A method for optimizing the operation of a metallurgical plant using a model by modeling supply and discharge media streams, predetermining structure parameters which define the media streams, linking the media streams to one another, predetermining starting parameters which describe initial states, predetermining input operating parameters, determining and outputting output operating parameters, and determining and outputting end parameters, which describe end states of the units, by the model, predetermining the structure parameters to an optimization computer by a user and transmitting the parameters from the optimization computer to a model, and determining optimized operating parameters by the optimization computer on the basis of the starting parameters and an assessment criterion in accordance with an optimization algorithm using the model, wherein the assessment criterion is predetermined to the optimization computer by the user.

Models for metallurgical plants and methods for optimizing the operation of a metallurgical plant using a model of this type are generally known. By way of example, mention may be made of the following:                the specialist article "Optimierung der Energieverteilung im integrierten Hüttenwerk" by Wolfgang Krumm, Franz N. Fett, Hans-Günther Pöttken and Herbert Strohschein, [Optimizing the Energy Distribution in Integrated Metalurgical plant], published in Stahl und Eisen 108 (1988) No. 22, pages 95 to 104, and        the specialist article "Vergleichmäβigung des Strombezugs bei Groβverbrauchern mit Hilfe eines Energiemodells" by P. Fleissig and F. N. Fett, [Evening Out the Electricity Consumption of Large Consumers with the Aid of an Energy Model] published in elektrowärme international, Volume B 2, June 1997, pages B 94 to B 101.
The content of disclosure of these two publications is hereby incorporated in the present application by reference to the publications.
The models and optimization algorithms of the prior art per se already work fairly satisfactorily. However, they suffer from the problem of being rigid and inflexible.

Mathematical model for a metallurgical plant, and method for optimizing the operation of a metallurgical plant using a model


Acrylates having a high degree of halogenation, as well as polymers that include one or more mer units derived from such acrylates provide materials having tailorable optical and physical properties. The polymers find utility particularly in optical devices including optical waveguides and interconnecting devices.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to acrylates in which a large percentage of hydrogen atoms have been replaced by halogens and to polymers that include mer units derived from such halogenated acrylates.
2. Background of the Invention
Optically transparent polymers, especially those used for telecommunication applications, must have low absorptive loss in the infrared wavelengths, typically 1260-1360 nm and 1480-1580 nm. However, because these wavelengths are close to overtones of carbon-hydrogen bond vibration frequencies, minimization of the number of carbon-hydrogen bonds is desirable. While some organic compounds with few C--H bonds are known, additional considerations of optical transparency, ease of polymerization, refractive index, chemical and mechanical stability, and the need to compete on a cost basis with glass prevent many such compounds from widespread use in polymeric optical devices.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,668,233, 3,981,928, and 4,010,212 describe acrylic acid esters (i.e., acrylates), prepared from esterification of acrylic acid with perfluoro-tertiary alkyl alcohols such as perfluoro-t-butyl alcohol, that can be used as inert heat exchange fluids and as homopolymeric water- and/or oil-repellent surface coatings.
European Patent Application No. 282,019 describes highly fluorinated, transparent acrylates specifically tailored for optical articles. These materials are prepared from cyclic or bicyclic alcohols containing few or no carbon-hydrogen bonds.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,544,535 describes the preparation and polymerization of 2-(pentafluorophenyl)hexafluoroisopropyl acrylate. Optical properties of the polymer are not described.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,520,863 and 3,723,507 describe a number of perfluorocycloalkyl acrylates and polymers thereof Use of tertiary alcohols is not reported, and optical properties of the polymers are not discussed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,045,397 describes the preparation and use of certain adhesives to be used in optical systems. A polymeric adhesive of a specified refractive index is prepared by copolymerization of specified monomers of known refractive indices. While some lightly fluorinated monomers are described, highly fluorinated monomers are not disclosed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,223,593 describes acrylate monomers and their (co)polymers designed to have low C--H bond density relative to poly(methylmethacrylate) so as to reduce vibrational band intensities in plastic optical fiber cores. Absorbance at 600-1200 nm was reduced, but absorbance at higher frequencies is not reported. The described acrylates were prepared from highly fluorinated primary alcohols.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,093,888 describes a polymeric optical device (specifically, an injection-molded Y-shaped splitter waveguide) that uses an amorphous polymeric adhesive that includes 2,2,2-trifluoroethyl methacrylate having a refractive index of 1.418 to hold optical fibers in a polytetrafluoro-ethylene spacer containing a fluorinated polyetheretherketone core.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,311,604 describes a method of manufacturing a polymeric optical interconnect. Useful polymers are said to be those transparent to the wavelength of light to be utilized. Listed examples include poly(methylmethacrylate) ("PMMA"), polycarbonates, polyurethanes, polystyrenes, and polyolefins. In one example, a "copolymer of deuterated PMMA-d8 (sic) and tetrafluoropropyl methacrylate" is used to adhere optical fibers to a molded PMMA device.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,544 describes a polymeric optical interconnect. The device includes polymeric substrate and covering members that can be fabricated from, for example, a combination of fluorinated and non-fluorinated photopolymerizable (meth)acrylate and di(meth)acrylate monomers. The same combination of monomers is said to be useful for sealing optical fibers in the device. Substitution of fluorines for hydrogen atoms in the polymer is said to be capable of reducing the refractive index of the polymer and to reduce losses in near infrared wavelengths, but no example of a haloacrylate-only system and no indication of the degree to which loss or refractive index can be controlled are given. Copolymerization of two or more monomers is said to be able to provide a copolymer having a tailored refractive index.
Devices used in telecommunication applications (such as those described in '604 and '544, above) preferably meet certain standards for performance, durability, and the like. The standards most commonly referred to in discussing such devices are the so-called "Bellcore Specifications". Requirements for fiber optic branching components include parameters for optical loss (i.e., loss that is in excess over that which is inherent in the device), useable wavelength ranges, resistance to performance variability caused by temperature and humidity, optical cross talk, water immersion, flammability, etc. All such parameters can depend, at least in part, on the materials used to make the device. For example, materials must have very low absorptive losses in the wavelength regions of 1260 to 1360 nm (nominally 1310 nm) and from 1480 to 1580 nm (nominally 1550 nm), over which ranges low losses must be maintained under extreme temperature and humidity conditions. For a 1.times.2 splitter, the inherent loss is calculated to be 3.01 decibels (dB), where a decibel is defined as -10 log(I.sub.o /I.sub.i) in which I.sub.o is the intensity of the output and I is the intensity of the input. Maximum allowable excess loss in a 1.times.2 splitter is quantified as, e.g., no more than 0.25 dB per fiber plus no more than 0.5 dB per waveguide junction connecting an input fiber to an output fiber.
Presently available materials other than glass have not proven to be able to meet all, or even most, of these rigid requirements.

Halogenated acrylates and polymers derived therefrom


An anticathode is repeatedly moved along a rotating axis of the anticathode while the anticathode is rotated around the rotating axis. Then, energy beams are irradiated onto a surface portion of the anticathode which is located against a centrifugal force generated from the rotation of the anticathode to partially melt the surface portion through the heating said surface portion near the melting point of the anticathode or over the melting point of the anticathode, thereby generating an X-ray from the rotating anticathode.

In X-ray diffraction measurement, it may be required to irradiate an X-ray with as high intensity as possible onto a sample. In this case, a conventional rotating anticathode type X-ray generating apparatus would be employed for the X-ray diffraction measurement.
The rotating anticathode type X-ray generating apparatus is configured such that electron beams are irradiated onto the outer surface of the columnar anticathode (target) in which a cooling medium is flowed while the anticathode is rotated at high speed. In comparison with a stationary target type X-ray generating apparatus, the rotating anticathode type X-ray generating apparatus can exhibit extreme cooling efficiency because the irradiating position of the electron beams on the anticathode changes with time. Therefore, in the rotating anticathode type X-ray generating apparatus, the electron beams can be irradiated onto the anticathode in large electric current, thereby generating an X-ray with high intensity.
By the way, since the intensity of the resultant X-ray generated is in proportion to the electric power (current x voltage) to be applied between the cathode and the anticathode, the intensity of the X-ray can be enhanced only to 1.2 kW at a maximum in the conventional rotating anticathode type X-ray generating apparatus when the electron beams are irradiated onto the target at a spot size of 0.1×1 mm, and also only to 3.5 kW at a maximum in an ultrahigh brightness rotating anticathode type X-ray generating apparatus.
In this point of view, such a technique is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 11-339704 as heating the anticathode near the melting point thereof with the electron beams and thus, partially melting the electron beam irradiating portion of the anticathode, thereby generating an X-ray with high intensity. With such a technique, however, the X-ray may not be generated stably over a long period of time on the irradiating condition of the electron beams, so that it is required to improve the performance of the conventional X-ray generating apparatus.
[Patent Document No. 1] Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 11-339704

