Disclosed are peptides that have enhanced stability against plant proteases and are useful in the control of plant diseases. The peptides also have the ability to protect other peptides, polypeptides or proteins from degradation by proteases of plant, fungal, viral, bacterial, insect or other origin. DNA encoding the peptides of the present invention can be co-expressed with other DNA encoding exogenous peptides in transgenic plants as a method for protecting foreign peptides from degradation by proteases. Also disclosed are nucleic acid sequences, microorganisms, plants, and compositions useful for the treatment of plant diseases.

The present invention relates to antimicrobial peptides which are resistant to proteases and which have the ability to reduce the extent of protease degradation of peptides, polypeptides and proteins in plants.
Antimicrobial peptides are produced by a wide range of organisms as part of their defense against infection. See Hancock & Lehrer, 1998, TIBTECH, 16:82–88; Everett, 1994, Chpt. 20 In: Natural and Engineered Pest Management Agents, eds. Hedin, Menn & Hollingworth, ACS Symposium Series 551, pp. 278–91. Examples of such peptides include cecropins, attacins and diptericins which are involved in cell-free immunity in insects, the apidaecins from honeybees, the defensins from mammalian phagocytes, and the magainins from frog skin. Plants also produce certain classes of antimicrobial peptides which are thought to play a role in resistance to microbial plant pathogens. See Broekaert et al., 1997, Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences, 16:297–323.
Plants have been genetically engineered to produce antimicrobial peptides, both natural and synthetic to increase resistance to disease. See Jaynes et al., 1987, BioEssays, 6:263-70; Hancock and Lehrer, 1998, TIBTECH, 16:82–88. Unfortunately, this approach has met with very limited success. Either the amount of peptide produced by the transgenic plant is too small and/or the plants are no less Lehrer, 1998, TIBTECH, 16:82–88. A major limitation to the expression of foreign peptides in transgenic plants is due to the susceptibility of the foreign peptides to rapid degradation by proteases. For example, transgenic potato cultivars which express a gene encoding the antimicrobial peptide cecropin B at levels up to 0.6% of total mRNA produce no detectable cecropin B peptide and no improvement in resistance to potato soft rot. See Sjefke et al., 1995, American Potato Journal, 72:437–45. Similar studies in tobacco have demonstrated that expression of cecropin B genes also does not result in detectable cecropin B peptide levels and resistance to bacterial infections. See Florack et al., 1995, Transgenic Research 4:132–41. Studies have also shown that cecropin B and antimicrobial peptides related to magainins are rapidly degraded by proteases in the intercellular fluid of plant leaves. See Mills et al., 1994, Plant Science, 104:17–22 and Everett, 1994, Chpt. 20 In: Natural and Engineered Pest Management Agents, eds. Hedin, Menn & Hollingworth, ACS Symposium Series 551, pp. 278–91.
One proposed solution to the problem of peptide instability due to protease degradation has been to identify the protease-sensitive sites within a particular peptide and to design amino acid substitutions that increase the stability of peptides to plant proteases while retaining the antimicrobial activity of the peptides. This approach resulted in a synthetic magainin derivative having the amino acid sequence Met-Gly-Ile-Gly-Lys-Phe-Leu-Arg-Glu-Ala-Gly-Lys-Phe-Gly-Lys-Ala-Phe-Val-Gly-Glu-Ile-Met-Lys-Pro (SEQ ID NO:1) that had enhanced stability against proteases found in the intercellular fluid of plant tissues and was therefore an improved candidate for use in or on plants. See Everett, 1994, Chpt. 20 In: Natural and Engineered Pest Management Agents, eds. Hedin, Menn & Hollingworth, ACS Symposium Series 551, pp. 278–91; U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,424,395 and 5,519,115.
Another proposed solution to the problem of peptide instability has been to produce the reverse- or retro-analogs of natural antimicrobial peptides or their synthetic derivatives. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,519,115, and Merrifield et al., 1995, PNAS, 92:3449–53. Such reverse-peptides retain the same general three-dimensional structure (e.g., alpha-helix) as the parent peptide except for the conformation around internal protease-sensitive sites and the characteristics of the N- and C-termini. Reverse peptides are purported not only to retain the biological activity of the non-reversed "normal" peptide but may possess enhanced properties, including increased antibacterial activity and reduced hemolysis. See Iwahori et al., 1997, Biol. Pharm. Bull. 20:267–70.
Indolicidin, having the amino acid sequence Ile-Leu-Pro-Trp-Lys-Trp-Pro-Trp-Trp-Pro-Trp-Arg-Arg, (SEQ ID NO:2) is a potent antimicrobial tridecapeptide. It was originally purified from cytoplasmic granules of bovine neutrophils. See Selsted et al., 1993, J. Biol. Chem., 267:4292–95. It is a member of a class of proline-rich peptides that have been recovered from the leukocytes of different mammals, a marine invertebrate and insect haemolymph. See Hancock and Lehrer, 1998, TIBTECH, 16:82–88. The antimicrobial potencies of natural and synthetic indolicidin are identical. See Van Abel et al., 1995, Int. J. Protein Res. 45:401–09. The mode of antibacterial action of indolicidin has been reported to be based on the disruption of the cytoplasmic membrane by channel formation. See Falla et al., 1996, J. Biol. Chem. 32:19298–303. More recently, it has been suggested that membrane permeabilization is likely to occur due to deformation of the membrane surface rather than formation of transmembrane channels by indolicidin and its analogs. See Subbalakshmi et al., 1998, J. Biosci., 23:9–13.
Numerous analogs of indolicidin have been synthesized and tested in attempts to evaluate the requirements for antimicrobial and hemolytic activities, and to increase activity. Subbalakshmi et al. (FEBS Letters 395:48–52 (1996)) reports that peptides in which proline was replaced by alanine and tryptophan was replaced by phenylalanine exhibit antibacterial activities comparable to that of indolicidin. The replacement of tryptophan by phenylalanine, however resulted in a loss of hemolytic activity. Falla and Hancock (Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, 41:771–75 (1997)) tested a synthetic peptide, CP-11, Ile-Leu-Lys-Lys-Trp-Pro-Trp-Trp-Pro-Trp-Arg-Arg, (SEQ ID NO:3) based on indolicidin, which was designed to increase the number of positively charged residues, maintain the short length (13 amino acids), and enhance the amphipathicity relative to indolicidin. They found that CP-11 had better activity against E. coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans, but reduced activity against Staphylococcus aureus. Lim et al. (J. Biochem. Mol. Biol. 30:229–33 (1997)) tested the effects of substituting certain tryptophan, proline or arginine residues in indolicidin. Substitutions of some tryptophan residues by isoleucine or glycine were tolerated but substitution of Pro7 with alanine significantly reduced activity against E. coli. Substitutions of either Arg12 or Arg13 with alanine also reduced biological activity.

Peptides with enhanced stability to protease degradation


A motorcycle safety saddle having a fuel tank protector and a handle. The fuel tank protector protects and cushions the fuel tank, and is shaped to fit a wide variety of motorcycles. The safety saddle defines a cutout area therein, and the cutout area is aligned over the motorcycle tank gas cap to provide access thereto. The motorcycle safety saddle has particular utility in connection with providing motorcycle gasoline tank protection along with an integrated handle for use by a passenger. The handle provides improved stability, control, and safety for a passenger riding behind a motorcycle operator.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a motorcycle safety saddle for use in connection with motorcycle riding, and more particularly pertains to a combined motorcycle fuel tank protector and associated safety handle for use by a passenger on the motorcycle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are many published United States patents which illustrate a multitude of motorcycles and the accessories associated therewith, and a number of such patents have been carefully reviewed and analyzed to assist in determining the novelty of the present invention. In this respect, U.S. Pat. No. 5,002,149 to Watanabe et al., which is illustrative of the patents reviewed, discloses a typical patent directed to the overall structure of a motorcycle.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,359,233 to Jackson et al. discloses a typical patent directed to a motorcycle accessory, and more particularly to a motorcycle tank bag mounting arrangement. Another patent which was reviewed was U.S. Pat. No. 4,056,268 to Connor et al. and is of interest as disclosing an apparatus for a motorcycle polo game.
Other patents of general relevance include U.S. Pat. No. 3,940,166 to Smith which discloses an auxiliary retention belt and support cushion for seats of open vehicles, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,028,742 to Marquis which discloses a motorcycle safety belt. Lastly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,111,448 to Sklodowsky discloses a motorcycle passenger support.
While the above-described patented devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, none of the aforementioned patents describe a motorcycle safety saddle that is designed to protectively cushion a fuel tank and also includes an integrated safety handle for use by a passenger. Accordingly, it seems apparent that a need exists for a new and improved motorcycle fuel tank protector that can be used to both protect a fuel tank and also to provide a safety handle for a passenger. In this respect, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.


