The antioxidant eye drops is a topical ophthalmic formulation that contains four nutraceuticals (namely, astaxanthin, resveratrol, pyruvate and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG)) having antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and chelating activity in a carbomer gel carrier. The active ingredients can reduce oxidative stress through free radical scavenging and chelating activity. The carrier is composed of a solution of deionized water containing about 0.4% Carbopol 980 NF, 5.7% sorbitol. 0.01% cetrimide, 0.01% EDTA, and sodium chloride and sodium hydroxide in adequate amounts to adjust both the viscosity and the pH of the topical carrier to pH 7.0-7.4. Use of the formulation may delay the development of cataracts, reduce retinal degeneration, and maintain normal tear flow in dry eye due to the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and chelating activity of the active ingredients.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to topical compositions for reducing, preventing, or reversing damage to the eyes resulting from oxidative stress (dry eye, cataracts, retinal degeneration, etc.), and particularly to antioxidant eye drops containing four nutraceuticals in a carbomer gel carrier.
2. Description of the Related Art
The prevalence of age-related ocular diseases, such as cataract, macular degeneration (AMD) and keratoconjunctivitis sicca (KCS, commonly known as dry eye), increases as populations age. Cataracts account for the majority of reversible age-related vision loss, while AMD is the leading cause of irreversible blindness. KCS, which affects the majority of people over the age of 65, results in significant ocular discomfort and visual dysfunction. While KCS generally does not result in vision loss, KCS, if left untreated, results in painful superficial keratitis that can lead to corneal ulcers or scars.
Age-related diseases are also a growing problem in the veterinary community. Loss of vision from cataracts is the major cause of blindness in dogs and cats. Progressive retinal atrophy with clinical onsets varying from 6 months to 10+ years can also develop in many of these companion pets. These retinal degenerations also have strong genetic links. The onset of dry eye in dogs increases as dogs approach 7-9 years of age. KCS is increased in older female dogs, as compared to male dogs, and is increased in both neutered males and females. In contrast to dogs, the presence of KCS in cats is more subtle.
There is no established pharmaceutical treatment for age-related cataracts, and vision in patients can only be restored by surgery. It has been estimated that the need for cataract surgery can be reduced by 50% by delaying the onset and progression of cataracts by 10 years. The need for a nonsurgical treatment for delaying cataracts is supported by findings that cataract surgery increases the incidence of late AMD. At present, there is also no medical treatment for preventing the onset or reducing the enlargement of geographic atrophy (dry AMD).
The pathogeneses of cataracts and AMD have not been established. However, both are multifactorial diseases with risk factors that include smoking, which is associated with the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and increased tissue iron levels. Dry eye is also a multifactorial disease involving oxidative stress. Smoking also increases the risk of dry eye and exacerbates existing dry eye conditions. Experimentally, increased oxidative damage accompanied by increased levels of iron has been linked to the development and progression of cataracts and AMD. ROS generated in the presence of iron results in the formation of hydroxyl radicals through the Fenton reaction, and also results in mitochondrial dysfunction. Cataracts also develop in patients with hyperferritinemia, an iron disorder associated with increased iron levels. Dysregulation of iron metabolism and iron-handling proteins is also linked to the pathogenesis of AMD, marked by increased chelatable iron observed in the retinal pigmented epithelial cells (RPE) and Bruchs membrane in retinas from AMD patients. Iron overload is also associated with a maculopathy that clinically resembles AMD, including the development and progression of multiple subretinal yellowish-white lesions and RPE cell atrophy in patients with aceruloplasminemia.
Studies indicate that targeting oxidative pathways associated with these age related diseases is therapeutically beneficial. Most formulations containing natural antioxidant and/or vitamins for the support of antioxidant eye health and the reduction of cataract development are orally administered. For example, the oral clinical administration of a combined formulation of natural antioxidants and omega-3 essential fatty acids significantly improves the subjective symptoms of dry eye, while the oral administration of the AREDS natural antioxidant formulation reduces the risk of progression to advanced AMD by 25%. However, several large clinical studies where the nutraceuticals formulations were orally administered suggest that any observed effect of these antioxidants on cataract development is likely to be small and probably of no clinical or public health significance. ROS can also be reduced by lowering tissue levels of iron, which can generate reactive hydroxyl radicals through the Fenton reaction. Studies using chelating agents to reduce iron levels suggest that ROS may also be beneficially reduced in the lens because patients with β-thalassemia receiving chelation therapy with drugs (such as deferoxamine) have a lower incidence of cataracts. Similarly in rats, cataracts from tobacco smoke exposure were reduced by deferoxamine treatment. Novel multifunctional antioxidants with the ability to independently scavenge free radicals and chelate iron have been shown to also delay both cataract formation and protect the retina against light damage, a model for AMD.
Thus, antioxidant eye drops solving the aforementioned problems is desired.


An antenna structure includes a first array antenna having a number of first antenna units. The antenna units are arranged along a first direction and a second direction. The first antenna units are monopole antennas. The monopole antennas include a radiating body having a strip portion and a bulb portion. The radiating body generates radiation along the first direction or the second direction. The strip portion is electrically coupled to a signal source. The bulb portion is electrically coupled to the strip portion. An end of the bulb portion away from the strip portion is semi-circular in shape.

Millimeter wave (mmWave) antennas are gradually being applied in wireless communication devices such as mobile phones and Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). However, when the mmWave antenna is applied in the communication device, radiation of the mmWave antenna is susceptible to interference from a metal frame of the wireless communication device such that the radiation field is shielded.

Antenna structure of wireless communication device


The invention relates to N-deacetyl-lysogangliosides and physiologically acceptable salts thereof, especially those of formula (I): ##STR1## wherein R represents --CH.dbd.CH(CH.sub.2)nCH.sub.3 or --CH.sub.2 CH.sub.2 (CH.sub.2)nCH.sub.3 ;. n is 12 or 14; PA0 R.sup.1 represents ##STR2## or hydrogen; and R.sup.2 represents hydrogen or acetyl; for use in therapy.. The compounds are useful as inhibitors of phospholipases A.sub.2, and of superoxide production, as antiproliferative and immunosuppressant agents and in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. The invention also relates to the use of N-deacetyl-lysogangliosides for the manufacture of medicaments for the treatment of the aforementioned conditions.

The gangliosides are a class of naturally occurring glycosphingolipids comprising an oligosaccharide moiety to which may be attached one or more sialic acid groups, and a ceramide portion which contains a sphingosine or sphinganine chain and an acyl moiety derived from a fatty acid. Gangliosides have been found in the brain, spleen, liver, kidneys and blood of mammals and also in chicken eggs (see Ledeen, J. Supramolecular Structure, 8:1-17 (1978) Cell Surface Carbohydrates and Biological Recognition 437-453 for a general review of the gangliosides).
According to the nomenclature proposed by Svennerholm (J. Neurochem., 10, 613, 1963) the various gangliosides are designated by the letter G followed by one of four letters, M, D, T or Q depending on whether the ganglioside is a mono-, di-, tri or tetra-sialo-ganglioside. Thus for example the ganglioside GM.sub.1 is a mono-sialoganglioside with the following structure: ##STR3## wherein R.sup.a is --CH.sub.3 or --C.sub.3 H.sub.7. GM.sub.1 isolated from natural sources is generally a mixture of molecules wherein R.sup.a is --CH.sub.3 and those wherein R.sup.a is --C.sub.3 H.sub.7 that is having a carbon chain length of 18 or 20 C-atoms. It will be appreciated that the molecule may be in the erythro or threo configuration with respect to the double bond in the sphingosine chain, but the naturally occurring form is the erythro configuration. Naturally occurring GM.sub.1 also contains a small proportion of molecules having a fully saturated sphinganine chain in place of the sphingosine moiety. In addition there is some variation in the length of the fatty acyl chain, with that derived from stearic acid (C.sub.18) being the major component; other fatty acyl components include those derived from myristic (C.sub.14) arachidic (C.sub.20) and lignoceric (C.sub.24) acids. (Sonnino et al., Journal of Lipid Research, Vol 26, 1985 p248; and Gazzotti et al., Journal of Neuroscience Research 12:179-192, 1984).
GM.sub.2 has a similar structure but lacks the galactose moiety (IV) of the above structure and GM.sub.3 lacks both the galactose and N-acetyl-galactosamine (III) moieties. The numbering of the hexopyranoside moieties (I) to (IV) and the designation of the sialic acid group (A) are the designations proposed by Sillerud et al., Biochemistry 1982, 21, 1260-1271, and Koerner et al., Biochemistry 1983, 22, 2676-2687 and will be followed hereinafter.
A closely related class of sphingolipids is the lysosphingolipids, also known as lysogangliosides, which lack the fatty acyl moiety of the corresponding ganglioside. It has been reported that lysogangliosides are potent inhibitors of protein kinase C activity and phorbol-diester binding, suggesting they have a role in neurological disorders (Hannun and Bell, Science Vol 235 p670-674). Neuenhofer et al, Biochemistry, (1985) 24 p525-532, describes the synthesis of various lysogangliosides by deacylation of gangliosides GM.sub.2, GM.sub.1 and GD.sub.1a, to remove both the fatty acyl moiety and the acetyl group present on the sialic acid residue, followed by reacylation of the sialic acid. The paper also indicates that traces of the completely deacylated GM.sub.1 and GD.sub.1a were revealed by FAB mass analysis. No biological activity is ascribed to these compounds.
Sonnino et al. (Journal of Lipid Research, Vol 26, 1985 p248) describe the preparation of various derivatives of GM.sub.1 in which the naturally occurring fatty acyl moiety is replaced with a different fatty acyl moiety. The synthesis of these compounds also proceeds via the lysoganglioside derivative of GM.sub.1 in which the sialic acid moiety is deacetylated. No biological activity is ascribed to these compounds.
In this specification lysoganglioside derivatives in which the sialic acid residue only is deacetylated will be referred to as mono-N-deacetyl-lysogangliosides e.g mono-N-deacetyl-lyso-GM.sub.1 and lysogangliosides in which both the sialic acid and N-galactosamine residues are deacetylated will be referred to as di-N-deacetyl-lysogangliosides. The expression `N-deacetyl lysoganglioside` will be used in this specification to mean a mono- or di-N-deacetyl lysoganglioside as well as mixtures thereof. It will be understood that the foregoing terms are not intended to imply any particular route of preparation of these compounds, but they embrace the compounds per se, whether or not they have been prepared by direct deacetylation of the corresponding lysoganglioside GM.sub.1.


