A control negative for use in setting up exposure conditions for three colors in a photo-printer contains a mosaic pattern in a frame. The mosaic pattern is constituted of a plurality of segments of different densities and sizes. The segments are arranged such that the same area transmittance density can be obtained when density values are measured from different areas of the frame. The control negative is useful for different type photo-printers having different photometric areas for measuring the area transmittance density of the control negative.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control negative for use in setting a photo-printer to proper exposure conditions, prior to actual printing. More particularly, the present invention relates to a general control negative which is applicable to any kind of photo-printer for setting up proper exposure conditions.
2. Background Art
An automatic photo-printer determines an appropriate print-exposure in accordance with three color densities of a negative to be printed, which are measured by an image scanner such as a CCD scanner mounted in the photo-printer. To achieve a homogeneous image quality, it is desirable to check, prior to actual printing, the exposure conditions for three colors, to set up the photo-printer to proper exposure conditions, because the exposure conditions can change according to the photo-printer type or changes in properties of the same photo-printer, or according to a difference in color characteristics among color papers used for printing.
For setting up proper exposure conditions for three colors in the photo-printer, first a sample print is made from a control negative (or called a set-up negative), without effecting any exposure correction to the photo-printer. Next, densities of three colors, such as yellow, magenta and cyan, of the sample print are measured by a density measurement device. Then, three color densities of a previously provided reference print made from the control negative under optimum exposure conditions are also measured by the density measurement device. Then, a difference in density between the sample print and the reference print is detected color by color. According to the difference in each color density, an exposure correction value is determined for any one of the three colors, and is entered through correction keys. In this way, the photo-printer is set to proper exposure conditions where a print made from the control negative would have the same density and color balance as the reference print. The density measurement device is usually incorporated in the photo-printer, to measure three color densities from a predetermined central area of the sample print or the reference print.
Generally, most original frames expected to be printed have been photographed under daylight, i.e., sunlight from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., or under similar exposure conditions, at proper exposure values determined based on the film speed, so that most negatives have proper image densities. In addition, it is usual that a human subject occupies about one-third of the entire area of each negative frame, while the remaining area, i.e. the background is occupied by landscapes such as trees, sky, walls and so forth. In principle, a mixture of three color transmittance densities of all pixels of a properly exposed negative results in a neutral gray.
Therefore, as a representative of such ordinary negatives, conventional control negative kit 2 contains a round eye portion 3 in a center of the frame, which is designed to be printed as a neutral gray circle in the reference print. And a background 4 of a different color density surrounds the eye portion 3, as is shown in FIG. 9. Control negative frames 5 to 8 are photographed from the same original at different exposure values. The frame 5 is photographed at a normal exposure value, so is called a normal exposed frame. The frame 6 is photographed at an insufficient exposure value, so is called an under-exposed frame. The frame 7 is photographed at an excessive exposure value, so is called an over-exposed frame. The frame 8 is photographed at a greatly excessive exposure value, so is called a super over-exposed frame. The normal exposed frame 5 represents a standard original frame to be printed. Besides these control negative frames 5 to 8, there is provided a blank frame 9 with no image on the control negative kit 2 to show a basic density of the filmstrip used for the control negative kit 2.
First, a sample print is made from the normal exposed frame 5 by measuring an average transmittance density within a photometric area, so-called LATD (large area transmittance density), of the normal exposed frame 5 through a photometric device such as a CCD image scanner. The photometric area covered by the image scanner varies depending upon the type of photo-printers. For example, three types photo-printers "COMPACT", "ROCKY" and "FAP3500" (trade names) produced by Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., have different photometric areas, i.e., 49%, 64% and 100% of the entire area of the full-size frame of the 135-size film, respectively. Accordingly, with the same control negative kit 2, the area ratio of the eye portion 3 to the background 4 within the photometric area would change between the different types of photo-printers. So the consequent photometric value, i.e. the average transmittance density within the photometric area, would change according to the change in area ratio of the eye portion 3 to the background 4 within the photometric area.
To avoid this problem, it is possible to provide a specific control negative kit to each photo-printer type by changing the size or the density of the eye portion 3 according to the respective photo-printer types. But this solution is obviously inefficient, and results in complicated management of the control negative kit.

Control negative for use in setting up exposure condition of photo-printer


A power distribution unit includes a housing, a plurality of power outlets disposed within the housing, and a dynamic illumination element operable in a user selected one of a plurality of distinct colors. Systems and methods of color coding input power paths to power distribution units are also described. The power distribution units are universally used in different color coded combinations with increased manufacturing and supply chain efficiencies, and simplified customer order processing.

The field of the invention relates generally to industrial power distribution units, and more specifically to multi-outlet power distribution units for computer server rack applications including data center computing equipment and devices powered by redundant power supplies.
Computer data center applications typically include a plurality of computer servers arranged in server racks or cabinets. Power distribution units (PDUs) include a number of power outlets distributed on a housing of the PDU for respective connection to components and equipment arranged on the server rack. The respective PDUs may receive power from the same power source or different power sources. Over a large number of server racks or cabinets housing large numbers of data center components, readily understanding the electrical connections made to the PDUs and various power sources feeding power to the PDUs presents practical challenges. Conventional PDUs are disadvantaged in some aspects from the manufacturer's perspective, and improvements are desired to more completely meet the needs of certain applications of PDUs.

Universal power distribution unit, systems and methods including user selectable dynamic color illumination


An image forming apparatus including: an outputted image density control portion that forms a patch image and determines an outputted image density control condition based on a comparison result of the density of the patch image with a preliminarily set target value; a pixel count portion capable of counting the amount of image pixel at the time of image formation; a pixel count value accumulating memory portion that accumulates and stores the pixel count value; a toner supply portion; a toner supply amount measuring portion capable of measuring the amount of toner supplied to the developing device; a toner supply amount accumulating memory portion that accumulates and stores the toner supply amount; and a target value correcting portion that corrects the target value of the density of the patch image from the relation between a pixel count accumulating value and a toner supply amount accumulation value, is provided.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus having an image forming engine which forms an image by forming a static latent image by irradiating light beam corresponding to image data onto the surface of an image carrying body charged uniformly, developing that image with toner, transferring the toner image directly or through an intermediate transfer body and fixing the transferred toner image and, to an output image density correction method thereof.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, an image forming apparatus employing this kind of electronic photographing method such as a copier, printer, facsimile, or multi-function machine thereof includes a charging portion, light beam scanning portion, developing portion, transferring portion and the like, disposed around a photo conductor drum as an image carrying body such that they oppose the peripheral surface of this photo conductor drum.
That is, the surface of the photo conductor drum is charged uniformly by applying a predetermined voltage to the charging portion, a static latent image is formed with a light beam from the light beam scanning portion, that image is developed by supplying toner in the developing portion, the toner image is transferred to an intermediate transfer body or the like by the transfer portion, and then that image is finally transferred to a paper.
The paper to which the image is transferred is subjected to fixing processing by the fixing portion during the transportation up to a discharge port.
In such a conventional image forming apparatus, a method for adjusting toner density in the developing portion and output image density with a single light beam sensor (density sensor) has been invented for reduction of manufacturing cost and reduction of the apparatus size. A specific example includes forming a toner density adjustment patch and an image density adjustment patch at a predetermined interval, determining a toner density and image density by measuring these patch densities with the light beam sensor, and adjusting the toner density and image density corresponding to this determination result.
To stabilize the image quality, the technologies described have been proposed.
A first related art aims at obtaining uniformity of image density and fixing property so as to maintain image quality in printing at a high image ratio in order to stabilize the image quality with a simple structure.
That is, the structure of this related art includes a portion which counts the amount of dots, a memory which stores a dot count value, and a control portion which controls toner development bias, and the bias voltage is raised when the dot count value exceeds a predetermined value.
As a consequence, the apparatus of this related art counts the amount of dots of an outputted image each time and increments the count value at the memory portion and when this value exceeds a value when the image quality begins to drop, the apparatus raises its development bias so as to suppress the quality drop in the density.
A second related art has proposed improvement with respect to the drop in solid density or the drop in character image quality due to the charge-up of the developing agent because the amount of toner discharged (developed) is insufficient when a number of low density images which are nearly blank sheets are outputted, and improvement with respect to the increase of running cost due to the acceleration of toner consumption pace within the developing machine in the case of a high image density (because of reduction in the charge of the toner).
That is, when the amount of discharge is insufficient, the amount of toner calculated under the discharge mode (by the adjustment control of the developing machine) is discharged so as to consume toner of more than a predetermined amount for a specified number of sheets. If the amount of discharge is large, toner is charged by operating the developing machine for a predetermined time.
A third related art has proposed maintaining a specified printing performance by securing the density by correcting the development bias, which method is used in the field of electronic photographing type high-speed printers because the low density appears after a printing operation at a low printing ratio or an intermittent printing operation.
That is, the correction is executed step by step corresponding to a detection result of the developing agent consumption rate in order to prevent the tone jump caused by correction.
However, in the above-described image forming apparatus, actual toner density or image density often largely diverges from a target even though a measured value by the aforementioned light beam sensor is near a target toner density or image density. The reason for this is due to dispersion in the amount of developing agent (MOS) on a developing roll, a degree of scattering of a patch image, or dispersion in the developing agent, photo conductor, intermediate transfer member or the like, and in any case, if these values largely diverge from their target values, a variety of troubles occur in image quality.
Particularly if the image density is higher than the target value, there is not only a problem concerning the image quality such as the generation of a ghost or transfer failure but also a problem that the life of a toner cartridge cannot be satisfied because the amount of consumed toner is large.
The correction disclosed in the first related art is not sufficient since the correction is not conducted when the number of dots is smaller than a number at which the quality drop begins. Further, the related art does not teach means to conduct correction when the image density is high.
Further, the second related art has no effect in keeping constant image density during normal operation because it intends to suppress toner charge-up or an influence at the time of low charge.
Additionally, the third related art has no effect in keeping constant image density during normal operation because it intends to suppress toner charge-up or an influence at the time of low charge.

