The present invention relates to a nucleic acid coding for a human DGKk protein lacking a functional Proline Rich Region and/or a functional EPAPE repeated Region, and to its use in the treatment of fragile X syndrome in a patient in need thereof.

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is a genetic condition that causes intellectual disability, behavioral and learning challenges and various physical characteristics. Though Fragile X syndrome occurs in both genders, males (1 in 4,000) are more frequently affected than females (1 in 8,000), and generally with greater severity.
Affected individuals usually have delayed development of speech and language by age 2. Most males with fragile X syndrome have mild to moderate intellectual disability, while about one-third of affected females are intellectually disabled. Children with fragile X syndrome may also have anxiety and hyperactive behavior such as fidgeting or impulsive actions. They may have attention deficit disorder (ADD), which includes an impaired ability to maintain attention and difficulty focusing on specific tasks. About one-third of individuals with fragile X syndrome have features of autism spectrum disorders that affect communication and social interactions. Seizures occur in about 15 percent of males and about 5 percent of females with fragile X syndrome.
Most males and about half of females with fragile X syndrome have characteristic physical features that become more apparent with age. These features include a long and narrow face, large ears, a prominent jaw and forehead, unusually flexible fingers, flat feet, and in males, enlarged testicles (macroorchidism) after puberty.
Fragile X syndrome is caused by an expansion of the CGG trinucleotide repeat affecting the Fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) gene on the X chromosome, resulting in a failure to express the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), which is required for normal neural development.
In the mouse, the lack of FMRP is associated to an excessive translation of hundreds of neuronal proteins, notably including post-synaptic proteins. This local protein synthesis deregulation is proposed to underlie the observed defects of glutamatergic synapse maturation and function, and to affect preferentially the hundreds of mRNA species that were reported to bind to FMRP.
There is currently no treatment that has shown benefit specifically for fragile X syndrome. Current trends in treating the disorder only include medications for symptom-based treatments that aim to minimize the secondary characteristics associated with the disorder like symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity, anxiety, and aggression. Supportive management has also been developed to optimize functioning in individuals with fragile X syndrome, including speech therapy, occupational therapy, and individualized educational and behavioral programs.
There is thus still a strong need nowadays for medical science to innovate new and efficacious fragile X syndrome treatments. The present invention seeks to meet these and other needs.

Recombinant Dgkk gene for fragile X syndrome gene therapy

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE

INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA SANTE ET DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE


A heat treatment apparatus includes: a processing container configured to accommodate and process a plurality of substrates in multiple tiers under a reduced-pressure environment; a first heater configured to heat the plurality of substrates accommodated in the processing container; a plurality of gas supply pipes configured to supply a gas to positions having different heights in the processing container; and a second heater provided on a gas supply pipe that supplies a gas to a lowermost position among the plurality of gas supply pipes, and configured to heat the gas in the gas supply pipe.

A technique has been known in which a processing gas is activated by heating the processing gas in advance to a predetermined temperature using a heater provided outside a processing container before the processing gas is supplied into the processing container. The heated processing gas is then supplied into the processing container (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-345314).

Heat treatment apparatus and film deposition method


There is provided a composition for functioning as an effective additive for an epoxy resin that is a solid at room temperature and has a high storage stability, and a method thereof. The composition of the present invention is a basic silane coupling agent organic carboxylate composition obtained by first synthesizing an organic carboxylate of a basic silane coupling agent by reacting a basic silane coupling agent and an organic carboxylic acid, and subsequently heating and mixing the organic carboxylate of the basic silane coupling agent with a compound exhibiting a good affinity for the basic silane coupling agent or organic carboxylic acid and having a softening point or melting point of 40° C. or greater.

Imidazoles are curing agents that are receiving attention for providing exceptional curing properties to resin compositions, resulting in cured materials with a high heat resistance. However, because of problems with storage stability, extending their working life by controlling basicity is being investigated through formation of metal complexes and various types of acid salts. The inventors have filed patent applications (Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 9-12683 and 2000-297094) in which at least one of imidazole group-containing silane coupling agents expressed by the general formulas (1) through (4) below would provide, as curing agents for epoxy resins, a curing epoxy resin composition having exceptional adhesion properties. However, these imidazole group-containing silane coupling agents are disadvantageous in having a poor storage stability when mixed with an epoxy resin in the same manner as in the case of conventional imidazoles.
Poor storage stability when mixed with an epoxy resin is also a problem with silane coupling agents such as amino group-containing silane coupling agents (commercial products), dialkylamino group-containing silane coupling agents (Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 9-295988, 9-296135, and 9-295989), monomethylamino group-containing silane coupling agents (commercial products), benzimidazole group-containing silane coupling agents (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 6-279458), benzotriazole group-containing silane coupling agents (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 6-279463), or pyridine ring-containing silane coupling agents (Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 9-295990 and 9-295991).

Basic silane coupling agent organic carboxylate composition, method for producing the same, and epoxy resin composition containing the same


The invention specifies a circuit arrangement (1, 20) for controlling a brushless electric motor (37) with a control chip (2), particularly a microcontroller, which has a number of PWM contacts (8), which can be used to output a PWM signal, and a number of commutation contacts (5,5′, 6,6′, 7,7′), which can be used to output a commutation signal. In this case, provision is made for at least one commutation contact (5,5′, 6,6′, 7,7′) to be alternately controllable as an input and an output, for the at least one commutation contact (5,5′, 6,6′, 7,7′) to have its output electrically connected to a PWM contact (8), and for the commutation contact (5,5′, 6,6′, 7,7′) connected in this manner to be able to be contacted for the purpose of tapping off a control signal. Such a circuit arrangement (1,20) increases the control options for a given control chip (2). The number of PWM sources required is reduced.

The output signals generated by a circuit arrangement of this type are used for controlling a brushless electric motor. Such an electric motor has a number of winding phases or phases that are usually arranged along the circumferential direction of a stator. A rotating magnetic field is generated by means of controlled energization of the winding phases, said field driving a rotor, which generally has permanent magnets. Electric motors comprising three winding phases which are arranged in a star connection and can thus be energized via three motor terminals are known, in particular. The characteristic variables of the electric motor, such as, in particular, rotational speed and torque, can be controlled by way of the frequency, phase, intensity and duration of the winding currents, which are controlled by way of the voltages applied to the winding phases.
The duration of the energization for each individual winding phase or the duration of a corresponding voltage supply, for example for each individual motor terminal, is coded by means of the commutation signal. The commutation signal can be introduced into a control in such a way that an energization of the assigned winding phase or a voltage supply of the assigned motor terminal can be effected only given a corresponding level of the signal. In the case of a digital commutation signal, the two levels HIGH or LOW are used for this purpose.
The PWM signal is used for the variation of the voltage present at the respective winding phase during the energization or commutation phase, or for the variation of the potential present at the assigned motor terminal. In this case, a PWM or Pulse Width Modulation signal prescribes the switch-on and switch-off time of a rectangular signal with a fixed fundamental frequency. In this case, for a sluggish load, the voltage present on average can be varied by way of the duration of the switch-on time of the rectangular signal within a PWM clock cycle. If the rectangular signal is switched on for example for only half of the total available time, then the load sees on average only half of the voltage present during the switch-on time.
In a conventional circuitry interconnection, for the driving of the respective winding phases or motor terminals of a brushless electric motor, the PWM signal is logically combined with the commutation signal by means of a logic component in the manner of a gate circuit. If an OR gate, for example, is used as the logic component, then a signal which corresponds to the PWM signal when the commutation signal is simultaneously at the level LOW is available at the output of the OR gate for control purposes. The assigned motor terminal is supplied with a PWM-clocked voltage signal according to the output signal. If the commutation signal is switched to the level HIGH, then the output signal of the OR gate is at the level HIGH in constant fashion. The motor terminal is supplied with a constant voltage signal, in particular is pulled to ground or to a low reference potential. The situation is correspondingly reversed in the case where an AND gate is used as the logic component.
Such a circuit arrangement in accordance with the prior art makes it possible to use, for the driving of a brushless electric motor, a cost-effective control component having a small number of PWM contacts or just one PWM contact. The PWM signal of a single PWM contact is used by means of corresponding logic components for the modulation of a plurality of commutation signals.
The degrees of freedom with regard to the possibilities for driving the electric motor are disadvantageously restricted by such a circuitry interconnection. If the driving of the electric motor takes place for example by means of a converter which is fed by an intermediate circuit and which has a number of controllable switching elements for the clocked changeover between the two potentials of the intermediate circuit, then for a winding phase the so-called HIGHSIDE switching element, that is to say that switching element which switches the motor feed line to the high potential of the intermediate circuit, cannot be driven independently of the LOWSIDE switching element, which switches the motor feed line to the low potential of the intermediate circuit. This is because only a single PWM signal is available for both switching elements. It is likewise not possible to drive individual winding phases independently in the case of an overlap of the commutation phases of said individual winding phases if only one PWM signal is available.