X-ray generating method and X-ray generating apparatus


The invention relates to compounds of the formula I

The hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) receptor (c-Met or HGFR) receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) has been shown in many human cancers to be involved in oncogenesis, tumor progression with enhanced cell motility and invasion, as well as metastasis (see, e.g., Ma, P. C., Maulik, G., Christensen, J. & Salgia, R. (2003b). Cancer Metastasis Rev, 22, 309-25; Maulik, G., Shrikhande, A., Kijima, T., Ma, P. C., Morrison, P. T. & Salgia, R. (2002b). Cytokine Growth Factor Rev, 13, 41-59). c-Met (HGFR) can be activated through overexpression or mutations in various human cancers including small cell lung cancer (SCLC) (Ma, P. C., Kijima, T., Maulik, G., Fox, E. A., Sattler, M., Griffin, J. D., Johnson, B. E. & Salgia, R. (2003a). Cancer Res, 63, 6272-6281).
c-Met is a receptor tyrosine kinase that is encoded by the Met proto-oncogene and transduces the biological effects of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), which is also referred to as scatter factor (SF). Jiang et al., Crit. Rev. Oncol. Hematol. 29: 209-248 (1999). c-Met and HGF are expressed in numerous tissues, although their expression is normally confined predominantly to cells of epithelial and mesenchymal origin, respectively. c-Met and HGF are required for normal mammalian development and have been shown to be important in cell migration, cell proliferation and survival, morphogenic differentiation, and organization of 3-dimensional tubular structures (e.g., renal tubular cells, gland formation, etc.). In addition to its effects on epithelial cells, HGF/SF has been reported to be an angiogenic factor, and c-Met signaling in endothelial cells can induce many of the cellular responses necessary for angiogenesis (proliferation, motility, invasion).
The c-Met receptor has been shown to be expressed in a number of human cancers. c-Met and its ligand, HGF, have also been shown to be co-expressed at elevated levels in a variety of human cancers (particularly sarcomas). However, because the receptor and ligand are usually expressed by different cell types, c-Met signaling is most commonly regulated by tumor-stroma (tumor-host) interactions. Furthermore, c-Met gene amplification, mutation, and rearrangement have been observed in a subset of human cancers. Families with germline mutations that activate c-Met kinase are prone to multiple kidney tumors as well as tumors in other tissues. Numerous studies have correlated the expression of c-Met and/or HGF/SF with the state of disease progression of different types of cancer (including lung, colon, breast, prostate, liver, pancreas, brain, kidney, ovaries, stomach, skin, and bone cancers). Furthermore, the overexpression of c-Met or HGF have been shown to correlate with poor prognosis and disease outcome in a number of major human cancers including lung, liver, gastric, and breast. c-Met has also been directly implicated in cancers without a successful treatment regimen such as pancreatic cancer, glioma, and hepatocellular carcinoma.
A family of novel compounds have been discovered which exhibit c-Met modulating ability and have an ameliorating effect against disorders related to abnormal c-Met activity. c-Met is an attractive target from a clinical perspective because: 1) c-Met has been implicated in the growth and metastases of most types of cancer; 2) growth at the secondary site appears to be the rate-limiting step in metastasis; and 3) by the time of diagnosis, R is likely that the disease has already spread.
These observations suggest that c-Met kinase inhibitors would be an effective treatment for primary tumors that are driven by c-Met, but more importantly, would prevent disseminated micrometastases from growing into life-threatening metastases. Therefore, the utility of a c-Met inhibitor extends to preventative and adjuvant therapy settings. In addition, certain cancers (e.g., papillary renal cell carcinoma, some gastric and lung cancers) can be treated which are believed to be driven by c-Met mutation/genetic alteration and dependent on c-Met for growth and survival. These cancers are expected to be sensitive to treatment. Furthermore, various human cancers are the primary target indication for c-Met antagonists. These cancers include major cancers such as breast, lung, colorectal, prostate; as well as pancreatic cancer, glioma, liver cancer, gastric cancer, head and neck cancers, melanoma, renal cancer, leukemias, myeloma, and sarcomas. c-Met has been directly implicated in cancers such as pancreatic cancer, glioma, and hepatocellular carcinoma.
Accordingly, c-Met (HGFR) inhibitors and methods of using such inhibitors for the treatment of abnormal cell growth, such as cancer represent a substantial unmet medical need in the treatment of these and possibly other cancers.

Abstract: or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, wherein R1, R2, R3 and R4 are as defined herein. The invention also relates to pharmaceutical compositions containing the compounds of formula I and to methods of treating hyperproliferative disorders in a mammal by administering the compounds of formula I.


A method for manufacturing a railcar body includes assembling an underframe assembly, side walls, a roof and end walls made from laser cut sheet and plate components where the assemblies made from sheet components are robotically laser welded by solely using melt-through welds and where the assemblies made from plate components are robotically laser welded using solely butt welds.

Railcar bodies are manufactured in different ways which typically involve assembling aluminum or steel components either by welding or by using through fasteners such as bolts. Because welding operations require that welded components be located in close proximity and because welding generates much heat inducing distortion in welded components, it is necessary to use tooling in which the components to be welded are held in place before, during, and after the welding operation. Such tooling translates in increased production cost, especially considering that railcar bodies are large assemblies manufactured in relatively small quantities, thereby translating in large expensive tooling that cannot be amortized over a large production run.
European patent no. 3 254 923 to Roll et al. discloses a method of assembly of a railcar body structure where through fasteners are used to join a panel to a chassis.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,932,049 to Kato et al. discloses a method of assembly of a railcar body structure where through fasteners are used to join the different sub-assemblies of the railcar body together.
A through fastener is a fastener that passes completely through at least one wall of each one of two adjacent components and that joins these two adjacent components by tightening a first flanged element of the through fastener against a second flanged element placed behind the two adjacent components. Although using such through fasteners does not induce heat distortion as occurs with welding, it adds substantial weight to the assembly and in most cases still requires tooling to ensure precise positioning.
There is therefore a need for an improved railcar body production method.


In a wire harness connector body of the type having an end cover with a plurality of terminal openings and a mating seal having a corresponding plurality of terminal openings, a delete plug for insertion into a terminal opening in the cover such that it plugs that terminal opening against the insertion of a terminated wire. The delete plug includes a seal-plugging member which is inserted into a corresponding terminal opening in the seal to maintain the sealed nature of the connector. One or more delete plugs can be added to, moved around, or removed from the cover to reconfigure a basic cover and seal arrangement to accept different numbers or placement of terminated wires.

The present invention is in the field of sealed electrical connectors of the type used in automotive wire harnesses.
Multi-terminal wire harness connectors, especially those used in vehicles, are often sealed to protect the terminal connections from corrosion due to water, salt, and chemicals. The point at which the terminated wires enter the connector bodies is often provided with a seal, sometimes known as a xe2x80x9cmatxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9ccablexe2x80x9d seal, comprising a plug of rubber or similar elastomeric sealing material having holes for the passage of terminated wires in a watertight sealing fit. One particular type of seal is secured in the connector housing by a rear cover or xe2x80x9cholderxe2x80x9d having an array of terminal openings which matches the seal openings in location and number.
FIGS. 1 and 2 represent a typical connector housing, seal, and rear cover combination of known type, with FIG. 1 showing a sixteen-terminal connector and FIG. 2 showing a ten-terminal connector. A female connector housing 10, typically molded from plastic, comprises a rear opening 10a, a rear shroud 10b surrounding the opening, and locking structure 10c formed on the sides of the shroud to receive mating locking structure from a rear cover or holder 12. A seal 14 is sized to fit snugly in rear opening 10a of the connector housing, preferably stopped by internal structure in the housing of such known type as internal partitions associated with connector structure in the housing, or one or more peripheral stop members 10e formed around the inside of shroud 10b.
The thickness of seal 14 is preferably such that a front portion of the seal is contained within rear shroud 10b in the connector, while a rear portion extends into rear cover 12 when cover 12 is locked against the rear of the connector housing. This arrangement provides a seal around the inner periphery of the junction between connector housing 10 and rear cover 12.
Rear cover 12 is provided with a number of terminal openings 12a adapted to receive terminated wires therethrough and, preferably, to lock a rear portion of the fully inserted terminated wire therein in known fashion. Seal 14 includes a number of terminal openings 14b matching in number and position the terminal openings 12a in rear cover 12. In FIG. 1 the seal has sixteen terminal openings and in FIG. 2 the seal has ten terminal openings, each matching the terminal openings in its respective rear cover.
It will be noted from FIGS. 1 and 2 that connector housings 10 are identical, while their seals and rear covers differ in the number of terminated wires they are capable of accepting. This is a common arrangement designed to allow a wire harness manufacturer to pick and choose among different seals and rear covers to accommodate precisely the number of terminated wires which connector 10 requires for a particular wiring harness arrangement. The connector receiving structure in housing 10 (not shown, but well known to those skilled in the art) will normally be set up to accommodate the largest number of anticipated terminal wires, in the illustrated embodiment up to sixteen. Accordingly, the FIG. 2 embodiment with only ten terminal openings in the rear cover and seal would leave six terminal connections inside housing 10 empty upon assembly.
To eliminate the need for multiple sets of covers and seals in applications where a single connector body can be used for wire harness arrangements having different numbers of terminated wires, the present invention is a xe2x80x9cdeletexe2x80x9d plug adapted to simultaneously close a terminal opening in the rear cover and the corresponding wire opening in the seal. Any number of plugs can be added to a cover and seal combination to adapt the connector to the desired number of terminated wires for a particular connector application
The delete plug has a head portion shaped and sized to mate with and close off a terminal opening in the rear cover, and preferably is further configured to be positively retained in the terminal opening in the rear cover. A front portion of the plug is adapted to be inserted into a wire opening in the seal with a sealing fit.
In the preferred form, the delete plug head is adapted to be inserted into a terminal opening in the rear cover from the inside surface of the cover, and to be positively retained in the terminal opening sufficiently to keep the plug from falling out and further to prevent push-through. The seal is then placed over the plugged cover, with openings in the seal mating with the forward prongs of each of the delete plugs retained in the rear cover. The plugged and sealed cover is then placed on the connector body, and the appropriate number of terminated wires is inserted into the remaining terminal openings in the newly-reconfigured cover.
The delete plugs are preferably removably retained in the rear cover, such that a particular cover can be reconfigured by adding, moving, or removing plugs.
The head of the delete plug is preferably provided with a polarization feature to match polarization notches or other structure typically found in the terminal openings in the rear cover.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon further reading of the specification, in light of the accompanying drawings.

