A method and system for specifying an area of interest in a 3D imaging system including a plurality of cameras that include at least first and second cameras wherein each camera has a field of view arranged along a camera distinct trajectory, the method comprising the steps of presenting a part at a location within the fields of view of the plurality of cameras, indicating on the part an area of interest that is within the field of view of each of the plurality of cameras, for each of the plurality of cameras: (i) acquiring at least one image of the part including the area of interest, (ii) identifying a camera specific field of interest within the field of view of the camera associated with the area of interest in the at least one image and (iii) storing the field of interest for subsequent use.

The invention pertains to machine vision and, more particularly, three-dimensional (3D) machine vision. The invention has application in manufacturing, quality control, and robotics, to name but a few fields.
Machine vision refers to the automated analysis of images to determine characteristics of objects represented in them. It is often employed in automated manufacturing lines, where images of components are analyzed to facilitate part-picking, as well as to determine part placement and alignment for assembly. When robots are the means for automated assembly and automated analysis of images is used to facilitate part picking, placement, and alignment, the system is referred to as vision-guided robotics. Machine vision is also used for robot navigation, e.g., to insure the recognition of scenes as robots travel through environments.
Though three-dimensional (3D) analysis has long been discussed in the literature, most present-day machine vision systems rely on two-dimensional (2D) image analysis. This typically necessitates that objects under inspection be "presented to" the vision system in constrained orientations and locations. A conveyor belt is commonly used for this purpose. Objects being assembled or inspected are typically placed at a particular known, stable, 3D configuration on the belt, but at an unknown position and orientation and moved to within the vision system's field of view. Based on an object's 2D pose (i.e., position and orientation) in the field of view, and taking into account that it is disposed on the conveyor (thereby, rendering certain its "lie" and its distance from the vision system camera), the system applies 2D geometry to determine the object's exact 3D pose and/or conformance with expected appearance.
Examples using such 2D vision analysis are provided in prior works of the assignee hereof, including U.S. Pat. No. 6,748,104, entitled "Methods and apparatus for machine vision inspection using single and multiple templates or patterns", U.S. Pat. No. 6,639,624, entitled "Machine vision methods for inspection of leaded components", U.S. Pat. No. 6,301,396, entitled "Nonfeedback-based machine vision methods for determining a calibration relationship between a camera and a moveable object", U.S. Pat. No. 6,137,893, entitled "Machine vision calibration targets and methods of determining their location and orientation in an image", U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,521, entitled "Machine vision methods using feedback to determine calibration locations of multiple cameras that image a common object", U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,080, entitled "Machine vision methods using feedback to determine an orientation, pixel width and pixel height of a field of view", U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,125, entitled "Nonfeedback-based machine vision method for determining a calibration relationship between a camera and a moveable object," U.S. Pat. No. 6,856,698, entitled "Fast high-accuracy multi-dimensional pattern localization", U.S. Pat. No. 6,850,646, entitled "Fast high-accuracy multi-dimensional pattern inspection", and U.S. Pat. No. 6,658,145, entitled "Fast high-accuracy multi-dimensional pattern inspection," to name a few.
With the increased reliance on robotics, everywhere from the factory floor to the home, the need for practical 3D vision systems has come to the fore. This is because, in many of these environments, objects subject to inspection are not necessarily constrained in overall position and lie, e.g., as might otherwise be the case with objects presented on a conveyor belt. That is, the precise 3D configuration of the object may be unknown.
To accommodate the additional degrees of freedom of pose and position in a 3D scene, 3D vision tools are helpful, if not necessary. Examples of these include U.S. Pat. No. 6,771,808, entitled, "System and method for registering patterns transformed in six degrees of freedom using machine vision", and U.S. Pat. No. 6,728,582, entitled, "System and method for determining the position of an object in three dimensions using a machine vision system with two cameras."
Other machine vision techniques have been suggested in the art. Some require too much processor power to be practical for real-time application. Others require that objects subject to inspection go though complex registration procedures and/or that, during runtime, many of the objects' features be simultaneously visible in the vision system field-of-view.
Outside the machine vision realm, the art also provides contact-based methods of determining 3D poses—such as using an x,y,z measuring machine with a touch sensor. However, this requires contact, is relatively slow and can require manual intervention. Electromagnetic wave-based methods for determining 3D poses have also been offered. These do not require physical contact, but suffer their own drawbacks, such as requiring the oft impractical step of affixing transmitters to objects that are subject to inspection.
An object of this invention is to provide improved methods and apparatus for machine vision and, more particularly, for three-dimensional machine vision.
A related object of this invention is to provide such methods and apparatus as have a range of practical applications including, but not limited to, manufacturing, quality control, and robotics.
A further related object of the invention is to provide such methods and apparatus as permit determination of, for example, position and pose in three-dimensional space.
A still further related object of the invention is to provide such methods and apparatus as impose reduced constraints, e.g., as to overall position and lie, of objects under inspection.
Yet still a further related object of the invention is to provide such methods and apparatus as minimize requirements for registration of objects subject to inspection.
Still yet a further object of the invention is to provide such methods and apparatus as can be implemented in present day and future machine vision platforms.

Methods and apparatus for practical 3D vision system


An earphone includes a body portion and a sound port, with the sound port including an earhook attachment located adjacent the body portion, an earfin attachment located adjacent the earhook attachment, and an ear tip adjacent the earfin attachment. An earhook is provided which engages the earhook attachment adjacent the body portion. An earfin includes an earfin aperture, which engages the earfin attachment when the sound port portion is inserted through the aperture. The earfin is configured such that when the tip is attached to the sound port, the tip extends beyond the earfin, opposite the body portion.

The present apparatus generally relates to personal sound systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to insertable earphones having modular attachments.
Insertable earphones are known in the art and, unlike headphones which cover a user's ears entirely, are designed to occlude the user's ear canal to provide isolation from surrounding environmental sounds. Earphones are preferable to headphones in many ways. Due to their small size, they lack the necessity of a headband or similar structure, relying instead on the pressure fit between the earphone and a user's ear canal to remain in place.
A problem exists, however, in that users engaging in strenuous, or movement-heavy physical activities can frequently move sufficiently erratically to dislodge an earphone despite its pressure fit. This requires the user to stop the activity and re-insert the earphone, and hamper's the user's ability to perform the physical activity to a desired extent of movement. To counter the problem of dislodging, various apparatus have been developed, including earfins and earhooks. Earfins typically extend from just behind the inserted tip of an earphone, engaging a user's middle ear just outside the ear canal, while earhooks extend around the back of the user's ear to hold an earphone in position. In the current art, there exist either earphones having an earfin, or having an earhook, and thus there exists a lack of customizability in response to different user preferences.
Hence, what is needed is an earphone that provides both an earfin and an earhook, and more specifically, there is a need for an earphone that provides both an earfin and an earhook, which can be individually and independently installed, used and removed according to user preference.

Earphone with modular earfin and earhook fittings


A vena cava blood clot filter is described that is attached to the walls of the vena cava by barbed anchors. In its filtering state, the filter is cone shaped which causes the blood to be filtered. The cone shape is formed by an appropriate restraining mechanism. When it is desired to stop filtering, the restraining mechanism is released and the filter takes a cylindrical shape. The cylindrical shaped filter will then line the vena cava wall and cease filtration of the blood.

