A PCRF node (120) for a communications system, equipped with an interface (Gx) towards a PCEF node (130), in the system. The PCRF node (120) is arranged to use said interface to provide the PCEF node (130) with new or updated PCC rules for a User Equipment. The PCRF node (120) is also equipped with an interface (Sy) towards an OCS node (115), and is arranged to as a result of a trigger signal, request a credit indication for the new or updated PCC rules for the User Equipment from the OCS node (115) over the interface to the OCS node (115), to receive a credit indication for the new or updated PCC rules for the User Equipment from the OCS node (115) over the interface (Sy) to the OCS node, and to provide said credit information to the PCEF node (130). An OCS node (115) is also disclosed.

The Policy and Charging Control, PCC, architecture was introduced in 3GPP Rel-7 and has been further evolved in 3GPP Rel8 and Rel9. It provides operators with advanced tools for service-aware QoS and charging control.
For 3GPP Rel-10, there is currently a Study Item for Policy Enhancements that investigates various functional additions to the already existing architecture. Currently there are 4 key issues under investigation. One of those key issues is called "QoS and gating control based on spending limits". This key issues looks into the case when the QoS (bandwidth) of an ongoing session must be throttled due to the fact that the user has reached some form of credit related limit. One example might be that the user is roaming (data services while roaming is often expensive and charged per Megabyte) and has a pre-defined safety limit of e.g. 50 Euros when the bandwidth should be set to a minimum until the user has been informed and once again agreed to be charged for another 50 Euros.
In the current PCC architecture, when a new PDN-connection is set up or when it is being modified, the PCEF (i.e. PDN-GW or GGSN) always queries the PCRF over the Gx interface, i.e. the interface between PCEF and PCRF, for a policy decision prior to requesting credit from the OCS over the Gy interface, i.e. the interface between PCEF and OCS. There are two alternatives defined for when credit requests over the Gy interface may take place according to the present 3GPP standard. One alternative is to request credits from the OCS over the Gy interface immediately at PDN-connection establishment, and another alternative is to delay the request of credit until an incoming payload packet is classified by the PCEF to an authorized service for which online charging applies.

Nodes for communicating credit related information


A process for making a foamed composition, comprising the steps of a. providing a liquid hair treatment composition, b. providing a foaming device comprising a chamber, a removable or rechargeable pressurised gas unit and a dispensing nozzle, c. placing the liquid hair treatment composition in the chamber of the foamin device, d. charging the chamber with the gas, e. mixing the liquid hair treatment composition with the gas, and f. operating said foaming device such that the composition is ejected from the nozzle as a foam, wherein the liquid hair treatment composition comprises at least one conditioning ingredient and is free from hair styling polymer.

Many hair products are liquids (including herein soft-solids), which are normally packaged into bottles, sachets or jars. Hair conditioner products may be rinse-off conditioners or leave-in, where product is left on the hair for an extended period of time.
Application to hair is normally carried out by dispensing onto the hand, for example by squeezing from a bottle or scooping out of a jar and then transferring onto the hair from the hand. Such application leads to a number of disadvantages. It can lead to microbial contamination by repeating scooping from the jar. The products are not homogeneously distributed onto the hair surface. Wastage occurs as liquid product can run off wet hair onto skin or shower floor.
Foamed products for application to hair are known, particularly in the styling sector, where styling mousses are a popular product format. Foam leave-on conditioners, delivered from an aerosol are also known.
WO 13/014139 (Kao) discloses a post-foaming aqueous hair styling gel composition comprising one or more thickening polymer, one or more film forming polymer, one or more polyol, one or more surfactant and one or more C4-C5 isoalkane, which is foamed after release from its packaging and applied to hair to improve shine and curl retention of hair, reduce flyaway and confer moderately good setting effect. These benefits are attributed to improved homogeneity of application to the hair. Use of the entire purchased product is said to eliminate contamination problems. A pressurised product for treating hair is also disclosed, which comprises two chambers wherein one of the chambers comprises the post foaming aqueous gel composition and the other chamber comprises one or more propellant wherein the pressure inside the vessel does not exceed 12 bar. Two chambered aerosol cans, pressurised with liquid nitrogen or carbon dioxide are exemplified.
US 2014/093468 (Henkel) Discloses a cosmetic agent for the temporary shaping of keratinic fibers, comprising a carrier, a) 0.1 to 15 wt. % of monoesters of optionally alkylated sugars with C6-C30 fatty acids, b) 0.1 to 15 wt. % of diesters of optionally alkylated sugars with C6-C30 fatty acids, c) 0 to 50 wt. % of at least one film-forming polymer, and d) 0 to 50 wt. % of at least one wax with a melting point in a range from 40° C. to 90° C., with the proviso that the proportion of component(s) c) and d) in the cosmetic agent is 0.2 to 50 wt. %. The cosmetic agent is also disclosed in the form of a foam, which has a density below 0.9 g/cm. Methods for producing the cosmetic agent by mixing an optionally premixed blend of the ingredients of the cosmetic agent, characterized in that the density of the resulting cosmetic agent is at least 10% below the density of the blend; and for the temporary shaping of hair, comprising: pressurizing the cosmetic agent with a gas, and applying the agent to the hair, are also disclosed.
EP 1792600 and US 2008/152610 (Kao) Disclose an aerosol foam wax composition with superior hair styling and conditioning effects and unusual foam appearance. Disclosed is an aqueous aerosol foam composition for keratin fibres especially for hair characterised in that it comprises at least one hair styling polymer selected from anionic, non-ionic, cationic and/or amphoteric or zwitterionic ones, at least one oil or oily compound, at least one fatty acid soap, at least one emulsifier and at least one propellant.
Despite the prior art there remains a need to deliver non-styling, pre-packaged hair products to give improved efficacy and effectiveness, without the use of propellants (due to regulatory pressure and growing consumer preference).
We have now found that liquid compositions, including packaged compositions, that comprise at least one conditioning agent and that are free from hair styling polymer, may be transformed into foams, using a non-aerosol method, said foams giving unexpected improvement in conditioning and style benefits, including increased conditioning feel, shine, smoothness, fibre alignment, volume and shape benefit over the non-foamed composition, compared with the same composition that was not foamed. The invention may be applied to a wide range of formulations.


A mode locked fiber ring laser comprising an optical fiber, an output mirror, a partially reflective/partially transmissive mirror and a unidirectional attenuator. The unidirectional attenuator comprises, in sequence, a first linear polarizer, with its polarization axes at 0.degree., a first quarter wave plate with its axis at .theta..degree., a non-reciprocal rotator for rotating the polarization of incident light by .gamma..degree., a second quarter wave plate with its axis accented at (.theta.+.gamma.+90).degree. and a second linear polarizer with its polarization axis at .gamma..degree.. The parameters .theta. and .gamma. are selected to provide a desired relative phase shift between counter-propagating beams in the fiber and to attenuate the beam in one of the directions so as to create an additive pulse mode-locked (APM) type passive mode locking system.

