This encoding device is able to encode an S signal efficiently in MS prediction encoding. An M signal encoding unit generates first encoding information by encoding a sum signal indicating a sum of a left channel signal and a right channel signal that constitute a stereo signal. An energy difference calculation unit calculates a prediction parameter for predicting a difference signal indicating a difference between the left channel signal and the right channel signal by using a parameter regarding an energy difference between the left channel signal and the right channel signal. An entropy encoding unit generates second encoding information by encoding the prediction parameter.

A Middle/Side (M/S) stereo codec converts signals of channels (left channel and right channel) constituting a stereo signal into an M signal (also called sum signal) and an S signal (also called difference signal), and encodes the M signal and S signal by a mono speech audio codec. In addition, an encoding method for the M/S stereo codec to predict the S signal using the M signal (hereinafter referred to as MS predictive encoding) has been proposed (see, for example, Patent Literatures (hereinafter referred to as "PTLs") 1 to 3).

Encoding device and encoding method using a determined prediction parameter based on an energy difference between channels

PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA


Embodiments of the invention contemplate the formation of a low cost solar cell using a novel high speed electroplating method and apparatus to form a metal contact structure having selectively formed metal lines using an electrochemical plating process. The apparatus and methods described herein remove the need to perform one or more high temperature screen printing processes to form conductive features on the surface of a solar cell substrate. The resistance of interconnects formed in a solar cell device greatly affects the efficiency of the solar cell. It is thus desirable to form a solar cell device that has a low resistance connection that is reliable and cost effective. Therefore, one or more embodiments of the invention described herein are adapted to form a low cost and reliable interconnecting layer using an electrochemical plating process containing a common metal, such as copper.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to the fabrication of photovoltaic cells.
2. Description of the Related Art
Solar cells are photovoltaic devices that convert sunlight directly into electrical power. The most common solar cell material is silicon, which is in the form of single or polycrystalline wafers. Because the amortized cost of forming a silicon-based solar cells to generate electricity is higher than the cost of generating electricity using traditional methods, there has been an effort to reduce the cost to form solar cells.
FIGS. 1A and 1B schematically depicts a standard silicon solar cell 100 fabricated on a wafer 110. The wafer 110 includes a p-type base region 101, an n-type emitter region 102, and a p-n junction region 103 disposed therebetween. An n-type region, or n-type semiconductor, is formed by doping the semiconductor with certain types of elements (e.g., phosphorus (P), arsenic (As), or antimony (Sb)) in order to increase the number of negative charge carriers, i.e., electrons. Similarly, a p-type region, or p-type semiconductor, is formed by the addition of trivalent atoms to the crystal lattice, resulting in a missing electron from one of the four covalent bonds normal for the silicon lattice. Thus, the dopant atom can accept an electron from a neighboring atom's covalent bond to complete the fourth bond. The dopant atom accepts an electron, causing the loss of half of one bond from the neighboring atom and resulting in the formation of a "hole".
When light falls on the solar cell, energy from the incident photons generates electron-hole pairs on both sides of the p-n junction region 103. Electrons diffuse across the p-n junction to a lower energy level and holes diffuse in the opposite direction, creating a negative charge on the emitter and a corresponding positive charge builds up in the base. When an electrical circuit is made between the emitter and the base and the p-n junction is exposed to certain wavelengths of light, a current will flow. The electrical current generated by the semiconductor when illuminated flows through contacts disposed on the frontside 120, i.e. the light-receiving side, and the backside 121 of the solar cell 100. The top contact structure, as shown in FIG. 1A, is generally configured as widely-spaced thin metal lines, or fingers 104, that supply current to a larger bus bar 105. The back contact 106 is generally not constrained to be formed in multiple thin metal lines, since it does not prevent incident light from striking solar cell 100. Solar cell 100 is generally covered with a thin layer of dielectric material, such as Si3N4, to act as an anti-reflection coating 111, or ARC, to minimize light reflection from the top surface of solar cell 100.
In the interest of simplified assembly and higher efficiency of solar cells, a solar cell has been developed, wherein a plurality of holes is formed through the solar cell substrate and serves as vias for interconnection of the top contact structure to a backside conductor by using pins. This solar cell design is referred to as a pin-up module, or PUM. One advantage of the PUM concept is the elimination of the busbars, such as bus bar 105 illustrated in FIG. 1A, from covering the light-receiving side of the substrate, thereby increasing efficiency of the cell. Another is that resistive losses are reduced because current produced by the solar cell is collected at holes equally spaced over the substrate rather than requiring some of the connections to extend across the surface of the solar cell. Further, resistive losses experienced by a PUM connected device will not increase as the solar cell surface area increases and, hence, larger solar cells may be manufactured without a loss in efficiency.
FIG. 1C is a partial schematic cross section of one example of a PUM cell 130 showing a contact 134. Similar to a standard solar cell, such as solar cell 100, PUM cell 130 includes a single crystal silicon wafer 110 with a p-type base region 101, an n-type emitter region 102, and a p-n junction region 103 disposed therebetween. PUM cell 130 also includes a plurality of through-holes 131, which are formed between the light-receiving surface 132 and the backside 133 of PUM cell 130. The through-holes 131 allow the formation of contact 134 between the light-receiving surface 132 and the backside 133. Disposed in each through-hole 131 is a contact 134, which includes a top contact structure 135 disposed on light-receiving surface 132, a backside contact 136 disposed on backside 133, and an interconnect 137, which fills through-hole 131 and electrically couples top contact structure 135 and backside contact 136. An anti-reflective coating 107 may also be formed on light receiving surface 132 to minimize reflection of light energy therefrom. A backside contact 139 completes the electrical circuit required for PUM cell 130 to produce a current by forming an ohmic contact with p-type base region 101 of the silicon wafer 110.
The fingers 104 (FIG. 1B) or contact 134 (FIG. 1C) are in contact with the substrate are adapted to form an ohmic connection with doped region (e.g., n-type emitter region 102). An ohmic contact is a region on a semiconductor device that has been prepared so that the current-voltage (I-V) curve of the device is linear and symmetric, i.e., there is no high resistance interface between the doped silicon region of the semiconductor device and the metal contact. Low-resistance, stable contacts are critical for the performance of the solar cell and reliability of the circuits formed in the solar cell fabrication process. Hence, after the fingers 104, or contacts 134, have been formed on the light-receiving surface and on the backside, an annealing process of suitable temperature and duration is typically performed in order to produce the necessary low resistance metal silicide at the contact/semiconductor interface. A backside contact completes the electrical circuit required for solar cell to produce a current by forming an ohmic contact with p-type base region of the substrate.
Wider the current carrying metal lines (e.g., fingers 104, contact 134) are on the light-receiving surface of the solar cell the lower the resistance losses, but the higher the shadowing losses due to the reduced effective surface area of the light-receiving surface. Therefore, maximizing solar cell efficiency requires balancing these opposing design constraints. FIG. 1D illustrates a plan view of one example of a top contact structure 135 for a PUM cell, wherein the finger width and geometry have been optimized to maximize cell efficiency for the cell. In this configuration, a top contact structure 135 for a PUM cell is configured as a grid electrode 138, which consists of a plurality of various width finger segments 135A. The width of a particular finger segment 135A is selected as a function of the current to be carried by that finger segment 135A. In addition, finger segments 135A are configured to branch as necessary to maintain finger spacing as a function of finger width. This minimizes resistance losses as well as shadowing by finger segments 135A.
Traditionally, the current carrying metal lines, or conductors, are fabricated using a screen printing process in which a silver-containing paste is deposited in a desired pattern on a substrate surface and then annealed. However, there are several issues with this manufacturing method. First, the thin fingers of the conductors, when formed by the screen printing process, may be discontinuous since the fingers formed using a metal paste do not always agglomerate into a continuous interconnecting line during the annealing process. Second, porosity present in the fingers formed during the agglomeration process results in greater resistive losses. Third, electrical shunts may be formed by diffusion of the metal (e.g., silver) from the contact into the p-type base region or on the surface of the substrate backside. Shunts on the substrate backside are caused by poor definition of backside contacts such as waviness, and/or metal residue. Fourth, due to the relatively thin substrate thicknesses commonly used in solar cell applications, such as 200 micrometers and less, the act of screen printing the metal paste on the substrate surface can cause physical damage to the substrate. Lastly, silver-based paste is a relatively expensive material for forming conductive components of a solar cell.
One issue with the current method of forming metal interconnects using a screen printing process that utilizes a metal particle containing paste is that the process of forming the patterned features requires high temperature post-processing steps to densify the formed features and form a good electrical contact with the substrate surface. Due to the need to perform a high temperature sintering process the formed interconnect lines will have a high extrinsic stress created by the difference in thermal expansion of the substrate material and the metal lines. A high extrinsic stress, or even intrinsic stress, formed in the metal interconnect lines is an issue, since it can cause breakage of the formed metallized features, warping of the thin solar cell substrate, and/or delamination of the metallized features from the surface of the solar cell substrate. The high temperature post processing step can also cause the material in the solar cell device to diffuse into unwanted regions of the device, thus causing device problems, such as an electrical short. High temperature processes also limit the types of materials that can be used to form a solar cell due to the breakdown of certain materials at the high sintering temperatures. Also, screen printing processes also tend to be non-uniform, unreliable and often unrepeatable. Therefore, there is a need to form a low stress interconnect line that forms a strong bond to the surface of the substrate.
Another approach to forming very thin, robust current carrying metal lines on the surface of a solar cell substrate involves cutting grooves in the surface of the substrate with a laser. The grooves are subsequently filled by an electroless plating method. However the laser-cut grooves are a source of macro- and micro-defects. The laser-cut edge is not well defined, causing waviness on the finger edges, and the heat of the laser introduces defects into the silicon.
The effectiveness of a solar cell substrate fabrication process is often measured by two related and important factors, which are device yield and the cost of ownership (CoO). These factors are important since they directly affect the cost to produce an solar cell device and thus a device manufacturer's competitiveness in the market place. The CoO, while affected by a number of factors, is greatly affected by the system and chamber throughput or simply the number of substrates per hour processed using a desired processing sequence. A process sequence is generally defined as the sequence of device fabrication steps, or process recipe steps, completed in one or more processing chambers that are used to form a solar cell. A process sequence may generally contain various substrate (or wafer) fabrication processing steps. If the substrate throughput is not limited by the time to transfer the solar cell substrates then the longest process recipe step will generally limit the throughput of the processing sequence, increase the CoO and possibly make a desirable processing sequence impractical.
Therefore, there is a need for a system, a method and an apparatus that can process a substrate so that it can meet the required device performance goals and increase the system throughput and thus reduce the process sequence CoO. There is also a need for a low cost method of forming a contact structure for solar cells that have a low resistivity and clearly defined features.