Brose Fahrzeugteile GmbH & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft, Würzburg


An apparatus is disclosed for performing pushups thereupon. It includes a foot supporter coupled via a connecting means to a hand supporter. The foot supporter has front and back pieces pivotably coupled at a join via a double axle coupled by a short connector and a foot support bar comprising a crosspiece and support legs attached thereto. Therefore, the height of the crosspiece above said surface may be varied between a lowered position and a raised position. This device is compact and portable and is used for performing more effective push-ups.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to providing an exercise device, particularly a compact and portable device for performing more effective push-ups.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The Push-Up is one of the world's oldest exercises and is one of the best ways to strengthen and build up upper body strength, including chest, shoulders, arms abdomen and lower back muscles when done correctly. In particular, push-ups are a favorite exercise for developing strength in biceps, triceps and abdominal muscles, for body-building, fitness and for weight control.
Conventional push-ups are performed whilst lying chest-down with hands at shoulder level and palms flat on the floor and slightly more than shoulder-width apart and feet together and parallel to each other. Keeping the legs straight and toes tucked under the feet, the arms are straightened to push the body up off the floor. Keeping the palms fixed at the same position and the body straight without bending or arching the upper or lower back while pushing up, the exerciser should exhale as the arms straighten out. After a momentary pause, the exerciser slowly lowers the body towards the floor. Bending the arms while keeping the palms in a fixed position and keeping the body straight and feet together, the body is lowered until the chest touches the floor. Without bending the back, the knees are kept off the floor, the exerciser inhaling as the arms are bent. After pausing for a moment, the exerciser straightens the arms for a second push-up, exhaling whilst raising the body.
Indeed, push-ups and pull-ups are all that is needed to work the major upper body muscle groups. Members of the US Armed Forces, especially the army and the Marines, still depend on these two exercises, along with crunches and running, to stay in shape when they're stationed in a locale without a training facility.
There is, however, a known limitation with using just push-ups and pull-ups for upper body training that arises as the trainee's strength plateaus, in that with any exercise, whether using one's own body weight, free weights or machines, if the resistance doesn't increase, the muscles are not overloaded and the stimulus these fibers need to grow in size is missing.
There are, however, a few ways that have long been known, for increasing the resistance of pull-ups and push-ups. One way is to elevate the feet while doing push-ups. Essentially, one starts with the feet on a step at the bottom of a stair or a low step stool. Raising the feet higher make one work against gravity, thereby increasing the resistance. Ideally one should work up to the point where one can perform push-ups with one's feet on a chair. It will be noted that the higher the feet, the more work is done by the shoulders.
Other variations for improving strength and muscular endurance include modified push-ups with hands on an object or with feet on an object. With hands on an object, the difficulty of the exercise may be increased by first placing the hands on a wall, later on a desk, then on a chair (or by progressing to lower stairs on a staircase). By progressing to lower levels of hand placement, the intensity of the exercise is increased with a resultant increase in muscle strength. With feet on an object, the body is kept straight with hands on the ground and feet on a chair, steps, or some object. Progressively elevating the feet to higher levels increases the intensity of the exercise. The difficulty and hence strength may be further increased by doing push-ups between chairs with the feet elevated; the exerciser lowering himself/herself as far as possible between the chairs.
The present invention provides a compact apparatus for assisting an exerciser to perform variations of the standard push up, where stairs, stools and the like are unavailable, and provides controlled modular increase in difficulty and effectiveness for building up muscles, fitness and stamina, and a narrow patent is requested for this novel apparatus.


An egg breaking mechanism is provided which comprises an egg receiver for receiving an egg thereof, an egg presser arranged above the egg receiver for pressing the egg against the egg receiver, a knife assembly for making a cut in the egg shell, and a cup assembly arranged below the egg receiver for receiving the discharged content of the egg. The egg receiver includes a pair of receiver members movable toward and away from each other, and each of the receiver members has a knife mount which is integrally formed with a lateral pin support tube. The knife assembly includes a pair of knife members each pivotally connected to the knife mount by means of a connecting pin inserted into the pin support tube.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an egg breaking mechanism which can be advantageously incorporated in an automatic egg breaking system for successively breaking eggs and taking out their contents.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As is well known, eggs have found wide use. For example, the egg yolk may be used as a material for making mayonnaise or other food products. The egg albumen may be used for making pharmaceutical products or as a binder for protein products. Due to such wide use of the egg, it is absolutely necessary in industry to use an automatic egg breaking system for breaking eggs and taking out their contents at high speed.
An automatic egg breaking system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,480,056 for example. The egg breaking system of this U.S. patent comprises a circulating transfer mechanism which carries a plurality of egg breaking mechanisms at a constant pitch. Each of the egg breaking mechanisms is made to receive an egg from an egg supply unit and break the egg while the egg breaking mechanism moves along the transfer path.
Each of the egg breaking mechanisms disclosed in the above U.S. patent comprises an egg receiver for receiving an egg thereon, an egg presser arranged above the egg receiver for pressing the egg against the egg receiver, a knife assembly for making a cut in the egg shell, and a cup assembly arranged below the egg receiver for receiving the discharged content of the egg. The egg receiver includes a pair of receiver members movable toward and away from each other. The knife assembly includes a pair of knife members pivotally connected to the respective receiver members. The cup assembly is made to separate the egg content into a yolk portion and an albumen portion.
In the prior art egg breaking mechanism, each of the receiver members has a downwardly open channel-form bracket, whereas each of the knife member has an upwardly open channel-form bracket. The respective brackets are joined to define a rectangular space, and connected together by a transverse pivot pin to establish pivotal connection between each receiver member and the corresponding knife member.
According to the prior art, it is difficult to make access, for cleaning purposes, to the rectangular space which is defined by the respective channel-form brackets and transversed by the pivot pin. Thus, the prior art egg breaking mechanism has been found to have a hygienic problem particularly in view of the fact that egg residues are suitable for bacterial breeding.


A method for establishing or reinforcing a path through an asymmetric network of interconnected nodes includes storing navigation data at one or more nodes, for use by an agent in traveling from that node to a subsequent node, while ultimately traveling from a first terminal node (for example, a source node) to a second terminal node (for example, a destination node). As the agent travels from a first terminal node to a second terminal node via an intermediate node, the agent modifies the navigation data intended for use by an agent traveling from the second terminal node to the first terminal node via the intermediate node. Agents traveling complementary routes reinforce each other paths, allowing paths to be determined and reinforced.

It is known in the prior art to use swarm intelligence to establish a route through a network. For asymmetric networks, including networks that may be dynamic, swarm intelligence has been employed, as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,940,832 ("Routing Method for Mobile Infrastructureless Network," issued to Saadawi et al. on Sep. 6, 2005). An overview of the application of swarm intelligence is presented in "Routing Protocols for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks using Swarm Intelligence, A Survey," by Per Juvhaugen of Oslo University College, Apr. 3, 2006. For symmetric, non-dynamic networks, Dijkstra's algorithm is generally recognized as optimal for identifying the preferred route through a network.


A dust collecting apparatus for a vacuum cleaner has a first cyclone dust collecting part and a second cyclone dust collecting part that are arranged substantially parallel with respect to an air inflow opening of a vacuum cleaner main body, and may be mirror images of each other. The first cyclone dust collecting part comprises a first suction opening and a first discharge opening, and the second cyclone dust collecting part comprises a second suction opening and a second discharge opening. The first and second suction openings are connected with the air inflow opening of the vacuum cleaner main body, and the first and second discharge openings are connected with a vacuum suction chamber of the vacuum cleaner main body. Accordingly, a dust collecting apparatus for a vacuum cleaner can be realized, having an advanced suction capability and dust separation capability.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a vacuum cleaner and more particularly, to a dust collecting apparatus for a vacuum cleaner for filtering air drawn into the vacuum cleaner to separate dust entrained therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a vacuum cleaner draws in external air by use of a suction force generated at a suction motor to collect dust in a collecting means, such as a dust bag. Various types of vacuum cleaners, such as an upright type, a canister type and a stick type are available.
Recently, vacuum cleaners using a cyclone duct collecting apparatus having a semi-permanent life span are experiencing increased use. These types of cyclone vacuum cleaner dust collecting apparatus are used instead of a dust bag, which have a relatively short life span. The cyclone dust collecting apparatus rotates drawn-in air at a high speed to centrifugally separate dust from the air in which it entrained, and it is possible to reuse the cyclone dust collecting apparatus after removing the collected dust as many times as a user wishes.
FIG. 1 is a partially exploded, perspective view of an upright type vacuum cleaner comprising a conventional cyclone dust collecting apparatus.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional cyclone dust collecting apparatus 10 comprises a cyclone main body 13 having a suction pipe 11 and a discharge pipe 12; and a dust collecting receptacle 14 detachably connected with the cyclone main body 13.
When a cyclone dust collecting apparatus 10 is mounted within a dust collecting chamber 20a of an upright-type vacuum cleaner 20, a suction pipe 11 is connected with a suction opening body 21 for drawing in external air, and a discharge pipe 12 is connected with a motor driving chamber (not shown) of a vacuum cleaner main body 22. Accordingly, if a suction motor (not shown) provided in the motor driving chamber is operated, air drawn through the suction opening body 21 flows through the suction pipe 11 such that the air is rotated in the cyclone dust collecting apparatus 10. At this time, any dust entrained in the air is collected in the dust collecting apparatus, and the cleaned air separated from the dust is discharged to a discharge pipe 12.
The conventional cyclone dust collecting apparatus 10 has predetermined length and width dimensions to provide a sufficient space for forming a rotating air stream and for centrifugally separating dust therefrom. Therefore, the cyclone dust collecting apparatus 10 usually has large dimensions such that the vacuum cleaner comprising the cyclone dust collecting apparatus becomes bulky and heavy.
Furthermore, the initial suction force generated at the suction opening body 21 can be reduced due to energy loss exerted in the formation of a rotating air stream at the commencement of vacuum cleaner operation.

