A multilayer ceramic capacitor includes: a multilayer chip in which each of dielectric layers and each of internal electrode layers are alternately stacked and the internal electrode layers are alternately exposed to two end faces; and external electrodes formed on the two end faces; wherein: a relationship “M≥−0.00002×EM+0.0012” is satisfied, when a length of end margins in a direction in which the two end faces face with each other is EM [μm] and a ratio of Mo [atm %] to a B site element [atm %] of a main component ceramic in the end margins is M, wherein the end margin is a region, in which internal electrode layers connected to one of the external electrodes without sandwiching internal electrode layers connected to the other of the external electrode, face with each other, in the multilayer chip.

A multilayer ceramic capacitor has a multilayer structure in which a plurality of dielectric layers and a plurality of internal electrode layers are alternately stacked, and a pair of external electrodes that are formed on a surface of the multilayer structure and are electrically coupled to the internal electrode layers extracted to the surface. The external electrode has a structure in which a ground layer is subjected to a plating. It is known that hydrogen generated in the plating diffuses into a main body and causes IR (insulation resistance) degradation after being adsorbed near the external electrodes.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H01-80011 discloses that hydrogen generated in the plating is adsorbed in the internal electrode layer and an insulating resistance of the dielectric layer is degraded by reduction caused by the hydrogen. And the patent document discloses that Ni (nickel) is added as a metal for suppressing hydrogen adsorption to the internal electrode of which a main component is a noble metal. On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2015-188046 discloses that the external electrode on the anode side has a large thickness in order to secure reliability of humidity resistance.

Multilayer ceramic capacitor and manufacturing method of the same


A two stage compressor for a gas turbine engine with a mixed flow first stage, a centrifugal second stage, and an intermediate duct. The mixed flow stage has a mixed rotor rotatable about the central compressor axis with a circumferential array of mixed flow blades between the mixed flow hub and an associated mixed flow shroud. The downstream centrifugal stage has a centrifugal rotor rotatable about the same compressor axis. The centrifugal rotor has a circumferential array of radially extending centrifugal flow blades between the centrifugal flow hub and an associated centrifugal flow shroud. An intermediate duct has an inner duct wall defining an axially curvilinear transition surface of revolution between an outlet end of the mixed flow hub and an inlet end of the centrifugal flow hub and an outer duct wall defining an axially curvilinear transition surface of revolution between an outlet end of the mixed flow shroud and an inlet end of the centrifugal flow shroud. Preferably, the intermediate duct has a median inlet radius greater than an intermediate duct median outlet radius whereby air flow from the mixed rotor is directed radially inwardly and axially rearwardly toward the centrifugal rotor.

The invention relates to a two stage compressor for a gas turbine engine with a mixed flow first stage, a centrifugal second stage, and an intermediate diffusing duct.
Although mixed flow, or diagonal flow, compressors are well known to those skilled in the art of gas turbine engine design, the commercial adoption of mixed flow compressors, particularly in aircraft engines, has been very limited. Most aircraft engines to-date utilise axial flow compressor rotors, centrifugal flow compressors or a combination of both.
The configuration and design of axial flow compressors and centrifugal flow compressors is considered very well known in the art and it is only necessary here to present a general outline of their features and advantages or disadvantages.
Large diameter gas turbine engines are generally constructed with multiple exclusively axial stages generally arranged downstream of an intake fan and by-pass duct. In conventional engines the low pressure axial compressor is mounted on the same shaft as the fan and a low pressure turbine, and the high pressure compressor rotors are mounted on a coaxial high pressure shaft driven by a high pressure turbine. Understandably these multiple stage axial compressors are large and complex machines. They can be justified for their high efficiency in high thrust engine constructions.
Smaller engines are sometimes constructed with a centrifugal compressor as the terminal high pressure stage with a series of axial low pressure stages upstream. The centrifugal rotor, together with surrounding diffuser ducts, considerably increases and dictates the maximum diameter of the engine and forward surface area. However, especially in smaller engine designs, the centrifugal compressor provides high efficiency and reduces the axial length of the engine at the expense of an increase in the radial dimension.
A third common compressor structure includes two centrifugal compressor rotors; however, commercial adoption of this compressor design is very limited. The duct work required to convey compressed air from the first stage centrifugal compressor to the second stage centrifugal compressor rotor is very complex, difficult to manufacture accurately and assemble. Multiple centrifugal stages subject the engine to a significant weight and air drag penalty with prohibitively increased diameter. The increased bulk of the engine envelope and loss of compressor efficiency, through the complex ducting required between first and second stages, has severely limited the adoption of a two stage centrifugal compressor.
The common combination of a centrifugal compressor with axial low pressure stage also suffers from several disadvantages that are generally accepted by designers as inevitable. The engine envelope diameter is dictated by the centrifugal compressor and surrounding diffuser. The axial compressor is often constructed of two or more axial rotors with stator blade assemblies between each axial stage. As a result the number of blades and rotors significantly adds cost to the engine and mechanical complexity. In the current economy for gas turbine engines the overall engine price has been dropping relative to inflation, whereas the cost of materials and engine design costs have been rising. For example, the cost of titanium used in the axial compressor blades has tripled in the last ten years. Due to high design costs for such complex machine parts, the expedient of conservative design practices has resulted in heavier, more robust blades to ensure an adequate safety margin. Therefore, although the design and construction of axial compressors is well known, increases in material costs and concern over the high cost of designing these compressors has led to a desire for a less complex and economically efficient compressor design.
In general, the fewer rotor stages and stator stages that are required in a compressor, the better. Multiple stages and highly complex geometries significantly increase the costs of compressors. To-date, however, experiments in adopting diagonal flow or mixed flow compressor blades have been inconclusive. For example there is no production gas turbine engine available with a mixed flow compressor to date, although experimental results are well documented.
It is well recognised that the cost and reliability of modern gas turbine engines is significantly determined by the number of compressor stages, or acceleration/diffusion operations within the compressor section. It is long recognised that reducing the number of compressor stages will have beneficial effect on the cost of this equipment. Although centrifugal compressor stages compared with axial flow compressors offer lower cost and higher static pressure ratio, centrifugal compressors are slightly less efficient and penalise the design with a larger outer engine envelope diameter than a comparable axial flow compressor. The axial flow compressor of course has a longer axial dimension but suffers from a lower resistance to foreign object damage as well as a lower tolerance to distortion and non-uniformity of inlet airflow distribution. On the other hand using multiple centrifugal compressor stages occasions large aerodynamic losses in the duct work required between the stages as well as significant penalties in weight, engine complexity and manufacturing costs.
Mixed flow or diagonal flow, compressor stages have been recognised in the prior art as providing advantages over both the axial flow and centrifugal flow compressors. For example, a mixed flow compressor has a more rugged design which is superior in foreign object damage resistance to an axial flow compressor and the length of blades enable designers to increase the blade width significantly strengthening the mixed flow blades in comparison to axial flow blades. In addition the part speed benefits of a mixed flow compressor with a significant radius change reduces stress, increases part and bearing life when compared with a large diameter centrifugal compressor rotor. The manufacturing of a mixed flow compressor rotor is somewhat simplified in comparison to a centrifugal compressor and the increase in diameter is significantly lessened.
An example of an adoption of a mixed flow compressor rotor is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,398 to Dodge et al. In this example the mixed flow compressor rotor is positioned as the first stage upstream of a flow splitter by-pass duct and high pressure axial flow compressor. The mixed flow rotor positioned at the engine inlet with relatively rugged blade construction increases the resistance to foreign object damage and fully utilises the centrifugal effect to propel foreign objects radially outwardly through the by-pass duct thereby protecting the high pressure axial compressor sections downstream.
A significant limitation of the Dodge mixed flow compressor however, is the stat ed objectives which inevitably result in transonic/supersonic air flow speeds in the compressor. The design parameters limit the engine envelope to be comparable to that of an axial flow compressor whereas the design objective is to attain the static pressure ratio, cost and inlet resistance to foreign object damage of a centrifugal compressor. In order to obtain these objectives however, Dodge approaches the mixed flow compressor design by requiring transonic velocities and deals with the need to accommodate sonic shock waves within the structure.
Another example of an attempt to replace several axial compressor stages with a single mixed flow compressor stage as a cost reduction is shown in a paper entitled xe2x80x9cMixed-Flow Compressor Stage Design and Test Results with a Pressure-Ratio of 3:1xe2x80x9d Musgrave, D. S. and Plehn, N. J. presented at Gas Turbine Conference and Exhibition, Anaheim, Calif. May 31, to Jun. 4, 1967. In this example the mixed flow compressor stage was designed to be the terminal stage behind an upstream multi-stage axial compressor. The mixed flow compressor stage has an advantage over a conventional centrifugal stage compressor in that the envelope radius is significantly reduced.
A further example of utilisation of a mixed flow compressor is shown in a paper entitled xe2x80x9cDesign and Rotor Performance of a 5:1Mixed-flow Supersonic Compressorxe2x80x9d by Monig, R., Elmdorf, W. and Gallus, H. E. presented at International Gas Turbine and Aeroengine Congress and Exposition, Cologne, Germany Jun. 1-4, 1992. This paper and experimental results deal extensively with the need to stabilise shock waves within the diagonal or mix flow compressor passage. Strong sonic shock waves significantly reduce efficiency to 75%. Although a relatively high 5:1 compression ratio is achieved, this type of design is impractical due to high stresses from the rapid rotor speed and sonic shock waves.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a sub-sonic mixed flow compressor stage to derive benefits from low part speeds, resulting low stresses, longer part life and foreign object damage resistance of a mixed flow compressor as well as the increased work capacity derived by significant radius changes in comparison to an axial flow compressor.
It is a further object of the invention to replace several upstream low pressure axial stages with a single mixed flow stage thereby reducing the cost of part manufacturing, engine assembly and maintenance of the compressor.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a mixed flow compressor and intermediate duct upstream of a centrifugal compressor to achieve a combined pressure ratio in the order of 10:1 to 13:1.
Further objects of the invention will be apparent from review of the disclosure, drawings and description of the invention below.
The invention provides a two stage compressor for a gas turbine engine with a mixed flow first stage, a centrifugal second stage, and an intermediate duct.
The mixed flow stage has a mixed rotor rotatable about the central compressor axis with a circumferential array of mixed flow blades between the mixed flow hub and an associated mixed flow shroud.
The downstream centrifugal stage has a centrifugal rotor rotatable about the same compressor axis and possibly but not necessarily on the same shaft. The centrifugal rotor has a circumferential array of radially extending centrifugal flow blades between the centrifugal flow hub and an associated centrifugal flow shroud.
An intermediate duct has an inner duct wall defining an axially curvilinear transition surface of revolution between an outlet end of the mixed flow hub and an inlet end of the centrifugal flow hub, and an outer duct wall defining an axially curvilinear transition surface of revolution between an outlet end of the mixed flow shroud and an inlet end of the centrifugal flow shroud. Preferably, the intermediate duct has a median inlet radius greater than an intermediate duct median outlet radius whereby air flow from the mixed rotor is directed radially inwardly and axially rearwardly toward the centrifugal rotor.
The compressor arrangement has several advantages over prior art compressors. A significant advantage of the invention is the replacement of several axial compressor stages with a single mixed flow stage. Significant savings are achieved in reduction of manufacturing costs and maintenance as well as the axial dimension of the engine is reduced. A sub-sonic mixed flow compressor has the advantage of being more efficient than a supersonic compressor stage as described in the prior art.
The potential for rugged blade design of mixed flow compressor reduces material and manufacturing costs over several axial stages, and reduces stress and increases part life in comparison to a centrifugal compressor rotor. Where utilising two centrifugal compressor stages is impractical and inefficient due to the complex duct work and flow losses in the ducts, using a mixed flow compressor stage upstream of a centrifugal compressor stage eliminates complex duct work while maintaining a benefit of additional work in providing a radial flow of air.
The intermediate duct between the first stage mixed flow and second stage centrifugal flow enables the designer to reduce the inlet diameter of the centrifugal stage. As a result of redirecting the airflow radially inwardly during diffusion and reduction of swirl the diameter of the centrifugal impeller can be reduced thereby reducing stresses in the material of the impeller. The intervening duct may include a single row of stator blades thereby reducing complexity and manufacturing costs, but the scope of the invention is not necessarily limited to single row of stators.
Significantly the shock losses and low efficiency of transonic compressors of the prior art have been overcome by ensuring that the outlet flow from the mixed flow compressor has a subsonic absolute velocity and in addition the intervening duct reduces swirl and diffuses the exit airflow from the mixed stage for introduction at a low relative velocity to the centrifugal compressor inlet. None of the prior art consider this combination of a subsonic mixed flow compressor upstream of a centrifugal compressor. In particular, the prior art does not contemplate severely limiting the compression ratio of a mixed flow first stage in order to combine the mixed flow compressor stage with a terminal centrifugal compressor stage.