A radio link monitoring method, a radio link monitoring configuration method, a UE and a network device are provided. The radio link monitoring method for the UE includes: receiving configuration information of a reference signal for a radio link monitoring operation, wherein the configuration information comprises configured reference signal or reconfigured reference signal, and/or, radio link monitoring parameter of the configured reference signal reference signal or radio link monitoring parameter of the reconfigured reference signal; and performing the radio link monitoring operation in accordance with the configuration information.

For a Long Term Evolution (LTE) or a New Radio (NR) system, a Radio Link Monitoring (RLM) function is provided. For the RLM function of the LTE system, a radio link is monitored by a UE through measuring Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratios (SINRs) of parts of Cell-specific Reference Signals (CRSs) for a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH).
When the measured parts of the CRSs for the PDCCH are each smaller than a predetermined threshold, it means that the radio link is in an out-of-sync state, and at this time a physical layer may transmit an out-of-sync indication to a high layer (a Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer). When N consecutive out-of-sync indications have been received by the RRC layer, the UE may start a radio link failure timer (timer T1).
When the measured parts of the CRSs for the PDCCH are each greater than another threshold, it means that the radio link is in an in-sync state, and at this time the physical layer may transmit an in-sync indication to the high layer (the RRC layer). When M consecutive in-sync indications have been received by the RRC layer, the UE may stop the timer T1.
When the timer T1 expires, the UE may determine that there is a radio link failure. At this time, a radio link failure event may be triggered, and the UE may re-initiate the establishment of the radio link.
The quantities of the above out-of-sync indications and in-sync indications, i.e., N and M, are configured by a network device, and duration of the timer T1 is also configured by the network device.
Reference signals for the RLM in the NR system may be different from those in the LTE system, and a Channel State Information Reference Signal (CSI-RS) and/or a Synchronization Signal (SS) block may be adopted as the reference signals for the RLM. In this case, the reference signals may not be limited to one type of signal. When the types of the reference signals or relevant configurations of the reference signals change, there is currently no scheme about how to continue the RLM in the related art.

Radio link monitoring method, radio link monitoring configuration method, user equipment and network device


An exhaust gas heating arrangement includes a heating unit having a jacketed heating element having a jacket and at least one heating conductor which extends in the jacket and is surrounded by insulating material. The heating unit is spirally wound surrounding a longitudinal center axis (L), wherein a radially inner winding end region of the heating unit is offset with respect to a radially outer winding end region of the heating unit in the direction towards the longitudinal center axis (L).

The demand for minimal emission of pollutants from combustion engines in vehicles, which is increasingly coming to the fore, requires special measures which can reduce the emission of pollutants in particular in a starting phase of the combustion engine. Such measures include in particular measures which serve to bring exhaust gas treatment units, such as, for example, catalytic converters or particle filters, arranged in an exhaust gas system to operating temperature as quickly as possible, so that they are already capable of carrying out a catalytic reaction at an exhaust gas temperature that is still comparatively low in the starting phase.
There is known from U.S. 2020/0240305 an exhaust gas heating unit which can be arranged in an exhaust gas stream upstream of an exhaust gas treatment unit. The exhaust gas heating unit comprises a jacketed heating element having a jacket composed, for example, of metal material, and a heating conductor which is received in the interior of the jacket embedded in insulating material. By applying an electric voltage to the connection ends of the heating conductor, the heating conductor is energized and thereby delivers heat to the outside via the jacket. On the outside of the jacket there is provided a heat transfer surface formation in the form of a heat transfer element that surrounds the jacket in helically wound form. This heat transfer element increases the surface area via which, on energization of the heating conductor, heat can be delivered to the exhaust gas flowing around such an exhaust gas heating unit.
U.S. 2020/0300141 discloses an exhaust gas heating element in which, in order to increase the surface area available for the delivery of heat, a heat transfer surface formation having a heat transfer element wound in a meandering manner is provided. The heat transfer element has a plurality of heat transfer element portions which are arranged in succession substantially parallel to one another and are connected together by respective curved portions of the meandering structure, which heat transfer element portions are passed through by the jacketed heating element and are in heat transfer contact with the jacket of the jacketed heating element. A heating unit constructed with such an exhaust gas heating element can be structured such that the exhaust gas heating element, spirally wound about a longitudinal center axis, is held between carrier structures arranged axially on both sides thereof, so that, substantially over the entire cross section of an exhaust gas routing housing containing such a heating unit, thermal interaction of the exhaust gas flowing therein with the heating unit can be produced.


A new and distinct cultiva of Anagallis plant named ‘Wildcat Pink,’ characterized by its vigorous and outwardly spreading plant habit; freely branching growth habit; numerous single flowers that are bright pink in color; and good garden performance.

The present Invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Anagallis plant, botanically known as Anagallis monelli, previously identified with code number UNH U70-5 and hereinafter referred to by the cultivar name 'Wildcat Pink'.
The new Anagallis is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Durham, N.H. The objective of the breeding program is to create new compact Anagallis plants with freely and early flowering habit.
The new Anagallis originated from a hybridization made by the Inventor on Feb. 2, 2001 in Durham, N.H. between two proprietary selections of Anagallis monelli, not patented, identified as code number UNH 957-8, and UNH 957-4. A single plant from the resulting progeny identified as code number UNH 0184-1 was selfed on Jun. 6, 2001. The new Anagallis was selected as a single plant from the resulting F2 progeny on the basis of its plant habit and novel flower coloration.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar by terminal vegetative cuttings since Nov. 15, 2001, in Durham, N.H. has shown that the unique features of this new Anagallis are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.

Anagallis monelli plant cultivar ‘Wildcat Pink’


An improved pile hammer provides a cylinder, such as one with a uniform interior diameter wall and uses a piston ram to cycle up and down therein to contact an anvil on a downstroke. The anvil preferably provides a cavity to both lessen the weight and improve upward force on the ram for the upstroke. An air inlet is preferably located above an air outlet which was not possible with prior art designs. An air reservoir can be located above and external to the wall in the cylinder.

Pile hammers have been manufactured for well over one hundred years. One early model of a very similar pile hammer is still manufactured by the company which currently manufactures and markets the hammer produced by the company which obtained that patent in the late 1800's. As one might imagine, various improvements occurred to the basic pile hammer design over the years.
Many pile hammers rely on an external source of compressed air, steam, hydraulic fluid or rope release. Some hammers are single acting air/steam hammers. These are the oldest mechanically powered hammer types. A ram is moved upward by compressed air or steam in a cylinder acting against a piston. Prior to reaching the rated stroke position the pressure under the piston is released and the ram first coasts on to the rated stroke and then falls under the influence of gravity. Just before hitting the bottom, pressure is again allowed to enter the cylinder.
In an effort to make pile hammers faster, air or steam pressure can be applied to the ram during its descent. These are called double or differential acting air/steam hammers. These designs may allow for shorter stroke to achieve a comparable energy rating to single acting hammers. However, this type hammer is more complex and timing issues are more critical than for the single acting hammers. Also, in hard driving, the hammers can experience upflips (the pile and thus the ram rebound too strongly) and the operator may be forced to reduce the pressure and thus the energy of the hammer. For these reasons, these style hammers are typically given a hammer efficiency of 50%.
Vulcan Iron Works, Inc. manufactured two prototype designs of a different type of hammer in the early 1980's. The "Model 300" was tested in 1982 and the SC3 which was apparently developed in late 1981 and then tested in the spring of 1983. Unfortunately, the Model 300 and/or SC3 prototypes probably do not qualify as "experimental use" even though this design has not been in use for over thirty years. Apparently the SC3 design was tested twice on projects in west Tennessee in late summer of 1983. Although the tests were deemed to be successful, the impact velocity of the ram was determined to be deficient due to the positioning of the ports which tended to reduce the impact velocity of the ram.
The Model 300 and the SC3 had a piston type ram with slots extending longitudinally on the ram which admitted air both just before and just after impact. These slots directed the fluid to enter the ram cylinder and internally. The compressed air pushed the ram upward until the exhaust ports were encumbered. The ram then proceeded upwardly to the top of the stroke, falling again to impact (under the influence of gravity) while compressing the air again during the down stroke to impact the anvil once again. This step made the process "one ended" and produced a hammer so that the ram would be thrown upwards and allowed it to fall downward and impact the pile with a solid anvil compressing the air after it passed the exhaust ports. The SC3 design was also a two-piece cylinder design having two different diameters which was difficult to assemble and run together due to the tolerances required by the construction. It provided a square reservoir that tended to bulge during pressurization. Furthermore, the exhaust was at the top and the piston had a larger diameter cylinder than the ram.
Additionally, this hammer did not have a stroke control feature, and, in fact, the hammer was prone to air locking which required disassembly to reset due possibly to insufficient air reservoir space. Another design defect included inadvertent starting, a significant safety concern which could also have been due to insufficient air reservoir space. When the offshore market collapsed in the early 1980's with oil prices, Vulcan decided not to commercialize the product and abandoned the project.
Accordingly, after almost thirty years, the applicant has decided to resurrect portions of the abandoned design as well as improve its observed deficiencies in an effort to provide an improved pile hammer construction to overcome defects that contributed to its abandonment by earlier efforts.


