This invention relates to a process of manufacturing gum having various colors and patterns and more particularly, a process of manufacturing the gum product representing fantastic visual effects. In the common process of manufacturing a gum, separately prepared soft gum pieces having various colors and patterns are charged into a hopper, together with powdered sugar and then, by dispersing and rolling the gum pieces on a hard gum sheet, gum pieces are freely adhered to the gum sheet where each part has the different colors and patterns.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a process of manufacturing gum having various colors and patterns and more particularly, a process of manufacturing the gum product representing fantastic visual effects wherein it comprises: In the common process of manufacturing a gum, separately prepared soft gum pieces having various colors and patterns are charged into a hopper, together with powdered sugar and then, by dispersing and rolling the gum pieces on a hard gum sheet, gum pieces are freely adhered to the gum sheet where each part has the different colors and patterns.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The conventional gums have a single color as a whole. Recently, a gum which can provide visual pleasure by printing patterns on a gum using each kind of coloring agents has been developed at home and abroad.
However, a painted-color state is irregular due to physical properties of gum surface. Further, the Korean Unexamined Publication No. 94-20928 discloses a machine for adding food particles to a gum, enabling people to simultaneously enjoy some food while chewing a gum by dispersing food particles like candy on the gum surface when being drawn out on the manufacturing process. But the machine is incongruent for preparing gum having various colors and patterns.
Also, the International Unexamined Patent No. 94-22323 discloses a process of manufacturing a gum having multi-phase structure. FIG. 1 is a schematic view illustrating a process of manufacturing gum pieces from a hopper, as specified in the International Unexamined Patent No. 94-22323.
According to the above method, first gum having colors different from the gum sheet is separately prepared, and then multi-phase gum is prepared by regularly dispersing the gum pieces having specific patterns on the gum sheet by the apparatus attached to a hopper and rolling together with the gum sheet.
However, in the event that the above manufacturing method is applied, there have been some disadvantages in that a) gum production may not be easily made available due to the fact that gum pieces are adhered to the roller instead of gum sheet, and b) prepared multi-phase gum seems to be dull with same pattern and color.
To comply with the above shortcomings, intensive studies have been so far made to invent a process of manufacturing a new gum having more natural and fantastic colors and patterns, together with easily available production.
To prevent the gum pieces from adhering to a roller and for easier adhesion to the gum sheet, their temperature and strength are the most critical factors. Thus this invention has been completed, under the notion that 1) a novel gum having more various colors and patterns may be prepared by dispersing separately prepared gum pieces contained in a hopper, having various colors and shapes, on the gum sheet and rolling together with the gum sheet, and b) in case that the gum pieces having different shapes and colors are folded and rolled among them, more fantastic color and shapes may be noticeable.

Process of manufacturing gum having various colors and patterns


A head cooling path diverges from a backflow path at a position between a radiator and a thermostat and is connected with a cylinder head of an engine by bypassing a cylinder block of the engine. A pump circulates the cooling water through the head cooling path, to the cylinder head, when the engine is operated at a high load and/or a vehicle is in a rapid acceleration, so that sufficiently cooled cooling water is supplied directly to the cylinder head.

FIG. 7 is a graph showing a relation between an amount of flow of cooling water and an engine rotational speed for a conventional liquid-cooling device. Conventionally, a mechanically operated pump for circulating the cooling water is operated by receiving a driving force from the engine. Therefore, the amount of the flow of the cooling water is proportional to the rotational speed of the engine, as shown in FIG. 7.
However, such operation of the pump is not optimum for cooling the engine. Some cooling devices have been proposed in the art to improve the operation of the pump. For example, in Japanese Patent No. 2767995, an additional valve and an electrically operated pump are provided to form a new path of the liquid flow in the liquid-cooling device. In Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-45774, a mechanically operated pump is replaced by an electrically operated pump.
Furthermore, in Japanese Patent Publication No. H8-128559, a flow amount adjusting valve is disclosed, wherein temperature of the cooling water is controlled at a higher value when an engine load is low, to improve fuel consumption ratio.
The mechanically operated pump is installed at a cylinder block of the engine, because the pump is driven by the engine through a driving belt. The cooling water is designed to enter the engine from the cylinder block and goes to a cylinder head through the cylinder block, in order to remove air bubbles produced in the cooling water. When the cooling water flows into the cylinder head from the cylinder block, the cooling water passes through a hole formed in a gasket between the cylinder head and the cylinder block. The hole narrows and accelerates the flow of the cooling water. The accelerated flow cools down the cylinder head efficiently. The mechanical type pump is designed to discharge the cooling water, a flow rate of which is over 100 l/min at a high engine rotational speed of 5,000 to 6,000 rpm. Namely, the mechanical type pump is designed to meet a requirement at the high engine rotational speed, under an assumption that a high engine load is equal to the high engine rotational speed.
As a result, an excessive amount of the cooling water flows through the engine at a low load engine operation, such as an ordinary running of a vehicle, causing a problem that the excessive amount of the cooling water may deteriorate a warming-up performance for the engine. Furthermore, since the cooling water flows in an engine cooling water circuit having a high flow resistance, due to the hole formed in the gasket, a higher pump driving force is required for the engine, causing a problem that a fuel consumption ration is decreased. Furthermore, since the mechanical type pump supplies the cooling water, a flow rate of which is only in proportion to the engine rotational speed, it is rather difficult to quickly cool down the cylinder head portion when the engine load is rapidly increased due to, for example, a rapid acceleration of a vehicle. As a result, it may cause a problem of engine knocking.

Liquid-cooling device for internal combustion engine


A vehicle console assembly adapted to be installed in a vehicle with a shifter assembled in the console and including a structure for adjusting the tension on the transmission cable to which the shifter assembly is connected. The shifter assembly includes a detent element movable initially when the console assembly is installed so that the tension in the transmission cable can be adjusted by moving the detent element after which adjustment the detent element is locked in place preferably by a trim plate mounted on the housing of the console. This invention includes the method of adjusting the tension on the transmission cable utilizing the above described structure.

Heretofore, there has been developed by a vehicle transmission manufacturer a shifter mechanism for a simple and quick connect of a vehicle transmission shifter to the cable of a vehicle transmission. Briefly, this mechanism includes a shift lever pivotally mounted to several different gear positions including "Park," "Reverse," "Neutral," and "Drive" which positions are established by a detent plate or element. Extending from the shift lever is a rod having a connector on the end which mates with a connector attached to the transmission cable. This mechanism is constructed so that the lever shift mechanism can be snapped into position for connecting to and actuating the cable. The shifter allows the operator to shift between operating positions, such as "Park," "Reverse," "Neutral," and "Drive" gear positions. It is important that the operating length of the transmission shift cable be properly adjusted so that the vehicle transmission will shift to a desired operating position when the shifter is moved. Even a few millimeters of misadjustment can cause significant and improper positioning of the shifter relative to the operating positions of the transmission, resulting in customer dissatisfaction and warranty expense. If the shifter is located within the console prior to assembly of the console in the vehicle, adjusting the shifter relative to the transmission shift cable has been virtually impossible without removing the housing of the console. Further, it has been virtually impossible to manufacture the cable connector mechanism extending from the transmission cable and the cable connecting mechanism of the shifter with sufficiently close tolerances because of the variances in the component tolerances and also because of the variations that occur during assembly of the vehicle.
Therefore, it has been desirable to design a combination console and shifter mechanism in which the shifter mechanism is mounted within the housing of the console and the assembly of the console with the shifter mechanism therein can be installed simultaneously as one unit and thereafter the tension in the transmission cable can be properly adjusted so that the shifter mechanism will shift the vehicle transmission to the proper operating positions.

Vehicle console with built-in vehicle transmission shifter having cable tension adjustment mechanism and method


Methods, systems and apparatus for improving Internet search results include monitoring network activity on a communications network, generating a near real-time map of the network activity, and integrating the near real-time map with a search engine.

Internet search engines are sites on the World Wide Web (the web) that are designed to help people find information stored on other sites. While there are differences in the ways that various search engines work, they all perform three basic tasks. First, they periodically crawl the web, or selected portions of the web, for important documents. Second, they store all of the important words (keywords) used in the documents and where the words are found. Third, they employ some type of ranking algorithm that attempts to rank web documents by relevance to a user's search term or combination of search terms when the user submits a query to the search engine.
To find information on the billions of web pages that exist, search engines employ software robots, called spiders or web crawlers, to build lists of the words found on web sites. Typically, a spider will begin its search on heavily used web servers and on popular web sites, storing words from the web sites' pages and following every hyperlink found within the site. In this way, the spider software quickly spreads across the most widely used portions of the web. Different spiders use different strategies or combinations of strategies for collecting web page information. For example, some spiders may look at every word on a web page and where the word is located (e.g., in the title, in sub-headings, in the first 20 lines, etc.). Other spiders may keep track of the most frequently used words in the page and/or the words used in each hyperlink. Still others may collect meta-tags, which are keywords under which the web page owner wants the page to be indexed.
Once the spiders have gathered a sufficient amount of web page data (the task is never actually completed due to the dynamic nature of the web), the search engine must store the information in a way that makes it useful to web engine users. There are two key components involved in making the gathered data accessible to users: the information stored with the data and the method by which the information is indexed. For example, a search engine might store the number of times a word is used in a web page and assign a relevance score to the web page based of the count. A search engine might also assign a weight to a search term based on its location in a web page, with increasing values as they appear near the top of the page, in-sub-headings, in links, in meta tags or in the title of the page, for example.
Regardless of the particular method used to rank web pages in response to a user's query, this approach to search engine design has several significant drawbacks. First, the ranking algorithms are biased toward older pages because there are usually more links pointing to an older page than there are links pointing from the older page. Second, the ranking method is self-reinforcing because pages that are highly ranked will be linked to by more users, which will increase the ranking. This "all roads lead to Rome" phenomenon can continue even after the web page is inactivated (becomes a dead page), because the sheer size of the web prevents any search engine with a single point of view (i.e., the search engines web crawler) to cover the entire web in a short period of time. Third, user navigation to web pages without the use of hyperlinks (e.g., by entering a URL directly into a web browser) is not part of the search engine ranking calculus.