Mixed flow and centrifugal compressor for gas turbine engine


Disclosed is a method and system to receive a first value of a first attribute in a user interface and create a value pattern for a second attribute in the user interface based on the first value dynamically. A second value for the second attribute is automatically proposed from the created value pattern.

Data entry operations in an application may be time consuming. Many software applications may have a data entry user interface (UI) for creating a new record such as details of a person, product and service. A part of the data entered may often be same as the data entered previously. Consider a UI in an application which creates a record of an employee having details such as name of the employee, employee identification number, name of a team the employee may be working in, and name of a manager of the team. For example, when records for a number of employees working in the team have to be created, the records may be created one by one. A part of the data such as name of the team and name of the manager may be same for all employees working in the team. Though the name of the team and name of the manager may be same they may have to be entered for all the employees working in the team. This may be inefficient as the data may be entered for all the employees manually even though they are same. Thus, entering the same data repetitively may result in an unproductive usage of time and effort.
Also, often times when a user makes a data entry in few fields of the record in the UI, the data that must be entered in the rest of the fields of the record may be obvious to the user. But, the application may not know the data to be entered. Thus, the user may have to spend time and effort in entering the data though the data to be entered is obvious. This may result in unproductive usage of time and effort. For example, an application may have a UI to create a record of an employee working in an organization. The record may have details such as employee identification number, employee name, date of birth and age. After creating the record of an employee, the record may be stored in a database. The application may have another UI for creating a list of employees participating in a sports competition. The record may have details such as employee identification number, employee name, date of birth, age, and sports event. Once the sports event and the employee identification number is entered in the UI, the rest of the details such as employee name, date of birth and age of the employee are obvious as the application may already have the employee name, date of birth and age of the employee corresponding to the employee identification number entered, in the database. But the application may not know that the employee name, date of birth and age of the employee is obvious and may not fill the values for them automatically. Thus, the user may have to enter the employee name, date of birth and age again which may result in an unproductive usage of time and effort.

Technique for auto filling values in a user interface


An implantable medical device system detects and treats monomorphic ventricular tachycardia (VT). The system includes a sensing module for receiving a cardiac signal and a therapy delivery module including a capacitor and an output circuit. A control module is coupled to the sensing module and the therapy delivery module and is configured to detect a tachycardia from the cardiac signal and initiate charging of the capacitor in response to detecting the tachycardia. The control module performs a method for simultaneously monitoring a voltage on the capacitor and a morphology of the cardiac signal during the charging and controls the therapy delivery circuit to deliver a shock pulse at less than a programmed shock energy in response to both the voltage reaching at least a minimum voltage and the morphology being monomorphic.

Implantable medical devices are available for treating cardiac tachyarrhythmias by delivering anti-tachycardia pacing therapies and electrical shock therapies for cardioverting or defibrillating the heart. Such a device, commonly known as an implantable cardioverter defibrillator or "ICD", senses electrical activity from the heart, determines a patient's heart rate, and classifies the rate according to a number of heart rate zones in order to detect episodes of ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation. Typically a number of predefined rate zones are defined according to programmable detection interval ranges for detecting slow ventricular tachycardia, fast ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation. Intervals between sensed R-waves, corresponding to the depolarization of the ventricles, are measured. Sensed R-R intervals falling into defined detection interval ranges are counted to provide a count of ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF) intervals, for example. A programmable number of intervals to detect (NID) defines the number of tachycardia intervals occurring consecutively or out of a given number of preceding event intervals that are required to detect VT or VF.
Tachyarrhythmia detection may begin with detecting a fast ventricular rate, referred to as rate- or interval-based detection. Once VT or VF is detected based on rate, the morphology of the sensed depolarization signals, e.g. wave shape, amplitude or other features, may be used in discriminating heart rhythms to improve the sensitivity and specificity of tachyarrhythmia detection methods. For example, before a therapy decision is made, VT detection may further require discrimination between supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) and VT using cardiac signal waveform morphology analysis, particularly when a fast 1:1 atrial to ventricular rate is being sensed.
A primary goal of a tachycardia detection algorithm is to rapidly respond to a potentially malignant rhythm with a therapy that will terminate the arrhythmia with high certainty. Another goal, however, is to avoid excessive use of ICD battery charge, which shortens the life of the ICD, e.g. due to delivering unnecessary therapies or therapies at a higher voltage than needed to terminate a detected tachyarrhythmia. Minimizing the patient's exposure to painful shock therapies is also an important consideration. Accordingly, a need remains for ICDs that perform tachycardia discrimination with high specificity and control therapy delivery to successfully terminate a detected VT while conserving battery charge and limiting patient exposure to painful shocks.

