Reinforced natural or conglomerate stone plate-like element and multilayered protective coating that includes a substrate of natural or conglomerated stone material and a multi-layered coating providing protection of the substrate against chemical and wearing mechanical agents acting on the element. The multi-layered coating includes three single or multiple film forming composition layers.

Natural and conglomerated stone elements are widely used in the construction industry, with applications varying from flooring and wall panelling to kitchen and counter-tops etc. One of the major flaws of some natural- and conglomerated flat stone elements, especially those comprising marble or other calcium carbonate based stone types, is their relative low resistance to scratch, wear, chemical attack and UV attack.
Many proposals have been made to protect natural and agglomerated stone plate-like elements.
DE-A-102004023153, proposes a method of applying a protective layer of boron silica glass adhered via adhesive layer to a surface or base of a natural or cast stone structural member. This invention provides a solution for both wear as chemical resistance of natural or cast stone surfaces, but the solution to apply a thin layer of boron silica glass is significantly different from the solution provided in the proposed invention and does not provide similar benefits.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,205,727 proposes the application of a reinforcing layer to the visible face of slabs of stone material. For slabs of marble and granite, especially thin slabs, the reinforcing layer is constituted by non-twisted glass threads, preferably in the form of a mat, and by a transparent resin resistant to the action of atmospheric and chemical agents. A reinforced slab is obtained which has a small thickness and in which the resistance to negative flexing is greatly increased, along a front face concomitantly with the resistance to positive flexing along the rear, or invisible, face of the slab when the rear face is also reinforced. This invention also mentions the use of extremely fine glass of quartz powder in order to increase the scratch or abrasion resistance. Epoxy and or acrylic resins supplemented with UV ray absorbers and or so called UV ray scavengers are mentioned to increase the UV resistance of the finished product.
Wear resistant surface protection layers are widely used in the laminating industry, we can mention among others U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,663,341, 3,756,901, 4,255,480, DE-A-2107091. US-A-2008/0014343 describes an enhanced scratch resistance of articles such as wood-based articles or a surface of an automobile, including a nano-particle-based additive and discloses a film forming composition comprising a resin, a plurality of nanoparticles, a surface active material and a polymeric dispersant.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,955,834 refers to a long lasting coating for modifying hard surfaces and processes for applying the same and discloses a material for coating a hard surface said coating material comprising an effective amount of non-photoactive nanoparticles. While application of referred coating is disclosed to be suitable for stone surfaces including granite, marble, sandstone, etc., the invention mainly refers and claims an automobile body panel.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,896,958, discloses a transparent film-forming composition containing surface treated nanocristalline particles dispersed in a cross-linkable resin, providing a substantially transparent abrasion-resistant coating formed on a substrate such as with floor and countertop coverings and automotive panel.
In EP-B-1122334 a method of forming a coated body having a layer of Al2O3 is disclosed. The coating is performed by chemical vapour deposition under higher temperature and controlled atmosphere.
EP-1160283 provides a composition for use in forming an abrasion-resistant easy to clean coating on a substrate comprising a mixture of a fluorocarbon polymer component and an enamel-forming component, said enamel-forming component comprising by weight from about 15% to about 30% of Al2O3. The coating is applied mainly to a vehicle panel but use for covering ceramics and stone is also disclosed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,896,934 concerning hybrid coating compositions refers as a conventional practice to avoid the problems to obtain a non-stick polymeric coating that adhere well to substrates such as ceramics, to apply one or more base coats containing adhesive resins in order to better adhere fluorocarbon polymer top coats to substrates. As in this antecedent in the present invention the term base coat and primer coat will be understood as having this particular meaning.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,962, JP61286281 and DDA3223043 disclose concrete substrates provided with a multilayered coating to protect the substrate from abrasion.
This invention provides a natural or conglomerated stone plate-like element, in particular a flat element as a tile or slab with a protective multilayered coating specially created to appropriate reinforce and protect a petrous substrate that therefore can be thinner than other plate-like elements already known in the field. Moreover the invention also offers a conglomerated stone plate-like element with a finishing in particular a wood one on an in face showing that remains sheltered by referred multilayered protective coating.

Reinforced natural or conglomerated stone plate-like element and multilayered protective coating thereof


The present invention provides a system and method for evaluating risk associated with information access requests. The information access requests are collected, assigned a risk level according to user defined policies, a total risk is calculated and presented to user. The user can select a high risk event for further analysis. The system will break down the event into basic elements, so the user can ascertain the risk. The system allows a user to customize a report and the customized report can be saved as a template for future use.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to data security, and more specifically, relates to a system and method that manages risk related to data access.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information equals to power and having access to the right information equals having a competitive advantage over others in today's world. Each company closely guards the information essential to their business. Traditionally, the access to sensitive information of each company is restricted to a small number of authorized personnel. This access control scheme is simple and easy to implement; however, it is static and not flexible to adapt to changing needs.
If a user is deemed high risk, then his access to the system is limited. If the user is deemed safe, then his access right to the system is broad. The rights assigned to the user do not tend to change. Once accesses are granted, the risks of these accesses are not evaluated and often there is no real time auditing of data access in the system. Therefore, a malicious privileged user may abuse his access rights without being noticed until some major failure happens or a disaster is created.
Therefore, there is a need for a system that evaluates and monitors risks associated with different accesses and it is to this system the present invention is primarily directed to.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

System and method for information risk management


Provided are an image restoration method and device. The method comprises: processing image blocks, which are initially registered, to acquire connection curves among the image blocks; constructing an ambient field of images to be restored by means of the connection curve; by minimizing energy of the connection curve in the ambient field, registering the image blocks; and performing image filling on the registered image blocks to acquire a restored image. The device comprises: a processing unit used for processing the image blocks, which are initially registered, to acquire the connection curve among the image blocks; an ambient field construction unit used for constructing the ambient field of the image to be restored by means of the connection curve; a registering unit used for registering the image blocks by minimizing the energy of the connection curve in the ambient field; and a filling unit used for performing image filling on the registered image blocks to acquire the restored image. The present invention can be applied to restore any damaged image and improve the accuracy.

Image restoration refers to restoring and reconstructing damaged images such that a viewer cannot find out that the images have been restored. Traditional methods for image restoration mainly consist of two types: diffusion-based restoration method in which the information is diffused from an undamaged area to an area to be restored by a diffusion mechanism and texture-synthesis-based method in which pixel blocks which are similar with boundary pixels of the damaged area are searched near the damaged area, and then the pixel blocks obtained by the searching are copied under certain structural constraints and the seams among the pixel blocks are filled.
All traditional methods for image restoration assume that there are dislocations among image blocks of the images to be restored, i.e., there are overlapping areas among image blocks. However, the case that there is no overlapping area between the image blocks often occurs during actual image restoration. Therefore, the two types of methods mentioned above will not be suitable for restoring of any of damaged images.
Therefore, another image restoration method is provided, in which extrapolation is performed on the image blocks without overlapping such that these image blocks are overlapped in the extrapolation area, and then the extrapolated image blocks are registered to achieve the restoration of the image without overlapping area.
However, the extrapolation performed on the image blocks is very inaccurate and the registering by means of the extrapolation area will further increase the error. Besides, such image restoration method can only be suitable for square image blocks. Therefore, although this method can achieve the restoration of the image without overlapping area, the use of this method is limited and the accuracy of the restoration of the image cannot be ensured.

Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences


Device for presenting fresh products, in particular (cut) flowers, provided with containers for the fresh products which are arranged one above another and filled with liquid, at least one of which containers accommodates a liquid overflow for draining liquid therein to an underlying container, with the special feature that the liquid overflow is formed at least substantially by an at least partially lowered side wall of the container.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for presenting fresh products, in particular (cut) flowers, provided with containers for the fresh products which are arranged one above another and filled with liquid, at least one of which containers accommodates a liquid overflow for draining liquid therein to an underlying container. The invention also relates to a method for presenting fresh products making use of the device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such a device is know from the American patent specification U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,823 (Ferris). The known device has open tray-like containers which are mounted parallel to and one above another in a frame and in which cut flowers are placed. Use is herein made of a closed liquid system wherein each container is filled to a desired liquid level and the excess liquid is subsequently drained via an overflow into an underlying container until this has also been filled to the desired liquid level, and so on. A pump on the bottom of the undermost container ensures that the liquid is carried from the undermost container through a flexible hose to the uppermost container to then be poured out again into the uppermost container and drained by means of the overflow thereof into the underlying container etc. In aforementioned flexible hose is also mounted a filter for cleaning the liquid, while an air cooling system is also provided.
A drawback of the device known from the above stated American patent publication is that the overflow used therein, in the form of a tube standing upright on the bottom of the container, can easily become blocked by dirt present in the liquid such as leaves, stem parts, flower parts, clotted flower nutrient additives, soil and so on. The quality of the flowers hereby deteriorates substantially during presentation, particularly because the blockage hampers replacement of the liquid and thus discharge of bacteria, so that bacteria growth occurs in the liquid of the container. The bacteria stimulate wilting of the flowers, which danger is increased because in practice flowers are often placed in liquid in which flowers have already stood and bacteria are therefore present. A customer also runs the risk of coming into contact with the dirty liquid. There is further an increased risk of the known device of the cut flowers being deprived of liquid because of the blockage, whereby a customer will have less time to enjoy them.
It is the object of the invention to obviate the drawbacks of the prior art and for this purpose the device of the type stated in the preamble has the special feature according to the invention that the liquid overflow is formed at least substantially by an at least partially lowered side wall of the container. In particular, the side wall is lowered along at least practically the entire width of the container. Blockage of the overflow is hereby prevented, wherein particularly floating parts such as leaves can be discharged easily and efficiently.
In a preferred embodiment of a device according to the invention the container accommodates a guide for guiding liquid drained via the at least partially lowered side wall to the underlying container. The guide preferably contains a wall part of the container with a sound-damping (plate-like) element on its underside, so that the liquid with the dirt possibly present therein reaches the underlying container without splashing and (further) contamination. The sound-damping element serves to minimize the sound of flowing liquid which is sometimes perceived as a nuisance.
In a further preferred embodiment of a device according to the invention the containers are arranged at least substantially parallel to and obliquely one above another. This not only enables a simple, rapid assembly of the containers but also ensuresxe2x80x94owing to the sloping position of the containers relative to the horizontalxe2x80x94an effective functioning of the present overflow. In particular, the containers herein form an angle of about 40xc2x0 to the horizontal. With such a cascade a greater flow speed of the liquid can further be achieved whereby dirt on which bacteria could grow can be carried along more easily. The bottoms of the containers are optionally also provided close to their lowered side walls with a lowered portion or recess or downward directed bulge. This lowered part functioning as a kind of displacement member ensures that stems of cut flowers present in an underlying container are pressed in the liquid.
A further preferred embodiment of a device according to the invention is embodied as a cabinet-like display-case. This results in an attractive xe2x80x9cflower cabinetxe2x80x9d functioning as display-case for the public, while a more controlled environment for the cut flowers is created in respect of air humidity and temperature. The air humidity should preferably be lower than 70%, more preferably between 60% and 70%.
A further preferred embodiment of a device according to the invention is provided with means for supplying liquid to the containers. This is preferably a closed circulation system for the liquid.
A further preferred embodiment of a device according to the invention contains means for cleaning liquid drained from the container(s), particularly while making use of ultraviolet radiation. It is recommended to make use of ultraviolet radiation with a wavelength lying between 250-270 nm. The shelf-life of the flowers can thus be further improved, which can be optimized even further by cooling the air in the device embodied as display-case.
It is noted that within the scope of the invention the above used term xe2x80x9cliquidxe2x80x9d is particularly understood to mean xe2x80x9cwaterxe2x80x9d, which may or may not be supplemented with flower nutrient additives. Container is understood to mean in this respect a container of water-resistant material suitable for receiving at least one flower and preferably at least one bunch of flowers.
The invention also relates to a method for presenting fresh products, particularly (cut) flowers, making use of containers for the fresh products which are arranged one above another and filled with liquid, at least one of which containers accommodates a liquid overflow for draining liquid therein to an underlying container, with the special feature that the liquid overflow is formed at least substantially by an at least partially lowered side wall of the container. To improve the shelf-life of the flowers still further, clean, cooled liquid (water) is added to cool the flowers, wherein a closed liquid circulation system is recommended.

Device and method for presenting fresh products


A plurality of processors are coupled together. One of the processors may comprise a default boot strap processor (“BSP”). Further, the default BSP may determine whether the BSP has local memory and becomes the BSP for the system if the default BSP has local memory, or selects another processor to be the BSP for the system if the default BSP does not have local memory.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the selection of a boot strap processor in a multi-processor environment.
2. Background Information
Some computer systems include more than one processor and each processor may have its own local memory. In multi-processor systems, typically, one of the processors comprises the "boot strap processor" ("BSP"). The BSP may be responsible for, among other activities, various initialization activities such as initializing input/output ("I/O") subsystems, initializing user interfaces, and causing the operating system to be loaded on the various processors in the system. To perform the activities of a BSP, the BSP generally requires access to memory. If memory is not installed for the BSP, the system may fail to initialize correctly and/or may "crash."

System for selecting another processor to be the boot strap processor when the default boot strap processor does not have local memory

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A cabinet of a projection type display unit includes a base cabinet on which main component parts are mounted, and a top cover made from sheet metal which is mounted so as to cover the base cabinet, wherein a rear face portion of the top cover is formed in the shape of a curved surface being laid-down U-shaped in side view. The U-shaped curved surface is formed on an ergonomic basis, so that the rear face portion can be gripped securely even with one hand. On the back side of the top cover, bosses are integrally formed by use of a resin which is a different material from the sheet metal of the top cover, and the base cabinet and the top cover are fixed by fastening screws to the bosses from the base cabinet side.

The present invention relates to a projection type display unit such that an image obtained by irradiating a light valve, or valves, with light from a light source is projected onto a screen, or the like, for displaying the image, particularly to a heat release structure for a projecting type display unit.
A projection type display unit, generally called a video projector, has a configuration in which a light source, an optical unit including light valves, and a projection lens, and a cooling section for cooling the light source and the optical unit are incorporated in an armor cabinet (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2003-241314).
The projection type display unit is a unit in which an image obtained by irradiating the light valves in the optical unit with light emitted from a lamp serving as the light source is projected onto a screen by the projection lens, thereby displaying the image.

Projection type display unit having a curved housing


Type 1 diabetes (T1D) patients make antibodies to self-proteins that are potential biomarkers for early detection and risk prediction. We have identified seventeen antigens as biomarkers for early diagnosis and risk prediction of T1D, including the antigens MLH1, MTIF3, PPIL2, NUP50, TOX4, FIGN, C9orf142, ZNF280D, HES1, QRFPR, CTRC, SNX6, SYTL4, ELA2A, IGRP, PAX6, and HMGN3.

T1D is one of the most common juvenile autoimmune diseases. It is characterized by progressive autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta cells. The incidence of T1D is increasing worldwide. T1D patients are dependent on lifelong exogenous insulin but this is not a cure and in the long term there are serious co-morbidities. This leads to both personal and societal burdens in terms of financial and quality of life indicators. At the time of T1D diagnosis, it is thought that potentially 70%-90% of pancreatic beta cells have been destroyed. Therefore early diagnostic and prognostic markers of T1D prior to symptomatic disease onset will be of great value in identifying individuals that could benefit from intervention protocols while significant beta cell function still exists.
Prevention of T1D will only be possible if individuals with high risk for progression to T1D can be identified. The incidence of T1D in general population is around 22/100,000 in the US. The majority of T1D cases are diagnosed in non-relatives with 85% of new T1D cases occurring in individuals with no known family history. Thus, biomarkers are needed to improve our prediction models and enable the selection of subjects with, for example, high 5-year risk of disease onset. Such markers could be deployed immediately to identify high-risk subjects for intervention trials. Additionally in differentiating type 1 diabetes from other forms of diabetes mellitus autoantibodies are helpful and yet there are still some individuals with T1D that are negative for the current known autoantibodies, thus the discovery of additional autoantibodies aids in the differential diagnosis of T1D.

Methods for diagnosis of type 1 diabetes

ARIZONA BOARD OF REGENTS ON BEHALF OF ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC.


The present invention generally relates to an anchor seal for an expandable tubular assembly. In one aspect, an anchoring seal assembly for creating a seal portion and an anchor portion between a first tubular that is disposed within a second tubular is provided. The anchoring seal assembly includes an expandable annular member attached to the first tubular. The annular member has an outer surface and an inner surface. The anchoring seal assembly further includes a seal member disposed in a groove formed in the outer surface of the expandable annular member. The seal member has one or more anti-extrusion spring bands embedded within the seal member, wherein the outer surface of the expandable annular member adjacent the groove includes a rough surface. The anchoring seal assembly also includes an expander sleeve that is configured to radially expand the expandable annular member to create the seal portion and the anchor portion.

Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a downhole expansion assembly. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to seals for the downhole expansion assembly.
Description of the Related Art
In the oilfield industry, downhole tools are employed in the wellbore at different stages of operation of the well. For example, an expandable liner hanger may be employed during the formation stage of the well. After a first string of casing is set in the wellbore, the well is drilled a designated depth and a liner assembly is run into the well to a depth whereby the upper portion of the liner assembly is overlapping a lower portion of the first string of casing. The liner assembly is fixed in the wellbore by expanding a liner hanger into the surrounding casing and then cementing the liner assembly in the well. The liner hanger includes seal members disposed on an outer surface of the liner hanger. The seal members are configured to create a seal with the surrounding casing upon expansion of the liner hanger.
In another example, a packer may be employed during the production stage of the well. The packer typically includes a packer assembly with seal members. The packer may seal an annulus formed between production tubing disposed within casing of the wellbore. Alternatively, some packers seal an annulus between the outside of a tubular and an unlined borehole. Routine uses of packers include the protection of casing from pressure, both well and stimulation pressures, and protection of the wellbore casing from corrosive fluids. Packers may also be used to hold kill fluids or treating fluids in the casing annulus.
Both the liner hanger and the packer include seal members that are configured to create a seal with the surrounding casing or an unlined borehole. Each seal member is typically disposed in a groove (or gland) formed in an expandable tubular assembly of the liner hanger or packer. However, the seal member may extrude out of the groove during expansion of the expandable tubular assembly due to the characteristics of the seal member. Further, the seal member may extrude out of the groove after expansion of the expandable tubular assembly due to pressure differentials applied to the seal member. Therefore, there is a need for extrusion-resistant seals for use with an expandable tubular assembly.