System for reconfiguring connector cover and seal


Embodiments of apparatus, computer-implemented methods, systems, and computer-readable media are described herein for expediting execution time memory alias checking. A sequence of instructions targeted for execution on an execution processor may be received or retrieved. The execution processor may include a plurality of alias registers and circuitry configured to check entries in the alias register for memory aliasing. One or more optimizations may be performed on the received or retrieved sequence of instructions to optimize execution performance of the received or retrieved sequence of instructions. This may include a reorder of a plurality of memory instructions in the received or retrieved sequence of instructions. After the optimization, one or more move instructions may be inserted in the optimized sequence of instructions to move one or more entries among the alias registers during execution, to expedite alias checking at execution time. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in the present disclosure and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Computer software may be created in multiple stages. A computer programmer may write human-readable source code (e.g., in C, C++, JAVA® programming language). This source code may then be transformed by a compiler or an interpreter (hereinafter, simply "compiler") into lower-level instructions, such as assembly language instructions and/or machine code instructions, that may be executed by one or more processors (e.g., by a processor core of a multi-core processor).
During compilation or interpretation (hereinafter, simply "compilation"), assembly or machine instructions may be reordered, or "optimized," so that they may be executed more quickly and/or efficiently at runtime. However, it may be difficult to determine whether memory instructions such as load and store will access the same memory location (known as "memory aliasing") at runtime. Accordingly, a compiler or interpreter may optimize instructions as if there will be no memory aliasing among these instructions, while preserving the instructions' original execution order (e.g., using annotations or with additional instructions) in case memory aliasing arises at runtime.
A processor may be equipped with memory disambiguation circuitry to perform speculative memory optimization. At runtime, if the memory disambiguation circuitry detects memory aliasing, it may trigger a memory aliasing exception. Optimized instructions may be stored in an atomic region so that, in the event of a memory aliasing exception, the whole atomic region may be rolled back. Then, original or less-optimized instructions may be executed instead.
Rotation-based memory disambiguation circuitry may detect memory aliasing based on an original execution order of a sequence of instructions. After execution of a memory instruction, the memory address accessed by the instruction may be stored in an alias register queue at a location corresponding to the instruction's location in the original execution order of the sequence of instructions (which as noted above was preserved during compilation). The memory disambiguation circuitry then may compare that memory address with memory addresses accessed by instructions contained in "later" alias register entries (e.g., entries with greater indices) to detect memory aliasing.
Rotation-based memory disambiguation may perform well for instruction scheduling in sequential computer programs. However, it may not perform as well for instruction optimizations in more complex situations. For example, when handling speculative load or store eliminations, memory disambiguation circuitry may unnecessarily alias check memory accessed by instructions that are not actually reordered during optimization. Handling branching programs also may be difficult because there is no original program execution order between memory instructions in different branches, and yet, memory addresses accessed by these instructions may still be assigned to alias registers. With loops, sequential release of alias register entries through iterations (also referred to as "rotations") of the loop may restrict optimization of loop instructions to a sliding window bounded by the size of the alias register queue.

Expediting execution time memory aliasing checking


The present invention relates to a dental reamer (2) which tapers right down to its tip (1), of the type including helical slits which, on their sides, have cutting lips for boring out dental canals, in which the characteristics of the cutting conditions are defined by, on the one hand, a cutting angle .alpha. determined by the tangent to the cutting edge at the cutting point and the perpendicular to the surface to be cut at this point and, on the other hand, a clearance angle .beta. determined by the plane of the cutting surface and the tangent to the inactive face of the cutting edge, characterized in that the value of the cutting angle .alpha. is greater than or equal to zero and that of the clearance angle .beta. is greater than zero.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dental reamer which tapers right down to its tip, of the type including helical slits which, on their sides, have cutting lips for boring out dental canals, in which the characteristics of the cutting conditions are defined by, on the one hand, a cutting angle .alpha. determined by the tangent to the cutting edge at the cutting point and the perpendicular to the surface to be cut at this point and, on the other hand, a clearance angle .beta. determined by the plane of the cutting surface and the tangent to the inactive face of the cutting edge.
The angles .alpha. and .beta. will be defined more precisely below.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a boring process using a reamer of the type described above, a compromise must be found between the values of the angles .alpha. and .beta., which may assume positive or negative values, independently of one another. Depending on the values which are chosen, the results may range from a lack of cutting efficiency, which will need to be compensated for by very strong cutting forces, to a very strong cutting force which will entail a risk of screwing the rotating instrument. As is known, the screwing effect can be eliminated by the presence of a heel on the periphery of the instrument, albeit with the drawback of further increasing the cutting forces and therefore the risk of the instrument being broken.


A particle beam apparatus has a cooled anti-contaminator (18) and/or a cooled specimen holder (17). A thermal conductor (19) is provided for providing a connection between the anti-contaminator (18) and/or the specimen holder (17), on the one hand, and the cooler (21) of a cryogen vessel (20) on the other hand. The thermal conductor (19) includes a carbon fiber bundle. With the carbon fiber bundle (19a, 19b), a high thermal conductivity is ensured between the cooler (21) and the surface (17, 18) to be cooled. At the same time, thermal expansions are avoided which lead to a displacement of the anti-contaminator (18) and/or the specimen holder (17).

In electron microscopes, especially transmission electron microscopes, wherein a good vacuum is required in the region of the specimen which is to be microscoped, the problem occurs that substances, which outgas from the specimen, deteriorate the vacuum, that is, the vacuum becomes contaminated. In order to avoid such a contamination of the vacuum, so-called anti-contaminators can be mounted in the region of the specimen within the vacuum column with these anti-contaminators being cooled. Gases escaping from the specimen condense on the anti-contaminators because of the lower temperature of the anti-contaminators relative to the ambient temperature within the vacuum column whereby the quality of the vacuum is retained. The anti-contaminators operate to a certain extent as cryopumps. By maintaining the quality of the vacuum in the region of the specimen, a contamination of the specimen by residual gas molecules of the vacuum, which condense on the specimen, is simultaneously reduced whereby the specimen quality is maintained over a longer time.
Furthermore, it is also possible to provide coolable specimen manipulators via which the specimen can be cooled during the electron microscopic investigation. Cooled specimen manipulators operate likewise as anti-contaminators. Furthermore, the specimen can, in this way be held at a correspondingly low temperature during the electron microscopic investigation.
For cooling the anti-contaminators and/or the specimen holder, a cooler can be provided which is arranged outside of the vacuum system. The heat of the anti-contaminator and/or of the specimen holder is conducted to this cooler. Up to now, thermal conductors of copper or copper wires have been used for conducting heat away from the anti-contaminators and/or the specimen holder to the cooler. Copper has a high linear coefficient of expansion and therefore considerable shrinkages of the thermal conductor occur when there is a cooling to the temperature of the cooler, which, as a rule, is liquid nitrogen. These changes of length must be compensated by suitable elastic supports of the cooling rod and of the vessel filled with the cryogen. This is always accompanied with cooling losses which reduce the efficiency of the cooling. Furthermore, the thermal conductivity of the copper defines a resistance for the heat flow from the anti-contaminator and/or the specimen holder to the cooler. This resistance limits the minimum temperature which can be realized at the anti-contaminator and therefore the capacity thereof.
The following publications are noted as covering the state of the art in connection with the present invention and include: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,179,605 and 4,833,330 as well as U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,591,722 and 6,469,381. U.S. Pat. No. 6,469,381 is not in the area of particle beam apparatus but is instead directed to the area of semiconductor component elements.


A magnetic sensor includes a non-bias structure element section that has a laminated structure in which a fixed magnetic layer, a non-magnetic material layer, a free magnetic layer, and a protection layer are laminated, and that is extended in an X1-X2 direction; and soft magnetic bodies that are arranged on the element section in a contactless manner. The soft magnetic bodies include a first section, a second section, and a third section. The second section is located on a Y2 side of the element section and the third section is located on a Y1 side thereof. The second section of one of soft magnetic bodies faces the third section of the other soft magnetic body in a Y1-Y2 direction through the element section. An electrode layer is provided on the element section which faces the joint sections of the second section and the third section in the Y1-Y2 direction.

