A flash memory device includes a flash memory residing on at least one flash memory die. The flash memory device also includes a flash controller residing on a flash controller die that is separate from the at least one flash memory die. The flash memory and the flash controller reside within, reside on, or are attached to a common housing. The flash controller is configured to execute at least one test program to test at least one flash memory die.

Single Bit and Multi-Bit Flash Memory Cells
Flash memory devices have been known for many years. Typically, each memory cell within a flash memory device stores one bit of information. The traditional way to store a bit in a flash memory cell has been by supporting two states of the memory cell. One state represents a logical "0" and the other state represents a logical "1".
In a flash memory cell, the two states are implemented by having a floating gate situated above the cell's channel (the area connecting the source and drain elements of the cell's transistor), and having two valid states for the amount of charge stored within the floating gate. Typically, one state is with zero charge in the floating gate and is the unwritten state of the cell after being erased (commonly defined to represent the "1" state) and the other state is with some amount of negative charge in the floating gate (commonly defined to represent the "0" state). Having negative charge in the gate causes the threshold voltage of the cell's transistor (i.e., the voltage that has to be applied to the transistor's control gate in order to cause the transistor to conduct) to increase. It is possible to read the stored bit by checking the threshold voltage of the cell. If the threshold voltage is in the higher state then the bit value is "0" and if the threshold voltage is in the lower state then the bit value is "1". Actually there is no need to accurately read the cell's threshold voltage. All that is needed is to correctly identify in which of the two states the cell is currently located. For this purpose it is sufficient to compare the threshold voltage of the cell to a reference voltage that is between the two states, and to determine if the cell's threshold voltage is below or above the reference value.
FIG. 1A (prior art) shows graphically how this works. Specifically, FIG. 1A shows a distribution of the threshold voltages of a large population of cells. Because the cells in a flash device are not exactly identical in their characteristics and behavior (due to, for example, small variations in impurity concentrations or defects in the silicon structure), applying the same programming operation to all of the cells does not cause all of the cells to have exactly the same threshold voltage. Instead, the threshold voltage is distributed as shown in FIG. 1A. Cells storing a value of "1" typically have a negative threshold voltage, such that most of the cells have a threshold voltage close to the central voltage value of the left peak (labeled 1) of FIG. 1A, with fewer cells having threshold voltages lower or higher than the central voltage of the left peak. Similarly, cells storing a value of "0" typically have a positive threshold voltage, such that most of the cells have a threshold voltage close to the central voltage of the right peak (labeled 0) of FIG. 1A, with fewer cells having threshold voltages lower or higher than the central voltage of the right peak.
In recent years, a new kind of flash device has appeared on the market, using "Multi Level Cells" (MLC). The term "Multi-Level Cell" is misleading because flash memory with a single bit per cell uses multiple i.e., two levels, as described above. Therefore, the term "Single Bit Cell" (SBC) is used hereinafter to refer to a memory cell of two levels and the term "Multi-Bit Cell" (MBC) is used hereinafter to refer to a memory cell of more than two levels, i.e., more than one bit per cell. The most common MBC flash memories at present are ones with two bits per cell, and therefore examples are given below using such MBC memories. It should however be understood that the present invention is equally applicable to flash memory devices that support more than two bits per cell. A single MBC cell storing two bits of information is in one of four different states. As the cell's "state" is represented by the cell's threshold voltage, an MBC cell supports four different valid ranges for the cell's threshold voltage. FIG. 1B (prior art) shows the threshold voltage distribution for a typical MBC cell of two bits per cell. As expected, FIG. 1B has four peaks, each peak corresponding to one state. As for the SBC, each state is actually a voltage range and not a single voltage. When reading the cell's contents, the cell's threshold voltage must be correctly identified in a definite voltage range. For a prior art example of an MBC flash device see U.S. Pat. No. 5,434,825 to Harari that is included by reference for all purposes as if fully set forth herein.
A cell designed for MBC operation e.g., in four states is typically operable as an SBC cell with two states. For example, Conley et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,426,893 incorporated by reference for all purposes as if fully set forth herein, disclosed the use of both MBC and SBC modes within the same device, and selecting certain parts of the device to operate with highest density in MBC mode, while other parts are used in SBC mode to provide better performance.
MBC devices provide a significant cost advantage. An MBC device with two bits per cell requires about half the area of a silicon wafer than an SBC of similar capacity. However, there are drawbacks to using MBC flash. Average read and write times of MBC memories are longer than of SBC memories, resulting in worse performance. Also, the reliability of MBC is lower than SBC. The differences between the threshold voltage ranges in MBC are much smaller than in SBC. Thus, a disturbance in the threshold voltage (e.g., leakage of stored charge causing a threshold voltage drift or interference from operating neighboring cells) that are insignificant in SBC because of the large gap between the two states, may cause an MBC cell to move from one state to another, resulting in an erroneous bit. The end result is a lower performance specification of MBC cells in terms of data retention time or the endurance of the device to many write/erase cycles.
Another ramification of the lower reliability of MBC devices compared to SBC devices is the required level of error correction. Manufacturers of SBC NAND flash devices typically advise users to apply an Error Correction Code (ECC) capable of correcting 1 bit error in each page of 512 bytes of data. But data sheets of MBC NAND flash devices typically advise applying an ECC capable of correcting 4 bit errors in each page of 512 bytes of data. For pages of size 2048 bytes such as in the case of NAND devices known as "large block devices", the suggestion is to apply error correction per each portion of 512 bytes of the page. The present invention applies to all types of flash devices, regardless of page size. In this application the term "N-bit ECC" refers to an ECC scheme capable of correcting N bit errors in 512 bytes of data, regardless if the 512 bytes are the size of one page, less than one page, or more than one page.
Testing of Flash Memory Dies
Flash memory dies require extensive testing before being put to use in a product. This is especially true for NAND flash. One reason for this is that the flash device might have bad blocks that should not be used. A block is the smallest chunk of cells that can be erased in a single erase operation, and it typically contains many pages, where a page is the smallest chunk of cells that can be written in a single write operation. If a block cannot be reliably erased to the all "1" state or if one or more pages of the block cannot be reliably programmed, then the block should be either replaced by another block by physically trimming the die or be marked as a bad block so that software writing to the device will be able to avoid using it.
A given flash memory die may be subjected to other tests, but the testing for bad blocks is typically the most time consuming This is because testing for bad blocks typically involves writing to each and every page and erasing each and every block of the device. The writing and erasing is typically repeated more than once in order to make the bad blocks testing under different patterns of written data, under different temperatures, or under other variations of testing parameters.
Testing During the Wafer Sort Stage of Manufacturing
In some cases the full testing of a flash memory die is completed while the die is still part of the silicon wafer in which it was manufactured, and before the wafer is separated into multiple dies. This stage is typically called the "wafer sort" stage. Such dies that completed their testing in the wafer sort stage are typically called Known Good Dies ("KGD"). The use of KGD flash memory dies is advantageous when the flash memory die is assembled into a Multi-Chip Package ("MCP") with an expensive second die such as a microprocessor. If the memory dies are not fully tested before the MCP assembly, then their testing is completed after the memory and microprocessor are assembled together into one device. Then if some of the memory dies are found defective at the MCP-stage testing, those MCP devices have to be scrapped. This causes the loss of not only the memory die (that would have been scrapped anyway), but also the expensive microprocessor die and the cost of packaging.
However, manufacturing KGD flash memory dies is not simple. The test equipment used for the wafer sorting stage is complex and expensive, using such equipment for long tests makes the costs of testing high. Also, bad blocks testing is not well suited for execution of the tests on many dies in parallel at the wafer sort stage. Unlike typical signal timing tests where all tested dies in the wafer go through exactly the same test sequences and the result of the test is a "go/nogo" decision for each die, in bad blocks testing each die might have bad blocks in different locations, and exhibit different timing while testing, and therefore the testing equipment should handle each die separately. This further complicates bad blocks testing at wafer sort stage and makes it more costly.
One other factor is even more significant in further increasing the costs of bad blocks testing at wafer sort stage. Many flash memory manufacturers require the tests to be done in temperatures different from room temperature. This means the wafer sort testing equipment should be able to conduct the testing while the tested wafer is kept in a specified temperature. This further increases the costs of the testing equipment and consequently the testing costs per die.
Because of the above, most flash memory dies are not manufactured as KGD. Instead the testing of the flash devices is divided into two parts. In the wafer sort stage only minimal tests are done, with the goal being to identify dies that are clearly bad and can be immediately discarded. Then the wafer is cut into separate dies and each die is packaged into the type of device package in which it will be sold. For NAND flash devices this is typically a TSOP, BGA or an LGA package, packages which are commonly used in electronic assemblies and Printed Circuit Boards (PCB). The rest of the testing, including the time-consuming bad blocks testing, is done on the packaged flash devices during a later stage (i.e., after the wafer sort stage) of manufacturing. Thus, any packaged devices are installed on a testing board (i.e., within the device-manufacturing facility), and the remaining tests are then executed. When testing packaged devices there is no need for expensive probing equipment, like the type needed for wafer sorting, as the flash devices can be conveniently handled and interfaced to, unlike the wafer sorting stage where access to the dies within the wafer is difficult.
However, even if packaged in a convenient package, testing of NAND flash devices for bad blocks is quite an expensive task. The reason for this is that due to the requirement for separate handling of each device (as explained above) the testing should be performed using expensive memory testers, which are capable of testing only a limited number of devices at the same time (typically about 100), and since the test time for each device is significant, so is the cost of testing. This is illustrated as a block diagram in FIG. 2.
Thus, referring to FIG. 2, it is noted that a flash memory device 110A to be tested is coupled to the memory tester 106. The flash memory device 110A includes a flash controller (including a processor 104) residing on a flash controller die 102, and a flash memory (including a plurality of memory cells) residing on one or more flash memory dies 100. Thus, the flash controller and the flash memory are on distinct dies. The memory tester 106 includes a processor 108. A testing program is executed by the memory tester 106 (in some examples, the testing program is also stored in non-volatile memory of the memory tester 106). The testing program, which is operative to test the flash memory die 100 (for example, individual memory cells of the flash memory die 100) is executed by the general purpose processor 108 which resides within the memory tester. Within FIG. 2, the processor 108 which executes the test program is marked with an asterisk. Although only a single flash memory device is depicted in FIG. 2, it is understood that typically, a plurality of devices (as mentioned above, typically about 100) are tested together in a batch (i.e., substantially simultaneously).
In general, it is noted that testing of MBC flash devices takes longer than testing SBC flash devices. This is especially true for bad blocks testing. This is because flash operations, and especially write operations, are much slower in MBC flash. Bad blocks testing requires many such operations, as typically each page in the device is written multiple times during the test. As the number of bits per cell in the MBC flash gets higher, the write operations become slower. So testing an SBC flash device is faster than testing a two-bits-per-cell MBC flash device, which in turn is faster than testing a four-bits-per-cell MBC flash device (assuming all devices have the same number of cells). With the increased use of MBC devices, this implies that costs of flash testing are increasing.
It would therefore be highly advantageous to have a systems and methods for testing flash memory devices in a cost effective manner. It would highly advantageous to have novel flash memory devices that can conveniently be tested in a cost-effective manner.