Dust collecting apparatus for a vacuum cleaner


A method and apparatus for reverse engineering an integrated circuit chip (IC chip) (120) utilizes an electrical circuit tester (114) for injecting a triggering signal into the IC chip (120) to exercise a circuit under test. In synchronization thereto, a PICA detector (116) monitors optical emissions from the circuit under test. A spatial data extractor, electrically coupled to the PICA detector, collects space information (124) from patterns of light emissions emitted by the circuit under test, and a timing data extractor, electrically coupled to the electrical circuit tester and to the PICA detector (116), collects time information (126) from the patterns of light emissions emitted by the circuit under test. A database memory (105) includes known data about the circuit under test and also includes at least one reference pattern for comparing a captured light emission pattern thereto to identify at least one circuit element in the circuit under test. A PICA data analyzer (108), electrically coupled to the database memory (105) and to the PICA detector (116), determines at least one of whether the circuit under test comprises a circuit element with a light emission pattern that matches one of the at least one reference pattern in the database memory (105), and the value contained in a memory in the IC chip (120).

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to non-destructive reverse engineering of integrated circuits, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for non-destructive reverse engineering of integrated circuits by analyzing their optical emissions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The term xe2x80x9creverse engineeringxe2x80x9d has the general meaning of understanding how any item operates or was constructed, based mainly on knowing the general function of the item and any information that can be learned by direct examination of the item itself. Reverse engineering is considered xe2x80x9cnon-destructivexe2x80x9d if the item is still functional at the end of the reverse engineering process.
Conventional methods of reverse engineering are usually physical methods that are often destructive of an integrated circuit (IC) chip. Often these methods require unpackaging, and sometimes at least partially dissecting, the IC chip, making it very difficult to use the IC chip afterwards. Further, these prior art methods typically involve significant manual intervention by technical personnel. In the case of static memory circuits such as Flash ROM, these prior art methods are incapable of detecting the contents of the memory. In addition, the methods can be tedious and inefficient.
The least destructive, or non-destructive, methods for reverse engineering, such as looking at power consumption or looking at RF emissions from an IC chip, normally have no spatial resolution. Therefore, they usually cannot provide information about either the physical location of subcircuits of the chip or the device-level schematic of the transistors comprising each subcircuit. Such methods are normally successful only when used to reverse engineer relatively simple chips, or a subcircuit of a more is complex chip which is known to be operable in isolation from the rest of the subcircuits of the chip. Consequently, reverse engineering a complex IC chip without spatial information about specific devices that are in close proximity to each other on the IC chip can be very difficult with these methods. The addition of such spatial information will improve both the speed and the accuracy of the reverse engineering process. Additionally, conventional techniques are readily defeated by a number of simple countermeasures that are well known.
Other potential methods of reverse engineering, such as single point probing with an electron beam (with for example an electron beam circuit tester like the Schlumberger ATE model IDS10000) can provide information about the functioning of individual transistors. However, the inability to probe more than a single device simultaneously can make reverse engineering by any single point probe method extremely time consuming, and hence, impractical. In addition, with modern xe2x80x9cflip-chipxe2x80x9d ICs, preparing the chip for probing may require depackaging and removal of passivation or wiring layers, and is essentially destructive of the chip.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus to eliminate those specific disadvantages of the prior art reverse engineering systems as discussed above, and particularly to significantly enhance the ability of a reverse engineering system to non-destructively create a model of a circuit, active devices, and static states internal to an IC chip.

Method and apparatus for reverse engineering integrated circuits by monitoring optical emission

International Business Machines Corporation


A touch screen device and method for displaying and selecting menus thereof are provided. The touch screen device includes a screen with a display for displaying menu images thereon and a detector for detecting a touch on a screen, and a controller which displays one or more menu bars on the screen. Each of the menu bars may have an expanded portion at one end thereof, and the menu bars may be displayed such that the expanded portions are arranged in a zigzag pattern to facilitate menu selection and reduce input errors. When two or more menu bars are erroneously touched, the controller may enlarge and display the touched menus so that a new touch input for the correct menu can be easily made. Thus, menus displayed on the touch screen may be arranged for easy selection, and input errors may be easily corrected.

1. Field
A touch screen device method of displaying menus on a touch screen device are disclosed herein.
2. Background Art
Generally, electronic devices are provided with a menu screen to allow a user to easily use the functions provided by the device. Since a single device typically provides a variety of services and functions, menu screen(s) and the related menu information is necessary, and a variety of methods for more easily executing the functions provided by the menus are continuously being developed and introduced. A menu structure typically includes a main menu where functions are classified by categories, and submenus linked to respective menu items of the main menu. A listing of favorite menus may be provided such that frequently used functions can be easily accessed.
Since portable information terminals must be small enough in overall size to be easily carried, conventional key button input methods are difficult to use. As such, a touch screen method may be employed, which uses a finger or stylus pen for the selection and input of information to improve the convenience and ease of use of portable information terminals.
However, due to the size of most portable information terminals, a plurality of menu bars are inevitably displayed close together on the touch screen making it difficult to accurately select a desired menu, resulting in touch errors and/or erroneous selections.
Further, when such an error occurs, there is no way to correct the error. That is, a user must typically first execute an undesired function before returning to an earlier menu to correct the error, or the touch screen does not respond to the user's input when the touch error occurs.

Touch screen device and method of displaying and selecting menus thereof


Provided herein are, inter alia, nucleic acid-peptide conjugates including a non-cell penetrating protein attached at its C-terminus to a phosphorothioate nucleic acid. Attachment of the phosphorothioate nucleic acid to the non-cell penetrating protein conveys stability to and allows for efficient intracellular delivery of the non-cell penetrating peptide. The nucleic acid-peptide conjugates provided herein including embodiments thereof are useful, inter alia, for the treatment of cancer, inflammatory disease, pain, and viral infection.

The manipulation of intracellular molecules involved in disease pathology is an attractive treatment option for numerous diseases. The ability to modify the activity of intracellular molecules can have profound effects on intracellular signaling pathways and result in changes in gene expression that promote favorable disease outcome. However, targeting intracellular molecules for therapeutic purposes is particularly challenging due to the need for the targeting molecule to both penetrate the cell membrane and maintain biostability in a physiological environment. Thus, there is a need in the art for biostable, cell-penetrating compositions capable of targeting intracellular molecules involved in disease pathology.
Provided herein are compositions and methods including targeting peptides conjugated to phophorothioate nucleic acids at their C-terminus which exhibit surprising biostability and can be delivered intracellulary with high efficiency. The phosphorothioate nucleic acid-peptide conjugates provided herein are, inter alia, useful for the treatment of various disease including cancer, inflammation and viral infection.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Phosphorothioate-conjugated peptides and methods of using the same


A buckle device includes a securing member, a frame, and at least one resilient member. The securing member is adapted to be fixedly mounted on a base. The frame includes a pivoting portion pivotally connected to the securing member to enable the frame to rotate relative to the securing member, a pair of side arms respectively connected to two opposite ends of the pivoting portion, and a forearm disposed oppositely to the pivoting portion and having opposite ends that are respectively connected to the side arms. The resilient member has a secured end portion that is secured at the securing member, and an abutting end portion in abutment with the frame for biasing the frame to rotate toward the base.

Belts (such as safety belts) are usually included in seating devices, such as car seats or safety seats, to assure passenger safety. In such case, buckle devices may be used for fastening or retaining the belts.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional buckle device (a) for fastening a belt includes a securing member (a1), a frame (a2) and a slide member (a3). The securing member (a1) is fixedly mounted to a base of a seat. The frame (a2) has a pivoting arm that is pivotally connected to the securing member (a1) to enable the frame (a2) to rotate relative to the securing member (a1), a pair of side arms that are connected to the pivoting arm, and a forearm that is connected to the side arms. The slide member (a3) is connected slidably to the side arms between the forearm and the pivoting arm. When in use, a belt may be extended through a space between the slide member (a3) and the pivoting arm from one side of the frame (a2) (e.g., a bottom side), through a space between the slide member (a3) and the forearm from another side of the frame (a2)(e.g., a top side) to surround the slide member (a3), and then away from the frame (a2). When a force is applied to the belt along its longitudinal direction, the slide member (a3) may be driven by the belt to move toward the forearm, thereby enabling the forearm and the slide member (a3) to cooperatively clamp the belt. However, when the force applied to the belt is not along the longitudinal direction thereof, the frame (a2) may be easily rotated, such that the slide member (a3) may slide relative to the frame (a2) to release the belt under inappropriate circumstances and result in safety issues.


