A disclosed system for providing wood-cultivated ginseng age information includes a background sheet made of paper or plastic, a consumer terminal configured to obtain a wood-cultivated ginseng image of a wood-cultivated ginseng placed on the background sheet by a user, receive the start line of a wood-cultivated ginseng rhizome and the end line of the wood-cultivated ginseng rhizome by the user, calculate a wood-cultivated ginseng rhizome length using the obtained wood-cultivated ginseng image and the obtained start line and end line of the wood-cultivated ginseng rhizome, and transmit the calculated wood-cultivated ginseng rhizome length, and a server configured to previously store wood-cultivated ginseng age information corresponding to a wood-cultivated ginseng rhizome length, search for wood-cultivated ginseng age information corresponding to the wood-cultivated ginseng rhizome length received from the consumer terminal, and transmit the retrieved wood-cultivated ginseng age information to the consumer terminal.

As the Internet is popularized from the early 2000s, e-commerce in which products are traded through stores open in the Internet is increasing. In accordance with such a trend, common agricultural products, such as rice, bean and chili, are also traded through e-commerce. Recently, wood-cultivated ginseng, that is, one of special crops, in addition to the common agricultural products is also traded through e-commerce.
Unlike a wild ginseng, a wood-cultivated ginseng is artificially sowed and cultivated and is also called a cultivated wild ginseng or Jangro. The medicinal properties of the wood-cultivated ginseng are different depending on an age called Yeongeun. As a wood-cultivated ginseng age increases, the medicinal properties thereof are increased. Accordingly, the value or price of the wood-cultivated ginseng rise according to an increase of the wood-cultivated ginseng age.
As in common e-commerce, in e-commerce for wood-cultivated ginseng, if a wood-cultivated ginseng producer posts age information different from actual wood-cultivated ginseng age information on the Internet, it may work damage to a wood-cultivated ginseng consumer. Furthermore, it may also work damage to a good wood-cultivated ginseng producer because reliability of the wood-cultivated ginseng e-commerce is reduced for a potential consumer due to the damage to a wood-cultivated ginseng consumer. Accordingly, in order to prevent damage to a wood-cultivated ginseng consumer, there is a need for a wood-cultivated ginseng consumer to identify a wood-cultivated ginseng age objectively and reliably.
In response to such a need, a ginseng age identification method disclosed in Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2009-0095102 may be applied to wood-cultivated ginseng.
However, the disclosed ginseng age identification method has problems in that it is difficult to apply the method to identify a wood-cultivated ginseng age and it is difficult for a wood-cultivated ginseng consumer to easily apply the method because a ginseng age is identified by dying a ginseng root histochemically and then analyzing the number of secretory vessel layers of the ginseng root.

System for providing age information of ginseng cultivated in the woods


A method for characterizing a property of a subterranean formation including collecting well log and seismic data, inverting the data, processing for upscaled petrophysical parameters, constructing a flow model that generates saturation, pressure and temperature, constructing seismic velocity relationships from the results of the flow model, and constructing a seismic model. Some embodiments may form a full waveform model or a ray tracing model. Some embodiments may generate a velocity profile and/or waveforms using the profile. Some embodiments may use the parameters to form a reservoir model or to recover hydrocarbons from the formations. Some embodiments build a reservoir model of CO2 injection or CO2 presence after injection or for simulating CO2 presence in a subterranean formation. Some embodiments may also quantify CO2 properties in the reservoir or predict CO2 profile evolution over time in the reservoir including spatial distribution. Some embodiments may also predict CO2 profile evolution over time in a reservoir and risk assessment, estimate storage capacity of the reservoir, or select a storage site. Some additional embodiments may also predict fluid front arrival, fluid front monitoring, fluid movement monitoring, or injectivity. Some additional embodiments may generate saturation profiles or a pressure.

The need for quantifying fluid saturation and updating reservoir models to honor available data has been an interest to oil and gas industry from a financial point of view for a long time. Underground CO2 storage requires monitoring injected CO2 to assure permanence and avoid the risk of contaminating natural resources underground.
Generally, petrophysical parameters are mostly inferred from bore-hole measurements only few inches away from the wellbore. Formation properties beyond the wellbore(s) are usually generated by geostatistical methods using data from wells. But geostatistical averaging techniques are unverifiable and a number of generated models will equally well represent the measurements. Therefore, they are incapable of resolving the variability in the formation. Deep reading surface seismic measurements can help obtaining information from the reservoir beyond the wellbore and improve the depth of the investigation but the resolution of the surface seismic measurements is low (>15 m). Therefore, they are not effective in determining fluid properties.
Crosswell seismic measurements are regularly used to enhance the resolution of the measurements and improve the characterization of the reservoir within wellbores. Determining geological layers and realization of the continuity of layer boundaries across the wellbores are possible with the crosswell seismic measurements. As for the application of crosswell seismic measurements in reservoir characterization, obtaining the petrophysical properties and quantification of the fluid in the reservoir are still challenging. Crosswell seismic data are commonly used to predict the plume shape of CO2 by looking at the difference in velocity profiles obtained at different times. Effective velocities of the media is obtained from voxel based full waveform inversions of crosswell data without taking into account constraints in the variation in the gas/fluid properties (saturation, densities, compressibility etc) in the rock, e.g. by the dictates of the fluid displacement. Subsequent translation of the velocities into saturation is therefore a gross approximation of the fluid in the reservoir and may violate conservation principles of fluid mechanics. Furthermore, by nature, this inversion technique has non-unique characteristic. Accuracy of the solution of this type of problems depends highly on the initial guess and regularization. Besides, voxel based inversion of seismic data is computationally intensive despite the advent of computing technology, requiring millions of numerical grids. The velocities obtained from voxel-based inversion may be sufficient for differentiating gross fluid distribution profiles in the reservoir but not enough for inferring sharp transitions in seismic properties. In the best-case scenario, one can get an estimate of the shape of the plume of CO2 but delineation that affects decisions.

Model based inversion of seismic response for determining formation properties


A signal processing circuit is incorporated into an audio reproducing device for suppressing noise while preserving distinctive features of speech. A noise detecting circuit includes a low pass filtering circuit (12) and a level detector (14). An output signal (C) from the detecting circuit controls a variable high pass filtering circuit (20) to attenuate a range of low frequencies of an input signal (A) proportional to the detected level of noise. The variable high pass filtering circuit exhibits a family of variable response curves (22, 24, and 26) that vary in slope below a common cut-off frequency (28) that is below a range of frequencies that convey a majority of second formant transitions between consonants and vowels.

Speech intelligibility can be reduced by background noises, which include loud, confusing, or distracting sounds. Hearing impaired persons often have particular difficulty discerning speech in noisy environments, but people without any hearing disorder can experience similar difficulties in environments with high noise levels.
Audio processing devices have used a variety of techniques for suppressing unwanted noise. One commonly used technique attenuates large amplitude audio signals for protecting against the reproduction of excessively loud noises. Another technique attenuates low frequencies of sound to help prevent a so-called "upward spread of masking" by low frequency noises, which reduces intelligibility of the higher frequency sounds.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,061,875 to Freifeld et al. discloses an audio processor that incorporates an adjustable high pass filter to reduce low frequency noise components of an audio signal. The cut-off frequency of the high pass filter can be adjusted in steps from 0.25 to 1.5 kilohertz, and the rate of attenuation of the filter (i.e., the roll-off rate) can be adjusted at each cut-off frequency in steps of 6, 12, and 18 decibels per octave. Together, these two adjustments are used to discriminate against particular noises.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,977 to Anderson et al. discloses a hearing aid circuit having a series of state variable filters for controlling frequency response characteristics. The pass band of the filter series can be adjusted to attenuate predetermined low frequencies of noise. The state variable filters are implemented in an integrated circuit using capacitor loaded operational transconductance amplifiers and include separate external controls for varying respective outputs of a high pass filter, a low pass filter, and a variable slope filter. The high and low pass filters are both fourth order filters (e.g., four pole filters) made up of two cascaded second order filters. The external controls set frequency response characteristics by adjusting the cut-off frequencies of the high and low pass filters without substantially changing the respective shapes ("Q") of their frequency response curves.
Although a predetermined amount of attenuation of particular low frequencies of sound can help to prevent certain kinds of noise from masking higher frequencies that are more important to speech intelligibility, the amount of predetermined attenuation can be more or less than that required for optimally attenuating the noise. For example, if too little attenuation is provided, some masking remains. However, if too much attenuation is provided, the perceived sound quality is unnecessarily reduced. In the absence of masking noise, attenuation of the low frequencies also reduces intelligibility.
Audio processing devices have also been designed to attenuate low frequencies of sound as a function of noise energy. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,585 to Tanaka discloses a hearing aid in which a low frequency component of ambient sound is used to shift a cut-off frequency of a high pass filter. An increasing level of the low frequency sound is used to shift the cut-off frequency up to 1.5 kilohertz for attenuating loud noises within the low frequency spectrum. However, important speech information is also conveyed at frequencies much less than 1.5 kilohertz, and shifting the cut-off frequency of the high pass filter through this region reduces speech intelligibility as well as noise.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,927,279 to Nakamura et al. discloses a hearing aid in which both lower and higher frequency components of the acoustic spectrum are attenuated in response to the detection of sound energy at frequencies considered above and below frequencies required for speech. A band-rejection filter is used to isolate frequencies below 300 hertz and above 3000 hertz, and the energy content of the isolated bands is detected to form a control signal. Response characteristics of both a high pass filter and a low pass filter are varied by the control signal to attenuate high and low frequency noises.
However, the hearing aid of Nakamura et al., like the hearing aid of Tanaka, also attenuates frequencies that convey important speech information. For example, the hearing aid of Nakamura et al. attenuates to some degree the entire range of frequencies between 300 and 3000 hertz, which includes frequencies containing crucial information for identifying both consonants and vowels.