1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a magnetic sensor in which hysteresis and linearity are improved.
2. Description of the Related Art
A magnetic sensor using magneto-resistive sensors can be used as, for example, a terrestrial magnetic sensor which detects terrestrial magnetism incorporated into a portable apparatus such as a mobile phone.
WO2009/084433 and WO2011/089978 are examples of the related art. In the related art, when an exceptionally strong magnetic field acts in a magnetic sensor which is provided with a bias layer used to supply a bias magnetic field to element sections from the outside, problems occur in that outputs (middle point potential differences) are changed after the applied magnetic field is removed and in that hysteresis and linearity deteriorate because the magnetization of the bias layer is destroyed or easily fluctuated due to the action of the strong magnetic field. These and other drawbacks exist.

Magnetic sensor for improving hysteresis and linearity


An electric current perturbation probe includes at least one driver coil and at least one receiver. The at least one driver coil produces an omni-directional magnetic field. The at least one receiver is decoupled from the omni-directional magnetic field. In one example, the at least one driver coil includes a first driver coil that defines a first effective coil axis which is positioned orthogonally to a second effective coil axis of a second driver coil. The first driver coil is provided with a first electrical excitation signal which is phase shifted by 90 degrees from a second electrical excitation signal used to drive the second driver coil.

The present invention generally relates to inspection systems, and more particularly to an electric current perturbation probe having omni-directional sensitivity capabilities.
Inspection systems having eddy current probes are often used for non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of critical components in the aerospace and power generation industries. Many components in these industries must endure extremely high stresses in the course of operation. It is necessary to detect even minute flaws in order to ensure the durability of these components. For example, a rotor disk for a gas turbine engine must have its entire surface inspected in order to detect the presence of defects. An inability to detect defects of a certain size or orientation can prevent the production of higher performance and more competitive products, and may lead to safety concerns regarding the product.
Known eddy current probes typically include a driver coil and at least one receiver coil. The driver coil is provided with an electrical excitation signal (i.e. an electrical current) and generates an alternating electromagnetic field that results in a magnetic field in a component under inspection as the probe is moved along a path above the component's surface. The magnetic field creates an eddy current in and near the surface of a component fabricated from a conductive material. The eddy currents in the component under inspection result in an electromagnetic signal or response, which is received within the receiver coil and detected by commercial instrumentation. As the eddy current probe passes over an anomaly, e.g., a flaw or a different morphology in the component, the anomaly disrupts the eddy currents and results in a different signal received by the receiver coil. The change between the signal received by the receiver coil and the signal generated within the driver coil is detected by the commercial instrumentation.
One type of eddy current probe is referred to as an electric current perturbation (ECP) probe. An ECP probe defines a driver core axis which is perpendicular to a receiver core axis. This feature decouples the driver magnetic field from a receiver, thereby reducing the sensitivity of the receiver to surface noise that does not represent a defect.
Although ECP probes typically provide high sensitivity, these probes are directionally sensitive in a single direction. That is, known ECP probes have a unidirectional sensitivity characteristic. Therefore, the ECP probes may only detect a flaw in the component where the orientation of the flaw is aligned directly with the directional sensitivity of the probe. Many components include complex surfaces that define complicated part stresses which may include flaws having an arbitrary orientation which is not aligned with the directional sensitivity of the electric current perturbation probe. Disadvantageously, the arbitrary orientation of the flaw may result in the flaw being unidentified by the electric current perturbation probe. The inability to detect flaws of a certain orientation can prevent production of higher performance and more competitive products, and may lead to safety concerns.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an omni-directional electric current perturbation probe that achieves increased sensitivity and that is disruptible in multiple directions.

Omni-directional electric current perturbation probe


An updating unit updates a color-conversion table stored in a storing unit. An image processing unit processes an input image data based on updated color-conversion table. A tamper-resistant chip that includes a first collecting unit that collects log information related to a usage of the image processing apparatus, a generating unit that generates a hash value corresponding to collected log information, and a recording unit that records generated hash value. An acquiring unit acquires the log information corresponding to the hash value by referring to recorded hash value. The updating unit updates the color-conversion table based on acquired log information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for updating a color-conversion table in an image processing apparatus based on a usage log of the image processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
As seen with the enforcement of e-Document Law in Japan for promoting electronic documents in business environment, high quality of electronic data to be output and high quality of papers for outputting the electronic data are being required so that admissibility of evidence and authorized original of the electronic data can be assured at the same level of assurance that has been secured in current paper evidences. However, if there is an uncontrollable quality change for outputting the data, and if the quality change is occurred in a remote place, the quality of the electronic data to be output on the papers cannot be assured, resulting in making a generated document insufficient for required specifications.
In the area of image processing, technologies for reproducing same colors in output data from input data regardless of various effects such as a difference in apparatus characteristics, environmental variation, or aged deterioration are disclosed. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H05-252392 discloses a technology for reproducing same colors regardless of the environmental variation or the aged deterioration by detecting tone-reproduction changes in an image output unit and changing input/output property. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H08-079546 discloses a technology for changing a parameter for a color gamut and setting a correct color gamut corresponding to conditions of various devices in an image processing apparatus or conditions of inks used in the apparatus, even when the color gamut is different for different apparatuses due to a difference in apparatus characteristics, the environmental variation, or the aged deterioration. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-346062 discloses a technology for converting acquired image data based on default color data to reproduce same colors, in a general color-management system for various input/output devices, regardless of the aged deterioration or the differences in devices.
For a security enhancement independently promoted by each enterprise, a trusted computing group (TCG) as an industry organization of the enterprises that provide technologies for personal computer (PC) platforms contributes to develop and promote new hardware/software having higher reliability and security. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-317026 discloses a technology with which the TCG determines a specification of a trusted platform module (TPM) chip related to a security chip for a computing platform.

Image processing apparatus, method of updating color-conversion table, and computer program product


A network component performs flow admission control. A function F(t) is provided which characterizes resources available at the network component. Information characterizing a proposed flow is received and used to define an envelope A(t). It is then attempted to fit the envelope within F(t) and the flow is accepted or rejected based on the attempt to fit the envelope.

This invention relates to flow admission control for a network router, switch, bridge, gateway, or any other network component which receives and then forwards data.
Computer networks, such as the Internet, are increasingly required to support transmission of one way or two way realtime data such as video and audio data. Such transmissions may serve a variety of ends, from providing health care to operating businesses to providing entertainment. In such transmissions, a sender application transmits audio or video data over a period of time (hereinafter referred to as a "flow") to a receiver application. Since computer networks are generally implemented as packet switched networks, flows are generally a string of packets transmitted over a period of time.
When transmitting a flow that represents a realtime event such as an audio or video event, the packets in the flow must be delivered in a timely manner. Since each packet contains data as to a segment of the event, each packet in the flow must arrive so that it can be processed, for audio or video broadcast to the user, immediately after the previous packet has been processed. If not, there will be a lag in the timeline of the reconstructed audio or video event. The reconstructed audio or video event would as a result appear as "jumpy" and not continuous.
One manner of implementing timely delivery of packets is to require that each packet in a flow not be delayed beyond a predetermined amount, referred to hereinafter as the "delay bound". A flow that has a delay bound may be referred to as a "bounded delay flow".


A device for supporting and positioning an infant, particularly a premature infant, in a tucked prone position. An elongated base layer extends lengthwise from a head end to a feet end, and includes, in order, a head support portion having a width at least sufficient to fully support the head of the infant, a torso support portion having a width sized to correspond to the width of the torso of the infant, and a pelvis support portion terminating in an upwardly extending rear support for the buttocks of the infant. Arm recesses are formed in the torso support portion, and pair of upwardly and rearwardly extending lateral supports extend lengthwise from the arm recesses to the feet end of the device. Leg recesses are defined between, on the one hand, the upwardly extending lateral supports, and, on the other hand, the pelvis support portion and the upwardly extending rear support.

The invention relates generally to devices for supporting and positioning infants and, more particularly, to infants such as prematurely-born babies, in an appropriate position.
It is well known that certain infants have developmental requirements which are improved through proper support and positioning. A number of infant supports and positioners are known.


Certain embodiments are directed to compounds and compositions targeted to human androgen receptor (AR) for inhibiting androgen receptor levels in a cell, which can be useful for methods of treating cancer and inhibiting cancer cell growth or proliferation.