1. Field of Invention
The following invention relates to a clot filter and more specifically to a convertible vena cava blood clot filter.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vena cava blood clot filters are generally placed in the inferior vena cava, introduced either through the femoral or jugular vein. These filters trap blood clots that have arisen from the peripheral veins and that travel through the vena cava. By trapping the blood clots, the filter prevents the clots from lodging in the pulmonary bed, which can lead to a condition known as pulmonary embolus.
Pulmonary embolus (PE) has long been recognized as a major health care concern. Untreated PE is associated with a high mortality rate, widely held to be approximately 30%, although the exact rate is unknown. Symptomatic PE, however, represents only one manifestation of a more protean disorder, venous thromboembolic disease (VTD), which includes both deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and PE. Understanding of the interrelationship of these disorders has increased in recent years, as has the extent to which VTD contributes to patient mortality.
The current standard of care of VTD is anticoagulation for a minimum period of six months. If patients are properly treated with anticoagulation, the impact of VTD upon patient health is minimized. However, anticoagulant therapy carries the risk of bleeding complications. In patients with VTD or PE that 1) are at high risk of developing a bleeding complication, 2) have a contraindication to anticoagulant therapy, 3) had a failure of response to anticoagulant therapy (i.e. further episodes of PE), or 4) developed a bleeding complication because of anticoagulant therapy, vena cava blood clot filters play an important role in the management of VTD.
Vena cava clot filters can be categorized into two device families: permanently implanted devices and temporary devices. Permanently implanted devices are implanted for patients that require a filter for more than fourteen days. Fourteen days roughly approximates the time before which the points where the filter contact with the caval wall becomes covered by endothelial cells which thicken to eventually attach the filter permanently to the cava wall. If an attempt is made to remove the filter after this time point, severe damage may occur resulting in laceration or rupture of the vena cava, or at the very least, a focal disruption of the endothelial lining which may predispose to caval stenosis, thrombosis (clot formation) or occlusion.
Since the permanent blood clot filters are left in the body for the lifetime of the patient, the patient undergoes several risks that continue throughout the person's lifetime. The reported long-term sequela of some of the permanent devices include thrombotic occlusion of the vena cava, filter migration, filter fragmentation and filter embolization.
These problems can occur because the blood clot filter is directly in the blood stream and continually filtering the blood clots throughout the lifetime of the patient. Thrombotic occlusion and filter embolization can occur when a gradual buildup of blood clots forms in or around the filter due to the continuous filtering. Filter migration and filter fragmentation can occur because of the constant impact between the blood filter and the flowing blood can move the filter or break the structure of the filter.
Temporary blood clot filters do not share those long-term risks because they are removed from the patient's body. However, the situations in which temporary blood clot filters are used are limited. The patient must recover to the point that the risk from PE is reduced to an acceptable level prior to the 14-day limit or to a time point at which the patient may be safely anticoagulated. Otherwise, a permanently implanted blood clot filter must be used to avoid damage to the caval wall that may result if attempt is made in removal after 14-days.
Temporary blood clot filters fall into two categories. One group utilizes a permanently attached tethering catheter for retrieval, whereas the other requires the use of a retrieval device for removal. In addition to the limited amount of time that it can remain in the vena cava, the catheter-based design has the draw back of infectious complications at the entry site. Other temporary designs allow a filter to be placed and later retrieved using a device.
When a patient's need for a blood clot filter is known to be temporary, but longer than the 14-day period, the patient's only recourse is to receive a permanent blood clot filter. An example of a temporary need resulting in placement of a permanent vena cava blood clot filter is a patient who need needs protection from PE in the perioperative period or a woman with DVT during pregnancy. These patients will receive a permanent filter and be unnecessarily subjected to the lifelong risks associated with permanent blood clot filters.
Accordingly, it is the object of the present invention to disclose an implanted device that provides effective caval filtration for any length of time. However, if and when it is determined that the risk from the implanted device disrupting laminar blood flow exceeds the risk of further PE, the filter can be removed from the blood stream to eliminate the associated risks of having a permanent filter within the bloodstream. This can be done at any time without regard to the amount of time that the filter has been implanted and without causing damage to the caval wall. Another object of the present invention is to provide such a filter that allows trapping (capturing) of blood clots of sizes that result in a clinically significant PE that poses an unacceptably high risk of patient morbidity and mortality. The trapped clots in the filter are then dissolved by the bodies own intrinsic fibrinolytic system, without causing pulmonary function compromise. Still a further object of the present invention is to provide such a filter that is relatively simple in design and is relatively inexpensive to manufacture.


Interdigitated electrodes on a donor roll enable uncharged toner to be picked up from a fluidized bed reservoir. This layer of toner is subsequently charged by exposure to a corona device and delivered to a development zone, where it is used to develop an electrostatic latent image. Residual toner on the donor is neutralized by exposure to a second corona device and then stripped for return to the fluidized bed by applying an AC voltage between adjacent donor electrodes. So-called ion charging of the toner is known to cause the particles to have low adhesion, allowing development with DC fields alone. Optionally, an AC voltage can also be applied to adjacent donor electrodes in the development zone to enhance particle release. In addition to providing a means to impart adequate flow to the toner in this single component development system, the fluidized bed reservoir, in conjunction with ion charging, also provides a means for blending dry powder toners to achieve custom color development.

This invention relates generally to a development apparatus for ionographic or electrophotographic imaging and printing apparatuses and machines, and more particularly is directed to a process of loading the surface of an interdigitated electroded donor roll with uncharged toner particles, subsequently corona charging the toner, and forming a toner cloud in a development zone.
Generally, the process of electrophotographic printing includes charging a photoconductive member to a substantially uniform potential so as to sensitize the surface thereof. The charged portion of the photoconductive surface is exposed to a light image from either a scanning laser beam, an LED array or an original document being reproduced. By selectively discharging certain areas on the photoconductor, an electrostatic latent image is recorded on the photoconductive surface. This latent image is subsequently developed by charged toner particles supplied by the development sub-system.
Powder development systems normally fall into two classes: two component, in which the developer material is comprised of magnetic carrier granules having toner particles adhering triboelectrically thereto and single component, which typically uses toner only. The development system disclosed herein is of the latter, or single component, type. Toner particles are attracted to the latent image forming a toner powder image on the photoconductive surface The toner powder image is subsequently transferred to a copy sheet, and finally, the toner powder image is heated to permanently fuse it to the copy sheet in image configuration.
The adhesion of charged toner particles in large part determines the operating latitude of powder xerographic development systems. It has been found that triboelectrically charged toner has high electrostatic adhesion, due to non-uniform surface charge distributions and localized regions of high surface charge density on the toner particles. The high adhesion of tribo-charged toner severely restricts the operating latitude of powder development systems, particularly those in which a toner cloud is generated to develop the latent image.
For powder xerography, the image quality requirements make it necessary to reduce the toner particle size to around 5 microns or less in diameter. For printers serving the color offset printing markets, the development system requires high quality, high speed and robust toner delivery. The ability to blend different color toners to achieve custom colors is another requirement. Unfortunately, traditional powder development systems based on triboelectric toner charging do not appear to have the operating latitude necessary to simultaneously satisfy all of these requirements. As will be demonstrated below, however, the use of an ion charging-based development system potentially enables the extended capabilities required for high quality production color printing with dry powder.
The operating latitude of a powder xerographic development system is determined to a great degree by the ease with which toner particles are supplied to an electrostatic image. Placing charge on the particles, to enable movement and imagewise development via electric fields, is most often accomplished with triboelectricity. However, all development systems which use triboelectricity to charge toner, whether they be two component (toner and carrier) or monocomponent (toner only), have one feature in common: charges are distributed non-uniformly on the surface of the toner. This results in high electrostatic adhesion due to locally high surface charge densities on the particles. Toner adhesion, especially in the development step, is a key factor which limits performance by hindering toner release. As the toner particle size is reduced to enable higher image quality, the charge Q on a triboelectrically charged particle, and thus the removal force (F=QE) acting on the particle due to the development electric field E, will drop roughly in proportion to the particle surface area. On the other hand, the electrostatic adhesion forces for tribo-charged toner, which are dominated by charged regions on the particle at or near its points of contact with a surface, do not decrease as rapidly with decreasing size. This so-called "charge patch" effect makes smaller, tribo-charged particles much more difficult to develop and control.
Jumping development systems, in which toner is required to jump a gap to develop the electrostatic latent image, are capable of image quality which can be superior to in-contact systems, such as magnetic brush development. Unfortunately, they are also much more sensitive to toner adhesion. In fact, high toner adhesion has been identified as a major limitation in jumping development. Up to now, mechanical and/or electrical agitation of toner have been used to break these adhesion forces and allow toner to be released into a cloud for jumping development. This approach has had limited success, however. More agitation often releases more toner, but high adhesion due to triboelectric charging still dominates in toner cloud generation and causes unstable development. For full color printing system architectures in which the complete image is formed on the image bearing member, an increase in toner delivery rate produces a highly interactive toner cloud, which disturbs previously developed particles on the latent image. This erases many of the original benefits of jumping development for color xerographic printing for the so-called image-on-image (IOI) architecture. Again, as the toner size is reduced, the above limitations become even more acute due to increased toner adhesion.
Given that charged particle adhesion is a major limiting factor in development with dry powder, it has been a goal to identify toner charging and delivery schemes which keep toner adhesion low. Clearly, the adhesion of the charged toner depends sensitively on the method used to charge the particles. Triboelectric charging is known to produce highly adhering particles. On the other hand, ion toner charging, which occurs when toner particles capture ions emitted by a nearby corona device, results in a more uniform deposition of charge on the particle's surface, and thus lowers the adhesion of the particles for a given charge level.
It is well known that fluidizing reservoirs, commonly referred to as fluidized beds, provide a means for storing, mixing and transporting toner in certain single component development systems. Efficient means for fluidizing toner and charging the particles within the fluidized bed are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,777,106 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,532,100, which are hereby incorporated by reference. In these disclosures, corona devices are embedded in the fluidized toner for simultaneous toner charging and deposition onto a receiver roll. While the development system as described has been found satisfactory in some development applications, it leaves something to be desired in the way in applications requiring the blending of two or more dry powder toners to achieve custom color development. Also, it has been found in the above systems that there are frequently disturbances to the flow in the fluidized bed associated with charged particles in the high electric fields surrounding corona devices immersed in the reservoir. Finally, it is known that residual toner left on the donor roll after development contributes to non-uniformities in subsequently loaded toner layers, thereby leading to the so-called "ghosting" defect in printed images.
Briefly, the present invention obviates the problems noted above by enabling a gentle toner handling system in which non-contact metering and particle charging on an electroded donor roll can be controlled independently to provide charged toner particles with low adhesion for xerographic development. The toner is initially extracted electrostatically from a fluidized bed and deposited as a net neutral layer on a donor member. This toner layer is subsequently charged with a DC or AC corona device and delivered to a latent image. This so-called ion charging produces a more uniform deposition of charge on the toner particles, resulting in significantly lowered particle adhesion. In addition, the ion charging process is independent of toner pigment, allowing mixtures of two of more different colored toners to be charged homogeneously. Residual toner on the donor is neutralized and returned to the fluidized bed toner reservoir during each complete cycle of the donor roll.
There is also provided an apparatus for developing a latent image recorded on an imaging surface, comprising; a housing defining a reservoir storing a supply of developer material comprising toner; means for fluidizing said developer material in the chamber of said housing; a donor member, mounted partially in said chamber and spaced from the imaging surface, for transporting toner on an outer surface said donor member to a region opposed from the imaging surface, said toner donor member having a plurality of electrodes positioned near the outer surface of donor member; means for electrical biasing a portion of said electrode members on a region of said donor member positioned in close proximity to said fluidized toner so as to electrostatically load toner onto the region of the donor member; means for ion charging said toner loaded on the region of said donor member; means for electrical biasing said electrode members positioned in close proximity to said imaging member to detach toner from said region of said donor member as to form a toner cloud for developing the latent image; and means for discharging and removing residual toner on the region of said donor and returning said toner to the reservoir.

