A plasma-based generator for use with a power source including a plasma tube having a hollow tube body in which a plasma is generated by the power source; a first support structure supporting a downstream end of the plasma tube; and a second support structure holding an upstream end of the plasma tube, the second support structure connected to the first support structure, the second support structure including an expansion joint which changes its length to accommodate a lengthening and a shortening of the plasma tube due to its thermal expansion and contraction when plasma processing is performed within the plasma tube.

The invention relates to plasma-based, remote excitation sources for use with processing chambers, e.g. plasma processing chambers.
Plasma based, remote excitation sources or reactive species generators must often be able to handle high input powers and withstand high temperatures combined with a highly reactive chemical environment. For example, in a common application of a reactive species generator, NF.sub.3 gas flows into the generator and is broken down by the plasma. The resulting activated species flows out of the generator and into the semiconductor processing equipment where it is used for in-situ chamber cleaning, etching, photo resist stripping, or any of a number of other tasks. As an example of using the reactive species for in-situ chamber cleaning refer to U.S. Ser. No. 08/278,605, entitled "A Deposition Chamber Cleaning Technique Using a Remote Excitation Source" filed on Jul. 21, 1994, and incorporated herein by reference.
The extremely hostile environment to which such equipment is exposed can disable the plasma-based generator very quickly. For example, some generators that are commercially available use quartz tubes to contain the activated species. In those systems, the fluorine that is produced etches the tube quite quickly. Moreover, at high power levels (e.g. above 1 or 1.5 kW) the quartz will tend to break down. Thus, after using the generator only a few times or for a sustained period of operation, the wall of the tube will be become so thin that it will soon collapse under continued exposure to the high temperatures and the vacuums that prevail in such systems. Thus, very early in the life of the tube, it must be discarded and replaced with a new tube. Both the inconvenience and cost of having to repeatedly replace the quartz tube can be quite high.
Some existing plasma-based generators use ceramic tubes in place of the quartz tubes. Ceramic tubes are capable of holding up better than the quartz tubes in the chemically corrosive environments often encountered. But ceramic tubes are not a panacea. They typically have a relatively high thermal expansion coefficient as compared to quartz and other materials. Thus, repeated cycling between room temperature and the high processing temperatures that commonly occur in these systems produces large stresses within the ceramic tubes. These stresses eventually result in the tubes cracking and failing.
Unfortunately, the plasma tubes are not the only components that fail. Seals and O-rings which aid in maintaining a vacuum within the plasma tube also rapidly deteriorate and eventually fail when exposed to the high temperatures produced in such systems.

High-power, plasma-based, reactive species generator


An optical apparatus with a single-use, disposable fluid flow cartridge and cell and associated optical interface is employed in determining characteristics of a fluid and/or suspended materials or cells contained therein which are introduced into the apparatus. The optical interface communicates electromagnetic radiation from an optical instrument through the fluid within the cell and to an appropriate sensor within the optical instrument. The interaction of the electromagnetic radiation with the fluid is measured by the signal generated by the sensor. Fluid present within the cell may be static or flowing, allowing both discrete sample measurements and monitoring of continuous processes.

The present invention relates to a single-use, disposable optical cell and cartridge with associated optical interface for use in conjunction with an optical instrument for analysis of fluid samples and the materials therein.
Measurement of characteristics of fluids by optical means is well-known in the art. The ability to characterize a fluid non-destructively is useful in many industrial and laboratory applications such as bioprocessing, chemical processing, food and beverage manufacturing, petroleum processing, and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Electromagnetic radiation impinging on a fluid medium may interact with the medium by absorption, scattering, or fluorescence. Measurement of transmitted, reflected, scattered, or fluoresced radiation by an appropriate set of detection optics may be used to determine characteristics or properties of the medium such as concentrations of chemical analytes or turbidity.
Several common approaches exist for providing optical access of analyzers and spectrometers to fluid samples. Manual introduction of fluid samples to optical instruments by cuvettes or similar sample containers is a standard method for performing discrete sample measurements. Such containers are often disposable items and the fluid sample introduced to the container is most commonly discarded after measurement, especially if the fluid is drawn from a sterile process. While cuvettes or similar disposable cells may be configured in a motorized tray or carousel assembly to permit automated measurements of several samples, such measurements are of limited value for continuous, long-term monitoring or when high time resolution is required.
Many varieties of fluid cells also exist in the prior art. Unlike cuvette-type approaches, cells permit continuous delivery of fluid to a measurement apparatus. Process cells comprising a machined housing with connectors for optical fibers and inlet/outlet tubing are common prior art examples. These assemblies often comprise parallel window geometries whereby fluid traversing the windows is optically interrogated by electromagnetic energy delivered and collected by optical fibers. Such assemblies are often machined from metal or plastic, are intended to be used multiple times, and are designed to withstand harsh process conditions such as high pressure, high temperature, and extended contact with corrosive solutions. Cells for such demanding environments are typically costly and inconvenient to incorporate in processes that require sterilization of all wetted surfaces. Furthermore, many examples comprise optical materials that are intended for ultraviolet (UV), visible (VIS), and telecommunications wavelengths which span approximately 200 to 1600 nm. Such materials typically have poor optical transmission in infrared wavelengths beyond 1600 nm, and are thus unsuitable for optical instrumentation utilizing that region of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Numerous branches of industry and science increasingly prefer so-called "single-use" or "disposable" components in fluid processing applications. The ease of use of disposable components such as processing vessels and sensors is particularly attractive in, for example, biological applications where sterility is of the upmost importance. Single-use, disposable components may be offered to the end user pre-sterilized, and no costly cleaning procedures are required after the fluid processing has terminated—the user may simply discard the disposable component. It is therefore desirable to design components that come into contact with process fluids as single-use, disposable items if at all possible.
Disposable flow cells have been demonstrated in the art. Some examples are simply less costly plastic analogs to the previously described process cells, but suffer from the same limitations. Other examples utilize a disposable cell assembly situated within optical elements and a housing assembly that may be disassembled such that the flow path is unbroken. Despite the merits of such examples, prior art implementations have often been specific to spectroscopic measurements in the UV and visible electromagnetic spectrum, require inconvenient assembly and disassembly procedures, and are not well-suited for infrared spectroscopic applications.
Another common limitation of prior art cell designs is that assembly and disassembly steps are required in the fluid flow and/or optical paths to connect cells to a process. In the case of common reusable process cells, a typical configuration includes fluid connectors coupled to the cell for attachment of tubing lines to carry the fluid to the measurement zone of the cell. In this configuration, insertion or removal of the cell from the flow path requires coupling or decoupling of the tubing from the connectors. Such manual intervention is often undesirable, especially in closed-loop and sterile processes. Disposable cells, on the other hand, are in some cases able to leave the flow path unbroken during insertion or removal of the cell from the flow path. However, prior art versions require manual assembly and disassembly of mechanical components to access the disposable cell, and this level of user intervention is often undesirable and inconvenient.
To overcome the limitations of prior art methods of optical interfacing with fluid samples, an optical cell apparatus is desired in which the optical path length is stable, all components in the optical path are constructed from materials highly transparent within the spectral range of the analysis, and all materials that contact the fluid are disposable and may be sterilized by common means. The disposable cartridge and tubing contained therein would desirably be of sufficiently low cost to render it a consumable which may be regularly replaced, and replacement should desirably be feasible by unskilled personnel and require minimal, if any, assembly or disassembly of mechanical components. Furthermore, said disposable cartridge may desirably be removable from the optical instrument during a continuous, closed-loop process without compromising any fluid seal or the sterile environment within the cell as well as be capable of being reinserted to resume measurements. The apparatus also would desirably be amenable to both free-space and optical fiber based coupling approaches.

