A retractable strap that may be attached to a variety of different transportable objects that includes a flexible strap having first and second ends and a first and second retractor, each first and second retractor having an attachment end for attaching the object and a strap end for receipt of a respective first and second end of the flexible strap such that the first and second retractor enable adjustment of the flexible strap from the first and second ends.

Generally any transportable object such as a briefcase or hand bag is equipped with a handle so that it may be carried by hand. In some cases however, the object may become too heavy to be carried by the handle alone for a long period of time or it may prove inconvenient when the person carrying it wishes to use both hands for something else. For these reasons, a suspending strap or shoulder strap is ordinarily attached to the object.
A shoulder strap attached to a moveable object is designed so that its length may be varied by an adjusting member such as a buckle. In other words, the length of the shoulder strap must be adjusted to accommodate the person using the bag which can become inconvenient. Additionally, the length of the strap may cause it to hang loose from the object and/or become caught on another protruding object. Thus, the shoulder strap may become dirty when the object is put on the ground, resulting in stains to the clothes of the person carrying the object. Moreover, the shoulder strap is in the way when it is not being used, and may become hazardous, leading to an accident.
Some devices have attempted to eliminate the foregoing problems by means of a hook fixture or the like, which allows the shoulder strap to be attached or detached from the object. However, these devices are not attached to or detached from the associated object each time it becomes necessary or unnecessary. It is usually while the object is being carried that the shoulder strap becomes necessary or unnecessary. In other words, the shoulder strap is not usually detached even if it becomes unnecessary. These conventional devices are inconvenient in that, when the strap becomes unnecessary, the portion of the strap hanging from the object must be secured in the object or gripped together with the handle. Accordingly, these devices are not useful in eliminating the foregoing problems and inconveniences.
In view of this, a variety of strap lodging devices have been proposed in which the strap can be withdrawn into the object or extracted therefrom, depending upon whether the strap is used regularly. These strap lodging devices may be categorized according to two types of locking mechanism: (1) the strap itself is press-locked to prevent it from being extracted or withdrawn inadvertently; or (2) a ratchet mechanism allows the winder of the strap to rotate in one direction only. Either type of conventional strap lodging device must be designed and manufactured into the associated object making it impossible to use on a variety of different objects. Moreover, these conventional strap lodging devices deprive the associated object of its effective space. In some cases, objects such as a video camera offer little or no space at all for mounting the strap lodging device.
Other conventional strap lodging devices such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,198,300 to Tuttle and U.S. Pat. No. 5,294,029 to Shimura, et al attempt to address the problems associated with a strap lodging device that must be manufactured into the object. For example, the device described in the '300 patent to Tuttle is a retractable strap lodging device that may be disposed in either the portable object itself or as a separate (handle) assembly. Although the device described by the '300 patent to Tuttle addresses the use of a pair of spools which act to retract the strap from either end, the Tuttle device is limited by the dimensions of the object since it must either be manufactured into the object itself or constructed as a handle for a specific object. Similarly, the strap lodging device described by the '029 patent to Shimura et al is similarly limited by the size of the object for which it is intended since the object must be large enough to accommodate the attachment means of the device. Moreover, the device described by the '029 patent to Shimura et al incorporates a single retraction mechanism limiting the adjustability of the device relative to the object, which can cause uneven wear along the length of the strap.
Accordingly, there is a specific need for a retractable strap that is sufficiently compact and lightweight to carry on a person or store in an object such as a handbag, yet is adjustable at either end to accommodate a variety of different transportable objects.


The orthodontic archwire bracket comprises a base body (10) having a base element (11) to be fixed to a tooth and a bracket body (20) having a socket element (25) surrounded by a perimetric wall (32) including two opposed slot portions (21a, 21b) forming a slot (21) to receive an archwire. The base and bracket bodies (10, 20) are connected by a ball and socket joint coupling. The perimetric wall (32) has a slit (33) providing a gap. A control element (60) mounted on the bracket body (20) is changeable between locking and unlocking positions to expand or constrict the bracket body (20) by increasing or reducing the gap. The ball and socket joint coupling is locked by friction when the control element (50) is in the locking position and the ball and socket joint coupling is unlocked enabling relative movement in three coordinate axes when the control element (50) is in the unlocking position.

Patent ES-A-2232243, of the same inventor as the present invention, describes an orthodontic archwire bracket including a base body with a base for being fixed to a tooth, a bracket body with a slot for the archwire, and an adjustment mechanism based on a ball and socket joint coupling between said base and bracket bodies, wherein the base body defines a socket element and the bracket body defines a ball element. The bracket body is made of a material having shape memory due to a thermal effect, such that when the two coupled bodies are at a temperature below the body temperature they are capable of mutual movement, and when they are heated to body temperature the expansion of the bracket body locks the ball and socket joint coupling in a desired position, which allows adjusting the torque and the inclination of the archwire without needing to change the bracket.
Nevertheless, a drawback of this bracket of the mentioned patent ES-A-2232243 is that the bracket body is essentially solid, so it is economically costly due to the relatively high price of the shape memory material and the impossibility of making it functional. Another drawback is that the bracket body does not include a retaining element for retaining the archwire in the corresponding slot, which forces resorting to additional elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,243,387 discloses an orthodontic archwire bracket including a base body having a base for being fixed to a tooth and a bracket body having a slot for the archwire. The base body and the bracket body are coupled to one another by a ball and socket joint coupling, wherein the base body has an inner spherical surface portion and the bracket body has an outer spherical surface portion. A screw inserted through an opening of the bracket body and threaded to the base body is operable to lock or unlock said ball and socket joint coupling. However, the fact that the screw head is located at the bottom of a hollow portion of the bracket body below the archwire makes it difficult to reach it with a driving tool, and also the bracket body does not include a retaining element for retaining the archwire in the slot.
International patent application WO 03/000151 discloses an orthodontic archwire bracket comprising a base to which there is fixed a plurality of parts having respective slot portions which together define a slot for the archwire and cavities between the slot portions where there are housed C-shaped latches for retaining the archwire in the slot. The latches can optionally be made of a material having shape memory. Nevertheless, this archwire bracket does not include adjustment means for varying the angular position of the archwire with respect to the base and the torque transmitted by the latter to the bracket. Furthermore, said plurality of parts imposes onerous manufacturing and assembly tasks.


A full size building having three walls, an open side and a roof but no floor can be moved along parallel rails from an open free standing position to a closed position where the building abuts another structure to completely enclose an outdoor area. The building is of conventional construction but is erected over a rigid framework of iron beams. A series of roller assemblies containing rotatable axles is attached to the underside of rigid framework. The axles rest directly on the rails and rotate smoothly by means of bearings as the building moves along the rails. Stabilizers prevent wobble and keep the building on the rails when it is being moved. Locks prevent any movement when the building is in either the open or closed position. Additional locking means prevent lateral movement when the building is locked in the open position. The building can be moved using a winch and cable system or using a unique suspended sprocket wheel and track system. Concrete footings form the base for the rails. Hinged panels along the lower portion of the inside and outside of the three walls conceal the roller assemblies and stabilizers and close any space between the walls and the ground below them. The hinges enable the panels to be raised when the building is being moved. The abutting structure can be a stationary wall, an exterior wall of a stationary building, or another movable building.