Androgen receptor (AR) belongs to the superfamily of nuclear receptors and is activated by binding to its hormone ligands: androgen, testosterone, or DHT. Upon binding hormone ligand in the cytoplasm, androgen receptor translocates to the nucleus where it binds DNA and functions as a transcription factor to regulate expression of a number of target genes, such as prostate specific antigen (PSA) and TMPRSS2. Knudsen et al. (Trends Endocrinol Metab 21: 315-24, 2010) Bennett et al. (Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 42:813-827, 201).
Androgen receptor (AR) signaling is a critical survival pathway for prostate cancer cells, and androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT), also known as "chemical castration", is a first-line treatment strategy against hormone-sensitive, androgen-dependent prostate cancer that reduces circulating androgen levels and thereby inhibits AR activity. Although a majority of patients initially respond to ADT, most will eventually develop castrate resistance in which the disease progresses despite castrate levels of testosterone. This type of cancer is known as castrate-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). There are a number of mechanisms underlying the development of castrate (castration) resistance including an increase in the expression of AR protein which can sensitize cells to low levels of androgen, AR mutations that can alter transactivation or sensitize AR to alternative ligands and the emergence of alternatively spliced forms of AR, which lack the ligand binding domain but can nevertheless act to promote tumour growth in the absence of ligand stimulation. Additionally prostate tumors may also synthesize their own androgens thereby increasing the local intra-tumoral testosterone levels available to activate the AR.
Androgen receptor (AR) signaling is a critical survival pathway for prostate cancer cells, and androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) remains the principal treatment for patients with locally advanced and metastatic disease. Although a majority of patients initially respond to ADT, most will eventually develop castrate resistance in which the disease progresses despite castrate levels of testosterone. This type of cancer is known as castrate-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) (Karantos et al., Oncogene advance online: 1-13, 2013). There are a number of mechanisms underlying the development of castration resistance including an increase in the expression of AR protein which can sensitize cells to low levels of androgen (Gregory et al., Cancer Res 61: 2892-2898, 2001; Linja et al., Cancer Res 61: 3550-3555, 2001), AR mutations that can alter transactivation or sensitize AR to alternative ligands (Scher et al., J Clin Oncol 23: 8253-8261, 2005) and the emergence of alternatively spliced forms of AR, which lack the ligand binding domain but can nevertheless act to promote tumour growth in the absence of ligand stimulation (Yingming et al., Cancer Res 73:483-489, 2013). Additionally prostate tumors may also synthesize their own androgens thereby increasing the local intra-tumoral testosterone levels available to activate the AR (Attard et al., Cancer Cell 16:458-462, 2009).
The fact that the androgen receptor remains active in castrate resistant prostate cancer has led to the development of new agents that inhibit the production of androgen ligands or block the actions of these ligands on the AR. These new agents include abiraterone acetate which inhibits 17-α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase (CYP17) activity resulting in a reduction in residual androgens synthesized by the adrenals and in the prostate tumour itself deBono et al. (N Engl J Med 364: 1995-2006, 2011) and enzalutamide which prevents androgen ligand from binding to AR, translocating to the nucleus, and binding to DNA (Scher et al., N Engl J Med 367:1187-1197, 2012). A number of other androgen synthesis inhibitors or androgen receptor blockers are under development either pre-clinically or clinically and include for example, ARN509, ODM201, TOK001, VT464.
Although the activity of agents such as enzalutamide and abiraterone in CRPC is very encouraging, neither works in all patients and both are associated with the development of additional resistance through re-activation of the AR by the mechanisms described above (Yingming et al., Cancer Res 73:483-489, 2013). Thus, there is a continued need to identify alternative therapies for the treatment of CRPC, and in particular those that can either remove and/or inhibit the activity of all forms of AR including for example, wildtype, mutated and splice variant ARs.
The present invention provides antisense oligonclueotides which by virtue of their design and mode of action (base-pair with the AR RNA target and mediate its destruction by RNase H, an enzyme that destroys the RNA in a DNA/RNA duplex) are aimed at inhibiting the major forms of AR By targeting an appropriate region of the AR mRNA the antisense oligonucleotide will result in inhibition of the major forms (full length, splice variant and mutated forms) of androgen receptor proteins and therefore be suitable for the treatment of patients with CRPC.
Aside from prostate cancer, AR is also implicated as a factor in the progression of other tumours such as breast cancer. In breast cancer AR is expressed in 70-80% of tumours which are also ER positive and in 12% cases which are known as triple negative (no expression of ER, PR and HER2) (Hickey et al., Molecular Endocrinology 26: 1252-1267, 2012). In pre-clinical studies, the androgen receptor antagonist bicalutamide induces anti-proliferative responses in vitro in breast cancer cells and this is potentiated by addition of a Pi3K/mTOR inhibitor (Ni et al., Cancer Cell 20: 119-131, 2011). The 2nd generation anti-androgen, enzalutamide inhibits dihydrotestosterone (DHT) mediated proliferation in ER+/AR+ breast cancer cells and is as effective as tamoxifen at inhibiting estrogen-stimulated breast cancer tumour growth in pre-clinical models in vivo (Cochrane et al., Cancer Res 72(24 Supplement): P2-14-02, 2012). Enzalutamide also inhibits proliferation in HER2+ and triple-negative breast cancer cells. It appears that in situations where estrogen action is reduced (eg. long-term estrogen deprivation or absence of ER) AR levels increase and can become oncogenic. This would suggest that AR antagonists may be best positioned in triple negative or hormone resistant breast cancer settings (Hickey et al., Molecular Endocrinology 26: 1252-1267, 2012). AR targeted therapies are currently under investigation in clinical trials for breast cancer (NCT00468715, NCT01597193, NCT01381874, NCT00755886).
AR is also expressed in a variety of other tumours, including, but not limited to bladder, ovarian, gastric, lung and liver. Pre-clinical data support a similar role as in breast cancer, to promote tumour cell proliferation survival; thus blocking AR in these tumours could have therapeutic clinical benefit (Chang et al., Oncogene advance online: 1-10, 2013).

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Modulation of androgen receptor expression


A motor vehicle and an indicating apparatus for a motor vehicle, includes a display for optical depiction of information concerning the motor vehicle by the emission of light, and having a decorative layer positioned on the display.

As the functionalities of a motor vehicle increase, it may become necessary to configure indicators and operating elements for various functions such that they may be easy for a driver of a motor vehicle to recognize and to operate.
Various proposed solutions to this problem are believed to be described in the literature. For example, according to International Published Patent Application No. WO 00/21795, provision is made for arranging a display field or indicating field in multiple parts, one part of the indicating field representing an information panel on which information about the selected menu or selected function, as well as (optionally) important information about other functional groups, is reproduced. On the remaining part of the indicating field, functional and/or status indications are conspicuously generated such that they are each allocated to an operating element, e.g., to the operating element to which, in that selection menu, the respective function for operation is allocated. In addition, a return function to a higher-level menu is allocated to one of the functions indicated in the remaining display field and allocated to one of the operating elements.
According to German Published Patent Application No. 101 39 693, in the context of modern electronic devices in a vehicle that constantly offer additional functions with more and more options, because of the limited installation space for the associated operating elements, multi-function operating elements have been created with which various functions of the connected devices can be performed. European Published Patent Application No. 0 366 132, for example, describes a multi-function operating device for motor vehicles in which the selection of function groups (MENUS) and of individual functions is accomplished by a rotary switch, and in which an ENTER function can be initiated, one and the same bidirectional rotary switch serving for menu selection and for individual function selection. This rotary switch has click-stop positions to which menus or individual functions are allocated, in which context the ENTER function can be initiated by an axial motion of the rotary switch. A multi-function operating device of this kind serves, for example, to enter the destination of a navigation system. An alphanumeric keypad, within which the user can move back and forth by the bidirectional motion of the rotary switch, is imaged for that purpose on an indicating unit. When the cursor is then located on the desired alphanumeric character, the latter can be selected by an axial motion of the rotary switch and transferred into the navigation system. It is also described in German Published Patent Application No. 199 41 960 to arrange an operating element as a cylinder, rotatable bidirectionally about its longitudinal axis, that is movable resiliently with respect to the longitudinal axis.
For convenient operation and in order to simplify operating haptics, German Published Patent Application No. 101 39 693 describes that a bidirectional rotary element may be arranged with a rotation axis extending substantially parallel to a vehicle part surface. Using the bidirectional rotary element, a bidirectional selection or choice of function groups and/or functions within a menu plane is made. Selection of the menu planes is accomplished via a second operating device. The second operating device can be implemented by displacement of the bidirectional rotary element parallel to the rotation axis of the bidirectional rotary element. A further variant provides for arranging the bidirectional rotary element as a rocker in the direction of the rotation axis in order to constitute the second operating device. Another solution provides for the provision of a second operating device which has two operating elements that are actuable parallel to the rotation axis of the bidirectional rotary element. The second operating device is arranged on or at least partially in the bidirectional rotary element, and constitutes a physical unit with the rotary element. In addition, the bidirectional rotary element is arranged for selection or choice in two directions on the indicating apparatus, and the second operating element for selection in two further directions, e.g., perpendicular to the selection directions of the bidirectional rotary element.

Indicating apparatus for a motor vehicle


The invention relates to a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) marker related to a Chinese horse short stature trait. The SNP molecular marker is located at the 501th position of a sequence shown in SEQ ID NO.1, polymorphism is G/A, and the SNP marker corresponds to base pair 18,205,998 on chromosome 8 in a horse. The SNP marker related to the Chinese horse short stature trait and use thereof provided by the present invention have the following advantages that: (1) the molecular marker is not restricted by the age, sex and the like of Chinese horses, is used in early breeding of the Chinese horses, performs accurate screening immediately at birth, and significantly promotes the breeding process of dominant pony varieties of the Chinese horse; (2) a method for detecting SNP of a Chinese horse TBX3 gene is accurate, reliable, and easy to operate.

