A fuel composition and method for cleaning up internal components of a fuel injector and for improver injector performance for a diesel engine. The composition includes major amount of middle distillate fuel having a sulfur content of 50 ppm by weight or less, and from about 1 to about 30 ppm by weight based on a total weight of fuel of a fuel soluble hydrocarbyl sulfonic acid or salt such as an alkyl aryl sulfonic acid or salt thereof, wherein the alkyl aryl sulfonic acid or salt thereof is effective to improve injector performance.

To meet increasingly stringent diesel exhaust emissions requirements, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have introduced common rail fuel injection systems that develop pressures of up to 2000 bar (29,000 psi). In addition, fuel delivery schemes have become more complicated, often involving multiple injections per cycle. Containing higher pressures and allowing for precise metering of fuel require very tight tolerances within the injector. Such changes have made injectors more sensitive to fuel particulate contamination. Accordingly, injector performance concerns run across all segments; on-road fleets, mining equipment, farming equipment, railroad and inland marine engines.
There are two distinct types of deposits that have been identified on fuel injectors. One type of deposit is a hard carbonaceous deposit that is seen on the injector tips and on the outside of the fuel injectors. Such carbonaceous deposit is based on fuel degradation. The other type of deposit is a waxy, white to yellow deposit that appears as a thin film on the internal surfaces of high-pressure common rail (HPCR) injector needles and command plungers, primarily in the lowest clearance areas of the injector internals or on the pilot valve of the injectors.
If left untreated, the internal deposits may lead to significant power loss, reduced fuel economy, and, in extreme cases, increased downtime and higher maintenance costs due to premature replacement of "stuck injectors." The internal deposits are believed to be a result of certain common corrosion inhibitors, biofuel components and acidic friction modifier, or other carboxylic components used in the fuel reacting with trace amounts of transition metals, alkali metal and alkaline earth metals causing salts that are relatively insoluble in ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuels compared to the better solubility of such salts in the higher sulfur fuels. The salts may be composed mainly of sodium salts of alkenyl succinic acids. Sodium can enter the diesel fuel from a number of sources including refinery salt drivers, storage tank water bottoms and seawater used as ship ballast. When such salts are present in fuel that is used in a High Pressure Common Rail (HPCR) engines, the salts may tend to deposit in the very tight tolerance areas of the injectors. Such deposits may lead to stuck fuel injectors or poor fuel injection, which in turn may lead to lost power, lost fuel economy, rough running engines, and eventually excessive vehicle downtime and maintenance expense.
In accordance with the disclosure, exemplary embodiments provide a fuel composition and method for cleaning up internal components of a fuel injector and for improving injector performance for a diesel engine. The composition includes major amount of middle distillate fuel having a sulfur content of 50 ppm by weight or less, and from about 1 to about 30 ppm by weight based on a total weight of fuel of a fuel soluble hydrocarbyl sulfonic acid or salt such as an alkyl aryl sulfonic acid or salt thereof, wherein the alkyl aryl sulfonic acid or salt thereof is effective to improve injector performance.
One embodiment of the disclosure provides a method of improving the injector performance of a fuel injected diesel engine including operating the diesel engine on a fuel composition comprising a major amount of diesel fuel having a sulfur content of 50 ppm by weight or less and a minor amount of an alkyl aryl sulfonic acid or salt thereof. The amount of alkyl aryl sulfonic acid or salt thereof in the fuel ranges from about 1 to about 30 ppm based on a total weight of the fuel.
Another embodiment of the disclosure provides a method of unsticking stuck fuel injectors of a fuel injected diesel engine. The method includes operating the diesel engine on a fuel composition comprising a major amount of diesel fuel having a sulfur content of 50 ppm by weight or less and from about 1 to about 30 ppm by weight based on a total weight of fuel of a fuel soluble alkyl aryl sulfonic acid or salt thereof.
A further embodiment of the disclosure provides a method cleaning up internal components of a fuel injector for a diesel engine. The method includes operating a fuel injected diesel engine on a fuel composition comprising a major amount of diesel fuel having a sulfur content of 50 ppm by weight or less and from about 1 to about 30 ppm by weight of a fuel soluble alkyl aryl sulfonic acid or salt thereof.
Another embodiment of the disclosure provides a method for reducing an amount of salt deposits on internal components of a fuel injector for a fuel injected diesel engine. The method includes operating the diesel engine on a fuel composition comprising a major amount of fuel and a minor amount of a fuel soluble alkyl aryl sulfonic acid or salt thereof.
An advantage of the fuel additive described herein is that the additive may not only reduce the amount of internal deposits forming on direct and/or indirect diesel fuel injectors, but the additive may also be effective to clean up dirty fuel injectors. The unexpected benefits of the fuel additive described herein is quite surprising since much higher treat rates are generally required for conventional detergents to be effective for cleaning up dirty fuel injectors.
Additional embodiments and advantages of the disclosure may be set forth in part in the detailed description which follows, and/or may be learned by practice of the disclosure. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the disclosure, as claimed.

Fuel additives for treating internal deposits of fuel injectors


An alignment device in which two plugs are rigidly fixed to the opposite ends of a spacing bar at a distance substantially equal to the distance between the inlet and outlet ports of the gas meter to be connected to the system is formed from a rust-free material such as nylon, preferably with an I-bar configuration and reinforced with fiberglass cords for strength. The riser is installed with one plug of the device mounted on the supplier riser so that, when the consumer riser is installed, it can be properly aligned with and connected to the other plug to later conform to the meter. Alternatively, the device could be installed between the risers by the consumer riser installer.

This invention relates generally to gas distribution systems and more particularly concerns the interconnection of consumer and supplier gas service risers at gas meter junctions.
In the connection of residential and commercial gas distribution systems, the gas company typically provides an above ground service connection including a shut off valve and a riser end plug, which remain intact until the gas meter is installed. The customer provides a consumer service connection which also includes a riser end plug. Sometime after both risers are installed, the gas company connects its meter between the gas service connection and the consumer service connection.
Since the tasks of supplier installation, consumer installation and meter installation are performed by different people at different times, frequently with extended intervals in between, problems recur with respect to such systems. First of all, the riser end plugs used to seal supplier and consumer connections are typically steel plugs which tend to rust, corrode and seize to the pipe installation, eventually requiring the breaking and replacement of pipe bends and meter swivels in order to connect the meter. A second problem occurs when the supplier connection and the consumer connection are improperly spaced, resulting in additional fittings and labor by the gas company in installing the meter as well as an unsightly looking meter connection. Third, even when the connections are properly spaced at their initial installation, temperature changes, ground shifts, icing and thawing and other factors cause the connections to shift in the absence of a connecting meter, resulting in misalignment of the connections. This not only occurs prior to initial installation of the meter, but also occurs if, for various reasons, an installed meter may have been removed for a substantial period of time.
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to provide an alignment device that assures proper spacing of supplier and consumer connections prior to connection to a gas meter. It is also among the objects of the present invention to provide an alignment device that is lightweight, rust-free, reusable, easy to install, inexpensive, strong and conforming to code requirements for such installations.


A data storage device and an operating method for a FLASH memory are disclosed. The disclosed data storage device includes a FLASH memory and a controller. The FLASH memory provides a storage space which is stored with a first storage type system information and a second storage type system information. Data recognition for the first storage type system information is stricter than that of the second storage type information. The controller reads the storage space of the FLASH memory and performs an error checking and correction process on data read from the storage space, and, based on the storage type system information, among the first and second storage type information, which first passes the error checking and correction process, the controller operates the FLASH memory.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data storage devices, and in particular, relates to operating methods for FLASH memories.
2. Description of the Related Art
A FLASH memory is a common non-volatile memory, which is erased and programmed electrically. In common embodiments, the storage cells of a FLASH memory are implemented by NAND gates.
A storage cell operated by a read/write circuit of a FLASH memory may just correspond to a single bit (i.e., an SLC, abbreviated from a Single-Level Cell) or correspond to multiple bits (i.e., an MLC, abbreviated from a Multi-Level Cell). FIG. 1A shows the probability distribution of the different states of an SLC, along a voltage axis. FIG. 1B shows the probability distribution of the different states of an MLC, along a voltage axis.
Referring to FIG. 1A, for an SLC, a voltage reference Vref_SLC is adopted to recognize a value '0' and value '1'.
Referring to FIG. 1B, for an MLC, the different two-bit values '00', '01', '10' and '11' are represented by different voltage intervals. Two stages are required for programming a storage cell into a multi-level cell. The first stage is named a strong page stage. The second stage is named a weak page stage. By the strong page stage, a storage cell is transformed to represent a single binary value. By the weak page stage, a strong paged storage cell is further transformed to represent a two-bit value. FIG. 1C shows the probability distribution of the different states of a strong paged storage cell, along a voltage axis. A voltage reference Vref_MLC_SP is adopted to recognize a strong-paged value '0' and a strong-paged value '1'. Note that the voltage reference Vref_MLC_SP is different from the voltage reference Vref_SLC.
In summary, the voltage reference adopted in the data recognition of a storage cell depends on the write operation of the storage cell. To accurately read a storage cell, the voltage reference Vref_SLC is adopted when the storage cell was programmed to be a single level cell. Otherwise, when the storage cell was programmed via the strong page stage for a multi-level cell, the voltage reference Vref_MLC_SP is adopted. However, when a power failure event or a reset process occurs, the mapping between the read and write operations may be disrupted. Accordingly, operation errors may occur.