A method of facilitating identification of audio and/or video productions, comprising the steps of maintaining a register of unique program identification codes which identify corresponding audio/video productions, assigning a new unique program identification code on request from a producer of a new audio/video production, and up-dating the register with the new unique program identification code in association with the new audio/video production. The unique identification code may be a UPID or the like. The method includes acquiring items of audio/video material for use in forming the new audio/video production, generating during the step of acquiring the audio/video material items a unique identifying code for each of the audio/video material items, and populating the register with the unique identifying codes in association with the unique program identification code. The unique identifying code may be a UMID or the like.

The subject matter and content of audio and video productions varies greatly. In addition to this variety there is, correspondingly, a considerable quantity of such audio and video productions. Audio productions include, for example, radio broadcasts, both live and pre-recorded, musical and audio recordings, whereas video productions include, for example, films, television programs and video recordings. As will be appreciated typically video productions also include an accompanying sound track or commentary, so that an audio production is inherently included as part of the video production.
The term audio and/or video will be used herein to refer to any from of audio information or signals, video information or signals, or a combination of video and audio information or signals. The term audio/video will be used for short to refer to audio and/or video.
Audio and video productions are generated by acquiring audio and/or video material items and combining these material items in accordance with a selected sequence. Often the items of audio/video material are acquired from earlier productions, which are re-used to form part or parts of subsequent audio/video productions.


The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method of imaging and treatment using at least one photodynamic therapy (xe2x80x9cPDTxe2x80x9d) agent. In particular, the apparatus and method is for imaging and treating diseased tissue.

The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method of imaging and treatment using at least one photodynamic therapy (xe2x80x9cPDTxe2x80x9d) agent. In particular, the apparatus and method is for imaging and treating diseased tissue.
Imaging is typically performed to locate diseased tissue or tumors in a body. Once the diseased tissue is located, it is subsequently treated in some manner in order to destroy the diseased cells within this tissue. As explained infra, in the past, these were two separate procedures in a long, drawn out process that was frequently unsuccessful.
Imaging is generally performed using an imaging device such as CAT (Computerized Axial Tomography) scan or MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). Alternatively, fluorography (using an image produced on a fluorescent screen by x-rays) or similar procedures can be used. Each of these imaging procedures requires a contrast agent for optimal performance. Examples of such imaging contrast agents include iodinated agents such as Omnipaque(trademark) (Iohexol) and Omniscan(trademark) (Gadodiamide) for x-ray based imaging or one of the various paramagnetic MRI contrast agents like gadolinium DPTA (Gd-DPTA).
Once the diseased tissue has been located via imaging, it needs to be treated. Such treatments, however, are often unsuccessful.
All current therapies for cancer (e.g., radiation and chemotherapy) function by attacking rapidly proliferating cells. Unfortunately, this targeting criterion does not limit the effects of treatment to cancer cells. As a consequence, such therapies are accompanied by undesirable side effects that may be life threatening. Furthermore, such therapies may actually reduce natural anti-tumor defenses. For example, radiation and chemotherapy damage the rapidly dividing cells of the immune system, suppressing anti-tumor and anti-infection responses.
Besides producing undesirable side effects, current therapies are largely incapable of achieving the desired potency of effects since they do not specifically attack cancer cells. Consequently, radiation or chemotherapy alone or in combination rarely cures cancer. Thus, the primary treatment for cancer is currently surgical removal of the tumor. This is commonly paired with adjuvant radiation and chemotherapy. Hence, to achieve a cure, the patient is surgically mutilated and poisoned by highly toxic treatments in an effort to destroy all cancer cells.
In an effort to minimize invasiveness of cancer treatment and improve overall efficacy, photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been developed. Photodynamic therapy is the combination of a photosensitive agent with site-specific illumination to produce a therapeutic response in certain tissues, such as a tumor. The agent attains an excited state when it absorbs a photon, and then is or becomes efficacious. Unfortunately, conventional single-photon excitation (SPE) methods used for the illumination step in PDT have not allowed PDT to reach its potential, primarily because (1) the high-energy light required for such treatment is incapable of penetrating deeply into tissue and (2) such illumination affords the physician with minimal spatial control of the treatment site. In contrast, the low-energy light used for two-photon excitation (TPE) PDT can safely penetrate tissue and provides three-dimensional control of treatment margins.
A more detailed explanation of TPE and SPE is provided in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,448, which is incorporated herein by reference.
While the use of two-photon excitation in PDT substantially ameliorates the depth of penetration and spatial control issues plaguing conventional PDT, additional improvements can be achieved by improvement of therapeutic performance of PDT agents and improvement of disease specificity in the selection of activation site. This is the consequence of several shortcomings of currently used agents and activation targeting approaches.
The only major PDT agent licensed by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States is the Type-II agent, porfimer sodium (or PHOTOFRIN(trademark)). This porphyrin-based agent is representative of a family of related agents (such as benzoporphyrin-derivative, SnEt2, and Lutex) that are commonly activated via single-photon methods using light between 500 nm and 730 nm in wavelength. Such Type-II agents produce a therapeutic effect through the light-activated conversion (photocatalytic conversion) of oxygen into an unstable and toxic form (singlet oxygen) that destroys biological material. Unfortunately, this mechanism requires a rich supply of oxygen at the treatment site. This supply, however, can be quickly depleted, for example due to compromised blood supply (as is common in the center of a large tumor) or intense illumination (which can consume all available oxygen, preventing continued conversion into singlet oxygen). Thus, treatment of large tumors and the use of aggressive illumination methods are not practical with such agents. Further, agents like porfimer sodium must typically be administered systemically (via intravenous injection) at high dose levels well in advance of illumination (typically at least 24 hours in advancexe2x80x94increasing cost and inconvenience to the patient). Moreover, the high doses required for systemic administration are very expensive (up to $5,000 or more per dose) and cause persistent skin photosensitization.
The problems with porphyrin-based agents stem in part from the fact that these agents fail to achieve significant concentration in tumors. Rather, large doses administered systemically saturate all tissues. As a result, after a clearance time in the range of hours to days, single-photon excitation of residual agent at the treatment site produces not only the desired cytotoxic effect in the diseased tissue but can also damage healthy surrounding tissue by activation of the agent present there as well. It is this residual agent that also accounts for persistent skin photosensitization. Moreover, this family of agents is typified by relatively high toxicity without light activation (dark cytotoxicity). Light activation generally increases this toxicity only marginally (poor light-to-dark cytotoxicity ratio). While use of two-photon excitation can improve the performance of PDT with such agents, specifically by reducing or eliminating potential collateral damage during illumination, coupling TPE with an agent having improved biotargetting and light-to-dark cytotoxicity would dramatically enhance the safety and efficacy of PDT.
However, the ability to realize such advantages requires that the size, location and depth of the target be known precisely so that the light used for TPE can be precisely delivered to the target. Therefore, a new method that allows tumors or other diseased tissues to be identified and located quickly and precisely is required. Additional characteristics of such a method should solve other current problems with PDT, including: improved light-to-dark cytotoxicity ratio for the agent (and more specifically a very low dark cytotoxicity); improved accumulation of agent into diseased tissue with strong contrast between diseased and healthy tissue; and capability of combining imaging and therapy (such as through photoactivation of the agent in imaged locations). Further characteristics should include significantly reducing the cost of the agent and rapidly clearing the agent from normal tissue.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to meet these characteristics and to overcome the drawbacks in prior methods and agents.
The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for imaging and treating diseased tissue using at least one PDT agent.
One embodiment of the method of the present invention includes the steps of administering a photo-active agent, the photo-active agent being retained in diseased tissue; and treating the diseased tissue with light sufficient to photo-activate the photo-active agent in the diseased tissue.
Preferably, the photo-active agent is a halogenated xanthene such as Rose Bengal.
A further embodiment of the method of the present invention includes the steps of administering a photo-active agent to a patient prior to or following imaging, the photo-active agent being retained in the diseased tissue; imaging the patient to identify the diseased tissue; and treating the imaged diseased tissue with light sufficient to photo-activate the photo-active agent in the imaged diseased tissue.
In a further embodiment, the photo-active agent is capable of acting as a contrast agent for CAT scanning, fluorography or related procedures.
In a further embodiment, the photo-active agent is capable of acting as a contrast agent for CAT scanning, fluorography or related procedures and being photo-activated in the diseased tissue.
In a further embodiment, the photo-active agent is capable of acting as a contrast agent for MRI and being photo-activated in diseased tissue.
In still a further embodiment, the photo-active agent is mixed with MRI, CAT scan, fluorography or related targeting or contrast agents prior to use.
In another embodiment of the present invention, the light source for performing PDT is integrated into or attached to an imaging device (e.g., CAT scan, MRI, or related devices). In a further embodiment, the method uses a light source in the combined PDT/imaging apparatus which causes two-photon excitation. In an alternative embodiment, the light source in the combined PDT/imaging apparatus causes single photon excitation.