Most structures meant for human habitation are permanent and securely fixed to their sites. There are temporary structures such as tents and gazebos that can be taken down and moved, but these are not designed for long term use. Prefabricated buildings are known and are becoming more popular, but once erected, these are usually intended to be fixed to their sites and made permanent.
A review of rigid structures that can be moved reveals very limited examples which are for relatively small structures designed to cover or enclose a hot tub. Reville, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,327 teaches a retractable trackless spa enclosure made up of two sections, both constructed of an extruded aluminum frame, clear plastic side panels and Gambrel roof. One section is slightly smaller than the other and has a back wall. The larger front section slides over the smaller back section to nest around the back section. A pivotally mounted front wall tilts to enable the front section to move over the spa. Both sections can be moved away from the spa during good weather and can completely enclose the spa during inclement weather. This system can work well for hot tubs of varying sizes but would not work for a full sized swimming pool or for a large patio area. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,374,433, Gray discloses a movable hot tub cover structure that includes four walls and a roof. The cover structure sits on a wheeled cart which moves on high density plastic or rubber wheels over angle iron rails. The cover structure is moved by means of a garage door reversible motor activated by a remote control and utilizes a chain drive located on each transverse side. The hot tub is located at ground level and the cover structure is situated on a raised deck built contiguous with the upper level of the hot tub. The cover structure can completely cover the hot tub or be completely removed from the hot tub. The patent describes the walls as being from three to seven feet high and the sides from ten to thirty feet long. This structure may work well for covering a hot tub, but would not be practical to cover a large outdoor area. If the system described and illustrated were to be thirty feet long it would have to be constructed of a very light plastic.
Structures have been designed to cover full sized swimming pools and these range from fabric covered steel frames to permanent structures, often having one or more walls of windows or sliding doors that can be opened in good weather and closed during inclement weather. Other means have been developed to cover swimming pools, but these do not represent structures, merely covering means. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,815,152 to Mac Donald et al. An interesting permanent pool covering structure is taught by Nohl et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,506. There is a movable floor supported by four upright columns. The floor can be lowered forming a usable floor space that completely covers the pool, and can be raised to form a second ceiling when the pool is to be used.
There is a need for a rigid structure that can completely enclose an outdoor area such as a swimming pool during inclement or cold weather while being movable to the extent that the outdoor area is completely uncovered and exposed during warm weather. There is a need for a structure that, though quite large, can be moved easily, either to cover the desired area or uncover it, without the need for cumbersome machinery or complex systems. There is a need for such a movable structure for home and recreational use as well as for use in commercial settings.


A thermo-reversible dry adhesive, having shape memory polymer characteristics, introduces one or more particles of micro- or nano-particles to at least one layer of the at least one layer of shape memory polymer. These particles may be remotely activated to induct heat sufficient to transform the dry adhesive material from its temporary shape to its permanent shape in the absence of load, which allows the dry adhesive to be reversibly coupled to one or more substrates, wherein the degree of adhesion is greater when the dry adhesive is in the temporary shape than in the permanent shape.

Thermo-reversible dry adhesives are made of at least one layer of an elastomeric dry-adhesive and at least one layer of a shape memory polymer (SMPs). SMPs represent responsive polymers that can fix to deformed temporary shapes and recover to their permanent (original) shapes only upon external stimuli such as heating. By heating and imposing a load during subsequent cooling to transform the dry adhesive to a temporary shape, adhesive strength may be increased. By subsequently heating the dry adhesive in the absence of load, therein transforming the dry adhesive back to its permanent shape, adhesive strength may be decreased. These dry adhesives may thus be used to reversibly couple together substrate materials.

Remote activation of thermo-reversible dry adhesives


The present invention provides methods and compositions for the use of IL-22 for treating conditions of intestinal injury and inflammatory conditions such as graft vs. host disease. Specifically, IL-22 can be used to increase Intestinal Stem Cell (ISC) recovery and for enhancing immune reconstitution following allogeneic hematopoietic transplantation. In particularly preferred embodiments, the present invention provides methods of using therapeutic IL-22, including a dimeric form of IL-22, in therapeutic compositions for treating graft vs. host disease, including hepatic, thymic, gastrointestinal, or other graft vs. host disease in hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients and in patients with inflammatory intestinal conditions.

Mechanisms regulating host tissue recovery from immune-mediated damage in gastrointestinal graft vs. host disease (GI-GVHD) remain incompletely understood. Current strategies to reduce clinical GVHD have the undesired effect of limiting both post-transplant immune function and therapeutic (beneficial) graft vs. leukemia/lymphoma (GVL) responses. Of particular concern is the maintenance and regeneration of intestinal epithelial tissues during graft vs. host disease (GVHD) because GVHD causes intestinal cell pathology which interferes with intestinal functions.
GI GVHD is the predominant contributor to acute GVHD-related mortality after allogeneic hematopoietic stem/progenitor cell transplantation.
Thus, there remains a need for post-transplant strategies for selectively promoting intestinal epithelial regeneration after allogeneic hematopoietic stem/progenitor cell transplantation (allo-HCT) to reduce GVHD without limiting therapeutic graft vs. leukemia/lymphoma (GVL) responses.

Methods of use for IL-22 in the treatment of gastrointestinal graft vs. host disease


In one aspect, a soil slurry mixing apparatus comprises: a) a support structure configured to extend at least partially across a bioreactor vessel; b) at least one fluid inlet conduit supported by the support structure and configured to extend within the bioreactor vessel, the inlet conduit comprising an inlet port; c) a plurality of outlet nozzles supported by the support structure and configured to extend within the bioreactor vessel, the outlet nozzles being in fluid communication with the fluid inlet conduit and comprising outlet nozzle ports configured to be submerged beneath the surface of the slurry within the bioreactor vessel; and d) a pump in fluid communication with the fluid inlet conduit and outlet nozzles and being configured to draw soil slurry from the bioreactor vessel through the inlet conduit port and to discharge said slurry from the outlet nozzle ports to within the bioreactor vessel to mix the soil slurry within the bioreactor vessel. In another aspect, a method for mixing a slurry within a bioreactor vessel, comprises: a) providing a support structure across the bioreactor vessel, the support structure supporting one or more fluid inlet conduits and a plurality of outlet nozzles, the inlet conduits and outlet nozzles being within the bioreactor vessel, the outlet nozzles being in fluid communication with the fluid inlet conduits; b) drawing fluid from the slurry into the inlet conduits; and c) discharging said fluid into the vessel from the outlet nozzles to mix the slurry within the bioreactor vessel.