A motorcycle that reliably supports a load imposed on a seat while increasing charging efficiency. An intake pipe is provided in a center area in a width direction and extends rearward across and beyond an upper cross member. Left and right seat rails are provided on opposite sides of the intake pipe, and are connected to left and right main frames at portions forward of a point at which the intake pipe exceeds the upper cross member in height.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a motorcycle having a main frame extending rearward from a head pipe, a cross member connecting between a first frame branch and a second frame branch of the main frame, and left right seat rails extending rearward from the first and second frame branches.
2. Description of Related Art
An off-road motorcycle has an engine mounted in a cradle-type body frame, and a seat mounted in the body frame at a position above the engine.
An example of such a body frame is described in JP-A 2002-362464 and includes left and right main frames extending obliquely downward toward the rear from a head pipe, a cross member connecting between upper rear ends of the main frames, and left and right seat rails extending obliquely upward toward the rear from the main frames. An upper end of a rear cushion is connected to a bottom of the cross member, and front ends of the seat rails are connected to a top of the cross member.
In JP-A 2002-362464, an intake passage connected with an engine passes below the cross member and extends rearward and generally linearly to be connected to an air cleaner.
When an intake passage extends rearward from an engine linearly, as in this conventional motorcycle, an axis of the intake passage intersects with a cylinder axis generally perpendicularly. This structure is disadvantageous in that intake resistance is increased, thereby decreasing charging efficiency.
To decrease intake resistance, the angle formed between the axis of the intake passage and the cylinder axis may be minimized to form what is called a down-draft intake system. Such a system can be effectively built by extending the intake passage across and beyond the cross member to connect the intake passage to the engine obliquely from above.
However, to build such a system in which the intake passage extends across and beyond the cross member, the cross member must be lowered to avoid interference with a seat, and the positions at which seat rails are mounted must therefore also be lowered. This increases the distance between the seat rails and the seat, possibly causing the seat rails to fail to fully support a load imposed on the seat by a rider.


A method for containment of a laboratory chemical or device during a procedure chosen from weighing, physical transfer, storage, incubation and sterilization. The method includes provision of a repeatedly foldable layered sheet which includes both an aluminum foil layer and a plastic layer, and selection of the plastic layer to be unreactive with caustic chemicals and organic solvents. The layered sheet can be folded and unfolded along a crease at least five times and steam autoclaved without structural failure. The sheet is oriented with its plastic layer toward the laboratory chemical or device and is folded and shaped to form a protector which covers the chemical or device.

This invention relates to methods for containing chemicals and objects.
Guarino et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,360,551 describes a flexible plastic film laminate adapted for use in the manufacture of a retortable pouch for food packaging. The laminate includes a layer of heat-sealable polyolefin, a binary layer of metallized thermoplastic polymer, and an adhesive to bond the layers. Katsura et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,310,578, Evans et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,632, Tanahashi et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,533,576, Viola et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,949,114, and Ossian et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,190,477, and U.S. Pat. No. Re. 31,137 describe other flexible film laminate materials and methods for manufacturing materials including combinations of a polyolefin layer and other resin coatings bonded to both surfaces of an aluminum foil layer.
A single heat-shrinkable plastic layer bonded to one surface of a metal foil layer via an intermediate resin or adhesive layer is described for use in electromagnetic shielding and packaging by Nakano et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,767,673. The heat-shrinkable layer of Nakano et al., which may be a polyolefin layer, causes the foil to wrinkle and contract in overall dimension.
Various foldable and non-foldable (i.e., elastic) sheet materials have been used in the laboratory to form closures and containers. Native aluminum foil is used as a foldable wrapping material for laboratory items which are to be autoclaved; a stretchable self-adherent plastic laboratory film (Parafilm.RTM.; manufactured by American Can Corp.) is used to form a water-tight closure on a test tube or other container; a polyvinylidine wrap (Saran Wrap.TM.) is used for wrapping various devices; and a high density polyethylene (HDPE) sheet is used as an autoclave containment bag for sterilizing biological waste.

Method for containment of a laboratory chemical


A nano-electromechanical optical switch includes an input optical waveguide that is provided with an optical signal. At least two output optical waveguides are coupled to the input optical waveguide. The deflection of the input optical waveguide aligns with one of either of the two output optical waveguides so as to allow transmission of the optical signal to one of either of the two output optical waveguides.

The invention relates to the field of a nano-electromechanical optical switch, and in particular to a nano-electromechanical optical switch based on the horizontal deflection of an input waveguide to align with one of two output waveguides.
Progress toward the design of integrated optical circuits will require the incorporation of optical devices with a variety of functionalities on a single chip, such as waveguides, splitters, amplifiers, filters, and switches. High-index-contrast systems, such as GaAs—AlxOy and InGaP—InGaAs, are promising platforms for integrated optics due to the potential for tight mode confinement, resulting in small device sizes. A design is proposed for a high-index-contrast nanoelectromechanical (NEMS) switch based on electrostatic actuation of a deflected planar waveguide, and theoretical calculations are presented to predict device performance. Previous work has demonstrated similar but larger microelectromechanical (MEMS)-type switches in several low-index-contrast systems: layered silicon oxynitride waveguides (Δn=0.2 between waveguide and cladding), Si—SiO2 waveguides, silicon-on-insulator with postprocessed polymeric waveguides, and free-standing silica waveguides fabricated using silica-on-silicon technology.


A system for providing single view of content in a network of devices includes a communication module that detects devices connected to the network, a directory module that discovers content in each detected device via the communication module and maintains a directory of such available content providing a single view of the discovered content for access thereto, and a content manager that provides access to the single view.

Conventional systems for accessing content in home networks include mechanisms and frameworks that do so on a single-device basis. Examples include frameworks such as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), HAVi, Jini, and Microsoft-compatible networks (e.g., Samba). Features of these frameworks include dynamic discovery of devices and content on the network, and support for a wide range of device and content types.
Such conventional systems have several shortcomings however. For example, in order for a user to access content in a network, the user must be aware of which devices are connected to the network, and which content is resident on which device. Similarly, software developers who wish to write applications must be aware of all or a subset of content in the network such as an audio jukebox. Software developers must implement their applications in a way that must account for the different types of devices that may be connected, the actual instantiations of the devices, and the semantics for browsing and searching these using the devices' directory and communication-related protocols. Likewise a user must manage duplicates and backing up of data, and the like.

Method and system for presenting a single view of content in a home network


Variation in hole diameter due to heating effects is minimized even if the shortest machining route is set, and machining quality is improved. A printed circuit board to be scanned by a laser beam is divided into a plurality of scan areas (S1). An order of drilling within the scan area is sorted to obtain a scanning route with the shortest distance (S2). The order of the (N+1)th hole and the (N+2)th hole is swapped in each scanning area if it is determined that the distance between the Nth hole and the (N+1)th hole (here, N is an integer in a range of 1≦N≦“the maximum number of holes to be drilled in the area”−1″) is less than a predetermined threshold value, and that N+1 is not correspond to the maximum number of holes to be drilled in the scanning area (S3). The scanning area is machined and then machining each scanning area, specifically in machining the (N+1)th hole, after pausing for a period of a predetermined heat dissipation time if it is determined that the distance between the N-th hole and the (N+1)th hole swapped is less than the predetermined threshold value. Subsequently, machining is performed (S4).

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a laser machining method, a laser machining apparatus, and a laser machining program, more specifically, relates to a laser machining method and a laser machining apparatus for setting an optimum machining route for drilling a plurality of holes in a substrate by irradiation with a laser beam, and relates to a laser machining program executed by this laser machining apparatus.
2. Related Art
Examples of such techniques are found in JP-A-2001-195112 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 1) and JP-A-2008-049398 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 2). In Patent Document 1, a laser drilling route determination method for shortening computation time that is required for route determination is proposed as follows: This laser drilling route determination method applies an algorithm for the traveling salesman problem to determine a route specifying an order of positions to be drilled with a laser beam based on information of a plurality of drilling positions which are set up in advance. In this technique, a route determination based on an algorithm for the traveling salesman problem includes: dividing a machining region including positions to be drilled with a laser beam into a plurality of buckets, determining a traveling route visiting each of the plurality of divided buckets, determining a start extremity and an end extremity in each divided bucket, and determining an optimum route visiting positions to be drilled with the laser beam from the start extremity to the end extremity in each divided bucket. The start extremity is set to the starting point of laser beam irradiation in each divided bucket, and the end extremity is set to the end point of the laser beam irradiation. The end extremity in one bucket is associated with the start extremity in the next bucket to travel.
On the other hand, in Patent Document 2, a laser drilling method is proposed as follows: This laser drilling method can reduce generation of wavelike deformation and the like even in the case where a sheet-shaped member with a low heat resistance is drilled at a narrow pitch. This technique is a method for drill machining by sequential irradiation with a laser beam to a plurality of positions to be drilled in a sheet-shaped member. In at least a part of the plurality of positions to be drilled, one position to be drilled is irradiated with a laser beam, and then another position to be drilled is irradiated with the laser beam if the latter position is out of a predetermined range of distance from the former position, but the latter position is skipped if the latter position is within the predetermined range and then still another position out of the predetermined range is irradiated with the laser beam.