Shock therapy for monomorphic detected ventricular tachycardia


An upper plastic film and a lower plastic film sandwiching a formable stiffening layer fused together to form a stiffened conformable wrapping film.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to materials for storing items.
More particularly, the present invention relates to wrapping films of the types used to wrap items and cover containers.
2. Prior Art
Devices for covering or wrapping items for storage have long been sought after. These devices are especially important for storing food items. Storing food items generally requires wrapping or covering containers to seal in moisture and keep the contents fresh. Specialized containers with air tight lids, constructed of plastic or like materials are well-known. Many people when storing food articles such as those left over from a meal, prefer to store the food articles in the cooking, or the serving container, and not transfer them to a specialized storage container. Many of these containers such as platters, bowls or pots have greatly varied shapes, requiring a cover or covering device which can cover a wide variety of containers.
To overcome the problems of containers having unique dimensions, loss of lids and covers or a containers having no cover, a wrapping film made of very thin plastic was developed. This plastic wrap has the desirable properties of being extremely flexible, thereby being usable on substantially any shape, or being used alone to wrap a food article. This wrapping material clings to the sides of containers made of many different materials, and will also cling to itself, allowing a very tight, if not an air tight, fit. This wrapping film is also transparent, which is very desirable for use in storing items such as food left over from a meal. The transparency of the wrapping film allows a person to see what is wrapped or what a container holds at a glance.
The greatest problem with this material is its tendency to become entangled with itself while being used. Generally stored in a roll which is unrolled as desired, a length of wrapping material is unwound and sheared on a metal edge. The flexibility of the plastic film along with its stretchability will many times result in the material rebounding when it has been sheared from the roll. This rebounding or snapping back of the plastic film results in entangling of the material. These tangles, wherein the wrapping material clings to itself, are very difficult to remove. Once a piece of wrapping material is successfully removed, it must be handled very carefully to prevent any portion from contacting any other portion or entanglement will occur. Unfortunately, since the material is so thin and flexible this is a very difficult undertaking.
An alternative to using a plastic film is the use of a metal foil. While this does not cling to itself or the container, it conforms to the shape of a container or item being wrap. The benefit of foil, is its relative simplicity of use. It is not as thin and flexible as plastic film, therefore it does not deform to the same extent as the plastic film when such deformation is not desired. While foil is stiff enough to maintain a shape for easier handling, it will also conform to substantially any shape when a slight pressures is applied. The stiffness of the metal foil taken together with the absence of cling, provides an easily handled wrapping material which does not become entangled. However, foil will not form an air tight seal when used to cover a container unless the entire container is enclosed. Another problem with metal foil is that it is opaque. A package wrapped in foil must be labeled or opened in order to determine what it contains. This requires a great deal more effort than a quick glance.
Each of these wrapping materials can also be used to wrap individual loose items, such as sandwiches etc. Each adequately protects the article, but have the problems mentioned above. Specifically, the difficulty associated with using the plastic wrap, and the opacity which prevents viewing of articles wrapped in metal foil.
Furthermore, many metal foils cannot be used in a microwave oven but are extremely useful in a conventional oven, while conversely many plastic wraps cannot be used in a conventional oven.
It would be highly advantageous, therefore, to remedy the foregoing and other deficiencies inherent in the prior art.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new an improved wrapping film.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a wrapping film which is quick and easy to use.
And another object of the present invention is to provide a wrapping film which may be stored in a traditional dispensing container.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a wrapping film which is self-clinging and will cling to a variety of containers.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a wrapping film which will not become entangled with itself.
Yet still another object of the present invention is to provide a wrapping film which is flexible and will conform to substantially any shape.
A further object of the instant invention is to provide a substantially transparent wrapping film to allow viewing of wrapped items.
And a further object of the present invention is to provide a wrapping film which will lie flat, thereby sealing items extremely well, especially along edges of containers.
Yet a further object of the present invention is to provide a microwave safe wrapping film.
And yet a further object of the present invention is to provide an oven safe wrapping film.


An apparatus and method for isolating the end of a segment of pipe, which includes a substantially cylindrical body, having first and second ends, and a circumference slightly less than the inner diameter of the pipe segment; a pair of spaced apart inflatable seals positioned around the wall of the body; means for introducing a fluid into the inflatable seals through separate lines under sufficient pressure so that the inflatable seals are inflated against the wall of the pipe segment defining an annular space between the inflated inflatable seals; a line for introducing a fluid into the annular space under pressure to test the integrity of the seal between the inflatable seals and the pipe wall, and having a dual function to capture fluid which may have entered the annular space as a result of a inflatable seal failure; a line through the body for allowing fluid to flow through the line at predetermined times and pressures; and a plurality of bolts on the first end of the body which would engage the inner wall of the pipe in order to provide a secure engagement between the body and the pipe in the event of high unexpected pressure within the pipeline.

The apparatus of the present invention relates to pipe plugs. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for isolating a segment of pipe in order to perform tasks in/or on the piping system or pipeline without being subjected to fluid pressure or hydrocarbons within the pipeline.
Industrial pipeline or piping systems require maintenance from time to time. Some maintenance procedures, such as replacing a section of pipeline or testing welds, require the isolation of a section of the pipeline from the fluids pumped through the pipeline. Such isolation is particularly important in the chemical industry because of the potential explosive or toxic nature of the fluid. In order to perform such maintenance tasks the two ends of the section of pipeline to be repaired must be sealed in order to maintain or block off fluid pressure in the line. Various known types of plugs, or the like, are placed in the pipeline and secured in place through various means.
One common such plug apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,844,127, which discloses an apparatus comprising an annular body with opposite annular faces and defining on its outer perimeter, an annular recess, a pair of bosses, a pair of resilient annular members adapted to be respectively juxtaposed between an adjacent boss and annular face; means for urging the bosses respectively against the adjacent resilient annular member so as to urge the same to frictionally engage and to seal against the internal wall of the selected pipe segment; and, means communicating through the apparatus to that plenum now defined by the recess, the resilient members and the internal wall of the pipe whereby the integrity of that pipe segment may be determined.
However, there is a need in the industry for a unitary body apparatus which would be used to isolate the end of the pipe through the use of fluid pressure, and would allow one to test the integrity of the seal between the sealing members on the apparatus so as to assure that no fluid in the pipeline, which oftentimes, is highly combustible gas, to escape into the other side of the plug in the work area.
There is also a need for the apparatus to be locked into the interior wall of the pipe to ensure that an unexpected pressure release in the pipeline will not force the apparatus out of the pipe.

Apparatus and method for isolating and testing a segment of pipelines


A method of measuring an environmental contaminant includes the steps of dividing a target environment into a plurality of spaces, placing a monitor in each space, uploading device data from each monitor, and processing the device data to determine a level of environmental contamination within each space. Each monitor is configured to measure a level of an environmental contaminant within the space for a sample period. A radon monitor includes a radon sensor configured to detect radon decay events, an environmental sensor configured to measure an ambient condition of air surrounding the radon sensor, a processor configured to record device data including a count of a number of radon decay events and the ambient conditions, and a communication means for transmitting the device data. A system includes a plurality of monitors, a receiving device for receive device data from each monitor, and a cloud computer to process the device data.

Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the US, and is nearly an ubiquitous threat for habitable structures across the country. Analysis of radon concentrations within residential dwellings and commercial properties, has become an increasingly common evaluation during property transactions. In some instances, such evaluations are a mandatory component of the transaction required by the lending institution (e.g. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) and/or state/federal agency (e.g. Housing and Urban Development—HUD). Analyses are performed using a variety of established methodologies.
In single structure residential properties, a certified continuous radon monitor (CRM) is common. For multifamily and extended structures, passive (e.g., charcoal adsorption) sampling devices are more commonly utilized. While a minimum 48 hour sample period is utilized, the CRM provides hourly averages compared to the 48 hour average of passive devices. Consequently, elevated passive sample results must be verified with either duplicate samples at every location or a repeated sampling event. The former increases costs, and the latter deleteriously protracts the property transaction process.
In some jurisdictions, rather than focusing on evaluating the levels of radon concentration at a specified location during a sample period, sensors are placed in a variety of areas where people spend time during a day. Data from each of these multiple sensors is then aggregated and weighted based on the amount of time a person is projected to be within each of the areas. In this way, an overall daily exposure level for an individual moving between the areas is calculated.
With respect to radon sensors in particular, a typical active radon sensor that detects alpha particles uses a photodiode as the sensor surrounded by a chamber. Alpha particles hitting the photodiode create a number of electron-hole pairs which cause a small current to be generated. These current signals can be detected and counted to provide a measure of the radon concentration within the chamber. For ease of manufacturing, typical chambers are cylinders or half spheres. However, each of these shapes create their own electromagnetic fields which require additional sensors within the chambers.

System and method of measuring an environmental contaminant, and radon monitor for use with the same


A hybrid tea rose plant having vigorous upright growth; dark green, leathery foliage; and bright red, high centered blooms that are long lasting as cut flowers.