Major efforts are currently being expended to clean up contaminated soils throughout the United States and the world. Such contaminated soils typically arise as industrial products or by-products are spilled either inadvertently or purposely into the environment. Commonly found contaminants are herbicides, pesticides, petroleum products and other hazardous industrial by-products. The time and expense involved in removing these contaminants from soil is frequently immense. Further, some soil types can exacerbate the problem by tightly binding with contaminants. Soils with a heavy clay content are frequently exceedingly difficult to decontaminate because of such binding actions.
Interestingly, in many contamination sites there will exist naturally-occurring microorganisms which have a capacity to aid in removal of the contaminant from the environment. Methods by which such microorganisms can aid in removal of contaminants vary. Sometimes, the contaminants are actually degraded, either partially or totally, by the microorganisms. Othertimes, the microorganisms can convert a contaminant to a substance which binds less tightly to the soil and is therefore easier to remove from the soil. In addition to the naturally-occurring microorganisms which may aid in removal of contaminants, non-naturally-occurring microorganisms may also be utilized. Such non-naturally-occurring microorganisms may sometimes be created by skilled scientists for the purpose of removing a contaminant from the environment. Example microorganisms which may be useful in remediating contaminated soils are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,387,271, to Crawford et. al., entitled "Biological System For Degrading Nitroaromatics In Water And Soils," which is incorporated herein by reference.
In spite of the knowledge that naturally occurring and non-naturally-occurring microorganisms can aid in removal of contaminants from soils, and, in spite of frequent speculation that such microorganisms may be useful in remediating contaminated soil sites, it has been a considerable challenge to develop devices and procedures which can efficiently tap the utilities of such microorganisms. Among the problems faced are: 1) the microorganisms are frequently anaerobic so that oxygen must be substantially excluded from the environment of the microorganisms if they are to function efficiently; 2) the microorganisms, or some substance formed by the microorganisms, must generally contact a contaminant before the microorganisms can efficiently aid in removing the contaminant, so there must be efficient mixing of the microorganisms with a contaminated soil; and 3) the contaminated sites are generally enormous, possibly several square miles or larger in size. It is desirable therefore to develop methods and apparatuses which can be used in conjunction with microbiological activity to clean up contaminated soil sites.
Another set of problems facing those who would remediate contaminated soil sites concern the difficulties in preventing spillage of contaminated soil during the remediation process. Spilled contaminated soil may contaminate areas that were previously clean. Such spillage is particularly likely to occur during transport of the contaminated soil, as the soil may become a dust which is wind-blown to clean areas, or may be dribbled from open containers, or trucks, passing over the clean areas. Accordingly, it would be desirable to develop methods and apparatuses which minimize spread of contaminated soil from a remediation site during a remediation process.
Yet another set of problems facing those who would remediate contaminated soil sites arises from the remote locations of the sites. Frequently, such sites lack access to electrical power and lack nearby facilities for repair of broken equipment. Accordingly, it would be desirable to minimize the power requirements of decontamination apparatuses utilized at the sites, and to provide relatively durable decontamination apparatuses.
One method for remediating a site is to excavate the contaminated soil, haul it to a treatment vessel, decontaminate the soil in the treatment vessel, and then return the soil to the environment preferably using it to refill the site from which it was originally excavated. The reason for hauling the soil to a treatment vessel, rather than treating it in situ, is that a treatment vessel provides better control over the decontamination conditions. Such better control can lead to better decontamination of a soil.
A particular type of treatment vessel which may be used for decontaminating soils is a so-called "bioreactor vessel," which is a vessel within which microorganisms, or microorganism by-products, are utilized during the decontamination process. Example microorganisms which may be used in a bioreactor vessel are described in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,387,271. The microorganisms described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,387,271 require substantially anaerobic conditions during a degradation process. Such a requirement for anaerobic conditions during a microbial degradation process is not unusual, so it is frequently desirable to maintain substantially anaerobic conditions during microbial decontamination of a soil.
One method for maintaining such substantially anaerobic conditions, described generally in U.S. Pat. No. 5,387,271, is to mix aerobic microorganisms with the anaerobic microorganisms which will degrade the contaminant. The aerobic microorganisms scavenge oxygen from within the bioreactor vessel to render the vessel substantially anaerobic and thereby provide conditions suitable for the anaerobic microorganisms to degrade the contaminant. As long as sufficient nutrients are present to sustain the aerobic microorganisms, they will do an exceptional job of scavenging oxygen, possibly permitting a fluid within a bioreactor vessel to be left open to the atmosphere during the anaerobic degradation process. A fluid 12 comprising aerobic microorganisms and suitable nutrient is illustrated in FIG. 1.
Referring to FIG. 1, a bioreactor vessel 10 containing a fluid 12 is shown in cross-sectional side view. Fluid 12 comprises both aerobic and anaerobic microorganisms, a food source for the microorganisms, and a contaminant which is to be degraded by the anaerobic microorganisms and which will only be degraded under substantially anaerobic conditions. The bioreactor vessel comprises sides 14 and a bottom 16, but comprises no top. Accordingly, a top surface 18 of fluid 12 is exposed to the atmosphere 19, and thereby exposed to oxygen.
Due to the action of the aerobic microorganisms, oxygen which diffuses through top surface 18 of fluid 12 is quickly scavenged. Accordingly, fluid 12 becomes stratified into a substantially anaerobic lower portion 20 and a partially aerobic upper portion 22 wherein oxygen has diffused into fluid 12 and is being scavenged by the aerobic microorganisms.
A difficulty presented when soil slurries are to be decontaminated is that the soil of the slurry will settle to the bottom 16 of bioreactor vessel 10. Once the soil settles, the substantially anaerobic layer 20 is subdivided into a soil layer 24 at the bottom of the vessel, and a relatively clear layer 23 above the soil layer 24. The soil layer 24 generally takes an exceedingly long time to decontaminate because there is relatively poor mixing of microorganisms and microorganism nutrients within the contaminated soil. Also, the soil layer 24 can become quite compact, and therefore vigorous mixing may be required to uniformly disperse the soil into contact with the anaerobic microorganisms. A difficulty presented by such vigorous mixing is that the partially aerobic layer 22 may be disturbed by the mixing so that oxygen becomes dispersed throughout an entire depth of fluid 12 and thereby inhibits the decontamination activity of the anaerobic microorganisms. Accordingly, it would be desirable to develop a mixing system which could vigorously mix the lower layer 20 of fluid 12 while having substantially minimal dispersion of oxygen from level 22 into the lower level 20. It would be most desirable to develop a mixing system which enabled anaerobic microorganisms to continue to function during mixing of the lower layer 20 of fluid 12.
Another difficulty of decontaminating a soil slurry is that if the contaminated soil is not entirely exposed to substantially equal amounts of decontamination activity, certain pockets of the soil will remain contaminated while the rest of the soil becomes decontaminated. If these contaminated pockets are returned to the environment with the decontaminated soil, the remediation site may not be adequately decontaminated by a decontamination process. Accordingly, it would be desirable to develop a process which vigorously and uniformly disperses the soil layer 24 so that substantially all of the contaminated soil is exposed to substantially equal amounts of decontamination activity.
Other difficulties of decontaminating a soil slurry in a bioreactor vessel arise from the massive scale of the decontamination processes. Typical bioreactor vessels are on the order of about 30 feet wide by about 100 feet long by 3 to 5 feet deep. These vessels may be formed either above ground, as tanks, or below ground, as lined ponds. In either event, the vessels are commonly referred to as bioreactor "ponds" because of their large size. The large size of the bioreactor vessels creates substantial challenges in mixing the content of the vessels. A prior art method for mixing the content has been to provide walkways over the top of the vessels and to have persons manually move a "wand" through the content of the vessel to stir the content. The wand is generally a hollow tube connected to a pump and in fluid communication with an inlet tube extending into the fluid layer 20 of the pond. The inlet is preferably kept in the relatively clear fluid layer 23 above the soil layer 24 to lessen the probability of sucking particulate matter into the tube, as such particulate matter is likely to eventually plug the tube.
The fluid sucked into the inlet tube is expelled through the wand with a force generated by the pump. The wand generally comprises a nozzle, and this nozzle is ideally held in proximity to, or within, the soil layer 24. Thus, fluid expelled through the nozzle generates a mixing action within the layer 24 which disperses previously settled soil throughout the fluid layer 20.
Several problems are presented by this prior art method. Among these problems has been inadequate uniformity of the mixing of layer 24. A person manually moving a wand within the soil layer 24 generally does not uniformly mix the soil.
Another problem has been that persons will occasionally punch the nozzle of the wand through the soil layer 24 and into a lining at the bottom of the bioreactor vessel to thereby create a leak in the bottom of the vessel. As the material contained within the vessel is a contaminated material, it is generally undesired to have such contaminated material spilling from the bioreactor vessel into the adjacent environment.
Other prior art methods of mixing include mechanical agitation of a fluid by movement of a paddle or blade through the fluid. Such mechanical agitation is generally difficult to utilize in soil-slurry pond or vessel due to an inherent risk of punching through a lining of the pond or vessel.
For the above-discussed reasons, it would be desirable to develop an alternate mixing system for bioreactor vessels.

Apparatus for mixing a slurry within a bioreactor vessel


An optical transmission system includes more optical channels than electrical channels. If an optical channel is not functioning, the signals may be diverted to another optical channel since there are more optical channels than electrical channels. Embodiments of the present invention also relate to switches for switching the electrical channels to particular optical channels on either or both of the transmission and reception side. The switches include switching elements and selector elements for routing the electrical signals between the electrical channels and optical channels. In one embodiment, the multiple optical channels are incorporated into a single cable. The single cable may have the electrical interface for a number of electrical channels exposed for mechanical and electrical coupling with an external port, whereas the optical channels may be hidden within the cable coating.