Optical cell with disposable fluid cartridge


A liquid crystal display includes a substrate, an active layer on the substrate, the active layer having a source region, a channel region and a drain region, a gate line including a gate electrode, the gate electrode overlapping the channel region of the active layer and the gate line having a gate insulating layer disposed underneath, an insulating interlayer covering the exposed surface of the substrate including the gate line, a first contact hole and a second contact hole exposing portions of the source region and the drain region in the insulating interlayer, respectively, a data line including a source electrode on the insulating interlayer, the source electrode connected to the source region and the data line crossing over the gate line, a drain electrode on the insulating interlayer, the drain electrode connected to the drain region, a passivation layer covering the exposed surface of the substrate including the data line and the drain electrode, a third contact hole exposing a portion of the drain electrode on the passivation layer, a pixel electrode connected to the drain electrode on the passivation layer, and a first etching preventing layer covering the crossing portion of the gate lines and the data lines.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates a Liquid Crystal Display ("LCD") and a method for fabricating an LCD which prevents a line open condition of conductive lines located at a step difference portion.
2. Discussion of Related Art
FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate an LCD according to related art, in which FIG. 1 is a plan view and FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view along a line I--I in FIG. 1.
An active layer 11 having a source region 11S, a channel region 11C and a drain region 11D is formed on a substrate 100. A gate line 13L includes a gate electrode 13G and overlaps the channel region 11C. A gate insulating layer is formed underneath the gate electrode 13G and the gate line 13L, and is thereby isolated with the active layer 11.
An insulating interlayer 14 is formed to cover the exposed surface of the substrate including the gate electrode 13G and the gate line 13L. Contact holes to expose portions of the source region 11S and the drain region 11D are formed in the insulating interlayer 14, respectively. A data line 15L having a source electrode 15S connected to the source region 11S is formed on the insulating interlayer 14.
A drain electrode 15D is connected to the exposed drain electrode 11D. Herein, the gate line 13L and the data line 15L cross over each other and define a matrix to form a plurality of pixel elements. A passivation layer 16 is arranged to cover the exposed surface of the substrate including the data line 15L. A contact hole to expose a portion of the drain electrode 15D is formed in the passivation layer 16. A pixel electrode 17 is formed on the passivation layer 16 and is connected to the exposed drain electrode 15D.
FIGS. 3A to 3D show cross-sectional views of a method of fabricating an LCD according to a related art shown in FIGS. 1 and 2.
Referring to FIG. 3A, an amorphous silicon layer is deposited on a substrate 100 and is crystallized. The crystallized silicon layer is etched via photolithography to form an active layer 11.
An insulating layer for forming a gate insulating layer and a conductive layer for forming a gate line are deposited sequentially on the exposed surface of the substrate including the active layer 11. The conductive layer is etched via photolithography to form a gate electrode 13G and a gate line 13L and then, the insulating layer is etched using the gate electrode 13G as a mask to form a gate insulating layer 12.
A source region 11S and a drain region 11D are formed in the active layer by doping impurities in the exposed portion of the active layer 11 using the gate line 13L and the gate electrode 13G as a doping mask. The channel region 11C is defined between the source region 11S and the drain regions 11D.
Referring to FIG. 3B, an insulating interlayer 14 is deposited on the exposed surface of the substrate including the gate line 13L and the gate electrode 13G. Then, contact holes H1 and H2 exposing the portions of the source region 11S and the drain region 11D are formed in the insulating interlayer 14, respectively, by etching the insulating interlayer 14 via photolithography.
A conductive layer for forming a data line including a source electrode and a drain electrode, for example, an Al layer, an Al alloy layer or the like, is deposited on the exposed surface of the substrate and etched via photolithography to form a source electrode 15S, a data line 15L and a drain electrode 15D. The source electrode 15S is connected to the source region 11S, the data line 15L is extended from the source electrode 15S and the drain electrode 15D is connected to the drain region 11D.
Referring to FIG. 3C, a passivation layer 16 is deposited on the exposed surface of the substrate and etched via photolithography to form a contact hole exposing a portion of the drain electrode 15D.
Referring to FIG. 3D, a transparent conductive layer 16, for example, Indium Tin Oxide ("ITO") layer is deposited on the exposed surface of the substrate and etched via photolithography to form a pixel electrode 17 connected to the drain electrode 15D.
However, there are disadvantages in that line open conditions occur in the gate line or the date line, especially at locations at or near the crossing portion of the gate line 15L and the data line 11L and the contact hole portions in the related art LCD. The line open condition is described as follows referring to FIG. 4.
FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional drawing showing the line open condition occurring during the manufacturing process of the LCD according to the related art.
The gate line 13L including the gate electrode 13G is formed on the substrate 100 and the insulating interlayer 14 is formed thereon. At a location where the step coverage of the insulating interlayer 14, which covers the portion of the step difference of the gate line 13L, is bad, the degree of the side slope increases more and more.
Since the conductive layer for forming the data line including the source electrode is deposited on the insulating interlayer 14 via a sputtering method, the step coverage of the conductive layer is very poor and the degree of the side slope increases more and more. Additionally, the passivation layer 16 is deposited on the data line 15L including the source electrode 15S and the drain electrode 15D having sloped sides. However, since the step coverage of the passivation layer 16 is bad, the passivation layer 16 is very thinly deposited on the slope portion.
Accordingly, stress is concentrated on the slope portion and then, cracks are generated in the conductive layer or insulating layer. Since the passivation layer 16 is deposited in the low temperature atmosphere, the rate of the occurrence of pin holes which cause line open conditions is higher in the slope portion than in any other portion.
Successively, the ITO layer for forming the pixel electrode is deposited on the passivation layer 16 and the ITO layer is etched by ITO etchant, which is a mixture solution of FeCl.sub.2, HCl and HNO.sub.3. The ITO etchant penetrates into the passivation layer 16 through the pin holes and cracks form and the ITO etchant melts the data line which includes the source electrode and the drain electrode, thereby causing an open line condition in the data line or the drain electrode.

Liquid crystal display with a protection layer formed by the layer used to form the pixel electrode


A dynamic computer system security method and system using dynamic encryption and full synchronization between system nodes. A data record from a data stream created by a source user is encrypted with an initial dynamic session key. A new dynamic session key is generated based upon a previous dynamic session key and a selected previously encrypted data record. The new dynamic session key is then used to encrypt the next data record. A central authority is used to synchronize and authenticate both source and destination users with dynamic authentication keys. The central authority and users constantly regenerate new dynamic authentication keys. A child process is forked to ensure synchronization and authentication of dynamic authentication keys of each node upon a request for a secure communication establishment from a user. The central authority generates the initial dynamic session key with the current dynamic authentication key to begin a secure communication session.