A distracting cannula is provided which includes a first penetrating member having a first end and a second end. The first penetrating member has an internal surface providing a through bore operative to receive an elongated surgical instrument. The first penetrating member has an external gripping surface disposed between the first and second ends that is provided by a helical thread. A generally conical shroud has an open end for contacting the patient's skin. An opposite end of the shroud is attached to the first penetrating member near the second end. The first penetrating member first end is inserted into a portal incision of the patient's body until the shroud open end contacts the patient's skin. Torquing the tissue distracting cannula further caused the tissue gripping surface of the first penetrating member to pull the surrounding tissue upward into a cavity created by the shroud.

The present invention relates to cannulas used to maintain an opening for elongated surgical instruments during an arthroscopic surgical procedure. More particularly the present invention relates to cannulas especially useful in orthopedic arthroscopic procedures. The present invention also relates to methods to use such aforementioned cannulas.
Athletes often place large and or repetitive stresses upon their joints and surrounding tissues. When a serious injury occurs it can often require the use of orthopedic surgery.
In the past orthopedic surgery typically required a rather large incision in the skin and underlying tissue that surrounded the injury. The amount of tissue trauma was a large factor in determining the recovery time for certain surgical operations. The amount of tissue trauma is also a large factor in determining how much pain the patient feels perioperatively.
It is highly desirable that an injured athlete be able to return to his or her athletic endeavor as soon as possible. Therefore surgical techniques to treat athletes have been developed which minimize tissue trauma and the recovery time required. One such surgical technique is arthroscopic surgery. In arthroscopic surgery a relatively small incision called a portal is made in the skin and underlying tissue. A cannula is inserted into the portal to maintain a passageway. Various elongated surgical tools or instruments such as an arthroscope, a stapler or a surgical clip applier are inserted within the cannula to perform a surgical procedure.
A human shoulder is formed by two main bones. The first bone is the upper arm or humerus. The second bone is the shoulder blade often referred to as the scapula. An end or head of the scapula, called the glenoid is joined with the humerus to create a glenohumeral cavity. The glenohumeral cavity provides a ball and socket joint. An articular cartilage covers the end of the humerus and an interface of the glenoid. The ball and socket joint is surrounded by fibrous cartilage referred to as the labrum. The two bones are joined by ligaments and a biceps tendon connects a biceps muscle to the shoulder. Four short muscles project from the scapula around the shoulder and fuse their tendons to form the rotator cuff. Surrounding the cuff is the subacromial bursa. The bursa provides a slippery surface for these tendons to move upon.
When surgically treating the shoulder with an arthroscopic technique, it is often required to surgically penetrate the bursa. However, during the surgery it is important to keep the bursa from collapsing. It is also important to note that many surgical procedures require additional portals into the shoulder independent from the portal of the cannula. When the cannula is inserted into the tissue of the shoulder, the tissue surrounding the cannula is displaced radially outward. The tissue underlying the cannula has a tendency to be pushed downward. Therefore in an arthroscopic surgical procedure, the cannula has a tendency to collapse work space. This collapse makes visualization difficult and complicates the procedure. It is desirable that a cannula would distract instead of collapse the surrounding tissue.


A thermal bottle including an outer body wall defining a shape of the thermal bottle having a top opening and a bottom end, an inner body wall having an inner volume for a storage area disposed within the inner body and selectively connected to the outer body wall wherein the storage area is accessible through the top opening, a thermal area defined therebetween the outer body wall and the inner body wall, a cover configured to be attachable to at least one of the top opening that prevents removal of a material placed within the storage area, and a securing element located at the bottom end of the outer body wall which is configured to hold the cover when the cover is detached from the top opening.

This invention relates to containers and, more particularly, to a thermal baby bottle where a nipple cover can be secured to the bottle and material may be added and removed which further affects the thermal characteristic of the baby bottle.
Conventional baby bottles typically have a single wall defining the bottle. When the liquid inside the bottle is warm, this single wall configuration generally does not retain heat well and likewise when the liquid inside the bottle is cold, does not retain cold well. Recent inventions have resulted in development of bottles with insulated walls where a minimum of two layers of material define the insulated walls of the bottle. An insulating material in these recent inventions, disposed therebetween the minimum two layers which define the wall of the bottle, have been either air and/or an insulation material.
FIG. 1 depicts a prior art embodiment of an insulated bottle. As illustrated the bottle 10 has a two layer wall, specifically an outer body wall 12 and an inner body wall 13. The outer body wall 12 defines a shape of the thermal bottle 5. The outer wall 12 has a top opening 15 and a bottom end 16. The inner body wall 13 has an inner volume 17 for a storage area which is disposed within the inner body wall 13 and is accessible through the top opening 15. The inner body wall 13 is selectively connected to the outer body wall 12. A material, such as but not limited to a liquid, is placed within the inner wall. A thermal area 20 is defined therebetween the outer body wall 12 and the inner body wall 13. Either air and/or an insulation material may be placed therebetween the inner wall 13 and the outer wall 12. A ring cap 22 is provided.
Disposed therethrough the ring cap 22 is a nipple 24. Beneath the nipple 24 is a seal disk 26 which prevents a liquid within the inner wall 13 from reaching the nipple 24 and possibly releasing from the nipple 22 when the bottle 5 is not being used. To protect the nipple 24, such as but not limited to remaining sanitized, a nipple cover, or cover 30, is provided. The cover 30 is attachable and detachable from the bottle wall 12, 13 and/or ring cap 22.
Even though a thermal bottle usually provides for a cover to protect the nipple, when the cover is removed there is no location on the thermal bottle to secure the cover. Manufacturers and users of thermal bottles would benefit from a thermal bottle design that further provides for securing a cover when the cover is removed.

System for providing an insulated bottle having a location to secure a protective nipple top when not located to protect the nipple


A film adhesive having an adhesive layer (C) mainly containing a thermoplastic polyimide having a glass transition temperature of not more than 100° C. and an adhesive layer (D) having a storage shear modulus of not more than 106 Pa at 50° C. Furthermore, the film adhesive further comprises a base material (A) and an adhesive layer (B). The film adhesive can exhibit excellent low-temperature adhesive property and covering capability functioning as a die bonding adhesive film which can be used in a semiconductor package. In addition, the film adhesive can exhibit excellent low-temperature adhesive property and covering capability which functions both as a die bonding adhesive film and as a dicing tape.

