0=R*q0/31, and this occupancy corresponds to a quantizer scale Q=q0. Use the Q to quantize the first macroblock and encode. If the consumed bits are larger than the average bit budget for a macroblock, the virtual buffer occupancy D increases, otherwise the D decreases. If the buffer occupancy D increases over d0+R/31, the quantizer scale Q will become q0+1. This means that the excess of bit consumption is too large, so increase the quantizer scale to try to reduce the rate of bit consumption. If the buffer occupancy D decreases lower than d0−R/31, the quantizer scale Q will became q0−1. This means that the bit consumption is lower than expected, so decrease the quantizer scale to try to increase the rate of bit consumption.
The problem of using the virtual buffer mechanism to control the bit consumption is how to assign the initial buffer occupancy d0. This initial occupancy can be treat as an estimation of the coding complexity of the current picture. With a fixed bit budget, if the coding complexity of the current picture is relatively high, a higher initial occupancy should be selected so that the quantizer scale for each macroblock is higher. But we don't know the coding complexity of the current picture until the picture is actually coded. One solution is to inherit the buffer occupancy of the previous coded picture. This simple technique can handle most cases with no serious problem, but would cause VBV underflow when there is a rapidly variation of image content in a video sequence, such as senses change.
The quantizer scale for a macroblock can be selected from 1 to 31; this dynamic range can handle the most cases of video coding. However, if a video sequence is very simple and the target bit rate is high, the quantizer scale will become very small to generate more bits. If the scene is too simple even if setting the quantizer scale to 1 can't generate enough bits, some stuffing bits have to be added. This is the wasting of bit rate. Another case is that the average quantizer scale is between 1 and 2, for example 1.5. In this case, the best-matched quantizer scale for most macroblocks would be 1.5, but there is no such value. The resolution of quantizer scale becomes coarser when the value getting smaller. The result is that the quantizer scale varied rapidly from 1 to 2 and then backs to 1. This will cause a slightly visible blocking artifact at the flat area of image.

Quantization matrix adjusting method for quality improvement


An optical fiber ribbon includes N pieces of optical fibers in a state of being disposed in parallel. At least some parts of the N pieces of optical fibers contact each other and are connected to each other by a resin; an outer diameter of the optical fiber is equal to or larger than 0.135 mm and equal to or smaller than 0.180 mm; a connection part connected by the resin or another resin and a non-connection part not connected by the resin or another resin are intermittently provided in a longitudinal direction between intermittently connected core wires of an optical fiber disposed at the Mth and an optical fiber disposed at the (M+1)th among the N pieces of optical fibers; the N is a multiple of 12; and the M is a multiple of 4.

Patent Literature 1 discloses a ribbon in which a recessed part is formed in a jacket in response to a hollow between adjacent optical fibers and which is easily split at the recessed part.
Patent Literature 2 discloses a method of aligning the intervals of an optical fiber in an optical fiber ribbon using a small-diameter optical fiber (an outer diameter of a glass fiber is less than 125 μm).
Patent Literature 3 discloses a 4-core intermittently connected optical fiber ribbon including a structure of an intermittent pattern for each core in which a connection part in which adjacent optical fibers are connected to each other by an adhesive resin and a non-connection part in which the adjacent optical fibers are not connected to each other by the adhesive resin are intermittently provided in a longitudinal direction. The intermittently connected optical fiber ribbon is the small-diameter optical fiber, but a distance between the centers of the adjacent optical fibers is set to 250 μm which is a distance between the optical fibers of a related art (not a small diameter).

Optical fiber ribbon and optical fiber cable


The invention concerns a device for measuring the pressure of a fluid carried in a conduit. The device comprises a first electrode, a second electrode, a nanoassembly of conductive or semi-conductive nanoparticles in contact with the two electrodes, and a measurement device. The measurement device provides proportional information with respect to an electrical property of the nanoassembly. The electrical property is measured between the first and second electrode, and the electrical property is sensitive to the distance between the nanoparticles of the nanoassembly. The nanoassembly is mechanically linked to a flexible substrate having a mechanical linkage with the fluid carried in the conduit such that the distances between the nanoparticles of the nanoassembly are modified by a pressure variation in the fluid.