Dual-focus optical scanner for scanning an object, provided with optical illuminating means for illumating the object to be scanned with a light point derived from a light source, which illuminating means have their own optics, and with optical imaging means for imaging the object onto a point sensor, which imaging means have their own optics. Said illuminating means and said imaging means are embodied in a coaxial relation with substantially coincident optical axes. The focal plane of the illuminating optics and the focal plane of the imaging optics in the object area are slightly spaced, the separation of said two spaced focal planes being such that the working range of the scanner is the sum of the depths of field of the illuminating and imaging optics, defined according to required spatial resolution. Said optical scanner can be used as a wandtype symbol code reader, such as a bar code reader, for reading the symbol code by relative manual scan movement. The reader includes at least one lens or lens-set (5), and in the optical path of the illuminating means a deflection member (4) is positioned between the one lens or lens-set (5) and the light source (1) for de-flecting the light, scattered from the symbol code, onto the sensor (9).

In such a scanner scanning may be obtained by moving the scanner instead of using an automatic scanning geometry. Under application of simple optical elements, such as an optical fiber or light collector, the light, in general from an incoherent light source illuminates the object and light scattering therefrom is collected through, for instance, an optical fiber by a sensor. Generally, scanners of this type can operate without imaging optics and during the scanning the scanner is contacting the object, e.g. a symbol code surface.
Now in order to obtain non-contact reading some scanners use simple optical imaging means. However, due to the relative compact size and its use often of a low-cost incoherent light source, the associated depth of field is very limited. Moreover, in practical use, the scanner is moved opposite the object surface on a distance of several millimeters to several centimeters due to the fact for example that the object, e.g. a symbol code, is behind a glass or foil cover. The range then in which the object has to be investigated or read should be as large as possible. This means that the depth of field for the illuminating optics or the imaging optics should be as large as possible. Even in the case that a coherent light source is used, like a laser for which the depth of field of the optics can be less limited, there is always the requirement of having a working or reading range as large as possible.
In general, scanners can be classified in two types of operation. In the one type, the so called active mode type, a thin beam pencil is used to scan the object. The light scattering therefrom is detected in order to derive information therefrom. In order to form this beam pencil a focussing optics has to be used. In the other mode type the so called passive mode is used. In this type, the object is imaged onto a sensor by means of an imaging optics and the information of the object surface is detected by this sensor in ambient light with or without additional illumination.
Upon scanning the object like a symbol code with a light beam the size of the scanning point on the bar code should be small enough to distinguish the narrow symbol or bar. In a passive scanner, the resolution of the imaging optics has to be sufficient to distinguish the smallest object information or bar width, the size of the spot on the photo sensor should be smaller than or equal to the bar width. The higher is the resolution of the illuminating optics or imaging optics, the thinner is the bar code that can be read. The requirements for high spatial resolution and large depth of field cannot, however, be met simultaneously. The high spatial resolution of an optical system leads to small depth of field. Said depth of field is proportional to the relative optical lens aperture and inversely proportional to the size of the image spot. Thereby the depth of field is limited by the required spatial resolution.

Dual-focus optical scanner and such a scanner used as wandtype symbol


Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture, wherein a plurality of resources are grouped into a plurality of groups, wherein one group may be included in another in the plurality of groups, and wherein the plurality of resources and the plurality of groups comprise items. A recursive determination is made of valid items in a group by excluding those items that have already been determined to be included in the group.

1. Field
The disclosure relates to a method, system, and article of manufacture for the resolution of group membership for resources.
2. Background
Certain computing environments may include a plurality of resources, such as, printers, scanners, plotters, disk storage units, tape backup units, etc. Administrators and users of such computing environments may prefer to group the plurality of resources into a plurality of groups. The plurality of groups may be used to manage the plurality of resources. For example, certain laser printers may be included in a single group and administrators and users may interact with the group to manage and use the laser printers.
The grouping of resources into groups may allow administrators and users to interact with the resources more easily in comparison to interacting with individual resources. For example, administrators and users may prefer to deal with 10 groups of resources rather than 100 individual resources. Interaction with groups may include executing functions, such as print operations, store operations, etc., on resources included in the groups.
If heterogeneous resources are grouped together and functions executed against the group, errors may occur because functions may be executed against resources that were never intended to be associated with the functions. For example, if a printer and a scanner are included in the same group then an error may occur when a print operation is performed on the group and the print operation is executed on the scanner.
Additionally, in some computing environments nested groups, i.e., groups that include other groups, may be allowed for resources. The creation of nested groups may have the potential to create circular references. For example, if group A includes group B, and an administrator includes group A again in group B, then a circular reference is created.
Certain solutions may impose limitations on how groups are formed from resources. For example, a group may be restricted to include homogenous objects. Another restriction may limit the levels of group nesting that are allowed. Yet another restriction may limit the number of times a single resource can be assigned to a group.

Resolution of group membership for resources

International Business Machines Corporation


A vacuum pump has a bulb whose wall is composed of elastic material and has a first protuberance projecting into the interior of the bulb and a second protuberance projecting outwardly of the bulb. The first protuberance has an air intake passageway for communicating with a chamber that is to be evacuated and the second protuberance has an air exhaust passageway communicating with the interior of the bulb. Each of the protuberances has a slit that is pressed closed by the inherent elasticity of the protuberance material so they serve as check valves. When the bulb is squeezed air pressure developed in the bulb acts on the interior air intake protuberance to close its slit and the slit in the exterior air exhaust protuberance is forced open to exhaust air from the bulb. When the squeezed bulb is relieved the elastic bulb expands to create negative pressure in the bulb which closes the exhaust slit and opens the air intake slit.

The invention disclosed herein pertains to a manually operated bulb pump that has a variety of uses, but will be described in connection with creating a partial vacuum in a cylinder into which a male penis extends for inducing blood into the penis to thereby cause an erection.
Vacuum therapy is a widely used procedure for treating impotence. The procedure requires a man to dispose his penis in the open end of an otherwise closed tube or cylinder to which a vacuum pump is connected. The open end of the cylinder is pressed against the body circumjacent the penis base to effect a seal. Then the vacuum pump is operated to make the pressure in the cylinder negative relative to the atmosphere and relative to the body's blood pressure. As a result, the blood pressure in the body, being relatively higher than the pressure in the cylinder, causes the penis to become gorged with blood under pressure and expanded which is what occurs incidental to obtaining of a natural erection. When the erection is achieved, an elastic ring is slipped off the cylinder and onto the base of the penis to prevent backflow of venous blood and thereby maintain pressure in the penis and the erection.
The vacuum therapy procedure and existing equipment for practicing vacuum treatment are described and shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,195,943 which is owned by the applicant of this application.
Pumps presently used for evacuating penile cylinders represent a substantial percentage of the production costs of the therapy system. A preexisting type of vacuum pump is shown in the patent cited above. The pump has a cylindrical body mounted coaxially to the penile cylinder to close the end opposite from the end of the cylinder into which the penis is inserted. A piston is manually recriprocable in the pump cylinder with an external handle and is coaxial with the pump and cylinder. A check valve is required in the pump to facilitate exhausting air from the cylinder and to prevent atmospheric air from leaking into the cylinder. The pump requires molding of several plastic parts and requires assembling of parts including a check valve which is labor intensive and expensive.
Besides high manufacturing cost and the use of movable parts, another disadvantage of this type of pump is that the user must reach out and away from the body with one hand to grasp the piston operating handle of the pump while holding the vacuum cylinder against the body tightly enough to avoid breaking the body seal too.
Another type of hand operated plastic vacuum pump that is widely used in connection with penile vacuum therapy is one that has been used for decades in chemical laboratories, for example, to create suction for accelerating filtering. This pump has a cylinder mounted to a pistol grip handle and a piston rod connected to a trigger lever that is squeezed repeatedly to reciprocate a piston until a pressure gauge on the vacuum cylinder registers a negative pressure of about 10 to 12 inches of mercury. This is the customary pressure or vacuum that is generally recommended for the treatment. The several separately molded parts of the pump plus the check valves and assembly time results in a rather costly pump. This type of pump is usually connected to the penile cylinder with flexible tubing.

Bulb pump for impotence therapy and other purposes


A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes providing a carrier including a first layer, a second layer, a first surface of the first layer and a second surface of the second layer, disposing a plurality of solder bumps on the second surface, disposing a molding between the plurality of solder bumps and over the second surface, cutting the first layer to form a first recess in the first layer, wherein the first recess is above a position between at least two of the plurality of solder bumps, and cutting the molding from a bottom surface of the first recess to form a second recess in the molding between the at least two of the plurality of solder bumps. Further, a semiconductor device includes a carrier including a first layer and a second layer, a plurality of solder bumps disposed on the second layer, a molding disposed over the second layer and surrounding the plurality of solder bumps, the molding includes a protruded portion protruding from a sidewall of the first layer adjacent to an end portion of the first layer.

