A process is disclosed of preparing an emulsion comprised of dispersing medium and folded tabular grains containing at least 95 mole percent chloride, based on total silver. This is achieved by maintaining a chloride ion concentration of at least 0.5 molar in the dispersing medium while the grain nuclei are being formed and during grain growth maintaining in the dispersing medium a pH in the range of from 1 to 8 and an effective concentration of 2-hydroaminoazine or xanthinoid morphological modifier in the range of from a 5.times.10.sup.-5 to 2.times.10.sup.-2 millimolar concentration.

Photographically useful silver halide emulsions, other than high (>90 mole %) iodide emulsions, which are seldom used for photographic purposes, contain silver halide grains that exhibit a face centered cubic crystal lattice structure. Face centered cubic crystal lattice structure silver halides can take different crystallographic forms, depending of the crystal faces by which they are bounded. J. E. Maskasky, "The Seven Different Kinds of Crystal Forms of Photographic Silver Halides", Journal of Imaging Science, Vol. 30, No. 6, Nov./Dec. 1986, pp. 247-254, states that there are seven possible crystal planes or families of crystal planes that can bound face centered cubic crystal lattice structure silver halide grains. These are cubic or {100}; octahedral or {111}; rhombic dodecahedral or {110}; trisoctahedral or {hh1}; tetrahexahedral or {hk0}; icositetrahedral or {h11}; and hexoctahedral or {hk1} grain faces. The descriptive name is derived from the geometrical form of regular grains bounded only by the stated face while the numerical name is the Miller index of the crystal face. h, k and 1 are integers, where h is larger than k and 1 is smaller than h.
Despite the theoretical availability of different crystal forms, photographic silver halide grains rarely exhibit any crystal faces other than {111} or {100} crystal faces. The variety of shapes that silver halide grains exhibit is much more a function of crystal irregularities than variations in grain face crystal planes. Silver chloride grains show a strong propensity toward forming cubic grains bounded entirely by {100} crystal faces, although both cubic and octahedral grains of all face centered cubic crystal lattice structure silver halides are known as well as cubo-octahedral grains. That is, grains with six {100} faces and eight {111} faces, sometimes also referred to as tetradecahedral grains. In addition irregular grains, such as clam form grains (believed to contain a single twin plane) of the type discloses by U.K. Patent Specifications 1,447,307 and 1,529,440; acicular or rod like grains; and multiply twinned grains are all known.
In the 1980's a marked advance took place in silver halide photography based on the discovery that a wide range of photographic advantages, such as improved speed-granularity relationships, increased covering power (both on an absolute basis and as a function of binder hardening), more rapid developability, increased separation of native spectral sensitization imparted imaging speeds, and improved image sharpness in both mono- and multilayer formats, can be realized by producing emulsions in which greater than 50 percent of total grain projected area is accounted for by tabular grains. With the exception of {100} silver bromide tabular grains, tabular grain emulsions contain tabular grains with {111} major faces. They are believed to result from the incorporation of two or more parallel twin planes. Tabular grains are characterized by two parallel major faces that are much larger than any remaining crystal faces of the grains.
Silver bromide tabular grains are the most easily prepared, following by silver iodobromide, silver chlorobromide and silver chloride tabular grains in that order. Although high (>50 mole percent) chloride tabular grain emulsions are known, some difficulties have arisen. Whereas tabular grains have {111} major faces, silver chloride prefers to form grains having {100} faces. Thus, there has been a tendency of high chloride tabular grains to revert to non-tabular forms--i.e., grain stability has been a problem. This problem has been overcome by employing morphological modifiers in preparing high chloride tabular grain emulsions, as taught by Tufano et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,621; Takada et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,783,398; and Maskasky U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,400,463 and 4,713,323.
In addition to the specific prior art discussed above it is noted that Lapp et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,379,827; Mifune et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,419,443; Hotta et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,764,457; Ogi et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,102; Nishikawa et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,952,491; Japanese Kokai 59-214029; Japanese Kokai 63-2409844; and WO 83/02338 (EPO 96,727 corresponding) were placed of record and considered by the Examiner in the parent application, but not selected as forming a basis for rejection.
Recently increased interest has developed in high chloride emulsions. The much higher solubility of silver chloride as compared to silver bromide offers processing advantages, and there are indications that effluents from processing high chloride emulsions can be reduced and more easily managed to satisfy rising ecological protection standards.
With increased interest in high chloride photographic emulsions an unsatisfied need has been identified. That need is for a high chloride photographic emulsion that has the advantages of tabular grain emulsions, but offers the morphological grain stability of cubic or {100} grain face high chloride emulsions.

High chloride folded tabular grain emulsions


A sash frame is provided having a first mounting surface for a first glazing pane and a second mounting surface for mounting a second glazing pane substantially parallel to the first glazing pane. The first and second mounting surfaces are spaced apart to provide an insulating space between the glazing panes. An evacuation opening is provided in communication with the insulating space. The first glazing pane is adhesively mounted to the first mounting surface and the second glazing pane is adhesively mounted to the second mounting surface. Air is allowed to exhaust through the evacuation opening as the insulating space is formed between the glazing panes. A vacuum is drawn from the evacuation opening to draw the first and second glazing panes closer together after the panes have been mounted on their respective mounting surfaces. Mounting of the glazing panes may also be facilitated using a roll press.

When a window, glazed door, skylight or the like is manufactured, a glazing pane assembly is typically mounted to a sash frame using an adhesive sealant in a process known as backbedding. A more recent technology, disclosed, for example, in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,286,288 and 6,536,182, provides an integrated sash in which glazing panes are mounted directly to the sash via sealant. In the process of placing a glazing pane (e.g., glass) onto or into the sealant along the sash glazing surface, the glazing pane may be inadvertently pressed beyond the sealant's recommended sealant thickness/height dimension. A recommended sealant thickness may be required to provide an appropriate amount of such sealant to ensure a sealed airspace that will perform to the "life expectancy" of the sash. Sealant viscosity may vary, and therefore the sealant thickness dimension will vary according to the sealant type applied.
It would be advantageous to provide methods for pressing (or pulling) one or more glazing panes against an adhesive sealant bead (or similar material) on an integrated sash structure without producing excessive spreading (also referred to as excessive "whet-out") of the material. It would be further advantageous to provide structure in the integrated sash to control, maintain, and/or direct a consistent and appropriate seal thickness between a glazing pane and a structural mounting surface on the sash. It would be still further advantageous to provide structures and fabrication methods for assuring a suitable bond line between the glazing pane and a glazing surface of a window sash. The present invention provides structures and methods having the aforementioned and other advantages.

Assembly of insulating glass structures on an integrated sash


The present invention relates to a method for an NR (New Radio Access Technology) user equipment to transmit and receive a signal in a wireless communication system and an apparatus therefor. The method comprises the steps of checking a PDCCH (Physical Downlink Control Channel) order and, if the PDCCH order is checked, initiating a random access procedure. In this case, if a first uplink carrier and a second uplink carrier are configured, the random access procedure is configured to transmit a random access preamble via a specific uplink carrier corresponding to an indicator associated with the PDCCH order among the first uplink carrier and the second uplink carrier.

Wireless access systems have been widely deployed to provide various types of communication services such as voice or data. In general, a wireless access system is a multiple access system that supports communication of multiple users by sharing available system resources (a bandwidth, transmission power, etc.) among them. For example, multiple access systems include a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system, a Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) system, a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) system, an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) system, a Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) system, and the like.
As more communication devices require greater communication capacity, the necessity for mobile broadband communication which is enhanced compared to a legacy radio access technology is emerging. And, massive MTC (Machine Type Communication), which provides various services at any time and any place by connecting a plurality of devices and objects, is also one of main issues to be considered in next generation communication. Moreover, discussion on designing a communication system considering a service/UE sensitive to reliability and latency is in progress.
In particular, discussion on introducing a next generation wireless access technology considering the enhanced mobile broadband communication, the massive MTC, the URLLC (Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communication), and the like is in progress. In the present invention, for clarity, the next generation wireless access technology is referred to as NR.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method for transmitting and receiving signal based on LTE and NR in wireless communication system and apparatus therefor


An identification apparatus for identifying an optical passive device product. The apparatus includes an optical input output monitor section for monitoring an optical input and an optical output of the optical passive device product respectively; a loss calculation section for calculating a loss in the optical passive device product based on a monitoring result of the optical input output monitor section; and a product identification section in which product information indicating a correspondence between a loss characteristic and a product has been stored in advance, and which identifies the optical passive device product by comparing the stored product information and the loss calculated by the loss calculation section.

1. Technical Field
The present embodiment relates to an identification apparatus and a connectivity determination apparatus for an optical passive device such as a dispersion compensator for use in an optical communications network.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-60577, in order to provide a long-distance transmission of a wavelength-multiplexed optical signal in a long-distance optical communications network, a dispersion compensator is used to compensate for an optical signal wave distortion caused by a transmission line optical fiber. In recent years, a virtually imaged phased array (VIPA) variable dispersion compensator capable of collectively compensating for a plurality of waves has also been used as this dispersion compensator. However, in terms of cost and reliability, many dispersion compensation fibers (DCF) are still in use today. The DCF is selectively used according to the transmission distance and the transmission line fiber type.
The DCF is a passive device without requiring a power supply and is excellent in reliability as a dispersion compensation product, but maintenance is required. As for a product to which power is supplied, it is possible to identify and manage the product by installing a nonvolatile storage medium in the product and storing the product identification information in the storage medium. However, the method of identifying a product using such a storage medium cannot be applied to the DCF, and only a method of checking a label attached on a surface of the product can be used to identify the DCF. For that reason, it is troublesome to perform maintenance work on a DCF provided in a remote transmission apparatus.