Method, system and computer-readable code to test flash memory


A system and method are provided for periodic stream admission control in an IEEE 802.11 network. The method comprises: at an access point (AP), receiving a transmit specification, including a requested bandwidth, from a quality of service station (QSTA); computing Ttemp, the time equivalent to the requested bandwidth; computing Tall, the time already allocated; and, computing Tres, the total time available. IfTtemp+Tall<Tres, then the QSTA is admitted. If Ttemp+Tall>Tres, the QSTA is not admitted. Some aspects of the method further comprise: monitoring the bandwidth of the admitted QSTA. In another aspect, the method: determines the bandwidth required by the admitted QSTA; and, modifies the bandwidth of the admitted QSTA in response to the determined QSTA requirements. In one aspect, the method: monitors channel conditions; and, modifies the bandwidth of the admitted QSTA in response to the channel conditions.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to wireless local area network (wLAN) communications and, more particularly, to an admission system and method for quality of service (QoS) communications in IEEE 802.11e and IEEE 802.11 networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
For devices operating in a network that supports QoS and managed bandwidths, there is a need for an entity that provides admission control, and the reallocation of bandwidth to the admitted data streams, as needs change. Such as entity would also enforce any existing allocations. Further, the entity would ideally monitor the channel, to ensure that the streams' actual usage of bandwidth matched the requested (assigned) amount of bandwidth. All these functions would fall under the responsibility of a network bandwidth manager (BM).
In order for the bandwidth to be managed, several mechanisms and objects are needed. Each device needs to have an entity that sends the required messaging to the BM. The BM, in turn, resides in the device that contains the hybrid coordinator (HC). To avoid confusion, this device entity is referred to herein as a controller. Further, there is a need for a protocol that specifies messaging, and the processes for reserving bandwidth. The IEEE 802.11e Draft D2.0 includes one example of such messaging. RSVP (Resource ReSerVation Protocol) is another such example. RSVP is a Layer 3 protocol that may be used by Internet Protocol (IP) traffic. The controller, hence, should have the ability to support protocols at both Layer 2 as well as Layer 3.
The suggested protocols address the administration of bandwidth admission and control using a token bucket system. For example, in the IP world, it is very common to define bandwidth as a number of bytes per second. The mechanism that is used is based on a token bucket wherein each user is allowed to transmit up to rT+b bytes, in T seconds, where r and b are the mean data rate in bytes per second and maximum burst size in bytes, respectively, that have been requested/assigned to the stream. However, the token bucket mechanism is appropriate only in the case where there are multiple queues at the same node, as in a router.
Local area networks (LANs) typically use a Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) scheme, in order to support parameterized QoS. To support packet transmission meeting requirements for throughput, latency and jitter, the system must be able to allocate time on the channel in such a way that coexistence with CSMA-based transmissions is not greatly affected. Moreover, packet error rates in such systems are typically large if the medium is wireless or power-line based, typically greater than 10%.
Several solutions have been proposed to solve the problem of packet transport meeting parameterized QoS objectives. However, these proposals have been found lacking in one or more aspects. The original drafts of 802.11e included an object called a TSPEC (for Transmission Specification), but no means were provided for specifying an upper bound on channel occupancy required for admission in a given stream. Nor was any means provided for objectively verifying that a request for the transport of packets meeting specific QoS objectives could be met.
In addition, this type of TSPEC is blind to the fact that the channel makes errors, and therefore, an over-reservation of bandwidth is generally required. Moreover, this type of TSPEC cannot be used with power saving devices, since there is no guarantee of time when a sequence of packets wouldn't be delivered.
Time-based polling techniques have previously been considered. However, no time-based polling techniques have been suggested that guarantee a time when polling does not occur. Moreover, previous time-based polling techniques have failed to considered hybrid coordinator (HC) or access point (AP) negotiation; that the HC/AP must act as coordinator for allocation of time on the channel. Finally, no time-based polling techniques have considered a method for making bandwidth reservations.
It would be advantageous if effective admission policies could be developed for an IEEE 802.11 network.
It would be advantageous if assigned bandwidths in an IEEE 802.11 network could be monitored and policed.

System and method for IEEE 802.11 network admission control


Embodiments disclosed herein are directed towards an endovascular clip comprising a proximal anchoring member and a distal self-expanding member. The proximal anchoring member and distal self-expanding member are configured to extend across opposite sides of a neck of an aneurysm.

Aneurysms result from weakening of the blood vessel, which causes the wall of the blood vessel to balloon outwardly under the hemodynamic stress of the flowing blood, thereby creating an aneurysm. Aneurysm formation and growth can have serious consequences such as pressure on the adjacent brain or other tissues and nerves and eventual rupture which can be fatal.
Given the life-threatening nature of such intracranial aneurysms, several methods of treating aneurysms have been attempted, with varying degrees of success. For example, open craniotomy is a procedure by which an aneurysm is located, and treated extravascularly. This procedure can have significant disadvantages. For example, it is an open surgery in which the surgeon must typically remove a portion of the patient's skull and violate the brain coverings, and can also traumatize brain tissue in order to reach the aneurysm.
Other known techniques used in treating aneurysms are performed endovascularly. Such techniques typically involve attempting to form a mass within the sac of the aneurysm. For instance, a microcatheter is often used to access the aneurysm, where the distal tip of the micro catheter is placed within the sac of the aneurysm, allowing for deposit of embolic material into the sac of the aneurysm. The embolic material includes, for example, detachable coils or liquid polymer. This approach, however, suffers from various disadvantages. For example, the detachable coils can exert pressure on the inside weak walls of the aneurysm, causing ruptures of the aneurysm with a potentially fatal brain hemorrhage. Additionally, coils can migrate out of the sac of the aneurysm and into the parent artery which can lead to clot formation and stroke. Another drawback is that the detachable coils can compact over time due to the space existing between the coils. Coil compaction can result in recanalization of the aneurysm caused by the continued hemodynamic forces from the blood circulation, which is particularly common in bifurcated aneurysms treated with coils.
In addition to the drawbacks associated with coils, embolic liquid migration is also a problem. For instance, when a liquid polymer is injected into the sac of the aneurysm, it can migrate out of the sac of the aneurysm, which can lead to irreversible occlusion of the parent vessel. Techniques have been developed to minimize the risk of coils and embolic liquid migration into the parent vessel, such as temporary occlusion of the parent vessel at the origin of the aneurysm using a removable balloon. However, these techniques suffer from various disadvantages also. For instance, it is sometimes undesirable to occlude the parent vessel, even temporarily. In addition, the migration prevention techniques may not prevent all embolic material migration into the parent vessel, particularly after the removing of the balloon.
Yet another technique to prevent coils migration involves depositing a permanent stent in the parent vessel across the origin of the aneurysm. This technique, however, often require premedicating the patient with strong blood thinner which can be problematic particularly in the setting of ruptured aneurysm and brain hemorrhage.
Another recent trend in endovascular technique for treating cerebral aneurysms involves permanent insertion of a tightly woven high density stent in the parent vessel across the origin of the aneurysm to divert the blood flow away from the aneurysm. This technique also suffers from the disadvantage of needing strong blood thinner, as well as potential inadvertent occlusion of some of the adjacent normal blood vessel, such as perforators. Such occlusion can lead to a devastating stroke. Moreover, the high density stent also suffers from the disadvantage that it cannot be used to treat bifurcated aneurysms.
In view of the above, there remains a need to develop new devices that effectively and safely treat cerebral aneurysms ruptured and unruptured aneurysm.