Method for improved imaging and photodynamic therapy


A door assembly includes a structure including an exterior panel defining an opening, and a grab bar. The grab bar is moveable relative to the exterior panel. A first linkage system and a second linkage system interconnect the grab bar and the structure. A drive assembly is coupled to the first linkage system and the second linkage system to move the grab bar between an extended position and a retracted position. The drive assembly includes a Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) actuator that contracts in response to a control signal, to move the grab bar. A seal may be provided to seal between the grab bar and the structure. A heating element may provide a thermal load to heat the grab bar, a seal surrounding the grab bar, or both.

Vehicle doors include an exterior handle, i.e., grab bar, which is mechanically or electrically coupled to a latch mechanism. Actuation of the handle moves the latch mechanism from a latched position to an un-latched position to allow the door to open. The handle may be designed to extend outboard of an exterior surface of an exterior panel of the door assembly to allow an operator to grasp the handle. Alternatively, the exterior surface of the exterior panel may define an inward recess to allow the operator to grasp the handle. Furthermore, vehicle styling may require a flush mounted handle, which includes an outboard surface of the handle that is positioned approximately flush with the exterior surface of the exterior panel of the door assembly when not in use. When needed to open the door, the flush mounted handle deploys out, i.e., moves, relative to the exterior panel of the door assembly, thereby allowing the operator to grasp the handle.

Flush door handle with shape memory alloy drive and heated handle to body seal


Gecko-like adhesive application devices suited for dynamic applications are disclosed, where the device can be easily applied to target substrates, exhibiting a firm hold, and subsequently released therefrom. Gecko-like adhesive application devices that are suited for sustained holding after easy application (e.g., on vertical or inclined surfaces or ceiling) also are disclosed.

A recent technological breakthrough was a class of elastomer-based adhesive devices that have high load capacity, are reusable, easy release and suitable for extended and repeated use. (See, e.g., WO 2012/078249 (PCT/US2011/057309), which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.) While the technology substantially advances the state of the art in adhesive technology, there remains a significant and ongoing need for adhesive systems that allow adjustable weight-bearing angles, high-load bearing and highly stable, yet provide simple, non-damaging release and repeated use while being cost-effective to produce.

Devices for application and load bearing and method of using the same


Data integration and data analysis using computing equipment, software as well as hardware, includes a system and method for integrating data from various data sources, structured and unstructured, without physically creating a data warehouse and automatically generating queries for analysis of the integrated data from a multitude of different views.

In recent years, industry trends toward mergers and acquisitions has forced most OEMs to re-think their processes to account for the multitude of data sources used by the various corporate divisions within the enterprise for storing and manipulating product data, including the product bill of materials, parts catalog, diagnostic procedures and warranty claims as a partial list of the kinds of product data that exists.
Government regulations, rising production cost, shorter time-to-market are yet other reasons why companies are looking for a more adaptive and dynamic information technology (IT) infrastructure that would scale to the on-demand era for product life cycle management.
The complexity of the IT environment in the industrial manufacturing sector has grown exponentially over the years creating problems. Some attributes of these problems include:
The increasingly complex nature of the product itself as measured by the number of components that goes into the making of a product and the umber of configurations for each product. This translates into increased storage and processing capacities for managing the information associated with the product design that could be in the order of a terabyte for just one product model.
The lack of visibility across the product life cycle due to the disparity of data management systems used in the different stages of the design, development, manufacturing process and services after sales. A large number of heterogeneous systems that are in use throughout the extended enterprise create an artificial barrier for information sharing.
The product design is often organized in silos around specific product assemblies (in the case of automobiles, e.g., wing design, engine design, body structure design, interior design, etc) making it difficult to integrate data across multiple divisions. While the project team is often composed of a multi-disciplinary group of engineers, the IT tools remain too fragmented and specifically tailored to the organization or division that uses them the most.
In this environment, traditional approaches for data integration using data warehousing does not always scale well. A data warehouse is a copy of transaction data specifically structured for querying, analyzing, and reporting. A data warehouse can be normalized or denormalized. It can be a relational database, flat file, hierarchical database, object database, etc. Data warehouse data often gets changed. Data warehouses often focus on a specific activity or entity. Data warehouses are usually designed to meet the requirements of one specific application and are not easily extensible without tearing down and rebuilding the table schema. They provide a fixed view on the data and are not easily adapted to changing business needs such as when new suppliers are integrated into the value chain.
Furthermore, product data tends to be deeply hierarchical in nature and has associated semantics and access control procedures that are encapsulated within the data management system that hosts the information and cannot be easily exposed to external applications. In order to safeguard the integrity of the data that is owned by any given partner, the industry had traditionally resorted to product data exchange where each partner exports a subset of the data that is stored within its domain and shares the data with other partners by mean of data replication. This approach tends to be slow and costly as multiple iterations may be required to provide the information that is needed. The approach leads to data redundancy where multiple replicas of the same work product could exist within the extended enterprise and requires additional complexity for managing the life-cycle of the exchanged information.
As industry transforms its processes to better leverage the resources and know-how of the extended enterprise, a new approach based on data federation emerges as it promises to deliver on speed and accuracy, both of which are needed to quickly predict and pinpoint weaknesses in a product design and performance. Delivering on such a promise requires a better understanding of the semantic and data models that are prominently used in the industry.
In the following description the automotive industry will be used as an illustrative example of an application of the present invention. However, the invention is not to be construed as being limited solely to the automotive industry. A generic product structure is a hierarchical structure of generic concepts or functions such as the vehicle body structure or the vehicle hydraulic system. The generic product structure describes a logical aggregation of the vehicle assemblies and serves as a template for creating the detailed product structure. As such, the generic product structure can be used to define the common concepts (e.g., seats) that are shared among similar product classes (e.g., SUV and passenger cars).
An ontology is a specification of a conceptionalization. That is, an ontology is a description (like a formal specification of a program) of the concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of agents. A common ontology defines a vocabulary with which queries and assertions are exchanged among agents. A commitment to a common ontology is a guarantee of consistency, but not completeness, with respect to queries and assertions using the vocabulary defined in the ontology. An automotive vehicle ontology is an annotated meta model of the generic product structure, and processes that can execute against such structure. It augments the generic product structure with various relationships and dependencies that may exist between the different components but cannot otherwise be expressed in the generic product structure or the detailed product structure. For example, the generic product structure for a vehicle may contain a placeholder for the wheel assembly. The vehicle ontology augments this assertion by defining a "similar to" relationship between the wheel assembly of a sports same product class. One derived benefit of such ontological relation is to broaden the scope of the search to a wider set of data sources that otherwise would not have been considered.
The vehicle ontology provides the foundation for defining a common semantic model of the product structure with all the associated engineering processes that execute against the product structure as shareable business objects. FIG. 15 is a block diagram of one possible vehicle ontology.
Reducing warranty costs by conducting a deep failure analysis and improved claim processes have been identified as a strategic initiative by many in the automotive industry. While OEMs continues to strive to manage warranty payout while improving supplier recovery for failed parts, they recognize the value of proactive failure. identification. The objectives of these efforts are to reduce the cost of warranty through identification of warranty issues more quickly than has been previously achieved and thereby reducing costs; and enhancement of brand loyalty by demonstrating a commitment to the reliability and quality of products carrying the brand name.
Earl warning and failure analysis solutions focus on applying data mining and analytics against a wider set of data sources including warranty claims, call-center contacts, vehicle bills of materials, supplier parts catalog, suppliers' bulletins and other attributes for how and where the vehicle is used. The analytics aims at identifying trends, patterns, and abnormalities at an early stage and creating a knowledge model that can be used by the quality engineers to anticipate any major recall.
The present invention provides a system and method for planning and generating queries for multi-dimensional analysis across divisions in an entity using domain models and data integration.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

