An image forming apparatus includes a body frame having a cover to open or close the body frame, a process cartridge in which an image forming unit including a photosensitive drum to form an electrostatic latent image is unitized to be removably mounted in the body frame, and a guide rail formed in the body frame to guide a movement of the process cartridge, the guide rail has a process cartridge mounting position and a process cartridge removing position which is backwardly apart from the cartridge mounting position at a desired distance, and the process cartridge mounting position is located at a higher place than the process cartridge removing position.

1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus in which a toner image is formed on a photosensitive medium by an electrophotograph process and then transferred to a paper, thereby obtaining an image. More particularly, the present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus, such as a printer, a duplicator or a facsimile machine, which is provided with a removable process cartridge in which at least one of an image forming means such as a photosensitive medium, a developing means and a cleaning means is unitized.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, an image forming apparatus such as a printer or a duplicator, is being much smaller and lighter as well as highly functional and sophisticated.
Meanwhile, in order for a user to facilely maintain the image forming apparatus, there has been developed an image forming apparatus with a process cartridge in which at least one of an image forming means such as a photosensitive medium, a developing means and a cleaning means is unitized.
In the image forming apparatus, such as the printeror the duplicator, with the process cartridge, if the photosensitive medium in the process cartridge is worn or aged, the process cartridge must be replaced with a new one. At this time, since the user can easily replace the corresponding cartridge without a skilled worker, maintenance of the image forming apparatus has become convenient. To this end, a process cartridge guiding member is provided in a body frame of the image forming apparatus. The process cartridge is disposed at the guiding member so as to obtain a best image.
FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a conventional image forming apparatus using a typical electrophotographic process.
As shown in FIG. 1, a cover 11 is provided at a body frame 10 so as to open or close the body frame 10. Further, a guide rail 12 is formed at an inner portion of the body frame 10.
Furthermore, a paper feeding unit 20 is provided at an internal lower portion of the body frame 10. The paper feeding unit 20 is provided with a paper feeding cassette 21 and a plurality of conveying rollers 22.
A transfer roller 30 constructing a transfer unit, a fixing roller 40 constructing a fixing unit and an exhausting roller 50 constructing an exhausting unit are disposed in turn from the internal lower side toward an internal upper side of the body frame 10 so as to form a substantially C-shaped paper conveying path.
A process cartridge 60 is mounted in the guide rail 12 through a space formed by opening the cover 11 of the body frame 10. The process cartridge 60 includes a photosensitive drum 61. If the process cartridge 60 is mounted in the body frame 10, the photosensitive drum 61 is in contact with the transfer roller 30. Further, the process cartridge 60 comprises a charging roller, a developing roller, a cleaning roller and a toner.
In FIG. 1, a reference numeral 70 designates an exposure unit for scanning a laser beam to the photosensitive drum 61 and forming a desired electrostatic latent image. The electrostatic latent image formed on the photosensitive drum 61 by the exposure unit 70 is developed with a toner, thereby becoming a visible image. Paper is supplied between the photosensitive drum 61 and the transfer roller 30. At this time, the visible image of the photosensitive drum 61 is transferred onto the paper. The paper, on which the image is transferred, is exhausted through the fixing roller 40 and the exhausting roller 50 to an outside.
Meanwhile, in the image forming apparatus, if the paper is jammed during a printing operation or the process cartridge has to be replaced, the process cartridge 60 is separated from its mounting position, and the jammed paper is removed or the process cartridge 60 is replaced.
At this time, in the conventional image forming apparatus, as shown in FIG. 1, since the process cartridge 60 is separated upward from the body frame 10, a separation of the process cartridge 60 is inconvenient.
Moreover, since the process cartridge 60 mounted in the guide rail 12 of the body frame 10 is suppressed by a pressing means (not shown) so as to prevent an undesired separation of the process cartridge 60, a user has to pull the process cartridge 60 with a great amount of force to separate the process cartridge from the pressing means. Further, when the process cartridge 60 is separated from the pressing means, a crashing sound is generated.
In addition, since the user has to lift the process cartridge 60, the user has to put forth his/her strength. Furthermore, since the separating process of the process cartridge 60 is performed in the body frame 10, it is difficult for the user to monitor the separating process of the process cartridge 60. Therefore, there are many problems in a replacement of the process cartridge.


An injection molding tool having a core assembly with a shaft that is lockably or securedly mounted within a bore of a plate or within another suitable lock element. Rotational or other suitable movement of the lock results in or translates into axial movement of and/or axial forces apply to the core assembly. A guide ring assembly has a center ring with a non-circular bore and a correspondingly shaped core assembly, to prevent rotational movement of the core assembly with respect to the guide ring assembly.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for locking and positioning a core assembly, such as a collapsible core assembly or an expandable cavity assembly, for quick and easy installation and removal.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Conventional core assemblies, such as expandable cavity elements and collapsible core assemblies are known and have been used with injection molding tools. Known collapsible core assemblies use segments that slide or otherwise move with respect to each other to vary the outer diameter of the core assembly.
Core assemblies are often used with stripper plates or movable plates to guide movement of and to hold the core assembly in position during one or more steps of an injection molding process. After a plastic part or article is injection molded, the core assembly can either collapse or expand to release or otherwise discharge the molded part or article.
Many conventional injection molding systems use mold plates that are moveably and/or fixedly with respect to each other, some of which are grouped together, to accomplish movement between an injection mold step of the process and an article release step of the process. A driver or another suitable mechanical system can be used to move and/or fix any one or more of the mold plates with respect to each other and/or to the core assembly. Because many conventional injection molding systems use collapsible core assemblies or expandible core assemblies, there is an apparent need to quickly and cost-efficiently install, remove and/or otherwise maintain the core assembly and/or other connected or related elements.

Lock for core assembly for injection molding tool

Progressive Components International Corporation


A spherical recess is provided to one end wall of a first planar lens and the opposite end walls of a second planar lens, the first planar lens having a thicknesswise index distribution in the vicinity of the one end wall whereas the second planar lens has a thicknesswise index distribution in the vicinity of each of the opposite end walls. A high refractive index homogeneous sphere lens is sandwiched between the first planar lens and the second planar lens to be brought into contact with the spherical recesses. A homogeneous semi-sphere lens is held to contact the other spherical recess of the second planar lens. The homogeneous sphere lens side first planar lens and second planar lens of the first planar lens and second planer lens increase in refractive index toward the homogeneous sphere lens so that the sphere lens is corrected in spherical aberration, and so that distribution gradient of the refractive index is selected for correcting the sphere lens in coma. The homogeneous semi-sphere lens side heterogeneous portion of the second planar lens decreases in refractive index toward the homogeneous semi-sphere lens to correct the whole curvature of field, and the refractive index of the homogeneous semi-sphere lens is selected to be low for correcting the distribution.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a compound lens which is preferably used in small cameras, demultiplexers, multiplexers and optical fiber couplers in fields of optical information processing and optical communication, and furthermore in the field of medical industry.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As compound lenses in such fields, compound lenses of configurations which will be described hereinafter have been known heretofore.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,208,088, there is, as shown in FIG. 1, proposed a compound lens 11 having three arrays arranged, each array consisting of sphere lens 21 having a homogeneous refractive index. In FIG. 1, the character O designates an object point and the character I an image point. The pulse-like line shown below the compound lens 11 is a graph illustrating an index distribution of the compound lens 11, and it is shown that the sphere lens 21 are optically homogeneous. This compound lens 11 is very low in resolution since the sphere lens 21 homogeneous in refractive index are large in spherical aberration.
Another earlier attempts are illustrated in FIGS. 2 and 3. In FIG. 2, the compound lens 12 has a structure such that optically homogeneous sphere lenses are replace by sphere lenses 22 which are spherically symmetric in index distribution (heterogeneous in refractive index) for reducing spherical aberration. The compound lens 13 of FIG. 3 has such a configuration that sphere lenses 21 are held between distributed index or gradient index planar lens 23.sub.1, 23.sub.2, 23.sub.3 and 23.sub.4. In FIG. 3, reference numerals 23.sub.1 ' to 23.sub.6 ' designate refractive index heterogeneous portions of corresponding planar lenses 23.sub.1 to 23.sub.4. These attempts are disclosed in E. W. Marchand, Gradient Index Optics, pp.7-21, Academic Press; K. Iga, Y. Kokubun, and M. Oikawa, Fundamentals of Micoroptics, pp.196-207, Academic Press; Y. Koike, Y. Sumi, and Y. Ohtuska, Applied Optics, Vol.25, No.19, pp.3356-3363(1986); and Japanese Patent Application Laying-open No. 101502/1989, for example.
As shown in FIG. 2, in the lens 12 the image is curved concave toward the lens 22 (negative curvature of image surface). On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 3, the compound lens 13 has an image positively curved. In both the compound lenses 12 and 13, resolution is therefore deteriorated.
In view of this, in Japanese Patent Application No. 84611/1991 the inventors have proposed a compound lens 14 as shown in FIG. 4. In this compound lens 14, the index distribution of each of the refractive index heterogeneous portions 23.sub.3 ' and 23.sub.4 ' of the second layer planar lens 23.sub.2 of the compound lens 13 in FIG. 3 is made to have an opposite gradient, and thereby curvature of image plane is corrected for enhancing resolution.
To produce a erecting image this compound lens 14 includes three lenses 21, 21 and 21 homogeneous in refractive index and four planar lenses 23.sub.1 to 23.sub.4 having an axial index distribution. The compound lens 14 has drawbacks below. (i) the planar lenses have a large number (six) of spherical surfaces. (ii) the length of the lens is large as compared to the diameter of the sphere lenses. (iii) The three refractive index homogeneous sphere lenses 21, 21, and 21 are higher in refractive index than the planar lenses 23.sub.1 to 23.sub.4, and therefore each of the terms of an equation showing Petzval's theorem has positive sign, with the result that remained curvature of image field is still large although aberration can be corrected.
In Fourier transform lenses and camera lenses which have different purposes, images may be inverted, and the above disadvantages (i) and (ii) are therefore overcome to some extent. However, the entrance side and exit sides of these optical systems are asymmetrical, and therefore (iv) another problem of correcting distortion is produced.
In coupling lenses used for coupling optical fibers, the input and output sides of the optical systems are arranged symmetrically to each other, and therefore distortion is corrected. However, in the case where a large number of optical fibers are arranged in the input and output sides of these lenses, (v) it is still another problem to arrange optical fibers, which are away from the optical axis, in parallel with the latter. In conventional optical systems using a sphere lens, a drop in efficiency is produced unless the optical fibers are directed so that they are arranged at angular intervals about the center of the sphere lens.
To facilitate understanding of the present invention, improvement in curvature of image field which is stated in the compound lens 14 will be generally discussed. The general relational equations about tertiary aberration are EQU MER. CURV.=-(3III+P) (2) EQU SAG. CURV.=-(III+P) (3)
In the equations, MER. CURV. represents a curvature of the tangential image surface, SAG. CURV. a curvature of sagital image surface, III a astigmatism coefficient, and P a Petzval sum.
Here, we study a sphere lens having a spherically symmetrical index distribution with a reduced spherical aberration. In this sphere lens, a light beam which is emitted from a point is focused on another point, and the astigmatism coefficient III is 0. By substituting III=0 to the equations (2) and (3), we have EQU MER. CURV.=SAG. CURV.=-P (4)
In the case of P.noteq.0, the best curvature of field of sphere lenses becomes a half of the absolute value of the curvature of field of a spherically symmetric sphere lens since the equation (5) is obtained from equations (2) and (3) if the astigmatism coefficient III=-P/2 by some means. EQU MER. CURV.=-SAG. CURV.=P/2 (5)
That is, the resolution substantially becomes double.
In such a manner, the curvatures of the tangential image surface and the curvature of sagital image surface may be balanced. However, in the conventional compound lenses except the compound lens 14 it is not possible to control astigmatism coefficient III with ease. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to establish controlling of astigmatism coefficient in lenses which are different in purpose and configuration from the compound lens 14.
Next, a problem of the present invention about distortion will be described in detail. In a camera lens, distortion becomes 0% if an image of a grating pattern object is formed similarly. In other words, if a height of an image at an image point of an incident light beam of which principal ray forms an angle of .omega. with the optical axis of the lens is in proportion with tan.omega., distortion becomes zero.
When in a Fourier transform lens, parallel rays of a wavelength .lambda. are incident on a diffraction grating having an grating pitch and located at a focus on the object side, a direction of m-th diffraction is given by the equation (6).
The spatial frequency is in proportion with 1/d, and therefore the distortion is eliminated if the height of an image is proportionate to sin.omega..
In f.omega. lens (usually called f.theta.), the height of an image may be in proportion with .omega..
As described above, distortion of compound lenses has different definitions according to objects of use.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a compound lens which has the same construction with the same index distribution for various uses, and which is capable of correcting distortion of the lens for various uses by modifying a small part of parameters thereof.