Non-intrusive pressure measurement devices known from prior art comprise a proof body whose deformation is measured by means of a gage, called a strain gage, said proof body having to be mechanically coupled with the conduit so that the conduit's deformation, under the effect of the pressure of the fluid it carries, is transmitted to said proof body. International patent application WO2006122750 describes such a pressure sensor suitable for being implanted on an intracorporeal conduit such as a blood vessel. The need to obtain mechanical coupling between the conduit and the sensor's proof body locally modifies the conduit's mechanical response, even modifies the shape of this conduit, and can have consequences on the flow conditions of the fluid. Thus, such sensors do not allow a circumferential or axial pressure distribution to be measured over small distances.


A blind fastener for securing a workpiece to a machining fixture includes an externally threaded housing, a pusher member and translating elements. The pusher member translates relative to the housing from an extended position to a retracted position. As the pusher member retracts, it urges the translating elements from an inboard position to an outboard position. The fixture has a closed ended tool hole that is threaded to receive the blind fastener. The workpiece has a corresponding tool hole with a radial groove. The workpiece tool hole receives the upper end of the blind fastener and the radial groove receives the translating elements when they extend. When the blind fastener is threaded into the fixture tool hole, the pusher member retracts and causes the translating elements to extend. The translating elements engage the radial groove of the workpiece tool hole and clamp the workpiece to the fixture.

A stock metal workpiece is typically fastened to a fixture, which is, in turn, mounted to the bed of a milling machine. A workpiece usually includes excess material which presents bolt holes that receive bolts for mounting the workpiece to a machining fixture. A machining fixture usually consists of a flat plate with a pattern of threaded bolt holes for receiving such workpiece mounting bolts. Typical prior art workpiece mounting bolts generally have standard hexagonal heads that usually project above the surface of a workpiece. Such protruding bolt heads present obstacles in the machining process. What is needed is a fastener for securing a workpiece to a machining fixture that has no protruding head.


An improved process for oximation of carbonyl compounds, such as ketones and aldehydes by oximation with hydroxylamine including oximation processes carried out in the presence of a catalytic amount of an acid phase transfer catalyst, such as 2-ethylhexanoic acid, and/or the presence of an alkali metal or alkaline earth metal catalyst. The resulting oximes are useful as metal extractants.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the preparation of oximes from essentially water insoluble carbonyl compounds, i.e. ketones or aldehydes, and in particular to improved processes which may employ a phase transfer catalyst. Hydroxyoximes prepared by the improved method are useful as metal extractants.
2. Description of Related Art
As described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,334, oximes are generally produced by reacting an organic carbonyl compound such as an aldehyde or ketone with hydroxylamine, usually generated from a hydroxylamine salt such as hydroxylammonium sulfate or hydroxylammonium chloride.
Current oximation procedures, particularly of long alkyl chain ketones, employ standard oximation processes with an alcohol, such as methanol as a solvent, hydroxylammonium sulfate and sodium acetate. Since sodium acetate must be anhydrous and is considerably more expensive than sodium carbonate, attempts have been made to employ sodium carbonate in the ketoximation procedure, but such attempts have not been successful.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,133,834 describes the general preparation of alpha and beta-hydroxyoximes generally useful as extractants for metals such as copper from aqueous solutions and discusses, as exemplary processes, those of U.S. Pat. No. 3,449,066 and 3,592,775 relative to the preparation of aliphatic, alpha-hydroxyoximes, from the corresponding acyloins and beta-hydroxyoximes from the corresponding aromatic phenones. In each of the processes the reaction is carried out under reflux conditions with an hydroxylamine salt in an alcohol medium (such as methanol) in the presence of a weak base, such as sodium acetate. Such methods typically required long reaction times for completion, particularly when the oximes included aromatic groups. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,133,834 describes a process for reducing the time of reaction by employing catalytic amounts of iron, Fe.sup.+2 and Fe.sup.+3. Nawal K. Mathur and Chander K. Narang, in "Laboratory Experiments on Phase-Transfer-Catalyzed Reactions of Neutral Molecules", J. Chem. Ed., 67, p. 273, March 1990, describe the oximation of benzophenone by first preparing an aqueous solution of hydroxylammonium chloride (1 equiv/equiv of ketone) in water and neutralizing with sodium hydroxide 1 equiv). This results in high concentration of free hydroxylamine being present all at once, which in large scale operations would present an unsafe condition. To this is added an equal volume of toluene containing 1 equivalent of benzophenone and 1 equivalent (stoichiometric amount) of 2-ethylhexanoic acid at 60.degree. C for 1.5 hour. In the reaction mixture the level of water is 53.5 moles/mole of carbonyl and the level of toluene was 4.76 g/g of ketone. The 2-ethylhexanoic acid allegedly acts as a bifunctional catalyst, i.e. a weak acid catalyst as well as a phase transfer catalyst.
The oximes, such as the hydroxy aryl ketoximes and hydroxy aryl aldoximes, which are substantially insoluble in water but soluble in water immiscible, organic solvents, such as kerosene, are useful in solvent extraction processes for recovery of metals, particularly copper, from aqueous solutions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,507,268, describes a number of such oxime reagents prepared from ketones and aldehydes, and the use thereof in liquid/liquid extraction processes.


