A table is provided for the display and promotion of items which can provide a fully side enclosed and recessed table surface or provide a table surface which is enclosed on the sides of the table and open to the front and rear of the table and which can be folded and stored in a space which is less than one-fifth the space required for the table in its unfolded condition.

This invention relates to display tables used in presenting merchandise for sale in wholesale and retail stores and in convention and traveling sales exhibits. Merchandisers typically wish to present their goods in an open manner and make the merchandise available to potential purchasers to examine and handle. This open display presents several problems for the merchandiser.
First, it is desirable for the merchandise to be presented in an open, available manner, but it is also desirable for the merchandise to be reasonably confined so the display area does not become messy and the merchandise pushed off the display table and onto the floor. This confinement is accomplished by providing sidewalls which extend upwardly from the display surface to enclose the merchandise.
While tables have existed which accomplish these goals, they are fabricated as a solid table presenting fixed side and end pieces. Such fixed component tables consume a great deal of space when in storage and require at least two people to move the table about the store. These tables are generally found in standard sizes ranging from 36" to 60" long and being 30" high and 24" to 30" wide. These common dimensions present a consumption of storage space ranging from 15 square feet to nearly 32 cubic feet per table not in use on the sales floor. Since retail space and convention space is always at a premium and costly, the need to reduce the amount of space used for the storage of display tables is very important to sales management.
A second problem with the existing fixed-side display tables is that two or more people are needed to move the tables around in a store. Also, the use of such large, fixed-side tables for a mobile exhibit is prohibited by the cost and inconvenience of moving such tables. It will be appreciated that these display tables cannot be made from lightweight materials and perform well in public sales floor situations. The pushing and shoving of the public against the table would tend to cause a light-weight table to slide from its position and disrupt the sales floor.
It will also be appreciated that as display tables of substantial weight cannot be avoided, it is beneficial if the table can be easily and compactly moved or shipped from one location to another. These benefits cannot be obtained in the conventional display table as it is not compact. The only current method for convenient shipment of such display tables is to remove any securing bolts and break the table down in to separate pieces for shipment. This consumes time and substantial effort and presents the potential for the loss of component parts and securing bolts.
Therefore a need exists for: a promotional display table which is sufficiently substantial so as to provide a solid display surface; a table which can be conveniently moved about the retail or show room floor by one or two people; a table which can be easily and compactly shipped from one location to another; a table which can be compacted into a configuration which consumes less storage space than does the same table when in use; and a table that when compacted does not present independent component parts which can become separated and lost.
These features and more a provided in the inventive folding promotional table present herein and which is fully described in the accompanying figures and written description.


Apparatus and methods for pressurizing well operations fluids via a pressure exchanger having a housing with a bore extending between first and second ends of the housing and a rotor rotatably disposed within the bore of the housing. A chamber extends through the rotor between first and second ends of the rotor. The chamber has a larger chamber diameter section and a smaller chamber diameter section. A piston assembly is slidably disposed within the chamber. The piston assembly has a larger piston diameter section slidably disposed within the larger chamber diameter section and a smaller piston diameter section slidably disposed within the smaller chamber diameter section.

A variety of fluids are used in oil and gas operations. Fluids may be pumped into the subterranean formation through the use of one or more high-pressure pumps. Dirty fluids, such as solids-laden fluids containing insoluble abrasive solid particles, can reduce functional life and increase maintenance of the high-pressure pumps.
Pressure exchangers provide a way to exchange pressure energy between two fluid flows. An example pressure exchanger has a rotating rotor with multiple flow cavities, channels, or other chambers. The rotor rotates in a housing via a fluid-lubricated bearing. Disc valves at opposing ends of the pressure exchanger intermittently seal corresponding ends of the chambers between alternating passage of different ports of each disc valve. Fluid flow entering each chamber is directed along a small, off-axial vector, thus imparting rotation to the rotor.
As the rotor rotates, each chamber is in turn connected to a source of dirty fluid via a dirty fluid input port of one of the disc valves, such that the dirty fluid enters each chamber as the chamber passes the dirty fluid input port. As the rotor further rotates, each chamber is then connected to a source of high-pressure clean fluid via a clean fluid input port of one of the disc valves, such that the high-pressure clean fluid enters each chamber as the chamber passes the clean fluid input port, and an interface between the dirty fluid and the clean fluid is pushed away from the clean fluid input side, thus pressurizing and then ejecting the dirty fluid as further rotation causes the chamber to pass a dirty fluid discharge port of one of the disc valves. The now depressurized clean fluid may then be ejected as further rotation causes the chamber to pass a clean fluid discharge port of one of the disc valves. The cycle may be repeated continuously to form a continuous stream of pressurized dirty fluid.
The clean fluid received by the pressure exchangers is pressurized to a level that is about equal to or greater than the intended discharge pressure of the dirty fluid. Accordingly, high-pressure pumps are utilized to generate the high-pressure clean fluid, and high-pressure fluid conduits transfer the pressurized clean fluid to the pressure exchangers. The disc valves also have leakage between the high-pressure clean side and the low-pressure dirty side, and leakage between the high-pressure dirty side and the low-pressure clean side. There is also a flow rate that is injected into the bearings that flows into both low-pressure sides. There may also be diffusion and mixing in each chamber that spreads the clean/dirty interface and leads to dirty returns on the "clean" side.


A strain of xylose-utilizing Zymomonas was engineered with a genetic modification to the glucose-fructose oxidoreductase gene resulting in reduced expression of GFOR enzyme activity. The engineered strain exhibits reduced production of xylitol, a detrimental by-product of xylose metabolism. It also consumes more xylose and produces more ethanol during mixed sugar fermentation under process-relevant conditions.

Production of ethanol by microorganisms provides an alternative energy source to fossil fuels and is therefore an important area of current research. Zymomonas mobilis is a bacterial ethanologen that grows on glucose, fructose, and sucrose, metabolizing these sugars to CO2 and ethanol via the Entner-Douderoff pathway. Though wild type strains cannot use xylose as a carbon source, recombinant strains of Z. mobilis that are able to grow on this sugar have been engineered (U.S. Pat. No. 5,514,583, U.S. Pat. No. 5,712,133, WO 95/28476, Feldmann et al. (1992) Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 38: 354-361, Zhang et al. (1995) Science 267:240-243). Xylose is the major pentose in hydrolyzed lignocellulosic materials, and therefore can provide an abundantly available, low cost carbon substrate for use in fermentation. Z. mobilis has been engineered for expression of four enzymes needed for xylose metabolism: 1) xylose isomerase, which catalyses the conversion of xylose to xylulose; 2) xylulokinase, which phosphorylates xylulose to form xylulose 5-phosphate; 3) transketolase; and 4) transaldolase (U.S. Pat. No. 5,514,583, U.S. Pat. No. 6,566,107; Zhang et al. (1995) Science 267:240-243). Through the combined actions of these four enzymes and the cell's normal metabolic machinery, three molecules of xylose are converted to two molecules of glucose 6-phosphate and one molecule of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate, which are subsequently converted to ethanol and CO2 on the glucose side of the pathway (see FIG. 1).
Though there has been success in engineering Z. mobilis strains for xylose metabolism, the strains do not grow and produce ethanol as well on xylose as on glucose. One factor that causes poor growth on xylose is the production of xylitol as a by-product of xylose metabolism (Feldmann et al. supra; Kim et al. (2000) Applied and Environmental Microbiology 66:186-193). Xylitol is phosphorylated by xylulose kinase to produce xylitol 5-phosphate, which accumulates in the cell and inhibits bacterial growth. Xylitol synthesis also reduces the yield of ethanol, since xylose-utilizing recombinant strains of Z. mobilis cannot convert xylitol to ethanol. In addition, xylitol is a potent inhibitor of xylose isomerase (Smith et al. (1991) Biochem J. 277:255-261), which catalyzes the first step of xylose utilization in the engineered xylose metabolism pathway. See FIG. 2 for a diagram showing xylitol synthesis and effects.
The physiological pathway and enzymes that are responsible for xylitol synthesis in vivo have not been determined. However, it has been demonstrated that cell-free extracts from wild type Z. mobilis are able to reduce xylose to xylitol when they are supplemented with NADPH (Feldmann et al., supra), and that this reaction is catalyzed by an NADPH-dependent aldose reductase. It has also been shown that Z. mobilis cell-free extracts are able to convert a small amount of xylose to xylitol without NADPH supplementation, and that xylitol production under these conditions increases 3- to 4-fold when purified xylose isomerase is also added to the reaction mixture (Danielson, 2001, University of Colorado Masters Thesis). Since xylose isomerase is able to convert xylose to xylulose, the clear implication of the latter experiment is that the Z. mobilis enzyme glucose-fructose oxidoreductase (GFOR) can use xylose as an electron donor and xylulose as an electron acceptor to generate xylitol as will be discussed in greater detail below. Thus, there are at least two pathways for xylitol production in Z. mobilis based on the in vitro experiments, but the extent to which they contribute to xylitol formation under physiological conditions remains to be determined.
For high-level production of ethanol, Z. mobilis is grown in high concentrations of a fermentable carbon source, which can result in osmotic shock. Osmotic shock manifests itself as a long lag period before growth commences when wild type strains are transferred to liquid media that contains >200 g/L of glucose or fructose or >360 g/L of sucrose (Loos et al. (1994) J Bacteriol 176:7688-7693). Furthermore, addition of sorbitol to the growth medium reduces the lag period when wild type strains are shifted to high concentrations of these sugars (Wiegert et al. (1996) Arch Microbiol 166:32-41, Loos et al supra).
It has also been shown that the periplasmic enzyme glucose-fructose oxidoreductase (GFOR) plays an important role in osmotic balance when wild type Z. mobilis is grown in concentrated mixtures of glucose and fructose (Loos et al. supra) or concentrated solutions of sucrose (-, Weigert et al supra, Loos et al supra). Briefly, GFOR with its tightly bound co-factor, catalyzes the oxidation of glucose to gluconolactone and subsequent reduction of fructose to sorbitol in a classical Ping Pong Bi mechanism as shown in Diagram I. The sorbitol that is generated in the periplasmic space is transported into cells against a concentration gradient where it accumulates to high levels since it is not further metabolized. The high concentration of sorbitol inside the cells eliminates the osmotic pressure difference across the plasma membrane and restores osmotic balance.
A spontaneous mutant of wild type Z. mobilis that cannot generate sorbitol was show to produce higher levels of ethanol than wild type cells when it was grown on low concentrations of sucrose (<150 g/L), but this strain could not grow on high concentrations of sucrose (Kirk and Doelle (1993) Biotechnol. Letters 15:985-990). This mutant was subsequently shown to lack expression of glucose-fructose oxidoreductase (GFOR), which accounts for its inability to convert any of the sucrose-derived fructose to the unwanted by-product sorbitol (Wiegert et al. supra). It was also shown that growth of the sorbitol-deficient mutant in high concentrations of sucrose could be restored by adding sorbitol to the growth medium (Wiegert et al., supra). Thus, GFOR plays a critical role in osmotic balance by synthesizing sorbitol when Z. mobilis is grown in concentrated mixtures of glucose and fructose or high concentrations of sucrose, which is hydrolyzed to glucose and fructose by the host cell's invertase.