Agency of Industrial Science & Technology


The present invention provides a method and composition for the treatment and/or prevention of respiratory tract infection and/or respiratory tract infection disease, said method comprising orally administering a composition to a mammal, said composition comprising a galactose containing indigestible oligosaccharide and at least 5 wt. % digestible galactose saccharide.

The respiratory tract is a common site for infection by pathogens. It becomes infected frequently because it is in direct contact with the physical environment and is exposed to microorganisms in the air. There are several microorganisms that cause illness in infants.
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of serious lower respiratory tract disease in infants and children. Primary RSV infection occurs most often in children from 6 weeks to 2 years of age. RSV is estimated to cause as much as 75% of all childhood bronchiolitis and up to 40% of all pediatric pneumonias. Children at increased risk from RSV infection include preterm infants and children with bronchopulmonary dysplasia, congenital heart disease, congenital or acquired immunodeficiency and cystic fibrosis The fatality rate in infants with heart or lung disease who are hospitalized with RSV infection is 3%-4%. Treatment options for established RSV disease are limited. Severe RSV disease of the lower respiratory tract often requires considerable supportive care, including administration of humidified oxygen and respiratory assistance.
Parainfluenza viral infection results in serious respiratory tract disease in infants and children. Infectious parainfluenza account for approximately 20% of all hospitalizations of pediatric patients suffering from respiratory tract infections worldwide.
Infants breast fed with mothers milk have a reduced occurrence of respiratory tract infection. In the art, it is presently believed that this reduced occurrence is because mothers milk contains immunoglobulin with virus or other microorganism neutralizing activity.
Treatment of respiratory infection is often difficult. Only a few effective drugs are available and often treatment requires pulmonary administration of the drug. In young infants this leads to significant stress. Therefore there is a need for further effective agents that preferably can be administered without imposing or decreasing imposing stress on infants and children.
Recently is has been described that administration of infant formula enriched with prebiotics (galactooligosaccharides), probiotics, nucleotides and LC-PUFA and with a low level of lactose is useful for infants suffering from respiratory infections (Rivero et al (2004), J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr 39: suppl. 1, P1121).

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Nutritional composition comprising indigestible oligosaccharides


In one implementation, a system detects that a fiber within a fiber optic cable has failed and automatically causes a location of a faulty portion of the fiber to be identified in response to the detecting. In another implementation, a central office includes a first optical patch panel operably coupled to an optical fiber and a second optical patch panel configured to couple the first optical patch panel to a test device. The optical fiber is automatically coupled to the test device in response to one or more signals from a remote management device.

A central office typically includes a single manual optical patch panel for managing connections between fiber cables coming into the central office and the routing devices within the central office. If the optical patch panel fails, the central office may become inoperable.
Moreover, repair of damaged fibers in a central office implementing a single manual patch panel is a labor intensive process. The repair process often involves sending repair personnel to the central offices at both ends of the damaged fiber. The repair personnel identify the location of the damaged fiber in the manual optical patch panel and then manually connect the damaged fiber to a test device, such as an optical time domain reflectometer, to determine the location of the damage along the fiber. Once the location is identified, a splice crew is sent to the location to repair the damaged fiber. After the fiber has been repaired, the repair personnel at the two central offices remeasure the fiber with the optical time domain reflectometer to determine whether the fiber has been properly repaired. If the fiber has been repaired, the repair personnel manually reconnect the fiber back to its original location in the manual patch panel. This repair process is not only labor intensive, but also prone to errors (e.g., a repair person may mistakenly put the fiber back into a different location in the manual patch panel).