SNP locus principally refers to polymorphism of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) fragments caused by a single deoxyribonucleotide mutation in a genomic DNA sequence. SNP merely relates to single base variation, including replacement, insertion, and deletion.
So far, the commonly used SNP detection methods include Sanger sequencing, DNA microarray, time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS), and the latest next generation sequencing (NGS). SNP, as a genetic marker, has been widely used in research fields of gene mapping, cloning, genetic breeding, genetic diversity analysis, etc.
T-Box transcription factor 3 (TBX3) is one of the key genes for regulating growth and development, which is widely present in embryonic tissues and plays an important role in the development of embryonic stem cells and cardiac conduction system. Deletion or mutation of this gene thereof causes human ulnar-mammary syndrome. Genome-wide association study and genome-wide selective signal screening of Debao ponies, Yili horses, and Mongolian horses in China found that one polymorphic variation at TBX3 locus has a significant effect on the body size of Chinese horses.
Ponies are short, nimble, good-tempered, and particularly suitable for junior equestrian teaching. With the rapid development of junior equestrian clubs throughout China, ponies have an immeasurable economic prospect in the culture and education industry. So far, however, all equestrian clubs in China depend on the imported ponies, and it costs RMB 50,000 to introduce a pony. Nevertheless, due to the lack of breeding markers, molecular breeding technique and utilization efficiency, the Chinese pony resource superiority cannot be translated into an economic advantage. Currently, HMGA2 identified by genome-wide scan influenced the body size of pony breeds overseas, but previous research indicated that ponies in China and abroad had independent evolution histories. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a Chinese pony-specific molecular marker for Chinese pony breeding.

Single nucleotide polymorphism marker related to Chinese horse short stature trait and use thereof

INSTITUTE OF ANIMAL SCIENCES OF CHINESE ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES


[Object] Observation is made possible by switching between a stereoscopic vision image and a depth-of-field extended image correspondingly to a situation.

Hitherto, for example, Patent Literature 1 described in the below describes providing an endoscope device that can switch a two-dimensional/three-dimensional observation state selectively, can obtain a high resolution and bright observation image of a body part to be inspected at the time of the two-dimensional observation, and can obtain a three-dimensional observation image as required.

Image processing device, image processing method, program, and image processing system that use parallax information

Abstract: [Solution] An image processing device according to the present disclosure, includes a photographing situation acquiring section that acquires information with regard to a photographing situation of an image for a left eye or an image for a right eye, and a determining section that determines correspondingly to the information with regard to the photographing situation whether to perform stereoscopic vision image processing for the image for a left eye or the image for a right eye, or whether to perform two-dimensional depth-of-field extension processing with at least one of the image for a left eye or the image for a right eye. With this, it becomes possible to observe by switching between a stereoscopic vision image and a depth-of-field extended image correspondingly to a situation.


Provided is a process for adsorptive separation of p-xylene from an aromatic hydrocarbon mixture comprising other isomers of xylene, and a device used therein. More specifically, the present invention provides a separation process employing simulated moving bed (SMB) adsorptive chromatography, characterized by subjecting the extracts eluted from a plurality of adsorption chambers arranged in parallel, to a crystallizer for additional separation, thereby improving productivity, and a device used therein.

Conventional batch chromatography is a separation process which uses a principle of adsorption mechanism. Since it is suitably used for separation with high purity, assays carried out in a laboratory and the like, it is widely used in a separation or purification process of biosynthetic compounds with high purity, fine chemical compounds, food additives and the like. However, such separation processes using batch chromatography have some problems such that it requires a large amount of solvent used as a mobile phase; separation of a component is hardly achieved when the component to be separated has a similar adsorption property; and it is not appropriately used for separation in massive amount and continuous separation.
In order to solve these problems, a true moving bed (TMB) adsorptive separation process has been suggested in literatures such as Korean laid-open patent application No. 2001-51842 and the like. The TMB process introduces the concept of a counter current flow which has been efficiently used in various processes such as heat exchange and extraction, in which a flow which is counter to the flow direction of the mobile phase is applied to the stationery phase, thus when a mixed solution intended to be separated is fed into a column, a component which has stronger adsorption tendency to the stationery phase comes out of the column along with the flow of the stationery phase, and another component which has lower adsorption tendency to the stationery phase comes out of the column along the flow of the mobile phase. Therefore, this process is advantageous in that it is possible to obtain pure substance as long as two components can be separated at each end point of the concentration distribution curves of the two components, although they have not so much different separability In the meantime, it also has disadvantages such that the amount of a filling material should be increased as compared to the conventional fixed type separation process, and work in normal state is hardly achieved owing to the friction and leakage of the filling material.
For overcoming these problems of the TMB process, a simulated moving bed (SMB) adsorptive separation process has been developed. The SMB process solves the problems related to the flow of a stationery phase in the TMB process, with the simulation of the counterflow of the solid phase by filling and fixing the adsorbent that is a stationery phase into a column and stepwise moving the ports between columns at a certain time interval. Currently, the SMB process is applied to a separating and purifying process of p-xylene from aromatic hydrocarbon mixtures, a separation process of ethyl benzene, a separation process of chiral compounds and the like. One representative SMB process among SMB processes which are commercially practiced is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,326,092 and 5,382,747 applied by UOP LLC, normally referred as "Parex process".
Parex process is comprised of one or two long adsorption chambers connected in series, wherein the adsorbent chamber is divided into a number of adsorbent beds, normally 12 beds per adsorbent chamber. In a simulated moving bed adsorptive separation process like Parex process, the flow of a stationery phase is not practically realized. Instead, positions of inlet and outlet ports for desorbent, extract, fluid mixture(feed), raffinate and cleaning liquid are moved in the direction of the flow of a mobile phase at a certain time interval of rotary valve rotation, so as to move the columns in the counter direction relative to the flow direction of the mobile phase, with each port as the center, wherein the time interval of the rotary valve rotation is referred as switching time. As such, the virtual flow of the stationery phase can be made to simulate the counterflow to the flow of the mobile phase. The adsorbent used as a stationery phase is filled into the bed.
In Parex process, although each position of ports for desorbent, extract, fluid feed and raffinate cannot be continuously moved, similar effects can be obtained by providing a multiple access line and periodically switching each flow to adjacent line by using a rotary valve at a given time interval of switching time. During the process, a material with lower adsorption in the fluid feed mixture injected through a feed inlet port, comes out though a raffinate outlet port along the mobile phase, and a material with higher adsorption in the fluid feed mixture is adsorbed to each of adsorbent beds of the adsorbent chamber. As the column relatively moves at a certain switching time, the adsorbed material can be recovered through the extract outlet port after a certain time elapse.
However, the conventional Parex process for the production of p-xylene has a limit in improving productivity by using the SMB adsorptive separation process. In order to overcome the setback, a method called selective toluene disproportionation, STDP, has been developed for improving the concentration of p-xylene in the feed supplied to Parex process. In a process using a conventional crystallizer which is not SMB adsorptive separation process, a hybrid method comprising pretreatment in an adsorption tower for increasing the production has also been developed. However, these methods still have limitation in increasing the productivity to the desired extent.

Simulated moving bed adsorptive separation process using a plurality of adsorption chambers in parallel and crystallizer and device used therein


Tonal data of one frame of a video signal is subject to time division into dark subframe tonal data at a low tone and bright subframe tonal data at a high tone to compensate for a lowered luminance in the dark subframe by the bright subframe so as not to change an integrated luminance per one ordinary frame. Subframe tonal data read from a memory is converted into output tonal data constituted of dark subframe tonal data at a low tone and bright subframe tonal data at a high tone, by four arithmetic calculation operations using calculation parameters supplied from a register.

The present invention relates to a hold type display device, typically a TFT liquid crystal display, and more particularly to a display device with an improved quality of moving images.
An active matrix type display device such as a TFT liquid crystal display has characteristics of a thin type, high precision and a low power consumption, and is widely used for a mobile apparatus such as a mobile phone and a portable information terminal.
High performance is progressing in mobile apparatus, particularly in mobile phones, and scenes using moving images have increased such as one segment broadcasting, reproduction of recorded moving images and applications including games. TFT liquid crystal is driven by a hold type scheme by which the same image continues to be displayed during one frame period. Therefore, as moving images are displayed, pictures are left as after images in retinas, and there occurs a phenomenon (hereinafter called "moving image blur") that the contours of displayed picturers look less clear and sharp.
U.S. Patent Publication 6473077 (JP-A-2000-122596) proposes a method of mitigating moving image blur to cancel retina after images by inserting a black display period in one frame, as a measure to prevent quality deterioration of a hold type display device. However, inserting this black display period is a pseudo impulse type driving method typically used in CRT's, and lowers the maximum luminance and contrast of displayed pictures.
U.S. Patent Unexamined Publication 20050253785 (JP-A-2005-173387) proposes a method of preventing a luminance and contrast from being lowered, by which one frame is divided into several subframes, and the luminance lowered by inserting a black display period is compensated by another subframe. Although this method is the pseudo impulse type driving method, the luminance and contrast can be prevented from being lowered as viewed in one frame period. With this method, it is necessary to generate low luminance subframe data for the pseudo impulse driving method and high luminance subframe data for the luminance compensation, from one frame data input to the system. This data conversion process uses a look-up table (hereinafter called "LUT").
In order to realize this method, a storage device of a large capacity is necessary for LUT which stores data subjected to the conversion process. If this storage is mounted on hardware such as LSI, the circuit area increases resulting in an increase in cost. It is also difficult to apply this method to mobile apparatus having strict restrictions of the circuit area.