Aid to hearing speech in a noisy environment


A remote engine starting system starts an engine when an engine start command signal is transmitted from a remote controller or an ignition key. The system includes an immobilizer ECU, which sets an immobilizer system to prohibit vehicle travel and drives an LED to flash to thereby indicate the vehicle travel prohibition. When the engine is started by the ignition key, the immobilizer system is unset and the LED stops the indication of the vehicle travel prohibition. When the engine is started by the remote controller, the immobilizer system is unset but the LED continues to flash to indicate the vehicle travel prohibition.

In a conventional remote engine starting system such as disclosed in JP 3,475,769, an immobilizer unit outputs an engine start permission signal to an engine control unit to permit an engine starting, when an engine start command signal is output from an ignition key. The engine is then started when the ignition key is turned to a starter-on position of a starter switch. Further, the immobilizer unit outputs the engine start permission signal to the engine control unit to permit the engine starting, when an engine start command signal is output from a remote controller, which is a portable transmitter. Thus, the engine can be started from an outside of a vehicle.
When the immobilizer unit outputs no engine start permission signal, it normally provides an indication of vehicle travel prohibition to indicate that an immobilizer system for protecting a vehicle from unauthorized use is set in operation. When the immobilizer unit provides its engine start permission signal, it provides no such indication.
Since the indication of vehicle travel prohibition is cancelled and the engine is started in response to the engine start permission signal, the indication is also cancelled and the engine is also started when the remote controller outputs its engine start permission signal. In this occasion, the user of the vehicle may not be present close to the vehicle and may be away from the vehicle until the engine is warmed up sufficiently. It is thus likely that an unauthorized user breaks a window or a door and steals the vehicle.

Remote engine starting system and method


There are provided a novel benzofluoranthene compound and an organic light-emitting device which uses the benzofluoranthene compound, gives a blue emission hue with extremely good purity, and has an optical output with a high efficiency, a high luminance, and a long life. Specifically, there are provided a benzofluoranthene compound represented by the general formula shown below and an organic light-emitting device including a pair of electrodes including an anode and a cathode one of which is a transparent or translucent electrode material, and an organic compound layer disposed between the pair of electrodes and including a material for an organic light-emitting device containing the benzofluoranthene compound.

An organic light-emitting device is a device having a thin film which contains a fluorescent or phosphorescent organic compound and is interposed between electrodes. Electrons and holes (positive holes) are injected from the respective electrodes, whereby excitons of the fluorescent or phosphorescent compound are produced. The excitons radiate light upon return thereof to a ground state. Recent progress of an organic light-emitting device is remarkable, and the characteristics of the device enable a thin and light weight light-emitting device with a high luminance at a low applied voltage, a variety of emission wavelengths, and a high-speed responsibility. From this fact, it is suggested that the device have potential to find use in a wide variety of applications.
However, in the present circumstances, an optical output with a higher luminance or a higher conversion efficiency is needed. In addition, the organic light-emitting device still involves a large number of problems in terms of durability such as a change over time due to long-term use and degradation due to an atmospheric gas containing oxygen, moisture or the like. Further, when the application of the device to a full-color display or the like is taken into consideration, the emission of blue, green, or red light with good color purity is needed. However, these problems have not been sufficiently solved yet.
Meanwhile, a benzofluoranthene compound has been proposed as a blue-light-emitting material. Organic light-emitting devices using a benzofluoranthene compound as a light-emitting material have been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. H10-294179, 2002-69044, 2003-26616, and 2005-68087. However, it is difficult to say that those organic light-emitting devices have sufficient life characteristics. In particular, when one attempts to apply those devices to a full-color display, the compound cannot be employed as a blue-light-emitting material which can satisfy demands for satisfactory emission efficiency, durability life, and color purity.

Benzofluoranthene compound and organic light-emitting device using the compound

Abstract: In the general formula (1), one of X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, and X6 represents a substituted or unsubstituted fused heterocyclic group having four or less rings, and the others of X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, and X6 each represent a hydrogen atom.


Embodiments of the invention provide a computing device comprising one or more processors, each processor comprising one or more processing unit, said one or more processing units being configured to execute at least one program, each program comprising data and/or instructions, the computing device further comprising, for at least some of the processors, a processor cache associated with each processor,

A computing device (also referred to as computer or computing machine) carries out an arbitrary set or sequences of arithmetic or logical operations, called programs.
A computing device generally comprises of at least one processing element, typically a central processing unit (CPU), and some associated form of memory. The fundamental operation of a processing element, regardless of the physical form it takes, is to execute the instructions of a program by performing arithmetic, logical, control, and input/output operations specified by the instructions.
The program to be executed consists in data and instructions that are stored in memorie(s). Any program implementation is transcribed into a low-level machine language in order to be processed by a hardware device. Data and instructions are moved from different memories via buses before being processed by the processing elements. During the compilation process, data is associated to operands and instructions are associated to operators.
Modern computing devices use fast computing units processing at the nano-second time scale. This makes it possible, for a given program, to perform hundreds of millions of operations in less than a second. Therefore, memory units must be fast enough to provide such bandwidth to the processing elements and avoid bottlenecks. More importantly, as memory units store personal and sensitive data (for example cryptographic keys in secure computing devices such as secure embedded systems), it is necessary to enforce the security of moved data and/or instructions and ensure a good and correct execution of programs by the processing elements.
Computing devices are prone cyber attacks that target the behavior when executing a software code/program on a processor and are built on exploiting the machine-code execution by the processing elements to access and gain control of victim hosts. In particular, memory-based attacks on hardware/software designs rely on corrupting memory addresses (locations) to hijack control flow. For example, arbitrary program execution can be achieved by corrupting a code/program memory location (as example the return address).
Some solutions to ensure protection and/or security against cyber attacks in general and memory-based attacks in particular, exist.
Existing software protection policies comprise:                antivirus programs used to detect/identify the presence of malware codes;        the use of canaries to detect overflows;        dynamic information flow tracking to identify and track the unsafe data;        the use of virtual memory addresses rather than physical addresses in combination with the deployment of non-executable stack and heaps, address space layout randomization, and stack canaries. Such protection measures provide memory access restrictions and prevent from code injection and/or execution by attackers, and        control flow integrity based on the detection of any modifications on the flow control.
Memory security policies can be enforced using tagged hardware architectures. Attacks which hijack control flow can be prevented by using tagged memory protections to restrict writes/reads to memory locations. Tagged memories associate metadata with each memory location and can be used to implement fine-grained memory access restrictions. Tagged architectures can implement a tag of physical memories but not virtual memories to maintain a single table for the entire computing device.                A tagged architecture is a hardware architecture where each memory word/block is divided into a "data" section and a "tag" section. The data section is sufficiently large to contain a memory address and the tag section contains metadata associated with the data stored in the data section, the tag section is used to describe how the data section is to be interpreted (that is, how it encodes the type of the data). Accordingly, tagged architectures greatly simplify the implementation of a memory manager because each word of memory is self-describing/self-identifying. Recent works on memory tagged architectures can be found in "J. Woodruff et al., 'The CHERI Capability model: Revisiting RISC in an age of risk', In the Proceedings of the 41st Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture, pages 457-468, USA, 2014".
Existing software protections enable a partial protection of computing devices and provide in general a limited software analysis (for example by protecting sensitive data partially, and providing no runtime protection) and are in general demanding in terms of memory and processing resources. Hardware protections are costly, with limited evolution capabilities and generally require modifications of the processor architecture.
There is accordingly a need for methods and systems for securing computing devices against cyber attacks, in particular against memory-based attacks.

Devices and methods for secured processors

Abstract: the processor cache being configured to access data and/or instructions comprised in the programs executed by the processor, the computing device comprising:

Abstract: an auxiliary cache configured to access metadata associated with the data and/or instructions comprised in said programs;        a security verification unit configured to retrieve, from the auxiliary cache, at least a part of the metadata associated with data and/or instructions corresponding to a memory access request sent by a processor (11) to the processor cache (117).