CN1600850(A) discloses a non-xylose utilizing mutant strain of Z. mobilis that —has an inactivated GFOR gene, and production of ethanol using this strain. The lack of sorbitol production with this strain resulted in higher levels of ethanol when glucose, fructose or sucrose was the carbon source.
The effects of reducing or eliminating glucose-fructose oxidoreductase enzyme activity in an engineered xylose-utilizing strain of Z. mobilis that is grown on a mixture of xylose and glucose (in the absence of any added sucrose or fructose) are not known.
There remains a need for a xylose-utilizing Z. mobilis strain that is able to produce increased amounts of ethanol when grown on xylose-containing medium. Applicants have solved this problem by determining the principle pathway for xylitol production in vivo, and eliminating the enzyme activity that is responsible for its formation through gene inactivation, thereby creating a Z. mobilis strain with improved ethanol production.

Xylitol synthesis mutant of xylose-utilizing zymomonas for ethanol production


A device for inserting bank notes into a bank note processing device. The bank note processing device has a main body, a support surface for supporting a bank note to be inserted on a flat side, and at least one lateral positioning edge for laterally positioning the slot on the bank note processing device and/or for connecting the slot to the bank processing device in an accurately fitting manner. The device for inserting bank notes into a bank note processing device is characterized by a setting mechanism for variably setting the position of the positioning edge transversely to the insertion direction of the bank note through the slot.

In the case of cash gaming machines, it is customary to integrate a bill acceptor into the gaming machine, said bill acceptor checking that the bank notes are genuine for example, reading the value of the bank notes, accepting the bank notes and depositing them in a storage unit, or alternatively dispensing bank notes as winnings, or processing them in another way. In order to be able to better insert the bank notes into such a bill acceptor, as a rule feeders are attached in front of the input slot of the bill acceptors and make it easier to thread the bank notes in and help to insert them. In particular, such feeders make it easier to precisely position the bank notes to be inserted. For this purpose, a supporting surface is provided for supporting the bank note and is usually bordered on both sides by positioning flanks in order to orient the bank notes transversely to the direction of insertion, centrally with respect to the insertion slot or at a predetermined insertion edge.
Different feeders or different bill acceptors need to be used, depending on what type of bank notes, i.e. for example dollars or euros, rubles or yen, the bill acceptor is designed for, in order to place the respective bank notes precisely in the desired position relative to the entry slot of the bill acceptor and to be able to process them. This is unproblematic per se as long as the feeder is attached to the respective bill acceptor, with the result that each bill acceptor has its own feeder.
However, in the case of gaming machines it is advantageous to arrange and secure the bill acceptor inside the housing of the gaming machine, whilst the feeder for inserting the bank notes is advantageously provided on a housing wall or is incorporated into the housing wall, in order to protect the bill acceptor situated behind the housing wall from being manipulated. Said feeder can hereby advantageously be integrated into the machine door or a door-like housing part, so that the feeder is hinged away from the bill acceptor when the machine door hinges open and comes to lie in front of the bill acceptor so that it fits precisely when the door is closed.
However, because such gaming machines can contain different bill acceptors for different countries, integrating the feeder into a machine housing part means that it is not possible to use a single machine housing and different versions need to be manufactured and made available depending on the feeder required. However, the approach of designing separate feeders for different bill acceptors and integrating them into the corresponding gaming machine housing entails considerable expenditure on construction and manufacturing and has corresponding costs associated with it.
US 2004/0222296 discloses an ATM with a front panel that is provided with a feeder through which an acceptor arranged behind the front panel can be accessed. The internal width of the feeder can be adjusted by transversely adjustable side flank parts that are guided on the rear of the front panel in elongated guides.
Furthermore, EP 14 16 446 discloses a gaming machine that has a feeder for feeding in bank notes provided on its front panel, said feeder having a supporting surface, in the form of a grid, for supporting the bank notes to be inserted flat.
The object of the present invention is therefore to provide an improved device of the type mentioned at the beginning that obviates the disadvantages of the prior art and advantageously develops the latter. In particular, the invention is to provide a universal feeder that can be used for a large number of different bill acceptors, wherein the positioning flanks of the feeder can be finely adjusted transversely to the direction of insertion of the bank notes and can be easily secured in the desired position.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Device for inserting bank notes into a bill acceptor


A pixel including an organic light emitting diode, an organic light emitting display device including the pixel, and a method for driving the organic light emitting display device. The pixel includes first and second drivers and first and second selectors. A horizontal period for driving the pixel includes first and second periods. The first driver charges a first voltage corresponding to a reference current flowing into a data line during the first period. The second driver charges a second voltage corresponding to a sum of the reference current and a pixel current during the second period. The first selector is turned-on during the horizontal period for connecting the data line to the first and second drivers. The second selector controls the flow of current to the organic light emitting diode and is turned-off during the horizontal period but is otherwise turned-on.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pixel, an organic light emitting display device, and a method for driving an organic light emitting display device using the pixel, and more particularly to a pixel, an organic light emitting display device, and a method for driving an organic light emitting display device using the pixel, using an electric current.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Organic light emitting display devices are a type of flat panel display device that make use of organic light emitting diodes that emit light by re-combination of electrons and holes. The organic light emitting display device has advantages of high response speed and small power consumption.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional light emitting display device. With reference to FIG. 1, the conventional light emitting display device includes a display region 30, a scan driver 10, a data driver 20, and a timing controller 50. The display region 30 includes a plurality of pixels 40 formed at crossings of scan lines S1 to Sn and emission control lines E1 to En with data lines D1 to Dm. The scan driver 10 drives the scan lines S1 to Sn. The data driver 20 drives the data lines D1 to Dm. The timing controller 50 controls the scan driver 10 and the data driver 20.
The timing controller 50 generates a data drive control signal DCS and a scan drive control signal SCS according to externally supplied synchronous signals. The data drive control signal DCS generated by the timing controller 50 is provided to the data driver 20, and the scan drive control signal SCS is provided to the scan driver 10. Furthermore, the timing controller 50 provides externally supplied data Data to the data driver 20.
The scan driver 10 generates a scan signal in response to a scan drive control signal SCS from the timing controller 50, and sequentially provides the generated scan signal to the scan lines S1 to Sn. The scan driver 10 generates an emission control signal in response to the scan drive control signal SCS from the timing controller 50, and sequentially provides the generated emission control signal to the emission control lines E1 to En.
The data driver 20 receives the data drive control signal DCS from the timing controller 50. Upon the receipt of the data drive control signal DCS, the data driver 20 generates data signals, and provides the generated data signals to the data lines D1 to Dm. Here, the data driver 20 provides the generated data signal to the data lines D1 to Dm every 1 horizontal period.
The display region 30 receives power from a first power supply ELVDD and a second power supply ELVSS both located outside the display device, and provides them to the pixels 40. Upon the receipt of power from the first power supply ELVDD and the second power supply ELVSS, the pixels 40 control the amount of a current flowing into the second power supply ELVSS from the first power supply ELVDD through a light emitting element corresponding to the data signal, thus generating light corresponding to the data signal.
Namely, in the conventional light emitting display device, each of the pixels 40 generates light of predetermined luminance corresponding to a data signal to display an image. However, the conventional light emitting display device may have difficulty displaying an image of a desired luminance due to variation in electron mobility and non-uniformity between threshold voltages of transistors included in each of the pixels 40. To solve the aforementioned problem, the data signal may be supplied as an electric current. In practice, when the data signal is supplied as an electric current, a uniform image can be displayed at the display region 30 irrespective of variation between the transistors used in each of the pixels.
However, since the electric current supplied as the data current is small, it takes a long time to deliver a charge equivalent to the data signal. For example, assuming that a capacitive load of a data line is 30 pF, it takes several ms to charge the data line by means of a data signal current that may vary from several tens to several hundreds of nA. If considering 1 horizontal period 1H of several tens of μs, the charging time of several ms is not an insignificant length of time.

