A system for nutritional recommendation using artificial intelligence analysis of immune impacts includes a computing device designed and configured to receive a test result detecting an effect of at least an aliment on at least a biomarker, determine an immune system impact of the at least an aliment as a function of the at least a biomarker using a machine-learning process, the machine-learning process trained using a first training set relating biomarker levels to immune system function, generate a nutritional recommendation using the determined immune system impact, and provide the nutritional recommendation to the user.

Design of systems for analysis of immune data is often frustrated by the extreme complexity and variability of the subject matter. A vast multiplicity of factors to be measured is further complicated by a complex web of subtle but crucial interactions. Worse still a given factor may vary widely in significance between subjects, in ways that can frustrate consistent application of analytical techniques

Methods and systems for nutritional recommendation using artificial intelligence analysis of immune impacts


An infrared optical element, and methods for its manufacture. The optical element is made by cold working an ingot of a soft crystalline ionic solid such as silver halide or a thallium halide inside a sacrificial split die. The solid preferably includes at most one part per million of metallic impurities and at most ten parts per million total impurities. Preferably, the Knoop hardness of the ionic solid is at most about 20, and the elongation ratio of the ionic solid is at least 10% at a temperature of 120-180° C. The optical element maybe a bulk element or a surface element. The optical element may be a refractive element, a diffractive element or a hybrid element. One such element is a flat sensor for attenuated total reflection spectroscopy. In one embodiment of the sensor, a thin layer of silver halide or thallium halide is formed by diffusion or deposition on the surface of a substrate having a lower index of refraction than the layer. The sensor also includes a mechanism for coupling infrared radiation in and out of the layer. The scope of the invention includes a cell for attenuated total reflection spectroscopy based on the sensor, and a spectrometer for attenuated total reflection spectroscopy based on the cell. It also includes an external sensor, which is connected to the spectrometer via two long infrared fibers, which enable measurements in remote locations.