High-aspect ratio anode and apparatus for high-speed electroplating on a solar cell substrate


An electrical strip of infrared radiating elements which is powered by a battery and rolled up on a wheel and has many advantages over the present device. The first is visibility. It is highly visible at over three miles and the system is a 3/4" strip with LEDs placed every meter and on both sides that is rolled up on a reel. To deploy the marker the strip can be staked or held at one end while the strip is simply unrolled of the reel. The PIRM is self packing and, if packaged to do so, can automatically roll itself up. The PIRM can be operated either by a switch on the reel or remotely, by laser remote control or by a switch on the reel. The flashing pattern is completely programmable. The pattern can be used as a wind direction indicator. The speed it flashes can be used to indicate how hard the wind is blowing or how dangerous the landing zone is.

The present invention relates generally to lighting beacons, and more specifically the invention pertains to a programmable infrared marker of infrared light emitting diodes (IR LEDs).
The Air Force has requirements for a rapidly deployable, portable and remotely operable, austere aircraft landing zone marker light system. Such a system is needed to aid pilots in making successful night landings at unimproved austere landing sites for rapid deployment of troops or equipment. The ideal landing zone light system would use little power, be lightweight and portable, have sufficient visible range to be seen from several miles away, and be capable of reliable operation from a remote location.
The task of providing a portable landing zone marker system is alleviated, to some extent, by the following U.S. patents, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,136 issued to Tashian; and PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,590,471 issued to Pieroway et al.
Both of the above-cited patents disclose aircraft landing zone marker systems. However, they both are restricted to emitting visible light (this can be obscured by fog and clouds) using chemical and electroluminescent means of illumination. A need remains to provide an infrared aircraft landing marker system that penetrates clouds. The present invention is intended to satisfy that need.

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force


The invention relates to a cleaning product comprising: an inverted container assembly (10) comprising an inverted container (11) and a liquid dispenser (15) attached to a bottom surface (12) of the inverted container (11), and a viscous cleaning composition contained in the inverted container assembly (10).

Inverted containers are containers that include an opening at the "bottom" for dispensing the liquid detergent contained inside. The use of inverted containers to package consumer goods has become more popular, particularly in the field of liquid hand dishwashing cleaning products. Consumers prefer inverted containers because they are ergonomically easy to operate. Furthermore an inverted container also facilitates dosing till the last drop, which is more challenging with a traditional upright container having the opening at the "top". An additional benefit of inverted container is minimized risk of perfume and/or solvent evaporation when left open, thereby positively impacting physical stability and/or perfume longevity accordingly.
A particular challenge for inverted containers is leakage prevention, especially when the inverted container does not comprise a closing cap, such as a flip-top cap or screw on cap, in addition to any dispensing valve at the opening.
The absence of such closing caps is preferred by consumers in order to keep the dosing operation a single-handed operation as no need to open/close the cap with a second hand, as well as speeding up the dosing operation since less steps are needed. There is a tendency for the liquid housed inside the inverted container to leak out during steady state (i.e., storage) and/or upon impact, especially upon impact. For example, leakage may occur during storage when the inverted container is subjected to a temperature change, specifically increase (e.g., inverted container placed beside sunny window or near stove top, etc.), that can lead to internal pressure increases and leakage. Specifically, by "impact" it is meant that when the inverted container is handled, transported, dropped or knocked over. As a result of the impact, transient liquid pressure, also referred to as hydraulic hammer pressure, increases inside the inverted container and can cause leakage through the opening at the bottom.
Previous attempts to address the leakage problem have involved incorporating a resilient valve into the opening (see for example WO2004/02843 (Method Products)). However, it has been observed that even with the resilient valve leakage to some degree may still occur. Other attempts have incorporated baffles on top of the resilient valve (see for example JP2007/176594 (Lion) and WO2000/6038 (Aptar Group)), which have not completely resolved the leakage issue particularly as it pertains to inverted containers, more particularly upon impact. Yet other attempts have involved incorporating a flowable viscous (at least 500 Pa·s) laundry composition inside a compressible inverted container with a cap that functions as supportive base (see W2009/156317 (Unilever)). None of these solutions fully addresses the problems discussed above.
EP3511402A and EP3511405A describe a surfactant system based on an anionic surfactant system in combination with an amphoteric or zwitterionic based co-surfactant system, as well as products comprising an appropriate Trouton ratio, to provide a substantial improvement in leakage prevention upon a hydraulic hammer pressure impact, as well reducing stringiness. EP3492400A describes a liquid dispenser for dispensing liquid from an inverted container. The dispenser includes a body adapted for releasably engaging to the inventor container, a valve localized in the body and defining a dispensing orifice that reacts to pressure differences for dispensing liquid to the exterior atmosphere, and an impact resistance system. The impact resistance system is located upstream of the valve and comprises a housing that includes a cavity adapted to be occupied by a compressible substance. The compressible substance allows pressure equilibration between the valve interior side and the valve exterior side allowing the dispensing orifice to be reactably closeable, especially to absorb a hydraulic hammer pressure from an impact force.
EP2757145A relates to a liquid detergent comprising from about 5% to about 20% by weight thereof of a surfactant system wherein the surfactant system comprises an alkoxylated anionic surfactant having and alkoxylation degree of from 0.20 to 1.75 and wherein the detergent at 20° C. has a pouring viscosity of from about 2500 mPa s to about 6000 mPa s and a ratio of medium to high shear viscosity of from about 2 to about 1. EP2757143A relates to a liquid detergent comprising from about 5% to about 20% by weight thereof of a surfactant system wherein the surfactant system comprises an anionic and an amphoteric surfactant comprising an amine oxide surfactant wherein the anionic and amphoteric surfactants are in a weight ratio of from about 1:1 to about 8.5:1 and wherein the detergent at 20° C. has a pouring viscosity of from about 2500 mPa s to about 6000 mPa s and a ratio of medium to high shear viscosity of from about 2 to about 1.
It has been found however that a temperature increase (e.g., inverted container placed beside sunny window or near stove top, etc.), can lead to internal pressure increases, which can still lead to some leakage. The leakage risk is especially present as the product level in the bottle decreases with usage. Without wishing to be bound by theory it is believed that as the air space increases in the container with usage and is heated upon storage, that the internal pressure within the inverted container increases and the resultant expansion pushes the liquid detergent through the valve of the dosing container. Thus, the need remains for an improved cleaning product comprising an inverted container assembly and a liquid hand dishwashing cleaning composition contained therein, especially in view of leakage prevention upon static storage at elevated temperature.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Cleaning product comprising an inverted container assembly and a viscous cleaning composition