A step of manufacturing a semiconductor package using a film adhesive generally comprises (1) a step of adhering a film adhesive to a back surface of a large diameter wafer; (2) a step of adhering a dicing tape to the side of the film adhesive; (3) a step of dicing a chip; (4) a step of picking up the diced chip from the dicing tape; (5) a step of performing die bonding to an adherend such as a substrate via the film adhesive; (6) a step of performing wire bonding between the chip and the substrate; and (7) a step of molding using a sealing agent.
The film adhesive functions as a die bonding adhesive film, which is adhered to the wafer in the above first step, and adhered to the substrate in the above fifth step. Turning to adhesion to the wafer, in recent years, wafers have been thinned. When the film adhesive has been attached to the wafer at a high temperature, there has occurred a problem in that the wafer might be warped. So, such a film adhesive has been required to have a much excellent low-temperature adhesive property. On the other hand, turning to adhesion to the substrate, in recent years, the number of laminated chips in a package has been increased so that the temperature for wire bonding to a chip has been getting higher and the time required for wire bonding to the chip has been getting longer. The conventional film adhesive has been cured during wire bonding so that there has occurred a problem of a bad covering for the unevenness on the surface of the substrate. Accordingly, in order to secure reliability, a film adhesive has been required to have a much superior covering property for the unevenness on a surface of the substrate even under much stricter wire bonding conditions.
Furthermore, for the purpose of simplified process, in recent years, a dicing and die bonding adhesive film combining a function as a die bonding adhesive film and a function as a dicing tape has been in demand (refer to Patent Documents 1 and 2). Thus, in the above-mentioned steps, steps (1) and (2) can be performed at the same time.
However, the present situation is that a dicing and die bonding adhesive film having the excellent low-temperature adhesive property and covering capability has not yet been developed.
[Patent Document 1] JP2004-83602A
[Patent Document 2] JP2004-95844A

Film adhesive and semiconductor package using the same


An image sequence derived from area surveillance is considered as a collection of independent time series, each of which describes an image feature that summarizes a small neighborhood of the image. These time series are regarded as samples from some underlying distribution, and statistical techniques are used to identify the density function of this distribution. The background can then be identified as a feature of this distribution, moreover the distribution of features in subsequent image frames can be monitored to see if it deviates sufficiently from the current distributions to indicate a change in the background.

Electronic surveillance of areas and locations to detect changes in the background, either by the addition of new objects into a particular scene or the removal of stationary objects, has various applications. Some examples include:    (a) detecting suspicious packages or abandoned luggage in airports or other transportation terminals,    (b) monitoring valuables in museums, art galleries or other secure areas,    (c) monitoring traffic flow at busy intersections, or detecting blocked road tunnels and bridges, and    (d) monitoring parking areas.
Current methods of surveillance include a human operator monitoring various areas by the use of closed circuit television. This invariably leads to human operator error or fatigue, especially so when the operator is confronted with a dynamic scene such as a busy airport terminal. These scenes typically contain a number of moving people (or vehicles) that regularly occlude the background. As a result, stationary objects in a particular scene can be obscured for some significant periods of time by moving objects.
Furthermore, a transient object in a particular scene may often pause for short periods of time, such as a person stopping to purchase or enjoy a drink or a car waiting before entering traffic flow. Such temporary pauses are of course, not genuine changes to the background.
Automatic image detection systems ideally operate in real-time, produce few false alarms, and are capable of operating using existing hardware, typically current cameras and computing platforms.
In view of the above observations, a need clearly exists for an image analysis techniques that at least addresses deficiencies of visual motion surveillance systems.


A medical device may comprise a handle portion; an insertion portion having a proximal end portion at the handle portion, wherein the insertion portion includes a lumen therein and a distal end having a distal opening in communication with the lumen; and a member disposed within the lumen, the member having a distal end portion with an imaging device. The member may be configured to transition between a first configuration and a second configuration. In the first configuration, the imaging device may face distally, and, in the second configuration, the imaging device may face proximally. Extending the distal end portion of the member distally past the distal opening may cause the member to transition from the first configuration to the second configuration.

Endoscopic, bronchoscopic, or ureteroscopic techniques may be used for diagnosing, treating, and/or monitoring conditions by advancing tools and other devices through body lumens. However, it may be difficult to perform procedures in certain body lumens due to a narrow diameter of the lumen. For example, it may be difficult to obtain a biopsy or to treat a nodule or lesion in the periphery of the lungs, due to an inability to visualize the periphery lumen using traditional endoscopes. Typical therapeutic and diagnostic endoscopes may be limited in how many generations of the bronchi they are able to navigate due to their relatively large outer diameter of approximately 6 mm or greater. Many current procedures for obtaining a biopsy of a nodule or lesion in the fifth or higher generation of the bronchi tend to be done blind because of the lack of an optics system compatible with biopsy devices and small enough to provide visualization of peripheral airways. A lack of visualization may lead to (a) low yields and/or (b) increased procedure time resulting from a user's needing to spend additional time to ensure that a tool is positioned in the correct location.


An improved wear compensation device for manual or automatic adjustment for wear in a spring loaded friction clutch. An annular circumferentially extending cam track on the clutch cover or the adjusting ring or both is used to move the adjusting ring towards the clutch pressure plate when the adjusting ring is turned relative to the cover.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a spring loaded friction clutch, and, more particularly, this invention relates to means for adjusting for wear in the friction surfaces of the clutch in a manual or automatic wear adjustment system.
2. State of the Art
In manual and automatic wear adjustment, compensation for wear in the friction surface is accomplished by movement of an adjusting ring, relative to the clutch cover closer to the clutch disk. Typically, actuating levers which push against the pressure plate are pivoted on the adjusting ring so that axial movement of the ring towards the pressure plate will adjust for wear. The adjusting ring is threaded at its periphery to engage threads in a flange of the cover. As the adjusting ring is unthreaded, it moves axially towards the pressure plate. Approximately 1/2" of axial movement of the adjusting ring is required for the full life of the clutch. This 1/2" of movement is equal to approximately 720.degree. of rotation of the adjusting ring. With this arrangement, the rate of adjustment for wear can be too slow causing more slippage and, therefore, more wear. The threaded connection provides good concentricity of the parts, but the threads fret and corrode so that they often become frozen and cannot be rotated according to their original design. Grease is usually required to reduce the fretting, corrosion and wear of the threads themselves.


A developing device incorporated in an image forming apparatus and having a developing roller facing an image carrier via an opening formed through a casing, and a pair of seal members attached to the casing and adjoining opposite side edges of the opening for preventing a developer from being scattered around. The seal members each has a side seal portion for sealing the associated side edge of the opening, and an under seal portion extending from the lower end of the side seal portion. The under seal portion extends from the side seal portion toward the center of the developing roller, providing the entire seal member with a form of a letter L.

The present invention relates to a copier, facsimile apparatus, printer or similar image forming apparatus and, more particularly, to a developing device of the type having a developing roller facing an image carrier via an opening formed in a casing, and a pair of seal members provided on the casing and adjoining opposite side edges of the opening for preventing a developer from being scattered around.
The problem with a developing device of the type described is that during development a developer is scattered around via opposite side edges of the opening of the casing since a developing roller facing a photoconductive drum or similar image carrier cannot strongly retain the developer at opposite ends thereof. To eliminate this problem, it is a common practice to attach seal members to the casing in such a manner as to cover the opposite side edges of the opening. The seal members may be implemented as sheets of polyurethane or similar substance or as elastic members of foam urethane.
However, the seal members in the form of sheets has a drawback that when the amount of developer deposited on the developing roller increases, the resulting magnet brush is apt to get on the seal members and be scattered around via the clearance between the seal members and the drum. Moreover, the carrier particles contained in the developer is spun off due to the rotation of the developing roller and directly scattered to the outside. Such carrier particles are also scattered around via the clearance between the drum and the lower portion of the casing. By contrast, the seal members made of an elastic material prevent the magnet brush from getting thereon and also prevents the carrier particles spun off from being directly scattered to the outside since no clearances exist between the seal members and the drum. However, the carrier particles spun off impinge on and rebound from the elastic seal members. This part of the carrier particles is scattered around via the clearance between the drum and the lower portion of the casing without returning to the magnet brush.
Further, a copier, facsimile apparatus, printer or similar machine is apt to incline in the axial direction of a developing roller thereof due to the location where it is installed. Then, despite the seal members, the developer is likely to leak at the lower side of the developing device with respect to the inclination of the machine. Hence, the margin available with the conventional developing device in respect of inclination is limited.

Sealing members for a developing device in an image forming apparatus


Method for manufacturing speaker bottom yoke, including steps of: 1. calculating product weight according to required dimension; 2. cutting off a blank material with the calculated weight from steel bar (material bar), which blank material can be further planed; 3. performing first time forging to forge one end of the blank material into a stem section with reduced diameter, which stem section can be formed with a sink in accordance with the required shape of the bottom yoke; 4. performing second time forging to forge the other end of the blank material into a bottom disc with larger diameter; and 5. performing third time forging to further forge the bottom disc of the blank material into a predetermined dimension. In the above forging procedure, the diameter of the blank material is forged from large dimension into small dimension and the bottom disc is forged at two times into a specific dimension. Therefore, the blank material will not have too high density over the forging ratio and thus the annealing operation is unnecessary.