Remote management of central office operations


A deodorizing device is provided in a refrigerator. This device includes a tubular heater and a water droplet prevention member provided above the heater. The deodorizing heater is provided in an air circulation path and below a cooling coil. On the outer periphery of the heating portion of the heater, there is provided a catalyst coat layer for absorbing odor components. The water droplet prevention member is disposed immediately above the tubular heater so as to cover the heater to prevent water droplets falling from the cooling coil, defrosted by the heater, from falling thereon. When the heater is heated, the catalyst coat layer is heated directly by the heater, and the odor components having been absorbed therein are efficiently decomposed. The heat from the heater heats the cooling coil by convection for effecting defrosting thereof.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a deodorizing device, and more particularly, to a deodorizing device having the function of removing odor components from within a refrigerator.
2. Description of the Related Art
Within the refrigerator, odors are issued from various food articles such as fish, meat, vegetables, etc., and odors are accumulated because of the circulation in the sealed space, and further adhere to food articles, resulting in the deterioration of the quality of food articles.
For solution of these problems, there has been proposed a deodorizing device for the refrigerator such as described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2-194816.
A conventional deodorizing device for the refrigerator will be described below.
FIG. 1 is a longitudinal sectional view of an upper portion of a refrigerator showing a state wherein the conventional deodorizing device is arranged in the refrigerator. FIG. 2 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of the deodorizing device and FIG. 3 is an enlarged partially broken side view thereof.
First in FIG. 1, there are shown a refrigerator main body 1, a freezing chamber 2 and a cold storage chamber 3 formed therein with respective doors 4 and 5. A cooling coil 6 is arranged in a cooling coil chamber 7 positioned at the back side of said freezing camber 2, and a fan 8 is arranged above the cooling coil 6. When the fan 8 is driven, the freezing chamber 2 is cooled by the air circulation, wherein part of the air cooled by the cooling coil 6 is supplied into the freezing chamber 2 from a supply port 9, and the air within the freezing chamber 2 is returned to the cooling coil chamber 7 through a return duct 10.
Meanwhile, the cold storage chamber 3 is cooled by the air circulation, wherein part of the air cooled by the cooling coil 6 is supplied into the cold storage chamber 3 through a supply duct 11, and the air therein is returned to the cooling coil chamber 7 through a return duct 12. In this case, the cooling coil chamber 7, the freezing chamber 2 and the return duct 10 constitute the circulation path for circulating the air within the freezing chamber 2, while the cooling coil chamber 7, the supply duct 11, the cold storage chamber 3 and the return duct 12 constitute the circulation path for circulating the air within the cold storage chamber 3.
Reference numeral 13 represents a defrosting heater provided under the cooling coil 6 in the lower portion of the cooling coil chamber 7, constituted by a glass tube heater wherein a heating wire 13b is provided in a glass tube 13a as shown in FIG. 3. The defrosting heater 13 is on-off controlled so as to be energized only in defrosting the cooling coil 6, and to otherwise to be cut off. Reference numeral 14 represents a water droplet prevention member provided so as to cover the defrosting heater 13 from above, which is made of a metallic plate, for example heat-resistant and water-resistant aluminum or the like, and formed in the shape of a downward opened shallow-bottomed container, as shown also in FIG. 2, for preventing the defrosted water from falling on the defrosting heater 13 during the defrosting cycle.
Reference numeral 15 represents a deodorizing member, which is of a two-layered structure comprised of a adsorption agent layer 15a made of adsorbing agent such as silica (silicon dioxide) or the like and a catalyst layer 15b made of platinum nickel or the like, provided on the adsorption agent layer 15a. Here, the adsorption member 15 is formed by forming the plate-shaped adsorption agent layer 15a through sintering the adsorption agent, applying the catalyst on its surface through immersing the adsorption agent layer 15a into the catalyst solution, and thereafter subjecting the same to heat treatment for forming the catalyst layer 15b on the surface of the adsorption agent layer 15a.
Furthermore, the adsorption agent layer 15a and catalyst layer 15b are respectively of porous structures so as allow air to pass therethrough. The deodorizing member 15 is supported and fixed on the inner face of the water droplet prevention member 14 by support fittings 17 through an insulation member 16 made of glass fiber or the like, thus positioned above and near said defrosting heater 13.
Reference numeral 18 indicates a cover member, for example a metallic net formed so as to have a large number of through holes, made of a high heat conductivity material and provided so as to cover the surface of the deodorizing member 15.
With respect to the deodorizing device for the refrigerator constituted as described above, the operation will be described below.
In the above structure, during the cooling cycle, the air within the refrigerator is circulated by the fan 8 through the cooling coil chamber 7, the freezing chamber 2 and the return duct 10 and through the cooling coil chamber 7 the supply duct 11, the cold storage chamber 3 and the return duct 12. In this case, the air passing through the cooling coil chamber 7 contacts the deodorizing member 15 through the through holes of the metallic net so that the odor components contained in the air is adsorbed by the adsorption agent layer 15a of the deodorizing member 15.
On the other hand, when the defrosting cycle is started, the operation of the cooling coil 6 and the fan 8 is stopped, while the defrosting heater 13 is energized to be heated. By the heating of the defrosting heater 13, the cooling coil 6 is heated so as to be defrosted, and simultaneously the deodorizing member 15 is heated. In this case, since the surface of the deodorizing member 15 is covered by the metallic net 18, by the heat conduction of this metallic net 18 the deodorizing member 15 is heated as uniformly as possible. In the heated deodorizing member 15, the odor components adsorbed by the adsorption agent layer 15a are decomposed and released, and at the same time, the odor components are decomposed and removed through oxidization in the catalyst layer 15b.
Thus, in the deodorizing member 15, the adsorption function, that is, the deodorizing function is regenerated by heating. In this case, the water droplet prevention member 14 contains the heat from the defrosting heater 13 therebelow and plays the role of efficiently heating the deodorizing member 15 and prevents the defrosted water from the cooling coil 6 from falling on the deodorizing member 15 and the defrosting heater 13.
The insulation member 16 holds the heat discharge of the deodorizing member 15 from the water droplet prevention member 14, and also prevents heat shock of the deodorizing member 15 due to rapid cooling of the water droplet prevention member 14 arising from the defrosted water dropped thereon.
Furthermore, the metallic net 18 prevents the deodorizing member 15 from being scattered and falling when the deodorizing member is broken.
When the defrosting cycle is completed and the cooling cycle is resumed, resulting in the decrease of the temperature of the deodorizing member 15, as described above, the odor components contained in the air within the refrigerator are adsorbed by the deodorizing member 15 to thereby be removed.
In the above constitution, however, besides the water droplet prevention member 14, the deodorizing member 15, the insulation member 16, the support fittings 17 and the metallic net 18 intervene between the defrosting heater 13 and the cooling coil 6, resulting in a complicated structure.
Furthermore, as a result, it is necessary to increase the thickness and size of the water droplet prevention member 14 for holding the deodorizing member 15, and also necessary to reduce the distance between the defrosting heater 13 and the water droplet prevention member 14 for raising the temperature of the deodorizing member 15. From the above, the linear radiation heat from the defrosting heater 13 and the rise of the convection heat to the cooling coil 6 are hampered, resulting in such a disadvantage that the defrosting time is increased and the defrosting performance of the refrigerator is lowered.
Furthermore, due to the fact that one face of the deodorizing member is in contact with the insulation member 16, the metallic net 18 covers the surface of the deodorizing member 15 and the water droplet prevention member 14 is required to be increased in size, there is such a disadvantage that the circulated air flow hitting the deodorizing member 15 is poor, resulting in a lowered deodorizing effect.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A novel five-membered heteroaromatic imidazole compound and use thereof is disclosed herein. Specifically, disclosed is a compound as shown in formula (III) or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof. Also disclosed is a method for treating a disease related to GLP-1 receptor such as type II diabetes.

Diabetes is a common type of metabolic disease characterized by hyperglycemia. Several major types of diabetes are caused by complex interactions between genetic and environmental factors. The factors leading to hyperglycemia include the decrease of insulin secretion, the decrease of glucose utilization and the increase of glucose output, and the dominance of these factors varies according to the etiology of diabetes. Metabolic abnormalities related to diabetes lead to secondary pathophysiological changes in multiple systems throughout the body. Long-term abnormal blood glucose levels can lead to serious complications, including cardiovascular disease, chronic renal failure, retinal injury, nerve injury, microvascular injury and obesity and the like. Diabetes is classified based on different pathological processes leading to hyperglycemia, and can be divided into two main types: type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. In the development of the disease, type 1 and type 2 diabetes are preceded by a phase of abnormal glucose homeostasis. Type 1 diabetes is the result of complete or almost complete insulin deficiency. Type 2 diabetes is a group of heterogeneous diseases, manifested by varying degrees of insulin resistance, decreased insulin secretion, and increased glucose production. In the early stages of diabetes treatment, diet control and exercise therapy are the preferred control options of blood glucose. When control of blood glucose is difficult to achieve with these methods, treatment with insulin or oral hypoglycemic drugs is required. Currently, drugs used in the treatment of diabetes include insulin, insulin secretagogue, metformin, insulin sensitizers, α-glucosidase inhibitor, dipeptidyl peptidase-IV inhibitor (liptins), sodium-glucose cotransport protein (SGLT2) inhibitor, and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist and the like. These drugs have good therapeutic effects, but there are still safety issues in long-term treatment, for example, biguanides can easily cause lactic acidosis; sulfonylureas can cause symptoms of hypoglycemia; insulin sensitizers can cause edema, heart failure, and weight gain; α-glucosidase inhibitors can cause abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea and other symptoms; sodium-glucose cotransporter protein (SGLT2) inhibitors increase the risk of urinary and reproductive system infections and the like. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a safer and more effective novel hypoglycemic drug to meet the needs of diabetes treatment.
Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) is one of the most important therapeutic targets for type 2 diabetes. GLP-1R belongs to the subfamily of G protein-coupled receptor B cluster and is widely expressed in the stomach, small intestine, heart, kidney, lung, brain and other tissues in the body. In islet cells, GLP-1R mainly promotes the release of insulin, increases the regeneration of islet B cells, inhibits the apoptosis of B cells, and reduces the release of glucagon. In tissues such as the gastrointestinal tract, GLP-1R can inhibit gastrointestinal peristalsis and gastric juice secretion by combining with its agonists, delaying gastric emptying, and increasing satiety. In nerve tissue, small molecule GLP-1R agonists can penetrate into the brain to activate the subset of neurons expressing GLP-1R, protect nerve cells from apoptosis and enhance learning and memory abilities. Moreover, GLP-1R can also control food intake to lose weight. GLP-1 receptor agonists or endogenous GLP-1 activity enhancers have been approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Such drugs do not cause hypoglycemia because the secretion of insulin stimulated by secretin is glucose-dependent. Exenatide is a synthetic peptide, such peptide was originally found in the saliva of a poisonous lizard and is an analog of GLP-1. Compared with natural GLP-1, exenatide has a different amino acid sequence, which makes exenatide resistant to the enzyme [dipeptidase IV (DPP-IV)] that degrades GLP-1. Therefore, exenatide has prolonged GLP-1-like activity and can bind to GLP-1 receptors in islets, gastrointestinal tract and brain. Liraglutide, another GLP-1 receptor agonist, is almost identical to natural GLP-1 except that it replaces one of the amino acids and adds a fatty acyl, the fatty acyl can promote its binding with albumin and plasma proteins and prolong its half-life. GLP-1 receptor agonists increase glucose-stimulated insulin secretion, inhibit glucagon, and delay gastric emptying. These drugs do not increase body weight, in fact, most patients will lose weight and lose appetite to some extent.
DPP-IV inhibitors inhibit the degradation of natural GLP-1, thereby enhancing the effect of secretin. DPP-IV, fully expressed on the cell surface of endothelial cells and some lymphocytes, can degrade a variety of polypeptides (not just GLP-1). DPP-IV inhibitors promote insulin secretion without lowering blood glucose, without gaining weight, and are more advantageous in reducing blood glucose after meals. Patients using GLP-1 receptor agonists had higher levels of GLP-1 action in their bodies than those using DPP-IV inhibitors.
Developing small molecule GLP-1 receptor agonists with oral activity can effectively avoid long-term self-injection and has good compliance. Small molecule GLP-1 receptor agonists control blood glucose through multiple pathways of glucose metabolism and excretion, it is expected that safer and more effective novel hypoglycemic drugs can be developed to meet the needs of diabetes treatment.