Rosa hybrida.
xe2x80x98JACergmaxe2x80x99.
The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of rose plant of the hybrid tea class which was originated by me by crossing the variety xe2x80x98POULmanxe2x80x99, U.S. Plant Pat. No. 6,264, with the variety xe2x80x98JACborxe2x80x99. U.S. Plant Pat. No. 6,668.
The primary objective of this breeding was to produce a new rose variety having the bright red flower, fairly compact growth and dark green leathery foliage of the female parent combined with the well formed flowers, continuous bloom and vigorous upright growth of the male parent.
The objective was substantially achieved, along with other desirable improvements, as evidenced by the following unique combination of characteristics that are outstanding in the new variety and that distinguish it from its parents, as well as from all other varieties of which I am aware:
1. Bright red flowers;
2. Dark green, leathery foliage;
3. Vigorous, upright growth;
4. Long lasting cut flowers; and
5. High centered blooms.
Asexual reproduction of this new variety by budding on xe2x80x98Dr. Hueyxe2x80x99 (unpatented) understock, as performed at Wasco, Calif., shows that the foregoing and all other characteristics and distinctions come true to form and are established and transmitted through succeeding propagations.
The female parent, xe2x80x98POULmanxe2x80x99, has larger flowers with more petals than JACergma. The male parent, xe2x80x98JACborxe2x80x99, has larger flowers of orange color but shorter vase life.
xe2x80x98JACergmaxe2x80x99 differs from xe2x80x98JAColberxe2x80x99 in that xe2x80x98JACergmaxe2x80x99 has a more compact plant habit, brighter red flowers on shorter stems and has greater disease resistance.

Hybrid tea rose plant named xe2x80x98JACergmaxe2x80x99


A lancing device according to the present invention includes: a housing; a moving body movable relatively to the housing for forward movement of a needle; a driving mechanism for forward movement of the moving body; a hollow pressing portion at a front end of the housing for contact with a part where a puncture is to be made; and a pump mechanism capable of causing a vacuum to act inside the pressing portion. The pump mechanism is capable of adjusting the vacuum. The pump mechanism includes for example: a moving portion capable of reciprocating in a first direction and a second direction away from the first direction. Preferably, the adjustment of the vacuum is made by changing the number of reciprocations of the moving part in the first and the second directions.

Conventionally, a lancing device of this kind is disclosed in the Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-9577 for example. The lancing device disclosed in this gazette includes, as shown in FIG. 31 of this application, a generally tubular housing 90 and a lancet holder 92 holding a lancet L. The housing 90 has an end fitted with a tubular plunger 93 having a check valve 91. Though details will not be described here, according to this lancing device, when the plunger 93 is pushed in a direction shown by an arrow Na, the lancet holder 92 latched at a predetermined place in the housing 90 is forced to unlatch. Thus, the lancet holder 92 is propelled forward by an elastic force from a spring 95 toward an open front end 90a of the housing 90. Though not illustrated, the front end of the housing 90 is pressed onto the skin, and therefore the forward movement of the lancet holder 92 drives the tip of the lancet L into the skin.
Once the lancet holder 92 has moved forward, the lancet holder 92 is returned by an elastic force from a return spring 94. Likewise, the plunger 93 is moved back to its original position by an elastic force from a spring 96. This causes a volume increase in a space 97 in the plunger 93, creating a vacuum in the housing 90. A vacuum can also be created in the housing 90 by returning action of members 98a, 98b. Therefore, if the front end of the housing 90 is still pressed on the skin, the skin comes under the vacuum, and bleeding is promoted from the place pricked by the lancet L. The check valve 91 closes when the plunger 93 returns, thereby helping the generation of the vacuum, and opens when the plunger 93 is moved forward, to help smoothen the forward movement of the plunger 93.
However, the conventional lancing device has following drawbacks.
Specifically, there is personal difference in the volume of bleeding from the place pricked by the lancet L. Also, the same person bleeds differently from place to place; some place bleed easily while some others do not. However, conventionally, the level of vacuum created in the housing 90 is more or less the same all the time. Therefore, from time to time depending on the vacuum in the housing 90, it is not possible to obtain a sufficient amount of bleeding, or the lancing causes too much bleeding.
Another problem is that conventionally, the vacuum can be created in the housing 90 only after the lancet L has been shot to the skin. On the other hand, when lancing is to be made on a thin and easily relaxing part of the skin for example, it is sometimes more preferable that the a vacuum should be created first to suck on the skin, before shooting the lancet L. However, this is not available in the convention, and has been an issue of inconvenience some times.
Further, users of lancing devices are often clinical patients or the aged who do not have physical or bodily advantages. Therefore, the devices should preferably be very easy to use.

Lancing device, method of making lancing device, pump mechanism, and sucking device


An inflatable head protection system has an air bag which is provided at least partly along a member or a column of the vehicle body in the non-inflated condition following its course. This air bag is held by a separate deformation element which is constructed as a shaped sheet metal part having at least one deformation curvature, in which case the air bag is housed essentially between the deformation element and the member/the column. An optimal protection is therefore ensured in the static as well as in the dynamic case.

The invention relates to the arrangement of an inflatable head protection system in a motor vehicle, having an air bag which is provided at least partly along a member or a column of the vehicle body and, in the non-inflated condition, follows its course. Only in the manner of an example, reference is made to International Patent Document WO 94/19215 with respect to the known state of the art.
An inflatable head protection system offers protection to the occupants of the motor vehicle if the air bag is in fact inflated or has been inflated. However, cases are also conceivable in which a vehicle occupant strikes, particularly with his head, against a vehicle body column or a member, particularly a roof member, without the occurrence of a previous activating of the inflatable head protection system. These types of cases must also be covered not only while taking into account legally stipulated static head impact tests. It is basically known that the requirements of these head impact tests can be met by energy-absorbing pads--as a rule, these are plastic material foam systems--in the area of the roof pillars and of the upper side frame of a normal passenger car. If now these two known systems, specifically energy-absorbing pads, on the one hand, and an inflatable air bag, on the other hand, were simply combined with one another, a relatively large amount of space would be required for this purpose. As a result, the so-called comfort measurements, that is, the inside dimensions of the motor vehicle/passenger car would be limited considerably.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide remedial measures for solving the described problems.

Arrangement of an inflatable head protection system in a motor vehicle

Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft


Illustrative impedance matching circuits and methods provide enhanced performance without meaningfully increasing cost or areal requirements. One illustrative integrated circuit embodiment includes: a pin configured to connect to a substrate pad via a solder bump having a parasitic capacitance; an inductor that couples the pin to a transmit or receive circuit; a first electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection device electrically connected to a pin end of the inductor; and a second ESD protection device electrically connected to a circuit end of the inductor, where the first ESD protection device has a first capacitance that sums with the parasitic capacitance to equal a total capacitance coupled to the circuit end of the inductor.