Ion charging development system to deliver toner with low adhesion


A continuous rotary filling and packaging machine covers a container body with a molded lid and ultrasonically seals the container body. The molded lid to produce a sealed container includes a lid detecting device 70 disposed on the downstream side of the lid supplying device 60 and an ultrasonic sealing device 100 including lifting and lowering means including a cam mechanism for lifting and lowering a container table 103. The lifting and lowering means is configured such that the molded lid on the container body and a seal working surface of an ultrasonic horn 108 come into press-contact with each other at a top dead point of the container table. A container table lowering control mechanism does not lift, to the top dead point, a container table of a container whose container body does not have the molded lid placed thereon or properly placed thereon as determined.

As a conventional filling and sealing device that fills a container body with liquid contents, covers the container body filled with the liquid contents with a molded lid made of synthetic resin using a lid supplying device, and ultrasonically seals the container body and the lid to produce a sealed container, there is proposed a filling and packaging machine that fills a container body with contents, covers the container body, which is filled with the contents, with a lid, and seals the container body and the lid to produce a sealed container, the filling and packaging machine including a container supplying device that supplies a bottomed cylindrical container body made of synthetic resin to a filling device, the filling device that fills the supplied container body with contents, a primary lid cold molding device that molds, from a sheet-like lid material, a molded lid made of synthetic resin including a disc-like lid body and a skirt provided to be suspended from the circumferential edge of the lid body, a lid supplying device that supplies the molded lid to an upper opening of the container body filled with the contents, a sealing device that seals an upper end opening of the container body with the molded lid to produce a sealed container, and a secondary lid molding device that molds the lid of the sealed container molded by the primary lid cold molding device into a final lid shape (see for example, Patent Documents 1 and 2).
Besides, concerning an ultrasonic filling and sealing device, there is known a container ultrasonic sealing method for sealing a container body with a container forming component using an ultrasonic horn including a seal working surface, the method including pressurizing, in a state in which sealed portions of the container body and the container forming component are superimposed each other, the sealed portions with the seal working surface and causing ultrasonic rotational vibration in a rotating direction, which has the center in an axis parallel to a pressuring direction, to act on the seal working surface (see for example, Patent Document 3). Further, there is known a packaging container including a container body made of synthetic resin having a flange section at an upper end opening circumferential edge used for ultrasonic sealing, a top plate section, and a skirt provided to be suspended from the circumferential edge of the top plate section, wherein the top plate section includes a container lid heated to seal the upper surface of the flange section of the container body, and the flange section includes a first cutout section at the outer edge upper end thereof (see for example, Patent Document 4).