There are provided an information processing apparatus, a status managing method therefor and a memory medium therefor, in which the power saving status or the active status of a host equipment is detected by an algorithm of a program stored in a hard disk, then the shift of the host equipment to the power saving status or the return thereof to the active status is informed by the algorithm of the program stored in the hard disk, and a peripheral equipment in response shifts to a status same as that of the host equipment. Consequently the status of the peripheral equipment can be matched with that of the host equipment, without a timer function for measuring the time for shifting to the power saving status or unit for detecting a returning event to the active status in the peripheral equipment.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a method for managing the status thereof and a memory medium, and more particularly to an information processing apparatus consisting of a host equipment having a power saving state and a peripheral equipment, a method for managing the status thereof and a memory medium.
2. Related Background Art
In a peripheral equipment provided with a function of shifting to a power saving state (for example standby function), there has conventionally adopted a process of shifting to a power saving status if an activating event (such as the depression of a switch or the data transfer from a host equipment) for such peripheral equipment does not occur within a time determined in advance in the peripheral equipment itself, and returning to an active status if such activating event occurs.
Also in a peripheral equipment provided with a function of shifting to a power saving status (such as stand-by function) and connected to a host equipment provided with a function of shifting to a power saving status (such as screen saver function for the display), there has been adopted a process of shifting to the power saving status when a time determined in advance in the peripheral equipment itself expires and returning to an active status in case a returning event to the active status (for example the depression of a switch or the data transfer from the host equipment) occurs in the peripheral equipment.
However, such conventional processes have been associated with drawbacks that a timer function has to be provided in the peripheral equipment and that there may result an unsynchronized state in which the host equipment is in the power saving status while the peripheral equipment is in the active status or the host equipment is in the active status while the peripheral equipment is in the power saving status, if the time for shifting to the power saving status is different between the host equipment and the peripheral equipment.

Information processing apparatus, method for managing status thereof and memory medium


A bass drum 10 has a hollow cylindrical shell 11, a drumhead 12 mounted on an opening end of the shell 11 to form a striking surface, and a striking surface attachment 13 provided on the reverse side of the drumhead 12. The striking surface attachment 13 is formed of an elastic sheet. At least a part of an outer area of the striking surface attachment 13 is fixed to the drumhead 12 and a central area of the striking surface attachment 13 is not fixed to the drumhead 12. As a result, the bass drum 10 can generate a struck sound having both deep bass sound and clear attack.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvement in sound quality of a bass drum.
2. Description of the Related Art
A bass drum is played along with a tom-tom and a snare drum as a drum kit. For bass drum sounds, both powerful deep bass sound and attack sound brought about by a beater are needed. In order to get powerful deep bass sound, larger bass drums are used, or gel or a sponge ring are attached on a drumhead to emphasize deep bass sound. Such bass drums include a bass drum which has a vibration-absorbing member on a head member to vary bass drum sounds (for example, see Japanese Registered Utility Model No. 3004768). This drum is designed such that a drumhead is mounted on one opening end of a drum shell through a drum hoop while a vibration-absorbing member made of a thin rubber sheet or plastic is attached to the reverse side of the drumhead which is a striking surface.


A perpendicular magnetic disk is provided. The disk includes, on a base and in the order from bottom, a first granular magnetic layer group including a plurality of magnetic layers each having a granular structure, a non-magnetic layer having Ru or a Ru alloy as a main component, a second granular magnetic layer group including a plurality of magnetic layers each having the granular structure, and an auxiliary recording layer having a CoCrPtRu alloy as a main component. Layers closer to a front surface among the plurality of magnetic layers included in the first granular magnetic layer group having an equal or smaller content of Pt. Layers closer to the front surface among the plurality of magnetic layers included in the second granular magnetic layer group having an equal or smaller content of Pt and having an equal or larger content of an oxide.

With an increase in capacity of information processing in recent years, various information recording technologies have been developed. In particular, the surface recording density of an HDD using magnetic recording technology is continuously increasing at an annual rate of approximately 60%. In recent years, an information recording capacity exceeding 320 gigabytes per platter has been desired for a magnetic recording medium with a 2.5-inch diameter for use in an HDD or the like. To fulfill such demands, an information recording density exceeding 500 gigabits per square inch is desired to be achieved.
Important factors for increasing recording density of the perpendicular magnetic disk include, for example, an improvement in TPI (Tracks per Inch) by narrowing the track width, ensuring electromagnetic conversion characteristics, such as a Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and an overwrite characteristic (OW characteristic) indicating ease of writing of a signal at the time of improving BPI (Bits per Inch), and further ensuring heat fluctuation resistance with recording bits decreased due to the above. Among these, an increase in SNR and an improvement in overwrite characteristic in a high recording density condition are important.
The granular magnetic layer is effective in increasing the SNR because an oxide phase and a metal phase are separated to form fine particles. For increasing recording density, the particles of the granular magnetic layer are required to be microfabricated. With microfabrication, however, magnetic energy is also decreased, thereby causing a problem of heat fluctuations. On the other hand, to avoid the problem of heat fluctuations, magnetic anisotropy of a medium is required to be increased. With an increase of magnetic anisotropy, a coercive force is also increased, thereby making it difficult to write. That is, while prevention of heat fluctuation and improvement of the overwrite characteristic are to be intrinsically traded off for each other, there is a demand for enhancing both of these.
Patent Document 1 suggests a write auxiliary layer (corresponding to an auxiliary recording layer) formed above or below a main recording layer and in contact with that main recording layer. In Patent Document 1, the main recording layer is a magnetic layer having a granular structure, and the write auxiliary layer is made of a CoCr alloy (for example, CoCrPtB). In Patent Document 1, by providing the write auxiliary layer, the overwrite characteristic and heat fluctuation resistance can both be improved.


A modified LOCOS isolation process for semiconductor devices is disclosed. First, a shielding layer is formed overlying a semiconductor substrate. The shielding layer is then patterned to form an opening that exposes a portion of the semiconductor substrate for forming a device isolation region. Next, oxygen ions are implanted with a tilt angle into the semiconductor substrate to form a doped region extending to the area under the margin of the shielding layer. A thermal oxidation process is then performed to form a field oxide layer on the semiconductor substrate. Since the oxidation rate of the area under the margin of the shielding layer is increased by the implanted oxygen ions, the bird's beak effect shown in conventional LOCOS process can be eliminated. After that, the shielding layer is removed to complete the fabricating process of this invention.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing, and more particularly, to a modified LOCOS isolation process for preventing the bird's beak effect, in which oxygen ions are implanted with a tilt angle into a semiconductor substrate and a thermal oxidation process is then performed to form a field oxide layer having substantially uniform thickness.
2. Description of Related Art
With the continual improvement of semiconductor integrated circuit fabrication techniques, the number of devices that can be packed onto a semiconductor chip has increased greatly, while the geometric dimensions of the individual device have been markedly reduced. In today's fabricating process, the feature size has shrunk into the sub-micron range. In such high-density chips, each of the elements must be isolated properly in order to obtain good electrical characteristics. Device isolation technology has been developed to fulfill the above requirement, the main purpose of which is to provide good insulation between the elements using a smaller isolation area so that there is additional space for building more elements.
In the past, a so-called LOCal Oxidation of Silicon (LOCOS) technique has been widely used for device isolation of the integrated circuit chips. According to this method, a thick oxide layer is grown as an isolating region. To easily understand the technique, please refer to FIGS. 1A and 1B, which illustrate a prior-art LOCOS process. As shown in FIG. 1A, there is a semiconductor substrate 10, such as a silicon wafer. A stacked shielding layer including a pad oxide layer 11 and a silicon nitride layer 12 is formed on the semiconductor substrate 10. Appropriate photolithography and etching processes are then performed to define an opening 13 in the pad oxide layer 11 and the silicon nitride layer 12, so as to expose the area for forming a device isolating region.
Referring next to FIG. 1B, a thermal oxidation process is carried s out. For example, the silicon wafer is placed in a furnace and the temperature is raised to somewhere between 800 to 1100.degree. C. An oxygen-containing gas is then introduced into the furnace to start the thermal oxidation for growing a thick field oxide 14 to define the margin of an active area. Since the oxidizing speed of silicon nitride is less than that of silicon, the silicon nitride layer 12 works like a mask against thermal oxidization, so the field oxide 14 grows only where the substrate 10 is not covered by the silicon nitride layer 12. After that, the silicon nitride layer 12 and the pad oxide layer 11 are removed to complete the LOCOS isolation process.
Although the conventional LOCOS technique can provide feasible isolation between elements of the integrated circuit by a relative simple process, there are a number of disadvantages becoming rather unacceptable when we attempt to apply this technique in fabricating sub-micron devices. First, the oxidization of silicon happens not only in the vertical direction but also in the horizontal direction. As a result, a part of the field oxide 14 grows beneath the adjacent silicon nitride layer 12 and lifts it up. This is termed the "bird's beak effect" by persons skilled in the art. Secondly, due to the stresses caused by the bird's beak effect, a part of nitrogen in the compressed regions of silicon nitride layer 12 diffuses to adjacent tensile strained regions at the interface of the pad oxide layer 11 and the substrate 10, and forms a silicon-nitride-like layer 15. In subsequent process steps of forming gate oxides (not shown), due to the masking effect of the silicon-nitride-like layer 15, the gate oxides will be thinner than they should be. It is termed the "white ribbon effect" because a white ribbon will appear at the edges of the active regions under examination by optical microscopes.
Additionally, because the volume of silicon dioxide is 2.2 times that of silicon, the field oxide 14 protrudes above the surface of the silicon substrate 10, forming a non-recessed surface. Also, due to the lateral expansion of the field oxide 14 during oxidation, a great deal of stress occurs in the active region. Many crystalline defects are produced near the bird's beak regions, which result in an increase of junction leakage and in a reduction of the reliability of the devices. Furthermore, the oxygen diffusion rate through the narrow opening differs from that through the wide opening. Thus, after the thermal oxidation process, the thickness of the field oxide within a narrow opening is thinner than that of the field oxide within a wide opening. This also alters the isolation property that should be.
To overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages of the conventional LOCOS process, many modified methods of forming device isolation regions are disclosed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,211,582 to Horng et al uses a two-step oxidation process with plurality masks technique, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,136 to Ravaglia describe a combination of LOCOS and "trench" techniques. However, in each of these above processes there are some inherent drawbacks is such areas as productivity, repeatability, complexity, and maturity, as well as global planarization.