Advanced endovascular clip and method of using same


A medical diagnostic ultrasound system is provided which is portable and capable of being carried by a built in handle from location to location by single person. The system is provided in a package which is both light and compact. Further, a medical diagnostic ultrasound system is provide in which the circuitry of the ultrasound system is distributed among several circuit boards which are interconnected directly with one another without the use of a backplane or motherboard.

This application includes a microfiche appendix of 47 sheets of microfiche having 2,772 frames. A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by any one of the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
This invention relates to a medical diagnostic ultrasound system and method. Ultrasound systems generate a sequence of images representing a region of a body. Different processes and hardware are used to generate the images. Many of the processes and hardware components are divided into ultrasound subsystems. Each subsystem is typically implemented with an ASIC. The ASIC is designed to perform a particular process. The processes are determined in part as a function of the system architecture or ASIC based design.
The subsystems are connected to a back plane or common structure to form the ultrasound system. The ultrasound system typically is mounted on a large wheeled cart.
The present invention is defined by the following claims, and nothing in this section shall be taken as a limitation on those claims. By way of introduction, the following preferred embodiments, described below, include a medical diagnostic ultrasound system which is portable and capable of being carried by a built in handle from location to location by single person. The system is provided in a package which is both light and compact. This combination makes transport, storage and use much easier.
In another preferred embodiment, described below, the circuitry of the ultrasound system is distributed among several circuit boards which are interconnected directly with one another without the use of a backplane or motherboard. Such interconnection enhances system performance and reliability while reducing the size of the device and the manufacturing costs.

Medical diagnostic ultrasound system and method


Smart meal preparation can be performed where a consumer order for a food item and a consumer request related to the food item are received. One or more recipes for the food item are received. The one or more recipes are analyzed to determine a conflict with the consumer request. The consumer request and the determined conflict are transmitted to a wearable device worn by a cook who will prepare the food item. Alerts related to the conflict are provided to the cook via the wearable device during preparation of the food item. Preparation of the food item is monitored for compliance with the consumer request.

The present disclosure relates generally to meal preparation, and more specifically to smart meal preparation using a wearable device for accommodating consumer requests.
In many circumstances, a person who wishes to eat a meal prepared by another person has individual requests for how the meal is to be prepared. For example, a consumer may have dietary restrictions, allergies, or other preferences for the ingredients to be used or steps to be taken during meal preparation. For some such consumer requests, strict adherence to these requests is vital, and in other situations, adherence to these requests is a matter of providing good quality service.

Smart meal preparation using a wearable device for accommodating consumer requests

International Business Machines Corporation


A method of finding 3D similarities in protein structures of a first molecule and a second molecule. The method comprises providing preselected information regarding the first molecule and the second molecule. Comparing the first molecule and the second molecule using Longest Continuous Segments (LCS) analysis. Comparing the first molecule and the second molecule using Global Distance Test (GDT) analysis. Comparing the first molecule and the second molecule using Local Global Alignment Scoring function (LGA_S) analysis. Verifying constructed alignment and repeating the steps to find the regions of 3D similarities in protein structures.

1. Field of Endeavor
The present invention relates to obtaining information about protein and more particularly to finding 3D similarities in protein structures.
2. State of Technology
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2002/0150906 by Derek A. Debe, published Oct. 17, 2002, for a method for determining three-dimensional protein structure from primary protein sequence provides the following state of technology information:                "While the sequencing of the human genome is a landmark achievement in genomics, it also creates the next great challenge, namely to create an accurate structural model of each protein coded by the human genome. Since the experimental determination of all of the protein structures coded would require decades, computational methods for determining three-dimensional protein structures are essential if structural genomics is going to rapidly progress . . . .        Proteins are linear polymers of amino acids. Naturally occurring proteins may contain as many as 20 different types of amino acid residues, each of which contains a distinctive side chain. The particular linear sequence of amino acid residues in a protein defines the primary sequence, or primary structure, of the protein. The primary structure of a protein can be determined with relative ease using known methods . . . .        Proteins fold into a three-dimensional structure. The folding is determined by the sequence of amino acids and by the protein's environment. Examination of the three-dimensional structure of numerous natural proteins has revealed a number of recurring patterns. Patterns known as alpha helices, parallel beta sheets, and anti-parallel beta sheets are commonly observed . . . .        The biological properties of a protein depend directly on its three-dimensional (3D) conformation. The 3D conformation determines the activity of enzymes, the capacity and specificity of binding proteins, and the structural attributes of receptor molecules. Because the three-dimensional structure of a protein molecule is so significant, it has long been recognized that a means for easily determining a protein's three-dimensional structure from its known amino acid sequence would be highly desirable. However, it has proven extremely difficult to make such a determination without experimental data . . . .        In the past, the three-dimensional structures of proteins have been determined using a number of different experimental methods. Perhaps the recognized methods of determining protein structure involves the use of the technique of x-ray crystallography . . . .        These experimental techniques all suffer from at least one significant shortcoming. Namely, they are labor intensive and therefore slow and expensive. Modern sequencing techniques are creating rapidly growing databases of primary sequences that need to be translated into three dimensional protein structures. Indeed, with more than 500 genomes including the human genome fully sequenced, three dimensional structures have only been determined for about 2% of these sequences. Every day the ratio of predicted-three dimensional structures to primary sequences is getting smaller . . . .        In order to more rapidly predict three dimensional structures from primary sequences, biochemists are turning to various computational approaches that permit structure determination to be done with computers and software rather than laborious and intricate laboratory techniques. One of the most promising of these computational approaches compares the similarity of a primary sequence for which the three dimensional structure of the sequence is sought, referred to throughout as a query sequence or a query peptide against one or more primary sequences, usually a database of such sequences, referred to throughout as template sequences or template peptides, for which the three dimensional structures are known. This is one aspect of primary sequence homology modeling . . . .        At a high level, many primary sequence homology modeling methods can be characterized in two steps. In the first step, referred to as the alignment step, the query sequence for which the three dimensional structure is sought, is aligned against one or more template sequences, contained in a database. The three dimensional structures for each of the template sequences are known in whole or in substantial part. After each alignment comparison between the query peptide and a template peptide, the method gives a score. After each comparison has been made in the database, the highest scoring alignment pair reflects the optimally aligned query sequence/template sequence(s). The optimal sequence alignment may be used to generate the most accurate structural determinations regarding the query sequence. Still, a query/template alignment producing a sub-optimal score may be used to generate useful structural information regarding the query sequence . . . .        In the second step, referred to as the modeling step, structural information of the query peptide may be predicted based upon structural information corresponding to the sequence or subsequences aligned in the template sequence. The most common of primary sequence homology methods use sequence homologies to predict the three dimensional structure of a query sequence based on the three dimensional structure of aligned template sequences. Still, other primary sequence homology modeling techniques seek to determine primary sequence homology relationships between one or more query sequences based on the primary sequences of aligned template sequences."
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2003/0130797 by Jeffery Skolnick and Andrzej Kolinski, published Jul. 10, 2003, for protein modeling tools provides the following state of technology information:                "To maximize the utility of such nucleotide sequence information, it must be interpreted. Various tools have been developed to assist in this process. For example, algorithms have been developed to analyze what a particular nucleotidesequence encodes, e.g., a regulatory region, an open reading frame (ORF), particularly for protein sequences, or a non-translated RNA, based on homology with known sequences (which are presumed to have similar structures and related functions). See, e.g., "Frames" (Genetics Computer Group, Madison, Wis.; www.gcg.com), which is used for identifying ORFs. For sequences predicted or determined to be ORFs, it is possible to determine the amino acid sequence of the protein encoded thereby using simple analytical tools well known in the art. For example, see "Translate" (Genetics Computer Group, Madison, Wis.; www.gcg.com). However, to date determination of the primary structure of a protein in and of itself provides little, if any, functional information about the protein or its corresponding gene. Thus, the ability to predict the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence is of great theoretical and practical importance."
International Patent Application No. WO 98/48270 by William Goddard et al., for a method of determining three-dimensional protein structure from primary protein sequence, published Oct. 29, 1998 provides the following state of technology information:                "Since the seminal work by C. B. Anfinsen, determining the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence has been a much sought after goal in structural and computational biology. However, although progress has been made in several fronts such as secondary structure I prediction and homology modeling, a general method for ab initio structure prediction, or in other words, a solution to the so-called "protein folding problem, "has eluded investigators."
International Patent Application No. WO 93/01484 by David Eisenberg et al., for a method to identify protein sequences that fold into a known three-dimensional structure, published Jan. 21, 1993, provides the following state of technology information:                "A computer-assisted method for identifying protein sequences that fold into a known three-dimensional structure. The inventive method attacks the inverse protein folding problem by finding target sequences that are most compatible with profiles representing the structural environments of the residues in known three-dimensional protein structures. The method starts with a known three-dimensional protein structure and determines three key features of each residue's environment within the structure: (1) the total area of the residue's side-chain that is buried by other protein atoms, inaccessible to solvent; (2) the fraction of the side-chain area that is covered by polar atoms (O, N) or water, and (3) the local secondary structure. Based on these parameters, each residue position is categorized into an environment class. In this manner, a three-dimensional protein structure is converted into a one-dimensional environment string, which represents the environment class of each residue in the folded protein structure. A 3D structure profile table is then created containing score values that represent the frequency of finding any of the 20 common amino acids structures at each position of the environment string. These frequencies are determined from a database of known protein structures and aligned sequences. The method determines the most favorable alignment of a target protein sequence to the residue positions defined by the environment string, and determines a "best fit" alignment score, Sij for the target sequence. Each target sequence may then be further characterized by a ZScore, which is the number of standard deviations that Sij for the target sequence is above the mean alignment score for other target sequences of similar length." International Patent Application No. WO 93/01484 is incorporated into this application by reference.
International Patent Application No. WO 00/11206 by Jeffrey Skolnick et al., for methods and systems for predicting protein function, published Mar. 2, 2000 provides the following state of technology information:                " . . . methods and systems for predicting the biological function(s) of proteins . . . based on the development of functional site descriptors for discrete protein biological functions. Functional site descriptors are geometric representations of protein functional sites in three-dimensional space, and can also include additional parameters, for example, conformational information. Following their development, one or more functional site descriptors (for one or more different biological functions) are used to probe protein structures to determine if such structures contain the functional sites described by the corresponding functional site descriptors. If so, the protein(s) containing the functional site(s) are predicted to have the corresponding biological function(s) . . . a library of functional site descriptors is used to probe inexact protein structures derived by computational methods from amino acid sequence information to predict the biological function(s) of such sequences and of the gene(s) encoding the same." International Patent Application No. WO 00/11206 is incorporated into this application by reference.