Five-membered heteroaryl-fused imidazole compound and application thereof


A control system includes a programmable controller having a CPU unit that carries out cyclic operations of processes. An additional temporary user memory is provided in addition to a regular user memory. When an on-line editing of a user program is to be carried out, the program is stored in both memories and the program stored in the temporary memory is called by an instruction execution engine to be executed. After the on-line editing is completed on the user program stored in the user memory, the program execution is based on the edited user program stored in the user memory.

This invention relates to a control system and on-line editing of user program on a programmable controller.
Programmable controllers (PLC) are commonly being used as a control device in factory automation. A PLC is usually comprised of a plurality of units of various kinds combined appropriately together. Examples of such constituent units include a power source unit serving as a power source, a CPU unit for controlling the PLC as a whole, an input unit for inputting signals from switches and sensors that are installed at appropriate positions on a production machine or the like of the factory automation, an output unit for transmitting control outputs to actuators or the like and a communication unit for carrying out processing to a communication network such as carrying out data communications with a programming tool, a monitoring host apparatus and other PLCs.
The control operations by a CPU unit of a PLC starts with an initialization process and then the signals received by the input unit are taken into the I/O memory of the CPU unit (the so-called IN-refresh process). Next, logical calculations are performed on the basis of a user program which is created by using a preliminarily registered program-writing language such as the ladder language and preliminarily registered in a memory (the calculation process), and after the results of this calculation process are transmitted to the output unit by writing them in the I/O memory (the OUT-refresh process), the so-called peripheral service processes are carried out. These processes are thereafter repeated in a cyclic manner but the sequence in which the processes after the initialization is done may be varied. For example, the OUT-refresh and IN-refresh processes (together referred to as the I/O refresh process) may be done first, followed by the calculation process and the peripheral service processes, in this order. In such a case, the first OUT-refresh process will be only for outputting the fixed values resulting from the initialization and the outputting of the calculation results will start from the OUT-refresh process in the next cycle. As another example, the cyclic operation may be in the order of the calculation process, the I/O refresh process and the peripheral service process. In this case, the first calculation process will be carried out on the basis of the fixed values obtained by the initialization process and calculations on the basis of IN data taken in by the IN-refresh process will start from the second cycle of operations.
User programs are created and edited by using a programming tool connected to the PLC through a network. A user program which has been created or edited is downloaded from the programming tool to the PLC and stored in the user memory of the CPU unit. Such a user program includes a logical circuit with a plurality of input joints by means of a ladder program formed with the ladder language. The user program may include as its constituents function blocks, each representing a group of operations as a block. A function block is an assembly of a plurality of calculation circuits made into one component.
There are situations where something wrong may be discovered in a program or something wrong may happen in the operation even after a user program is executed (in the calculation process of the aforementioned cyclic operations) by the CPU unit of a PLC and the production equipment or the like has actually started to operate. In such a situation, the user program must undergo an editing process including additions, deletions and changes. One of the ways to edit a user program in such a situation is the so-called on-line editing where the program is edited while the control by the PLC is being carried out.
A conventional on-line editing method has been to use a programming tool to temporarily add a command such as a jump command immediately before the portion of the user program to be edited. When the PLC carries out the user program, the portion to be edited is thus skipped such that the operation can be continued without stopping the PLC. In the meantime, by this conventional method, a tool is used to carry out the editing of the skipped portion of the program by carrying out adding, deleting and making changes. Japanese Patent Publication Tokkai 2001-142510, for example, disclosed such a technology.
With such a prior art method of on-line editing, it is relatively easy to edit one circuit by one process but it is difficult to correct at once ladder circuits scattered at a plurality of different positions within a user program because it is extremely cumbersome to add a jump command temporarily to each of the plurality of portions of the user program to be edited. Moreover, such jump commands that have been temporarily added must be removed after the editing is completed and this makes the work even more cumbersome. If even one of these temporarily added commands fails to be removed, the edited program will not operate normally.
Conventional on-line editing methods, furthermore, could not work on function blocks. A function block is seldom stored together at one place in a user program. More often than otherwise, function blocks are stored scattered at a plurality of different positions. This is both because the constituent elements of a function block are like subroutine programs to a main ladder program and comprise an instance and a body and because they are usually stored scattered at a plurality of different positions. Thus, if a conventional method of editing an ordinary circuit is applied to a function block, many jump commands will have to be inserted and both the work of inserting these jump commands and that of removing these inserted jump commands after the editing are extremely cumbersome.
Problems about function blocks will be explained further in detail. As will be explained more in detail below with reference to FIG. 8, the user program memory area for storing a user program is divided into a function block recording part (with recording areas) for storing a plurality of body parts of function blocks and a program recording part (with recording areas) for storing, if the ladder program part and function blocks of a main program are inserted, instances that specify input and output of function blocks corresponding to the inserted function blocks. Thus, to edit a function block means to simultaneously edit the instance portions of the input and the output and the body portions of the actual function blocks at the different positions. Thus, the work of inserting and removing jump commands becomes extremely cumbersome, as in the case of editing a plurality of parts of the ladder circuit of a main user program, as described above.
Another problem with the on-line editing is that the portion of the user program being edited is not processed because it is skipped by a jump instruction, and hence if a portion of the program which is indispensable to the control is edited, there is likely to be an adverse effect on the operations of the PLC and accordingly also the operations of the production equipment or the like. In other words, the on-line editing cannot be carried out freely and indiscriminately on any portion of a program.

Control system and method for on-line editing of user program


An adapter assembly for connecting a control unit to a heater. The control unit has wires that connect to terminals on the heater. The adapter assembly includes a first tubular body portion, a second tubular body portion and at least one locking bolt. The first tubular body portion is attached to the heater. The second tubular body portion is attached to the control unit. At least a portion of the first tubular body portion is retained inside the second tubular body portion. The locking bolt attaches the second tubular body portion to the first tubular body portion by inserting through a hole in the second tubular body portion. The present invention also includes an adapter assembly with the reverse attachments. Specifically, the first tubular body portion (retained inside the second tubular body portion) may be attached to the control unit instead of the heater. Similarly, the second tubular body portion may be attached to the heater instead of the control unit.