A wheelchair transfer device is configured for moving an invalid patient from a flat surface to a seated position for transport in the seated position on the transfer device. The transfer device includes a rolling base supported by casters and convertible low profile rollers that are configured to fit under the base of a hospital bed and convert to a larger diameter wheel without altering the height of the transfer device. The transfer device includes a leg portion, a torso portion and a seat portion configured to be coplanar for adaptation to a hospital bed, so that an invalid patient can, with assistance, roll onto the device. The seat portion can then be raised against the patient's buttocks, generally perpendicular to the leg and torso portions, and the whole assembly can then be rotated to a vertical position, with the seat portion supporting the weight of the patient.

Patients often require assistance in moving from a hospital bed to a wheelchair, or require assistance in moving from the hospital bed to a toilet. An attendant rendering assistance is subject to injury in assisting the patient without mechanical assistance. Patient transfer devices can still require excessive bending and lifting by an attendant, increasing the likelihood of injury to the attendant or patient. In the alternative, some patient transfer devices, such as an overhead lift, can make the patient feel like freight due to the lack of any personal contact by an attendant.
It would be advantageous to provide a patient transfer device that gives an attendant the mechanical advantage necessary to move a patient without injury, and that maintains the close personal contact between the patient and the medical attendant.


This invention pertains to the discovery of mutant phytochromes that when introduced into a plant alter the photomorphogenic properties of that plant. In certain embodiments transfection of plants by nucleic acid constructs expressing the mutant phytochromes produced plants having a phenotype characterized by light-independent activation. Thus, in certain embodiments, this invention provides a transgenic plant or plant cell comprising a mutant phytochrome where the mutant phytochrome is a light-stable phytochrome; and the transgenic plant shows decreased shade avoidance as compared to the same species or strain of plant lacking the mutant phytochrome. In various embodiments the mutant phytochrome comprises a mutation at the position corresponding to tyrosine residue 276 in an Arabidopsis phytochrome where the mutation is to a residue other than tyrosine.