Sampling internet user traffic to improve search results


A superscalar microprocessor is provided that includes a predecode unit configured to predecode variable byte-length instructions prior to their storage within an instruction cache. The predecode unit is configured to generate a plurality of predecode bits for each instruction byte. The plurality of predecode bits, called a predecode tag, associated with each instruction byte include a number of bits that indicates a number of byte positions to shift each instruction byte in order to align the instruction byte with a decode unit. Each decode unit includes a fixed number of instruction byte positions for storing bytes of instructions. A start byte of an instruction is conveyed to a first instruction byte position. The predecode tags are used by a multiplex and shift unit of an instruction alignment unit to shift the instruction bytes such that the start byte of an instruction is stored in a first instruction byte position of a decode unit. The subsequent instruction bytes of an instruction are stored in the remaining instruction bytes of the decode unit. Accordingly, relatively fast multiplexing of instructions may be obtained. The instruction alignment unit is not required to scan the instruction bytes for start bytes and end bytes. The predecode tag for each instruction byte indicates a number of byte positions to shift that byte. Accordingly, the instruction alignment unit mnay be a simple multiplexing and shift unit.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to superscalar microprocessors and more particularly to the predecoding of variable byte-length computer instructions within high performance and high frequency superscalar microprocessors.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
Superscalar microprocessors are capable of attaining performance characteristics which surpass those of conventional scalar processors by allowing the concurrent execution of multiple instructions. Due to the widespread acceptance of the x86 family of microprocessors, efforts have been undertaken by microprocessor manufacturers to develop superscalar microprocessors which execute x86 instructions. Such superscalar microprocessors achieve relatively high performance characteristics while advantageously maintaining backwards compatibility with the vast amount of existing software developed for previous microprocessor generations such as the 8086, 80286, 80386, and 80486.
The x86 instruction set is relatively complex and is characterized by a plurality of variable byte-length instructions. A generic format illustrative of the x86 instruction set is shown in FIG. 1A. As illustrated in the figure, an x86 instruction consists of from one to four optional prefix bytes 102, followed by an operation code (opcode) field 104, an optional addressing mode (Mod R/M) byte 106, an optional scale-index-base (SIB) byte 108, an optional displacement field 110, and an optional immediate data field 112.
The opcode field 104 defines the basic operation for a particular instruction. The default operation of a particular opcode may be modified by one or more prefix bytes. For example, a prefix byte may be used to change the address or operand size for an instruction, to override the default segment used in memory addressing, or to instruct the processor to repeat a string operation a number of times. The opcode field 104 follows the prefix bytes 102, if any, and may be one or two bytes in length. ModR/M byte 106 specifies the registers used as well as memory addressing modes. SIB byte 108 is used only in 32-bit base-relative addressing using scale and index factors. A base field of the SIB byte specifies which register contains the base value for the address calculation, and an index field specifies which register contains the index value. A scale field specifies the power of two by which the index value will be multiplied before being added, along with any displacement, to the base value. The next instruction field is the optional displacement field 110, which may be from one to four bytes in length. The displacement field 110 contains a constant used in address calculations. The optional immediate field 112, which may also be from one to four bytes in length, contains a constant used as an instruction operand. The 80286 sets a maximum length for an instruction at 10 bytes, while the 80386 and 80486 both allow instruction lengths of up to 15 bytes.
Referring now to FIG. 1B, several different variable byte-length x86 instruction formats are shown. The shortest x86 instruction is only one byte long, and comprises a single opcode byte as shown in format (a). For certain instructions, the byte containing the opcode field also contains a register field as shown in formats (b), (c) and (e). Format (j) shows an instruction with two opcode bytes. An optional ModR/M byte follows opcode bytes in formats (d), (f), (h), and (j). Immediate data follows opcode bytes in formats (e), (g), (i), and (k), and follows a ModR/M byte in formats (f) and (h). FIG. 1C illustrates several possible addressing mode formats (a)-(h). Formats (c), (d), (e), (g), and (h) contain ModR/M bytes with offset (i.e., displacement) information. An SIB byte is used in formats (f), (g), and (h).
The complexity of the x86 instruction set poses difficulties in implementing high performance x86 compatible superscalar microprocessors. One difficulty arises from the fact that instructions must be aligned with respect to the parallel-coupled instruction decode units of such processors before proper decode can be effectuated. In contrast to most RISC instruction formats, since the x86 instruction set consists of variable byte-length instructions, the start bytes of successive instructions within a line are not necessarily equally spaced, and the number of instructions per line is not fixed. As a result, employment of simple, fixed-length shifting logic cannot in itself solve the problem of instruction alignment.
Superscalar microprocessors have been proposed that employ instruction predecoding techniques to help solve the problem of quickly aligning, decoding and executing a plurality of variable byte-length instructions in parallel. In one such superscalar microprocessor, when instructions are written within the instruction cache from an external main memory, a predecoder appends several predecode bits (referred to collectively as a predecode tag) to each byte. For example, these bits may indicate whether the byte is the start and/or end byte of an x86 instruction, and the location of opcode bytes and prefix bytes. An instruction scan unit then scans the predecode tags to determine the boundaries of each instruction and conveys each instruction to a decoder. The circuitry to scan for start and end bytes and convey the instructions to a decode unit based on the start and end bytes is complex and relatively slow. The predecode tag associated with an instruction byte does not contain sufficient information to align the instruction byte. The predecode tags of a plurality of instruction bytes must be scanned to determine the boundaries of instructions, to determine to which decode unit to convey each instruction, and to convey the instruction bytes to the appropriate decode unit.

Method and apparatus for predecoding variable byte length instructions for fast scanning of instructions


An image holding member has support and an image holding layer provided on the support. The support has a substrate and a conductive electro-deposition coating film.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image holding member that holds an electrostatic image or a toner image, and an apparatus making use of such a member.
2. Related Background Art
Electrostatic images or toner images are formed by various processes. Image holding members on which the electrostatic images or toner images are carried grouped into an image holding member having a photoconductive layer, called an electrophotographic photosensitive member, and an image holding member having no photoconductive layer.
The image holding members are usually comprised of a support and an image holding layer provided thereon.
Electrophotographic photosensitive members are constituted in various embodiments based on achievement of the desired performances or depending on the types of electrophotographic processes applied. A typical electrophotographic photosensitive member includes a photosensitive member comprised of a support and a photoconductive layer formed thereon as an image holding layer, and a photosensitive member comprised of a photoconductive layer as an image holding layer and an insulating layer laminated thereon. Both of these are in wide use. The photosensitive member comprised of a support and a photoconductive layer is used in forming images by the most commonly available electrophotographic process, i.e., by charging, imagewise exposure and development, and also optionally by transfer. In regard to the photosensitive member provided with an insulating layer, this insulating layer is provided for the purposes of protecting the photoconductive layer, improving mechanical strength of the photosensitive member and improving dark-decay characteristics, or so that the photosensitive member can be applied in a specific electrophotographic process as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 42-13910.
In a specific electrophotographic process, an electrostatic image is formed on the electrophotographic photosensitive member. This electrostatic image is developed and converted into a visible image.
The image holding member having no photoconductive layer typically includes a member having an insulating layer serving as an image holding layer. Some typical uses of this image holding member are as follows:
(1) An image holding member used in the following electrophotographic process: For example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publications No. 32-7115, No. 32-8204 and No. 43-1559, for the purpose of improving repeated usability of electrophotographic photosensitive members, an electrostatic image formed on an electrophotographic photosensitive member is developed after it has been transferred to an image holding member having no photoconductive layer, and then the toner image is transferred to a recording medium.
(2) An image holding member used in the following electrophotographic process: Electrical signals are applied to a multi-stylus electrode to form, corresponding with the electrical signals, an electrostatic image on the surface of an image holding member having no photoconductive layer, and the electrostatic image is developed to form a visible image.
Image holding members are commonly comprised of a conductive support and an image holding layer formed thereon. As the conductive support, it is common to use an aluminum drum whose surface has been mirror-finished. The mirror finishing is a measure necessary for achieving uniform thickness of the image holding layer and uniform electrostatic properties of the support and also to prevent image quality from being lowered. The mirror finishing, however, is a cause of an increase in cost, and hence it has been sought to provide an inexpensive and highly efficient support.

Image holding member and apparatus making use of it


A mudguard comprises a first portion that is fixed relative to the frame of a bicycle and a second arcuate portion mounted to tracks associated with the first portion to be extended from or telescoped therein as desired. The distal end of the second portion is supported by struts which are rotatable about a rim forming a part of a mount secured to the wheel axis in concentric relation therewith. The arrangement permits a relatively rattle free attachment of the mudguard.