The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing speaker bottom yoke, which shortens the manufacturing time, increases production capacity, enhances product quality and beautifies the appearance of the product. This method is especially applicable to the base seat of a speaker.
As shown in FIG. 5, a conventional speaker bottom yoke is made of an iron bar blank material A with smaller diameter. The iron bar blank material A is first punched into a bottle shape B. Then the blank material is secondarily punched to expand the head end thereof into a mushroom head shape C. At this time, the iron bar blank material with mushroom head end has almost reached the forging ratio of the material. Therefore, for further forging the material into the necessary bottom yoke with specific dimension, it is necessary to anneal the material. Otherwise, the material will be torn apart. In the annealing procedure of metal material, it is necessary to remove the iron bar blank material A from the punching mold. After the annealing procedure, the iron bar blank material A is again put back into the mold for further processing. The above conventional annealing procedure includes multiple complicated steps such as skin removing and sand spraying. After the annealed semi-product is again placed into the punching mold cavity, some shortcomings may take place, such as inaccurate mating and prolonged manufacturing time.
The mushroom head end must be processed into a suitable thickness as necessary. The body of the bottom yoke is continuously punched and forged into a necessary precision of dimension to form a bottom yoke specifically for speaker.
During the manufacturing procedure of the bottom yoke, the large-sized bottom disc is forged in such a manner that the small diameter iron bar is continuously pressed to form a large-sized bottom disc. Therefore, the density of the iron bar is changed from low density into compact density. Therefore, after this step, an annealing step is required to soften the tissue of the iron bar and then the successive manufacturing step can be performed. In case the annealing step is omitted and the too dense iron bar blank material is further forged, the forging mold is very likely to damage. Also, in case the forging ratio of the product has is too high, the material may be torn apart to form defective product. Therefore, it is necessary to first anneal the material and remove the iron bar blank material from the mold. After annealed, the material is again moved back into the mold for further forging. Such procedure is quite time-consuming and laborious. As a result, the manufacturing time is prolonged and the production capacity is reduced and thus the cost for labor is increased. In this field, the production efficiency of working time occupies almost 30xcx9c40% of the manufacturing cost.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide a method for manufacturing speaker bottom yoke, by which the operation is unified and the annealing step is unnecessary and it is unnecessary to remove the forged blank material from the mold. This method shortens the manufacturing time and increases production capacity.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide the above manufacturing method by which the appearance of the speaker bottom yoke is beautified.
According to the above objects, the method for manufacturing speaker bottom yoke of the present invention includes steps of: 1. calculating product weight according to required dimension; 2. cutting off a blank material with the calculated weight from steel bar (material bar), which blank material can be further planed; 3. performing first time forging to forge one end of the blank material into a stem section with reduced diameter, which stem section can be simultaneously formed with a sink in accordance with the required shape and dimension of the bottom yoke; 4. performing second time forging to forge the other end of the blank material into a bottom disc with larger diameter; and 5. performing third time forging to further forge the bottom disc of the blank material into a predetermined dimension.
In the above forging procedure, the diameter of the blank material is forged from large dimension into small dimension and the bottom disc is forged at two times into a specific dimension. Therefore, the blank material will not have too high density over the forging ratio and thus the annealing operation is unnecessary. Therefore, it is unnecessary to remove the blank material from the mold and the operation can be unified to shorten the manufacturing time and mass-produce the products.
The present invention can be best understood through the following description and accompanying drawings wherein:

No. 4, Lane 234, Hsin Shu Rd., Hsin Tsuang


A system and method for flushing stale data from a read prefetch buffer of a PCI bus system which transfers data in the form of data streams of contiguous blocks. The PCI bus system comprises a channel adapter at one PCI bus that issues read commands, a data source coupled to a second PCI bus, and a prefetch buffer that prefetches the blocks of read data. A prefetch counter posts the remaining number blocks to be read and transferred, posting the prefetch count at a storage location of a storage memory mapped to a prefetch location in the prefetch buffer. The prefetch count is written to the storage location by a prefetch count write command. The system for flushing stale data from the prefetch buffer comprises a key detector for sensing an unique identifier of the prefetch count write command. Data path logic responds to the key detector, determining the prefetch location of the prefetch buffer from the mapped storage location of the prefetch count write command, and flushing any prefetch data at the determined prefetch location.

This invention relates to read prefetch buffers in PCI bus systems, which contain blocks of prefetched data to be read, and, more particularly, to flushing unread stale data from the PCI bus system prefetch buffer to prevent the reading of the stale data.
The Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus system is a high-performance expansion bus architecture which offers a low latency path employing PCI bridges through which a host processor may directly access PCI devices. In a multiple host environment, a PCI bus system may include such functions as data buffering and PCI central functions such as arbitration over usage of the bus system.
The incorporated ""610 application describes an example of a complex PCI bus system for providing a connection path between a secondary PCI bus, to which are attached a plurality of hosts or host channel adapters, and at least one primary PCI bus, to which are attached a plurality of peripheral devices, and allows the prefetching of data for read transactions of multiple channel adapters in parallel. The incorporated ""610 application additionally defines many of the terms employed herein, and such definitions are also available from publications provided by the PCI Special Interest Group, and will not be repeated here.
Major computer systems may employ PCI bus systems to provide fast data storage from hosts, such as network servers, via channel adapters and the PCI bus system, to attached data storage servers having storage devices, cache storage, or non-volatile cache storage.
A channel adapter (an adapter coupling a host system to a secondary PCI bus) attempts to read large amounts of data at once from a data storage or memory device (a non-volatile store or a data storage device adapter or controller processor coupled to a primary PCI bus), such as transactions of a contiguous string of a number of blocks of data. The PCI bus architecture does not define the total amount of data to be accessed in an operation, and does require that read operations be broken up to allow access by other agents on the bus. This is because read operations require time for the command to pass through the bus system, time to access the data at the source of the data, and time for passage of the data back through the bus system. To allow a read operation to monopolize the bus for a sequence of reads to complete access to the total amount of the data at one time would be very inefficient and would substantially reduce the effective bandwidth of the PCI bus system.
Hence, the PCI bus architecture, e.g., of the incorporated ""610 application, limits access to the PCI bus. Typically, the read operation requires a delay before the data is accessed from the source device and supplied to the prefetch buffer. Additionally, not all of the data may be accessed in a single transaction, and only a portion of the data is loaded into the prefetch buffer, leading to a delay. Hence, the requesting agent is disconnected after the delay exceeds a predetermined time, and another agent allowed access, even though part of the data is loaded in the prefetch buffer.
As discussed in the incorporated ""610 application, a problem was that, while an original agent was disconnected to allow access by another agent, a read operation by the other agent would be for data having a different address, and the PCI bus system would flush any as yet unread prefetched original data as having an incorrect address, so as to make room for the desired data of the other agent. Thus, in the incorporated ""610 application, read transactions of multiple hosts (via channel adapters) are allowed to be processed in parallel by allowing prefetched data blocks for different requesting agents to be stored in different parallel FIFO buffers without being flushed. The prefetched data remains buffered for later retry of a read request by the original requesting agent even if another agent issues an intervening read request. After being disconnected, the original agent then retries the read access at its allocated parallel buffer, and will be granted access after all the other requesting agents coupled to the secondary bus have been granted access. The prefetch buffer allocated to the original agent will retain the data that had been incompletely loaded and will continue to be loaded as the data is accessed. Upon the grant of one of the retries by the original agent, and completion of building the block of data, the block is transferred to the requesting agent.
As discussed above, the PCI bus architecture does not define the total amount of data to be accessed in an operation, and does require that read operations be broken up to allow access by other agents on the bus. Thus, the number of blocks remaining of the complete transaction to be prefetched and read must be continuously tracked. In order to track the blocks of data that are accessed to build the full amount of requested data, a prefetch count is established by a prefetch counter and stored in a storage memory. The prefetch counter decrements a remainder count as blocks of data are accessed, updating the remainder count stored in the storage memory. As one example, the count comprises the number of 512K byte blocks remaining to be read for the complete transaction, and is decremented by one as each 512 byte block is read. Upon completion of the complete read transaction, the remainder count is xe2x80x9czeroxe2x80x9d, and the FIFO is empty.
However, the requesting host is often working with and updating the data as it is being read. Further, in PCI bus systems, writes are processed much more quickly than reads, in view of the wait time for reads. Thus, a first prefetch may have loaded prefetch data into the FIFO that has been updated in a parallel write operation by the requesting agent before it (the now stale data) has been read from the FIFO. It is thus possible that the requesting agent will issue a new read request for the updated data using the same beginning address as the stale prefetched data in the FIFO. Thinking that the prefetched data is the updated data, the requesting agent will read the stale data instead.
Further, the desired data may not end on the same boundary as the prefetched data, and the agent will only read the desired data, leaving the unread prefetched data still in the prefetch buffer. The requesting agents typically process data in contiguous sequence, and the original agent may subsequently request data starting at the address of the data remaining in the prefetch buffer. This data will also be stale and may have been updated by another host or by the same host via another channel adapter.
One approach for flushing stale data from a prefetch buffer was to do an extra read before doing an actual read. The extra read would have to be at an unrelated address to throw out any stale data that may have the desired address. However, as discussed above, read operations are notoriously slow, and, as the result, the actual read is slowed by an extra operation that is a read operation, hurting the performance of the PCI bus system.
An object of the present invention is to flush unread stale data from a PCI bus system prefetch buffer efficiently, avoiding performance degradation resulting from extra reads.
A system and method are disclosed for flushing stale data from a read prefetch buffer of a PCI bus system which transfers data in the form of data streams comprising a plurality of contiguous blocks. The PCI bus system comprises a plurality of PCI busses, at least one PCI data destination (such as a channel adapter) coupled to a first of the plurality of PCI busses, and at least one PCI data source (such as a data storage device) coupled to a second of the plurality of PCI busses. A prefetch buffer stores the blocks of data read from the PCI data source at a prefetch location, the blocks associated as one of the data streams in response to a read command. The prefetch buffer location may comprise one of a plurality of parallel buffers that was assigned at initialization to the requesting data destination (channel adapter). A prefetch counter posts the number blocks of the data stream to be read in response to the read command and transferred from the PCI data source to the PCI data destination, the prefetch counter posting the prefetch count at a storage location of a storage memory, the storage location of the storage memory mapped, also at initialization, to the prefetch location in the prefetch buffer.
The system for flushing stale data from the prefetch buffer comprises a transaction control key detector coupled to one of the PCI busses for sensing an unique identifier of a prefetch count write command. The transaction control loads the desired prefetch count in an addressed storage location in the storage memory. The key detector identifies the prefetch count write command by the unique identifier, and data path logic coupled to the key detector responds to the sensed unique identifier of the prefetch count write command, determining the prefetch location of the prefetch buffer as mapped from the addressed storage location of the prefetch count write command, and flushing any prefetch data at the determined prefetch location of the prefetch buffer.
In one embodiment, the prefetch count write command unique identifier comprises at least one bit of a PCI address of the prefetch count write command. The bit is outside the decode range of addresses employed for addressing the target storage memory in the PCI address, and the key detector senses the bit of the PCI address to identify the prefetch count write command.
For a fuller understanding of the present invention, reference should be made to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Flushing stale data from a PCI bus system read prefetch buffer