Electronic equipments involving semiconductor devices are indispensable from our daily life. With the advancement of electronic technology, electronic equipments become smaller in size and complicated in structures and functionality. A wafer level packaging (WLP) technology has been gaining in popularity and is widely applied. This technology provides a wafer level manufacturing of the semiconductor devices with high functions and complicated structures while the size of the semiconductor devices is minimized.
The WLP technology is widely adopted for assembling and combining a number of semiconductor components to become a semiconductor device so as to minimize the final size of the semiconductor device as well as the electronic equipment. During the operations of assembling the semiconductor device, the semiconductor device is sawed and singulated from a carrier by a mechanical or laser blade. The semiconductor device is individualized for subsequent assembling operations. However, the semiconductor device includes many semiconductor components with complicated structure. The singulation operations involve many complicated manufacturing processes. The semiconductor device is easily damaged during the singulation operations.
The sawing operations on such a small and dense area of the semiconductor device is complicated, because it involves numerous of operations and those operations are applied on the small semiconductor device including many different kinds of materials with different properties. The difference on materials would increase a complexity of the manufacturing and yield loss of the semiconductor device, such as poor bondability between components, poor reliability of the molding, cracking or delamination of the components or carrier.
As such, there is a continuous need to improve the sawing operations and the method for manufacturing the semiconductor device and solve the above deficiencies.

Semiconductor device and manufacturing method thereof

TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD.


A liquid crystal panel (500) is provided with a connection switching circuit (502) for connecting a video signal line driving circuit (300) to a plurality of video signal lines (Ls). The connection switching circuit (502) includes analog switches (SWi) that correspond to the video signal lines (Ls) and one side of each of the analog switches (SWi) is connected to one of the video signal lines (Ls). The video signal lines (Ls) are grouped together into groups of two video signal lines (Ls) that are spaced apart by one video signal line. The groups of video signal lines (Ls) respectively correspond to output terminals (TSj) of the video signal line driving circuit (300). The other sides of the analog switches (SWi) connected to the video signal lines (Ls) of the same group are connected to one another, and connected to one output terminal (TSj). Based on a switching control signal GS, the analog switches (SWi) connect each of the output terminals (TSj) in each horizontal scanning period by time division to the two video signal lines (Ls) of the corresponding group.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to display devices that are AC driven, such as active-matrix liquid crystal display devices for example. More specifically, the present invention relates to display devices wherein a multitude of video signal lines for transmitting video signals to a plurality of pixel formation portions for forming an image to be displayed are grouped together to a plurality of video signal line groups, taking a plurality of (for example two) video signal lines as one group, and a video signal is outputted from a driving circuit by time division to each of the video signal line groups.
2. Background of the Invention
In recent years, there have been tremendous advances in achieving a higher level of detail for images displayed on display devices. Therefore, in display devices requiring a plurality of signal lines (column electrodes or row electrodes) corresponding to the resolution of the image to be displayed, as in an active matrix liquid crystal display device for example, the number of signal lines (electrodes) per unit length becomes very large, as the level of detail of the displayed image increases. As a result, when mounting the driving circuit applying signals to those signal lines, the pitch of the connection between the output terminals of the driving circuit and the display panel signal lines (referred to as "connection pitch" below) becomes extremely small. This trend to a narrower connection pitch that is brought about by the increased level of detail of the displayed image is particularly striking in the connection portions between the video signal lines (column electrodes) and their driving circuit (referred to as "column electrode driving circuit," "data line driving circuit" or "video signal line driving circuit") in the case of a color display device in which the neighboring three pixels of R (red), G (green) and B (blue) are taken as display units, as in a color liquid crystal display device.
In order to solve this problem, a liquid crystal display device has been proposed, in which two or more video signal lines (for example the three video signal lines corresponding to three neighboring R, G and B pixels) are grouped together, one output terminal of the video signal line driving circuit is assigned to the plurality of video signal lines constituting each group, and in one horizontal scanning period of the image display, video signals are applied by time division to all video signal lines within each group (see JP H6-138851A, for example).
FIG. 2A schematically shows the configuration of the connection between the video signal lines and the driving circuit thereof (referred to as "video signal line driving circuit" in the following) in an active matrix-type liquid crystal display device using this scheme (referred to as "video signal line time-division driving scheme" in the following). In the example shown in FIG. 2A, two video signal lines Ls each are grouped into one group, and each of the video signal line groups corresponds to one of the output terminals TS1, TS2, TS3, . . . of the video signal line driving circuit 300. One selector switch is disposed between each of the output terminals TS1, TS2, TS3, . . . of the video signal line driving circuit 300 and the two video signal lines of the group corresponding to that output terminal. Each of the selector switches is made of two neighboring analog switches SWi and SWi+1 (i=1, 3, 5, . . . ) of the analog switches SW1, SW2, SW3, . . . that are each provided for one of the video signal lines Ls, and one side of each of the analog switches SW1, SW2, SW3, . . . is connected to one of the video signal lines Ls. The other sides of the two analog switches SWi and SWi+1 constituting each selector switch are connected to one another, and are connected to the output terminal TSj (j=1, 2, 3 . . . ) of the video signal line driving circuit 300 corresponding to that selector switch. These selector switches may be realized as analog switches by thin-film transistors (TFTs) formed on the liquid crystal panel substrate of the display device, for example.
FIGS. 4A to 4D are timing charts showing the scanning signals G1, G2, G3, . . . in a liquid crystal display device of this video signal line time-division driving scheme and the control signal (referred to below as "switching control signal") GS for the selector switches. Here, when the scanning signal Gk is at high level (H level), the k-th scanning signal line is selected, and when the scanning signal Gk is at low level (L level), the k-th scanning signal line is unselected (k=1, 2, 3, . . . ). Moreover, when the switching control signal GS is at H level, the selector switches connect each of the output terminals TSj (j=1, 2, 3, . . . ) of the video signal line driving circuit 300 to the left one of the two corresponding video signal lines, and when the switching control signal GS is at L level, the selector switches connect each of the output terminals TSj (j=1, 2, 3, . . . ) of the video signal line driving circuit 300 to the right one of the two corresponding video signal lines. As shown in FIG. 4D, in this liquid crystal display device, in one horizontal scanning period, that is, in the period during which one scanning signal line is selected, the video signal line connected to each of the output terminals TSj is switched, and each of the video signals from the video signal line driving circuit are applied to the left one of the two video signal lines constituting one group in the first half of the horizontal scanning period, and to the right one of the two video signal lines in the second half of the horizontal scanning period. Thus, each video signal line Ls is charged with the voltage of the video signal that is outputted from the output terminal TSj of the video signal line driving circuit 300 while the output terminal TSj is connected to that video signal line Ls, and that voltage value is written as a pixel value into the pixel formation portion Px corresponding to the intersection between that video signal line and the selected scanning signal line.
In liquid crystal display devices using this video signal line time-division driving scheme, the time that each video signal line is charged is shortened in accordance with the number of video signal lines constituting each group, that is, the number of time divisions due to the selector switches. If m is the number of time divisions, then the charge time of each video signal line is 1/m of that in an ordinary liquid crystal display device not using the video signal line time-division driving scheme (½ in the example shown in FIG. 2). However, by forming, on the liquid crystal panel substrate, selector switches with a time division number of m, it is possible to make the pitch of connection of the output terminals of the video signal line driving circuit and the video signal lines m times that of an ordinary liquid crystal display device. Moreover, with this configuration, if a video signal line driving circuit is used that is made of a plurality of integrated circuit chips (IC chips) to drive one liquid crystal panel, then the number of those chips can be decreased.
The advantages of providing selector switches on the display panel substrate and driving the video signal lines by time division as described above, that is, the advantages of the video signal line time-division driving scheme are widely known, and for this, a plurality of video signal lines that are adjacent like, for example, the three video signal lines transmitting video signals to the three neighboring R (red), G (green) and B (blue) pixels are grouped together. In ordinary liquid crystal display devices, AC driving is performed in order to prevent deterioration of the liquid crystal and to sustain the display quality. A typical AC driving scheme is the so-called dot-inversion driving scheme, in which the polarity of the voltage applied to the liquid crystal layer forming the pixel is inverted at each scanning signal line and at each video signal line (and also inverted at each frame). When the above-described conventional video signal line time-division driving scheme is employed in liquid crystal display devices using this dot-inversion driving scheme, then the number of output terminals of the video signal line driving circuit is reduced, but the power consumption per output of the video signal line driving circuit increases in accordance with the number of time divisions (the number of video signal lines per group). That is to say, if a video signal line time-division driving scheme with m time divisions is applied, then, according to a simple model, the power consumption P per output of the video signal line driving circuit can be expressed by the following equation:P∝m·f·c·V2  (1)where, f denotes the frequency, c denotes the load capacitance that is driven by the video signal line driving circuit, and V denotes the driving voltage.