Continuous rotary filling and packaging machine


A semiconductor device for the detection of a target DNA or RNA is provided, composed of: at least one insulating or semi-insulating layer; one conducting semiconductor layer; two conducting pads on the upper layer making electrical contact with the conducting semiconductor layer, such that electrical current can flow between them at a finite distance from the surface of the device; and a layer of at least one single-stranded DNA probe directly adsorbed on the surface of the upper layer which is either a conducting semiconductor layer or an insulating or semi-insulating layer. The DNA probe may have a sequence complementary to a sequence of the target DNA or RNA, e.g., a sequence of a gene responsible for a genetic disease or disorder, and the detection of the target DNA is carried out by hybridization with the probe and monitoring either the current change resulting from the hybridization process when a constant electric potential is applied between the two conducting pads or measuring the change in the electric potential required to keep a constant current.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the genetic information carrier found predominantly in the nucleus of living cells and constitutes the primary genetic material of all cellular organisms and of DNA viruses.
DNA is a linear or circular double-stranded helical polymer, each strand containing a sugar-phosphate backbone composed of deoxyribose sugar moieties substituted by phosphate groups at their 5′ and 3′ hydroxyls, the sugar groups being connected to 4 purine and pyrimidine bases usually indicated by their initial letters, namely, adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T). The two single strands of the DNA (ssDNA) are connected through hydrogen bonds between the complementary base pairs A-T and C-G (the Watson-Crick base pairs), of the two strands.
Genes are segments of DNA molecules containing all the information required for synthesis of a product, namely, a protein/polypeptide chain with a certain biological function or an RNA molecule. A mutation in a gene, e.g., a change in one or more base pairs of the normal gene, may result in a protein product with a change in biological function and, thus, in a genetic defeat or disease.
In the biological process of synthesis of polypeptide chains, the first step is transcription whereby the double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) serves as a template for synthesis of a single-stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) with a base sequence complementary to one strand of the double-stranded DNA. In the second step, the translation, the polypeptide chain is synthesized using the RNA as a template. The amino acid sequence of the protein is completely determined by the sequence of bases in the RNA, which in turn is determined by the sequence of bases in the DNA of the gene from which it was transcribed.
The two single strands constituting a double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) can be separated by heating the DNA to ˜90° C. or by increasing the pH to extreme values, in a process called denaturation. The denatured complementary strands can react again to form the dsDNA by slow cooling of the DNA to the body temperature or by reducing the pH back to neutral, in a process called hybridization.
The hybridization process provides a powerful technique to detect mutations in a DNA sequence due to the selective binding of a single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) to its complementary strand. This specific property of the DNA is referred to as the "recognition" process.
The selectivity of the hybridization is affected by the conditions in which this process is done, i.e., the solvent (ionic strength) and the temperature. It is expected that the hybridization kinetics will depend on the number of complementary bases. The difference in hybridization rates, when the number of complementary bases changes, is an indication of the selectivity of the process.
Fast and efficient determination of DNA sequences and, particularly, the identification of mutations occurring in DNA sequences, is of major importance in the diagnosis of genetic diseases and in certain cases of cancer.
Several methods have been developed in recent years for the detection and isolation of specific DNA sequences, for example for diagnostic applications. Some of these methods are based on molecular hybridization whereby formation of a partially or fully complementary nucleic acid duplex occurs by association of single strands, usually between DNA and RNA strands, but also between RNA strands. In the technique of in situ hybridization, a known nucleic acid sequence, single stranded and usually with radioactive or fluorescent labels, is applied to a DNA-containing sample and annealing occurs in situ.
Conventional techniques exist for automated DNA sequencing and mutation detection. However, some of these methods include radioactive labeling, which require special handling techniques. In addition, obtaining results using the old methods may take several days. The computerized methods with similar principles are faster but expensive.
The sensors that are currently used for mutation detection are usually based on a probe ssDNA that is immobilized on a substrate, which can be silicon, polymer, gold, etc. The substrate is connected to a transducer that translates the signal of the events occurring on the surface into a physically measurable parameter. The addition of the target DNA and its level of hybridization to different probes on the substrate is indicated by a change in the signal. The hybridization between two fully complementary strands yields a change in the signal, that should be distinguished significantly from the hybridization between two non-complementary or partially complementary strands.
The currently developed detectors can be categorized according to the detection methods they use. Electrochemical-, fluorescent- and transistor-based detectors are known wherein the first step in their development is the immobilization process, in which a DNA strand is connected to a substrate.
One example of DNA sensors, based on fluorescence detection, is described by Nemoto et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,556,529) or by Livache et al., 1994. In that method, DNA sequences are amplified by replication for better sensitivity and then transcribed to double-stranded RNA. The synthesis of double-stranded RNA is quantified by fluorescence.
A second example of DNA sensors is electrochemically-based (Wang et al., 1996), in which a single-stranded DNA, which is adsorbed on an electrode, reacts with a complementary strand and the reaction is monitored by chronopotentiometric measurements.
Another detection method of biological reactions is based on the use of a field effect transistor (Schenk, U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,757) whereby the current between two electrodes in a silicon-based transistor is measured as a function of the voltage on a third electrode inserted in a biological solution, which is placed in the gap between the two electrodes.
PCT Publication No. WO 98/19151 (Cahen et al., 1998), of the same applicants of the present application, herein incorporated by reference as if herein described in its entirety, describes a hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductor device and sensors based thereon, said device characterized by being composed of:
(i) at least one layer of a conducting semiconductor;
(ii) at least one insulating layer;
(iii) a multifunctional organic sensing molecule directly chemisorbed on one of its surfaces, said multifunctional organic sensing molecule having at least one functional group that binds to said surface and at least one other functional group that serves as a sensor; and
(iv) two conducting pads on the top layer making electrical contact with the electrically conducting layer (i), such that electrical current can flow between them at a finite distance from the surface of the device.
These molecular controlled semiconductor resistors, herein designated MOCSER, are hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductor devices composed of one or more insulating or semi-insulating layers, one conducting semiconductor layer, two conducting pads, and a layer of multifunctional organic molecules, characterized in that: (i) said conducting semiconductor layer is on top of one of said insulating or semi-insulating layers; (ii) said two conducting pads are on both sides on top of an upper layer which is either said conducting semiconductor layer or another of said insulating or semi-insulating layers, making electrical contact with said conducting semiconductor layer; and (iii) said layer of multifunctional organic molecules is directly bound through at least one of said functional groups to the surface of said upper layer, between the two conducting pads, and at least another of said functional groups of said multifunctional organic molecules binds chemicals or absorbs light. The multifunctional organic molecules are directly bound to the surface of said upper conducting semiconductor layer or insulating or semi-insulating layer through at least one functional group selected from one or more aliphatic or aromatic carboxyl, thiol, acyclic sulfide, cyclic disulfide, hydroxamic acid and trichlorosilane groups. The at least another functional group of said multifunctional organic molecules that binds chemicals may be a metal-binding and metal-detecting group selected from radicals derived from hydroxamic acids, bipyridyl, imidazol and hydroxyquinoline that can detect a metal ion such as Cu2+, Fe2+ and Ru2+ metal ions. The at least another functional group of said multifunctional organic molecules that absorbs light is selected from aliphatic or aromatic hydroxamates, substituted aromatic groups such as cyanobenzoyl and methoxybenzoyl, bipyridyl groups, hydroxyquinoline groups, or imidazolyl groups to which a metal porphyrin or a metalophthalocyanin residue is attached. Examples of said multifunctional organic molecules are 2,3-di(p-cyanobenzoyl) tartaric acid (DCDC), 4,5-di(p-cyano-benzoyloxy)-1,2-dithiane (DCDS), 4,5-di(p-methoxy-benzoyloxy)-1,2-dithiane (DMDS) and 1,2-dithiane-4,5-di(hydroxyquinoline) and the Cu2+ complex thereof.
The device described in WO 98/19151 serves as a generic amplifier for chemical processes occurring on its surface. In one example, the device is based on a GaAs/(Al,Ga)As structure which is built in such a way that the current through it is extremely sensitive to the electric potential on its surface. As a result the device is very sensitive to any change in the charge distribution in molecules that are adsorbed on its surface (Gartsman et al., 1998; Vilan et al., 1998).

DNA detector based on molecular controlled semiconductor resistor


Provided is a compressor for use in a gas turbine engine, capable of preventing a creation of rust on an inner surface of the compressor casing, without complicating assembling process. The casing 15 of the compressor 3 accommodates rotor and stator blade wheels 13 and 17. The stator blade wheels 17 are supported on the inner surface of the casing 15 through outer flanges 30 thereof. Seal rings 52 are provided at inner surface portions of the casing 15 opposing the radially outward ends of the rotor blade wheels 13. The inner surface of the casing 15 is covered by the seal rings 52 and the outer flanges 30 of the stator blade wheels 17.

In the conventional gas turbine engine, an intake air is compressed by the compressor. The compressed air is supplied into combustors where it is combusted with fuel to generate high-temperature and high-pressure combustion gas. The combustion gas is supplied to a turbine where it is used as rotational energy and then discharged into the air.
Typically, the compressor casing, which is made of cast iron, needs anti-corrosion treatment because the rust created on the inner surface of the compressor casing would adhere to the surfaces of the blade wheels to degrade the performance of the compressor. Also, flaked rust may clog a passage for transporting a part of the compressed air to be used in cooling heated components in the turbine and thereby affect respective lifetimes of the components. To cope with this problem, JP 2009-523939 (A) discloses to provide an anti-corrosion coating on surfaces of the compressor casing, exposed to the air passage. According to this technique, the anti-corrosion coating is provided on portions exposed to the air passage between the radially outward flanges of the stator blade wheels mounted on the inner surfaces of the compressor casing and the seal rings (shrouds) opposing the radially outward ends of the rotor blade wheels.
The technique, however, requires the coatings on the inner surface portions of the compressor casing, which increases the manufacturing process and cost of the engine. Instead, no coating will need periodic cleanings of the inner surfaces of the compressor casing, increasing the maintenance cost.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a compressor for use in the gas turbine engine capable of preventing a creation of rust on the inner surfaces of the compressor casing without any increase of the manufacturing process.


A lithium ionic conductor (solid electrolyte) contains lithium (Li), phosphorus (P), boron (B) and sulfur (S) as constituent elements and has a crystal structure that boron (B) is substituted for part of phosphorus (P) in the β structure of Li3PS4.

A secondary battery that is safe and high in reliability in any terrestrial environment is requested for an environmental power generation technology by which electricity generated from microscopic energy such as sunlight, vibration or body temperature of humans or animals is accumulated and utilized for a sensor or as wireless transmission power.
As regards a liquid-based secondary battery used widely at present, it is a concern that, as a cycle of use is repeated, a positive electrode active material may degrade to decrease the battery capacity and the organic electrolyte in the battery may be ignited by battery short-circuiting caused by formation of dendrite.
Therefore, a secondary battery including a liquid-based electrolyte is poor in reliability and safety where it is intended to use the secondary battery for an environmental power generation device that is expected to be used, for example, for 10 years or more.
Therefore, attention is paid to an all-solid lithium secondary battery in which all constituent materials are solid. The all-solid lithium secondary battery is free from a risk of liquid leakage, firing or the like and is superior in a cycle characteristic.
For example, as solid electrolytes used for the all-solid lithium secondary battery, namely, as lithium ionic conductors, Li2S—B2S3 based (Li3BS3), Li2S—P2S5 based (Li7P3S11, Li3PS4, Li8P2S6 and so forth), Li2S—P2S5—X (LiI, B2S3, AI2S3, GeS2) based (Li4−xGe1−xPXS4), Li2S—B2S3—LiI based solid electrolytes and so forth are available. Also solid electrolytes having Li and S and having, as occasion demands, an element such as P, B or O (Li7P3S11, Li2S, Li3PO4—Li2S—B2S3 based, 80Li2S-20P2S5 solid electrolytes and so forth) are available.