Image forming apparatus and output image density correction method


An information technology services providing company manages a portfolio of software applications for a client company. A plurality of the applications are preselected along with a recommendation for each. The recommendations have value drivers with parameters. Values for the parameters are received from the client as responses to questions or through collaboration with the client. A business value is then determined for the value drivers using the parameter values. Total cash flow, return on investment, net present value, internal rate of return, or other financial measures may be calculated. The client decides to proceed with the recommendations and the services providing company delivers services and software according to the recommendations.

During periods of slow economic expansion such as that encountered by today's technology companies, budget pressure is applied to limit and reduce spending by information technology (IT) organizations within the company. In addition, significant competitive and technological changes are forcing such IT organizations to keep up, just to stay even with their competitors. The IT organizations cannot simply wait until the economy improves to move on. Furthermore, the shift to an on-demand environment for IT services increases these pressures on companies.
In response, IT organizations need to get the most possible value out of the money they do spend on IT and also get the most possible value out of their existing IT assets.
Companies which provide IT services to other companies (clients) therefore need to help clients manage their large portfolios of applications in a way which extracts the most possible value from these portfolio assets, while also transforming applications to realize the business needs of the on-demand environment, flexibility, adaptability, and agility. Senior and IT executives at client companies are focused on the objectives of drive out cost and drive in value. However, because of the complexity involved in large application portfolios, these objectives are difficult to achieve. A client may have several thousand applications in their portfolio. Management of a client's application portfolio therefore is a significant problem both for IT services companies as well as for the client IT organizations.
In accordance with the teachings of the present invention, there is defined a new process for providing such application portfolio management to a client.
It is believed that such a process would constitute a significant advancement to the IT services providing art.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Software application portfolio management for a client

International Business Machines Corporation


An adhesive tape which comprises a tape base material having stretchability and an adhesive mainly consists of a rubber having halogen or the nitrile groups in the molecule and having unsaturated bonds in the main chain, or added therein a second rubber having halogen in the molecule and having no unsaturated bond in the main chain and/or a blocked polyisocyanate, the adhesive being coated on a surface of the tape base material. This adhesive tape shows firm adhesion to almost all the industrial rubber, particularly to a vulcanized rubber and also has high elasticity of the coated film so that, by using this adhesive tape, sporting goods made of rubber having good stretchability can be produced without troublesome sewing and sealing procedures.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an adhesive tape, more particularly to an adhesive tape which can be suitably used for adhering materials having large stretchability such as vulcanized rubber to each other.
2. Related Art Statement
Sporting goods, such as a wet suit or a dry suit, made of rubber have been prepared by cutting raw sheet of vulcanized rubber to a predetermined shape and then sewing cut pieces with each other. Also, in the case where very high airtight property or waterproof property is required, after sewing the cut pieces, sewed portions are then further sealed with an adhesive and the like. However, the above procedure of sewing or sealing requires much labor so that a production cost of the sporting goods increases. Therefore, in recent years, technique wherein cut pieces are not sewed but adhered by using an adhesive tape has been utilized. As an adhesive to be used in this kind of adhesive tapes, there have been known a chloroprene type adhesive, to which a curing agent such as isocyanate is added; an isocyanate type adhesive; a hot melt type adhesive; and the like.
However, vulcanized rubber has a disadvantage that it is usually poor in adhesiveness for those conventional adhesive tapes. This is because additives included in vulcanized rubber such as stearic acid, wax or an antioxidant are gradually migrated to the surface layer thereof whereby adhesive force of the adhesive is decreased. Further, stretchability of the adhesive is poor so that it cannot follow to stretching or bending of vulcanized rubber. Thus, in the case of sporting goods made of rubber which has particularly high stretchability, such as a wet suit or a dry suit, adhesive surface becomes gradually aged and cracks are generated. And thus, there is a problem that water penetrates through adhered portion whereby lifetime of the product becomes markedly short. From the above circumstances, there have been desired to provide an adhesive tape having firm adhesion to vulcanized rubber as well as high elasticity of a coated film.