The present invention is directed to a process for the production of polyaluminum chlorides and polyaluminum chlorosulfates useful as coagulants in water treatment. In addition, the invention is directed to the products made by the disclosed processes.

Polyaluminum chlorides and polyaluminum chlorosulfates are compounds used as flocculents and coagulants for water and wastewater treatment. Compared with other inorganic purification agents, these compounds generally work more efficiently, produce less by-product sludge, work better in cold water, settle faster and reduce the pH of water to a lesser extent. The compounds are also used in the production of paper, antiperspirants, foods and pharmaceuticals.
A number of processes have been designed for producing polyaluminum chlorides and polyaluminum chlorosulfates with characteristics favorable for water treatment. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,246,686 discloses a process in which basic aluminum chlorosulfate is reacted with an alkaline-earth metal compound (e.g., calcium carbonate) to produce high basicity polyaluminum chlorosulfates. One drawback of this reaction is that it results in the formation of insoluble alkaline-earth sulfates (e.g., gypsum) which must be removed from product solutions by processes such as filtration or centrifugation. This makes the reaction undesirable in high volume industrial operations. Similar problems involving the formation of precipitates have been encountered in processes involving the reaction of aluminum sulfate with a slurry of calcium carbonate and calcium chloride (see e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,981,673 or U.S. Pat. No. 5,076,940).
A process which avoids the formation of gypsum-type precipitates is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,721. The disclosed method requires the initial production of a polyaluminum chloro-sulfate of relatively high basicity (40-50%). This is then reacted with an alkaline-earth metal compound (e.g., calcium carbonate) and an alkaline-metal compound (sodium carbonate) at a temperature of 50 to 70 degrees centigrade. Reactions performed at lower temperatures (40 degrees centigrade) result in a product that coalesces into a gel. One problem with this process is that the generation of CO.sub.2 may cause processing problems when reactions are performed on a large scale. Nevertheless, it appears that this is the only reported process which is capable of making polyaluminum chlorosulfates of greater than 67% basicity and a preparation which is 75.3% basic is disclosed in the patent specification. Because of the chemistry involved, all products are produced using substantial amounts of calcium carbonate.
An alternative process is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,929,666. In this patent, a solution containing sulfate ions is mixed with a solution containing both aluminum ions and halide ions and with a solution containing sodium or potassium aluminate. The reaction is carried out at a temperature of 40 degrees centigrade or less and produces a gel which must then be dissolved by raising its temperature to between 50 and 80 degrees centigrade. Because of the difficulty in efficiently pumping gels from one location to another and because of the problems which gels present in terms of mixing and heat transfer, the process disclosed in this patent is of limited value in large scale industrial applications.
The present invention is directed to a process which avoids many of the problems associated with previously disclosed methods. It can be used to produce compounds with basicities of greater than 70% using, as starting material, basic aluminum chlorides and basic aluminum chlorosulfates of low basicity (25% or less). The polyaluminum chlorides and polyaluminum chlorosulfates produced remain fluid, i.e. they do not coalesce into a gel, and the formation of calcium sulfate precipitates can be avoided. Further, they can be produced without the addition of heat, thus avoiding the formation of undesirable byproducts. As a result, the process is particularly well-suited to large scale industrial applications.
In addition, the process permits the formation of products with unique properties that are also part of the invention. Polyaluminum chlorosulfates can be produced which are greater than 75.3% basic and preparations of greater than 70% basicity can be produced without substantial amounts of calcium carbonate. In addition, concentrated preparations of high basicity polyaluminum chlorides and polyaluminum chlorosulfates can be obtained which contain Al.sub.13, the form of aluminum generally believed to be the most efficient at removing impurities from water.

Polyaluminum chlorides and polyaluminum chlorosulfates methods and compositions


A cutting insert according to an aspect of the present invention is provided with two opposite first surfaces, and a peripheral surface extending between the two first surfaces. A first cutting edge is formed on an edge of one first surface of the two first surfaces. A rake surface associated with the first cutting edge extends on the one first surface. A second cutting edge is formed on an edge of one second surface of two opposite second surfaces in the peripheral surface. A rake surface associated with the second cutting edge extends on the one second surface. The second cutting edge has a different function from the first cutting edge.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cutting insert detachably mounted on an indexable cutting tool body, and a cutting tool which can detachably mount the cutting insert.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, for example, there are some cases where in a groove formed by processing using a rotary cutting tool, finishing processing is performed to side wall surfaces at both sides of the groove. For performing such two kinds of processing, that is, roughing processing and finishing processing of the groove, two kinds of rotary cutting tools are generally used. In addition, in a case of performing such two kinds of processing by using a single rotary cutting tool alone, two or more of processing processes shifted in processing positions are required. For such two kinds of processing, conventionally two rotary cutting tools each having a different processing width for roughing processing and finishing processing of the groove are used or for performing the finishing processing by a single rotary cutting tool used in the roughing processing of the groove, the single rotary cutting tool is moved relatively to a side wall surface of the groove after the roughing processing.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-38517 shows an example of a conventional cutting insert and rotary cutting tool which can perform groove processing. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-38517 discloses a side cutter as the rotary cutting tool applied to the groove processing. The cutting insert used in the rotary cutting tool is formed in a substantially rectangular plate shape, and includes an upper surface and a lower surface as two opposite surfaces, each having a rectangular shape, and outer side surfaces each having a trapezoidal shape. The cutting insert is formed in such a manner that a pair of outer side surfaces among the four outer side surfaces form rake surfaces, and the other pair of outer side surfaces and the upper surface form relief surfaces. A cutting edge is formed in the edge of the outer side surface as the rake surface. The cutting insert having such a shape is mounted on each of insert mounting seats alternately formed in both end surface sides of the tool main body, that is, the tool body by a screw penetrating through the upper and lower surfaces to use the lower surface as a seating surface. That is, since the cutting insert has a cutting edge in the right side and a cutting edge in the left side as the insert is viewed from the edge tip thereof, the cutting insert is a right hand insert, as well as a left hand insert.
The cutting insert disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-38517 has the right-side cutting edge and the left-side cutting edge, as described above. However, these cutting edges are cutting edges used for the same kind of processing. Therefore in the cutting insert and the cutting tool disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-38517, a plurality of cutting tools are still required or a plurality of processing processes by a single cutting tool are still required to perform roughing processing and finishing processing of the groove.


A system for providing credential activation layered security is disclosed. In particular, the system adds a layer of additional security at ingress and egress points of a location, such as a building. When a user attempts to check in at the location, the user may provide a proof of physical presence, a proof of digital presence, or a combination thereof, such as at a device at the location. In order to activate a credential for accessing physical and/or logical access control systems of the location, the system may authenticate the proof of physical presence, the proof of digital presence, or both. If the system authenticates the user, the user may be checked-in and the credential may be activated so that the user may access the physical and/or logical access control systems of the location so as to gain access to the ingress point or exit via the egress point.

In today's society, unauthorized access of buildings, computing systems, and computing networks is an ever-increasing problem, particularly considering the ever-increasing reliance of businesses on computing systems and networks to conduct day-to-day business. Such unauthorized access often leads to substantial data breaches, loss of privacy, data theft and espionage, losses in customers, losses in profits, lawsuits, and a myriad of other negative consequences. While many businesses employ the use of firewall systems, anti-hacking software, and building access control mechanisms to combat unauthorized access and intrusions, such existing technologies are often inefficient and incomplete methods of thwarting such unauthorized access. For example, proximity cards have been utilized by businesses as a primary secure access control method to enable individuals to obtain privileged access to critical infrastructure and manufacturing facilities for over two decades. Nevertheless, serious vulnerabilities in proximity cards have been identified and confirmed. In particular, it has been proven that a hacker within close range of a proximity card or badge of another user can easily extract the unique card number and encryption key wirelessly. The hacker can then use the unique card number and encryption key to read and clone any proximity cards that are in use.
While proximity cards are supposed to be utilized as the digital keys and secure credentials for access control systems that are deployed to secure doors and/or other ingress points of a building, the fact that hackers with hidden off-the-shelf proximity card readers can readily read and clone proximity cards within wireless range of such readers is of serious concern. For example, such hackers can readily use cloned proximity cards to discreetly obtain physical access to critical physical and computing infrastructure without being noticed, such as by utilizing hacking kits that are available online. As another example, hackers may utilize key copying kiosks that are installed at multitudes of retail stores that have the capabilities to clone a proximity card. Online services have also emerged that allow individuals to clone an existing card at a nominal cost. As a result, the very systems that were designed and placed primarily for secure access provisioning for a business have become a large threat themselves. While businesses often attempt to upgrade their systems and infrastructure, the cost of upgrading is often prohibitively high from monetary, labor, and time standpoints. Additionally, certain businesses have employed the use of biometrics and username/password combinations to further secure their physical structures and computing systems. Nevertheless, currently existing biometric systems and password-based systems are also considered to be vulnerable to hacks, and confidential data can be readily stolen and reused. For example, if a proximity card and/or password is comprised, it can be easily deleted from a business's computing system and a compromised user may be issued a new proximity card and/or password, however, if a biometric template is compromised, the authorized user cannot change his or her biometric features because the biometric features are unique to that specific authorized user. Another hurdle to securing existing access control systems with currently existing biometric technologies is that users do not have access and control over their individual biometric templates, which are considered to be personally-identifiable information. A further hurdle is that current forms of access control often do not comply with compliance requirements of the relevant industry of a business, its customers, and/or the buildings themselves.
While current technologies provide for many benefits and efficiencies, current technologies, such as currently existing proximity card and biometric systems, still have many shortcomings. In particular, current versions of such technologies often provide limited ways in which to authenticate users into various systems and networks associated with a business. Additionally, the threat and impact made possible through the exploitation of vulnerabilities of existing technologies is potentially catastrophic to businesses since malicious individuals can readily gain access to a building, steal intellectual property or assets, or even access digital assets internally without the need of hacking a firewall. As a result, current methodologies and technologies associated with authenticating users into various types of access control systems may be modified and/or enhanced so as to provide enhanced security and quality-of-service for users and businesses. Such enhancements and improvements to methodologies and technologies may provide for improved customer satisfaction, increased privacy, increased compliance, reduced incidence of data breaches, reduced costs, and increased ease-of-use.