Organic light emitting display device and driving method


To provide a bi-aspherical type progressive-power lens which provides an excellent visual acuity correction for prescription values and a wide effective visual field with less distortion in wearing, by reducing a magnification difference of an image between a distance portion and a near portion. The lens is characterized in that when on a first refractive surface being an object side surface, a surface refractive power in a horizontal direction and a surface refractive power in a vertical direction, at a far vision diopter measurement position F1, are DHf and DVf respectively, and on the first refractive surface, a surface refractive power in a horizontal direction and a surface refractive power in a vertical direction, at a near vision diopter measurement position N1, are DHn and DVn respectively, relational equations, DHf+DHn<Dvf+DVn, and DHn<DVn are satisfied, and surface astigmatism components at F1 and N1 of the first refractive surface are cancelled by the second refractive surface being an eyeball side surface so that the first and second refractive surfaces together provide a far vision diopter (Df) and an addition diopter (ADD) based on prescription values.

The present invention relates to a bi-aspherical type progressive-power lens, which is a lens used as, for example, a progressive-power lens for a spectacle for presbyopia that is configured to have a progressive refractive power action dividedly allotted to a first refractive surface being an object side surface and a second refractive surface being an eyeball side surface, so that the first surface and the second surface together provide a far vision diopter (Df) and an addition diopter (ADD) based on prescription values.
A progressive-power lens is widely used in general because of an advantage that it is hardly detected from others as a spectacle for the aged in spite of a spectacle lens for presbyopia, an advantage that it allows a wearer to clearly look continuously from a far distance to a near distance without discontinuity, and so on. However, it is also widely known that the necessity of arrangement of a plurality of visual fields such as a field for looking far and a field for looking near, and further a field for looking at a distance intermediate therebetween, without a boundary line existing within a limited lens area, presents disadvantages specific to the progressive-power lens such that each visual field is not always sufficiently wide, and that there is a region mainly in a side visual field which causes the wearer to feel distortion or sway of an image.
Various proposals have been made since long ago to improve the disadvantages specific to the progressive-power lens, and most of such conventional progressive-power lenses have a surface configuration created by a combination of a "progressive surface" arranged on an object side surface and a "spherical surface" or a "cylindrical surface" arranged on an eyeball side surface. Conversely to those, Atoral Variplas as a progressive-power lens, which is characterized in that a "progressive action" is added to the eyeball side surface, is released in 1970 from Essel Optical Co. (now Essilor), France.
Besides, recently proposed prior arts include, for example, technologies described in Patent International Publication Nos. WO 97/19382 and WO 97/19383 and so on, which are generally called rear surface progression (or concave surface progression). The surface configuration in the recently proposed rear surface progression has a main purpose of improving distortion and sway of an image by allotting a portion or the whole of a necessary addition diopter from an object side surface to an eyeball side surface to reduce the magnification difference of an image between a distance portion and a near portion.
Among these prior arts, one described in WO 97/19382 has a configuration in which the object side surface is made a spherical surface or a rotationally symmetrical aspherical surface to completely cancel the "progressive action," and a "progressive surface" providing a predetermined addition diopter is added (fused) to only the eyeball side surface. Besides, the prior art described in WO 97/19383 has a configuration in which the addition diopter on the "progressive surface" being the object side surface is made lower than a predetermined value and a "progressive surface" providing a deficiency in addition diopter is added (fused) to a "spherical surface" or "=cylindrical surface" on the rear surface side.
Although having different purposes and reasons, other prior arts of the progressive-power lens having description of technologies of adding the "progressive action" to the eyeball side surface, include, for example, ones described in Japanese Patent Publication No. Sho 47-23943, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Sho 57-10112, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 10-206805, and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-21846. In addition, prior arts in which the "progressive action" is provided to both surfaces of a lens, as in one described in the aforementioned WO 97/19383, include ones described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-338452 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 6-118353. Commonly, in these prior arts, front and rear two surfaces together provide a necessary addition diopter.
These prior arts have a main purpose of improving distortion and sway of an image by allotting a portion or the whole of a necessary addition diopter on an object side surface to an eyeball side surface to reduce magnification difference between a distance portion and a near portion. Clear description, however, on reasons of their improved effects can be rarely found, and only partial description thereof is found just in the aforementioned Patent International Publication No. WO 97/19383 (hereinafter, Prior art 1) or the like. Namely, Prior art 1 discloses the following calculation equations for a lens magnification SM shown in the equation (1) to the equation (3), the lens magnification SM is used as a basic evaluation parameter for lens design.
Namely, Prior art 1 includes the following description.
"The lens magnification SM is generally expressed by the following equation.SM=Mp×Ms  (1),where Mp is called a power factor, and Ms is called a shape factor. When the distance from a vertex of an eyeball side surface (inside vertex) of a lens to an eyeball is an inter-vertex distance L, a refractive power at the inside vertex (inside vertex refractive power) is Po, a thickness at the center of the lens is t, a refractive index of the lens is n, and a base curve (refractive power) of the object side surface of the lens is Pb, Mp and Ms are expressed as follows.Mp=1/(1−L×Po)  (2)Ms=1/(1−(t×Pb)/n)  (3)It should be noted that for calculations of the equation (2) and the equation (3), dioptry (D) is used for the inside vertex refractive power Po and the base curve Pb, and meter (m) is used for the distance L and thickness t, respectively."
Then, these calculation equations for the lens magnification SM are used to calculate a difference in magnification between a distance portion and a near portion. In Prior art 1, it is regarded that the distortion and sway of an image are improved because of a small magnification difference.
The study by the inventor of the invention shows that though some effects are recognized in the above-described Prior art 1 as compared to its prior art, the following points need to be discussed to design a lens with higher performance.
a. Basic evaluation parameters used in the above-described Prior art 1 include a parameter which should be essentially applied only to a portion near the center of a lens as is clear from the description of "the distance L from a vertex of an eyeball side surface of a lens to an eyeball" and "a thickness t at the center of the lens." More specifically, in an example of Prior art 1, the basic evaluation parameter to be applied only to a distance portion near the center of the lens, is applied also to a near portion positioned at a great distance below the lens center, thus presenting a possibility of error.
b. In Prior art 1, the lens magnification SM is calculated using five basic evaluation parameters, composed of the aforementioned ones with addition of the "refractive index of the lens n." However, as is instantly found when tilting forward and backward a lens having an actual diopter, it is considered that the size of an image is strongly influenced by an "angle between a sight line and a lens surface." This leads to a consideration that the "angle between a sight line and a lens surface" is nonnegligible particularly in calculation of the magnification of the near portion positioned at a great distance below the lens center. Accordingly, the lens design of Prior art 1 has a possibility of error caused by the "calculation of the lens magnification without consideration of the angle between a sight line and a lens surface."
c. Prior art 1 only describes the "magnification" for an application example to a cylindrical lens but lacks idea on direction thereof, which causes a possibility of error when "magnifications in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction are different" which occurs, for example, in the near portion positioned at a great distance below the lens center.
d. To accurately calculate the magnification for the near portion, the distance to a visual target, that is, an "object distance" should be added as a calculation factor. In Prior art 1, the "object distance" is not taken into consideration, which presents an undeniable possibility of error.
e. In the magnification calculations, the influence by a prism action is not taken into consideration, which may cause an error.
As described above, the prior art may not be always sufficient from a viewpoint, in particular, of more accurately calculating the "magnification."
The present invention is made to solve the above problems, and its object is to provide a bi-aspherical type progressive-power lens which provides an excellent visual acuity correction for prescription values and a wide effective visual field with less distortion in wearing, by reducing a magnification difference of an image between a distance portion and a near portion through correct calculation of the magnification of the image with an influence by an "angle between a sight line and a lens surface" and an "object distance" taken into consideration.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a bi-aspherical type progressive-power lens which makes it possible to use a "bilaterally symmetrical semifinished product" as an object side surface and process after acceptance of an order only an eyeball side surface into a bilaterally asymmetrical curved surface coping with a convergence action of an eye in near vision, and to reduce processing time and cost.

Bi-aspherical type progressive-power lens


Disclosed are processes for preparing levosalbutamol or the pharmacologically acceptable salts thereof on an industrial scale, using asymmetric hydrogenation as the key step and optionally a special sequence of subsequent steps, using rhodium as catalyst and a chiral bidentate phosphine ligand such as (2R, 4R)-4-(dicyclohexylphosphino)-2-(diphenyl-phosphino-methyl)-N-methyl-aminocarbonyl-pyrrolidine as catalyst system.