Lasers having pulsed outputs can be constructed by using mode locking in the laser cavity. The light which is amplified in a laser cavity can be forced to form a pulsed pattern by causing a particular interference between the many equally frequency spaced modes which exist in the cavity.
A laser may very broadly be considered to be a gain medium within a resonator. Essentially, a beam of light passing through a gain medium stimulates the medium to release its stored energy in the form of additional light coherent with the input beam, thus amplifying the beam. Feedback is achieved by placing the gain medium within a resonator, e.g., a pair of parallel mirrors that reflect the beam back and forth towards each other through the gain medium. The light generated by such a laser is coherent but comprises a plurality of discrete wavelengths corresponding to different resonant frequencies, or modes, of the resonator. A portion of the light which is generated in the laser cavity is allowed to pass out of the cavity as the output beam. One of the mirrors, for instance, may be partially transmissive, wherein the light transmitted through the mirror is the output signal.
The output of such a laser as a function of time depends on the amplitudes, frequencies and relative phases of the different modes in the laser cavity. If these parameters are uncontrolled, then the output of the laser will be random in time. However, by controlling these parameters, the output of such a laser can be very finely controlled. For instance, if the modes in a laser cavity maintain equal frequency spacing and a fixed phase relationship to each other, the output of the laser as a function of time will vary in a very predictable manner. A laser in which the amplitudes, frequencies and/or relative phases of the modes are controlled to produce a specific output is said to be a mode-locked laser. The output will be dependent upon which modes are oscillating and the phase relationship between these modes.
Most commonly, mode-locking is used to generate pulsed-output lasers in which the output is a series of evenly spaced pulses of equal magnitude with a zero output between the pulses. Such a time domain output of evenly spaced pulses of equal magnitude is the result of a frequency domain characteristic of equal frequency spacing and phase among the various modes (i.e., mode locking). Various means are known for mode-locking lasers, both by active mode locking and passive mode locking. Active mode locking refers to a method in which the means for controlling the phases in the cavity is externally controlled. In passive mode-locking, phase control is accomplished automatically within the cavity.
To produce a pulsed output, it is necessary that the various modes traveling in the cavity have the same phase. The various modes in a cavity can be represented as e.sup.i.omega.t+.phi.. Accordingly, if we assume that there are three modes resonating in a laser cavity, the output of the laser can be represented as EQU e.sup.i.omega..sbsp.0.sup.t+.phi..sbsp.0 +e.sup.1.omega..sbsp.1.sup.t+.phi..sbsp.1 +e.sup.1.omega..sbsp.2.sup.t+.phi..sbsp.2
where .omega..sub.0, .omega..sub.1 and .omega..sub.2, are different frequency harmonics and .phi..sub.0, .phi..sub.1 and .phi..sub.2 define the relative phase differences of the three modes. If .phi..sub.0, .phi..sub.1 and .phi..sub.2 can be made equal, then the laser will be mode-locked with a pulsed output where the pulses are evenly spaced and of equal magnitude.
Mode-locking can be accomplished by loss modulation, gain modulation or phase modulation. All three types of modulation have been employed in the prior art. The present invention is primarily concerned with loss modulation.
FIG. 1 broadly illustrates a basic active mode-locked laser utilizing an optical gate as a loss modulator. The cavity 10 comprises mirrors 12 and 14 at opposite ends and an intensity modulator 16 somewhere in the cavity. An intensity modulator basically is a medium in which the transmission/absorption ratio, i.e., transmissivity, can be changed in time. For instance, one common type of loss modulator is an electro-optic crystal coupled to a voltage source such as voltage source 18 illustrated in FIG. 1. The transmissivity of the crystal is dependent on the voltage applied across it. Thus, by varying the output of the voltage source 18 in time, the transmissivity of the crystal 16 is also varied in time. For the sake of simplicity, it will be assumed that the crystal can be controlled to have a transmissivity/absorption ratio which is sinusoidal in time. By controlling voltage source 18 such that there is high loss for all wave forms within the cavity except the pulse shape, the desired output pattern of regularly spaced pulses of equal magnitude can be produced. Mode locking is achieved by modulating the transmissivity of the crystal 18 at a period which is carefully adjusted to match the period of time necessary for light to travel round trip in the cavity. In this case, the light incident on the modulator 16 during the point in the modulator's cycle when it has high transmissivity will again be incident at the same point in the modulator's cycle after one round trip in the cavity. By the same token, light incident on the modulator when it has low transmissivity will always strike the modulator when it has low transmissivity because its round trip time to return to the modulator is equivalent to the modulator's cycle time. With this type of modulation, light tends to build up in narrow pulses in the portion of the light which experiences high transmissivity in the modulator.
In the frequency domain, the above described mode locking system is as follows. When cavity mode n having frequency .omega..sub.n is modulated sinusoidally at frequency .OMEGA., side bands appear at frequencies of .omega..sub.n .+-..OMEGA.. Mode-locking occurs when .OMEGA. closely matches the mode spacing, .DELTA.. The condition .OMEGA.=.DELTA. is equivalent to the condition that the modulation period match the cavity round trip period. When .OMEGA.=.DELTA., the side bands created from mode n act as injection signals for modes n+1 and n-1. The modulation tends to ensure that a large number of modes oscillate. For example, starting with only a single mode at frequency .omega..sub.0, the modulation produces side bands that feed modes at .omega..sub.0 .+-..DELTA.. The side bands generated from these modes in turn provide injection signals for modes at .omega..sub.0 .+-.2.DELTA., and so on. Further, the result of the injection-locking process is a fixed and stable set of mode amplitudes, frequencies and phases. This corresponds in the time domain to a train of short pulses, with pulse separation equal to the modulation period and pulse width equal to the pulse separation divided by the number of oscillating modes.
Other techniques of active mode locking are also known. Active mode locking by phase modulation, for instance, is known but is no longer in common use. Some such techniques are discussed in Encyclopedia of Lasers and Optical Technology; Academic Press, Inc.; Robert A. Meyers, Editor; 1991; pp. 305-318.
Mode locking may also be achieved in a passive manner. In passive mode-locking, the modulator is a non linear optical element that is responsive to the mode locked pulses themselves.
In passive mode locking, instead of an externally driven modulator, a non linear optical element (i.e., an element having transmissivity dependent upon the intensity of the light in the non linear element) is used. FIG. 2 broadly illustrates a type of passive mode locked laser cavity which is commonly referred to as an additive pulse mode locked (APM) laser. In this type of passive mode locking, the generation of pulses is achieved by a different operation than in active mode locking. In this system, two beams are caused to interfere with each other so as to cause the light to be mode locked (i.e., to maintain equal frequency spacing and a fixed phase relationship) which, in turn, results in a particular time domain output (such as evenly spaced pulses of equal magnitude).
The cavity 20 comprises mirrors 22 and 24 at opposite ends thereof. In addition, there is a third mirror 26 positioned somewhere near the middle of the cavity (but not the exact middle). Mirror 26 is chosen to have a specific desired transmission/reflection ratio. For purposes of example, it is assumed that mirror 26 reflects 90% of light beam 28 incident upon it and transmits the remaining 10%. To the right of mirror 26, the cavity comprises a gain medium 21 which is linear. To the left of mirror 26, the cavity comprises a non-linear medium 23 in which the speed of propagation is dependent upon the intensity of the light in the medium. Mirror 26 need not necessarily be positioned at the interface between non linear medium 23 and linear medium 21 but could be placed anywhere in the cavity. Medium 23 is a non linear medium for which the speed of propagation usually decreases with increasing intensity. Accordingly, non-linear medium 23 imparts a non-linear phase shift to light traveling through it. Non-linear medium 23, for instance, may be an optical fiber.
Accordingly, light 32 traveling through non-linear medium 23 experiences non-linear phase shift relative to beam 30 which does no travel through medium 23. Of course, when beams 30 and 32 meet again at point 27, beam 32 additionally has experienced a phase shift relative to beam 30 due to the difference in path lengths traveled by beams 30 and 32, i.e., length L of non-linear medium 23. The relative phase shift between beams 30 and 32 is due to both linear and non linear phase shift. The non linear phase shift is a function of 1) the length of non-linear medium 23; 2) the non-linear properties of medium 23; and 3) the intensity of beam 32. The relative linear phase shift between beams 30 and 32 is a function of the difference in optical path length of beams 30 and 32 (which in turn, is a direct function of the distances between mirrors 22 and 26 and between mirrors 24 and 26). The exact values and relationship of all of these factors depends on the desired output as well as practical design considerations and can be calculated in a manner which is known in the prior art.
The length L of medium 23 must be precisely determined and set such that the resulting sum phase shift of both the linear and non linear effects is the desired shift for causing the desired interference between beams 30 and 32 to force light in the cavity to evolve into the desired output pattern of equal frequency spacing and fixed phase relationship for mode locking. Commonly, the appropriate length is determined by empirical means, i.e., experimentation. Most commonly, active feedback is used to adjust L to the appropriate length for obtaining the desired output signal. The process of determining and setting length L is difficult and time consuming.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved mode locked laser.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a passive mode locked ring laser in which it is not necessary to precision adjust the length of the cavity.