Display device and method for driving the same


An absorbent article including a temperature sensor, and at least one temperature change material arranged such that it is capable of affecting a temperature change due to a supply of excrement, and such that said temperature sensor is capable of being responsive to said affected temperature change. Also disclosed is a system for detecting a supply of excrement into an absorbent article, the system including an absorbent article being arranged to generate an output signal representative of the temperature, and a processing unit adapted to process an output signal generated by the temperature sensor. The processing unit is adapted to determine a change of temperature, wherein said change of temperature is affected by the temperature change material, and to detect a supply of excrement into the absorbent article based on the change of temperature.

Systems for detecting and discriminating between supply of urine and supply of feces are known in the art. For instance, WO 2006/119523 discloses a health care system comprising a sensor unit arranged in a diaper and a processing unit. The sensor unit measures temperature and humidity at short intervals. Based on the measured data the processing unit detects and discriminates between feces and urine.
However, a drawback of the system disclosed in WO 2006/119523 can be that temperature sensors are generally vulnerable to false alarms. In addition, there is a risk of non-detection when the difference between the temperature of the core of a dry, or a partly wet, diaper and the temperature of the urine, feces, or other excrement is low.
Therefore, there is a need for improved systems that at least alleviates the problems of prior art systems and offers accurate detection even though the wearer of the absorbent article, such as a diaper, is in such a warm environment, such that the temperature of the core of a dry, or a partly wet, diaper and the temperature of the urine, feces, or other excrement is low as under a quilt in a bed or in a warm climate.

Absorbent article comprising a temperature sensor and a temperature change material


An apparatus for controlling a contact pressure between a plate cylinder and a form roller includes a roller arm, an actuator, a plate, and strain gauges. The roller arm supports the form roller to be movable with respect to the plate cylinder. The actuator moves the roller arm so as to adjust a contact pressure applied by the form roller to the plate cylinder. The plate is brought into contact with an end shaft portion of the form roller and supported on a machine frame. The strain gauges detect a displacement of the plate to generate a signal.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for controlling a contact pressure between two rotating members and, more particularly, to an apparatus of each of an inking arrangement and a dampening arrangement of a printing press, which controls a contact pressure between a form roller or a form dampening roller and the surface of a plate mounted on a plate cylinder.
Each of various types of printing presses, e.g., an offset rotary press, has an inking arrangement and a dampening arrangement for supplying an ink and dampening water (to be referred to as water hereinafter), respectively, to the surface of a plate mounted on a plate cylinder. The inking arrangement has an ink fountain roller rotating in an ink fountain containing an ink, and a large number of rollers disposed between the ink fountain roller and the plate cylinder such that their circumferential surfaces contact each other. The ink picked up from the ink fountain upon rotation of the ink fountain roller is uniformly distributed in the respective directions while it is transferred among the rollers, and is supplied to the plate surface on the plate cylinder by the form roller serving as the last one of the rollers.
The dampening arrangement has a water fountain roller rotating in a water fountain containing water, and a plurality of rollers disposed between the water fountain roller and the plate cylinder such that their circumferential surfaces contact each other. Water picked up from the water fountain upon rotation of the water fountain roller is uniformly distributed in the respective directions while it is transferred among the plurality of rollers, and is supplied to the plate surface on the plate cylinder by the form dampening roller serving as the last roller. An image is formed on the plate surface with the ink and water supplied to it, and is transferred on paper directly or through a blanket cylinder, thereby printing the image.
When the contact pressure between the form roller and the plate surface or between the form dampening roller and the plate surface is changed to an inappropriate value as a whole or to cause non-uniformity between the right and left sides of the plate surface, the ink or water attaches to the plate surface excessively, insufficiently, or non-uniformly. Then, a high printing quality cannot be obtained. Therefore, the form roller or the form dampening roller is supported by the free end portions of roller arms, and rotation of the roller arms is adjusted, thereby adjusting the contact pressure.
However, in order to check whether the contact pressure adjustment is appropriately performed or not, conventionally, a piece of paper serving as a gauge is inserted between the form roller or form dampening roller and the plate surface, and the resistance caused when the piece of paper is being pulled out is manually checked. Alternatively, an ink or the like is coated on the form roller, this roller is rotated to transfer the ink or the like on the plate surface, and the width of a thick line transferred on the plate surface is read by a gauge. Thus, the contact pressure cannot be obtained as a quantitative unit of force, and a satisfactory result cannot always be respected.

Apparatus for controlling contact pressure between rotating members


Mail processing methods and techniques for sorting and commingling mail from various mail sources including the tracking of the mail pieces through the processing. Such tracking entails uniquely identifying each mail piece, received in batches from the mail sources, and recording the unique identification of each mail piece. The received mail is sorted and commingled in a first pass, to form first collections, and each first collection is loaded into a uniquely identified mail container. For each respective mail piece, the tracking entails recording an association of the unique identification of one of the mail containers into which it is likely the respective mail piece is sorted on the first pass. After processing is complete, postal and client reports can be adjusted based on actual final pass counts.

In 1989 the United States Postal Service (USPS) started a work-sharing program, by which the Service intended to increase the amount of bar coded mail and reduce operational costs. To promote this end, private mailers were offered incentives to purchase high-speed Multi-Line Optical Character Reader (MLOCR) equipment and bar code and commingle multiple mail streams. Certain make-up requirements were established that facilitated the input of the barcoded mail into the USPS processing stream. For performing this service, private entities were given a discount to process the mail. Volume discounts were instituted which provided incentives to private entities to increase volumes, thus paying a lower cost per piece in postage dollars. To achieve the required minimum volumes, presort entities were started which collected and commingled mail from many mailers.
While the USPS developed a complicated audit procedure, limitations of the production process prevented the USPS from performing an adequate audit on the mailings. One example of this is that a specific mail piece cannot be traced to a specific tray. Rather a mail piece was associated with a group of trays. Thus the acceptance clerk might have to look through 10,000 pieces of mail in over 60 trays to find one piece of mail.
FIG. 12 defines the normal steps required to perform a multiple pass sorting operation needed to meet USPS per-sort requirements. A batch of mail is loaded into a mail sorting apparatus at 700, and the apparatus will sort mail to a series of bins or packets based on a set of rules called a sort scheme in step 701. A bin could be set up to contain one zip code destination called a finalized bin, as will be checked at 702 in the sort scheme. Since a sorting apparatus will have a finite number of bins, and there are many USPS separations required, some of the mail will have to be batched into one bin, and re-run in a second or subsequent pass 705 to complete the sortation required to meet USPS requirements. A bin that is set up to receive multiple zip codes is called a repass bin. For example, a large mailing might require 3000 zip code separations of the mail in order to achieve the desired level of discount. In other words, mail destined for zip code 60513 will need to be separated and placed in a separate container from mail for zip code 60514. The sorting apparatus will make this separation by putting all mail with zip codes to 60513 in one bin and all mail with zip codes to 60514 in another bin.
A mail sorting apparatus typically could have around 253 bins. 242 bins would be assigned to finish zip codes. This finished mail can then be removed from the apparatus, mail from each finish bin can be put into a postal container at step 703, labeled and submitted to the postal authority. The mail for the other 2758 zip separations will be sorted into 11 repass bins 704 on the first pass. Each one of these bins will then be sorted out to 253 finalized separations in a subsequent pass 705 on the sorting apparatus. This mail is then placed in postal containers 703, labeled and is ready to be submitted to the postal authority.
Since the introduction of work sharing, there has not been an adequate method to audit a mailing, since the mail submitted to the USPS is commingled, i.e. pieces of different weight and pieces with different postage affixed (stamped, metered, permit . . . ) are all mixed together in the sorted mailing. Previously mail was separately grouped by the piece weight and by the type of postage affixed. Hence auditing was easier, since all pieces in the mail group being evaluated, had the same characteristics. The old method of weighing the mailing would no longer identify if the reported piece counts were accurate if there were variable weight pieces in the mailing.
Mail is randomly removed from the bin and put into trays. This limited the audit of a mail piece, since any piece could no longer be tracked back to a specific tray. The non-identical, commingled pieces have varying thickness so tray breaks could not be calculated by the system. Another issue is that USPS reports are calculated at the end of first pass. The computer system will produce the required subsequent pass schemes to sort the specific mail to meet the applicable postal regulations, but there are no regulations or methods in place today to confirm that the mail was actually sorted in subsequent passes. Mailers that do not have adequate capacity or time could claim the mail is sorted, and the computer generated reports would quantify this, yet the mail sortation may never have been completed.
Today a mailer will exchange mail between sites to increase volume densities and lower the average postage cost per piece. Sophisticated operational processes such as these were implemented by the mailing industry to increase operational efficiency and reduce the postage per piece. As processing complexity increases, so does the likelihood that errors will occur, which reduces the accuracy of the reports and increases the likelihood of large USPS fines and client billing problems.
A need still exists for improved mail processing techniques and equipment that resolve many of the quality issues and ensure accurate reporting for mail processed in a sorting operation. A related need exists for a method of processing and preparing a mailing that ensures a valid audit and USPS revenue protection.