(R)-Salbutamol, levosalbutamol or (R)-albuterol is α-[[(1,1-dimethylethyl)-amino]methyl-4-hydroxy-1,3-benzenedimethanol, belongs to the β-2-agonists used pharmaceutically as bronchodilators and is of considerable commercial interest. The chemical structure of the chiral α-aminoalcohol (R)-salbutamol is shown in formula I:

The methods of preparing (R)-salbutamol known in the art include the racemate cleaving of racemic salbutamol using di-toluyltartaric acid, e.g. according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,399,765. In addition, International Patent Application WO 95/29146 proposes the preparation of (R)-salbutamol starting from corresponding alpha-iminoketone by enantioselective reduction with boranes in the presence of a chiral oxaborazole catalyst.
However, the processes described in the art are not suitable for preparing (R)-salbutamol on an industrial scale as half the valuable starting product is lost during the racemate cleaving and large amounts of the oxaborazole catalyst, which is difficult to obtain, have to be used during the enantioselective reduction.
One of the primary objectives of the present invention is to develop a process by means of which (R)-salbutamol can be prepared with a high degree of optical and chemical purity. This is intended, for example, to minimise the danger of drugs which contain (R)-salbutamol as active substance being contaminated with the unwanted D-enantiomer.
Another aim of the invention is to develop a process by means of which (R)-salbutamol can easily be prepared in substantially enantiomerically pure form from starting materials which are easily obtained.
Another aim of the invention is to prepare (R)-salbutamol by means of a stereoselective process in order to avoid reaction steps in which chiral intermediate compounds or the chiral end product (R)-salbutamol is obtained as a racemate in a similar amount to the corresponding antipode.
Surprisingly it has now been found that (R)-salbutamol can be obtained on an industrial scale in very good yields and with good optical purity if salbutamone is subjected to asymmetric hydrogenation in the presence of rhodium and a chiral, bidentate phosphine ligand as catalyst system.

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG


A load abnormality detecting circuit for an inverter to detect abnormality of a load during an operation of the inverter which has a switching element and a phase synchronizing loop controlling an output frequency to be a resonance frequency of the load, the load abnormality detecting circuit includes a phase shift detection part that detects a phase shift between an output voltage and an output current which are applied from the inverter to the load and sends an abnormal load signal based on the detected phase shift. The switching element including a self-arc-extinguishing element and a reflux diode connected in reversely parallel to the self-arc-extinguishing element. The phase shift detection part detects advance and delay of a phase of the output current with respect to the output voltage.

An inverter apparatus is used as a power supply device that supplies AC power to a load. When power is supplied to the inverter apparatus, since it is possible to arbitrarily set a voltage value and a current value applied to the load, the power is supplied in accordance with the characteristics of the load and an amount of work to be required, so that there is no wastefulness in the supply of the power to the load and thus the supply of the power can be efficiently performed.
As an example of the inverter apparatus, as illustrated in FIG. 7, there is known an inverter apparatus 1 including a rectification circuit 10 that converts three-phase AC power to DC power by a diode 11 and a smoothing capacitor 12, a constant voltage circuit 20 that shapes an output voltage of the rectification circuit 10 to a predetermined voltage, an inverter circuit 30 that converts a DC voltage from the constant voltage circuit 20 to AC power, and a phase synchronizing loop circuit (hereinafter, abbreviated as a "PLL circuit") 40 that controls a frequency of the AC power output from the inverter circuit 30 to be a resonance frequency of a load 2. The inverter apparatus 1 is a voltage type inverter apparatus that generates the AC power having a high frequency regardable as a high frequency and has small output impedance.
The constant voltage circuit 20 is a chopper type constant voltage circuit that stably supplies a predetermined DC voltage to an output side even though there are variations in a load or an input voltage. The constant voltage circuit 20 is provided with a MOSFET 21 for power control, which is a switching element serving as a chopper body, a reactor 22 and a capacitor 23 for voltage and current smoothing, and a free-wheeling diode 24 serving as a load current path when the MOSFET 21 is turned off. The constant voltage circuit 20 can adjust an output voltage by changing a width of an ON time of a periodic signal applied to a gate of the MOSFET 21.
The inverter circuit 30 is provided with MOSFETs 31 for frequency control, which are switching elements connected in a bridge shape. A diode 32 is connected in parallel to each of the MOSFETs 31 to return a lagging current component to a DC circuit in the case of an inductive load or to reflux the lagging current component in a bridge. Furthermore, the inverter circuit 30 is provided with a current transformer 33 and a transformer 34 which are connected to the load 2 including an inductor L and a capacitor C in order to detect a current I1 and a voltage V1 to the load 2.
The PLL circuit 40 is provided with a phase comparison circuit 41 that detects phase shift of the current I1 and the voltage V1 to the load 2, an analog adder/subtractor 42 that adds/subtracts a preset frequency setting value in order to match the phase shift of the current I1 and the voltage V1 detected by the phase comparison circuit 41, a voltage controlled oscillator 43 that outputs a signal having a frequency corresponding to a voltage output from the analog adder/subtractor 42, and a gate signal control circuit 44 that sequentially sends signals to gates A to D of the MOSFETs 31 of the inverter circuit 30 in accordance with the frequency of the signal output from the voltage controlled oscillator 43.
According to such an inverter apparatus 1, the AC power having a high frequency regardable as a high frequency can be generated, so that it can be used in high frequency hardening of a steel material and the like. In addition, since the output frequency is controlled to match the phase shift of the current I1 and the voltage V1 to the load 2, the output power frequency coincides with the resonance frequency of the load 2 including the inductor L and the capacitor C, so that it is possible to efficiently operate the load 2.
During the operation of the inverter apparatus 1, when there occurs abnormality such as short-circuit and opening of a part of the load 2-side circuit, since the impedance of the load 2 is rapidly changed, the resonance frequency is greatly varied. Then, since the PLL circuit 40 of the inverter apparatus 1 controls the output frequency to follow at the resonance frequency of the load 2, a large current or voltage may be instantaneously generated in a transient state of control and thus the MOSFETs 31 may be broken. Particularly, when the phase of the current I1 advances with respect to the phase of the voltage V1 due to the change in the impedance of the load 2, a relatively large surge voltage is generated, resulting in a problem that the MOSFETs 31 is easily broken by the surge voltage. Therefore, from the standpoint of ensuring a margin for the advance of the phase of the current I1, the inverter apparatus 1 is operated in a state in which the phase of the current I1 is slightly delayed for the phase of the voltage V1. Furthermore, there is also known that the advance of the phase of the current I1 with respect to the voltage V1 is detected to reinforce the protection of the MOSFETs 31, in the related art.
A load abnormality detecting circuit for an inverter of the related art is added to the aforementioned inverter apparatus 1, detects the phase shift of the voltage V1 and the current I1 output from the inverter apparatus 1 to the load 2, and sends an abnormal load signal based on the phase shift. The load abnormality detecting circuit receives the current I1 and the voltage V1 respectively obtained from the current transformer 33 and the transformer 34 connected to the PLL circuit 40. Then, the load abnormality detecting circuit shapes the input current I1 and voltage V1 to predetermined square waves and compares the waveforms of the current I1 and of the voltage V1 with each other (see, for example, the patent document 1: JP-B2-3652098).
When there occurs abnormality in which inductance of the load resonant circuit is reduced and the resonance frequency of the load 2 is shifted from an operating frequency of the inverter apparatus 1, since the resonance circuit of the load 2 serves as a capacitive load, the phase of the current I1 advances with respect to the phase of the voltage V1. In this case, the load abnormality detecting circuit turns off all gate signals of the MOSFETs 31 of the inverter circuit 30 and also turns off the MOSFET 21 used in the chopper type constant voltage circuit 20, thereby preventing inflow of a current from an input side. In this way, the supply of power to the load 2 is stopped and the MOSFETs 31 are protected.
[Patent Document 1] JP-B2-3652098
According to the load abnormality detecting circuit for the inverter of the related art, the advance of the phase of the current I1 with respect to the voltage V1 is detected, but delay of the phase of the current I1 with respect to the voltage V1 is not detected. When there occurs the delay of the phase of the current I1 with respect to the voltage V1, a lagging current component of the current I1 flows through the diode 32 connected in parallel to the MOSFET 31. Similarly, when there occurs the advance of the phase of the current I1 with respect to the voltage V1, a leading current component of the current I1 flows through the diode 32. On the other hand, when the phases of the current I1 and the voltage V1 coincide with each other, the current I1 does not flow through the diode 32. The adjustment of the phases of the current I1 and the voltage V1, which is performed by the PLL circuit 40, can also be referred to as adjustment regarding whether to allow the current I1 to flow the MOSFET 31 or the diode 32.
Since the phase shift of the current I1 and the voltage V1 causes an increase in the lagging current component or the leading current component of the current I1 flowing through the diode 32, loss due to the diode 32 may be increased. When the diode 32, for example, is incorporated in the MOSFET 31, the MOSFET 31 generates heat as the loss due to the diode 32 increases, whereby the MOSFET 31 may be broken due to a thermal factor.

Load abnormality detecting circuit for inverter and inverter apparatus


A set of workload criteria is determined from a workload associated with a plurality of sources. The workload is divided among a set of workload groups according to the set of workload criteria and a first workload scheduler. A set of edge computing resources is assigned to each workload group within the set according to the set of workload criteria and the set of workload groups. A portion of the workload associated with a subset of the plurality of sources is handled by a first subset of edge computing resources and a second workload scheduler, where the subset of sources is associated with a first workload group. The handling includes balancing, by the second workload scheduler, the portion of the workload among the subset of sources. The handled workload is reported to a control center.