Data storage device and operating method for flash memory


A novelty footwear item includes an upper, a lower and an opener for protecting the foot of a user and for facilitating unsealing a sealed container with the footwear item.

When wearing footwear at the beach, park or other places of outdoor relaxation and entertainment it-may be necessary to carry a bulky bottle cap opener if there is expected need to open bottles while in such venues. Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have a new and improved novelty footwear item and method of using such a footwear item to open a sealed bottle to eliminate the need to carry a bulky bottle cap opener.

Novelty footwear and method of using same


An inductively coupled plasma processing apparatus performs plasma processing on a substrate by generating an inductively coupled plasma in a plasma generation region in a processing chamber. The apparatus includes a high frequency antenna for generating the inductively coupled plasma in the plasma generation region and a metal window provided between the plasma generation region and the high frequency antenna. The metal window is firstly divided into two or more sections electrically insulated from each other by a line along a peripheral direction of the metal window and then secondly divided into sections electrically insulated from each other by lines along directions crossing with the peripheral direction.

In a process for manufacturing a LCD or the like, various plasma processing apparatuses such as a plasma etching apparatus, a plasma CVD film forming apparatus and the like are used to perform a predetermined process on a glass substrate. Conventionally, a capacitively coupled plasma processing apparatus has been widely used as the plasma processing apparatus. Recently, however, attention has been paid to an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) processing apparatus capable of generating a high-density plasma.
A high frequency antenna is provided at an outer side of a dielectric window of a processing chamber for accommodating a target substrate to be processed. In the processing chamber, an inductively coupled plasma is generated by supplying a processing gas to the processing chamber and applying a high frequency power to the high frequency antenna. By using the inductively coupled plasma thus generated, a predetermined plasma processing is performed on the target substrate. A planar antenna having a predetermined pattern is widely used for the high frequency antenna of the inductively coupled plasma processing apparatus (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Publication No. 3077009).
Recently, a target substrate to be processed has been increased in size. For example, a rectangular glass substrate for use in an LCD is considerably scaled up from about 1500 mm×1800 mm (short side×long side) to about 2200 mm×2400 mm and further to about 2800 mm×3000 mm.
In the inductively coupled plasma processing apparatus, a dielectric window is interposed between the high frequency antenna and a plasma generation region in the processing chamber. As the substrate to be processed is scaled up, the dielectric window is scaled up. As described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 3077009, the dielectric window is generally made of quartz glass or ceramic.
However, quartz glass or ceramic is soft and thus is not suitable for the scaling up of the dielectric window. Japanese Patent Publication No. 3609985 discloses a measure to divide quartz glass to deal with the scaled up dielectric window.
Since, however, the target substrate to be processed is scaled up considerably, it is difficult to deal with the scaled up dielectric window by the measure disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 3609985.
Hence, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2011-29584 discloses a technique capable of dealing with the scaling up of the target substrate to be processed by substituting a dielectric window with a metal window having an increased strength.
The technique described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2011-29584 can deal with the scaling up of the substrate to be processed. Since, however, a plasma generation mechanism in a metal window is different from that in a dielectric window, there occurs a separate problem related to the scaling up of the metal window. For example, an eddy current circulating in a loop through the metal window is diffused in a direction perpendicular to a current flow direction (hereinafter, simply referred to as "diffusion of eddy current"), and it is difficult to control plasma distribution in the processing chamber.

Inductively coupled plasma processing apparatus


In an image forming apparatus that outputs a reference clock, divides the outputted reference clock based on a set multiple, and generates an image clock based on the division, a width of a synchronization signal that indicates dynamic deviation characteristics is detected, and the multiple is set in accordance with the detected width of the synchronization signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image forming technology.
2. Description of the Related Art
With a conventional image forming apparatus, such as a laser printer, a digital multifunction peripheral, or the like, that forms images using a laser beam scanning unit, images are formed using processes for increasing resolution, expressing multiple tones, smoothing, and so on, in order to achieve high image quality.
As representative methods for increasing the quality of an image, there are methods, called pulse width modulation (abbreviated hereinafter as "PWM"), luminance modulation, and so on that are performed on the image data, in which the darkness and the like of dots are controlled by controlling the strength (performing strength control) of the amount of light irradiated onto a photosensitive member, on a pixel-by-pixel basis. In recent years, PWM and luminance modulation are being combined in an attempt to further improve the tonal expression of the dots to be formed on a pixel-by-pixel basis (formed-pixel dots). Various developments are being made with respect to tone, image clarity, and the like, by altering the position, center, and so on of the formed-pixel dots. This results in improved, higher image quality.
(Pulse Width Modulation)
With regards to PWM techniques, there is a configuration that uses a reference clock of n times the frequency of an image clock used to define a single pixel (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 8-321952). According to the controller illustrated in FIG. 1 of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 8-321952, a pixel pattern for expressing multiple tones is expanded in a look-up table in order to convert inputted multi-tone input image data into multi-tone image data for an image forming apparatus. The data is written into a video band buffer, after which it is set as binary data in serial order of the formed pixels using a parallel-to-serial converter; the resultant is then transferred as image data (VDO) for the image forming apparatus through an image clock (4VCLK) that is inputted sequentially.
At this time, the image clock (4VCLK) is configured as a multi-value clock having a value four times that of a reference clock (VCLK). In other words, 4-bit PWM having multi-valued (4-bit) tone, the 4 bits being realized by dividing a single pixel into 4 parts, is carried out, thereby expressing 16 tones. If, for example, the PWM data is 8-bit data, it is possible to express 256 tones. With PWM, a reference clock that is a multiple of the image clock is necessary, and the resolution and reference clock are in a proportional relationship. Furthermore, a horizontal synchronization signal for synchronizing the phase of each line image, and the synchronization accuracy, are both important factors.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 8-321952, there are no descriptions regarding the control of the centers of formed-pixel dots; however, it is possible to control the position of dots of equal width formed within a pixel by controlling the formation process for expressing multiple values within a single pixel to widen the pixel from the right side, from the left side, or from the center.
(Luminance Modulation)
Regarding luminance modulation techniques, the potential of a latent image formed on a photosensitive member can be controlled by controlling the strength of the light irradiated onto that photosensitive member. In recent years, it has become possible to carry out such luminance modulation along with PWM control on a formed-pixel dot basis, using high-frequency modulation techniques. Controlling the luminance on a pixel-by-pixel basis, or in other words, controlling the light source on a pixel-by-pixel basis by synchronizing the luminance modulation with PWM in order to further improve tonal expression, has been proposed (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-119648).
When the number of tones is increased in order to improve the tonal expression, the clock frequency also increases. When forming pixel dots of extremely small widths using PWM, there is a limit on the switching response of the light source, which is a laser or the like. As a response to a problem in which a predetermined pulse width for forming pixel dots of extremely small widths cannot be obtained, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-119648 discloses a configuration that performs luminance modulation in synchronization with PWM processing. In other words, the technique of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-119648 attempts to improve the expression of pixel dots formed on a photosensitive member by making it possible to set the strength of the luminance through luminance modulation at the time of PWM conversion executed on a formed-pixel dot basis. Through this, how smooth the change in the tonal strength is (the gradation) in the image formed on the photosensitive member can be expressed with increased smoothness.
Meanwhile, the capabilities of image forming apparatuses that use optical scanning have reached the level of 2400 dpi (dots per inch) in resolution and a print speed of 80 ppm (pages per minute). As the performance of image forming apparatuses increases, various proposals are being made to realize a further improvement in image quality, one of which is position correction for formed-pixel dots.
In order to form high-resolution pixel dots on a photosensitive member, it is necessary for pixel dot phasing to be aligned with high accuracy between the pixel dot array in the optical scanning direction (called "main scanning direction" hereinafter) and each optical scanning line (called "sub-scanning direction" hereinafter). Position correction control, which corrects the position of the formed-pixel dots in the main scanning direction and sub-scanning direction, respectively, has been proposed as a way to realize this.
A configuration in which the output clock of a PLL synthesizer that generates a reference clock for PWM is operated at a maximum oscillation frequency is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-249497. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-249497 discloses continuously operating a PLL synthesizer that generates a clock having a higher frequency than an image clock and serving as a reference clock at a maximum oscillation frequency, and correcting the position, width, and so on of the pixel dots to be formed using a higher-frequency modulation unit.
Meanwhile, there is an image forming unit that exposes a subject to plural light sources, resulting from the emergence of multi-laser elements (VCSEL and so on). In order to form an image through scanning by controlling the flashes of plural light-emitting elements disposed in a matrix, it is necessary to temporally adjust individual element driving control and arrange the array of pixel dots formed on the photosensitive member. There has also been a proposal regarding pixel dot array control in which the correction of formed-pixel dot positions has been applied (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-175646).