The present invention relates to the preparation of optical elements by cold working of formable (i.e. ductile) crystals. More specifically, the present invention relates to the preparation of elements for infrared applications, using processes such as cold forging, embossing, or stamping, which are carried out in a narrow temperature range, using a sacrificial split die. The present invention also relates to the use of such elements, and in particular of thin waveguides, as the bases for a system that can be applied for the diagnosis of tissues or biological fluids, in medicine. The same diagnostic system could be used in cosmetics for skin analysis or for the measurement of the diffusion of medical drugs or cosmetics into the skin.
Infrared (IR) radiation covers a wide spectral range which can be divided into three ranges: NIR=near IR (λ=1 μm-3 μm); MIR=middle IR (e.g. λ=3 μm-30 μm) and FIR=far infrared (λ=30 μm-100 μm). There are several scientific, industrial, medical and military applications that make use of infrared radiation and in particular of MIR radiation. Among these applications are the following:    IR detection: A warm body at a temperature T emits radiation ("black body" radiation") whose intensity I is given by the formula: I=εσT4 where ε & σ are constants. For bodies near room temperature most of this emission is in the MIR range, and suitable IR detectors can measure 1. The measurement of this radiation serves for military applications such as detection of personnel or vehicles in total darkness. It also serves scientific and medical applications such as non-contact determination of the surface temperature T.    Thermal Imaging: The distribution of intensities emitted from a large area can be determined by a large array of IR detectors and displayed on a monitor. This has been used mostly for military applications (e.g. FLIR), because the arrays used were very expensive. A new generation of inexpensive arrays will probably be used for medical and industrial applications.    IR Lasers: Numerous lasers emit IR radiation, including solid-state lasers, such as Nd: YAG (λ=1.06 μm) or Er: YAG (λ=2.96 μm) and gas lasers, such as CO2 (λ=10.6 μm) or CO (λ=5.3 μm). MIR lasers have been used for military applications, such as target designators, for industrial applications, such as cutting, heating and welding of materials, and for medical applications, such as laser surgery and laser therapy.    IR Spectroscopy: There are many organic and inorganic molecules that have characteristic absorption in the MIR (called "finger print"). This absorption serves as an important tool for material analysis. The absorption of a sample can be measured using standard (grating) spectrometers or Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometers, or tunable laser spectrometers. The absorption spectrum is used for determining the chemical composition of the sample. This has been widely used in industry and science. IR spectroscopy is potentially useful in biology and medicine, for IR clinical chemistry, and for IR pathology.
Some authors use the term "optical" only for the visible spectral range. Herein, all the elements that are transparent in the infrared and are used in IR system are referred to as "infrared optical elements".
Optical systems that are designed for visible light, are based on standard optical elements. Most of these optical elements make use of standard materials such as silica (SiO2) based glasses or transparent plastics. All these materials are completely opaque in the MIR and other families of materials have to be used in infrared systems. These include crystals such as NaCl, KBr, BaF2, MgF2, Ge, Se, ZnSe, ZnS, or glasses such as As2S3, As2Se3, ZrF etc. Each of these materials is transparent in a different range in the infrared. See J. A. Savage, Infrared Optical Materials and Their Antireflection Coatings, Adam Hilger, Bristol and Boston, 1985.
Various optical elements are prepared from the IR transparent materials. These optical elements include small and large windows, convex or concave lenses, various prisms and miniature (refractive) optical elements. Such IR elements are generally made by techniques that have been previously used for silica based glasses: a piece of material is cut to the desirable dimensions, it is ground to the rough shape and finally it is polished to generate an exact shape with high surface quality. Elements of this type are referred to herein as "bulk" elements. The fabrication processes have been adapted for each of the infrared transmitting materials mentioned above. In many of these cases the process is much more complicated than for silica, because many of the IR materials are difficult to handle: they are brittle, water soluble or toxic. In all cases the process of making IR optical elements is complicated, time consuming and expensive, especially when trying to make large optical elements.
Arrays of microlenses (lenslet arrays) that are purely refractive have been fabricated on the surface of silica-based glasses, using various techniques. In the case of glasses, a technique called reflow has been used. For glass and other materials one can use direct fabrication methods such as diamond turning, or etching through a photoresist mask. Circular, hexagonal, square and cylindrical arrays have been formed, with individual lens size of the order of tens of microns. Similar techniques have been used for infrared transmitting glasses and crystals, such as Ge, Si and ZnSe. Manufacturers of such optical elements include MEM Optical Inc. of Huntsville, Al. and Adaptive Optics Associates of Cambridge, Mass.
There are two new families of surface-relief micro-optical elements: continuous relief optical elements and binary optical elements. Such diffractive optics elements (DOE) are called planar, because their relief amplitude is normally less than 10 μm. These optical elements are designed to convert an incoming light beam into a predetermined output beam. The output beam can be focused into a point, or shaped like a cross, or a ring or any other light pattern. Diffractive optical elements are used as lenses, beam splitters, diffusers etc. Towards this goal, sets of specially designed microscopic patterns are generated on the surfaces of standard, silica based, optical elements. The techniques for generating such patterns are normally based on photolithography, a method that had been borrowed from the semiconductor industry. These techniques involve the generation of a photoresist pattern on the optical element and etching the surface of the element through the pattern by chemical etching or dry etching. The diffractive optical elements can also be made on surfaces using diamond turning or laser ablation. See, for example, J. Turunen and F. Wyrowski, Diffractive Optics, Akademie Verlag, 1997. Some of these processes have been adapted for the fabrication of diffractive optics IR elements, notably by the Coherent Auburn Group of Auburn Calif., but the processes are time consuming and rather expensive.
Hybrid optical elements employ at least two of the optical technologies mentioned above. For example optical elements are made with refractive and with diffractive surfaces. This combination is used to realize some specialized optical functions. One such hybrid optical element is a traditional plano-convex lens, where a diffractive element is fabricated on the plane surface.
In the visible range use has been made of highly transparent plastics such as PMMA (i.e. Lucite or Plexiglas). One of the main advantages of these plastics is that they are softer than glass and have lower melting points. It is therefore possible to mold them or to deform them at relatively low temperatures to a desirable shape. It has been found that it is possible to prepare in this fashion molded optical elements of high optical quality and very low cost. A mold, in which the cavity is formed by two or more components held together, is called a split cavity mold. In this case, after molding, the components of the mold are separated from the molded piece at the end of the molding process. This permits to form undercuts in the molded piece. These components are re-used for molding a new batch of optical elements.
These methods lend themselves easily to mass production. Such molding procedures can easily replicate a "master" and they serve in a plethora of domestic, industrial, scientific and military applications. Replication techniques have been also used for the fabrication of refractive microlens arrays from PMMA or polystyrene, for applications in the visible.
Diffractive or binary optical elements and purely refractive micro-optical elements have been mass-produced in large quantities by replication techniques. This involves the transfer of surface relief profile from a "master" surface into formable material, such as polymer. Hot embossing was used, for example, for the fabrication of Fresnel microlenses and lenslet arrays. Injection molding was used for the fabrication of micro optical lenses and for compact discs, and casting—for spectroscopic gratings. These methods can be used for replicating any surface relief microstructure with very high resolution, at an extremely low cost. Such elements are available, for example, from Digital Optics Corporation of Charlotte, N.C., and from Lasiris of St. Laurent, Quebec, Canada.
Similar molding or replication techniques have not yet been applied for optical materials transmitting in the mid IR. In metallurgy there are four basic metal forming processes: casting, machining, consolidating of smaller pieces and deformation. Within the metal deformation processes, cold working includes the processes that change the shape and form of the metal, when the metal is at a temperature below its softening temperature. The cold working processes include press forming or stamping, rolling, extrusion, drawing and forging. In some of these, which we may define as "bulk" forming, a metal ingot is pressed between two opposing dies, or between a punch and a die, and its bulk shape is changed. Forging, for example, can be carried out in open dies or in closed dies (also called closed impression dies.) The closed die can be made of several components, and it is then called segmented die or split die. In this case the segments can be separated from the forged element at the end of the forging process. This is very similar to the split cavity mold used for plastics, as mentioned above. In other "bulk" processes the metal is squeezed between rollers or extruded through an open die to form wires, tubes etc. There are cold work processes that may be defined as "surface" forming. For example in a stamping process, the stamp has a raised pattern cut on it and when it is pressed against a metal blank it generates a design on the surface of the blank. All these cold working processes are less expensive, the sizes of the parts are more accurate and the surface finish is much better than in hot processes.
Cold working processes cause, in general, hardening of the prepared bodies, which is frequently advantageous in metallurgy. If the extra hardening is undesirable, annealing at elevated temperatures can soften the bodies. Some cold working processes, such as extruding and rolling, are carried out in multiple steps. It often is desirable to soften the work piece between steps by annealing the work piece.
It would be highly desirable to be able to use some of these well-established methods for the shaping of blanks of infrared transmitting materials into optical elements, such as lenses or windows, or modifying the surface of infrared elements to form diffractive optical elements or arrays of refractive microlenses. It is bound to reduce the time and the cost of making these elements. This would be of particular interest in the case of optically transparent crystalline materials whose handling is difficult and time consuming (especially for large elements). Unfortunately almost all of these crystals are hard and brittle and much less ductile than metals and it is difficult to deform them without fracture.
During the last thirty years there have been attempts to apply pressure to single crystals and press forge or extrude infrared optical elements. These elements are polycrystalline and after pressing they should have the same density and the same optical characteristics as the starting material. Hot press forging was applied mostly to alkali metal halides and alkaline earth metal halides, which are frangible and tend to cleave. Both uniaxial and hydrostatic press forging were tried. The temperature used in these experiments was relatively high, on the order of 500° C. This temperature was lower than the melting point Tmp but higher than ½ Tmp (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,933,970; 4,089,937; 4,171,400 and 4,522,865). Similar crystals have also been extruded to form desirable shapes (U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,090). There have also been attempts to apply high temperatures and pressures to compress powders of the same materials and form infrared elements (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,013,796, 5,643,505 and 5,658,504). Finally, infrared transmitting chalcogenide glasses were prepared by molding at temperatures higher than the melting point of the glass (U.S. Pat. No. 5,346,523). Apparently there are technical hurdles that have not yet been surmounted. Inexpensive, mass produced, infrared elements made of any of the materials mentioned above are not available in large quantities.
There are very few infrared transmitting crystalline materials that are relatively soft and ductile. The hardness of materials can be conveniently measured by the Knoop method. For ductility, one may apply stress on a sample of length A and measure the length B when the sample fractures. The value (B−A)/A, the elongation ratio, is a measure of the ductility. The elongation ratio of metals is often as high as 50%. A small number of crystalline halides such as thallium halides (e.g. TlCIBr) or silver halides (e.g. AgClBr) have Knoop Hardness values of 10-20 and their elongation ratio is similar to that of metals unlike that of brittle crystals such as alkali halides. The mechanical and the photographic properties of silver halides have been studied for more than fifty years. Silver halides "flow under pressure" and have been called: "transparent metals." The studies included mechanical deformation, yield stress measurements and research on strain ageing. See, for example, M. T. Sprackling and H. Shalitt, "Strain ageing in silver chloride: II The effect of temperature on the representative curve", Philosophical Magazine, Vol. 48, pp. 383394, 1984. Almost all these works reported measurements on single crystals of AgCl and were carried out under tension.
Cold working methods have already applied to form three types of element from halide crystals:
I. Rolled Sheets: Some companies (e.g. the former Crystal Division of Harshaw Chemical Co., Solon Ohio, now Bicron Crystal Products of Washougal WA) have used hot—rolling techniques to prepare sheets of AgCl and AgBr of thickness of a few mm. These sheets contained various impurities with a total concentration of 40-50 ppm (see for example L. C. Towle, "Shear Strength of Silver Chloride", J. Applied Physics, Vol. 37, pp. 4475-6, 1966) and they were photosensitive.II. Extruded Optical Fibers: IR transmitting optical fibers have been fabricated from silver halide or thallium halide crystals by an extrusion through an orifice of diameter 0.5-0.9 mm at temperatures between room temperature and 200° C. There are more than fifty patents discussing different fiber structures or extrusion techniques (see for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,188,089, 4,253,731, 4,315,667, 4,504,298, 4,721,360, 4,828,354, 4,865,418, 4,955,689, 5,575,960 and 5,602,947). IR transmitting fibers are manufactured by Oxford Electronics Ltd., Oxfordshire, UK, by CeramOptec GmbH, Bonn, Germany and by Art Photonics, Berlin, Germany. The optical transmission of these fibers is still not satisfactory, and they are not widely used.III. Press Forged Lenses: There are more than ten Japanese patent applications that were published between 1984 and 1994 and which describe the pressing of silver halide or thallium halide crystals between two lens shaped dies, to form lenses. The forging is done at pressures of 5-10 Ton/cm2 and at temperatures 200-300° C. (Japanese published patent applications: 59-212801; 04-170501; 04-340501; 04340502; 05-139764; 06-011604). None of these lenses is available commercially, and they have not been discussed in the scientific literature.
Summarizing this prior art, one may conclude that the three methods mentioned above cannot be used for mass production of infrared transmitting optical elements of high quality. The rolling technique described in (I) can be used only for making thin flat sheets, and the optical quality of the sheets obtained was rather poor. The extrusion of crystals through open dies described in (II) is a unique method for making fibers, and it is totally unrelated to the fabrication of optical elements such as windows or lenses. The press forging process mentioned in (III) describes a method for making lenses. In extensive work done by us, we discovered great disadvantages of this forging method. When one tries to forge elements at relatively low temperature (below 120° C.) the lenses crack. When one tries to forge elements at relatively high temperature (above 180° C.) there appears a chemical interaction between the crystals and the walls of the pressure chamber. This causes two problems: (i) the optical elements darken and their transmission is very poor. (ii) the walls of the chamber gradually deteriorate and become useless. It is possible to protect the top and bottom pressure plates by a thin layer of carbon or non-reactive metal, but it is not possible to protect the sidewalls. It is not practical to replace the very expensive pressure chamber after every forging procedure. This is probably why infrared lenses are not made today by forging.