Optical passive device product identification apparatus and connectivity determination apparatus


A snowboard binding includes a base plate for supporting a universal boot plate. A pair of locking slots are arranged on the sides of the universal boot plate. A fixed locking latch is attached to the base plate on one edge thereof for engaging one of the locking slots. A latch assembly is attached to the base plate on an opposite edge thereof. A slidable locking latch in the latch assembly is operable for engaging the other locking slot on the universal boot plate. The slidable locking latch is actuated by a cam member with an arcuate cam slot having a center eccentric to an axle of the cam member. The slidable locking latch is connected to the cam slot by a pin. When the cam member is rotated by a lever attached to the axle, the cam slot affects linear motion in the slidable locking latch, which is caused to extend or retract for respectively locking or releasing the universal boot plate. An alternative latch assembly includes a pivoting lever connected to a spring-loaded slidable locking latch by a connecting arm. The boot plate is attached by stepping down on the slidable locking latch, which is caused to retract and snap back into a locking position when the boot plate is fully seated. The boot plate is released by pressing down the lever to retract the slidable locking latch.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to snowboard bindings.
2. Prior Art
A snowboard is a device resembling a small surfboard, and used much like a surfboard for descending a snow covered slope. A typical snowboard includes bindings for removably attaching a pair of specially adapted hard boots that resemble snow ski boots. Some snowboards, particularly the ones for rent, include universal boot plates with adjustable straps for removably fastening conventional soft boots of any size for convenience and low cost. The universal boot plates are removably attached to the snowboard by specialized bindings on the board. The universal boot plates may be detached from the bindings and snowboard, so that the user may walk with the boot plates still fastened to the soft boots. Universal boot plate bindings typically employ a latch for locking the boot plate in position. The latch is arranged for engaging and disengaging from the boot plate by a spring-loaded lever, which may be actuated by a linear or rotary motion.
Some universal boot plate bindings have an exposed latch assembly which tends to be covered in snow and ice, so that it may become difficult to operate or even jammed. Further, due to the simple spring loading, the latch may be unintentionally retracted under some circumstances when particular forces are applied to the boot plate. The user's foot may thus be released from the board, and the user may lose control.


A cable harness production system includes an electronic controller and at least one installation plate to which a plurality of mounting stations is fastened. Each of the mounting stations supports a receptacle for a functional element, which is directly connected to at least one cable harness or is shaped as a cable installation aid, such as a fork. In at least one mounting station, at least one electronic transmitter is integrated with a test sensor which can be activated by the mounting of a functional element, or by the insertion of a cable into the cable installation aid, so that a test message, as an electric wave, can be emitted and can be received and evaluated by the electronic controller.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a cable harness production system comprising an electronic controller and at least one installation plate to which a plurality of mounting stations are fastened, each of said mounting stations supporting a receptacle for a functional element, which is directly connected to at least one cable of the cable harness, or is shaped as a cable installation aid, e.g. as a fork.
A cable harness is a length of cables that transmit signals for information or electrical power for energy supply. By the term "cable" here is meant, besides wires of copper, aluminium or other metals sheathed with insulating material, also coaxial cables, hollow waveguides and optical waveguide cables, such as glass-fibre cables or else steel twisted cables. The cables are held together by means of clips, cable straps, conduits or similar means and the finished cable harness connects together a plurality of functional elements such as plugs, connectors, switches or lights. The form of the cable harness is often to be adapted to specific spatial requirements on installation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous cable harnesses are used in automotive engineering, but also for electrical equipment, and those used, for example, in cars according to the state of the art can contain cables with a total length of several kilometers. Due to possible variants of the electrical equipment, a number of different cable harnesses is necessary even for vehicles that are otherwise the same or for the same devices.
The cables are assembled on a special workbench or on an installation board to form a cable harness, clamped together, wound or otherwise mechanically joined and electrically connected at their end points to the functional elements. In the prior art, the functional elements are retained in the receptacles of mounting stations and arranged on the installation plate and cable laying aids are arranged on the installation plate for guiding and angling the cables. In the simplest case, pins are used, which are partly hammered into the installation plate, in the prior art, however, column-like elements that support a fork or a guide angle as receptacle.
In the prior art, various functional elements exist, which are adapted to integration in a cable harness. Thus, e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,945,635, Coutaro Suzuki describes a special cable joiner that rests in receptacles on a columnar mounting station.
The reason for the elevated arrangement of the functional elements is that tools must in some cases act from a multiplicity of sides of the functional element and that the cable harnesses must be wound with textile tape or holding clips are to be stuck on the cable harness.
Other necessary processing steps include the threading of wires into conduits or the attachment of contacts to the lines, in particular the connecting of one contact to two lines and the fitting of conduits one inside the other. Each of these processing steps requires partly complex movement sequences, in which numerous possible errors open up. A further risk for production errors is the complexity of the overall structure of the cable harness.
Also to reduce these errors, it is an obvious step to automate the laying of cables and their connection to the functional elements, that is to say to have them performed, e.g., by robots.
European Patent EP 0300141 describes an industrial robot that fully automatically lays cables on an installation board and joins them. However, the disadvantage is the high investment for the robot, its connection to the installation plate and the continuous new programming for each individual cable harness and its variants. In particular for low production rates and individual parts of cable harnesses, it is therefore still economically appropriate to produce cable harnesses predominantly manually on installation boards with suitable auxiliary equipment.
The high complexity of most cable harnesses and the, in principle, higher defect quota for manual instead of automated work causes a comparatively high defect quota for cable harness production. Therefore, in the prior art, checking of the finished cable harness is unavoidable. The test set-up conventionally used at present are auxiliary cables arranged on the reverse side of the installation plate, by means of which a test instrument is connected to the ends of the cable harness just produced, as described inter alia in European Patent EP 0 300 141 and German Patent DE 939 341, Ulrich Kölm. A considerable disadvantage is that the laying of these auxiliary cables is very time consuming and, even with minor changes, work is often necessary not only in the vicinity of the auxiliary cables directly affected thereby, which after shifting of a portion become obstructions and therefore also have to be converted. The result of this is that in many cases the entire installation board has to be rebuilt.


A honeycomb body includes leading and trailing end surfaces being mutually spaced apart in a given flow direction. Subsections are disposed in succession in the given flow direction between the end surfaces. At least some sheet-metal layers have structures forming channels therebetween extending approximately in the given flow direction through which a fluid can flow. The channels have dimensions determined by the structures of the sheet-metal layers. Each of the subsections has a different number of channels per unit of cross-sectional area and the channels have cross-sectional areas differing in each of the subsections. The sheet-metal layers include some layers being smooth or slightly structured in proportion to the dimensions of the channels, having spacings therebetween and extending from the leading to the trailing end surfaces giving the honeycomb body a monolithic form, and the sheet-metal layers include different numbers of other sheet-metal layers filling the spacings in each of the subsections.

A number of versions of such honeycomb bodies are known, for instance from Published European Application No. 0 245 737 B1 corresponding to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,923,109 and 4,832,998; Published European Application No. 0 245 738 B1, corresponding to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,803,189 and 4,946,822; or Published International Application WO 90/03220, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,794.
It is also known that for the most effective possible exhaust gas cleaning, it can be appropriate to place a succession of disks in the flow direction, and that these disks may optionally also have a different honeycomb structure or size from one another. However, such a body is no longer monolithic and therefore its production, its installation in a jacket tube, and optionally its coating all involve greater effort and expense. Such bodies made of more than one disk are described in Published International Application WO 90/04087, corresponding to U.S. application Ser. No. 805,097, filed Dec. 10, 1991; or Published European Application No. 0 121 175 B1, for instance. It is also known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,785,781 to place such disks in succession without them being spaced apart from one another.
In order to improve the effectiveness and/or the flow conditions in a monolithic honeycomb body, it has also already been proposed to offset the individual channels from one another or to interrupt them by making various structural provisions, such as in Published European Application No. 0 186 801 A2, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,665,051; Published European Application No. 0 152 560 A1; or German Published, Non-Prosecuted Application DE 29 02 779 A1, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,273,681. That creates additional edges facing into the flow of exhaust gas, which can be advantageous for catalytic conversion. A similar effect can also be achieved by folding-over some of the channel walls in cuff-like fashion, as is described, for instance, in German Petty Patent No. DE-U 89 09 128, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,045,403.
A common feature of the monolithic honeycomb bodies which are constructed in that way is that they have the same number of sheet-metal layers in each cross-sectional region, so that the catalytically active surface area remains the same in each cross-sectional region even if a comparable effect with respect to the leading edges is achieved by means of different sheet-metal structures as compared to that achieved if the number of channels per unit of surface area is increased. However, the catalytically active surface area per cross-sectional region cannot be changed in that way.
In monolithic honeycomb bodies, which are preferably used for the sake of ease of manipulation and installation in an exhaust system, the catalytically active surface area in a first cross-sectional region in the prior art is therefore the same as the surface area after it, in each cross-sectional region in the flow direction. That only allows limited optimization of the conditions in a monolithic honeycomb body in terms of response behavior and resistance to thermal aging. If it is desired for the honeycomb body to reach an adequate temperature for catalytic conversion as soon as possible upon cold starting of the engine, for instance, then it should not have overly large dimensions in its first cross-sectional region, yet in monoliths that necessarily means that it must keep the same dimensions in each succeeding cross-sectional region as well, so that for complete conversion the body has to be undesirably long (low number of channels and therefore long channel length).
However, if the body is constructed with many channels and a short structural length, then on one hand it has an unfavorable cold starting performance under some circumstances, yet after attaining operating temperature it already converts by far the greatest part of the pollutants in the exhaust gas in exothermic reactions in a forward cross-sectional region, so that a maximum temperature occurs in the first subsection and leads to premature aging of the catalytically active coating. The high temperature is imparted by the flow to the succeeding layers as well, thereby causing them to age thermally also, even though they make only a small contribution to the catalytic conversion.