The soundproof casing is divided to an engine room (1), a muffler room (2) and a radiator room (3). The engine room (1) includes the engine E and a work machine unit (generator unit G). The muffler room (2) includes mufflers M1, M2. The radiator room includes a radiator R. An electric fan D is provided between an air intake aperture (22a) and the radiator. The radiator room and the muffler room are communicated. An air flow duct (4) to communicate the engine room and the muffler room is provided. An engine fan F is provided just opposite to an entrance of the air flow duct. An inter-cooler I is provided in the air flow duct. The soundproof type engine driven work machine including aforementioned apparatuses is offered to improve the cooling efficiency as well as reducing unfavorable noise.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a soundproof type engine driven work machine (hereinafter referred to as work machine), and more particularly relates to a construction of introducing the cooling air into a soundproof casing accommodating an engine driven work machine unit.
2. Prior Art
A work machine unit accommodated within a soundproof casing has been conventionally used to reduce uncomfortable noise. A soundproof type engine driven generator (hereinafter referred to as generator) is explained as a typical example of this kind of work machines.
As shown in FIG. 1, main part of the generator comprises a generator unit Gxe2x80x3 as a work machine unit, an engine Exe2x80x3  of which rear end power axis is communicated to the generator unit Gxe2x80x2, a muffler Mxe2x80x3 connecting to the engine Exe2x80x3, an air-cooled type inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3 acting as a charge cooler, and a radiator Rxe2x80x3. An engine fan Fxe2x80x3 is directly provided to the front end of said engine Exe2x80x3 and driven by said engine E. Directly opposite to said engine fan Fxe2x80x3 the inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3 and the radiator Rxe2x80x3 are aligned in consecutive order from right to left in FIG. 1. All abovementioned parts are accommodated in a soundproof casing Kxe2x80x3 to reduce uncomfortable noise. There are provided an air intake aperture 31axe2x80x3 on the rear side of said soundproof casing K and an air exhaust aperture 25axe2x80x3 on the ceiling at front side.
While said generator being driven, the heat generated from the generator unit Gxe2x80x3, the engine Exe2x80x3, the inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3, the radiator Rxe2x80x3 and the muffler Mxe2x80x3 is cooled by the cooling air flowing through the soundproof casing K. The cooling air is introduced into the soundproof casing K through the air intake aperture 31axe2x80x3 by rotating the engine fan Fxe2x80x3. The cooling air passes through an air flow passage formed in the soundproof casing K consecutively as cooling the generator unit Gxe2x80x3, the engine Exe2x80x3, the inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3, the radiator Rxe2x80x3 and the muffler Mxe2x80x3 and is exhausted through the exhaust aperture 25a.
However, it has been pointed out that the cooling air is warmed up because it goes through the intake aperture 31axe2x80x3, the generator unit Gxe2x80x3, the engine Exe2x80x3, the inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3, the radiator Rxe2x80x3 and the muffler Mxe2x80x3 while passing through the soundproof casing K, the cooling air is warmed up by the heat of the air already cooled the aforementioned apparatuses. As the cooling air approaches the exhaust aperture 25a said cooling air to cool the inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3, the radiator Rxe2x80x3 and the muffler Mxe2x80x3 is already warmed up. Thus, the cooling efficiency is much reduced.
In order to overcome such undesirable efficiency reduction it is naturally required to supply more additional cooling air into the soundproof casing K so that the cooling air may cool the inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3, the radiator Rxe2x80x3 and the muffler Mxe2x80x3 sufficiently. In other word, it was required to enlarge the areas of the intake aperture 31axe2x80x3 and the exhaust aperture 25axe2x80x3 or expand the capacities of the radiator Rxe2x80x3, the inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3 and the engine fan Fxe2x80x3.
In the meantime, the conventional generator in which the inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3 and the radiator Rxe2x80x3 are provided opposite to the engine fan Fxe2x80x3 is pointed out that the combustion sound of the engine Exe2x80x3 or the machine sound (hereinafter referred to as engine sound) which is the main cause of the engine sound is leaked outside through the air intake aperture 31axe2x80x3 or the air exhaust aperture 25a after passing through the core part of the radiator Rxe2x80x3.
For this reason, if the area of the air intake aperture 31axe2x80x3 or the air exhaust aperture 25axe2x80x3 should be enlarged, the engine sound during the operation of the generator is accordingly much enlarged. Meanwhile, if the capacities of the inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3 and the radiator Rxe2x80x3 are enlarged, a more larger inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3 and a more larger radiator Rxe2x80x3 are required and thus the dimension of the core part is enlarged and the engine sound passing through the said core part becomes larger. The engine sound becomes larger more and more. This is a big problem of the engine sound.
In the meantime, to reduce the leakage of the noisy sound from the soundproof casing Kxe2x80x3, it is required to reduce the areas of the aperture of the air intake aperture 31axe2x80x3 and the air exhaust aperture 25axe2x80x3. Further it is required to provide an element to shut the transmission of the noisy sound in the cooling air passages in the casing K or to provide some bending parts in the passages to obstruct the pressure is also required. However, against such construction, it is pointed out that the volume of the cooling air is reduced and cooling efficiency at each apparatus is reduced.
Accordingly, improving the cooling efficiency and reducing the noisy sound at each apparatus conflict with each other.
Furthermore, if the volumes of the inter-cooler Ixe2x80x3, the radiator Rxe2x80x3, the engine fan F, etc. are enlarged, the configuration dimension of the soundproof casing K which accommodates these apparatuses is accordingly enlarged. This will be in conflict with the concept that the size of the generator should be small.
The present invention has been made with the foregoing background in mind. The object of the present invention is to offer a soundproof type engine driven work machine to improve the cooling efficiency and reduce the noise.
In order to resolve the foregoing detects, the soundproof type engine driven work machine according to the present invention is provided with an engine with an engine fan, a work machine unit driven with said engine, a radiator connected to the engine, a charge cooler and the muffler. These apparatuses are accommodated in the soundproof casing. The soundproof casing is divided to an engine room, a muffler room and a radiator room in which said engine as well as said work machine unit being housed in the engine room, said muffler being housed in said muffler room and said radiator being housed in said radiator room. Said engine room is provided with the air intake aperture, said muffler room being provided with the air exhaust aperture, said radiator room being provided with the air intake aperture, respectively. Said radiator room and said muffler room are communicated each other. An electric fan is provided between said air intake aperture in the radiator room and said radiator. Further, an air flow duct is provided between said engine room and said muffler room. The engine fan is provided directly opposite to an inlet of the air flow duct. In the air flow duct there is provided said charge cooler. This is the main characteristic of the soundproof type engine driven work machine according to the present invention.
The charge cooler indicates an apparatus to cool the air for combustion the engine which has been supercharged by compression. It indicates an inter-cooler or an after cooler apparatuses.
The air intake aperture and the air exhaust aperture formed in each room introduces and exhausts the air through each aperture, respectively.
Accordingly, the soundproof casing is divided to the engine room, the muffler room and the radiator room. The engine room encloses the engine and the work machine unit, the muffler room encloses the muffler and the radiator room encloses the radiator, respectively. The radiator room is provided with the electric fan and the air flow duct is provided with the air-cooling apparatus. Thus, cooling efficiency for the apparatus in each room is greately improved.
In radiator room, a clear non-heated air introduced from outside through the air intake aperture by means of electric fan is used for cooling said electric fan and the cooling air only used for cooling the electric fan is used for cooling the radiator. Thus cooling efficiency is greately improved.
The cooling air in the engine room and the air flow duct for cooling the work machine unit, the engine and the charge cooler is sucked from the air intake aperture of the engine room by means of the engine fan provided in the engine. The cooling air travels from the work machine unit and the engine and is introduced to the air flow duct to cool the charge cooler. Further, after passing through the muffler room and the engine room, the muffler is cooled by the air introduced from the air flow duct, or the cooling air introduced from the radiator room. The cooling air used is not the air used for cooling all of the engine, the charge cooler and the radiator. Thus cooling efficiency is improved.
Further, cooling of the radiator is not required; it becomes possible to decrease the amount of the cooling air. Thus, the size of the engine fan can be reduced. Like that, as necessary amount of the cooling air for cooling each apparatus is decreased, smaller size of engine is available when compared with the conventional apparatus. Areas of the air intake aperture and the air exhaust aperture can be reduced. Also, it is possible to place an element to prevent noise propagation in air flow passage, or to provide a bent to disturb the inside pressure. It is possible to decrease the noise leaking out to the exterior of the soundproof casing.
Further, the size of the electric fan can be reduced because it cools only the radiator efficiently with aligned flow of the cooling air. The wind-cut noise from the core of the radiator is reduced. The noise is also greately reduced by preventing it from leaking out through the air intake aperture by means of the electric fan.
As the muffler room and the radiator room are communicated, if the electric fan in the radiator room should be stopped due to some unknown reasons, the cooling air is introduced from the muffler room to the radiator room by closing the exhaust aperture of the muffler room, the cooling air is exhausted through the air intake aperture of the radiator room after cooling the radiator. For this reason, the generator is continuously operated under the lower load operating condition.
Further, the present invention is characterized in that an air exhaust aperture of the muffler room is provided at the ceiling part of the soundproof casing of the soundproof type engine driven work machine.
Accordingly, the exhaust air of the muffler room and the exhaust air of the radiator room are exhausted from the air exhaust aperture of the muffler room provided at the ceiling of the soundproof casing. The air absorbs the heat of the engine, the charge cooler and the muffler, or the heat of the radiator. The heated air goes upward and is exhausted through the air exhaust aperture. The air exhaust efficiency is greately improved. The noise from the air exhaust aperture is diffused upward above the ceiling of the soundproof casing. Thus, the unfavorable noise near the work machine is particularly reduced.

Soundproof type engine driven work machine


Apparatuses and methods for error correcting data are provided. A first error correction code (ECC) decoder is configured to decode a first codeword to provide a first result and to decode a second codeword to provide a second result. The decoder is configured to run up to a particular number of iterations to provide each of the results. A second ECC decoder is configured to decode a third codeword to provide decoded data, wherein the third codeword includes the first result and the second result. An evaluation module is configured to initiate a recovery scheme responsive to the decoded data including an error.

Field
The present application relates generally to error correction methods and memory devices.
Description of the Related Art
Error correction codes (ECCs) have been used to detect and/or correct errors in data read from memory devices. Examples of such codes include, but are not limited to Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) codes, Hamming codes, and Reed-Solomon (RS) codes. Decoders configured to decode data encoded with such codes (hereinafter referred to as a "codeword") can be incorporated in, for example, controllers, such as an internal controller of a memory device (e.g., a managed NAND device) and/or an external controller configured to be coupled to a memory device(s), among other apparatuses.
In some memory devices, hard data and/or soft data can be read (e.g., sensed and/or transferred) from the memory cells of the memory devices. Hard data can indicate the detected data state of a memory cell that has been read. For example, hard data can indicate whether such a memory cell was sensed to be in a data state representing a binary value of "1" or a data state representing a binary value of "0" (for the page being read). Meanwhile, soft data can indicate more precisely where within the detected data state the memory cell was sensed. For example, soft data can indicate whether such a memory cell was sensed to be within a first portion, a second portion, or a third portion of the detected data state. Some current state of the art ECC decoders, such as low density parity check (LDPC) code decoders, can take advantage of soft data when decoding a codeword. However, working with soft data has various challenges. For example, it may take longer to sense data including soft data than to sense data including only hard data. As another example, transferring soft data from a memory device through an interface, such as the Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI), can result in a high throughput penalty as more bits of data are transferred than if only hard data was transferred.
Conventional LDPC decoders run a sufficient number of iterations to correct errors in a codeword. As a result, the LDPC decoder can utilize significant power, since running, for example, two iterations will consume approximately twice as much power as running a single iteration. In applications having extremely tight power budgets, this can prevent or inhibit employing a powerful LDPC decoder. In addition, when the input to the LDPC decoder consists of only hard data, the LDPC decoder may need to run more iterations than it would otherwise need if soft data was also input to the LDPC decoder. Also, a different number of iterations may need to be run depending on the number of errors in the codeword, which can pose a serious problem if the application needs a "sustained throughput" and does not tolerate variations in the throughput.

Error correction methods and apparatuses using first and second decoders


A system for automatically extracting interesting structures or areas (e.g., built-up structures such as buildings, tents, etc.) from HR/VHR satellite imagery data using corresponding LR satellite imagery data. The system breaks down HR/VHR input satellite images into a plurality of components (e.g., groups of pixels), organizes the components into a first hierarchical data structure (e.g., a Max-Tree), generates a second hierarchical data structure (e.g., a KD-Tree) from feature elements (e.g., spectral and shape characteristics) of the components, uses LR satellite imagery data to categorize components as being of interest or not, uses the feature elements of the categorized components to train the second data structure to be able to classify all components of the first data structure as being of interest or not, classifies the components of the first data structure with the trained second data structure, and then maps components classified as being of interest into a resultant image.