Mail piece consolidation and accountability using advanced tracking methods


Provided are systems and methods of a compiler that efficiently processes semantic analysis. For example, the compiler may perform semantic analysis on as much of the source code as possible during compile time. For any instructions, such as dynamic expressions, that are not known at compile time, the compiler may encode semantic bytecode for performing the semantic checks on such dynamic expressions, and their dependent expressions, during execution/runtime of the program. In one example, the method may include compiling source code of a program into bytecode, identifying, during the compiling, a dynamic expression that includes one or more dependent static expressions within the source code, generating semantic bytecode for semantic analysis of the one or more dependent static expressions of the dynamic expression, and adding the semantic bytecode to the bytecode of the program.

During a software development process, a developer writes source code in a programming language (e.g., Java, ABAP, C++, etc.) that is easy for a human to read and understand. During testing, however, the source code may be complied by a compiler into a format that can be interpreted by a computer such as bytecode. The compiler may perform various checks/analysis on the source code to ensure that the source code will execute properly when the compiled code is executed during runtime. For example, the compiler may perform a lexical analysis, syntactical analysis, and semantical analysis.
The lexical and the syntactical analysis are able to be cleanly separated between compile time and execution time. However, the semantical analysis becomes difficult in the presence of dynamic query parts such as dynamic expressions. The dynamic expressions are typically filled-in at runtime (after compile time) during the program's execution. This prevents the semantical analysis from being performed on the dynamic expressions at compile time. Instead, the compiler must be launched again at runtime to perform the checks.
Throughout the drawings and the detailed description, unless otherwise described, the same drawing reference numerals will be understood to refer to the same elements, features, and structures. The relative size and depiction of these elements may be exaggerated or adjusted for clarity, illustration, and/or convenience.

Efficient semantic analysis of program code


Standardized support for management of contextual relationships, which includes specification of the context hierarchy, association of relationships with a particular context, and derivation of transitive dependencies, is provided with a Context Manager service. The Context Manager provides a programmatic interface for defining contexts and the relationships therein. The Context Manager saves the relationship facts in one or more context stores, which are organized by contexts. The Context Manager interfaces with the Ontology Manager that processes queries on relationships with respect to a given set of contexts. The Context Manager provides a high-level abstraction for relationship management in a context. Developers of business solutions can then focus on the core business logic, without worrying about the details of storing and inferencing relationships.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to managing a large number and variety of resources in a business environment and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method which maintain the interrelationships between the resources and make inferences about such relationships.
2. Background Description
A business solution may encompass a large number and variety of resources that range from role players and information items to tasks and business artifacts. The appropriate behavior of the business solution often depends on a capability to maintain the interrelationships between the resources and to make inferences about such relationships. Consider the example of an integrated development environment (IDE). When a Java source file is updated, the IDE should automatically update many dependent files including the class file and the various archives (.jar, .war and .ear) that contain this class file. This requires that the IDE understand the dependencies among these files. Further, if the IDE supports contextual collaboration, it will present in an integrated collaboration window a collection of collaboration elements (team members, discussion threads, annotations, etc.) that is relevant to the developer's current task. Again, this implies the need for proper relationship management.
A relationship is meaningful only within a certain context or scope. Further, contexts can be nested and form a hierarchy. Relationships valid in one context should also hold in a nested context. Proper relationship management must enable specification of the context hierarchy and association of relationships with a particular context. Unfortunately, there is no standardized support for such relationship managements. As a result, business solutions have to manage resource relationships in their own ad hoc manner, incurring a lot of costs in developing, deploying and maintaining solutions.

Apparatus and method for managing and inferencing contextural relationships accessed by the context engine to answer queries received from the application program interface, wherein ontology manager is operationally coupled with a working memory


The present invention relates to a movement detection device for detecting a movement of an object in a space range. The movement detection device includes a light source, a light guiding element, at least two light sensing elements and a processing unit. The light sensing elements have an offset therebetween along a first direction such that the object, when moving in the space range, reflects the light from the light source sequentially to the light sensing elements through the light guiding element. The processing unit identifies the movement of the object along the first direction according to a sequence that the light sensing elements detect the light reflected by the object.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a movement detection device that identifies three-dimensional motions of an object with a light source in combination with a plurality of light sensing elements.
2. Description of the Related Art
Current movement detection devices can only detect the movement substantially parallel to the movement detection device. For example, conventionally there is a cell phone including a movement detection device. If the cell phone is placed on a plane defined as an XY plane, the movement detection device of the cell phone can only detect an object moving along X and Y directions, e.g. a waving gesture along a direction substantially parallel to the cell phone. It is because that the sensor integrated in current movement detection devices is mainly for detecting whether an object blocks the sensor or not, and generally a plurality of sensors are integrated in a movement detection device to identify a moving direction of the object by detecting whether the movement of the object blocks the sensors and by recognizing a sequence that the plurality of sensors being blocked during operation. This kind of movement detection device is designed for detecting movements on a predetermined plane. For an object moving along a direction perpendicular to the predetermined plane (e.g. a Z-direction perpendicular to the XY plane), as the movement of the object does not change the projection of the object on the movement detection device, the conventional movement detection device can not effectively detect the motion of the object along a direction perpendicular to the predetermined plane.
Accordingly, a movement detection device that can simultaneously detect three-dimensional motions in a space range is required by the art.

Movement detection device capable of detecting three-dimensional motions


There is provided a semiconductor device excellent in reliability. The semiconductor device is comprised of a semiconductor substrate, an insulating portion having a multilayer insulating film composed of an etch stopper film, an insulating film, an etch stopper film, an insulating film, an etch stopper film and an insulating film provided on an upper portion of the semiconductor, fuses provided on the insulating portion, and a seal ring composed of a copper containing metal film, a barrier metal film, a copper containing metal film and a barrier metal film embedded in the insulating portion so as to surround a region just below the fuses.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing the same.
2. Related Art
In recent years, the semiconductor device with a fuse is energetically developed with the objective of an improvement of reliability and manufacturing stability of the semiconductor device. As this kind of technique, there is one described in the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-209173. FIG. 16 is a schematic sectional view showing the conventional fuse structure described in the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-209173.
The fuse structure is comprised of a circuit portion 2120 having a multilayered interconnect structure and a fuse portion 2110 including a plurality of fuses 220, which are irradiated with a laser beam and melted by an irradiation of the laser beam. The circuit portion 2120 and the fuse portion 2110 both are formed on a silicon substrate 210.
Interlayer insulating films 232, 234, 236 and 238 composed of a silicon oxide film or the like are formed on the silicon substrate 210 in this order from the silicon substrate 210 side. A first protective layer 240 and a second protective layer 242 composed of a silicon nitride film or the like are formed between the interlayer insulating film 236 and the interlayer insulating film 238. Pluralities of fuses 220 are formed between the first protective layer 240 and the second protective layer 242. A passivation film 280 composed of the silicon nitride film or the like is further formed on the interlayer insulating film 238.
The circuit portion 2120 is provided with interconnect layers 260, 270. Transistors composed memories or the like or another elements (not shown in the drawings) are connected to the interconnect layers 260, 270. The interconnect layer 260 is formed on the interlayer insulating film 234. The interconnect layer 270 is formed on the second protective layer 242.
The plurality of fuses 220 is provided on the second protective layer 242 in the fuse portion 2110. A plurality of an interconnect layer 250 is provided on an element isolation region 212. The fuse portion 2110 provided with an opening 216 of the passivation film 280.
According to the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-209173, there is described that, based on this configuration, in the case where the fuse is melted by the irradiation of the laser beam, it is possible to suppress intrusion of moisture or impurity upon providing the first protective layer 240 and the second protective layer 242 above and below the fuse 220 respectively.
On the other hand, there is the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-086590, which differs from the semiconductor device according to the present embodiment in the technical field, disclosing the seal ring structure surrounding a semiconductor element with the objective of suppressing intrusion of moisture or impurity. The Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-086590 describes of providing the seal ring between the memory portion and the fuse portion so as to surround the memory portion. There will be described about the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-086590 later is detail.


A process for the manufacture of a rim preform or rim-element having an axis of revolution by the placing on a preforming matrix pre-assembled fibers along two orientations defining deformable meshes. A winding of a strip of fibers is fastened on a circumference of the preforming matrix with asymmetrical orientation of the fibers, whereupon it is applied progressively until covering the entire surface of the preforming matrix by subjecting it to tensions of substantially circumferential orientation.