In U.S. Pat. No. 617,836 (Peterson) there is described a mudguard that is secured adjacent one end only thereof to the frame of a bicycle to project above a portion of the wheel of the bicycle. The mudguard is made from at least two portions that are telescopically receivable within each other, so as to permit the mudguard to be retracted when not required, for example, in dry conditions.
In U.S. Pat. No. 1,226,323 (Fialowski) the distal end of a retractible mudguard is supported by a strut rotatably secured to a lug mounted to the frame of the bicycle. The axis of rotation of the strut is offset from the axis of rotation of the bicycle wheel, whereby the locus of the distal end of the mudguard as it moves between its stored and retractible positions is not concentric with the wheel. Accordingly, a relatively large clearance must be provided between the mudguard and the wheel so as to avoid contact between them.
Although it appears that no tool would have been necessary for adjusting the mudguards of the prior art between their extended and retracted positions, it is probable that the contemplated structures would have quickly developed annoying rattles in use.
Bicycle mudguards can become caked with dirt which will tend to make it difficult to retract the mudguards and to mar the surface finish thereof.
It is an object of this invention to provide retractible mudguards wherein mounting means is provided to permit the mudguard to move concentrically with the wheel.
It is another object of this invention to provide such mudguards which are adjustable without requiring the use of any tool, yet which may be structured to diminish the possibility of rattling.
It is still another object of this invention to provide adjustable mudguards having a self-cleaning capability.


The instant invention is a polyethylene composition, method of producing the same, articles made therefrom, and method of making the same. The polyethylene composition according to the instant invention comprises (1) less than or equal to 100 percent by weight of the units derived from ethylene; and (2) less than 15 percent by weight of units derived from one or more α-olefin comonomers. The polyethylene composition according the instant invention has a density in the range of 0.907 to 0.975 g/cm3, a molecular weight distribution (Mw/Mn) in the range of 1.70 to 3.62, a melt index (I2) in the range of 2 to 1000 g/10 minutes, a molecular weight distribution (Mz/Mw) in the range of less than 2.5, and a vinyl unsaturation of less than 0.06 vinyls per one thousand carbon atoms present in the backbone of the composition.

The use of polyethylene compositions, such as linear low density polyethylenes and/or high density polyethylenes, in fabrication of injection molded articles is generally known. Any conventional method, such as gas phase process, slurry process, solution process or high pressure process, may be employed to produce such polyethylene compositions.
In general, in the injection molding process, a polyethylene composition is fed into an extruder via a hopper. The extruder conveys, heats, melts, and pressurizes the polyethylene composition to a form a molten stream. The molten stream is forced out of the extruder under pressure through a nozzle into a relatively cool mold held closed thereby filling the mold under pressure. The melt cools and hardens until fully set-up. The mold then is opened and the molded article, e.g. tote, dish pan, waist container, bottle cap, is removed.
Various polymerization techniques using different catalyst systems have been employed to produce such polyethylene compositions suitable for injection molding applications. However, the currently available polyethylene compositions fail to provide a stiffness/toughness balance that is required for injection moldings applications, e.g. thin wall articles with improved cold temperature performance.
Despite the research efforts in developing polyethylene compositions suitable for injection molding, there is still a need for a polyethylene composition having a narrow molecular weight distribution, narrow composition distribution, and improved low and room temperature impact resistance while maintaining stiffness and processability properties. Additionally, there is a need for a method of producing such polyethylene compositions having a narrow molecular weight distribution, narrow composition distribution, and improved low temperature impact resistance while maintaining stiffness and processability properties.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Polyethylene compositions, method of producing the same, articles made therefrom, and method of making the same


The invention includes a semiconductor device, and a method for making the same, wherein bumps of a semiconductor chip and inner leads of a film tape carrier can be securely bonded to each other by thermal welding using a heating unit. A semiconductor wafer is etched using a potassium iodide or ammonium iodide solution. By the etching, a barrier metal layer is removed while the upper face of a bump is simultaneously roughened and many prominences are formed. The formation of the prominences increases the surface area of the upper face of the bump 10 and improves the bonding between the bump of the semiconductor chip and the lead of the film tape carrier.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method for making the same, and particularly to a semiconductor chip mounted onto a tape substrate.
2. Description of Related Art
In the field of semiconductor devices, tape carrier packages (TCPs) are well known as one type of bare-chip-mounted packages. FIG. 5 is a schematic view of a film tape carrier. As shown in FIG. 5, the film tape carrier 30 is generally formed by laminating a copper foil onto a polyimide resin film, forming a circuit onto the copper foil, and plating thereon using Sn or Au, as an oblong product before the product is processed together with semiconductor devices. The lead comprises inner leads 20 bonded to an Au bump formed on an electrode pad of the semiconductor chip, and outer leads 36 integratedly formed with the inner leads 20 and used for connection to an exterior.
A method for making a TCP by a gang bonding process which simultaneously bonds all bumps to inner leads will now be described with reference to FIG. 6. A semiconductor chip is placed in a position surrounded by a device hole 32 on a stage (not shown in the drawing), and each bump of the semiconductor chip and the corresponding inner lead are aligned so that they are exactly bonded to each other. As shown in FIG. 6(1), a heating unit 52, which is preliminarily heated to about 500° C., is lowered toward the bumps and the inner leads 20 so that the heating unit 52 presses the bumps and the inner leads 20 on the stage.
The heat from the heating unit facilitates the formation of an Au/Sn eutectic alloy 46 shown in FIG. 6(2) by alloying the Au and the Sn plated on the inner leads 20. The mounting of the semiconductor chip 40 onto the film tape carrier 30 is completed by bonding the bumps to the inner leads 20 via the eutectic alloy 46. Next, unnecessary portions of the film tape carrier 30 are removed by punching to prepare a TCP.
However, the bonding of the bumps to the inner leads of the semiconductor chip using the heating unit has the following problems.
FIG. 4 is a schematic view showing a problem which occurs during mounting a semiconductor chip by a conventional technique. As shown in FIG. 4, a bump 10 is formed on an electrode pad 42 of a semiconductor chip 40. Since the periphery of the electrode pad 42 is covered by a passivation film 44 and protrudes, the bump 10 formed on the passivation film 44 also protrudes at the periphery and has an indented flat surface in the central portion. When the inner lead 20 is put into contact with the bump 10, a gap 18 is formed between the bump 10 and the inner lead 20 due to the protrusion. Thus, the central portion of the bump 10 does not contribute to the bonding of the bump 10 to the inner lead 20, in this state.
With reference to FIG. 6(2), in conventional thermal welding between the bump 10 and the inner lead 20, a high load and a high temperature are applied by the heating unit so that the Au/Sn eutectic alloy 46 is also formed in the central portion of the bump 10.
However, the application of the high load and the high temperature causes deforming and cracking of the inner lead and cracking of the passivation film. Such phenomena result in unreliability of the semiconductor devices as a product. Other problems, such as gas evolution from the film tape carrier and a shortened life of the heating unit, also arise.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a semiconductor device and a method for making the same in which bumps of a semiconductor chip and leads of a tape substrate can be securely bonded to each other by thermal welding using a heating unit.

Manufacturing a bump electrode with roughened face


A modular vehicle system comprises an engine unit and an engine management controller associated with the engine unit. A throttle actuator is associated with the engine management controller to control a throttle setting of an engine unit. A mower unit is associated with mower electronics. A blade clutch actuator activates or deactivates a cutting blade of the mower unit. A transmission line supports communications between the engine management controller and the mower electronics to support remote control mowing or unmanned mowing activities.

A modular vehicle system may include an engine unit for propulsion and an implement unit. If an operator is manning or supervising a modular vehicle, the status of the implement may be observed visually, aurally or through gauges on an instrument panel. However, if an operator is not manning a modular vehicle or if the operator is impaired or distracted, there is a need provide technology that is a proxy for the observations, reactions, and control of the operator. Thus, there is a need for a modular vehicle system having an engine unit and a mower unit for communication therewith that supports unmanned operation or assistance to manned operation.

Modular vehicle system having engine unit and mower unit for communication therewith


A connecting band for a highly flexible tissue-type heart valve having a stent with cusps and commissures that are permitted to move radially. The connecting band follows the cusps and commissures and extends outwardly. The valve is connected to the natural tissue along the undulating connecting band using conventional techniques, such as sutures. The connecting band may be a cloth-covered inner suture-permeable member and attaches to the underside of the valve at the cusps to provide support to the stent and to the outer side of the valve at the commissures. The connecting band includes commissure portions defining generally axial gaps that help permit flexing of the valve. The inner member may include one or more slits along the cusps to enhance flexibility. The inner member may further include a continuous outwardly projecting sewing ridge around its periphery which includes a series of ribs separated by grooves around the inflow edge of the cusps. The sewing ridge enables supra-annular implant of a valve constructed with the connecting band.