The present invention relates generally to an adapter assembly for attaching a control unit to an electrical device such as a heater, and more particularly, to an adapter assembly that provides easy installation and orientation of the control unit.
The heating of tanks and pipes is a common industrial practice that has many applications. Heating may be required to maintain a certain viscosity of heavy oils or resins that allow them to be readily pumped. Heating may also prevent crystalline precipitation or freezing during a process, or may simply facilitate the process itself.
Screw plug heaters with extending heating elements are used to heat fluids in a tank or reservoir. The heating elements are inserted through a threaded bore in the tank wall, and the screw plug of the heater is tightened within the bore. In this way, the heating elements extend within the tank, the screw plug seals the opening, and the electrical terminals for the heating elements lie outside the tank barrier.
It is common to connect a control unit for the heater directly outside the tank. In some instance, the control unit is attached directly to the heater. A conventional adapter assembly for attaching a control unit to a screw plug heater 10 is depicted in FIGS. 1A-1D. The solution uses a series of flanges and connection rings to attach the control unit to the screw plug heater 10. The screw plug heater 10 is threaded into a barrier or wall (not shown) so that the heating element 12 extends within a tank or reservoir (not shown). The terminals 14 of the heater 10 extend outside the barrier for connection to terminals 16 of a control unit.
To form the adapter assembly, the opposite ends of a mechanical tube 20 are fitted with a screw plug ring adapter 30 and a flange ring 40. The screw plug ring adapter 30 and flange ring 40 may be fixed to the ends of the mechanical tube 20 by welds or a strong metallic adhesive. The end of the mechanical tube 20 having the ring adapter 30 is used to connect the mechanical tube 20 to the screw plug heater 10. The end of the mechanical tube 20 having the flange ring 40 is used to connect the mechanical tube 20 to the back wall 60 of a control unit.
A clamp ring 50 is also used in the assembly. The clamp ring 50 has a hole 52 that slides over the exterior surface 22 of the tube 20. Accordingly, the hole 52 of the clamp ring 50 has a diameter slightly greater than the exterior surface 22 of the mechanical tube 20. The outer diameter of the clamp ring 50 is greater than the outer diameter of the flange ring 40.
After sliding the clamp ring 50 on the mechanical tube 20, the screw plug ring adapter 30 may be installed on the screw plug heater 10. The ring adapter 30 has an opening 32 to accommodate the terminals 14 of the screw plug heater 10. The ring adapter 30 is attached to the screw plug heater 10 by inserting screws 34 into one of two sets of holes 36, 38 of the ring adapter 30. The two sets of holes 36, 38 allow the adapter 30 to attach to different sized screw plug heaters.
With the mechanical tube 20 attached to the screw plug heater 10, the tube 20 is then attached to the back wall 60 of the control unit. The back wall 60 of the control unit has an opening 62 to accommodate wires of the control unit terminals 16. The back wall 60 is placed against the flange ring 40. Several bolts 64 are then inserted through access holes 66 in the back wall 60 and into holes 54 of the clamp ring 50. As a result, the flange ring 40 is sandwiched between the back wall 60 of the control unit and the clamp ring 50. The control unit hangs on the screw plug heater 10.
Several inefficiencies exist with conventional adapter assemblies. For example, the location of the access holes 66 in the back panel 60 of the control unit restricts the placement of internal components within the control unit. This results in ineffective use of space within the control unit. Moreover, installation and orientation of the control unit is difficult. The control unit must be opened to insert or remove bolts 64. Aligning the holes 54 in the clamp ring 50 with the access holes 66 in the back wall 60 of the control unit makes orientation of the control unit cumbersome.
The present invention is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of, one or more of the problems set forth above.
To that end, the present invention includes an adapter assembly for connecting a control unit to a heater. The control unit has wires that connect to terminals on the heater. The adapter assembly includes a first tubular body portion, a second tubular body portion and at least one locking bolt. The first tubular body portion is attached to the heater. The second tubular body portion is attached to the control unit. At least a portion of the first tubular body portion is retained inside the second tubular body portion. The locking bolt attaches the second tubular body portion to the first tubular body portion by inserting through a hole in the second tubular body portion.
The hole in the second tubular body portion may be a slot that enables the control unit to be radially oriented with respect to the first tubular body portion when installing and attaching the second tubular body portion to the first tubular body portion. The first tubular body portion may have threaded holes circumscribed on the outer surface of the first tubular body portion to receive the locking bolt. The first tubular body portion may also have locking wells circumscribed on the outer surface of the first tubular body portion to receive the locking bolt.
The present invention also includes an adapter assembly with the reverse attachments. Specifically, the first tubular body portion (retained inside the second tubular body portion) may be attached to the control unit instead of the heater. In this case, the second tubular body portion is attached to the heater.
In another embodiment, the present invention is an adapter assembly for connecting a first unit to a second unit. The first unit has an electrical terminal connecting to a wire in the second unit. The adapter assembly includes a first conduit and a second conduit. There is a means for attaching the first conduit to the first unit and a means for attaching the second conduit to the second unit. Moreover, the adapter assembly has a means for radially orienting the first unit with respect to the second unit and a means for attaching the first conduit to the second conduit once an orientation is selected.
In yet another embodiment, the present invention includes a method for joining a control unit having power wires to an electrical device having terminals. The method includes the steps of: attaching a first conduit to the control unit so that the power wires extend within the first conduit; attaching a second conduit to the electrical device so that the terminals of the electrical device extend within the second conduit; connecting the power wires of the control unit to the terminals of the electrical device; inserting the second conduit into the first conduit; orienting the control unit radially with respect to the electrical device to a selected orientation; and maintaining the selected orientation by fastening the first conduit to the second conduit. The fastening may be done in a variety of ways including inserting a bolt through a locking slot in the first conduit and threading the bolt into a locking hole in the second conduit. The method may further include changing the attaching steps so that the first conduit is attached to the electrical device and the second conduit is attached to the control unit.
Another embodiment of the present invention is a kit containing parts of an adapter assembly for a heater. The kit includes: a first conduit capable of being attached to a heater; a second conduit capable of being attached to a control unit, the first conduit having a diameter so that it is capable of being retained inside the second conduit; and a plurality of locking bolts for attaching the second conduit to the first conduit.
The above summary of the present invention is not intended to represent each embodiment, or every aspect of the present invention. This is the purpose of the figures and detailed description that follows.

Adapter assembly for heaters and the like


A method includes providing a structure having two fins extending from a substrate and an isolation structure adjacent to lower portions of the fins; forming a cladding layer over the isolation structure and over top and sidewalls of the fins; recessing the isolation structure using the cladding layer as an etch mask to expose the substrate; after the recessing of the isolation structure, depositing a seal layer over the substrate, the isolation structure, and the cladding layer; forming a sacrificial plug over the seal layer and between the two fins; and depositing a dielectric top cover over the sacrificial plug and laterally between the two fins.

The electronics industry has experienced an ever-increasing demand for smaller and faster electronic devices that are simultaneously able to support a greater number of increasingly complex and sophisticated functions. To meet these demands, there is a continuing trend in the integrated circuit (IC) industry to manufacture low-cost, high-performance, and low-power ICs. Thus far, these goals have been achieved in large part by reducing IC dimensions (for example, minimum IC feature size), thereby improving production efficiency and lowering associated costs. However, such scaling has also increased complexity of the IC manufacturing processes. One area of interests is how to isolate adjacent metal gate electrodes and how to isolate adjacent source/drain electrodes in highly integrated ICs.

Dielectric fins with air gap and backside self-aligned contact

TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD.


The invention relates to a quick release assembly for a bicycle, wherein the assembly comprises an axle having a first non-cylindrical end portion, a cylindrical central portion, and a second non-cylindrical end portion, wherein a diameter of one of the non-cylindrical end portions is larger than the diameter of the cylindrical central portion. The quick release assembly further comprises an insert having a non-cylindrical outer profile configured to be retained in a non-cylindrical opening and having a cam surface disposed therein, wherein the insert is sized to retain one of the non-cylindrical end portions of the axle therein. The assembly also includes a shaft sized to pass through the axle and having a cam follower on a first end and a handle on a second end, wherein the cam follower is configured to form a locking engagement with the cam surface upon an axial rotation of the handle.

The present invention relates generally to a quick-release retention system for bicycle wheels or other components, and is more specifically directed to the retention of a wheel using a twist-to-lock configuration for securing a non-cylindrical axle to thru-axle fork dropouts.
Quick-release retention systems, particularly for use with bicycles, have been commonplace for many years. These quick-release retention systems allow for rapid connection (or disconnection) of a portion of the bicycle, such as a wheel to a fork, without the need for specialized tools. While the most common application of quick-release devices is for the securing of a bicycle wheel to the fork or frame of the bicycle, quick release devices are also used for other applications, such as securing a bicycle seat post to a seat tube of the bicycle frame.
While various types of quick-release retention systems have been devised, the most commonly used of these devices includes a 9 mm threaded skewer having a lever on one end and a fixed stop, such as a tightening nut, on the other end. The lever acts on a cam to exert a tightening force that is a function of both the geometry of the cam and the manual pre-adjustment of the center distance between the cam and the tightening nut, wherein the center distance is adjusted by the manual manipulation of the tightening nut. The tightening force is obtained by folding the lever in the direction of the skewer, from an open position to a closed position. The user must manually adjust the center distance by adjusting the tightness of the tightening nut until the lever is able to be folded such that the cam can be driven to provide a sufficient tightening force on the skewer.
Unfortunately, these conventional quick-release retention systems pose a number of problems. One major problem is that the tightening force on the skewer is almost entirely dependent upon the center distance adjustment made by the user upon installation of the wheel or other component. It is likely that the adjustments made by the user are inconsistent between different activations of the quick-release retention system, and these inconsistencies can cause possible component wear concerns. For example, if the center distance is adjusted to be too long, the tightening force may be insufficient, and the component (such as a wheel) may not adequately engage with the fork or bicycle frame, thereby causing the operator to readjust the quick-release system by releasing the quick-release and readjusting the tightening nut. On the other hand, if the center distance is adjusted to be too short, the axial traction force on the skewer may be too great, thereby risking breakage of the skewer or another element of the quick-release retention system. Furthermore, an overly-tightened skewer may produce compression forces on the hub bearings of a bicycle wheel, thereby causing substantial friction in the hub and potential early failure of the hub bearings. It is also common for the repeated tightening of the system to cause wear or galling on the various components, such as the bicycle hub and fork, with each application of the cam. In view of these potential issues with conventional quick-release retention systems, it is clear that the user-controlled tightening may lead to component wear issues, and at the very least results in substantial trial-and-error by the user in order to achieve the correct tightening force.
Yet another disadvantage related to the conventional quick-release retention systems is that the 9 mm skewers have a cylindrical cross-sectional shape which, when applied with bicycle wheels, are only compatible with fork dropout slots having similarly rounded configurations. However, some bicycle forks, in particular suspension forks used on off-road bicycles, have been redesigned to provide a non-cylindrical "thru-axle" configuration. Thru-axle configurations comprise substantially-enclosed, non-cylindrical dropouts, as opposed to conventional dropout slots. These changes came about due to the need to maintain torsional stiffness between the opposing fork legs. The rough terrain and aggressive, high-speed riding associated with off-ride bicycling leads to substantial torsional forces being exerted on the respective fork legs. It was found that using 20 mm axles having non-cylindrical end portions engaged with the substantially-enclosed, non-cylindrical dropouts of the forks effectively created a stiffer junction between the axle and the dropouts, thereby improving the torsional stiffness of the fork. The 20 mm axle configuration, however, is not compatible with the conventional quick-release systems known in the art, and thus the "thru-axle" configuration is typically be secured to the fork using alternative means, such as threaded bolts at each end of the axle. Such a configuration may necessitate special tools to disengage the wheel from the fork, causing the user to expend a great deal of time and effort. Furthermore, the 20 mm axle design is over-sized for many applications of off-road bicycling, thereby unduly increasing the weight and cost of the axle systems.
It would therefore be desirable to have a quick-release apparatus capable of securing a bicycle wheel to the fork or frame of the bicycle without the need for manual adjustment of the center distance between a cam-action lever and a threaded tightening nut. It would also be desirable to incorporate such a quick-release apparatus using a thru-axle configuration having a non-cylindrical interface such that torsional stiffness of the fork is maintained.