Local-global alignment for finding 3D similarities in protein structures

Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC


A multi-purpose plastic bottle for adult personal care use in containing and dispensing liquid is disclosed having a generally cylindrical shape and tubular segments that define an aperture through the bottle so that it may be easily grasped by an adult. The bottle has a screw-type cap whereby its opening may be selectively closed or opened for dispensing liquid from the bottle.

Plastic bottles have been very well developed in the industrial arts. For instance, molded plastic bottles have substantially replaced glass in many areas of use as containers for liquid for general purposes. Integrally molded handles have been provided in such containers in order to facilitate the handling thereof for carrying, storage and dispensing purposes. In addition, in the case of babies or infants, a bottle has been provided with a central integral aperture to facilitate handling by an infant or the baby. U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,630 discloses an example of a baby bottle that is particularly designed and constructed to enable handling by the small hands of a baby in the dispensing of liquid during feeding operations.
There are currently available many different types of general utility plastic bottles for adult care use. These bottles while satisfactory for containing and dispensing liquids do not provide features that are desirable for adult care. For instance, there are plastic bottles that are currently being employed that serve as containers for soft drinks, milk and other nutritional liquids that are simply cylindrical in shape. These containers are bulky and difficult to handle. In a nursing home environment, for example, elderly people have difficulty in using containers that are bulky and do not facilitate being easily grasped and used. Handicapped personnel also have difficulty in using currently available containers. In the sports area, generally cylindrical bulky containers are also available and these present the same disadvantages for those containers that are available in health care related and other environments.
There has been a continuing need for improvements in containers that are particularly adapted for adult personal care use in containing and dispensing liquids.

Adult personal care bottle with integral handles


A lock assembly for selectively locking to a striker on a vehicle includes a lock body defining a lock body recess for receiving the striker therein. A latch is rotatably mounted to the lock body for selectively locking the striker in the lock body recess. The latch is moveable between a latched position wherein the striker is locked in the lock body recess and an unlatched position wherein the striker is removable from the lock body recess. A ratchet is rotatably mounted to the lock body adjacent the latch for selectively locking the latch in the latched position. The ratchet is moveable between an engaged position wherein the ratchet locks the latch in the latched position and a disengaged position wherein the latch is moveable between the latched position and the unlatched position. The ratchet is (a) in the engaged position when locking the latch in the latched position to lock the striker in the lock body recess and (b) in the disengaged position when the latch is one of (i) in the unlatched position and (ii) moveable between the latched position and the unlatched position.

The present invention relates to tailgates and, more particularly, to a control system for a dual-mode tailgate. In one embodiment, the tailgate control system is provided for controlling a dual-mode tailgate mounted to a sport utility truck or vehicle and will be described with particular reference thereto. It is to be appreciated, however, that the invention may relate to other similar environments and applications.
Tailgates and, more particularly, dual-mode tailgates are generally known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,387,406 issued to Coker discloses a dual-mode tailgate for use on a station wagon. "Dual-mode" refers to the two directions or pivot axes along which a dual-mode tailgate is openable. Often, the dual-mode tailgate is selectively openable in a first, fold-down direction about an axis generally parallel with a rear edge of the vehicle along which the tailgate is disposed (e.g., similar to a conventional pick-up truck tailgate). The dual-mode tailgate is also selectively openable in a second, side-to-side direction about an axis generally parallel with a vertical edge defining the opening in which the tailgate is disposed.
Generally, a dual-mode tailgate includes a dual-mode hinge pivotally connecting the tailgate to a vehicle, a first hinge/lock assembly spaced apart from the dual-mode hinge in a first direction and a second hinge/lock assembly spaced apart from the dual-mode hinge in a second direction. For example, the dual-mode hinge is positioned in a lower-left corner of the tailgate, the first hinge/lock assembly is positioned in an upper-left corner of the tailgate and the second hinge/lock assembly is positioned in a lower right corner of the tailgate.
When the first hinge/lock is detached from the vehicle, the tailgate is openable in a first mode (e.g., flip-down mode) wherein the second hinge/lock and the dual-mode hinge cooperate to pivotally connect the tailgate to the vehicle along a first axis (e.g., an axis generally parallel with a bottom edge of an opening in which the tailgate is disposed). When the second hinge/lock is detached from the vehicle, the tailgate is openable in a second mode (e.g., swing-open mode) wherein the first hinge/lock assembly and the dual-mode hinge cooperate to pivotally connect the tailgate to the vehicle along a second axis (e.g., an axis generally parallel with a vertical edge of an opening in which the tailgate is disposed). Often, a conventional lock assembly is provided in a corner of the tailgate cater-corner or diagonally opposite the dual-mode hinge to further secure the tailgate to the vehicle when the tailgate is in a closed position.
To prevent damage to the vehicle and the tailgate, as well as injury to an operator of the tailgate, the dual-mode tailgate is preferably prevented from operating in both of its modes simultaneously, i.e., the first and second hinge/lock assemblies are not allowed to both be detached from the vehicle simultaneously. For this purpose, conventional lock assemblies often require an electronic sensor to communicate the status, locked or unlocked, of the lock assembly. The communicated status can then be used in determining whether another lock assembly should be allowed to be unlocked. One problem with this arrangement is that electronic sensors may fail to function if power supplied by a vehicle, to which the lock assemblies are mounted, is disrupted. Some prior art lock assemblies function without electronics or electronic sensors and are used for determining whether another locking assembly is allowed to be unlocked. However, these lock assemblies tend to be relatively complicated requiring an extraordinary number of parts and/or include complex parts that are often difficult to manufacture. Moreover, the locking assembly itself is typically not used in determining the status of the locking assembly. Thus, there is a need for a simplified lock assembly that functions without the use of electronics to communicate its status for determining if another lock assembly should be allowed to be unlocked.


A method and system provides a way to achieve very high data rate expanded bandwidth (wide band) WLAN operations reusing existing single channel radio designs. The system provides a dual-channel form of operation for greater flexibility and performance across multiple platforms. Further, the system provides adaptive anti-aliasing techniques for eliminating aliasing due to adjacent channel waveform effects. These techniques mesh with existing systems cleanly.