System and method for planning and generating queries for multi-dimensional analysis using domain models and data federation

International Business Machines Corporation


An electronic healthcare system for delivering medical services is described. The electronic healthcare systems can includes modules for accessing patient electronic medical records and ordering medical services, which involve HL7 communications between disparate healthcare organizations. The communications can involve custom communication interfaces which are used to parse and translate HL7 messages. Methods and apparatus are described for generating the custom communications interfaces. In one embodiment, the custom communication interfaces can be generated using machine learning algorithms trained to recognize various data types in message segments contained in HL7 messages.

Electronic healthcare information networks link hospitals, insurers, laboratories and physician practices to provide healthcare services, such as services related to accessing healthcare information for patients, ordering labs for patients and billing patients. Some standards of communications are available that enable communications between healthcare providers in an electronic healthcare information network. For example, Health Level-7 (HL7) is a set of international standards used to transfer clinical and administrative data between software applications used by various healthcare providers.
Unfortunately, there are many different versions of HL7. In addition, many healthcare providers have customized versions of HL7. Thus, when integrating disparate healthcare providers into a common electronic healthcare information network, even when the healthcare providers utilize a common communication standard, such as HL7, a large amount of time is spent to ensure all the communications are being properly interpreted by all the participants in the network. Precision in the communications is essential because an improper transfer of patient's healthcare information can cause harm to the patients. In view of the above, method and apparatus are desirable that simplify the communication integration of healthcare providers into an electronic healthcare information network.

Systems and methods for integrating communications in a healthcare network


A method and an apparatus for extracting text information for use with a computer system including an input unit, an output unit, and a storage is described. The storage is loaded with documents, abstracts thereof, and relational information indicating relationships between a sentence of the abstracts and sentences of the documents. In response to a selection instruction from the input unit, a sentence is selected from the abstracts such that the documents are accessed so as to extract therefrom, based on the relational information, sentences associated with the selected abstract sentence. Information related to the associated sentences thus extracted is outputted to the output unit. According to the method and the apparatus, text information such as important portions of a document and a list of words appearing in the important portions can be easily obtained by use of the abstracts.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for extracting text information, and in particular, to a method of and an apparatus for extracting text information in which text information related to a document can be easily obtained by use of an abstract of the document.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, when it is desired to attain text information such as important portions of a document or a list of words appearing in the important portions, people read the texts of the document to extract essential parts; thereafter, the extracted portions are respectively inputted as a document to an apparatus for automatically extracting a list of words from the document, thereby producing a word list.
Moreover, in the prior art, in a case where a person desires to refer original document sentences while reading abstracts, the reader is required to find out the corresponding portions of the original document.
However, the method above has been attended with a problem, namely, the operations to read the document to extract important portions thereof and such portions corresponding to the abstracts take a considerably long period of time.

Method of and apparatus for promoting the understanding of a text by using an abstract of that text


A fluid supply system supplying multiple fluid consumers of a vehicle with fluid, the fluid supply system including: a first pump supplying a first fluid consumer, arranged in a first supply circulation of the vehicle, with fluid; a second pump supplying a second fluid consumer, arranged in a second supply circulation of the vehicle, with fluid; and a directional control valve adjustable between a first valve position and at least one other, second valve position and preferably includes an electromagnetic device for adjusting. The directional control valve allows the fluid to be delivered from the second pump into the first supply circulation in the first valve position and separates the first supply circulation from the second pump, or allows the fluid to be delivered from the second pump into the first supply circulation only to a restricted extent as compared to the first valve position, in the second valve position.

Vehicles comprising internal combustion engines can comprise a lubricating oil circulation, for lubricating the engine with lubricating oil, and a cooling circulation for cooling the engine, for example for cooling pistons of the engine. Typically, one of these circulations branches off from the other. For internal combustion engines with variable valve control timing, a supply circulation for adjusting the phase position of the camshaft relative to the crankshaft is also provided. Additionally or instead, the drive motor can also have the option of adjusting the connecting rod length, and the vehicle can comprise a supply circulation for adjusting the connecting rod. Additionally, one or more supply circulations for supplying one or more transmissions, for example an automatic transmission and/or a steering transmission, is/are typically provided in order to be able to fluidically operate the respective transmission. Electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles also have supply circulations for cooling the drive motor, cooling batteries and/or operating one or more transmissions.
The different supply circulations typically place different demands on the volume flows and/or pressures to be provided. A correspondingly large pump can be used to meet different demands. The required pressures and volume flows can be set with the aid of valves. Due to its dimensions, however, the common pump provides a volume flow and/or pressure which is too large and/or high for one or more of the jointly supplied supply circulations, such that part of the fluid is discharged, with losses, into a reservoir for the fluid.
In order to reduce the energy losses resulting from discharging into the reservoir, a main pump and an auxiliary pump can be used, wherein the auxiliary pump is switched in when needed, such that the main pump can be configured to a smaller delivery volume. An auxiliary pump which is driven by and therefore in a fixed rotational speed relationship to the drive motor is switched in and out with the aid of valves via which fluid which is still being delivered surplus to requirement is withdrawn to the reservoir or needlessly conveyed in a smaller circulation bypassing the reservoir. In order to increase the efficiency of a fluid supply system comprising a main and auxiliary pump, the main pump and/or auxiliary pump can be embodied to exhibit an adjustable delivery volume. Alternatively, the auxiliary pump can be driven independently of the drive motor of the vehicle by means of a comparatively small electric motor assigned to the auxiliary pump.

Fluid supply system for supplying multiple fluid consumers of a motor vehicle with fluid


Disclosed are a heat-generating device for a battery and a battery assembly enabling a battery to stably produce electricity even under low-temperature conditions. The heat-generating device for a battery includes a heating element positioned on one side of the battery and generates heat through a reaction with the air. The heating element comprises a main body generating heat through the reaction with the air, and a supporting body wrapping the main body to adhere to the battery. Accordingly, the internal temperature of the battery can be maintained within possible activation temperature ranges to allow the battery to produce electricity, thereby making the battery performance sustainable under low-temperature conditions.

There is a tendency that recent electronic devices are gradually reduced in size so that they can be easily carried. Furthermore, users require more functions. In order to meet the requirements of the users, the electronic devices are being developed to perform more functions. In order to carry the devices for a long term and also receive various contents, a battery supplying electric power to the electronic devices must have an excellent performance. One of the batteries developed in line with the needs is air-metal batteries. The air-metal batteries are advantages in that they can supply a higher voltage and have a high energy density and a great discharge capacity, as compared with common manganese batteries and common alkali-manganese batteries.
In general, batteries can perform their own functions at a certain temperature or higher. This because if temperature is low, the activation ability of internal materials of the battery is low, with the result that the performance of the battery to generate electricity is sharply reduced.
Accordingly, there is a need for a technique for maintaining the temperature of internal materials of a battery within activation temperature ranges in order for the battery to exhibit its performance even at certain temperature conditions.