Information on human settlements is crucial for a wide range of applications including emergency response, disaster risk reduction, population estimation/analysis, and urban/regional planning Urbanization pressure generates environmental impacts, indicates population growth, and relates to risk and disaster vulnerability. For instance, the global population passed the mark of 7.0 billion in 2011 with more than half of the population living in urban areas. Between 2011 and 2050, the urban population is expected to increase by about 2.7 billion, passing from 3.6 billion in 2011 to 6.3 billion in 2050. The population growth in urban areas is projected to be concentrated in the cities and towns of the less developed countries and continents. Asia, in particular, is projected to see its urban population increase by 1.4 billion, Africa by 0.9 billion, and Latin America and the Caribbean by 0.2 billion.
Population growth is therefore becoming largely an urban phenomenon concentrated in the developing world resulting in major challenges to manage the urban development in a sustainable manner. A central issue in this respect is the availability of up-to-date information on the extent and quality of the urban settlement (e.g., the urban "build-up" or "built-up") which is largely unavailable in developing countries. For instance, cities are often growing at a pace that cannot be fully controlled by the local or regional mapping agencies. As demographic pressure increases exponentially at a global level, the ability to monitor, quantify and characterize urbanization processes around the world is becoming paramount. The information about the quality of urban development can provide precious input for understanding the vulnerability of the population living on our planet.
While satellite imagery could provide information about the world-wide built-up environment, there are few global data sets available that could be used to map the human settlements. Examples include the night-time lights of the world based on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) sensor, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) based land use/land cover classifications, and global population data sets like LandScan™ or the gridded population of the world (GPW). While the aforementioned data sets are useful for global analysis, the data sets have the tendency to under-represent small, scattered rural settlements due to the low spatial resolution of the data sets between, for instance, 500 and 2,000 m. Furthermore, the data sets represent single snap-shots in time that do not allow for regular monitoring. Still further, if the data sets are updated (e.g., the LandScan data set), they are not directly comparable due to changing input sources.

Automatic generation of built-up layers from high resolution satellite image data


In various embodiments various cancer specific antibodies and immunoconjugates are provided. In certain embodiments the antibodies specifically bind and are internalized into a prostate cancer cell, where the antibodies specifically binds cells that express or overexpress a CD46, and where the antibodies specifically bind sushi domain 1 of said CD46 (CD46 CPP1).

Due to ease of accessibility, tumor cell surface antigens are invaluable targets for therapeutic development. The epitope space at the cell surface is highly complex. Relevant antigens may include glycosylated proteins and other post-translationally modified products that may not be readily predicted from studies of genomic copy number or mRNA expression levels (Liu et al. (2004) Cancer Res. 64: 704-710; Kobata and Amano (2005) Immunol. Cell Biol. 83: 429-439; Birkle et al. (2003) Biochimie (Paris) 85: 455-463; Hakomori (2001) Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 491: 369-402; Hanisch, F. G. (2001) O-Glycosylation of the mucin type. Biol. Chem. 382, 143-149; Ugorski and Laskowska (2002) Acta Biochim. Pol. 49: 303-311).
Identification of tumor cell surface epitopes allows the production of antibodies to achieve specific binding to neoplastic cells, an ability that can be utilized in applications such as induction of antibody-dependent cell cytotoxicity (see, e.g., Clynes et al. (2000) Nat. Med. 6: 443-446), or inhibition of signaling pathways involved in tumor cell migration, growth, and survival (see, e.g., McWhirter et al. (2006) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA, 103: 1041-1046; Fuh et al. (2006) J. Biol. Chem. 281: 6625-6631). In addition, antibodies targeting internalizing tumor epitopes can be exploited to achieve efficient and specific intracellular delivery of cytotoxins, cytostatic agents, chemotherapeutic drugs and/or other tumor-modulating agents (see, e.g., Liu et al. (2004) Cancer Res. 64: 704-710; Nielsen et al. (2002) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1591: 109-118; Pirollo et al. (2006) Hum. Gene Ther. 17: 117-124; Song et al. (2005) Nat. Biotechnol. 23:709-717; Liu et al. (2002) J. Mol. Biol. 315: 1063-1073).
Phage antibody display has been widely used to develop cancer-specific antibodies (see, e.g., Liu et al. (2004) Cancer Res. 64: 704-710; Liu and Marks (2000) Anal. Biochem. 286: 119-128; 15. Marks et al. (1992) Biotechnology (N.Y.) 10: 779-783; Marks et al. (1991) J. Mol. Biol. 222: 581-597; Marks et al. (1992) J. Biol. Chem. 267: 16007-16010; Sharon et al. (2005) J. Cell. Biochem. 96: 305-313; Silacci et al. (2005) Proteomics 5: 2340-2350; Gao et al. (2003) J. Immunol. Methods 274: 185-197; Lekkerkerker and Logtenberg (1999) J. Immunol. Meth., 231: 53-63; de Kruif et al. (1995) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA, 92: 3938-3942; Pini et al. (1998) J. Biol. Chem. 273: 21 769-21 776). A combinatorial phage antibody library serves as a source of random shape repertoire that can be used to probe neoplastic variations on the surface of cancer cells (see, e.g., Liu et al. (2004) Cancer Res. 64: 704-710; Geuijen et al. (2005) Eur. J. Cancer 41: 178-187; Poul et al. (2000) J. Mol. Biol. 301: 1149-1161; Cai and Garen (1995) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA, 92: 6537-6541). Selecting phage antibody libraries directly on cancer cell lines enables the identification of tumor-targeting antibodies without prior knowledge of target antigens see, e.g., (Liu et al. (2004) Cancer Res. 64: 704-710; Gao et al. (2003) J. Immunol. Methods 274: 185-197; Geuijen et al. (2005) Eur. J. Cancer 41: 178-187; Poul et al. (2000) J. Mol. Biol. 301: 1149-1161).
Although numerous antibodies have been found by this approach, the screening process against cell lines does not provide an ideal picture as to how specific these antibodies will be to actual cancer cells in patient populations. Nor does it necessarily provide an indication of whether or not the antibodies will internalize in vivo.

Internalizing human monoclonal antibodies targeting prostate and other cancer cells

The Regents of the University of California


A fixed gain electromagnetic actuator for controlling the position of a body including at least two pair of a magnetically permeable pole spaced from the body, bias coils about each pole, separate control coils about each pole, a bias source for the bias coils providing a current in the bias coils producing a steady-state equal strength magnetic field on opposing sides of a body, and a control source for the control coils providing a current in the control coils for producing an increase in the magnetic field on one side of the body and a corresponding equivalent decrease in the magnetic field on the opposing side of the body to compensate for any external upsetting forces acting on the body.

Magnetic bearings are used in many applications because, unlike contact-type bearings, there is no need for lubricants which, even in sealed systems, present contamination problems. For example, in FREON compressors, oil from mechanical bearings detrimentally affects the thermal properties of FREON and hence oil separator additives and liquid accumulators are required. In oxygen-based compressors, if oil becomes mixed with oxygen, the effect can be disastrous. Overall, magnetic bearings produce less heat, are more reliable and more maintainable than mechanical bearings and hence have a longer operating life. Magnetic bearings also offer improvements in efficiency, operating speed, operating temperature, shock tolerance, and mechanical configuration over mechanical bearings. Finally, the design of mechanical bearings for extended operations in zero gravity conditions is more complicated than the design of magnetic bearings for similar applications.
Conventional radial magnetic actuators apply forces to a rotating shaft to control motion perpendicular to the spin axis of the shaft and hence act in conjunction with a control system as a radial magnetic bearing. This is generally accomplished by surrounding the shaft with a radial actuator consisting of four quadrants each containing a two pole electromagnet. Each quadrant is excited by a single current control amplifier which produces a steady bias current and the control excitation. Alternatively, permanent magnets can be used in conjunction with electromagnetic coils. The permanent magnet surrounds the circumference of the shaft and is axially polarized. On each side of the permanent magnet, electromagnetic coils are wound on poles circumferentially located about the shaft. The magnetic flux generated by the electromagnetic coils and the permanent magnet is directed radially through one pair of air gaps between the shaft and the poles.
There are limitations, however, to both of these designs. For the former, the relationship between the force on the shaft and the control currents is non-linear which produces a variable gain. Therefore, the control loop required for force control requires fairly extensive design considerations. Furthermore, controlling the net force requires controlling at least two currents: at least one current for upward force and one current for downward force. Hence, separate power amplifiers for each quadrant are required for control. In addition, the power amplifiers must continuously provide the bias current even when no force is being produced on the rotating shaft. This requires high power capacity amplifiers and results in increased amplifier losses.
In the permanent magnet system, size is the primary limitation. For small systems used in outer space applications or even in some household appliances, there is simply no room for the substantial mechanical and electromechanical structure required in radial magnetic actuators incorporating permanent magnets. For example, for one application it was found a permanent magnet biased actuator had two to four times the length of an electromagnetic biased actuator. Permanent magnets are also expensive.