Modified LOCOS isolation process for semiconductor devices


The present invention relates to an epitope of HN protein in Newcastle disease virus which can be recognized by an avian immune system and an antibody against the epitope, a method for detecting a Newcastle disease virus by using the antibody, and an antigenic variant of Newcastle disease virus carrying changes in the epitope. The epitope of HN protein and the antigenic variant of Newcastle disease virus can be used for developing efficient vaccines, and further, in diagnosing the Newcastle disease virus rapidly and exactly.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an epitope of HN protein in Newcastle disease virus which can be recognized by an avian immune system and an antibody against the epitope, a method for detecting a Newcastle disease virus by using the antibody, an antigenic variant of Newcastle disease virus carrying changes in the epitope, and a vaccine prepared by using the antigenic variant.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Newcastle disease is very infectious and lethal in fowls and thus is designated as the first communicable disease by law in Korea. If an unimmunized chicken is infected, the mortality is 100%. An infection to Egg-laying hen which is not properly immunized shows a respiratory or a digestive disorder, and reduction of laying eggs, thereby doing economic damage on poultry man. Although the occurrence of Newcastle disease is notified annually, it increases continuously and is spread all over the nation. In addition, the chicken which has a low titer of antibody in spite of immunization shows nervous system disorder such as torticolis.
Newcastle disease virus is a single stranded RNA virus belonging to genus Avulavirus. The envelope of Newcastle disease virus includes Haemagglutinin-Neuraminidase (HN) protein which makes the virus bind to a host, and Fusion (F) protein which makes the envelope fuse with the host cell. F and HN proteins are glycoprotein and distributed on the surface of viral envelope.
Depending on the phylogenetic analysis of the F protein in Newcastle disease virus, the Newcastle disease virus can be classified into genotype I to genotype VIII. Genotypes VI and VII are reported in Asia including Indonesia, China, Taiwan, and Japan. The genotype VII virus is classified into sub-genotypes VIIa and VIIb which were reported in Asia and Africa, respectively (Herczeg et al., 1999). In Korea, genotype VIIa virus was reported, and linear epitopes of the HN proteins have the same amino acid sequence as those of vaccine virus (Kwon et al., 2003; Lee et al., 2004). A part of Chinese genotype VII viruses cannot be prevented by conventional vaccine completely, but the reason was not reported (Yu et al., 2001).
F protein belongs to type I membrane glycoprotein and includes trimeric structure (Gorman et al., 1988; Russell et al., 1994; Reitter et al., 1995). HN protein belongs to type II membrane glycoprotein and includes tetramer on the surface of virus envelope, so as to invade into the cell membrane (Gorman et al., 1988; Ng et al., 1989). F protein has thirteen (13) cysteine residues and five (5) glycosylation sites, and HN protein has fourteen (14) cysteine residues and four (4) glycosylation sites.
Cysteine residue in protein plays an important role in protein conformation and its oligomerization. In addition, the cysteine residue has an influence on epitope formation and the glycosylation site of a peptide. Mutation on cysteine residue, C123 of HN protein does not form the disulfide bond between molecules, and covalent dimer. In addition, the mutation on cysteine residue affects a structure of antigen (McGinnes and Morrison, 1994, 1997). All Newcastle disease viruses have well-conserved cysteine residues, and it means a strict interaction between the structure and function. Biological function of each cysteine residue in F protein have not been revealed. Only C199 and C76 form a disulfide bond which maintains the linkage between F1 and F2 polypeptides after cleavage of F protein (Wang et al., 1992).
F and HN proteins are important protective antigens, and their epitopes were determined by using mouse monoclonal antibody. Until now, three conformational epitopes in F protein and two conformational epitopes in HN protein, and a linear epitope were reported (Nishikawa et al., 1983, 1986; Sakaguchi et al., 1989). Eight amino acids constituting a linear epitope of HN protein are 346Aspartic acid-Glutamic acid-Glutamine-Aspartic acid-Tyrosine-Glutamine-Isoleucine-Arginine353.
Because F and HN proteins are important protective antigens of Newcastle disease virus, an infection and death caused by Newcastle disease virus can be prevented by immunizing fowls with F and HN proteins as antigens. In addition, the avian serum test can be carried out by using the antibodies against F and HN proteins. Particularly, the antibody against HN protein is used all over the world in hemagglutination-inhibition test. The hemagglutination-inhibition test is preferred because of high relationship between titer of antibody and disease protection, but has a disadvantage in variation of antibody titer, and difficult automation compared to the ELISA test. ELISA is advantageous in automation and measuring the reaction result as a numerical value. However, because ELISA uses all virus antigens, more antibodies to abundant nucleocapsid protein lowers the correlation with antibody titer obtained by the hemagglutination method.

HN epitope recognized by avian immune system and antigenic variant newcastle disease viruses carrying changes in the epitope

Dugok-Ri, Sinam-Myeon, Chungcheongnam-Do Yesan-Gun


Provided is a small-sized cylindrical battery in which improvement in battery characteristics and improvement in long-term reliability and safety are both realized. The cylindrical battery includes: a bottomed cylindrical battery case 1, an electrode group 5 housed together with an electrolyte in the battery case 1, a sealing member 8 fitted into an opening of the battery case 1, and a gasket 9 interposed between the sealing member 8 and the battery case 1. The opening of the battery case 1 is sealed by applying a drawing process to an opening end portion of the battery case 1. The battery case 1 is constituted of stainless steel. The battery case 1 has an outer diameter of 10 mm or less and a thickness of 0.05 mm or more and 0.2 mm or less.

Lithium ion secondary batteries have been widely used recently in electronic devices such as portable digital devices, as their power sources for driving the electronic devices. Particularly in portable devices such as smart phones that have many functions and need to operate under a heavy load, with respect to the batteries used as their power sources, improvement in battery characteristics such as energy density and load characteristics and reduction in weight are expected. Moreover, improvement in long-term reliability and safety are expected.
Lithium ion secondary batteries typically include a battery case made of metal. Reducing the thickness of the battery case to increase the internal volume and packing a power generation element in the battery case at a high density can improve the energy density. Reducing the thickness of the battery case is particularly effective when the battery size is small, because this can increase the internal volume. As another example, instead of the battery case, a metal-resin laminated sheet is used in some lithium ion batteries. In this example, by using this thin sheet to wrap the battery components such as positive and negative electrodes, separator, and electrolyte, improvement in energy density and reduction in weight can be realized.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.