Prosthetic heart valves are used to replace damaged or diseased heart valves. In vertebrate animals, the heart is a hollow muscular organ having four pumping chambers: the left and right atria and the left and right ventricles, each provided with its own one-way outflow valve. The natural heart valves are identified as the aortic, mitral (or bicuspid), tricuspid and pulmonary valves. The valves of the heart separate chambers therein, and are each mounted in an annulus therebetween. The annuluses comprise dense fibrous rings attached either directly or indirectly to the atrial and ventricular muscle fibers. Prosthetic heart valves can be used to replace any of these naturally occurring valves, although repair or replacement of the aortic or mitral valves are most common because they reside in the left side of the heart where pressures are the greatest. In a valve replacement operation, the damaged leaflets are excised and the annulus sculpted to receive a replacement valve.
The four valves separate each ventricle from its associated atrium, or from the ascending aorta (left ventricle) or pulmonary artery (right ventricle). After the valve excision, the annulus generally comprises a ledge extending into and defining the orifice between the respective chambers. Prosthetic valves may attach on the upstream or downstream sides of the annulus ledge, but outside of the ventricles to avoid interfering with the large contractions therein. Thus, for example, in the left ventricle a prosthetic valve is positioned on the inflow side of the mitral valve annulus (in the left atrium), or on the outflow side of the aortic valve annulus (in the ascending aorta).
Two primary types of heart valve replacements or prostheses are known. One is a mechanical-type heart valve that uses a ball and cage arrangement or a pivoting mechanical closure to provide unidirectional blood flow. The other is a tissue-type or "bioprosthetic" valve which is constructed with natural-tissue valve leaflets which function much like a natural human heart valve, imitating the natural action of the flexible heart valve leaflets which seal against each other to ensure the one-way blood flow.
Prosthetic tissue valves typically comprise a stent having a rigid, annular ring portion and a plurality of upstanding commissures to which an intact xenograft valve or separate leaflets of, for example, bovine pericardium are attached. Fabric covers a majority of the structure and a suture-permeable sewing ring is provided around the periphery for attaching to the natural annulus. Because of the rigidity of the material used in the stent and/or wireform, conventional valves have a diameter that is minimally affected by the natural motion of the heart orifice. In the aortic position, the prosthetic valve commissures extend axially in the downstream direction a spaced distance from the walls of the downstream aortic wall. Movement of the aortic wall or sinuses does not directly affect movement of the cantilevered commissures, though fluid flow and pressures generated by movement of the walls ultimately does cause the commissures to dynamically flex to some extent (i.e., they are cantilevered downstream in the aorta). Because of the inherent rigidity in conventional heart valves, the natural dilatation of the annulus is restricted, imposing an artificial narrowing of the orifice, and increasing the pressure drop therethrough.
One alternative to more rigid prosthetic aortic heart valves is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 6,558,418 to Carpentier, et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 6,736,845 to Marquez, et al., the disclosures of which are expressly incorporated by reference herein. Carpentier, et al. and Marquez, et al. disclose a flexible heart valve especially suitable for implant in the aortic position. A single or multi-element stent includes commissures constructed so that the cusps are pivotably or flexibly coupled together to permit relative movement therebetween. An undulating suture-permeable connecting band attached to the valve follows the cusps and commissures and extends outwardly such that the valve may be connected to the natural tissue using conventional techniques. The connecting band may be cloth-covered silicon and provides support to the stent and to the outer side of the valve at the commissures while still permitting the cusps to flex with respect to one another.
Despite serious attempts to create a flexible heart valve that responds to the natural motions of the annulus and downstream vessel walls, even more flexible valves are desirable.

Highly flexible heart valve connecting band


The set of inventions relates to display engineering and is used for displaying color alphanumeric and graphical information for designing and developing different infomercial display means on externally and internally located objects. The said invention makes it possible to improve the quality of displayed information, the operational reliability thereof and to reduce the costs by that the structural design and the arrangement of light clusters in the information desks of columns are optimized, and required dimensions of the information desks and the distance therebetween when a video field image is formed are determined. The elements of the running letters consist of two adjacent pixels having a common light-emitting-diode and the inventive arrangement configuration of the light-emitting-diodes in a pixel makes it possible to control the image resolution.

There is known method for forming a dot matrix image and information display device, in which they have used "after-image" effect appearing in human eye at fast movements of the display made on the base of light-emitting diodes (1).
One of the reasons impeding achievement of the required technical result when applying the known method for forming a matrix image and device is that this method does not allow to produce a display means, for example, for a running information line.
There is known method for forming a movable matrix image and display device produced by means of display bars, consisting of light-emitting diodes realizing "after-image" effect when displaying information (2).
One of the reasons impeding achievement of the required technical result when applying the known method for forming a movable matrix image and display device, is that by means of the same method on the display line elements and a movable image row are formed by non-color light-emitting diodes, therefore, one-color information is displayed.
The closest method of the same object matter to the declared method for forming a movable matrix image on the display consisting of "n" information bars containing pixels and arranged in parallel, at distance not less than information bar width, consisting in forming a moveable matrix image by information bars, in which an element of image line is formed by pixel of three light-emitting diodes of red, blue and green color, successively arranged along the information bar width and an element of image line is formed by adjacent pixels, arranged lengthwise the information bar (3).
One of the reasons impeding achievement of the required technical result when applying the known method for forming a movable matrix image taken for prototype, is that the method forms elements of lines and rows in a movable matrix image by means of not optimized by arrangement light-emitting diodes of color pixels, and this does not allow to increase resolution of the displayed information and quality of a movable matrix image respectively.
The closest device of the same object matter to the declared group is the device consisting of "n"-parallel among themselves information bars with a common power supply, columns of a movable matrix image with "after-image" effect in the displayed information video field are formed by means of information bars, each information bar contains light clusters of lines, each cluster is produced in the form of color pixels consisting of light-emitting diodes of red, green and blue luminescence colors and arranged linearly along the row line and pixel length is aligned with the width of information bar luminous column (3).
One of the reasons impeding achievement of the required technical result when applying the known device for alphanumeric and graphic information display, taken for prototype is that in this device information bars contain color display elements, produced in the form of a pixel of three color light-emitting diodes, successively arranged lengthways the displayed image line by means of which columns of video field image are formed, structurally are not optimized, which does not allow to increase resolution of the displayed information and quality of the displayed image video field respectively.
One of the reasons impeding achievement of the required technical result when applying the known device for alphanumeric and graphic information display, taken for prototype is that in this device information bars contain color display elements, produced in the form of a pixel of three color light-emitting diodes, successively arranged along the displayed image column, by means of which columns of video field image are formed, structurally are not optimized, which does not allow to increase resolution of the displayed information and quality of the displayed image video field in the display device respectively.

Method for forming a movable matrix image and device for a light-emitting diode running letters


An apparatus and method for compensating digital input delay in an intelligent electronic device is provided. A method is provided which provides for accurate SER data recording while facilitating the reduction of processing burden on the IED and optimization of system performance during the processing of SER data flow. An apparatus is further provided which generally includes a time delay element coupled to a sequential events recorder for compensating for delay in communication of a data signal such that the sequential events recorder records a compensated time for a select event based on the clock and the time delay. An apparatus is provided which includes an edge detection element for detecting either a rising or falling edge from the data signal.

The present invention generally relates to an intelligent electronic device, and more specifically, to an apparatus and method for compensating digital input delays and communication delays in and between an intelligent electronic device.
Electric power systems are designed to generate, transmit and distribute electrical energy to loads. In order to accomplish this, power systems generally include a variety of power system elements such as electrical generators, electrical motors, power transformers, power transmission lines, buses and capacitors, to name a few. As a result, power systems typically include intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) in communication with power system elements for protection, monitoring, controlling, metering or automation of at least a portion of the power system. For example, an IED may communicate with a power system element in order to protect a portion of the power system from abnormal conditions such as electrical short circuits, overloads, frequency excursions, voltage fluctuations, and the like. IEDs used in an electric power system may generally include protective relays or otherwise, remote terminal units (RTUs), power line communication devices (PLCs), bay controllers, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, general computer systems, meters, and any other comparable devices used for protecting, monitoring, controlling, metering and/or automating a portion of the electric power system.
In some cases, IEDs may include a recording function generally referred to as a sequential event recorder (SER) adapted to record and time-stamp a variety of events associated with an associated power system element. A SER may be adapted to provide a report which generally includes the date, time, power system element name or type, and an event associated with the power system element (e.g., the state of the power system element). Some IEDs are referred to as SERs, wherein their dedicated function is to record and time-stamp a variety of events associated with an associated power system element.
For example, one typical IED including a SER is a protective relay having a SER that provides information on what are generally known in the art as relay word bit states and relay element operations. Relay word bits are generally known in the art to refer to binary states such as relay protection logic inputs or outputs, the general operation of the power system element, or the power up or shutdown sequences of the power system element. Relay element operations are generally known in the art to include operations such as relay power up, relay enable and disable, settings changes, and SER automatic removal and reinsertion. A SER may also record state changes. For example, a SER may record state changes via user specified relay word bits listed in what are known as SER trigger equations.
In general, traditional SERs used in conventional power system IEDs are deficient in that they have a general inability to compensate for time delays in communication of the data signal between the IED and the power system element or among various elements within the IED. As a result, the reports provided by a SER of an IED may be generally incorrect due to the lack of compensation for such time delays. For example, the IED may provide a report containing time-stamped events which are listed in a generally incorrect chronological order causing for difficult analysis.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for compensating for time delays in communication of the data signal between the IED and the power system element or among various elements within the IED. It is further an aspect of the present invention to provide an apparatus or method for providing a SER report containing time-stamped events which are listed in a generally correct chronological order.
Some conventional IEDs comprising a SER are further deficient in that they are generally unable to detect accidental state changes in the power system element. For example, a power system element may be adapted to include a mechanical contact which is actuated upon the changing of the status of the power system element. The mechanical contact may have an electrical contact which is actuated a plurality of times during an initial mechanical contact. The plurality of actuations of the electrical contact may cause a ripple or bouncing in the resulting data signal which is communicated from the power system element to the IED. Conventional IEDs having a SER are generally deficient in that they are unable to accurately discern between a valid data signal and an accidental data signal. Conventional IEDs are further deficient in that they are generally unable to compensate for the time delay due to such bouncing or ripple in the data signal. As such, conventional IEDs having a SER often record an accidental data signal erroneously as a valid data signal.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for accurately discerning between a valid data signal and an accidental data signal while also accurately associating a time with the data related thereto using a novel edge detection element. It is further an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for compensating for the time delay due to such bouncing or ripple in the data signal. A present invention method is also provided which facilitates the reduction of processing burden of the IED and optimization of system performance.
These and other desired benefits of the preferred embodiments, including combinations of features thereof, of the invention will become apparent from the following description. It will be understood, however, that a process or arrangement could still appropriate the claimed invention without accomplishing each and every one of these desired benefits, including those gleaned from the following description. The appended claims, not these desired benefits, define the subject matter of the invention. Any and all benefits are derived from the multiple embodiments of the invention, not necessarily the invention in general.

