The present invention provides a method for supplying unicast and multicast transmissions to a plurality of mobile devices in a wireless system. The method comprises supplying a multicast signal using a first portion of total available power, wherein the first portion of total available power is a function of a channel quality indicator associated with at least one of the mobile devices. Thereafter, a unicast signal is supplied using a second portion of total available power, wherein the second portion of total available power is a function of the first portion of total available power.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to communication systems, and, more particularly, to wireless communication systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional wireless communication systems include one or more base stations, which may also be referred to as node-Bs, for providing wireless connectivity to one or more mobile units, which may also be referred to using terms such as user equipment, mobile devices, subscriber equipment, and access terminals. Exemplary mobile units include cellular telephones, personal data assistants, smart phones, text messaging devices, laptop computers, desktop computers, and the like. Each base station may provide wireless connectivity via Radio Frequency (RF) signals to one or more mobile units in a geographical area, or cell, associated with the base station. For example, a base station that operates according to a Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) protocol may provide wireless connectivity to one or more mobile units in a cell associated with the base station over a wireless communication link.
The wireless communications link typically includes the ability to deliver information to each of the access terminals using both, or either, multicast and/or unicast transmissions. Typically, a unicast transmission is directed to a single access terminal, whereas a multicast transmission is directed to a plurality of access terminals. Typical multicast applications include the transmission of television signals, radio, audio and video streaming, stock valuations, news summaries, etc. Unicast applications include a typical voice communication session, an Internet session, an instant message session, and the like. In every cell, a single multicast signal is transmitted for all the active users while multiple unicast signals are transmitted individually to each of them.
Superposition coding can be used to multiplex the multicast and unicast signals. That is, the multicast and various unicast signals are superimposed in an orderly fashioned. A simplified version of this technique has recently been proposed and is under discussion for possible adoption in several wireless standards. In this simplified version, the unicast signals are multiplexed in time and/or frequency (i.e., orthogonally rather than superimposed) and only the multicast signal is superimposed thereupon, as is stylistically represented in FIG. 1. On each time/frequency resource, the transmission consists therefore in a superposition of the multicast signal and of a single unicast signal. Arbitrary modulation formats may be used for the multicast and unicast signals.
There are significant differences between the multicast and unicast traffic. For example, the multicast signal is encoded at a fixed rate, established a priori with a goal of ensuring successful decoding in a majority of locations (e.g., 90% to 95%). Furthermore, the multicast signal is often sent synchronously from all the transmission sites in the system and the rate and modulation format is common to all so as to enable constructive combining at the user terminals. The unicast signals, on the other hand, are encoded at variable rates that depend on the channel and interference conditions to the respective user receivers. Such rates may then, in general, be different at each time/frequency resource.
Each user decodes the multicast signal first. If the decoding is successful, it then proceeds to cancel out the contribution of the multicast signal and to further decode the superimposed unicast signal. Since the multicast signal is decoded with interference from the unicast signal, the former must be sufficiently strong with respect to the latter. The total power available for transmission of both the multicast and unicast signal is denoted by PT. The fraction of PT that is allocated to multicasting is denoted as α. Thus, the multicast transmit power is αPT and the available unicast transmit power is (1-α)PT. The standard approach is to use a static α and to account for resulting level of unicast interference when determining the multicast encoding rate.
However, the amount of power required to transmit the multicast signal to the various mobile devices intended to receive the multicast transmission may vary significantly over time. That is the various mobile devices may relocate to a position in which conditions are more conducive such that transmissions need not be as strong. However, given the static α, current systems will continue to transmit at the same power level, unnecessarily limiting the power that may be used for the unicast transmissions.

Dynamic power allocation for unicast-multicast superposition in wireless broadcasting


A mattress assembly includes an inner core comprising a base core layer comprising planar top and bottom surfaces, and at least one comfort layer comprising planar top and bottom surfaces disposed on the top surface of the base core layer; a side rail assembly disposed about a perimeter of the inner core; and a plurality of air channels extending from a central region of the inner core to the side rail assembly configured to permit the flow of fluid from and to the inner core.

The present disclosure generally relates to foam mattress assemblies; specifically side rail assemblies of the mattress that exhibit increased airflow.
One of the ongoing problems associated with mattress assemblies is user comfort. To address user comfort, mattresses are often fabricated with multiple layers having varying properties such as density and hardness, among others, to suit the needs of the intended user. One particular area of concern to user comfort is the level of heat buildup in the mattress and experienced by the user after a period of time. Additionally, some mattresses can retain a high level of moisture, further causing discomfort to the user and potentially leading to foul odors. The problems can be experienced, to some extent, in pocketed coil and innerspring assembly mattresses, as well as foam mattresses. For example, foam mattresses such as those formed of polyurethane foam, latex foam, and the like, are generally known in the art. Manufacturers have employed so called memory foam, also commonly referred to as viscoelastic foams, which are generally a combination of polyurethane and one or more additives that increase foam density and viscosity, thereby increasing its viscoelasticity. These foams are often open cell foam structures having both closed and open cells but in some instances may be reticulated foam structures. The term "reticulated" generally refers to a cellular foam structure in which the substantially all of the membrane windows are removed leaving a skeletal structure. In contrast, open cell structures include both open cell (interconnected cells) and closed cells.
Unfortunately, the high density of foams used in current mattress assemblies, particularly those employing memory foam layers, generally prevents proper ventilation. As a result, the foam material can exhibit an uncomfortable level of heat to the user after a period of time. Reticulated memory foams, i.e., foams in which the cellular walls are substantially removed, are known to provide greater airflow. However, because substantially all of the cellular walls have been removed leaving behind a skeletal structure, these foams are inherently weak, provide less load-bearing capabilities relative to other non-reticulated viscoelastic foams, and are subject to fatigue at a rate faster than partially or completely closed cell foam structures. Moreover, reticulated viscoelastic foams require special processing to remove the cellular walls to form the skeletal structure making these foams relatively expensive.
Moreover, much like the mattresses described above, the current side rail assemblies, used in the mattress assemblies for edge support, also tend to act as an air dam blocking the flow of air out of the mattress. This can further reduce the ventilation of the mattress assembly and increase the amount of heat and/or moisture retained in the mattress. These side rail assemblies can redirect the flow of air (and heat and moisture) back through the top sleeping surface, thereby adding to the discomfort experienced by the user.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a mattress assembly, especially a side rail assembly with an improved airflow to aid in the dissipation of user heat.

Mattress and side rail assemblies having high airflow


A gate pulsing gate ladder circuit includes a series connected resistor ladder with bond pads connected to the resistor ladder between adjacent resistors. An electrical node is positioned between a first and second resistor of the resistor ladder. The electrical node is electrically connected to a gate electrode of a field effect transistor (FET). A power supply produces a constant power voltage that is applied to a pre-selected bond pad to produce a desired bias voltage at the gate electrode of the FET. A selectable gate enable voltage source is connected to an and of the resistor ladder at the first resistor and is configured to produce a first and second voltage level that when combined with the constant power voltage produces a voltage level that causes the FET to be in a conducting state or non-conducting state, respectively.

Field effect transistors (FETs) are three terminal devices that are commonly used in radio frequency (RF) and microwave electronic circuitry to amplify signals. The three terminals of a FET include a gate, a source and a drain terminal. The gate is commonly used as the input of the FET and the drain is commonly used as the output of the FET. A voltage applied to the gate of the FET creates an electric field that controls the resistance between the FET's drain and source terminals. For a constant supply voltage the resulting resistance between the source and drain determines an electrical current. A small voltage applied to the gate of the FET is capable of causing a large change in output voltage by controlling the current flowing from drain to source. This is the basic operation of amplification.
During operation, biasing a FET is performed by applying a selected voltage to the gate terminal. The bias voltage defines a resistance between the source and drain that results in a DC or quiescent current that flows between the drain and the source. A time varying voltage signal applied to the gate causes current between the drain and source current to vary about its quiescent value.
In practice, the DC gate voltage required to achieve a desired quiescent drain current varies from FET to FET due to fabrication tolerances. As a result of these variations that occur during fabrication, each FET is tested to identify the required bias voltage needed to achieve a desired or target quiescent current for that particular FET. Once the required gate bias voltage is identified, additional circuitry may be implemented as a gate ladder to produce a predetermined voltage. For example, a voltage of negative 2.5 volts (−2.5V) may be applied to the gate terminal of the FET to set the desired FET's quiescent current.
Radar applications utilize FETs to amplify signals. Radar applications require that FETs be pulsed between an "ON" state, where current is allowed to flow between the drain and the source, and an "OFF" state, where no appreciable current flows between the drain and source terminals. Conventionally, FETs formed from semiconductors such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) are pulsed by placing a switch between the drain and the power supply and operating the switch to control the flow of drain-source current in a process called drain pulsing. The switches required for drain pulsing must be capable of switching on and off large drain currents with low losses. Accordingly, these switches are typically large, expensive, slow and add complexity, thereby making drain pulsing less than optimal for high-frequency applications like radar.
Gate pulsing refers to the pulsing operation of a FET by varying the bias voltage supplied to the gate terminal to control the drain to source current. Gate pulsing is not suitable for GaAs and similar semiconductor devices because of their low gate to drain breakdown voltages. Newer semiconductor technologies, such as gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) have higher gate to drain breakdown voltages and therefore, may be used for gate pulsing. However, this typically requires an additional power source for providing a pulsing bias voltage to the gate terminal, thereby adding complexity and cost.
Alternative solutions for pulsing FETs which address the above challenges are desired.