Fixed gain electromagnetic actuator and electromagnetic bearing incorporating same


A touch type input device includes a touch panel having a sensor array of drive electrodes and sensor electrodes. Capacitors are formed at intersections of the drive electrodes and the sensor electrodes. A controller determines whether or not a conductive foreign matter exists on the touch panel from raw data values indicating a change amount in the capacitance of each capacitor from an initial reference value. Further, the controller determines whether or not the touch panel has been touched from control data values indicating a change amount in the capacitance of each capacitor from a control reference value that is changed for each capacitor in accordance with whether or not the foreign matter exists. When the raw data values indicate the existence of the foreign matter, the controller sets the control reference value of each capacitor to a raw data reference value corresponding to the present raw data value.

Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-9321 describes a touch type input device including a touch panel that is touched to operate virtual buttons shown on a display. In the touch type input device, for example, a user touches an operation surface of the touch panel to select one of a plurality of functional items shown on the display. This allows the user to view the desired interface on the display or operate an onboard device. Such touching of the touch panel includes, in addition to a simple touch of the operation surface, swiping or flicking of the operation surface in which a finger is moved along the operation surface in a single direction. For example, by swiping or flicking the operation surface, the interface shown on the display is scrolled.
Such a touch panel may implement projected capacitive technology. A projected capacitance type touch panel includes drive electrodes and sensor electrodes that are arranged in a grid-shaped pattern. Capacitors are formed at the intersecting points of the drive electrodes and the sensor electrodes. Touching of the touch panel is detected from the capacitance of each capacitor. A mutual capacitance type touch panel detects a touched position based on changes in the capacitance of each capacitor. The mutual capacitance type touch panel is advantageous in that a number of touch positions may be simultaneously detected.
A conductive foreign matter such as a water droplet or a coin may contact or collect on the operation surface of the touch panel. The contact of such a foreign matter needs to be distinguished from a finger that touches the operation surface. In a mutual capacitance type touch panel, when a finger contacts the operation surface, the capacitance of each capacitor in the area touched by the finger changes from a reference value (zero), which corresponds to a condition in which there is no object contacting the operation surface, toward a first polarity side (e.g., positive). In contrast, when a foreign matter contacts the operation surface, the capacitance of each capacitor in the area that is in contact with the foreign matter changes toward a second polarity side (e.g., negative), and the capacitance of each capacitor in the area around the foreign matter changes toward the first polarity side. Japanese Patent No. 4994489 describes a touch type input device that takes this into consideration. The touch type input device computes the distribution of the amount of change in capacitance of the capacitors. When the peak value of the changed amount distribution is less than or equal to a predetermined negative threshold, the touch type input device determines that a foreign matter is contacting the operation surface.
When a conductive foreign matter remains in contact with the operation surface of the touch panel, the capacitance of each capacitor remains changed from the reference value. This hinders the detection of a touch. Thus, the touch type input device of Japanese Patent No. 4994489 shows a message on a display to prompt the user to remove the foreign matter from the touch panel.
However, in the touch type input device described above, the conductive foreign matter has to be removed from the operation surface to allow for detection of the touching of the operation surface. This is inconvenient, especially, when the touch type input device is installed in a vehicle and a foreign matter cannot be readily removed from the operation surface.

Touch type input device and method for detecting touching of touch panel

KABUSHIKI KAISHA TOKAI RIKA DENKI SEISAKUSHO


A method for modeling a circuit includes generating a circuit model based on a netlist that defines a plurality of connections between a plurality of circuit elements. The circuit model includes a model of one or more of the circuit elements. The method further includes determining a wire width associated with at least a selected connection based, at least in part, on design rules associated with the netlist. Additionally, the method includes determining a wire thickness associated with the selected connection based, at least in part, on a signal delay associated with the wire thickness. Furthermore, the method also includes routing the selected connection in the circuit model using a wire having a width substantially equal to the wire width calculated for the connection and a thickness equal to the wire thickness calculated for the connection and storing the circuit model in an electronic storage media.

As a result of the rapid technological growth of the past several decades, transistors and other semiconductor devices have become a fundamental building block for a wide range of electronic devices. As the performance demands on these electronic devices increases, there is a need for electronic circuits that are smaller and faster. With transistor performance approaching theoretical limits, minimizing the performance effect caused by interconnect between logic gates becomes an increasingly important aspect of device design.
In many respects, however, the evolution of electronic design automation (EDA) tools has not kept pace with the increases in performance demands. As a result, there is a need for EDA tools and design techniques that provide flexibility in optimizing the properties of electronic circuits to maximize overall device performance In particular, the ability to optimize the location, spacing, and/or dimensions of interconnect within electronic devices has become critical to maximizing performance.
Additionally, as electronic devices have evolved to meet ever-increasing performance demands, many of the assumptions, parameters, and constraints utilized by conventional EDA tools are not applicable to or optimal for designing such devices. For example, recent development efforts have produced semiconductor devices, such as improved junction field effect transistors (JFETs), that provide improved performance under certain circumstances in comparison to the conventional metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) that are commonly used in electronic devices. There is thus a need for design methodologies and EDA tools capable of optimizing the design of circuits that incorporate such semiconductor devices.

System and method for routing connections with improved interconnect thickness


A system for a computer-controlled measurement of workpieces has at least one measuring machine and a device for entering dimensions of workpieces to be produced as parameters into a database. The system is distinguished in that the measuring strategy of a measuring program can be generated by a computer in dependence on the parameters to be read in from the database and the generated measuring program is converted into a machine-dependent control program of the measuring machine.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method for the computer-controlled measurement of workpieces. The system has at least one measuring machine and a device for entering parameters of the workpieces to be produced into a database.
In present-day mechanical engineering, it is essential for high-speed, efficient, low-cost and accurate production or processing of machine components. Such components are produced on numerically controlled machine tools, known as CNC processing machines. The CNC processing machines have a computer based controller, which controls the sequences of movements in the production of individual machine parts and workpieces. The computer based controller thereby issues control commands to electric motors of the processing machine, which uses its tools to process the workpiece to be produced in accordance with the control commands. The workpieces are in this case usually made of steel, but in principle other materials can also be processed in this way. The accuracy requirements for such workpieces can be tremendously high, for example in the production of printing machines it is necessary to measure the workpieces to within an accuracy of thousandths of a millimeter in order to ensure satisfactory running of the printing machine.
For this reason, it is necessary to measure the workpieces produced by a CNC processing machine after every processing operation, in order to ensure that the closest tolerances are maintained. Measuring the workpieces under these high accuracy requirements takes place by measuring machines on which the workpieces to be measured are fixed and are subsequently measured. If the measuring machine finds deviations from the setpoint values that go beyond the permissible tolerances, the workpiece must either be reprocessed or, if this is not possible, segregated out. For controlling the processing operation on a CNC processing machine and for carrying out the measuring operation on a measuring machine, the exact dimensions of the respective workpiece must be known to both devices. In other words, the dimensions of the workpiece must be stored in the control computers of the measuring machine and of the CNC processing machine, with the result that the workpiece can be processed and measured correspondingly.
In the case of present-day measuring machines, it is necessary for each measuring operation to enter the dimensions of the workpiece to be measured into the computer of the measuring machine in order to allow the workpiece to be checked subsequently for conformity with the data entered. Alternatively, a number of measuring operations are entered in advance in the computer of the measuring machine, but can only be changed on the machine. Since each manufacturer of measuring machines provides its own programming systems for its machine, reprogramming has to take place whenever the measuring machine is exchanged. Furthermore, each new measuring operation must be programmed on the associated measuring machine.

CNC production system with central database and a workpiece measuring method


A new chemical probe determines the properties of an analyte using the light absorption of the products of a reagent/analyte reaction. The probe places a small reaction volume in contact with a large analyte volume. Analyte diffuses into the reaction volume. Reagent is selectively supplied to the reaction volume. The light absorption of the reaction in the reaction volume indicates properties of the original analyte. The probe is suitable for repeated use in remote or hostile environments. It does not require physical sampling of the analyte or result in significant regent contamination of the analyte reservoir.

This invention relates to the field of chemical probes, specifically chemical probes using analyte/reagent reactions and light absorption characteristics to determine chemical concentrations.
The measurement of the concentration of a particular chemical in a fluid mixture is a task common to many industrial and commercial processes. Historically, measurement has required physical sampling of a portion of the fluid mixture (the analyte). A reagent is reacted with the analyte sample, and the resulting properties (e.g., color) of the reaction products indicates the concentration of the chemical of interest. Such procedures are well known to those skilled in the art. Many processes and environments, however, make physical sampling and remote chemical analysis problematic. Physical samples are very difficult to obtain from hazardous, radioactive, or borehole environments.
Instruments have been proposed for analysis near the analyte source. Examples include the instruments described in Bredeweg, U.S. Pat. No. 5,368,725, Manz, U.S. Pat. No. 5,250,263, Stevens, U.S. Pat. No. 4,837,161, and Larsen, U.S. Pat. No. 5,389,524. Unfortunately, these instruments suffer from numerous shortcomings that decrease their usefulness in many applications. They all require the direct flow of analyte through the instrument. Stevens measures the properties of an analyte stream after intentional contamination with a reagent, limiting its use to applications where reagent contamination of a relatively low analyte volume is acceptable. Larsen requires a discrete, physical volume sample of analyte, a difficult operation in many remote environments. Other instrument designs are incapable of remote reagent/analyte reaction or remote analysis of the reaction products. Many also have impaired accuracy because the analyte/reagent reaction does not occur in the same volume as the analysis of the reaction products.
Accordingly, there is a need for a compact instrument that can determine chemical concentrations without requiring physical sampling of the analyte, and that is suitable for remote operation.