Many high speed data transmission networks rely on optical links to communicate digital data. For each direction of such an optical link, the link includes an optical transmitter (such as a laser), an optical fiber, and an optical receiver (such as a photodiode). The optical transmitter converts outgoing electrical data signals into outgoing optical data signals. The optical receiver converts incoming optical data signals into incoming electrical signals. Optical transmitters are also sometimes called "optical sources" and optical receivers are also sometimes called "optical detectors".
Optical transmitters and receivers are often manufactured on a semiconductor substrate using semiconductor processing technology, which uses a recipe of processing steps to create an appropriate structure having very fine feature dimension sizes. Processing technology results in some imperfections. Sometimes, such imperfections may result in a dysfunctional or unreliable structure. The ratio of successfully fabricated structures to the total number of structures attempted is often termed "yield". All things being equal, higher yields are more desirable. However, higher yields often require undesired tradeoffs with performance or operating conditions or at the least more design or process development which can take a great deal of time and expense. Thus, the most commercially viable yield is often less than the maximum possible yield.
As an example, suppose that the structure being manufactured is an optical transmitter in the form of a laser, and that nine out of ten of such structures are manufactured successfully. The laser could then be said to have a yield of 90 percent, which may very well be an acceptable yield for many applications.
Sometimes, however, it is desirable to have an array of optical transmitters as a final integrated product. For instance, suppose that one desires a cable with 10 separate bi-directional optical links. It might be helpful to have a single integrated die with 10 optical transmitters built thereon. Such an array might be more compact, and be more convenient to align. However, the yield of the overall die can plummet in such an arrangement. For instance, if a successful structure relies on 10 working optical transmitters, and each optical transmitter can be manufactured with a 90 percent yield, the yield of the entire array would be much smaller, even as low as 0.9 to the power of 10 (expressed sometimes as 0.910, which is about 35%) in situations in which the yield of one optical transmitter was independent of another. This yield can be improved by tightening operating conditions or relaxing specifications, but this may be unacceptable or undesirable for the intended application.
What may be even more problematic than poor initial yield is poor device reliability. Unacceptable reliability is a common problem with semiconductor lasers. Such problems can typically be divided into those with high initial rates (often termed "infant mortality"), and those with much longer mean times to failures but which still result in unacceptable long term reliability. Once identified and characterized, infant mortality failures are typically screened out by operating the device (at the wafer, die, optical subassembly or final transmitter or transceiver module level), for a predetermined period of time, and usually at an elevated operating temperature and/or current density.
Failure modes with much longer mean times to failure can be avoided by testing representative device lots, usually over a range of elevated temperatures and current densities to confidently predict acceptably low failure rates over specified operating conditions or to drive design changes to achieve these failure rates.
As with initial failures, reliability problems can be greatly exacerbated in arrays of devices, and such problems have continued to be a major design and cost issue in parallel optical links.
One solution to improve optoelectronic array device reliability is the use of a multiplicity of optical sources all coupled to the same optical channel. This may be done at good coupling efficiencies if the optical channel has greater modal volume (e.g., supports a larger number of electromagnetic modes) than the combined modal volume of the sources. This is often the case with common VCSEL dimensions and multimode optical fiber designs. In this solution, a single source is used to transmit a desired signal. However, if a failure or degradation of this source is detected, a different source of the subarray is coupled to the same optical channel.
There are several drawbacks to the above-mentioned technique. For instance, the number of sources is the product of the array size and the number of devices in the subarray (4 per channel in the prior art). Such a large number of sources uses a much larger number of connections to the array of driving circuits. This might be only practical with the use of direct connection (e.g. flip chip binding) of the optoelectronic array to the driver array wafer. Additionally the smaller devices needed may have lower yields or reduced reliability compared to the larger single device it replaces. Finally, many yield and reliability problems are due to local material defect densities and result in much less improvement in overall yield of a small group of devices relative to single devices than would be expected in independent failure mechanisms.

Parallel high-speed communication links with redundant channel architectures


A ground plane beam antenna for transmitting and/or receiving radio frequency (RF) signals, and a method for constructing same, is disclosed. An embodiment of the antenna comprises at least one parasitic reflector element having a first end and a second end, at least one parasitic director element having a first end and a second end, a multi-polarized driven element positioned co-linearly with and between the at least one reflector element and the at least one director element, and an electrically conductive ground plane. The ground plane is electrically connected to the at least one reflector element and the at least one director element at the second ends, and is electrically isolated from the driven element.

For years, wireless communications have struggled with limitations of audio/video/data transport and internet connectivity in both obstructed (indoor/outdoor) and line-of-site (LOS) deployments.
A focus on antenna gain as well as circuitry solutions have proven to have significant limitations. Unresolved, non-optimized (leading edge) technologies have often given way to "bleeding edge" attempted resolutions. Unfortunately, all have fallen short of desirable goals, and some ventures/companies have even gone out of business as a result.
While lower frequency radio waves benefit from an 'earth hugging' propagation advantage, higher frequencies do inherently benefit from (multi-) reflection/penetrating characteristics. However, with topographical changes (hills & valleys) and object obstructions (e.g., natural such as trees, and man-made such as buildings/walls) and with the resultant reflections, diffractions, refractions and scattering, maximum signal received may well be off-axis (non-direct path) and multi-path (partial) cancellation of signals results in null/weaker spots. Also, some antennas may benefit from having gain at one elevation angle ('capturing' signals of some pathways), while other antennas have greater gain at another elevation angle, each type being insufficient where the other does well. In addition, the radio wave can experience altered polarizations as they propagate, reflect, refract, diffract, and scatter. A very preferred (polarization) path may exist, however, insufficient capture of the signal can result if this preferred path is not utilized.
Spatial diversity can distinctly help with some of the null-spot issues. Some radio equipment comes equipped with two switched antenna connections to reduce null spot problems experienced by a single antenna due to multi-path signals. A single antenna may receive signals out of phase from different paths, causing the resultant received signal to be nulled out (i.e., the individual signals received from the different paths cancel each other out). With two antennas, if one antenna is experiencing null cancellation, the other, if positioned properly with respect to the first antenna, will not. VOFDM (Vector Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) technology helps with some multi-path out-of-phase 'data clash' issues. Electronically steer-able antenna arrays alleviate some interference problems and provide a solution where multiple standard directional antenna/radio systems would otherwise be more difficult or clearly impractical. Dual slant polarization antenna/circuitry switching systems have shown much advantage over others in (some) obstructed environments but require additional complex circuitry. Circularly polarized systems can also provide some penetration advantages.
Certainly, gain (increased ability to transmit and receive signals in a particular direction) is important. However, if polarization of the signal and antenna are not matched, poor performance may likely result. For example, if the transmitting antenna is vertically polarized and the receiving antenna is also vertically polarized, then the transmitting and receiving antennas are matched for wireless communications. This is also true for horizontally polarized transmitting and receiving antennas.
However, if a first antenna is horizontally polarized (e.g., a TV house antenna) and a second antenna (e.g., TV transmitting antenna) is vertically polarized, then the signal received by the first antenna will be reduced, due to polarization mismatch, by about 20 dB (to about 1/100th of the signal that could be received if polarizations were matched). For example, a vertically polarized antenna with 21 dBi of gain, attempting to receive a nearly horizontally polarized signal, is essentially a 1 dBi gain antenna with respect to the horizontally polarized signal and may not be effective.
As another example, a vertically or horizontally polarized antenna that is tilted at 45 degrees can receive both vertically and horizontally polarized signals, but at a power loss of 3 dB (½ power). However, if the signal to be received is also at a 45-degree tilt, but perpendicular to the 45-degree tilt of the receiving antenna, then the signal is again reduced to 1/100th of the potential received signal. Having two antennas where one is vertically polarized and the other is horizontally polarized can help, but still has its disadvantages. Therefore, gain is important but, to be effective, polarization should be considered as well.
Traditional beam antennas such as, for example, the Yagi-Uda antenna, the quad-beam antenna, and the quagi antenna, provide higher gain substantially in one direction. Beam antennas are often desirable where transmission and reception along primarily one direction is desired such as, for example, communication between two spatially separated towers, or between a tower and customer premise equipment (CPE).
The Yagi-Uda and quagi antennas use a reflector element positioned behind a driven element, and director elements positioned in front of the driven element. All of the elements are co-linear (i.e., positioned along an imaginary line in space). A focused beam of electromagnetic energy is formed in the far field along the co-linear direction. However, such antennas tend to suffer from a poor ability to receive signals of many different polarizations and have limited spatial diversity.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional, traditional, and proposed approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.