The present invention relates to the manufacture of reinforced structures for parts of composite material, and more particularly for wheels, rims or rim elements.
Numerous methods exist for producing wheels or rims of composite material. Mention may be made, in particular, of high-precision injection molding of reinforced thermoplastic resins or of compression molding of thermosetting resins which are also reinforced.
These techniques require the use of staple fibers, which result in average mechanical properties of the finished products as well as their difficult mechanical optimization due to the displacements of the reinforcement fibers during the molding.
If it is desired to use continuous fibers, one can select an existing fabric. More industrially, one can also select the method of manufacturing composite parts known as R.T.M. (resin transfer molding) or any derivative process. In this process, the reinforcement materials, such as glass fibers, carbon fibers or fibers of any other type, are prearranged in the cavity of a mold. These reinforcement materials thus form the "preform" of the final composite part. This operation of putting in place and structuring the reinforcements is known as "preforming". The resin is then transferred through the preform into the mold under vacuum and/or with a transfer pressure, and then cross-linked at suitable temperatures.
In the case of industrial manufacture, in order to optimize the use of the injection molds, the preforms can be prepared outside the injection mold. In this case the preforms are frequently made rigid, for instance by a thermoplastic binder, in order to facilitate their positioning in the injection molds.
The production of the preform is a critical step in the R.T.M. process, particularly for complex shapes having strong concavities, as is true in the case of tire rims.
French Patent 2595621 proposes manufacturing a preform of revolution for a part of composite material by placing a fibrous texture with deformable meshes, whether woven or plaited, on a preforming matrix having a shape similar to that of the structure to be produced, so as to fit the shape of the preforming matrix by auto-adaptation of the meshes. The process consists in placing the fibrous texture on the preforming matrix at an axial end of said preforming matrix, with the meshes having sides of opposite inclination with respect to the axial direction of the structure, and then gradually placing the fibrous texture on the preforming matrix in the direction towards the other end, while subjecting the texture to a tension in this axial direction.
This process leads to a symmetrical orientation of the reinforcement fibers of a fabric relative to, the axial direction of the structure, which is not suitable in the case of tire rims, for which it is desirably to obtain a circumferential and axial orientation of the reinforcement fibers.
European Patent Application EP 0327173 presents a solution for the production of preforms of composite wheels by winding continuous fibers axially and then circumferentially. However, this process is slow and requires large and expensive equipment.

Method and device for the manufacture of a rim preform

Compagnie Generale des Etablissements Michelin - Michelin & Cie


A foldable floor heating panel can be folded longitudinally and laterally. The foldable floor heating panel includes several small plate-like members of a rectangular plan configuration, which are arranged longitudinally and laterally so as to be adjacent to each other. A flexible thin plate is attached to upper surfaces of the small plate-like members so as to allow longitudinal and lateral folding. Heat carrier flexible tube passages are provided in longitudinal and lateral folding portions of the panel so as to leave some play, and folding margin members are provided at the lateral folding portions. Fit-in members are attachably and detachably provided in respective heat carrier flexible tube passages with some play.

In order to achieve an improvement in terms of comfortability of houses in cold districts, and comfortability of houses in warm districts during a cold season, a floor heating technique for heating a house from a floor in the house has conventionally been proposed and put into practical use. For example, in a case of a single house, a floor heating panel is incorporated between floor joists and a floor board, or installed on a surface of a backing plywood floor laid on floor joists, and the like. In a multiple dwelling house, such as an apartment house, a method in which a floor heating panel is laid directly on an upper surface of a floor slab, or on a surface of a backing plywood floor laid on a floor slab, is adopted.
As an example of a floor heating panel of this type, there has been proposed a structure which includes as a base an elongated plate-like member of foam synthetic resin, wherein grooves are formed in one surface of this base, and a heat carrier flexible tube is embedded in these grooves with the surface being covered with a flexible thin plate such as an aluminum foil. A floor heating panel of such a structure is prepared so as to generally exhibit, for example, a rectangular configuration having a length of 300 cm and a width of 250 cm in accordance with a size of a place of installation. When, however, a length or a width is not less than 200 cm, the floor heating panel is folded so as to be reduced in width by at least half before it is packaged, stored, and transported. Usually, after a folded floor heating panel has been brought to a place of installation, the folded panel is developed for laying.
As an example of such a conventional floor heating panel, which can be folded in a width direction, there has been proposed a floor heating panel having a detachable folding portion. The panel consists of at least two plate-like members with grooves formed therein, arranged adjacent to each other. Heat carrier flexible tubes are arranged in the grooves, and a flexible thin plate is attached to surfaces of the plate-like members, excluding portions where the plate-like members are adjacent to each other. Folding is possible after removing the tubes from the grooves formed near the portions where the plate-like members are adjacent to each other (See Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 5-27514).
However, in this construction, no flexible thin plate is attached to portions of the plate-like members from which the tubes are detached, resulting in a rather poor radiation effect of the floor heating panel as a whole. Moreover, there is a danger of the tubes detached from the grooves being pressurized and crushed between folded plate-like members. Further, when storing this floor heating panel in a folded state, it is necessary to shift adjacent plate-like members with respect to each other so as to prevent the tubes from buckling, so that a storage operation is rather difficult to perform. Further, it is necessary to perform positioning on a plurality of plate-like members when laying them, which means a laying operation is also rather difficult to perform.
As an example of a floor heating panel which is free from a problem of a poor radiation effect and a danger of tube breakage at a time of folding, there has been proposed a floor heating panel in which at least two plate-like members, with grooves, are arranged adjacent to each other to form a separable folding portion, and in which a fit-in portion that allows mounting and detachment is provided at one end with respect to a length direction of a side surface portion of a plate-like member forming the folding portion (See Japanese Patent Laid Open No. 10-89712). This floor heating panel can be folded in a width direction, but cannot be folded in a length direction, so that a problem in that a storage operation and a laying operation are rather difficult to perform has not been solved.
As another example of a foldable floor heating panel, there has been proposed a folding (windable) floor heating panel in which several elongated narrow plate-like members, each having there inside a hollow portion, are connected by a flexible thin plate. The hollow portions for tube arrangement near connecting portions are relatively wide, and a heat carrier flexible tube is arranged in a meandering state in the hollow portions of these plate-like members (See Japanese Patent Laid Open Nos. 8-261485 and 10-321344). However, in this construction also, folding (winding) is only possible in one of a length direction and width direction, which means the panel is rather difficult to handle at a time of packaging, storage, transportation, or laying.
In view of the above problems in the prior art, after careful study to provide a floor heating panel free from such problems, the present inventor has succeeded in completing the present invention.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a foldable floor heating panel constituted from small plate-like members such that the foldable floor heating panel can be folded along each small plate-like member in both longitudinal and lateral directions, so that a folding operation and a developing operation are easy to perform, and wherein the heating panel is very easy to handle at a time of packaging, transportation, storage, or laying.

Mitsubishi Chemical Functional Products, Inc.


In a small-sized computer of a natural air-cooling type, a high-temperature radiator promotes natural convection so as to increase a quantity of heat radiation and to raise the allowable limit of heat generation of LSI chips, thereby improving the processing speed of the computer. For this purpose, a casing and fins are utilized as heat radiators at relatively low temperatures of about 40.degree. C. which are safe even if they are touched by an operator's hands. On the other hand, the high-temperature radiator set at about 50.degree. to 60.degree. C. is provided inside of the casing, thus preventing the operator's hands from touching it directly. Heat generated by the LSI chips and so forth is transmitted to the high-temperature radiator through heat conduction or the like, and heat exchange is performed between the high-temperature radiator increased in temperature and the air introduced into the casing, in order to promote natural convection inside of the casing.

1. Industrial Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a packaging structure of work stations, personal computers and electronic appliances of similar structures such as word processors (such apparatus will be all referred to as small-sized computers in this specification) and, more particularly, to a packaging structure of small-sized computers of lap-top types, desk-top types and notebook types.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, the above-mentioned small-sized computers have been remarkably improved in their compactness and computing speed. Accordingly, amounts of generated heat by LSI chips and the like tend to increase, and it has been an extremely important subject to improve the cooling efficiency. Conventional small-sized computers of this kind are not provided with special cooling means, and heat generated by heat generating portions is cooled through natural heat radiation in many cases. One of such conventional examples is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Unexamined Publication No. 62-10494 (a packaging structure of a printed wiring board). In this example, a board on which electronic component parts generating heat are mounted is inclined at an angle to promote natural convection. On the other hand, because the generated heat amounts are increased, as described above, it is necessary to improve the cooling efficiency actively, and new trials have been lately observed in relation to cooling methods. One example of such trials is disclosed in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 64-2397 (a cooling structure of an electronic circuit package) in which a liquid coolant is used instead of the cooling air and contacted directly with heat generating portions so as to cool them. This method is intended to improve the cooling efficiency by a large extent by use of liquid. Although there are also many known examples of methods utilizing the air, most of them are forcible air-cooling methods with fans, in which shapes of heat radiation fins and air passage structures are contrived for improvement.
In the case of a small-sized computer, the following three factors are particularly important as basic requirements: (a) it is compact; (b) it has a light weight; and (c) it does not consume power more than necessary. From such a standpoint, air-cooling without extra devices is very favorable as a cooling method, and further, natural air-cooling without fans is the best. However, the above-described example disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Unexamined Publication No. 62-10494 is a natural convection cooling method, and this method has a characteristic that the upper limit of heat radiation quantities is determined by temperature and areas of heat radiation surfaces. This conventional example is intended to realize the improvement within the range of the characteristic, and itself by a great extent. Moreover, the latter of the two conventional examples described above is not a structure which sufficiently satisfies the above-mentioned requirements (a)-(c), and it is not necessarily satisfactory as a small-sized computer which must have a low electricity demand and low costs.

Packaging structure of small-sized computer