Ring laser employing unidirectional attenuator


A method for producing a chondroitin sugar chain comprises reacting a glucuronic acid donor, an N-acetyl galactosamine donor, a sugar receptor and a bacterial cell enzyme which synthesizes chondroitin in the presence of a surfactant. The surfactant is selected from polyoxyethylene octadecyl amine, n-decanoyl-N-methylglucamide, sodium cholate, n-octyl-β-D-thioglucopyranoside, n-nonyl-β-D-thiomaltopyranoside, sucrose monocholate, sucrose monocaprate, and sucrose monolaurate. The chondroitin sugar chain has all the following properties: a weight average molecular weight: 50,000 or more when measured by gel filtration chromatography; it is completely degraded to disaccharides with chondroitinase ABC; and when the sugar chain is decomposed with chondroitinase ABC and the decomposed products are subjected to a disaccharide analysis, substantially all of them correspond to an unsaturated disaccharide unit of chondroitin.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a long-chain chondroitin sugar chain, a method for producing the long-chain chondroitin sugar chain, and a method of promoting chondroitin synthesis.
2. Description of the Related Art
First, abbreviations used in the present application are described.
CH:chondroitinCS:chondroitin sulfateHA:hyaluronic acidGlc:glucoseGluUA:glucuronic acidGlcNAc:N-acetyl glucosamineGalNAc:N-acetyl galactosamineGPC:gel permeation chromatographyHPLC:high performance liquid chromatographyK4CP:chondroitin polymerase derived fromEscherichia coli K4 strainMALDI-TOF-MS:Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionizationtime-of-flight mass spectrometryUDP:uridine 5′-diphosphate
CH is a kind of glycosaminoglycan in which GlcUA and GalNac are linearly and alternately bound by a β1-3 linkage and a β1-4 linkage, respectively. CH is present as CS proteoglycan in a cartilage and many connective tissues in an animal body, and plays important roles in cell adherence, cell generation, cell differentiation, nerve cell extension, cartilage formation, bone formation, tissue regeneration, and the like.
CS is commercially available as useful substances in the form of pharmaceuticals such as a tissue adherence prevention drug, an arthritis therapeutic drug, a drug for low back pain and arthragia, a neuralgia improvement drug, an omarthritis therapeutic drug, an eye dropper, a chronic nephritis therapeutic drug, and an analeptic, a health food, a cosmetic product (a moisturizer), and the like. In general, CS naturally exists as a sugar chain having a weight average molecular weight of 20,000 to 50,000, and it is known that CS's having a weight average molecular weight of 100,000 or more also exist. It is also known that those CS's have a structural characteristic such as a moisture rich characteristic and an ion retention characteristic, and have specific physiological function such as cell adherence and signaling of development and differentiation as an extracellular matrix component owing to their long-chain structure.
A plurality of CH synthetases derived from animals have been cloned. However, those expressed enzymes alone do not have a CH polymerase activity, or have a weak enzymatic activity, even if the enzymes have the CH polymerase activity, so the use of the enzymes does not sufficiently contribute to the efficient industrial production of CH sugar chains. On the other hand, K4CP has also been cloned, and it is known that the enzyme alone has a CH polymerase activity to produce CH efficiently (Patent Document 1 and Non-patent Document 1). However, CH synthesis reaction for a long period by using a recombinant purified enzyme of K4CP results in the production of CH sugar chains having only about 20,000 sugar chains.
Moreover, CH can also be produced by desulfation of CS. However, even if a sugar chain length of a starting material CS is long, sugar chains are cut by a side reaction. The present situation is that commercially available CH's have a weight average molecular weight of 10,000 or less.
A technology of synthesizing a long-chain CH sugar chain has not been known so far. However, from the view point of industrial usability, development of the long-chain CH sugar chain and a production method thereof are expected.    Patent Document 1: JP 2003-199583 A    Non-patent Document 1: Ninomiya, T. et al., 2002, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Volume 277, No. 24, p. 21567-21575

Long-chain chondroitin sugar chain and method for producing the same and method for promoting synthesis of chondroitin


Methods and systems for coaching an end user are disclosed. Information related to a user profile and/or user activity of an end user is collected in a memory. An analysis engine analyzes information against a metric. A metric may represent or include one or more characteristics of a (typical) successful end user. Said metric may be statistically determined in various ways. A rules engine generates a coaching message for output to the end user if the information does not meet the metric, wherein the one or more coaching messages provokes (or suggests) the end user to change the user profile and/or the user activity of the end user to meet the metric.

Online communities and social networks offer end users a convenient and effective platform to connect with other end users. In the case of an online dating service or platform, end users would typically provide information to populate a user profile to be used in matching the end user with other end users in the online dating community. Furthermore, end users may have different user activities, i.e., users may use the online dating service in different ways with diverse behaviors and/or habits.

System and method for coaching a user on a website


According to some embodiments, a business service provider may define a stable user interface anchor entity associated with a business object data structure. A reference field may be associated with the stable user interface anchor, the reference field representing a path to a persistent node of the business object data structure. An end user adaptation to a user interface may then be applied in connection with the business object data structure, the adaptation referencing the stable user interface anchor entity.

An enterprise might store and access business information in a number of different ways. For example, an enterprise might store a substantial amount of information about production, sales, human resources, etc. in one or more database structures created by a business service provider (e.g., SAP AG® or SalesForce®). The enterprise might also generate various views of that information as needed (e.g., to create financial reports). In some cases, the enterprise might use pre-defined user interfaces to interact with the database structures. Often, however, an enterprise will want to customize these user interfaces, or even create entirely new user interfaces, based on the business needs of the enterprise. For example, an enterprise might change a sales order user interface by adding a "Sub Product Identifier" next to an existing "Product Identifier."
Note that a business service provider may periodically make changes to the database structures. For example, the business service provider might release system wide patches or new versions of various database structures to improve the efficiency of the system or to add new features. Unfortunately, these changes to the database structures might conflict with previous customizations made by an enterprise. For example, if business service provider has moved the location of the "Sub Product Identifier" and/or or changed the name of the element in the database structure, previous customizations made by an enterprise in connection with that element may become inoperative. Correcting such problems can be a time-consuming and expensive project, especially when substantial amounts of data elements and/or customizations are involved.
Accordingly, a method and mechanism for efficiently allowing customizations to a user interface that will not be disturbed by system-wide updates may be provided by some embodiments herein.

Stable anchors in user interface to support life cycle extensions


A shift control for a shift-down operation is executed by carrying out the following stages in order: an off-going range releasing stage STO1 which quickly lowers the engagement actuation pressure of the off-going engaging element to an engagement-releasing pressure; an off-going range controlling stage STO2, STO3 and STO4 which sets the engagement actuation pressure of the off-going engaging element to a pressure a little higher than the engagement-releasing pressure; an on-coming range void-stroke-clearing stage STR1 which sets the engagement actuation pressure of the on-coming engaging element to a predetermined high-pressure necessary for clearing the void stroke; an on-coming range waiting stage STR2 and STR3 which sets the engagement actuation pressure of the on-coming engaging element to a stand-by pressure necessary for retaining the on-coming engaging element in stand-by condition prior to engagement; an off-going range final stage which releases the off-going engaging element completely; and an on-coming range final stage which engages the on-coming engaging element completely.

Automatic transmissions are composed of a plurality of gear trains. For the purpose of shifting speed ranges, these gear trains establish a plurality of power transmission paths, and these transmission paths are selected through some engaging elements such as clutches and brakes, which are actuated hydraulically. While the transmission is being shifted, an engaging element establishing the power transmission path for an off-going speed range (off-going engaging element) is released, and another element (on-coming engaging element) is engaged to establish the power transmission path for an on-coming speed range.
In order to execute such shifts smoothly without any lag, the engagement and disengagement of the engaging elements are precisely timed, and forces applied to these engaging elements for engagement and disengagement are properly controlled. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 62(1987)-246653 discloses a following method. After a shift command is generated, while the engagement actuation pressure of the off-going engaging element is lowered to allow some slipping in the off-going engaging element, the on-coming engaging element is cleared of the void stroke. Then, the off-going engaging element is released while the on-coming engaging element is gradually brought into engagement. Thereafter, the actuation pressure of the on-coming engaging element is gradually increased.
Also, Japanese Patent Publication No. H6(1994)-8665 discloses a shift control method for carrying out a shift-down operation in power-on condition. In this control method, the engagement actuation pressure of the off-going engaging element is gradually lowered while the rotational speed of the turbine of the torque converter increases in response. Then, the engagement actuation pressure of the off-going engaging element is increased again to adjust this rotational speed to a target rotational speed suitable for the on-coming engaging element to engage, and the torque transmission path is switched from the off-going speed range to the on-coming speed range.
However, in this shift-down operation, if the off-going engaging element is released too quickly for the on-coming engaging element to follow up in engagement after the release of the off-going engaging element, a problem of shift shock or engine racing is experienced during the engaging of the on-coming engaging element at the end of the shift operation. On other hand, if the off-going engaging element is released too slowly, a problem of overheat or wear is experienced in the off-going engaging element because of a resultant, excessive time for slippage. Moreover, if the timing for engaging the on-coming engaging element is not controlled precisely in relation with the release of the off-going engaging element, a problem of shift shock or shift delay is likely to happen.