System and method for providing credential activation layered security


In order to improve seating comfort and vibration absorbency, a structure including a first torsion bar unit 70 disposed in the rear of a seat cushion, and a second torsion bar unit 80 disposed in the front of the seat cushion, and a base net 60 stretched between a rear supporting frame 74 of the first torsion bar unit 70 and a front supporting frame 84 of the second torsion bar unit 80, is provided. Owing to the elastic force of a front torsion bar 81 of the second torsion bar unit 80 positioned in the front of the seat, a sense of stroke at the time of seating is enhanced. Owing to the elastic force of a rear torsion bar 71 of the first torsion bar unit 70 positioned in the rear of the seat, similarly to the conventional structure, a load of a seated person can be sufficiently received and a stable seating comfort can be obtained. Since both the first torsion bar unit 70 and the second torsion bar unit 80 work together to dampen vibration inputted during driving, vibration absorbency is more enhanced than ever.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a base net supporting mechanism for a seat cushion used in a seat structure formed by stretching across a cushioning member over a seat frame and a seat structure containing the base net supporting mechanism for a seat cushion, and in particular relates to a base net supporting mechanism for a seat cushion suitable for a transportation machine such as a plane, a train, a ship, a forklift, a motor vehicle and so on and a seat structure containing the base net supporting mechanism for a seat cushion.
2. Description of the Related Art
A seat structure formed by stretching a cushioning member such as a solid knitted fabric (a three-dimensional net member) across a seat frame is disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 5. When forming a cushioning member stretching across a seat frame in this manner, in order to enhance preventability of bottom-touch, vibration absorbency, impact absorbency, a base net made of cloth such as a solid knitted fabric, a two-dimensional cloth and the like is provided below the above-described cushioning member via an elastic member. In all of the Patent Documents 1 to 5, a torsion bar unit including a torsion bar, an arm connected to the torsion bar, and rotatably supported by the torsion bar as a fulcrum, and a supporting frame supported by the arm, is disposed in the rear of a seat, and the base net is elastically supported by connecting the rear end of the base net to the supporting frame. Note that the front end of the base net is fixed to a front frame composing the seat frame.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-open 2004-347577
[Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Application Laid-open 2003-182427
[Patent Document 3] Japanese Patent Application Laid-open 2004-188164
[Patent Document 4] Japanese Patent Application Laid-open 2004-141545
[Patent Document 5] International Patent Publication WO 2004/007238A1
In the technology disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 5, by elastically supporting a base net with a torsion bar, it is possible to achieve improvement of vibration absorbency as described above without bringing a feeling of something foreign to users despite a fact that by using thinner material compared with urethane material generally used in a prior art as a cushioning member for a car seat or the like, a hip point (H. P.) is lowered by about 10 mm compared with using the urethane urethane. However, in all the technology described above, a torsion bar is disposed in the rear of the seat cushion, and the front end of the base net is fixed. In particular, a structure disposing arms and a supporting frame connected to a torsion bar on the rear tilting upper side is excellent in vibration absorbency, but gives a feeling of the buttocks or the pelvis being pushed from behind when seating due to pulling the rear end of the base net in a rearward and upward-tilting direction, or gives a sense of so-called seating on a hammock. Then, the sense of seating on a hammock is eliminated by taking a countermeasure such as lying urethane material under the buttocks, the urethane material having a thickness of about 20 mm and being enhanced in facial rigidity by impregnating felt into the urethane. Disposition of another urethane material in the front of the seat, and at the same time, disposition of an auxiliary net to prevent forward displacement of the buttocks under the base net are carried out, but it is also necessary to lay still another net or a plastic board or the like between the front urethane and the auxiliary net in order to ensure a supporting surface with no fluctuation in body pressure distribution (surface having a sense of continuous support) because a force to push up from rear by the torsion bar works. Moreover, since the front end is fixed, a force of the leg is received at the time of pedal operation, and the counter force thereof is perceived as a sense of hitting on the front end of the seat. Furthermore, since urethane material used at the front part of the seat has a feeling of springiness relatively hard, it sometimes lacks a sense of stroke.

Base net supporting mechanism for seat and seat structure thereof


An apparatus for holding and arranging threads in surgical operations with a flexible structure being in a ring form, connecting straight linear forms or divided linear forms, with flexible metal inserted within foaming material. V shape ditches are cut on the upper portion, and the base has adhesiveness. Affordable and simple manufacturing method is established with extrusion molding process or heat press molding process, after which extrusion cut process is conducted with the mold. Labor within hospitals can be reduced, by providing an affordable apparatus which prevents the threads from being damaged, also solving the concern of tissue damage due to thread tension, as the threads are accurately held and arranged without any mixing up with neighboring threads, and the apparatus size, the fixing position of the apparatus, and the operating tissue area can be adjusted at the surgeon's will.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus for temporarily holding and arranging surgical threads utilized during surgical operations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, the end of a thread is either directly held with non-hook forceps such as Péan's forceps or mosquito forceps, or by holding the thread after placing short cut pieces of rubber tubes such as Nelaton on the tip of forceps to protect the thread.

Apparatus for holding and arranging threads in surgical operations


A cut and seal unit for sheet material, wherein an actuating unit has a single powered input, and two identical output transmissions linked to each other and to the input; the two output transmissions are connected to respective cut and seal tools, which are moved by the actuating unit along respective substantially ellipsoidal trajectories on either side of a path of the sheet material extending through the two trajectories, and cooperate cyclically with each other at a cut and seal station along the path to transversely cut and seal the sheet material.

The present invention relates to a cut and seal unit for sheet material.
More specifically, the present invention may be used to advantage in the food packing industry, to which the following description refers purely by way of example.
In the food packing industry, so-called "form, fill and seal" packaging machines are used wherein an orderly succession of products, equally spaced inside a tubular package, is fed continuously along a path extending through a cut and seal station equipped with a cut and seal unit for transversely cutting and sealing the tubular package to form a succession of airtight pillow packs, each containing a respective product.
The cut and seal unit normally comprises at least two cut and seal tools movable along respective annular trajectories on either side of the path of the tubular package, and which cooperate cyclically with each other to cut and seal the tubular package; and, for each tool, a respective actuating device for moving the respective tool along the respective annular trajectory independently from the other actuating device.
More specifically, each actuating device is normally defined by a cam-tappet device comprising an annular cam, and a tappet roller positively engaging the cam and connected to the respective tool to move the tool along the respective trajectory and through the cut and seal station in time with the other tool.
Though fairly effective, the above known cut and seal unit involves several drawbacks impairing both reliability and performance of the unit. That is, friction between the tappet rollers and respective cams prevents the attainment of high steady-state operating speeds; friction-induced wear of the mechanical components and the different response to such wear by the two cam-tappet devices eventually result in differing operation of the tools and a gradual reduction in cut and seal precision and quality; and, finally, high operating speeds are also prevented by the high degree of acceleration and inertia of the unit itself.

Azionaria Costruzioni Macchine Automatiche A.C.M.A. S.p.A.