Apparatus for twist-to-lock retention of a wheel


A modem receiver for receiving signals having a frequency domain equalizer training module (FTM) being responsive to a frequency channel response for processing the same to generate one or more frequency domain equalizer (FEQ) coefficients, said modem receiver being responsive to an input signal for processing the same to generate said frequency channel response, said input signal being generated from transmission of a transmitted signal, said frequency channel response for including one or more pilot tones, said FEQ coefficients for including one or more pilot tone FEQ coefficients, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The modem receiver further includes an offset weight determination (OWD) module being responsive to said pilot tone FEQ coefficients for processing the same to generate one or more carrier weights, said modem receiver for using said carrier weights to generate a carrier offset, said OWD module for using said pilot tone FEQ coefficients to generate one or more timing weights, said modem receiver for using said timing weights to generate a timing offset, said modem receiver for reducing the effects of faded pilot tones on determination of said timing offset and said carrier offset between said transmitted signal and said input signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of wireless receivers and particularly to a method and apparatus for detecting carrier frequency and timing offsets to enhance the receiver performance under the effects of multi-path channel.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As computers have gained enormous popularity in recent decades, so have networking the same allowing for access of files by one computer from another. More recently and with the advent of wireless communication, remote and wireless networking of computers is gaining more and more notoriety among personal users, small and large business owners, factory facilities and the like.
With regard to the wireless networking of personal computers including laptops, a particular modem, namely modems adapted to the IEEE 802.11a or 802.11g industry standard, are commonly employed. That is, an antenna is placed inside or nearby the personal computer and an RF chip receives signal or data through the antenna and an analog-to-digital converter, typically located within the personal computer (PC), converts the received signal to baseband range. Thereafter, a baseband processor is employed to process and decode the received signal to the point of extracting raw data, which may be files transferred remotely and wireless, from another PC or similar equipment with the use of a transmitter within the transmitting PC.
There are several prior art apparatus and techniques for implementing 802.11a/g modem receivers, however, such prior art have not successfully utilized the fullest potential of the 802.11a/g modem. For example, the maximum rate of this type of modem device is 54 Mbits/sec. but in the presence of multi-path channel, use of current prior art methods and apparatus does not allow for reception of data at such rates. In fact, successful reception of data under multi-path channel conditions currently takes place at lower rates or may fail altogether.
Furthermore, in areas other than open locations, such as smaller office cubicles located within the inter structure of a building, prior art receivers are known to only operate at rates lower than that of the maximum operational rate of the modem, such as 54 Mbits/sec., thus preventing a user from receiving files from another PC at optimal rates. This is generally due to the prior art techniques' limitations in operating within multi-path channel conditions, which occur mostly in closed areas, such as those mentioned hereinabove. In particular, multi-path channel may degrade a receiver's ability to acquire and track carrier frequency and timing rate offsets. For 802.11a/g modems that modulate data using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), multi-path channel may lead to dramatic loss in data detection performance because such frequency offsets may result in constellation distortion (e.g. unwanted rotations) and destroy orthogonality between the carriers causing inter-carrier interference (ICI). Thus, for high performance 802.11a/g modems require precise carrier and timing offset controls.
In light of the foregoing, it is desirable to develop an OFDM modem that can receive signals, such as those specified by the 802.11a/g standards, accurately in the presence of multi-path channel and with the ability to achieve maximum data rate throughputs. The presence of multi-path channel should be mitigated in such a way as to reduce the effect of noise, constellation distortions and ICI caused by poor carrier and timing offset controls. Furthermore, it is essential that enhancing the performance of the OFDM receiver be accomplished without adding considerable complexity to the hardware resources employed in processing the received OFDM signal.

Efficient method for multi-path resistant carrier and timing frequency offset detection


A radiofrequency plasma reactor (1) for the treatment of substantially large sized substrates is disclosed, comprising between the electrodes (3, 5) of the plasma reactor a solid or gaseous dielectric layer (11) having a non planar-shaped surface-profile, said profile being defined for compensating a process non uniformity in the reactor or generating a given distribution profile.

The invention relates to a capacitively coupled radiofrequency (RF) plasma reactor and to a process for treating at least one substrate in such a reactor. Especially, the present invention applies to a large size capacitive capacitively coupled (RF) plasma reactor.
Often, such a reactor is known as a "capacitive" RF glow discharge reactor, or planar plasma capacitor or parallel plate RF plasma reactor, or as a combination of the above named.
Capacitive RF plasma reactors are typically used for exposing a substrate to the processing action of a glow discharge. Various processes are used to modify the nature of the substrate surface. Depending on the process and in particular the nature of the gas injected in the glow discharge, the substrate properties can be modified (adhesion, wetting), a thin film added (chemical vapor deposition CVD, diode sputtering) or another thin film selectively removed (dry etching).
The table shown below gives a simplified summary of the various processes possibly performed in a low pressure capacitive discharge.
SubstrateIndustrytypeProcessInlet gas natureSemiconductorWafer upSurface CleaningArto 30 cmPECVDSiH4, . . .diameterDry EtchingCF4, SF6, Cl2, . . .AshingO2Disks forPolymerorDiode sputteringAr + othersmemoryglass upPECVDOrganometallicsto 30 cmSurface activationO2, etc. . . .diameterFlat displayGlass upSame as forSame as forto 1.4 msemiconductorssemiconductorsdiagonalWindow paneGlass upCleaning/activation,Air, Argon—web coaterto 3 mNitriding, polymerMonomer, Nitrogen,width, foil,PECVD. . .plastic ormetal
The standard frequency of the radiofrequency generators mostly used in the industry is 13.56 MHz. Such a frequency is allowed for industrial use by international telecommunication regulations. However, lower and higher frequencies were discussed from the pioneering days of plasma capacitor applications. Nowadays, for example for PECVD applications, (plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition) there is a trend to shift the RF frequency to values higher than 13.56 MHz, the favorite values being 27.12 MHz and 40.68 MHz harmonics of 13.56 MHz).
So, this invention applies to RF frequencies (1 to 100 MHz range), but it is mostly relevant to the case of higher frequencies (above 10 MHz). The invention can even be applied up to the microwave range (several GHz).
An important problem was noted especially if the RF frequency is higher than 13.56 MHz and a large size (surface) substrate is used, in such a way that the reactor size is no more negligible relative to the free space wavelength of the RF electromagnetic wave. Then, the plasma intensity along the reactor can no longer be uniform. Physically, the origin of such a limitation should lie in the fact that the RF wave is distributed according to the beginning of a "standing wave" spatial oscillation within the reactor. Other non uniformities can also occur in a reactor, for example non uniformities induced by the reactive gas provided for the plasma process.

Plasma reactor for the treatment of large size substrates


A method of treating a peripheral neuropathy, peripheral neurodegenerative disease, or peripheral nerve trauma is disclosed. The method includes the step of applying an ultrasound signal to an anatomical location on a patient.

Peripheral neuropathy is a failure of the nerves that carry information to and from the brain and spinal cord. This produces pain, loss of sensation, and inability to control muscles.
In some cases, the failure of nerves that control blood vessels, intestines, and other organs results in abnormal blood pressure, digestion problems, and loss of other basic body processes. Peripheral neuropathy may involve damage to a single nerve or nerve group (mononeuropathy) or may affect multiple nerves (polyneuropathy).
There are numerous reasons for nerves to malfunction. In some cases, no cause can be identified. Damage to nerves can result from one of the specific conditions associated with neuropathy, including: (1) Hereditary disorders, such as Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease or Friedreich's ataxia; (2) Systemic or metabolic disorders, such as Diabetes (diabetic neuropathy), Dietary deficiencies (especially vitamin B-12), Excessive alcohol use (alcoholic neuropathy), Uremia (from kidney failure), or Cancer; (3) Infectious or inflammatory conditions, such as AIDS, Hepatitis, Colorado tick fever, diphtheria, Guillain-Barre syndrome, HIV infection without development of AIDS, leprosy, Lyme, polyarteritis nodosa, rheumatoid arthritis, sarcoidosis, Sjogren syndrome, syphilis, systemic lupus erythematosus, or Amyloid; (4) Exposure to toxic compounds, such as sniffing glue or other toxic compounds, nitrous oxide, industrial agents—especially solvents, heavy metals (lead, arsenic, mercury, etc.), or drugs; and (5) Miscellaneous causes, such as ischemia (decreased oxygen/decreased blood flow), or prolonged exposure to cold temperature.
Diabetic neuropathy is a nerve disorder caused by diabetes. Symptoms of neuropathy include numbness and sometimes pain in the hands, feet or legs. Nerve damage caused by diabetes can also lead to problems with internal organs such as the digestive tract, heart and sexual organs, causing indigestion, diarrhea or constipation, dizziness, bladder infections and impotence.
The cause of diabetic neuropathy remains undefined, but several factors are likely to contribute to the disorder. For example, high blood glucose causes chemical changes in the nerves that impair the nerves' ability to transmit signals.
Diabetic neuropathy can affect virtually every part of the body. Diffuse (peripheral) neuropathy affect the legs, feet, arms and hands. Diffuse (autonomic) neuropathy affects the heart, digestive system, sexual organs, urinary tract and sweat glands. Focal neuropathy affects the eyes, facial muscles, hearing, pelvis and lower back, thighs and abdomen.
Diabetic individuals are also prone to developing compression neuropathies. The most common form of compression neuropathy is carpal tunnel syndrome. Asymptomatic carpal tunnel syndrome occurs in 20-30% of diabetes sufferers whilst symptomatic carpal tunnel syndrome occurs in 6-11%. Numbness and tingling of the hand are the most common symptoms. Diabetic peripheral neuropathy is also a fundamental cause of a large proportion of diabetic foot ulcers. The lack of sensation caused by this condition results in the individual being unable to detect points of pressure that would normally cause low level pain and therefore behavior would be corrected to stop the pain (i.e., relieve pressure on that part of the foot). Without that sensation the insult continues and results in ulceration of the skin that can then become a chronic wound and in a significant number of cases results in amputation.
Other examples of neuropathies include chemotherapy-induced neuropathy, alcoholic neuropathy and HIV/AIDS neuropathy.
Regaining the sensation by stimulating nerve regeneration would therefore have a significant impact on the quality of life of those individuals suffering from peripheral neuropathy, particularly diabetic peripheral neuropathy.
The current goals of treating diabetic neuropathy are to prevent progression and reduce the symptoms of the disease. Tight control of glucose is important to prevent progression. To reduce the symptoms, topical treatment with Capsaicin or oral medication like amitriptyline, gabapentin, and carbamazepine have been used successfully. Analgesics (pain medications) may work for some patients on a short-term basis. But, in most cases, they usually do not provide much benefit.
The current protocols for treatment of neuropathies are limited to relieving pain and discomfort, as well as to preventing additional tissue damage. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a therapy which promotes nerve regeneration rather than treating the symptoms of the pathologies.