Shift control method for an automatic transmission based upon slippage rates of engagement elements


A circuit includes a source device coupled to an output circuit. The source device is configured to produce a sequence of digital values at a rate defined by a data period. The output circuit is configured to receive the sequence of digital values from the source device, generate a copy of each digital value at a predetermined point during the respective data period, and responsive to initiation of a data transaction during a given data period but before the predetermined point, output the digital value from the source device, whereas responsive to initiation of a data transaction during the given data period but after the predetermined point, output the copy of the digital value.

Some devices generate data for storage in a small buffer. As each data value is stored in the buffer, a receiving device reads the data value from the buffer before the source device overwrites the previous data value with a new data value. In some such systems, the source and receiving devices operate in different clock domains. That is, the two clocks may not be synchronized to one another. Because the docks are not synchronized, there is a chance that the receiving device will attempt to read the buffer at the exact moment that the source device is attempting to overwrite the buffer with a new data value. The integrity of the data read from the buffer is not ensured due to this timing problem.

Output circuit for a source device with arbitrary access time


Assisting automation of repeated edits of code by automated generation of rules that, when applied, perform code transformations. The transformations are synthesized while observing developers make repeated code edits, and automatically perform similar modifications as those observed. This synthesized transformation defines an initial state of code to which the transformation can be applied, and defines a modification from that initial state. A rule is then generated that includes a detector mechanism that, when selected, is configured to find locations in code that have the defined corresponding initial state of the corresponding transformation. Thus, the transformation may be applied to any code to which the rule is exposed.

Computer programs are typically generated by a group of one or more developers generating code in a source code language. Code can become quite voluminous, involving thousands, or even perhaps millions of lines of code. Developers often find themselves performing repetitive code edits to add new features, refactor, and fix bugs during software development. For instance, changing a method signature may require changing all invocations of this method in the codebase. Besides being tedious, manually performing these edits is error-prone and time consuming.
Developers often submit multiple commits to accomplish a single repetitive code edit task because they misplace where the edit should have been applied or they incorrectly apply the edit to some locations. To reduce the developer burden involved in making such mechanical edits, Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) implement transformations for some fixed classes of repetitive edits that are frequently encountered by many developers.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one exemplary technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.

Rules generation using learned repetitive code edits


A planar antenna for linearly polarized waves includes a grounding conductor plate, a power supply circuit plate having a pattern of power supplying circuit of conductor strips each including power supply terminals, and a radiation plate having apertures forming radiation elements, the respective plates being arranged sequentially with an insulating layer interposed between adjacent ones of the plates to separate them to be independent of one another through a predetermined interval, while arranging the power supplying terminals of the power supplying circuit pattern as well as the apertures in the radiation plate so that the respective power supply terminals terminate to be within a contour of the apertures, in a top plan view, whereby the planar antenna makes it possible to receive at a high gain the linearly polarized waves over a wide band.

This invention relates to planar antennas and, more particularly, to a planar antenna capable of receiving linearly polarized waves at a high gain over a wide band.
The planar antenna of the kind referred to are effectively utilized in receiving the linearly polarized waves transmitted with a relatively wide band utilized from geostationary broadcasting and communication satellites launched into cosmic space.

Planar antenna for linearly polarized waves


A semiconductor module includes a switching element, a molded body, and a motor terminal. The molded body having the switching element disposed therein. The motor terminal has a base portion and a connection portion having an insertion hole into which a motor wire is inserted and connected with the winding wire. The connection portion has a cutaway region that defines a slot. The winding wire of the motor and the semiconductor module are connected via the motor wire and the motor terminal, thereby reducing the number of components used for such connection compared with a connection that uses a connector, and achieving a volume reduction of the semiconductor module and a driver device using the same.

Generally, a driver device controls the drive of a motor by changing the switching ON and OFF of a switching element. The driver device includes a motor wire and a semiconductor module. For example, in a patent document 1 (i.e., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. JP-2012-239294), the motor wire and the semiconductor module are electrically connected with a connector.
Since the connector is used as a connection between the motor wire and the semiconductor module in the patent document 1, the number of parts in the driver device increases, which may hinder the volume reduction of the driver device.


The present invention describes bleached grain products, such as bleached whole wheat flour, that are obtained having the color and taste of white flour by bleaching whole wheat kernels prior to conventional flour milling. The wheat kernels are treated with a peroxide solution to lighten the color of the bran layers. The bleached grain kernels can be tempered and milled into whole grain flours having 10% to 12% dietary fiber.

The present invention relates to food products and to methods for their preparation. More particularly, the present invention is directed towards bleached grain products such as whole wheat flour, to bleached grain intermediate products such as bleached wheat kernels and to their methods of preparation.
The present invention provides improvements in the processing or treatment of grains such as wheat. More particularly, the present invention is directed towards the provision of whole grain flour such as whole wheat with the color and taste comparable to white flour or a xe2x80x9cwhitexe2x80x9d whole wheat flour. Also, the present invention provides methods for preparing such improved white whole wheat flour and further to intermediate products useful in the production of such improved finished products as white whole wheat flour. Such intermediate products include, for example, bleached grain kernels such as bleached wheat kernels.
Most consumers have experienced and readily recognize the difference between whole wheat bread and ordinary white bread. Most consumers also know that whole wheat bread is more nutritious, but consume white bread anyway, because they like the taste better. This is especially true of children who can be particularly selective in food choices.
Through a particular treatment process, the present invention is able to lighten the darker color of whole wheat flour, and all but eliminate the bitter flavors. As a result, the present invention provides whole wheat flours that can be used to provide finished whole wheat products that look and taste as good as those made with regular white flour.
The principle species of wheat are Triticum vulgare or bread wheat; T. durum which has extra hard kernels used primarily for macaroni and related pasta products; and T. compactum or club wheat, which has very soft kernels. Numerous varieties and cultivars within each species are known.
All wheat generically comprise a major starchy endosperm, a smaller germ or sprouting section of the seed and a surrounding bran or husk layer. The endosperm makes up about 82-83% of the wheat kernel and is used in the production of flour. Typically, the bran makes up 14-15%, is removed from the kernel and is used in animal and poultry feed. However, the bran can also be milled along with the endosperm to produce whole wheat flour. The germ is usually separated from the rest of the kernel because its fat content limits the shelf life of the flour. The bran with or without the germ is sometimes referred to as xe2x80x9cmillfeedxe2x80x9d. Some special purpose whole grain flours include not only the bran but also the germ fraction.
In the United States, wheat is classified according to whether it is hard or soft, white or red, and planted in winter or spring.
Soft or spring wheat is typically planted in the spring and harvested later in the fall. Soft wheat is normally white wheat. White soft wheat is used for the donut and pastry industries since a white color and bland taste are essential flour quality attributes.
Hard or winter wheat is typically planted in the fall and harvested the following season in mid-summer. Winter wheat is normally red. Hard or red wheat is used for bread production. Red wheat has a distinctive taste due to tannins in the bran. To minimize the amount of these flavor-bearing tannins, the wheat grain is milled so as to have as small a fraction as possible of the bran containing these tannins. Naturally white hard wheat is also increasingly available commercially and being used more and more.
Even though the endosperm fraction is about 83%, in a typical flour milling process, the extraction rate of white patent flour generally runs about 72-75%. That is, for every hundred pounds of wheat, about 72-75 pounds of flour is obtained. This flour contains about 1-2% dietary fiber from small amounts of the bran. The balance millfeed is very low value comprising bran and germ although containing some of the desirable endosperm.
The milling process can be adjusted to obtain an increase in the flour yield but at the cost of including some of the bran. The presence of bran may lower the quality and thus value of the flour more than the increase in the value of the increase in yield. That is, the amount of flour obtained during the milling process is limited by contamination of the flour with bran that deteriorates flour quality. For flour made from red wheat, less bran in the flour can be tolerated due to the presence of more color and flavor tannins in the bran. The darker bran typically makes the flour grayish in color, and also imparts bitter flavors.
The present invention provides a particular chemical lightening treatment or wetting process, or wet bleaching process that bleaches wheat kernels after cleaning but prior to milling. Since wheat is typically wet tempered prior to milling anyway, this process is commercially practical with existing milling systems.
The principle advantage of the present invention is the provision of white whole grain flour having a high fiber content (≈11-12%) and other nutritional advantages of a whole grain flour that nonetheless has a white color and bland flavor comparable to conventional white flour. Since additional endosperm is associated with the bran is also included, the yield of the flour milling process is surprisingly and, dramatically increased. More surprisingly, the amount of flour obtained can be increased without deterioration in flour quality in terms of color and flavor.
Still another benefit is that the present invention provides enzyme inactivation that increases the stability of the flour.
Still another benefit is that the present invention provides substantial reductions in the viability of toxin producing molds and reductions in levels of mycotic toxins in the flours that can occur as a result of mold growth prior to milling.
These and further objects and advantages of the present invention will become clearer in light of the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment of this invention described in connection with the drawings.
In its method of preparation aspect, the present invention resides in methods of treating wheat prior to milling, essentially comprising the step of: treating whole grain kernels having an exterior bran layer with peroxide to decrease the color of the bran layer to provide a lightened grain kernel.
In its principal product aspect, the present invention resides in finished whole flour products characterized by high levels of dietary fiber, i.e., from the bran but which nonetheless have a white color and bland flavor of white flavors having only 1% to 2% fiber from bran.
In still another product aspect of one and the same invention, the present invention further provides intermediate products such a bleached or whitened grain kernels suitable for use in producing the present finished whole grain flours.