1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to the field of computer system security, more particularly to a dynamic data encryption and node authentication method and system that distributes the complexity of the encryption algorithm over the dynamics of data exchange and involves full synchronization of encryption key regeneration at system nodes, independent of the node clocks.
2. Background Art
The fundamental objective of cryptography is to enable users to communicate securely via an insecure shared data communication channel or system environment, maintaining data integrity, privacy, and user authentication. Over the past century, various cryptography systems have been developed which require a great deal of time to break even with large computational power. However, if an intruder obtains the encryption key, the encryption mechanism, and probably the entire system security, is compromised and a new key is required.
In order to make an encryption system nearly impenetrable to an intruder, two strategies are commonly used: 1) a long encryption key, and/or 2) a complex encryption function. A key of length n bits has a 2n search space. Therefore, for large values of n an intruder needs to spend more than a lifetime to break the cipher. Also, simpler encryption functions provide a less secure encryption system. For instance, an encryption code that applies the logic XOR function is easy to decipher no matter how long the key length is. This is because the XOR operation is performed on one bit of data and its corresponding bit from the encryption key, one bit at a time. The deciphering approach of such simple encryption functions by an intruder is based on the divide-and-conquer mechanism. The intruder first deciphers individual key fragments, which is relatively uncomplicated to accomplish due to the simple linearity of the XOR function, then reconstructs the entire key once all of the individual fragments are obtained. It is more difficult to apply such a divide-and-conquer approach to break the key of a nonlinear exponential encryption function, such as used in the Rivest-Shamir-Adelman (RSA) system.
At present, there are two major cryptography system philosophies: 1) symmetric systems (static or semi-dynamic key), and 2) public key systems (static key). In symmetric systems, e.g., DES, AES, etc., a key is exchanged between the users, the sender and receiver, and is used to encrypt and decrypt the data. There are three major problems with symmetric systems. First, exchanging the key between users introduces a security loophole. In order to alleviate such a problem, the exchanged key is encrypted via a secure public key cryptography system. Second, the use of only one static encryption key makes it easier for an intruder to have an ample amount of time to break the key. This issue is addressed by the use of multiple session keys that are exchanged periodically. Third, and more importantly is the susceptibility to an "insider" attack on the key. This is referred to as the "super user" spying on the "setting duck" static key inside the system, where the time window between exchanging keys might be long enough for a super user, who has a super user privilege, to break in and steal the key.
In the RSA public key cryptography system, a user (U) generates two related keys, one is revealed to the public, deemed the "public" key, to be used to encrypt any data to be sent to U. The second key is private to U, called the "private" key, and is used to decrypt any data received at U, which was encrypted with the corresponding public key. The RSA cryptography system generates large random primes and multiplies them to get the public key. It also uses a complex encryption function such as mod and exponential operations. As a result, this technique is unbreakable in the lifetime of a human being for large keys, e.g., higher than 256 bits, and also eliminates the problem of the insecure exchange of symmetric keys, as in a DES system. However, the huge computational time required by RSA encryption and decryption, in addition to the time required to generate the keys, is not appealing to the Internet user community. Thus, RSA cryptography is mainly used as "one shot" solid protection of the symmetric cryptography key exchange.
In the RSA public key system, if a first user (UA) requests a secure communication with a second user (UB), the latter will generate a pair of encryption keys: public EB and private DB. An internal super user spy (S), with a helper (H) intruding on the communication line externally, can easily generate its own pair of keys, a public ES and private DS, and pass DS and EB to H. Then S can replace the public key EB with its own public key ES. Thus, all data moving from UA to UB will be encrypted using ES instead of EB. Now H can decrypt the cipher text moving between UA and UB using the private key DS, store it, and re-encrypt it using the original EB, in order for UB to receive and decrypt it without any knowledge of the break that occurred in the middle. Such an attack is typically called the "super-user-in-the-middle" attack.
Even though they are secure against outsider attack, both the symmetric and public key cryptography systems are still vulnerable to insider attacks. By obtaining the key at any time of a secure session, an intruder can decipher the entire exchanged data set, past and future. Further, a super user can easily steal a static symmetric key and send it to an outside intruder to sniff and decrypt the cipher text, particularly in the DES and AES systems.
A common way to protect a static encryption key is to save it under a file with restricted access. This restriction is not enough, however, to prevent a person with super-user privilege from accessing the static key in the host file. Even when keys are changed for each communication session, for example in the Diffie-Hufman system, there is a time window enough for the super-user to obtain the semi-static key. In most crypto systems, once the key is found the previous and future communicated data are no longer secure.
Various other attempts have been made to circumvent intrusion by outside users through encryption of communicated data. Examples of such methods include that described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,105,133 to Fielder, et al., entitled, "Bilateral Authentication and Encryption System;" U.S. Pat. No. 6,049,612 also to Fielder, et al., entitled, "File Encryption Method and System;" and U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,198 to Krause, et al., entitled, "Encryption with a Streams-Based Protocol Stack." While the techniques described in these patents may be useful in preventing unwanted intrusion by outsiders, they are still prone to attack by the super-user-in-the-middle.
The present invention alleviates the problems encountered in the prior art, providing continuous encryption key modification. A new key is generated from a previous key as well as from a previously encrypted data record. The regenerated key is then used to encrypt the subsequent data record. The key lifetime is equal to the time span of record encryption, reducing the possibility that an intruder will break the key or that a super-user will copy the key. The present invention also alleviates the "super-user-in-the-middle" attack. An intruder must obtain an entire set of keys, at the right moment, without being noticed, in order to decrypt the entire ciphered message.
The present invention also reduces computational overhead by breaking the complexity of the encryption function and shifting it over the dynamics of data exchange. Speed is also improved through the use of a simple XOR logic encryption function. A shuffling mechanism based on a dynamic permutation table, which is generated from the current session key, is coupled with the XOR logic operation, to strengthen the encryption function. Encryption is fully automated and all parties, the source user, destination user, and central authority, are clock-free synchronized, and securely authenticated, at all times. The dynamic key encryption system of the present invention is deployable at any level of a system, as there is complete synchronization between parties.
The present invention further eliminates the possibility of an intruder obtaining additional keys, and therefore additional data, in the circumstance where an intruder is able to break one of the keys.
A previously encrypted data record is combined with a previous key to create a new key for encrypting a subsequent data record. Hence, if an intruder were to break one key, the intruder could only decrypt its corresponding data record and nothing more, past or future ciphered data.

Computer system security via dynamic encryption

New Mexico Technical Research Foundation


The present invention relates to a cylinder head cover for covering a cylinder head of a combustion engine. Such cylinder head covers often comprise an oil separator for separating oil and/or oil spray from the blow-by gas of combustion engines. With the present invention the oil separator is formed as a flow-through tube (10) through which the gas with the oil and/or oil spray to be separated flows. The flow-through tube (10) with its longitudinal axis (14) in the flow-through direction lies essentially in the plane of extension of the cylinder head cover (1). A worm-like segment is arranged in the flow-through tube (10), and its thread surfaces (21) form a spiral flow path (2). At the same time the cross section of the flow path lies between 1 mm2 and 800 mm2.

Tubular separators are know from the state of the art, for separating solid particles from air, in particular for dedusting, which comprise a flow-through tube in which a spiral is arranged. This spiral sets the air flowing through into a rotational movement about the middle axis of the spiral and thus leads to a separation of the particles on account of the centrifugal forces.
A cylinder head cover (also called valve cover) is known from DE 101 27 620 A1, with which the blow-by gases (also called crank housing gases or blow-through gases) are introduced from the crank housing of a combustion engine into a cylinder head cover and here are purified of oil or oil spray.
For this, firstly for coarse separation a spiral is arranged perpendicular to the plane of extension of the cylinder head cover in this. The blow-by gas flows through this spiral with a diameter of approx. 5 cm so that here large oil droplets are separated. An adequate separation is not achieved so that a further fine separation device is arranged subsequently.


Information handling system storage devices are managed to reduce power consumption by consolidating stored information to less than all of plural storage devices and powering down the storage devices that are no longer storing information. If a predetermined buffer of unused capacity is detected at the storage devices, then a powered down storage device is powered up to store additional information. The storage devices are consolidated to maintain desired performance parameters, such as by monitoring I/O performance for information stored on active storage devices.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling system storage devices, and more particularly to a system and method for managing storage device capacity usage.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As enterprises have increased their reliance on information handling systems, they have tended to build datacenters to manage stored information with the datacenters run by information technology professionals. A typical datacenter will have server information handling systems to manage communication with distributed clients and plural storage devices to store enterprise information. The storage devices are typically hard disk drives interfaced by a management device and network, such as a RAID configuration or a storage area network (SAN). Centralized storage helps to secure information from both physical disruptions, such as with backup power, and malicious attack, such as by hackers. Two issues that tend to arise with a datacenter having centralized storage are power consumption by the information handling systems and cooling of the information handling system. Consolidating storage devices into a single resource pool helps to reduce energy consumption and cooling by reducing the total number of storage devices needed to support an enterprise's storage demands.
Although consolidating storage devices helps to reduce unused storage capacity in unconfigured areas, the storage devices will each still typically have at least some unused storage capacity within configured areas. Unused storage capacity within configured areas often results when storage devices are divided into logical partitions or volumes based on the expected needs for storage over time. For example, thin provisioning is used in some datacenters to assign a client a partition or volume of a storage device. The client is told that a requested amount of storage is available; however, the storage device only configures a fraction of the requested amount. The storage device then monitors the client's usage of the configured storage to add actual storage capacity when the configured amount approaches full usage. Thin provisioning helps to reduce the cost of acquiring storage by allowing the datacenter to delay the purchase of storage devices until configured storage begins to fill, however, thin provisioning still leaves unused storage capacity in configured areas of the storage devices. The configured but unused capacity consumes power and cooling resources of the data center without actually performing a storage function for end users. In other words, storage devices are running in the data center with configured portions that store no information.