Oxygenic photosynthetic organisms possess sophisticated mechanisms to adapt to their environment. Dependent upon light as an energy source, these organisms must cope with too little and too much light—an environmental factor that is especially challenging for highly pigmented species living in an aerobic environment. Plants therefore possess light receptor systems to recognize and respond to changes in light quality, fluence rate, direction and duration in their environment (Briggs and Spudich eds. (2005) Handbook of Photosensory Receptors (Weinheim: Wiley VCH)). Among the many physiological processes under light control include seed germination, seedling growth, synthesis of the photosynthetic apparatus, timing of flowering, shade avoidance, and senescence. Such light-regulated growth and developmental responses are collectively known as photomorphogenesis (Schäfer and Nagy eds. (2005) Photomorphogenesis in Plants and Bacteria: Function and Signal Transduction Mechanisms (3rd Edition), 3rd Edition (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer)). Phytochrome was the first of the photomorphogenetic photoreceptor families to be identified in plants over 50 years ago (Butler et al. (1959) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 45: 1703-1708; Rockwell et al. (2006) Annu. Rev. Plant Biol., 57: 837-858).
Synthesized in the red light-absorbing Pr form, plant phytochromes are regulated by red light (R) absorption that initiates the photochemical interconversion to the far red (FR) light-absorbing Pfr form. FR promotes the reverse conversion of Pfr to Pr—a process that typically abolishes the R-dependent activation of the photoreceptor (Schäfer and Nagy eds. (2005) Photomorphogenesis in Plants and Bacteria: Function and Signal Transduction Mechanisms (3rd Edition), 3rd Edition (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer)). This R/FR photoreversibility is conferred by a linear tetrapyrrole (bilin) prosthetic group that is covalently attached to the phytochrome apoprotein (Rockwell et al. (2006) Annu. Rev. Plant Biol., 57: 837-858). Supporting evidence for the central dogma of phytochrome action, that is that Pfr is the active form, has been accumulating for years. Much of this evidence reflects the strong correlation between the amount of Pfr produced by a given fluence of light and the magnitude of the biological response. While the central dogma appears to hold true for R/FR-reversible low-fluence responses (LFR) and for R-dependent very low fluence responses (VLFR) (Shinomura et al. (1996) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93: 8129-8133), FR high irradiance responses (FR-HIR) do not conform to this simple view of phytochrome action (Furuya, and Schäfer (1996) Trends in Plant Sci., 1: 301-307; Shinomura et al. (2000) Plant Physiol. 122: 147-156). Such data indicate that Pr, Pfr, photocycled-Pr and possibly intermediates produced during Pfr to Pr photoconversion may all function to transduce the light signal depending on the phytochrome.
In flowering plants, phytochromes are encoded by a small family of genes that have arisen by repeated gene duplication of a eukaryote phytochrome progenitor during the course of evolution (Mathews et al. (1995) Annal. Missouri Botanical Garden 82: 296-321). In the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the phytochrome family consists of five genes—denoted PHYA-E (Clack et al. (1994) Plant Mol. Biol. 25: 413-427), while monocots species (eg. rice or maize) appear only to possess representatives of the PHYA-C families (Mathews and Sharrock (1997) Plant Cell Environ. 20: 666-671; Sawers et al. (2005) Trends in Plant Science 10: 138-143). Plant phytochromes can be classified into two groups based upon their light-stability. Phytochromes encoded by the PHYA gene family are responsible for the light-labile pool, while PHYB-E genes encode the light-stable phytochromes (Furuya (1993) Ann. Rev. Plant Physiol. Plant Mol. Biol. 44: 617-645). The pronounced light-lability of phyA holoproteins is due to two processes—light-dependent transcriptional repression of the PHYA gene (Quail (1991) Ann. Rev. Genet. 25: 389-409) and light-dependent phyA protein turnover (Clough and Vierstra (1997) Plant Cell Environ. 20: 713-721). By contrast, the steady state levels of the phyB-E photoreceptors are not significantly regulated by the light environment (Sharrock and Clack (2002) Plant Physiol. 130: 442-456). Plant phytochromes are dimeric, with phyA predominantly occurring as homodimers while phyC-E polypeptides forming heterodimers with phyB (Sharrock and Clack (2004) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101: 11500-11505). PhyA has been established to be responsible for both VLFR and FR-HIR responses, while the light-stable phytochromes mediate the R/FR photoreversible LFR. Since phyA and phyB are the predominant forms of phytochrome found in light-grown plants (Hirschfeld et al. (1998) Genetics. 149: 523-535), null mutants in these genes are deficient in VLFR/FR-HIR and LFR responses, respectively (Shinomura et al. (1996) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93: 8129-8133).
Accumulating to high levels in plants grown for prolonged periods in darkness, the light-labile phyA class of photoreceptors function to regulate seed germination and seedling development under very low light fluence rates (Casal et al. (1997) Environ. 20: 813-819). Such conditions are encountered for seeds that germinate and develop underground or in the FR-enriched shade of a forest canopy. Dark-grown seedlings accumulate elevated levels of the Pr from of phyA. When such seedlings are exposed to light, phyA is rapidly degraded (Nagy and Schäfer (2002) Annu Rev Plant Biol 53: 329-355). The rate of phyA degradation in oat seedlings increases 100-fold upon light exposure—from a half-life of over 100 h for the Pr form to less than 1 h after photoconversion to Pfr (Clough and Vierstra (1997) Plant Cell Environ. 20: 713-721). Light-dependent phyA turnover is preceded by the formation of sequestered areas of phytochromes or SAPs in the cytoplasm (MacKenzie et al. (1974) Plant Physiol. 53: Abstract No. 5; Speth et al. (1987) Planta 171: 332-338). Since SAPs formed under R and white light (W) and can be detected in phyA preparations in vitro, the hypothesis that SAPs represent self-aggregated Pfr:Pfr homodimers has been proposed (Hofmann et al. (1991) Planta 183: 265-273; Hofmann et al. (1990) Planta 180: 372-377). This assertion has received support from more recent studies with Arabidopsis and tobacco seedlings showing that phyA must be translocated to the nucleus to initiate signal transduction (Nagy and Schäfer (2002) Annu Rev Plant Biol 53: 329-355; Chen et al. (2004) Ann. Rev. Genet. 38: 87-117). In this model, phyA that remains sequestered in the cytosol is eventually degraded and therefore does not participate in signaling. Pr:Pfr heterodimers of phyA that move to the nucleus presumably account for the VLFR and FR-HIR responses. PhyB signaling also involves light-dependent translocation to the nucleus; however, in contrast with phyA, this process can be reversed by FR illumination. Thus it is phyB that is the photoreceptor that is primarily responsible for sensing the R/FR ratio that triggers shade avoidance (Smith and Whitelam (1997) Plant Cell Environ. 20: 840-844; Morelli and Ruberti (2002) Trends in Plant Science 7: 399-404; Franklin and Whitelam (2005) Annal. Botany (London)).
Phytochrome-mediated shade avoidance responses observed in high density plantings leads to increased resource partitioning towards elongation growth, reduced lateral branching and early flowering at the expense of seed/fruit crop yield (Sawers et al. (2005) Trends in Plant Science 10: 138-143; Smith (1995) Ann. Rev. Plant Physiol. Plant Mol. Biol. 46: 289-315). While traditional plant breeding has successfully been used to reduce shade avoidance responses, this process is time-consuming in order to introduce only the necessary gene(s) into the desired cultivar. Genetic engineering would be a more rapid/direct way to accomplish this goal assuming that the desired genes are known. In this regard, transgenic expression of PHYA has already proven successful to reduce shade avoidance losses in agronomically important crop species (Smith (1992) Photochem. Photobiol. 56: 815-822; Smith: H. (1994) Sem. Cell Biol. 5: 315-325). This approach requires elevated expression of PHYA to produce a sufficient amount of phyA holoprotein to counteract the shade avoidance responses mediated by endogenous light-stable phytochromes (Robson et al. (1996) Nature Biotechnology 14: 995-998; Kong et al. (2004) Molecular Breeding 14: 35-45; Garg et al. (2005) Planta: 1-10).