A system and method facilitating activity (e.g., dithering/half toning and/or noise) detection is provided. The invention includes an activity detection system having a connected component analyzer and an activity detector. The invention provides for the quantity of connected component(s) in and/or intersecting a region surrounding a pixel to be determined. The activity detector provides an activity map output based, at least in part, upon the quantity of connected component(s) in and/or intersecting the region. The invention further provides for an optional image processor. In one example, if the quantity exceeds a first threshold, dithering/half toning is detected and appropriate action can be taken. Additionally, if the quantity is less than a second threshold, noise is detected and appropriate action can be taken.

Conventionally, document output devices (e.g., computer printers and traditional print devices, for example, newspaper printing presses) have had limited ability to print grayscale image(s) and/or color image(s). To compensate, techniques, such as dithering and half toning, have been developed to allow a viewer to perceive grayscale and/or color(s) that are not native to the output device. For example, with regard to a color output device, by placing one or more red pixels in proximity to one or more blue pixels, a level of violet can be observed by a viewer. Similarly, with regard to a single color output device (e.g., computer printer equipped with black ink) by placing one or more blank (e.g., white) pixels in proximity to one or more black pixels, a level of gray can be observed by a viewer.
While achieving a more aesthetically pleasing document, these compensation techniques can present difficulty for conventional data compression systems. Noise (e.g., extraneous information such as mark(s)) can likewise reduce data compression by creating a high energy variance on an otherwise generally smooth image. Data compression reduces the space necessary to represent information. Compression can be used for any type of information. However, compression of digital information, including images, text, audio, and video is becoming more important. Typically, data compression is used with standard computer systems. However, other technologies make use of data compression, such as, but not limited to, digital and satellite television as well as cellular/digital phones.
For example, the dithering and/or half toning can be mistaken for text by a character recognition system. Further, dithering and/or half toning can lead to a document having adjacent pixels of significantly different energies (e.g., blue pixel adjacent to a red pixel) that can be difficult for a conventional document compression system to compress effectively.
Effective data compression is important for several reasons. Data compression allows information to be stored in less space than uncompressed data. As the demand for large amounts of information increases, data compression may be required to supply these large amounts of information. The size of storage devices has increased significantly; however, the demand for information has outstripped these size increases. For example, an uncompressed image can take up 5 megabytes of space whereas the same image can be compressed and take up only 2.5 megabytes of space. Additionally, data compression permits transferring of larger amounts of compressed information than uncompressed information. Even with the increase of transmission rates, such as broadband, DSL, cable modem Internet and the like, transmission limits are easily reached with uncompressed information. For example, transmission of an uncompressed image over a DSL line can take ten minutes. However, with data compression, the same image can be transmitted in about a minute.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


An insulator is configured to couple to a top portion of a stator core and includes: a main body that has a ring shape; a plurality of insulating teeth that protrude toward a center portion of the main body and that are configured to couple to a plurality of teeth of the stator core, respectively; and a plurality of guide tabs that protrude from an outer circumferential surface of the main body at positions corresponding to the plurality of insulating teeth. The plurality of guide tabs are configured to guide (i) phase coils that are wound around the plurality of insulating teeth and (ii) neutral coils along the outer circumferential surface in a circumferential direction. Each of the plurality of guide tabs defines a plurality of guide grooves, each of the plurality of guide grooves being configured to seat at least one of the phase coils or the neutral coils.

A motor may include a stator insulator coupled to a stator core of the motor to connect a coil wound around the stator core.
In some cases, a direct crimping type process, one of parallel connection processes, may be performed by a large number of people with a long manufacturing time through a plurality of manual processes to arrange a lead wire and a neutral wire. In some cases, the direct crimping type process may increase a motor manufacturing cost compared to a serial connection process. In some cases, a parallel connection process of a busbar type may simplify the connection process, but may involve an additional work in winding arrangement and an increase in a motor material cost, which may limit reduction of the motor manufacturing cost.
In some examples, in a motor connecting method, a busbar assembly may be made after primary winding arrangement by bending a coil wound on the motor using a coil guide groove formed on a mold object so as to be bent toward the mold object, and arranging the coil after a coil cutting task by bending the primarily-arranged coil again to be connected to a busbar connection tab.
In some examples, a large number of busbar housings and connection tabs may be required, which may increase the motor material cost. In some cases, a working speed, due to addition of the coil bending operation and the coil cutting operation, may be decreased. In some cases, an additional busbar connection tab may be required due to a coil diameter, which may limit a range of a diameter of the coil to be applicable to the busbar connection tab.
In some examples, a motor connecting method may use a busbar assembly connecting structure, in which one coil is sequentially wound around all teeth so as to be connected in parallel.
In some cases, the motor connecting method may require a large number of busbars and structures for motor parallel connection, which may increase a motor manufacturing cost. In some cases, a plurality of winding coil contact portions may be generated, which may result in lowering connection reliability of the contact portions. In some cases, it may take much time to perform a contact task between the coil and the busbar.
In some cases, a parallel winding connection may have difficulty in connecting the parallel winding structure and cause an increase in a manufacturing cost due to a large number of components. In some cases, a process time may increase to manufacture and connect the motor, and a reliability of the motor may be lowered due to an unstable connection.


A vehicle instrument panel is provided. The vehicle instrument panel includes, but is not limited to, an analogue indicator overlying a first substrate and a display device overlying the analogue indicator. The display device has transparent portions for allowing light to pass through and non-transparent portions for displaying information.

Originally, vehicle instrument panels used analog gauges to display the operational status and performance of a vehicle using mechanical or electro-mechanical means. Vehicles include any device that is designed or used to transport people or cargo, such as bicycles, cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, and aircraft. However, only factors that could be directly measured could be displayed to the driver or pilot using analog gauges. Common analogue gauges include, but are not limited to: speedometers which measure vehicle velocity; tachometers which measure engine revolutions per minute (RPM); odometers which measure distance traveled by a vehicle; fuel level gauges which measure the amount of fuel remaining in a vehicle; oil pressure gauges which measure the oil pressure within a vehicle's engine; and engine temperature gauges which measure temperature of an engine. Each analog gauge is connected with a sensor providing a signal in direct proportion to the value being measured by the gauge.
Often, some analogue gauges are aligned and grouped together to form an instrument cluster or instrument panel. The instrument panel may contain analogue gauges such as a speedometer, tachometer, odometer and a fuel gauge, along with vehicle indicators which indicate a condition of the vehicle, such as gearshift position, seat belt warning light, parking-brake-engagement warning light, and an engine-malfunction light. There may also be vehicle indicators for indicating low fuel, low oil pressure, low tire pressure and faults in the airbag (SRS) system. The instrument panel may also contain printed marks, such as a scale and numerals aligned with the scale.
As technology has advanced, analog gauges and sensors have been replaced by digital or simulated gauges and sensors. Digital gauges replace the mechanical or electro-mechanical means of analogue gauges with simple alphanumeric text or animated bars displayed on a display device. Digital gauges do not have the look and feel of analogue gauges. Simulated gauges attempt to mimic the look and feel of an analogue gauges on a display device. An instrument panel may include digital or simulated gauges which, rather than being connected directly to the sensors monitoring the performance of the vehicle, are connected with a digital controller that is connected with digital sensors. The digital controller then monitors the output of the digital sensors, processes the information, and displays the information on a display device positioned on the instrument panel in a manner useful to the driver or occupant of the vehicle.
Various types of vehicle information may be used and displayed on a display device, including digital and simulated gauges. A display device is an output device for the presentation of information in visual form, and includes things such as segment displays, 2-dimensional displays, and 3-dimensional displays. A display device may use a variety of technology to display the information, such as cathode ray tubes, a light-emitting diode display (LED), an electroluminescent display (ELD), an electronic paper (E Ink) display, a plasma display panel (PDP), a liquid crystal display (LCD), a high-performance addressing display (HPA), a thin-film transistor display (TFT), a light emitting diode (LED) display, an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display, a surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), a Laser TV, a carbon nanotubes display, a quantum dot display, and an interferometric modulator display (IMOD). Numeric digital displays have been used where, for example, the speed of the vehicle was displayed in an alpha-numeric lighted display. Other vehicle information may be displayed using flat-panel displays, such as LCD displays, LED displays, OLED displays, or PDP displays, for the display of additional information, such as mileage or oil pressure.
Some vehicle information is more readily interpreted using a display device. For example, rather than lighting a generic "check engine" light when a problem is detected by the digital controller, a display device may allow the digital controller to display more detailed vehicle information, such as "change oil" or "low tire pressure." In addition, a single display device can have multiple functions, thereby saving space. Finally, if a large color display device used, it is possible for the digital controller to include a navigation system and display navigation and/or map information on the display device. Such a configuration may display navigational maps which, when incorporated with a global positioning system (GPS), can display the vehicle's location on the display device.
Despite the flexibility of display devices for displaying vehicle information and simulated gauges, some consumers have preferred the behavior and appearance of traditional analog gauges. Analogue gauges may be used in conjunction with a digital controller by attaching an indicator, such as a pointer, to a small electric motor electrically coupled to the digital controller. The digital controller may command the electric motor to move the indicator between numbers on a scale representing, for example, miles per hour, printed on an instrument panel.
One drawback of large display devices is that they occupy a significant amount of area. Therefore, if a large display device, for example, is included in an instrument panel, some analog indicators may have to be omitted since there may not be enough space on the instrument panel to include both. As mentioned earlier, many consumers of vehicles prefer analog gauges to monitor certain parameters. Some of these analogue gauges, such as a speedometer, may be quite large and take up a significant amount of area on the instrument panel. This limits the amount of space available for a large display device, such as a large flat-panel display.
In order to get around this problem, some instrument panels include a large display device that displays a plurality of simulated gauges. Each simulated gauge comprises a series of animated digital representations which are used to simulate an analogue gauge on a display device. In order to realistically display simulated analogue gauges, high end graphics need to be used which typically require very powerful processors in order to realistically display and animate the digital representations used to simulate the analogue gauges. These powerful processors typically increase system cost, generate more heat, and consume more energy. Additionally, it is often difficult to realistically display the simulated analogue gauges, since the simulated gauges may not always animate smoothly, such as when an indicator needle or pointer is moving rapidly on a simulated speedometer. As a result, the simulated gauges may not appear realistic to a user.
As a result, it would be desirable to be able to display analogue gauges in a realistic manner on an instrument panel in conjunction with a large display device, without having to use powerful processors and without limiting the size of the display device.