International Business Machines Corporation


Techniques to more efficiently control the transmit power for a data transmission that uses a number of formats (e.g., rates, transport formats). Different formats for a given data channel (e.g., transport channel) may require different target SNIRs to achieved a particular BLER. In one aspect, individual target BLER may be specified for each format of each data channel. In another aspect, various power control schemes are provided to achieve different target SNIRs for different formats. In a first power control scheme, multiple individual outer loops are maintained for multiple formats. For each format, its associated outer loop attempts to set the target SNIR such that the target BLER specified for that format is achieved. In a second power control scheme, multiple individual outer loops are maintained and the base station further applies different adjustments to the transmit power levels for different formats.

1. Field
The present invention relates generally to data communication, and more specifically to techniques for controlling the transmit power of a data transmission that uses multiple formats (e.g., rates, transport formats) as supported by a communication system using power control (e.g., W-CDMA).
2. Background
In a wireless communication system, a user with a terminal (e.g., a cellular phone) communicates with another user via transmissions on the downlink and uplink through one or more base stations. The downlink (i.e., forward link) refers to transmission from the base station to the terminal, and the uplink (i.e., reverse link) refers to transmission from the terminal to the base station. The downlink and uplink are typically allocated different frequencies.
In a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system, the total transmit power available for a base station is typically indicative of the total downlink capacity for that base station since data may be concurrently transmitted to a number of terminals over the same frequency band. A portion of the total available transmit power is allocated to each active terminal such that the aggregate transmit power for all active terminals is less than or equal to the total available transmit power.
To maximize the downlink capacity, a power control mechanism is typically used to minimize power consumption and interference while maintaining the desired level of performance. Conventionally, this power control mechanism is implemented with two power control loops. The first power control loop (often referred to as an "inner" power control loop, or simply, the inner loop) adjusts the transmit power to each terminal such that the signal quality of the transmission received at the terminal (e.g., as measured by a signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio (SNIR)) is maintained at a particular target SNIR. This target SNIR is often referred to as the power control setpoint (or simply, the setpoint). The second power control loop (often referred to as an "outer" power control loop, or simply, the outer loop) adjusts the target SNIR such that the desired level of performance (e.g., as measured by a particular target block error rate (BLER), frame error rate (FER), or bit error rate (BER)) is maintained. By minimizing the amount of transmit power while maintaining the target BLER, increased system capacity and reduced delays in serving users can be achieved.
A W-CDMA system supports data transmission on one or more transport channels, and one or more transport formats may be used for each transport channel. Each transport format defines various processing parameters such as the transmission time interval (TTI) over which the transport format applies, the size of each transport block of data, the number of transport blocks within each TTI, the coding scheme to be used for the TTI, and so on. The use of multiple transport formats allows different types or rates of data to be transmitted over a single transport channel.
The W-CDMA standard currently permits one target BLER to be specified by the base station for each transport channel, regardless of the number of transport formats that may be selected for use for the transport channel. Each transport format may be associated with a different code block length, which may in turn require a different target SNIR to achieve the target BLER. (For W-CDMA, the code block length is determined by the transport block size, which is specified by the transport format.) In W-CDMA, one or more transport channels are multiplexed together in a single physical channel, whose transmit power is adjusted through power control. Using the conventional power control mechanism, the inner power control loop would adjust the target SNIR based on the received transport blocks to achieve the target BLER or better for each transport channel.
Since different transport formats may require different target SNIRs to achieve the target BLER, the average transmit power for the physical channel may fluctuate depending on the specific sequence of transport formats selected for use in the constituent transport channel(s) (i.e., the relative frequency of the transport formats and their ordering). And since the outer and inner loops take some amount of time to converge, each time the transport format is changed, a transient occurs until the loops converge on the target SNIR for the new transport format. During this transient time, the actual BLER may be much greater or less than the target BLER, which would then result in degraded performance and lower system capacity.
There is therefore a need in the art for an improved power control mechanism for a (e.g., W-CDMA) communication system capable of transmitting data on one or more transport channels using multiple transport formats.

Power control for a channel with multiple formats in a communication system


The invention relates to a shoe having an insole being of a rigid material for providing structural integrity to be secured to an outsole, an upper secured to the insole, and a hole in the insole for enhancing flexibility of the insole. The insole is then secured to both the outsole and the upper. The invention also relates to a method for providing the shoe.

An insole is generally defined in the trade to be a material to which an upper and an outsole are secured. In a typical lasted shoe construction, an insole is temporarily secured to an underside of a last and the upper may be pulled down and around the underside of the insole. The upper may then be wiped, or shaped, about the last prior to attachment to the insole. Once the upper is secured, either by cement or stitch, to the underside of the insole, and after the insole is secured to an outsole either by fasteners or cement, the last is usually removed. The typical resulting structure is the upper being indirectly secured to the outsole where the insole is connecting both the upper and outsole together.
Because the insole normally provides a base to which the upper is attached, and because the insole often links and secures the upper to the outsole, the insole is generally made of a material having sufficient structural integrity. A soft material may easily flex or buckle when the shoe is subjected to stress, possibly resulting in the insole separating from the cement or fasteners and, therefore, causing the insole to separate from the outsole and/or upper. Hence, the insole is often a rigid material so as to minimize the disadvantages described above and inhibit parts of the shoe from falling apart. As one may imagine, utilizing a rigid, strong material having sufficient structural integrity may often result in an insole that has reduced flexibility.
In some cases, an inflexible insole causes the shoe to be uncomfortable, particularly if a wearer's foot directly contacts the insole. As shoe construction evolved, comfort was improved by placing a cushion on top of the insole for directly receiving the wearer's foot. Instead of, or in addition to, the cushion, a footbed or socklining may be used. Further, using a cushion, footbed, or socklining of soft or resilient material may also permit these items to be easily flexed. However, despite the addition of a cushion, footbed, or socklining, the flexibility or comfort of the insole may be unaffected.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,115,934 to Hall, U.S. Pat. No. 6,178,663 to Schoesler, U.S. Pat. No. 5,438,768 to Bauerfeind, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,598,319 to Hardt appear to disclose an inner sole or insole having a flexible or cushioned insert to improve flexibility and/or cushioning. The inner sole or insole may directly receive the wearer's foot and does not tend to show the inner sole or insole as a structure for indirectly securing the upper to the outsole where the insole is connecting both the upper and outsole together. In some cases, the inner sole or insole may be inserted into the shoe. Hence, these references that refer to an inner sole or insole do not employ the use of an insole as defined by this specification.
What is desired, therefore, is a shoe having an insole with improved flexibility without sacrificing structural integrity. Another desire is a shoe having an insole with improved comfort.


In the manufacture of a seal ring having a cut portion at one position on the circumference by injecting a molten molding material from a gate into a cavity of a forming die, the gate is provided at a position apart from the opposite position to the cut portion of the seal ring. In the case of a seal ring with a weld portion, the weld portion is set away from the cut portion.