In addition, there were several problems that interfered with previous studies:
(1) almost all these studies referred to single crystals or polycrystalline samples of AgCl or AgBr and not to alloys, such as AgClBr; (2) in most cases, the samples contained impurities in concentrations higher than 10 ppm; (3) most of the samples were photosensitive: they darkened under UV or visible light. All these ductile halide crystals are potentially suited for the fabrication of a plethora of infrared elements by the well-established metallurgical cold working methods. They have not been widely used, only because of the severe problems mentioned above.
The present invention addresses two issues: (a) the fabrication of infrared optical elements by metallurgical methods, using a novel method based on sacrificial dies. (b) The use of these elements in the various infrared systems, for infrared detection, thermal imaging, power transmission and infrared spectroscopy. Particularly in the case of silver halides, the present invention focuses on four major points: (I) the use of alloys of AgClxBr1-x with mechanical properties that are superior to those of AgCl or AgBr; and (II) the use of ultra pure materials, with total concentration of impurities lower than 10 ppm, to prevent the problem of darkening of the samples. (III) The use of a sacrificial split die, instead of using a simple pressure chamber. The segments of the die are separated from the optical element at the end of the process and they are discarded. (IV) Forge pressing at a well defined temperature range 120-180° C. As mentioned, forge pressing at lower temperatures gives rise to cracks in the optical elements (especially in the case of large elements), and forge pressing at higher temperature gives rise to darkening.
Attenuated total reflection (ATR) spectroscopy, also known as evanescent wave spectroscopy (EWS), has been used during the last few decades for the study of pastes, liquids and powders, in which intense scattering or absorption precludes the transmission of a probe beam. When light is totally internally reflected in prisms or waveguides, which are placed in vacuum, there is an evanescent wave, which decays exponentially outside the waveguide over a distance of a few wavelengths. In vacuum, this is not accompanied by any energy absorption. On the other hand, if instead of vacuum, the waveguide is immersed in a liquid or in another substance, the evanescent wave may be partially or totally absorbed and the transmission through the waveguide is reduced. This will predominantly occur at those wavelengths that correspond to the absorption spectrum of the sample. The spectrum of the transmission losses is the basis of ATR spectroscopy and the prism or waveguide in contact with the sample are called ATR elements.
A system for ATR spectroscopy includes three basic parts: a tunable IR source, an IR detector and an ATR element. In the MIR spectral range 3-30 μm, the commonly used light sources are a heated black body with a variable filter or a tunable diode laser. Some of the infrared detectors operate at room temperature (e.g. pyroelectric detectors) and others—at 77° K (e.g. HgCdTe detectors). The black body IR source and the IR detector may also be part of a Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometer. A standard ATR spectroscopy system is schematically shown in FIG. 1. The standard "bulk" ATR element is a thick waveguide with two beveled ends. IR radiation from a tunable IR source is totally internally reflected inside the waveguide. The radiation propagates until it reaches an IR detector. The sample may be in contact with one or two broader surfaces of the waveguide.
The standard ATR elements are made of materials that are highly transparent in the MIR, and they include single crystals of ZnSe, ZnS, Ge and diamond. There are some basic shapes of the elements that have been commonly used and that may be called "bulk" ATR elements. Some of these elements are thick (>3 mm) waveguides, in which there are multiple internal reflections. These include flat crystals with beveled ends, or cylindrical rods with pointed ends. There are other "bulk" ATR elements that are not waveguides, but shaped like pyramids, pointed prisms, spherical surfaces etc. In many cases it is required to couple the light into the elements using a special arrangement of flat or of spherical mirrors. Several of the commonly used ATR elements are shown in FIG. 2. FIG. 2A shows a cross section of half a sphere (or half a cylinder) 10 whose flat surface 12 is contacted with a sample. FIG. 2B shows a cross section of a pyramid (or a prism) 14, whose flat surface 16 is contacted with a sample. FIG. 2C shows a cross section of a pyramid (or a prism) 18 whose pointed end 20 is contacted with a miniature sample area. FIG. 2D shows a diamond shaped ATR element 22. FIG. 2E shows a cross section of a thick waveguide (or a cylindrical rod) 24 with two pointed ends 26. FIG. 2F shows a cross section of a thick waveguide (or a cylindrical rod) 28 with one flat end 30 and one pointed end 32. Also shown in FIGS. 2A, 2B, 2C, 2E and 2F are illustrative ray paths 34.
ATR spectroscopy has been widely used for the study of IR spectra of samples, which are not easy to measure by conventional transmission techniques. It has been used, for example, for measuring solutes in solutions, for the analysis of drilling fluids and the deterioration of engine oil, for measuring kerosene in oil shale, for determining the energy content of hydrocarbon fuel, and for chemical analysis of materials. It has also been used for determining compositional changes in materials, for surface analysis of silicon wafers, for measuring the ingredients of beer or dairy products, for determining the concentration of various substances in blood on the skin, and for measuring minute amounts of organic pollutants in water. (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,902,807, 4,321,465, 4,553,032, 5,049,742, 5,252,829, 5,362,445 and 5,452,083).
In most cases a broad surface of the "bulk" ATR element is in contact with the sample. But, there are cases where the tip of the pointed part of a cylindrical rod or a pyramid is placed in contact with a small area on a sample. This could be used for ATR spectroscopy of microscopic samples or areas.
The original "bulk" ATR elements mentioned above were based on large segments of single crystals, such as thick plates or rods or pyramids, that had been cut, ground and polished to a desired shape (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,595,833, 4,730,882, 4,746,179, 4,988,195, 5,015,092, 5,035,504, 5,172,182, 5,200,609, 5,229,611, 5,434,411, 5,440,126, 5,459,316, and 5,703,366). These have the advantages of a large surface area contacting the sample, well established fabrication methods and ease of determining and maintaining a specific angle of incidence of illumination between the plane, parallel surfaces. However, the "bulk" elements are large, expensive and susceptible to damage, because of mechanical scratches and because of chemical interaction with the measured samples. Furthermore, these elements are not flexible and they require frequent polishing to maintain their useful qualities.
There is a need to find a way of producing "bulk" ATR elements using processes that are faster, more flexible and much cheaper. Such elements could be replaced frequently, if needed, and they will make ATR spectroscopy a more widely used method. This is a motivation to use cold working methods for the forming of ductile IR transmitting crystals. This can be applied for the preparation of "bulk" ATR elements (including thick waveguides).
With the development of new fibers that are extruded from crystals that transmit well into the mid-IR (out to about 25 μm), it was proposed by various workers to use these fibers both as IR cables and as fiberoptic ATR elements. The IR fibers can be long and flexible, so they can be bent to conform to the surface to be measured. They are also inexpensive to manufacture, and can be replaced after each measurement, if necessary. These features led to the development of Fiberoptic Evanescent Wave Spectroscopy (FEWS). In a FEWS system two long lengths of IR transmitting fibers coated with a thick plastic jacket serve as IR cables. The IR cables transmit the light from the IR source to an ATR element (bulk or fiberoptic) and from this sensing element to the IR detector. A short section of an unclad fiber may serve as an ATR element that is in contact with a sample. Such a system is shown schematically in FIG. 3 and was the topic of several patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,798,954, 4,827,121, 5,525,800 and 5,585,634). FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of a Fiberoptic Evanescent Wave Spectroscopy (FEWS) system based on two long IR cables and a sensor (ATR) element that can be a short segment of cylindrical unclad IR fiber or a thin flatwaveguide. There are cases where it is advantageous to replace the fiberoptic sensor element in FIG. 3 by a "bulk" element and this was the topic of other patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,829,186, 5,170,056 and 5,440,126). The main advantage of both FEWS systems (with "bulk" or with fiberoptic sensing elements) is that they can be used to carry out spectroscopic measurements in remote locations.
It has also been suggested to use mixed silver halide IR fibers as the ATR elements. These crystalline fibers, of the general formula AgClxBr1-x, with 0<x<1, are described in S. Shalem et. al., "Mechanical and Optical Properties of Silver Halide Infrared Transmitting Fibers", Fibers and Integrated Optics, vol.2 no.9, pp.872-879 (1996). Fibers of diameter 0.5-1 mm and lengths up to 10 meters can be fabricated. These fibers are transparent between 0.5 and 25 μm, with a transmission loss minimum of about 0.2 dB/meter at 10 μm. Such fibers are nontoxic, non-hygroscopic and flexible.
It has been found that Fourier Transform (FTIR) FEWS systems, using these silver halide fibers as waveguides, can be used to perform measurements on a variety of samples, such as thin layers, liquids, powders and gases at various pressures. Furthermore, FEWS systems based on tunable diode lasers (TDL) or quantum cascade lasers (QCL) can be used to detect pollutants in water, which is important for environmental protection, in general, and in particular, for monitoring pollutants such as hydrocarbons or pesticides in water. The fiberoptic sensing element may be coated with a suitable plastic coating that causes enhancement of the pollutant signal. With such a coating the system can detect a few parts-per-billion of pollutants Such as chlorobenzene in water in a remote location and in real time.
However, even these cylindrical fibers are not ideal as sensing elements. While they overcome the problems of difficulty of working, they are still problematic with regard to the angle of incidence. Optimum configurations must be found since the signal-to-noise ratio increases as the fiber diameter decreases, while if the diameter is very small, it is difficult to couple light into the fiber.
One attempt to solve this problem is by tapering a central portion of a cylindrical fiber. An example is U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,176 to Foster Miller. This patent discusses tapering the optical fibers and indicates that silver halides are also suitable materials for the sensor fiber core. Very small pieces of chalcogenide glass fiber (2.5 cm long and 400 microns in diameter) were tried, but did not have adequate sensitivity. It was then discovered that reducing the diameter of a chalcogenide fiber could increase its sensitivity. This can be done by heating the fiber and pulling it to create a taper. Other attempts involved stripping the central part of a core/clad fiber and leaving the unclad section as the sensor element or bending the fiber (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,416,579, 5,436,454 and 5,525,800). Also, the fiber sensor element was coated with various plastic coatings, either to protect it or to enhance the obtained signals (U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,894). Some of these elements are schematically shown in FIG. 4. FIG. 4A shows a short section 36 of unclad fiber. FIG. 4B shows a section 38 of clad fiber, where the cladding 40 has been removed at the center part 42, exposing an unclad section 44. FIG. 4C shows a segment of unclad fiber 46 that had been tapered: the two ends 48 have larger diameters than the central section 50. FIG. 4D shows a bent section 52 of unclad fiber 54. FIG. 4E shows a segment of unclad fiber 56 coated with a very thin protective layer 58. FIG. 4F shows a section of unclad fiber 60 coated with a layer 62 of porous polymer. Solute molecules (e.g. pollutants in water) can diffuse in, but the solvent (e.g. water) cannot. This gives rise to "enrichment" and higher detectivity.
There are, however, a number of disadvantages in the use of these tapered fibers. First, due to their cylindrical cross-section, a unique angle of incidence cannot be maintained, so calibrations and calculations are necessary when they are used. Second, chalcogenide glasses can be difficult to work with, because of their brittleness and the small area of contact between the tapered (cylindrical) sensor and the sample.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a thin flat waveguide which is flexible like a fiber, but which has the optical advantages of a thick plate or prism. An important issue addressed by the present invention is how to make thin waveguide ATR elements and how to couple IR radiation into and out of these waveguides.
During the last few decades optical and spectroscopic methods have been developed rapidly in the visible spectral range. Modem optical methods, making use of lasers and optical fibers, holography, and modern imaging technologies have been used in many scientific and industrial applications for diagnosis of materials, analysis of reactions etc. There has been an attempt to use very similar methods in medicine. In particular it had been expected that such methods could be used in clinical chemistry (e.g. blood analysis) or in pathology (e.g. in early diagnosis of diseases) for measurements in situ and in real time. This has proven to be much more difficult than had been anticipated. There are still severe obstacles in using modern optical methods for tissue diagnosis or blood analysis.
During the last few decades there has also been a rapid development in the field of infrared science and technology. In particular, infrared spectroscopy has been improved and the combination of new infrared detectors, modern electronic equipment and powerful computers, led to a revolution in this field. Methods such as FTIR spectroscopy are being used now in many areas in science and technology. These include the ATR methods mentioned above (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,169,676 and 5,452,715).
There have been attempts to use IR spectroscopy in the field of medicine. One of the areas tried is IR clinical chemistry. The advantage of IR in this field is that sample preparation is easy, there is no need to use chemical reagents, and the results are obtained in real time and in situ. Biological fluids such as blood or urine or the synovial or interstitial fluids have been analyzed by spectroscopic IR measurements (including ATR measurements). The very preliminary results indicate that blood analysis can be done by these techniques. A second area where IR spectroscopy could be very useful is IR pathology. Various tissues have been analyzed, such as diseased and healthy tissues in the case of Alzheimer disease, plaque and healthy artery walls in cardiology etc. One of the most important tissues to be studied is cancerous tissue, in an attempt to obtain early cancer detection. Several groups have found that the FTIR spectra of different types of cancerous tumors are different from those of healthy tissues (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,038,039, 5,539,207 and 5,596,992). Still, IR spectroscopic methods, including FTIR—ATR spectroscopy of tissues and biological fluids, have not yet gained acceptance among physicians.
Simpler optical methods have been applied in the field of cosmetics. The interest there is in skin analyzers. In this field it is desirable to determine, for example, the water content or the fat content of the facial skin. The methods used rely on scattering of light or on determining the color of the skin, but, again, these methods are limited (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,494,869, 5,094,248 and 5,745,217).
It is anticipated that the uses of ATR infrared spectroscopy, using cold pressed ATR elements or thin waveguides, as sensing elements, will change the situation. Such elements would be useful for tissue diagnosis and for blood analysis, in medicine. Unlike the standard, bulky ATR elements, the pressed ATR elements, and especially the thin flattened guides, could be used for measurements inside the body. They could be inserted into the body (for example under the skin) via hypodermic needles and used for single measurements or continuous measurements. They could also be inserted into the body via standard endoscopes. These pressed ATR elements would also be useful in cosmetics for skin analysis or for the measurement of the penetration of drugs or cosmetic lotions or ointments into the skin.