A modular beverage can interlocking device which is adapted for forming a plurality of conventional beverage cans into a building block for use as a toy or in display applications. The device generally comprises a plurality of ring-shaped members, each having an upper and lower orifice which is optimally contoured to hold the lower and upper end of a conventional beverage can respectively via at least a snug friction-fit. Preferably, the lower orifice has an inwardly facing annular slot for releasable retention of the upper lip of a conventional can via a snap-fit, and most preferably, has multiple inwardly facing annular slots of varying diameter in order to provide a snap-fit for cans of varying outer dimensions. Optional designs are provided which enable the use of thermoplastic materials having a wide range of hardnesses as well as end-cap means which provide for rigid securement to any generally flat surface.

It has been observed that there exists an overabundance of waste materials produced by our society and that means to re-utilize these materials, has for a large part, been overlooked. In recent years, the concept of recycling has gained momentum wherein basic consumer goods such as paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, or the like may be re-instituted into the consumer product chain, thus alleviating the load on the environment. Moreover, as we have become more of a disposable product based society, it has become more important to re-use all the materials we can and in all possible ways. Adding to this is pressure to be more responsible with our common resources, especially materials particularly lending themselves to recycling such as aluminum, paper, glass, and plastic. It has further been observed that our society produces a rather large amount of beverage cans such as those for the containment of soft drinks, beer, or other edible juices. Research has shown that as many as 156 billion cans were produced in the year of 2003 yet only 42% of these cans were recycled.
In order to provide a use for empty beverage cans, various designs have been suggested which allows a plurality of beverage cans to be releasably mounted one upon another in a modular fashion. U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,281 to Kander, U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,082 to Freedman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,474,491 to Ferrarelli, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,764,143 to Gat, et al. disclose various beverage can stacking devices having varying types of releasable retention means for the top and bottom ends of a conventional beverage can. However, all of these devices are capable of interconnecting only one can co-axially to another can; the interconnecting of additional cans which are disposed laterally relative thereto must be accomplished via complicated and cumbersome interconnect mechanisms whose retentive strength would most likely degrade due to extended use. Moreover, the interconnect mechanisms as described in the aforementioned patents do not allow a plurality of cans which are laterally interconnected relative to one another to be optimally "packed" together in order to form a building block with minimal spacing therebetween.
Another drawback is that the releasable retention means for the top and bottom portion of a conventional can as described in in the aforementioned patents is dimensioned to optimally fit only one size of can. Notwithstanding, it is well known that there are several varying styles of beverage cans, each having slightly varying dimensions, which are currently distributed in these United States. Thus, any of the aforementioned devices which has been optimally sized for use with one style of can would possibly be rendered useless with a beverage can of a different style.
Yet another drawback of the aforementioned designs is that neither device discloses a top portion can engagement member having an annular depression formed therein for resilient retainment of the lip of a top portion of a beverage can therein in conjunction with a bottom portion can engagement member for resilient friction engagement of the bottom portion of a beverage container disposed coaxially thereabove. This aspect of the prior art, by itself, reveals a salient utilitarian ramification. The can stacking device having annular depressions formed in both of the coaxially disposed can engagement members would only optimally retain the top portion of a conventional can, thus inverting the longitudinal orientation of the proceeding can therebeneath thereby hindering the ability to stack successive cans above or below in an optimal manner. Moreover, can stacking devices having hollow, cylindrically shaped members formed in both of the coaxially disposed can engagement members would not employ the enhanced releasable securing feature of an annular depression for optimal retainment of the lip portion of a conventional can therein.

Modular beverage can interlocking device


A process for selective formation of ethanol from acetic acid by hydrogenating acetic acid in the presence of a catalyst comprising a modified support having cobalt and an alkaline earth support modifier. The active metals may include a first metal of palladium, platinum, and combinations thereof and a second metal of copper, iron, nickel, zinc, silver, chromium, tin, and combinations thereof.

Ethanol for industrial use is conventionally produced from petrochemical feed stocks, such as oil, natural gas, or coal, from feed stock intermediates, such as syngas, or from starchy materials or cellulosic materials, such as corn or sugar cane. Conventional methods for producing ethanol from petrochemical feed stocks, as well as from cellulosic materials, include the acid-catalyzed hydration of ethylene, methanol homologation, direct alcohol synthesis, and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Instability in petrochemical feed stock prices contributes to fluctuations in the cost of conventionally produced ethanol, making the need for alternative sources of ethanol production all the greater when feed stock prices rise. Starchy materials, as well as cellulosic material, are converted to ethanol by fermentation. However, fermentation is typically used for consumer production of ethanol, which is suitable for fuels or human consumption. In addition, fermentation of starchy or cellulosic materials competes with food sources and places restraints on the amount of ethanol that can be produced for industrial use.
As an alternative to fermentation, ethanol may be produced by hydrogenating acetic acid and esters thereof. Ethanol production via the reduction of acetic acid generally uses a hydrogenation catalyst. The reduction of various carboxylic acids over metal oxides has been proposed by EP0175558 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,039. U.S. Pat. No. 7,608,744 describes a process for the selective production of ethanol by vapor phase reaction of acetic acid at a temperature of about 250° C. over a hydrogenating catalyst composition either cobalt and palladium supported on graphite or cobalt and platinum supported on silica. U.S. Pat. No. 7,863,489 describes a process for the selective production of ethanol by vapor phase reaction of acetic acid over a hydrogenating catalyst composition to form ethanol is disclosed and claimed. In an embodiment of this invention, reaction of acetic acid and hydrogen over a platinum and tin supported on silica, graphite, calcium silicate or silica-alumina in a vapor phase at a temperature of about 250° C. U.S. Pat. No. 6,495,730 describes a process for hydrogenating carboxylic acid using a catalyst comprising activated carbon to support active metal species comprising ruthenium and tin. U.S. Pat. No. 6,204,417 describes another process for preparing aliphatic alcohols by hydrogenating aliphatic carboxylic acids or anhydrides or esters thereof or lactones in the presence of a catalyst comprising platinum and rhenium. U.S. Pat. No. 5,149,680 describes catalytic hydrogenation of carboxylic acids and their anhydrides to alcohols and/or esters in the presence of a catalyst containing a Group VIII metal, such as palladium, a metal capable of alloying with the Group VIII metal, and at least one of the metals rhenium, tungsten or molybdenum. U.S. Pat. No. 4,777,303 describes the productions of alcohols by the hydrogenation of carboxylic acids in the presence of a catalyst that comprises a first component which is either molybdenum or tungsten and a second component which is a noble metal of Group VIII on a high surface area graphitized carbon. U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,791 describes another production process of alcohols by the hydrogenation of carboxylic acids in the presence of a catalyst comprising a noble metal of Group VIII and rhenium. U.S. Pat. No. 4,517,391 describes preparing ethanol by hydrogenating acetic acid under superatmospheric pressure and at elevated temperatures by a process wherein a predominantly cobalt-containing catalyst is used and acetic acid and hydrogen are passed through the reactor, at from 210 to 330° C., and under 10 to 350 bar, under conditions such that a liquid phase is not formed during the process.
Previous hydrogenation catalysts suffered from several drawbacks that did not favor industrial production of ethanol. These drawbacks included low catalyst lifetime, productivity, and co-production of byproducts. One solution for improving productivity and reducing co-production of byproducts, and in particular ethyl acetate, was to enhance the support with a basic modifier. This also increased selectivity to ethanol. Hydrogenation catalysts having supports with basic modifiers have previously been disclosed. U.S. Pat. No. 8,309,772 discloses a process for selective formation of ethanol from acetic acid and includes contacting a feed stream containing acetic acid and hydrogen at an elevated temperature with catalyst comprising platinum and tin on a high surface area silica promoted with calcium metasilicate. U.S. Pat. No. 8,471,075 also discloses a process for selective formation of ethanol from acetic acid by hydrogenating acetic acid in the presence of first metal, a silicaceous support, and at least one support modifier. The support modifier, e.g., metasilicate support modifier, may be selected from the group consisting of (i) alkaline earth metal oxides, (ii) alkali metal oxides, (iii) alkaline earth metal metasilicates, (iv) alkali metal metasilicates, (v) Group IIB metal oxides, (vi) Group JIB metal metasilicates, (vii) Group IIIB metal oxides, (viii) Group IIIB metal metasilicates, and mixtures thereof.
One disadvantage is supports having basic modifiers tend to show a low conversion of acetic acid. Low conversion generally requires a larger acetic acid recycle. Higher amounts of precious metals may be needed to compensate for low conversions. In addition, the hydrogenation catalysts with supports having basic modifiers are not suitable for converting ethyl acetate. Thus, ethyl acetate needs to be removed from the recycle stream to avoid the buildup stream of ethyl acetate in the reactor.
Thus, further improvements to hydrogenation catalysts having supports with basic modifiers to increase conversion of acetic acid are needed to improve production of ethanol from acetic acid.