An improvement in a process for the production of ethylbenzene from a dilute ethylene stream wherein an ethylene-containing stream derived from a cracking process is directed to an ethylene fractionator for separation of ethylene and ethane. The improvement includes providing the dilute ethylene stream by liquefying and separating out a portion of the ethylene-containing stream prior to directing the remainder of the ethylene-containing stream to the ethylene fractionator and/or by drawing off a side stream from the ethylene fractionator; and, directing the dilute ethylene stream as a feed to an alkylator for alkylation with benzene to produce ethylbenzene.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to processes related to the production of ethylbenzene from dilute sources of ethylene.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ethylene is a commonly used unsaturated organic compound which may be used in various processes for the synthesis of more complex compounds. For example, ethylene can be reacted with aromatics to produce alkylaromatics, such as ethylbenzene, and with butenes to produce propylene. Ethylbenzene is commonly used to produce styrene, which may be polymerized to produce polystyrene. Propylene is commonly used for the manufacture of polypropylene.
The process for producing high purity ethylene is well known, and involves pyrolysis of a hydrocarbon feed and subsequent separation of ethylene and reaction by-products by distillation. The process generally comprises the following: A feedstock comprising ethane, propane, butane, naphtha, gas oils or hydrocracked vacuum gas oils is fed to an ethylene plant, where it is thermally cracked in the presence of steam in a bank of pyrolysis furnaces. An olefin-bearing effluent gas is formed and is quenched progressively by generating steam and through direct contact with oil and/or water. The effluent is compressed in a multi-stage centrifugal compressor, acid gases are removed by amine treating and/or a caustic wash, and then the gases are dried over a molecular sieve. Methane offgas is recovered under cryogenic conditions in a demethanizer. Ethylene and ethane are then recovered together in a deethanizer. Acetylene is normally catalytically removed and then an ethylene product recovery takes place under low temperature conditions in a final fractionation column. Just prior to final fractionation the ethylene stream will include significant amounts of ethane (15% to 35%) and relatively small amounts of hydrogen, methane and propylene. Final fractionation results in a high purity (polymer-grade) ethylene (at least about 99.95 mole %,) and recycle ethane, which may be used to produce more ethylene. Variations of this scheme also exist including schemes where the deethanization, depropanization and/or acetylene removal steps may precede the demethanization step. In all cases a final fractionation of ethylene-ethane is employed to produce high purity ethylene product.
The final fractionation of the ethylene mixture is relatively energy intensive and it would be preferable to reduce the amount of ethylene/ethane processed in this manner, or to eliminate this step altogether. However, many processes, including those to produce propylene and ethylbenzene, typically are carried out with a feed of high purity ethylene. Ethylene streams diverted from the ethylene plant, after acetylene removal but before final fractionation, typically contain only about 65 mol %, ethylene when ethane crackers are the source of the ethylene, and about 85 mol % ethylene when naphtha crackers are the source of the ethylene; the primary difference between the two processes being the feedstock used and a somewhat simpler recovery section for the ethane cracker (i.e., the ethane cracker has fewer distillation columns since heavy byproduct formation is reduced).
A number of processes for producing alkylaromatics, such as ethylbenzene, are also known, and may employ fixed-bed or catalytic distillation type processes. The fixed-bed process generally comprises the following: Benzene is sent to an alkylator containing a fixed bed of alkylation catalyst and reacted with ethylene to yield a mixture of alkylated benzenes and excess benzene. The mixture is fractionated to recover ethylbenzene, recycle benzene, and higher ethylated benzenes. The recycle benzene is sent back to the alkylator to react with additional ethylene and to a transalkylator, where the higher ethylated benzenes are transalkylated with the benzene to form additional ethylbenzene.
While polymer-grade ethylene is preferable for these processes, ethylbenzene can also be produced from relatively dilute ethylene feeds. In this event, catalytic distillation reactors are preferred because ethylene feeds as dilute as about 15 mol % can be utilized to produce ethylbenzene. If the fixed-bed process is used with dilute ethylene feeds, ethylene with a purity as low as about 60 mol % can be used, provided the remaining 40 mol % of the feed contains minimal hydrogen and methane content. Dilute ethylene from an ethane cracker may have relatively low amounts of methane and hydrogen, but this may not always be the case since, for example, dilute ethylene from an ethylene plant with a front-end deethanizer may contain larger quantities of hydrogen and methane. Alternatively, dilute ethylene from a fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) may contain very large quantities of hydrogen or methane if they are not separated at a FCC vapor recovery unit by compression and distillation of FCC off-gas. Typically, the ethane and lighter gases from the FCC do not undergo further separation—rather they are sent to a fuel gas system in the refinery. In any event, fixed-bed processes will incur an energy penalty when the ethylene feed purity is below about 83 mol %.
The energy penalty includes additional energy which must be used in the ethylbenzene plant when ethylene sources used are very dilute. For example, in the ethylbenzene plant described above, additional energy may be needed to recover aromatics from vent gases. Such additional processing may involve refrigerated vent condensers and/or an absorption/stripping system with reboilers and condensers.
The advantages of the invention include significant energy, and consequently cost, savings by eliminating or reducing the final fractionation of ethylene in the ethylene plant.

Process for production of ethylbenzene from dilute ethylene streams


A raindrop recognition device is configured to recognize a raindrop on a transparent panel. The raindrop recognition device includes a storage unit, an image input unit, and an image recognition unit. The storage unit stores a trained model that is a machine learning model trained using, as training data, images of the transparent panel with adhered raindrops and images of the transparent panel without adhered raindrops. Image data of the transparent panel taken by a camera is input to the input unit. The image recognition unit is configured to calculate a value representing a raindrop likeness of an object on the transparent panel in the image data by inputting the image data to the trained model. The trained model is trained by training data including images of the transparent panel with uniform background and images of the transparent panel with light source.

A general method of detecting an object adhered on a lens or a window of a vehicle using a camera has been proposed. The general method uses a recognizer trained with training data for recognizing a raindrop. Another general method detects an object on a glass surface based on a contour of the object and a brightness of the inside of the object.
The former method may erroneously recognize in some cases and cause unnecessary cleaning with a wiper, a washer, and the like. The latter method may be easily affected by an object in the background having a shape and a brightness similar to the detection target.

Raindrop recognition device, vehicular control apparatus, method of training model, and trained model


The present invention relates to a high capacity movable plant for continuously distributing nitrogen in gaseous phase or in a mixture gaseous and liquid phases for extinguishing fires comprising at least a high capacity thermally insulated tank for storing nitrogen in liquid phase at a temperature of about -196.degree. C. and at maximum pressure of about 405.2 kPa and from which nitrogen in liquid phase is supplied, with a liquid nitrogen supplying capacity of about 50 m.sup.3, to a pumping unit comprising at least three pumps each having each a flow rate of 175 m.sup.3 /h with a maximum differential pressure of 1013 kPa. The liquid nitrogen is vaporized in the vaporization and mixture regulation unit with a vaporization capacity of about 360,000 m.sup.3 /h for liquid nitrogen. The vaporization and mixture regulation unit includes at least a heat exchanger, a wind tunnel, a ventilation assembly, an air inlet window through which the liquid nitrogen is vaporized and the gaseous phase can be mixed with the liquid phase through suitably arranged valves and ejectors. The nitrogen in the gaseous phase or the mixture of nitrogen in the gaseous and liquid phase enters an exhaust duct where the temperature can vary from -100.degree. C. and +20.degree. C. and the pressure can vary from 588 to 1986 KPa. The plant also includes a power station for powering the plant and a control and command unit to command which uses a microprocessor to assure the automatic and sequential operation of the plant.

The present invention relates to an apparatus, preferably movable, for the application of cryogenic liquids, preferably, liquid nitrogen for extinguishing fires in general, and in particular in oil wells on land or at sea.
As far as known by the applicant, there are no existing systems, movable or fixed, for the application of cryogenic liquids in the prior art where flows of about 360,000 cubic meters/hour are required, pressures of about 294 to 2450 kPa and temperatures of about 100.degree. C.
The creation of an insulating barrier between a combustible on fire and the oxygen, together with the cooling effect of the combustible and the environment surrounding the flames, are wellknown techniques of extinguishing fires, however, up to the present, the great difficulty has been to achieve and create such conditions in case of fires in oil wells, especially in over atmospheric oil wells.