Forming transparent crystalline elements by cold working


Methods and apparatus related to determining a characteristic of a location based on visit data associated with the location. Visit data indicative of travel of users to a first location from one or more other locations and/or of travel of users from the first location to one or more other locations may be utilized to determine information about the location. In some implementations visit data may be utilized to determine a connectedness measure and associate the second location with the first location based on the connectedness measure. A characteristic of the first location may optionally be determined based on a characteristic of the second location and/or an attribute associated with the visit data.

This specification is directed generally to determining information about a location, and, more particularly, to determining a characteristic of a location based on visit data that is associated with travel of one or more users to one or more other locations from the location and/or from one or more other locations to the location.
Characteristics for locations are often based on analysis of Internet documents related to the locations. For example, a webpage associated with a restaurant may be analyzed to determine a restaurant type and whether the restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner. Also, for example, user reviews and/or professional reviews for a location may be analyzed to determine what types of users frequent the location and/or to determine a quality measure for the location. Determined characteristics for a location may be associated with the location in a database and may be utilized by one or more applications and/or provided to a user. For example, a user search for restaurants in a particular area may return search results for restaurants that are ranked based on the characteristic and/or that are displayed in combination with an indication of the characteristic.

Determining information about a location based on travel related to the location


In waste water installations, the amount of falling rainwater which increases as a result of heavy precipitations is diverted into lakes and waterways in order to relieve the sewage treatment plant. In order to remove the impurities carried along with the rainwater, the water is purified using a purification device. A retaining element is disposed behind the purification device in the direction of flow. This element is at least partially detachable connected to a base surface and can be used to release the through-flow in the region of the base surface of the purification device in an intermittent manner. The retaining element is pivotable around an axis.

The invention is relative to a waste-water installation with an inflow side for contaminated water and an outflow side for cleaned water and a cleaning device arranged between them for retaining or separating impurities delivered on the inflow side, and with a damming element arranged after the cleaning device. Such waste-water installations are used to drain off the increased amount of rainwater that accumulates during rather heavy precipitations since it can no longer be managed, e.g., by a sewage treatment plant. However, the increased amount of accumulating rainwater is mixed with contaminated water, so that it is contaminated with suspended material, e.g., pieces of wood, sand, paper or plastic foils. These contaminants (impurities) are removed or retained from the rainwater and diverted, e.g., into a body of water, by such waste-water installations by means of a cleaning device, e.g. a sieve (screen) rake. The above-mentioned cleaning device is arranged between the inflow area of the waste water and the outflow area from which the rainwater drained off for removal of the load (relief) is conducted away. Such a device is known from WO 94/07585.
The device shown in this document comprises an intermediate wall between the inflow side and the outflow side, on which wall a cleaning device in the form of a sieve rake is arranged. In addition to the action of the intermediate wall, a damming element inclined to the vertical plate is provided in the direction of flow behind the sieve rake in order to increase the damming volume of retained water upstream of the sieve rake. This arrangement should help to even out the flowthrough rate of the water through the sieve rake and obtain a more uniform distribution of pressure over the entire surface of the sieve rake. However, the device shown has the disadvantage that in particular suspended material and sinking (settling) material such as, e.g., sand, can not overcome the inclined damming element so that they remain in the area of the sieve rake and cause problems there, especially for the rake cleaner. The remaining sinking material causes increased wear between the sieve rake and the rake cleaner. In addition, the damming element does increase the retention capacity of the waste-water installation, but if the damming element is flooded, the damming element forms a throttling device so that the flowthrough amount through the rake is reduced and there is the danger that the sieve rake is flooded above its upper edge, as a result of which unpurified water is removed.
The present invention aims to avoid the cited disadvantages of the known waste-water installations and also not to hinder the flowthrough through the cleaning device of the waste-water installation in spite of the elevation of the damming volume.

Waste water installation with purification device


The present disclosure relates to a series of tricyclic compounds and the use thereof as receptor agonists of sphingosine-1-phosphate subtype 1 (S1P1), and in particular relates to compounds as shown in formula (I) or pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof.

Sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) is a pleiotropic lipid mediator with a broad spectrum of physiological activities including cell proliferation, survival, lymphocyte trafficking, cytoskeletal organization and morphogenesis. Sphingosine is catalyzed by enzyme ceramide and released from ceramide. Sphingosine is phosphorylated under the catalysis of sphingosine kinase to produce sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) and interacts with the sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor (S1PR) to bring physiological activity.
Sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 (S1PR1), also known as endothelial cell differentiation gene 1 (EDG1), is a G protein-coupled receptor, which belongs to the endothelial cell differentiation gene (EDG) receptor family, and is a protein encoded by the S1PR1 gene. The sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor (S1PR) includes five subtypes (S1PR1-5), in which sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 (S1PR1) is abundantly distributed on the endothelial cell membrane. Like other G-protein coupled receptors, S1PR1 detects its ligand from the outside of a cell and activates intracellular signaling pathways to cause cellular responses.
Sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) is very important in humans, which mainly regulates the vascular system and immune system. Small molecular S1P1 agonists and inhibitors mimic the binding mechanism of sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) to receptors, and have been shown to have important physiological roles in their signaling systems. Activation of sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 (S1PR1) disrupts lymphocyte trafficking, and isolate lymphocytes in lymph nodes and other secondary lymphoid organs, thereby resulting in rapid and reversible lymphopenia. Clinical studies have shown that lymphocyte isolation reduces inflammation or autoimmune disease responses and is critical for immune regulation.
Currently, published in vivo pharmacodynamic studies of sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 (S1PR1) agonists are used to treat or prevent autoimmune diseases. The discovery and application of novel sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 (S1PR1) agonists has broad prospects.


A method and apparatus for managing a buffer memory in a disc drive. An arbitrated buffer stores data read from, or to be written to, the disc. Sequential entries (that store pointers to the data) in the buffer, corresponding to a requested traversal, are traversed prior to voluntarily relinquishing ownership of the buffer.

Disc drives are typically used for information storage and utilize at least one rotatable disc with concentric tracks defined thereon for storing data. A data head (or transducer) is disposed relative to the disc surface to read data from, and write data to, the various tracks on the disc. The transducer is coupled to, or formed integrally with, an actuator arm which moves the transducer relative to the disc surface in order to access prespecified portions of the disc surface.
In retrieving data from, and writing data to, the discs, the disc drive often employs a cache or buffer memory. For instance, data to be written to the disc is often received from a host controller and written to the buffer or cache until the write circuitry has time to write the data from the buffer or cache to the specified location on the disc. Similarly, data retrieved from the disc is often written into the buffer until it can be retrieved by the host.
It often happens that the host, in writing data to the disc, will write data to a specified logical block address on the disc. That data is first written into cache were it is held until the write circuitry can write it to the actual specified location on the disc. However, prior to that data being written on the disc, the host may issue another write command, specifying different data to be written to the same logical block address on the disc. Vector buffer management techniques have thus been implemented to simply replace the older data in the buffer, or cache, with the new data to be written to the same logical block address. In this way, the write circuitry need only perform one write operation to the disc, rather than performing two separate write operations.
In any case, after performing a number of cache reads and cache writes, the cache or buffer can become highly fragmented. For example, the buffer or cache is typically accessed by a large number of different entities in the disc drive, such as the host, the disc control components (such as the reading and writing circuitry), error correction code (ECC) components, and a traversal engine which actually traverses a linked list in the buffer to determine where to access user (or host) data in the buffer. Some data in the buffer is stored as a single linked list such that the data corresponding to logical blocks (e.g., 512-byte chunks) on the disc are stored in buffer blocks (e.g., a two-byte values comprising a sector address) and are linked in the buffer by an address in one buffer block which points to the address of the next buffer block containing data in the specified logical block in the disc. Some data (such as host data) is stored in seemingly randomly located sectors of space in the buffer, which are located as indicated by the linked list.
In traversing the buffer, the traversal engine has traditionally functioned such that each access of a subsequent buffer or cache address was treated as a completely new and independent access to the cache. Therefore, even in situations where the traversal engine was to traverse three sequential buffer memory addresses, the traversal engine would release ownership of the buffer and re-arbitrate for access to each subsequent (or "next") buffer address location. This adds significant delay in the command overhead for the drive and degrades drive performance.