The present invention generally relates to a seal ring, a method of manufacturing the same, and a forming die of the same and more particularly relates to a seal ring used for sealing a portion where hydraulic control of automatic transmissions of AT motorcars and the like is required, a method of manufacturing the same, and a forming die of the same.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional seal ring having a cut portion 2 at one place on its circumference.
A conventional injection molding die for forming such a seal ring is shown in FIG. 2. A molten molding material is pressed under high pressure into a cavity 4a through a gate 3 of a forming die 4A and then it is hardened by cooling or heating.
In this case, if the flow length of the molten molding material in the cavity 4a within the forming die is too long, it sometimes occurs that the molding material is not completely filled into the cavity 4a of the forming die. Also, it sometimes occurs that the molding material begins to harden before it fully flows into the cavity 4a of the forming die. In such cases, the molding material is not fully filled in the die and, hence, a work of exactly the same form as the die cannot be produced. Such phenomena are called "short in a moulding" and "sink mark".
Therefore, to make the flow length of the molding material within the cavity 4a of the forming die as small as possible, it was practiced to provide the gate 3 at the portion opposite to the mold cut portion 12. More particularly, the mold cut portion 12 and the gate 3 were located along the direction of the diameter 4b of the circular cavity 4a.
When the seal ring 1 is loaded in place, the cut portion 2 is widened to left and right. At that time, a maximum strain is generated at the opposite portion 5 to the cut portion 2.
When the gate 3 is provided at the position opposite to (the other side across the diameter of) the mold cut portion 12 of the forming die 4A, the seal ring 1 produced by such an arrangement has a lower strength. The reason is that the portion corresponding to the gate 3, i.e., the portion-corresponding-to-gate 13, has somewhat lowered strength compared with other portions of the seal ring 1. As a result, in the case where a material exhibiting smaller elongation is used as the material for the seal ring 1, it tends to break when it is loaded in place because the opposite portion 5 to the cut portion 2 of the seal ring 1 coincides with the portion-corresponding-to-gate 13.
Further, a seal ring 1 can be molded by the use of a forming die 4B having no cut portion as shown in FIG. 3. In this case, the seal ring 1 is cut at the position corresponding to the gate 3 and thus the cut portion 2 is provided. Namely, the portion-corresponding-to-gate becomes the cut portion. In the case of FIG. 3, the flows of the molding material divided into two directions through the cavity 4b at the gate 3 form the so-called weld portion 14 at the position where they meet each other. Since the weld portion 14 does not provide a perfect bond, it has somewhat lowered strength as compared with other portions. Therefore, if a weld portion 14 is formed at the opposite portion 15 to the cut portion 2, the cut portion 2 is widened when the seal ring is loaded in place, and the opposite portion 15 to the cut portion 2 comes to be damaged, especally for a material exhibiting small elongation.
On the other hand, generally, seal rings are molded out of molding materials with PEEK used as the base. PEEK is a resin being hard and having a high melting point. Therefore, moldings formed of such a PEEK-based forming material are hard and brittle. It is difficult to make a cut with a knife in a PEEK seal ring after it has been molded. If it is forcibly cut, there arises a possibility of breaking it
Therefore, PEEK seal rings are molded by injecting the molding material into the cavity 4b of a forming die 4A having a mold cut portion 12 previously provided as shown in FIG. 2. Otherwise, PEEK seal rings are molded by the use of a forming die 4C partly joined at the cut portion 2 as shown in FIG. 4A and FIG. 4B, and the portion 2a enclosed with broken lines is cut off by using a milling machine in a subsequent working process.
Further, the PEEK-based forming material is less fluid at the time of injection. Therefore, troubles of short shot are liable to occur when the flow length is too long or the flow passage area is too small.


In a decision-forest classifier in accordance with the invention, a decision forest including multiple decision trees is used to classify "seen" training data and "unseen" data. Each individual tree performs an initial classification based on randomly selected subsets of the data. The classification outcomes by the individual trees are combined using a discriminant process in the decision-forest classier to render the ultimate classification decision.

Use of a decision tree including a multiplicity of nodes to classify data is well-known in the art. Decision trees have been studied extensively in the past two decades and employed in many practical applications. For example, one such application is in the area of image and pattern interpretation involving optical character recognition (OCR). The popular use of decision-tree classifiers stems from that the decision tree idea is intuitively apparent, that training of such classifiers is often straight-forward, and that their execution speed is extremely high.
Techniques for devising decision-tree classifiers are described in such papers as: J. Schuermann et al., "A Decision Theoretic Approach to Hierarchical Classifier Design," Pattern Recognition, Mar. 17, 1984, pp. 359-369; I. Sethi et al., "Hierarchical Classifier Design Using Mutual Information," IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, PAMI-4, Jul. 4, 1982, pp. 441-445.
However, the decision-tree classifiers devised according to the traditional techniques often cannot be expanded in complexity without sacrificing their generalization accuracy. The more complex such classifiers are (i.e., the more tree nodes they have), the more susceptible they are to being over-adapted to, or specialized at, the training data which was initially used to train the classifiers. As such, the generalization accuracy of the more complex classifiers is relatively low as they more likely commit errors in classifying "unseen" data, which may not closely resemble the training data previously "seen" by the classifiers.
Attempts have been made to improve the generalization accuracy of the decision-tree classifiers. One such attempt calls for reducing the size of a fully-grown decision tree adopted by a classifier by pruning back the tree. That is, the input data to the classifier does not go through every level of the tree. Rather, after the input data reaches a preselected level of the tree, the classifier is forced to decide its class or probable classes to make the classifier more generalized. Another attempt involves use of probabilistic techniques whereby the input data descends through multiple branches of the tree with different confidence measures. Although the generalization accuracy on the unseen data improves in the above attempts, the improvement often comes at the expense of the accuracy in classifying the seen training data, which would otherwise be classified with 100% correctness.
Recently, decision-tree classifiers including multiple trees were devised by combining trees which were generated heuristically. The designs of these classifiers rely on an input of an ensemble of features representing the object to be classified. One such multiple-decision-tree classifier is described: S. Shlien, "Multiple Binary Decision Tree Classifiers," Pattern Recognition, vol. 23, no. 7, 1990, pp. 757-763. Each tree in this classifier is designed based on a different criterion directed to a measure of information gain from the features. The criteria used in the tree design include Komogorov-Smirnov distance, Shannon entropy measure, and Gini index of diversity. Because of a limited number of such criteria available, the number of trees includable in such a classifier is accordingly limited.
Even though it is required that the complete ensemble of features be input to each tree in the prior-art multiple-decision-tree classifiers, the actual number of features used in the tree is oftentimes a fraction of the total number of features input. An effort to increase the number of trees in a classifier by utilizing as many available features as possible is described in: S. Shlien, "Nonparametric classification using matched binary decision trees," Pattern Recognition Letters, Feb. 13, 1992, pp. 83-87. This effort involves a feature selection process at each tree node where a usage measure for each feature is computed, and weighed against the information gain if that feature is examined at the node. Specifically, given a choice of features providing a large information gain, the feature with a low usage measure is selected.
Another multiple-decision-tree classifier is described in: S. Kwok et al., "Multiple Decision trees," Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, 4, 1990, pp. 327-335. In this classifier, trees are designed based on a modified version of the well-known ID3 algorithm. Pursuant to this modified version, a list of tests, which may be used at a tree node for examining the features, are ranked according to the amount of information gain from using the tests. In order to generate different trees, one selects from the ranked list different subsets of tests to replace the tests adopted by top level nodes of a tree constructed in accordance with the traditional ID3 algorithm.
Although it appears that the above prior-art multiple-decision-tree classifiers deliver better classification accuracy than the single-decision-tree classifiers, the designers of the multiple-tree classifiers all struggled and failed to heuristically generate a large number of trees for the classifiers. In addition, the designs of such classifiers do not guarantee that the performance of the classifiers can always be improved by adding trees thereto.

Classification technique using random decision forests


A method includes determining failure of a drive energy store of a vehicle and activating generator operation of a electric main engine as a result of the failure. The method includes determining a current driving condition of the vehicle, what actuators are necessary in order to put the vehicle into a safe operating condition, and what each of the necessary actuator dynamics are based on the current driving condition of the vehicle. The method includes determining a demand for electrical energy that is necessary for a particular necessary actuator to attain the safe operating condition, and regulating a proportionate generator operation of the electric main engine, taking into consideration electrical energy of the necessary actuators required for carrying out each of the necessary actuator dynamics. The method includes activating the actuators necessary for achieving the safe operating condition with the determined actuator dynamics until the safe operating condition is achieved.