Apparatus and method for a multi-polarized ground plane beam antenna


A computer-implemented method, according to one embodiment, includes: detecting an outage at a production site, and transferring I/O functionality to a first recovery site. In response to resolving the outage, first and second out-of-sync bitmaps are received from the first and second recovery sites, respectively. The out-of-sync bitmaps are merged together. Performance data which corresponds to achievable throughput is received from each of the first and second recovery sites, and the performance data is used to divide the merged out-of-sync bitmap into two portions. A request is sent to the first recovery site for data which corresponds to the first portion of the merged out-of-sync bitmap. Similarly, a request is sent to the second recovery site for data which corresponds to the second portion of the merged out-of-sync bitmap. Finally, data is received which corresponds to the first and second portions of the merged out-of-sync bitmap respectively, in parallel.

The present invention relates to data storage systems, and more specifically, this invention relates to the management and transfer of data between sites in a data storage system.
In an effort to maintain retention of data stored at a primary storage location, one or more redundant copies of the data are maintained at secondary (or "backup") storage locations. The secondary storage locations are typically removed from the primary storage location (at least to some extent), thereby effectively insulating each copy of data from experiencing any issues which may arise at a different one of the storage locations. For example, physically separating each of the storage locations from each other decreases the risk of more than one of the storage locations being affected by a same disaster event, e.g., such as a power loss.
Although separating the different storage locations from each other improves data retention, it also introduces strain to the communication channels connecting the storage locations. For instance, data stored at the primary storage location is continually being updated, deleted, added to, etc. These changes which occur to the data stored at the primary storage location are replicated at the secondary storage locations such that the redundant copies of the data accurately reflect the data stored at the primary storage location. Moreover, significant amounts of data, commands, authorization codes, etc. are exchanged between the different storage locations in response to experiencing a disaster event at one or more of the storage locations.

Dynamic data restoration from multiple recovery sites implementing synchronous remote mirroring

International Business Machines Corporation


A shift register circuit including a first shift register unit, a second shift register unit, a third shift register unit, and a fourth shift register unit connected in serial. The second shift register unit includes an output terminal, and a pull down system pulling the voltage of the output terminal of the second shift register unit according to a pull down signal. The fourth shift register unit includes a third switch and a fourth switch. The fourth switch has a control terminal electrically coupled to the second terminal of the third switch and the pull down unit. The fourth shift register unit generates the pull down signal according to the voltage level of the connecting point between the third switch and the fourth switch.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driving circuit in a liquid crystal display (LCD), and more particularly, to a driving circuit of a shift register circuit in the liquid crystal display.
2. Description of the Related Art
Driving circuits formed on glass bases of liquid crystal displays (LCD) have become a main technology for the future LCD. The advantage thereof is to cost down the driving circuit. FIG. 1 shows a driving circuit of a single shift register unit of a conventional shift register. FIG. 2 is a timing diagram illustrating a driving circuit of the conventional shift register. For simplification, only the driving circuit of the single shift register unit and operation thereof are discussed here.
The conventional shift register circuit uses next stage output signal S(N+1) as a pull down signal of this stage. Pull down system 101 and pull down system 102 are electrically coupled between switch element T22 and low voltage VS for pulling down a voltage of switch element T22, respectively, when clock signals are CK and XCK. When switch element T23 receives a high voltage level clock signal XCK (period t2 in FIG. 2), switch element T23 is turned on and the high voltage level of clock signal XCK is transmitted to control terminal a of switch element T32. At this moment, switch element T32 is turned on. The high voltage level of next stage output signal S(N+1) is transmitted to control terminal b of switch element T30 to turn on switch elements T30 and T29. A control terminal of switch element T22 and this stage output terminal are pulled down to low voltage VS to ensure that output signal S(N) is off status during period T2.
However, the convention pull down mechanism uses next stage output signal S(N+1) to pull down this stage shift register unit. Because next stage output signal S(N+1) has only one duty cycle to pull down shift register unit (period t2 shown in FIG. 2), charges stored in coupled capacitors of switch element T22 cannot be fully discharged. Output signal S(N) is thus unstable when off status and generates voltage drift. In addition, due to the pull down mechanism in period T2, the control terminal of switch element T32 under high voltage clock signal XCK negatively affects switch element T32. Output signal S(N) cannot maintain its off status. Thus, an incorrect image may be displayed on the LCD.


A sensor for detecting overtravel of a brake rod. The sensor includes a first part attached to the housing of a pneumatic brake actuator, and a second part connected to the rod. One part is a body having an axial passage, with a pair of axially-extending conductors in its wall. The other part is a rod having a conductive head which will bridge the conductors to enable an electrical current to pass when the rod is in a position respective to overtravel.

Brake actuators for vehicular air brakes have a power chamber into which air is supplied to apply a pressure against a diaphragm. The diaphragm in turn forces a brake rod to apply the brakes. In a correctly adjusted brake system, the rod should not travel more than about two inches to apply the brakes. For example, one inch of rod travel translates into 0.020 inches of brake lining wear. Excessive rod travel reflects worn linings, or damaged drums. In either event it is an unsafe condition, and when found by law enforcement agencies, results in citations, and even holding the vehicle until after repairs are made.
It is an object of this invention to provide a sensor that can be attached to the brake actuator and to the rod which can sense an give warning when the rod extension exceeds a maximum safe limit.

Sensor and warning indicator for airbrake rods


A subband audio coder employs perfect/non-perfect reconstruction filters, predictive/non-predictive subband encoding, transient analysis, and psycho-acoustic/minimum mean-square-error (mmse) bit allocation over time, frequency and the multiple audio channels to encode/decode a data stream to generate high fidelity reconstructed audio. The audio coder windows the multi-channel audio signal such that the frame size, i.e. number of bytes, is constrained to lie in a desired range, and formats the encoded data so that the individual subframes can be played back as they are received thereby reducing latency. Furthermore, the audio coder processes the baseband portion (0-24 kHz) of the audio bandwidth for sampling frequencies of 48 kHz and higher with the same encoding/decoding algorithm so that audio coder architecture is future compatible.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to high quality encoding and decoding of multi-channel audio signals and more specifically to a subband encoder that employs perfect/non-perfect reconstruction filters, predictive/non-predictive subband encoding, transient analysis, and psycho-acoustic/minimum mean-square-error (mmse) bit allocation over time, frequency and the multiple audio channels to generate a data stream with a constrained decoding computational load.
2. Description of the Related Art
Pulse code modulation (PCM) based speech coders were first developed in the 1960's. In the early 1970's, low bit-rate speech coders were developed for use with the digital telephone networks, which had a restricted bandwidth of approximately 3.5 kHz. In 1979 Johnston outlined a 7.5 kHz sub-band differential PCM (DPCM) that was suitable for speech and music signals. In the early 1980's this work was developed using more sophisticated adaptive DPCM techniques (ADPCM), but it was not until 1988 that a true wideband high quality ADPCM coder was discussed.
In the mid-late 1980's new methods for coding very high quality audio signals were developed based on high resolution filter-banks and/or transform coders, in which the quantizer bit-allocations were determined by a psychoacoustic masking model. In general, the psychoacoustic masking model tries to establish a quantization noise audibility threshold at all frequencies. The threshold is used to allocate quantization bits to reduce the likelihood that the quantization noise will become audible. The quantization noise threshold is calculated in the frequency domain from the absolute energy of the frequency-transformed audio signal. The dominant frequency components of the audio signal tend to mask the audibility of other components which are close in the bark scale (human auditory frequency scale) to the dominant signal.
Thus, the known high quality audio and music coders can be divided into two broad classes of schemes.
1) Medium to high frequency resolution subband/transform coders which adaptively quantize the subband or coefficient samples within the analysis window according to a psychoacoustic mask calculation.
These coders exploit the large short-term spectral variances of general music signals by allowing the bit-allocations to adapt according to the spectral energy of the signal. The high resolution of these coders allows the frequency transformed signal to be applied directly to the psychoacoustic model, which is based on a critical band theory of hearing. Dolby's AC-3 audio coder, Todd et al., "AC-3: Flexible Perceptual Coding for Audio Transmission and Storage" Convention of the Audio Engineering Society, February, 1994, typically computes 1024-ffts on the respective PCM signals and applies a psychoacoustic model to the 1024 frequency coefficients in each channel to determine the bit rate for each coefficient. The Dolby system uses a transient analysis that reduces the window size to 256 samples to isolate the transients. The AC-3 coder uses a proprietary backward adaptation algorithm to decode the bit allocation. This reduces the amount of bit allocation information that is sent along side the encoded audio data. As a result, the bandwidth available to audio is increased over forward adaptive schemes which leads to an improvement in sound quality.
2) Low resolution subband coders which make-up for their poor frequency resolution by processing the subband samples using ADPCM. The quantization of the differential subband signals is either fixed or adapts to minimize the quantization noise power across all or some of the subbands, without any explicit reference to psychoacoustic masking theory. It is commonly accepted that a direct psychoacoustic distortion threshold cannot be applied to predictive/differential subband signals because of the difficulty in estimating the predictor performance ahead of the bit allocation process. The problems is further compounded by the interaction of quantization noise on the prediction process.
These coders work because perceptually critical audio signals are generally periodic over long periods of time. This periodicity is exploited by predictive differential quantization. Splitting the signal into a small number of sub-bands reduces the audible effects of noise modulation and allows the exploitation of long-term spectral variances in audio signals. If the number of subbands is increased, the prediction gain within each sub-band is reduced and at some point the prediction gain will tend to zero.
Digital Theater Systems, L.P. (DTS) makes use of an audio coder in which each PCM audio channel is filtered into four subbands and each subband is encoded using a backward ADPCM encoder that adapts the predictor coefficients to the sub-band data. The bit allocation is fixed and the same for each channel, with the lower frequency subbands being assigned more bits than the higher frequency subbands. The bit allocation provides a fixed compression ratio, for example, 4:1. The DTS coder is described by Mike Smyth and Stephen Smyth, "APT-X100: A LOW-DELAY, LOW BIT-RATE, SUB-BAND ADPCM AUDIO CODER FOR BROADCASTING," Proceedings of the 10th International AES Conference 1991, pp. 41-56.
Both types of audio coders have other common limitations. First, known audio coders encode/decode with a fixed frame size, i.e. the number of samples or period of time represented by a frame is fixed. As a result, as the encoded transmission rate increases relative to the sampling rate, the amount of data (bytes) in the frame also increases. Thus, the decoder buffer size must be designed to accommodate the worst case scenario to avoid data overflow. This increases the amount of RAM, which is a primary cost component of the decoder. Secondly, the known audio coders are not easily expandable to sampling frequencies greater than 48 kHz. To do so would make the existing decoders incompatible with the format required for the new encoders. This lack of future compatibility is a serious limitation. Furthermore, the known formats used to encode the PCM data require that the entire frame be read in by the decoder before playback can be initiated. This requires that the buffer size be limited to approximately 100 ms blocks of data such that the delay or latency does not annoy the listener.
In addition, although these coders have encoding capability up to 24 kHz, often times the higher subbands are dropped. This reduces the high frequency fidelity or ambiance of the reconstructed signal. Known encoders typically employ one of two types of error detection schemes. The most common is Read Solomon coding, in which the encoder adds error detection bits to the side information in the data stream. This facilitates the detection and correction of any errors in the side information. However, errors in the audio data go undetected. Another approach is to check the frame and audio headers for invalid code states. For example, a particular 3-bit parameter may have only 3 valid states. If one of the other 5 states is identified then an error must have occurred. This only provides detection capability and does not detect errors in the audio data.