There is provided an apparatus for plating a substrate as an object to be plated. The apparatus comprises an anode and a thief tunnel arranged to be located between the substrate and the anode when the substrate is placed to be opposed to the anode. The thief tunnel comprises a body placed away from the substrate and provided with an opening; a plurality of auxiliary electrodes provided in or to the body; and an ion exchange membrane configured to protect the auxiliary electrodes from a plating solution. The plurality of auxiliary electrodes are arranged along a circumference of the opening. At least one of the auxiliary electrodes is configured such that a voltage to be applied to the at least one of the auxiliary electrodes is controlled independently of a voltage to be applied to one or more auxiliary electrodes other than the at least one of the auxiliary electrodes.

A conventional procedure forms wiring in a fine groove for wiring, a fine hole or a fine resist opening provided on a surface of a semiconductor wafer or the like and forms a bump (projected electrode) on the surface of the semiconductor wafer or the like to be electrically connected with an electrode or the like of a package. Known methods employed to form the wiring and the bump include, for example, an electroplating method, a deposition method, a printing method, and a ball bump method. The electroplating method that allows for miniaturization and has relatively stable performance has been used widely, accompanied with a recent increase in the I/O number of a semiconductor chip and a recent pitch miniaturization.
Such an electroplating apparatus has been used to plate large-sized angular substrates with a view to enhancing the cost effectiveness. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2018-040045 (Patent Document 1) describes a configuration of a substrate holder to hold such an angular substrate and soak the angular substrate in a plating solution. Japanese Patent Application No. 2018-079388 (Patent Document 2) describes a configuration of a substrate holder for plating to bring a plurality of electric contacts into contact with a peripheral portion of an angular substrate to supply electric power. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2017-043815 (Patent Document 3) describes a plating apparatus configured to supply electric currents of different intensities according to areas (a side center area, a side intermediate area, and a corner area) from a plurality of electric contacts of a substrate holder to a peripheral portion of an angular substrate. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2019-014955 (Patent Document 4) describes a configuration that a demountable shielding member is provided at a regulation plate, an anode holder and an opening of a substrate holder placed in a plating tank.


An image reading apparatus having a memory to store therein image data acquired by reading an original is provided. In a regular reading mode, the memory is divided into a first buffer that stores therein first image data of an image of a first side of the original and a second buffer that stores therein second image data of an image of a second side of the original. In a ring buffer mode, only the first image data is stored in the first buffer and the second buffer in a seamless manner, and the first image data stored in the buffers is output from the buffers to an image processing unit through an output path in a parallel manner. When a size of an original to be read is larger than a predetermined size, reading is performed in the ring buffer mode.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a technology related to temporarily storing of read image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image reading apparatuses that can read images of two sides of an original simultaneously are known in the art. Such image reading apparatuses typically have a memory and temporarily store read image data in the memory before outputting the image data. Such image reading apparatuses have been disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-295546, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-081687, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-242917.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-295546 teaches using a read-page memory area for storing therein scanned image data of an original and an output-page memory area for storing therein image data to be output. When images of two sides of a two-sided original are to be read, image data of a first side of the original is stored in the read-page memory area whereas image data of a second side is stored in the output-page memory area.
The technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-081687 is directed to an image reading apparatus that is connected to an external apparatus and is capable of reading an image of a first side of an original and that of a second side at one time. The image reading apparatus includes an image sensor, an analog-digital (A/D) converter, an image processing unit, a parameter setting unit, and a communication unit. Images acquired by reading two sides of a two-sided original are converted into electric image signals by the image sensor. The electric image signals are converted into digital signals by the A/D converter, and then subjected to digital signal processing by the image processing unit. The processed digital image data is sent to the external apparatus by the communication unit. When reading images of two sides of an original at one time, an image of a first side of the original and that of a second side are read differently according to corresponding reading-related parameters that have been determined by a user on a side-by-side basis in advance.
The technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-242917 is directed to an image reading apparatus that includes a storage device. The storage device includes a primary storage unit for temporarily storing therein image data of at least one image and a secondary storage unit for storing therein the image data temporarily stored in the primary storage unit. The image reading apparatus is connectable to a two-sided original reading apparatus that is capable of reading an image of a first side of a two-sided original and that of a second side simultaneously. The image reading apparatus includes a data transfer unit and a data-transfer-rate determining unit. The data transfer unit is capable of transferring image data of the two images, i.e., the image of the first side and that of the second side, substantially simultaneously to the storage device. The data-transfer-rate determining unit determines a transfer rate for the image data of the first side and a transfer rate for the image data of the second side. When transferring these two sets of the image data acquired by the two-sided original reading apparatus to the storage device, the image data are transferred at the transfer rates determined by the data-transfer-rate determining unit.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-295546, a typical image reading apparatus capable of reading images of two sides of a two-sided original includes a memory for temporarily storing image data therein for a reading mechanism (scanner). Even when images of two sides of an original are read by the image reading apparatus simultaneously to acquire image data of the two images, it is necessary to transfer the image data on a side-by-side basis to a controller. When the image data is to be subjected to image processing, the image processing is also performed on the image data on a side-by-side basis. To adjust timing related to the transfer or the image processing, system control of temporarily storing the image data in the memory or the like is performed. With the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-295546, even when an image of an original that is longer than a predetermined size is read and image data, which is therefore large in size, is acquired, all the image data is temporarily stored in such a memory of the scanner. After all the image data has been stored in the memory, the image data is transferred to the controller. If the size of the image data is larger than the capacity of the memory, the image data will be damaged. One approach could be to use a sufficiently large memory; however, a larger memory is disadvantageously expensive.

Image reading apparatus and image reading method


A syslog message routing system can include multiple syslog sources, a syslog message routing module, and multiple syslog parsers. The syslog message routing module can receive a syslog message from one of the syslog sources, identify a particular syslog parser to handle the syslog message, and send the syslog message to the selected syslog parser. The syslog message routing module can identify the syslog parser by applying at least one of an application ID-based policy, a unique pattern matching rule policy, and a universal syslog parser policy.

Syslog is a standardized logging format/protocol that is generally used in a wide variety of devices and operating systems to log events related to computer system management and security auditing. Syslog is a client/server protocol that usually includes a syslog sender sending a syslog message to a syslog receiver within an IP network. A typical syslog message is a small (i.e., less than 1 kilobyte) text message. The syslog protocol is generally supported by a wide variety of devices and receivers across multiple platforms and is often used to integrate log data from virtually any number of systems into a single data repository.
Syslog has become standardized within the syslog working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). In 2001, the IETF published Request for Comments no. 3164 ("RFC 3164"), which is publicly available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3164.txt. For UNIX and Linux systems, syslog is practically the de facto standard for such logging. Syslog is also commonly used in routers and firewalls.
Regulations driven by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and many others typically require organizations to implement systems that can collect and analyze logs from many different sources. Because of the wide use of syslog by many different kinds of devices and operating systems, log management systems must be capable of efficiently consuming, correlating, and analyzing syslog messages in order to be a viable solution in the marketplace.
One reason for syslog's popularity is its flexibility. For example, a typical syslog message is simply a text message having a header and a message body. However, because there is no widely accepted standard for the content or syntax of a syslog message body, there are at least as many variations of a syslog message body as there are devices configured to output syslog messages. This presents a significant challenge to companies that structure their products to provide log analysis and reporting capabilities. These products must be prepared to parse a myriad of formats in order to extract relevant event data and store it in a database in normalized form where it can be analyzed, correlated, reported, etc.

Syslog message routing systems and methods


A spinal probe comprises a handle, a shaft coupled to the handle and a force sensor to detect forces applied to a tip of the shaft. A controller that executes a predictive algorithm to predict whether or not the tip of the shaft is going to breach a cortex of a pedicle based on the detected forces. The controller may be embedded within the spinal probe or external within a computer or other device coupled to the probe by a data acquisition component.