System and method for managing storage device capacity use


Processes and structures for using calcium cyanamide fertilizer in a manner to greatly enhance its most effective soil treatment form prior to its application. Calcium cyanamide transformation structures have both fertilizing and pesticidal qualities; however, it is difficult to obtain uniform, efficient effectiveness from dry calcium cyanamide's liquid transformation structures. In the process of this invention, dry, dusty granules and fines of calcium cyanamide are placed directly into tanks of liquid for transformation or within biodegradable bags through which water can freely flow. The bags are submerged in a tank of water. The insoluble calcium and carbon components thereof remain as solid residuals within the bags. Hydrolysis occurs and the solution is biocidal and ready for immediate application. The solution can be sprayed or irrigated onto a targeted soil area with conventional dispersal equipment. The remaining non-dissolved material in the bags can be dispersed on and into the plant crop soil. Additives of other fertilizers into the above solution can be used to enhance effectiveness. When the calcium cyanamide is placed directly into the liquid, the mixture will become slurry-like. In the processes herein, when the solids of calcium cyanamide are not isolated during hydrolysis, the slurry mixture is utilized in recent modern specialized solids fertilizer suspension dispersed equipment having sufficient agitation to keep the solids in suspension.

The use of calcium cyanamide as a pre-plant/emergence treatment of soil dates back approximately one hundred years. For the most part, it has been topically applied as an insoluble, dry nitrogen fertilizer having some pesticidal qualities dependent on latent or applied moisture conditions. There are prior art publications recommending high rates of application, 200 pounds to 2000+ pounds per acre, to reduce crop competitive plants, weed seeds, soil animals and microorganisms. Calcium cyanamide has long been recognized as a nitrogen fertilizer having both fertilizing and pest control effects. At those rates its pest control uses have, for economic and practical reasons, disappeared in the United States in favor of select pesticides.
Contrary to calcium cyanamide, many of today's commonly used nitrogen fertilizers are immediately water soluble and they or their normal metabolites are directly plant leaf and root absorbable. These nitrogen fertilizers, or their metabolites, have been shown to create areas detrimental to plants, seeds, animals and microorganisms that are competitive to commercial crops. Also, certain caustic fertilizers described hereinafter do likewise. These products alone, however, have not been satisfactorily perfected as plant protectants.
Recommendations for applying calcium cyanamide fertilizer at levels below 200 pounds per acre have not heretofore been recommended. As an example of the effectiveness of the processes taught herein, the prior art teaches a 41% nematode reduction using 427 pounds per acre of calcium cyanamide in "ideal wet" soil versus an 86% reduction resulted using only 20 pounds per acre when the processes described herein are followed.
For various reasons, the use of calcium cyanamide as a dry nitrogen fertilizer treatment has dropped dramatically in United States agriculture in favor of soluble nitrogen fertilizers. These reasons include calcium cyanamide's comparative high energy dependent unit cost. A second reason is its historically high-rate biocidal cost compared to recently developed pesticides. Thirdly, its dry, dusty noxious fines makeup is undesirable for human handling and difficult to measure and calibrate alone or with other fertilizers for maximum effectiveness. A higher cost, lower analysis pelletized form improves, but does not eliminate, direct dry application handling problems. Fourth, several of calcium cyanamide soil beneficial components, namely calcium and carbon, will clog standard liquid spray applicators if one attempts to dissolve it in water for efficient dispersal.

Method and packaging utilizing calcium cyanamide for soil treatment


A computer-implemented method according to one embodiment includes receiving data, storing chunks of the data in fixed size blocks in physical storage, and deduplicating a copy of the data. The storing includes splitting some of the data chunks into portions for filling the fixed size blocks. Metadata is stored with the data chunks for chaining the associated portions of the split data chunks together. The deduplicating including creating a pointer to a first of the data chunks. A computer program product for utilizing free space in physical storage, according to another embodiment includes a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith. The computer readable storage medium is not a transitory signal per se. The program instructions are readable and/or executable by a computer to cause the computer to perform the foregoing method.

The present invention relates to data storage systems, and more specifically, this invention relates to the structures in which data is stored to such data storage systems.
Modern storage systems expand the concept of data reduction by introducing a technique known as deduplication of data. Given a granularity chunk size, the concept of deduplication includes replacing duplicate chunks of data across a system, with pointers to a single instance of the data.
For example, in corporate environments, when an email is sent by a first user to a plurality of other users, to save space in the data storage system that records and saves the email transition, deduplication might include replacing duplicate copies of the sent email with pointers to a single instance of the sent email. This may prevent storage space of the system from being unnecessarily consumed with redundant copies of the same data. This in turn reduces the overall storage requirement in the system.

Utilization of tail portions of a fixed size block in a deduplication environment by deduplication chunk virtualization

International Business Machines Corporation


A power supply circuit for a neon tube includes a step-up power transformer having a primary winding connectable to a power source, a secondary winding to which the neon tube is connected, and an auxiliary winding which is used to sense if the secondary winding is loaded or not and develops a control voltage proportional to current flowing through the neon tube, the control voltage maintaining a relay operated so that the primary winding of the transformer is connected to the power source in the absence of load fault conditions, a load fault condition causing the control voltage to decrease below the level required to maintain the relay operated, so that the primary winding of the transformer is disconnected from the power source, interrupting high voltage in the secondary winding of the transformer.

This invention relates to power supply circuits for supplying high voltages to loads, such as neon signs and the like, and more particularly, to a power supply circuit which automatically interrupts the supply of the high voltage to a load under certain fault conditions.
Certain functional devices require operating voltages in the order of several hundred to several thousand volts. For example, neon tubes used for signs require such high voltages for stimulating inert gases contained within the tubes to produce visible light. Power supply circuits for neon signs generally include a step-up transformer having a primary winding connected to line voltage at 120 VAC and a secondary winding to which the neon tube is connected. The step-up transformer transforms the line voltage at 120 VAC to the high voltage required for lighting the neon tube.
Under certain fault conditions, the presence of the high voltage on the secondary winding of the transformer presents a potentially dangerous condition. For example, when tubing of a neon sign is broken, or when the neon sign is disconnected from the output of the power supply circuit, either purposefully or inadvertently, the power terminals may be exposed, presenting a potential shock hazard.
Accordingly, power supply circuits for neon tubes have been proposed which reduce the magnitude of the voltage provided on the secondary winding of the power transformer under certain fault conditions. Such power supply circuits include a sensing circuit which senses if the secondary winding is loaded or not and reduces power to the load whenever an abnormal condition is sensed. One neon tube power supply circuit includes a transformer which is connected in circuit with the power step-up transformer in the output stage of the power supply circuit. The sensing circuit responds to a voltage level that occurs on the primary side of the power supply transformer as the result of the secondary load being removed to enable a protective circuit to prevent a transistor of a high voltage output stage from being over driven. One disadvantage of this arrangement is that the sensing circuit is connected directly in the high power output stage of the power supply circuit. In addition, a separate transformer is required for sensing the fault condition, adding considerable cost to the power supply circuit.
In another known power supply circuit, the power transformer includes a sensing winding which couples a voltage indicative of a no load condition to a control circuit. The control circuit responsively causes the power supply circuit to be placed in a stand-by mode for as long as the no load condition exists. A serious shortcoming of this arrangement is that if someone were to contact the secondary electrodes while the power supply circuit is in the standby mode, such contact could be sensed as load being reconnected and the high voltage would be reapplied to the secondary winding, allowing a shock hazard to exist.

Neon sign power supply circuit with automatic power interruption


An information communication method that enables communication between various devices includes: determining a pattern of the change in luminance by modulating the signal to be transmitted; and transmitting the signal by a light emitter changing in luminance according to the determined pattern, wherein the pattern of the change in luminance is a pattern in which one of two different luminance values occurs in each arbitrary position in a predetermined duration, and in the determining, the pattern of the change in luminance is determined so that a luminance change position in the duration is different for each of different signals to be transmitted, the luminance change position being a position at which the luminance rises or a position at which the luminance falls.