Hydrogenation catalysts with cobalt and alkaline-earth metal modified supports


A processor-based system obtaining information about an event from schedule data, and using the information to assist speech recognition of speech occurring during at least a portion of the event.

This invention relates generally to mobile processor-based systems that include speech recognition capabilities. Mobile processor-based systems include devices such as handheld devices, pocket personal computers, personal digital assistants, digital cameras, laptop computers, data input devices, data collection devices, remote control units, voice recorders, and cellular telephones, to mention a few examples. Many of these devices may include speech recognition capabilities. With speech recognition, words uttered by a user may be converted to text, enabling automated transcription of speech. Spoken words may also be received as commands that enable selection and operation of the processor-based system's capabilities. In other instances, a system may provide automatic speaker identification capabilities where a speaker may be identified by comparison of his or her speech with a set of predefined models of known speakers. In a number of cases, the ability of a given device to recognize speech or identify a speaker is relatively limited. A variety of ambient conditions may adversely affect the quality of the speech recognition or speaker identification. Because the ambient conditions may change unpredictably, the elimination of ambient effects is much more difficult with mobile speech recognition platforms than with platforms where the ambient conditions are predetermined or static.

Schedule event context for speech recognition


Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to preserve data of a solid state drive during a power loss event are disclosed. An example method includes sending, upon detection of the power loss event, from a processor of the solid state drive, a command to abort an ongoing write operation of an aborted memory cell. In response to an indication that the ongoing write operation is aborted, the data to be written to the aborted memory cell is recovered. A first portion of the data to be written to the aborted memory cell is written to a first memory cell. A second portion of the data to be written to the aborted memory cell is written to a second memory cell.

In a solid state drive (SSD), the SSD must go through an orderly shutdown in the event of a loss of power to prevent corruption or loss of data. In particular, in the event of a loss of power, the SSD must complete all in progress data writes and provide a controlled shutdown of the media and firmware. SSDs may include a power loss system that provides sufficient energy to complete these in process data writes and allow for a controlled shutdown of the SSD. For example, a set of power loss capacitors may be used to provide sufficient energy storage to provide power for shutdown operations in the event of a loss of power.
The figures are not to scale. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawing(s) and accompanying written description to refer to the same or like parts.

Methods and apparatus to preserve data of a solid state drive during a power loss event


A method of smoothing data to reduce or remove noise while preserving edge information in the data selects an output point in the data, identifies the most homogeneous neighborhood around the selected output point and outputs a corrected value for the selected output point based upon data points in the identified neighborhood.

Suppressing random noise is an important pre-processing step in the analysis of many signals. One area in which this pre-processing is important is in the analysis of seismic signals, where the suppression of random noise is advantageously implemented prior to applying an information-extraction algorithm such as a seismic edge detection or coherence cube algorithm. This pre-processing is valuable because the seismic data generally includes reflection data from around faults-and fractures in the ground, and this reflection data is usually more complicated and weaker than the data from other areas due to dispersion, diffraction and other forms of scattering.
Typically, prediction error filtering (PEF or f-x deconvolution) is used to precondition the data before edge detection. Prediction error filtering has been very successful in many areas. However, if the signal being pre-processed is not highly predictable, such as in areas of fault or fracture, this method is inadequate to remove the noise.
A simple alternative method is to smooth the data within moving windows. Unlike the PEF method, this smoothing method does not strongly depend on the predictability of the signals. The drawback here is that this method tends to blur the sharp edges that are associated with the faults and channels that are intended to be enhanced in seismic edge detection.


A sensor assembly is disclosed. The sensor assembly includes a housing that includes a top housing and a bottom housing that clamp together. The sensor assembly also includes a printed circuit board assembly (PBA). The sensor assembly also includes at least one piece of elastic material that is located in between the top housing and the PBA and in between the bottom housing and the PBA. When the PBA is clamped in the housing, the sensor assembly allows the PBA to maintain alignment relative to the housing across different environments in order to enable proper operation of the sensor assembly. A top surface of the PBA and a bottom surface of the PBA each have at least one three-dimensional feature that is designed to increase friction with the elastic material.

Sensor systems may be exposed to various kinetic, thermal, and/or electrical environments. These systems require some form of protection to function properly and minimize the risk of damage in these environments. Conventionally, an isolator may be used to reduce the energy the sensors get exposed to during these events, but such isolation systems come with their own disadvantages.
Specifically, vibration and shock isolation systems require space, and for many products, size limitation prevents them from incorporating an isolator (even though the product might benefit by using an isolator). This is especially true for, but not limited to, sensing, guidance, and navigation products (e.g., in aircraft, projectiles, trains, boats, cars, etc.) where sensors need to be adequately isolated from vibration and shock. However, size constraints often make the implementation of an isolation system into a product impractical or impossible.
Accordingly, it may be beneficial to create a sensor assembly that is adaptable to various kinetic, thermal, and/or electrical environments.

Isolating sensor assembly using elastic material


A fryer apparatus includes a cooking chamber, at least one heating element in the cooking chamber, a filter pan that filters cooking medium from the cooking chamber, a drain valve that controls flow of cooking medium from the cooking chamber, and a filter pump that pumps filtered cooking medium from the filter pan to the cooking chamber. Inlet orifices are disposed in the cooking chamber, and selectively eject filtered cooking medium into the cooking chamber. A controller controls the drain valve to adjust the rate of flow from the cooking chamber, and selectively activates at least inlet orifice of the plurality of inlet orifices to eject filtered cooking medium into the cooking chamber. The controller is configured to control the drain valve and the selective activation of the at least one inlet orifice to maintain a substantially constant level of cooking medium in the cooking chamber throughout a filtering operation.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to fryer apparatus that use cooking media to cook product in a fryer, such as a pressure fryer or an open fryer, and that filter the cooking media while the cooking media remain in the fryer apparatus. The invention also is directed to methods for using such apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
Known fryer apparatus are used to cook various food products, e.g., poultry, fish, potato products, and the like. Such fryer apparatus may include one or more cooking chambers, e.g., fryer pots, which may contain a cooking medium, e.g., an oil, a liquid shortening, or a meltable-solid or semi-solid shortening. Such fryer apparatus also include a heating element, i.e., an electrical heating element, such as a heating oil medium, or a gas heating element, such as a gas burner and gas conveying tubes, which heat the cooking medium in the cooking chamber. When preparing food in a fryer apparatus, the quality of the cooking medium, e.g., the oil or shortening, may impact the quality of the food that is cooked by the fryer apparatus. As the cooking medium is used to cook food, particles of food may contaminate the cooking medium. The flavor characteristics of each of these food products may become infused to a greater or a lesser degree in the cooking medium. This infusion may adversely affect food quality. Moreover, upon heating the cooking medium, the cooking medium may undergo chemical reactions, e.g., hydrolysis, oxidation, and polymerization.
These chemical reactions and flavor infusions may shorten the useful life of the cooking medium, and may result in more frequent replacement of cooking medium. As operators of fryer apparatus transition to using more expensive cooking media, i.e., zero-trans fat cooking media, frequently replacing an entire batch of cooking medium may become expensive. Thus, known fryer apparatus include filtering mechanisms to remove foreign objects, clumps, cracklings, and crumbs from the cooking medium, in order to preserve the useful life of the cooking medium. In known fryer apparatus, the cooking medium is drained from the cooking chamber into a filtration system, where the cooking medium is filtered. During this process, the fryer apparatus may not be used. Moreover, when the filtered cooking medium is returned to the cooking chamber, the cooking medium is reheated to a cooking temperature.
The longer the cooking medium is in the filtration system and out of the cooking chamber, the more time is required to reheat the cooking medium to an operating temperature. In a known filtration process, the time to reheat the cooking medium to an operational temperature may be greater than the time required to filter the cooking medium. Thus, draining the cooking medium from the filter may result in increased down time, i.e., time out of service for the fryer apparatus, which is not desirable, particularly in operations in which the fryer apparatus is expected to process a high volume of food products.
In addition, when filtering the cooking chamber, various foreign objects, e.g., food crumbs, clumps, and cracklings, may accumulate on the bottom of the chamber, and should be removed as part of the filtration process. Because these foreign elements may settle at the bottom of the chamber, they may not exit the cooking chamber with the cooking medium.
As mentioned above, in known fryer apparatus, filtration requires draining all or most of the cooking medium from the cooking chamber in order to perform filtration. In known fryer apparatus, this may be a time-consuming process, particularly when the filtration process also includes manually scrubbing the walls of the fryer apparatus by hand. Thus, when the fryer apparatus is used in a practical environment, filtration may not occur as often as is optimally desired, particularly when the fryer apparatus is used in a high-volume setting. Further, known fryer apparatus require the filtration process to be manually activated. Thus, during use in a practical environment, an operator may forget to perform filtration at the desired interval. This failure to perform filtration at optimal times may reduce the useable life of the cooking medium. Regardless of how often filtration is performed, however, the more filtration operations that are carried out, the longer each batch of cooking medium may maintain its usefulness. In known fryer apparatus, the useful life of the cooking medium is balanced against the utilization rate of the known fryer apparatus.