The present embodiments relate to a method and control unit for activating actuators of a vehicle during emergency operation.
In the future, vehicles with electric main engines will be widespread. An electric main engine may be operated with a voltage range of 100 to 800 V for vehicles with an electric or hybrid drive. This represents a high voltage in comparison with the usual on-board electrical systems of motor vehicles, which may operate in a voltage range of 12 to 24 volts.
An on-board electrical system dedicated to the main engine may be referred to as a high-voltage network, and an on-board electrical system operating in the usual voltage range may be referred to as a low-voltage network. In this kind of electric or hybrid vehicle, high-voltage networks and low-voltage networks are combined into a multi-voltage on-board electrical system.
Electric or hybrid vehicles may be equipped with a drive energy store, which is dedicated to the high-voltage circuit of the vehicle. The drive energy store is thus also referred to as a high-voltage energy store.
The drive energy store may underlie comprehensive diagnostic measures both during and also outside of the driving operation. For example, a fault in the drive energy store and a thereby shortened remaining driven distance is to be indicated promptly to a vehicle driver so that the vehicle does not come to a halt in a remote area due to an empty drive energy store. It is thus to be assumed that the drive energy store is a sufficiently well monitored component in the vehicle.
Failure of the drive energy store may result in dramatic consequences if the vehicle is equipped exclusively with electrically-actuatable brake and/or steering actuators (e.g., "brake-by-wire" and "steer-by-wire," respectively).
The brake actuators indicated render conventional brake hydraulics superfluous. The vehicle driver nevertheless actuates a brake pedal of the vehicle as normal (e.g., presses against a spring or spring force generated by the spring, which simulates the normal feeling of a pedal). In a control unit of the vehicle, a brake force for each wheel of the vehicle is calculated herefrom. A contact force is generated on the individual wheels from brake pads of the brake unit on a brake disk by an electromechanical unit including an electric motor and spindle.
The steering actuators mentioned render conventional transmission mechanisms such as steering links superfluous. A steering command applied to the steering device by the vehicle driver is not directly mechanically applied to the steering gear and thereby eventually to the wheels to be steered, but rather indirectly via a steering actuator.
For reasons of synergy, the drive energy store may also draw on the electrically-actuatable braking and steering actuators for energy supply. As the drive energy store is sufficiently well monitored, the energy supply of the electrically-actuatable actuators is provided during normal driving operation.
Sudden failure of the drive energy store when the vehicle is at full speed would however result in the steering or braking commands from the vehicle driver not being carried out by the braking and/or steering actuators. A further problem that would occur upon failure of the drive energy store is the supply of electric current to electrically-actuatable coolant actuators or coolant pumps. A failure of the drive energy store may result in overheating and destruction of the main engine and power electronic components assigned thereto.

Method and control unit for activating actuators of a vehicle during emergency operation


Remote monitor and control of an airfield lighting system. A processing system local to the airport is provided in communication with the airfield lighting system for monitor and control thereof, the airfield lighting system producing airfield information for processing by the local processing system. The local processing system connects to a global communication network such that the airfield information is accessed from a remote location disposed on the global communication network.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention is related to airport airfield lighting systems, and more specifically, to systems which monitor such airfield lighting systems and remote access provided thereto via the Internet.
2. Background of the Art
The future of aviation is undergoing a massive technological change with the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. This change not only affects large air carrier airports, but also the smaller general aviation airports located in remote areas or small towns. Higher levels of finding are also becoming more available for general aviation airports.
It is anticipated that changes in federal regulations under the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) will stipulate that the FAA no longer buy and maintain the approach equipment. Equipment will be funded by the FAA, however, the equipment will need to be installed and maintained by local airport maintenance staff and/or out-sourced to a maintenance contractor for support. This change from a centralized federal program to a localized standalone operation presents a new problem for approach lighting systems for general aviation airports. Not only will the local airports be held responsible for the maintenance of the airfield lighting and related systems, but they will need to provide the support contracts. Furthermore, in those remote areas where technically-capable maintenance personnel may not be readily available, other means are needed to ensure that the airport has a safe and operational airfield lighting system.
What is needed is a system which provides local monitor and control of the general aviation airport airfield lighting system while also offering remote portal access to the local system by authorized users for periodic review of the system data which indicates the viability of the airport system. Furthermore, the local system needs an automatic notification feature for automatically notifying selected users when system faults occur. Still further, what is needed is a centralized general aviation monitoring system which connects to monitor a number of remote general aviation airport airfield systems, including runway and approach lighting systems, etc., such that authorized individuals can access the remote systems from anywhere, and at any time.

Remote access of an airport airfield lighting system


An axle assembly, including an axle shaft, annular member, hub, inner and outer hub bearings, abutment ring, first and second seals, and an air inlet port. The annular member is disposed about the axle shaft. The hub is coupled for rotation with the axle shaft and defines an outlet port. The first and second shaft seals form seals between the hub and the annular member. The air inlet port is mounted to one of the annular member and the abutment ring and includes an inlet boss. A first fluid conduit is defined by the abutment ring or both the abutment ring and the inlet port. The first fluid conduit is in fluid communication with the air inlet boss. The second shaft seal is spaced apart from the first shaft seal along the rotational axis to at least partially define a second fluid conduit in fluid communication inlet and outlet ports.

This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Onboard central tire inflation systems ("CTI systems") are used on many types of vehicles to provide pressurized air to inflate, or maintain tire pressure from a centralized unit. However, current CTI systems are bulky or complex, leading to increased cost, size, and weight of the CTI systems and vehicles employing them. As such, there is a need for more compact CTI systems.

Axle assembly having wheel hubs configured for use in vehicle with central tire inflation system


A urine analysis system includes a urinary particle analyzer and a computer. The urinary particle analyzer has a measuring unit that measures a cast concentration from the urine and an electric conductivity sensor that measures the electric conductivity of the urine. The computer has a function of correcting the cast concentration measured by the measuring unit on the basis of the electric conductivity of the urine measured by the electric conductivity sensor and a function of outputting the corrected cast concentration.

As a urine analyzer used in urine tests, a urine qualitative analyzer and a urinary particle analyzer are widely known. A urine qualitative analyzer is generally constructed in such a manner that a test paper having a reaction test piece stuck thereon for each measurement item is immersed in an analyte urine sample for a predetermined period of time, and the color of the test piece is compared with standard colors for determination so as to obtain the results of negative/positive (−), (±), (+), . . . automatically for each item (See, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2-27262). Also, a urinary particle analyzer is constructed to classify and count the particles in an analyte urine sample automatically (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,325,168).
One of the measurement items of the urine qualitative analyzer such as described above is protein concentration. Since protein is reabsorbed by renal tubes in the normal kidney, this protein concentration is used as an index that indicates the reabsorption capability of the kidney. However, depending on the condition of a patient (person to be tested), the urine is sometimes concentrated or diluted, so that it may not be possible to grasp the amount of excreted protein in urine correctly by random urine. By a current protein test paper, with a diluted urine, a clinically significant proteinuria (namely, a specimen that should be evaluated as being positive) may be evaluated as being negative or conversely, with concentrated urine, those that should be evaluated as being negative may be evaluated as being positive.
In view of the above, a method is proposed in which a creatinine concentration in an analyte urine sample is measured by the colorimetry so as to correct the result of measurement of the concentration of albumin, which is one kind of protein, with the creatinine concentration (See U.S. Pat. No. 6,306,660). Since this creatinine concentration reflects the degree of concentration of the urine, such correction can remove the influence of concentration or dilution of the urine from the result of measurement of albumin concentration.
However, with the above-described method of correction of the protein concentration disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,306,660, the creatinine concentration is measured by the colorimetry; however, the creatinine concentration measurement using the colorimetry such as described above has a low resolution due to its structure, thereby raising a problem of low correction precision.

Measurement result correction method, urine analysis system, and urine analyzer


An oleopneumatic shock absorbing device including a hydraulic fluid-filled cylinder (1) combined with a movable assembly moved by outside forces for circulating the hydraulic fluid. The movable assembly consists of a hollow mobile piston (3) on the end of a push rod (2) with an internal longitudinal space (13) forming a reservoir for the hydraulic fluid. When the piston (3) and the push rod (2) are moved, the fluid flows through a variable flow-rate transfer channel (11) providing variable, e.g. gradual shock absorption throughout both the outward stroke and the return stroke.

The present invention relates to a new variable oleopneumatic shock absorbing device with the possibilty for adjustment, which can be used not only to produce suspension for vehicles such as automobiles, motorcycles and bicycles, but can also be used in all installations requiring the use of a shock absorbing system, such as industrial, agricultural and civil engineering works machinery and tooling, trucks, trailers, lifting and handling gear, and opening or closing systems.
Oleopneumatic shock-absorbing devices are well known and are used in many technical fields.
The solutions put forward to date are, however, relatively complicated, highly sensitive to wear, rapidly lose their effectiveness and often allow shock absorption to be obtained in just one direction. Furthermore, the degree of shock absorption is generally determined at the time of manufacture and it is difficult to effect individual adjustment as required and, more importantly, to effect such an adjustment even during operation.
Now, there has been found, and this is what forms the subject-matter of the present invention, a simple solution which makes it possible to solve these problems, which solution can be used either alone or be incorporated into shock-absorbing and/or suspension assemblies.
Oleopneumatic shock-absorbing devices in general consist of an assembly which is intended to be interposed between a bearing element and a part to be suspended, and essentially includes a cylinder filled with a fluid (for example oil) connected to the bearing element (or to the element to be suspended), and inside which there can move a piston, the rod of which is connected to the bearing element (or to the part to be suspended). The piston has calibrated nozzles equipped with check valves which makes it possible, as the said piston moves, to slow the movements, for example the oscillations of the suspension, to a greater or lesser extent. Furthermore, the piston also contains a second piston known as a "free piston", which allows the definition within the cylinder of a chamber containing a pressurized gas (for example nitrogen).
As indicated earlier, such oleopneumatic shock absorbers are of a complicated design, lose their qualities as soon as they are slightly worn, and do not always make it possible to obtain effective shock absorption, this being the case both in the outward stroke and in the return stroke, nor do they allow adjustment during operation. Furthermore, current shock absorbers attenuate vibration, but this vibration still remains troublesome. Furthermore, the travel engendered by defects of the highway are not well absorbed.