Monolithic metal honeycomb body with varying number of channels

Emitec Gesellschaft fur Emissionstechnologie mbH


An architecture for semantic search over encrypted data that improves upon existing encrypted data search techniques by providing a solution that is space-efficient on both the cloud and client sides, considers the semantic meaning of the user's query, and returns a list of documents accurately ranked by their similarity to the query. Different search schemes are presented based on S3C architecture (namely, FKSS, SKSS, and KSWF) that are fine-tuned for different types of datasets. The system requires only a single plaintext query to be entered and is easily portable to thin-clients, making it simple and quick for users to use. The system is also shown to be secure and resistant to attacks.

The subject matter of the present invention is described with specificity herein to meet statutory requirements. However, the description itself is not intended to necessarily limit the scope of claims. Rather, the claimed subject matter might be embodied in other ways to include different steps or combinations of steps similar to the ones described in this document, in conjunction with other present or future technologies. Although the terms "step" and/or "block" or "module" etc. might be used herein to connote different components of methods or systems employed, the terms should not be interpreted as implying any particular order among or between various steps herein disclosed unless and except when the order of individual steps is explicitly described.
Furthermore, the described features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. In the following description, numerous specific details are provided, such as examples of datasets, queries, and user interface devices. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, that ARCHITECTURE FOR SEMANTIC SEARCH OVER ENCRYPTED DATA may be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, components, materials, and so forth. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of the invention.
Cloud storage is an efficient and scalable solution for companies and individuals who want to store large numbers of files without the burden of maintaining their own data center. Cloud storage is a service model in which data is maintained and managed remotely and made available to the end user over a network. Despite the advantages offered by these solutions, many potential clients avoid cloud storage because of valid security concerns as the files are hosted on remote servers. The traditional method of security for cloud storage is encryption of user files performed on the provider's server. The providers then store the encryption key remotely. This method allows internal attackers to access unauthorized data. One proven solution that addresses this concern is to perform the encryption locally on the user's machine before it is transferred to the cloud. Unfortunately, this limits the user's ability to interact with the data, most importantly, limiting the ability to search over it. Although solutions for searchable encryption exist, they often do not consider the semantic meaning of the user's query, impose a large storage overhead, and/or do not rank documents based on their relevance to the query. Therefore, a new method is needed that allows user data to be encrypted before being remotely stored by the provider and allows the user to effectively and efficiently search over the data.
Such a new method would be especially useful in industries in which the user needs near instantaneous access to encrypted data stored on a cloud server from a thin client device such as a tablet, PDA, etc. These users may not remember exact keywords in the files they are looking for and/or may also want to retrieve similar files. One example of such a user is a hospital organization. Hospitals maintain encrypted patient records on the cloud which need to be accessed and searched by medical professionals for patient information and diagnostic comparisons. Many hospitals perform these types of searches on tablet devices. A second example is a police department. Police officers require the ability to search over encrypted police records on a local or state government cloud server. Like health care workers, police officers need access to the information while on the move (such as with a PDA). Organizations like these and many other cloud services users would benefit from a system that not only provides security for their files, but also provides a searching mechanism with a plaintext search query and relevancy-ranked results.
Previously available systems fall short in at least three ways. First, they do not offer semantic searching—i.e., the user is required to remember exact keywords in the documents for which they are searching. Second, any previous system that may offer some type of semantic searching is either only designed to tolerate typos or similar spelled words or requires large semantic networks that need to be stored locally making them inappropriate for thin-clients. Third, even if semantic searching is offered, no such previous system ranks the related files by relevance to the query. Rather, previous systems offer only a boolean search, which returns a potentially huge pool of all related files. Therefore, in one embodiment or another, the present invention offers a method for semantically searching a multi-phrase query over encrypted files stored in the cloud, which ranks the results of the search based on semantic relevance to the user's query and does not reveal the data to the cloud when the search is processed. The system also imposes the minimum storage and processing overhead.
Solutions for searchable encryption ("SE") are imperative for privacy preservation on the cloud. The majority of previously available SE solutions follow one of two main approaches. The first major approach is to use cyryptographic algorithms to search the encrypted text directly. This approach is provably secure and requires no storage overhead on the server. However, solutions utilizing this method are generally slower, especially when operating on large storage blocks with large files. In this approach, each word in a document is encrypted independently and the documents are sequentially scanned while searching for tokens that match the similarly encrypted query. A similar system utilizes public key encryption to write searchable encrypted text to a server from any outside source. But this system could only be searched over by using a private key. While methods following this first major approach are secure, they often only support equality comparison to the queries, meaning they simply return a list of files containing the query terms without ranking.
The second major, previously available approach is to utilize database and text retrieval techniques, such as indexing, to store selected data per document in a separate data structure from the files. This approach generally provides a faster search operation making it well adapted to big data scenarios. For example, one method following this approach uses bloom filters that create a searchable index for each file containing trapdoors of all unique terms. But this method returns false positives because of the choice in data structure. Another example method using this second major approach keeps a single hash table index for all documents, which removes the false positives introduced by bloom filters. The hash table index for all documents contains entries where a trapdoor of a word which appeared in the document collection is mapped to a set of file identifiers for the documents in which it appeared. Finally, a third method using this second major approach, uses an array of bits where each bit is either 0 or its position represents one of the document identifiers. Although all three of these methods produce relatively fast searches, they are less provably secure, opening up new amounts of data to potential threat.
Importantly, all of the mentioned methods only offer an exact-keyword search, leaving no room for user error through typos and all cannot retrieve works related to terms in the query. Methods that have attempted to provide a semantic searching often only consider word similarity instead of true semantics. These methods may be able to handle minor user typos through a fuzzy keyword search but do not offer expansive semantic searching. For example, one previous method searches for matches for similar keywords to the user's query by using the edit distance as a similarity metric. This only allows for words with similar structures and minor spelling differences to be matched. Others are capable of searching for regular expressions, use stemming methods, or mining techniques. Each still neglects true semantics and/or builds a semantic network only using the documents that are given to the set.
The Architecture for Semantic Search over Encrypted Data in the Cloud ("S3C") presented herein provides a secure semantic search over encrypted data hosted in the cloud. S3C is a scalable system that performs a semantic search on locally encrypted data that is hosted on the cloud. The user's machine is the only part of the architecture that sees plaintext data. Documents are parsed and indexed in a manner that takes constant storage space per document. The search system resides on the cloud server, relieving the client machine of the search processing. Users are able to upload documents to a remote storage location, perform a semantic search over their encrypted data, and receive a list of documents ranked by their relevance to the query. Experiments that we have performed on real-world datasets demonstrate the accuracy, performance, and scalability of S3C.

Architecture for semantic search over encrypted data in the cloud


Disclosed is an adaptive-spacing antenna system and a method for designing an adaptive-spacing antenna system. The antenna system and design method are operative to provide a configuration layout that reduces both the amount of material required to manufacture the antenna and the obtrusiveness caused by the antenna, while providing more flexibility for installation and a variety of options for aesthetic applications. The adaptive-spacing antenna comprises one or a combination of more than one set of straight-linear and curvilinear elements forming an adaptively-spaced grid or mesh structure. The system and method are particularly suitable for reducing the antenna weight, cost, and obtrusiveness during operation.