According to a computer-implemented method, an update package that includes update operational files is received at a computing device. At least one update operational file is to replace a corresponding original operational file for the computing device. It is determined which of the original operational files are to be replaced with corresponding update operational files. A delta file is stored at the computing device, which delta file indicates the original operational files that are replaced with corresponding update operational files and the update package is installed at the computing device.

The present invention relates to the management of a computing device, and more specifically to the management and storage of update operational files for the computing device. In the world today, there are billions of computing devices ranging from computers, laptops, smartphones, routers, and personal computing devices. The expanding practice of incorporating electronic components, such as smart electronic components, into every day devices such as refrigerators, irrigation system controllers, and home security systems reflects a trend wherein the number of computing devices is set to expand at an even more impressive rate. Each of these computing devices are regulated by operational files that instruct the computing device how to operate.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


A method for providing quality of service (QoS) for an Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) environment is presented. The method includes the steps of shaping one or more Protocol Data Units (PDUs) in an iSCSI initiator according to QoS policies, and marking in a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) layer at an initiator node the shaped PDUs according to the QoS policies, and wherein the PDUs are command PDUs, wherein the shaping of the command PDUs occurs before assigning command sequence numbers to said command PDUs.

Quality of Service (QoS) broadly refers to a network's ability to provide better service to selected network traffic. QoS can be characterized by several basic performance criteria, including availability, error performance, response time, lost traffic or poor transmission due to network congestion, and so on.
While QoS for networks is a fairly developed field, network storage systems pose special problems which are not addressed by prior art QoS protocols and techniques. As an example, in an Internet Protocol (IP) network, most of the heavy traffic is from the server to the client. Typically, the traffic may be in the form of downloads from the server to the client. Accordingly, prior art QoS techniques are designed to address unidirectional traffic from server to client.
However, in network storage, heavy traffic may be bi-directional, such as either a read activity or a write activity. Read activities may create heavy traffic from the storage server to the client. In contrast, write activities may create heavy traffic from the client to the storage server. Prior art QoS techniques are not equipped to address bidirectional traffic.
Another network storage issue is non-compliant clients. In IP network traffic, most of the traffic from the client is negligible in comparison to the traffic from the server. Consequently, damage caused by clients that are non-compliant with service level agreements is typically inconsequential. Thus, prior art QoS techniques do not address the issue of non-compliant clients. In contrast, in network storage systems, a non-compliant client may initiate a number of heavy traffic activities, such as read or write of data. In QoS for network storage, there is therefore a need to track and contain traffic of non-compliant clients. This need is currently not met by prior art QoS techniques.
The above are just two examples of the inability of prior art QoS techniques to address QoS issues for network storage systems. There is therefore need to provide QoS techniques that can address the unique and specific issues of network storage systems.

International Business Machines Corporation


An organic light-emitting display apparatus including a substrate; a thin-film transistor (TFT) arranged on the substrate; a black matrix located between the substrate and the TFT; a pixel electrode, which is located between the substrate and the TFT and having edge portions covered by the black matrix; an insulation layer, which covers the TFT and opens the top surface of the pixel electrode; an organic emission layer, which is arranged on the pixel electrode; and a counter electrode, which is arranged on the organic emission layer.

Field
The disclosure relates to organic light-emitting display apparatuses and methods of manufacturing the same.
Description of the Related Technology
An organic light-emitting display apparatus is a self-luminescent display device which includes a hole injection electrode, an electron injection electrode, and an organic emission layer formed between the hole injection electrode and the electron injection electrode and emits light as holes injected by the hole injection electrode and electrons injected by the electron injection electrode are recombined and disintegrated. An organic light-emitting display apparatus exhibits various high quality characteristics, such as low power consumption, high brightness, and fast response speed, thus being spotlighted as a next-generation display apparatus.

Organic light-emitting display apparatus and method of manufacturing the same


An apnea/hypopnea detection system and method that monitors a patient's respiratory flow, determines (a) a long term RMS energy based on the flow, (b) a long term threshold determined based on the long term RMS energy, and (c) a short term RMS energy based on the flow. Determining whether the patient is experiencing an apnea/hypopnea is accomplished by comparing the short term RMS energy with the long term threshold. This A/H detection technique is useful in diagnosing a patient for a breathing disorder, such as OSA, and/or for controlling an auto-titration pressure support system.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a system and method for detecting apnea/hypopnea events, and, in particular, to an apnea/hypopnea detection technique based on comparing a root-mean-square (RMS) of a patient's respiratory flow to a target value.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many individuals suffer from disordered breathing during sleep. Sleep apnea is a common example of such disordered breathing suffered by millions of people throughout the world. One type of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which is a condition in which sleep is repeatedly interrupted by an inability to breathe due to an obstruction of the airway; typically the upper airway or pharyngeal area. Obstruction of the airway is generally believed to be due, at least in part, to a general relaxation of the muscles which stabilize the upper airway segment, thereby allowing the tissues to collapse the airway. Another type of sleep apnea syndrome is a central apnea, which is a cessation of respiration due to the absence of respiratory signals from the brain's respiratory center. An apnea condition, whether OSA, central, or mixed, which is combination of OSA and central, is defined as the complete or near cessation of breathing, for example a 90% or greater reduction in peak respiratory air-flow.
Those afflicted with sleep apnea experience sleep fragmentation and complete or nearly complete cessation of ventilation intermittently during sleep with potentially severe degrees of oxyhemoglobin desaturation. These symptoms may be translated clinically into extreme daytime sleepiness, cardiac arrhythmias, pulmonary-artery hypertension, congestive heart failure and/or cognitive dysfunction. Other consequences of sleep apnea include right ventricular dysfunction, carbon dioxide retention during wakefulness, as well as during sleep, and continuous reduced arterial oxygen tension. Sleep apnea sufferers may be at risk for excessive mortality from these factors as well as by an elevated risk for accidents while driving and/or operating potentially dangerous equipment.
Even if a patient does not suffer from a complete or nearly complete obstruction of the airway, it is also known that adverse effects, such as arousals from sleep, can occur where there is only a partial obstruction of the airway. Partial obstruction of the airway typically results in shallow breathing referred to as a hypopnea. A hypopnea is defined as a 50% or greater reduction in the peak respiratory air-flow. Other types of disordered breathing include upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS) and vibration of the airway, such as vibration of the pharyngeal wall, commonly referred to as snoring. Thus, in diagnosing a patient with a breathing disorder, such as OSA, central apneas, or UARS, it is important to detect accurately the occurrence of apneas and hypopneas of the patient.
Devices are known that attempt to detect apneas and hypopneas to determine in real time whether a patient suffers from a sleep apnea syndrome. Examples of conventional apnea/hypopnea detection devices are taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,295,490 to Dodakian; U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,151 to Lynn; U.S. Pat. No. 5,797,852 to Karakasoglu et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,961,447 to Raviv et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,142,950 to Allen et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,165,133 to Rapoport et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,368,287 to Hadas.
It is further well known to treat disordered breathing by applying a continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) to the patient's airway. This positive pressure effectively "splints" the airway, thereby maintaining an open passage to the lungs. It is also known to provide a positive pressure therapy in which the pressure of gas delivered to the patient varies with the patient's breathing cycle, or varies with the patient's effort, to increase the comfort to the patient. This pressure support technique is referred to a bi-level pressure support, in which the inspiratory positive airway pressure (IPAP) delivered to the patient is higher than the expiratory positive airway pressure (EPAP).
It is further known to provide a positive pressure therapy in which the pressure is automatically adjusted based on the detected conditions of the patient, such as whether the patient is experiencing an apnea and/or hypopnea. This pressure support technique is referred to as an auto-titration type of pressure support, because the pressure support device seeks to provide a pressure to the patient that is only as high as necessary to treat the disordered breathing. Thus, the effectiveness of treating a patient via an auto-titration type of pressure support system can depend to a great extent on the accurate detection of apneas and/or hypopneas.
Examples of conventional auto-titration pressure support system are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,245,995 to Sullivan et al.; U.S. Pat Nos. 5,259,373; 5,549,106, and 5,845,636 all to Gruenke et al.; U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,458,137 and 6,058,747 both to Axe et al.; U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,704,345; 6,029,665, and 6,138,675 all to Berthon-Jones; U.S. Pat. No. 5,645,053 to Remmers et al.; and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,335,654; 5,490,502, 5,535,739, and 5,803,066 all to Rapoport et al. All of these conventional pressure support systems, with the possible exception of U.S. Pat. No. 5,645,053 to Remmers et al., are reactive to the patient's monitored condition. That is, once a condition occurs that indicates abnormal breathing, the system alters the pressure support to treat this condition.
These conventional A/H detection techniques and auto-titration pressure support systems use a myriad of different techniques to detect apneas and hypopneas. One such technique requires measuring the airflow from the patient and monitoring this airflow to look for reductions during the inspiratory phase indicative of an apnea or hypopnea. This often requires detecting the airflow accurately, which can be difficult in some conditions, for example, if the airflow is being measured via a nasal cannula and the patient is experiencing mouth breathing. Conventional A/H detection techniques also typically require distinguishing between the inspiratory and the expiratory states of the patient in order to focus on the changes in patient flow or pressure occurring during the inspiratory state, which is where the apneas/hypopneas occur. Although techniques exist for distinguishing between the inspiratory and the expiratory states of a patient, this remains a complicated task and is subject to errors.