The invention and its various independent aspects, uses and objects are particularly useful and beneficial in the field of wireless communications, including in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). Wireless devices often are deployed in environments that are electrically noisy and not optimal for wireless communications. For example, most homes and work places include many electronic devices resulting in an electronically noisy environment that may interfere with communications, such as microwave ovens, garage door openers, radios, television sets, computer systems, etc. The communication medium between wireless devices may change constantly. Most environments include multiple reflective surfaces and corners, creating multi-path noise. Also, movement of items or devices or the like, such as hands, bodies, jewelry, mouse pointers, etc. or activation of electronic devices, such as cooling fans or the like, affects the overall wireless communication path and potentially degrades wireless communication performance. Organizations, such as IEEE, have drafted and implemented standards to facilitate deployment of and enhance the efficacy of wireless communications systems and components.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) 802.11 specification falls under the IEEE 802 family of specifications for Local Area Network (LAN) technologies and is in essence a link layer that uses IEEE 802.2 Logical Link Control (LLC) encapsulation. The IEEE 802.11 specification includes a Media Access Control (MAC) sublayer on top of 802.11a/b/g physical layers (PHY) and represents a family of standards for wireless local area networks (WLAN) in the unlicensed ISM bands of 2.4 and 5 Gigahertz (GHz) bands. The IEEE 802.11b standard specifies a high rate direct sequence spread spectrum (HR/DSSS) with a chip rate of 11 Megahertz (MHz) and defines various data rates in the 2.4 GHz band, including data rates of 1, 2, 5.5 and 11 Megabits per second (Mbps). The IEEE 802.11a standard defines different and higher data rates of 6, 12, 18, 24, 36 and 54 Mbps in the 5 GHz band. It is noted that systems implemented according to the 802.11a and 802.11b standards are incompatible and will not work together. The IEEE 802.11g standard is, in essence, an extension to 802.11b that broadens data rates to 54 Mbps within the 2.4 GHz band using OFDM. Because of backward compatibility, an 802.11b radio card interfaces directly with an 802.11g access point (AP) (and vice versa) at 11 Mbps or lower depending on range.
A radio configured in accordance with IEEE 802.11a or 802.11g standards employs Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation in which a stream of data is transmitted over multiple small frequency sub-channels. In the OFDM configuration, multiple sub-carrier signals are incorporated within each OFDM symbol. Data is incorporated on each data tone using a selected modulation scheme, such as Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), Quadrature PSK (QPSK), 16 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), and/or 64 QAM. Each of the modulation schemes employs a corresponding constellation map with variable constellation points corresponding to a corresponding variable number of bits for achieving the various data rates. For example, BPSK is used for 6 or 9 Mbps, QPSK is used for 12 or 18 Mbps, 16 QAM is used for 24 or 36 Mbps, and 64 QAM is used for 48 or 54 Mbps. The encoding process employs a quadrature generation technique and provides in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) signals on respective I and Q channels.
The IEEE 802.11a standard employs OFDM using 20 megahertz (MHz) wide channels in the 5 gigahertz (GHz) radio frequency (RF) band. Also, by way of example, wireless standards based on using OFDM with 10 MHz channels include the IEEE 802.11j standard for use in Japan and the DSRC standardization (Dedicated Short Range Communications). DSRC is a communications approach to allowing short range communications between vehicles and the roadside for a variety of purposes, such as electronic toll collection, intersection collision avoidance, transit or emergency vehicle signal priority, electronic parking payments, and commercial vehicle clearance and safety inspections. IEEE 802.11j (or, "11j") and DSRC have both described achieving OFDM with 10 MHz channels by using a clock at one-half the rate the 802.11a OFDM clock, or 10 MHz kernel sampling.
IEEE 802.11n standard has been proposed to provide higher throughput and calls for rates of at least 100 Mbits/second. This performance would be measured at the interface between the 802.11 MAC and higher layers, rather than at the PHY layer, to evaluate the net data rate experienced by the user. The net data rate in WLANs is significantly affected by sources of overhead within the 802.11 protocol, e.g., packet preambles, acknowledgements, contention windows and interframe-spacing. As a result, for example, although the 802.11b standard specifies a peak physical-layer rate of 11 Mbits/s, the typical net peak delivered is 5 to 6 Mbits/s. Also, although the 802.11a and 802.11g standards specify a peak PHY data rate of 54 Mbits/s, the typical net peak delivered is 20 to 24 Mbits/s. Accordingly, the 802.11n high throughput standard represents a four- to five-fold increase in actual throughput over that achievable with 802.11a/g. 802.11n specifies backward compatibility with legacy 802.11a/g deployments.
IEEE 802.11 networks typically consist of four physical components, including a distribution system, access points (APs), wireless media, and mobile stations comprising a basic service set (BSS). The mobile stations of a BSS are computing stations, such as notebook computers, PDAs, mobile telephones and other network devices, e.g., printers, facsimile machines, scanners, copiers, hubs, routers, switches, etc, that communicate with each other across one or more APs, which in turn communicate with each other over a distribution system. The communication between the BSS stations and the APs may form a basic service area (BSA) and occurs over a wireless medium. The communication between the APs and each other and the distribution system may be over a plurality of communications media, including wireless and wired media. The APs essentially perform a bridging function. Further, the distribution system may comprise or be in communication with a plurality of communications systems over a plurality of media. Also, within the realm of 802.11 is an independent BSS wherein mobile stations communicate directly with one another. Accordingly, the smallest 802.11 network may consist of two mobile stations communicating with one another. Also, multiple BSSs may be linked together to form extended service sets (ESSs).
In operation, a short training period is typically included at the start of each transmission, including Short Syncs and two Long Syncs (LS) appended at the front end of each transmitted frame. The Long Syncs provide a reference amplitude and phase for each of the active subchannels. The Long Syncs may be averaged together to reduce the noise in the received reference values. After the Long Syncs have been received, each sub-channel received symbol is multiplied by the inverse of the reference amplitude and the conjugate of the reference phase (when expressed as a complex unit vector) for that sub-channel. This removes most of the amplitude and phase distortion that has occurred between the transmitter and the receiver.
Optimum soft-decisions should be Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) weighted. The Long Syncs have been used to generate LLR (log likelihood ratio) weights to correctly weight soft-decisions going into an error-correcting decoder, such as a Viterbi decoder or the like. Given a flat noise floor, the use of LLR weights translates into a signal-power weighting. These LLR weights have been the signal power determined in each sub-channel of the Long Syncs. Using the LLR weights improves soft-decisions and reduces transmission errors.
A first problem is that the received reference values are usually degraded by noise, which is an unavoidable consequence of radio transmission. The reference information provided during the training phase (e.g., in the Long Syncs) is known by the receiver, so that a significant amount of this noise can be determined. A second problem, however, is that the signal amplitude and phase distortion may change over time, from the start of transmission of each frame to the end of the frame, making the initial channel estimate information obsolete and inaccurate towards the end of each frame. Both of these problems increase the probability of error when receiving a frame, due to both signal equalization errors and soft-decision weighting errors.
Legacy radios were designed with several assumptions. The channel was assumed to be relatively stable. The frames were bursty in nature and relatively short, so that it was assumed that the wireless channel did not significantly change over the duration of each frame. The initial channel estimate information determined at the start of each frame was assumed to be sufficiently accurate for that frame. Presently, however, there is a greater emphasis on mobility and/or accuracy. Mobility results in a changing environment that could result in significant changes in the channel during each frame. Even in a stable environment, improved accuracy can improve transmission speed and enable a higher transmission rate with a lower packet error rate (PER). It is desired to improve channel estimation to enable mobile application and/or higher transmission rates.

Method and system for high data rate multi-channel WLAN architecture


Optical states in TIR-based image displays may be modulated by movement of electrophoretically mobile particles into and out of the evanescent wave region at the interface of a high refractive index convex protrusions and a low refractive index medium. The movement of particles into the evanescent wave region may frustrate TIR and form dark states at pixels. Movement of particles out of the evanescent wave region may allow for TIR of incident light to form bright states at pixels. The movement of the particles may be controlled by employing the drive methods of pulse width modulation, voltage modulation or a combination thereof.