A motorcycle with a fuel injection valve oriented to the umbrella back of an intake valve to improve engine performance. An engine is mounted in a lower portion of a leg shield panel member) that forms a stride part. An intake passage is connected to a forward-tilted cylinder head of the engine and extends backward in the lower side of the leg shield. A throttle body into which a throttle valve is built is interposed in the vicinity of an engine connection part of the intake passage. A fuel injection valve is disposed inside space surrounded by the throttle body, the cylinder head and the leg shield when viewed from the side of the motorcycle.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a motorcycle having a stride part between a head pipe and a seat for facilitating the stride of a rider during loading and unloading.
2. Description of Related Art
Recent motorcycles adopt a method for controlling fuel supply by a fuel injection valve according to a run state in order to improve properties of exhaust gas, fuel efficiency or engine output. To arrange such a fuel injection valve, an intake passage connected to a cylinder head is extended to the front of the motorcycle and also is connected to an air cleaner. The fuel injection valve is stood in a substantially perpendicular orientation in the downstream end of the intake passage. See, for example, JP-A-2002-266724.
In a motorcycle adopting a structure in which a fuel injection valve is stood and arranged in the downstream end of an intake passage extending from a cylinder head to the front of the vehicle, an injection direction of the fuel injection valve is oriented to a ceiling wall of an intake port and the fuel cannot be injected toward the essentially desirable umbrella back of an intake valve, which may negatively impact engine performance.
Also, when such a fuel injection valve is stood and arranged in a motorcycle comprising a backward descending panel member for facilitating loading and unloading of a rider, the panel member must be arranged in a high position in order to avoid interference with the fuel injection valve, which may negatively impact the capability of loading and unloading.


An improved geotextile container of the type for maintaining fill material includes a geotextile fabric configured into a tubular shape and having stitched, multi-layer, flanged seams with the stitched flange disposed inside the container. Due to this construction, outwardly directed forces imparted by the fill material will be directed against the stitching. An embodiment has a helical seam along the length thereof instead of one or more longitudinal straight seams. An alternative container embodiment with a helical seam along the length thereof, has an inner liner of geotextile material having one or more longitudinal straight seams. Another alternative container embodiment with an outer layer of geotextile material having an helical seam along the length thereof, has an inner liner of geotextile material having its own helical seam configured with a different pitch than the helical seam in the outer layer.

The present invention relates to the art of geotextile containers of the type for maintaining fill material.
Geotextile containers adapted to serve as receptacles for soil, aggregate or other fill material are utilized in a variety of applications. For example, elongated geotextile containers such as the bags that are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,957,098 are often utilized in a body of water, such as a bay or a river, to facilitate control of erosion. Such bags are formed of two layers of rectangular fabric overlying each other. Each long edge of each layer is double-stitched with lock stitches to the opposed long edge of the other layer. In a typical application, an elongated container of this type may be situated to extend generally in parallel, perpendicular or at various angles with respect to the shoreline. Such a container may be filled with material dredged from the bottom of the body of water to provide weight to maintain the container in position. The area between the container and the shoreline may be backfilled with soil to effectively extend the shoreline farther out into the body of water. Containers of this type may also be used as a receptacle for contaminated material.
An elongated geotextile container may have a length of up to about 2,000 feet or more. The circumference will generally depend on the desired barrier height, but a circumference of about forty-five (45) feet or more is also not unusual. When the container is filled, it can be under water and can include an inner liner and an outer shell. The hydrostatic pressure on the outside of a submerged container, must be overcome by the dredging pumps that are used to fill the container in order to displace the water atop and inside the container. Thus, the pressure applied by these pumps, as well as the weight of the fill inserted into the container, will result in outwardly directed forces that stress the geotextile fabric and the seams that join the sheets of the fabric composing the container. The rupture strength of the geotextile material composing each sheet in the container structure, can be on the order of 1000 pounds of force, depending on a number of factors. These factors include the polymer composition of the fabric, the weave, and the denier of the fibers in the fabric.
However, the rupture strength of each of the seams that connects adjacent sheets of geotextile material composing the container, is believed to be on the order of 50% of the strength of the geotextile fabric composing the sheet and depends upon the type of seam, the polymer composing the fabric, the polymer composing the sewing thread, the denier of the sewing thread, and the type of stitch made with the sewing thread. Accordingly, the seams are the weakest link in the construction of the container. The strength of the seams determines the maximum force to which the container can be subjected, before the container will burst and thus fail.
The problems posed by the relatively weak sewn seams in each end of an elongated geotextile container, have been addressed in one container of the type disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,505,557, which is hereby incorporated herein by this reference. A bag defining an inner cavity permits the fill material to be contained therein. The bag is constructed of at least two elongated rectangular sheets of a flexible material opposed to one another and sewn along the opposed long edges to form at least two axial seams and sewn along the opposed short edges to form at least one end seam at a closed end. The closed end is back-folded into the inner cavity to form a pouch. An outer surface of the bag thus defines an inner surface of the pouch. Likewise, an inner surface of the bag defines an outer surface of the pouch. At least one anchor object is positioned in the pouch and tied off by a clamping mechanism situated about a neck portion of the pouch. As a result, the pouch is closed and the anchor object is maintained on the inside thereof. Due to this construction, an axially outward force imparted by the fill material will be directed against the inner surface of the bag instead of directly against the end seam in the closed end. However, this solution does not address the adverse effect of the radially directed forces upon the longitudinal seams of the container.
Moreover, because of the large circumferences of some geotextile containers, if a single wide sheet is desired to span the circumference of the container, a very large (and expensive) loom is needed to weave the sheet of such width. Alternatively, a number of smaller width sheets must be seamed together along their lengths to form a single large diameter container. In another alternative, a number of smaller diameter containers must be bundled together to attain the desired overall diameter required by the application. However, each of these latter alternatives results in a number of longitudinal seams, which are less desirable as noted above. Moreover, even a container formed of a single sheet of massive width, nonetheless has at least one longitudinal seam that is believed to reduce the strength of the overall container by 50% of the strength of the fabric forming such sheet of geotextile material.
Still another alternative relies on a circular loom to produce a fabric in a continuous tubular shape without any longitudinal seam. However, this alternative also has its limitations. The tubular fabric woven by such circular looms does not have the large circumference that is desired. Such circular looms are themselves more expensive than a conventional loom. Such circular looms cannot weave some types of synthetic yarns that are desirable for forming the heavier and stronger fabrics, which are desirable for their strength and for the larger circumference applications. This is due to the inability of a circular loom to weave a fabric composed of yarns that are relatively thick and/or stiff.

Geotextile container and method of producing same


An MRI device for providing high-contrast, high-resolution images of a fluid. The device includes: an envelope for at least partially confining the fluid; a plurality of magnets located at least partially around the envelope; and a CPU to process the images, including a computer readable medium containing instructions for generating at least one third image superimposing at least one image of the first images with at least one image of the second images, whereby a high-contrast, high-resolution real-time continuous images of the fluid is obtained.

It has long been known that low-field MRI produces high contrast images, but the weak field leads to a low signal to noise (S/N) ratio at poor resolution. Increasing the field increases the S/N ratio and, therefore, the resolution but decreases the contrast, so that high-field images have high resolution but poor contrast. There have been many attempts to overcome this limitation and to provide high-contrast high-resolution MRI images.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,168,226A to Hinks discloses a method whereby the total scan time may be shortened without losing resolution. The method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 516226A comprises executing a fast spin echo pulse sequence in which a plurality of views are acquired and the fast spin echo pulse sequence is employed to acquire views from a plurality of separate images during a scan. The low-order phase encoding views are acquired for each image and stored in separate image data arrays, whereas the high-order phase encoding views are acquired only once and stored in all of the image data arrays. Each image data array is employed to reconstruct a separate image using standard reconstruction methods and apparatus. The desired T2 contrast is produced primarily by the low-order views of each image and the high-order views enhance the structural details of each image. Accordingly, only the low-order views need be acquired separately for each image to provide the desired T2 contrast, and a single set of high order phase encoding views can be used to fill in the structure details in all of the images. However, this method provides a relatively small enhancement of the contrast unless a large number of high-order phase encoding views are acquired.
Another method of improving contrast is by adding contrast agents to the region of interest, such as administration of a paramagnetic contrast agent (for example, gadolinium) to blood vessels and creating the MRI images at a time when the concentration of contrast agent is at a maximum. This method is disclosed in U.S. patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,479,925A to Dumoulin et al., among others. The method is adapted to enhancing contrast in medical MRI but has limited utility in industrial application where there are no obvious sub-domains (such as blood vessels in medical MRI) into which to introduce the contrast agents and where the presence of a contrast agent in a finished product may well be undesirable.
US Patent Application U.S. 2004169512A to Jara discloses a method of combining three image-post-processing phases for the purpose of generating high-quality quantitative MR images (proton density (PD), T1, and T2) as well as high-quality virtual MR images with continuously adjustable computer-synthesized contrast weightings, from source images acquired directly with an MRI scanner. Each of the image-post-processing phases uses one or several new computer algorithms that improve image quality with respect to prior art, including linear-combination-of source-images (LCSI) algorithms for generating PD images and model-conforming algorithms for generating Q-MR images of tissue properties that influence NMR relaxation. However, the method depends on the presence of materials with different relaxation times in different parts of the scan (such as white matter and cerebrospinal fluid) to enable the enhanced contrast.
It is therefore a long felt need to provide an MRI device with provides high-contrast and high-resolution images.