In recent years, a home-electric-appliance cooperation function has been introduced for a home network, with which various home electric appliances are connected to a network by a home energy management system (HEMS) having a function of managing power usage for addressing an environmental issue, turning power on/off from outside a house, and the like, in addition to cooperation of AV home electric appliances by Internet protocol (IP) connection using Ethernet® or wireless local area network (LAN). However, there are home electric appliances whose computational performance is insufficient to have a communication function, and home electric appliances which do not have a communication function due to a matter of cost.
In order to solve such a problem, Patent Literature (PTL) 1 discloses a technique of efficiently establishing communication between devices among limited optical spatial transmission devices which transmit information to free space using light, by performing communication using plural single color light sources of illumination light.

PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA


A vibrometer which detects the variation of the speckle interference pattern of reflected waves as a means of determining the amplitude and frequency of vibrations of structures, including small anatomical structures. A wave source such as a laser delivers wave radiation to the object whose vibration is to be measured. The diffuse reflectance from the textural surface of the object reflects the incident wave radiation as a speckle interference pattern which is detected by a detector, such as a photodetector. The wave radiation source may be a continuous-wave laser, and the photodetector detector may be a phototransistor connected to a wide-bandwidth amplifier. As the object vibrates, the speckle interference pattern moves. The variation in the speckle interference pattern across the detector carries amplitude and frequency information regarding the vibrating object.

The present invention relates to measurement of vibrations of objects based on reflectance of speckle interference patterns from incident waves, and in particular embodiments, to optically based in vivo measurement of the small amplitude vibrations of the bones of the middle ear.
Measurement of the displacement or velocity of the bones in the middle ear is one way to objectively characterize the function of the tympanic membrane and ossicular chain, as well as the stapedial footplate. This measurement has been done using a variety of physical measurements. Gyo et al., "Measurement of the Ossicular Vibration Ratio in Human Temporal Bones by Use of a Video Measuring System", Acta Otolaryngol (Stockh) 103, 87-95, 1987, disclose a video measuring system to determine the vibration of the ossicles in a human temporal bone resulting from a sound stimulus. While this procedure is able to measure displacement amplitudes down to 0.3 .mu.m, it suffers from being extremely expensive to implement and requires the placement on the ossicular chain of a bead that can be imaged.
Von Unge et al., "Displacement of the Gerbil Tympanic Membrane Under Static Pressure Variations Measured With a Real-time Differential Moire Interferometer", Hearing Res. 70, 229-242, 1993, disclose a real-time differential moire interferometer to measure tympanic membrane displacement in a gerbil model. This method allows one to image the actual shape of the tympanic membrane under different pressure conditions, but it again is expensive and very difficult to implement because of the requirement of real-time image analysis for extraction of quantitative data. Others have used heterodyne Michelson interferometry to extract sub-micron movements; e.g., Kossl et al., "Basilar Membrane Resonance in the Cochlea of the Mustached Bat", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 92, 276-279, 1995; and Decraemer et al., "A Method for Determining Three-Dimensional Vibration in the Ear", Hearing Res. 77, 19-37, 1994. However, it is unlikely such a method could be economically used in vivo due to variations in the index-of-refraction of the atmosphere in each arm of the interferometer which can introduce spurious readings. Also, analysis of the output from an interferometer requires complex calculation steps to obtain movement information from fringe count.
Finally, Goode et al., "Measurement of Umbo Vibration in Human Subjects-Method and Possible Clinical Applications", Am.J.Otol. 14,247-251, 1993, disclose an extremely sensitive technique to measure umbo vibration in vivo using a laser doppler vibrometer.
This instrument has produced some very interesting measurements, such as the peak-to-peak displacement of the umbo and stapes footplate of 0.002 to 0.7 .mu.m when 105 dB SPL pure tone impinges on the TM. More recently, this instrument (Polytec PI Inc., CA) has been used to measure umbo velocity in the rat. While this instrument has the benefits of providing a (potentially) non-contact measurement, and a wide frequency and amplitude range with high spatial resolution, its cost is prohibitive in today's medical environment ($30,000-$40,000) and in practice, it and other instruments like it, require affixing a small reflective object on the object of interest, which has the further disadvantage of affecting the vibrational characteristics of the object being measured.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,394,233 discusses several variations on the basic doppler approach which dominates laser vibrometer technology. Some vibrometers exploit a difference between an incident and reflected laser beam by relying on mirrors or corner reflectors attached to the vibrating object. Examples of devices based on this concept are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,768,381 and 4,185,503.
It is desirable to be able to monitor the success of middle ear surgery such as when prostheses are implanted. Measurement of the reaction of the implanted prostheses to sound indicates the success of the procedure by objective measurement without closure of the wound and without depending on subjective reactions of the patient. Such a device could also be employed to monitor hair cell motion in the cochlea or tympanic membrane displacement. It is also highly desirable that such a device be suitable for use in vivo.
It has not been recognized that the surface of the bones of the middle ear and prostheses, provides sufficient reflectivity, both diffuse and specular (mirror-like), to allow direct optically based vibration measurements based on detection of the reflected beam. The prior art has relied on specular reflectance and, as mentioned above, has resorted to expedients such as the attachment of a mirror-like object on the object of interest in order to obtain the necessary degree of reflectance.
In order to overcome the problems and limitations of the prior art, it is therefore desirable to develop an inexpensive ergonometrically designed instrument to objectively and scientifically measure the vibrational amplitude transmitted by vibrating objects, and in particular, the bones in the middle ear. Such an instrument would, for example, allow a surgeon to objectively test the quality of a bone prosthesis surgery in vivo immediately after surgery, but before closing the operative field. The benefits of such an instrument include providing an objective measurement of acoustic transmission and precluding the need for immediate corrective surgery.
An instrument suitable for measuring the acoustic signal produced by the vibration of bones and membranes should exhibit these features: it should be inexpensive compared to the prior art, it should be portable, it is desirable that it run on rechargeable batteries, it should be usable in conjunction with millimeter-sized endoscopes, it should be hand-held and easy to use, it should be visually directed to interrogate millimeter-sized objects, it should not be affected by ambient and unrelated acoustic signals.

The Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas


A method for finding clusters of units in high-dimensional data having the steps of determining dense units in selected subspaces within a data space of the high-dimensional data, determining each cluster of dense units that are connected to other dense units in the selected subspaces within the data space, determining maximal regions covering each cluster of connected dense units, determining a minimal cover for each cluster of connected dense units, and identifying the minimal cover for each cluster of connected dense units.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computing. More particularly, the present invention relates to an approach for organizing data within a dataset for data mining.
2. Description of the Related Art
Clustering is a descriptive task associated with data mining that identifies homogeneous groups of objects in a dataset. Clustering techniques have been studied extensively in statistics, pattern recognition, and machine learning. Examples of clustering applications include customer segmentation for database marketing, identification of sub-categories of spectra from the database of infra-red sky measurements, and identification of areas of similar land use in an earth observation database.
Clustering techniques can be broadly classified into partitional techniques and hierarchial techniques. Partitional clustering partitions a set of objects into K clusters such that the objects in each cluster are more similar to each other than to objects in different clusters. For partitional clustering, the value of K can be specified by a user, and a clustering criterion must be adopted, such as a mean square error criterion, like that disclosed by P. H. Sneath et al., Numerical Taxonomy, Freeman, 1973. Popular K-means methods, such as the FastClust in SAS Manual, 1995, from the SAS Institute, iteratively determine K representatives that minimize the clustering criterion and assign each object to a cluster having its representative closest to the cluster. Enhancements to partitional clustering approach for working on large databases have been developed, such as CLARANS, as disclosed by R. T. Ng et al., Efficient and effective clustering methods for spatial data mining, Proc. of the VLDB Conference, Santiago, Chile, September 1994; Focussed CLARANS, as disclosed by M. Ester et al., A database interface for clustering in large spatial databases, Proc. of the 1st Int'l Conference on Knowledge Discovery in Databases and Data Mining, Montreal, Canada, August 1995; and BIRCH, as disclosed by T. Zhang et al., BIRCH: An efficient data clustering method for very large databases, Proc. of the ACM SIGMOD Conference on Management Data, Montreal, Canada, June 1996.
Hierarchial clustering is a nested sequence of partitions. An agglomerative, hierarchial clustering starts by placing each object in its own atomic cluster and then merges the atomic clusters into larger and larger clusters until all objects are in a single cluster. Divisive, hierarchial clustering reverses the process by starting with all objects in cluster and subdividing into smaller pieces. For theoretical and empirical comparisons of hierarchical clustering techniques, see for example, A. K. Jain et al., Algorithms for Clustering Data, Prentice Hall, 1988, P. Mangiameli et al., Comparison of some neutral network and hierarchical clustering methods, European Journal of Operational Research, 93(2):402-417, September 1996, P. Michaud, Four clustering techniques, FGCS Journal, Special Issue on Data Mining, 1997, and M. Zait et al., A Comparative study of clustering methods, FGCS Journal, Special Issue on Data Mining, 1997.
Emerging data mining applications place special requirements on clustering techniques, such as the ability to handle high dimensionality, assimilation of cluster descriptions by users, description minimation, and scalability and usability. Regarding high dimensionality of data clustering, an object typically has dozens of attributes in which the domains of the attributes are large. Clusters formed in a high-dimensional data space are not likely to be meaningful clusters because the expected average density of points anywhere in the high-dimensional data space is low. The requirement for high dimensionality in a data mining application is conventionally addressed by requiring a user to specify the subspace for cluster analysis. For example, the IBM data mining product, Intelligent Miner described in the IBM Intelligent Miner User's Guide, version 1 release 1, SH12-6213-00 edition, July 1996, and incorporated by reference herein, allows specification of "active" attributes for defining a subspace in which clusters are found. This approach is effective when a user can correctly identify appropriate attributes for clustering.
A variety of approaches for reducing dimensionality of a data space have been developed. Classical statistical techniques include principal component analysis and factor analysis, both of which reduce dimensionality by forming linear combinations of features. For example, see R. O. Duda et al., Pattern Classification and Scene Analysis, John Wiley and Sons, 1973, and K. Fukunaga, Introduction to Statistical Pattern Recognition, Academic Press, 1990. For the principal component analysis technique, also known as Karhunen-Loeve expansion, a lower-dimensional representation is found that accounts for the variance of the attributes, whereas the factor analysis technique finds a representation that accounts for the correlations among the attributes. For an evaluation of different feature selection methods, primarily for image classification, see A. Jain et al., Algorithms for feature selection: An evaluation, Technical report, Department of Computer Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich., 1996. Unfortunately, dimensionality reductions obtained using these conventional approaches conflict with the requirements placed on the assimilation aspects of data mining.
Data mining applications often require cluster descriptions that can be assimilated and used by users because insight and explanations are the primary purpose for data mining. For example, see U. M. Fayyad et al., Advances in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, AAAI/MIT Press, 1996. Clusters having decision surfaces that are axis parallel and, hence, can be described as Disjunctive Normal Form (DNF) expressions, become particularly attractive for user assimilation. Nevertheless, even while a description is a DNF expression, there are clusters that are poorly approximated poorly, such as a cigar-shaped cluster when the cluster description is restricted to be a rectangular box. On the other hand, the same criticism can also be raised against decision-tree and decision-rule classifiers, such as disclosed by S. M. Weiss et al., Computer Systems that Learn: Classification and Prediction Methods from Statistics, Neural Nets, Machine Learning, and Expert Systems, Morgan Kaufman, 1991. However, in practice, the classifiers exhibit competitive accuracies when compared to techniques, such as neural nets, that generate considerably more complex decision surfaces, as disclosed by D. Michie, Machine Learning, Neural and Statistical Classification, Ellis Horwood, 1994.
The merits of description minimization have been eloquently presented by J. Rissanen, Stochastic Complexity in Statistical Inquiry, World Scientific Publ. Co., 1989. The principal assertion, also known as Occam's razor, is that if two different solutions in the same representation describe a particular data, the less complex solution is more accurate. Further, smaller descriptions lend themselves for user comprehension.
Lastly, a clustering technique should be fast and scale with the number of dimensions and the size of a dataset or input data. It should also be insensitive to the order in which data records are presented.
As a basis for better understanding the problem of finding clusters in subspaces, a formal model is presented. Let domain A={a.sub.1, a.sub.2, . . . , a.sub.m } be a set of literals, and A={A.sub.1, A.sub.2, . . . , A.sub.m } be a set of bounded domains. An element a.sub.i .epsilon.A is called an attribute and its domain is A.sub.i. Assume that (a.sub.1, a.sub.2, . . . , a.sub.m) defines a texicographic ordering on attributes in domain A. For now, only numeric attributes are assumed. An input consists of a set of m-dimensional vectors points) V={v.sub.1, v.sub.2, . . . , v.sub.n }, where v.sub.i =<v.sub.i1, v.sub.i2, . . . , v.sub.im >. The jth component of vector v.sub.i is drawn from domain A.sub.j.
An m-dimensional data space S=A.sub.1 x A.sub.2 x . . . x A.sub.m can be viewed as being partitioned into non-overlapping rectangular units. Each unit has the form {r.sub.l, . . . , r.sub.m }, r.sub.j =<a.sub.j, l.sub.j, u.sub.j > such that l.sub.j .ltoreq.u.sub.j, where l.sub.j, u.sub.j .epsilon. A.sub.j and a.sub.h for j.noteq.h. The units have been obtained by some partitioning into intervals (e.g., equi-width, user-specified, etc.) of each of the A.sub.i. The partitioning scheme can be different for each A.sub.i.
A point v.sub.i =<v.sub.i1, v.sub.i2, . . . , v.sub.im > is said to be contained in a unit {r.sub.1, . . . , r.sub.m } if l.sub.j .ltoreq.v.sub.ij .ltoreq.u.sub.j for all r.sub.j. The density of a unit is defined to be the fraction of total data points contain in the unit. The average density of the data space S is the average of the densities of all the units included in S. A unit is defined to be dense if its density is greater than .lambda. fraction of the average density of S, where .lambda. is a model parameter.
A cluster is a set of connected dense units. Two units are connected if they have a common face. Formally, two units, {r.sub.1, . . . , r.sub.m } and {r'.sub.1, . . . , r'.sub.m } are said to be connected if there are m-1 dimensions (assume 1, . . . , m-1 without loss of generality) such that r.sub.j =r'.sub.j and either u.sub.m =l'.sub.m or u'.sub.m =l.sub.m.
A region R in m dimensions is an axis-parallel rectangular m-dimensional set. That is, R={r.sub.1, . . . , r.sub.m }, r.sub.j =<a.sub.j, l.sub.j, u.sub.j > for l.sub.j, u.sub.j .epsilon.A.sub.j such that l.sub.j .ltoreq.u.sub.j and a.sub.j .noteq.a.sub.h for j.noteq.h. A unit is a special case of a region. Only those regions that can be expressed as unions of units are of interest; henceforth all references to a region herein mean such unions. The size of a region is the number of units contained in the region. Supersets and subsets of a region are regions in the same set of dimensions: a region R'={r'.sub.1, . . . , r'.sub.m } is a superset (respectively, subset) of a region R={r.sub.1, . . . , r.sub.m } if for each j, l'.sub.j .ltoreq.l.sub.j and u'.sub.j .gtoreq.u.sub.j (l'.sub.j .gtoreq.l.sub.j and u'.sub.j .ltoreq.u.sub.j, respectively).
A region R is said to be contained in a cluster C if R.andgate.C=R. A region can be expressed as a DNF expression on intervals of the domains A.sub.i. A region R contained in a cluster C is said to be maximal if no proper superset of R is contained in C. A minimal description of a cluster is a non-redundant covering of the cluster with maximal regions. That is, a minimal description of a cluster C is a set S of maximal regions of the cluster such that their union equals C, but the union of any proper subset of S does not equal C.
Frequently, there is interest in identifying a cluster in a subset of the m dimensions in which there is at least one dense unit. Further, it is assumed that there is one global value of .lambda. for determining dense units. All foregoing definitions carry through after considering appropriate projections from the original data space to the subspace of interest. Note that if a unit is dense in a set of dimensions a.sub.1, . . . , a.sub.k, its projections in all subsets of this set of dimensions are also dense.
The foregoing clustering model can be considered nonparametric in that mathematical forms are neither assumed for data distribution, nor for clustering criteria Instead, data points are separated according to the valleys of a density function, such as disclosed by K. Fukunaga, Introduction to Statistical Pattern Recognition, Academic Press, 1990. One example of a density-based approach to clustering is DBSCAN, as disclosed by M. Ester et al., A density-based algorithm for discovering clusters in large spatial databases with noise, Proc. of the 2nd Int'l Conference on Knowledge Discovery in Databases and Data Mining, Portland, Oregon, August 1995. This approach defines a cluster as a maximal set of density-connected points. However, the application domain for DBSCAN is spatial databases and with interest in finding arbitrarily-shaped clusters.
Several other techniques for nonparametric clustering are based on estimating density gradient for identifying valleys in the density function. These techniques are computationally expensive and generally result in complex cluster boundaries, but which may provide the most correct approach for certain data mining applications.
The problem of covering marked boxes in a grid with rectangles has been addressed in logic minimization by, for example, S. J. Hong, MINI: A heuristic algorithm for two-level logic minimization, Selected Papers on Logic Synthesis for Integrated Circuit Design, R. Newton, editor, IEEE Press, 1987. It is also related to the problem of constructive solid geometry (CSG) formula in solid-modeling, such as disclosed by D. Zhang et al., Csd set-theoretic solid modelling and NC machining of blend surfaces, Proceedings of the Second Annual ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry, pages 314-318, 1986. These techniques have also been applied for inducing decision rules from examples, such as disclosed by S. J. Hong, R-MINI: A heuristic algorithm for generating minimal rules from examples, 3rd Pacific Rim Int'l Conference on AI, August 1994. However, MINI and R-MINI are quadratic in the size of input (number of records). Computational geometry literature also contains algorithms for covering points in two-or three-dimensions with minimum number of rectangles, for example, see D. S. Franzblau et al., An algorithm for constructing regions with rectangles: Independence and minimum generating sets for collections of intervals, Proc. of the 6th Annual Symp. on Theory of Computing, pages 268-276, Washington D.C., April 1984; R. A. Reckhow et al., Covering simple orthogonal polygon with a minimum number of orthogonally convex polygons, Proc. of the ACM 3rd Annual Computational Geometry Conference, pages 268-277, 1987; and V. Soltan et al., Minimum dissection of rectilinear polygon with arbitrary holes into rectangles, Proc. of the ACM 8th Annual Computational Geometry Conference, pages 296-302, Berlin, Germany, June 1992.
Some clustering algorithms used for image analysis also find rectangular dense regions, but they have been designed for low-dimensional datasets. For example, see M. Berger et al., An algorithm for point clustering and grid generation, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 21(5):1278-86, 1991; P. Schroeter et al., Hierarchical image segmentation by multi-dimensional clustering and orientation-adaptive boundary refinement, Pattern Recognition, 25(5):695-709, May 1995; and S. Wharton, A generalized histogram clustering for multidimensional image data, Pattern Recognition, 16(2):193-199, 1983.
What is needed is an approach for automatically identifying subspaces in which clusters are found in a multi-dimensional data space and that provides description assimilation for a user, description minimization and scales as the size of the data space increases.