A number of electronic communication devices and systems exist for enabling a user to operate these devices and access services for multiple applications. Usually one or more antennas are required to support such operations. A conformal, unobtrusive and preferably hidden, antenna system configuration is a key element to facilitate these operations and to increase the aesthetic appeal of the system. However, antennas made of single piece of solid, non-transparent material are typically heavier, bulkier, and require more material than meshed counterparts. It is well-known in the prior art that a good approximation to a solid conductive material can be obtained by meshing or gridding the solid material into wires, strips, and/or plates. However, a uniform gridding or meshing of an antenna made of a single piece of solid material tends to overdesign the grid antenna, especially for wideband antennas, as the minimum gridding spacing required varies depending on the antenna frequencies of operation and polarization characteristics.
In particular, antenna applications where unobtrusiveness, aesthetics, amount of conductive material used, physical dimensions, or weight are essential may benefit from an adaptively-spaced grid antenna. For example, antennas used in spacecrafts and space probes are typically required to be small, conformal, and light-weight; moreover to avoid corrosion and oxidation some of these antennas may be made of gold or other expensive conductive materials. Thus, the use of a lower amount of material may be important as long as the tradeoff required for a reduction in antenna gain is justifiable. Likewise, radio, Internet, or TV antennas mountable in transparent substrates, including a glass portion of buildings as well as house and car windows would definitely demand an aesthetically appealing, non-obtrusive antenna.
Normally the antenna system is configured to operate while physically mounted on a communication device where the available area for antenna placement might be limited. This situation becomes more critical for antenna applications used in unmanned aerial systems and handheld electronic devices, such as phones, tablets, and computers, in which the antenna inherently occupies a relatively large area of the mounting platform. Likewise for High-Definition TV and other applications operating at certain frequency bands, such as VHF/UHF or lower, where the size of the antenna might be in the order of several feet, the location of an unobtrusive antenna becomes a challenge and aesthetically unappealing.
Accordingly, the design, aesthetics, and operational characteristics of a handheld electronic communications device and the implementation of certain applications on aerial platforms and even at home may be severely restricted. However, meshed or gridded antennas are typically less obtrusive, lighter-weight, and may be less costly as compared to their antenna counterparts made of a single piece of solid material due to the use of a smaller amount of material.
Recently, the demand for lighter-weight, less bulky antennas has increasingly grown for multiple applications in the wireless communications and aerospace industries, especially for portable electronic devices and unmanned aerial vehicles. Previous efforts have been made to implement grid antennas and methods with efficient grid spacing, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,188,370 to M. J. Lange and in an article by J. G. Sverak published in the IEEE Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems (Vol. 95, No. 1, January 1976).
However, these efforts include the adjustment of spacing between conductive elements to achieve a specific performance of an antenna reflector or a meshed grounding system, respectively. A major limitation of these approaches occurs where the actual radiating elements need to be optimally spaced to simultaneously reduce obtrusiveness, weight, costs, amount of material used, while maintaining a pre-determined antenna performance and providing the opportunity of an aesthetically appealing configuration.
More specifically, Lange proposes a parabolic reflector comprising a plurality of conductive elongate elements which are spaced apart by different spacing to realize a predefined signal reflection at certain angles. On the other hand, Sverak proposes a variable spacing technique limited to optimize the grounding grid design of meshed ground planes using a recursive point by point integration of gradients of earth surface potential curves.
Typically, meshing conductive materials that are part of an antenna affects the performance of an identical antenna made of solid—not meshed—conductive materials. The most common positive effects include a slight increase in bandwidth and cross-polarization, a reduction of the resonant frequency, amount of conductive material required, and weight as well as a significant improvement in optical transparency. However, on the negative side, the antenna gain and the front-to-back antenna radiation might be reduced, and the antenna losses be moderately increased. In general the denser the mesh the lesser the impact, so there is a number of tradeoffs to account for in determining if and by how much a solid conductor should be uniformly meshed for certain applications.
More specifically, other attempts made to implement antenna solutions to reduce the size, obtrusiveness, and amount of material used have become partly successful and entail larger complexity and cost, narrow operational bandwidth, or are restricted to applications in a limited number of frequency bands. Some of these additional efforts that have been made to develop an antenna system using a combination of conductive linear elements are described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,511,675 to Puente-Baliarda, et al. This document discloses an antenna comprising a space-filling geometry with at least two hundred segments, each of them having a length less than one-hundredth of the free-space operating wavelength for various automotive applications in the FM, GPS, and cellular frequency bands. However, these efforts have faced certain challenges and limitations. A limitation of this approach is that for applications in which the wavelength is small, the size of the antenna elements may become impractically small. Another limitation of this approach is that the antenna is inherently narrow band, resulting in a restriction for using the antenna for wideband applications. As a result, this approach may not only be more costly, because of more complex manufacturing requirements, but also may not be suitable for a large number of applications.
Moreover, for certain applications, a set of conductive elements not necessarily forming a mesh may be arranged to approximate an antenna made of a single piece of solid conductive material. More specifically, based on the mode of propagation to be excited on an antenna made of solid material, a set of conductive elements following the patterns of the electrical current may replace the solid conductive material. For example, in a linearly-polarized antenna application, wherein currents flow along a linear direction over a solid conductive material according to an excited mode of propagation, a set of conductive linear elements disposed substantially parallel and aligned along the current path may be used to replace the solid material, as long as the separation between two adjacent elements, within the solid material being approximated, is in the order of approximately ten percent of a wavelength corresponding to the maximum frequency (minimum wavelength) of operation of the antenna.
An approach to tackle the disadvantages of the prior art is to adaptively space multiple linear antenna elements in a configuration that resembles the shape and attains similar performance as an antenna made of a single piece of solid material. The adaptive-spacing antenna may be integrated as part of the original design of an electronic device design or added on aftermarket.
Currently, there is no well-established method of deterministically creating an adaptive-spacing antenna design. Thus, there remains a need in the art for antenna designs and methods to develop and implement adaptively-spaced antennas that are capable of a robust operation for multiple applications, while avoiding the problems of prior art systems and methods.


A vacuum pump control system is used for controlling a plurality of vacuum pumps comprising at least one type of cryopump, turbomolecular pump, cryoturbo pump, and dry pump such as a Roots type vacuum pump. The vacuum pump control system for controlling a plurality of vacuum pumps, comprises a host computer; a plurality of vacuum pump controllers connected respectively to said vacuum pumps; and a network control unit for transmitting information between the host computer and the vacuum pump controllers. The vacuum pump controllers are connected in parallel to the network control unit by respective communication lines.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vacuum pump control system, and more particularly to a vacuum pump control system which can control a plurality of vacuum pumps comprising at least one type of cryopump, turbomolecular pump, cryoturbo pump, and dry pump such as a Roots type vacuum pump.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Cryopumps have a first-stage cryopanel cooled to a temperature of 60 K-80 K for condensing water or the like, a second-stage cryopanel cooled to a temperature of 10 K-20 K for condensing a nitrogen gas (N.sub.2), an argon gas (Ar) or the like, and an activated charcoal layer mounted on the second-stage cryopanel for adsorbing at a low temperature a hydrogen gas (H.sub.2) or the like that is not condensed at a temperature of 10 K-20 K. The cryopump is generally used to develop a high vacuum in a vacuum chamber of a semiconductor fabrication facility such as a sputtering apparatus or an ion implantation apparatus.
Semiconductor fabrication facilities usually employ a plurality of cryopumps which are required to be controlled at the same time. A cryopump is a storage type vacuum pump, and hence need to be regenerated, i.e., to release the condensed or adsorbed gases from a cryopanel at periodic intervals. It is therefore necessary to control the cryopumps for regeneration.
Turbomolecular pumps, dry pumps comprising a Roots type vacuum pump, cryoturbo pumps, etc. are also used to develop a high vacuum in a vacuum chamber although they operate by different principles.
Recent semiconductor fabrication facilities have a plurality of vacuum chambers which are associated with respective vacuum pumps that may be of different types depending on processing conditions in the vacuum chambers. It is therefore necessary for the control system of the semiconductor fabrication facility to monitor and control the vacuum pumps of different kinds. The vacuum pumps are controlled by respective controllers which are connected to the control system of the semiconductor fabrication facility.
One system for controlling a plurality of vacuum pumps employs a daisy chain communications network which is a type of computer network. In the daisy chain communications network, a network control unit connected to a host computer is connected to a series-connected array of vacuum pump controllers which control respective vacuum pumps. This system is advantageous in that when the network control unit is apart from the vacuum pump controllers, or the vacuum pump controllers are apart from one another, the number of long cables can be reduced to a minimum.
The daisy chain communications network, however, suffers a problem in that since command signals from the host computer and/or the network control unit cannot be delivered simultaneously to all the vacuum pump controllers, a considerable time is required for, communication between the controllers and control of all the vacuum pumps.
In the event that a communication line is disconnected somewhere between the network control unit and the final vacuum pump controller on the daisy chain or a vacuum pump controller fails or troubles, those vacuum pump controllers which are located downstream of the communication line disconnection or downstream of the failing or broken controller cannot be controlled through the daisy chain communications network. When noise is introduced into the daisy chain communications network at a certain location on the communication line, those vacuum pump controllers which are located downstream of such a location cannot be normally worked.


An automated system for identifying in a biological sample microorganisms and their antimicrobial susceptibility (AST). The system provided an automated platform for preparing, from a single biological sample, inoculates for both ID and AST. The system loads a plate for ID testing as samples are being prepared for AST testing. The system tracks the sample and the inoculates from the samples to link the test results to the sample and the patients from whom the sample was obtained.