Conventional Total Internal Reflection (TIR) based displays include, among others, a transparent high refractive index front sheet in contact with a low refractive index fluid. The front sheet and fluid may have different refractive indices that may be characterized by a critical angle θc. The critical angle characterizes the interface between the surface of the transparent front sheet (with refractive index η1) and the low refractive index fluid (with refractive index η3). Light rays incident upon the interface at angles less than θc may be transmitted through the interface. Light rays incident upon the interface at angles greater than θc may undergo TIR at the interface. A small critical angle (e.g., less than about 50°) is preferred at the TIR interface since this affords a large range of angles over which TIR may occur. A fluid medium with as small a refractive index (η3) as possible may be used. A transparent front sheet composed of a material having a refractive index (η1) preferably as large as possible may also be used. The critical angle, θc, is calculated by the following equation (Eq. 1):θc=sin−1(η3/η1)  (1)
Conventional TIR-based reflective image displays further include electrophoretically mobile, light absorbing, particles. The electrophoretically mobile particles move in response to a bias between two opposing electrodes. When particles are moved by a voltage bias source to near the surface of the front sheet they may enter the evanescent wave region (depth of up to about 1 micron) and frustrate TIR. The evanescent wave region depth may vary due to the wavelength of the incident light, the angle of the incident light and the refractive indices of the front sheet and the medium. Incident light may be absorbed by the electrophoretically mobile particles to create a dark state observed by the viewer. Under such conditions, the display surface may appear dark or black to the viewer. When the particles are moved out of the evanescent wave region (e.g., by reverse biasing), light may be reflected by TIR. This creates white or bright states at one or more pixels that may be observed by the viewer. An array of pixelated electrodes may be used to drive the particles into and out of the evanescent wave region to form combinations of white and dark states. This may be used to create images or to convey information to the viewer.
The front sheet in prior art TIR-based displays may include a plurality of higher refractive index close-packed convex structures or protrusions on the inward side facing the lower refractive index medium and electrophoretically mobile particles (i.e., the surface of the front sheet which faces away from the viewer). The convex protrusions may be hemispherically-shaped. Other shapes may be used. The convex protrusions may have circular symmetry.
A conventional TIR-based display 100 is illustrated in FIG. 1. Display 100 is shown with a transparent front sheet 102 with outer surface 104 facing viewer 106. Display 100 further comprises a layer of a plurality 108 of individual hemispherical protrusions 110, rear support sheet 112, a transparent front electrode 114 on the surface of the plurality of hemispherical protrusions 108 and a rear electrode 116. Rear electrode 116 may comprise a passive matrix array of electrodes, a thin film transistor (TFT) array or a direct drive array of electrodes. The rear array of electrodes may be formed in an array of pixels wherein each pixel may be driven by a TFT. FIG. 1 also shows low refractive index fluid 118 which is disposed within cavity or gap 120 formed between the surface of protrusions 108 and rear support sheet 112. Fluid 118 contains a plurality of light absorbing electrophoretically mobile particles 122. Display 100 may further include voltage source 124 capable of creating a bias across cavity 120. Display 100 may further comprise one or more dielectric layers 126, 128 on front electrode 114 or rear electrode 116 or on both the front and rear electrodes, and a color filter layer 130. Color filter layer 130 may also be located between sheet 102 and protrusions 110. In some instances, display 100 may further comprise a directional front light system (optional) located on the outer surface of sheet 102 or layer 130. When particles 122 are electrophoretically moved towards front electrode 114 and into the evanescent wave region, they may frustrate TIR. This is shown to the right of dotted line 132 and is illustrated by incident light rays 134 and 136 being absorbed by the particles 114. This area of the display, such as at a pixel, may appear as a dark state to viewer 106.
When particles are moved away from front sheet 102 and the evanescent wave region towards rear electrode 116 (as shown to the left of dotted line 132) incident light rays may be totally internally reflected at the interface of the surface of electrode 126 on hemispherical array 108 and medium 118. This is represented by incident light ray 138, which is totally internally reflected and exits the display towards viewer 106 as reflected light ray 140. The display pixel appears white or bright to the viewer.
Conventional TIR-based image display 100 may further comprise cross walls 142. Cross walls 142 may comprise a dielectric layer 144. Conventional TIR-based image display 100 may further comprise a front light system 146. Front light system 146 may comprise light source 148 and waveguide 150.
Optical states in TIR-based image displays may be modulated by movement of electrophoretically mobile particles into and out of the evanescent wave region at the interface of a high refractive index convex protrusions and a low refractive index medium. The movement of the particles may be controlled by employing the drive methods of pulse width modulation, voltage modulation or a combination thereof. These drive methods may also be used to hold image states.

Driving methods for TIR-based image displays

CONCORD (HK) INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION LIMITED


A method, apparatus and program storage device for providing protrusion feedback for a read/write element is disclosed. A slider with a heating element is provided to control the level of read/write element protrusion. A level of heating applied to the slider to change the head protrusion is measured and recorded until acceptable operation of the read/write element is obtained. These measurements are then used to ensure that the read/write element continues to operate properly at different drive temperatures.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to a read/write elements, and more particularly to method, apparatus and program storage device for providing protrusion feedback for a read/write element.
2. Description of Related Art
Modern computers require media in which digital data can be quickly stored and retrieved. Magnetizable (hard) layers on disks have proven to be a reliable media for fast and accurate data storage and retrieval. Disk drives that read data from and write data to hard disks have thus become popular components of computer systems. In such devices, read-write heads are used to write data on or read data from an adjacently rotating hard or flexible disk.
Existing magnetic storage systems use magnetoresistive (MR) heads to read data from magnetic media and to write data onto magnetic media. MR disk drives use a rotatable disk with concentric data tracks containing the user data, a read/write head that may include an inductive write head and an MR read head for writing and reading data on the various tracks, a data readback and detection channel coupled to the MR head for processing the data magnetically recorded on the disk, an actuator connected to a carrier for the head for moving the head to the desired data track and maintaining it over the track centerline during read or write operations.
There is typically a plurality of disks stacked on a hub that is rotated by a disk drive spindle motor. A housing supports the drive motor and head actuator and surrounds the head and disk to provide a substantially sealed environment for the head-disk interface. The head carrier is typically an air-bearing slider that rides on a bearing of air above the disk surface when the disk is rotating at its operational speed. The slider is maintained in very close proximity to the disk surface by a relatively fragile suspension that connects the slider to the actuator. The spacing between the slider and the disk surface is called the flying height and its precise value is critical to the proper function of the reading and writing process.
The inductive write head and MR read head are patterned on the trailing end of the slider, which is the portion of the slider that flies closest to the disk surface. The slider is either biased toward the disk surface by a small spring force from the suspension, or is "self-loaded" to the disk surface by means of a "negative-pressure" air-bearing surface on the slider.
The MR sensor detects magnetic field signals through the resistance changes of a magnetoresistive element, fabricated of a magnetic material, as a function of the strength and direction of magnetic flux being sensed by the element. MR sensors have application in magnetic recording systems because recorded data can be read from a magnetic medium when the external magnetic field from the recorded magnetic medium (the signal field) causes a change in the direction of magnetization in an MR read head. This in turn causes a change in electrical resistance in the MR read head and a corresponding change in the sensed current or voltage. The conventional MR sensor used in magnetic recording systems operates on the basis of the anisotropic magnetoresistive (AMR) effect in which a component of the element resistance varies as the square of the cosine of the angle between the magnetization in the element and the direction of sense or bias current flow through the element.
A different and more pronounced magnetoresistance, called giant magnetoresistance (GMR), has been observed in a variety of magnetic multilayered structures, the essential feature being at least two ferromagnetic metal layers separated by a nonferromagnetic metal layer. The physical origin is the same in all types of GMR structures: the application of an external magnetic field causes a variation in the relative orientation of the magnetizations of neighboring ferromagnetic layers. This in turn causes a change in the spin-dependent scattering of conduction electrons and thus the electrical resistance of the structure. The resistance of the structure thus changes as the relative alignment of the magnetizations of the ferromagnetic layers changes. A particularly useful application of GMR is a sandwich structure comprising two essentially uncoupled ferromagnetic layers separated by a nonmagnetic metallic spacer layer in which the magnetization of one of the ferromagnetic layers is "pinned", and thus prevented from rotating in the presence of an external magnetic field. This type of MR sensor is called a "spin valve" sensor.
The read-write heads have been designed so that they will fly over the surface of the rotating disk at a very small, though theoretically constant distance above the disk. The separation between the read-write head and the disk is called the flying height, and is maintained by a film of air. The flying height is critical to proper function during reading and writing. If the flying height is too high during read, the read head will not be able to resolve the fine detail of the magnetic signal, thereby resulting in undecipherable data. Similarly, if the flying height is too high during a write, the magnetic flux lines that intersect the plane of the disk surface become weaker, thereby leading to loss of resolution.
As magnetic recording areal density increases, the fly height between the head and the disk continues to shrink. As discrete data storage areas are placed more closely to one another, the transducer must be positioned more closely to the recording surface to distinguish between adjacent storage areas. In recent year, transducing head flying heights have been decreased largely due to improved techniques for reducing media surface roughness. Further reductions in flying height are enabled by a super smooth polishing of media surfaces in data recording areas while also providing an adjacent head contact zone, textured to avoid stiction problems.
There are several factors that limit the reduction in slider flying height. These factors might reasonably be ignored at earlier flying heights, but would become major concerns at today's target flying heights. Factors that limit the reduction in slider flying height include variations in the sliders themselves, variations in the structure that supports the sliders, and media surface roughness.
More particularly, normal tolerances in slider fabrication lead to structural variations among the sliders in any given batch. Consequently, the flying heights of sliders in a batch are distributed over a range, although the flying height of each slider individually is substantially constant.
Disk roughness is also a problem at lower slider flying heights because maximum peaks are more likely to protrude into a normal range of slider operation. Thus, the probability of unintended and damaging slider/disk contact increases. The risk of damage from these discontinuities is greater at lower slider flying heights.
Minute slider flying heights also exaggerates thermal effects. Thermal effects include the natural tendency of materials to expand when heated, quantified by a temperature coefficient of thermal expansion more conveniently called a thermal expansion coefficient. Materials with higher coefficients expand more in response to a given temperature increase. When materials having different thermal expansion coefficients are contiguous and integral, their differing expansion when heated leads to elastic deformations and elastic restoring forces in both of the materials. Reduced flying heights increase the need to take thermal expansion and thermally induced elastic deformation into account.
When the magnetic head is operating within a disk drive its operating temperature may reach very high levels. These high temperatures are at least partly induced by the write current heating of the coil and yoke during recording. Other factors contributing to the heating include the disk velocity, contact with asperities, the frequency of the write bursts, etc. These high temperatures cause the hard baked photoresist insulation stack to expand more than the overcoat layer, which causes the overcoat layer to protrude beyond the pole tips at the air-bearing surface (ABS). This protrusion can ruin the head or severely degrade its performance. Further, the hard baking, of the photoresist layers can result in loss of signal amplitude for some read sensors, such as spin valve sensors, in an adjoining read head. The hard baked temperatures cause some intermixing of the materials of the layers, which can significantly degrade their performance. Still further, the hard baked photoresist insulation stack has poor heat dissipation, which aggravates all of the aforementioned problems.
Sliders with heating elements to control the level of read/write element protrusion are being developed. One aspect of the design of these sliders is to force protrusion of the read head so that the read head and the write head are at the same level. However, it is difficult to determine the level of protrusion, i.e., the height of the protrusion, because there is no feedback system.
It can be seen then that there is a need for a method, apparatus and program storage device for providing protrusion feedback for a read/write element.