A CSP (Chip Size Package) of the present invention includes a semiconductor IC (Integrated Circuit) chip having I/O (Input/Output) terminals along its edges. A small size substrate has a smaller contour than the chip and has a plurality of metal terminals arranged along the edges of its bottom, and a plurality of metal bumps arranged on its top in a lattice configuration. The top of the chip and the bottom of the substrate are so configured as to be electrically connected to each other via a tape member including a plurality of leads. These leads each include a first terminal to be electrically connected to the associated I/O terminal of the chip, and a second terminal to be electrically connected to the associated metal terminal of the substrate.

The present invention relates to a small size, light weight LSI (Large Scale Integrated circuit) package and, more particularly, to a chip size package (CSP).
In parallel with advances in semiconductor technologies, LSI chips evolved from semiconductor ICs (Integrated Circuits) and are increasing in integration scale. Today, it is even possible to accommodate the entire electronic apparatus in a single LSI chip. Portable computers, handy phones and digitized portable electronic apparatuses are recent achievements derived from the above circumstances. With these electronic apparatuses, there is an increasing demand for a small size, light weight configuration. To meet this demand, LSI packages for mounting LSI chips must be reduced in size and weight.
On the other hand, a large scale computer, telephone exchange or similar system is constituted by the combination of a great number of LSI chips. With this kind of system, it is necessary to promote rapid propagation of signals between the LSI chips, and therefore to reduce the distance between nearby LSI chips. This can be done most effectively if the size of the individual LSI package is reduced.
A small size, light weight LSI package can be implemented by a tape carrier system called TAB (Tape Automated Bonding) or a system allowing LSI chips, generally referred to as flip chips, to be directly mounted. TAB is described in detail in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 4-252054. A flip chip is discussed in "Microelectronics Packaging Handbook: 6.3 CONTROLLED COLLAPSE CHIP CONNECTION (C4)" published by VAN NOSTRAND REINHOLD, 1989, pp. 366-373.
Recently, a chip size package (CSP) has been proposed in various forms as an LSI package capable of solving various problems of TAB and flip chips and having an extremely small size. CSPs are taught in Wakabayashi et al. "Chip Size Package", the SHM Society Report, Vol. 11, No. 5, Sep. 1, 1995, pp. 3-8, and Kata et al. "Trend of CSP Technology Development", the SHM Society Report, Vol. 11, No. 5, Sep. 1, 1995, pp. 9-13.
The problem with the conventional LSI package is that when implemented by TAB, the package has a contour noticeably grater than the contour of an LSI chip. On the other hand, when the flip chip scheme is used, it is difficult to guarantee reliability including the protection of the LSI chip.


A new Osteospermum plant particularly distinguished by its compact round plant habit, spoon flower character and nice purple color at the rolled petals in the spoon.

The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Osteospermum plant, botanically known as Osteospermum ecklonis.
The new Osteospermum is propagated by cuttings resulting from an open pollinated population from a proprietary Osteospermum ecklonis seedling selection as the female, or seed, parent identified as breeder's code 'E0127-1' (unpatented). Breeder's code of new plant is 'F0203-2.'
The new Osteospermum was discovered and selected as a single flowering plant within the progeny of the stated population grown in Enkhuizen, Netherlands, in 2001. The new Osteospermum plant has been repeatably asexually reproduced by cuttings in Enkhuizen, Netherlands over a period of 5 years. The new variety is stable and reproduces true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.


Systems, methods and procedures to capture, format and process configuration information needed for a Managed Recovery Program (MRP) solution that supports orderly handling of virtual machines in an information technology production environment. An MRP automation package is portable and contains all of the required configuration data to bring virtual infrastructure on line in a recovery environment as well as associated scripts that can be executed to automatically process the configuration data.

1. Technical Field
This patent application relates to data processing, and in particular to managed recovery of the virtual infrastructure in an Information Technology (IT) system.
2. Background Information
Disaster Recovery (DR) is a strategy including people, processes, policies, and technologies for restoring IT systems in the event of a failure. It is also increasingly popular to utilize virtualization tools to enable the most efficient use of IT resources. However, recovering the virtual infrastructure needed to support an environment for a Managed Recovery Program (MRP) is a long and complex task where even small mistakes can cause the overall system to malfunction. Large environments can contain dozens of physical servers that must be precisely configured with hundreds of settings. These settings must be made in a consistent way across a subset of devices in order for all devices to work together correctly.
Within a typical IT production environment, configuration information for these settings is spread across multiple documents. Recovery procedures are also quite susceptible to frequency changes, which are difficult to transmit among systems operators. Additionally, many times the virtual infrastructure itself must be recovered first, before the data recovery can begin.
There are many known approaches to automating disaster recovery and solving the associated administrative problems inside an enterprise. One way is to use the Virtual Machine (VM) restoration solutions from vendors such as NetBackup (available from Symantec Corporation of Sunnyvale, Calif.; Simpina by CommVault Systems of Oceanport, N.J.; and backup products available from Veeam Software AG of Baar, Switzerland. However implementation of those solutions requires not only the underlying hardware infrastructure, but also virtual networking, storage sub systems and the like to already be recovered.
VMware's vCenter Site Recovery Manager (available from VMware, a subsidiary of EMC Corporation of Hopkinton, Mass.) can be used to replicate virtual machines to a secondary site, and supports automated recovery plans.
Other solutions exist for automated detection and management of configuration information as explained in a U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/353,652 filed Jan. 19, 2012 entitled "Automated Configuration Error Detection and Prevention"; it is also known that a managed recovery service can use configuration information to recover logical domains as explained in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/752,835 filed Jan. 29, 2013 entitled "Logical Domain Recovery". Each of these patents are assigned to SunGard Availability Services, LP the same assignee of the present application and each are incorporated by reference herein.

Virtual infrastructure recovery configurator


An optical communications system and method are provided in which multiple parallel optical communications modules are mid-plane mounted on a PCB motherboard. Each module is connected to an optical fiber ribbon cable. The modules are configured to have very low profiles and/or to provide an angular coupling of the ribbon cable to the module. In both cases, the module configurations obviate the need to leave a significant amount of space between a module and the one behind it for the purpose of providing room for the ribbon cable to exit the module without the cable being bent beyond its minimum bend radius. This feature allows the module mounting density on the motherboard PCB to be very high and allows the modules to be mounted closer to their respective hub ICs, which increases mounting density and allows the modules to be mounted closer to their respective hub ICs.