High resolution high contrast MRI for flowing media


A video signal processing system for electronic endoscope, employing a high-sensitivity solid-state image sensor device having an approximately doubled sensitivity along with improved dynamic range and RGB spectral sensitivity ratios and reduced to about 1/2 in size as compared with conventional endoscopic solid-state image sensor devices, the system being arranged to read out therefrom an A-field signal having a preceding line added to each scanning line and a B-field signal having a succeeding line added to each scanning line, store the A- and B-field signals in a field memory, and read out the A- and B-field signals alternately line by line from the field memory as picture data to improve the RGB spectral sensitivity ratios.

1. Field of the Art
This invention relates to a video signal processing system to be used for processing video signals from a solid state image sensor device mounted on an electronic endoscope.
2. Prior Art
Electronic endoscopes have a solid image sensor device like a CCD incorporated into a tip end portion of an insert body to be inserted into an intracorporeal or intracavitary portion which needs examination, thereby picking up the image of the intracavitary portion of interest and displaying the image in color on a monitor screen. Because of the darkness of the intracavitary portion to be examined or diagnosed, it is necessary for an electronic endoscope to be equipped with an illumination means. For this purpose, the endoscope is connected to a light source and is internally provided with a light guide to transmit illuminating light from the light source to the tip end of the insert portion, illuminating an intracavitary portion of interest through a window provided at the distal end of the insert body.
In this manner, under illumination with light from the light source, the image of an intracavitary portion of interest is formed on the solid image sensor device by way of storage of signal charges in the respective picture elements which constitute the solid image sensor device, while reading out the signal charges to a signal processor. The solid image sensor device which is employed in an image pickup system of this sort is normally of a single element type for the purpose of minimizing the diameter of the insert body of the endoscope, and is generally driven by a sequential field system to obtain three field signals of red (R), green (G) and blue (B), which are synthesized into color video signals for display on a monitor screen.
The insert body of the endoscope, which is designed for insertion into narrow intracavitary portions, is desired to be as small as possible in diameter to lessen patient's pains and to improve its operationability at the time of insertion. However, since the insert body is densely packed with various component parts, the reduction of its diameter is naturally limited by the necessity for securing spaces for the component parts to be built in the insert portion. This applies especially to electronic endoscopes which need to allot a relatively broad space for a solid-state image sensor device, which is mounted at the fore end of the insert body along with other component parts of the image pickup system. The solid-state image sensor is usually provided with a wiring pattern and is mounted on a circuit board together with other components parts. It follows that the outer diameter of the highly packed tip end portion determines the thickness of the insert body as a whole, and minimization of the component parts of the image pickup system is extremely important to the reduction of the diameter of the entire insert body.

Video signal processing system for electronic endoscope


5-mer peptides that can inhibit calpain I and calpain II are disclosed. The peptide sequence is as follows: Leu or Ala)-(Xaa)-(Asp or Glu)-(Xaa)-(Leu or Met), where Xaa can be any amino acid.

Calpain is a cytosolic calcium-dependent cysteine protease. It is found in all mammalian tissue and cell types. The calpain family of proteases consists of two recognized proteins.
The first member of the calpain family is calpain I or μ-calpain which is the high sensitivity form and is activated by a low calcium concentration (2-75 μM). Calpain I is concentrated in synapses and neuronal cell bodies.
The second member of the calpain family is calpain II or m-calpain. It has a ribbon like structure and is the lower sensitivity form. It is activated by higher concentrations of calcium (200-800 μM). Calpain II is the dominant form.
Calpastatin is a known endogenous inhibitor of calpain I and calpain II. It has four internally repeated domains, each of which independently binds a calpain molecule in its active, Ca++-bound conformation with high affinity.
Calpains play an important role in various physiological processes. These processes include, inter alia, the cleavage of regulatory proteins such as protein kinase C (PKC) and degradation of cytoskeletal or microtubule-associated proteins (MAP) such as tau. Research has demonstrated that calpain inhibitors have improved recovery from the memory performance deficits and neuromotor disturbances. Calpain inhibitors inhibit the release of the 13-AP4 protein. Therefore, it has been suggested that they have a potential use as therapeutic agents in Alzheimer's disease. Calpain inhibitors have also had a protective effect on hypoxia-damaged kidneys and have had favorable effects following cardiac damage produced by ischemias of the heart (e.g., myocardial infarction) or reperfusion. It has also been found that calpain inhibitors have cytotoxic effects on tumor cells. Elevated calpain levels are also implicated in the pathophysiology of cerebral ischemia, platelet activation, NF-KB activation, muscular dystrophy, cataract progression and rheumatoid arthritis. with various pathophysiological processes such as, inflammations, muscular dystrophies, cataracts of the eyes, and injuries to the central nervous system (e.g., trauma).
Calpains reside in the cytosol of cells and are activated by Ca++ at a physiological pH. Its proteolytic activity appears to be selective against certain target proteins, such as components of the cytoskeleton and calmodulin-dependent enzymes.
Excessive excitation by a neurotransmitter glutamate can lead to death of nerve cells (neurons) and neurodegeneration. It is believed that toxic effects of glutamate comes from overactivation of its target glutamate receptors (e.g., under ischemic conditions or stroke). This in turn produces an influx of calcium ion (Ca++) into the neurons. The rise of cellular Ca++ level triggers the activation of calpain I. Calpain I then goes on to degrade cytoskeletal protein such as spectrin, which is believed to disrupt normal cellular functions, and eventually leads to cell death.

Membrane-permeable peptide capable of calpain inhibition

University of Kentucky Research Foundation


A drilling fluid additive for use during drilling and excavating applications, the additive comprises a mixture of an oil, an ester alcohol, nonionic surfactant and polypropylene glycol; and a method for manufacturing a drilling fluid additive comprising the step of admixing an oil, an ester alcohol, a nonionic surfactant, and a polypropylene glycol.

Oil and gas wells can be drilled more efficiently and economically if downtime is minimized and hole and drill string problems are eliminated.
Drilling fluids or muds are commonly used in the drilling of oil and gas wells provide numerous functions including: (1) cooling the drill bit; (2) lubricating the drill string; (3) cleaning the bore hole; (4) bringing the cuttings to the surface; (5) preventing the cavings of the formations by providing hole stability; (6) controlling fluid loss into the formations; and (7) exerting pressure to the sides of the bore hole to prevent the entrance of liquids or gases into the bore hole from the formation being penetrated.
The drilling fluid additive must have a low fluid loss to prevent excessive loss of fluid into the formation by depositing an impervious filter cake on the sides of the bore hole. The thickness of the filter cake is usually directly proportional to the volume of fluid loss. Therefore, the lower the fluid loss, the thinner the filter cake. Maintaining the diameter of the bore hole being drilled is critical to a successful operation. If the fluid loss is high, then the wall cake will be thick and therefore increasing the chance of sticking of the drill string.
Fluid loss additives most commonly used to control the fluid loss and also the wall cake thickness are bentonite clays, polymers, lignites, and surfactants.
Marine or fish oil is a versatile product and finds many applications in the food, feed and technical industries of the world. Like other fats and oils, fish oils consist of a mixture of triglycerides of various long-chain fatty acids with small amounts of mono- and diglycerides, free fatty acids and sterols. The fatty acids that characterize fish oils are similar to those in various vegetable oils and animal fats differing principally in their high proportions of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids with five and six double bonds. Marine oils differ among themselves in the percentage of fatty acids.
Although the use of fish oil in drilling/completion fluids has been contemplated, there have been no teachings of how fish oils can be incorporated into drilling fluid with improved results. An article entitled "How about fish oil in your mud"? by Robert Garrett was published in Drilling & Completion Fluids, November 1993 and discussed the need for biodegradable, low-toxicity and earth-friendly materials. However, the article did not discuss how fish oils could be implemented into a drilling fluid.