An integrated circuit memory system and method for precision hot carrier injection programming of single or plurality of nonvolatile memory cells is described. Each program cycle is followed by a verify cycle. Precision programming is achieved by incrementally changing a programming current pulse flowing between the source and drain in the memory cell during successive program cycles and a constant current during successive verify cycles. Current control and voltage mode sensing circuitry reduces circuit complexity, reduces programming cell current, lowers power dissipation, and enables page mode operation. Precision programming is useful for multilevel digital and analog information storage.

This invention relates in general to semiconductor memories and, in particular, to the programming of nonvolatile semiconductor memories.
Nonvolatile semiconductor memory integrated circuits, such as EEPROM, EPROM, and FLASH, have traditionally been used to store a single digital bit per memory cell, which is termed hereafter as single bit storage. Memories capable of storing more than one bit of digital data per memory cell and their benefits have been described previously and are called multilevel memories. A level represents a specific range of electrical charge stored in each memory cell. To store N bits per memory cell requires 2N discrete levels. Each discrete level corresponds to a unique binary data pattern for all N bits. The cell is erased or programmed to store charge within one of these 2N discrete levels. Sensing circuits determine which level of charge is stored in the cell and read out the corresponding binary data pattern stored for the N bits. Digital information can thus be stored at a significantly lower cost per bit since N times the number of bits can be stored in the same memory cell array area previously storing just a single bit per cell.
Nonvolatile semiconductor memory integrated circuits using EEPROM and FLASH memory cells have also been used to store analog information. In this case, the amount of electrical charge stored in each memory cell is part of a continuum instead of discrete multiple levels. The precision of the stored charge determines the signal-to-noise ratio of the analog information.
EEPROM, EPROM, and FLASH memory cells are typically based on silicon gate MOS transistor technology. Such a nonvolatile memory cell 100 is shown in FIG. 1. Charge is stored on a piece of silicon which is called a floating gate 105. This gate is completely surrounded by silicon dioxide which, ideally, can only pass charge during program or erase operations and so is called xe2x80x9cfloatingxe2x80x9d. The floating gate 105 is formed near a silicon channel 110 between a source 115 and a drain 120 diffusion regions. The floating gate 105 voltage is determined by the amount of charge stored and by the adjacent capacitive coupling to a control gate 125, source 115, drain 120, and channel 110. The conductivity of the silicon channel 110 is controlled by the floating gate 105 voltage in an similar manner as in a classic MOS transistor.
Nonvolatile memory cell programming requires charge passage through an oxide 130 to the floating gate 105 and is accomplished via two mechanisms; tunneling and hot carrier injection. Hot carriers, in the case of an n-channel device, are electrons with sufficient energy to conduct through silicon dioxide. Hot electron programming requires two basic conditions to be met. First, a source of hot electrons must be generated in the channel 110. This is accomplished by creating a high electric field region, Eh 135, in the channel 110 to accelerate the electrons to an energy sufficient to make them xe2x80x9chotxe2x80x9d. In FIG. 1 the flow of electrons in the channel 110 is represented by a source current, Is 140, and a drain current, Id 145. Second, a vertical electric field, Ev 150, between the floating gate 105 and channel 110 must attract the hot electrons toward the floating gate 105. The hot electrons which flow to the floating gate 105 create a floating gate charging current, Ig 155.
Many different cell structures exist utilizing the hot carrier injection mechanism; all require the two basic conditions described above. FIGS. 2A-2D show some examples of such cells. In a Channel Hot Electron injection (CHEI) cell design 200A, the cell is biased in a saturated mode of transistor operation. A high electric field region, Eh 235A, is generated between a drain 220A and a point of channel saturation 260A. More recently, cells have been designed which generate a high Eh 235B and 235C midway in the channel by extending a control gate 225B and 225C over a channel 210B and 210C on a source end 215B and 215C of a cell 200B or with an additional gate 270C as shown in a High Efficiency Source Side Channel Hot Electron Injection (HESSCHEI) cell 200C. A high Eh 235D can also be generated near a source 215D by a Source Side injection (SSI) cell 200D.
There are many technical challenges associated with multilevel and analog nonvolatile memories. Since the total charge storage range for a cell is constrained, the amount of charge stored in the memory cell must be controlled within a very narrow range for each level in a multilevel memory. The severity of this problem increases geometrically as the number of bits stored per multilevel memory cell increases since 2N discrete levels per cell are required to store N bits per cell. In analog memory the total charge storage range must cover the dynamic range of the analog signal. The precision of the stored charge determines the signal-to-noise ratio of the analog information. For analog signals the challenge is dealing with signals with wide dynamic range and/or high signal-to-noise ratio. In both applications the charge must be initially stored during programming with a high degree of precision.
To obtain the programming precision required for multilevel cells, iterative programming algorithms have been used. These algorithms provide a programming voltage pulse followed by a read or verify step. The program/verify sequence is repeated until the desired charge storage level in the cell is reached with the desired precision. As more charge is stored on the floating gate 105, the Ev 150 reduces, thereby slowing the programming. To continue programming at a sustained rate, the biasing voltages applied to the control gate 125 or drain 120 are increased with subsequent programming pulses. Hot carrier injection programming methods require high voltages, beyond the power supply voltages, to be applied to the control gate 125 and drain 120 of the cell to generate sufficiently high Eh 135 and Ev 150. Controlling such high voltages in a complex algorithm increases circuit complexity.
The read or verify sensing steps must be accomplished with adequate precision to halt the programming algorithm at the desired level in the case of multilevel and at the correct charge state for analog storage. Various sensing approaches have been described and can be generally divided into two modes of operation. During current-mode sensing, the current flowing in the cell is dependent on the charge stored in the cell. The cell is biased by applying voltages and a current flowing in the cell is sensed. During voltage-mode sensing, the current flowing in the cell is not dependent on the charge stored in the cell. In voltage-mode, the cell is biased by applying a fixed current and a voltage is sensed which corresponds uniquely to the amount of charge stored on the floating gate of the cell.
Hot carrier injection programming in present technologies takes place quickly in the range of 0.5 to 5 microseconds. This is due to the high programming voltages which generate high cell channel currents Is 140 and Id 145, some of which is sent towards the floating gate 105. This fast programming makes it difficult to maintain precision for multilevel and analog applications. The high current poses power problems which may prevent the use of a single power supply voltage for the chip. It also restricts the number of cells which can be simultaneously programmed in a xe2x80x9cpagexe2x80x9d of cells. Methods to reduce the programming current have been proposed at the expense of adding extra processing complexity to the cell.
The present invention solves or substantially mitigates these problems. A memory circuit according to the present invention controls the programming current directly and accomplishes a high degree of programming precision.
The present invention provides for an integrated circuit memory system and method for the precision programming of single or a plurality of nonvolatile memory cells. The invention enables each memory cell to either have a stored charge in one of a plurality of discrete levels corresponding to digital information or have a stored charge as part of a continuum corresponding to analog information.
Precision programming is achieved by directly controlling the current flowing between source and drain in the memory cell during hot carrier injection programming, thereby allowing reduced programming cell current and lower power operation. The reduced cell current enables a plurality of cells to be programmed simultaneously in a page of cells which improves programming time, requires only a single power supply, and does not require additional silicon processing steps.
Multiple program and verify cycles are performed with incrementally changing programming cell current during successive cycles to reduce programming time. The application of programming, verify or read cell voltages and current are performed in a predetermined manner including pre-charging the bitline depending on the characteristics of the particular memory cell type used.
In one embodiment, parts of the bitline driver do not require the use of high voltage circuitry which reduces circuit complexity. In addition, the use of voltage-mode sensing allows exactly the same circuit topology to be used for programming as well as for sensing operations to further simplify the circuit complexity. An alternative embodiment of the invention uses a pre-charge voltage control circuit to indirectly control the current in the memory cell, while the current control circuit is turned off during programming.

Precision programming of nonvolatile memory cells


A device for locking a tilt steering column in adjusted position has two clamping rings, one of which is rotated by a handle. When the handle is rotated in one direction, the clamping rings interact to lock the steering column in adjusted position. When the handle is rotated in the opposite direction, the clamping rings release the steering column so that its position can be adjusted. A third ring is provided to releasably retain the locking rings in locked position.