Lithium ionic conductor and fabrication method therefor, and all-solid lithium secondary battery


An aircraft servicing pit located beneath a surface across which aircraft travel while on the ground is provided with a ladder and a pair of reciprocally retractable handrails on each side of the ladder. Each of the handrails has an inverted "J-shaped" configuration. With the lid open the handrails can be drawn up out of the pit and rotated so that their legs can rest upon the tarmac surface at the edge of the pit. Service personnel utilizing the pit are thereby provided with stabilizing hand grips which enhance their safety when entering and leaving the subsurface chamber within the pit. When the pit is to be closed the retractable handrails are lifted, rotated, and lowered to their fully retracted storage positions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved access arrangement for pits designed for use in servicing aircraft at docking, loading and refueling terminals.
2. Description of the Prior Art
At modern aircraft terminals servicing of aircraft on the ground is frequently performed using prefabricated pits which are installed at aircraft docking, fueling and loading areas beneath the surface of the tarmac across which aircraft travel during docking and departure maneuvers. The pits are typically formed of fiberglass, steel or aluminum and are constructed as enclosures with surrounding walls, and an access lid at the top of the walls. The pits are installed below the surface of loading and refueling aprons at aircraft terminals, remote parking locations and maintenance bases.
The purpose of the pits is to allow ground support functions to be carried out from subsurface enclosures. These ground support functions include the provision of fuel, the provision of electricity to the aircraft while it is in the docking area, the provision of air for cooling the aircraft interior, the provision of pressurized air for starting the aircraft engines, and for other aircraft support activities on the ground. The use of subsurface pits eliminates the need for mobile trucks, carts and other vehicles which are otherwise present in the loading area and which interfere with the arrival and departure of aircraft in the vicinity of a loading gate. The use of subsurface pits also allows the provision of fuel, power, cooling and pressurized air, and other supplies from a central location. The necessary fluid supplies and electrical power can be generated or stored with great efficiency at a central location, as contrasted with mobile generating or supply vehicles.
The pits located below the aircraft terminal area house valves, junction boxes, cooling air terminations and other terminal equipment that is temporarily connected to an aircraft that has been docked. Umbilical pipes and lines, otherwise housed within the pits, are withdrawn from the pits through hatches therein and are coupled to a docked aircraft to supply it with fuel, air for cooling the aircraft interior, pressurized air for starting the engines, and electrical power.
The pits are constructed with hinged lids that are movable between open positions allowing access to the pits and closed positions which are flush with the surface of the docking, loading or refueling area across which aircraft travel and beneath which the pits are mounted. Because the pits are located beneath the surface upon which the aircraft travel while on the ground, aircraft servicing personnel must descend into the pit in order operate valves, withdraw aircraft refueling lines, electrical power lines, air conditioning ducts, and to otherwise utilize the pit for its intended purpose.
To enable aircraft servicing personnel to descend into an aircraft pit, an upright ladder is typically mounted on one of the pit walls. The ladder has a pair of upright side rails which are normally held in a vertical disposition out a few inches from the surface of the wall. Transverse, horizontal ladder rungs or steps extend between the side rails of the ladder. The space between the ladder rung and the wall upon which the ladder is mounted enables a person to achieve a foothold on the ladder rungs as the individual descends the ladder.
One significant difficulty which currently exists with subsurface aircraft servicing pits is that because the lid of the pit must shut flush with the paved surface across which the aircraft move while on the ground, it is not possible to provide hand holds or grips protruding above grade to assist aircraft servicing personnel in beginning a decent into the pit, or to assist such personnel in emerging from the pit. As a result, personnel who must gain access to the pit are forced to get down on their hands and knees in order to begin the descent. Even so, the initial steps down into the pit are still quite difficult to make, as the descending service personnel cannot gain a secure hand grip on the ladder while taking the first few steps from the top of the ladder down. The present practice of descending the ladder of a subsurface aircraft servicing pit is therefore somewhat unsafe. If a worker's foot slips on a ladder rung either at the beginning of the descent or in emerging from the pit, the worker can easily fall down into the pit. There has heretofore been no steady and accessible hand grip which can be utilized to prevent such a fall.

Aircraft servicing pit with retractable ladder


The invention relates to a method for manufacturing a compound material wafer. The technique includes forming a weakened zone in a source substrate, attaching the source substrate to a handle substrate to form a source-handle assembly, and thermally annealing the source-handle assembly to further weaken the weakened zone. The method also includes holding the assembly at a holding temperature, and detaching the source substrate from the assembly at the weakened zone at the holding temperature. The holding temperature is greater than room temperature but does not promote further weakening of the weakened zone.

The invention relates to a method for manufacturing compound material wafers. The invention is particularly applicable to fabricating semiconductor on quartz type compound material wafers.
The SMART-CUT® technique can be modified to fabricate compound material wafers, such as heterostructures. It is necessary to modify the SMART-CUT® technique to account for stresses inside the compound material wafers, as the heterostructures may have different physical properties. For example, the heterostructures may have different thermal expansion coefficients. These stresses can lead to bad quality wafers, or may even result in the complete destruction of samples during processing.
The SMART-CUT® technique includes three main process steps which are:    a) forming a predetermined weakened zone in a source substrate, b) attaching the source substrate to a handle substrate to form a source-handle assembly, and c) detaching the predetermined weakened zone by providing energy, in particular by applying thermal energy.
Since compound material wafers are composed of materials that usually have different physical properties, like different thermal expansion coefficients, a thermal annealing step leading to detachment cannot always be completely conducted because to do so would lead to excessive stress inside the source-handle assembly. One proposed solution, described for example in published International Application No. WO 01/11667, is to separate the weakening and detachment step into two parts. The first part consists of a thermal treatment to weaken the predetermined weakened zone, and the second part concerns physically detaching the source substrate at the predetermined weakened zone from the source-handle assembly such that a thin film is transferred from the source substrate onto the handle substrate. During the weakening step the predetermined weakened zone becomes weaker and weaker. However, the thermal budget, which is a combination of temperature and time, necessary to complete the detachment is not completely applied so as to prevent detrimental consequences due to the presence of high stresses inside the source-handle assembly. After the weakening step, the source-handle assembly is cooled down to room temperature to carry out the final detachment step. Additional energy is then provided, typically mechanical energy, to achieve the physical detachment. A blade is usually introduced at the weakened plane to supply the necessary energy.
This proposed process makes it possible to create compound material wafers, even if different thermal expansion coefficients are present. However, in the context of a mass production process, it has been observed that the quality of the final product is not always good enough which results in unsatisfactory production yields and thus an increase in costs per good quality wafer. During mass production, wafers are typically thermally treated in groups of 25 or more, wherein 100 wafers is a common amount. Thereafter, the source substrate of each wafer has to be mechanically detached using detachment equipment, such as a blade, at room temperature. The furnace is then free for further utilization. It has been observed that this type of processing increases the roughness of the wafer. Moreover, the transferred layer does not fully cover the surface of the handle substrate, and the free zone, called the exclusion zone, is large. Furthermore, the rim of the transferred layer has large irregularities at its circumference. All of these characteristics result in a reduced quality product.

Method for manufacturing a compound material wafer

S.O.I.Tec Silicon on Insulator Technologies


An incinerator includes a furnace body which confines a combustion chamber for receiving refuse therein and which has a bottom wall formed with a central opening, an ash release gate mounted pivotally to the bottom wall at the central opening, a stack which is provided on one side of the furnace body and which has a lower end part that is communicated with the combustion chamber adjacent to the bottom wall, and an exhaust port provided adjacent to an open top of the furnace body and operable so as to communicate the stack and the combustion chamber. A furnace cover is provided on the open top of the furnace body. First and second preheating tube arrangements are received in the lower part of the furnace body. The first preheating tube arrangement includes a plurality of upwardly extending concentric coil turns and has a surface formed with a plurality of air holes. The second preheating tube arrangement has at least a portion provided adjacent to a lower end part of the first preheating tube arrangement and further has a surface formed with a plurality of air holes. A high pressure air generating unit supplies high pressure air to the first and second preheating tube arrangements and to an upper end part of the stack.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an incinerator, more particularly to an improved incinerator which has a high refuse-burning efficiency and which generates less air pollution.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the population increases, the amount of refuse which is generated correspondingly increases. Presently, refuse is disposed by means of landfills or by incineration. Incineration is preferred over the use of landfills for disposing refuse since the latter requires a relatively large land area.
During incineration, the resultant flue gases are released to the atmosphere via a stack of the incinerator. The flue gases sometimes carry therewith ash particles that result from combustion of the refuse, thereby resulting in air pollution. Furthermore, the refuse usually has a relatively large water content, typically 30% by weight. As hot air rises from the bottom of the incinerator, water in the refuse moves downward, thereby resulting in the presence of thick smoke and unburned refuse. There is thus a need to execute secondary and even tertiary refuse treatments in order to minimize air pollution and to achieve a high refuse-burning efficiency. Such additional treatments are uneconomical since they require additional costs.


In general, techniques are described for supporting bulk delivery of change of authorization data in authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) protocols, where delivery is performed as a change of authorization after a subscriber has successfully authenticated and initially authorized. In one example, the techniques are directed to a method including determining, by a RADIUS server for a service provider network, change of authorization data for services to which the subscriber of the service provider network has subscribed. The method further includes generating, by the RADIUS server, RADIUS messages that form a transaction between the RADIUS server and a network access server acting as a RADIUS client. The RADIUS messages provide all of the change of authorization data to the network access server prior to the network access server provisioning the services. The method further includes outputting, by the RADIUS server, the RADIUS messages to the network access server.