Heating device for a battery and battery assembly having the same


A memory apparatus includes a non-volatile computer memory, a USB mass storage controller connected to the non-volatile computer memory, the USB mass storage controller including a daisy chain component, a male USB interface connected to the USB mass storage controller, and at least one other interface for a memory device, other than a USB interface, the at least one other interface being connected to the USB mass storage controller.

Conventional universal serial bus (USB) flash drives are NAND-type flash memory data storage devices integrated with a USB interface. Conventional USB flash drives are typically small, lightweight, removable and rewritable. These USB flash drives are commonly known as "thumb drives" and "data sticks."
USB flash drives have several advantages over other portable storage devices, particularly the floppy disk. Conventional USB flash drives are generally faster, hold more data, and are considered more reliable (due to their lack of moving parts) than floppy disks. Conventional USB flash drives use the USB mass storage standard, supported natively by modern operating systems such as Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows XP.
Conventional USB flash drives include a small printed circuit board encased in a robust plastic or metal casing, making the drive sturdy enough to be carried about in a pocket, as a key fob, or on a lanyard. Only a USB interface protrudes from this protection, and is usually covered by a removable cap. Most conventional USB flash drives use a standard type-A USB connection allowing them to be connected directly to a port on a personal computer. USB interfaces are also known as USB connectors.
Most conventional USB flash drives are active only when powered by a USB computer connection, and require no other external power source or battery power source; conventional USB flash drives are powered using the limited supply afforded by the USB connection. To access the data stored in a flash drive, the conventional USB flash drives must be connected to a computer, either by direct connection to the computer's USB port or via a USB hub. USB drives are quickly replacing CD ROMs, floppy drives, and even printed matter in usage.
One end of conventional USB flash drives is fitted with a single male type-A USB interface. Inside the plastic casing is a small printed circuit board. Mounted on this board are simple power circuitry and a small number of surface-mounted integrated circuits (ICs). Typically, one of these ICs provides an interface to the USB port, another drives the onboard memory, and yet another is the flash memory.
The essential components of conventional USB flash drives are a male type-A USB interface, a USB mass storage controller, a NAND flash memory chip and a crystal oscillator. The male type-A USB interface provides an interface to the host computer. The USB mass storage controller includes a USB host controller and provides a linear interface to block-oriented serial flash devices while hiding the complexities of block-orientation, block erasure, and wear balancing or wear leveling. The USB mass storage controller contains a small RISC microprocessor and a small amount of on-chip ROM and RAM. The NAND flash memory chip stores data. The crystal oscillator produces a 12 MHz clock signal and controls data output through a phase-locked loop.
Often the amount of data storage capacity that is available to a personal computer on a USB flash drive is less than the amount of data storage capacity on the USB flash drive that is useful to the computer. By definition, USB flash drives are limited in the amount of data that can be stored thereon because the NAND flash memory chip is manufactured with a certain amount of data storage capacity. The data storage capacity can be increased by physically replacing the NAND flash memory chip, but physically replacing the NAND flash memory chip costs many more times the price of the original USB flash drive, and accordingly, replacing the NAND flash memory chip is not performed except under the most extraordinary of circumstances.
Another option to increase the amount of data storage capacity that is available to a personal computer on a USB flash drive is to connect multiple USB flash drives to multiple USB ports on the computer. However, the number of USB ports that is available on a computer is usually limited to 2 or 3 USB ports, so the number of USB flash drives that can be connected is 2 or 3. Each of the USB flash drives is identified and accessible to the computer as a unique external drive, each having a unique drive identification, such as "D", "E", "F" and so forth. However, each of the USB flash drives having a unique and different drive identification increases the complexity of locating data on the USB flash drives.
Another conventional way to increase the amount of data storage capacity that is available to a personal computer on a USB flash drive is to connect multiple USB flash drives through one of more USB hubs that are in turn connected to the computer. However, this technique still has the problem that each drive has a unique and different drive identification, which in turn increases the complexity of locating data on the USB flash drives. This technique is also ultimately limited by the number of USB ports on the computer and the number of USB devices that can be connected to each port.
There is a need in the art to increase the storage capacity that is available to a personal computer on a USB flash drive. There is also a need in the art to reduce the complexity of locating data on multiple USB flash drives connected to a computer.

The United States of America as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration


Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A base station and user equipment (UE) may utilize an enhanced physical downlink control channel (ePDCCH) within a common search space to establish a MulteFire connection. The common search space may include a common PDCCH (C-PDCCH) and a MulteFire system information block (SIB-MF1) grant. The base station may define one or more common search spaces for the SIB-MF1 grants and C-PDCCH and signal the resource allocation for the common search spaces to the UE within a master information block (MIB). Each common search space may include a fixed set of control elements that the UE monitors for decoding the SIB-MF1 grants and C-PDCCH. In some cases, the base station may hardcode resources for the SIB-MF1 grants and C-PDCCH. Alternatively, the base station may signal the resources for each of the SIB-MF1 grants and C-PDCCH via reserved bits in the MIB.

The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to common search space design for coverage enhancement in wireless communications.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include fourth generation (4G) systems such as a Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) systems, and fifth generation (5G) systems which may be referred to as New Radio (NR) systems. These systems may employ technologies such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), or discrete Fourier transform-spread-OFDM (DFT-S-OFDM). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or network access nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
An example of an emerging radio access technology (RAT) or wireless telecommunication standard is the MulteFire RAT, in which stand-alone connections between base stations and UEs may be established using shared radio frequency spectrum (e.g., unlicensed radio frequency spectrum). In some cases, a base station may transmit transmission resource assignments and other control information for a UE or group of UEs in a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH). The PDCCH may indicate information such as paging information, system information, random access information, power control information, etc. However, some wireless communications systems may include information for a common search space within a limited number of resources reserved for PDCCH information.

Common search space design for coverage enhancement in wireless communications


An optical system for recording or reproducing of information to or from an optical information recording medium, includes: a light source; a coupling lens for converting a diverging light emergent from the light source to a converging light; and an objective lens for further converging the converted converging light and for focusing on an information recording surface of the optical information recording medium. A lateral magnification of the objective lens in which a wavefront aberration within a Marechal criterion is minimum, satisfies the following conditional expression, EQU O<M<1. where M represents the lateral magnification of the objective lens.