There is provided a semiconductor device which can maintain a high tuning accuracy while suppressing a cost increase and suppress an increase in the time required for tuning. There are included, in addition to variable resistors configuring a level shift circuit, an additional resistor coupled between the output node of a VBGR voltage of a BGR circuit and one of the variable resistors and an additional resistor coupled between the other of the variable resistors and a reference voltage. N-channel MOS transistors are coupled in parallel with the additional resistors, respectively.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, and in particular, relates to a semiconductor device having a temperature detection circuit which, when the temperature of a semiconductor chip exceeds a predetermined temperature, informs the outside accordingly.
In recent years, in a memory chip for SiP (system in package) incorporating a microprocessor and sensors as well as memory in one package, the function of outputting the information when the chip inside temperature exceeds a predetermined temperature to a control apparatus (microprocessor or the like) for controlling the memory has been required.
As an example of a temperature detection circuit, FIGS. 1 to 4 in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 5(1993)-266658 illustrate that the order in which respective output signals are outputted from a delay circuit having large temperature dependence in delay time and a delay circuit having small temperature dependence is used as a temperature detection signal.


A method and system in a data processing system for efficiently interfacing with cache memory by allowing a fetcher to read from cache memory while a plurality of data words or instructions are being loaded into the cache. A request is made by a bus interface unit to load a plurality of instructions or data words into a cache. In response to each individual instruction or data word being loaded into the cache by the bus interface unit, there is an indication that the individual one of said plurality of instructions or data words is valid. Once a desired instruction or data word has an indication that it is valid, the fetcher is allowed to complete a fetch operation prior to all of the instructions or data words being loaded into cache. In one embodiment, a group of invalid tag bits may be utilized to indicate to the fetcher that individual ones of a group of instructions or data words are valid in cache after being written into cache by the bus interface unit.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to an improved data processing system, and in particular to an improved method and system for cache memory management. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system to reduce fetching delays caused by the inaccessibility of cache during block transfers to cache memory.
2. Description of the Related Art
A pipelined processor is one in which the processing of an instruction is divided into discreet stages. Because the processing of an instruction is broken into a series of stages, an instruction does not require the entire resources of an execution unit which executes the instruction. For example, after an instruction completes a decode stage, it can pass onto the next stage, while the subsequent instruction can advance into the decode stage. Pipelining improves the throughput of the instruction flow. For example, it may take three cycles for a floating-point instruction to complete, but if there are no stalls in the floating-point pipeline, a series of floating-point instructions can have a throughput of one instruction per cycle.
A superscalar processor is one that issues multiple independent instructions into multiple pipelines allowing instructions to execute in parallel. Typical execution units may include: an integer unit (IU), a floating-point unit (FPU), a branch processing unit (BPU), a load/store unit (LSU), and a system register unit (SRU). FIG. 1 is an example of an embodiment of a superscalar data processing system. The embodiment of the superscalar data processing system shown in FIG. 1 is similar to that sold by International Business Machines Corporation under the trademark "PowerPC."
In FIG. 1, superscalar data processing system 100 includes five independent execution units and two register files. The five independent execution units include: branch processing unit 102, load/store unit 104, integer unit 106, and floating-point unit 108. Register files include: General purpose register file (GPR) 107 for integer operands, and Floating-point register file (FPR) 109 for single- or double-precision operands.
As shown in FIG. 1, instruction unit 110 contains sequential fetcher 112, instruction queue 114, dispatch unit 116, and branch processing unit 102. Instruction unit 110 provides centralized control of instruction flow to the execution units. Instruction unit 110 determines the address of the next instruction to be fetched based on information from the sequential fetcher 112 and branch processing unit 102.
Sequential fetcher 112 fetches instructions from instruction cache 118 and loads such instructions into instruction queue 114. Branch instructions are identified by sequential fetcher 112, and forwarded to branch processing unit 102 directly, bypassing instruction queue 114. Such a branch instruction is either executed and resolved (if the branch is unconditional or if required conditions are available), or is predicted. Non-branch instructions are issued from instruction queue 114, with the dispatch rate being contingent on execution unit busy status, rename and completion buffer availability, and the serializing behavior of some instructions. Instruction dispatch is done in program order. BPU 102 uses static branch prediction on unresolved conditional branches to allow instruction unit 110 to fetch instructions from a predicted target instruction stream while a conditional branch is evaluated. Branch processing unit 102 folds out branch instructions for unconditional branches or conditional branches unaffected by instructions in progress in the execution pipeline.
Instruction queue 114 holds several instructions loaded by sequential fetcher 112. Sequential fetcher 112 continuously loads instructions to keep the space in instruction queue 114 filled. Instructions are dispatched to their respective execution units from dispatch unit 116.
In operation, instructions are fetched from instruction cache 118 at a peak rate of two per cycle, and placed in either instruction queue 114 or branch processing unit 102. Instructions entering instruction queue 114 are issued to the various execution units from instruction queue 114. Instruction queue 114 is the backbone of the master pipeline for superscalar data processing system 100, and may contain, for example, a six-entry queue. If while filling instruction queue 114, a request from sequential fetcher 112 misses in instruction cache 118, then arbitration for a memory access will begin.
The timing of the instruction fetch mechanism in superscalar data processing system 100 depends heavily on the state of on-chip instruction cache 118. The speed with which the required instruction is returned to sequential fetcher 112 depends on whether or not the instruction being asked for is in the on-chip instruction cache 118 (a cache hit) or whether a memory transaction is required to bring the data into instruction cache 118 (a cache miss).