As integrated circuits (IC) become smaller and faster, it becomes more challenging to satisfy their input/output (I/O) requirements. Parallel data buses are hampered by skew, crosstalk, and other problems related to electronic packaging and signal integrity. Skew (the difference in arrival times of parallel data signals) now often approaches or exceeds the symbol interval of high rate communications signals, and as signaling frequencies continue to increase, crosstalk also grows ever more severe. As packages grow ever smaller, they create physical limits on the number and spacing of I/O pins that can be supported. (As used herein, the term "pin" refers to an electrical contact for connecting an IC to a substrate upon which the IC is mounted.)
Serial I/O has certain advantages, including reduced pin counts and less interference between adjacent links. To enable multiple signals to be carried serially, serial I/O buses are equipped with Serializer/Deserializer (SERDES) interfaces. The serializer portion of the SERDES interface accepts a parallel data link input and condenses it into fewer lines of a serial data link output. The deserializer portion of the SERDES interface accepts a serial data link input and expands it to reconstruct the original parallel data. SERDES is beneficial because it enables serial I/O to be used to solve the problems of traditional parallel I/O. SERDES interfaces include a receiver circuit and a transmitter circuit, which may be included as part of any integrated circuit (IC) such as a switching IC for routing data transfers from among various other chips.
Serial I/O communications generally take place across a channel that is much longer than a representative wavelength of the signal. Accordingly, electromagnetic transmission line models may be the best approach to analyzing the channel. If the impedance of the driver does not match the characteristic impedance of the channel, the driver is unable to efficiently deliver power to the channel. If the input impedance of the receiving terminal does not match the characteristic impedance of the channel, the channel is unable to efficiently deliver the signal to the terminal. Such mismatches cause signal reflections, and if more than one mismatch exists, the signal reflections can make multiple round trips, causing signal interference and loss. The round trip delay enables such interference to affect subsequent symbols, generally increasing the difficulty of timing recovery and increasing the bit-error rate (BER).
Electronic devices typically employ ICs that are mounted on a substrate such as a circuit board or interposer. Such mounting is usually done with solder bumps connecting the pins to pads on the substrate. Before or during mounting (or occasionally, afterwards), IC pins may be subject to an electrostatic discharge (ESD); a high-voltage transient that can damage the internal elements of the IC unless the IC incorporates some form of ESD protection. The principle of ESD protection is twofold: to provide a low-impedance discharging path to shunt ESD currents and to clamp pin-voltage to a safe level to avoid dielectric breakdown. Numerous devices may be used for the ESD elements including, for example, diodes, MOS transistors, and CMOS output device. The inherent capacitance of ESD protection devices can be significant in a state-of-the-art CMOS technology, e.g., in the range 2 to 8 pF. At high frequencies, the reactance associated with this large capacitance becomes comparable to the 50Ω characteristic impedance of the package and board interfaces. This may cause significant reflections and severely limits the chip-to-chip signal bandwidth.
FIGS. 1 and 2 are schematics representing a conventional Rx circuit and a conventional Tx circuit in an assembled semiconductor package. The figures show single-ended transmission line models to more clearly illustrate the principles of this disclosure, but as a practical matter differential signaling is preferred for its greater noise immunity and reduced attenuation. Those in the art should readily understand the interrelation between single-ended and differential signaling designs and how to convert a device implementation between these modes.
In FIG. 1, a solder bump 102 electrically connects a package substrate pad 101 to a pin of a SERDES Rx circuit 110. An ESD protection circuit 104 is coupled to the pin to protect against ESD, and a termination element 105 is coupled to the pin to provide bias and/or approximate impedance matching. The ESD protection circuit 104 may include a diode, a n-type metal oxide semiconductor transistor having its gate grounded, a silicon-controlled rectifier, or alternative mechanism for dissipating high voltage transients without harming the Rx circuit 110. Similarly, in FIG. 2, a bump 103 electrically connects a different package substrate pad 101 to a pin of a SERDES Tx circuit 120. An ESD protection circuit 106 is coupled to the pin to protect against ESD. While a separate termination element may be present, it is more common for the Tx circuit 120 to have voltage bias and/or approximate impedance matching as an inherent feature of the driver design.
Solder bumps not only provide electrical connection, but typically must also serve as a structural link and heat flow path between the chip and the substrate package. (The bond wire technique employed in traditional semiconductor packaging may suffer from parasitic inductances that make bond wires less suitable for high-speed signaling.) Due to these other functions as well as physical limitations of bonding machines, solder bump sizes are not reduced in proportion to the IC line widths. Accordingly, the solder bumps 102, 103, generally exhibit an irreducible parasitic capacitance with the ground plane of the package substrate. As I/O signaling rates advance into the gigahertz range, this small parasitic capacitance, alone or in combination with the IC's internal capacitances, may be enough to cause reflections and signal loss.
FIG. 3 is a schematic representation for FIGS. 1 and 2, including the parasitic capacitances. The schematic is a parallel arrangement of five elements between the signal line and ground, numbered roughly in order of the size of their effects. Element R1 is a resistor representing the termination element, element C2 is a capacitor representing the capacitance of the ESD protection circuit, element C3 is a capacitor representing the input capacitance of the Rx circuit (or the output capacitance of the Tx circuit), element C5 is a capacitor representing the parasitic capacitance of the termination element, and C6 is a capacitor representing the parasitic capacitance of the solder bump connection. The capacitances combine additively and their effect on the impedance mismatch is magnified at higher frequencies.
Conventional solutions to impedance mismatch include, for example, minimizing the parasitic capacitance by, e.g., increasing separation of the signal line from ground to reduce capacitive coupling. However, the inherent capacitances of the circuit, termination, ESD, and bump, often cannot be satisfactorily reduced.
An article by Sherif Galal et al., entitled "Broadband ESD Protection Circuits in CMOS Technology", IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 38, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2003, suggests using a T-coil circuit between the signal line and the ESD-protected Tx or Rx circuit on the IC to minimize the effects of the ESD capacitance. FIG. 4 shows an illustrative T-coil circuit having nodes A, B, and X. Node A is coupled to a signal line represented by equivalent circuit elements Vin and RS. Node X couples to the ESD-protected Tx or Rx circuit as represented by equivalent circuit element CL. Node B couples to the termination element represented by equivalent resistance RT. The T-coil circuit consists of mutually-coupled inductors L1 and L2 in series between nodes A and B, with their intermediate terminal coupled to Node X. The inductors have a mutual coupling coefficient k. The T-coil further includes a bridge capacitor CB couple between Nodes A and B. If designed properly, the T-coil circuit displays a purely resistive input impedance thus may offer good impedance matching over a wide frequency range. However, this technique entirely fails to address the parasitic capacitance of the solder bump.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,368,174 to Xiaohong Jiang et al. suggests using an inductor between bump and the ESD-protected Rx circuitry to form a pi-configuration, which may in some cases offer improved insertion performance. If this technique is applied to our present SERDES example, the schematic representation becomes that shown in FIG. 5. An element L3 representing an inductor is coupled between element C6 (representing the parasitic capacitance of the solder bump) and the remaining elements (representing the ESD protection, termination element, and Tx or Rx circuit). However, this technique performs poorly when the ESD capacitance and/or capacitance of the Tx/Rx circuitry is dominant.

Compensation network for high speed integrated circuits


A lighting device includes a base unit arranged on a medium installation face on which a medium is disposed, an arm unit extending upwardly from the base unit, a top unit extending from the arm unit so as to face the medium installation face, a mounting face disposed on the top unit to mount an image capturing unit at a position capable of photographing the medium on the medium installation face, a lighting disposed in the top unit to irradiate the medium installation face, and a lighting control unit configured to adjust an amount of light of the lighting. The lighting control unit sets the amount of light of the lighting to a maximum at the time of photographing and, after the photographing, returns the amount of light to that before the photographing.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lighting device, an image capturing system, and a lighting control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
When capturing an image of, i.e. photographing an object using a camera, there are many cases where the object is photographed using not only natural light but also light emitted from a lighting device such as a fluorescent lamp or LEDs. However, when photographing the object using the light emitted from the lighting device, there are cases where a flicker noise is generated in a photographed image due to flicker of the emission light by using an AC power supply as the power supply. Thus, among conventional image capturing apparatuses, there are apparatuses that eliminate flicker by integrating an image while changing shutter speed or a gain value (for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 7-298130) or by detecting a flicker frequency and performing control of the shutter speed to be higher than the detected flicker frequency (for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 9-284634).
Generally, in a lighting device, the amount of light is adjusted such that the light is emitted with a brightness level preferred by a user using the light emitted from the lighting device. However, the brightness level at this amount of the light may be different from a brightness level that is appropriate to a photographing process performed by a camera. Accordingly, in the case of photographing an image by a camera using light emitted from a lighting device, acquisition of an appropriate image is apt to become difficult. Consequently, it is quite difficult to acquire a function as a lighting device where light is emitted with a brightness level preferred by the user, while acquiring an appropriate image where light is emitted with a brightness level that is appropriate to the photographing process performed in the camera.

Lighting device, image capturing system, and lighting control method


A control apparatus that process data inputs in a computing arrangement to provide outputs includes a user interface and a data processing arrangement. The computing arrangement executes a software product to implement a method including generating a multi-dimensional system model operable to describe the system as spanned by state variables on at least one of finite domains or intervals, generating an addressable solution space to meet runtime requirements, the addressable solution space defining all valid states or combinations satisfying a conjunction of substantially all system constraints on all variables, storing the addressable solution space, generating and storing object functions, generating and storing values associated with the addressable solution space to make the values addressable from an environment including the state variables, and using the addressable solution space to process inputs provided to the system, and to generate outputs for controlling or advising operation of the system.