Transgenic plants comprising a mutant phytochrome and showing altered photomorphogenesis

The Regents of the University of California


An information processing system including at least one information processing apparatus includes a holding unit holding a processing request waiting for a processing; processing units monitoring the holding unit, acquiring the processing request and performing the processing corresponding to the processing request; and a memory unit storing information of a state of the processing request, wherein each processing unit includes a state acquiring unit acquiring information indicative of the state of the acquired processing request from the memory unit, and a state controlling unit checking the information indicative of the state of the acquired processing request, and controlling whether the processing corresponding to the acquired processing request is preformed based on a result of checking the information indicative of the state of the acquired processing request.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing system, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known an asynchoronous conversion server including a data conversion request managing means, a message queue, a job information management database, and multiple converting means. The multiple converting means monitors a queue corresponding to the message queue and performs a process corresponding to a request included in the queue (for example, Patent Document 1).
The job process apparatus such as a worker monitoring the queue corresponding to a message queue maintains an association (a connection) with the message queue while the job process apparatus performs a job process corresponding to a request included in the queue.
However, there is a case where the connection between the message queue and the job process apparatus is cut while the job is being processed. The message queue, of which connection with the job process apparatus is cut, updates a request issued by the job process apparatus, of which connection with the message queue is cut, while the job is being processed to be again in a state where the job process apparatus can acquire the request.
Therefore, there is a problem that the job process apparatus and another job process apparatus redundantly perform the job process corresponding to the request included in the queue when the job process apparatus cannot check that the other job process apparatus is processing the job.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2013-178748