The present invention relates to an optical system wherein a light beam emitted from a light source is converged on an optical information recording medium and thereby optical information is recorded and reproduced, and particularly, to an optical system wherein a change in temperature has less influence.
As a conventional optical system for recording and reproducing for an optical information recording medium which is required to have accuracy at the level for coping with CD (an optical system for recording and reproducing in the invention includes an optical system for recording, that for reproducing and that for both recording and reproducing), an optical system of an infinite conjugation type is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection No. 76512/1982 (hereinafter referred to as Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication), and an optical system of a finite conjugation type is disclosed in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 56314/1986. Further, Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 258573/1994 discloses an optical system wherein a coupling lens is used for preventing the occurrence of aberration caused by temperature change in the case of a lens made of resin used.
Recently, however, high density recording on an information recording medium such as an optical disk is further advancing, and this causes a numerical aperture (NA) value in an optical system or of an objective lens to be higher. In addition to this, requirements for performance aspects such as wavefront aberration (spherical aberration) are becoming more severe.
An optical system wherein diverged light emitted from a light source is focused on a recording surface of an optical information medium by an objective lens of a finite conjugation type whose spherical aberration and sine condition are corrected, is well-known. In this case, however, following problems are caused when numerical aperture NA takes a greater value because a refracting power of each surface is greater.
(1) There is a limitation for higher NA.
(2) An amount of spherical aberration generated when an objective lens is moved in the direction of an optical axis for focusing is large.
(3) Occurrence of spherical aberration caused by a change in refractive index of an objective lens is great.
When coping with such higher NA and higher accuracy, wavefront aberration caused by a change in distance between an object and an image resulted from unintentional movement of a disk, or by a change in refractive index resulted from ambient change such as temperature change in the case of a lens made of resin becomes great. Further, requirements in performance which are becoming more severe cause tolerance for an objective lens to be more severe than in the past, and in certain circumstances, there is a possibility that no error is allowed.
When an objective lens is made of resin, in particular, though the required level of conventional accuracy for coping with CD has been satisfied by a method employing a coupling lens disclosed by Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 258573/1994 in the case of a finite conjugation type, the performance required for coping with the recent high density recording can not be satisfied.
In the case of an infinite conjugation type, a change in wavefront aberration caused by a change of a distance between an object and an image does not exist. However, when numerical aperture NA is enhanced to a level of about NA 0.60, a tolerance for the change in wavefront aberration caused by its temperature change is made to be severe at the capacity required for coping with high density recording.
As an example, when a lens made of resin having focal length F of 3.36 mm and NA of 0.6 is a lens of an infinite conjugation type (parallel light coming from the light source side), a wavefront aberration changes by about 0.043 .lambda. (.lambda.=635 nm) for the temperature change of 30.degree. C. Even such small change actually causes a considerable restriction in the required accuracy for coping with DVD announced recently.
The invention further relates to an optical system for reproducing of an optical information medium, a pickup device for an optical information medium, an objective lens for optical information recording and reproducing used for the optical information pickup device and for the optical system for recording and reproducing of an optical information medium, and to a converging lens for an optical system for recording and reproducing optical information.
FIG. 63 shows an example of a pickup device for optical information composed of a conventional optical system for recording and reproducing for an optical information medium. In the drawing, a light flux emitted from light source 1 such as a semi-conductor laser or the like enters collimator lens 3 through beam splitter 2 to be converted to a parallel light flux which is stopped down by aperture stop 5 to a prescribed light flux, and it enters objective lens 6. This objective lens 6 forms, when parallel light flux enters it, an image of a light spot which hardly has an aberration on information recording surface 8 through transparent substrate 7 having a prescribed thickness.
A light flux modulated by information pit and reflected on information recording surface 8 passes through objective lens 6 and collimator lens 3 to return to beam splitter 2 where the light flux is separated from a path of light emitted from laser light source 1 and enters light detector 9. The light detector 9 is a multi-split PIN photodiode which outputs from its element an electric current that is proportional to the intensity of an incident light flux and sends the electric current to an unillustrated detecting circuit . In the detecting circuit, the light detector controls objective lens 6 with a 2-dimensional actuator composed of a magnetic circuit and a coil based on focus error signals and track error signals, and thereby makes a position of a light spot to be on an information track constantly.
In the pickup device of optical information medium as in the foregoing, large NA (for example, NA 0.6) is used for making a light spot converged by an objective lens small. Therefore, when a thickness of a transparent substrate placed in such a converged light flux is deviated from a prescribed thickness, a serious spherical aberration is caused.
For example, when a substrate thickness is changed for an objective lens optimized under the conditions of NA 0.6, wavelength of 635 nm for a laser beam emitted from a laser light source, a substrate thickness of 0.6 mm and of substrate refractive index of 1.58, an aberration increases by about 0.01 .lambda. rms for a deviation of 0.01 mm in the substrate thickness as shown in FIG. 64. Therefore, when a thickness of a transparent thickness is deviated by .+-.0.07 mm, it causes an aberration of 0.07 .lambda. rms which means that the aberration reaches Marechal criterion (0.07 .lambda. rms) that is a standard with which reading can be conducted normally.
In an example shown in FIG. 63, therefore, when a thickness of transparent substrate 7 is changed from 0.6 mm to 1.2 mm, objective lens 6 suitable for 0.6 mm thickness is changed to objective lens 111 suitable for 1.2 mm thickness and aperture stop 10 is changed, for reproduction.
Further, as another method to cope with a change from 0.6 mm to 1.2 mm in terms of a substrate thickness, it is also considered to provide two pickup devices one of which is for a 0.6 mm- thick substrate and the other is for a 1.2 mm-thick substrate.

Optical system for recording and reproducing for use in optical information recording medium


The described technology is generally directed towards consistently replicating and reconstructing a data stream made up of a dynamic set of (ordered) segments into a different location (e.g., cluster) from the one in which the stream was created. The technology facilitates consistently and generally continuously and replicating a stream of events ingested in a source cluster to a target cluster for consumption (reading). As stream data segments are replicated to a target cluster by a replicator which is not guaranteed to keep the replicated data consistent, a target controller reconstructs the replicated data stream up to a stream cut point at which the replicated data has been sufficiently replicated so as to be consistent. Reading of the replicated data stream is limited to a view up to the stream cut point; as more data is replicated, additional data up to a later stream cut point becomes available for reading.

Contemporary data storage systems, such as DELL EMC's PRAVEGA system/data storage service, store data in a storage abstraction referred to as a stream. A stream is identified with a name, and can store continuous and potentially unbounded data; more particularly, a stream comprises a durable, elastic, append-only, sequence of stored events. New events are added to a tail (front) of a stream, maintained in Tier-1 storage. Older stream data can be aggregated into chunks and written to Tier-2 storage, for example to an object storage system (e.g. Dell EMC's ECS data storage system) or to a file storage system (e.g. DELL EMC's ISILON data storage system).
One stream may be split into a set of shards or partitions generally referred to as stream segments (or simply segments). The segments act as logical containers for events within the stream. When a new event is written to a stream, it is stored to one of the segments based on the event's routing key; event routing keys are hashed to form a "key space," which is divided into a number of partitions, corresponding to the number of segments.
A stream is consigned to the storage cluster on which the stream is created, and that cluster has to accept any events that are appended to that stream. However, there are situations in which the location where the data is written is not necessarily the most appropriate location for readers (event consumers) to consume the data. For example, data may be created at a network edge, but the data may need to be consumed (analyzed) in a core location that has sufficient computational resources to process the data. If there is a need to read stream events from a distant cluster, often with high latency and/or high bandwidth costs, then it may not be feasible to properly analyze that data.
However, replicating a stream to a different cluster (cross-cluster replication) is not able to be done by simply replicating the data within the segments that compose the stream. For one, the Tier-2 portion of any non-sealed segment may contain a partial event at its tail; the rest of the event is in Tier-1 storage, which is off-limits for Tier-2 replication at such a moment, until the rest of the event is eventually copied. A partial event cannot be passed to an event reader, as doing so triggers a data corruption.
Streams can also have distributed transactions for events. Stream transactions are applied atomically to the segments within a stream, and the components that work with the stream (client, segment store and controller) coordinate so that the events within any transaction only become available for reading once the transaction is committed. However, that does not guarantee that the events in a transaction are atomically written to Tier-2 storage, let alone atomically replicated to other clusters, which can trigger a consistency problem.
Further, segments can be scaled based on data ingestion patterns, meaning that the number of segments in a stream at a given time can be automatically increased by splitting a segment into two or more successor segments that evenly split that segment's routing key space, or decreased by merging two or more predecessor segments into a single successor segment. The predecessor-successor relationships are maintained by the controller in its own metadata, which may contain interleaved information about multiple streams, and/or the metadata may be maintained in a format that does not make it easy for consistent replication (or even may not be able to be replicated, e.g., due to the choice of storage media). Such metadata needs to be replicated to reconstruct the stream in a different cluster.
Still further, the actual replication of data stored in Tier-2 is not controlled by the streaming platform, but rather is performed by a storage device/a file transfer tool. In most implementations, such replication is asynchronous, with no guarantee as to which files/objects are replicated first; (the only guarantee provided is consistency within a file/object itself).

Consistent data stream replication and reconstruction in a streaming data storage platform


A computer system for producing computer generated displays, including window-format displays permitting visualization of changes to a building or structure in an actual environment. The system provides a background display of digital images originating from either an image capture device or from other sources to which changes are to be made for visualization purposes; a product catalog in the form of a database of objects, together with features in the computer system operable to record and store digital images of the objects as well as detailed information related to the objects within the database; and a mechanism to copy and removably place the object over the background.