Network service providers typically deploy one or more servers to manage authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) functionality for networks that offer services to one or more subscribers. A protocol commonly used by the servers to communicate with clients is the Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) protocol. The RADIUS protocol is described in Carl Rigney et al., "Remote Authentication Dial In User Server (RADIUS)," Network Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Request for Comments 2865, June 2000, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety (referred to hereinafter as "RFC 2865"). An extension to the RADIUS protocol commonly used to initiate a change of authorization (CoA) is the Dynamic Authorization Extensions to RADIUS. The Dynamic Authorization Extensions to RADIUS is described in Murtaza Chiba et al., "Dynamic Authorization Extensions to Remote Authentication Dial In User Server (RADIUS)," Network Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Request for Comments 5176, January 2008, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety (referred to hereinafter as "RFC 5176").
During a CoA for a subscriber that has initially authenticated and authorized, the server may provision one or more services using the RADIUS protocol. To provision the services, the server may provide service configuration data (which may also be referred to as "change of authorization data," "CoA data," or simply "authorization data"). A router positioned between the subscriber and the server may provision the services using the service configuration data, thereby allowing the subscriber to utilize the service to access the service provider network.
In some instances, the subscriber may have subscribed to a large number of services that results in the server having to deliver service configuration data that exceeds limits set by the RADIUS protocol, for example, a maximum packet size of 4096 bytes. To send all of the service configuration data, the server may fragment the service configuration data into multiple portions sending each portion via a different RADIUS message. In order to receive the next RADIUS message with the next portion of the service configuration data, the router may process each portion of the service configuration data individually and confirm successful provisioning of the services specified by the portion of the service configuration data sent via the current RADIUS message.
The router may therefore iterate between provisioning some subset of the services specified by the portion of the service configuration data for a CoA in the current RADIUS message and receiving the next RADIUS message until all of the service configuration data has been received and applied. Such iteration may be inefficient, as the router may transition between a relatively complex provisioning process and waiting to receive the next RADIUS message.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Bulk delivery of change of authorization data via AAA protocols


A method and system of installing applications for a plurality of mobile devices from a storage source, wherein each mobile device is of a different type, includes storing on the storage source a plurality of applications. Each application is designed for a unique type of mobile device. The mobile device is connected to the storage source and the type of mobile device is detected. A selected application is then transferred to the mobile device.

The present invention relates to personal mobile computing devices commonly known as handheld portable computers. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for creating an application setup package for installing application programs onto such devices, and managing installed application device programs from the desktop computer.
Mobile devices are small electronic computing devices often referred to as personal digital assistants. Two such mobile devices are sold under the trade name Handheld PC (or xe2x80x9cH/PCxe2x80x9d) and also Palm PC (or xe2x80x9cP/PCxe2x80x9d) by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. Although small, a wide variety of computing tasks and applications can be performed by such mobile devices, such as word processing, spread sheet programs, personal money managers and games, to name a few. In many respects, these programs are very similar to programs that reside on an individual""s desktop computer. In some applications, the mobile device may not have as many functions as that available on the desktop computer, but nevertheless, are quite valuable as a means for updating and changing data in the field where even a laptop computer may not be available or used conveniently.
As stated above, a mobile device can be used in conjunction with a desktop computer. For example, the user of a mobile device may also have access to, and use, a desktop computer at work or at home. A user may typically run the same types of applications on both the desktop computer and the mobile device. Thus, it is quite advantageous for the mobile device to be designed to be coupled to the desktop computer to exchange information with, and share information with, the mobile device. However, in view that the mobile device has limited storage capabilities, a user may not be able to install all applications he may have for the mobile device at the same time. In such instances, the user must remove those applications which are not necessary in order to make room for other desired applications.
A number of significant problems exist when applications are deleted from or transferred to a mobile device from a desktop computer. Commonly, an application may include a number of files which must be correctly installed onto the mobile device in preselected directories, and settings must be made to the mobile device in order to properly configure the device for such applications. In some platforms, such as those sold by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., a xe2x80x9cRegistryxe2x80x9d is maintained. The Registry is a well-known database that is a source of information about applications present on the computing device. This information is used by applications that require persistent data storage (such as user settings). One method for installing a new application on the mobile computing device includes connecting the mobile computing device to a desktop computer having a stored copy of the desired application. The user then transfers each file of the application onto the computing device, storing it as required in preselected directories so as to be accessed by the application. Registry values are then changed in accordance with the requirements of the application. In some systems, the desktop computer executes a script file which contains a listing of each file needed for the application and transfers the file sequentially down to the mobile device.
One significant problem associated with the latter method occurs if the connection between the desktop computer and the mobile device is disrupted during the downloading procedure. For example, from inadvertent or accidental error, the connection may be broken only after some of the files required by the application have been transferred. In this event, the mobile computing device contains only some of the necessary files for the application and the downloading procedure must be repeated. If more than one application is being transferred down to the mobile device, this may require the entire procedure to be repeated.
Another significant problem involves the script file itself and, in particular, error handling. When installing an application from the desktop computer to the mobile device using a simple script file, the installation program must perform xe2x80x9crun-timexe2x80x9d error handling such as with missing files, and errors in the script file. These problems would be encountered by the end-user. Ideally, these problems should be resolved at xe2x80x9ccompile-timexe2x80x9d, before the application setup program is in its final product state. End-users should not need to encounter problems like these when installing an application to their mobile device.
Another significant drawback of the current method of installing applications onto a mobile device is the requirement of the mobile device to be connected to the desktop computer in order to transfer the desired application. This requires the user to first install an application for the mobile device onto the desktop computer, and then, after a connection has been made, transfer the application from the desktop computer to the mobile device.
There is a continuing need to overcome the shortcomings of the present methods for installing applications onto a mobile computing device. In particular, there is a need to reduce the number of operations necessary to be performed by the user in order to install an application. In addition, the actual application installation procedure should not need to handle errors that can be resolved before the final product is shipped. The user should also have the ability to install an application from sources other than the dedicated desktop computer.
In addition, many times the application must be uniquely written to run on a specific mobile device. Thus, there may be many variations of the same application, each being designed for a different type of CPU. There is a need to easily create the variations of the application as well as easily ascertain and access the correct variation if all are stored on the same desktop computer for use by multiple mobile device users having different CPU platforms.
A system and method of installing applications for a plurality of mobile devices from a storage source, wherein each mobile device is of a different type, includes storing on the storage source a plurality of applications. Each application is designed for a unique type of mobile device. The mobile device is connected to the storage source and the type of mobile device is detected. A selected application is then transferred to the mobile device.
A system and method of installing program applications from a storage source onto a mobile device includes in one aspect, storing the necessary application files and registry information in a single setup package. The setup package comprises a single file having a first portion comprising application setup instructions and a second portion comprising application files. The application setup instructions include setup information such as settings to be made on the mobile device and where the application files are to be stored on the mobile device. Upon selection by a user, the setup package file is transferred and stored on the mobile device. The setup package file is then unpacked, installing the executable application program on the mobile device and, preferably, the setup package file is subsequently automatically deleted.
In another broad aspect of the present invention, a system and method of installing a program application from a storage source onto a mobile device includes storing on the storage source a plurality of setup package files, with each setup package file corresponding to one or more types of mobile devices. Upon connection of a mobile device to the storage source, the system detects the type of mobile device from a plurality of known mobile devices. The system then selects the setup package file applicable to the detected mobile device.
In another broad aspect of the present invention, a method of installing a program application on a mobile device includes storing information on the mobile device indicative of the application to be installed, and deleting the information on the mobile device as the application is being installed on the mobile device.
In yet another broad aspect of the present invention, a computer-readable medium having stored thereon data structure for installing a program application from a storage source onto a mobile device is disclosed. The data structure includes a first portion comprising application specific information and a second portion comprising application files. The application specification information includes setup information such as settings to be made on the mobile device and where the application files are to be stored on the mobile device.

System and method for managing application installation for a mobile device


A drive control system for a binding line having first and second separate binding-line segments, includes a first motor for driving the first binding-line segment, a second motor independent of the first motor for driving the second binding-line segment, and a controller coupled to the first and second motors. The controller is operable in an independent or asynchronous mode for controlling the first and second motors so that the first and second binding-line segments operate independently, and is also operable in a synchronous mode for controlling the first and second motors so that the first and second binding-line segments operate in synchronism with one another.