Filtering systems and methods for fryer apparatus


Pulse power can be stabilized by applying spectrally narrow pulses to a laser diode during gain switching. An injection locking laser with a narrow emission bandwidth is tuned to a gain bandwidth of a laser diode to be gain switched. The injection locking emission is pulsed to provide locking pulses that are attenuated and then coupled to a laser diode. A gain switching pulse drive is applied to the laser diode in the presence of the attenuated locking pulses. The gain switched output is then stabilized with respect to pulse energy and pulse amplitude, and is suitable as a seed pulse for lasers to be used in materials processing.

High power laser systems can be used in materials processing to cut, scribe, weld, or perform other processes. Bulky laser systems such as solid state lasers and gas lasers have been displaced in many applications by diode laser based systems. In some applications, diode lasers are suitable, while in other applications, diode pumped fiber lasers or other diode pumped lasers are preferred.
Diode laser properties have been extensively studied for use in telecommunications applications such as described in Gunning et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,208,672 and Seo et al., "Timing jitter reduction of gain switched DFB laser by external injection seeding," Elect. Lett. 32:44-45 (1996). Telecommunications applications typically use pulse powers that are substantially lower than the powers needed in materials processing and require low pulse jitter to provide acceptable bit error rates. Materials processing systems must meet different requirements that are not addressed by prior art telecommunications lasers, and improved laser systems and methods are needed for such applications.

Injection locking of gain switched diodes for spectral narrowing and jitter stabilization


A system for identifying one or more social patterns in a status history of one or more change requests includes: a processor for executing instructions and memory comprising logic for: receiving as input change request data history; detecting social patterns in the change request data history; storing information about the social patterns, including status history data; and providing information on social patterns within the status history of the given change request. The logic includes the following elements: a hypertext transfer protocol server handler; a social pattern server database; a change log handler; a social pattern alert handler; a social pattern query handler; and a social pattern detection handler for: receiving new patterns wherein the patterns are user-defined operational descriptors, detecting social patterns in raw change request data from the change log handler, and storing the patterns in the database, and analyzing the patterns. The system further includes a graphical user interface.

A change tracking system (CTS) is a software tool for tracking and managing changes in issues (customer feedback, trouble tickets) and/or bugs (hardware/software defects). It acts as a central repository, or database, of the issues and their related changes. This database can be accessed by users in a distributed environment. IBM® Rational® ClearQuest® is one such tool and there are many others, such as RMTrack and ikon Scorpion. The changes to be managed are termed "change requests." Each change request has a number of attributes such as the product it is filed against, the status of the change request (unconfirmed, assigned, resolved, etc.), who is assigned to work on it, severity, and more. A history is kept for each change request, which describes each change that has been made to it. While the CTS maintains a record of changes that have been made to change requests, it does not detect social patterns in that data. A CTS is an excellent tool for keeping track of issues, reporting on issues and detecting and reporting patterns in issues but it does not provide any information on the patterns in the resolution of the issues.
The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) defines Software Configuration Management (SCM) as "the process of identifying and defining components in a system, controlling the release and change throughout the life cycle, recording and reporting the status of components and change requests, and verifying the completeness and correctness of system components." [IEEE-729] SCM systems provide a repository of code that comprises one or more software applications. Such systems maintain a version history for each file in the repository. The repositories provide the ability to manage and synchronize multiple simultaneous changes to the code by developers and multiple versions of each product.
While SCM systems maintain histories of source code changes, they do not maintain a history of the stimulus and/or process that goes along with those changes. This stimulus is recorded in the CTS. Combination CTS/SCM (CTSCM) systems integrate change tracking and software configuration management into one system. In such systems, each time a developer makes a change to the code, they indicate the stimulus for that change. Typically, this is done by indicating the change request that is being addressed during the code check-in process, for example, "Fix Bug 20488." Such linkages between systems are often referred to as "traceability" linkages. While CTS/SCM systems maintain traceability links among SCM and CTS systems, they do not derive social patterns from that historical data.
Orthogonal Defect Classification (ODC) is a software tool that analyses change requests, producing a mathematical model that can predict where new defects are likely to appear. Analysis of the ODC data is a valuable diagnostic method for evaluating changes and/or defects in software applications. In ODC, software developers attach additional attributes to change requests. These attributes enable ODC to produce a product profile. This profile can be used to generate an expected signature for the product going forward. When we see deviations from this expected signature in the future, we know we need to investigate further.
The above-described systems focus solely on managing the technology processes and have neglected the human component of the change tracking cycle. With non-transactional processes such as issue management, people interact and collaborate via e-mail, LANs or the Internet to influence the process. The social interaction among these users of a change tracking system can have an impact on how expediently issues are resolved.
Therefore, there is a need for a system to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings by bridging the gap between the technological and the social issues affecting change tracking.

System and method of visualization for aggregation of change tracking information

International Business Machines Corporation


A clamp in one embodiment includes a flexible base; a bifurcation pivotal about one end of the base; a fastening member pivotal about the other end of the base and including pawls, an opposite projection, and a toothed section formed above; a universal member meshed with the toothed section; a seat rotatably secured to the universal member and adapted to releasably secure to a light; and a flexible ratchet pivotal about the other end of the base. Wrapping the ratchet around a seat post of bicycle by inserting it through the bifurcation and a space between the pawls and one end of the ratchet, pivoting the fastening member toward the seat until one pawl engages the ratchet and the fastening member presses on the base to urge against the seat post, and pivoting the bifurcation to press the bar onto the projection will fasten the seat post.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to clamping devices and more particularly to an improved clamp for a seat post of bicycle.
2. Related Art
A conventional clamp for bicycle is shown in FIG. 1. The clamp comprises a body 81, a slot 83, a flexible member having a ratchet section 82 tightly wrapped around a seat post 91 and passed the slot 83, and a pawl 84 formed in the slot 83 and adapted to catch and hold one of the teeth of the ratchet section 82.
However, the prior clamp suffered from a couple of disadvantages. For example, the fastening is not reliable (i.e., not durable). Further, unfastening of the clamp is not easy. Thus, the need for improvement still exists.


The present disclosure relates to computer-implemented methods, software, and systems for on-demand outage notifications in a cloud environment. Data defining statuses of network calls exchanged between web agents registered at correspondingly different network segments of a cloud platform is evaluated to determine health statuses of the cloud platform. In response to receiving a request to subscribe an application for notifications for a current health status, registering, at the health service, the application to receive the notifications associated with health statuses of network connectivity of the cloud platform. The application is registered to receive the notifications at a subscription network address under a notification regime. A notification for the current health status of network connectivity of the cloud platform is dynamically provided by the health service. The notification is provided to the registered application according to notification rules defined in the notification regime.

Software complexity is increasing and causes changes in the software product cycles, requirements, and possibilities for delivery of software applications and platform systems. Customer's needs are transforming, with increased requests for flexibility in terms of processes and landscapes, and also high availability to access software resources provided by the underlying platform infrastructure. Cloud environments may experience network connectivity disruptions, hardware failures, and other technical issues affecting responsiveness of running software applications, services, and databases. Disruptions at the cloud environments may be associated with disruptions of services provided to external entities by the databases, applications, and/or services.

On-demand outages notification in a cloud environment


A transmission is provided. The transmission includes an input portion drivingly engaged with a power source, a planetary gear, a continuously variable variator, and a clutching device. The planetary gear arrangement has a portion drivingly engaged with the input portion. The continuously variable variator includes a portion which is drivingly engaged with at least one of the planetary gear arrangement and the input portion. The clutching device may be selectively drivingly engaged with a portion of the continuously variable variator. The clutching device and the planetary gear arrangement facilitate a transition between at least two operating modes of the continuously variable variator.

A vehicle having a driveline including a continuously variable transmission has many advantages over vehicles not including the continuously variable transmission. The vehicle having a driveline including a continuously variable transmission allows an operator of the vehicle or a control system of the vehicle to vary a drive ratio in a stepless manner. Such functionality permits a power source of the vehicle, such as an internal combustion engine, to operate at its most efficient rotational speed.
Vehicle packaging requirements and vehicle cost are an ever increasing concern for modern consumers and manufacturers. A hydraulic system, a complex arrangement of gears and clutches, and expensive belts or rollers may form a portion of a conventional multi-speed automatic transmission or a continuously variable transmission. As a result of these concerns, multi-speed automatic transmissions and continuously variable transmissions commonly used in vehicles are typically complex, bulky, and costly to service.
Continuously variable transmissions known in the art tend to have limited ratio ranges. In a variable diameter pulley style continuously variable transmission, a ration range is limited by a ratio between the smallest and largest diameters in which the variable diameter pulleys may be configured in. Further, because all of the power transferred through the continuously variable transmission must pass through a flexible belt, the variable diameter pulley style continuously variable transmission is typically limited to transmitting smaller amounts of power. Such designs limit the vehicle applications the continuously variable transmissions may be incorporated in.
It would be advantageous to develop a driveline including a continuously variable transmission that is inexpensive, compact, may be configured for a wide range of torque distributions, and able to adjust a drive ratio.