When an orthopedic surgeon performs spinal surgery involving vertebral fixation, the surgeon typically uses a pedicle awl or drill in a predrilling process to form a pilot hole in a patient's vertebrae. The surgeon then inserts pedicle screws during a screw placement process for placement of stabilization rods or plates so as to fuse two or more of the vertebrae. During this process an orthopedic surgeon typically depends on a thorough understanding of the spine's anatomy as well as an acquired knowledge of tactile feedback in order to successfully prepare the vertebra for the insertion of pedicle screws. However, due to the nature of the surgery, complications often arise that result in injury to the patient.
For example, several reports have been published describing complications associated with insertions of pedicle screws. Typically, screw misplacement includes inferior, lateral, superior, and medial breaches. Even the smallest directional error in the pedicle screw placement procedure can result in a significant error in the position of the tip of the screw. Bone disorders, such as scoliosis or osteoporosis, further complicate the procedure and lead to screw misplacement. Further, as the spine ascends, each vertebra becomes anatomically smaller. The variability in pedicle dimensions makes pedicle screw insertion a delicate operation with the potential for catastrophe. These catastrophes include breaching the cortex with either the pedicle awl in the predrilling process or with the pedicle screw during the screw placement process. An additional source of failure is when a pedicle screw breaks within the bone.
Common complications arising from misplaced pedicle screws include vascular and visceral injuries. Vascular and visceral injuries can include trauma to the aorta, vertebral arteries, azygos vein, esophagus, and lung. In addition, neurological complications may arise including injury to the spinal cord and nerve roots. These injuries can be as severe as complete paralysis to mild paresis. Neurological complications in the lumbar and lower thoracic spine typically cause paresis below the waist while complications in the cervical spine may cause paresis in the arms as well as the legs.
As another example, there are many critical structures within the thoracic cavity which make pedicle placement in the thoracic spine difficult. Critical tissues that a misplaced pedicle may come into contact with include the lung, azygos vein, the esophagus, and the aorta.
One obstacle facing physicians placing pedicles is the lack of visualization. The amount of tissue obstructing the view of the spine makes the placement of pedicles screws difficult simply because it is difficult to see the pedicle. Furthermore, the complex three-dimensional anatomy of the pedicle further complicates the process. Inter-patient variability, especially in diseased spines such as scoliosis, has resulted in imprecise placement of pedicle screws when surgeons rely on anatomic landmarks alone. In response to the need for better visualization, many companies have developed visualizations suites that help surgeons predict their trajectory when placing pedicle screws.
There are several medical device companies that have developed image guidance visualization systems for assisting in the placement of pedicle screws. In general, the systems acquire a medical image preoperatively and co-register the image with a motion capture system that reacts to the movement during the surgical process. The result is an intraoperative visualization system that depicts the pedicle screw in registration with anatomy that would not otherwise be seen during surgery.
There is no doubt that image guided visualization has helped spinal surgeons more effectively place pedicle screws. However, any breach of the cortex due to a misplaced pedicles screw is unacceptable and even with image guidance, errors are still prevalent in pedicle screw procedures. Furthermore, the systems themselves are not error free. Errors within the image guidance systems themselves could include surface generation errors, errors in fixing of the tracking devices to the patient, intraoperative data noise, registration errors, and inaccuracy of surgical probes. Therefore, surgeons understand that image guidance systems are not a substitute for skill and expertise.

Spinal probe with tactile force feedback and pedicle breach prediction


A user interface is provided wherein a set of items is displayed as a set of item representations (such as icons or thumbnails), and wherein a filtered subset of those items are visually identified in accordance with a user-defined criterion. All of the item representations are displayed on the screen in some form, regardless of which of the items have been filtered out. Further, the item representations may be displayed in various formats such as collected together in arrays or carousels as appropriate. This may allow the user interface to visually distinguish between those items that have been filtered out and those that are considered relevant.

Current computer operating systems contain files that are organized into a set of folders. Any item in an operating system resides in only one folder. Such an architecture imposes burdensome restrictions on users who want to organize their files in more flexible ways. Many operating systems are now beginning to be developed that allow users to organize their files in accordance with richer properties so that users can, for example, quickly see all files created by a particular author or all pictures taken on a specific date, regardless of which folders the files are be located in.
When presented with a large number of files at once, it may be desirable to be able to filter those files so that a reduced subset of the those files will be presented that are hopefully more relevant to the user. The concept of filtering differs from the concept of searching. In filtering, one typically begins with a known population of files and narrows that population down to a subset that is hopefully easier to manage. For example, a user might easily have thousands of documents on their computer's hard drive, and filtering would be desirable in this case to narrow that set down to the relative few that the user is likely to be interested in. On the other hand, in searching, one typically begins with the idea that there is no population, but that a result population will be formed based on the search criteria.
One of the problems with filtering is communicating to the user a context of the filtering. In other words, after filtering, the user does not know which set of files the user started with as compared with the files that have been subsequently filtered. In many filtering systems, the filtered-out files simply disappear from the screen, making it difficult for the user to see what proportion of items they are left with from the whole, or what context those items were in before they were filtered.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


Computer-implemented techniques for enhanced tagging of natural language queries that are initially segmented and tagged by a named entity recognition system. By doing so, enhanced tagging of a natural language query that represents a deeper understanding of the query is provided. The enhanced tagging improves the operation of search engines that use the enhanced tags by enabling the search engine to identify and return more relevant search results in answers to natural language queries.

Computers are very powerful tools for performing a wide-variety of data processing tasks. One data processing task computers are very useful for is searching for relevant information among a corpus of information. Inverted indexes are common mechanism for efficiently identifying information of interest among a corpus using a computer. A typical inverted index is a mapping of keywords to the information items in the corpus that contain or are associated with the key. As one example, an inverted index of the world's publicly accessible web pages may map keywords and keyphrases in the web pages to the subset of the web pages that contain that keyword or keyphrase.
Between the actual physical inverted index itself (e.g., the index data as stored on one or more computers) and the users of the system, a search system or "engine" is typically provided as a software cushion or layer. In essence, the search engine shields the user from knowing or even caring about underlying search engine details. Typically, all requests from users for information in the inverted index are processed by the search engine. For example, information items relevant to a user's request for information can be identified by the search engine using the inverted index, all without user knowledge of the underlying search system implementation. In this manner, the search engine provides users access to relevant information without concern to how the information is indexed or accessed.
One function of a search engine can be to answer to keyword search queries (or just "keyword queries" for short). A keyword query may be defined as a logical expression including a set of one or more search keywords and/or one or more keyphrases, and results in the identification of a subset of indexed information items. Consider, for instance, the handling of a request for information from a search engine. In operation, this request is typically issued by a client system as one or more Hyper Text Transfer Protocol or "HTTP" requests for retrieving particular search results (e.g., a list of Internet web pages containing the words "software" and "engineer") from indexes on server computers. In response to this request, the search engine typically returns a web page containing hyperlinks to those Internet web pages considered to be most relevant to the search terms "software" and "engineer".
Some search engines can answer search queries that express an information need more naturally. These queries are sometimes loosely referred to as "natural language" queries. While there is no precise definition of a natural language query, search engines typically process natural language queries differently from keyword queries. In particular, search engines that process natural language queries typically apply machine learning-based structured prediction techniques to them in order to obtain an understanding of the information need being asked by the query that is deeper understanding than merely understanding (e.g., parsing out) the keywords and keyphrases contained in the query.
Named entity recognition is one structured prediction technique that a search engine can apply to a natural language query in order to obtain an understanding of the query. One example technique for performing named entity recognition that uses conditional random field sequence models is described in the paper by Jenny Rose Finkel, Trond Grenager, and Christopher Manning. 2005. Incorporating Non-local Information into Information Extraction Systems by Gibbs Sampling. Proceedings of the 43nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2005), pp. 363-370.
With named entity recognition, a search engine may accept an unannotated natural language query as input such as, for example, "software engineer at Acme in 2015," and produce an annotated query as output such as, for example, "[software engineer]job title at [Acme]company in [2015]time." In this example, as a result of the search engine applying named entity recognition techniques, the query segment "software engineer" is recognized by the search engine as a job title, the query segment "Acme" is recognized by the search engine as a company, and the query segment "2015" is recognized by the search engine as a time.
Using named entity recognition, a search engine can obtain a better understanding of a natural language query and use that better understanding to answer the query with more relevant search results. Returning to the example in previous paragraph, recognizing the segment "software engineer" refers to a job title, "Acme" refers to a company, and "2015" refers to a time, a search engine can identify and return specific search results about specific people with the title of software engineer who worked at Acme in the year 2015, as opposed to returning general search results merely because they are indexed in inverted index by "software engineer," "Acme," and "2015," which might include search results that are not about specific persons who worked as software engineers at Acme in 2015 depending on the information indexed by the index.
While named entity recognition is a very powerful technique for obtaining an understanding of the information needs requested by natural language queries, there are, in some instances, limitations on the extent of the understanding obtained. For example, consider the following two example natural language queries:
1. "people working at Acme"
2. "people with experience in Acme."
The first example natural language query is asking the search engine to find people who work at Acme the software company. The second example natural language query is asking the search engine to find people who have experience with Acme software. For example, Acme the company may produce a complex software product that people summarily refer to as "Acme." In order for the search engine to return the most relevant search results as answers to these natural language queries, it would be useful if the search engine could apply a structured prediction technology that would help the search engine understand that the first query refers to "Acme" as a company and the second query refers to "Acme" as a skill. By doing so, the search engine can return search results for the first query that identify people who work at Acme, the company, and return search results for the second query that identify people who have experience with Acme, the software product. More generally, it would be useful if the search engine could obtain an even deeper understanding of natural language queries so that even more relevant search results can be provided as answers to the queries.
The present invention addresses these and other issues.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art, or are well understood, routine, or conventional, merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.