The present disclosure relates generally to the field of workload management, and more particularly to balancing edge computing workloads.
Edge computing is gaining increasing popularity as it provides local resources with low latency for cloud computing environments. The "edge" of the cloud may be cloud computing resources that are located as close as possible to the client devices accessing the cloud computing resources. Shortening the physical distance between the client devices and the cloud can provide low latency and greater efficiency.

International Business Machines Corporation


A library of material samples is screened for properties such as permeability. A library of material samples is provided. A stimulus such as an exposure to a permeate fluid is provided to each member of the library. A response of each of the material samples due to the stimulus is measured and the response, the stimulus or both are recorded and related to provide data. Thereafter, the data is analyzed to reach conclusions regarding the properties of the material samples.

Currently, there is substantial research activity directed toward the discovery and optimization of polymeric and other materials for a wide range of applications. Although the chemistry of many materials reactions has been extensively studied, nonetheless, it is rarely possible to predict a priori the physical or chemical properties a particular material will possess or the precise composition and architecture that will result from any particular synthesis scheme. Thus, techniques to determine such properties are an essential part of the discovery process.
Combinatorial chemistry refers generally to methods for synthesizing a collection of chemically diverse materials and to methods for rapidly testing or screening this collection of materials for desirable performance characteristics and properties. Combinatorial chemistry approaches have greatly improved the efficiency of discovery of useful materials. For example, material scientists have developed and applied combinatorial chemistry approaches to discover a variety of novel materials, including for example, high temperature superconductors, magnetoresistors, phosphors and catalysts. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,776,359 to Schultz et al. In comparison to traditional materials science research, combinatorial materials research can effectively evaluate much larger numbers of diverse compounds in a much shorter period of time. Although such high-throughput synthesis and screening methodologies are conceptually promising, substantial technical challenges exist for application thereof to specific research and commercial goals.
The characterization of polymers or other materials using combinatorial methods has only recently become known. Examples of such technology are disclosed, for example, in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 6,182,499 (McFarland et al); U.S. Pat. No. 6,175,409 B1 (Nielsen et al); U.S. Pat. No. 6,157,449 (Hajduk et al); U.S. Pat. No. 6,151,123 (Nielsen); U.S. Pat. No. 6,034,775 (McFarland et al); U.S. Pat. No. 5,959,297 (Weinberg et al), all of which are hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein.
Of particular interest to the present invention are combinatorial methods and apparatuses for synthesizing or otherwise providing polymers and other materials followed by screening of those materials for characteristics such as permeability. Synthesis and screening of the materials for properties presents a multitude of challenges. As an example, conventional instruments and other apparatuses lack the ability to screen properties of several materials in rapid succession, in parallel, on a single substrate or a combination thereof. Thus, challenges are presented for building systems that can quickly process and test (either in parallel or in serial succession) mechanical properties of many materials. Additionally, challenges are presented for forming, processing or otherwise treating materials so that the materials are in appropriate condition for high throughput screening of properties.
Additional challenges are presented for rapidly measuring permeability of samples. Particularly, for relatively small samples it is difficult to design equipment that can properly support the relatively small samples. It can also be difficult to create instruments that will expose relatively small samples to permeation fluids (i.e., fluids that will permeate through a sample) in a consistent manner. Moreover, samples such as polymer films and other films, may experience internal conditions such as saturation, which can present challenges for creating instruments and methods that can provide comparable results for samples of different compositions or thicknesses.

High throughput permeability testing of materials libraries


A variable vane arrangement (36) for a compressor (26) of a gas turbine engine (10) comprises a plurality of circumferentially arranged vanes (38), a plurality of operating levers (64) and a control ring (66). Each vane (38) is pivotally mounted to a casing (30) of the compressor (26). Each operating lever (64) is pivotally mounted at a first end (68) to the control ring (66) and is mounted at second end (70) to a respective one of the vanes (38). The second end (70) of each operating lever (64) comprises a multi-sided aperture (72) and each vane (38) has a multi-sided spindle (60) which locates in the multi-sided aperture (72) of the respective operating lever (64). Each operating lever (64) has a drive member (74) located in the multi-sided aperture (72) and around the multi-sided spindle (60) of the respective vane (38). Each drive member (74) engages the respective multi-sided aperture (72) and the respective multi-sided spindle (60) to transmit drive from the operating lever (64) to the vane (38).

A variable vane arrangement for a turbomachine, as disclosed in our UK patent application GB2339244A, comprises a plurality of circumferentially arranged vanes, a plurality of operating levers and a control ring. Each vane comprises an upstream portion secured to a casing and a movable downstream portion pivotally mounted to the casing of the turbomachine. Each operating lever is pivotally mounted at a first end to the control ring and each operating lever is mounted at second end to a spindle of the movable downstream portion of a respective one of the vanes. Rotation of the control ring causes the levers to adjust the angular position of the movable downstream portions of the vanes.
In this variable vane arrangement the movable downstream portions of the vanes are pivotally mounted about an axis adjacent the upstream ends of the movable downstream portions and downstream of the downstream ends of the fixed upstream portions of the vanes.
Current designs of variable vane arrangements use expensive and difficult to produce drive features between the operating levers and the spindles of the vanes. The drive features may comprise highly toleranced flat surfaces, which require intricate removal tooling and which may damage the lever and spindle on removal. If a clearance is provided to enable easier fitting and removal, there is an increase in the possibility of errors in the angular position of the vanes. During build of the variable vane arrangement it is difficult to both load the variable vane and maintain it in position while attempting to fit the highly accurate drive features.

Variable vane arrangement for a turbomachine


Methods and systems for providing lime information in intermittently powered devices that are batteryless and operate purely on harvested energy (also referred to as zero power devices). The method of these teachings for improving security of zero power devices includes determining an estimate of time using a decay of data in a volatile device, and deciding whether to respond to a query based on the estimate of time.

Thanks to improvements in energy harvesting technology and low-power microcontrollers, tiny sensor devices can now be built that can be deployed indefinitely with little or no required maintenance. This rising generation of devices includes RPID-scale batteryless computers that rely entirely on RF or solar energy harvested from the environment, and can be deployed in many locations that are poorly suited to traditional battery-powered devices (e.g. embedded in permanent structures and building materials and implanted in living tissues). Batteryless devices can be made smaller, cheaper, lower maintenance, and more environmentally friendly than battery-based systems; however, they also face a variety of challenges. Often these devices store only enough energy for a few seconds of operation in a tiny capacitor. Tighter energy budgets mean increased power-supply volatility and power failures as the common case instead of a rare exception. In this environment, small changes in system behavior can easily make the difference between success and failure.
A small number of systems have been designed to improve the robustness of these RFID-scale devices: using checkpointing to extend computations across failures (Mementos), and better scheduling to improve the probability that a task will complete successfully. However, time remains a significant challenge. Many sensing tasks and security-related computations are useful, only if the device has a sense of time.
Powering a real-time-clock (RTC) on such light energy budgets is often not feasible, and frequent power failures of varying duration make approximate time-estimation difficult. Requiring an external device (e.g. a RFID tag reader) to act as a time source introduces security problems and may either require significant infrastructure or severely limit range and mobility.
Providing steady power to an RFID-scale device is often an unrealistic expectation; however, a device may be able to harvest enough power to supply a low-power real-time clock (RTC).
A device using a RTC may achieve greater accuracy, but it would also require either special switching circuitry to preserve sufficient energy for the clock. In either case, the benefits of a RTC come at the cost of increased complexity, cost, and power consumption—all of which are at a premium in these tiny sensors,
There is a need for methods and systems for providing time information in intermittently-powered devices that are batteryless and operate purely on harvested energy.

Methods and systems for improving security in zero-power devices


The present invention relates to pharmaceutical compositions and dietary supplement comprising yeast cells that can produce a healthful benefit in a subject inflicted with stomach cancer. The biological compositions can be used to retard the growth of stomach cancer cells and/or prolonging the time of survival of the subject. The invention also relates to methods for manufacturing the biological compositions.