Control apparatus for processing input data representative of real physical variables acquired by sensor arrangements, wherein the control apparatus employ in operation computer-based decision support systems for generating consistent, context-sensitive recommendations in real-time and with a predictable low memory footprint on a wide range of computing platforms, are known. Such control apparatus often employ sensors and signal processing hardware, embedded control systems, wearable and mobile devices, graphical processing units (GPUs) and supercomputers. The control apparatus are operable to evaluate all consequences of highly-specific combinations of multi- or even hyper-dimensional input data to predict behaviours of complex environments, and are potentially enormously beneficial in a wide variety of technical fields of use. Such technical fields include, for example, safety systems in nuclear powerplants, railway interlocking systems, Internet of Things (IoT), smartgrids, consumer electronics and many exceptionally complex apparatus employed in healthcare environments.
Conventionally, complex decisions are routinely made at points of care in a given healthcare system; for example, complex decisions are often made when a clinician interacts with a patient and provides corresponding diagnoses, prescriptions and advice. The decisions are complex to make, because the patient is potentially within a huge range of genetic, phenotypic, clinical and environmental diversity. For example, each patient is unique and will react differently to a given treatment regimen at a given stage of their lives. Current best clinical practice follows generic clinical pathways, for example there is employed a hypothesis " . . . if you have this disease, then prescribe this set of drugs . . . ". However, such decisions are often made outside a range of specific companion diagnostic tests, and often takes minimal account of the given patient's personal factors. Similar considerations pertain when controlling other types of complex facilities or systems, for example in a case of a nuclear facility (such as at Fukushima Dai'ichi, Japan): "When a China syndrome occurs at a nuclear plant, evacuate a 100 km zone around the nuclear plant, evacuating any large city nearby and start pumping in large quantities of water, ensuring that hydrogen gas is vented to avoid a hydrogen explosion within a burn hole generated by the China syndrome".
In developed industrial societies having a high public welfare standard, there are presently employed in a range of 10% to 20% of gross domestic product (GDP) for healthcare related activities. Such a relatively high range results from massively inefficient delivery of healthcare services; for example, clinicians often find it contemporarily hard to personalize care to find a best combination of therapies for a given patient that the clinicians are seeking to treat. Such inefficiency results in patients being prescribed medicines that will not work for them; for example, on average, cancer drugs are effective in only 35% of patients, in practice. Prescribed medicines are often ineffective because it is difficult for a given patient to adhere to a prescribed therapeutic regimen set by the given patient's doctor, for example as a result of the therapeutic regimen not providing a benefit as expected by the given patient. For example, interactions between drugs cause side-effects that make patients feel more unwell; these interactions often arising from issues that were not envisaged by the given patient's doctor. Contemporarily, chronic diseases (such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia and diabetes) exert huge social and financial burdens worldwide. In the United Kingdom (UK), chronic diseases are responsible for 85% of all human deaths, and the 30% of the UK population that has one or more chronic conditions consumes over 70% of a National Health Service (NHS) budget allocated for the UK. Much of this cost (for example, up to £8 billion (GBP) of a £10 billion (GBP) diabetes bill in the UK) is caused:                (i) by patients who are unable to manage effectively their one or more diseases; and        (ii) from avoidable hospitalizations due to inaccurate or unsafe prescriptions and/or adverse drug reactions.
Adverse drug reactions become common as a given patient takes more drugs (medicines). However, it will be appreciated that chronic diseases require long-term polypharmaceutical treatment regimens, wherein patients afflicted by such chronic diseases are often required to take in a range of 4 to 10 (or even more) prescription drugs on a daily basis; moreover, such chronic patients with these conditions have very high incidences of side effects and consequently exhibit a highest incidence of patient non-adherence (namely, failing to take prescribed medications). Patient non-adherence is, for example, routinely in a range of 40% to 50% in cases of diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Aforementioned side effects are exacerbated in a situation where clinicians treat patients for one disease at a time, rather than taking a holistic approach. Such an exacerbation occurs, for example, when a given patient is referred to a plurality of specialist clinicians who prescribe new therapies for one given disease of a plurality of diseases afflicting the given patient, without due consideration of a combinatorial effect of those medications on the given patient's metabolism. Thus, it is beneficial for clinical teams to evaluate the combinatorial impact of the given patient's whole polypharmaceutical therapeutic regimen on the given patient's diseases; as a result, it is feasible, when taking into consideration the combinatorial impact, to implement more compatible selections of therapies. However, contemporarily, there are no effective tools for being able to implement more compatible selections in a systematic personalized basis across a whole patient population at a given point of care.
Contemporarily, it is a major strategic priority to provide precision or personalized medicine for healthcare systems, because such precision or personalized medicine is widely understood to offer more accurate and cost-effective ways of understanding a given patient's individual disease risks, thereby enabling a delay in an onset of disease to be achieved, and also enabling a more accurate prescription of a best available treatment option to be made, thereby improving health of the given patient. Implementing precision medicine, for example by employing control apparatus, has contemporarily been found to be extremely difficult to achieve in practice, especially when considering a given patient's whole health burden and not just a single diagnosis pertaining to the given patient. In order to provide contextualized predictions that take into account all factors applying to a given healthcare system, it is necessary to take into consideration disease processes, genetic predispositions to disease risk and therapy responses, clinical assay results, drug pharmacology and systems biology.
Thus, in order to provide contextualized predictions, there arises a need for massively complex analyses to predict accurately individual risks and therapy responses for real example patients. When contemporarily seeking to provide truly personalizing diagnostic interpretations and prescription decisions for a specific patient, there is required an understanding of a disease for which the specific patient has been diagnosed, or a treatment for the disease, together with an understanding of the specific patient's genotypic, phenotypic, clinical history, co-morbidities, co-prescriptions, lifestyle, environmental, and potentially other factors, all of which will have an impact on the specific patient and the specific patient's response to therapeutic regimens. However, such conceptualized predictions are often beyond an intellect capacity of many experienced doctors and surgeons. Known control apparatus for assisting aforesaid doctors and surgeons have been found to be too computationally demanded and/or deliver control results insufficiently promptly.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that it is desirable to employ software programs, for example software applications, such as computer-based expert systems that can systematically personalize healthcare recommendations, such as improving an accuracy and safety of prescriptions that are prescribed for implementing complex therapeutic regimens, for providing accurate and safe advice to a given patient on their most beneficial diet and lifestyle, and for identifying a best clinical practice to employ (for example, in terms of costs, risks and outcomes); delivering such personalized healthcare recommendation in more effective manner is paramount to achieving a cost-effective delivery of effective healthcare. Currently, however, there are no truly effective analytical solutions to such problems, due to a hyper-dimensionality and combinatorial complexity of analyses required when seeking to provide a more cost-effective delivery of effective healthcare; for such analyses to be generally useful, they need to be available in real-time to a given clinician at a point of care (for example, to aid in selecting a best available drug for a specific patient), or to a given patient in a course of his/her daily lives (for example, to provide actionable advice to help the given patient to modify his/her diet and lifestyle to optimize his/her health and chances of a successful outcome of administered treatment to the given patient).
Contemporarily, statistical and machine learning methods are occasionally used to attempt to identify correlations pertaining to interaction effects arising between a plurality of treatments when administered concurrently. However, it is found in practice that these methods do not scale reliably when applied to multi- or hyper-dimensional data, nor do the methods cope well with integrating multiple types of input data into analyses employed in the methods. Moreover, the methods cannot, in some cases, accommodate missing or partially erroneous data (i.e. "dirty data"), and particularly cannot scale computationally to cope with a vast increase in a combinatorial problem space that is presented to the aforesaid methods when there are multiple variables, wherein each variable can have associated therewith a large range of potential values.
Contemporary analytical methods seek to cope with the aforementioned vast increase in the combinatorial problem space either by seeking to simplify the problem space to successive one-dimensional slices, or to classify or prune the combinatorial problem space to reduce its complexity. A problem with such an approach to simplify the aforementioned combinatorial problem space is that there arises a risk that potentially valid solutions are eliminated, and leave behind, after simplification, potentially invalid solutions, that represents a sub-optimal treatment for a given patient whose characteristics are represented in the aforementioned combinatorial problem space.
The aforementioned methods of analysing the combinatorial problem space are found in practice to be so computationally intensive that, without approximating the combinatorial problem space in ways as aforementioned, they cannot generate recommendations in real-time for individual given patients, even when massively distributed server architectures such as Hadoop or IBM Watson are employed to execute computations for implementing the methods; "Hadoop" and "IBM Watson" are registered trademarks. Moreover, it will be appreciated that "Hadoop" and "IBM Watson" are respected as being leading-edge computing products and are highly respected within contemporary computing industries. Thus, the methods cannot be executed on relatively low-power mobile, wearable or embedded computing systems, and cannot therefore provide interactive answers to patients' questions and actionable advice outside a clinical setting, and particularly not on a wearable or mobile computing device that a given patient or carer is likely to carry around with them.
To provide detailed, useful and relevant advice to end-users, for example to clinicians and/or patients, there is therefore required that a combination of all diverse factors describing an individual patient, namely their "input state vector", can be analysed in real-time on a mobile computing device, for example a smartwatch, mobile telephone (USA: "cellphone") or tablet-like computing device, without a need for access external computing resources via a data communication network, for example the Internet or a remote server, and that a decision support system hosted on the mobile computing device to provide safe and consistent inferences in real-time, taking into account all input variables and constraints; for example, it is required that there are generated personalized recommendations for a given patient, wherein the personalized recommendations are of a quality and standard that is comparable to best clinical practice, taking into account all the given patient's multi-dimensional health factors as represented in a combinatorial problem space.
Contemporarily, many systems analysis tools have become available, for example as described in published patent documents WO 90/09001 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,515,524. However, there still exists an unmet demand for systems that are able to generate inferences in relation to larger and more complex problems, wherein the problems concern multiple variable types and there arise requirements for completeness and compactness and real-time deduction on a small computing device having relatively limited data memory. In this context, a term "completeness" indicates a mathematical requirement that all combinations in the aforementioned combinatorial problem space have been verified to ensure that a logical consistency is achieved when performing computations to find solutions in relation to the combinatorial problem space. When reacting to an emergency situation, for example to a blowout at a complex oil and gas production facility, real-time deduction can be critical to saving lives of facility workers that are potentially affected by such a blowout.
Basic concepts of context-sensitive reasoning and decision support technology are described in published PCT patent applications WO 09948031A1 and WO 2001022278A1. A first generation of technology (herein referred to as "ADB 1.0") described in the aforementioned PCT patent applications has proven to be efficient for simple product configurations and similar kinds of problems, but the technology has not been found to scale satisfactorily to process very complex problems such as those described in the foregoing with reference to healthcare.
A scientific/mathematical discussion of principles of processing a complex combinatorial problem space is disclosed in a publication by Møller, Gert L: "On the Technology of Array-based Logic". Ph.D. thesis, Electric Power Engineering Department, Technical University of Denmark, January 1995.
It will be appreciated that intelligent control apparatus for industrial production facilities, agricultural facilities, building environmental control and so forth have been the subject matter of numerous granted EP and UK patents, over a period of many years, and is widely accepted as not being a type of invention that is excluded from patentability.