Transmission and driveline having a tilting ball variator continuously variable transmission


Offset preventing oils for treated (IR light) or untreated zirconia ceramic or its composites fuser rollers are disclosed.

Electrophotosensitive copiers include a photoconductor with a photoconductive layer with a conductive backing. The photoconductor is transported along an endless path relative to a plurality of work stations, each of which is operative when actuated to perform a work operation on the electrophotosensitive medium. Such stations include a charging station at which a uniform charge is placed on the photoconductive layer, an exposure station at which the charged photoconductive layer is image-wise exposed to actinic radiation from the medium to create an electrostatic image of the medium in the photoconductive layer, a developing station at which the electrostatic image is contacted with finely divided charged toner particles for adhering to the photoconductive layer in a configuration defined by the electrostatic image, a transfer station at which such toner particles are transferred in the image configuration to a receiving surface, and a cleaning station at which residual toner is removed from the photoconductive layer so that it can be reused.
One of the most effective forms for transfer station has been fusing rollers. Frequently, at least one of the rollers is heated so that both heat and pressure are applied to toner particles at the nip between the rollers to fix the toner to a receiver sheet in an image-wise configuration.
Fuser rollers performance reliability is one of the most important factors which influences the electrophotographic copier life cycle cost and customer satisfaction. Fuser rollers, when heated externally via a heater roller, are affected by the ability of the heater roller to remain free of contamination.
Known to the electrostatographic fixing art are various fuser members adapted to apply heat and pressure to a heat-softenable electrostatographic toner on a receiver, such as paper, to permanently fuse the toner to the receiver rollers, fuser plates and fuser belts for use in fuser systems such as fuser roller systems, fuser plate systems and fuser belt systems. The term "fuser roller" is used herein to identify one of the elements of a fusing system. Commonly, the fuser roller is a fuser roller or pressure roller and the discussion herein may refer to a fuser roller or pressure roller. However, often the fuser roller is heated so that pressure and heat is applied to fuse a toner image.
One of the long-standing problems with electrostatographic toner fusing mechanism is the adhesion of the heat-softened toner particles to the surface of a fuser member and not to the receiver, known as "offset" which occurs when the toner-bearing receiver is passed through a fuser system. There have been several approaches to decrease the amount of toner offset onto fuser members. One approach has been to make the toner-contacting surface of a fuser member, for example, a fuser roller and/or pressure roller of a non-adhesive (non-stick) material.
One known non-adhesive coating for fuser members comprises fluoropolymer resins, but fluoropolymer resins are non-compliant. It is desirable to have compliant fuser members to increase the contact area between a fuser member and the toner-bearing receiver. However, fuser members with a single compliant rubber layer absorb release oils and degrade in a short time leading to wrinkling artifacts, non-uniform nip width and toner offset. To make fluoropolymer resin coated fuser members with a compliant layer, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,435,500 and 4,789,565 disclose a fluoropolymer resin layer sintered to a silicone rubber layer which is adhered to a metal core. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,789,565, an aqueous solution of fluoropolymer resin powder is sintered to the silicone rubber layer. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,435,500, a fluoropolymer resin sleeve is sintered to the silicone rubber layer. Sintering of the fluoropolymer resin layer is usually accomplished by heating the coated fuser members to temperatures of approximately 500.degree. C. Such high temperatures can have a detrimental effect on the silicone rubber layer causing the silicone rubber to smoke or depolymerize, which decreases the durability of the silicone rubbers and the adhesion strength between the silicone rubber layer and the fluoropolymer resin layer. Attempts to avoid the detrimental effect of the high sintering temperatures that have on the silicone rubber layer have been made by using dielectric heating of the fluoropolymer resin layer, for example, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,011,401 and 5,153,660. Dielectric heating is, however, complicated and expensive and the fluoropolymer resin layer may still delaminate from the silicone rubber layer when the fuser members are used in high pressure fuser systems. In addition, a fuser member made with a fluoropolymer resin sleeve layer possess poor abrasion resistance and poor heat resistance.
When a fuser roller becomes contaminated with toner, the contamination can be transferred to the heater roller, thus contributing to the failure. The contamination of the fuser roller can also contribute to the paper jam failure in an electrophotographic engine and it is primarily due largely to the inability of the paper itself to release from the fusing roller. The toner release from the rollers in the electrophotographic engine, which commonly termed as "offset", is sometimes aided by applying a suitable oil on the roller surface. A probable mechanism for the reduction in offset with oil is that oil flowing into the pores on the surface of the roller material forms a barrier. This barrier is an aid in retarding the offset of contamination. The viscosity of various oils and their molecular structure determine whether the oils will be adsorbed to the roller surfaces. The increase in viscosity makes the displacement of oil from the roller surface more difficult. If a high molecular weight oil is adsorbed on the roller surface, entropy considerations suggest that such oil molecules will have to detach from several sites simultaneously, to regain mobility, making detachment less probable.
The surface energy of the roller material, and its surface morphology can also influence the degree of toner release (offset). Other important material properties such as, wear and abrasion characteristics, thermal conductivity and reactivity or bonding with various functional oils, which are normally used to reduce the offset characteristics can contribute to the choice for suitable heater and pressure roller materials. The commonly used roller material such as elastomers and other experimental roller such as hardcoat anodized rollers, teflon, electroless nickel and electroless nickel impregnated with teflon lack one or more shortcomings in material characteristics described above, and contribute to varying degrees of toner offset.

Toner offset preventing oils for zirconia ceramic and its composites rollers


A hearing device opening in a housing of an in-the-ear hearing device is to be able to be sealed in a simple manner. To this end, an elastic band is provided, which is attached to a second housing part and/or faceplate and to a first housing part or inside the second housing part. The band pulls the second housing part into the corresponding opening of the first housing part. The second housing part is herewith automatically brought into position and retained. An electrical component can be mounted on the elastic band if necessary.

In-the-ear hearing devices typically possess an individually tailored hearing device shell. This is usually sealed from the outside environment by a so-called faceplate or another housing part. If the faceplace or housing part is removed from the hearing device shell, the battery of the hearing device or however also other electronics components are generally accessible. In many cases, the faceplate and/or housing part is designed as one-piece with a battery compartment, so that the battery is pivoted outwards when the faceplate is opened. A faceplate and/or housing part of this type thus allows a (semi-) modular design of the in-the-ear hearing device.
The faceplate is mostly mounted or otherwise attached to the shell, i.e. the hearing device housing. It has hitherto been attached for instance by means of locking mechanisms or screw connections.
Even if the faceplate can be opened in the case of modular hearing devices, or can be removed from the shell, an adequate impermeability of the hearing device must be guaranteed. Consequently, very precise manufacturing methods for producing the hearing device shell and the faceplate are necessary. In addition, a mechanical seal having small complex structures is necessary, which can only be manufactured with extreme difficulty. Known SLA/SLS methods are currently used for this purpose. In addition, the seal requires some installation space, which in itself is a precious resource in-the-ear hearing devices.
The publication U.S. Pat. No. 6,473,512 B1 discloses a hearing aid, in which a cantilever connects a disk with a support, which is located on the eardrum side end of the hearing aid. The cantilever serves to provide stability in the longitudinal direction and reduces both extension and also compression.
Furthermore, the publication EP 0 629 101 A1 discloses a hearing aid to be worn in the ear having a skeleton, with which the skeleton is composed of an external faceplate, an inner faceplate and a connecting element. The connecting element can be deformed to a limited degree and is intended to maintain the position of the two faceplates, while the intermediate space is sealed.