2.1 Stomach Cancer
Stomach cancer, otherwise known as gastric cancer, is malignancy of the stomach. It occurs most frequently in people between 50 and 70 years of age and is predominantly a disease of men rather than women (1.7:1 ratio). Stomach cancer is relatively common cause of death in Japan, Chile and Iceland, where the death rate is about five times that in the United States (Correa, 1988, Can Res. 48:3554–60). A United Nation estimate of cancer incidence in 24 world areas in 1980 showed that stomach cancer was the most common cancer when combined data (incidences in both men and women) were reviewed (Parkin et al., 1988, Intl J Can. 41:184–197). Despite the continued decrease in incidence of stomach cancer in the United States, it was estimated that there were about 24,000 new cases in 1994 and approximately 14,000 deaths. Studies propose that the decreased incidence may be related to decreased intake of salted, cured and smoked foods, and the increase of vitamin C intake.
Other risk factors for stomach cancer are family history of gastric cancer, risk factors for stomach cancer are family history of gastric cancer, blood type group A, history of pernicious anemia, history of chronic atrophic gastritis, condition of decreased gastric acid, history of adenomatous gastric polyp, and partial gastrectomy. Helicobacter pylori infection also is clearly associated with stomach cancer (Parsonnet et al., 1991, J Natl Can Inst. 83:640–43). For no apparent reason, the incidence of stomach cancer appears to be greater in countries farther from the equator. Also, in most countries, people of lower socioeconomic class tend to develop the disease more frequently than upper classes.
One of the most difficult aspects of the diagnosis of stomach cancer is the nonspecific nature of the symptoms such as loss of appetite, difficulty in swallowing, vague fullness, vomiting blood, abdominal pain, belching, breath odor, excessive gas and flatus, heartburn, weight loss, and a decline in general health. These symptoms often overlap with classic peptic ulcer disease, making diagnosis challenging. Further, most of these symptoms can be either manifestations of local or distant extensions of the neoplasm or simply attributed to other noncancerous diseases in the upper abdomen. Thus, CBC, biopsy and invasive procedures including upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy, upper GI radiographic examination are usually used to examine suspected patients.
There is a wide variation in prognosis of gastric tumors. Tumors in the distal stomach are more often cured than those in the gastric cardiac or gastroesophageal junction. The depth to which the tumor invades the stomach wall and whether lymph nodes are involved influence the likelihood of cure. In circumstances in which the tumor has spread outside of the stomach, cure is not possible and treatment is directed towards improvement of symptoms.
The World Health Organization has histopathologically classified stomach cancer into ten major groups: (1) adenocarcinoma (M81403), (2) papillary adenocarcinoma (M82603), (3) tubular adenocarcinoma (M82113), (4) mucinous adenocarcinoma (M84803), (5) signet ring cell carcinoma (M84903), (6) adenosquamous carcinoma (M85603), (7) carcinoid tumor (M82403), (8) mixed carcinoid-adenocarcinoma (M82443), (9) small cell carcinoma (M80413) and undifferentiated carcinoma (M80203). (Murphy, Table 17-1). Adenocarcinoma is by far the most common stomach cancer followed by malignant lymphoma, which accounts for 8% of all tumors.
The staging of stomach cancer is based on the revised criteria of TNM staging by the American Joint Committee for Cancer (AJCC) published in 1988. Staging is the process of describing the extent to which cancer has spread from the site of its origin. It is used to assess a patient's prognosis and to determine the choice of therapy. The stage of a cancer is determined by the size and location in the body of the primary tumor, and whether it has spread to other areas of the body. Staging involves using the letters T, N and M to assess tumors by the size of the primary tumor (T); the degree to which regional lymph nodes (N) are involved; and the absence or presence of distant metastases (M)—cancer that has spread from the original (primary) tumor to distant organs or distant lymph nodes. Each of these categories is further classified with a number 1 through 4 to give the total stage. Once the T, N and M are determined, a "stage" of I, II, III or IV is assigned. Stage I cancers are small, localized and usually curable. Stage II and III cancers typically are locally advanced and/or have spread to local lymph nodes. Stage IV cancers usually are metastatic (have spread to distant parts of the body) and generally are considered inoperable.
Today, surgery on the stomach (gastrectomy) remains the only curative treatment and continues to be the major approach for palliation. The major options for surgical restriction of stomach cancer are distal subtotal gastric resection, proximal subtotal resection, or total gastrectomy. Restoration of continuity of the alimentary tract is achieved by anastomosis of the small intestine to the gastric remnant (gastroenterostomy), distal stomach to the esophagus (esophagogastrostomy) or small intestine to esophagus (esophagojejunostomy), with or without a jejunal reservoir. Despite major improvements over the years in both surgery and postsurgical management, overall survival rates remain quite low for all but those with early stomach cancer (Adashek et al., 1979, Ann Surg. 189:6–10). For patients in whom surgery is not an option, chemotherapy or radiation can improve symptoms.
A significant number of patients (60%) have unfavorable findings at the time of celiotomy, such as serosal implants, liver or ovarian metastasis, or metastasis seen in lymph nodes outside the limits of a radical en bloc resection. Palliative resection of stomach cancer is always the preferred procedure in those circumstances and seems to prolong survival. However, palliative nonresectional procedures, such as gastrojejunostomy, gastrostomy, or jejunostomy rarely alleviate symptoms or prolong life expectancy.
The use of radiation therapy as a single modality in the definitive treatment of stomach cancer has met with little success despite efforts to increase the total dose to the tumor and reduce the amount of irradiated normal tissue. Radiation therapy is rarely helpful in patients with stomach cancer that is unsuitable for resection, as the usual reason for nonresectability is the lack of anatomic localization of the cancer. Radiation therapy is sometimes used to relieve localized obstruction, particularly in the region of the cardia, and for patients with chronically bleeding cancers that cannot be resected. The median survival for patients treated with radiation is around 12 months, and long-term survivors are few (Beatty et al., 1979, Cancer 43:2254–67; Newaishy et al., 1982, Clin Radiol. 33:347–352; Schuchman et al., 1980, J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 79:67–73).
Many chemotherapeutic drugs have been tried in the past as single agents for the palliation of stomach cancer, but the results were generally disappointing. Nevertheless, the role of chemotherapy in the management of stomach cancer is continually evolving. Oftentimes, chemotherapy with radiation in adjunct to surgery is used. In general, chemotherapy can achieve long-term survival rates of up to 15% to 20%, even in patients with recurrent or metastatic disease (Ali et al., 2000, Oncology 14(8):1223–30). Unfortunately, the high initial response rates to first line chemotherapy does not appear to translate into a survival benefit (Kohno and Kitahara, 2001, Gan To Kagaku Ryoho 28(4):448–53). Moreover, there are many undesirable side effects associated with chemotherapy such as temporary hair loss, mouth sores, anemia (decreased numbers of red blood cells that may cause fatigue, dizziness, and shortness of breath), leukopenia (decreased numbers of white blood cells that may lower resistance to infection), thrombocytopenia (decreased numbers of platelets that may lead to easy bleeding or bruising), and gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Active chemotherapeutic agents include hydroxyurea, 5-fluorouracil, alfa-2a Interferon, doxorubicin, mitomycin C, cisplatin, etoposide, methotrexate, leucovorin and epirubicin.
The identification of active chemotherapeutic agents against cancers traditionally involved the use of various animal models of cancer. The mouse has been one of the most informative and productive experimental system for studying carcinogenesis (Sills et al., 2001, Toxicol Letters 120:187–198), cancer therapy (Malkinson, 2001, Lung Cancer 32(3):265–279; Hoffman R M., 1999, Invest New Drugs 17(4):343–359), and cancer chemoprevention (Yun, 1999, Annals NY Acad Sci. 889:157–192). Cancer research started with transplanted tumors in animals which provided reproducible and controllable materials for investigation. Pieces of primary animal tumors, cell suspensions made from these tumors, and immortal cell lines established from these tumor cells propagate when transplanted to animals of the same species.
To transplant human cancer to an animal and to prevent its destruction by rejection, the immune system of the animal are compromised. While originally accomplished by irradiation, thymectomy, and application of steroids to eliminate acquired immunity, nude mice that are athymic congenitally have been used as recipients of a variety of human tumors (Rygaard, 1983, in 13th International Cancer Congress Part C, Biology of Cancer (2), pp 37–44, Alan R. Liss, Inc., NY; Fergusson and Smith, 1987, Thorax, 42:753–758). While the athymic nude mouse model provides useful models to study a large number of human tumors in vivo, it does not develop spontaneous metastases and are not suitable for all types of tumors. Next, the severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice is developed in which the acquired immune system is completely disabled by a genetic mutation. Human lung cancer was first used to demonstrate the successful engraftment of a human cancer in the SCID mouse model (Reddy S., 1987, Cancer Res. 47(9):2456–2460). Subsequently, the SCID mouse model have been shown to allow disseminated metastatic growths for a number of human tumors, particularly hematologic disorders and malignant melanoma (Mueller and Reisfeld, 1991, Cancer Metastasis Rev. 10(3):193–200; Bankert et al., 2001, Trends Immunol. 22:386–393). With the recent advent of transgenic technology, the mouse genome has become the primary mammalian genetic model for the study of cancer (Resor et al., 2001, Human Molec Genet. 10:669–675).
While surgery, chemotherapeutic agents, hormone therapy, and radiation are useful in the treatment of stomach cancer, there is a continued need to find better treatment modalities and approaches to manage the disease that are more effective and less toxic, especially when clinical oncologists are giving increased attention to the quality of life of cancer patients. The present invention provides an alternative approach to cancer therapy and management of the disease by using an oral composition comprising yeasts.
2.2 Yeast-Based Compositions
Yeasts and components thereof have been developed to be used as dietary supplement or pharmaceuticals. However, none of the prior methods uses yeast cells which have been cultured in an electromagnetic field to produce a product that has an anti-cancer effect. The following are some examples of prior uses of yeast cells and components thereof:
U.S. Pat. No. 6,197,295 discloses a selenium-enriched dried yeast product which can be used as dietary supplement. The yeast strain Saccharomyces boulardii sequela PY 31 (ATCC 74366) is cultured in the presence of selenium salts and contains 300 to about 6,000 ppm intracellular selenium. Methods for reducing tumor cell growth by administration of the selenium yeast product in combination with chemotherapeutic agents is also disclosed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,143,731 discloses a dietary additive containing whole β-glucans derived from yeast, which when administered to animals and humans, provide a source of fiber in the diet, a fecal bulking agent, a source of short chain fatty acids, reduce cholesterol and LDL, and raises HDL levels.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,504,079 discloses a method of stimulating an immune response in a subject utilizing modified yeast glucans which have enhanced immunobiologic activity. The modified glucans are prepared from the cell wall of Saccharomyces yeasts, and can be administered in a variety of routes including, for example, the oral, intravenous, subcutaneous, topical, and intranasal route.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,348,483 discloses a process for preparing a chromium yeast product which has a high intracellular chromium content. The process comprises allowing the yeast cells to absorb chromium under a controlled acidic pH and, thereafter inducing the yeast cells to grow by adding nutrients. The yeast cells are dried and used as a dietary supplement.
Citation of documents herein is not intended as an admission that any of the documents cited herein is pertinent prior art, or an admission that the cited documents are considered material to the patentability of the claims of the present application. All statements as to the date or representations as to the contents of these documents are based on the information available to the applicant and does not constitute any admission as to the correctness of the dates or contents of these documents.