Apparatus and method for compensating digital input delays in an intelligent electronic device

Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc.


It is a main object of the present invention to provide a wettability variable substrate provided with a wettability variable layer which is free from any cloud and is superior in adhesion to a substrate, transparency and liquid repellency. The above object is attained by the provision of a wettability variable substrate comprising a wettability variable layer, on a substrate, which the wettability is varied by exposing to light in the presence of a photocatalyst,                wherein the wettability variable layer contains an organopolysiloxane which is a co-hydrolysis condensation polymer obtained using (A) one type or two or more types of organopolysiloxane precursors represented by YnSiX(4-n) (Y represents an alkyl group or a fluoroalkyl group, or a substituent containing these groups, X represents an alkoxyl group, an acetyl group or a halogen, a letter n subscripted to Y and a letter n in (4-n) subscripted to X are an integer from 1 to 3), and (B) an amorphous silica precursor represented by SiX4 (X is the same as above) by a mass ratio of (A)/(B)=1/0.1 to 1/20.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wettability variable substrate provided with a wettability variable layer constituted of a co-hydrolysis condensation polymer of an organosiloxane precursor, for example, a fluoroalkylsilane compound and an amorphous silica precursor, and to a functional element formed using the wettability variable substrate by utilizing a difference in wettability which is caused by exposure under the presence of a photocatalyst. Also, the present invention relates to a wettability variable layer forming composition used for forming such as wettability variable layer.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a method of forming a fine pattern, there is a method in which a photoresist layer provided on a raw material which can be etched is subjected to pattern exposure and developing, and etching is carried out utilizing the resultant resist pattern; or a method in which a functional raw material for imparting a necessary function is dissolved or dispersed in a light sensitive resin composition, a layer of the light sensitive resin composition is laminated on a substrate, and pattern exposure and developing are carried out in the same manner as above to pattern the layer of the light sensitive resin composition.
In both of these methods, since developing or etching is carried out, the necessity for treating an effluent, containing the removed resist and raw materials which can be etched, arises and also there is the problem that when functional raw materials are contained, the raw material is deteriorated by an alkali solution and the like used for developing. Also, a printing method can be utilized as a method of producing a fine pattern. It is however difficult to form a highly precise pattern because of a restriction on precision.
As disclosed previously in Japanese Patent Laid Open (JP-A) No. 2000-249821, the inventors of the present invention have proposed to adhere a fine pattern additionally by utilizing a pattern based on a difference in wettability which is obtained by varying the wettability of the surface of silicone and the like by using a photocatalyst. And the inventors found that by using a polysiloxane containing a fluoroalkyl group particularly as the raw material causing the variation in wettability, the drawbacks of conventional methods using a photoresist or a light sensitive resin composition are solved.
Generally, in order to form a polysiloxane containing a fluoroalkyl group on a substrate, an acid or alkali catalyst is added in a coating solution of a fluoroalkylsilane compound which is a precursor of a fluoroalkylsilane to promote hydrolysis and a condensation polymerization reaction, thereby reacting with the surface of the substrate. There is a problem that if these catalysts are added to the coating solution, usable time of the coating solution is shortened or an excess fluorine type component remains on the surface of a wettability variable layer. Because of this, the wettability variable layer becomes clouded and it is necessary to add a wiping process. If no catalyst is added in order to avoid the cloud, the reactivity with the surface of a substrate drops and therefore, a layer having the characteristics such as sufficient durability (adhesiveness), transparency or liquid repellency is not obtained as the resulting wettability variable layer.

Wettability variable substrate and wettability variable layer forming composition


A multiple depth of field optical scanner employing a mirrored spinner which is rotated about a predetermined point between the geometric center and the periphery of the spinner. The rotation point is preferably located to provide the maximum variation in depth of field that will still allow a laser to continuously illuminate the spinner as it rotates. The spinner may be additionally rotated about its geometric center, if desired.

The present invention relates to optical scanners and more specifically to a multiple depth of field optical scanner.
Optical scanners are well known for their usefulness in retail checkout and inventory control. Optical scanners generally employ a laser diode, the light from which is focused and collimated to produce a scanning beam. An optical transceiver directs the beam against a plurality of stationary mirrors, and collects the beam after it is reflected by a bar code label. A motor rotates the optical transceiver, and a detector receives the returning beam. The pattern produced by such a scanner is characterized by lines oriented at various angles to one another. An example of an optical scanner can be found in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,410, entitled, "Scanning and Collection System for a Compact Laser", issued Nov. 20, 1990, to Wike, Jr. et al. This patent is hereby incorporated by reference.
Multiple depths of field are desirable to increase the range from the scanner at which a scanner can read a given size of bar in a label, but have been difficult to implement. Some designs have included reciprocally oscillating mirrors.
Therefore, it would be desirable to produce an optical scanner which produces multiple depths of field, but which does not include a reciprocating mirror.


A temperature sensor is disposed at a position upstream of a throttle shaft in the flow channel so as not to contact the throttle valve. An inlet of a guiding path in the flow channel is arranged downstream of a first half part of the throttle valve that is revolved in an upstream direction when the throttle valve is revolved in an opening direction, the guiding path guiding a pressure to the pressure sensor. A first screw which attaches the sensor unit to the throttle body is disposed at a position upstream of a half part. A second screw is disposed at a position downstream of the other half part. A detected temperature of intake air is corrected to a temperature of intake air detected near an air cleaner.

In an air-intake system of an engine, an intake air temperature sensor, a pressure sensor, a valve rotation sensor and the like are attached to the air intake system. Conventionally, these sensors are independently mounted such that an intake air temperature sensor is mounted to an air cleaner, a pressure sensor is mounted to a throttle body, an intake manifold, or a special housing, and a valve rotation sensor is mounted to a throttle body. Since each sensor requires special wiring or a mounting mechanism, wiring becomes complicated, leading to a complicated installation process. In addition, as the FI (fuel injection) engine system prevails, sensors are demanded to be installed in a compact and modular manner. In response to such a demand, those having a unit made up of a pressure sensor and an intake air temperature sensor, mounted to an intake tube on the upstream side of a throttle body have been proposed (see Patent document 1).
Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H7-260534

Air intake device, sensor unit, two-wheeled vehicle, and intake air temperature detection method