Various mechanisms have been developed for locking tilt steering columns in adjusted position. Some have detents engageable with notches or teeth to lock the steering column in a number of separate discrete positions. Others have a worm gear/worm wheel arrangement for effecting fine adjustment.
The tilt-lock mechanism of this invention dispenses with detents, gears, worms and the like and provides an improved arrangement for locking the steering column in any desired position.
More specifically, the tilt device of this invention moves with the steering column. The tilt device preferably comprises two clamping rings, one of which can be rotated by a handle. When the handle is rotated in one direction, the clamping rings interact to lock the steering column in adjusted position. When the handle is rotated in the opposite direction, the clamping rings release the column and permit it to be tilted to a different position where it again can be locked by manipulation of the handle.
Preferably the locking rings have interengaging ramps or cams which engage and disengage depending upon the direction in which the handle is rotated.
Preferably also, a third ring is provided for releasably retaining the locking rings in the locked position. This third ring may have a retainer or retainers for engaging a lug or lugs on the rotatable clamping ring with an audible click.
It is an object of this invention to provide a device for releasably locking a steering column in adjusted position having the above features.
It is a further object to provide a releasable locking device for a steering column which is composed of a relatively few simple parts, is capable of being easily manufactured and assembled, is rugged and durable, and is well designed for the accomplishment of its intended function.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will become more apparent as the following description proceeds, especially when considered with the accompanying drawings.

Low pivot tilt steering column clamping mechanism


A system, apparatus, computer program product and method of performing functional validation testing in a system are provided. Generally, functional validation testing includes data acquisition and data validation testing. During the functional validation testing two devices may be exchanging data. The exchange of data by the two devices may be referred to as data acquisition. The data from one device and the data from the other device may be compared to each other. This may be referred to as data validation. When data is exchanged during data acquisition, it is also stored in appropriate locations in a pool of buffers in memory. During the data acquisition, checks are made to determine if the system is entering an idle cycle. If so, the data validation test is performed by using the data in the pool of buffers in memory.

1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to functional validation testing. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a system, apparatus, computer program product and method of continuing functional validation testing even after one of the devices involved in performing the test becomes inaccessible.
2. Description of Related Art
After an integrated circuit (IC) has been designed and fabricated, it usually undergoes an array of tests to ensure that it functions as intended. This array of tests is usually referred to as functional validation testing.
Functional validation testing generally entails data acquisition and validation. For example, if data is being transacted between two devices (i.e., data acquisition), then it has to be validated. To validate the data, the data has to be read from the source device and from the destination device and compared. If the data read from the two devices are the same the test passes; otherwise it fails.
When, during the functional validation testing, one of the devices becomes inaccessible, the test may have to be suspended since accessibility to both devices is required. In such a case, therefore, the functional validation testing becomes that much more prolonged.
Thus, what is needed is a system, apparatus, computer program product and method of continuing functional validation testing even after one of the devices involved in performing the test becomes inaccessible.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

System, apparatus and computer program product for performing functional validation testing

International Business Machines Corporation


A transmission device capable of detecting and discarding duplicate data transmitted over Work and Protection paths of a ring network. An add/drop multiplexer adds/drops and cross-connects signals. When an FS-R control signal, for example, is received, a bridge distributes the signal output from the add/drop multiplexer to the Work and Protection routes of the ring network. When the signal distribution is executed by the bridge, a discard information inserter inserts discard information into the signal output to the Work route by the bridge. A discard information detector determines whether or not the discard information is included in the signal dropped by the add/drop multiplexer. A signal discarder discards the dropped signal, depending on whether the discard information is detected by the discard information detector.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to transmission devices, and more particularly, to a transmission device constituting a ring network and adapted to add/drop data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Transmission devices constituting a ring network (e.g., SONET (Synchronous Optical Network)/SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) transmission devices) are generally configured in compliance with an architecture called BLSR (Bidirectional Line Switched Ring) or UPSR (Unidirectional Path Switched Ring) to cope with communication failure.
FIG. 17 is a block diagram of a conventional transmission device configured according to BLSR. As shown in the figure, the transmission device has an ADM (Add/Drop Multiplexer)/BLSR unit 200. The ADM/BLSR unit 200 includes an ADM 201, an EoS (Ethernet Over SDH) 202, switches (SW) 203 and 204, and bridges (BR) 205 and 206. In the following, explanation is made on the assumption that the network is based on SDH but applies also to the case where the network is based on SONET.
The ADM 201 adds/drops and cross-connects signals path by path. The EoS 202 converts Ethernet (registered trademark) packets received from a lower-level network into ADD path frames for the SDH network. Also, the EoS 202 converts DROP path frames of the SDH network, output from the ADM 201, into Ethernet packets, which are then output to the lower-level network.
The switches 203 and 204 individually perform Work (W)/Protection (P) route switching, on a section-by-section basis, of signals to be input to the ADM 201. The bridges 205 and 206 each operate in response to a control signal to distribute the signal output from the ADM 201 to the Work and Protection routes. In FIG. 17, the solid lines (except those extending downward from the ADM 201) represent the Work routes of the ring network, and the dashed lines represent the Protection routes.
FIG. 18 shows an exemplary configuration of a BLSR network using the conventional transmission devices. As illustrated, nodes (transmission devices) 211 through 226 are connected in a ring. Each of the nodes 211 to 226 functions as the transmission device shown in FIG. 17. The node 211 is an ADD node and the node 226 is a DROP node. The nodes 211 to 226 provide SDH/SONET transmission of Ethernet packets by means of a path (Work path) along the Work route indicated by arrows 231. Redundancy switching of the nodes 211 to 226 is executed in conformity to Bellcore GR-1230.
Also, FIG. 18 shows parts of the nodes 225 and 226 in detail, as indicated by arrows 233. The node 225 has an ADM 225a and a bridge 225b respectively corresponding to the ADM 201 and the bridge 206 shown in FIG. 17. The node 226 has an ADM 226a and a switch 226b respectively corresponding to the ADM 201 and the switch 204 shown in FIG. 17.
Let it be assumed here that FS-R (Forced Switch-Ring; path switching by the operator) is executed in the span between the nodes 225 and 226. For example, the operator operates his/her terminal such that FS-R/IDLE is output from the node 226, as indicated by arrow 234.
In response to the FS-R request, the node 225 carries out bridging. Specifically, signal (data) is distributed by the bridge 225b in the manner shown in FIG. 18, so that the data is transmitted through the Work path indicated by the arrows 231 as well as the path (Protection path) along the Protection route indicated by arrows 232. Namely, identical data arrives at the node 226 via the Work and Protection paths indicated by the arrows 231 and 232, respectively.
However, the Protection path has a transmission path length longer than that of the Work path by 15 spans (span between the nodes 225 and 224+ span between the nodes 224 and 223+ . . . + span between the nodes 211 and 226). At the node 226, therefore, a delay skew is caused between the data received from the Work path and the same data received from the Protection path. For example, where the transmission distance of one span is 80 km at a maximum, the fiber delay skew is about 6 ms at a maximum, and if the transmission delay caused per node is about 0.1 ms, then the data delay skew between the Work and Protection paths is about 7.5 ms. Thus, while the bridging is performed in the node 225, the data arriving at the node 226 via the Protection path is delayed for the data delay skew with respect to the data arriving at the same node via the Work path. At this point of time, the switch 226b of the node 226 is not yet switched to the Protection path, that is, switching is not yet executed; therefore, the node 226 drops the data received via the Work path.
FIG. 19 shows the network after the switching. In FIG. 19, like reference numerals are used to denote like elements appearing in FIG. 18, and description of such elements is omitted.
After the bridging is executed, the node 225 transmits information indicating completion of bridging (FS-R/Br) to the node 226 along the route indicated by arrow 235. On receiving the information, the node 226 causes the switch 226b to switch the DROP path from the Work path to the Protection path, so that the ADM 226a drops the data received via the Protection path, instead of the Work path.
At this time, duplicate data corresponding to the delay skew between the Work and Protection paths is dropped from the node 226. Where the transmission rate of the transmission paths is 10 Gbps, for example, 75-Mbit duplicate data is output. Such a phenomenon occurs when a BLSR is switched in response to FS-R, SD-R (Signal Degrade-Ring) or MS-R (Manual Switching-Ring). A similar problem also arises in a UPSR due to the delay caused at the time of active/standby switching.
In actual operation, duplication of data often takes place when FS-R/MS-R control is executed for the purpose of maintenance of communication lines. Data duplication in the SDH network may cause no particular problem during the maintenance. Recently, however, a major part of data conveyed over transmission paths is packet data such as Ethernet packets, and thus, data duplication causes increase in the IP traffic of networks to which the data is dropped.
Usually, duplicate packets are discarded by IP routers or the like. Depending on connected devices, however, duplicate packets may possibly cause critical failure such as data destruction or traffic disruption. Especially, where duplicate packets are generated in a transmission device constituting the backbone of a network, the network may possibly encounter a fatal failure.
For SONET/SDH rings, a means for realizing a non-momentary-interruption path by UPSR has been proposed as a means to prevent data duplication. In this connection, an optically bidirectional ring switching method has been proposed in which UPSR is fused into BLSR to realize a non-momentary-interruption path by the BLSR system, thereby providing two advantages of high line capacity efficiency and high line reliability and also making it possible to decrease memory capacity (see, e.g., International Publication No. WO 01/061937).
However, conventional transmission devices do not have a means to prevent packet duplication caused at the time of active/standby switching. Thus, to eliminate the drawback, routers or the like are connected to the ADD/DROP ports of a SONET/SDH ring, or duplicate packet filters using EoE (Ethernet over Ethernet) techniques etc. are provided at the ADD/DROP ports. It is therefore necessary that the individual ADD/DROP ports of the SONET/SDH ring should be provided with routers or filters, which lowers traffic rate and increases costs.
On the other hand, the switching method realizing a non-momentary-interruption path requires that identical data should always be passed via the Work and Protection paths, as in UPSR, and thus cannot be applied to BLSR.