Disclosed herein is a system for determining both the identification and antimicrobial susceptibility of microorganisms in a biological sample (e.g. blood).
As a routine practice in medical diagnosis, biological samples such as blood are extracted from patients and analyzed. Depending upon indications, the samples may be analyzed to determine if microorganisms are present in the sample, e.g., by blood culture (such as the BACTEC™ FX and BACTEC™ 9000 series from Becton, Dickinson and Company) or by streaking onto an agar plate (manually or by an automated instrument such as the Innova™ sold by Becton, Dickinson and Company). If microorganisms are determined to be present, there is both medical and economic justification to both identify the specific microorganism present and, to facilitate treatment, the antibiotic resistance/susceptibility of the microorganism.
Many kinds of microorganism (which will also be referred to below as microbes), particularly bacteria and unicellular fungi, can be identified by mass spectrometric ("mass spec") processes, such as Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization ("Maldi"). In the Maldi process, small quantities of microbes from a colony cultivated in the usual way in a nutrient medium are transferred to a mass spectrometric sample support plate known as a Maldi plate, and then subjected directly to mass spectrometric analysis, generally by time-of-flight (TOF). The mass spectrum analysis shows the different proteins, provided they are present in the microbes in sufficient concentration. The identity of the microbe is then determined from the microbe's protein profile through a computerized search of spectral libraries containing thousands of reference spectra. If no reference mass spectrum is present in a library for the precise species of microbe being examined, computerized library searches with looser similarity requirements can provide at least some indication of the order, family or genus of the microbes, since related microbes frequently contain a number of identical protein types. The Maldi process is described in further detail in International Publication No. WO-2009/065580A1 to Ulrich Weller entitled "Identification of Pathogens in Bodily Fluids," the content of which is hereby incorporated in its entirety. A variety of mass spectrometry instruments may be used for identification.
It is desirable to analyze the effectiveness of an antimicrobial agent in inhibiting the growth of microbial isolates from clinical specimens. Such analysis is known as antimicrobial susceptibility testing ("AST"). An AST technique of the background art is a dilution technique which involves exposing bacteria to decreasing concentrations of antimicrobial agents in liquid media by serial two-fold dilution. The lowest concentration of an antimicrobial agent in which no visible bacterial growth occurs is defined as the minimal inhibitory concentration ("MIC"). The MIC is the standard measure of antimicrobial susceptibility. AST instruments are known in the art, such as the BD Phoenix™ system sold by Becton, Dickinson and Company, which performs both identification and AST.
An apparatus known in the background art that can prepare specimens for such AST processes is the BD Phoenix™ AP, available from Becton, Dickinson and Company. The workflow typically includes preparing an inoculum, such as by labeling the appropriate tube, selecting microbial colonies and making a heavy suspension in ID broth tubes, and placing the tubes in one or more racks holding AST broth tubes. The workflow next includes performing automated nephelometry to adjust the ID tube to a 0.5 or 0.25 McFarland ("McF"), adding AST indicator to the AST broth, transferring part of the sample to the AST broth, and mixing both tubes. The workflow next includes having the healthcare worker remove the processed ID and AST tubes and place them on an inoculation station having ID/AST Panels, such as Phoenix Panels, and inoculating the specimens in the Panels. See also U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0072664A1, the content of which is hereby incorporated in its entirety.
The Panels are then maintained within an ID/AST system (e.g., a Phoenix instrument) having a controlled environment (e.g., controlled temperature, humidity, light exposure, etc.) for a predetermined amount of time in order to promote microbial growth in the presence of the antimicrobial agent. The system typically includes an analysis capability in order to measure microbial growth in one or more microwells without disrupting the maintenance of a controlled environment. The system may also include a capability to report the analysis results to additional devices for further processing. Such system may include both ID and AST capability, or only ID or only AST capability. Moreover, even an ID/AST system can be run for only ID or only AST results. Panels See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,922,593, 6,096,272, 6,372,485, 7,115,384, and 6,849,422, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
The various laboratory apparatus may be in communication with a data management system, such as the BD EpiCenter™, in order to provide a single location for a laboratory worker to monitor status and results from the various laboratory apparatus. Monitoring, analyzing and communicating microbiology data in a timely manner can directly impact patient care. However, obtaining, organizing and communicating information from the various laboratory apparatus is labor intensive. Current information systems can make even routine identification and AST testing difficult. Microbiologists, infection control officers, physicians and pharmacists need immediate access to patient focused information to rapidly identify and react to emerging resistance or HAI events. An improved method of collecting and analyzing data from the various instruments is needed.

Method and apparatus for identification of bacteria


A method and system may be provided to perform a process for controlling a target system. In one aspect of the invention, the process may include determining a design space (D8) including a first set of control data values associated with a set of control variables (X). A model (800) may be generated that reflects a relationship between the first set of control data values and a first set of response data values associated with a set of response variables (Y). Further, the process may test the model (800) to determine whether a set of predicted response data values associated with the set of response variables (Y) meets a predetermined criteria based on a set of actual response data values associated with the set of response variables (Y). The design space (D8) may then be modified to obtain a relationship between a second set of control data values associated with the set of control variables and a second set of response data values associated with the set of response variables, and the second set of control data values may then be applied to the target system.

The increase in the cost of developing systems that operate according to predetermined specifications, such as government standards, has sparked a growth in the design and implementation of process control systems. These control systems typically incorporate process models that may predict, control, and control the performance of the system based on information reflecting the system's historical operations.
A process model may be a mathematical construct that reflects various characteristics of a target system. The model may be used to determine a dependent response variable based on one or more independent control variables. One known type of modeling system implemented in process control systems are neural networks. These types of systems are designed to mimic the operations of the human brain by determining the interaction between input and response variables based on a network of processing cells. The cells, commonly known as neurons, are generally arranged in layers, with each cell receiving inputs from a preceding layer and providing an output to a subsequent layer. The interconnections which transfer the inputs and outputs in a neural network are associated with a weight value that may be adjusted to allow the network to produce a predicted output value.
Neural networks may provide predicted response values based on historical data associated with the modeled system provided as the independent input variables to the network. The weights of the network are adjusted each time the historical data is provided as an input to allow the network to accurately predict the response variables. The predicted outputs are compared to actual response data of the system and weights are adjusted accordingly until a target response value is obtained.
In other traditional process control systems, the relationship between independent control variables and a dependent response variable is determined based on a mathematical function that reflects the relationship. These systems generally attempt to map the relationship using a single mapping function that is selected by a human operator. In most instances, however, a single function fails to accurately represent this relationship. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, a single function F, such as a quadratic function, does not accurately represent the actual relationship F′ between an exemplary control variable X and a response variable Y.
To address the inaccuracies associated with single function mapping, conventional process control systems attempt to reduce the range of control variables where the single function appears to accurately depict the relationship between a control and response variable. For example, as show in FIG. 1, the quadratic unction F may be accurate of the X and Y relationship in range R1. Although accurate, these conventional system require a user to define the ranges of the function representing the relationship between the two variables. Further, after a user has defined an appropriate range, another test run must be performed to allow the user to identify the next region in the mapped relationship that indicates a possible accurate relationship.
Although the conventional process of defining ranges and re-testing may eventually allow a relationship between a control and response variable to be mapped to a function, the process is time consuming, requires the input of a user who understands the relationship between the variables, and requires extensive processing and storage space. Also, as the complexity of the relationship increases (e.g., multiple control and response variables), the inefficiencies and inaccuracies of the conventional process control systems described above also increase. For example, there may be some instances where a conventional system may encounter a design space that includes a plurality of response and control variables that requires a three-dimensional, and beyond, mapping construct. Such abstract constructs may be beyond the capabilities of the processing system and/or users involved in mapping the relationships. Therefore, accurate complex mapping functions are unobtainable.
Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture consistent with certain features of the present invention are directed to solving one or more of the problems set forth above.

Method for controlling the performance of a target system


Disclosed is a system for improving the condensation resistance of metal roof penetrations. When environmental conditions are right, the curbs associated with metal roof penetrations can experience condensation on metal parts for which there is no thermal break. The disclosed system provides a mechanism to implement a thermal break to prevent the formation of condensation.

With the current design of metal roof curbs the sidewall configuration of the curb tends to have a thermal short circuit into the inside area of the building. This is caused by the continuance of the metal through the sidewall section from the outside to the inside. This can cause the inside surface of the metal curb to remain at a temperature below the dew point temperature that can lead to condensation forming on the inside surface, causing what appears to water leaks within the building. The current method of addressing this problem is to trim and retain the surrounding roof insulation which does not present a thermal-break in the curb wall. This method is labor intensive and the foam retaining rod used to secure the surrounding roof insulation can become dislodged. Moreover, the use of the retaining rod, in this fashion, often times does not result in a pleasing visual experience for the finished installation.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need to eliminate the loss of heat from the interior surfaces so the surfaces remain at a temperature above the dew point so that condensation does not occur on any surface.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for an inexpensive alternative to trimming off of the excess roof insulation.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for an alternative to the trimming off of the roof insulation that provides a more aesthetically appealing appearance upon completion of the installation of the insulation.


A base plate adapted to attach a head suspension assembly to an actuator arm. The base plate includes a flange portion with a boss tower perpendicular to a plane of the flange portion. The boss tower includes a swaging hole with a tapered portion that increases in diameter in a direction away from the flange portion.