Information processing system for preventing job process from being redundantly performed, information processing apparatus, and program


The sensor assembly includes a sensor tube in communication with the inner tank. A flush line extending from the liquid cryogen fill line is connected to the sensor tube at a three-way valve. The three way valve also connects the sensor tube to a pressure transducer. During normal operation, the sensor tube is in communication with the pressure transducer such that the level of liquid in the dewar can be monitored. When the liquid level falls below a predetermined level, the pressure transducer activates the three-way valve to connect the sensor tube to the flush line and opens a solenoid located in the fill line. As the cryogen liquid enters the fill line, a portion of it is diverted through the flush line, is vaporized and is passed through the sensor tube. The relatively warm gas flow in the sensor tube prevents the formation of ice and eliminates the problems associated therewith. A timer reverses the three-way valve to reconnect the sensor tube to the pressure transducer so that the pressure transducer can close the second solenoid and terminate the fill operation when the predetermined maximum liquid level has been reached.

The invention relates, generally, to cryogen storage dewars and, more particularly, to a level sensor and flush system for such devices.
Cryobiological storage dewars are used to store heat sensitive products such as biological specimens at temperatures between -90.degree. C. and -196.degree. C. A typical dewar includes an inner tank for retaining the cryogenic fluid, such as liquid nitrogen, and biological specimens and an outer wall surrounding and spaced from the inner tank. The space between the tank and the outer wall is packed with insulating material and a vacuum is created therein A removable foam insulated cover provides access to the interior of the dewar.
To maintain the desired low temperature, a specific level of cryogenic liquid must be maintained in the dewar. Over time, however, heat transfer between the external environment and the interior of the dewar will vaporize the liquid thereby lowering the level of cryogenic liquid in the dewar. If the drop in the level of the cryogen was not corrected, the temperature in the dewar would rise to an undesirable level.
Accordingly, automatic cryogenic liquid refill systems have been developed. One such system includes a vertically extending tube in fluid flow communication with the inner tank of the dewar Cryogen will fill the tube to the same level as the cryogen in the inner tank. Thermostats for sensing the presence or absence of the cryogenic liquid are suspended in the tube on a flexible member Typically, four thermistors are used--a low sensor, a high sensor and two alarm sensors The low sensor generates a signal when the liquid cryogen reaches a predetermined minimum level to open a valve to deliver more cryogen to the dewar. The high sensor delivers a signal to shut the valve and terminate delivery of liquid cryogen when the liquid reaches a predetermined maximum level. The other two sensors are used as alarms to generate a signal should either of the high or low sensors fail. The flexible member on which the thermistors are suspended can be raised or lowered in the tube to adjust the level of liquid cryogen.
One problem with this design is that it is difficult to accurately manually adjust the location of the sensors to change the cryogenic liquid level. Another problem with such a system is that because there is no fluid flow in the tube, the extremely cold cryogen will cause ice to build up in the tube thereby preventing the operation of the thermistors. Moreover, the ice can either prevent movement of the sensors or can damage the sensors when they are moved.
In an effort to solve some of these problems, a system using a pressure transducer located at the end of the tube has been developed. A column of compressed cryogen vapor transmits changes in the level of the cryogen fluid in the dewar to the pressure transducer A solenoid valve is opened and closed in response to signals from the pressure transducer to control delivery of cryogen liquid to the dewar.
While the pressure transducer allows more accurate measurement of changes in the cryogen level, it does not provide fluid flow in the tube so that the icing problems discussed above are still present. When icing occurs in the tube, the pressure transducer's responsiveness is affected resulting in undesirable fluctuations in the liquid level in the dewar.
Thus, an improved level sensor assembly for a cryogenic dewar is desired

Cryogenic dewar level sensor and flushing system