Apnea/hypopnea detection system and method


The present invention is directed to a metal working oil composition comprising the following components (A), (B), and (C), and optionally (D):. (A): a lubrication base oil, PA1 (B): 0.1-30% by weight of an overbasic alkaline earth metal sulfonate with respect to the total weight of the composition, PA1 (C): 0.1-30% by weight of an overbasic alkali metal sulfonate with respect to the total weight of the composition, and PA1 (D): 0-30% by weight of a sulfur-containing extreme-pressure agent.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a metal working oil composition, and more particularly to a metal working oil composition, which is suitable for metal working processes such as cutting and grinding.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally speaking, in metal working processes such as cutting and grinding, chlorine-based extreme pressure agents have been used because of their excellent ability to improve cutting performance and relatively low cost.
However, in recent years, water-insoluble cutting fluids containing chlorine-based extreme pressure agents have been criticized as responsible for corrosion and damage of incinerators caused by environmental pollution and emission of chlorine gases, as dioxin is generated during incineration of waste.
Moreover, chlorinated paraffins, a class of chlorine-based extreme pressure agents, raise some concern about their toxicity and carcinogenicity.
In view of the foregoing, there have been developed oil compositions that do not contain chlorine-based extreme pressure agents.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) Nos. 6-313182 and 6-330076 disclose cutting oil compositions containing a sulfonate of an alkali metal and/or an alkaline earth metal. However, the cutting oil compositions actually disclosed in those publications--although applicable to turning and boring--are problematic when used in low-speed, heavy cutting in which the cutting speed is not more than 40 m/min.; e.g., broaching or gun-drilling, as they induce breakage of tools due to cutting force unless considerable amounts of such compositions are used or the working conditions are set to extremely mild.


An image processing apparatus is provided including a storage unit for storing relationships of color coordinates between a plurality of reference colors under each of a plurality of different light sources for each light source, with respect to the plurality of reference colors set in a color space and being different from one another; and a calculation unit for detecting color coordinates of the plurality of reference colors from an object image to be processed, and identifying a light source used in capturing of the object image according to a similarity between relationships of the detected color coordinates and the relationships of color coordinates stored in the storage unit for each light source.

When the color of a photographed image is shifted from an original color, there is performed processing to convert the color of each pixel in the image into the original color. This processing is called color correction. Methods of realizing the color correction include a method of photographing a sample containing a known color (hereinafter, called reference color) together with an object at the same time, for example, and converting the color of each pixel into an original color according to the change of the reference color.
However, the number of colors which each pixel of the image may take is huge, and it is difficult to set all the possible colors to the reference colors and to preliminarily convert each of the reference colors into an original color. Therefore, when the above method is applied, the processing of obtaining conversion for the color of each pixel (hereinafter, input color) from conversion for the reference color is performed by interpolation processing of obtaining the input color from preliminarily provided reference colors, and the color correction is performed for the input color according to the obtained conversion.
For example, there is a method of converting the input color by volume interpolation. This method sets a solid having reference colors at apexes in a color space, and obtains the conversion of the input color utilizing the conversion of the reference colors which are the apexes of the solid including the input color. When this method is applied, the accuracy of the color correction becomes better as the distances between the reference colors used in the correction processing and the input color are smaller. Accordingly, as a method of improving the accuracy in the color correction, there has been proposed a method of photographing a large number of reference colors so as to allow many solids to be set in the color space.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-48179
The above method by the volume interpolation converts the input color by the linear interpolation utilizing a relationship between the coordinates of the reference colors in the color space and the coordinates of the input color. Therefore, the interpolation processing according to this method does not use information except the coordinates in the color space.
The relationship between the reference color and the input color depends on environment such as the kind of a light source used in image capturing (e.g., sun light, fluorescent light, incandescent light bulb, or the like), for example. When the spectrum distribution characteristic (spectrum) of a light source, the reflection characteristic of an object, or the spectral sensitivity characteristic of an imaging element is changed, for example, and a pair of same colors is captured, the relationship between the colors obtained from the captured image is changed.
By such an environment change, an error may be caused in the color correction when the method by the above volume interpolation is applied. However, the influence of the change in the reflection characteristic of the object or the spectral sensitivity characteristic of the imaging element is smaller than the influence of the change in the spectrum distribution characteristic of the light source. Accordingly, identifying the light source in the image capturing increases the possibility of achieving a highly accurate color correction that is performed according to the light source.

Image processing apparatus and light source identification method


A transmission device is equipped with a flat cable (11) which has a winding direction reversal section (11a) at the middle, and three dummy cables (21A through 21C) which are wrapped over the flat cable, the winding direction reversal sections (11a and 21a through 21c) of the flat cable and dummy cables being arranged in the circumferential direction at approximately equal intervals. The winding direction reversal sections which produce elastic reaction forces are distributed in the circumferential direction at approximately equal intervals, and hence the slack of the flat cable is suppressed when an inner case or an outer case performs reciprocal rotation, thus securely preventing troubles caused by the slack in the flat cable, whereby the possible case revolution number can be increased with a shorter flat cable, and the operation stability of the transmission device can be improved.