A two-component developer is provided in which the reduction of the hot offset occurrence temperature due to detachment of the coating layer, image density insufficiency, image fogging and toner scattering and the like can be suppressed. In the two-component developer including a toner and a carrier, the content of acrylic resin in a coating layer of the carrier is in a range from 5 to 50% by weight based on the total amount of the coating layer, and the dielectric loss (tan δ) is in the range from 4.0×10−3 to 15.0×10−3. By using the two-component developer, the reduction of the hot offset occurrence temperature in a fixing apparatus can be prevented. Further, image density insufficiency, image fogging and toner scattering and the like can be suppressed, with a result that images having high quality and sufficient image density can be obtained.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a two-component developer and two-component developing apparatus used for visualizing latent images such as electrostatic latent images in a method for forming images such as electrophotography and electrostatic recording.
2. Description of the Related Art
In electrophotography widely used in image forming apparatuses such as copiers and printers, images are formed in the following manner, utilizing the photoconduction phenomenon with photoconductive materials (e.g., see U.S. Pat. No. 2,297,691, Japanese Examined Patent Publication JP-B2 42-23910 (1967), and Japanese Examined Patent Publication JP-B2 43-24748 (1968)). First, a photosensitive member provided with photosensitive layer containing photoconductive materials is charged with a predetermined potential that may be either positive or negative, and then the charged photosensitive member is exposed to light, corresponding to image information, to form an electrostatic latent image. Then, the formed electrostatic latent images are developed with a developer containing charged microparticles called toner to form a toner image, which is a visible image. The formed toner image is transferred onto a recording material such as a paper sheet as necessary, fixed to the recording material by, for example, heating, pressing, heating and pressing, or exposure to evaporated solvent, so that an image can be obtained.
As the developer used in electrophotography, two types of developers are known, that is, one-component developers, which are made of only toner, and two-component developers, which are made of toner and particles called carriers having magnetism. Among these, the two-component developers are widely used because of, for example, easy control of charging toner. In a two-component developing apparatus in which developing is performed with a two-component developer, the developer is agitated so that toner and carriers are charged with opposite polarities to each other by frictional electrification and supplied onto a developer holding member provided with a magnet therein to form a magnetic brush made of the carriers and the toner, and the magnetic brush is rubbed against the surface of the photosensitive member to develop an electrostatic latent image. Therefore, the carriers in the two-component developer serve to supply charges to the toner by frictional electrification, to convey the toner to the photosensitive member, and the like, and among these, the supply of charges to the toner is particularly important.
In recent years, for an image forming apparatus using electrophotography such as copiers and printers, increasing the speed of image formation and reducing the size are required, regardless of business use or personal use. In order to increase the speed of image formation and reduce the size of the image forming apparatus, it is examined to reduce the size of the developing apparatus by reducing the size of the developer agitating portion and increase of the developing speed. For this reason, for the two-component developers, it is required to charge toner rapidly by frictional electrification with carrier. Furthermore, the image forming apparatus is required to form uniform images over a long time, so that for the two-component developer, it is required that the charging characteristics of the toner and the charging ability of the carrier to the toner are stabilized over a long time.
Furthermore, in order to reduce the size of the developing apparatus, it is effective to reduce the consumption amount of the toner and to reduce the volume of the container of the developer. As the toner, toner in which a colorant or the like is dispersed in a resin having binding properties that is called "binder resin" is used. As a technique for realizing low consumption amount of the toner, it is proposed to improve the coloring ability by increasing the content of the colorant contained in the toner so that an image with a desired image density can be formed with a small amount of the toner. For example, toner in which the concentration of carbon black in the toner is 10% by weight or more is disclosed (e.g., see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 7-77828). However, since carbon black has conductivity, when the concentration of carbon black in the toner is 10% by weight or more, as in the technique disclosed in JP-A 7-77828, the electrical resistance of the toner becomes too low, and the charge amount of the toner becomes too small, so that problems such as image fogging and toner scattering are caused. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to set the electrical resistance of the carrier to high.
The carrier used in the two-component developer can be classified roughly into coated carrier, which is made of magnetic particles whose surfaces are coated with a coating layer made of, for example, resin, and non-coated carrier, which is made of magnetic particles themselves. Among these, the coated carrier is widely used because of a longer life of the developer and easier control of charging toner than the non-coated carrier. Furthermore, the coated carrier has an advantage that carrier lifting occurs with more difficulty than the non-coated carrier. Herein, "carrier lifting" refers to a phenomenon in which charges having a polarity opposite to that of the charges on the surface of the photosensitive member are introduced to the carrier during development, so that a coulomb force is exerted between the charges on the surface of the photosensitive member and the carrier, and therefore the carrier is attached to the surface of the photosensitive member. When the carrier lifting occurs, the carrier is transferred to a recording material together with the toner, so that critical image defects such as partial transfer defects are caused. It is believed that since the non-coated carrier generally has a lower electrical resistance than that of the coated carrier, the charges with an opposite polarity to the charges on the surface of the photosensitive member tend to be introduced during development, and carrier lifting occurs more easily than in the case of the coated carrier.
Furthermore, since the coated carrier generally has a higher electrical resistance than that of the non-coated carrier as described above, the coated carrier is more effective to solve the problems that are caused when the content of carbon black in the toner is increased. However, when the surface of magnetic particles, which serve as a carrier core material, is coated only with resin, the electrical resistance of the carrier becomes too high, so that the problem that images are degraded because of the edge effect and the phenomenon of accumulation of charges is caused. Herein, the "edge effect" refers to a phenomenon in which when forming an image including a solid image portion with a large area such as a black solid portion, among the solid image portions to which toner is attached, the solid image portion near the boundary with a non-image portion to which toner is not attached is developed with excessive toner, so that the image density in that portion becomes higher than that of the central portion of the solid image portion.
As a technique for solving this problem, it is proposed to disperse conductive particles in the coating layer of the carrier in order to reduce the electrical resistance of the carrier as appropriate and suppress excessive accumulation of charges in the carrier, and to suppress leakage of the charges from the carrier (e.g., see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 58-108549 (1983), Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 59-166968 (1984), Japanese Examined Patent Publication JP-B2 1-19584 (1989), and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 6-202381 (1994)).
In this manner, with the coated carrier, desired characteristics can be realized by adding various additives to the coating layer. For example, another conventional technique has proposed to disperse magnetic microparticles in the coating layer in order to prevent the aforementioned carrier lifting (e.g., see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 58-108548 (1983)).
However, in the techniques disclosed in JP-A 58-108549, JP-A59-166968, JP-B21-19584, JP-A6-202381 and JP-A58-108548, the adhesiveness between the coating layer and the carrier core material in the carrier is not taken into consideration, so that the coating layer may be detached and mixed with the toner while agitating the developer. When the coating layer is detached and mixed with the toner, the temperature at which a hot offset phenomenon starts to occur (hereinafter, referred to as "hot offset occurrence temperature) may become lower than the hot offset occurrence temperature when measured only with the toner, depending on the resin constituting the coating layer. Herein, the "hot offset phenomenon" refers to a phenomenon in which when the temperature at which the toner is heated by the fixing member during fixing is too high, the toner melts excessively and is attached to the fixing member.
For example, when resins having a high melting point of, for example, about 250° C. to 350° C. such as silicone resin and fluorocarbon resin (hereinafter, these resins are referred to as "high melting point resins") are used as the resin constituting the coating layer, and the coating layer is detached and the high melting point resin constituting the detached layer is mixed with the toner, then the hot offset occurrence temperature is lowered. The reason seems as follows. Although the toner is heated to about 170° C. to 220° C. by the fixing member during fixing, the high melting point resin mixed with the toner due to the detachment of the coating layer does not melt at the heating temperature of the toner by the fixing member during fixing, because the melting point thereof is as high as about 250 to 350° C. Therefore, it seems that the high melting point resin serves as if a lubricant during fixing and decreases the melt viscosity of the toner, and therefore the hot offset occurrence temperature is lowered.
In particular, a developing apparatus in which the moving direction of the developer holding member in the portion where the photosensitive member and the developer holding member are opposed to each other, which is the position in which electrostatic latent images formed on the photosensitive member are developed is set to the opposite direction to the moving direction of the photosensitive member (hereinafter, referred to as "counter type developing apparatus") is used as developing means, the hot offset occurrence temperature tends to be lowered. This is because in the counter type developing apparatus, the amount of the developer that is compressed per unit time is larger in the opposing portion of the photosensitive member and the developer holding member than that of a developing apparatus in which the moving direction of the developer holding member in the developing position is set to the same direction as the moving direction of the photosensitive member, so that the mechanical load applied to the developer is large and the amount of the coating layer detached becomes large.
When the hot offset occurrence temperature is lowered, the heating temperature of the toner by the fixing member has to be set to a lower temperature than the temperature that is suitable to fix the toner on to a recording material. Therefore, the fixing strength for images is decreased, which is a problem. Thus, for the coated carrier, it is required to improve the adhesiveness between the coating layer and the carrier core material.
A conventional technique regarding improvement of the adhesiveness between the coating layer and the carrier core material has proposed to use a substance in which acrylic resin and melamine resin are crosslinked as the material constituting the coating layer (e.g., see Japanese Patent No. 2683624). However, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2683624, the charging characteristics of the toner are not taken into consideration. Therefore, depending on the charging characteristics of the toner, an appropriate charge amount of the toner cannot be obtained, and image density insufficiency, image fogging and toner scattering may result. In particular, when the size of the particles of the toner is reduced, for example, such a size that the volume average particle diameter is about 6 to 9 μm, in order to meet recent requirements of higher definition and higher quality for images, the specific surface area of the toner increases, and the charging ability of the carrier to the toner becomes insufficient. As a result, the charge amount of the toner is reduced, and image fogging and toner scattering tend to occur.

Two-component developer and two-component developing apparatus using the same


The present invention is directed to a method and system for management and configuration of remote agents. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, at least one web service is provided. At least one remote agent on a network is detected by the web service by retrieving agent metadata from network devices based on one or more detection parameters. At least one of managing and configuring the at least one remote agent is performed based on the web service.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally systems management and, more particularly, to a method and system for management and configuration of remote agents.
2. Description of the Related Art
Systems management involves the supervision of information technology in an enterprise. System management tools may include two primary elements, agents and managers. The agents are the entities that provide an interface to a device that needs to be managed, such as a server, router, bridge, hub, printer, etc. The device, such as a server, can contain a series of managed objects, such as hardware, configuration parameters, performance statistics, etc. which can all be managed by the agents. The manager can be a user interface to enable a user, such as a network administrator to perform management functions, such as constantly viewing and changing the configuration and status of remote agents.
It is useful if users, such as network administrators are able to discover agents and remotely manage them from a central management console through a web based service. In addition, it is useful if managers are able to accurately receive alert notifications to alert them of changes that can occur on an agent system. In globally distributed networks, there is a very high likelihood of a firewall, proxy server, and/or virtual private network ("VPNs") between the agent nodes and the management console. It is useful if a manager is able to discover, manage and configure a wide variety of agents through a single management console across the firewall, proxy server, and/or VPNs.
Simple Network Management Protocol ("SNMP") is a standard designed to help managers remotely manage devices, such as servers, printers, routers, etc. However, in the presence of a firewall, proxy server, or VPN, SNMP can prove to be unreliable.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide a reliable and effective way to ensure that remote agents are able to send alerts to the event console, and are effectively managed and configured.