Method to prepare compositions comprising yeast treated with electromagnetic energy


A container system is provided for removing a needle portion from a needle holder of a needle system. The system includes a receptacle defining an opening, a lid configured to cover the receptacle opening, wherein the lid defines an aperture having a shape configured to receive a needle system having a first configuration. The system also includes an adapter configured for engagement in the lid aperture, wherein the adapter defines an aperture having a shape configured to receive a needle system having a second configuration, and wherein the engagement of the adapter in the lid aperture resists rotation of the adapter with respect to the lid.

Due to concerns regarding contamination and injury, it is desirable to have a safe and simple method of disposing used medical needles (e.g. syringes, sharps). Emphasis has been placed on designing containers (e.g. phlebotomy disposal containers) that isolate the previously disposed needles from the medical professional that uses the container. Further, efforts have been made to provide a disposal container which a medical professional can operate easily and conveniently.
A typical needle disposal system is illustrated in FIG. 1 and is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,322,164 issued to Richardson et al., which is incorporated herein by reference for its teachings related to needle disposal systems. The disposal container 2 shown in FIG. 1 includes a container body 4 and a lid 6. The lid 6 includes a skirt 8 which may be used to engage a top flange of container body 4 (not shown).
It is desirable to insert a used needle through an opening in the lid so that the used needle may be dropped into the container body 4 through the opening. Accordingly, lid 6 includes a first aperture 10 and a second aperture 12. Aperture 10 may be covered by a pivotal closure 14, and aperture 12 may be covered by a pivotal closure 16. Pivotal closures 14 and 16 may be joined by a bridge 18 so that they may be operated in tandem. Aperture 10 is sized larger than aperture 12. With pivotal closure 14 open, medical waste that fits through aperture 10 is simply deposited through aperture 10 and drops into container body 4.
Aperture 12 is specifically sized to receive a needle system 19, which is also illustrated in FIG. 1 and described by Richardson et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,322,164. Needle system 19 includes a needle holder 22 and a needle 26. Needle holder 22 includes a lower opening (not shown) that receives and retains needle 26. In order to retain the needle 26 using the lower opening, needle holder 22 includes two spring loaded side locks 24. When side locks 24 are depressed inwardly, the lower opening expands. When side locks 24 are not depressed inwardly, as shown in FIG. 1, the lower opening is in a retracted position. When the lower opening (not shown) is in the expanded position, needle 26 separates from needle holder 22. When the lower opening is in the retracted position, needle 26 is retained by needle holder 22. Aperture 12 includes tapered sides (not shown) which receive a lower portion of the outer wall 23 of needle holder 22. As needle 26 is guided into aperture 12, the tapered sides (not shown) contact and depress side locks 24, so that the lower opening expands and needle 26 is separated from needle holder 22. Needle 26 drops into container body 4, and needle holder 22 is retained or discarded in an appropriate manner.
Lid 6 also defines needle detaching device 20 adjacent to aperture 12. Needle detaching device 20 may be used to unscrew needles which are threaded to a needle holder.
While the disposal system illustrated in FIG. 1 provides an effective disposal system for certain medical waste, it does not efficiently accommodate every type of needle system in use. Particularly, many unwinding type needle systems can not be unwound and discarded by using the system illustrated in FIG. 1. An unwinding type needle system typically includes a needle and a needle holder, often threaded together. In order to dispose of a needle of an unwinding type needle system, the needle is preferably unwound from the needle holder so that the needle may drop into an accompanying disposal container.
Aperture 12 is not configured to unwind a needle from every configuration of needle holder. For example, while needle detaching device 20 may be used to unwind some types of needles from some types of needle holders, it can not accommodate every type of needle system which requires unwinding for disposal.
As such, medical professionals are often forced to choose one needle system and a corresponding disposal system over another type of system, or alternatively medical professionals stock numerous types of needle systems and disposal systems (resulting in higher costs). Accordingly, there remains a need for a disposal system that can accommodate more than one type of needle holder system.

Apparatus and method for unwinding a needle portion


The present invention is a method for providing the consumption of a set amount of memory within a set amount of time in a server network in order to properly display the capabilities of running multiple applications proprietary suite of tools with the intention of being able to predictably trigger recovery events, and to discover when an application is “over-consuming” memory.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention provides a mechanism that arbitrarily consumes RAM memory on an associated server in a measurable and demonstration-friendly way.
2. Description of Related Art
A need arose to properly display the capabilities of the Unisys Server Sentinel suite of tools from the desire to be able to predictably trigger recovery events in a cluster load balancer environment. This need arose because it was necessary to create an application that would consume a pre-determined amount of memory at a pre-determined rate. Without this invention, it would be necessary to simply wait for a memory problem to occur. This may or may not ever happen naturally. Essentially, there was a need to be able to trigger events at any given moment, with a great deal of precision. During the rollout of the Unisys Dylan system, marketing wanted to be able to demonstrate the features included in a solution named "Application Sentinel". One of the features of application Sentinel is its ability to detect "rogue applications". These are applications that are consuming too many resources (such as memory or CPU time). When Application Sentinel sees a rogue application, it shuts it down and restores the monopolized resources to the system. The present invention simulates the conditions created by a rogue application, thus allowing the components of Application Sentinel to be demonstrated. A similar scenario can be concocted to explain the use of this invention in testing of development scenarios. If it is required that a rogue application be simulated to test the correctness of a software, this invention can also be used.
The Unisys ES7000 server is an Intel and Windows-based, partitionable, vertically scalable machine. The Unisys ES7000 server has proven ideal for general-purpose Windows server use for business intelligence and other applications, mission-critical data center use employing Windows Datacenter software, high availability and scalable clusters, server consolidation, disaster recovery, and more.
The solution for this problem (of finding applications consuming too many resources) began with creating a video playback mechanism. The reason video playback was incorporated was because the memory consumption application was intended to emulate a generic application that had "Gone rogue" and which was consuming memory rapidly. By including a video component, it was believed that the people viewing a demo, that included this technology, would, not only be visually pleasing, but also intuitively plausible as revealing a "memory consumer". Another way that the present invention is helpful is that it allows a user to simulate the persistence of a program state. "Program state" is the condition that a piece of software is in at any given time.
For example, a program could be open, with three particular files open within it. That is one state. If a user closed one file within the program, this would represent a different state. In general, programs have an infinite variety of states they can be in. When a computer program experiences an error and is forced to close down by either the operating system or another program, the program state is often lost. For example, if you are using a word processing program and do not save your work, a power outage will cause all of your work to be lost. Your word processor did not "persist" the program state.
The present invention simulates how a "program state" can be persisted in a crisis situation. If the software is closed by another piece of software, it can then be re-launched with the original program state still intact. By "original program state", it is meant to show the state that the program was in, immediately before it was forcefully shut down. Within the application, API calls were made that would arbitrarily consume memory at intervals determined by the user. The memory that is consumed is located in what is called the "heap". This is the place that dynamically created objects reside. Physically, this is RAM that is located on the motherboard of the computer in question. The user is empowered to not only chose the speed at which memory is consumed, but one can also set the amount of memory (in bytes) that is to be consumed at each interval of time. This allows an operator (with some experimentation) to predict the exact moment at which a memory threshold will be reached, which will cause a failover reaction.
This invention is useful because it allows an individual to manually trigger the execution of Unisys products contained in different software packages. In typical data center environments, it would be difficult to demonstrate some of the functionality of other Unisys software which typically would lay dormant until a catastrophe has arisen. This present software creates a catastrophe that other software responds to. By manufacturing a crisis, Unisys sales people and employees have the opportunity to display the capabilities of operating software, and to test them.

Method for predictably feeding and consuming RAM memory to recognize over-consumption of resources


Disclosed is a two-layer switched-current type of a Hamming neural network system. This Hamming network system includes a matching rate computation circuit for modules on a first layer used to compute a matching rate between a to-be-identified pattern and each one of a plurality of standard patterns, a matching rate comparison circuit on a second layer for ranking an order of the matching rates including a switched-current type order-ranking circuit for receiving switched-current signals, finding a maximum value and outputting a time-division order-ranking output and an identification-rejection judgment circuit for performing an absolute and a relative judgment, and a pulse-generating circuit for generating sequential clock pulses, in which the circuit construction of the Hamming network is simple and flexible due to a modular design with extendible circuit dimensions, and a high precision, improved performance and enhanced reliability of the network system is achieved. In addition, the Hamming network can be easily integrated in a mixed analog/digital form due to a direct usage of a standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor device by using a switched-current technique.