Method and system for efficiently fetching from cache during a cache fill operation


The invention relates to a novel monoclonal antibody, a hybridoma cell line producing said antibody, DNA sequences coding for said antibody, and amino acid sequences. The monoclonal antibody, a preferred embodiment of which is named 17E6, has the following properties:. reacting only with the .alpha.V-chain of human .alpha.V-integrins, PA1 blocking the attachment to the integrin substrate of the .alpha.V-integrin bearing cell, PA1 triggering reversal of established cell matrix interaction caused by .alpha.V-integrins, PA1 blocking tumor development, and PA1 showing no cytotoxic activity.

Integrins are a super-family of cell surface adhesion receptors which control the attachment of cells with the solid extracellular environment--both to the extracellular matrix (ECM), and to other cells. Adhesions is of fundamental importance to a cell; it provides anchorage, cues for migration, and signals for growth and differentiation. Integrins are directly involved in numerous normal and pathological conditions, and as such are primary targets for therapeutic intervention. Integrins are integral transmembrane proteins, heterodimers, whose binding specificity depends on which of some 14 .alpha.-chains is combined with which of some 8 .beta.-chains. The integrins are classified in four overlapping subfamilies, containing the .beta.1, .beta.2, .beta.3 or .alpha.v chains, and a particular cell may express several different integrins from each subfamily. In the last decade it has been shown that integrins are major receptors involved in cell adhesion, and so may be a suitable target for therapeutic intervention. Reports concerning integrins are given, for example, by E. Ruoslahti (J. Clin. Invest., 1991, 87) and R. O. Hynes (Cell, 1992, 69).
Except for erythrocytes, all human cells express one or more integrins. Their functions are regulated at many levels, but primarily, their ligand specificity depends on which chain associates with which .beta. chain in the heterodimer and on the activation state of the integrins (Hynes, 1992; Diamond and Springer, 1994). The cellular background in which the integrins operate (Chan and Hemler, 1993), and the splice-variant form of the integrin which is used (Delwel et al., 1993) may also affect specificity. Given these complexities, one of the few reliable indications of integrin specificity is to directly perturb integrin function and analyze which cellular responses are affected. The history of integrin research has shown that reagents that can specifically block integrin function are decisive factors in functional analysis, from the function blocking CSAT-antibody, which first defined an integrin .beta.1-chain (Neff et al., 1982), to the numerous vital later examples (eg. P1D6, P1B5 (Wayner and Carter, 1987), P4C10 (Carter et al., 1990), AII B2 (Hall et al., 1990), 3A3 (Turner et al., 1989), GOH3 (Sonnenberg et al., 1987), and LM609 (Cheresh and Spiro, 1987)): the field is absolutely dependent on such reagents.
The .alpha.v-series integrins are now seen to be a major subfamily, with both classical, and novel functions. As well as classically mediating cell attachment and spreading (Pytela et al., 1985; Cheresh, 1991), .alpha.v integrins have also been implicated in cell locomotion (Seftor et al., 1992), in receptor internalization (Panetti and McKeown Longo, 1993a; Panetti and McKeown Longo, 1993b), as virus co-receptors (Wickham et al., 1993), in management of the extracellular protease cascades (de Boer et al., 1993), and as regulators of tumor progression (Felding-Habermann et al., 1992). The specificities of the five known .alpha.v-series integrins, .alpha.v.beta.1 (Zhang et al., 1993), -.beta.3 (Pytela et al., 1985; Cheresh et al., 1987), -.beta.5 (Cheresh et al., 1989), -.beta.6 (Busk et al., 1992) and -.beta.8 (Moyle et al., 1991), have been partially defined, and they seem to exclusively recognize ligands bearing the RGD (-NH-arginine-glycine-aspartic acid-CO-) tripeptide sequences, including those in vitronectin (.alpha.v.beta.1, .alpha.v.beta.3, .alpha.v.beta.5), fibronectin (.alpha.v.beta.1, .alpha.v.beta.3, .alpha.v.beta.5, .alpha.v.beta.6), and von Willebrand factor, fibrinogen, and osteopontin (.alpha.v.beta.3) (e.g. 1991; Busk et al., 1992; Zhang et al., 1993; Denhardt and Guo, 1993; Smith and Cheresh, 1990;). Dimers with related specificities may be co-expressed on the same cell (eg. .alpha.v.beta.3 and .alpha.v.beta.5--for vitronectin on M21 cells) (Wayner et al., 1991), but may control independent functions. However, the overlapping ligand specificities within the .alpha.v-family itself and also between .alpha.v- and .beta.1-series integrins, means that assigning a function to a defined receptor within a particular cellular environment is problematic. Function blocking antibodies have been vital in clarifying the function of .alpha.v.beta.3 (Cheresh and Spiro, 1987; Chuntharapai et al., 1993) and .alpha.v.beta.5 (Wayner et al., 1991).
However, for the other .alpha.v-integrins, no antibodies which specify the complex and perturb function are known. In particular, few reagents which specify the .alpha.v-chain of the complex, and perturb integrin function of the whole family are available. Lehmann et al. (1994) disclosed an .alpha.v.beta.x antibody which shows no reversal of cell matrix interaction and no tumor development blocking activity.
Therefore there is intense interest in the function of .alpha.v-series integrins in tumor development. Human malignant melanoma is an increasingly prevalent aggressive skin cancer. Elevated levels of integrins .alpha.2.beta.1 (Danen et al., 1993; Etoh et al., 1992), .alpha.3.beta.1 (Natali et al., 1993; Yoshinaga et al., 1993), .alpha.4.beta.1 (Hart et al., 1991), and .alpha.6.beta.1 (Hart et al., 1991) have each been implicated in melanoma progression, but the integrins most consistently implicated are those of the .alpha.V-series. In particular, both the invasion from the primary tumor and distant metastases are characterized histologically by an increased expression of .alpha.v.beta.3 integrin, the "vitronectin receptor". Primary non-invasive tumors and non-malignant melanotic nevi express little detectable .alpha.v.beta.3, a receptor rare in healthy adult tissue (Brooks et al., 1994; Buck et al., 1990; Pignatelli et al., 1992; Lessey et al., 1992; Korhonen et al., 1991; Nesbitt et al., 1993). Immunohistochemistry of staged tumors and metastases showed a progressive increase in .alpha.V.beta.3 with invasive stage (Albelda et al., 1990; Si and Hersey, 1994), screening of melanoma lines uniformly reveals a high expression of .alpha.V-series integrins (Sanders et al., 1992; Gehlsen et al., 1992; Marshall et al., 1991), and in addition sprouting blood capillaries express .alpha.v.beta.3 during tumor angiogenesis (Brooks et al., 1994).
Studies in vivo also implicate .alpha.V.beta.3 in melanoma development. In the murine B16-F10 melanoma system, experimental lung metastasis could be suppressed by high levels of RGD-peptides (Hardan et al., 1993; Humphries et al., 1986), potent blockers of .alpha.v-integrin function. More recently, Felding-Habermann and colleagues have shown that .alpha.V-series integrins promote subcutaneous tumor growth of M21 human melanoma in immune-deficient mice. The M21 system is elegant, and consists of a suite of cells expressing different .alpha.V-series integrins (Kieffer et al., 1991; Felding-Habermann et al., 1992; Cheresh and Spiro, 1987). The parent, M21, expresses .alpha.V.beta.3 and .alpha.V.beta.5 (Wayner et al., 1991): it attaches to vitronectin and grows as a subcutaneous tumor. M21-L, a somatic variant of M21, has no detectable .alpha.V (Cheresh and Spiro, 1987): it cannot bind vitronectin and develops slow-growing tumors. M21-L4 is a transfectant of M21-L, stably re-expressing a full length .alpha.V-chain: it binds vitronectin and grows rapidly as a subcutaneous tumor (Felding-Habermann et al., 1992). Thus the presence of cell surface .alpha.V-integrins is directly correlated with M21 subcutaneous growth.
However, M21 was subjected to extreme selection pressures during the establishment of the variant lines M21-L and M21-L4. In this invention, it was found that .alpha.v-integrin function on the native M21 population can be blocked and that a surprising effect on cell behavior and tumor development can be found. Peptidic antagonists can be synthesized easily, however, their use is restricted because of their poor bio-availability, short half life in vivo, and rapid clearance from the animals (Humphries et al., 1988). Syngeneic antibodies offer an interesting alternative to peptides. They have a long half life in-vivo (Tao and Morrison, 1989; Haba et al., 1985) and their binding specificities can be well demonstrated by standard techniques. Unfortunately, although there are excellent .alpha.V-specific antibodies such as LM142 (Cheresh and Spiro, 1987), there are few that effectively block .alpha.V-integrin functions.
The specificity and biological function of the .alpha.v-family members is much debated, primarily because no reagent yet exists that will knock out the function of the whole class--there exists no potent .alpha.v blocking antibody. The revelation that the classical adhesion receptors of the integrin family support other less conventional biological functions has intensified the search for their molecular mechanisms of action. The search has revealed several unpredicted regions on the integrins that allosterically report their activation state, or, when ligated, can themselves activate integrin function. Inhibitors of integrin function, by contrast, generally occlude the active site, the classic example being RGD-peptides that replicate the integrin recognition site of many ligands of integrins of the .alpha.v-series and of 5.beta.1. Such a reagent would be very useful, not only to help elucidate these specificities and functions, but would also have potential therapeutic and diagnostic utility.