Automatic subspace clustering of high dimensional data for data mining applications

International Business Machines Corporation


A sound direction estimation device includes a first correlation matrix calculation unit configured to calculate a correlation matrix of a plurality of channels of input sound signals, a second correlation matrix calculation unit configured to calculate a correlation matrix of noise signals based on the plurality of channels of sound signals, and a sound source localization unit configured to calculate a spatial spectrum based on the correlation matrix calculated by the first correlation matrix calculation unit and the correlation matrix calculated by the second correlation matrix calculation unit and to estimate a direction of a sound source associated with the plurality of channels of sound signals using the calculated spatial spectrum.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sound direction estimation device, a sound processing system, a sound direction estimation method, and a sound direction estimation program.
2. Description of Related Art
In the related art, a sound direction estimating technique of estimating a direction of a sound source from multiple sound signals has been proposed. The sound direction estimating technique is one of means for acquiring information on surrounding environments. The estimated sound direction is used, for example, as a condition for allowing a robot to determine an operation thereof. Accordingly, application of such a technique for work support or remote control in dangerous places and the like has been attempted.
In recorded sound signals, noise such as an operation sound of a piece of equipment such as an air conditioner or wind noise is superimposed on a target sound such as a speech uttered by a person or music. This noise serves as a cause of lowering estimation accuracy of a sound direction of a target sound. Therefore, reduction of an influence of noise on estimation of a sound direction has been proposed.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2010-281816 (Patent Document 1) discloses a sound direction estimation device that calculates a correlation matrix of input sound signals, calculates eigenvectors using the calculated correlation matrix and a correlation matrix of noise, and estimates a sound direction using the calculated eigenvectors.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2012-042465 (Patent Document 2) discloses a sound direction estimation device that identifies a type of a sound source based on sound feature values of input sound signals, calculates a correlation matrix of the identified type of sound signals, and estimates a sound direction using calculated eigenvectors. In both the sound direction estimation devices disclosed in Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2, it is necessary to acquire noise correlation matrixes or sound feature values for each type of sound source in advance.

Sound direction estimation device, sound processing system, sound direction estimation method, and sound direction estimation program


A liquid crystal display includes a first display panel including a first substrate, and first and second color filters disposed on the first substrate and adjacent to each other, a second display panel including a second substrate facing the first display panel and a first spacer disposed on the second substrate, and a liquid crystal layer disposed between the first and second display panels. The first color filter includes a first protrusion protruded toward and overlapped with the second color filter. The first spacer faces the first protrusion, and the first and second display panels contact each other at a location area of the first spacer.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display device, and more particularly, to a liquid crystal display including color filters.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Liquid crystal displays are now widely used as a flat panel display. A liquid crystal display has two display panels on which field generating electrodes, such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode are formed, and a liquid crystal layer that is interposed between the panels. In the liquid crystal display, voltages are applied to the field generating electrodes so as to generate an electric field over the liquid crystal layer, and the alignment of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer is determined by the electric field. Accordingly, the polarization of incident light is controlled, thereby performing image display.
The liquid crystal display further includes color filters for producing colored images. A color filter may be made an organic material containing pigments. The color filters have been increasingly located on the display panel side with thin film transistors. The color filters each represent one of three primary colors of red, green, and blue, and neighboring color filters may be overlapped with each other near the boundary thereof.
Meanwhile, spacers are provided between the display panels of the liquid crystal display to maintain a distance therebetween, that is, to keep the thickness of the liquid crystal layer substantially constant.

Liquid crystal display including color filters, and manufacturing method thereof


An elastic headband device with integrated audio system is disclosed. The device includes a stretchable cloth member sized and shaped for positioning about the head and ears of an individual wearer. The cloth member includes a central cavity throughout with first and second side portions and a rear portion. A pair of audio speaker elements are removably disposed within the central cavity of the cloth member at the first and second side portions thereof. A mechanism is also provided for adjusting the relative position of each audio speaker element within the central cavity at its respective side portion to position each element opposite an ear opening of an individual wearer. A central aperture is positioned at the cloth member rear portion for accessing the central cavity. Finally, a plurality of speaker wires are attached to the audio speaker elements within the cloth member central cavity and exit through the central aperture at the rear portion for connection to an audio generation system.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to ear protection devices and, more particularly, to such devices adapted for portable audio entertainment. Specifically, the present invention relates to an elastic headband device for sweat absorption and warmth protection which device also includes an integrated audio system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are many situations when it is desirable to provide audio output for personal entertainment or communication purposes to be worn on or carried near the body. Such personal and portable communication and entertainment products include, for example, cellular and portable telephones, radios, tape players, and audio portions of portable video systems and personal monitors. One common use of audio systems with earphones or headsets involves exercise and athletic events. It is quite common to see people running or exercising with headsets or earphones positioned in or covering their ears. Unfortunately, the earphones or headsets are subject to being dislodged as a result of the physical activity of the individual utilizing the same. Moreover, perspiration and inclement weather can affect the integrity of the speakers and audio system.
Examples of audio listening systems which may avoid the above difficulties include those embedded in or associated with clothing or other external objects. Examples of these types of devices are illustrated in a variety of references including U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,070,553, 4,485,276, 4,490,842, 4,589,134, 4,876,724 and 5,757,929. While such systems do provide personal audio entertainment or communication, unfortunately there is little or no privacy relating to the sounds emitted thereby. Moreover, clarity is compromised. Alternatively, such audio systems can be included in earphones directly secured to the head of the user or into some sort of helmet or headgear worn by the individual user. Examples of such devices are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,110,853, 4,424,880, 4,538,034, 5,459,290, 6,104,816, 6,301,367 and 6,546,264. Unfortunately, the headgear can be cumbersome, and the earphones can be easily dislodged.
As previously indicated, perspiration and inclement weather may affect the integrity of the speakers and audio system. To deal with one or more of these issues, several different approaches have been created. U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,248 discloses a typical ski hat adapted to hold earphones in the open folds thereof. U.S. Pat. No. 4,670,911 discloses ear protection cups that attach to a ski mask strap and which offer ear warmth protection as well as earphone attachment capability. U.S. design patent Nos. D284,080, and D310,907 both disclose designs for headband radios. Finally, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,438,698 and 5,953,434 both disclose sweat bands which are designed to provide audio entertainment to the user thereof by vibration through the skull.
While the above references illustrate a variety of devices worn on our over the head and which incorporate audio entertainment systems therein, they all tend to be very use specific. Moreover, those devices designed to absorb sweat are not particularly audio efficient. Thus, there remains a need for a simple h ad apparel device which functions both as a sweat absorption member as well as an ear warming entity coupled with an audio entertainment system that is washable as well as will remain in place despite the activity and movement of the individual wearing the device. The present invention addresses and solves this particular problem in the art.