Enhanced natural language query segment tagging


A method, system and computer-usable medium are disclosed for providing information related to a user address as used in a communication session. A tag processing module is implemented for processing tags related to a user. A first user selects a second user to receive a message to initiate a communication session. The message recipient's tags, along with their preferred communication method(s) are displayed within the message sender's messaging client. The message sender then composes and sends a message to the message recipient, using the message recipient's preferred method of communication. The message is received by the message recipient and the message sender's tags are displayed within the message recipient's messaging client. If the message recipient decides to respond to the message, then a communication session is conducted. Once the communications session is ended, a linguistic analysis of the communication session is performed by the tag processing module. The message sender's tags are then updated.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the disclosure relate in general to the field of computers and similar technologies, and in particular to software utilized in this field. Still more particularly, it relates to a method, system and computer-usable medium for providing information related to a user address as used in a communication session.
2. Description of the Related Art
The widespread adoption of communication technologies such as the Internet and wirelessly-enabled mobile devices now allows workers to communicate with each other from practically anywhere at practically any time. These technologies, which include electronic mail, instant messaging, short messaging service (SMS) messages, wireless voice, and even peer-to-peer video, often contribute to increased productivity. However, their ubiquity and ease of use also provide the opportunity for unplanned interruptions, which may offset any gains in productivity. For some, the level of interruptions in day-to-day life, both professionally and personally, has increased dramatically. As a result, there are times when individuals do not wish to be interrupted except under certain circumstances.
In addition, it is now becoming common for individuals to be given a tag by others in social networking systems. These tags are often used to alert others regarding the individual's skills or areas of interest. This can lead to issues when the individual is repetitively contacted due to their assigned tag. In many cases there is no way the individual can respond to every request or the request comes at an inconvenient time. Another issue is the emotional tone used by some individuals in the course of their communication with others. As an example, an individual may request information in a very demanding way and respond negatively to answers they disagree with. Such experiences can not only be distracting, but counter-productive and demoralizing, especially if they are not expected.
Current approaches to this issue include filters for electronic mail messages and instant messaging sessions, as well as caller identifiers for voice communication. However these approaches are limited in that they are often static or reflect data that may not be consistent with the user's needs. Said another way, they may not offer the flexibility or level of detail for a user to adequately control do-not-disturb messages, email filtering rules, or management of voice mails. As a result, it is often difficult to pre-empt potentially disruptive or contentious communications until a more suitable time or communication venue.

Generating context aware data and conversation's mood level to determine the best method of communication

International Business Machines Corporation


A filtration device is equipped with: a filtration tank; a layer of particulate filtration media within the filtration tank; a cleansing tank, which is vertically placed within the filtration tank and which has an opening at the lower end thereof; and a screw conveyor for cleansing the filtration media, which is provided within the cleansing tank. The screw conveyor has a shaft, which is suspended within the filtration tank from above. The upper portion of the shaft is driven, and the lower portion of the shaft is supported by an axial support section, which is fixed to the lower portion of the cleansing tank. The axial support section is equipped with a frictional wear compensating mechanism at a portion thereof at which the shaft and the axial support section contact each other.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a filtration device that utilizes filtration media, such as activated carbon, to filter liquids, such as water. Particularly, the present invention relates to a filtration device that rotates a built in screw conveyor to cleanse the filtration media, in order to recover adsorption functions and filtration functions of the filtration media.
2. Description of the Related Art
If filtration devices are utilized for long periods of time, filtration media (filtration sand, activated carbon, and the like) within filtration tanks of the filtration devices become clogged. This prevents the performance of efficient filtration, and deteriorates the quality of filtered liquids, such as water. For this reason, clogging is eliminated by removing contaminants, which are attached to the filtration media. In order to perform operations efficiently, it is desirable that the process of removing the contaminants from the filtration media, that is, a cleansing process, be performed in a short amount of time with few steps. It is also desirable that the cleansing process be performed without taking up additional space. For these reasons, filtration sand cleansing devices (filtration media cleansing mechanisms) provided within filtration tanks have been considered. The provision of cleansing mechanisms within filtration tanks would enable efficient cleansing of filtration media in a short amount of time, without removing the filtration media from within the filtration tanks.
There are known filtration devices, as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Publication No. 63(1988)-98704, which have been developed in view of these points.
The filtration device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Utility model Publication No. 63-98704 comprises an elevating pipe (cleansing tank) erected therein, and a spiral water elevator provided within the elevating pipe. During filtration, water is discharged by a water dispersing tube, which is within filtration sand. Processed water (filtered water), which has been filtered by passing through the filtration sand from below, is discharged above the filtration sand. During cleansing of the filtration sand, the spiral water elevator rotates and elevates the filtration sand, which has trapped contaminants, from the lower portion of the spiral water elevator. The contaminants are separated from the filtration sand by use of centrifugal force. The filtration sand is expelled through a filtration sand expulsion opening, which is provided in the upper portion of the elevating pipe. The filtration sand then returns to the interior of the filtration tank. The spiral water elevator is driven at its upper portion, and the lower end thereof is supported by a bearing.
In this conventional filtration device, the spiral water elevator is axially supported by the shaft of the spiral elevator being inserted into an aperture provided in the lower end of the tank. Therefore, if the portions of the shaft and the aperture that contact each other become worn, the shaft becomes loose in the aperture. As a result, there is a possibility that problems, such as smooth rotation of the spiral water elevator being prevented and water leaking, may occur.
If the spiral water elevator is supported at both the upper and lower ends thereof, rotational fluctuations and vibrations become less likely to occur. However, in an environment surrounded by filtration media, wear of the bearing cannot be prevented. In the case that the bearing becomes worn, there is a problem that the bearing cannot be easily repaired or replaced. In addition, filtration operations must be ceased during the repair or replacement.
The present invention has been developed in view of the foregoing points. It is an object of the present invention to provide a filtration device that automatically compensates for frictional wear of an axial support section of a screw conveyor when the axial support section becomes worn, without repairing or replacing worn parts, thereby maintaining stable performance over a long period of time.


A vent hole of a mold for molding a tire is formed by suppressing bending deformation of a wire in a casting mold. By using a relational expression among a length of a wire in a casting space, a diameter of the wire, a contact angle of the wire with respect to a molten metal, and a bent amount of the wire by casting acquired by experiments, the contact angle of the wire at which the bent amount of the wire is within an allowable range is calculated from conditions of an actual length and the diameter of the wire. On the basis of the calculated contact angle of the wire, the wire is disposed in the casting space. By pouring the molten metal into the casting space, a cast metal with the wire cast-in in the casting space is cast. A vent hole is formed by withdrawing the wire.

A mold for molding a tire is manufactured by casting using a plaster casting mold in general and is used for tire molding in a vulcanization process. During this tire molding, in order to spread rubber of the tire to every corner of the mold, an air trap between the mold and the tire needs to be eliminated. Thus, a vent hole (air vent hole) is formed in the mold so as to discharge an air between the mold and the tire through the vent hole. Moreover, in order to reliably discharge the air, each of vent holes having a diameter of 0.6 to 1.6 mm is formed in several hundreds to several thousands spots in a pair of molds, for example.
The vent hole is usually formed in the mold by drilling machining or electric discharge machining. Thus, formation of the large number of vent holes takes a lot of labor, and a formable diameter and length of a vent hole is limited. On the other hand, a vent hole forming method for easily forming a vent hole in a mold by a wire cast in a cast metal of the mold has been known (see Patent Literature 1).
In this prior-art method, the vent hole is formed by withdrawing the wire from the cast metal after the cast metal is cast in a casting mold in which the wire is disposed. However, the wire is fixed in the cast metal in a bent and deformed state by a pressure received from a molten metal in some cases. In this case, since the vent hole is also bent, accuracy of the vent hole formed in the mold deteriorates. Moreover, if the vent hole is clogged, clogging of the vent hole is solved by an elongated tool (a drill or the like). At that time, the tool stops in the middle of the vent hole or the tool is broken during insertion into the vent hole in some cases.

Method for manufacturing mold for molding tire and mold for molding tire


A process for producing a suspension of particles containing a substantially light-insensitive organic silver salt of an organic carboxylic acid, comprising simultaneous metered addition of an aqueous solution or suspension of an organic carboxylic acid or its salt; and an aqueous solution of a silver salt to an aqueous liquid, wherein the metered addition of the aqueous solution or suspension of the organic carboxylic acid or its salt; and/or the aqueous solution of the silver salt is regulated by the concentration of silver ions or the concentration of anions of the silver salt in the aqueous liquid; for use in the production of (photo)thermographic materials.