Control apparatus and method for processing data inputs in computing devices therefore


The invention relates to a facia panel for allowing an inflated airbag to pass through. In accordance with the invention, a composite finished part includes a support element made of plastic and having a reduced thickness in comparison to its other dimensions, and a connecting sheet joined to the support element and not extending over the whole surface of the support element. The part presents a special zone which forms a door for an airbag and is designed to make it possible to create a passageway for the airbag. The zone is delimited by a periphery constituted by an embrittled portion presenting two extremities and by an articulating portion which defines, between the two extremities, a articulation axis overlapped by the connecting sheet. The connecting sheet is present over the greater part of the special zone present, along at least the major part of the embrittled portion end on either side of the embrittled portion, and encompassed in the support element.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for producing a finished part comprising a zone which forms a door for an airbag and is designed to allow a passageway for the airbag to be created, as well as to such a part and to an assembly comprising the part.
More particularly the invention has applications in the field of automotive interior design, where it is especially relevant to the production of facia panels and door panels.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The object of the invention is to find a straightforward, reliable and inexpensive way of producing durable and reliable parts that enable a passageway to be created in a satisfactory manner.
In order to produce such a part, U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,668 and FR-B-2 725 950 disclose a method featuring the following steps: a) producing a part comprising a support element made from plastics material(s) which is of reduced thickness compared to its other dimensions, and a connecting sheet which extends substantially along the surface of said support element, b) incorporating in the part the special zone which forms a door delimited by a periphery constituted by an embrittled portion which has been mechanically weakened between two extremities and by an articulating portion which defines, between said two extremities, an articulation axis overlapped by the sheet.
However, this method is not entirely satisfactory. In particular, as far as the airbag is concerned, opening the door gives rise to fractures and even cracks, which tend to propagate within the part. Since these fractures or cracks are not restricted to the articulating portion, there is a danger of fragments of said part breaking away and being projected at the occupants of the vehicle and injuring them. Furthermore, there is a dispersion of the force deployed by the airbag, requiring the airbag to exert very great pressures to succeed in opening up the door.
Although it would have been possible to employ quality materials that are able to withstand stresses without fracturing, this solution is nevertheless comparatively expensive.

Method for producing a finished part comprising a zone designed to allow a passageway to be created, and finished part and assembly thereby produced


The present invention relates to a dummy vehicle for carrying out tests for a driver assistance system. The dummy vehicle has a deformable first outer panel, which at least partially encloses an inner volume of the dummy vehicle, and an opening element, which at least partially encloses the inner volume of the dummy vehicle, wherein the opening element and the first outer panel form a self-supporting unit. The opening element is detachably connected to the first outer panel such that, upon an influence of an impact force, the opening element is detachable from the first outer panel, such that the self-supporting unit is disintegratable and a deformation of the vehicle is providable.

In modern automotive engineering, more and more assistance systems come into operation, which systems actively monitor the surroundings of a vehicle and passively or actively intervene in the steerage of the vehicle. Therefore, assistance systems have to be subjected to tests to the full extent in order to prevent misjudgements of the assistance systems.
For testing modern assistance systems, collisions or near-collision situations between the vehicle to be tested and a test object, for example a vehicle mock or a dummy, are effectuated. For a collision between a vehicle and a test object, for example, the vehicle or the test object is arranged stationary at a defined position, or also moved travellingly on a platform, and the collision partner is accelerated to a defined difference velocity. In order to effectuate a realistic collision situation (or a situation close to reality), such as for example a collision of two vehicles or of a vehicle with a person in road traffic, both the vehicle and the test object are set in motion in order to generate a collision or a near-collision situation. In doing so, in particular driver assistance systems can be tested close to reality.
For testing the driver assistance systems, a frequent repetition of the tests is necessary. In particular, the construction of a vehicle mock for repeated test manoeuvres is a significant expense factor for such tests for driver assistance systems. A destruction of the vehicle mock upon collisions thus causes costs, in particular upon frequent repetition of collision experiments.

Dummy vehicle for carrying out tests for a driver assistance system


A protective device for use with an interference screw used to attach a soft tissue graft within a bone tunnel reduces the tendency of the interference screw to undesirably snag a soft tissue graft and/or sutures when screwed into a bone tunnel. The protective device has an angled face that corresponds to an angled face of the interference screw and threads that correspond to the threads of the interference screw. When used together, the protective device effectively completes the part of the interference screw that is removed to form the angled face. This, in turn, reduces or eliminates any sharp edges that would otherwise catch or snag the tissue graft and/or sutures as the interference screw is screwed into a bone tunnel during a joint repair procedure. The protective device may be included within a kit together with a correspondingly sized and shaped interference screw, and optionally with a driver.

1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of joint repair surgery, such as reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). More particularly, the invention relates to the field of interference screws used generally for fixation of soft tissue grafts, such as tibial affixation of soft tissue ACL grafts.
2. The Relevant Technology
Injuries to joints, specifically the knee, are quite common, particularly when one engages in vigorous sporting activities. A common injury is a rupture or tear of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), which is the primary ligament responsible for holding the knee joint together and which keeps it from slipping out of joint or dislocating. An unrepaired ruptured or torn ACL can cripple, and would most certainly limit physical activity of, the person suffering a ruptured or torn ACL.
One method for performing an ACL reconstruction procedure involves taking a tissue graft from another part of the body, such as a soft tissue graft (e.g., from the hamstrings), and attaching it at both ends through bone tunnels drilled through the two bones that make up the knee joint: the femur and the tibia. When secured in place, the tissue graft mimics and, hence, takes the place of, the ACL itself. This tissue graft holds the femur and tibia together to make the joint more stable, while simultaneously allowing for normal joint movements (i.e., flexion and extension).
One way to attach the graft to the bone is with an interference screw. An interference screw is screwed into a bone tunnel through which the soft tissue graft passes, thereby causing the graft to be compressed against the surface of the bone tunnel with sufficient force for holding the graft in place. The interference screw shortens the effective length of the graft and minimizes the "bungee effect" by affixing the soft tissue graft and preventing the graft from stretching inside of the bone tunnels.
One type of interference screw includes a threaded body and a trailing end, or head, that is substantially flat and perpendicular relative to the threaded body. This can create a problem whenever the bone tunnel is formed at an angle relative to the bone surface. Because an angled bone tunnel is not perpendicular to the bone surface, the surface of the trailing end of the interference screw will not lie flush with the bone surface. As a result, either a corner of the trailing end will protrude from the bone, requiring an extra cutting step to remove the protrusion, or a substantial portion of the screw will be recessed within the bone tunnel surface, which reduces the amount of surface contact between the screw and the hard cortical bone at the bone surface, thereby potentially comprising the holding strength of the screw against the graft.
In order for the interference screw to make complete circumferential contact against the cortical bone region of the bone tunnel, an improved screw has been developed by the inventor having an obliquely angled trailing end that matches or corresponds to the angle of the bone tunnel. In this way, the trailing end can lie flush with the bone tunnel surface, while also making complete circumferential contact at the cortical bone region of the bone tunnel, when the screw has been inserted properly into the bone tunnel.
Interference screws of the inventor having obliquely angled trailing ends have proven to be an excellent solution to the problems inherent whenever a bone tunnel is angled so as to not be perpendicular to the bone tunnel surface. Nevertheless, forming an oblique angle in the trailing end of the interference screw can create relatively sharp edges, particularly where the threads are exposed, which can potentially snag the tissue graft and/or sutures attached to the graft when the screw is screwed into the bone tunnel. Accordingly, there is a present need to provide interference screws with angled trailing ends while minimizing the risk that the interference screw will snag the tissue graft and/or sutures as the screw is screwed into the bone tunnel.

Protective devices for use with angled interference screws


The present disclosure provides a fixing structure including a base, a first fastener, and a second fastener. The first fastener is disposed on the base and comprises a first hook portion, a first accommodation portion and a first opening portion. The second fastener is disposed on the base and comprises a second hook portion, a second accommodation portion and a second opening portion. A guiding groove is defined by and located between the first and second fasteners and is in communication with the first and second accommodation portions. A positioning channel is defined by the guiding groove, and the first and second accommodation portions, collaboratively. The first and second opening portions are located on the opposite sides of the positioning channel, respectively.

In order to improve indoor air convection, many buildings are equipped with ventilation fans to keep the air fresh. Generally, an outer cover is disposed on the fan body of the ventilation fan after fan body is mounted. The outer cover is not only provided for air entrance and blocking external objects, but also can be used for mounting luminaires or decorations thereon. Since there is a need of regular cleaning, maintenance and replacement for the outer cover or the fan body, the outer cover should be removed and mounted quickly and repeatedly. Currently, springs are utilized and disposed on the outer cover to allow the outer cover to be mounted quickly through the elasticity and be used as buffer for adapting the assembling gaps due to different thicknesses of ceilings. Therefore, springs are indispensable for the outer cover of the ventilation fans, and relatedly, the fixing structure for fixing the springs also plays an important role.
The conventional ways of fixing the springs include screw fixing method and fitting fastening method. In the screw fixing method, the springs are fixed on the outer cover by screws and metal fittings, which has drawbacks of the complicated assembly process and high material cost. In the fitting fastening method, the spring is placed on a corresponding position of a metal elastic piece or plastic fitting, which is subsequently fixed with a fastener on the outer cover. Although the assembly process of the fitting fastening method is more simplified than the screw fixing method, it still needs extra components to complete the assembling. In addition, the intensity of the metal elastic piece or plastic fitting is not good enough and may be deformed by the pulling action when removing the outer cover, and thus causing the risk of the outer cover falling.
Therefore, for overcoming the drawbacks of the conventional methods of fixing the springs, the present disclosure provides a novel fixing structure and ventilation fan therefor which can achieve the efficacies of simplifying manufacturing process and assembling process, saving material cost and time cost, and providing sufficient stability and adaptability.