1.1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to digital image processing, more particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for producing a computer generated display that permits visualization of changes to the exterior or interior of any building structures.
1.2. Problems in the Art
Product catalogs have existed for years in printed form allowing customers to browse through illustrations, photographs and information about the products listed in the catalog. With the advent of computers, there have been product catalogs created in the digital media. Some of these digital catalogs have combined photographic and video images with audio in order to present the products being sold and provide information about those products. However, by and large, these product catalogs created in the digital media have retained the static look and feel of their predecessors in the print media. These digital catalog programs are not known to allow the user to manipulate, experiment and apply the catalog products in a dynamic fashion to create a realistic photographic rendering of the products in actual use, with pertinent information about the product staying bundled with the digitized image of the product as it is manipulated or moved over a fixed composition background.
Computer aided design ("CAD") programs also are known in the art. These programs allow for the design of proposed projects and structures, as well as the creation of three-dimensional models of those structures. However, traditional CAD programs do not allow a user to utilize a digitized photographic image of the user's actual home, yard or interior room as a fixed composition background against which it is possible to manipulate digitized photographic images of building, home improvement and landscaping products from real manufacturers to create a realistic photographic rendering of the products in actual use.
Various graphics and drawing programs are also known in the art. Programs such as Corel Draw, Adobe Photoshop and similar programs allow users to "cut and paste" images onto a composite background image and to fill a particular area with a pattern. Some of these graphics and drawing programs also allow the pasted images to remain as objects over the composite background image. Programs have been proposed which allow a user to preview a few selected images of certain home improvement products against a predefined digitized background image of an interior room or other portion of a house that is not that of the user. U.S. Patent No. 4,970,666, to Welsh, et al., teaches a system for producing video images which depict the appearance of a simulated structure in a video-derived image of the actual environment. The system disclosed in the '666 patent does not, however, provide for access to information about the image elements from a database by means of linking the information with the images of the products as they are manipulated or moved over the background image of the actual environment. Further, the '666 patent does not provide for access to information related to the image elements placed over or merged with a background by means of an interface associated with a computer generated screen display. Yet further, the system in the '666 patent lacks the ability to manipulate image objects (e.g., object resizing, distorting, edge smoothing, etc.) of actual products (in the form of digital images) over the background image.
Graphics or drawing programs are not known to allow a user to manipulate digitized photographic object images from a database of building, home improvement and landscaping products from real manufacturers and other venders. Further, such programs are not known to be operable to place digital images of objects over a digitized photographic image of the user's actual home, yard or interior room as a fixed composition background so as to create a realistic photographic rendering of how the products would look in actual use, while at the same time allowing unique information about each product from the database to stay bundled or linked with the product images being manipulated.
1.3. Objects, Features, and Advantages of the Invention
Therefore, a primary advantage of the present invention is the provision of an apparatus and method for producing a computer generated display that permits on-line visualization of changes to the interior or exterior of a building structure which improves over the problems and deficiencies, and which satisfies a long felt need, in the art.
Further exemplary objects, features, and advantages of the present invention include the provision of an apparatus and method of producing computer generated displays which:
1. permits the system user to visualize how various actual products would look when applied to a fixed digital photographic image of the interior or exterior of a real home or other building.
2. permits the system user to input the fixed digital photographic image of the interior or exterior of a real home or other building through a plurality of image capture and transfer means.
3. provides the system user with access to thousands of images of interior and exterior home products from actual manufacturers, as well as landscaping and horticultural products, in a huge interactive CD-ROM database.
4. provides the system user with pertinent information about all of the products in the CD-ROM database.
5. provides the system user with easy access to the pertinent information about any product in the CD-ROM database through a simple click of the mouse, by creating a "link" from the image of the product to the information about that product stored in the CD-ROM database.
6. allows the system user to select a specific area of the fixed background image of the interior or exterior of a home or other building and to visualize changes to only that specific area by dragging or otherwise placing image objects of products in the CD-ROM database over that specific area chosen.
7. allows the system user to arrange, rotate, position, resize, orient and otherwise manipulate the product image objects that are placed on the fixed background image to create a realistic composite image.
8. allows the system user to save the composite image created with all image objects in place, and to later reopen that saved file with all image objects remaining active and manipulatable.
9. allows the system user to generate a list of all products and other materials in a composite image, which list may be printed, saved as a text file and exported to estimator software applications.
10. permits the system user to erase any part of an image object, thereby making a "hole" in the object, allowing the system user to see the fixed background image beneath.
11. permits the system user to make the composite image more realistic by adding shadowing, making the image look more or less sunny, "night lighting" and changing the scenery behind the main object in the composite image.
12. permits the system user to resize a selected image object so that it will fit exactly into a selected rectangular area, or alternatively, so that it will fit proportionally into a selected rectangular area and such a feature permits the system user to resize the rectangular image or an irregular shaped image.
These and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent with reference to the accompanying specification and claims.

Method and apparatus for producing a computer generated display that permits visualization of changes to the interior or exterior of a building structure shown in its actual environment


The projection device includes a projector housing, wherein a light source mechanism is provided on a right side of an internal bottom end of the projector housing, a lens set is arranged on a right side of the projector housing, two guide slots are vertically arranged on an inner wall on a left side of the projector housing, a lifting support is arranged on the two guide slots, the lifting support is fitted to the two guide slots via a lifting device, a first reflector is obliquely arranged on the lifting support, a second reflector is fixedly and obliquely arranged under the lifting support, and a direction of an inclination of the second reflector is opposite to a direction of an inclination of the first reflector.

A projector, also known as a projection machine, is an apparatus which can project an image or a video onto a curtain, and can be connected to a computer, a VCD, a DVD, a BD, a game console, a DV, etc. via different interfaces to play respective video signals. LCD projectors are one type of projector. The LCD projectors have the advantages of good color reproduction, high resolution, small size and light weight, are also convenient to carry, and are a mainstream product in the current projector market.
At present, a projection device based on the single-chip LCD technology generally comprises a light source component (such as a light source and a reflection cup), an incident light guide component (generally a convex lens, a condensing lens, a reflection cup, a light cone, an incident Fresnel lens, etc.), an LCD screen, an emergent Fresnel lens, and a lens set. For some of the projection machines, a mirror forming an angle of 45 degrees with the center of an optical axis is arranged in a horizontal direction between the emergent Fresnel lens and the lens set. However, according to the design of optics and optical path of such a projection device, the change in optical path is only implemented in one horizontal plane, and thus the projection device has a single form and simple functions.
The invention with the application No. CN 201720481960.3 discloses an optical path structure of a projector, and it can be seen from to the disclosed structure that, according to this patent, two reflectors are additionally provided outside the projector to change the travel path of light, so that there is a difference in height in a vertical direction between the projection position of light and the position of a light source so as to implement the change in the vertical direction of the optical path and extend the travel distance of light at the same time, thereby sufficiently projecting a clear image in a limited space. However, the reflectors thereof are fixedly arranged outside the projector, such that the optical path and the optical distance thereof are fixed, which limits the use thereof in some different environments and limits the function thereof to adjust the projected image. Moreover, the reflectors fixedly arranged outside occupy a large space and cannot move flexibly. In essence, it is only an auxiliary close-range amplification device that is arranged outside an existing projection machine, with the fundamental purpose of amplifying a projected image in a relatively narrow space.

Small adjustable projection device based on secondary reflection


A shock absorbing device includes a mounting bracket which is fastened at a first end thereof to the vehicle body and removably mounted at a second end thereof to the vehicle body, an upper pedal arm which is rotatably mounted to the mounting bracket using a hinge shaft, and a lower pedal arm which is removably coupled to the upper pedal arm using a locking pin. The shock absorbing device further includes a locking pin removal device which removes the lower pedal arm from the upper pedal arm when a vehicle collision occurs, and a guide device which serves as a guide for movement of the mounting bracket when the vehicle collision occurs and provides a reaction force for the locking pin removal device.

As well known to those skilled in the art, a brake system is provided in a vehicle to reduce the speed of the vehicle or to stop it. The brake system includes a brake pedal which is disposed near a driver, a brake booster which amplifies actuating force of the brake pedal, a master cylinder which generates hydraulic pressure using the amplified actuating force transmitted from the brake booster, and a brake body which brakes wheels using the hydraulic pressure transmitted from the master cylinder.
The brake pedal is supported underneath a dash panel, which divides an engine room from a passenger compartment, so as to be rotatable in forward and backward directions of the vehicle.
However, in the conventional brake system having the above-mentioned construction, if the vehicle, while traveling, frontally collides, the brake pedal supported underneath the dash panel is rotated towards the driver, so that the leg of the driver may strike the brake pedal, thus resulting in a severe injury to the driver.
To reduce injury to the driver due to the brake pedal in a vehicle frontal collision, various shock absorbing devices for brake pedals have been developed, but they have problems in that the structures thereof are complex or shock absorbing effect thereof is insufficient.