Method, apparatus and program storage device for providing protrusion feedback for a read/write element

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V.


A lead free solder is provided. The lead free solder includes about 1.5 wt % to about 2.5 wt % silver (Ag), about 3 wt % to about 6 wt % bismuth (Bi), about 0.005 wt % to about 0.1 wt % of a deoxidizing agent, and a balance of tin (Sn). The lead free solder has improved wettability, a lowered melting point, little or substantially no formation of oxidation layer in a solder bath, suppressed brittleness, improved thermal shock resistance and drop resistance.

A lead free solder is a lead (Pb) free conducting material for bonding electronic components, lead being a substance that is harmful to humans.
Due to increasing environmental concerns, legal restrictions in using lead are growing stricter all over the world. In order to confront such legal restriction, recently, development of lead free solders as alternatives to lead solders has been vigorously carried out.
As an example of a lead free solder, there are Sn—Ag—Cu based solders. Among Sn—Ag—Cu based solders, a representative lead free solder having a Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu composition has a high melting point in a range from approximately 217 to 219° C., which means that soldering should be carried out at high temperature, which can lead to heat damage being caused to electronic components.

Lead free solder containing Sn, Ag and Bi


A dual deposit stencil apparatus for discharging filler materials onto parallel lanes of base cakes comprises a stencil tube having two inlet openings, one communicating with a source of first filler material, and the other communicating with a source of second filler material. The stencil tube has four discharge openings therein. A stencil carried on the stencil tube has pairs of openings therein for receiving two filler materials. Provided in the stencil tube are a first shutoff valve and a second shutoff valve. First and second actuating mechanisms control the shut off valves and are coordinated to simultaneously provide first and second filler material to each pair of openings in the stencil. A wire mechanism cooperates with the stencil for simultaneously removing the first and second filler materials from each pair of openings.

There are known apparatus for applying a single cream to a base cake or shell of a confection moving along a longitudinal line in a continuous fashion. For example, see Rose U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,882, wherein a rotating stencil is carried on a stencil tube and the flow of cream from the stencil is controlled by a shut off valve.
When trying to discharge two creams onto a single confection, for example, bake cake or shell, difficulties arose in controlling the flow of the two creams and balancing the flow of the two creams so as to simultaneously apply or deposit the two filler materials, e.g. creams onto a base cake or shell.
An object of the present invention is to provide a dual deposit stencil assembly for simultaneously applying or depositing two filler materials, for example, creams or jellies, or a combination, onto a base cake or a shell.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a dual deposit stencil assembly that incorporates a stencil having dual outlet ports spaced closely adjacent to one another and control means within the stencil assembly for controlling the flow of filler material from a source to a selected outlet port.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a dual deposit stencil assembly for simultaneously applying filler materials from separate sources onto a base cake or a shell through a stencil which has inserts for providing a predetermined discharge pattern of the filler materials on the base cake or shell.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a dual deposit stencil assembly for simultaneously applying filler materials from separate sources onto a base cake or shell in a predetermined manner, with balancing mechanism being provided to balance the flow of the respective filler materials from the stencil.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be made more apparent hereinafter.


The present invention is concerned with an electric utility brush having a flexible drive shaft, and in particular an electric toothbrush having a substantially spherical head mounted on the flexible drive shaft and which can be driven rotationally in at least two different orientations in order to provide comprehensive brushing capabilities.

Electric brushes for various applications, for example electric toothbrushes, polishing brushes, cleaning brushes, etc. are well known and take many forms, generally incorporating a head with an array of bristles, and drive means, usually in the form of an electric motor or the like, which are adapted to impart at least one driving motion to the head. For an electric toothbrush one of the most common driving motions is rotational. In some cases a number of driving modes may be available, for example allowing the brush head to be rotationally driven about one axis as one driving mode, and alternatively about a second axis as a second driving mode. This may be beneficial for certain applications, for example in the case of an electric toothbrush allowing the axis of rotation of the brush head to be located in two or more different orientations to provide the most efficient brushing action for the particular group of teeth being brushed.
While such brushes are known, in order to implement the above functionality it has generally been necessary to employ complex transducers or gearing mechanisms in order to allow drive to be imparted to the head when set in these different orientations, thereby increasing the complexity of the brush, and thus generally reducing the reliability of same while at the same time increasing the manufacturing cost due to the increased complexity of the internal components of the brush. These issues are further complicated when such functionality is to be achieved in an electric toothbrush, which due to its diminutive size can give rise to difficulties in producing the complex gears or other components in the reduced dimensions necessary, which dimensions also give rise to relatively high wear rates for the parts, thus further reducing the reliability of same. This is obviously an undesirable characteristic for mass produced commercial products such as electric toothbrushes or the like.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to address the above-mentioned issues.

Electric utility brush having a flexible drive shaft

GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare (UK) IP Limited


A child car seat is disclosed. The car seat has a seat form for accommodating a child. A belt for retaining a child is disposed within the child car seat. A first buckle is operable between a first open position and a second other fastened position, for when fastened fastening the belt to retain a child and for when open facilitating installation and removal of a child from the child car seat. The child car seat also has an integrated interface port for removably retaining a first electronic circuit having communication circuitry for communicating with an automobile. The interface port has electrical conductors for electrically coupling with the electrical circuitry within the first electronic circuit.

Infant or child car seats are legally required in some form in every state in the United States and many other countries. Since 1998, it has been estimated that more than five hundred child deaths are attributed to heat exposure or hyperthermia because of a child being left unattended in a vehicle. Over half of these deaths have been estimated to have occurred because the caregiver forgot the child was in the vehicle. See, Catherine McLaren, Jan Null and James Quinn, Heat Stress from Enclosed Vehicles: Moderate Ambient Temperatures Cause Significant Temperature Rise in Enclosed Vehicles, Pediatrics (Official Journal of American Academy of Pediatrics; Vol. 116, No. 1 Jul. 2005 at pp.e109; see also Jan Null, Hypothermia Deaths of Children in Vehicles, http://ggweather.com/heat, Department of Geosciences at San Francisco State University. Studies show that within an averaged elapse lapsed time of 10 minutes, the temperature rise is an average of 19 degrees Fahrenheit.
For example, with an outside temperature of 80 degrees F., within ten minutes the average inside car temperature is 99 degrees F. Within twenty minutes, the average interior car temperature is 109 degrees F. "Heatstroke occurs when a person's temperature exceeds 104 degrees F. and their thermoregulatory mechanism is overwhelmed." Id. "A core body temperature of 107 degrees F. is considered lethal as cells are damaged and internal organs shut down. Children's thermoregulatory systems are not as efficient as an adult's and their body temperatures warm at a rate 3 to 5 times faster than an adult's." Id., See also, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at www.nhtsa.gov. As a result, limiting the amount of time a child is exposed to high or extreme temperatures is critical.
Many critical rescues of endangered children left in vehicles have been performed by accidental bystanders who break into the vehicle to perform the rescue. In recent years states have passed legislation limiting criminal prosecution or civil damages resulting from well-intentioned break-ins to rescue children. Another significant issue is improper use of car seats. For example, a car seat may be installed incorrectly with its tether strap unconnected or a child may be incorrectly fastened or remain unfastened during use. These situations can result in harm to the child or even death.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for responding to at least some forms of incorrect use of a child car seat including those caused by inadvertence or error.


When a flow of a liquid body around a measuring object is visualized, a first liquid body as a tracer is supplied from a nozzle hole into a flow field of a second liquid body, and a laser beam having a wavelength optically absorbed by the first liquid body is irradiated in a manner such that the laser beam traverse across the flow field. At this point, the irradiation position of the laser beam is controlled in such a manner that the flow field is scanned with the laser beam. On the other hand, the laser beam that has passed through the flow field is received and a position where the first liquid body traverses the laser beam is obtained using the scan intensity signal of the received laser beam so that the flow of the second liquid body is visualized. The position where the first liquid body traverses the laser beam can be obtained based on a position on a time axis where a value of the scan intensity signal is less than a set threshold. According to the above described visualization, the flow field can reliably be visualized even for the high-speed fluid body.