A parallel optical communications module is a module having multiple transmit (TX) channels, multiple receive (RX) channels, or both. A parallel optical transceiver module is an optical communications module that has multiple TX channels and multiple RX channels in the TX and RX portions, respectively, of the transceiver. The TX portion comprises components for transmitting data in the form of modulated optical signals over multiple optical waveguides, which are typically optical fibers. The TX portion includes a laser driver circuit and a plurality of laser diodes. The laser driver circuit outputs electrical signals to the laser diodes to modulate them. When the laser diodes are modulated, they output optical signals that have power levels corresponding to logic 1s and logic 0s. An optics system of the transceiver module focuses the optical signals produced by the laser diodes into the ends of respective transmit optical fibers held within a connector that mates with the transceiver module.
Typically, the TX portion also includes a plurality of monitor photodiodes that monitor the output power levels of the respective laser diodes and produce respective electrical feedback signals that are fed back to the transceiver controller. The transceiver controller processes the feedback signal to obtain respective average output power levels for the respective laser diodes. The transceiver controller outputs control signals to the laser driver circuit that cause it to adjust the modulation and/or bias current signals output to the respective laser diodes such that the average output power levels of the laser diodes are maintained at relatively constant levels.
The RX portion includes a plurality of receive photodiodes that receive incoming optical signals output from the ends of respective receive optical fibers held in the connector. The optics system of the transceiver module focuses the light that is output from the ends of the receive optical fibers onto the respective receive photodiodes. The receive photodiodes convert the incoming optical signals into electrical analog signals. An electrical detection circuit, such as a transimpedance amplifier (TIA), receives the electrical signals produced by the receive photodiodes and outputs corresponding amplified electrical signals, which are processed in the RX portion to recover the data.
There is an ever-increasing demand in the optical communications industry for optical communications systems that are capable of simultaneously transmitting and receiving ever-increasing amounts of data. To accomplish this, it is known to combine multiple parallel optical transceiver modules of the type described above to produce an optical communications system that has a higher bandwidth. A variety of parallel transceiver modules are used in the optical communications industry for this purpose. For example, one known transceiver module of the type described above includes a multi-fiber connector module known in the industry as the MTP® connector module. The MTP connector module plugs into a receptacle of a transceiver module that is secured to a front panel of the optical communications system. The MTP connector module receives a duplex fiber ribbon cable having a total of 4, 8, 12, 24, or 48 optical fibers. Typically, half of the fibers of the ribbon cable are transmit fibers and the other half are receive fibers, although all of the fibers may be either transmit or receive fibers in cases where the module is being used as either a transmitter or a receiver, but not both. When the MTP connector module is plugged into the receptacle, electrical contacts of the connector module are electrically connected with electrical contacts of a printed circuit board (PCB) of the transceiver module. The laser diodes and the photodiodes are integrated circuits (ICs) that are mounted on the PCB. A laser driver IC and a transceiver controller IC are typically also mounted on the PCB, although the transceiver controller IC is sometimes mounted on a separate IC, known as the motherboard IC of the optical communications system.
It is known that multiple transceiver modules of the type that use the MTP connector can be arranged in an array to provide an optical communications system that has an overall bandwidth that is generally equal to the sum of the bandwidths of the individual transceiver modules. One of the problems associated with such an array is that because the MTP connectors are edge-mounted in receptacles formed in the front panel of the optical communications system, there are limitations on the ability of such an array to achieve very large increases in bandwidth. For example, in order to obtain an optical communications system that has the ability to simultaneously transmit and receive one terabit of data per second (Tb/s), the racks and cabling needed to accommodate the transceiver modules would consume so much space that the solution would be impractical in many cases. In addition, an array of this type would present heat dissipation problems, and in most cases, would be prohibitively expensive.
An alternative to edge-mounting parallel optical transceiver modules is to mid-plane mount parallel optical transceiver modules. A mid-plane mounting configuration is one in which the modules are mounted in the plane of the motherboard PCB. One known parallel optical transceiver module that is mid-plane mounted is the Snap 12 transceiver module. The Snap 12 transceiver module comprises a 12-channel TX module and a 12-channel RX module. Each module has an array of 100 input/output (I/O) pins that plugs into a 100-pin ball grid array (BGA), known as a Meg-array. The Meg-array is, in turn, secured to the host PCB motherboard. The Snap 12 transceiver system has a bandwidth of 10 Gigabits (Gbs) per channel, and has a total bandwidth of 120 Gb/s.
The Snap 12 system is typically mounted in a box, which is connected to multiple electrical cables, which, in turn, are connected to multiple router ICs. In order to increase the total bandwidth of an optical communications system that uses multiple mid-plane mounted Snap 12 transceiver modules, multiple boxes may be used. The boxes are typically mounted in racks. For example, to obtain a system having a total bandwidth of ½ Tb/s, a total of five Snap 12 boxes would be needed. The racks needed to accommodate this many boxes and the cables needed to interconnect the boxes to the router ICs consume a large amount of space and generate a large amount of heat. The space consumption and heat generation problems must be dealt with in order to make the system operate properly.
In addition, the Snap 12 transmit and receive modules are relatively tall (approximately 15 mm in height), which often results in the occurrence of relatively large impedance disturbances in the modules. These impedance disturbances reduce signal integrity and therefore limit the bandwidth efficiency of the system. Also, each Snap 12 box is sold as a stand-alone part that is relatively expensive. Consequently, a system that is constructed of multiple boxes in order to achieve an increased bandwidth is generally very expensive.
Other mid-plane mounting solutions exist or have been proposed for mounting multiple parallel optical transceiver modules on a motherboard PCB. One of the problems associated with the existing or proposed mid-plane mounting solutions is that there are limitations on the mounting density of the modules on the motherboard PCB. One of the reasons for this is that the optical fiber ribbon cables that connect to the modules typically pass out of the side of the module that faces the front panel, which makes it necessary to provide some space between each module and the module behind it to avoid having to bend the ribbon cable of the module in front by a large amount to allow it to pass over the module in back of it. Consequently, the number of modules that can be mounted on the motherboard is limited by the additional space needed between adjacent modules to accommodate the cables.
In addition, with known edge-mounting and mid-plane mounting configurations, the electrical conductors that electrically connect the circuitry of the modules to their respective hub ICs on the motherboard PCB have to be relatively long. This is especially true with edge-mounted modules where the electrical conductors have to extend over a distance between the front panel where the modules are mounted and the hub IC. However, this is also true with mid-plane mounting configurations where the lengths of the conductors are increased due to the additional space that is needed between one module and the one behind it to accommodate the ribbon cable passing out of the side of the front module. Because these modules often operate at the limits of the latest high-speed electronics, the long conductor lengths tend to create signal integrity problems.
Accordingly, a need exists for an optical communications system having a mid-plane mounting configuration in which parallel optical transceiver modules are capable of being mounted with very high density on the motherboard PCB. Increasing the mounting density of the modules increases the amount of data that can be simultaneously transmitted from and received in the optical communications system. In addition, the high density of the modules on the motherboard enables the lengths of the conductors that connect the electrical circuitry of the modules to their respective hub ICs to be reduced, which helps prevent signal integrity problems.

Mid-plane mounted optical communications system and method for providing high-density mid-plane mounting of parallel optical communications modules

Avago Technologies Fiber IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd


A distance learning system consists of a plurality of multi-cast clients of various classes and priorities with one multi-cast client as a primary multi-cast client, a multi-cast server, arbitrator and a distance learning session coordinator. The primary multi-cast client provides the default or primary Audio-Visual Material (AVM) stream. The Multi-Cast Server (MCS) setups a multi-cast over a point to multi-point connection which connects all multi-cast clients that are to take part in a particular distance learning session, along with the Primary multi-cast client. Additionally, the primary multi-cast client is connected to the MCS via a point-to-point link. The multi-cast clients and the primary multi-cast client receive an AVM material stream from the multi-cast server via the point to multi-point connection. When a multi-cast client wishes to speak, a speaking request is sent to the arbitrator, the arbitrator determines whether to grant or deny the speaking request. If permission is granted then a point-to-point link is established between the requesting multi-cast client and the MCS. The requesting multi-cast client then provides an AVM stream to the multi-cast server over the newly established point-to-point connection and the multi-cast server switches or provides the AVM stream associated with the requesting multi-cast Client over the point to multi-point connection. When the requesting multi-cast client is through speaking the MCS switches the AVM stream associated with the primary multi-cast client onto the point to multi-point connection and the point-to-point link with the requesting multi-cast client is terminated.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for video conferencing applications such as distance learning. More particularly, it relates to a method and apparatus involving a multi-cast server for multi-point data transmission for multi-party video conferencing.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Video conferencing promises to bring people in far-flung communities together through communication networks. Distance learning expands video conferencing usage by allowing students in small communities to attend courses taught by experts, without having to travel to major educational institutions.
Prior art distance learning systems consisted of classrooms equipped with video cameras, large screen video monitors, local video and audio mixing facilities, and a means to transmit video and audio information between these sites. During a distance learning session, one such classroom is designated as the teacher site; other sites participate in the distance learning session as student classrooms. Early distance learning systems employed analog video equipment, and recently digitally encoded video, which is carried over dedicated data links. A typical arrangement includes: point-of-presence video codecs, a multi-conference control unit (MCU) that switches video between different sources, and dedicated point-to-point data links connecting the point-of-presence codecs with the MCU. A distributed conference-control application manages the class schedules and source switching.
There are several drawbacks of MCU based distance learning system configurations that stem from the star-topology and dedicated links of the system. The first drawback is dedicated transmission: all video streams must be transmitted to the MCU before they reach participants in a video conferencing or distance learning session. This means that bandwidth must be dedicated for all participants to transmit their audiovisual stream, even if they are not being viewed by other participants. Since all incoming and outgoing video data is transmitted on point-to-point links, bandwidth is wasted in the network that could otherwise be used for non-video data transmissions. The second drawback is that of centralized resource bottleneck. A traditional MCU video source switching can become a bottleneck in the system, especially when there are concurrent distance learning sessions. The third drawback is that expansion of the monolithic multi-conferencing unit is difficult. The complexity of the MCU increases with each distant site that is added. A traditional MCU serves all video conference sessions in a particular network. Since the capacity of the MCU is fixed, as the network expands, the MCU has to be expanded to accommodate the increased number of users. An MCU has limitations on the total number of ports that can be served at one time. As a result, a major increase in capacity requires replacement of the MCU.
These unresolved problems and deficiencies are clearly felt in the art and are solved by the invention in the manner described below.

Method system and article of manufacture for multi-casting audio visual material

International Business Machines Corporation