Embodiments are provided that include a method including providing a first pulsed gate signal to a selected memory cell, wherein the pulsed gate signal alternates between a first voltage level and a second voltage level during a time period and sensing a data line response to determine data stored on the selected memory of cells. Further embodiments provide a system including a memory device, having a regulator circuit coupled to a plurality of access lines of a NAND memory cell, and a switching circuit configured to sequentially bias at least one of the plurality of the access lines between a first voltage level and a second voltage level based on an input signal.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to the field of memory devices and more particularly, to reducing the effect of random telegraph signal noise (RTS noise) in semiconductor memories.
2. Description of the Related Art
Flash memory is a non-volatile memory that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It is primarily used in memory cards, USB flash drives, and the like for storage of data in computer systems. Generally, flash memory stores information in an array of floating gate transistors, called "cells", each of which traditionally stores one bit of information that is represented as a "0" or a "1". Each cell is characterized by a threshold voltage (Vt) that varies based on the data stored in the cell. For example, during program and erase operations, charge is added or removed from a floating gate to change the cell's threshold voltage, thereby defining whether the cell is programmed or erased. During a read operation, a read voltage is applied to the cell and a response of the cell (e.g., a current across the cell) is monitored to determine whether the threshold voltage is above or below the read voltage. In other words, the read operation can determine if the cell is programmed as a 1 or a 0 value. Multi-level cells may include multiple threshold voltage ranges that are representative of additional values, such as two or more bits of information.
Flash memories may also employ a verify operation that ensures that each cell is programmed as a given state, such as a 1 or a 0. The verify operation may provide a sufficient margin between the 1 and 0 states such that a cell is charged to a given range and does not charge to an intermediate state where the cell may be read incorrectly. However, when the memory cells are programmed at one temperature and are read out at another temperature, the margin may decrease, potentially causing the value of the cell to be read incorrectly. For example, when the read operation is executed during a first period at a first temperature, the data may tend to be a 0, and when the read operation is executed during a second period at a second temperature, the data may tend to be a 1. This is prevalent where a word line voltage is a constant voltage value over the range of temperatures. The variations may be attributed to random telegraph noise (RTS noise) and the resulting time dependency of the current that passes through the memory cell. The RTS noise can be attributed to the trap and detrap of electrons or the recombination of electrons with holes. Unfortunately, the presence of the RTS noise and the resulting inaccuracies in reading the memory cells may produce inaccurate and/or less reliable memory devices.
Embodiments of the present invention may be directed to one or more of the problems set forth above.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Random telegraph signal noise reduction scheme for semiconductor memories


A method for detecting a psychological disorder in a person comprises collecting movement and, optionally, other data from the person by a device borne by the person; storing the data in a memory in contact with the device during the collection of data; transferring the stored data to a computer; calculating at least one set of parameter data distinctive of the movement data; feeding the least one set of parameter data to an Artificial Neural Network trained to recognize in the data a feature specific for a psychological disorder or a group of such disorders. Also is disclosed an assembly for carrying out the method.

Most psychiatric disorders are polygenic. In addition, each gene involved in particular disorder accounts for a small portion of the variance of a particular behavioural variable. Thus the identification of genes involved in polygenic disorders of this kind and, vice versa, the diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder in a person by genetic means seems to be a most difficult task. Thus clinical diagnoses up to now have to be based on clinical observations which are, of course, quite subjective. The fact that certain psychiatric disorders such as human bipolar affective disorder (BAD) have been demonstrated to be associated with particular genes such as the fsh 16 gene (U.S. Pat. No. 5,914,394) has not substantially affected this situation.
Persons who suffer from psychological disorders often differ in their movement patterns from persons without these disorders, and also among themselves due to the nature of the respective disorder. The movement patterns of persons can be registered by various means, including actigraphs. U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,686 describes a system and a method for predicting human cognitive performance based on data recorded by an actigraph. The method calculates a numerical estimate of cognitive performance for an individual as a continuous function of time. By attributing particular movement patterns to particular psychological disorders it is possible, in principle, to identify or at least make probable the existence of a particular psychological disorder or group of psychological disorders in a person. This attribution does however not have been solved in a convenient manner up to now. The present invention seeks to remedy this deficiency.

Detection of psychological disorder activity patterns


A method for image processing includes determining an application picture of a target application and an actual environment for the target application as triggered by a preview event, obtaining a background picture according to the actual environment, performing an image processing on at least one of the application picture or the background picture so that a significance of the application picture is higher than a significance of the background picture, and outputting a combination of the application picture and the background picture in a preview environment.

With the development of communication technology and value-added service, more and more mobile terminal applications have been developed, and user experience is getting better and better. A "preview" is a useful sub-application, which is used in many application programs. Through "preview," a user can see the effect of running the application before determining a final application.
Currently, the "preview" sub-application is implemented by "overlaying" a selected picture of a target application on a simulated environment, so as to provide a simulation style "similar to" a real application scenario. That is, a background picture is preset and then a picture of the target application is "overlaid" on the background picture, as shown in FIG. 1, taking a desktop clock application as an example.


A method and a communications system in which a request for data transmitted by an airborne transmitter over a low-bandwidth air-to-ground communication system uplink and received by a ground-based receiver. The requested data is then transmitted over a high-bandwidth communication system downlink, such as a DBS satellite system downlink, preferably using an MPEG-2 compression technique, and received by an airborne receiver located on the same aircraft as the airborne transmitter. The received request for data is transmitted to a data network that contains the requested data, such as the Internet or a private data network, using circuit-switched techniques. According to the invention, the requested data includes one of video information, audio information and textual information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and to a system for communicating between an airborne data terminal and a ground-based computer network.
2. Description of Related Art
The ability for passengers on a commercial airline flight to make phone calls is well-known. Initially, such airborne telephone calls utilized an analog technology that was similar to that used by an airborne radio station broadcasting a modulated voice signal over a designated frequency to a ground-based station. The ground station interfaced with a Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) to complete the call. The analog approach suffers from problems associated with signal degradation, and requires a relatively large bandwidth for carrying a voice band signal.
An all digital air-to-ground telephony network service was introduced in 1993 in which voice signals are carried by an ISDN link on an aircraft to a radio link. Modern digital transmission and speech processing techniques are used on the voice signals before an airborne radio transmitter transmits an encoded digital voice signal to the ground where the voice signal is routed to the PSTN. The digital approach delivers a clearer voice quality than the analog approach, and allows evolving speech encoding techniques to carry more simultaneous voice calls over available communication channels.
At the time the all digital air-to-ground service was introduced, the only data service envisioned was facsimile and data modem-type calls to be made to ground-based stations or terminals. To accommodate existing facsimile and data modems that might be used on an aircraft for sending facsimile documents or for retrieving e-mail messages, a voice encoder on the aircraft used for voice calls is bypassed with a proper rate adaptation so that modem signals are send over the radio link. Still, this type of connection is considered to be a circuit-switched voice call, that is, each dialup consumes one standard voice channel. As a result, the tariff for a conventional airborne data service call is the same as the tariff for a standard voice call because the procedure for setting up the two types of calls is the same, and the bandwidth that is consumed by a conventional airborne data call is the same as the bandwidth consumed by a standard voice call. Further, the types of data services that are conveniently available through conventional airborne data service calls are severely limited because of the limited bandwidth available for a conventional airborne data call. For example, conventional airborne data services do not provide a bandwidth that is sufficient for supporting, for example, access to the Internet in which graphics, audio, video, textual and multimedia content are available.
What is needed in a way to provide an integrated voice/data service to airborne passengers that can mix various data services, such as accessing the Internet or placing a voice call, and thereby utilize the limited air channels available to airborne passengers more efficiently.