Laser machining method, laser machining apparatus, and laser machining program


A coated article includes a non-conductive substrate, such as glass. At least one conductive coating is formed over at least a portion of the substrate, such as by chemical vapor deposition or physical vapor deposition. The conductive coating can be a functional coating and can have a thickness in the range of greater than 0 Å to less than 25,000 Å, such as less than 10,000 Å. At least one polymeric coating is electrodeposited over at least a portion of the conductive coating.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to methods for forming at least one electrodeposited coating over a coated substrate, such as forming an electrodeposited coating over a glass substrate having at least one conductive coating, and to articles made thereby.
2. Description of the Currently Available Technology
"Electrodeposition" or "electrocoating" processes are used in a variety of manufacturing fields. In a typical electrocoating process, a metal substrate is immersed in a bath containing an electrocoating composition. The metal substrate serves as a charged electrode in an electrical circuit defined by the electrically charged metal substrate and an oppositely charged counter-electrode. Sufficient current is applied between the electrodes to deposit a substantially continuous, adherent film (electrocoat) of the electrocoating composition onto the surface of the metal substrate.
Electrodeposition has become the primary method for applying corrosion-resistant primers onto metal automotive parts. Additionally, in the field of printed circuit boards, an electrodeposited coating can be applied onto a metal "core" and then portions of the electrodeposited coating ablated in a predetermined pattern to expose sections of the conductive metal core to form electrical circuits. Examples of some known electrodeposition processes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,333,807 and 4,259,163.
In known electrodeposition processes, the applied electrocoat is typically opaque to hide the underlying substrate. Moreover, the substrate upon which the electrocoat is electrodeposited is typically a solid metal part, such as an automotive or appliance component. Metal parts are well suited to the electrodeposition process since they can be relatively easily charged to function as an electrode in the electrodeposition process.
In a relatively recent development in the automotive industry, organic primer compositions containing metal particles have been developed to provide the underlying metal automotive component with increased corrosion protection. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,346,143 describes a zinc-rich organic primer applied over a ferrous metal substrate to provide corrosion protection. The organic primer contains zinc particles or zinc dust, color pigments, and a resinous binder. Since the pigment and zinc particle-containing resinous primer is electroconductive, the primer can be subsequently topcoated using an electrocoating process. U.S. Pat. No. 6,008,462 discloses a weldable resinous coating composition having a resin, a crosslinker, and conductive iron powder particles randomly dispersed in the composition. In these known conductive organic coatings, the metal particles are randomly distributed throughout the organic coating material and the coating is typically applied to a sufficient thickness to hide the underlying metal component and/or to provide corrosion protection for the underlying metal part.
It would be advantageous to utilize the electrocoating process in other coating environments, such as to coat non-conductive substrates, such as glass, ceramic, and tile, just to name a few. However, utilizing non-metal substrates in an electrocoating process presents several problems. For example, electrodeposition requires the ability to electrically charge the substrate to be coated to act as an electrode during the electrocoating process. This is not possible with a non-conductive substrate, such as glass. While conductive organic coatings such as those described above might be applied to a glass substrate to provide an electroconductive surface, such resinous primers could adversely limit the end uses of the resultant coated glass piece. For example, glass panes having a functional coating, such as a solar control coating or an aesthetic coating, are used in automotive and architectural applications. These coated glass panes are typically required to have predefined optical and solar control properties, such as a minimum visible light transmittance, solar infrared reflectance, reflected color, and the like. The presence of a pigmented resinous primer could adversely impact upon the desired optical and/or solar control properties of the coated glass. Additionally, at the elevated temperatures commonly used to coat glass sheets, such metal particle-containing resinous primers could decompose or disintegrate to the point where they would no longer provide a conductive surface suitable for electrodeposition.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a method for electrocoating a substrate, such as but not limited to a glass substrate having a conductive coating, that reduces or eliminates at least some of the drawbacks described above.

Methods for forming an electrodeposited coating over a coated substrate and articles made thereby


Generally, the present invention provides a system and method for processing instructions of a computer program and for indicating instruction attribute and/or status information so that the efficiency of the processing system may be increased. In architecture, the system of the present invention utilizes a pipeline, a scoreboard, and hazard detection circuitry. The pipeline processes and executes instructions of a computer program. Many of the instructions include register identifiers that identify registers where data should be written when the instructions are executed. When the data produced by execution of one of the instructions has yet to be written to the register identified by the one instruction's register identifier and is unavailable for use in executing other instructions of the program, the one instruction's register identifier is transmitted to the scoreboard. The scoreboard includes a plurality of multi-bit registers, and a first bit in one of the multi-bit registers is changed based on the received register identifier. The scoreboard also may receive data associated with the one instruction and may change a second bit in the one register based on the received data. Therefore, each register in the scoreboard indicates whether a pending write to a particular register exists and indicates information associated with the instruction causing the pending write.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to data processing techniques and, in particular, to a processing system and method for processing instructions of a computer program and for indicating attribute and/or status information of long latency instructions so that the efficiency of the processing system may be increased.
2. Related Art
To increase the performance of many processors, pipeline processing has been developed. In pipeline processing, a processor is equipped with at least one pipeline that can simultaneously process multiple instructions. Therefore, execution of one instruction in the pipeline may be commenced before the results of execution of a preceding instruction in the pipeline are available, thereby creating certain data hazards.
For example, a first instruction, when executed, may produce data and write the data to a particular register, and a second instruction, when executed, may utilize the data produced by the first instruction. If the second instruction executes before the data produced by the first instruction is available, then a data error occurs. Consequently, a data hazard exists between the two instructions until the data produced by the first instruction is available. This type of data hazard is commonly referred to as a "read-after-write" (RAW) data hazard.
In another situation, the second instruction, when executed, may write data to the same register as the first instruction, which commenced execution before the second instruction. If the second instruction produces and writes its data to the register before the first instruction, then a data error is possible, since the register will contain the data of the first instruction instead of the second instruction after both instructions are fully executed and processed. As a result, a data hazard exists between the two instructions until the data produced by the first instruction is written to the register. This type of data hazard is commonly referred to as a "write-after-write" (WAW) data hazard.
To help prevent errors from the aforementioned data hazards and other types of data hazards, most superscalar processors include hazard detection circuitry that detects data hazards associated with the instructions being processed by the pipelines of the processor. The hazard detection circuitry usually detects the aforementioned data hazards by detecting when a later instruction utilizes (e.g., writes to or reads from) the same register as an earlier instruction that has yet to produce available data.
However, the data produced by a first instruction may not be available for use by other instructions or for writing to a particular register of a processor until well after the first instruction has been retired by the pipeline processing the first instruction (e.g., until well after the first instruction has exited its pipeline). For example, a load instruction, when executed, may generate a request to retrieve data from memory external to the processor. Depending on where the data is located in the memory hierarchy, it may take anywhere between a few clock cycles to several thousand clock cycles for the data to be returned to the processor in response to the aforementioned request. Therefore, the processor may not receive the data produced by the first instruction until after the first instruction exits the processor's pipelines or is otherwise retired. In other words, the data produced by the first instruction does not become available for use in executing other instructions until after the first instruction exits the processor's pipeline or is otherwise retired. An instruction, such as the aforementioned load instruction, that produces available data after the instruction has been retired by a pipeline shall be referred to herein as a "long latency instruction."
To facilitate the process of detecting data hazards for long latency instructions, the processor is usually equipped with a register file, commonly referred to as a "scoreboard," that indicates when the processor has yet to receive data produced in response to a previous execution of a producer (i.e., an instruction that produces data). In other words, the scoreboard indicates when there is a pending write to a general register. As used herein, the term "pending write" shall be used to refer to a situation in which data produced by an earlier executed instruction is destined for a general register but has yet to be written to the general register. As known in the art, a "general register" is one of a set of registers that are written to via the execution of write instructions and/or are read from via the execution of read instructions.
The scoreboard includes a plurality of registers in which each register contains a bit value. Each scoreboard register and the bit value contained therein correspond to one of the general registers of the processor that receives data produced by the execution of write instructions. When a write instruction is retired before the data produced by the write instruction has been written to the general register that is to receive the data, the bit value in the scoreboard register that corresponds to the general register is asserted. Furthermore, when the data produced by the write instruction is finally written to the general register, the aforementioned bit value is deasserted. Therefore, to determine whether there is a pending write to one of the general registers, the bit value in the scoreboard register corresponding to the one general register can be analyzed.
Each asserted bit value in the scoreboard indicates that there is a pending write to the general register corresponding to the asserted bit value. Therefore, any instruction being processed by the processor should be prevented from writing to or reading from the foregoing general register to prevent errors from RAW or WAW data hazards, until at least the pending write expires (i.e., until the data destined for the general register is actually written to the general register or otherwise becomes available). Furthermore, each deasserted bit value in the scoreboard indicates there is presently no pending write to the general register corresponding to the deasserted bit value. Therefore, an instruction being processed by the processor may read from or write to the foregoing general register without creating any errors from RAW or WAW data hazards.
When a RAW or WAW data hazard is detected by analyzing the scoreboard or otherwise, errors from the RAW or WAW data hazard are often prevented by stalling one or more instructions being processed by the processor. U.S. patent application entitled "Superscalar Processing System and Method for Efficiently Performing In Order Processing of Instructions," assigned Ser. No. 09/390,199, and filed on Sep. 7, 1999, which is incorporated herein by reference, describes in more detail a process of stalling instructions to prevent data hazards. When an instruction is stalled, the processor temporarily refrains from further processing the instruction. Therefore, although a stall may prevent errors, a stall adversely impacts processor performance, since the amount of time for an instruction to traverse through the pipelines is increased when the instruction is stalled. To minimize the adverse impact of stalls on processor performance, an instruction should be stalled no longer than necessary to ensure that further processing of the instruction will not produce a data error.
Furthermore, while an instruction is being stepped through a pipeline of a procssor, the processor maintains certain information indicative of the instruction's attributes and/or status. The processing system often utilizes this information to control the processing of the instruction and to quickly resolve data hazards associated with the instruction so that the number and/or duration of stalls is minimized. However, after an instruction is retired, the instruction has usually exited the processor, and the processor is no longer able to effectively utilize the attribute and/or status information maintained by the processor to resolve data hazards or to perform other functions.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry for providing a system and method of indicating attribute and/or status information associated with long latency instructions so that various efficiencies, such as the minimization of stalls, can be realized.