A process cartridge detachably mountable on the main body of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus comprises an electrophotographic photosensitive member, development means for developing the latent images formed by the electrophotographic photosensitive member, and a toner retaining unit for retaining toner to be used for development by the development means. This toner retaining unit is formed by coupling a first frame having a toner container for containing toner, a toner supply opening for supplying toner contained in the toner container to the development means, and an installation surface for a covering member arranged on the circumference of a second opening provided apart from the toner supply opening, and a second frame having a covering member installed on the covering member installation surface for closing the toner container in order to cover the second opening substantially in parallel with the covering member installation surface, and a handling unit arranged for the covering member and extruded to the side opposite to the covering member installation surface of the covering member.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process cartridge, an assembling method thereof, an assembling method of a toner container, and an electrophotographic image forming apparatus.
2. Related Background Art
Here, the electrophotographic image forming apparatus forms an image on a recording material using an electrophotographic image formation process. Examples of the electrophotographic image forming apparatus include an electrophotographic copying machine, an electrophotographic printer (laser beam printer, LED printer or the like), a facsimile machine and a word processor or the like.
The process cartridge contains integrally an electrophotographic photosensitive member and charging means, developing means or cleaning means, and is detachably mountable relative to a main assembly of the image forming apparatus. It may integrally contain the electrophotographic photosensitive member and at least one of the charging means, the developing means and the cleaning means. As another example, it may contain the electrophotographic photosensitive member and at least the developing means.
In an electrophotographic image forming apparatus using an electrophotographic image forming process, the process cartridge which is used contains the electrophotographic photosensitive member and process means actable on the electrophotographic photosensitive member, and is detachably mountable as a unit to a main assembly of the image forming apparatus (process cartridge type). With this process cartridge type apparatus, the maintenance of the apparatus can be carried out in effect by a user without depending on a serviceman. Therefore, the process cartridge type apparatus is now widely used in electrophotographic image forming apparatuses.
The present invention is directed to a further improvement of such a process cartridge.

Process cartridge, assembling method of process cartridge, assembling method of toner container and electrophotographic image forming apparatus


The invention relates to an apparatus for randomizing and verifying sets of playing cards. Also, the invention relates to a processing providing such an apparatus; feeding to the apparatus one or more cards either after they have been played in a game or from an unrandomized or unverified set of cards; and manually retrieving a verified true set of cards from the apparatus. Also, the invention relates to a process of playing in a casino setting or simulated casino setting, a card game comprising providing such an apparatus, feeding unverified sets of playing cards to the apparatus, and recovering verified true sets of cards from the apparatus.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of playing card shuffling apparatus and methods.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Soules, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,169,155, shows playing cards having invisible marking codes on the front surface adapted to be read by electro-optical reading means which identifies the card and gives an audio or visual signal to identify the player position to whom the card is to be manually dealt. This device is primarily adapted for the game of "Duplicate Bridge."
Kelley U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,399, shows a playing card distribution device comprising a set of photocells to sample the card indicia, displacement means powered by a motor, a processor control means to determine into which direction or holding receptacle the card is to be displaced, and program cards coded to indicate the distribution of the cards to the players. This device is especially useful for Duplicate Bridge games wherein the specific distributions to each of several tables of four bridge players are achieved. This device comprises a stepping motor, a distribution chute, a series of holding trays, and a processor which uses the identification information to align the distribution chute with the desired holding tray so that the card is propelled into that tray.
Albrecht U.S. Pat. No. 5,374,061, shows a blackjack shoe having means to read specially coded playing cards and send the coded information to a processor which determines a running count, betting count, true count, and other information related to the profitability of a particular wager or particular action such as an insurance bet, and whether the card belongs to the particular set of cards assigned to the table. If an improper card is detected, an alarm signal is generated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,951,950, shows a playing card dealing device for dealing programmed deals comprising specially coded playing cards, electrical means for reading the coded playing cards, and indicator means for indicating which player a particular card should be dealt.
Miller, U.S. Pat. No. 5,362,053, shows a device for speeding the game of blackjack comprising specially coded playing cards, a reader such as a bar code reader, and means for allowing the dealer to determine the value of the down card. The device is adapted to indicate whether the blackjack dealer's down card is an ace, whether his up card has a value of 10, or has a value of 10 when his up card is an ace.
Normand, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,822,050, shows a device for distributing specially coded playing cards among four receiving boxes so as to create bridge hands according to a controlled, predetermined pattern.
Soules, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,713, shows a device for reading bar codes on special playing cards and to deal a preselected "deal" to a chosen number of players by indicating to the human dealer the direction each card is to be dealt.
Plevyuk et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,342, shows a processor controlled shuffling machine which comprises a revolving wheel having a plurality of receiving positions, wherein the positions in the revolving wheel are aligned with a feeding mechanism and the wheel is rotated so as to cause the playing cards to be received in the receiving positions in a random order, and thereafter ejected into a stack forming a shuffled deck. Plevyuk et al do not disclose a method of reading indicia on playing cards prior to randomizing. Furthermore, Plevyuk et al do not show a means or method of verifying the accuracy of a deck of playing cards.
None of the prior art devices has become widely accepted in the field of casinos. In casinos, especially in connection with casino blackjack games, the conventional practice is to spread out one or more, usually up to eight, fresh decks of cards at the beginning of a shift and to determine that the deck or decks contain each and every card which belongs to those decks, and no additional cards. It is also the practice to stop the game when a point in a collection of decks, known as a "shoe," is reached, and to manually and extensively shuffle the set of cards comprising one or more decks. These conventional practices are very time consuming, delay the momentum of the game, and sometimes give an opportunity for fraudulent practices, especially on the part of dealers who may be working with player-partners.
It is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus and method for receiving cards, either from new decks or after the cards have been played, to shuffle the cards in a randomized order, and simultaneously to verify the accuracy of the set or sets of cards in the deck or decks.

Apparatus and process for verifying, sorting, and randomizing sets of playing cards and process for playing card games


Exemplary embodiments of the present invention include a second reflector attached to a sealing portion so that its reflection surface may surround substantially the front half of a light emitting portion, the heat capacity of a front-side electrode surrounded with the second reflector is made larger than that of a rear-side electrode, an electrode shaft which supports the front-side electrode surrounded with the second reflector is made thicker and/or longer than an electrode shaft which supports the rear-side electrode, the front-side sealing portion to which the second reflector is attached is made thicker than a rear-side sealing portion, and the front-side sealing portion, to which the second reflector is attached is coated with a heat radiation material which has a thermal conductivity higher than that of the material of this sealing portion.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an illumination apparatus having a light emitting tube, and a reflector which reflects emergent light from the light emitting tube, and a projector including the illumination apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
A related art illumination apparatus includes a light emitting tube, and a reflector to turn light emitted from the light emitting tube into a predetermined direction. In such an illumination apparatus, in order to effectively utilize stray light emitted from the light emitting tube and not put into use, a second auxiliary reflector is installed at a position opposite to the first-mentioned reflector with the light emitting tube interposed therebetween, as disclosed in related art document JP-A-8-31382 (page 2, FIG. 1).

Illumination device and projector equipping the same


Satellites provide communication between devices such as user terminals (UTs) and ground stations that are in turn connected to points-of-presence (PoP) that connect to other networks, such as the Internet. Many factors affect latency for data passing between the PoP and the UT. The PoP accepts downstream data addressed to the UT and determines a target delivery window (TDW) indicating a window of time within which the downstream data is expected to be delivered. Communication resources are allocated to the downstream data based on the TDW. At subsequent points, such as at the ground station, the TDW is assessed to determine whether to continue sending the downstream data or to use a different communication resource. For example, a first ground station will forward the downstream data to a second ground station if the uplink will not be able to deliver the downstream data before expiration of the TDW.

Communications involving satellites servicing many user terminals introduce significant latencies due to propagation delay, traffic congestion, and other factors. This results in a complex environment in which providing an assured quality of service (QoS) for delivery of data using traditional techniques is not possible.
While implementations are described herein by way of example, those skilled in the art will recognize that the implementations are not limited to the examples or figures described. It should be understood that the figures and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit implementations to the particular form disclosed but, on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word "may" is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words "include", "including", and "includes" mean "including, but not limited to".