Drilling fluid additive containing a fish oil/glycol mixture and related methods


A system for controlling an electric machine of a vehicle includes, among other things, a controller module configured to attenuate noise from the electric machine by altering a corrective voltage in response to feedback about the noise. The corrective voltage and a fundamental voltage command are supplied to the electric machine as a combined voltage command. The corrective voltage is on a harmonic adjacent to a harmonic of the noise. A method of controlling noise associated with an electric machine of a vehicle includes, among other things, altering a corrective voltage to attenuate noise in response to feedback about the noise. The corrective voltage and a fundamental voltage command are supplied to the electric machine as a combined voltage command. The corrective voltage is on a harmonic adjacent to a harmonic of the noise.

Electrified vehicles differ from conventional motor vehicles because electrified vehicles are selectively driven using one or more electric machines powered by a traction battery. The electric machines can drive the electrified vehicles instead of, or in addition to, an internal combustion engine. Example electrified vehicles include hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), and battery electric vehicles (BEVs).
During operation, an electric machine can produce relatively high-frequency forces in radial and tangential directions. The vibrations can result in audible harmonic noise and audible pulse width modulated noise. The audible harmonic noise cannot filtered as effectively the audible pulse width modulated noise.


A method for implementing Message Passing Interface (MPI-2) one-sided communication by using Low-level Applications Programming Interface (LAPI) active messaging capabilities, including providing at least three data transfer types, one of which is used to send a message with a message header greater than one packet where Data Gather and Scatter Programs (DGSP) are placed as part of the message header; allowing a multi-packet header by using a LAPI data transfer type; sending the DGSP and data as one message; reading the DSGP with a header handler; registering the DSGP with the LAPI to allow the LAPI to scatter the data to one or more memory locations; defining two sets of counters, one counter set for keeping track of a state of a prospective communication partner, and another counter set for recording activities of local and Remote Memory Access (RMA) operations; comparing local and remote counts of completed RMA operations to complete synchronization mechanisms; and creating a mpci_wait_loop function.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to communication protocols and application tools development, and particularly to a method for implementing Message Passing Interface (MPI-2) one-sided communication by using Low-level Applications Programming Interface (LAPI) active messaging capabilities.
2. Description of Background
High computational power of personal computers (PCs) combined with the emergence of low latency and high bandwidth interconnects has led to the trend of cluster computing. In this area, Message Passing Interface (MPI) has become the standard for writing parallel applications. MPI-2 has been introduced as an enhancement of MPI-1 with one-sided communication as one of its main additional features.
In MPI-2 one-sided communication, the sender can access some part of the remote address space directly. Such one-sided communication is also referred to as Remote Memory Access (RMA) or RMA communication. The area of memory on the target process accessible by the origin process is referred to as a Window. The MPI-2 specification defines various communication operations. These may include: (1) an MPI Put operation that transfers data to a window in the target process, (2) an MPI Get operation that transfers data from a window in the target process, and (3) an MPI Accumulate operation that combines data movement to target with a "reduce" operation. As per the semantics of one-sided communication, the return of the one-sided communication call does not guarantee the completion of the transfer. In order to guarantee the completion of one-sided operation, the user must call one of three synchronization functions defined by the MPI standard.
In MPI-2 terminology the initiating process is referred to as the origin, while the process whose memory is being accessed remotely is referred to as the target. Contrast to this is point-to-point message passing where both processes are explicitly involved in the communication. The model most suited for a given problem is determined by the algorithmic structure of the application. An important effect of one-sided communication is that communication is explicitly separated from synchronization, allowing for synchronization overhead to be amortized over several communication operations.
In addition, for one-sided communication, processes logically expose part of their memory to RMA by other processes, where the memory is the memory allocated in the private address space as process local memory. This concept is realized in MPI-2 by the definition of communication windows.
LAPI (Low-level Applications Programming Interface) is a low-level, high-performance communication interface. LAPI provides an active message-like interface along with remote memory copy and synchronization functionality. LAPI is an asynchronous communication mechanism intended to provide users the flexibility to write parallel programs with dynamic and unpredictable communication patterns. LAPI is architected to be an efficient (low latency, high bandwidth) interface. In order to keep the LAPI interface as simple as possible, it is designed with a small set of primitives. However, the limited set does not compromise on functionality expected from a communication.
Furthermore, LAPI is also a communications library available as part of software from IBM, and is designed with the following primary objectives in mind: performance, flexibility, and extensibility. The primary design consideration for LAPI is to define syntax and semantics that allow efficient implementation on the underlying hardware and software communications infrastructure. LAPI is based on the remote memory copy (RMC) model. RMC is a one-sided programming paradigm similar to the load/store model of shared memory programming. The one-sided model eases some of the difficulties of the send/receive model, which uses two-sided protocols. In addition to a set of basic functions, LAPI also provides the active message style interface. With this interface, users can add additional communications functions that are customized for their specific application or environment.
The initial implementation of MPI one-sided communication was delivered prior to MPI adopting LAPI as its transport layer and used a Message Passing Client Interface (MPCI) send and receive functionality along with the responder capability. The responder was activated when the window was created. MPI-2 one-sided operations were carried out by sending command messages from an origin to a target and by using MPCI responders to post the MPCI receive or send that matches sends and receives posted at the origin. Each responder action paid the cost of a thread activation and normally of a context switch, with a serious impact on application progress.
Therefore, the initial of MPI-2 one-sided communication did not exploit the one sided capability provided by LAPI. Considering the limitations of the aforementioned methods, it is clear that there is a need for a method for implementing MPI-2 one-sided communication that exploits the one-sided capability provided by LAPI.

Method for implementing MPI-2 one sided communication


A data communication device includes a first slave unit that comprises: a first data terminal that receives a data signal; and a first clock terminal that receives a clock signal; a second slave unit that comprises: a second data terminal that receives the clock signal; and a second clock terminal that receives the data signal, wherein the first salve unit and the second slave unit have a same slave address.

Conventional data communication devices comprise a master unit and a slave unit (for example, see Patent Literature 1).
The aforementioned Patent Literature 1 discloses a communication interface device (data communication device) that comprises a CPU (master unit) and an interface circuit (slave unit) that communicates with the CPU using a two-wire serial bus interface protocol. In the communication interface device, the CPU includes a terminal capable of outputting a data signal and a terminal capable of outputting a clock signal, and the terminals of the CPU input the data signal and the clock signal to the interface circuit. This causes the CPU and the interface circuit to communicate with each other using the two-wire serial bus interface protocol.

Data communication device and method for data communication


The invention relates to a method for processing poultry or a part thereof in a processing line, including the step of detaching and/or collecting a cartilage of the poultry's keel bone, whereby during transport of the poultry's carcass in the processing line, a cut is made in the cartilage of the keel bone. The cut is made initially transverse to the transport direction of the poultry and towards the poultry's backbone. The cut develops from the transverse direction to eventually a direction opposed to the transport direction.

In the poultry industry virtually nothing goes to waste. There is an ongoing pressure on machine-developers to devise machines and methods in which to the greatest possible extent parts from the poultry's carcass that have an appreciable commercial value are harvested.
It is the object of this invention to provide a method and an apparatus in which parts of the poultry may be harvested to a greater extent and with improved integrity as to its constitution free from alien parts so that the parts that get harvested exhibit the largest possible commercial value.
As is common in the art, use is made in this method and apparatus of a carrier for the poultry's carcass, which carrier moves the carcass along a processing line that is provided with detaching means for a cartilage of the poultry's keel bone. Such a method and apparatus are known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,283,847.

Method and apparatus for processing poultry or a part thereof


A method of measuring an analyte in a sample with excellent sensitivity using a redox reaction is provided. In this method, a reducing substance or an oxidizing substance derived from the analyte is measured in the presence of a tetrazolium compound and sodium azide using the redox reaction, and an amount of the analyte is determined from the amount of the reducing substance or oxidizing substance thus measured. The tetrazolium compound and the sodium azide are present at a ratio in a range from 20:3 to 20:12. Preferably, a solution containing the tetrazolium compound and the sodium azide is aged and then added to the sample.

Conventionally, measurement of the amount of an analyte in a sample using a redox reaction has been utilized for a wide range of applications. For example, such measurement has been utilized for measuring glycated proteins in applications such as biochemical analyses, clinical tests, and the like.
For example, glycated proteins in blood, especially glycated hemoglobins in erythrocytes, serve as important indexes in the diagnosis, treatment, etc. of diabetes, because they reflect the patient's past history of blood glucose levels. Such glycated proteins in erythrocytes are measured utilizing a redox reaction, for example, in the following manner.
First, erythrocytes are hemolyzed to prepare a sample. Then, this hemolyzed sample is treated with a fructosyl amino acid oxidase (hereinafter referred to as "FAOD") so that the FAOD acts on a glycation site of a glycated protein to form hydrogen peroxide. The amount of the hydrogen peroxide corresponds to the amount of the glycated protein. Subsequently, a peroxidase (hereinafter referred to as "POD") and a reducing agent are added to the sample, so that a redox reaction occurs between the hydrogen peroxide and the reducing agent with the POD as a catalyst. At this time, when a reducing agent that develops color when it is oxidized is used, the amount of the hydrogen peroxide can be determined by measuring the color developed. As a result, the amount of the glycated protein in the erythrocytes can be determined.

Method for measurement using sodium azide