Thermal imaging or thermography is a recording process wherein images are generated by the use of thermal energy.
In thermography three approaches are known:
1. Direct thermal formation of a visible image pattern by imagewise heating of a recording material containing matter that by chemical or physical process changes colour or optical density.
2. Imagewise transfer of an ingredient necessary for the chemical or physical process bringing about changes in colour or optical density to a receptor element.
3. Thermal dye transfer printing wherein a visible image pattern is formed by transfer of a coloured species from an imagewise heated donor element onto a receptor element.
Thermographic materials of type 1 can be rendered photothermographic by incorporating a photosensitive agent which after exposure to UV, visible or IR light is capable of catalyzing or participating in a thermographic process bringing about changes in colour or optical density.
Thermal dye transfer printing is a recording method wherein a dye-donor element is used that is provided with a dye layer wherefrom dyed portions or incorporated dyes are transferred onto a contacting receiver element by the application of heat in a pattern normally controlled by electronic information signals.
A survey of "direct thermal" imaging methods is given e.g. in the book "Imaging Systems" by Kurt I. Jacobson-Ralph E. Jacobson, The Focal Press--London and New York (1976), Chapter VII under the heading "7.1 Thermography". Thermography is concerned with materials which are substantially light-insensitive, but are sensitive to heat or thermographic.
Most of the "direct" thermographic recording materials are of the chemical type. On heating to a certain conversion temperature, an irreversible chemical reaction takes place and a coloured image is produced.
A wide variety of chemical systems has been suggested some examples of which have been given on page 138 of the above mentioned book of Kurt I. Jacobson et al., describing the production of a silver metal image by means of a thermally induced oxidation-reduction reaction of a silver soap with a reductor.
According to U.S. Pat. No. 3,080,254 a typical heat-sensitive copy paper includes in the heat-sensitive layer a thermoplastic binder, e.g ethyl cellulose, a water-insoluble silver salt, e.g. silver stearate and an appropriate organic reducing agent, of which 4-methoxy-1-hydroxy-dihydronaphthalene is a representative. Localized heating of the sheet in the thermographic reproduction process, or for test purposes by momentary contact with a metal test bar heated to a suitable conversion temperature in the range of about 90.degree.-150.degree. C., causes a visible change to occur in the heat-sensitive layer. The initially white or lightly coloured layer is darkened to a brownish appearance at the heated area. In order to obtain a more neutral colour tone a heterocyclic organic toning agent such as phthalazinone is added to the composition of the heat-sensitive layer. Thermo-sensitive copying paper is used in "front-printing" or "back-printing" using infra-red radiation absorbed and transformed into heat in contacting infra-red light absorbing image areas-of an original as illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2 of U.S. Pat. No. 3,074,809.
Examples of photothermographic materials are the so called "Dry Silver" photographic materials of the 3M Company, which are reviewed by D. A. Morgan in "Handbook of Imaging Science", edited by A. R. Diamond, page 43, published by Marcel Dekker in 1991.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,152,904 discloses an image reproduction sheet which comprises a radiation-sensitive heavy metal salt which can be reduced to free metal by a radiation wave length between an X-ray wave length and a five microns wave length and being distributed substantially uniformly laterally over said sheet, and as the image forming component an oxidation-reduction reaction combination which is substantially latent under ambient conditions and which can be initiated into reaction by said free metal to produce a visible change in colour comprising an organic silver salt containing carbon atoms and different from said heavy metal salt as an oxidizing agent and in addition an organic reducing agent containing carbon atoms, said radiation-sensitive heavy metal salt being present in an amount between about 50 and about 1000 parts per million of said oxidation-reduction reduction reaction combination.
Various methods of preparing substantially light-insensitive organic silver salts for use in such thermographic and photothermographic materials, as described in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,910,377, U.S. Pat. No. 3,031,329, U.S. Pat. No. 3,458,544, U.S. Pat. No. 3,700,458, U.S. Pat. No. 3,960,908, U.S. Pat. No. 3,960,980, U.S. Pat. No. 4,193,804, U.S. Pat. No. 4,476,220, U.S. Pat. No. 3,839,049 and in Research Disclosure 17029 published in June 1978 and in references therein. A typical preparation process for the silver salts of fatty acids is described by D. Kloosterboer in "Imaging Processes and Materials, Neblette's 8th edition", edited by J. Sturge, V. Walworth and A. Shepp, page 279, Van Nostrand (1989) in which: "fatty acids are dispersed in water concentrations of 2 to 3%; heated above the titre point of the fatty acid (to about 80.degree. C.). With high speed stirring, the amount of sodium hydroxide equivalent to the desired percentage of silver soap is added. Silver nitrate is then added (to the whole quantity of sodium soap) to convert the sodium soap to the silver soap. During the silver addition the material forms a micelle with the hydrocarbon tail extended into the centre of the micelle. After the addition of the silver nitrate the solution may be filtered either hot or after cooling. The filtered solid is then dried until no further weight loss at about 50.degree. C. During drying the micelles collapse to form thin micelles approximately 1 .mu.m long, 0.1 .mu.m wide and 0.015 .mu.m thick". Such organic silver salts can also be produced by adding a silver salt, such as ammoniacal silver nitrate, silver trifluoroacetate, silver tetrafluoroborate, or silver oxide to a solution or dispersion of an organic compound with at least one ionizable hydrogen atom.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,458,544 describes a process for preparing water insoluble silver salt which comprises admixing a water immiscible phase containing an organic carboxylic acid dissolved therein, the silver salt of which is water insoluble, and an aqueous phase containing an alkali soluble silver complex having a dissociation constant higher than the silver salt of said organic acid, the pH of said aqueous phase being at least about 7.5, and recovering precipitated water insoluble silver salt of said organic carboxylic acid. The water insoluble silver salt forms as a precipitate at the interface of the two immiscible phases and is recovered, usually by settling, filtration, washing with distilled water to remove undesired anions and drying to produce a fine, free flowing powder having a high surface area and a high degree of purity.
GB-P 1,378,734 describes a process for producing a silver salt of an organic carboxylic acid having a grain size of less than 1 .mu.m in diameter and a grain which is almost spherical, which comprises mixing: (a) an aqueous solution of a silver nitrate or a silver complex with (b) a solution of an organic carboxylic acid in a solvent in which the organic carboxylic acid is soluble, both said silver salt of an organic carboxylic acid and silver nitrate being almost insoluble and with which water is sparingly miscible, so as to react said carboxylic acid with silver ions, the reaction being conducted in the presence of a soluble mercury compound and/or a soluble lead compound. According to example 12 of this patent, photothermographic materials with a silver coating weight of 1.0 g/m.sup.2, utilizing 0.3 .mu.m spherical grains of silver behenate particles obtained in the presence of mercuric nitrate, exhibited a transmittance of 85% at a wavelength of 500 nm.
In the prior art, substantially light-insensitive organic silver salts are produced by the addition of a silver salt or complex to an organic compound with an ionizable hydrogen atom, or its salt, such that initially a large excess of said acidic organic compound or its salt is present. The precipitation of such highly insoluble organic silver salts under such conditions makes the control of particle size and the avoidance of occluded acidic organic compound, or its salt, very difficult. Furthermore, particle agglomeration takes place, whether or not the particles are separated off and dried. Many properties of thermographic materials using said salts, are directly or indirectly dependent upon their particle size, e.g. light-insensitivity, storage properties, resolution, transparency and quantity of organic silver salt per unit area necessary to obtain the required maximum image density. Particle size is therefore important both as regards the economics of the production process and as regards the imaging properties of the thermographic or photothermographic material obtained with said particles.
Another important element in determining the imaging properties of such thermographic and photothermographic materials is the shape and morphology of the substantially light-insensitive organic silver salt-containing particles. With the exception of the process described in GB-P 1,378,734, the prior art processes for producing such organic silver salt particles or their suspensions produce needle-shaped particles such as, for example, silver behenate particles with a length of 1 .mu.m, a width of 0.1 .mu.m and a thickness of 0.01 .mu.m, as described by D. A. Morgan in "Handbook of Imaging Science", edited by A. R. Diamond, page 43, published by Marcel Dekker in 1991. Coating of dispersions of such needle-shaped particles using conventional techniques will produce alignment of such needles parallel to the coating direction resulting in material anisotropy, which will have an adverse effect on the imaging properties of such thermographic and photothermographic materials, particularly in the case of high resolution applications.
The incorporation of such ecologically suspect ions as mercury and lead ions into the organic silver salt particles, poses ecological problems in the disposal of such materials and of waste arising during the production process; and the handling thereof.
A still further important element in determining the imaging properties of such thermographic and photothermographic materials is the composition of the substantially light-insensitive organic silver salt-containing particles. With the single jet processes described in the prior art, a precise control over the microstructure of said particles is not possible when more than one molecular species is present in said particle.
The production economics of prior art thermographic and photothermographic materials are disadvantaged by the prior art production process for substantially light-insensitive organic silver salt grains and mixtures of substantially organic silver salt and photosensitive agent having to be carried out in several steps which can not be executed in a single reactor.

Process for producing a suspension of particles containing an organic silver salt for use in the production of thermographic and photothermographic materials