In a dynamic rigid disk storage device, a rotating disk is employed to store information. Rigid disk storage devices typically include a frame to provide attachment points and orientation for other components, and a spindle motor mounted to the frame for rotating the disk. A read/write head is formed on a "head slider" for writing and reading data to and from the disk surface. The head slider is supported and properly oriented in relationship to the disk by a head suspension that provides both the force and compliance necessary for proper head slider operation. As the disk in the storage device rotates beneath the head slider and head suspension, the air above the disk also rotates, thus creating an air bearing which acts with an aerodynamic design of the head slider to create a lift force on the head slider. The lift force is counteracted by a spring force of the head suspension, thus positioning the head slider at a desired height and alignment above the disk that is referred to as the "fly height."
Head suspensions for rigid disk drives include a load beam and a flexure. The load beam includes a mounting region at its proximal end for mounting the head suspension to an actuator of the disk drive, a rigid region, and a spring region between the mounting region and the rigid region for providing a spring force to counteract the aerodynamic lift force generated on the head slider during the drive operation as described above. The flexure typically includes a gimbal region having a slider-mounting surface where the head slider is mounted. The gimbal region is resiliently moveable with respect to the remainder of the flexure in response to the aerodynamic forces generated by the air bearing. The gimbal region permits the head slider to move in pitch and roll directions and to follow disk surface fluctuations.
In one type of head suspension, the flexure is formed as a separate piece having a load beam-mounting region that is rigidly mounted to the distal end of the load beam using conventional methods such as spot welds. Head suspensions of this type typically include a load point dimple formed in either the load beam or the gimbal region of the flexure. The load point dimple transfers portions of the load generated by the spring region of the load beam to the flexure, provides clearance between the flexure and the load beam, and serves as a point about which the head slider can gimbal in pitch and roll directions to follow fluctuations in the disk surface.
The actuator arm is coupled to an electromechanical actuator that operates within a negative feedback, closed-loop servo system. The actuator moves the data head or head slider radially over the disk surface for track seek operations and holds the transducer or read/write head directly over a track on the disk surface for track following operations.
The preferred method of attaching the head suspension to the actuator arm is swaging because of the speed and cleanliness of the swaging process. Swaging also provides a strong joint that resists microslip. The swaging process has been in use in rigid disk drives since the late 1960s for attaching head-suspension assemblies to actuator arms.
The design of the swage joint has been reduced in size to keep up with the miniaturization of disk drives. However, recent moves to disk-to-disk spacings of under two millimeters have presented a severe problem. Miniaturization of the swage plates is not satisfactory because the torque-out capability that the swaged system drops too low to be useful.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,717,545 (Brooks, et al.) discloses a swage boss design using axially extending lobes or flutes formed in the outer peripheral surface of the boss to increase torque-out resistance without increasing the pry-out force necessary to remove the head-suspension assembly from the actuator arm.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,003,755 (Hanrahan, et al.) teaches a base plate geometry with a swaging hole that is tapered so that the minimum diameter is located farther away from the flange than the maximum diameter. The tapered swaging hole provides that in tension, the swage force and plastic strain build up slowly so that there exists a strain hardened area between the contact zone and the flange by the time the swaging ball really begins to work, thus isolating the flange region and the lower region of the hub. In compression, the ball immediately builds plastic strain energy while the ball is far away from the flange and by the time the ball gets near the flange the barrel diameter has enlarged creating a less intense plastic flow thus reducing the plastic strain near the critical flange area.
What is needed is an innovative way to increase the torque-out capabilities of swaged connections.

Suspension base plate with boss tower having tapered swage ball-engaging surface


A method and system for training a neural network are described. The method includes providing at least one continuously differentiable model of the neural network. The at least one continuously differentiable model is specific to hardware of the neural network. The method also includes iteratively training the neural network using the at least one continuously differentiable model to provide at least one output for the neural network. Each iteration uses at least one output of a previous iteration and a current continuously differentiable model of the at least one continuously differentiable model.

Applications involving Deep-Learning Neural Networks (NNs) or neuromorphic computing such as image recognition, natural language processing and more generally various pattern-matching or classification tasks are quickly becoming as important as general-purpose computing. The essential computational element of the NN, or neuron, includes multiple inputs and an output. Associated with each input is a number, or weight. The activation of the neuron is computed by performing a weighted sum of the inputs (using the weights), which is then processed by the activation function. The activation function is typically a thresholding function. Thus, the neuron generally performs a vector-matrix product, or multiply-accumulate (MAC) operation, which is then thresholded.
The weights defined by the mathematical description of a NN are real numbers, and thus continuous. However, many hardware implementations of NNs use or propose to use lower-precision, discrete approximations to the real values for the weights. For example, some recent NNs are XNOR or gated XNOR (GXNOR) networks that would use only two (binary) or three (ternary) discrete levels. Such NNs may use −1 and 1 (binary), or −1, 0, and 1 (ternary) weights. Other hardware implementations might use a different number of discrete weights. While such reduced-precision weights are attractive from a hardware perspective, there is a potential penalty in the achievable inference accuracy. This is particularly true in the case of off-chip training, in which training is performed on a different system than is actually used for inference.
The degree of loss in inference accuracy depends on the details of the weights and on the training algorithm used. The straightforward approach to quantization is to simply perform standard training using floating-point weights off-line, and then choose discrete "bins" into which the mathematical weights are placed. A refinement of this algorithm treats the size of the bins as a hyperparameter, to be optimized on validation data for best accuracy. However, even with this refinement, NNs using lower-precision weights may suffer appreciable inference accuracy losses.
What is desired is improved inference accuracy for NNs that use lower precision weights even if such NNs are trained offline.

Method and system for training of neural networks using continuously differentiable models