The present invention relates to a transmission device designed to transmit electrical signals, optical signals, electric power or the like between two relatively rotatable components via a transmission medium provided between inner and outer cases respectively associated with these two components, and more particularly, to a transmission device which makes it possible to increase the possible relative revolution number of the two components without using a longer transmission medium, features high operation reliability, and permits reduction in size.
Conventionally, the signal transmission between two relatively rotatable components, e.g., an automotive steering shaft component as a rotary component and a steering column component as a stationary component, is performed using a rotary connector, that is, a transmission device provided with a spirally wound, flexible flat cable (hereinafter referred to as FFC) and inner and outer cases for receiving it (Japanese provisional utility model publication no. 62-168581). Here, the FFC refers to a band flexible transmission line such as a cable, which comprises a plurality of electric conductors arranged in parallel to each other and coated with an insulating material, or an optical fiber cable which comprises a plurality of optical fibers arranged in parallel and covered with a sheath.
In this type of transmission device both ends of the FFC are fixed to the inner case and the outer case, respectively, so that the FFC is wound or unwound as the two cases rotate relatively to each other. Accordingly, signal transmission between the rotary component and the stationary component can be performed, with the FFC wound or unwound, even while the rotary component, attached to, e.g., the inner case, rotates relative to the stationary component on which the outer case is mounted. For instance, it becomes possible to transmit a horn signal or auto drive signal received from a switch provided on the steering wheel side of a car to a controller or the like on the car body side via a steering column, or to electrically connect an impact sensor and diagnosis unit provided on the car body side of the car equipped with an air bag system to an inflater of the air bag of the steering wheel side.
The applications of the transmission device described above are limited to those wherein the rotary component performs reciprocal rotation, that is, the rotary component alternately revolves clockwise and counterclockwise, relative to the stationary component. This type of transmission device, however, has an advantage in that the absence of slide-contact parts such as a brush and slip ring ensures no noises for signals. It is because such noises would be caused by the sliding motion of a slide-contact part, or by instantaneous interruption of the signals arising from mechanical vibration of the slide-contact part. Therefore, it becomes possible to configure a highly reliable transmission line. On the other hand, the possible number of relative revolutions of the inner case and the outer case is subject to the number of windings of the FFC. Therefore to increase the possible number of revolutions, the number of windings of the FFC must be increased, i.e., the length of the FFC must be increased. As the number of the windings of the FFC is increased, however, it becomes more difficult to transmit the rotary force of the rotary component to the entire FFC. frequently leading to such trouble as uneven movement of the entire FFC when the rotary component turns and the reversing of the FFC which may do harm to the FFC itself: tearing off ultimately.
In the past, therefore, a transmission device was proposed wherein the FFC is arranged so that the winding direction of the FFC on the inner case side is opposite from that on the outer case side, and a U-turn section is formed in the middle of the FFC in order to make it possible to increase the possible number of relative revolutions of the inner and outer cases with a minimum number of windings of the FFC. According to the proposed device, when the inner case is rotated in such a direction relative to the fixed outer case that the FFC is taken up by the inner case as the inner case turns, the U-turn section of the FFC moves around the inner case in the same direction as the rotational direction of the inner case, and the movement of the U-turn section half offsets the rotation of the inner case. In addition, the rotary force of the inner case can be well transmitted to the whole FFC thus permitting the increase of the possible number of revolutions with a minimum number of windings of the FFC.
If, however, the inner case is rotated in the opposite direction from that described above, that is, if the inner case is turned in the direction so that the FFC is unwound from the inner case as the inner case rotates, then the FFC develops a slack, which interferes with the U-turn section smoothly moving in the case-rotating direction. This causes a moving U-turn section to fail to adequately offset the rotation of the case and to sufficiently transmit the rotary force.
Thus, the proposed device discussed above has the disadvantage that, in some direction of the case, the U-turn section fails to move smoothly, disabling the intended effect of increasing the number of case revolutions with a minimized number of windings of the FFC. Further, the proposed device also requires that the case perform reciprocal rotation; therefore, the case must inevitably be turned also in the direction which inconveniences smooth movement of the U-turn section. For this reason, the proposed device has not yet been put into practical use.
Furthermore, the proposed transmission device described above bears a problem in that it is difficult to reduce the size of the device. More specifically, to ensure smooth movement of the U-turn section and smooth winding and unwinding of the FFC. the volume of the FFC receiving space formed by the inner case and the outer case should be set to approximately double the FFC occupying volume which is defined by the length, width and thickness of the FFC. This is because, for instance, if the FFC housing or accepting space volume is too small and the bending or curvature radius of the FFC at the U-turn section is too small, then an excessive stress is applied to the FFC when the U-turn section moves. This causes the electric conductors, optical fibers, etc. constituting the FFC to break off soon, resulting in a shorter service life of the transmission device.
Especially when external equipment to be connected via a transmission circuit has many circuits, the number of the transmission lines constituting the FFC has to be increased with a consequent increase in the width of the FFC. Accordingly, the cases of the transmission device become larger, requiring a larger space for mounting it on a vehicle or the like. Furthermore, the FFC housing space is exclusively used for housing/accepting the FFC. and no components other than the FFC can be placed in the FFC housing/accepting space, making it half a dead space. Additionally, as the width of the FFC increases, an offensive noise produced when the FFC winds or unwinds tends to become larger. For the reasons described above, it is desired that the FFC housing/accepting space be made smaller.

Transmission device used between two relatively rotatable components


The present invention relates to the use of 5-substituted nucleosides and/or the prodrugs thereof together with at least one active substance in order to produce a drug or combination preparation for resistance-free therapy of infectious diseases caused by bacteria or protozoa.

Resistance development relative to treatment with medicines represents a universal defense mechanism of microorganisms, animals and plants. In humans, this defence mechanism is found in tumors. Generally, multiplication (amplification) of specific genes leads to the development of resistance. This gene amplification causes the overproduction of a gene product that directly or indirectly reduces the effect of the drug. Resistance development of Plasmodia (pathogens of malaria), and Leishmania (flagellates as pathogens of cutaneous Leishmaniose i.a.) is based partly on the amplification of the same genes as in human tumors.
Proof that gene amplification in bacteria leads to resistances has been successful with Proteus bacteria, Escherichia coli, Streptococca and Staphylococca. All are important hospitalism germs and pathogens of urinary tract infections (Romero and Palacios, gene amplification and genome plasticity in procaryotes, Ann. Rev. Genet. 1997). The mechanism underlying gene amplification, recombination, can likewise lead to the development of resistance. This form of resistance development has been proved unequivocally without exception in all types of bacteria but also for human tumors and all organisms which have been examined to date.
Malaria is a collective term for infections by protozoa of the Plasmodium type. Due to increasing resistance of Plasmodia to chemotherapeutics and of Anopheles mosquitoes to insecticides, the situation is increasingly deteriorating. Both resistances can be caused by gene amplification/recombination.
4-aminoquinolines (Chloroquine, Amodiaquine, mepacrine and Sontaquine are used as antimalaria drugs. These are analogues of quinine. Furthermore, there are two groups of antifolates, on the one hand dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) inhibitors (pyrimethamine and chloroguanide) and on the other hand the sulphones and sulphonamides. Resistances can therefore arise due to amplification of the DHFR gene (Cowman and Lew, 1989; Cowman and Lew, 1990; Tanaka et al., 1990a; Tanaka et al. 1990b; Watanabe and Inselburg, 1994). The amplification of "Multi-drug-resistance" genes is likewise of importance (Foote et al., 1989). The amplification of the pfmdr1 gene is connected for example to resistance to mefloquine, halofantrine and quinine (Wilson et al., 1989; Cowman et al., 1994). As a result of increasing resistance of the Plasmodia to chemotherapeutics and Anopheles mosquitoes to insecticides, the situation is increasingly deteriorating. Both resistances can be caused by gene amplification/recombination. The development of resistance of Plasmodia is intended to be prevented by the prevention of chemotherapy-induced gene amplification.
Leishmaniases are caused by Leishmania (intracellular parasitic protozoa of the Mastigophora class) and infectious diseases transmitted by Phlebotoma (sand mosquitoes). Resistances to a chemotherapy are based on the amplification of some genes which also play a role in chemoresistance of tumours (Ouellette and Borst, 1991; Grondin et al., 1998; Arana et al., 1998; Heimeur and Ouellette, 1998; Kundig et al., 1999). The development of resistance is intended to be prevented by preventing chemotherapy-induced gene amplification/recombination.
The use of 5-substituted nucleosides for inhibiting resistance development during cytostatic treatment is already known from DE 195 45 892.

Use of 5-substituted nucleosides and/or prodrugs thereof in the resistance-free treatment of infectious diseases


A method of providing a conversational agent for interacting with a user may include declaratively defining a task model of a task using a task modelling language, storing the task model in a computer-readable storage medium, generating a natural language grammar based on the task model, storing the natural language grammar in the computer-readable storage medium, receiving a user input from the user, interpreting the user input with a processor based on the task model and the natural language grammar, generating an agent response to the user input with the processor based on the task model, and communicating the agent response to the user.