System to manage satellite communications


In a memory system capable of using a common address for reading out a combination of upper-digit data and lower-digit data, there are provided an upper-digit memory element 1 for exclusively storing upper-digit data .alpha.(0,0) - - - .alpha.(i,n-1); a lower-digit memory element 2 for exclusively storing lower-digit data .beta.(0) - - - .beta.(i); and inherent address designating means 3-6 for designating individual inherent addresses ADR-a, ADR-b of the upper-digit memory element 1 and the lower-digit memory element 2 in accordance with first address A(0,0) - - - A(i,n-1) specifying a read or write position, and for designating an inherent address ADR-b of the lower-digit memory element 2 in accordance with second address B(0) - - - B(i) used for reading or writing only the lower-digit memory element 2. When the upper-digit data is stored into the upper-digit memory element 1, the first address A(0,0) - - - A(i,n-1) is designated, while when the lower-digit data is stored into the lower-digit memory element 2, the second address B(0) - - - B(i) is designated, thereby omitting minor arithmetic computations in the storing operation of upper-digit data and lower-digit data to the same address. When the data is read out, the first address A(0,0) - - - A(i,n-1) is designated to read out a combination of upper-digit data .alpha.(0,0) - - - .alpha.(i,n-1) stored in the upper-digit memory element 1 and lower-digit data .beta.(0) - - - .beta.(i) stored in the lower-digit memory element 2.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a memory system incorporated in a digital signal processor used in the field of mobile communications, such as time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, or the like, and more particularly to a memory system capable of simplifying the procedure of data storing processing.
2. Prior Art
The mobile communication system generally comprises a transmitter and a receiver, at least either of which is carried on a vehicle or a moving object for the communication through radio transmission. From such circumstances, the mobile communication system is generally subjected to the fading or similar phenomenon occurring in the moving circumstances, accompanied by state of radio transmission being fairly unstabilized. This is why the transmission error occurs so frequently in the mobile communications.
To solve this problem, it is effective to encode information data at the transmitter side so that, if any error is generated during radio transmission, such errors can be corrected later at the receiver side. Namely, the receiver side performs an error-correcting operation by decoding the transmitted information data. In such an error-correcting operation, the error-correcting accuracy will be improved by utilizing the information indicating the state of radio transmission through which the information data is propagated.
Meanwhile, when the mobile communication system employs the TDMA (time division multiple access) system, a predetermined time period is divided into a plurality of time slots respectively assigned or allocated to each of plural channels for multiplexing the information data.
In this case, there is the possibility that some trouble is concentrated on a specific part (specific time slot). To avoid fatal damage even in such serious conditions, a technology usually employed is an interleave operation according to which the order of time slots is intentionally varied in every cycle for allocating the information data. When the interleave operation is performed at the transmitter side, burst error can be preferably reduced or lightened to the level of random errors in favor of execution of error-correcting operation.
On the other hand, at the receiver side, a normally employed technology to decode such information data is a de-interleave operation according to which a reverse operation of the above-described interleave operation is performed to rearrange or reconstruct the data into the original form.
A digital signal processor, performing the decoding of digital signals, generally comprises a memory system for temporarily storing data generated during the computations. The de-interleave operation is normally performed in the process of storing the data into this memory system.
To this end, an address pointer designates an address in the memory system so as to intentionally switch the address in compliance with the principle of de-interleave in the process of storing data. By this operation, the decoded data are rearranged by the original order and stored in the memory system.
In this case, it is essential to assign a common address to one information data and its corresponding state-of-radio-transmission data so that they form combined or coupled data stored in a predetermined region of the memory system designated by the common address. The state-of-radio-transmission data represents the state of radio transmission through which each time slot carrying information data is propagated.
This kind of recording device, as shown in FIG. 1, comprises a memory element 11 memorizing information data and corresponding state-of-radio-transmission data, an address generating circuit 12 converting an address (ADR) on the program (hereinafter, referred to "program address (ADR)") into an inherent address of memory element 11, a judgement circuit 13 making a judgement based on the program address (ADR) as to whether or not memory element 11 is selected, an arithmetic circuit 14 generating data as a combination of information data and its corresponding state-of-radio-transmission data, and general purpose registers 15, 16 and 17 temporarily storing the result of arithmetic circuit 14.
The writing operation of this memory system is initiated upon entry of both the program address (ADR) and a write signal (WR). The program address (ADR), after being converted into the inherent address of memory element 11 by address generating circuit 12, is entered into memory element 11. The judgement circuit 13, when it identifies that the program address (ADR) is the address assigned to the memory element 11, generates a select signal indicating the fact that memory element 11 is selected.
In response to this select signal, the write signal (WR) is entered in memory element 11 after taking a logical product between the select signal and the write signal (WR). Then, any data entered from a data input/output terminal (I/O-c) is stored in a specific region of memory element 11 designated by the inherent address generated from address generating circuit 12.
Meanwhile, the reading operation of this memory system is initiated upon entry of both the program address (ADR) and a read signal (RD). The program address (ADR), after being converted into the inherent address of memory element 11 by address generating circuit 12, is entered into memory element 11. The judgement circuit 13, when it identifies that the program address (ADR) is the address assigned to the memory element 11, generates the select signal indicating the fact that memory element 11 is selected.
In response to this select signal, the read signal (RD) is entered in memory element 11 after taking a logical product between the select signal and the read signal (RD). Then, the data stored in the specific region of memory element 11 designated by the inherent address corresponding to the program address (ADR) are read out and outputted from the data input/output terminal (I/O-c).
The memory element 11 of this memory system, as illustrated in a memory map shown in FIG. 2, has a storage region designated by program address A(i,j) 18 for storing a combination of each information data .alpha.(i,j) 19 transmitted by time slot i and a corresponding state-of-radio-transmission data .beta.(i) 20. In the storage region covering address A(0,0) through A(0,n-1), the upper-digit region stores information data 19 transmitted by #0 time slot, while the lower-digit region stores state-of-radio-transmission data 20 inherent to #0 time slot.
Similarly, in the storage region covering address A(i,0) through A(i,n-1), the upper-digit region stores information data 19 transmitted by #i time slot, while the lower-digit region stores state-of-radio-transmission data 20 inherent to #i time slot.
The time slots, if their time slot numbers are identical, have common state-of-radio-transmission data 20 inherent to the same time slot. Hence, the storage region of #1 time slot, corresponding to address A(i,0) through A(i,n-1), has the same lower-digit data .beta.(i).
Each data, as a combination of one information data and its corresponding state-of-radio-transmission data, is produced by arithmetic circuit 14 using general purpose registers 15 through 17. FIG. 3 shows a flow chart illustrating the procedure for producing the combination of data, using #0 data and #1 data of #i time slot stored in address A(i,0) and address A(i,1).
Step 1: Arithmetic circuit 14 obtains a bit logical product (i.e. bit AND) between data 21 and data 22. The former data 21 has an upper-digit part representing unknown data and a lower-digit part representing state-of-radio-transmission data .beta.(i), while the latter data 22 has an upper-digit part representing 0 in each digit and a lower-digit part representing 1 in each digit. As a result of this bit AND calculation, arithmetic circuit 14 generates new data 23 having an upper-digit part representing storing 0 in each digit and a lower-digit part representing state-of-radio-transmission data .beta.(i). The newly created data 23 is stored in general purpose register B 16.
Step 2: Next, arithmetic circuit 14 obtains a bit logical product (i.e. bit AND) between data 24 and data 25. The former data 24 has an upper-digit part representing information data a(i,0) and a lower-digit part representing unknown data, while the latter data 25 has an upper-digit part representing 1 in each digit and a lower-digit part representing 0 in each digit. As a result of this bit AND calculation, arithmetic circuit 14 generates new data 26 having an upper-digit part representing information data a(i,0) and a lower-digit part representing 0 in each digit. The newly created data 26 is stored in general purpose register A 15.
Step 3: Subsequently, arithmetic circuit 14 obtains a bit logical product (i.e. bit OR) between data 26 stored in general purpose register A 15 and data 23 stored in general purpose register B 16, thus generating new data 27 as a result of this bit OR calculation. The newly created data 27 is stored in general purpose register C 17. At this moment, information data .alpha.(i,0) and state-of-radio-transmission data .beta.(i) inherent to #i time slot are coupled for the first time as one of combination data.
Step 4: Thus obtained data 27 is transferred into a storage region designated by address A(i,0) dedicated to #0 data of #i time slot.
Subsequently, #1 data of #i time slot to be stored in a storage region designated by address A(i,1) is created.
Step 5: Arithmetic circuit 14 obtains a bit logical product (i.e. bit AND) between data 28 and data 25. The former data 28 has an upper-digit part representing information data .alpha.(i,1) and a lower-digit part representing unknown data, while the latter data 25 has an upper-digit part representing 1 in each digit and a lower-digit part representing 0 in each digit. As a result of this bit AND calculation, arithmetic circuit 14 generates new data 29 having an upper-digit part representing information data .alpha.(i,1) and a lower-digit part representing 0 in each digit. The newly created data 29 is stored in general purpose register A 15.
For the same time slots, the state-of-radio-transmission data is common among them; therefore, the state-of-radio-transmission data for #i time slot can be specified as .beta.(i). Accordingly, data 23 used for creating #0 data of #i time slot and stored in general purpose register B 16 can be directly used as the state-of-radio-transmission data.
Step 6: Subsequently, arithmetic circuit 14 obtains a bit logical product (i.e. bit OR) between data 29 stored in general purpose register A 15 and data 23 stored in general purpose register B 16, thus generating new data 30 as a result of this bit OR calculation. The newly created data 30 is stored in general purpose register C 17. At this moment, information data .alpha.(i,1) and state-of-radio-transmission data .beta.(i) are coupled for the first time as one of combination data.
Step 7: Thus obtained data 30 is transferred into a storage region designated by address A(i,1) allocated to #1 data of #i time slot.
To accomplish the creation of all data of #i time slot, it is necessary to repeat the above-described operation until the data number reaches n-1. Accordingly, a total of 3n+1 steps will be required to accomplish the storage of all of #i time slot data into memory element 11.
However, according to the above-described conventional memory system, there is the problem that numerous preprocessing steps are required for the computations of bit AND, bit OR and others, before storing a combination of one information data and a corresponding state-of-radio-transmission data into the same storage region designated by a common address.

Memory system for storing information data and state-of-radio-transmission data

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.