Fixing structure and ventilation fan therefor


This invention relates to an equalization apparatus, an equalization method and a receiver using the same. Two equalizers are applied to the equalization apparatus to cover two clusters of a channel. The weights of the two equalizers are calculated by channel gains of the whole channel based on the minimum mean square error criterion. Therefore the interference of the whole channel due to different clusters can be reduced enormously.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an equalization technique. More particularly, the present invention relates to an equalization technique for a channel with multiple clusters.
2. Description of Related Art
In a wireless communication environment, there may be a multi-path phenomenon due to diffractions and refractions of electromagnetic waves caused by obstacles located between a receiver and a transmitter. Therefore, when a channel thereof is observed in time domain, the channel may have a plurality of delay paths, while when the channel is observed in frequency domain, the channel may be regarded as a frequency-selective channel. As to the present various communication systems, a spread-spectrum system is more likely to be interfered by the frequency-selective channel, which may decrease a performance of the receiver.
Taking a present code division multiple access (CDMA) system for an example, to solve the problem of an interference in a frequency-selective channel, a receiver of the CDMA system generally applies an equalization technique for equalizing the frequency-selective channel. In other words, an equalizer is used to convert the frequency-selective channel into a frequency-flat channel, so as to reduce the multipath interference.
FIG. 1 is a system block diagram of a conventional CDMA receiver applying an equalizer. Referring to FIG. 1, a channel response of a received signal r[m] is estimated by a channel estimation unit 110, namely, a delay time τ of each delay path within the channel and a channel gain ĥ(τ) corresponding to each delay time are estimated, and a plurality of weights w0, w1, w2, . . . , wF−1 of an equalizer 130 are estimated according to the estimated channel gains ĥ(τ), and then the weights w0, w1, w2, . . . , wF−1 are output to the equalizer 130. Next, the equalizer 130 sequentially delays the received signals r[m] for a chip duration TC. Then, after respectively multiplying the original received signal r[m] and the delayed received signals r[m−1], r[m−2], . . . , r[m−F+1] with the weights w0, w1, w2, wF−1, a combination of above multiple multiplications is then output. A correlator 150 de-spreads the equalized signal according to a spreading code c[n], and a decision unit 170 is used for demodulating a digital signal {circumflex over (b)}.
A window length of the equalizer 130 is represented by F. For a present equalization technique, a plurality of documents (for example, note [1]) refers to that the window length F of the equalizer has to be greater than or equal to twice of a channel length thereof, so that the equalizer may effectively eliminate the interference of the channel to the received signals. Therefore, from the viewpoint of hardware implementation in a receiver, if the window length of channel estimation is L, the window length F of the equalizer is then designed to be 2L.
However, in a channel with relatively large delay spread, the multipath signals might be separated quite far apart, as shown in FIG. 2. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a channel power delay profile. Referring to FIG. 2, horizontal coordinates thereof represent delay times τ with a unit of nanosecond (ns), and vertical coordinates represent powers |ĥ(τ)|2 with a unit of dB. According to FIG. 2, the delay paths within the channel are sparsely distributed in time domain, and the delay paths may be grouped into two clusters of cluster 1 and cluster 2. The cause of such channel phenomenon may be that in a hilly terrain (HT), the electromagnetic waves emitted from the transmitter are received by the receiver after a long distance reflection, so that the delay paths of the cluster 2 are generated. Alternatively, the receiver may be just located within transmission ranges of two base stations, so that the receiver may simultaneously receive signals from the two base stations, and therefore the delay paths of the cluster 1 and the cluster 2 are generated.
Consider a channel environment of FIG. 2, due to a limitation of the hardware, if the window length of the equalizer of the receiver maintains to be F=2L, here L is assumed to be the channel length of cluster 1, the window length of the equalizer is not enough for each of the delay paths within the channel, so that the equalizer cannot equalize the transmission channel, and accordingly performance of the receiver is degraded.
A U.S. patent laid-open publication No. 2006/0109892 A1 provides a receiver having two equalizers, as shown in FIG. 3. Wherein, the two equalizers 335 and 340 of the receiver 300 equalize the received signals respectively based on delay paths 305A and 305B of two clusters. Next, the signals equalized by the two equalizers 335 and 340 are combined for outputting to a CMIS circuit 352. The CMIS circuit 352 reconstructs the interfering signals, which are used to be subtracted from the received signal through the adders 325 and 330.
According to the aforementioned U.S. patent laid-open publication, when the weights are calculated, calculation of the weights of equalizer 335 only considers a channel response of the delay path 305A of the first cluster, and calculation of the weights of equalizer 340 only considers a channel response of the delay path 305B of the second cluster. In other words, the weights of the equalizers 335 and 340 are not calculated under a minimum mean square error (MMSE) criterion. Actually, in such a two-cluster channel, the signal received by the equalizer 335 is interfered by the delay path 305B of the second cluster. However, the equalizer 335 may only mitigate the interference of the delay path 305A of the first cluster. Similarly, the signal received by the equalizer 340 is interfered by the delay path 305A of the first cluster. But the equalizer 340 may only mitigate the interference of the delay path 305B of the second cluster. Therefore, though the two equalizers 335 and 340 are applied in the aforementioned patent, interferences of the delay paths 305A and 305B cannot be simultaneously mitigated. Since the equalizers 334 and 340 cannot totally eliminate the interferences within the channel, the signal reconstructed by the CMIS circuit still may contain interference. While the reconstructed signal polluted by interference is still fed back to the adders 325 and 330, the error propagation in the receiver occurs. Moreover, when the signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR) at the receiver is low, such feed-back mechanism may lead to the error propagation, and hence degrade the reception performance.    Note [1]: M. Melvasalo, P. Jänis and V. Koivunen., "Low complexity space-time MMSE equalization in WCDMA systems," proc. of 2005 IEEE 16th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications, Berlin, Germany, pp. 306-310, 2005.

Equalization apparatus, equalization method and receiver using the same


A medication transfer connector and connection is described which allows dead-space reduction in the fluid path between a first and a second fluid transfer device. The reduction in dead-space does not depend on manufacturing dimensional tolerances of the transfer device's or connector's mating components. Thus, waste of medication due to dead-space is reduced without depending on control of manufacturing tolerances of the mating components' dimensions. Selection and interchange of the first and second fluid transfer devices are allowed.

Hypodermic syringes are well known to be used to deliver medication to patients. A traditional hypodermic syringe typically includes a syringe barrel having opposed proximal and distal ends. A cylindrical chamber wall extends between the ends and defines a fluid-receiving chamber. The proximal end of the traditional syringe barrel is substantially open and receives a plunger in sliding fluid-tight engagement. The distal end of the traditional syringe barrel includes a passage communicating with the chamber. A needle cannula is mounted to the distal end of the traditional syringe barrel such that the lumen of the needle cannula communicates with the passage in the chamber of the syringe barrel. Movement of the plunger in the proximal direction draws fluid through the lumen of the needle cannula and into the chamber. Movement of the plunger in a proximal to distal direction urges fluid from the chamber and through the lumen of the needle cannula.
The traditional syringe is designed for a variety of clinical operations. Many applications require needle changing or connection of the syringe to items such as stopcocks or tubing sets. Typically, traditional syringes create a dead-space between the connection of the syringe and the needle hub. These traditional syringes often trap and waste a certain amount of medication in the dead-space after injection. The amount of drug that is not expelled after injection and remains trapped in the fluid transfer connection is wasted when the syringe is discarded.
A typical traditional hypodermic syringe has three major components: (i) a syringe barrel; (ii) a plunger rod; and (iii) a stopper. Each of the three major components are described more completely below. As previously stated, hypodermic syringes contain a certain amount of dead-space between the connection of the syringe barrel and needle hub. This dead-space has been shown to cause waste of medication as well as added expense. The increase in cost is exacerbated when expensive drugs are delivered to the patient.
Attempts to reduce the dead-space between the syringe barrel and the needle hub in the traditional syringe are aggravated by the tight manufacturing tolerances of the mating components' dimensions required to minimize the dead-space. In addition, use of various syringe barrels and needle hubs from different manufacturers, which operate under different manufacturing tolerances of the above mating components' dimensions, can create an even more difficult situation to hold the dead space to a bare minimum.
Therefore, advancements in hypodermic syringes to reduce dead-space are still dependent on manufacturing tolerances of the mating components' dimensions. Thus, while some prior art hypodermic syringes attempt to reduce the dead-space and save medication costs, the dead-space still varies with the manufacturing tolerances of the mating components' dimensions. There is still a need for an improved fluid transfer connection between the syringe barrel and needle hub that will reduce the dead-space and remain independent of manufacturing tolerances of the mating components' dimensions.

Medication transfer connector and connection