A binding line, and particularly a so-called "saddle-stitch" binding line 10 as illustrated in FIG. 1, typically includes a number of binding-line components 12, including, for example, a gatherer, which gathers signatures to be collated into a stack in a particular order, a stitcher, which staples or stitches the stacked signatures together, and a trimmer, which trims the stitched stack of signatures to a predetermined size to produce a finished book. Binding lines typically also include a mail table on which the finished books are addressed, sorted (e.g., by zip code and/or carrier route), and bundled together for shipping. Of course, the binding line 10 can also include additional or alternative components, as desired.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a prior-art drive system 14 for the saddle-stitch binding line 10 employing a single drive shaft 16 that mechanically links one or more drivers or motors 18 (only one of which is shown) to all components 12 of the binding line 10 such that motive power produced by the motor 18 is transmitted to all binding-line components 12 via the drive shaft 16. Even though the drive shaft 16 may actually be composite, comprising multiple drive-shaft sections 20, 22, those sections 20, 22 are permanently and mechanically linked, such as by one or more direction-changing gearboxes 24 (and/or by linear ones, not shown), so that all binding-line components 12 nonetheless remain coupled together mechanically by the single composite drive shaft 16 during all phases of operation of the binding line 10. When an operator of the binding line 10 applies "inch" or "run" commands to the motor 18 via a motor controller 26 to cause the prior-art binding line 10 of FIGS. 1 and 2 to operate at a slow speed (i.e., "inching") or at an operating speed (i.e., "running"), all components 12 of the binding line 10 operate synchronously in response to the operator's commands.
This prior-art drive system 14 is therefore disadvantageous for several reasons. First, the mechanical integrity of any binding-line drive system so diminishes as the length of the binding line increases that the accuracy of mechanical movements of binding-line components may be adversely affected. For example, inkjet printers may produce ineligible mailing labels at the mail table as a result of such inaccurate mechanical movements. Consequently, there is a practical, physical limit on the length of a binding line. Further, the substantial length of modern binding lines gives rise to electrical sensing difficulties such that measurement of an angular position of the binding-line drive shaft at one location along the length of the common drive shaft may not reliably represent the angular position at all points along the shaft. This phenomenon can cause some binding-line components to operate out of synchronization with one another.
Another disadvantage of operating all binding-line components from a common drive shaft is that some binding-line components, such as a book trimmer, for example, operate in a pulsating fashion and create periodic vibration which is transmitted to the common drive shaft and propagated along the drive shaft to other binding-line components. Such transmitted vibration can then interfere with the operation of the other binding-line components, which is highly undesirable.
Still another disadvantage is that because binding-line components coupled to a common drive shaft necessarily operate together, a binding-line make-ready or calibration procedure can be performed by only one technician at a time. Specifically, a technician performing a make-ready procedure to prepare a binding line for a particular job cannot inch or run the binding line to calibrate one component of the binding line without interfering with other technicians who might be servicing other components. Consequently, only one component of a prior-art binding line (i.e., a binding line having a single drive shaft) is calibrated or made ready at a time. This necessarily sequential make-ready/calibration procedure results in prolonged down-time for the binding line between jobs, which is costly, inefficient, and undesirable.
To enable binding lines to be made longer, prior-art binding lines comprising multiple binding-line sections have been developed. Each section has its own motor and each motor can have its own controller, or a single controller can be used to control the motors of all sections of the binding line. However, these multi-section binding lines can operate either exclusively synchronously or exclusively asynchronously, but prior-art multi-section binding lines cannot operate synchronously at some times and asynchronously at other times. Consequently, while the division of prior-art binding lines into multiple sections isolates binding-line components from vibrations transmitted from components in other sections, all sections of these multi-section binding lines must nonetheless be shut down together for make-ready if they operate synchronously. If the sections operate asynchronously and independently, they can be made ready in parallel, but significant complexity is introduced in the tracking of books between the various asynchronous segments as discussed fully in Chan, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,984, assigned to the assignee of the present application.

Segmented drive system for a binding line


A mixing degree adjusting device comprises a pair of spacer members arranged at a position sandwiching both round sectional portions of a pair of screws from both sides in the aligning direction of the pair of screws, and a pair of drawing members arranged as a position sandwiching both the round sectional portions from both sides in the orthogonal direction that is orthogonal to the aligning direction. The spacer members are movable between an adjusting position opposing to the round sectional portions, and a retracting position, when the screws are extracted from the barrel, for retracting to the outside until the passage of the screws is accepted. Opposing portions opposing to the round sectional portions at the time of moving to the adjusting position are formed in a substantially linear shape extending in parallel with the orthogonal direction seen from the axial direction of the screws. The drawing members are movable in the direction approaching to and retracting from the round sectional portions along the opposing portions in an area intervening between the opposing portions of both the spacer members at the time of moving to the adjusting position, and when the screws are extracted from the barrel, retractable to the outside until the passage of the screws is accepted.

Conventionally, in an intermeshing type twin screw extruder and a twin screw continuous mixing machine, a mixing degree adjusting device for adjusting a cross section of flow route is provided in the middle of an internal flow route so as to adjust flow of an object to be mixed flowing through the machine and to control a mixing degree of the object to be mixed. Specifically, the intermeshing type twin screw extruder has a structure of extracting screws forward at the time of maintenance, and the mixing degree adjusting device is required to have a structure that is in consideration with the extracting of the screws.
The mixing degree adjusting device for adjusting the cross section of flow route includes a slot bar method, a taper ring method and a gate method.
In the slot bar method, two slot bars formed by providing a half arc surface with a curvature that is equal to or slightly larger than a curvature of an inner peripheral surface of a barrel in a round bar are arranged in the middle of a flow route in the machine so as to lie at right angles to axes of two screws and sandwich the screws from the top and the bottom, and by rotating the two slot bars in the different directions from each other, the cross section of flow route is changed so as to adjust the flow rate of the object to be mixed (Patent Documents 1 and 2).
In the taper ring method, a large outer diameter portion, a small outer diameter portion and a screw side taper portion for connecting the outer diameter portions are provided in the middle of the screws, and in the barrel, a large inner diameter portion is provided at a part opposing to the large outer diameter portion, a small inner diameter portion is provided at a part opposing to the small outer diameter portion, and a barrel side taper portion for connecting the inner diameter portions is provided. By moving the barrel side taper portion in the axial direction of the screws, a clearance between the screw side taper portion and the barrel side taper portion is changed so as to adjust the flow rate of the object to be mixed (Patent Documents 3 and 4).
In the gate method, two gate plates having cutouts in an arc shape with a curvature that is substantially equal to a curvature of inner periphery of the barrel or a curvature of outer periphery of a screw axis at edges opposing to each other are arranged in the middle of the flow route in the machine so as to lie at right angles to axes of two screws arranged horizontally and sandwich the screws from the top and the bottom, and by moving the two gate plates upward and downward in the different directions from each other, the cross section of flow route is changed so as to adjust the flow rate of the object to be mixed (Patent Documents 5 and 6).
However, there is the following problem in the mixing degree adjusting devices of the methods mentioned above.
That is, in the mixing degree adjusting device of the slot bar method disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2, even at the time of closing action, a flow route is formed between both end parts in the axial direction of the slot bars of the half arc surface and the screw axes, and thus it is not possible to obtain a sufficient drawing effect. It should be noted that the "sufficient drawing effect" means an effect of sufficiently narrowing the cross section of flow route at the time of totally closing with a wide adjusting range of the mixing degree. Meanwhile, when the curvature of the half arc surface of the slot bars is made smaller than the curvature of the inner peripheral surface of the barrel in order to obtain the sufficient drawing effect, it is not easy to extract the slot bars at the time of maintenance, and there is a fear that the mixing degree adjusting device is required to be disassembled for the extracting.
In the mixing degree adjusting device of the taper ring method disclosed in Patent Documents 3 and 4, since the large outer diameter portion or a flight of the screws and the small inner diameter portion of the barrel interfere with each other, there is a problem that the screws cannot be extracted forward without moving the barrel.
In the mixing degree adjusting device of the gate method, when the cutouts of the gate plates have the curvature that is substantially equal to the inner periphery of the barrel, the adjusting range of the mixing degree is narrowed and it is not possible to obtain the sufficient drawing effect. When the cutouts of the gate plates have the curvature that is substantially equal to the curvature of the outer periphery of a land portion formed smaller than a diameter of the screws as disclosed in Patent Document 5 in order to obtain the sufficient drawing effect, at the time of totally opening the gate plates, a hollow generated by housing the edges in an arc shape of the gate plates to the inside of an inner surface of the barrel easily becomes a large dead space (Patent Document 5 and FIG. 3).
When the cutouts of the gate plates have the curvature that is substantially equal to the curvature of the outer periphery of the land portion formed smaller than the diameter of the screws, following the opening of the gate plates, not only a clearance between the gate plates between the two screws but also a clearance between the gate plates on the left and right outer sides of the two screws are increased so that the cross section of flow route is radically changed. Therefore, there is a problem that fine-adjustment of the mixing degree is not easily performed. With regard to the problem of the fine-adjustment of the mixing degree, in the mixing degree adjusting device disclosed in Patent Document 6, left and right end parts of the gate plates extend to the opposing gate plate side, and inclinations in the up and down direction are provided in the extended parts of the gate plates so as to mesh with each other so that the inclined parts are overlapped (meshed) with each other irrespective of an opening degree of the gate plates and the radical change in the cross section of flow route is prevented. However, since the left and right end parts of the gate plates extend in the up and down direction, a moving stroke of the gate plates for extracting the screw axes (action length) becomes large so that in the twin screw extruder provided with the mixing degree adjusting device of Patent Document 2, particularly due to a need for ensuring a space on the lower side, there is a large limitation on installment thereof.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-309018
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-33961
Patent Document 3: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Sho58-87013
Patent Document 4: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei11-216762
Patent Document 5: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-28963
Patent Document 6: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei10-278099