System and method for utilizing a scoreboard to indicate information pertaining to pending register writes


A hydrokinetic energy interface device includes a hydrokinetic wheel and a moveable support structure with an angled frame. The angled frame mounted upon the moveable support structure connects between a hydrokinetic wheel and a counterbalance. A bearing is mounted at a vertex between a first end and a second end of the angled frame. The angled frame pivots to move the hydrokinetic wheel and the counterbalance in opposite vertical direction. The hydrokinetic wheel maintains vertical alignment as the angled frame pivots. The hydrokinetic wheel can be formed with interconnectable rim sections. The hydrokinetic wheel may be cantilevered out away from a riverbank by the counterbalance. The hydrokinetic wheel may be raised or lowered by actuation. The movable support structure supporting the hydrokinetic wheel may be rolled away from a free-flowing river for maintenance, repairs, or modification.

A wide range of hydraulic machines exist for transferring energy from naturally available free-flowing water to hydrokinetic assemblies equipped with generators or pumps. These systems transform hydrokinetic energy into other useable formats. Other fluid mediums may be used to power hydraulic machines such as wind, steam, or other flowing amorphous substance.

Continuous non-tidal hydrokinetic energy transfer resource with moveable platform

Hydrokinetic Energy Research Associates, LLC


A bad odor eliminating device especially useful at the throw-in gate of the closed type waste receiving space such as a garbage storage tank, a resources recovery case etc., when the/throw-in gate is opened, the device can create negative pressure around the throw-in gate, so that air in the waste receiving space will not sread out, and therefore bad odor will not be released. The device includes mainly a window frame, a wind drawing pipe and a filter, a fan is also provided to create the above stated negative pressure on an air guiding groove at the circumference of the window frame and the throw-in gate to absorb air with bad odor to filter out dust in the air and do ion exchanging with the filter to eliminate bad odor. An object of getting sanitary circumstances can thus be achieved.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bad odor eliminating device especially useful at the throw-in gate of the closed type waste receiving space such as a garbage storage tank, a resources recovery case etc., when the throw-in gate is opened, the device can create negative pressure around the throw-in gate, so that air in the waste receiving space will not sread out, and therefore bad odor will not-be released, an object of getting sanitary circumstances can be achieved.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is well known that organic substance such as residue of foods and fruit juice will be resolved and ferment when it is placed at a position too long, during fermenting, a great amount of bad odor will be released, it is so bad to suffer such odor, people normally walk fast to pass a heap of garbage with their noses covered in order to avoid smelling of such bad odor.
In a closed space, such bad odor released can be much more disgusting. This is because that, when organic substance ferments, in addition to bad odor, heat will be released, while air flow is retarded in the closed space, temperature therein will be higher than that outside of it, the higher temperature therein will accelerate fermentation, generation of bad odor is more serious here.
Generation of bad odor in such a closed space generally can be the worst in a garbage storing tank and a resources recovery case. This is mainly because they are designed to be sealed in order to prevent bad odor from emitting and to prevent rain from flowing in, only a throw-in gate is provided for each of them, so that when a user is to throw waste into it, a cover must be lifted up. When the cover is opened, fermentation and raising of temperature therein will render air pressure therein to be slightly higher than that outside of the space, so that at the instant when the cover is opened, air with bad odor in the space will largely emit and rush to the user opening the cover, this is terribly hard to suffer and is very disgusting.


A system and method for real-time process management. An attribute of a process currently performed may be related to a key performance indicator (KPI) threshold. A system may determine, in real-time, the KPI threshold was breached. An indication may be provided to, for example, a mobile device. Feedback related to an intervention of an expert may be received on the mobile device.

A contact center (e.g., a center accepting telephone calls and other communications on behalf of an organization) may employ a large number of customer service representatives (CSR), customer service advisors (CSA) or similar personnel generally referred to herein as agents. Agents interact with customers to provide services, e.g., providing answers to customers' inquiries, performing transactions, selling products or services and the like.
Agents in a modern contact center may be required to provide information, complete transactions and otherwise perform tasks related to a large number of services and products as well as be able to operate a large number, at times complicated, computer applications. Typically, agents are further required to perform these tasks in real-time, e.g., while talking or otherwise interacting with a client or a potential customer.
To assist agents, supervisors and/or experts (S&E) are employed. An expert or supervisor typically has extended knowledge, skills, expertise and/or privileges related to services provided by the contact center and/or applications or systems that need to be operated. Typically, upon encountering a problem or difficulty, an agent may call or alert an expert for assistance. In other cases, a supervisor may monitor, or even join, a session or interaction between an agent and a customer in order to help an agent, monitor or evaluate performance of an agent or perform other tasks related to an operation of the contact center.
It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity. Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements.

System and method for real-time process management


In a method for producing a micro lens in a solid-state imaging device, a thermally stable transparent resin layer for forming a planar surface is deposited on a base layer of the solid-state imaging device, a far-ultraviolet sensitive thermoplastic layer is deposited on the transparent layer, a photosensitive resin layer sensitive to light of longer wavelength than the far-ultraviolet sensitive resin layer and highly absorbing far-ultraviolet light is deposited on the far-ultraviolet sensitive resin layer, portions of the photosensitive resin layer are removed, far-ultraviolet light irradiates the resin layers, portions of the far-ultraviolet sensitive resin layers are removed, and portions of the transparent layer are thermally deformed into a desired micro lens shape. Therefore, access to the bonding pad under the transparent resin film can be obtained after the deposition and patterning of the thermoplastic resin film wherein non-uniformities in the thermoplastic resin film are reduced, resulting is a micro lens having high light collection ability and no wavelength sensitivity variations.