1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a neural network system, and more particularly to a switched-current type of a Hamming neural network system for pattern recognition with an improved performance and increased reliability for the Hamming neural network system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, an artificial neural network has become a fashionable and popular research topic. The neural network theory is thought to be the way with the highest potential for solving many artificial intelligence problems. However, because a software neural network can not satisfy many applications requiring a real-time processing, a design of a very large scale integrated circuit (VLSI) neural network has become an important research approach.
Due to a high connection density among neurons in many neural networks and a requirement of connection priority values to be flexibly controlled, it is difficult to construct a network including a larger number of neurons by using a VLSI technique. The construction of a Hamming neural network is simple and the value implying the connection priority can be set in advance and then applied to the VLSI circuit in the network in many applications. Therefore, the Hamming neural network has become an essential construction in the integrated circuit neural networks.
In pattern recognition applications, a typical Hamming neural network is of a two-layer construction. A circuit for computing a matching rate between a to-be-identified pattern and a standard pattern is formed on the first layer and a circuit for finding a maximum network, that is, a Winner-Take-All (WTA) network which is used to find a corresponding standard pattern having a maximum matching rate and outputting it as a result is formed on the second layer. Although this typical Hamming neural network is easily constructed, it can only find out the standard pattern which is the one that is most matchable with the to-be-identified pattern. However, with the raising in the complexity of the system, the increasing in the number of the standard patterns, and especially the development of a stage-connected system with multiple stages, this is far from satisfying the performance requirement of the system. To raise the performance of the system, it is very necessary to find two or more standard patterns which are most closely matchable with the to-be-identified pattern based on the matching rates between the standard patterns and the to-be-identified pattern. Therefore, a new developed switched-current Hamming neural network is set forth hereinafter, in which the matching rates can be outputted according to their ranks from high to low and the corresponding standard patterns. Thus, m standard patterns which are the most and more closely matchable with the to-be-identified pattern can be found sequentially where 1.ltoreq.m.ltoreq.N. This will greatly improve the system performances such as the increase of the identification rate, the data reprocessing and reuse of the multi-stage stage-connected system.
Generally, a threshold value is taken for increasing the reliability of the system. This threshold value is a threshold value set in a decision-made phase of the system and is divided into an absolute threshold value and a relative threshold value. Two different threshold values correspond to two identification-rejection (IR) methods which are an absolute IR method and a relative IR method. The absolute IR method indicates that the system produces an IR signal if the maximum matching rate is less than the absolute threshold value, and the relative IR method specifies that the system generates an IR signal when a difference value between the maximum matching rate and a second maximum matching rate is less than the relative threshold value. Since the typical Hamming neural network can only perform a maximum-finding operation, it can merely carry out an absolute IR judgment but can not make a relative IR judgment. However, performing the relative IR judgment in many practical applications will more greatly increase the reliability of the system than that of the absolute IR judgment. Thus, the present invention discloses an IR circuit which has a simple construction and a good performance and makes both the absolute IR and the relative IR judgments.

Switched-current type of hamming neural network system for pattern recognition


The invention is an improved jack having a safety device for preventing the jack from collapsing under a heavy load. The improved jack includes a linkage movable from a lowered position to an elevated position for engaging and elevating a load, an actuating mechanism connected to the linkage for moving the linkage toward the elevated position upon actuation of the actuating means, and the safety device blocking mechanism for blocking movement of the linkage from the elevated position to the lowered position. The linkage is supported and disposed for pivotal movement between two side plates. The blocking mechanism provides an abutment across the two side plates to limit the movement of linkage. The blocking mechanism features a block fixed to the linkage. The block has horizontal bores passing therethrough. A lock rod is inserted through the horizontal bores to provide an abutment across the two side plates when the linkage is elevated, thereby preventing the linkage from unintentionally lowering.

The present invention is related to a car jack safety, and more particularly to an improved car jack having a safety device which can prevent unintentional lowering of the jack when it is supporting a heavy load, for example. More specifically, the present invention is related to an improved full-size hydraulic floor jack. However, the safety device according to the present invention can be used in other jacks, such as manual jacks and more compact frame-type jacks.
All types of conventional car jacks have a common disadvantage that they cannot prevent an unintentional lowering of the jack when supporting a lifted load. This is particularly true for a hydraulic type jack since a hydraulic driving mechanism is less reliable than a threaded type driving mechanism.
An unintentional lowering of the jack is very dangerous to a person working underneath a lifted car for maintenance or repairs. Most often, fixed supports are supposed to be positioned in a supporting position under the lifted car, to avoid the danger caused by an unintentional lowering of the jack. However, sometimes this precaution is overlooked, due to additional expense of the fixed supports or a preference to used a stack of bricks or some other type of make-shift support. These supports can be unsecured and the potential for danger to a person under the lifter load is not prevented.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a new and improved safety device for a hydraulic jack.
It is another object of the invention to provide a hydraulic jack which has a safety device of simple construction which will prevent unintentional lowering of the jack.
It is another object of the invention to provide an safety mechanism which is easy to use and which ensures that the jack will not collapse.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a jack safety device which is clearly visible to an operator to ensure the safety device is in use when needed.


Provided is a portable audio equipment comprising: a neckband-shaped housing having one side open; a vibration unit including a plurality of vibration modules provided in at least two regions corresponding to both sides of the housing; and a control unit for sensing a control signal including information on a vibration pattern for each of the plurality of vibration modules and controlling the plurality of vibration modules to output the vibration pattern, wherein the vibration pattern is related to event information that is generated in an external terminal device.

Sound equipment refers to a sound device that receives sound signals from a terminal device and transmits sound information collected through a microphone to the terminal device. Conventionally, sound signals are received in a wired manner by plugging a terminal into an ear jack of the portable audio equipment. However, in view of mobility and user convenience, demand for portable audio equipment employing a wireless communication scheme is increasing.
Portable audio equipment designed in consideration of portability, such as headphone type equipment worn on a head in a band shape so as to be kept on a user's body, and ear-mount type equipment designed to be hung on ears, and ear-plug type equipment designed to be plugged into ears, is being developed.
Particularly, neckband-shaped portable audio equipment that can be hung around a user's neck is recently becoming popular. The neckband-shaped portable audio equipment allows the user to keep the earbuds in the portable audio equipment when it is not in use. In addition, it applies load to the user's shoulder or collarbone rather than to the user's ears or head. Accordingly, the neckband-shaped portable audio equipment is less burdensome.
Accordingly, the neckband-shaped portable audio equipment can hold a load up to a certain weight, and thus the battery capacity can be increased to a specific level.
In the present invention, a neckband-shaped portable audio equipment will be described in detail.
The neckband-shaped portable audio equipment may be provided with a vibration unit including a vibration module.
The vibration module refers to a minimum unit capable of generating vibration directly in the portable audio equipment and transmitting the vibration to a user. One vibration module may include one vibration motor.
Conventional neckband-shaped portable audio equipment generally has one vibration module.
In the case of the conventional neckband-shaped portable audio equipment, only whether to generate vibration and the period of generation of vibration can be controlled, and thus vibration patterns of distinguishable signal transmission techniques which can be transmitted to the user according to the control are limited.
The present invention discloses a neckband-shaped portable audio equipment having a plurality of vibration modules.
Particularly, with a neckband-shaped portable audio equipment that is open on one side, vibrations of vibration modules at a plurality of points can be distinguishably transmitted to the user, and thus more effects are expected.


A die assembly formed on a thin dielectric sheet is described. In one example, a first and a second die have interconnect areas. A dielectric sheet, such as glass, silicon, or oxidized metal is applied over the interconnect areas of dies. Conductive vias are formed in the dielectric sheet to connect with pads of the interconnect areas. A build-up layer includes routing to connect pads of the first die interconnect area to pads of the second die interconnect area through the conductive vias and a cover is applied over the dies, the dielectric sheet, and the build-up layer.

Microelectronic and micromechanical dies are often packaged to protect the die from an external environment and to provide connections to a PCB (printed circuit board), to a socket, to another package, or to some other interface. PCBs and sockets are typically made of a less expensive material that is not able to provide connections that are as close together as those of the die. A silicon or gallium arsenide die may have connection pads that are no more than 1 or 2 μm apart, while a PCB may have a structure that is able to provide connections that are no closer than 100 μm apart. The package typically has a substrate that connects the much closer connections of the die on one side and spreads them apart to form connections that are much farther apart on the other side.
Product architectures now contain several very different functions, such as CPU logic, graphics functions, cache memory, radio signaling, and other system functions to create integrated SOC (System on Chip) designs. The SOC tries to provide as many of these different functions as possible on a single chip. This lowers the product's design complexity and component count, simplifying manufacture, and reducing cost. However, depending on how many functions are combined, the single chip may be difficult to manufacture or limited in its performance.
Multichip packages allow each die to be built using the best or lowest cost manufacturing process and materials. The dies may then be combined into a single package, easing the assembly and design of the final product. Since the dies are often much smaller than the package, a multichip package may not be very much larger than a package for a single SOC. To further improve performance, a multichip package will have chip to chip interconnections inside the package. Wire leads and special substrates inside the package are used to accomplish these connections. For silicon dies, the special substrates are typically silicon substrates because silicon has the same CTE (Coefficient of Thermal Expansion) as the dies and because it can provide connection points which are as close together as those on the silicon die.
Because the temperatures inside the package can change from very cold when the end device is turned off and in a cold place to very hot when the package is powered up and running at maximum speed, the dies will expand and contract with temperature. If the connections are not flexible like wires or if the substrate expands and contracts at a different rate, then the connections may be broken.