High bandwidth delivery and internet access for airborne passengers


Disclosed are contrast agents of the formula ##STR1## contained in aqueous compositions and methods for their use in diagnostic radiology of the gastrointestinal tract wherein. Z=H, halo, C.sub.1 -C.sub.20 alkyl, cycloalkyl, lower alkoxy, cyano, where the alkyl and cycloalkyl groups can be substituted with halogen or halo-lower-alkyl groups; PA0 R=C.sub.1 -C.sub.25 alkyl, cycloalkyl, or halo-lower-alkyl, optionally substituted with halo, fluoro-lower-alkyl, aryl, lower-alkoxy, hydroxy, carboxy, lower-alkoxy carbonyl or lower-alkoxy-carbonyloxy, EQU (CR.sub.1 R.sub.2).sub.p -(CR.sub.3 =CR.sub.4).sub.m Q, or (CR.sub.1 R.sub.2).sub.p -C.ident.C-Q; PA0 R.sub.1, R.sub.2, R.sub.3 and R.sub.4 are independently lower-alkyl, optionally substituted with halo; PA0 x is 1-4; PA0 n is 1-5; PA0 m is 1-15; PA0 p is 1-10; and PA0 Q is H, lower-alkyl, lower-alkenyl, lower-alkynyl, lower-alkylene, aryl, or aryl-lower alkyl.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to aqueous compositions containing the contrast agents iodophenoxy alkanes, iodophenyl alkenylalkyl ethers or iodophenyl alkynylalkyl ethers and methods for their use in diagnostic radiology of the gastrointestinal tract.
2. Reported Developments
Roentgenographic examination utilizing X-rays and computed tomography (hereinafter CT) scans of fractures and other conditions associated with the skeletal system is routinely practiced without the use of contrast agents. X-ray visualization of organs containing soft tissue, such as the gastrointestinal (hereinafter GI) tract, requires the use of contrast agents which attenuate X-ray radiation. D. P. Swanson et al in "Pharmaceuticals In Medical Imaging", 1990, MacMillan Publishing Company, provides an excellent background in medical imaging utilizing contrast agents and compositions therewith.
Roentgenographic examination of the GI tract are indicated for conditions of digestive disorders, changes in bowel habit, abdominal pain, GI bleeding and the like. Prior to radiological examination, administration of a radiopaque contrast medium is necessary to permit adequate delineation of the respective lumen or mucosal surface from surrounding soft tissues. Accordingly, a contrast medium is administered orally to visualize the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, duodenum and proximal small intestine. The contrast medium is administered rectally for examination of the distal small intestine and the colon.
The most widely used contrast agent for the visualization of the GI tract is barium sulfate administered as a suspension orally or rectally as an enema. (See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos.: 2,659,690; 2,680,089; 3,216,900; 3,235,462; 4,038,379 and 4,120,946) Notwithstanding its relatively good contrast characteristics, negligible absorption from the GI tract following oral or rectal administration and speedy excretion from the body, barium sulfate has certain disadvantages. In the presence of intestinal fluids it lacks homogeneity and poorly adheres to mucus membranes which can result in poor X-ray images. In the colon, when administered as an enema, it flocculates and forms irregular clumps with fecal matter.
Iodinated organic compounds have also been used as GI contrast agents since the iodine atom is an effective X-ray absorber. They have the most versatility and are utilized in the widest variety of procedures. They are very absorptive of X-rays with which the iodine interacts and produce a so-called photoelectric effect which is a large magnification in contrast caused by the photons stopped in the iodine-containing medium. The magnification of contrast exceeds the level that would be expected from relative changes in density. Because of this magnification, relatively low concentrations of the contrast agent can be utilized. (For iodinated agents see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos.: 2,786,055; 3,795,698; 2,820,814; 3,360,436; 3,574,718, 3,733,397; 4,735,795 and 5,047,228.)
The desiderata for an ideal GI contrast agent includes: good toxicological profile; the ability to fill the entire bowel/lumen and evenly coat the gut mucosa so that the presence of the bowel is detectable when the lumen is not distended; and nonirritation to the intestinal mucosa; and passage through the GI tract without producing artifacts or stimulating vigorous intestinal peristalsis.
We have found that compounds having these and other desirable characteristics in the GI tract should preferably have the following properties for inclusion in a suitable pharmaceutically acceptable vehicle for oral or rectal administration:
a partition coefficient, i.e. the ratio of hydrophobicity to hydrophilicity of about 10 or higher;
a melting point of less than about 80.degree. C.; and
a molecular weight of at least about 200.
We have found that certain compounds hereinafter described possess these desirable properties when used in aqueous oral and rectal formulations for examination of the GI tract utilizing X-rays and CT scans.

Compositions of iodophenoxy alkanes and iodophenyl ethers for visualization of the gastrointestinal tract


A method and apparatus is provided for detecting random access memory (RAM) failure for data with a plurality of addresses. The method comprises generating a plurality of RAM test patterns in a predetermined order, implementing a RAM test pattern on each data address in an initial testing pass, based on the predetermined order of the RAM test patterns, rotating the RAM test patterns sequentially to prepare for a new testing pass, and implementing the RAM test patterns on different data addresses in the new testing pass. The apparatus comprises means for generating a plurality of RAM test patterns in a predetermined order, means for implementing a RAM test pattern on each data address in an initial testing pass, based on the predetermined order of the RAM test patterns, means for rotating the RAM test patterns sequentially to prepare for a new testing pass, and means for implementing the RAM test patterns on different data addresses in the new testing pass.

Modern automobiles and other vehicles commonly include sophisticated on-board computer systems that monitor the status and performance of various components of the vehicle (for example, the vehicle engine, transmission, brakes, suspension, and/or other components of the vehicle). Many of these computer systems may also adjust or control one or more operating parameters of the vehicle in response to operator instructions, road or weather conditions, operating status of the vehicle, and/or other factors.
Various types of microcontroller or microprocessor-based controllers found on many conventional vehicles may include supervisory control modules (SCMs), engine control modules (ECMs), controllers for various vehicle components (for example, anti-lock brakes, electronically-controlled transmissions, or other components), among other modules. Such controllers are typically implemented with any one of numerous types of microprocessors, microcontrollers, or other control devices that appropriately receive data from one or more sensors or other sources, process the data to create suitable output signals, and provide the output signals to control actuators, dashboard indicators and/or other data responders as appropriate. The various components of a vehicle-based control system typically inter-communicate with each other and/or with sensors, actuators and the like across any type of serial and/or parallel data links. Today, data processing components within a vehicle are commonly interlinked by a data communications network such as a controller area network (CAN), an example of which is described in ISO Standard 11898-1 (2003).
Because vehicles now process relatively large amounts of digital data during operation, it can be an engineering challenge to ensure that the data processed is accurate and reliable. Though unlikely, it is postulated that as digital data is stored, processed, consumed and/or shared between or within the various data processing components of a vehicle, for example, bit errors and the like can occur due, for example, to environmental factors, hardware faults, data transmission issues and other postulated causes. As a result, various techniques have been developed to ensure the integrity of data processed and transferred within the vehicle.
Nevertheless, it remains desirable to formulate systems and methods for ensuring data security within vehicle control systems, including the identification of potential linked data security errors. Other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background

Linked random access memory (RAM) interleaved pattern persistence strategy


An enhanced security method is provided for accessing information from a second computer using a password at a first computer. According to such method, a password used for accessing information is inputted to the first computer and stored on the first computer. Thereafter, the stored password is encoded using an encoding algorithm which is system specific to the first computer, and the encoded password is then transmitted to the second computer. The encoded password is used at the second computer to grant or deny access to the requested information, without the second computer having to decode the encoded password to obtain the password stored on the first computer.

The present invention relates to a computer-based security system.
Keyboard input tracking programs exist today which are capable or recording and reproducing everything that is input to a computer system via a keyboard. Initially, such programs were developed as a way of protecting data integrity and as tools for solving a variety of problems. For example, when the operation of a computer system is suddenly interrupted as a result of a glitch or a power interruption, the inputted keystrokes logged by a keyboard tracking program have been used to restored unsaved data. Another way such programs have been used is to effect repairs to a computer system through remote access, e.g., through observing the operation and input provided via a keyboard to a computer in real-time.
Unfortunately however, these programs have been utilized by hackers to gain unauthorized access to secure information. The misuse of such information has been detrimental to both businesses and individuals. Spyware is a term broadly describing programs that tend to install themselves automatically on a user computer system via online advertisements and e-mail messages. Spyware includes programs which capture a user's personal information, generate unwanted pop-up advertisements, redirect web page requests, and generally make computers sluggish. Keystroke logging, or keylogging, is a very dangerous form of spyware. Keystrokes, including credit card numbers and passwords used for online banking, can be recorded surreptitiously and used to gain unauthorized access to personal user data. It is unknown how many people have been victims of keystroke logging, but many security experts agree that it has become a big part of a growing problem of online fraud. Such fraud hinders the further growth of the Internet for providing personal and financial services to individuals and businesses.
Many businesses including financial institutions have websites that require a password and encrypted transmission to protect individual account information from becoming known. Unfortunately, the use of a password and encryption alone do not address keystroke logging. Keystroke logging continues to be a threat to such systems because it copies information while being input to a keyboard before it is encrypted for transmission. Thus, a password entered on a keyboard is subject to capture by the remote keystroke logging program, transmitted to an unauthorized person, and used by that person, despite the protections afforded by the encrypted transmission between user computer and the website.
Consequently, a system and method are needed to protect systems from the threat of illicit copying of passwords and other sensitive information, such as through keystroke logging programs.

Secure computer password system and method

International Business Machines Corporation


Landfill sites or other refuse deposits are temporarily covered by sheet material between successive filling or dumping operations. The sheet material may be left in place and more refuse deposited on top, or removed and re-used. The material is preferably woven, biodegradable and permeable, such as hessian. A number of sheets of the material may be placed together side-by-side and joined together such as by stitching, stapling or staking.