Apparatus for supplying cryogenic fluid, namely nitrogen, to extinguish fires


A notebook computer with a detachable keyboard has an independent keyboard module that connects to the main body of the computer through a conductive line. The keyboard module has a bottom section equipped with at least one support bracket. When in use, the keyboard module may be detached from the main body, and through the support bracket raised to a desired angle to conform to ergonomics so that users may comfortably operate the keyboard without becoming fatigued.

With the flourishing development of computers these days, portable computers have become essential working and business tools for many people. Computer manufacturers have constantly reduced the size of portable computers. Now many portable computers are reduced to the size of notebooks and are almost as powerful as desktop computers. These notebook computers can be carried in attache cases or handbags to meet the requirements of business people anytime anywhere.
The biggest difference between notebook computers and desktop computers is their display devices. The display device on a notebook computer has to be small, light, thin and consume less electricity. Its manufacturing technology is much more complex than conventional display devices which use cathode ray tubes. In order to reduce costs, notebook computers generally are equipped with passive matrix type color display devices or active matrix type color display devices. The power supply for notebook computers is generally provided by NiMH or NiCd batteries. High end models can be coupled with Li-ion batteries, which have a longer service time span and no memory loss. Some types of batteries can last three to four hours. A few types can even last up to ten hours. For business people who have to travel frequently, those notebook computers offer great value as they can be used while traveling.
In order to make notebook computers convenient, most notebook computers have keyboards directly installed on the notebook computer main body. The keyboards thus constructed cannot be adjusted to a desired usage angle. As a result, their designs are not ergonomic for human operation, and tend to make people's hands fatigue easily. Although there are some detachable keyboards being developed, they are mainly for remote operation or become independent elements that are not restrictive to the notebook computer main body. In terms of ergonomics, there is still no effective design at present.

Notebook computer with a detachable keyboard


A speech-to-text-to-speech for use with on-line and real time transmission of speech with a small bandwidth from a source to a destination. A speech is received and broken down to phonemes, which are encoded into series of symbols compatible with communication systems and other than a known symbolic representation of the speech in a known language for being transmitted through communication networks. When received, the series of symbols is decoded to restore the phonemes and for reconstituting a speech according to the phonemes prior to being communicated to a listening party.

A typical way of transforming speech into text is to create and dictate a document, which is then temporarily recorded by a recording apparatus such as a tape recorder. A secretary, a typist, or the like reproduces the dictated contents using a documentation apparatus such as a typewriter, word processor, or the like.
Along with a recent breakthrough in speech recognition technology and improvement in performance of personal computers, a technology for documenting voice input through a microphone connected to a personal computer by recognizing speech within application software running in the personal computer, and displaying the document has been developed. However, it is difficult for a speech recognition system to carry out practical processing within an existing computer, especially a personal computer because the data size of language models becomes enormous.
Inconveniently, such an approach necessitates either training of a computer to respond to a single user having a voice profile that is distinguished through training or a very small recognisable vocabulary. For example, trained systems are excellent for voice speech recognition applications but they fail when another user dictates or when the correct user has a cold or a sore throat. Further, the process takes time and occupies a large amount of disk space since it relies on dictionaries of words and spell and grammar checking to form accurate sentences from dictated speech.
Approaches to speech synthesis rely on text provided in the form of recognisable words. These words are then converted into known pronunciation either through rule application or through a dictionary of pronunciation. For example, one approach to human speech synthesis is known as concatenative. Concatenative synthesis of human speech is based on recording waveform data samples of real human speech of predetermined text. Concatenative speech synthesis then breaks down the pre-recorded original human speech into segments and generates speech utterances by linking these human speech segments to build syllables, words, or phrases. Various approaches to segmenting the recorded original human voice have been used in concatenative speech synthesis. One approach is to break the real human voice down into basic units of contrastive sound. These basic units of contrastive sound are commonly known as phones or phonemes.
Because of the way speech to text and text to speech systems are designed, they function adequately with each other and with text-based processes. Unfortunately, such a design renders both systems cumbersome and overly complex. A simpler speech-to-text and text-to-speech implementation would be highly advantageous.
It would be advantageous to provide with a system that requires reduced bandwidth to support voice communication.

Phonetic speech-to-text-to-speech system and method


An apparatus and method for multimedia content based manipulation. The method comprises the masking at least one part of the segment of an interaction, said masking can include the hiding, blurring, or alternatively, the enhancing or focusing on a region of interest.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to content derived systems, in general and to an apparatus and method for manipulating of multimedia based on the content therein, in particular.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Systems offering capture of interactions comprising voice, video, and other multimedia, including voice over IP, e-mails, and the like, are currently used by organizations. Organizations capture multimedia interactions in order to examine the interactions in real time or off line. Reasons for examining interactions could include the quality assurance of agent's performance, security purposes, compliance purposes, and the like. For example, call centers use capture of interaction and logging devices to accomplish the tracking of transactions, monitor agents′ interactions with customers and perform quality assurance on the interactions performed. Presently access restrictions or limitations to interactions are based on restrictions based on the identity of the person accessing the information, the type and identity of the interaction to be accessed or in general the static properties of the interaction. Thus, a supervisor or an agent wishing to listen to or view a captured interaction can do so with proper authorization or access rights. When such an agent or supervisor receives the clearance or has suitable access rights to an interaction he or she may review, access or manipulate the entire interaction. In a first example, if the interaction is a telephone call, the supervisor listening to the interaction can listen to the entire phone call and to all the speakers participating in the call. In a second example the interaction comprises a video interaction with associated voice interaction where the captured voice is substantially synchronized with the video. Currently, the person having access rights to view the video can view the entire video footage which comprises the interaction and may listen to the voice coupled there with. Persons requesting limited access rights in an organization will be not provided with limited or restricted access to specific aspects or portions of the interaction. A supervisor having access rights to view employee's e-mails will be able to view entire set of e-mail correspondences despite the fact that some of the e-mails, or messages coupled within a single e-mail, could be private or could be associated with another department in the organization. Granted access rights for supervisors to review interactions performed by agents led call centers to dedicate a telephone for personal phone; such telephone is not connected to the capture and logging systems so as to avoid the possibility that a supervisor or another person in the organization will listen in to personal call. Interactions however, comprise many aspects and elements which are presently available to such persons receiving access rights to view the entire interaction. Interactions may comprise a number of speakers, a plurality of persons appearing within a video footage or stream, messages received from a number of persons, names of persons carbon copied or blind carbon copied on messages, data and information which may be related to various departments having different access rights or different organizations or campaigns, and the like.
The presently available systems do not restrict or allow or qualify access to different aspects or different logical content based segments of the interactions and does not assign sensitivity level or access rights to elements or segments of an interaction. A certain segment of the interaction could be vocal, such as voice spoken by one or more speakers. Such segments of interactions could also include visual elements, such as the visual presentation of the appearance of one or more persons (but not all) in a video footage or stream and spoken words by such persons, information or data associated with one issue or department or campaign or persons within the organization. The access permission for segments is not time dependent and is not associated with other activities or with information generated or with policy set in later stages.
Organizations face an ongoing conflict between the requirement to provide employees at all levels with access to interactions so as to perform their assigned tasks and the requirement to minimize risks from access to sensitive, privileged or otherwise inappropriate information. An example that reflects these requirements can be found in the COPC (Customer Operations Performance Center) Performance Management System Standards. The COPC Performance Management System Standards, published during the year 2004, is a set of management practices and training for customer-centric service operation that provides that organizations must have a documented privacy policy that considers any legal requirements and defines how end-user privacy will be protected. The COPC guidelines specifically provide that the organization must have rules how an interaction is monitored and a plan for communicating the findings of all transactions monitored to staff.
In addition, the cycle of information dissemination is increasingly shorted requiring on-the-fly solutions for access control of elements or segments of an interaction. Current systems rely on static definitions for accessing an entire interaction, at times time dependent, lacking the ability to selectively provide access to elements or segments of an interaction. Automatic or manual access approvals on-the-fly or even off-line to interactions is not presently available.
There is therefore a need in the art for an apparatus and method to enable selective and dynamic access to different types, different aspects, and different segments of an interaction.