Method and system for management and configuration of remote agents


A vehicular electronic control apparatus includes a vehicle control section and a unit control section. The vehicle control section controls a function dependent on a vehicle equipment. The unit control section that controls a function of a unit provided in a vehicle. The vehicle control section and the unit control section are disposed in independent hardwares and software platforms, respectively.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicular electronic control apparatus that controls powertrain units, such as an engine and a transmission, and a method for controlling vehicle using the vehicular electronic control apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicular electronic control apparatuses (hereinafter referred to as "ECU") exchange signals with a vehicular control mechanism to perform electronic control on a vehicle, and implements a desired control with one ECU, such as a powertrain ECU and a brake control ECU.
A vehicle is equipped with a large number of electronic control apparatuses such as an economy running ECU that controls automatic stop/restart of an engine when predetermined conditions are satisfied, a body ECU that controls lamps, doors, etc., an airbag ECU, and a security ECU, as well as the above-described powertrain ECU and brake control ECU. The respective ECUs individually and independently control objects to be controlled, but they are often required to exchange information with other ECUs.
Therefore, in order to perform various kinds of control with correlating a plurality of ECUs mounted on a vehicle with each other, while the plurality of ECUs are connected to a common path line, mutual communication control is performed using a controller area network (hereinafter referred to as "CAN") protocol that is a typical standard network protocol (for example, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,586,118; 5,659,702; 5,696,904; and 5,764,919).

Vehicular electronic control apparatus and method for controlling vehicle


In a networked environment, an inferred proximity of one or devices to another device is determined. The inferred proximity is determined, for a particular one of the one or more devices, based at least in part on which port of a network switch the particular device and the other device are coupled to.

As computer technology has advanced the number of computers being used, as well as the tasks these computers are being used to perform, has increased. Accompanying this increased computer usage has been an increase in the interconnectivity of computers. A wide variety of networking devices, such as switches and hubs, have become increasingly commonplace in businesses, educational facilities, and homes. These networking devices allow data to be transferred among the computers that are coupled to the devices, as well as to other devices that are coupled to the network, such as printers, scanners, etc.
Although there are many benefits to interconnecting devices via a network, there are also problems created by networking devices together. One such problem is the wide variety of devices accessible to the user of computer. For example, where the computer user once had a single printer attached to his or her computer, he or she now has multiple networked printers to which he or she can print. While this provides more options to the user, it can also make things difficult for the user because he or she typically must identify which one of the printers to print to. And, while the user typically desires to print to the printer closest to him or her, there is often times little, if any, indication given to the user as to which printer is closest.
One solution to this problem is to have devices named in such a way that their names reflect their locations. For example, printers may be given names that indicate which floor of the building they are on, whose office they are close to, and so on. This solution, however, also has problems which can make is user-unfriendly. Those problems include: the subjective nature of the device naming process, the need for human input into the device naming process, the need to rename a device if the device is moved, and the need for a user of a computing device to understand locations reflected in the names (for example, if the device name reflects that the device is close to Bob's office, then the user needs to know the location of Bob's office).
Thus, a need exists for a more user-friendly way in which to identify devices on a network that are nearby a particular computer (or other device).

Detecting nearby devices in a network environment

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


An apparatus for selective fiber optical channel monitoring and channel replication of wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) signals is constructed by combining a dispersive element, such as an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG), with a multiplicity of simple 1×1 optical switches and either an optical splitter/combiner or a second AWG. In operation, each optical channel in a WDM group may be sequentially monitored or replicated. When this apparatus is preceded by an N×1 optical switch, any optical channel on any one of N input optical fibers to the switch may be selected for monitoring or replication.

Reference (1) includes a discussion of the broad reach of fiber optical communications systems into the modern world and the specific need to monitor individual fiber optic links in these systems for fiber breakage so that failed links may be quickly be identified and automatically corrected by quickly switching a spare optical fiber into service. The inventive contribution made in Reverence (1) was a cost effective optical switching apparatus that could sequentially direct tapped optical signals from fiber optic transmission links to monitoring equipment that could detect fiber breaks in several seconds or less. This same switching apparatus could also be used to replicate optical signals for broadcast and multimedia applications.
In many cases, there is a need not only to monitor optical fibers used in modern communication systems for continuity (lack of breaks) but also to monitor the performance of each of a multiplicity of optical channels carried by each individual fiber in a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) format. For example, it is important to detect and identify when a laser diode that serves as the optical source for one of many WDM channels on a fiber has failed or is approaching failure due to a declining power output.
WDM is a well established method for increasing the information carrying capacity of individual fibers. Depending on the system application, the number of optical channels that are wavelength division multiplexed range from several channels, referred to as Coarse WDM (or CWDM), to 160 channels or more, referred to as Dense WDM (or DWDM). In either case, WDM leads to a beneficial reduction in the total number of optical fibers required to convey some specified amount of information or data. However, in order for WDM to be a cost effective strategy, the cost for monitoring the individual channels multiplexed onto a fiber must be reasonably modest. While the state-of-the-art for monitoring has reached this threshold using MEMS technology previously discussed in Reference (1), further improvements to reduce the complexity and expense of the monitoring function would be welcomed.
The state-of-the-art for channel monitoring is to direct the output of a WDM optical fiber into a dispersive Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC) such as an Arrayed Waveguide Grating (AWG), that is well known in the art, to split up a multiplicity of WDM channels (say, N channels) carried on a single input fiber into a group of single channels carried on a multiplicity N of individual output fibers with one channel on each fiber. Then, an optical switch, similar to the MEMS switch described in Reference (1), is used to sequentially direct the channel outputs to an optical monitoring device (test set).
Clearly, it would be desirable to make this switching function more cost effective. It would also be desirable if this cost effective alternative switching apparatus could also be used for other applications such as optical signal replication.
Also see U.S. Pat. No. 7,330,620 B2 and, U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2009/0232447 A1. 2012/0087668 A1, and 2012/0230690 A1.

Apparatus for selective fiber optical channel monitoring and channel replication of wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) signals


Administration into fish of gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH), luteinising releasing hormone (LHRH) and their analogs in a polymer based sustained release delivery system was found to induce a prolonged elevation in the fish's plasma level of gonadotropin (GtH), which leads to ovulation and spawning. Such induction of ovulation and spawning was found to occur both within the natural spawning season and outside this season. Such administration thus enables for the first time an effective means for manipulating reproduction in fish, which is a very important factor in the economic management of fish farming.