A porous or non-porous polymeric substrate having its surface modified with an immobilized fluorocarbon such as perfluorocarbon, polymeric composition is provided. The immobilized fluorocarbon is formed from a monomer having formula: [T—SO2Y—SO2T′]−M+ in which —T and T′ are identical or different and comprise an organic radical bearing at least one active polymerization function such as an unsaturation or a ring that can be opened; —M+ comprises an inorganic cation. —Y comprises N or CQ in which Q comprises H, CN, F, SO2R3, substituted or unsubstituted C1-20 alkyl, substituted or unsubstituted C1-20 aryl, substituted or un-substituted C1-20 alkylene, in which the substituent comprises one or more halogens, and in which the chain comprises one or more F, SO2R, aza, oxa, thia or dioxathia substituents; and —R3 comprises F, substituted or unsubstituted C1-20 alkyl, in which the substituted or unsubstituted C1-20 aryl, substituted or unsubstituted C1-20 alkylene, in which the substituent comprises one or more halogens.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a porous or non-porous substrate comprising a fluorine-containing polymer including a fluorocarbon polymer substrate having a surface with improved hydrophilic characteristics, comprising an immobilized fluorocarbon polymeric composition having hydrophilic functional groups, comprising sulfonyl groups and to a process for forming the substrate having the improved hydrophilic characteristics. More particularly, this invention relates to a porous or non-porous substrate comprising a fluorine-containing polymer including a fluorocarbon substrate having a surface with improved hydrophilic characteristics, comprising an immobilized fluorocarbon polymeric composition having hydrophilic functional groups comprising sulfonyl groups wherein the immobilized fluorocarbon polymeric composition is immobilized in situ on the porous or nonporous substrate.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Articles made of a fluorine-containing polymer including a perfluoro-carbon substrate are useful in a wide variety of environments due to the chemical inertness of the substrate. By the term "perfluorocarbon" as used herein is meant a polymer comprising one or more perfluorocarbon monomers including homopolymers, copolymers, terpolymers, polymer blends or the like. Examples of perfluorocarbons include polytetrafluoroethylene, fluorinated ethylene-propylene copolymer (FEP), polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and perfluoroalkoxy polymer (PFA). These substrates are formed into a variety of shapes including non-porous films, beads, tubes, woven fibers, non-woven fibers, porous membranes, or the like.
Porous membrane filters are utilized in a wide variety of environments to separate materials within a fluid stream. Membranes are formed from a solid polymeric matrix and have highly precisely controlled and measurable porosity, pore size and thickness. In use, the membrane filters generally are incorporated into a device such as a cartridge, which in turn, is adapted to be inserted within a fluid stream to effect removal of particles, microorganisms or a solute from liquids and gases.
To be useful, membrane filters must be resistant to the fluid being filtered so that they maintains their strength, porosity, chemical integrity and cleanliness. In addition, membrane filters must remain wetted with the process fluid in order to maintain filtration efficiency. Perfluorocarbon-based membrane filters made from fluorine-containing polymers such as polytetrafluoroethylene, FEP or PFA are commonly utilized in these applications. Fluorine-containing polymers are well known for their chemical inertness, or excellent resistance to chemical attack. One disadvantage of fluorine-containing polymers is that they are hydrophobic and therefore membranes made from such polymers are difficult to wet or to remain wet with aqueous fluids or other fluids which have a tendency to outgas. For example, in the manufacture of microelectronic circuits, membrane filters are used extensively to purify various outgassing process fluids to prevent contaminants from causing circuit failures. Thus it would be desirable to provide a membrane filter having improved hydrophilic properties, which does not dewet during filtration in order to retain filtration efficiency.
Dewetting of a fluorine-containing polymeric surface also is a problem with a non-porous surface such as a hollow tube wherein the formation of gases therein restricts or prevents the controlled flow of an outgassing liquid therein.
When modifying a porous membrane surface for filtration applications, it is essential that the surface modification to impart improved hydrophilic characteristics be effected while maintaining desired fluid flow properties through the modified membrane. Thus, the membrane having its surface modified should retain sufficient porosity to permit its use as a filtration member. Accordingly the amount of surface modifying composition applied to the membrane surface must be controlled in order to retain porosity of the modified membrane. In contrast, when modifying a porous membrane for non-filtration applications such as in ion-exchange applications including electrodialysis, electrodeionization, fuel cells or the like, complete blockage of the membrane pores with the surface modifying composition is not a problem.
It has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,928,792 which is incorporated herein by reference to provide a process for modifying a surface of a porous membrane such as a perfluorocarbon membrane with a bound perfluorocarbon copolymer composition to render the entire surface non-dewetting.
PCT application WO 99/38897 discloses cross-linked sulfonated polymers and the process for preparing them.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,470,859 to Benezra et al, discloses a process for modifying the surfaces of microporous substrates formed of a fluorocarbon such as polytetrafiuoroethylene, with a coating of an uncross-linked perfluorocarbon copolymer composition including hydrophilic functional groups copolymer from a solution of the pefluorocarbon copolymer composition to render the surface of the membrane more water wettable. The perfluorocarbon copolymer composition is dissolved in a nonaqueous solvent at elevated temperature. The membrane then is immersed into the solution which, in turn, is placed into a vacuum chamber. The pressure within the chamber then is reduced such as to approximately 150 millimeters of mercury (absolute) to remove air from within the filter. Thereafter, the pressure within the chamber is quickly returned to atmospheric pressure. This coating process is repeated to ensure, what is described by Benezra et al., complete solution penetration into the pores of the membrane. By proceeding in this manner, the membrane surfaces and the interior walls defining the interstices within the membrane are coated with the perfluorocarbon copolymer composition. Following the coating step, the solvent is removed by evaporation using heat and vacuum, or the solvated perfluorocarbon copolymer composition is precipitated with a substance in which the perfluorocarbon copolymer composition is effectively insoluble. The solvents utilized to form the solution include halocarbon oil, perfluorooctanoic acid, decafluorobiphenyl, N-butylacetamide, and N,N-dimethylacetamide. Subsequent to modifying the membrane surface, Benezra et al, teaches avoiding the use of a fluid containing a solvent for the modifying perfluorocarbon polymer composition on the membrane surface. Benezra et al. also disclose that alcohol solutions for the perfluorocarbon polymer composition should be avoided.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,902,308 to Mallouk et al, also describes a process for modifying the surface of a porous, expanded polytetrafluoroethylene membrane with a perfluorocation exchange polymer from an organic solution of the polymer. Mallouk et al, also teaches that contact of the surface modified membrane with fluids containing a solvent for the polymer also should be avoided.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,259,226 and 4,327,010 disclose modifying a porous membrane surface with a fluorinated polymer having carboxylic acid salt groups. No process steps are disclosed for controlling extractables from the membrane or for controlling the extent of binding of the modifying composition to the membrane surface.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,183,545 and 5,094,895 disclose a process for making a multilayer, composite, porous diaphragm from a porous, multilayer, expanded polytetrafluoroethylene substrate having its surface modified with an uncross-linked perfluoro ion exchange polymer composition. The modifying polymer composition can contain a surfactant and may contain excess modifying composition, both of which are sources of undesirable extractables.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,874,616 to Howells et al discloses a process for making linear polymeric bis(fluoroalkylenesulfonyl)imides by reacting a difunctional fluoroalkylene sulfonamide compound with a difunctional fluoroalkylene sulfonyl halide compound. Since this process relies on the use of low molecular weight reactants to produce the polymer, it is difficult to control the molecular weight distribution of the final linear polymeric composition and therefore it is undesirable. In addition, the linear polymeric bis(fluoroalkylenesulfonyl)imides are not cross-linked.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,463,005 to Desmarteau discloses a process for forming a copolymer of tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) and a sulfonimide-containing unsaturated monomer wherein the monomer is derived from a sulfonimide-containing reagent. Since TFE is a toxic reagent, its use is undesirable. In addition, since this process relies on the use of low molecular weight unsaturated monomers, it is difficult to control the molecular weight distribution of the final polymeric composition.
It has been proposed by Shimazo in J. Electroanal. Chem. 258 (1998) pp. 49-59 to cross-link a perfluorocarbon copolymer composition such as Nafion™ films with radio frequency plasma. Cross-linking with a plasma is effected without the introduction of cross-linking groups. Cross-linking is effected through a bond linking two polymer chains. It has been proposed by Greso et al in POLYMER vol. 38 No. 6 (1997), pp. 1345-1356 to cross-link a perfluorocarbon copolymer composition such as Nafion™ films via Si—O—Si bridges. This process is undesirable since the product contains a bound inorganic phase, which is chemically unstable.
It has been proposed by Covitch et al in Polymer Science and Technology Vol. 16, pp. 257-267 (1982) to cross-link a perfluorocarbon copolymer composition such as Nafion™ films with ethylenediamine and heat. This process is undesirable since the product contains a non-fluorinated ethylene portion, which is chemically unstable.
International Patent application No. PCT/CA99/00083 discloses polymers formed from fluorinated polymerizable difunctional monomers containing a sulfonyl group. International Patent application PCT/CA99/38897 discloses a fluorinated cross-linked polymeric compositions containing sulfonyl groups.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a porous membrane formed from a fluorine-containing polymer having a surface with improved hydrophilic characteristics suitable for filtration applications. Such a porous membrane would be chemically and thermally stable and have a surface sufficiently hydrophilic to enable filtration while avoiding dewetting. In addition, it would be desirable to provide a non-porous membrane formed from an initially porous membrane formed from a fluorine-containing polymer having its pores filled with a fluorocarbon polymeric composition having hydrophilic functional groups. Such a non-porous membrane would be chemically and thermally stable and would permit the transport of ionic species therethrough. Furthermore, it would be desirable to provide a surface modified article formed from a non-porous fluorine-containing polymeric substrate having its surface modified with a fluorocarbon polymeric composition having hydrophilic functional groups. Such a non-porous article would be useful for processing outgassing liquids while avoiding dewetting of the surface.

Porous or non-porous substrate coated with an immobilized polymeric composition having sulfonyl groups and hydrophilic functional groups and process


A hemodialysis device (10) which features an improved disinfection apparatus. Before disinfection begins, a container (30) of disinfectant (36) is interposed into the dialysis fluid circulation system in place of the dialyzer. The dialysis fluid circulation system is shunted, and the disinfecting solution which is present in this closed circulation system is flushed out of the container (30) and through the entire path of the dialysis fluid, in order to achieve a complete cleaning of the hemodialysis device (10). It is possible to use solid, soluble disinfectant (36) as well as liquid disinfectant.

(1) Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to disinfection apparatus for use with hemodialysis apparatus.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
One of the features of blood dialysis apparatuses--so-called hemodialysis devices--is a circulation system for dialysis fluid. This circulation system features a water supply and a dialyzer. The water supply and dialyzer are connected to one another by an initial fluid line. A second fluid line leads from the dialyzer to the discharge. The first and second fluid lines each feature a connector which connects the respective line to the dialyzer. While the dialysis fluid circulation system is being disinfected, a disinfecting apparatus is interposed into this circulation system, and the two fluid lines are connected in a bypassing manner by a shunt piece between their respective connectors.
The disinfection of hemodialysis devices is an essential cleaning step between successive dialysis processes. The goal of this disinfection is the complete cleaning and sterilization of all surfaces and devices which come into contact with the dialysis fluid and/or its concentrates or thinning fluids. Inadequate disinfection of the dialysis fluid circulation system can lead to considerable damage to the health of the patient being treated. However, the only parts of the hemodialysis device which undergo disinfection are those which can be considered part of the dialysis fluid circulation system. The reason for this is that all parts of the blood circulation system are removed and replaced by new, sterile parts after each dialysis process.
In a familiar method for cleaning hemodialysis devices, the dialysis concentrate is replaced by a disinfectant concentrate (typically from a 10-liter canister), which is pumped through the hemodialysis device. In this method, the two fluid lines (i.e., water supply line and dialysis fluid discharge line) are not shunted together. When disinfection has been completed, the disinfecting fluid remains inside the device. Before beginning the next dialysis process, the dialysis device is flushed with water. This process requires the use of a great quantity of the disinfectant. It accomplishes the cleaning of only that portion of the dialysis apparatus which is located downstream from the point at which the disinfectant is added. The applicant's hemodialysis devices A2008C-E are typical embodiments of these devices.
Improved embodiments--as represented, for example, in DE 3 447 989 and DE 3 941 103--recirculate the disinfecting solution after interposing a shunt connection between the first and second fluid lines. For one thing, this results in the complete cleaning of the dialysis fluid circulation system. It also reduces the consumption of disinfectants.
Liquid cleaning agents (e.g., formaldehyde, peracetic acid, sodium hypochlorite, or similar chemicals) are ordinarily used as disinfectants. These cleaning agents are aggressive, environmentally unsound, unhealthy, and even somewhat poisonous. It is especially necessary to exercise great caution when using mixtures of the above-mentioned cleaning agents, since an explosion or a release of elemental chlorine can occur. It has only recently been discovered that citric acid functions as a disinfectant at high temperatures. Concentrated citric acid is also aggressive and can cause dangerous reactions when mixed with other chemicals.
Aside from the high cost of transporting the disinfectant (which consists mainly of water), it is necessary to exercise great caution when replacing the concentrates for the dialysis fluid and disinfectant. To this end, special precautions have been taken to prevent the different liquids from being misrouted, i.e, to prevent these concentrates from being accidentally exchanged with one another. Examples of such precautions include special provisions for connecting the different canisters to the hemodialysis device and separate controls for the fluid lines.
There is therefore an urgent need for a disinfecting apparatus which reduces the danger of accidental exchange described above, while ensuring a safe, complete disinfection of the hemodialysis device.