In-the-ear hearing apparatus having a band element for attaching a housing part


A light emitting device includes a light emitting member formed on a substrate, a first blocking layer formed on the light emitting member and an absorbing layer interposed between the light emitting member or the first blocking layer. The first blocking layer prevents oxygen or moisture in air from permeating into the light emitting member generating light. The absorbing layer absorbs the oxygen or the moisture that passes through the first blocking layer. The light emitting device may have reduced volume and improved lifetime.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light emitting device, a display apparatus having the light emitting device, and a method of manufacturing the display apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a light emitting device having a reduced volume and an improved durability, a display apparatus including the light emitting device, and a method of manufacturing the display apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, information processing apparatuses becomes more important and the information processing apparatuses are widely used in various fields of several industries. However, because processed data by the information processing apparatus are generally represented as electric signals or codes, users may not directly identify the processed data with naked eyes. Thus, a display apparatus serving as an interface is required for user to identify the processed data by the information processing apparatus.
The display apparatuses are generally classified into emissive display apparatuses and non-emissive display apparatuses. The emissive display apparatus typically includes a cathode ray tube (CRT), a plasma display panel (PDP), a light emitting diode (LED), an electro-luminescence display (ELD) device, etc. The non-emissive display apparatus typically includes a liquid crystal display (LCD) device, an electrochemical display (ECD), an electro-phoretic image display (EPID), etc.
In the emissive display apparatus, the ELD devices become important. The ELD devices are typically divided into inorganic electro-luminescence display devices and organic electro-luminescence display devices according as electro-luminescence materials thereof.
The organic electro-luminescence display device has an anode electrode and a cathode electrode, and an organic light emitting layer. The organic light emitting layer has characteristics deteriorated by oxygen or moisture permeated into the organic light emitting layer because the organic light emitting layer is composed of organic material. When the organic light emitting layer contacts with oxygen or moisture in air, the lifetime of the organic light emitting layer may be rapidly reduced.
Table I shows the luminescence of the light generated from a conventional organic electro-luminescence display device. In Table 1, the organic electro-luminescence display device is exposed to an inferior environment in which the content of moisture is about 80%, temperature is about 80° C. and applied current is about 20 mA/cm2. The lifetime of the organic electro-luminescence display device corresponds to the time when the luminance of the light generated from the organic electro-luminescence display device becomes a half of an initial luminance thereof.
time (hour)luminescence (%)01005811075.515712067256430603557405343.650
As shown in Table 1, the luminance of the light generated from the organic electro-luminescence display device rapidly decreases in proportion as time elapses. After about 43 hours, the luminance of the light generated from the organic electro-luminescence display device decreases to half of an initial luminance thereof. That is, the organic electro-luminescence display device may have a lifetime of about 43 hours when the organic electro-luminescence display device rapidly makes contact with moisture or oxygen in air.
Considering this problem, there is provides an organic electro-luminescence display device including a metal cap that prevents moisture or oxygen from directly contacting the organic electro-luminescence display device. However, moisture or oxygen may gradually permeate into the organic electro-luminescence display device through a gap between the metal cap and the organic electro-luminescence display device when the organic electro-luminescence display device is covered with the metal cap. Therefore, the electrical characteristics and lifetime of the organic electro-luminescence display device may be gradually deteriorated by the permeated oxygen or moisture. Further, the organic electro-luminescence display device may have increased volume and weigh when the organic electro-luminescence display device has the metal cap.

Light emitting device, display apparatus having the light emitting device, and method of manufacturing the display apparatus


A method for lubricating rolls, especially work rolls (2, 3) of a rolling stand, and rolling stock (6) passed between the rolls during the rolling operation, in which a lubricant-gas mixture, a lubricant-water-gas mixture, a lubricant-water mixture and/or a grease-medium mixture is applied to the rolls (2, 3) or the rolling stock (6) on the run-in side of the rolling stand, is characterized by the fact that the mixture is prepared with at least one mixing device (14, 17, 27, 29, 31, 35) in the area upstream of the rolling stand.

The invention concerns a method for lubricating rolls, especially work rolls of a rolling stand, and rolling stock passed between the rolls during the rolling operation, in which a lubricant-gas mixture, a lubricant-water-gas mixture, a lubricant-water mixture, and/or a grease-medium mixture is applied to the rolls or the rolling stock on the run-in side of the rolling stand.
The rolling stand comprises several mutually supporting rolls, including, for example, a work roll, which comes into direct contact with the rolling stock and in turn rolls on a generally larger backup roll or intermediate roll. Many hot rolling mills for rolling a metal strip have an integrated roll gap lubricating system. These systems are used for the purpose of improving the surface quality of the work roll and the strip and have become part of the standard equipment of a rolling mill on which high-quality strip is to be produced. In one widely used system, a mixture of water as the base medium with oil is applied to the rolling stock or to the work roll or backup roll.
In the cold rolling process, lubrication is customary. In this case, lubricant is applied to the rolling stock and/or to the work roll and/or is sprayed into the roll gap. The mixing of the oil and water is carried out far from the rolling stand. In most cases, an emulsion is used, which, in a complicated process in a circulation system, is separated, cleaned and resupplied to the lubricating system.
WO 03 002277 A1 discloses a method and a device for cooling and/or lubricating rolls, especially work rolls, of a rolling stand, in which water in the form of spray jets is used as a cooling medium, and oil, an oil-air mixture, an oil-water mixture, an oil-water-air mixture, or grease mixtures are used as lubricants. To improve the lubricating and cooling effect, the combined use of supercooling of the strip and roll surface and roll lubrication on the run-in side of the rolling stand is proposed, in which the two media—water and lubricant—are supplied separately to the rolls and the rolling stock and are applied to different points of application on the surface of the roll. Separate supply lines to the spray bars are provided for water and the lubricant.

Method and device for lubricating rollers and a rolled strip of a rolling stand


Embodiments of the invention reduce the error rate of a read error that is caused by a spacing interval between a write head and a read head, which are formed on a slider. In one embodiment, a write head writes user data, which is placed at a position, on a magnetic disk when a read head is placed at a target position in accordance with a head spacing interval and yaw angle. DHO adjustment data is written at a second position, which is obtained by subjecting the read head to DHO correction in order to read the user data written at the target position. When the user data is to be read, a processor reads the DHO adjustment data, changes the read head position to the first position, and controls the operation of a magnetic disk drive to read the user data.

The present invention relates to a technology for reducing the error rate of a read error that is caused by a spacing interval between a write head and a read head, which are formed on a slider in a magnetic disk drive, and more particularly to a technology for reducing the read error rate of a magnetic disk having a narrow track pitch.
In a magnetic disk drive, a magnetic head is formed on a slider to compose a head/slider assembly. A plurality of servo tracks are concentrically written on a magnetic disk. When the magnetic disk rotates while the head/slider assembly is positioned over a specified servo track, a data read/data write operation is circumferentially performed on the associated data track. As shown in FIG. 10(a), the head/slider assembly 3, which is supported by a head support mechanism, move over the circumference whose radius is equivalent to the distance to a rotation center 5 of the head support mechanism. Therefore, when the magnetic head is positioned over a servo track of the magnetic disk 1, an angle is generated between a line 15 (hereinafter referred to as the pivot center line) that joins the rotation center 5 of the head support mechanism to the center of a short rim of the head/slide assembly 3 and a data track tangent line 9, 13 at the center position of the head/slider assembly. This angle is generally called a yaw angle, which varies in the direction of the servo track radius in accordance with the position.
When the head/slider assembly 3 is positioned over an inner data track 7 on the magnetic disk 1, yaw angle θ1 is formed between the tangent line 9 of a servo track 7 and the pivot center line 15. When the head/slider assembly 3 is positioned over an outer servo track 11, yaw angle θ2 is formed between the tangent line 13 of the servo track 11 and the pivot center line 15. As is obvious from FIG. 10(A), the yaw angle varies with the radial position of the head/slider assembly 3 over the magnetic disk.
As shown in FIG. 10(B), an MR or GMR read head 17 and an inductive write head 19 are formed on the same slider. The read head 17 and write head 19 are formed on a slider surface facing the magnetic disk so that the pivot center line 15 passes through the center between a write gap and read gap. A predetermined head spacing interval L is provided between the read head 17 and write head 19. This spacing interval is in the direction of the pivot center line 15.
As regards the head spacing interval L between the write head 19 and read head 17, a predefined distance, which varies in the direction of the magnetic disk radius in accordance with a yaw angle, is generated. This distance is hereinafter referred to as the dual head offset (hereinafter abbreviated to the DHO). The DHO is a physical distance that is determined by a yaw angle and head spacing interval L. In the magnetic disk drive, the gap between the read head 17 and write head 19 is recognized in terms of the calculated number of servo tracks and used for magnetic head positioning control. Therefore, the DHO may be expressed in terms of the calculated number of tracks. In the present specification, the DHO value representing a physical distance is referred to as a DHO [distance] whereas the DHO value calculated as the number of servo tracks is referred to as a DHO [calculation].
When a data write is performed in the magnetic disk drive, the read head 17 reads servo data, which is written on the magnetic disk, to determine the position of the read head 17, and then the write head 19 writes user data. The read head 17 is used for positioning the head/slider assembly 3. The write head 19 whose distance to the read head 17 is the head spacing interval L is used for a write. Therefore, the actual user data write position in the direction of the magnetic disk radius is offset by the DHO [distance] from a target position, which is the position of a servo track used for positioning. Therefore, when a read is to be performed, the read head 17 needs to be placed at a position that is offset from the target position by the DHO [distance]. The DHO [distance] varies with the yaw angle, that is, the slider position relative to the magnetic disk. To properly place the read head at a written position, therefore, it is necessary that the magnetic disk drive accurately recognize the DHO [distance].
A technology disclosed by Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-322848) writes an off-track measurement pattern, which is shown in FIG. 6(b) of that document, into all servo sectors of tracks to enhance the on-track accuracy prevailing when a composite head performs a read. A technology disclosed by Patent Document 2 (Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 11-191274) performs a track following operation by providing such an offset as to position a write head at the center of a track.

Magnetic disk drive and read/write method to reduce read error rate

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V.