Nowadays, a product that is excellent in regard to air resistance has been developed by visualizing the flow of the fluid body around a measuring object.
Generally, in the case that the flow of the fluid body is visualized, a tracer is flown in the fluid body, the tracer which is dispersed along the fluid body is captured as an image, and the image is observed to visualize the flow of the fluid body. For example, a fluorescent microparticle, an oil smoke, and a hydrogen bubble are used as the tracer.
However, by the method in which the tracer is used, when the high-speed fluid body in which a speed of the fluid body is 50 m/s or more is used as the fluid body, the tracer is dispersed at once, and the tracer is hardly recognized as a streamline in an image on which the dispersed state is captured. In the case that the amount of tracer is largely increased, an influence of the large amount of tracer on the flow of the fluid body may not be negligible.
It is also necessary to recover the tracer, which has once dispersed, on a downstream side of the fluid body that has passed around the measuring object.
On the other hand, there are known streamline observation method and device therefor, in which a liquid that generates a smoke by temperature rise is applied to a thin wire traversing a small wind tunnel and the streamline is visualized using the smoke generated by electric heating of the thin wire (Patent Literature 1).
In the streamline observation method and device therefor, the liquid that generates the smoke by the temperature rise is applied to the thin wire traversing the wind tunnel, and the streamline is visualized using the smoke generated by the electric heating of the thin wire. At this point, a thin tube in which long and thin slit-like gaps or micro holes are formed in a tube axis direction is used as the thin wire, and the electric heating of the thin tube is performed while the liquid that generates the smoke is flown in the thin tube.
The long and thin slit-like gaps or the micro holes are formed in the tube axis direction of the thin tube, and the liquid that generates the smoke is flown in the thin tube. Therefore, the liquid evenly penetrates the long and thin slit-like gaps or the micro holes, and uniformly generates smoke by the electric heating.

Fluid body flow visualization device and visualization method


A device for processing coded audio is disclosed. The device is configured to store an audio object and audio object metadata associated with the audio object. The audio object metadata includes frequency dependent beam pattern metadata. The device may apply, based on the frequency dependent beam pattern metadata, a renderer to the audio object to obtain one or more speaker feeds and output the one or more speaker feeds.

The evolution of surround sound has made available many output formats for entertainment. Examples of such consumer surround sound formats are mostly 'channel' based in that they implicitly specify feeds to loudspeakers in certain geometrical coordinates. The consumer surround sound formats include the popular 5.1 format (which includes the following six channels: front left (FL), front right (FR), center or front center, back left or surround left, back right or surround right, and low frequency effects (LFE)), the growing 7.1 format, various formats that includes height speakers such as the 7.1.4 format and the 22.2 format (e.g., for use with the Ultra High Definition Television standard). Non-consumer formats can span any number of speakers (in symmetric and non-symmetric geometries) often termed 'surround arrays'. One example of such an array includes 32 loudspeakers positioned on coordinates on the corners of a truncated icosahedron.


A computer method and apparatus determines keywords of documents. An initial document by term matrix is formed, each document being represented by a respective M dimensional vector, where M represents the number of terms or words in a predetermined domain of documents. The dimensionality of the initial matrix is reduced to form resultant vectors of the documents. The resultant vectors are then clustered such that correlated documents are grouped into respective clusters. For each cluster, the terms having greatest impact on the documents in that cluster are identified. The identified terms represent key words of each document in that cluster. Further, the identified terms form a cluster summary indicative of the documents in that cluster.

The past few years have witnessed exponential growth in the variety of electronic sources of information. In such an environment it is a non-trivial task to provide a wide body of users with relevant and quality information. This task is more challenging in an environment where a plurality of users with diverse needs access the same body of data to obtain their specific information. For example, in information retrieval applications, simple keyword queries can be composed very quickly, however they tend to be very general and underspecified. In such cases, keyword-based information retrieval systems suffer greatly and the user is often required to wade through a large number of retrieved articles to obtain pertinent information. On the other hand, too specific a query often overconstrains the retrieval system, and the search returns either too few or no documents. These problems are magnified further in an environment where the users are not entirely familiar with the underlying text collection, and where the information content is continuously changing.
Various methods for organizing and retrieving information from databases have been developed in an attempt to overcome these problems. In one such method, a collection of documents is represented as a term by document matrix. Singular value decomposition (SVD) is applied to the term by document matrix to uncover the underlying latent semantic structure of word usage in the documents. A user query, represented as a vector in the statistical domain, is compared with the three matrices resulting from SVD, providing the user with a list of documents represented by vectors most closely matching the query vector. The user must then wade through the documents which may or may not be relevant to the search. This method is disclosed in S. Deerwester, et al., "Indexing by Latent Semantic Analysis," Journal of the Society for Information Science, Vol 41, No. 6, p. 391-407 (1990), and U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,853, by Deerwester, et al. This method suffers from computational inefficiency, especially for large databases, as the algorithm involves representing the query in the SVD domain and performing a computationally-demanding nearest-neighbor search between the query and each document vector in the domain.
In another method, clustering algorithms are employed to categorize correlated documents. In information retrieval applications, the results of user queries are generally returned in an automatically structured format. An example is the scatter/gather approach developed and described in "Scatter/Gather: A Cluster Based Approach to Browsing Large Document Collections" by D. R. Cutting, D. R. Karger and J. O. Pederson in Proceedings of SIGIR '92 (1992). This approach is primarily a browsing aid which does not employ a query mechanism. The scatter/gather approach employs an on-line clustering algorithm to combine articles from chosen clusters. These clusters are then provided along with a "cluster digest" that comprises a list of the highest weighted terms in the cluster.
Clustering is generally known in the art as a difficult and time consuming task. The more robust the clustering process, the more time it takes to run. For example, a clustering process can take from a few seconds to several hours depending on the size of the database. This arises in part due to the large dimensionality of the original domain. To date, clustering algorithms are generally designed for speed while performed on-line, that is, the clustering process is not pre-computed but rather is performed in real-time. The use of such quick and dirty algorithms greatly reduces the accuracy and reliability of the overall system. On-line clustering generally consumes great amounts of processor time. For this reason, clustering algorithms designed for on-line applications generally are less robust than off-line clustering algorithms. Another clustering solution involves frequency-based document clustering, with clustering performed on the top percentage of query "hits". Although this technique is slightly faster because the size of the data is reduced, data from other non-retrieved clusters is ignored, and therefore, the retrieval is less robust.
Overall, the mechanics of organizing large sets of documents in response to a user query in a time efficient and robust manner remains an open question.

Computer method and apparatus for clustering documents and automatic generation of cluster keywords


The present invention provides an apparatus for logically processing a composite graph in a formatted document, the apparatus comprising: a composite graph block extraction unit, used to extract a composite graph block in the formatted document; a document parsing unit, used to parse the formatted document to obtain a text element contained therein; a cutline element extraction unit, used to extract a cutline element from the text element; a correlativity detection unit, used to detect correlativity between the composite graph block and the cutline element; a correlativity storage unit, used to store the detected correlativity. The present invention also provides a method for logically processing a composite graph in a formatted document. According to the technical scheme disclosed in the present invention, it is easily achieve layout understanding of the composite graph in a graph-text mixed layout of the formatted document, so as to avoid a logical error.

According to the generating process of a formatted document, a document is a collection of data and structures, specifically including content data, physical structure and logical structure. Content data refers to data such as text, images, graphs, etc. Physical structure is a description of the layout and combination of the content data in a page, and includes for example a text line, a text block, a chart, etc. Logic structure is a description of the information reflected by the content data and the relationship between the information, includes not only the logical attribute of a page element, such as a text paragraph, an abstract, a title, a table, etc., but also the hierarchical relation of the document and the logical relation between the document elements, such as the correlativity between an image and a cutline, etc.
Document analyzing is to extract the document physical structure, while document understanding is to establish mapping relation between the physical structure and the logic structure. For the document analyzing task, the available input is the final form of the document, neither the physical information nor the logical structure information is explicitly reflected, the logic model and physical model that are used in generating the document need to be reversely deduced, so as to maximally recover the physical and logic structure of the document. In practical applications, readability required by the mobile device makes the recovery of the physical and logical structure become a priority for all.
In the recovery of the physical and logic structure, it is possible to extract the logic structure information of the document from the page hierarchy, label the physical structure block extracted from the page according to its logic function. Currently, the page logical structure analysis based on a traditional image document is benefited from the development in the field of artificial intelligence. The development of the logic structure analysis is turning from a method based on priori rules to a method based on machine learning. Differs from a traditional image document analysis method, the information provided by a formatted document can assist the layout understanding. But in a fixed formatted document, there are a large number of spliced elements, as well as figure layers superimposed with each other. These data cannot be used to construct the logic structure of the document directly, but need to be operated, such as spliced, superimposed etc. according to spatial relationship; afterwards, the content showed by them can be determined. Classifying as well as recognizing and labeling the non-text objects in a page is one of the emphases of document understanding, among which, both analyzing and understanding the composite graph of a graph-text mixed arrangement layout are challenging.
Therefore, a new logic process technology on processing the composite graph in a formatted document is needed, which can perform an appropriate logic process to the composite graphs split from a formatted document, so as to make it is easy to perform layout understanding to the composite graph in a graph-text mixed arrangement layout in a formatted document, thus to avoid logic errors.

Apparatus and a method for logically processing a composite graph in a formatted document

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