The present invention relates to a method of covering waste, refuse or other material. The invention is applicable to the handling of waste, refuse or other material which is disposed of in areas such as landfill and land raising sites, waste and refuse establishments and mineral quarries.
It is current practice to provide daily cover for landfill sites at times when they are not actually being filed e.g. overnight. The covering is provided for several reasons including the following:
(i) to reduce odors from decaying waste; PA0 (ii) to deter vermin, birds and flies; PA0 (iii) to minimize wind-blown litter; PA0 (iv) to improve the aesthetic appearance of the site. PA0 (i) a potentially valuable, non-renewable, mineral resource is wasted; PA0 (ii) the material cannot readily be recovered and occupies valuable void which could otherwise be used, for example, for depositing refuse; PA0 (iii) if the cover is impermeable it has the effect of dividing the landfill into relatively small, individual, sub-cells which makes long-term management difficult because the sub-cells will tend to behave as individuals and not en masse; and PA0 (iv) if the daily cover is impermeable it will prevent the migration of fluids, gases and/or liquids and delay final stabilization of the site.
At the moment, valuable non-renewable mineral resources are being used to provide this daily cover. Where clay is used, it is very lumpy and non-flexible making it almost impossible to lay it less than 200 mm deep to provide a reasonable cover. The next day's waste is deposited over the cover layer and thus layers of waste are separated by cover layers which can be impermeable. As a result they inhibit gases released by the decaying matter from migrating and these have to be removed in other ways.
A number of disadvantages arise from the use of minerals such as clay as daily cover, e.g.:


A head-mounted display (HMD) device is provided with reduced motion blur by reducing row duty cycle for an organic light-emitting diode (LED) panel as a function of a detected movement of a user's head. Further, a panel duty cycle of the panel is increased in concert with the decrease in the row duty cycle to maintain a constant brightness. The technique is applicable, e.g., to scenarios in which an augmented reality image is displayed in a specific location in world coordinates. A sensor such as an accelerometer or gyroscope can be used to obtain an angular velocity of a user's head. The angular velocity indicates a number of pixels subtended in a frame period according to an angular resolution of the LED panel. The duty cycles can be set, e.g., once per frame, based on the angular velocity or the number of pixels subtended in a frame period.

Head-mounted display (HMD) devices can be used in various applications, including military, aviation, medicine, video gaming, entertainment, sports, and so forth. See-through HMD devices allow the user to observe the physical world, while optical elements add light from one or more small microdisplays into the user's visual path, to provide an augmented reality image. Similarly, immersive HMD devices provide an augmented reality image while the user is closed off from the physical world.

Dual duty cycle OLED to enable dynamic control for reduced motion blur control with constant brightness in augmented reality experiences


A slew rate control circuit to control output slew rate according to a programmable reference signal. A slew rate control circuit limits the slew rate of a plurality output buffers according to a signal received from a programmable slew rate control reference.

Digital circuits on an integrated circuit (IC) generally detect the logic states of input signals and provide output signals responsive thereto. Because output signals are often used as inputs to subsequent logic devices, the output signals must have sufficient voltage and current to drive the subsequent devices. A common practice is to buffer output signals by using transistors to ensure adequate output signal strength. However, providing each output signal with its own output buffer and driver, supplied by a power supply can create noise problems when many outputs switch state at once. For example, when several output buffers switch from one binary state to another, the output buffers and drivers tend to draw significant current (even CMOS buffer and drivers tend to draw current when the buffers switch states), which in turn tends to cause, through the inductance of the package of the IC, significant noise from the switching of signals on the output conductors of the package. Moreover, the reference voltages, such as V.sub.cc and V.sub.ss, supplied on the IC tend to deviate from their normal voltage levels when many outputs switch state at once. These problems increase when the switching rate of operation for the buffers and drivers, or the number of buffers and drivers that are switching, increases; that is, when the frequency of the switching increases, more noise results and more deviations of V.sub.cc and V.sub.ss (from normal voltage levels) also results.
A solution for these problems in the prior art has involved the use of slew rate control for the output buffers. The control of slew rate allows a designer of an IC to slow the speed of an IC (when high speed is not necessary) by driving the buffers with less current. In turn, this reduces the noise generated by the IC and also tends to reduce the voltage deviations for the IC's internal reference voltages (as well as the effect on the off-chip power supply reference voltages). However, this solution is generally based on a chip designer's assumption of a worst case scenario for the number of output buffers which will be switching. This slew rate control in the prior art is independent of the number of outputs which may be switching at any one time.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an output buffer control device that provides better slew rate control for several output buffers, and allows the designer or chip user to reduce noise, power consumption, or increase speed, without sacrificing performance.

Slew rate control circuit for an integrated circuit


The invention is directed towards dielectric materials, BaTiO3, BaZrO3, and/or BaTi1-xZrxO3, such that 0≤x≤1, for detecting, sensing, filtering, reacting, or absorbing toxic chemicals, such as chemical warfare agents (“CWAs”) and their structural analogs, toxic industrial chemicals and narcotics, wherein the dielectric material is incorporated into a sensor for detecting, sensing, filtering, reacting, or absorbing the toxic chemicals.

Perovskites are materials that have physical properties including superconductivity, piezoelectricity, ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism, and magnetoresistance. The general formula of a perovskite is ABX3, wherein the A-site cations are composed of low valent, large cations. Typically, transition metals occupy the B-sites and are usually high valent, small cations. These cations are surrounded by X-site anions, which is usually oxygen. For a simple cubic perovskite structure with the space group of Pm-3m (FIG. 1) the A-site is twelve coordinate while the B-site has an octahedral environment and is six coordinate. The nomenclature for a simple cubic perovskite is ABX3 due to symmetry. One of the more commonly known simple cubic perovskites is SrTiO3.
When an external electric field is reversed, the spontaneous electrical polarization within ferroelectrics will switch in hysteresis, and yet the polarization is maintained when the field is removed. Two common conditions imperative for such ferroelectricity to occur in perovskites is (1) the B-site must be a non-dielectric d0 cation and (2) the symmetry must be a polar space group, so that the local electric dipoles do not cancel each other out. The electron counts in condition 1 are what facilitate a second order Jahn Teller ("SOJT") distortion. This structural distortion allows the mixing of the highest occupied molecular orbitals ("HOMO") with the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals ("LUMO") since the band gap is small. The mixing of the HOMO and LUMO is symmetry forbidden, but if the B-site cation displaces out of the center of the octahedron (see FIGS. 2A and 2B), mixing of these orbitals is now permitted; thus, the HOMO and LUMO become stabilized and destabilized, respectively. The symmetry is then lowered, and an asymmetric coordination environment is generated due to the small atomic displacements producing the electrical dipole moment in the crystal.
One of the well-known perovskites that exhibits ferroelectricity is barium titanate ("BaTiO3"; BTO). Its structural distortion allows for the mixing of the HOMO and LUMO, inducing an electrical polarization. Ferroelectrics are able to maintain polarization when the field is removed; hence remnant polarization (Pr) (see FIG. 3). The intra-octahedral distortion is the driving force for a variety of technologically advanced materials, such as ferroelectrics, capacitors, transducers, and non-linear optics, actuators, ferroelectric random-access memory ("FRAM"), and micro electro-mechanical systems ("MEMS").
Metal oxides are well known for detoxifying toxic chemicals, whereas metal oxides encompassing the perovskite crystal structure is not.
Agarwal et al. teaches SrTiO3 and BaTiO3 as detoxifying compound for VX and dimethyl chiorophosphite ("DMCP") in "One-Step Synthesis of Hollow Titanate (Sr/Ba) Ceramic Fibers for Detoxification of Nerve Agents" in Journal of Nanotechnology Volume 2012, Article ID 429021.
Kapoor et al. discloses mixed metal oxides used in many applications in the electronic industry as passive or active components in devices. These oxides exhibit high dielectric, and ferro- or pyroelectric properties, e.g., BaTiO3, LiNbO3, KTaO3, Pb1xLaxTiyZr2O3, etc. These MMO nanoparticles are used in anti-chemical and biological warfare, in air purification, and as an alternative to incineration of toxic substances, in "Mixed Metal Oxide Nanoparticles," Dekker Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (2004), Page 2007-2015.
Wagner et al. discloses hydrolysis of VX, GD, and HD on Al2O3, TiO2 (anatase and rutile), and titanium metal powders in "27Al, 47, 49Ti, 31P, and 13C MAS NMR Study of VX, GD, and HD Reactions with Nanosize Al2O3, Conventional Al2O3 and TiO2, and Aluminum and Titanium Metal, J. Phys. Chem. C (2007), Vol 111, pages 17564-17569.
Panayotov etal. discloses the thermal decomposition of dimethyl methylphosphonate ("DMMP"), a chemical warfare agent simulant, on high surface area TiO2 nanoparticles (Degussa P25) in "Thermal Decomposition of a Chemical Warfare Agent Stimulant (DMMP) on TiO2: Adsorbate Reactions with Lattice Oxygen as Studied by Infrared Spectroscopy," J. Phys. Chem. C, 2009, Vol. 133, Issue 35, pages 14684-15691.
Park et al. discloses decomposition of CNCI in a BaTiO3-filled Packed Bed Plasma Reactor in "Decomposition of Cyanogen Chloride by Using a Packed Bed Plasma Reactor at Dry and Wet Air in Atmospheric Pressure," Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing (2004), Vol. 24, Issue 1, pages 117-136.
WO2008058518 to Eickhoff et al. teaches a substrate having a hydrogen or to use hydrogenated surfaces as warfare agent detection devices.
WO200688477 to Rothschild et al. teaches using SrTiO3, BaTiO3, and CaTiO3 substrates for sensing CWAs in gas.
WO200442366 to Houser et al. teaches barium titanate or zirconium titanate as piezoelectric sensors, useful for detecting toxic compounds.
JP2011078902 to Hirakawa et al. teaches decontamination agents such as SrTiO3 and BaTiO3. However, SrTiO3 and BaTiO3 have low decontamination rate for some chemicals such as 2-Chloroethyl ethyl sulfide ("2-CEES").
Therefore, there remains a need for other perovskites to detoxify these chemical warfare agents.