FIG. 2 is a plan view showing an arrangement on a pixel unit of a solid-state imaging device. A light-to-electricity conversion part 15 comprising a photodiode, separation parts 16 for separating pixel regions from each other, and a CCD transfer part 17 for transferring light-to-electricity conversion signal generated in the light-to-electricity conversion part 15 are arranged as shown in FIG. 2. A solid-state imaging device includes a plurality of such unit pixels arranged in matrix on a chip. In addition, bonding pads for electrically connecting internal circuits of the chip with external circuits are provided on the chip.
Meanwhile, in order to improve the photosensitivity of a solid-state imaging device, a structure, in which a micro lens is provided on a substrate on which a light-to-electricity conversion element is formed, has been proposed. In this structure, light incident on regions other than on the light-to-electricity conversion element is collected by the micro lens, whereby the effective numerical aperture is improved.
FIG. 3 is a plan view schematically showing a solid-state imaging device having such a micro lens. In FIG. 3, a micro lens 22 is disposed on a light-to-electricity conversion element 21 spreading over and beyond the element 21. A bonding pad 23 is arranged on the periphery of the pixel region. This bonding pad 23 has a square or rectangular shape of a size equivalent to approximately ten pixels.
Although the space between adjacent micro lenses 22 is desired to be short to enhance light collection efficiency, a spacing of 0.5 to 1 micron is usually used considering production to tolerances.
Since the shape of micro lens 22 is optimized according to the shape of pixel, it is not restricted to the oval shape shown in FIG. 3, but may be circular. When the space between adjacent pixels in a longitudinal direction is short, a linear lens 22 as shown in FIG. 4 is employed for collecting light only from a horizontal direction. In this case, light collection efficiency of the micro lens 22 is lower than that of the micro lens shown in FIG. 3, but the production process is simplified. Also in FIG. 4, the space between adjacent micro lenses 22 is about 1 micron.
FIGS. 5(a) to 5(e) are cross-sectional views of process steps for producing the prior art micro lens. In these figures, reference numeral 1 designates a semiconductor substrate. Photodiodes 2 ar disposed in the surface region of substrate 1. Polysilicon gates 3 are disposed on the substrate 1 between the photodiodes 2. A bonding pad 6 is disposed at the periphery of the pixel region in which the photodiodes 2 and the polysilicon gates 3 are formed. An insulating layer 4 is disposed on the photodiodes 2, polysilicon gates 3 and substrate 1. Light shielding films 5 are disposed on the insulating film 4 opposing to the polysilicon gates 3. A base layer 7 of the solid-state imaging device is constituted by the substrate 1, photodiodes 2, polysilicon gates 3, insulating layer 4, light shielding films 5 and bonding pad 6. A flattening resin film 18 is disposed on the base layer 7.
A description is given of the production process.
First of all, a base layer 7 of a solid-state imaging device having light receiving parts 2, charge transfer parts or the like is prepared. Then, as shown in FIG. 5(a), a transparent flattening resin 18, such as thermally hardened resin or ultraviolet light hardened resin, is spin coated on the base layer 7 to a thickness of about 4 to 6 microns. This resin film 18 fills uneven parts of the base layer 7 that adversely affect the shape of micro lens. In addition, the resin film 18 is necessary for lengthening the optical path so that the micro lens may collect light efficiently.
Next shown in FIG. 5(b), a portion of the flattening resin film 18 on the bonding pad 6 is opened using photolithography. Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 5(c), a resin film 19 comprising a transparent material having thermal plasticity is formed on the entire surface to a thickness of about 2 to 3 microns by spin coating or the like. Then, the thermoplastic resin film 19 is partially etched away leaving portions thereof opposing the photodiodes 2, resulting in thermoplastic resin films 19' shown in FIG. 5(d). Finally, the thermoplastic resin films 19' thus patterned are heated up to the softening temperature or higher and deformed into a hemi-spherical shape, resulting in micro lenses 19" shown in FIG. 5(e). In the solid-state imaging device thus produced, since light incident on the light shielding films 5 can be collected by the micro lenses 19", the effective numerical aperture is significantly improved, whereby the photosensitivity of the solid-state imaging device is significantly improved.
The prior art method for producing micro lens of solid-state imaging device has the following drawbacks.
First of all, since the thermoplastic resin film serving as the micro lens must be formed of a material transparent to visible light, a material absorbing visible light cannot be used. More specifically, when a material having no photosensitivity is used for the thermoplastic resin film 19, a pattern of photoresist or the like must be formed on the thermoplastic resin film 19 and this pattern must be transferred to the thermoplastic resin film 19 using etching or the like. In this case, since it is difficult to detect the end point of the etching, it is necessary to select a flattening resin film 18 having higher anti-etching property than that of the thermoplastic resin film 19. However, such a flattening resin film 18 makes forming the opening for the bonding pad par difficult.
Meanwhile, it may be thought that a photoresist having sensitive to visible light may be used for the thermoplastic resin film 19 and after performing exposure, development and patterning directly, light irradiates the resin film 19 so that the resin film 19, i.e., micro lens, does not absorb anymore light. However, it is impossible to make the resin film 19 completely transparent. In addition, an extra resist is needed for opening the bonding pad part of the flattening resin film 18 and, therefore, deposition and patterning of the thermoplastic resin film must be carried out after opening the bonding pad part. However, since the difference at the opening is very large, such as 6 to 7 microns, when the thermoplastic resin film 19 is deposited thereon, non-uniformities extend radially from the opening part and influence on the shape of micro lens, resulting in non-uniformity sensitivities which appear on a screen at the time of imaging.
Furthermore, there is an effective method in which a photosensitive material having no visible light absorption, for example, a material which is sensitive to ultraviolet light or far-ultraviolet light, is used as the thermoplastic resin film and exposure and development are directly performed. However, in this method, it is necessary to perform the exposure using an i-line or excimer laser stepper (a reduction-type projection printing apparatus with i line or excimer laser as its light source) with considering the precision of the patterning and superposition on the base layer. This method is difficult to implement because of the cost of the device, producibility, and the like in the current state of semiconductor processing art.

Method for producing solid-state imaging device


The present invention is directed to 4-fluoropiperidine compounds which are antagonists of orexin receptors, and which are useful in the treatment or prevention of neurological and psychiatric disorders and diseases in which orexin receptors are involved. The invention is also directed to pharmaceutical compositions comprising these compounds and the use of these compounds and compositions in the prevention or treatment of such diseases in which orexin receptors are involved.

Orexin (hypocretin) neuropeptides are derived from a single gene (HCRT) encoding prepro-orexin that is processed into the mature 33 amino acid orexin A (OX-A) and orexin B (OX-B) peptides (Wong et al., Gen Comp Endocrinol, 2011, 171, 124-130). Both neuropeptides have overlapping endogenous specificity for two related G-protein coupled receptors found throughout mammals, orexin 1 and orexin 2 receptors (OX1R and OX2R, respectively) (Scammell and Winrow, Ann Rev Pharmacol Toxicol, 2011, 51, 243-266). OX-A has activity toward both OX1R and OX2R having binding affinities of 20 and 38 nM, respectively, while OX-B is relatively specific for OX2R, exhibiting 36 nM affinity relative to 420 nM activity toward OX1R (Sakurai et al., Cell, 1998, 92, 573-585). Orexin secreting neurons originate from the lateral and posterior areas of the hypothalamus and project to multiple brain regions to affect arousal and vigilance state changes associated with sleep/wake cycles (Scammell and Winrow, Ann Rev Pharmacol Toxicol, 2011, 51, 243-266), but also have the potential to influence behavior and physiology including feeding, metabolism and gastrointestinal function (Sakurai et al., Cell, 1998, 92, 573-585; Tsujino and Sakurai, Pharmacol Rev, 2009, 61, 162-176), reward pathways associated with addiction, learning and memory (Harris, et al., Trends Neurosci., 2006, 29, 571-577), anxiety behavior modulation (Suzuki et al., Brain Res, 2005, 1044, 116-121), depression and mood (Scott et al., Behav Brain Res, 2011222, 289-294) and the modulation of migraine and nociception (Akerman et al., Nat Rev Neurosci., 2011, 12, 570-84; Mobarakeh et al., Peptides, 2005, 26, 767-777).

4-fluoropiperidine orexin receptor antagonists


A shifting device of a motor vehicle transmission having a driveshaft (2) in the form of a hollow shaft with radial bores (5, 6, 7, 8). At least one drive output element (3) is arranged on the driveshaft (2), a shifting element (4) is arranged to move axially within the hollow shaft (2), and coupling elements, in the form of balls (9, 10, 11, 12), move radially within the radial bores (5, 6, 7, 8; 24). The drive output element (3) can be coupled to and decoupled from the driveshaft (2) by axial displacement of the shifting element (4) and radial displacement of the balls (9, 10, 11, 12). The shifting element is in the form of a shifting piston (4) and the hollow shaft (2) is in the form of a shifting cylinder (2aa).

From DE 937 990 a shifting device for a motor vehicle transmission is known, in which the individual gears are engaged by means of a so-termed draw key. A main transmission shaft in the form of a hollow shaft, on which gearwheels are arranged, holds the axially displaceable draw key inside it. In the area of the gearwheels the hollow shaft has radial bores in which shifting balls are held and can move radially, which for coupling are pushed apart by the draw key. This produces a rotationally fixed connection between the gearwheel concerned and the main transmission shaft.
As is known, in present-day motor vehicle transmissions including automatic transmissions claw clutches are used for engaging individual gears. Claw clutches have the advantage that their structure is relatively compact, so they can transmit relatively large torques. A disadvantage of claw clutches is that they can only be engaged when the speed difference is virtually zero and it is always possible for a so-termed tooth-on-tooth position to occur, in which the clutch cannot be engaged at all. So far, it has not been possible to solve the problem satisfactorily.

Shifting device of a motor vehicle transmission


Methods and apparatus for the automatic and management of traffic, utilizing a microprocessor-based, read-write vehicle borne transponder device. The system includes plurality of transceivers spaced along and positioned adjacent to a roadway, a plurality of vehicle borne transponders, and an independent network management computer. As vehicles traverse the roadway the transponders communicate with the transceivers and one or both of those units collect information such as, vehicle entrance point, vehicle exit point, vehicle speed, number of passengers in each vehicle, and vehicle class. Some of the collected information is processed by the transceivers and transponders, while other information is transmitted to the network management computer for processing.