The history of consumer computing has gone through key transitions. Starting in the 1960's came giant mainframes housed in big secure buildings that were programmed and used by a few users only. Late 1970's and early 1980's brought workstations and personal computers that decentralized and democratized computing. Most users were still programmers, though there were 'dumb terminals' for information workers. The Internet in the mid-1990's opened up computing to the masses, which allowed one to use a browser to get things done without programming and Internet allowed information and computing to be shared world-wide.
Personal smart phones connected to the Internet were introduced around 2009-2010 and the "app" (i.e., applications including computer or software programs) economy was pushed to the limits by major tech companies, which led to a number of good and bad apps and simple and complex apps. The apps allow the everyday user to complete lots of tasks on the go. By 2015, it was clear that the younger users were spending over 50% of their time inside messaging apps. With another 30% of time being accounted by other categories such as email, browser or search, games, map, calendar, etc.
Recognizing this key trend, major companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple started opening their messaging apps with Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that allow the use of automated programs such as Chatbots, Conversational Agents, Voice-based agents. The automated programs utilize artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as machine learning, speech understanding and natural language processing to provide a seamless way for business to work with their users inside these messaging apps. This kind of conversational interaction with automated agents based on AI is a major paradigm shift, perhaps, even more important than the transition from desktop to mobile devices.
Moreover, speech-to-text and text-to-speech cloud-based technologies are becoming very close to human capabilities where consumers can get a lot of their computation related work done simply by conversing with these automated agents without needing computers or even smartphones. This technology could be incorporated in a simple device with a microphone, a speaker, and Internet connectivity.
Virtual Agents (VA) offer businesses always-on 24×7 2-way communication channel with their customers. Since these agents are used inside authenticated messaging programs, businesses "know" who the customer is and can personalize their communication based on customer's prior interaction and transactional history, location, time of day, and other criteria. Further, the customer's virtual agents provide a very seamless way to talk to businesses in natural language over the entire range of interaction needs from getting information, learning about services, customer support, scheduling and status updates, and completing business transactions. However, most of the current technologies suffer from one or more of the following limitations or drawbacks for building conversational virtual agents.
One drawback is the virtual agents require a large set of tagged sentences for intent identification and entity extraction. This presents multiple problems. One, reliance on a data set of sentences is very error prone since it is very hard to get a representative data set that covers enough customer interaction scenarios. This problem is compounded in most real business use cases which involve multiple entities. In such cases, the number of sentences needed can be exponentially large in the number of fully instantiated entities since these entities can be expressed in many permutations and combinations. Two, the process of tagging each sentence in the data set with the appropriate entities is very tedious and labor intensive. For both of these reasons, it is hard to get error-free coverage of anything but a narrow range of narrowly scripted interaction scenarios.
Another drawback is supporting business processes that involve multiple steps especially when there are inter-dependencies between the steps and do not follow simple linear flows. Examples of such business processes that involve multiple steps include: insurance sign-up; investment advisory applications; product selection and configuration; claims adjudication; marketing leads qualification; and business logic around large number of business tasks. Current virtual agent tools have very little support for providing flexible dialogs, making it very hard to deal with interacting steps due to the combinatorial complexity of the interactions between task steps. Thus, most virtual agents have tightly scripted dialog flows that are unsuitable for natural conversations that human users are used to in their human-to-human conversations.
Yet another drawback is the VA's inability to allow users to ask questions in response to a question from the VA, i.e., users can not interrupt the virtual agent with clarifying questions or ask for explanation.
Yet another drawback is lack of support for business logic, especially, business rules and constraints that the virtual agent needs to follow as part of its task. This lack of support becomes pronounced when such logic eliminates certain choices for users and they need to get an explanation of why certain choices are disallowed.
Conversational agents need to do more than just answer a question. A dialog requires maintaining context and being able to change the choices made by the user and thereby change the dialog flow. No support for this is provided by the existing technologies. Each developer has to write code to maintain context.
The same virtual agent can be accessed by a user in many ways: as a chatbot on a website, inside a mobile app, within messaging app, or through voice-enabled agents. Each of these modalities have different ways of interacting with the user or presenting choices. Currently, no single technology can support all these modalities. Thus, developers have to create separate virtual agents to support different modes of user interaction.
Henceforth, there is a need for a system and method for providing a model-based intelligent conversational agent that addresses foregoing discussed issues.

System and method for providing a model-based intelligent conversational agent


A knee support has a body and two pressing strips. The body is a band having two ends, a central segment, a protecting portion, and a shockproof pad. The protecting portion is formed in the central segment of the body. The two pressing strips are formed on the outer surface of the body and each has a distal end and a connector being formed on the distal end. The distal end of the pressing strip mounted through the ring, folded back on itself and attached to the body using the connector. The body orientates and holds the knee support in position while the pressing strip presses tightly against and supports a patella of the knee. The knee support prevents discomfort associated with loss of blood and provides good shock-absorption for the knee.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a knee support especially to a knee support having two modulated pressing strips to provide better support without causing discomfort due to reduced blood circulation.
2. Description of the Related Art
A human leg comprises a patellar tendon, a quadriceps, a patella and a tibia interconnected at a knee joint.
The patellar tendon connects the quadriceps muscle to the tibia incorporating the patella and provides force to allow the knee joint to open. Patella tendons are soft and fragile and can be injured by running or jumping, especially due to impact or over-repetition due to over-training.
People usually wear protecting apparatus, for example, knee supports to prevent impact or repetition injury of the patella tendon. With reference to FIG. 6, a conventional knee support comprises a body (30) and a pressing strip (40). The body (30) is in a band having two ends, a central segment, two connectors (31,32) and a pad (33). The two connectors (31, 32) are mounted respectively at the ends of the body (30) and may be hook and loop fasteners. The pad (33) is made of sponge or cotton and mounted in the central segment of the body (30).
With further reference to FIG. 7, when using the conventional knee support, the body (30) is mounted loosely around the knee with the pad (33) adjacent to the patella tendon. The connectors (31, 32) hold each other to allow the body (30) to be held on the knee joint.
The pressing strip (40) is formed on the outer surface of the body (30) and comprises a mounting strip and a holding strip having an end. The holding strip is fed through the mounting strip, pulled and fastened against itself to hold the knee support firmly on the knee joint.
However, the conventional knee support is made from resilient materials and cannot provide adequate impact protection, especially impacts involving hard surfaces.
Moreover, tightening the conventional knee support causes the resilient materials to stretch reducing blood circulation around the knee and causing discomfort.


An image reading apparatus capable of accurately detecting abnormal pixels caused by a contaminant such as dirt, stain, or flaw on a moving document reading glass being read. An image processing unit of the image reading apparatus performs a first abnormal pixel detection process to detect pixel signals representing abnormal pixels and output from image sensors for respective colors when a reading unit reads a guide plate in a main scanning direction in a state before an original passes through a moving document reading position, performs a second abnormal pixel detection process to detect pixel signals representing abnormal pixels and output from the image sensors when an original being conveyed is read by the reading unit in the main scanning direction, and detects a main scanning direction of abnormal pixels based on results of these detection processes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image reading apparatus and an image reading method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an image reading apparatus configured to read an original by so-called moving document reading has been known. In the moving document reading, a reading unit having a light source for irradiating light to an original is stopped at a moving document reading position. When an original conveyed by an automatic original conveyance apparatus (hereinafter, referred to as the ADF) passes through the moving document reading position, the reading unit reads the original by scanning it in a main scanning direction.
The reading unit stopped at the moving document reading position faces a lower surface of a moving document reading glass disposed at the moving document reading position so as to permit light irradiated from the reading unit to pass therethrough, and the original is conveyed by the ADF between an original guide and the moving document reading glass along an upper surface of the moving document reading glass.
In the moving document reading, if there is a contaminant such as dirt (including dust), stain, or flaw on the moving document reading glass, an image streak along a sub-scanning direction appears in an image of the read original due to the contaminant being read.
To obviate this, various methods for detecting a contaminant adhered to the moving document reading glass have been proposed.
For example, in a method described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-045462, an original guide is read in a state before an original is conveyed up to the reading position. Then, leading and trailing end portions of an original passing through the reading position are read, and portions of the original passing through the reading position, other than the leading and trailing end portions thereof, are also read. If pixels of plural consecutive reading lines which are the same in density are present at the same main scanning direction position in respective main scanning direction line data obtained by the readings, these pixels are detected as abnormal pixels. With this method, only dirt adhered to the moving document reading glass can be detected as abnormal pixels and can be corrected. Since the dirt detection is performed each time one original is read, dirt conveyed together with an original up to the moving document reading glass can also be detected.
However, in a case that abnormal pixels are detected by the method disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-045462 based on a result of the reading of the original guide in a state before an original is conveyed up to the reading position and a result of the reading of original end portions, normal pixels are sometimes erroneously detected as abnormal pixels and unnecessary correction is performed, if the density of dirt adhered to the original guide is close to the density of a base surface of the original end portions or close to the density of an image of the original end portions. To correct abnormal pixels, there is a method for replacing abnormal pixels with adjacent pixels, for example. However, since a corrected portion becomes visually noticeable in a case, for example, that an original image is a screen image, it is preferable that unnecessary correction be avoided as much as possible.

Image reading apparatus and image reading method