Dielectric materials for sensing and detection of toxic chemicals

The United States of America as Represented by the Secretary of the Army


The present invention provides methods for improving the residual control of mites and prolonging the protection of plants from mite infestations by applying to the foliage of plants an unsymmetrical 4,6-bis(aryloxy)pyrimidine compound of formula I ##STR1##

Mites cause tremendous economic losses in horticultural plants and agricultural crops. In particular, mites devastate citrus and pome fruit by feeding on leaves and ripening fruit.
To control mite infestations, plants are treated several times during the growing season with commercial miticides. In spite of multiple applications of the commercial miticides available today, damage to plants caused by mite infestations still occurs. Accordingly, there is ongoing research to discover new and more effective miticidal agents which do not require multiple applications to protect plants from mite infestations.
Certain pyrimidine compounds which are useful as miticidal agents are described in WO 94/02470. However, that publication does not disclose any residual miticidal activity.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a method for improving the residual control of mites.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a method for prolonging the protection of plants from mite infestations.
Those and other objects of the present invention will become more apparent from the detailed description thereof set forth below.

Methods for improving the residual control of mites and prolonging the protection of plants from mites infestations


Thermoplastic elastomers may be manufactured by mixing together plasticizing oil, a triblock copolymer and one or more additives, e.g., an antioxidant, an antimicrobial agent, and/or other additives, to form a mixture which is melted then cooled into the thermoplastic elastomer. During cooling the thermoplastic elastomer may be molded or otherwise formed into any number of articles including, but not limited to, prosthetic liners, prosthetic sleeves, external breast prostheses, breast enhancement bladders, wound dressing sheets, wound dressing pads, socks, gloves, malleolus pads, metatarsal pads, shoe insoles, urinary catheters, vascular catheters and balloons for medical catheters both vascular as well as urinary.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a thermoplastic elastomer having improved surface characteristics for skin contact applications, pressure ulcers and wound management.
2. Background of the Invention
U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,664 discloses a gel composition that includes water, mineral oil and two polyoxyethylene-polyoxybutylene block copolymers designated copolymer A and copolymer B. The block copolymers are cogeneric mixtures of conjugated polyoxybutylene-polyoxyethylene compounds containing in their structure oxybutylene groups, oxyethylene groups and an organic radical derived from a water-soluble organic compound containing a plurality of reactive hydrogen atoms and 2 to 12 carbon atoms.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,369,284 discloses a gelatinous composition that contains an intimate melt blend admixture of poly(styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene) triblock copolymer having a styrene end block to ethylene and butylene center block ratio within the range of 31:69 to 40:60, and high levels of a plasticizing oil. The gelatinous composition is transparent and has a combination of properties including high elongation and tensile strength and shape retention after deformation under velocity impact and stress conditions. The gelatinous products of this invention are soft, flexible, and have elastic memory, characterized by a gel rigidity of from about 20 gram to about 700 gram Bloom.
Products made from these gelatinous compositions tend to rupture and crumble when under shearing stress conditions. Moreover, these prior methods and products do not have certain surface characteristics of elastomers which are beneficial in a variety of applications. More particularly, if used in applications where the composition is in prolonged contact with human skin, the friction produced by such products, coupled with a lack of sufficient lubrication, can produce patient discomfort.
What is needed is an improved method of making an elastomer composition where the surface characteristics of the elastomer are beneficial in skin contact applications. Specifically, the needed elastomer composition would provide enhanced patient comfort and satisfaction when used in applications that include prolonged skin contact.

Surface modification of triblock copolymer elastomers


The invention includes a composition for stabilizing chlorinated water to sunlight decomposition, and methods of preparing compositions. The composition is a slurry composition of a monoalkali metal cyanurate, of low viscosity. Two methods of preparing the slurry are described, in which cyanuric acid or cyanuric acid wetcake is mixed with a monoalkali metal base. One method dry blends cyanuric acid or cyanuric acid wetcake with a monoalkali metal base. The invention also describes a method of preparing a dry, solid monoalkali metal cyanurate.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to compositions, and the methods of preparing the compositions, for stabilizing chlorinated water to sunlight decomposition. In particular, the invention includes a monoalkali metal cyanurate slurry and methods for preparing the slurry and a dry solid.
2. Description of the Related Art
For disinfection and biocontrol, chlorine is introduced to many different bodies of water that are exposed to direct sunlight. Examples include outdoor swimming pools, cooling towers, ornamental fountains and wastewater lagoons. There are a variety of ways of chlorinating these waters: sparging with gaseous Cl2; using a chemical delivery pump for liquid sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) solutions; via erosion feeder for solid, tableted chlorine-donating chemicals such as Ca(OCl)2 and trichlorotriazinetrione; by hand-broadcasting fast-dissolving solid chlorine donating chemicals such as sodium dichlorotriazinetrione and LiOCl; and by electrolytic oxidation of Cl− ion from NaCl introduced to the water system.
It is well known that, regardless of the way that water is chlorinated, if the water is exposed to strong sunlight the chlorine will quickly disappear because of ultra violet (UV) light-induced photolytic degradation. The half-life of chlorine under such conditions has been estimated to be less than 45 minutes. In the late 1950s, it was discovered that the stability of chlorine to UV degradation could be significantly improved if cyanuric acid was introduced to the water. Cyanuric acid has never been surpassed as a chlorine stabilizer, and today it is still being introduced into chlorinated water for UV stabilization.
Typically, outdoor swimming pools and ornamental fountains are treated with solid or granular forms of cyanuric acid, usually sold in 1 lb. pouches, which the user is instructed to add in the deep end of the pool when the pool is being re-opened for the summer season or being filled with water for the first time. Between 25 and 80 ppm of cyanuric acid in the pool water provides effective UV stabilization properties. Unfortunately, the low solubility of cyanuric acid coupled with the low surface area of the granules means that the cyanuric acid may take several days to dissolve. Lower water temperatures, which may occur when pools are filled for the first time, prolong this dissolution time even further.
The extended time that it takes for cyanuric acid to dissolve in pool water causes several problems. First, the localized high acid condition in the vicinity of the undissolved cyanuric acid can etch or discolor the plaster of newly constructed gunite pools and can cause wrinkling and discoloration of the vinyl of vinyl-lined pools. Second, the pool remains unstabilized to UV decomposition until all the cyanuric acid has dissolved, and biological control is difficult due to the rapid UV degradation of the disinfectant. Third, the aesthetic appearance of the pool is compromised for several days due to piles of undissolved cyanuric acid lying at the bottom of the pool or ornamental water feature. Fourth, the pool owner is unable to operate the pool vacuum during this time because the cyanuric acid would be sucked from the floor of the pool into the filter. The resultant localized low pH condition in the filter and associated equipment would damage or impair the filtration systems and piping.
It has been suggested that the use of monosodium cyanurate will overcome these problems because it has about twice the solubility of cyanuric acid and would be expected to dissolve faster. Compared to cyanuric acid, monosodium cyanurate has a neutral pH and thus does not damage vinyl liners nor etch or discolor the concrete of gunite pools or water features.
The existing methods of producing monosodium cyanurate and the existing products, however, have several disadvantages. In the first place, monosodium cyanurate is not commercially available, probably due to a high cost of production. Production of solid, dry monosodium cyanurate requires the addition of NaOH to a slurry of cyanuric acid, followed by solid-liquid separation, drying, granulation, and screening. U.S. Pat. No. 4,432,959 describes an alternative process for producing the powder form of monosodium cyanurate by mixing solid isocyanuric acid with solid sodium carbonate or bicarbonate in the presence of sufficient water to hydrate the raw material at room temperature. Upon increasing the temperature to 60-100° C., water is liberated from the hydrated raw materials to form the solid monohydrate of monosodium cyanurate. The solid was said to be useful as an active chlorine stabilizer in pool water; however, the method is inefficient in producing large volumes and is still very costly.
Another method of overcoming these high production costs was discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,207,177 to Jany. This patent discloses a stable, gel-like 20-40% w/w slurry of monosodium cyanurate monohydrate in water, having a viscosity of 50,000-500,000 mPa s and a pH of 6.5 to 8.5. The method of making the gel involved adding 50% sodium hydroxide solution to a 20-50% slurry of cyanuric acid in water. No solid-liquid separation step was involved. The gel-like properties of the slurry were attributed to the monosodium cyanurate monohydrate crystals having a needle-like appearance with length to diameter ratios between about 5:1 and 20:1. The crystals were described as having formed a tangled mass that held a significant amount of free moisture and gave the gel the appearance of soft-serve ice cream. The slurry was reported to have very fast dissolution in water, making it useful to treat swimming pools, spas, hot tubs, cooling towers, artificial ponds, lagoons, decorative fountains, and other bodies of chlorinated water exposed to direct sunlight. The '177 patent also reports that the gel-like slurry had a tendency to dewater over time as the solids settled to the bottom of the container and that it was possible to decant this liquid layer. In addition, the '177 patent also discloses a potassium cyanurate slurry that did not have the same gel-like properties as the sodium cyanurate slurry and in which the solids separated rapidly.
Although the use of a slurry of monosodium cyanurate would appear to solve the problem of the high cost of production of solid monosodium cyanurate, it results in other problems. The present inventors replicated Example 2 of the '177 patent and produced a gel-like slurry exactly as described therein. It was found, however, that both the freshly-prepared and water-decanted slurries were so thick and viscous that they were of no practical value. In the first place, the slurry was so thick and viscous that it could not be easily pumped out of a reaction vessel into a container. Second, even if the slurry could be put into a container, the end-user would not be able to pour it out of its container into the pool; the user would have to scrape the slurry out with a separate tool or device. Moreover, because the slurries are so heavy and massive, they would immediately sink to the bottom of the pool and remain in an undissolved clump.
The viscosity problems of slurries of monosodium cyanurate monohydrate are evidenced by a product called Instant Pool Water Conditioner by Natural Chemistry of Norwalk, Conn. The product, stated to be a 36% slurry of monosodium cyanurate monohydrate in water, is reported to be instantly dissolving, having a pH of 8, and is asserted to be less damaging to pool surfaces than cyanuric acid. A one-gallon (3.8 liter) sample of this material was purchased from a local pool store. Upon opening the bottle, a volume of approximately two liters of clear water was decanted into a beaker, leaving behind a thick mass of settled solids. Vigorous shaking with additional water managed to dislodge the topmost portion of the compact mass from the container. After about 10 minutes of shaking, it was observed that the remainder was compacted into a solid, hard mass about the size of a fist. This mass could not be removed from the container.
Thus, there is clearly a need for a monosodium cyanurate formulation and method of manufacture that do not suffer from the above-mentioned problems. An ideal slurry product should: (1) be pourable into and out of its container; (2) not settle or compact to a hard mass at the bottom of the container; (3) not readily dewater (separate) in the container; (4) dispense and dissolve readily in the water to which it is added; and (5) be inexpensive and easy to manufacture. The methods and composition of the invention address these needs.