A wire-less/Wired mesh network is described, using a multi-slot modular mesh node to house diverse transceiver elements (e.g. IR, Wi-Fi, Powerline). A radio agnostic tree based mesh network is formed, based on what type of wire-less links are formed on the uplink and downlink of the backhaul and what type of radios etc are used for the Access Points AP, see FIG. 17,23.

Over the next decade, most devices connected to the Internet or other global network will not be used by people in the familiar way that personal computers, tablets and smart phones are. Billions of interconnected devices will be monitoring the environment, structures, transportation systems, factories, farms, forests, utilities, soil and weather conditions, oceans and resources. Many of these sensors and actuators will be networked into autonomous sets, with much of the information being exchanged machine-to-machine directly and without human involvement
Machine-to-machine communications are typically terse. Most sensors and actuators will report or act upon small pieces of information—"chirps." Burdening these devices with current network protocol stacks is inefficient, unnecessary and unduly increases their cost of ownership.
The architecture of the Internet of Things necessarily entails a widely distributed topology incorporating simpler chirp protocols towards at the edges of the network. Intermediate network elements perform information propagation, manage broadcasts, and provide protocol translation. Another class of devices house integrator functions providing higher-level analysis, for both near-edge analytics and broader-scope analysis. Small chirp data will feed "big data" systems.
The propagation of pollen and the interaction of social insects are relevant to the emerging architecture of the Internet of Things described in the instant application. Pollen is lightweight by nature, to improve its reach. It is inherently secure, only the receiver can decode its message. Nature's design is very different from today's traditional large packet and sender-oriented network traffic.
This application describes reasons why we must rethink current approaches to the Internet of Things. Appropriate architectures are described that will coexist with existing incumbent networking protocols. An architecture comprised of integrator functions, propagator nodes, and end devices, along with their interactions, is explored. Example applications are used to illustrate concepts and draw on lessons learned from Nature.

Abstract: In addition to servicing IP based clients (e.g. Wi-Fi, WiMax, Bluetooth), the modular mesh nodes APs may also serve as receivers/collectors for low cost chirp devices. These devices are not “agile” and therefore contentious. APs, servicing these devices, alleviate potential contention by multiple means including: sending out a “incoming” CTS, efficient delivery through container based schedulable bus deliveries, and its reverse (moving chirp transmission times to be sequential).

Abstract: Multiple approaches for “pollen” to reach the intended “flower” in a timely manner are described. The method of transport is standard IP based packets yet security is inherent in this pollen-flower based system: only mesh nodes are privy to the routing tables that indicate that packet addresses are not IP. Multiple options to further obfuscate packet flow are presented.

Abstract: A multi-agent based approach driving business process flow is described. Such agents can also provide specialized mesh network routing e.g. navigation agents for chirp devices.

Abstract: Tree based routing and logical radio abstractions are revisited.

Abstract: An organic approach to providing category/class based form of data type identification is proposed, to efficiently match publishers and subscribers, based on the type of data being sought. A private, secure and natively Publish/Subscribe M2M community is engendered at the edge. It has loosely, dynamic and ad hoc couplings to big data servers, also operating on their own private exchange/market place, using a real time publish/subscribe infrastructure with content categories used as part of pollen identification.


An inexpensive high-performance cutting or grinding oil capable of significantly improving the cutting efficiency. Into a liquid component of the cutting or grinding oil are dispersed fine powders of boron nitride of hexagonal system and/or crystal line turbostratic structure, particularly crystalline turbostratic structure, having a mean particle size of primary particles not larger than 1 .mu.m.

The lubricant oil used for machining, also herein termed cutting oil, is admixed with sulfur-based extreme-pressure additives or chlorine-based extreme-pressure additives. However, if the cutting oil admixed with sulfur-based extreme pressure additives or chlorine-based extreme pressure additives is used for machining materials difficult to cut, such as Inconel, the tool has a short service life, such that the tool exchange time is sometimes longer than the cutting time. On the other hand, if the workpiece difficult to cut, such as Inconel, is bored by a cemented carbide drill, only a few holes at most can be bored with a sole drill.
In machining a soft material, poor in thermal resistance and mold releasing properties, cutting chips remain loaded to the cutting edge of the tool thus lowering machining precision and yield. Since it is necessary in this case to lower the machining speed to prevent the temperature from increasing or to exchange the tools frequently. If the tool is exchanged frequently, the productivity is lowered. Thus, in boring an aluminum material, as an example, the number of revolutions of the drill needs to be suppressed to a lower value of the order of several hundred revolutions per minute.
In cutting oils, for which thermal resistance is also a requirement, those admixed with graphite or molybdenum disulfide, as solid lubricants, are sometimes used. However, the thermal resistance of graphite or molybdenum disulfide is 500 to 600.degree. C., such that, if this temperature is exceeded, loading occurs frequently to lower the machining yield. Although the lubricating performance may be improved to a certain extent with the conventional cutting oil admixed with molybdenum disulfide or graphite, it is not possible to realize significant improvement in the operating efficiency or machining precision or in durability, such that definite limits are set in improving productivity or in reducing the machining cost.
Boron nitride (BN), a compound composed of boron and nitrogen, has many different forms having substantially the same crystal structures as carbon. Carbon exists as amorphous carbon, graphite of the hexagonal structure having a laminated structure of hexagonally-shaped meshed layers, and diamond of the cubic system. Of these, graphite of the hexagonal system, having a laminated structure of hexagonal meshed layers, and exhibiting significant cleavage characteristics at the inter-layer portions, exhibits the solid lubricating performance. Boron nitride also is known to have different forms, such as amorphous boron nitride (referred to herein as a-BN), boron nitride of the hexagonal system having a laminated structure of hexagonal-shaped meshed layers at a repetitive period of two layers (referred to herein as h-BN), rhombohedral structure having a laminated structure of hexagonal-shaped meshed layers at a repetitive period of three layers (referred to herein as r-BN), a turbostratic boron nitride having randomly layered hexagonal-shaped meshed layers (referred to herein as t-BN) and a high pressure phase cubic born nitride of the cubic structure (referred to herein as c-BN).
The h-BN crystals are known to exhibit cleavage characteristics, comparable to those of graphite crystals of the hexagonal system, and hence optimum solid lubricating properties. The lubricating properties of the h-BN crystals are presumably ascribable to the Van-Del-Waals bond with a weak bond between the two-dimensional hexagonal meshed layers comparable to that of graphite. That is, the crystals exhibit significant cleavage characteristics along this plane such that crystal grains cleft in flakes between the layers are liable to slip relative to one another.
A sintered mass of h-BN powders of high purity is colorless to white in color, superior in electrical insulating properties, higher in resistance against oxidation than graphite, less liable to be reacted with and melted into ferrous materials like graphite and are less apt to suffer burning to the ferrous materials because of a reduced ractivity with the ferrous material. In this regard, h-BN is a suitable material as a solid lubricant material.
As a typical case of exploiting the lubricating properties of h-BN, JP Patent Kokai JP-A-63-135496 discloses a lubricant oil excellent in thermal resistance and in friction reducing effect, obtained by dispersing in a fluid oil and fat h-BN powders and polyether ketone powders both of which are not larger than 20 .mu.m in the mean particle size. On the other hand, JP Patent Kokai JP-A-01-318087 discloses lubricant oil which is excellent in lubricating properties and in sliding performance and which is obtained on mixing and dispersing in e.g., silicone oil h-BN powders with a particle size of 2 to 10 .mu.m and used for drawing steel wires etc.
On the other hand, the a-BN powders are hygroscopic and unstable and hence are not suited as boron nitride powders admixed to the lubricant oil, so that h-BN powders, exhibiting no hygroscopicity, are predominantly used. However, the h-BN powders are costly and hence are used only for special application in which cost increase is tolerable. As far as the present inventors have searched, there is no instance of use of cutting oils or grinding oils admixed with the boron nitride powders. It is noted that r-BN or t-BN has barely reached the stage of tentative manufacture in a laboratory such that discussions of the practical usage are thought to be of no avail.
In the Journal of the Shigen-Sozai Gakkai (Society of Resources and Materials), vol.1. 105, No.2, p.201, 1988, a-BN is explained as being t-BN. However, the powder X-ray diffraction diagram by CuK.alpha. rays of boron nitride powders, termed t-BN therein, demonstrates only two broad lines of diffraction at the positions of [100] and [101] neighboring to a diffraction peak [002] of h-BN, while not demonstrating or scarcely demonstrating the diffraction peak at the position of the diffraction peak [004]. In the present specification, the position of the diffraction peak in the powder X-ray diffraction diagram of boron nitride powders is represented as an index of the diffraction peaks characteristic to h-BN for convenience of explanation. This powder X-ray diffraction diagram is similar to that for a-BN shown in FIG. 1. Therefore, it is not proper to assume that a-BN be the same as t-BN.