The present invention relates generally to systems for traffic monitoring and management. More particularly, it relates to apparatus and method for utilizing a two-way radio transceiver to accurately and automatically collect traffic data from vehicles as they traverse a roadway, bridge, tunnel or other form of transport, such as a railway.
An increasing number of vehicles are traveling over progressively more congested transportation networks. Collecting accurate data with regard to the use of those networks would be a great aid in efficiently managing those networks. Analysis of data, such as vehicle origination and destination points, speed of vehicles traveling between fixed points, and types of vehicles utilizing a particular route, would provide network engineers and planners with significant information with which to control and manage the network. Such information would also aid the network management authorities in planning expansions, planning repairs, and setting toll rates. Through efficient management practices, made possible by the availability of accurate network use information, managing authorities could reduce congestion, cut costs, and limit air pollution associated with vehicle emissions.
A number of prior art systems exist that provide data regarding vehicular traffic. These systems typically utilize vehicle detector technology such as inductive loops cut into a roadway, infrared detectors, acoustic detectors, cameras and/or radar counters. Such systems identify the presence of vehicles and thereby provide data from which analysts can roughly establish traffic density and vehicle speeds. The prior art systems do not provide a mechanism for collecting individual vehicle origination, and destination data. Additionally, those systems do not provide any means for storing or processing data within individual vehicles for later retrieving. Moreover, the prior art systems do not provide any way for a network management authority to communicate useful information, such as the availability of an alternate route, to individual vehicle operators.
Some proposed systems provide a one-way backscatter radio reflection communication signal. Those systems achieve this by utilizing a reflective vehicle identification tag. Reflective tag based systems suffer from several drawbacks. Perhaps, the primary drawback is their inability to have information written into a vehicle memory, thereby providing historical data for the individual vehicle. Also, reflective tag based systems do not perform accurately enough to determine the particular lane in which a vehicle is operating. They also do not provide any vehicle data storage or manipulation capability. Consequently, any data collected must be stored and processed in a centralized network computer system. Moreover, the reflective tag based systems also do not provide a communication interface by which relevant traffic information can be relayed to a vehicle operator. Consequently, reflective tag based systems are inadequate for use by network management authorities to efficiently manage any particular transportation network.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a system for gathering data transmitted from the vehicles, such as vehicle origination and destination points, vehicle speed, and the types of vehicles utilizing a particular traffic network.
Another object of the invention is to provide a mechanism for storing, within a vehicle, data collected with regards to that vehicle in such a way that the data might be accessed at a later time.
A further object of the invention is to provide in vehicle processing capability so that the computational load on a centralized computer can be reduced.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a system wherein a network management authority can communicate relevant traffic information to individual vehicle operators traveling over a particular transportation network.
Other general and specific objects of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.

Traffic monitoring and management method and apparatus


An exoskeleton interface apparatus includes five rigid links (2-6) arranged in series, capable of rotating reciprocally at the respective ends for monitoring angular movements of the arm, of the forearm and the wrist of an user (60) and having at the tip an handgrip (30) for engaging with the user (60) by reflecting a force feedback. The rigid links (2-6) can rotate at their ends about rotational joints (11-14) having rotational axes (31-34) incident in the intersection point of the physiological axes of the shoulder. The rotational joints (11-14) are brought into rotation about the respective rotational axes (31-34) by means of respective motors (21-24), for example servo-motor such as torque motors. All the motors (21-24) are mounted on the fixed base link (2) in order to minimize the mass of the parts in movement and the inertia reflected on the user (60). A plurality of idle pulleys (50) is provided, spatially arranged for orienting the tendons (41-44), which brake the free movement of the relative rotational joint, responsive to signals corresponding to constraints on the slave in case of teleoperation or to constraints created by virtual reality systems.

As known, a variety of types of exoskeleton apparatus exist for measuring the position and/or the orientation of an user's limb and that can reflect a force feedback at determined points. As force feedback is meant the replication on the user of "haptic" sensations reflecting handling forces of real or virtual objects.
If the objects are real and the user interacts directly with a physical environment, then Teleoperation is involved, whereas if such objects and the whole environment are created by computers using electronic displays, than Virtual Reality is involved.
Teleoperation provides bilateral communication between a manipulator (robot) operating in a remote environment (slave) and an interface apparatus (master) controlled by the user. This allows to give the robot the capacity of carrying out not foreseeable high skill operations on not structured objects and environments, i.e. whose shape, size and spatial disposition are unknown a priori.
Furthermore, since the master and the slave can communicate even if located at considerable distance (for example by means of satellite broadcasting) operations can be carried out in absolutely safe conditions at places that are dangerous to humans, such as in the maintenance of nuclear sites or of satellites.
Virtual reality can be defined as an interactive and immersive experience in a simulated environment. The fields of application of Virtual reality are many. Among them the following can be cited: simulation, training, medicine, entertainment, teaching, design, etc.
A variety of exoskeleton interface apparatus exist for upper limbs of humans.
For example, a first type of interface apparatus that is used as master in a teleoperation system is "Arm Master" of Sarco Inc. It has 10 freedoms (arm+hand) and is capable of reflecting a force on 3 fingers. The actuating system is hydraulic so that it has the advantage of having a high passband, but it has the drawback of having a big encumbrance and a low "transparency of use" (high friction and high reflected mass on the user).
Then, a type of exoskeleton exists with parallel kinematics developed by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. The choice of a parallel kinematics has the advantage of a good stiffness, but the mobility of the shoulder and of the elbow are limited. Six linear actuators are provided (three for the arm and three for the forearm) using DC motors and ball recirculations. This solution reduces the reversibility rate and then the transparency of use of the device.
Furthermore, Southern Methodist University obtained a pneumatically actuated interface apparatus with four freedoms called "the Haptic Arm". In this case the sensorisation is obtained by pressure sensors and linear position transducers. The device even if compact and light, is characterised by a low stiffness owing to the pneumatic actuation.
Normally, in the above systems the physiological axes of the arm, forearm and wrist do not coincide with the exoskeleton axes, with subsequent decrease of the actual workspace that is the intersection between the workspace of the human limbs and that of the robotic structure.
Finally, Hashimoto Lab. of Tokio disclosed an exoskeleton with seven freedoms, wherein both the angle and the torque of each joint can be determined by a sensorisation system. The transmission of the movement is carried out by a gearing. This type of transmission allows the physiological axes to coincide with the mechanical axes, but with the drawbacks of high backlash and a low rate of reversibility. In addition, since the motors are arranged on the mobile parts, the inertia reflected on the user is remarkable. Problems of safety are also caused by the fact that, being the structure closed, the introduction and the extraction of the arm it is not simple and immediate.


A piezoelectric thin film resonator includes: a substrate; a piezoelectric film located on the substrate; a lower electrode and an upper electrode located to sandwich the piezoelectric film; a load film formed from patterns in a resonance region in which the lower electrode and the upper electrode face each other across the piezoelectric film, wherein the patterns are formed so as to surround a center of the resonance region and intersect with a pathway extending from the center to an outer periphery of the resonance region.

Acoustic wave devices using a piezoelectric thin film resonator have been used as filters in wireless devices, for example. The piezoelectric thin film resonator has a structure designed to have a lower electrode and an upper electrode facing each other across a piezoelectric film. A resonance region is a region in which the lower electrode and the upper electrode face each other across the piezoelectric film. Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2012-165288 and 2011-71913 disclose forming a load film in a part in the resonance region.
Spurious may occur at frequencies lower or higher than the resonance frequency in the piezoelectric thin film resonator. For example, when a filter is formed by using a piezoelectric thin film resonator in which spurious occurs, a ripple is formed in the passband.