Compositions for stabilizing chlorinated water to sunlight decomposition, and methods of preparation thereof


A printing unit for a web-fed rotary printing press comprises a housing defining a first side wall in which a drive mechanism is mounted and a second side wall in which a locking mechanism is mounted. A blanket cylinder including a plurality of holes extending axially therethrough, and being releasably mounted between the first and second side walls includes an endless tubular printing blanket mounted around an external surface thereof. A first end-cap affixed to a first end portion of the blanket cylinder is drivingly coupleable to the drive mechanism so that torque generated by the drive mechanism is transmitted via the first end-cap to the blanket cylinder to rotate the blanket cylinder about the axis. A second end-cap is selectively coupleable to the locking mechanism so that, when the locking mechanism is in a locking configuration, the blanket cylinder is constrained to rotate about the axis and, when the locking mechanism is in a second release position, the second end portion of the blanket cylinder is free from constraint and the blanket cylinder may be removed from the housing.

In the field of printing presses, in particular in the field of web-fed rotary printing presses, it is desired to reduce press downtime which occurs, for example, when exchanging the printing blanket on the blanket cylinders of the press. Over time, the printing operation results in deterioration of the printing blankets causing a corresponding decrease in the quality of the printed image. Of course, when the quality of the printed image has deteriorated beyond an acceptable level, the blankets must be replaced. In addition, printing blankets may be damaged by objects passing through any of the nips between, for example, the blanket cylinder and the plate cylinder or between two associated blanket cylinders in a perfecting unit for printing on both sides of a running web. Furthermore, after a web break, one end of the torn web may become wrapped around a blanket cylinder forming a hardened layer of ink and paper. Thus, the printing blankets must be removed so that the hardened layer of ink and paper may be mechanically removed afterwards.
More recently, high speed web-fed rotary printing presses have used blanket cylinders carrying removable tubular endless printing blankets. These gapless blanket cylinders have improved printing quality at high speeds by reducing vibrations and impact forces resulting from the asymmetrical construction of conventional grooved cylinders which excite the bending forces on the cylinders.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,949,852 describes an undriven light-weight printing roll for a printing press having a tubular body of extruded aluminum. End caps having cone-shaped recesses for receiving cone-shaped shaft end members are formed at the ends of the tubular body. The shaft is rigidly attached to the printing roll which is rotatably supported by side walls of a housing of the printing press.
DE 44 42 575 C1 purports to describe a mechanism for coupling a removable solid cylinder of a printing press to a drive gear, wherein the drive gear remains in the housing of the printing press after the removal of the cylinder. A shaft which is axially movable by means of a pneumatic cylinder coupled to one end thereof extends through the center of the drive gear to rotatably couple the solid cylinder to the drive gear. The other end of the shaft acts upon a toothed collar drivingly connected to the drive gear which, in turn, engages a second toothed collar formed at an adjoining end portion of the solid cylinder.

Printing unit for a web-fed rotary printing press


The invention relates to a road-milling machine or machine for working deposits, such as deposits of coal, ores, minerals, etc. by surface mining. The machine according to the invention has an arrangement 14 for detecting the path followed by a milled edge 13 of a milled strip, with the arrangement for detecting the path followed by the milled edge having means 14 for measuring the distance between at least one reference point I on the machine and the milled edge. The means 14 for detecting the path followed by the milled edge co-operate with the arrangement 6 for steering the track-laying units 3A, 3B in such a way that the machine follows the path followed by the milled edge. The distance between the at least one reference point on the machine and the milled edge can be set in such a way that milled strips situated alongside one another are exactly aligned relative to one another.

There are various kinds of self-propelled machines for milling which are known. These machines include, in particular, road-milling machines, which can be used to remove existing layers of the surfacing structure of roads, and machines for working deposits by surface mining.
Road-milling machines have a milling arrangement which has a mechanically or hydraulically driven milling drum. The machines for working deposits by surface mining, which are referred to as surface miners, also have a milling arrangement having a milling drum, which is also referred to as a cutting drum in the case of a surface miner. The milling drums of road-milling machines and surface miners are fitted with tool holders to receive the milling tools.
The milling drums of road-milling machines or machines for working deposits are of a preset working width which corresponds to the width of the milling drum. When the machine is being used, the problem arises that the surfaces on which work is to be done are of a size whose width is a multiple of the working width of the machine. For work to be done on the entire surface, it is then necessary for a plurality of strips situated alongside one another to be milled. This calls for the machine to be accurately guided, because the individual milled strips have to be exactly aligned relative to one another. On the one hand the milled strips should extend alongside one another so close together that an unworked area is not left between the strips, but on the other hand the milled strips should not overlap, which would mean that productivity would be reduced. What is aimed for in practice is only a very small overlap, in order to ensure that, while productivity is high, work is done on the whole of the surface.
In the case of the known road-milling machines and machines for working deposits, what is done to work on a surface in a plurality of successive milled strips is that the driver of the machine strikes a visual balance between the dimensions of the machine and the surface to be worked on. Making this balance is a great strain on the driver and is tiring because, as well as the other jobs he has to do such as coordinating the unloading of the material picked up and doing the levelling, he also has to steer the machine exactly over the entire distance over which milling takes place. The driver is always faced with a conflict in this case, in that drifting into the strip milled previously will reduce efficiency but drifting in the opposite direction will result in work not being done on the whole of the surface. In the case of a milling machine which has an edge guard, there is also a risk of the machine being seriously damaged if the edge guard is pulled off.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,041,623 describes a track-laying road-milling machine which has provision for automatic presetting of the direction of travel. However, this presupposes that there is a tensioned cord which is fastened to posts which are arranged at a distance from one another along the desired strip to be milled. The arrangement for controlling the steering arrangement has a sensing arrangement having a sensing member which slides along the tensioned cord. The steering arrangement for steering the track-laying units is controlled in such a way that the machine follows the path of the cord exactly. It is true that the known road-milling machine allows the direction of travel to be controlled exactly but the need to have to tension a cord along the desired strip to be milled is found to be a disadvantage.
The object underlying the invention is to provide a road-milling machine or machine for working deposits which enables work to be done efficiently even on wide surfaces.
This object is achieved in accordance with the invention by virtue of the features of claim 1 the independent claims. Advantageous embodiments form the subject matter of the dependent claims.

Road-milling machine or machine for working deposits


New metallocene compounds (II) and their synthetic intermediates (I) used for olefin polymerization catalysts represented by the general formulas (I) and (II) ##STR1## (wherein X can be identical or different and is each independently of one another a halogen atom, M.sup.1 is a group IV transition metal atom, A is a nitrogen or phosphorus atoms, R.sup.1 is an aryl group, R.sup.2 is a saturated hydrocarbon group having 1-10 carbon atoms, whereby each of R.sup.2 can bind one another to constitute a ring containing A and M.sup.1, L.sup.1 and L.sup.2 can be each other identical or different and are a substituted cyclopentadienyl, indenyl, substituted indenyl or substituted fluorenyl groups, B is a hydrocarbon having 1-20 carbon atoms, silylene having 1-20 carbon atoms, oligosilylene or germylene groups, binding to L.sup.1 and L.sup.2, and M.sup.1 can be also coordinated with an ether or an amine at any coordination number.).