Adjustable variable oleopneumatic shock-absorbing device


The exemplary embodiments provide at least a method of receiving, by a node of a wireless communication network, more than one indication of data required to be sent from devices in the network, determining that provisioning resources to send the data in response to each of the more than one indication exceeds at least one threshold, and based on the determining, sending a probe message including a priority constraint to the devices. Further, receiving, at a device of a wireless communication network, a probe message from a network node of the network, the probe message identifying a priority constraint, sending, by the device, an acknowledgement to the probe message, the acknowledgment indicating that the device has data to send which meets or exceeds the priority constraint identified in the probe message, and in response to the acknowledgment, receiving from the network node a resource allocation to send the data.

In certain circumstances there can be a need to optimize network resource allocation requests. For example, in situations where multiple devices in a network are able to, almost, simultaneously request network resources in order to transmit and/or receive data, a network device responsible for provisioning allocations may not have enough resources available to handle all the requests, at least in an acceptable manner.

Medium access control method enhancement


A spectral filter includes a two-dimensional array of Fabry-Perot cavity structures, a controller, and a sampling circuit used to switch the Fabry-Perot cavity. The filter receives an incoming image, the sampling circuit switches the cavity to generate a filter image, and the filtered image is detected by the photodetectors to convert a filtered image into digital data. The controller coordinates all the image capture functions of the spectral filter.

Digital cameras are a fast-growing segment of the digital consumer market, and are used largely for producing photographic images. Each pixel of a subject is captured digitally in terms of RGB (red, green and blue) separations.
Digital cameras typically use charged-couple-device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) chips as image sensors. Such CCD or CMOS chips record light from a subject when capturing an image of the subject.

Fabry-perot tunable filter systems and methods


A high power control system includes: a single energy source; an energy source management unit configured to manage the energy source; a controller configured to output a PWM control signal under control of the energy source management unit; a plurality of inverters configured to convert a direct current into an alternating current under control of the PWM control signal of the controller; a plurality of filters coupled to output terminals of the inverters; and a plurality of switches configured to regulate connections between the filters and a load under control of a regulation control signal of the controller.

The present invention relates to a high power control system and a control method thereof, and more particularly, to a high power control system for converting a DC output of a high power battery into an AC output and a control method thereof.
Due to exhaustion of fossil fuel, attempts to use new regeneration energy such as sunlight and wind have been gradually increased. Furthermore, in order to efficiently use generation facilities, generated energy may not be directly used, but stored in a battery so as to be utilized during a peak load.
As the power of new regeneration energy or energy stored in a battery is increased to high power, for example, 500 kW or 1 MW, the capacity of an inverter to convert the energy has been also increased. In order to drive a high power inverter, a lot of elements must be considered.
FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram of a conventional energy storage device including one inverter. In the energy storage device, one controller controls one inverter. Such a structure has high total harmonic distortion (THD) and high input current ripple. Furthermore, when the inverter is broken down, power supply may be stopped, and a low mean time between failure (MTBF) may degrade the reliability of the system may be degraded, and increase the maintenance cost.
In order to solve such problems, a method of controlling a plurality of inverters in parallel has been proposed.
FIG. 2 is a block configuration diagram of a conventional energy storage device including a plurality of parallel inverters. In the energy storage device, one controller controls a plurality of parallel inverters. In such a structure, when one inverter is broken down, a spare inverter may be used to drive the energy storage device. Thus, power supply may not be stopped, but the broken inverter may be easily replaced to thereby make it easier to maintain the system. In this case, however, since a circulating current flows among inverters, the inverters cannot be operated in a state where a load is assigned to the inverters. Furthermore, since the inverters cannot be independently controlled, the inverters cannot be circularly activated. Thus, since it is difficult to expect high MTBF, the reliability of the system may be degraded. Furthermore, since the parallel inverters are operated at the same time, the energy storage device cannot satisfy THD required by a battery during a low-load condition, and cannot secure low input current ripple.

High power control system and control method thereof


A method for verification of a system design represented by a model that includes a plurality of variables. The method includes arranging the variables in an Ordered Binary Decision Diagram (OBDD) according to an initial order of the variables, the OBDD including a number of nodes arranged in rows corresponding respectively to the plurality of the variables. Each processor, among a group of two or more computer processors, is assigned a respective variable among the plurality of the variables. Using each processor, the rows of the OBDD are reordered by varying a position in the OBDD of the row corresponding to the respective variable that is assigned to the processor until at least one of the processors identifies a new order for the OBDD. The new order of the OBDD may be used to verify a characteristic of the model against a specification.

Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (OBDDs) are widely used in design automation, primarily because of the ability of OBDD data structures to represent complex systems in a memory-efficient manner. Tools based on OBDD manipulation have been developed for use, inter alia, in automated formal verification of hardware circuits and other systems that can be represented as finite state machines. For example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/042,304, published as U.S. 2002/0193974 A1, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a method for symbolic model checking based on OBDDs. The method is used to check a model (also referred to as an implementation) of a given hardware design against the design specification. The model is represented by an OBDD, which defines states of the system under study and a transition relation among the states. A reachability analysis is performed, using the OBDD, in order to find traces in the state space of the system that link an initial state to a target state having a specified property, which may either comply with or violate the specification.
Bryant and Meinel provide a useful review of the properties and applications of OBDDs in "Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams in Electronic Design Automation," published in Logic Synthesis and Verification (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), pages 285–307, which is incorporated herein by reference. To summarize briefly, an OBDD is a directed acyclic graph consisting of nonterminal nodes labeled by the variables in a set V and terminal nodes labeled by the Boolean constants 1 and 0. Each nonterminal node has two outgoing edges: a 1-edge and a 0-edge. The starting node of the ordered BDD is called the root.
A Boolean function f on the variables in V, for a given assignment of the values of the variables, is computed by following a path from the root to a terminal node. At each node along the path, if the corresponding variable x is assigned the value 1, the path follows the 1-edge. Otherwise, the path follows the 0-edge. Each variable occurs at most once on any given path. The value of the terminal node that is reached at the end of the path is the value of f for the given assignment. All paths from the root to either terminal node respect the variable ordering of the OBDD, i.e., if variable x occurs before variable y on one path in a given BDD ordering, then variable y will never occur before variable x on any other path. Therefore, the OBDD graph is typically "levelized," so that all nodes corresponding to a given variable appear together in a row. The variable ordering of the OBDD can be altered, however, using simple logical techniques that are known in the art, without changing the underlying Boolean function that the OBDD represents.
The size of an OBDD (i.e., the number of nodes in the OBDD, and hence the complexity of its manipulation and memory consumption) depends strongly on the variable order. Therefore, in many OBDD applications, dynamic variable reordering is used to modify the variable order, and thus reduce the size, of the OBDD in the course of the application.
One commonly-used method for OBDD reordering is "sifting," as described by Rudell in "Dynamic Variable Ordering for Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (Santa Clara, Calif., 1993), pages 42–47, which is incorporated herein by reference. Sifting makes use of the fact that swapping the order of two adjacent variables in the OBDD affects only the nodes of the OBDD in the corresponding rows of the graph. The sifting algorithm seeks an optimal position for a selected variable in the OBDD by swapping the corresponding row up and down over the entire graph while the positions of all other variables remain fixed. After the variable has traversed all possible positions, the optimal position is identified, and the variable is swapped back to that position. The procedure is then repeated to optimize the positions of other variables.
Other OBDD reordering methods attempt to perform variable reordering over a selected subset or block of the variables. For example Song and Chang describe what they call a "distributed reordering algorithm," in "A Variable Reordering Method for Fast Optimization of Binary Decision Diagrams," Proceedings of the Fifth Asian Test Symposium ATS'97 (IEEE, 1997), pages 228–233, which is incorporated herein by reference. The algorithm attempts to reduce optimization time by selecting a subset of the variables, which are not adjacent to one another, and exchanging the positions of the variables in the subset. As another example, Meinel and Slobodova describe a block-restricted sifting strategy in "Speeding Up Variable Reordering of OBDDs," Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Design (1997), pages 338–343, which is also incorporated herein by reference. This algorithm uses Rudell's sifting method, but restricts it to certain selected blocks of variables.

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