Apparatus and method for multimedia content based manipulation


A method for providing persistent, dynamic external control of rule-based decision making through inherited user defined rules (UDRs) within a computer controlled relational database management system (RDBMs). Within the novel system, objects are grouped together in a parent-child hierarchy where a child has one parent and each parent can have multiple children. Each object can have one or more pre-defined ("hardcoded") rules associated with it; these hardcoded rules are executed in a sequence to arrive at parameter values which, when applied, tune the database environment. The novel system provides a mechanism for creating UDRs which are associated with a particular object and used by particular hardcoded rules which process the particular object. For a given hardcoded rule, if a processed object does not have a UDR defined within, then a search is made up the object's ancestry (e.g., its parentage) until a defined UDR is located within an ancestor object; this value is then used to modify the behavior of the hardcoded rule. The root of the object hierarchy contains defined UDRs ("base UDRs") for all hardcoded rules, so the above search is effective for all user rules. Before a hardcoded rule is executed, it automatically allows its associated UDR to customize data and/or execute a procedure. The UDRs offer a mechanism for customizing the performance tuning session based on external (user supplied) information and defining the scope of the attribute represented by the UDR from different levels of the object hierarchy.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computer systems used for storage, retrieval, and processing of information. More specifically, the present invention relates to the field of parameter evaluation methods for tuning an information management system, e.g., a relational database management system.
(2) Prior Art
The migration of computing from mainframe systems to downsized client/server environments has created the need for a new generation of systems management technology for managing and monitoring the health of dispersed and diverse open systems. Once such technology includes performance tuning of computer controlled relational database management systems (RDBMS) to improve their data processing efficiency.
Computer implemented RDBMS are well known in the art. These database systems commonly employ data tables that contain columns and rows. Many database systems include different software objects that are organized in a hierarchical or entity relation (ER) topology in which parent objects and child objects are related to each other in certain predefined manners. In this topology, each software object contains one or more attributes and rules which are used to alter certain aspects of the database system (e.g., vary maximum and minimum ranges, constraints, resource usage, etc.) in order to tune the database system for different operational environments. The attributes can have attached rules and, in certain circumstances, the rules are used to evaluate the attributes or other system values. There are prior art approaches for using these object-attached rules for tuning a database environment to increase data throughput performance (the act of tuning can also be called "performance tuning" or "optimizing performance" or "performance optimization"). In accordance with these approaches, a database administrator (DBA) performance tunes the database system based on a set of input information which describes a particular target environment.
As an example of an attribute, a "parameter" is a type of attribute and is a modifiable value that can be changed in order to influence the manner in which a database system responds and the manner in which database resources are allocated within a database system. FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary hierarchical topology of instance parameters A-K. An instance parameter contains a set of rules defining the respective manner in which the parameter is to be evaluated and the dataset on which the parameter is dependent, if any. In order to provide an effective RDBMS environment (database environment), the parameters require tuning for a particular database program or "instance." In general, parameters influence the amount and manner in which the following computer resources are used for a given instance: CPU processing; input/output (I/O) resources; memory resources; and contention regarding the number of locks within a system. It is expected that, by performance tuning, data flow bottlenecks regarding these database resources can be reduced.
During the database performance optimization process, object-attached rules execute in sequences and potentially form conclusions regarding particular aspects of the database system that are tunable for a given environment. Optimization conclusions are based on three groups of information: 1) user-supplied performance data that is external to the rule; 2) embedded knowledge of database performance behavior within a rule; and 3) database performance knowledge constraints within a rule. Of the above three groups of information, the first group is traditionally unknown until the rule is ready to execute. The second group is hardcoded within the rule (e.g., using fixed program instructions that are not user-modifiable), and the third group is either hardcoded within the rule or loaded at run-time from a fixed external file in computer memory. Therefore, in the past, when a rule is executed, the output is based partly on variable user-data and non-variable fixed knowledge.
A problem arises when the non-variable fixed knowledge (e.g., of the second and third groups) needs to change dynamically based on some condition of the first group's data or some other external influence, e.g., to allow the optimization process to dynamically tune the database system for a particular environment. For the second group (the embedded knowledge of data performance behavior) multiple rules need to be written to handle all possible cases. For the third group, the fixed constraints need to be edited in the external file, or the values need to be changed dynamically within the rule. For the second and third groups, the step of modifying behavior still requires some prior knowledge of the possible changes. For example, given that a rule must handle 10 different database environments, there must be 10 versions of the rule. When modifying a third group constraint, the rule must know when the value is good for one type of decision but not good for another.
In the prior art, one approach for dynamically altering a rule provides a file of fixed attribute values which can be changed (thus altering the behavior of the rules which use the values) to allow the user to describe differences in the database environment. However, under this first approach, when a particular attribute in this file is altered, the new value is applied to all objects for all cases. Therefore, the first approach does not allow the use to discriminate between objects that share a common attribute value. For instance, during a tuning session it is not possible under the first approach for one instance (e.g., instance A) to have one value for parameter A and for another instance (e.g., instance B) to have another value for parameter A. Moreover, during a tuning session, assuming a schema has table A and table B, it is not possible to offer one type of index constraint for table A while offering another type of index constraint for table B. This result is disadvantageous because there are many cases where it would be desirable to discriminate between table A and table B during tuning. For example, table A might only be used for data retrieval (e.g., outputs only), while table B might only be used for transactions (e.g., input/output). Therefore, this first prior art approach of "tailoring" object attributes for a given tuning session is disadvantageous because once an attribute value is altered, it becomes all encompassing and uniformly applied to all objects for all database environments.
A second prior art approach for dynamically altering a rule is to particularly modify rules at the object level using fixed parameters to incorporate the needed information. While this second approach allows the user to discretely modify rules at the object level, it is disadvantageous for several reasons. Under one technique, if the user is allowed to provide fixed attributes for rules located within very high hierarchical object levels (e.g., near the root level), then the changes will influence a large number of lower objects. In this case, much like the first approach, the user is unable to make discrete object changes for the objects located in the lower hierarchical levels. Moreover, under a second technique, if the user is allowed to provide fixed parameters for rules located in low hierarchical levels, then all objects within the low hierarchical levels need to be modified individually. In some instances, there can be over 600 objects that utilize a particular modifiable attribute within a given low hierarchical level. Under this second technique, each of these objects would need to be individually modified in order to effect changes applicable for the modifiable attribute. Therefore, both of the above techniques of the second approach are undesirable because: 1) under the first technique, the modifications are too encompassing; and 2) under the second technique, the required modifications are too numerous to be practical.
Accordingly, what is desired is a tuning system that allows a user to readily define differences in system environments so that the database system can be dynamically performed tuned for these environments. What is needed, more particularly, is a system that allows a user to modify object attributes at the object level (thus particularly defining differences in system environments at the object level) without having each user modification apply to all objects uniformly. What is further desired is a mechanism that allows object-level rule modifications (e.g., that are tailored for a particular environment) within objects of a particular hierarchical level that does not also require custom modifications be made to a inordinate number of objects of that particular hierarchical level. As further described herein, the present invention provides these advantageous results.

Dynamic external control of rule-based decision making through user rule inheritance for database performance optimization


A microprocessor includes a translation lookaside buffer and a first request to load into the microprocessor a page table entry in response to a miss of a virtual address in the translation lookaside buffer. The requested page table entry is included in a page table. The page table encompasses a plurality of cache lines including a first cache line that includes the requested page table entry. The microprocessor also includes hardware logic that makes a determination whether a second cache line physically sequential to the first cache line is outside the page table, and a second request to prefetch the second cache line into the microprocessor. The second request is selectively generated based at least on the determination made by the hardware logic.

Many modern microprocessors include virtual memory capability, and in particular, a memory paging mechanism. As is well known in the art, the operating system creates page tables that it stores in system memory that are used to translate virtual addresses into physical addresses. The page tables may be arranged in a hierarchical fashion, such as according to the well-known scheme employed by x86 architecture processors as described in Chapter 3 of the IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual, Volume 3A: System Programming Guide, Part 1, June 2006, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes. In particular, page tables include page table entries (PTE), each of which stores a physical page address of a physical memory page and attributes of the physical memory page. The process of taking a virtual memory page address and using it to traverse the page table hierarchy to finally obtain the PTE associated with the virtual address in order to translate the virtual address to a physical address is commonly referred to as a tablewalk.
Because the latency of a physical memory access is relatively slow, the tablewalk is a relatively costly operation since it involves potentially multiple accesses to physical memory. To avoid incurring the time associated with a tablewalk, processors commonly include a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) that caches the virtual to physical address translations. However, the size of the TLB is finite, and when a TLB miss occurs, the tablewalk must be incurred. Therefore, what is needed is a way to reduce the time required to perform a page table walk.

Selective prefetching of physically sequential cache line to cache line that includes loaded page table entry


A light weight, modular building fastening apparatus which allows rapid construction of custom modular buildings as an improvement to traditional framing systems is provided. The modular fastening system comprises a set of panels that form the roof and walls of the structure which are connected to a set of panels thorough the use of fasteners.