The invention relates to new metallocene compounds having the racemic structure, which are useful as olefin polymerization catalyst, and their synthetic intermediates.
Metallocene compounds, in which a cyclopentadienyl, indenyl or fluorenyl groups, or derivatives thereof are made ligands, are useful as polymerization catalysts for olefins such as ethylene, propylene or the like under the coexistence of a cocatalyst, for example, aluminoxane. For the preparation for a stereoregular polyolefin have been examined metallocene compounds having various kinds of stereostructures. For a syndiotactic polyolefin preparation is effective ametallocene compound having the Cs symmetry (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 110, 6255 (1988), whereas it is reported that for an isotactic polyolefin preparation is effective a metallocene compound having the racemic structure (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., 24, 507 (1985); J. Am. Chem. Soc., 109, 6544 (1987); Chem. Rev., 92, 965 (1992); Organometallics, 13, 954 (1994); Organometallics, 13, 964 (1994)).
Conventionally, the synthesis of a metallocene compound having a racemic structure has been carried out by reacting the dianion produced by the deprotonation of the ligand and metal tetrachloride or its tetrahydrofuran adduct (Scheme 1). ##STR2##
However, since this method gives tarry substances as byproducts, the procedure to separate the aimed metallocene compound having the racemic structure is very tedious (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., 24, 507 (1985); J. Organomet. Chem., 288, 63 (1985); Japan Chemical Society ed. Organometallic complex (4th ed. Experimental chemistry series No. 18), Maruzen (1991) p. 81 (in Japanese)), and in many cases a metallocene compound having the meso structure is produced as a byproduct in the nearly same amount as that having the racemic structure, whereby there is such a problem that the separation of the aimed racemic metallocene compound is tedious. Generally, since metallocene compounds having the meso structure decrease the efficiency as a stereoregular polymerization catalyst, they are removed by a combination of purifying operations such as column chromatographic, washing or recrystallizing methods (J. Organomet. Chem., 232, 233 (1982); J. Organomet. Chem., 369, 359 (1989); Chem. Lett., 1853 (1989), Organometallics, 10, 1501 (1991); J. Organomet. Chem., 415, 75 (1991); Organometallics, 13 954 (1994); J. Organomet. Chem., 497, 43 (1995).
Thus, the conventional synthetic methods give a considerable amount of meso metallocene compounds as byproducts, therefore, the yields of racemic metallocene compounds are low, and due to the fact that the procedure in the purification step is tedious, the cost of the synthesis is high, and it is difficult to carry out in an industrial scale.
As a trial for solving such problems is reported the method that after the reaction only the metallocene compounds having the racemic structure are crystallized by appropriately selecting the reaction solvent used(JP, A, 6-122692; U.S. Pat. No. 5,391,790; U.S. Pat. No. 5,616,747). However, in this method the metallocene compound having meso structure is still produced in a nearly half amount, therefore, it can hardly be said that this is an efficient synthetic method.
Further, although the methods by which the metallocene compounds having the meso structure are converted to the metallocene compounds having the racemic structure are studied (J. Organomet. Chem., 342, 21 (1988); Organometallics, 11, 1869 (1992)), pure racemic metallocene compounds cannot be obtained, and furthermore, the decomposition of the metallocene compounds occurs.
On the other hand, the method to selectively synthesize the metallocene compounds having the racemic structure is also reported. In the methods using a ligand in which a bulky substituent is introduced to a cyclopentadienyl skeleton and a ligand having a binaphtyl skeleton in a bridging part, they give low yields and are impractical (Organometallics, 10, 2349 (1991); Organometallics, 10, 2998 (1991)). The method to carry out the reaction at the low reaction temperature of -78.degree. C. is also proposed (JP, A, 1-197490; U.S. Pat. No. 5,103,030), but the yield expected is not obtained. Further, in the synthetic examples of metallocene compounds having the pseudo-racemic structure are used a ligand having the special structure in which 2-position of a indenyl group is bridged by a biaryl group, and the method is practically poor (Organometallics, 12, 2879 (1993); Organometallics, 12, 4391 (1993)). Also, a method employing (CH.sub.3).sub.2 ZrCl.sub.2 has been studied, but the selectivity of the racemic structure amounts at most around 75% in this method. Moreover this might cause trouble in that the reaction tends to take place to predominantly form a meso-type depending on the structure of the ligand (J. Organomet. Chem., 535, 29 (1997)).
On the contrary are reported the methods to obtain the metallocene compounds having the racemic structure in high yields by reacting Zr(NMe.sub.2).sub.4 with a ligand (WO 95/32979; U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,035; Organometallics, 14, 5 (1995); J. Am. Chem. Soc., 118, 8024 (1996)). However, these methods require such a long time as 3-24 hours at the reaction temperature of 80.degree.-160.degree. C., usually 100.degree. C. In the reaction condition, in which heating is required for long time like this, the polymerization or the decomposition of a ligand , which is unstable for heat, occur and it makes the yield low. Additionally, due to the fact that dimethylamine, the starting material of Zr(NMe.sub.2).sub.4, is a gas (b.p. 7.degree. C.) at room temperature, a special reaction equipment corresponding to the gas reaction to prepare Zr(NMe.sub.2).sub.4 is necessary. Further, on the treatment there are various kinds of difficulties such that Zr(NMe.sub.2).sub.4 is very unstable in the presence of air.


Computers are linked together to form a network. Messages are sent over the links between the computers in compressed, segmented form, the size of the segments being appropriate to the transmission characteristics of the link. A message previously received or transmitted by a computer is stored in compressed and segmented form. If it is desired to forward or re-transmit this message, the segment size of the stored form is compared against the optimum segment size for the link over which the message is to be sent. If there is a close match, then the stored segmented, compressed message is retrieved for direct transmittal, without having to resegment or recompress the message.

It is becoming increasingly common for individual computer systems to be linked together into networks to allow information to be communicated between them. There are several main types of network including an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), which is based on telephone lines, and local area networks (LANs). Before data is transmitted over the network from one computer to another, the data ususally first undergoes some form of compression to reduce the volume to be sent, and is then formatted into one or more segments (often known as packets). Each segment typically contains, in addition to the basic data to be transmitted, address information, error checking (eg parity or CRC checks), flag fields identifying the start and end of the message, and so on. When a segment is received by a computer, the flag fields, check bytes, and so on are stripped out. The segments are then re-assembled and decompressed in order to recover the original data.
The extra information and processing associated with a segment means that there is a certain fixed overhead per segment, independent of segment size, so that it is most efficient to use as large a segment size as possible to transmit a given message. However, each segment is downloaded whole onto the network and during this time, known as latency, no other messages can be inserted onto the link, even if they have a higher priority than the message being downloaded. Thus latency effectively represents the period when the terminal is unavailable to send other messages, and so it is desirable to restrict segment size to prevent too long a latency. Since for a link of a given bandwidth the latency increases with segment size in line with the time taken to download the message, the optimum segment size is a compromise between avoiding the overheads associated with many small segments whilst minimising latency. As a result, higher bandwidth networks have larger optimum segment sizes.
If a computer decides to forward the data in a message to another computer in the network, all the compression, segmentation, addressing and so on must be repeated before the data can be re-transmitted over the network. In the past, such repetition of the compression and segmentation has not been a noticeable problem, primarily because most communications have been point-to-point (ie between two directly connected nodes) with no need to forward messages, or else the amount of forwarding has been relatively small (eg hub-satellite type networks have been used).
However, multimedia applications using modern networks, for example, collaborative processing or video conferencing, require many workstations to be connected together in a peer-to-peer arrangement. These involve the large-scale forwarding of messages between network nodes across high-bandwidth links. Two-way (or multi-way) real-time exchanges are common in such applications and it is essential to minimise transmission delay between the nodes in order to permit a natural and spontaneous interaction between the participants.

Method and apparatus for optimizing message transmission

International Business Machines Corporation


A consumer system is registered on a producer system, which can be accomplished by submitting one or more registration values. The producer system checks each application according to acceptable registration values for each application. A set of applications that are available is generated according to which applications have permissions associated with the submitted registration values. The set is then presented to the consumer system, which can utilize applications on the set.

Conventionally, web portals, which provide access to a variety of applications and content through a single location, have become an increasingly popular means for delivering applications and information. Whereas previously, web portals were used to deliver a relatively limited amount of functionality, they have become an increasingly popular means for delivering functional applications to local and global communities.
While many custom applications have been developed for use with web portals, an ongoing concern has been the need to develop an applications infrastructure for supporting more complex applications. Various mechanisms have been proposed to address this issue. The Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) standard from the Oasis Group establishes a framework whereby applications can be presented on a page without the need for a support apparatus for the application on the server delivering the page.
However, conventional implementations of WSRP are limited in their ability to perform authentication or otherwise control access to portlets. For example, current approaches allow a system to require registration before utilizing its applications, but lack means for controlling access on a per-application basis.
What is needed is an improved system of controlling access to applications that can be utilized remotely.