The following publications constitute a relevant prior art to the subject matter of the present invention:
1) Almendras, J. M., Duenas, C., Nacario, J., Sherwood, N. M., and Crim, L. W., 1987. In: "Proceedings of the Fish Breeding-Workshop". Singapore, April 7-10, 1987. PA1 2) Crim, L. W. and Glebe, B. D., 1984. Aquaculture 43:47-56. PA1 3) Crim, L. W., Glebe, B. D., and Scott, A. P., 1986. Aquaculture 56:139-149. PA1 4Crim, L. W., Sutterlin, A. M., Evans, D. M., and Weil, C., 1983. Aquaculture 35:299-307. PA1 5) Goren, A., Zohar, Y., Koch, Y., and Fridkin, M., 1987. In: "Proceedings of the 3rd Int. Symp. on Reprod. Physiol. of Fish". St. John's, Newfoundland, August 1987. PA1 6) Harvey, B., Nacario, J., Crim, L. W., Juario, J. V., and Marte, C. L., 1985. Aquaculture 47:53-59. PA1 7) Lee, C. S., Tamarus, C. S., Banno, J. E., Felley, C. D., Bocek, A., and Wyban, J. A. (1986). Aquaculture 52:199-205. PA1 8) Pankhurst, N. W., Van Der Kraak, G., and Peter, R. E., 1986a. Fish Physiol. Biochem. 1:45-54. PA1 9) Pankhurst, N. W., Van Der Kraak, G., Peter, R. E., and Breton, B., 1986b. Fish Physiol. Biochem. 1:163-170. PA1 10) Peter, R. E., Nahorniak, C. S., Sokolowska, M., Chang, J. P., Rivier, R. E., Vale, W. W., King, J. A., and Millar, R. P., 1985. Gen. Comp. Endocrinal. 58:231-242. PA1 11) Petri, W., Seidel, R., and Sandow, J., 1984. In "LHRH and Its Analogues--Basic and Clinical Aspects" (F. Labrie, A. Belonger, and A. Dupont, eds.) pp. 63-76. Excerpta Medica Press. PA1 12) Sanders, L. M., McRae, G. I., Vitale, K. M., Vickery, B. H., and Kent, J. S., 1984. In "LHRH and Its Analogues--Basic and Clinical Aspects (F. Labrie, A. Belonger and A. Dupont, eds.) pp. 53-62. Excerpta Medica Press. PA1 13) Schally, A. V., 1978. Science 202:18-28 PA1 14) Sherwood, N., Eiden, L., Brownstein, M., Spiess, J., Rivier, J., and Vale, W., 1983. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 80::2794-2798. PA1 15) Stacey, N. E., Cook, A. F., and Peter, R. E., 1979. Gen. Comp.Endocrinol. 27:246-249. PA1 16) Weil, C. and Crim, L. W., 1983. Aquaculture 35:103-115 PA1 17) Zohar, Y. and Gordin, H., 1979. J. Fish Biol. 15:665-670. PA1 18) Zohar, Y., Breton, B., and Fostier, A., 1986. Gen. Comp. Endocrinol. 64:189-198. PA1 19) Zohar, Y., Pagelson, G., Tosky, M., Finkelman, Y., and Shmuel, E., 1987. In: "Proceedings of the 3rd Int. Symp. on Reprod. Physiol. of Fish". St. John's, Newfoundland, August 1987. PA1 20) U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,368 PA1 21) U.K. Published Patent Application No. 2152342 PA1 22) U.S. Pat. No. 4,410,514 PA1 23) Japanese Published Patent Application No. 80-40210 PA1 24) Lin, H. R., Peng. C., Van der Kraak, G., Peter, R. E., and Breton, B., 1986. Gen. Comp. Endocrinol. 64:389-395 PA1 25) Peter, R. E., Nahorniak, C. S., Chang, J. P. and Crim, C. W. 1894 Gen. Comp. Endocrinol. 55:337-346 PA1 26) Peter, R. E., Lin, H. R. and Van der Kraak, G., 1984. In PROCEEDINGS OF THE FISH BREEDING WORKSHOP, Singapore, Apr. 7-10, 1987. Aquaculture 74:1-10 PA1 27) Sherwood, N. M. and Harvey, B. 1986. Gen. Comp. Endocrinol. 61:13-19.
Marine aquaculture in general, and fish farming in particular, has been extensively developed in recent years. While there has been considerable success in achieving high yields in rearing fish, there has been only limited success in the manipulation of the reproductive cycles of the reared fish. Such manipulation is a prerequisite for the further development of fish farming into a major agricultural industry.
Many of the economically important fish do not reproduce spontaneously in captivity. This is the case with mullet (Mugil cephalus), rabbitfish (Siganus sp.), milkfish (Chanos chanos), striped bass (Morone saxatilis), sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), seabream (Sparus aurata), catfish (Clarias sp.) and others. In all these species the reproductive failure is located in the female: whereas vitellogenesis is completed, the stages that follow, namely oocyte maturation and ovulation, do not occur, and thus there is no spawning. Instead, vitellogenic follicles undergo rapid atresia.
In some fish species which do ovulate spontaneously in captivity, such as trout and salmon, both Atlantic and Pacific, e.g. Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and Pacific salmon (Onchorhynchus sp.), ovulation is not synchronized and thus egg collection is a very laborious task. Additionally, the subsequent hatching of the fingerlings is not synchronized and therefore the ability to create schools of fingerlings being all at about the same growing stage, which is necessary for economical feasible fish farming, becomes very difficult.
In fish indigenous to temperate zones, such as seabream, seabass, cyprinids and salmoneds, reproduction is seasonal, i. e. ovulation and subsequent spawning occur once or several times during a limited season. Inducing such fish to ovulate and spawn out of the natural spawning season might largely contribute to the management of fish farming. For one, out of season egg production will enable full utilization of the fish farm throughout the whole year, since only thereby will it be possible to have at any given time fish of all ages and thus be able to market adult fish year round.
In salmoneds smoltification is also seasonal and in some species occurs a year or more after hatching, resulting in S.sub.1 and S.sub.2 smolts (S.sub.1 and S.sub.2 smolts - smoltification occurs more than 1 year and 2 years after hatching, respectively). It may be induced earlier in the fish's life if the brood fish are induced to spawn out of the natural spawning season, which, if feasible, will have important economic consequences. Thus, for example, in various salmon species, e.g. the Pacific salmon and the Atlantic salmon, before season spawning might result in a high proportion of S.sub.0 and S.sub.1 smelts (S.sub.O smelts - smoltification occurs less than a year after hatching) and as a consequence a shortening of the period during which the fingerlings are stocked in fresh water hatchery facilities. This means a very significant saving in facilites, feed and manpower, as well as an earlier acceleration of growth rate (upon transfer of the fingerlings into sea water, their growth rate is accelerated), all of which will bring about a total reduction in the expenses related to the farming of the fish.
In many salmon hatcheries eggs are obtained from captured adults returning from the sea for reproduction. However, the egg yield is usually low since many adults return early, i.e. before they are ready to spawn, and die in captivity before spawning. The yield may be increased significantly if these early refuming adults were induced to ovulate earlier.
Ovulation and spawning in female fish are controlled by pituitary hormones, mainly the gonadotropins (GtH). However, the release of GtH is not spontaneous but rather induced by a gonadotropin releasing hormone (GNRH) which is secreted by the hypothalamus. The GriRH was found to be a decapeptide both in mammals (Schally, 1978) and in fish (U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,368). It has recently been found in female Sparus aurata, that the level of GtH in the pituitary gland increases as the fish approaches its natural spawning season, i.e. winter time. However, this accumulated GtH is not released into the blood, the consequence being that the oocytes undergo rapid atresia. In cases where ovulation and spawning do occur, this is always accompanied by a GtH surge in the blood (Stacey et al., 1979; Zohar et al., 1986, 1987). Such a surge of GtH and the subsequent ovulation and spawning may be induced by injection of GNRH or analogs thereof. The use of natural fish GNRH in inducing ovulation and spawning have been described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,368 and the use of various analogs thereof has been described in U.K. Published Patent Application No. 2152342 and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,410,514. The use of luteinizing hormone releasing hormones (LHRH) for inducing spawning in fish has been described in Japanese Published Patent Application 80-40210.
The known methods for inducing ovulation and spawning in fish in accordance with the prior art usually involve injecting a saline solution containing a non-toxic salt of GNRH or analogs thereof into the fish. However, due to a short lifetime of the GNRH in the blood, the effect of such a treatment is minimal and in many fish species ovulation and spawning cannot be induced. For example, a single injection of a GNRH analog at an amount of 5-10 82 g/kg body weight, induces spawning in Sparus aurata, but only in as little as 20 to 30% of the GnRH-treated females (see the experimental section of this specification). The same phenomenon was found also to occur in other fish in which there is a non-synchronous ovarian development in captivity, such as the sea bass Lates calcarifer (Almendras, et al., 1987).
It should be noted that in many fish carrying out successful injections, in accordance with the prior art, requires highly skilled personnel since in many cases, prior to injecting, the development stage of the oocytes has to be determined. This determination involves withdrawing some oocytes using a capillary which is inserted into the oviduct and then examining the so withdrawn oocytes under a microscope. Skilled personnel needed therefor are not available in most fish farms and thus the yield of success in inducing spawning will be lower than that obtained in the laboratory, e.g. in the case of Sparus aurata spawning will be induced in less than 20% of the females.
The short lifetime of GNRH in the blood is partially due to its rapid degradation by both specific endopeptidases and non-specific exopeptideases present in the pituitary, kidney and liver (Goren, et al., 1987). The degradation generally occurs at positions 5-6 and 9-10 of the decapeptides. Therefore, substitution of the amino acid located at position 6 (glycine) by certain D-amino acids results in GNRH analogs which are less susceptible to enzymatic degradation, thus prolonging their presence in the blood and hence their biological effectiveness (Peter et al., 1985; Zohar et al., 1987; Goren et al., 1987). However, even such analogs, when injected in biological effactive amounts, still disappear from circulation quite rapidly e.g., 30 to 60 min. in goldfish (Sherwood and Harvey, 1986) and 1 to 2 hours in the seabream (Zohar, unpublished results). Thus, using cleavage resistant analogs by itself is insufficient for obtaining a long lasting release of GtH from the pituitary.
one way to overcome this limitation and to obtain a long lasting Surge Of GtH in the blood is to use multiple injections of GNRH. or analogs thereof, but such multiple injections are excluded in most fish species due to the stress they involve. It has also been proposed to apply GNRH through the water in which fish are kept, but such an application is not economical for large scale, agricultural, applications.
Another approach in obtaining a long lasting surge of GtH in the blood is to administer GNRH to the fish in a sustained release delivery system and this has indeed been reported. The use of silastic implants (silicone rubber impregnated with the active compound) containing super-active mammalian GNRH analogs was shown to increase plasma GtH levels and accelerate spawning (Crim et al., 1986) and also to accelerate spermiation (Weil and Crim, 1983) in the Atlantic salmon. However, such an implant was found to be non-effective in many fish such as the female Walleye (Pankhurst et al., 1986a), in the male goldeye (Pankhurst, et al., 1986b) and in Sparus aurata (see the experimental section of this specification).
Cholesterol pellets (which are also a sustained release delivery system) containing different agonists of mammalian GNRH were successfully used to accelerate or induce ovulation and/or spawning in a number of fish such as rainbow trout (Crim et al., 1983), Atlantic salmon (Crim and Glebe, 1984), sea bass (Harvey et al., 1985) and milkfish (Lee et al., 1986). However, in addition to the fact that the preparation of the cholesterol pellets is time consuming and not practical on an industrial scale, it does not give rise to an effective manipulation reproduction.
Polymer based sustained release delivery systems for administering GNRH have been used in mammals in general and in humans in particular, with biodegradable polymers as the delivery vehicle (Sanders et al., 1984; Petri et al., 1984). However, the use of such polymer based sustained release systems in fish has not yet been reported.

Manipulation of ovulation and spawning in fish

Israel Oceanographic & Limnological Research Ltd.