Piezoelectric thin film resonator and filter


Device for displaying imagery three-dimensionally, which comprises a first image reproduction element having an image reproduction surface and a second image reproduction element having an image indication surface of reflective property. Those image reproduction and indication surfaces are in an opposedly facing relation with each other, such that an imagery reproduced and indicated on the image reproduction surface is reflected by the image indicating surface to form a reflected imagery which is viewed by the eyes of person as if it was a three-dimensional image. One or both of such image reproduction and indication surfaces may be curved to have convex and concave surface sides, wherein the concave surface side is formed to have diffuse reflective property. The convex surface sides respective of those two surfaces may be in an opposedly facing relation with each other. Preferably, such two surfaces may each be a screen of light-transmissive type.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for displaying or indicating an imagery three-dimensionally, so that the indicated imagery is viewed in the eyes of a person looking thereat as if it was a three-dimensional imagery.
2. Description of Prior Art
Many researches and developments have been made to produce an effective display device for displaying a three-dimensional imagery, with a plenty of various three-dimensional display devices having been made available on the market. Among them, there has been known a spherical three-dimensional display device which optically projects an imagery (or image) to a spherical screen to thereby display an imagery three-dimensionally on a spherical surface of the screen. This kind of spherical three-dimensional display device is frequently used for visual simulation of earth or natural environmental changes and symptoms. Typical examples thereof are "Gaia Vision" and "Geo Cosmos", which are each well known in Japan as a name of spherical three-dimensional display device. The "Gaia Vision" display device is found in the Japanese public facility "Center For Environmental Science in Saitama" (i.e. "Saitama-Ken Kankyou Kagaku Kokusai Center" in Japanese) located in Saitama-ken, Japan, whereas the "Geo Cosmos" display device is found in the Japanese public facility "National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation" (i.e. "Nihon Kagaku Mirai Kan" in Japanese) located in Tokyo, Japan.
Naturally, in those public facilities, a capability for indicating precise image information is required in the spherical three-dimensional display device to meet specific requirements specialized in this technical filed. For that reason, it is necessary to provide various precision electronic and mechanical elements in order to form an optimal display device of this kind, wherein the precision electronic and mechanical parts include a precisely formed dome screen, a video projector with fish-eye lens specifically designed and produced for projecting an imagery to a spherical surface, an extraordinary large number of LED indicators, complicated system programs, and so forth. Further, installation of those constituent elements to provide a desired mode of display device requires an extremely high precision in determining positions and angles of the associated elements with one another, and also requires maintenance for each of the elements.
Consequently, while featuring the three-dimensional vision in contrast to two-dimensional vision, a multimillion or billion amount of expenses, or a multibillion amount of expenses depending on the kind of required equipments, have been incurred for installing the foregoing spherical three-dimensional display device. This has raised a serious problem in equipment expenses and costs.
In addition, in order to indicate a precise imagery or image on the entire spherical surface of dome screen of the spherical display device, it is necessary to effect complete corrections for aberration, and therefore, it is essential to provide a video projector with a fish-eye lens having a curvature equal to that of the dome screen and to precisely install that video projector at a given position and at a given angle with respect to the dome screen. Apparently, a high technical expertise and precision work have been required for that purpose, thus unfavorably raising an extreme difficulty in design and production of the video projector.
In place of such video projector arrangement, it may be proposed to assemble a great number of special LED indicator plates together into a dome configuration so as to provide a desired spherical display device. But, in such case, it is necessary to design and custom-build each of the special LED indicator plates, and further, in assembly, workers must carefully put together those LED indicator plates with precision into a desired dome shape, which results in an unexpected high increase of costs involved.
In view of the foregoing circumstances, the hitherto spherical three-dimensional display devices have encountered the problem that they require quite a lot of specially designed parts and equipments as well as high costs, thereby making it difficult to reduce them to a widespread practice in general. Moreover, most of the conventional spherical three-dimensional display devices have been mainly used for displaying a spherical image of the earth and effecting an imaginary simulation of cloud flow over the earth, and therefore, none of the spherical display devices has been developed for other uses than those geographical and geoscientific purposes.


A vehicle steering assembly includes a steering column having a forward section and a rearward section movable relative to the forward section, a mounting plate adapted to be carried by the vehicle and a bracket releasably coupled to the mounting plate, and operably coupled to the rearward section of the steering column for movement therewith. The assembly also includes a stationary reaction surface disposed adjacent to the rearward section of the steering column and adapted to be engaged by the steering column during at least some events wherein the rearward section is displaced relative to the forward section. This maintains the position of a reaction force on the steering column during movement of the rearward section of the steering column, which provides a decreasing reaction force on the steering column.

A steering column of a vehicle typically is secured to the frame of the automobile to facilitate safe operation of the automobile. Generally, this is accomplished by bolting the steering column to the instrument panel which may be further secured to the frame of the automobile. However, it can be desirable to allow the steering column to disengage from or move relative to the instrument panel, such as by permitting the steering column to collapse or be displaced, upon the application of a force during an accident.
To permit movement of the steering column under sufficient force, polymer capsules have been proposed to support a mounting bracket of the steering column and are designed in such a way as to break-away under a given force. Thus, the steering column is allowed to axially collapse or move upon the application of a sufficient force in the event of an accident. Some steering assemblies include a tilt mechanism that permits adjustment of the angle of the steering column.

Collapsible steering assembly with a stationary reaction surface


A tandem accelerator for producing a beam of positively charged particles in which the positive ion producing and accelerating region of the apparatus is operated under vacuum conditions.

The present invention relates to particle accelerators of the type known as tandem accelerators.
Tandem accelerators are devices for producing beams of positively charged particles with high energies of the order of 10 MeV. The basic design of such devices is very simple. A negative ion beam, for example H.sup.- or O.sup.- is accelerated to a central positively biased electrode at which point a stripper foil removes two or more electrons from the negatively charged ions to produce a positively charged ion beam which is subsequently accelerated to the ground plane by the same potential as that used to produce the positive ions. In order to achieve ion energies of about 10 MeV it is necessary to apply potentials of about 5 MeV to the central electrode and so it is necessary to isolate the central electrode from ground in such a manner as to be capable of withstanding the potential gradients produced. To achieve this in air requires the separation of the high and low potential planes by distances of many metres.
In an attempt to reduce the size of tandem accelerators, designers of tandem accelerators therefore conventionally fill the accelerators with a gas such as sulphur hexafluoride, which has considerably better breakdown characteristics than those of air. However, even so, the distance required to hold-off even 1 MeV is about 2 metres at one bar. Also, sulphur hexafluoride is potentially dangerous and very expensive, both of which characteristics lead to considerable engineering complexity in the design of tandem accelerators. Furthermore, the ion beam has to be isolated from the rest of the apparatus by means of cells and windows which are thin enough to be penetrated by the ion beams but strong enough to withstand the pressure gradient between the near vacuum inside the cells, required to maintain the ion beams, and the pressurised environment necessary to provide the electrical isolation of the positively charged central eletrode. Both these windows and the stripper foils are susceptible to damage, which requires taking the accelerator out of service to rectify, which both is inconvenient and costly as the equipment has to be virtually dismantled for this to be done.


An ultrasonic dental tool for use with an ultrasonic transducer, comprises a substantially elongate tool defined by a shaft having a proximal end with a connector for attachment to an ultrasonic transducer, a distal end having a tip configured for performing a dental procedure, a portion of straight cylindrical wall from the tip inward toward the proximal end, and a contra-angle portion of substantially uniform diameter on the proximal end, and a uniform gradual tapered portion intermediate the distal end and the proximal end.

This invention relates generally to ultrasonic dental tools and more specifically to special non-surgical ultrasonic root canal tools.
Dental surgeons commonly use a tool usually called a tip coupled to an ultrasonic generator for operations on teeth, bones, and soft tissue including dislodging and removal of dental material. The use of ultrasonic generators for powering tools for clinical dentistry has been widely used in virtually all areas, except for root canal. Root canal work until recently has been largely limited to manual instruments for various reasons. One of the main reasons is the difficulty of providing tools that can be powered by ultrasonic generators that also provide access of the tool for precision root canal work. For this reason, such tools in the past have been largely limited to manually manipulated tools and instruments, such as disclosed for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,284 issued Jun. 25, 1991 to Martin. As expressed in the background of that patent, the success of root a canal depends upon very precise and controlled preparation and shaping of the root canal.
A properly shaped root canal presents a gradually tapering cone with the narrowest part directed apically. A typical root canal is prepared by mechanical instruments used to enlarge the root canal by physically removing internal root canal tooth structure, dentin, by rotational cutting or abrasive action. These tools are tapered and pointed metal instruments with cutting edges so that the cutting occurs either on a push or pull of the stroke. With these instruments the dentist through hand manipulation prepares the canal for precise filling. The object of the preparation is to attain an apical terminus kept as small as practical in order to achieve more effective packing with greater control upon an effectively prepared seat.
Recent years have seen the proposed use of ultrasonically powered instruments for the preparation of root canals. Examples of instruments of this type are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,019,254, issued Apr. 26, 1977 to Malmin, U.S. Pat. No. 5,094,617 issued Mar. 10, 1992 to Carr and PCT Publication WO 86/05967. With the exception of the first mentioned patent, all tools are formed with a shaft tapered to a point. In the preparation of root canals, it has been found that tapered tools plug and obstructs the view of the canal wall operation from the crown area. Also, they are difficult to operate with an ultrasonic generator and provide access to remote or posterior teeth in the mouth.
The instruments of the Malmin patent are disclosed and designed for selective positioning of abrasive materials to eliminate cutting edges and thereby eliminate the need for tempering the instruments. This construction reportedly provides greater adaptability to eliminate breakage of the tools. However, it fails to provide configurations enabling it to be used with ultrasonic power units in remote or posterior areas of the mouth. In addition, it fails to provide a construction enabling the viewing of the area of cutting in the root canal.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved ultrasonic dental tool for enabling the effective root canal preparation from the crown area of the tooth.


A dispenser is provided for liquids which responds to actuation either by squeezing or by some other action to cause dispensing. Liquid is stored in an enclosure and an outlet structure has an outlet passageway which carries liquid from the enclosure to exit outside the dispenser. A buoyant bell combines with the passageway to trap liquid in the enclosure. If preferred, upon actuation liquid will flow initially, and then the bell can be made to seal the outlet structure to stop liquid flow thereby simulating a pumping action.

The liquid dispensers for use to dispense liquids such as shampoo, water, condiments, etc. have been developed in various forms. One of these has been developed with no moving parts and relies on the use of negative pressure above a supply of liquid to maintain the liquid ready for dispensing. These dispensers have become known as "Kaufman" dispensers and they respond to a disturbance of the equilibrium within the dispenser to cause liquid to flow. The present invention is a type of Kaufman dispenser having characteristics not found in the prior art.