Merck Patent Gesellschaft mit Beschrankter Haftung


Included are embodiments of a method for converting a received analog signal into a digital signal. Some embodiments of the method can include receiving an analog signal; periodically dividing the received analog signal into a plurality of discrete signals at a predetermined interval, wherein each of the plurality of divided signals is associated with a voltage; and quantizing the voltage associated with at least one of the plurality of divided signals. Other systems and methods are also provided.

Digital wideband (WB) systems (including ultra-wideband—UWB—systems) are highly desirable, offering flexibility and programmability. However, while system data rates and bandwidths continue to expand, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are limited in bandwidth, resolution, and power consumption. Currently available architectures used in the fabrication of ADCs include flash architecture, which is based on parallel techniques that use 2b−1 comparators to achieve "b" bits of resolution. While comparators can sample analog input signals simultaneously, this can increase the speed of the flash ADC. Because of the parallelism of this architecture, the number of comparators can grow exponentially with b, thus increasing the power consumption and also the circuitry area. This can facilitate an increase in the input capacitance limiting the system bandwidth, thereby increasing the difficulty to match components.
Some variations of flash architecture such as the folded-flash, pipelined and time interleaved architectures have been proposed in order to overcome some of these problems. However these techniques are also not without difficulties that have slowed the evolution of ADCs such as aperture jitter or aperture uncertainty, which is the sample-to-sample variation of the instant in time at which sampling occurs. Moreover, the speed of sampling can be limited by the frequency characteristic of the device used in the design, which can limit the ability of the comparators to make an unambiguous decision about the input voltage.
To overcome these problems, techniques that aim to relax the operational conditions of the ADC have been proposed. Low-resolution ADC is possible with sigma-delta modulation. The noise penalty associated with the use of a few bits or less in the quantization process is overcome in the sigma-delta scheme by using either signal oversampling or multi-band processing techniques. In particular, when a single bit is used, the implementation is greatly simplified and practical mono-bit WB (or UWB) digital communications receivers have significant potential. These techniques generally utilize sampling at or above the Nyquist rate over the full signal bandwidth, and can therefore suffer from the aforementioned high-speed issues. In addition, they provide a single WB (or UWB) serial data stream, which may stress the digital signal processing following the ADC.
An alternative is to channelize the analog signal by means of a bank of bandpass filters, and the output of each filter are sampled in parallel. Multi-rate approaches can also be used. ADC thus can occur at a reduced rate for each of the resultant bandpass signals. The bandpass outputs can also be frequency translated to baseband, allowing the use of a single lowpass filter design. However, the bandpass analog filter bank design is difficult, and the resulting non-ideal filters cause signal leakage across the bands that can degrade overall system performance unless properly accounted for. The design of analog filters with sharp roll-off needed in the multi-band ADC approaches also suffers from power consumption and large circuitry area to accommodate the passive elements (i.e., inductors and capacitors). Additionally, implementation of the bank of bandpass filters in the multi-band processing ideas can be potentially troublesome; problems such as spectrum sharing due to the non-ideal characteristics of the bandpass filters can affect the overall system performance.
High-speed signal processing utilized in analog to digital (A/D) conversion of wideband signals (and ultra-wideband signals) imposes challenging implementation problems, and sometimes impractical power consumption. Current time-domain A/D conversion encounters technological barriers as time-domain signal features shrink to very fine resolution, on the order of tenths, and sometimes hundredths of nanoseconds. In order to overcome these problems, techniques that aim to relax the speed of the A/D conversion have been proposed. In general, these techniques perform multi-band signal processing in which the spectrum of the signal is channelized into several bands by means of a bank of bandpass filters. A/D conversion thus occurs at a much reduced speed for each one of the resultant bandpass signals.
Further, a bank of frequency modulators can be used to shift the signal spectrum so that the center frequency of each sub-band tends toward zero frequency, allowing the use of a bank of identical low-pass filters. Sigma-delta modulation has also been proposed since it enables A/D conversion with low-resolution. The noise penalty associated with the use of few bits in the quantization process is overcome in the sigma-delta scheme by using either signal oversampling or multi-band processing techniques. In particular, when a single bit is used, the implementation is greatly simplified and practical mono-bit digital receivers can be implemented. Since all these techniques are based on time-domain A/D conversion, they suffer from high-speed limitations, making it desirable to channelize the signal spectrum into several sub-bands.
Thus, a heretofore-unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.

Analog to digital conversion with signal expansion

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


A mask for a lithographic apparatus is disclosed, the mask having a patterned region bearing a pattern to be transferred onto a substrate and a border surrounding the patterned region, wherein at least part of the border has a plurality of elements, the dimensions of the elements being such that, during use, they would not be resolved at the substrate. Also, a lithographic apparatus is disclosed, the apparatus having a projection system, a substrate table arranged to hold a substrate, and a patterning device having a patterned region which bears a pattern to be transferred using a radiation beam via the projection system onto the substrate, at least part of a border surrounding the patterned region comprising a plurality of elements arranged to direct radiation onto the substrate, the dimensions of the elements such that, during use, they are not resolved at the substrate.

A lithographic apparatus is a machine that applies a desired pattern onto a substrate, usually onto a target portion of the substrate. A lithographic apparatus can be used, for example, in the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs). In that instance, a patterning device, which is alternatively referred to as a mask or a reticle, may be used to generate a circuit pattern to be formed on an individual layer of the IC. This pattern can be transferred onto a target portion (e.g. comprising part of, one, or several dies) on a substrate (e.g. a silicon wafer). Transfer of the pattern is typically via imaging onto a layer of radiation-sensitive material (resist) provided on the substrate. In general, a single substrate will contain a network of adjacent target portions that are successively patterned. Known lithographic apparatus include so-called steppers, in which each target portion is irradiated by exposing an entire pattern onto the target portion at one time, and so-called scanners, in which each target portion is irradiated by scanning the pattern through a radiation beam in a given direction (the "scanning"-direction) while synchronously scanning the substrate parallel or anti-parallel to this direction.
The pattern may be transferred from the patterning device to the substrate using a projection system comprising a series of optical elements. The optical elements may be transmissive or reflective, the choice between transmissive or reflective generally being based upon properties of the wavelength of radiation beam used. The pattern projected onto the substrate may suffer uniformity degradation due to flare caused by one or more optical elements of the projection system.

Lithographic apparatus and patterning device