Entitlement designation in web services for remote portlets environment


A light modulating apparatus includes a semiconductor device having a quantum well structure and a device for applying an electric field to the quantum well structure of the semiconductor device. Both of pump and probe light beams or a pump and probe light beam is input into the semiconductor device. The pump light beam or pump and probe light beam received by the semiconductor device causes a real charge excitation in the quantum well structure, and the real charge excitation screens the electric field applied to the quantum well structure. The polarization state of the probe light beam or pump and probe light beam emerging from the semiconductor device is changed by an electrooptical effect in the quantum well structure induced by the real charge excitation. A polarizer may be disposed for converting a change in polarization state of the light emerging from the semiconductor device into a change in intensity of the light.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an all-optical light modulating apparatus such as optical modulators and optical switches and a process for modulating light capable of speedily modulating light by an all-optical means, which are suitable to be used in optical communication systems and the like.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, several methods of converting information contained in a shorter wavelength (e.g., 800 nm) light beam to that contained in a light beam of a longer wavelength (e.g., 1.55 .mu.m) have been proposed. One is to let the shorter wavelength light be detected by a photodetector which is in turn connected to an electronic control circuit. The circuit modulates a longer wavelength laser electrically by either a means of direct current modulation or an external electrooptic modulator utilizing phase shift or electro-absorption. In the former, the longer wavelength laser is directly oscillated by modulating a driving current thereof. In the latter, the longer wavelength laser is continuously oscillated by a constant driving current, and the thus oscillated light beam is modulated by the external modulator using an electrooptic crystal or the like.
In such a structure, even though the photodetector, the control logic, the modulator and/or laser can be fully integrated on a single substrate, there are some obstacles for doing so. One is that lasers or modulators working at 1.55 .mu.m are based on other material systems (i.e., InGaAs, InSb and the like) than those working at 800 nm (i.e., AlGaAs and the like), so that the former devices are not completely problem-free to integrate with the 800 nm components which are based on the AlGaAs material systems. Working with lasers or modulators in the 1.55 .mu.m material systems implies a problem of high absorption due to the closeness of band gaps of those materials. Further, material incompatibility (lattice mismatch) implies manufacturing obstacles and a degradation of the crystal structure which in turn result in unnecessary scattering of the light subject to modulation.
When using a directly modulated 1.55 .mu.m laser, the modulation speed is most certainly limited by chirp or other unwanted transient effects of directly modulated lasers.
In the case of operating a 1.55 .mu.m CW (continuous wave) laser and employing an external modulator, the modulation speed is limited by the RC time constant of the modulating device, as in the case of direct laser modulation.
This is in fact a problem that one always has to cope with when considering the electrooptic alternative for controlling a 1.55 .mu.m beam by a 800 nm beam.
Conventional all-optical and semi-optical alternatives lack this drawback. Those previous optical modulators, however, have not been dealing with the control of a beam of a wavelength considerably different from that of the controlling beam, but rather signal beams of the same wavelength range. One example is the SEED (SElf Electrooptic Device) which is based on the voltage drop induced by a photo-current flowing through an external resistance serially connected with the device. The flow of photo-current is caused by a light beam incident on the device. The voltage drop in turn changes the inclination of a band energy structure of the device to shift its absorption edge, so that another light beam or the incident light beam itself can be intensity-modulated. However, a 1.55 .mu.m beam cannot be intensity-modulated by a 800 nm beam using the SEED device. In conclusion, even though it is possible to utilize the change in the voltage to induce a refractive index change, there are severe problems of large RC time constants because of the use of external resistor circuits.
Further, there exists, as a scheme that allows an intensity modulation, a device in which the index grating is optically induced to in turn deflect a beam subject to modulation. In this case, in order to obtain a large on/off contrast ratio, the diffraction efficiency of the grating must be of a considerable magnitude. In order to achieve this, either light beams having large intensities or ferroelectric materials having a large electrooptic coefficient, should be used. However, the use of available ferroelectric materials implies a very slow response of the order of a second or slower, which, of course, is completely undesirable in optical communication systems.
Furthermore, there exists a device utilizing a photorefractive effect (PR effect). The PR effect signifies the following phenomenon. When an electron located in a given impurity level is optically excited and moved to a conduction band, the electron is diffused and drifted in the conduction band and then captured in a capture level. A spatial charge electric field generated by the captured electron results in a nonleinear change in refractive index due to an electrooptic effect (i.e., a Pockels effect). The impurity level is generally called a deep level having an energy gap sufficiently larger than that of thermal energy (26 meV) at a room temperature, in contrast to a donor or acceptor level serving as a shallow level. The capture level is generally an ionization level of the impurity level.
By using photorefractive semiconductors, the response time becomes considerably faster, but unfortunately, the grating efficiency will be much lower resulting in a low-contrast all-optical device. Another drawback of the index grating-based devices using the photorefractive index crystal is that they require two coherent beams to write the grating therein. Since the information-bearing light at 800 nm is most oftenly confined in integrated waveguides, it is troublesome to interface devices containing those waveguides with the two-beam index grating device.
Recently, a new photorefractive effect which does not require a grating to be written by two coherent beams has been discovered. A change in the refractive index of a graded-gap quantum well structure (the structure in which the band gap changes along a direction of the barrier layer) is induced by the carrier generation due to an optical field. The carriers migrate due to an internal electric field caused by the graded gap to finally be trapped in quantum wells. Also the corresponding holes are subject to this process, but at a slower rate, so that there will be a spatial charge separation between electrons and holes resulting in a transient space-charge electric field. As a result, the refractive index is changed via the electrooptic effect. In this connection, see "Ralph et. al., Physical Review Letters, vol. 63, pp. 2272-2275 (1989)". In such a device, although the disadvantage of relying on two beams to induce an index change which could be probed by a beam subject to modulation has been eliminated, there is still a major disadvatage left, namely, a slow response time resulting from the limited migration from the location of excitation to the wells where the carriers are trapped. The response time is thus dependent both on this fact and the recombination time in the wells.

All-optical light modulating apparatus and all-optical process for modulating light


The invention relates to a computer-implemented method for dynamically and horizontally partitioning a table of a relational database, wherein the table comprises records, wherein the records are mapped to a plurality of states, wherein the table is horizontally partitioned into a plurality of partitions, and wherein the plurality of states is mapped to the plurality of partitions. The method comprises the steps of changing the assignment of a first record from a first state to a second state, wherein the first state is mapped to a first partition, wherein the second state is mapped to a second partition, wherein the first partition is not the second partition, and storing the first record in the second partition. The invention further relates to a computer system implementing the abovementioned method for dynamically and horizontally partitioning a table of a relational database.

The present invention relates to a computer-implemented method for dynamically and horizontally partitioning a table of a relational database.
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Relational database systems have been the backbone of business applications for more than 20 years. They promised to provide companies with a management information system covering the core applications, including financials, sales, order fulfillment, manufacturing, and human resources, which run from planning, through business processes, to individually defined analytics. However, this goal has not been achieved. The more complex business requirements became, the more the focus was put on the so-called transactional processing part and designed the database structures accordingly. These systems are called OLTP systems (Online Transactional Processing). Analytical and financial planning applications were increasingly moved out to separate systems for more flexibility and better performance. These systems are called OLAP systems (Online Analytical Processing). In reality, parts of the planning process were even moved off to specialized applications mainly around spreadsheets.
Both systems, OLTP and OLAP, are based on the relational theory but with different technical approaches [W. H. Inmon. Building the Data Warehouse, 3rd Edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, N.Y., USA, 2002]. For OLTP systems, tuples are arranged in rows which are stored in blocks. The blocks reside on disk and are cached in main memory in the database server. Sophisticated indexing allows fast access to single tuples, however accesses get increasingly slower as the number of requested tuples increases. For OLAP systems on the other hand, data are often organized in star schemas, where a popular optimization is to compress attributes (columns) with the help of dictionaries. After the conversion of attributes into integers, processing becomes faster. More recently, the use of column store databases for analytics has become quite popular. Dictionary compression on the database level and reading only the columns necessary to process a query speed up query processing significantly in the column store case.
The introduction of so-called data warehouses must be considered to be a compromise. The flexibility and speed gained had to be paid for with additional management of the extraction and loading of data, and controlling of the redundancy. For many years, the discussion seemed to be closed and enterprise data was split into OLTP and OLAP [C. D. French. "One Size Fits All" Database Architectures Do Not Work for DDS. In Proceedings of the 1995 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data, San Jose, Calif., May 22-25, 1995 [1], pages 449-450]. The OLTP is the necessary prerequisite for the OLAP. However only with the OLAP can companies understand their business and come to conclusions about how to steer and change course. When planned data and actual data are matched, business becomes transparent and decisions can be made. While centralized warehouses also handle the integration of data from many sources, it is still desirable to have OLTP and OLAP capabilities in one system which could make both components more valuable to their users.
The last 20 years, Moore's law enabled the enterprise system to grow both in functionality and volume [G. E. Moore. Cramming More Components Onto Integrated Circuits. Electronics, 38(8), 1965]. When the processor speed hit the 3 GHz level (2003) and further progress seemed to be distant, two developments helped out: unprecedented growth of main memory and massive parallelism through blade computing and multi-core CPUs [G. Koch. Discovering Multi-Core: Extending the Benefits of Moore's Law. Technology@Intel, (7), 2005]. While main memory was always welcome for e.g. caching and a large number of CPUs could be used for application servers, the databases for OLTP where not ideally suited for massive parallelism but stayed on SMP (symmetric multi processing) servers. The reasons were temporary locking of data storage segments for updates and the potential of deadlocks while updating multiple tables in parallel transactions. This is the main reason why for example R/3 from SAP ran all update transactions in a single thread and relied heavily on row level locking and super fast communication between parallel database processes (SMP). Some of the shortcomings could be overcome later by a better application design, but the separation of OLTP and OLAP remained unchallenged.
Early tests with in-memory databases of the relational type based on row storage did not show significant advantages over leading RDBMSs with equivalent memory for caching. Here the alternative idea to use column store databases for OLTP was born. Column storage was successfully used for many years in OLAP and really surged when main memory became abundant [M. Stonebraker, D. J. Abadi, A. Batkin, X. Chen, M. Cherniack, M. Ferreira, E. Lau, A. Lin, S. Madden, E. J. O'Neil, P. E. O'Neil, A. Rasin, N. Tran, and S. B. Zdonik. C-Store: A Column-oriented DBMS. In Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, Trondheim, Norway, Aug. 30-Sep. 2, 2005, pages 553-564. ACM, 2005] [P. Boncz. Monet: A Next-Generation DBMS Kernel for Query-Intensive Applications. 2002. PhD Thesis, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands].

Hasso-Plattner-Institut Fur Softwaresystemtechnik GmbH