Apparatus for disinfection of hemodialysis devices with a powdered concentrate


A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell having a stack composed of stacked cells that generate electrical power from anode gas and cathode gas; a cell voltage measuring device connected to the cells to measure the voltages of the cells, the cell voltage measuring device outputting a first predetermined value as a measurement value when the voltage of the cell being measured is at or below a detection limit; a stack voltage measuring device connected to the stack that measures the voltage of the stack; and a control unit that restricts the current flowing though the fuel cell when the difference between the sum of the individual voltages of the cells measured by the cell voltage measuring device and the voltage of the stack measured by the stack voltage measuring device exceeds a second predetermined value.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel cell system provided with a fuel cell of a structure having a stack including a plurality of stacked cells, and a method of controlling same.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-42071, filed Feb. 18, 2005, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, a fuel cell vehicle equipped with a fuel cell as a vehicle drive source has been proposed. As this type of fuel cell, there is known one having a stack including a plurality of cells, each cell consisting of a membrane and electrode assembly (MEA), in which a solid polymer electrolyte membrane is held between an anode and a cathode, and sandwiched by separators. By introducing hydrogen (fuel gas) to the anode and air (oxidizing gas) to the cathode, electricity is generated by an electrochemical reaction between the hydrogen and the oxygen. Moreover, water is produced with this generation of electrical energy (so-called "produced water").
In this type of fuel cell, when, for example, generating electricity in a low-temperature environment, the reaction surface area of an MEA becomes covered with produced water and ice that is produced by freezing of the produced water. This leads to insufficient diffusion of the reactant gases, which may lower the cell voltage. Also, when an MEA is excessively dry, generation of electrical power does not fully take place, leading to a drop in cell voltage.
When the voltage of a cell drops, the conductivity of protons (hydrogen ions) produced at the anode side of the solid polymer electrolyte membrane of the MEA falls, leading to excessive heat generation due to movement of the protons from the anode side to the cathode side. As a result, the temperature of the fuel cell rises, causing degradation of the components (electrolyte membrane, catalyst layer, separators) constituting the fuel cell.
As technology aimed at prevention of this situation, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2002-313396 proposes detecting drops in cell voltage and stopping the system when the cell voltage falls below a predetermined voltage.
When the conductivity of the aforementioned protons (hydrogen ions) falls in one cell that, constitutes the fuel cell (such a cell suitably being called a "failed cell"), the electromotive force generated at the other cells acts on that portion. This is equivalent to the state in which, for example, when one battery in a group connected in series acts as resistance without supplying electric power, the electromotive force of the other batteries ends up acting on the portion serving as resistance. Thereby, the drop in voltage at the failed cell acting as resistance increases, the voltage becoming extremely lower than during normal operation to be well below 0 V.
In this state, the performance of the failed cell suffers due to the heat generation that occurs at the failed cell due to the application of the electromotive force of the other cells, in addition to heat generation by-power generation. Accordingly, in order to prevent this state, it is extremely important to detect the voltage of each cell not only when in a normal state but also when in a state of power generation failure.
In order to detect a drop in the above-mentioned cell voltage, a sensor is therefore required that detects a wide range of voltages including the range of 0 V and less. But generally there is an inverse relationship between the detection accuracy and the detection range of a sensor. The problem therefore arises that when performing control using a sensor with a wide range of detection, the detection accuracy within the cell voltage range during normal operation falls. Also, installing another sensor just to detect drops in the cell voltage, apart from the sensor that detects the cell voltage during normal operation, complicates the entire system, leading to an increase in the number of components and cost as well as power consumption.

Fuel cell system and method of controlling same


Disclosed is an IC chip type hearing aid module for use in a mobile communication terminal having a hearing aid circuit including: a first section having a resistor R1 and an inductor L1 which are connected in series on a first output line Receiver_P between the mobile communication terminal and an ear speaker; a second section having a resistor R4 and an inductor L2 which are connected in series on a second output line Receiver_N between the mobile communication terminal and the ear speaker; a third section having a resistor R2 and a capacitor C2 which are connected in series between an input terminal of the first section and an output terminal of the second section; and a fourth section having a resistor R3 and a capacitor C3 which are connected in series between an input terminal of the second section and an output terminal of the first section.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hearing aid module for use in a mobile communication terminal particularly for the hard-of-hearing.
2. Description of Related Art
Mobile communication terminals equipped with hearing aid function for the hard-of-hearing have been increasingly demanded. According to FCC (Federal Communications Commission) regulation in the United States, mobile communication terminals equipped with no hearing aid function are not permitted to be sold since the year 2001 in the United States.
A hearing aid is a device used to help the hard-of-hearing hear sounds better. It includes a telecoil (T-coil) which is a coil of wire that is switched in place of a hearing aid microphone to allow the hearing aid to pickup the varying magnetic field at an earpiece of a telephone handset. The T-coil is essentially one half of a transformer, the other half being provided by the handset or an induction loop in a listening assistance system.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an ear speaker according to the prior art. An ear speaker 10 includes a permanent magnet 11 generating a magnetic field, a pole piece 12 forming a magnetic circuit in cooperation with the permanent magnet 11, a voice coil 13 wound around the permanent magnet 11 and the pole piece 12, a vibrating plate 14 provided over the pole piece 12, and a frame 15 and a cover 16 which cover the permanent magnet 11, the pole piece 12, the voice coil 13, and the vibrating plate 14. The ear speaker 10 is connected to an ear microphone of a mobile communication terminal (not shown) through a connecting terminal 17 to output an audio signal from the mobile communication terminal through the ear speaker 10.
In the ear speaker 10, the permanent magnet 11 generates a static magnetic field. When an audio signal is input from the mobile communication terminal, current flows through the voice coil 13. The current generates a dynamic magnetic field, thereby generating a Lorentz force. At this time, since the audio signal is an alternating current, its polarity is changed at very short intervals of approximately 1/1000 sec. The change in the polarity of the current causes the direction of Lorentz force to be changed, thereby creating forces of attraction and repulsion.
The magnitude of Lorentz force is proportional to the magnitude of flux density, the amount of current, and the length of the voice coil 13. The direction of Lorentz force is a direction perpendicular to a plane formed by the flux density and the current. Accordingly, the vibrating plate 14 moves up and down due to the Lorentz force, thereby producing a sound.
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an ear speaker with hearing aid function according to the prior art. The ear speaker 10 includes a hearing aid coil (T-coil) 18 inside the cover 16. As shown in FIG. 2, a plurality of layers of the hearing aid coil 18 is provided over the voice coil 13 to produce a leakage magnetic field, thereby providing improved hearing performance.
In more detail, part of the magnetic field produced by the voice coil 13 leaks out of the ear speaker 10. The magnetic field produced by the voice coil 13 causes an induced electromotive force to be produced on the hearing aid coil 18. The electromotive force has the same frequency as but different magnitude from the audio signal inputted to the ear speaker 10.
Accordingly, since both an acoustic signal outputted from the voice coil 13 and an acoustic signal caused by the electromotive force induced on the hearing aid coil 18 are outputted from the ear speaker 10 with hearing aid function, the hard-of-hearing can hear sounds better through the ear speaker 10 with hearing aid function than through a typical ear speaker.
The ear speaker 10 with hearing aid function has a much larger impedance than a typical ear speaker with no hearing aid function to allow the hard-of-hearing to hear sounds better.
FIG. 9 is a frequency-response characteristic graph of an ear speaker with hearing aid function according to the prior art.
To increase the impedance of the ear speaker 10, the coil has to be thicker, the number of turns of the coil has to be increased, and the ear speaker itself has to be thicker to meet an optimum resonance condition.
However, there is a problem in that such a large-sized ear speaker is not convenient to use. Further, an ear microphone that allows a user to hear and input sounds is recently more popular than the ear speaker, so that it is more difficult to incorporate the hearing aid function into the ear microphone than the ear speaker.

IC chip type hearing aid module for mobile communication terminal