Intermeshing type twin screw extruder and mixing degree adjusting device


A grinding roll for use in a material bed roll mill for the comminution of brittle material has a cylindrical body in the periphery of which are alternating grooves and lands. To the exterior of each land is secured a wear strip. The grooves of the confronting rolls may be directly opposite one another or the grooves may be offset axially so that the grooves in one roll confront a land of the opposite roll.

A known roll is described for example in connection with a material bed roll mill in DE-A-42 10 395. In this known construction a chill-cast roll casing is fixed on a basic roll body so as to be replaceable, and profiling weld beads can be applied on the outer surface or the outer circumferential surface of this roll casing according to certain designs in such a way that a profiled cladding for protection against wear is produced with outwardly projecting hard material strips applied by build-up welding and depressions between these strips into which particles of mill feed material are pressed and thus form an autogenous wear protection for the casing surface. At the same time these measures create a good capacity for drawing in the material to be comminuted in the grinding gap between the two rolls.
The object of the invention is to make further improvements to such a roll, to improve the a method of producing such roll, and to provide an improved a material bed roller mill so that a particularly durable wear protection of the roll surface can be ensured as well as a reliable capacity for drawing in material and co-operation of such rolls even in the case of relatively low consumption of hard material.

Roll, method of producing a roll as well as material bed roll mill


A browser apparatus for browsing a variety of homepages supplied from servers over a communication network, such as the Internet, the address of a homepage is classified and registered through a user carrying out with a mouse a drag-and-drop action of its pointer to shift an item displayed in a region of the screen where the homepage is displayed to one of classifications determined by the user and displayed on the screen. This allows the registration of a homepage address to be simplified.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a browser apparatus connected to a server for providing information.
2. Description of Related Art
A browser apparatus such as a personal computer equipped with software for browsing homepages offered by multiple servers on a network, e.g. the Internet, is provided having a so-called bookmark function for saving the URL (uniform resource locator) address of each homepage of the server on the Internet.
When the address of a desired homepage to be accessed frequently has been registered by a user to his or her browser apparatus, the homepage can readily be viewed without manually entering the address through a keyboard. The name and address of the homepage once registered in advance can be selected and called for by the user easily operating a mouse.
Also, a list of classifications including various categories of sports, news, entertainments, and others is determined by a user for ease of the browsing of homepages and used for assigning a desired classification to the address of each homepage for registration.
A procedure of registering the address of a homepage to one of the classifications is now explained referring to FIGS. 1 to 4.
As shown in FIG. 1, the procedure starts with Step S20 where a user accesses through a browser apparatus 12 to a desired homepage of a server. Then, the homepage of the server appears in a homepage display area 31 of a window 30 displayed on a display unit of the browser apparatus as shown in FIG. 2. Simultaneously, the address of the homepage is displayed in an address display area 32.
This is followed by Step S21 where a homepage menu 34 on a menu bar 33 is selected by the user operating an input device which is a pointing device such as a mouse or a touchpanel pen. Then, a pulldown menu 35 appears at Step S22.
When an extra menu 36 in the pulldown menu 35 is selected at Step S23, a dialogue box 37 shown in FIG. 3 is displayed over the window 30 at Step S24.
When a classification button 38 in the dialogue box 37 is enabled by the user at Step S25, a list of classifications 39 shown in FIG. 4 appears at Step S26. The list of classifications 39 includes a number of the classifications 40 predetermined and registered as well as names or addresses of the homepages which have been unclassified and unregistered.
When a desired one of the classifications 40 in the list of classifications 39 is selected and an OK button 41 is clicked at Step S27, the address of the homepage being accessed and displayed in the address display area 32, shown in FIG. 2, is registered to the classification at Step S28.
As understood, the above procedure of classifying and registering an address corresponding to each data supplied from a server requires a redundancy of steps.
The list of classifications 39 shown in FIG. 4 is displayed in the form of a tree of classification levels and may extend downwardly in the window 30 as the items of classification are increased thus overlapping the other areas of the window 30 and impairing the appearance.
An object of the present invention is to provide a browser apparatus, an address registering method, and a browser system in which the classification and registration of an address corresponding to data supplied from a server can be carried out by a user operating a simpler procedure without troublesome rules.
For achievement of the above object of the present invention, a browser apparatus for displaying data supplied from a server over a communication means is provided having a classification unit for assigning at least one of classifications to the data supplied from the server, a memory for storing an address corresponding to the data as well as the classification determined by the classification unit, a display unit for displaying the data supplied from the server in a first region of the screen and the classification of the data in a second region of the same, a command unit responsive to the action of a user for controlling the location of a pointer displayed on the screen of the display unit, and a control means responsive to shift of the pointer from the first region to the second region of the screen by the command unit for storing an address corresponding to the data displayed in the first region into the memory in association with its classification displayed in the second region.
For achievement of the above object of the present invention, an address registering method is provided comprising the steps of displaying data supplied from a server in a first region of the screen of a display unit and classifications for the data in a second region of the same, and carrying out a drag-and-drop action to shift from any desired point in the first region to one of the classifications displayed in the second region so that an address corresponding to the data displayed in the first region is stored into a memory in association with its classification.
For achievement of the above object of the present invention, a browser system is provided having a server for supplying data, a classification unit for assigning at least one of classifications to the data supplied from the server, a memory for storing an address corresponding to the data as well as the classification determined by the classification unit, a display unit for displaying the data supplied from the server in a first region of the screen and the classification of the data in a second region of the same, a command unit responsive to the action of a user for controlling the location of a pointer displayed on the screen of the display unit, and a control unit responsive to a shift of the pointer from the first region to the second region of the screen by the command unit for storing an address corresponding to the data displayed in the first region into the memory in association with its classification displayed in the second region.

Browser apparatus, address registering method, browser system and recording medium


Proposed is a storage system and a data management method enabling the easy operation of the storage system and capable of alleviating the burden on a system administrator by managing the full backup and snapshot in the same storage extent. This storage system includes a creation unit for associating a part or the whole of a storage extent of the secondary volume and creating a pool volume to be supplied with a dynamic memory storage extent from the logical volume, a first storage unit for storing difference data corresponding to the primary volume as backup data in the pool volume in order to store, based on a write command of data from the host system in an arbitrary address in the primary volume, the data in the primary volume and update the primary volume, and a second storage unit for storing data that is not updated in the primary volume based on a snapshot command from the host system for acquiring a snapshot on a primary volume at a prescribed timing as difference data or a difference data group in the pool volume.

The present invention generally relates to a storage system and a data management method, and, for instance, can be suitably applied to a storage system that performs a full backup or a backup using a snapshot.
This storage system manages data using a logical volume (hereinafter referred to as a "logical volume") formed in a storage extent provided by a hard disk drive.
As a method of managing data, there is a method of periodically executing a full backup of a volume in which a user reads and writes data in a cycle of, for instance, every day or every week. As another method of managing data, there is a method of using a snapshot function loaded in a storage apparatus and periodically creating a snapshot formed from a data image of a volume at a certain point in time in a cycle of, for instance, every 12 hours or every day.
The backup data obtained by performing a full backup and the differential data obtained by using a snapshot are obtained through different methods. As a result of separately using the backup data and the differential data obtained through different methods, the volume or data stored in such volume can be restored.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. H7-84728 discloses a data management method using technology of performing a full backup and technology of performing backup using differential data. This document proposes a data management method of deciding in a storage system of whether to perform a full backup by comparing a predetermined threshold value and the amount of differential, or perform backup using differential data.

Storage system and data management method