The present invention relates to rapid construction methods for building construction. Traditional framing methods required construction workers to cut building materials on-site to serve as the frame of a building. A need for more efficient methods for building customized structures has been shown, including the use of standardized parts that can be easily customized for different structures.


This invention relates to a novel anticoagulant substance in human urine, a process for its preparation and a pharmaceutical composition comprising the said substance for the prevention and/or treatment of diseases related to the disorders in blood coagulation system.

The invention relates to a novel anticoagulant substance obtained from human urine, a process for its preparation and a pharmaceutical composition comprising the said substance for prevention and/or treatment of diseases related to the disorders in blood coagulation system.
As anticoagulant agents, heparin and antithrombin III are presently in use. Thrombolytic agents in use include urokinase, which is obtained from human urine or from cultured kidney cells, and streptokinase, which is extracted from beta-hemolytic streptococci. In addition, tissue plasminogen activator is now being developed.
On the other hand, it is well known that these drugs have side effects such as tendency of bleeding, and their anticoagulant or thrombolytic effect are not sufficient for the clinical use. In the field of fundamental investigation, an unknown substance was recently purified from rabbit lung extract and was identified as a novel physiological anticoagulant. The substance was named thrombomodulin [N. L. Esmon et al., J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 257, p.859 (1982)]. Thrombomodulin has two modes of action; an anticoagulant activity based on its anti-thrombin effect, and a fibrinolytic effect based on its stimulatory effect on thrombin-catalyzed protein C activation. Thrombomodulin is a receptor of thrombin on the endothelial cell surface, and, by binding thrombin, directly inhibits its procoagulant activity. Moreover, thrombin-thrombomodulin complex activates protein C which possesses a potent anticoagulant effect and a thrombolytic effect [I. Maruyama et al., J. Clin. Invest., Vol. 75, p.987 (1985)]. Since thrombomodulin exhibits not only an anticoagulant activity but also an enhancing effect on thrombolytic system, it is expected to be very useful for the treatment of blood coagulation disorders.
Since the thrombomodulin molecule mainly consists of peptides, thrombomodulin derived from the human, which has little antigenicity, ought to be administered to patients in order to avoid side effects such as anaphylactic shock. In regard to the isolation of human-derived thrombomodulins, there are some reports as described below. In the following explanation, molecular weights of the human-derived thrombomodulins, if not otherwise stated, are the results of measurements by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) under non-reduced condition.
P. W. Majerus et al. purified thrombomodulin from human placenta and reported its molecular weight as 75,000 [J. Biol Chem., Vol 259, p.12246 (1984)]. I. Maruyama et al. isolated thrombomodulin from human lung, which has activities similar to those of thrombomodulin from human placenta [J. Clin. Invest., Vol. 75, p.987 (1985)]. N. Aoki et al. isolated thrombomodulin from human placenta and reported its molecular weight as 71,000 [Thrombosis Res., Vol. 37, p.353 (1985); and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Specification No. Sho 60-199819]. K. Suzuki et al. partially purified thrombomodulin from human platelets and determined its molecular weight as 78,000. They concluded in the report that all of, thrombomodulins obtained from human platelets, ones from human placenta and ones from human lung hemangio endothelial cells have similar activities by comparing their behaviors in SDS-PAGE, affinities to thrombin and substrate-affinities to protein C [J. Biochem., Vol. 104, p.628 (1988)].
There are also some reports about other substances which have activities similar to above-mentioned human thrombomodulins as described below.
P. W. Majerus et al. partially purified substances with molecular weights of 63,000 and 54,000 from human serum and also indicated that similar substances exist in human urine [J. Clin. Invest., Vol. 75, p.2178 (1985). H. Ishii et al. reported that substances with molecular weights of 105,000, 63,000, 60,000, 33,000, 31,000 and 28,000 (Whether these were measured under reduced or non-reduced condition is not clearly described) are excreted in human urine 108th. Yakugakkai abstract 6F05, 11-1 (1988)].
Further, other substances with molecular weights of 200,000, 48,000 and 40,000 from urine [Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Specification No. Sho 63-30423], and substances with molecular weights of 39,000 and 31,000 [Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Specification Sho No. 63-146898] from urine are reported.
Meanwhile, by means of genetic engineering techniques, K. Suzuki et al. deduced the entire 557-amino acid sequence of human thrombomodulin from human lung cDNA clones [EMBO Journal, Vol 6. p.1891 (1987)]. They produced a series of peptides, which contain repeated Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF)-like structures in human thrombomodulin, by recombinant DNA techniques, and measured the effect of each peptide on thrombin-catalyzed protein C activation. Based on the obtained result, they concluded that all of the structure from the fourth through sixth EGF-like structures, which corresponds to 345th through 462nd amino acid residues numbered from amino-terminal of human thrombomodulin, is required for the exertion of thrombomodulin-like activity [J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 264, p.10351 (1989) and 12th. International Conference on Thrombosis and Hemostasis program, p.334 (1989)].
The human thrombomodulins which have been already reported are obtained from human placenta, human lung or human platelets. They are not suitable for mass production because these materials could not be supplied in large quantities. Moreover, these thrombomodulins are difficult to handle, because some detergents are necessary in order to solubilize them. Contamination by detergents is unfavorable for clinical use of these thrombomodulins.
On the other hand, previously reported thrombomodulin-like substances have neither high activity of protein C activation nor efficient anticoagulant activity per unit protein. Accordingly, a novel thrombomodulin-like substance which is physiologically more active and more valuable in medical use is earnestly expected.
In the conventional processes for the purification of the thrombomodulin-like substances from human urine, some proteinase inhibitors such as aprotinin or bestatin are used to prevent the substances from decomposition. There are, however, other enzymes such as uropepsin which can not be completely inhibited by these proteinase inhibitors, and a complete prevention of the thrombomodulin-like substances from decomposition can not be easily achieved by these processes.
Further, since thrombomodulin is a glycoprotein, genetic engineering techniques could not provide a substance which possesses sugar chains completely equal to those of human thrombomodulin. Differences in sugar chains may cause unfavorable properties such as some side effects. For these reasons, it has been desired to obtain a thrombomodulin-like substance which resembles more closely to a native human thrombomodulin.

Anticoagulant substance obtained from urine


Techniques are disclosed for abstracting write acceleration techniques and tape acceleration techniques away from transport providers (e.g., away from an FC or FCIP interlink between two storage area networks) and allowing acceleration to be provided as a service by nodes within the storage area network (SAN). Doing so allows the acceleration service to be provided anywhere in the SAN. Further, doing so allows users to scale the acceleration service as needed, without having to create awkward topologies of multiple VSANS. Further still, as the acceleration service is offered independently from the transport, compression, encryption, and other services may be offered as part of the transport between the FC/FCIP connection along with the acceleration service.

1. Technical Field
Embodiments described in this disclosure generally relate to storage area networks (SAN). More particularly, the described embodiments relate to methods and apparatus for providing SCSI acceleration as a service in a SAN.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modern data centers are built around storage area networks used to provide secure, reliable, and scalable centralized data-storage facilities. A storage area network (SAN) provides a high-speed special-purpose network that interconnects different data storage devices and associated data hosts on behalf of a larger network of users. Generally, a SAN is used to attach computer storage devices, e.g., disk arrays, tape libraries and optical jukeboxes, to a host. The SAN operates such that the storage devices appear to each host as being locally attached, i.e., as though the storage devices where physically connected to the host.
Fiber Channel (FC) or Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) is typically used to interconnect multiple data centers, e.g., to consolidate storage and physical tape libraries for disaster recovery. Typically, FC is used to interconnect the datacenters and FCIP is used to interconnect the SAN islands across the WAN using the IP cloud. Frequently, applications run across these environments provide remote replication of storage arrays and tape backups to vault the tapes in a common location. The latency introduced by MAN and WAN links and the requirements of the SCSI I/Os (especially for sequential devices such as tapes) significantly affect the performance of such applications. Accordingly, some acceleration techniques have implemented at the end points of the two sites over the MAN or WAN. As the SCSI I/Os are bidirectional in nature; however, these techniques require the traffic flows to traverse the same end points in both the directions. In the case of SCSI write acceleration, e.g., a given I/O must traverse the same end points. Similarly, in the case of tape acceleration, the entire traffic flow must traverse the same end points as this technique operators over multiple I/Os. These requirements have resulted in awkward network topologies to force certain traffic flows over the endpoint nodes connecting two SANS in order for these acceleration techniques to function.

Providing SCSI acceleration as a service in the SAN