Sunhaitsu Chuodai F-306, 5-1 Shiroyama 1-chome

c/o K.K. Fuji Enterprize, Azafuruichiba 38


An attachable shroud and a dispensing pump with universal pump body upon which is formed outward flanges on top of a pump outlet tube which includes a rearward latching section. A rearwardly extending horizontal shelf is formed on the vertical tubular support of the pump body. The shroud is open-fronted and includes a top wall, connected side walls and a rear end wall with an inward horizontal shoulder. Extending downward along the top wall of the shroud are a pair of opposed channels to the rear of which are unitary downward locking wedges. In assembly, the open-fronted shroud is moved forward onto the pump body in a simple uni-directional linear movement, the channels receiving the outward flanges respectively. The latching sections are flexed downward by the locking wedges and snap past the wedges and the shoulder as the shroud slides under the shelf.

The prior art includes a number of trigger-type dispensers in which a selected shroud can be attached to the pump body. The prior art includes, for instance, the Hellenkamp U.S. Pat. No. 3,820,721 issued Jun. 28, 1974, wherein, for the purpose of identification, a shroud bearing an identification number can be snapped onto the body of a pump.
More with a view to satisfying consumer desires as to the appearance of the dispenser, there is the Cary et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,539 issued Mar. 24, 1981. In this patent, during assembly the front end of the shroud is hooked over the front end of the pump body with the rear of the shroud high in the air. In the final assembly motion, the rear of the shroud is pressed downward to snap over an edge of the pump body in an over-center installation.
Foster et al U.S. Pat. No. 5,366,121 issued Nov. 22, 1994, has a shroud formed with forward hooks which fit into appropriate openings in the pump body when the shroud is placed on the pump body.
The attachment of the shrouds of the prior art to pump bodies has not been as readily accomplishable by automatic assembly equipment as has been desired. Further, the attachment has lacked sufficient security to hold the body and shroud together as a unit in a reliable manner.

Dispensing pump having universal pump body and readily attachable shroud selected from readily attachable shrouds of different outward shapes


A data obfuscation method, apparatus and computer program product are disclosed in which at least selected text entities such as words or abbreviations in a document are obfuscated to prevent the disclosure of private information if the document is disclosed. A user establishes various configuration parameters for selected text entities desired to obfuscated. The document is processed and text entities matching the configuration parameters are tagged for obfuscation. The tagged entities are then substituted in the document with obfuscating text. The obfuscating text can be derived from a hash table. The hash table may be used to provide a reverse obfuscation method by which original data can be restored to an obfuscated document.

Applications in machine learning, information retrieval, text processing, data mining and Natural Language Processing (NLP) research typically requires large amounts of data for proper testing and validation of the correctness of the technical routines that implement the applications. Data that is most desired for testing and validating the efficiency and correctness of the techniques and routines in a business domain is typically real-life data that includes confidential information. Examples of such confidential information are customer transaction information, customer preferences, customer feedback and survey feedback. Other domains where data sharing is useful for providing better services to the customer, but restricted because of privacy considerations, include the health domain. While some text corpora are available in the public domain in specific areas (for example, the Enron database comprising emails of Enron employees), in general a lack of availability of real-life data and the conflict between the needs of data-privacy and data-sharing are impediments for research and development of applications in these fields. These problems also prevent the full use of applications that require sharing of information, such as occurs in the health domain. Also, many enterprises today outsource some parts of their business applications to third parties, for efficiency and cost reasons. The data that also needs to be shared may sometimes contain personal or sensitive information and it may not be legally permissible to share the data as such with the third parties. In these cases, it is useful to have techniques that clean the data of sensitive information, before it is made public or otherwise disseminated.
Data sanitization or data obfuscation techniques refer to techniques that remove or replace the sensitive text or information in confidential documents, in a manner that does not expose the identifiable information or the confidential information. When these desensitized or obfuscated documents are shared, the end users are then not able to gather any personal information related to individual data entities. In some cases these techniques have also been extended to clean data in such a manner that even aggregate information cannot be gleaned from the sanitized data. These techniques are also referred to as data anonymization, data cleaning or desensitization. The techniques are designed such that no confidential information is disclosed to the end user, but enough information is retained for other analytical and processing applications that the end-user may wish to perform on the data.
However, current obfuscation techniques are widely available only for numerical data and for text data in structured format (typically in relational tables). In the few cases where the obfuscation is done on unstructured text, this has been restricted to simply removing the sensitive information from the original text and replacing it by blanks or some dummy tags. This can lead to a loss of the form of the original document.
These current obfuscation techniques broadly fit into 2 categories, based on the type of data addressed—numerical data and text data. The standard techniques used in both categories include data randomization, data swapping and data anonymization, where the sensitive data is replaced with a fixed value or an interval of values. The overall goal is to prevent the reconstruction of the initial data. For numerical data, the objectives have been to obscure information at the level of individual records, while preserving aggregate properties, for various data mining applications. Examples include preserving statistical properties such as the mean and the variance.
For text data, the work done may be classified broadly under the heads of structured data (or data available in relational databases) and unstructured data (such as plain text documents). Most of the existing work focuses on anonymization of structured data. The main application areas have been the health domain. Anonymization of medical information has been performed using techniques of generalization and suppression, where the anonymization is achieved to the extent that a particular record cannot be identified within k other records, for some predetermined number k. Other approaches use techniques from information retrieval for entity identification and subsequent replacement by some dummy text, and techniques for obfuscation of sensitive information in spoken language databases (text documents of speech recordings).
In the case of structured text in a relational format, in some instances the task of obfuscation is very straightforward, for example where a column containing sensitive information is completely hidden or deleted before the data is published. In the case of unstructured information, the task is more complex, since initially the information needs to be identified before it is replaced. Once the sensitive information is identified, some of the techniques used for replacement include:                Simple deletion: each occurrence of personal identifiable information is deleted; for example, 'Dear Jane'→'Dear . . . ';        Fixed transformation: each instance of the information to be hidden is replaced as in, 'Dear Jane'→'Dear<NULL>' or 'Dear<Person>';        Partial masking: some parts of the information are replaced, as for example, the date column in a date field comprising date, month and year, or the location code in a telephone number (eg: 410-788-5230→410-2-2X).
In the above techniques, there is some loss of data in the transformed text, at the cost of efficiency and preserving privacy. Further, when an end user accesses the document either intentionally or unintentionally, the user is aware of which parts of the text contained the sensitive information.

Data obfuscation of text data using entity detection and replacement

International Business Machines Corporation


A filter for filtering a highly viscous material comprises a filter element including a glass fiber filter medium, preferably resin-bonded, having upstream and downstream sides and a polymeric mesh situated on at least one of the upstream and downstream sides of the filter medium, and preferably on both sides of the filer medium. A non-woven sheet, such as a cellulose paper sheet, may be disposed between the downstream side of the filter medium and the downstream polymeric mesh. The filter element is typically cylindrical and longitudinally pleated to maximize the filtration area in as small a volume as possible. Also provided is a method of filtering a highly viscous material, particularly magnetic coating mixes.

There is a continuing need for filters which are capable of removing finer contaminants while not increasing the flow resistance and limiting dirt capacity. This need is nowhere more pronounced than in magnetic recording technology. Magnetic recording technology is steadily moving in the direction of greater record density on devices such as computer memory disks and magnetic tape. The manufacturing processes for devices of these higher densities require finer filtration devices while not adversely affecting current filter flow resistance and dirt capacity values.
Magnetic recording devices are manufactured by coating a substrate with a layer of fine particles which can be magnetized by the recording device to preserve certain information. To deposit the layer of particles, a mix of adhesive, solvent, and magnetic particles is applied to the surface of the substrate. The coating mix typically contains aromatic solvents, such as THF, toluene, MEK, and cyclohexane, and are highly viscous. In manufacturing higher density recording devices, the particles must be smaller, and the deposited particle layer must be very uniform.
To achieve a uniform particle layer, it is essential that all impurities, gels, agglomerates, and the like be removed from the coating mix before application to the substrate. The removal is typically accomplished by passing the coating mix through a filter immediately prior to applying it to the substrate. The characteristics of the filter must be such that all contaminates are removed, but the passage of the coating particles is maximized. For economical manufacturing, the rate at which the magnetic coating mix will flow through the filter under a given propelling pressure, or the resistance to flow at a given flow rate, and the volume of coating mix which can be filtered before the filter plugs with contaminants are important filter performance parameters.
For general use magnetic video tape, for example, filters rated for removal of contaminants larger than 5-10 micrometers are normally used for final filtration of the magnetic coating mix. Such filter elements are typically cylindrical depth filters constructed of wound fibers or melt-blown filaments. Filters constructed of pleated paper of plastic fibers, such as polypropylene, are also used in the industry. For more recent magnetic recording devices such as high density memory disks and high band video tape, final filters rated for removal of particulates of 5 micrometers or smaller are required. Cylindrical filters with finer removal ratings can be used, but they have a correspondingly higher resistance to flow, and, consequently, more filters arranged in parallel are required to permit proper operation of batch coating processes.
Accordingly, a filter is desired which is capable of finer filtration while having a low resistance to flow and a high dirt capacity. Such a filter should preferably be capable of filtering contaminants from magnetic coating mixes of approximately 5 micrometers or less and, most preferably, less than approximately 3 micrometers.