The present invention provides methods, apparatus and systems for searching hypertext based multilingual Web information when searching on a network for keywords to be queried. A method includes: a receiving step for receiving keywords input by a user; a native language hypertext searching step for searching on the network, according to the keywords to be queried, for all hypertexts whose representing language is the same as a language representing the keywords and which matches the keywords to be queried; extracting hyperlinks related to an arbitrary language from all the searched hypertexts; a hyperlink ranking step for ranking the extracted hyperlinks according to the correlativity of the hyperlinks with the keywords to be queried; and returning to the user ranked search result. Thereby, an accurate cross language searching can be provided without extra machine translation effort, being more accurate and objective than machine translation, even than human translation.

Along with the popularization of the Internet, the amount of the content information on the Internet increases dramatically and therefore a method for searching the content to be queried on the Internet by using keywords is also used widely. Especially non-English users represent the fastest growing group of new Internet users, who require obtaining information not only from information sources expressed in their native languages, but also from a large collection of multilingual documents. On the other hand, technologies for the Internet application globalization bring unified methodology to build multilingual Web sites to serve the visitors from the world.
Since most users prefer to search the Web in their mother tongues or it is difficult for them to express the keywords in other languages, for example, it is difficult for many users in non-English countries to express the keywords in English, which is most commonly used by the Internet content. Therefore, these users can only find limited or relative localized information based on current content match approach. To solve the problem, translation based approaches are proposed. These methods use a translation engine, which translates user queries to different languages and then submits to different search engines. The drawbacks of these solutions are obvious: first, machine translation is not as accurate as human translation, and some terms are difficult to translate to target languages that could be understood by search engines; secondly, translation based solution is difficult to be scaled with low cost and effectively, since the all queries must be first caught and translated before being submitted. Huge amount of queries will bring heavy load to the translation engine.

Searching hypertext based multilingual web information


In one aspect, an apparatus may include a processor and a communication interface accessible to the processor. The communication interface may be configured to communicate with a computing device. The apparatus may also include storage that is accessible to the processor and that includes instructions executable by the processor to monitor a circuit within the computing device to detect a break in the circuit. The circuit itself may be completed based on the apparatus being engaged with the computing device. Responsive to detecting a break in the circuit, the instructions may then be executable to write first data to at least one log stored on the apparatus. The instructions may also be executable to monitor the computing device to detect the computing device being powered on and, responsive to detecting the computing device being powered on, write second data to the at least one log stored on the apparatus.

As recognized herein, electronic device manufacturers often store encryption keys and other sensitive technological items on devices prior to those devices reaching end-users. This is done because providing the keys/other items at a later time through different means like Internet communication can lead to those keys/other items being intercepted by hackers in electronic transit. Then once the keys and other items are compromised, many of the device's other secure technological functions are themselves compromised with potentially disastrous effects.
However, owing to an increased desire to gain access to such items and to circumvent existing security measures, hackers have now taken to physically accessing the devices at shipping containers and shipping docks while the devices are still in transit from the manufacturer to get access to the keys/other sensitive technological items directly at the devices themselves before the devices reach the end-users. When hackers and other nefarious people do so, the manufacturer may not even know that this has happened, which is sometimes worse than the hacking itself since lack of knowledge that hacking has occurred can lead to a failure take remedial action to address it. This in turn allows the hackers run rampant.
There are currently no adequate solutions to the foregoing computer-related, technological problems.

Apparatus to monitor whether another device has been compromised


A topical drying composition is providing containing trehalose as the effective moisture (sweat) removing ingredient. The composition may be used in aqueous form or preferably as a cream and in addition to trehalose it contains several ingredients such as sorbitan monolaurate, polysorbitan, a moisturizer, a thickener, a softener, an antibacterial agent and a pH adjusting component to adjust the pH of the composition between about 5.5 to about 7.5. Sterilized water is used as the carrier for the composition.

Trehalose is a known non-reducing disaccharide composed of D+glucose units. It is a white, odorless, sweet-tasting powder and, like maltose, is about 45% as sweet as sugar and has a very low hydroscopicity (moisture attraction). Trehalose is found in honey, bread, beer and seafood and there are several prior art patents relating to various uses of trehalose. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,164 discloses cosmetic compositions containing trehalose which increase the penetration of certain therapeutically beneficial ingredients into the skin thereby enhancing the therapeutic effects of those ingredients on the skin. The trehalose is used in a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier and several trehalose-containing formulations are disclosed in said patent, such as shampoo formulations, hair-conditioning formulations, skin care gel formulations, lotions, and skin care creams.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,543,513 discloses the use of anhydrous trehalose as a desiccant for dehydrating various products such as dehydrated food as well as dehydrated pharmaceuticals. High-quality food products having reduced moisture content can be prepared by incorporating anhydrous trehalose into food products having relatively high moisture content thereby converting the anhydrous trehalose into hydrous crystalline trehalose.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,555,526 discloses an ophthalmic pharmaceutical composition comprising trehalose as the effective ingredient. As disclosed in said patent, there are three types of optical isomers of trehalose, i.e., ∝,∝-trehalose, ∝,β-trehalose and β,β-trehalose. All isomers exert therapeutic and/or prophylactic effect on signs of Sjorgen syndrome.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,723,170 discloses a crystalline trehalose dihydrate with low hydroscopicity. Variety of uses are disclosed for the crystalline trehalose dihydrate, including its use as a sweetener, taste-improving agent, in feeds and pet foods for animals, in soaps, skin creams, body shampoos, hair creams, moisture-controlling agent and a host of other uses disclosed in said patent.
Notwithstanding a variety of uses of trehalose disclosed in the prior art patents, none, so far is known, recognize the efficacy of trehalose for use in a topical drying composition.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to use trehalose in a topical drying composition.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a topical drying composition containing trehalose as the effective ingredient for sweat removal.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a topical drying composition containing effective amount of trehalose and a suitable carrier.
It is another object of this invention to provide a method of drying the skin by the topical application of trehalose-containing composition in which trehalose is the effective skin drying ingredient.
The foregoing and other objects and features of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the ensuing description and illustrative examples.

Trehalose-containing topical drying composition and method of using same

Abstract: The topical composition can be applied to the area which is vulnerable to sweating after vigorous exercise in order to moisturize sweating on the skin.


Systems, clients, servers, methods, and computer-readable media of varying scope are described in which, a data retrieval module of database client implements an aggressive caching scheme that seeks to predict what data cells will be needed to satisfy future queries. The data retrieval module applies an adaptive algorithm to dynamically determine the granularity of data to retrieve from a database server. The data retrieval module adaptively balances the benefit of satisfying future queries locally with the cost of retrieving larger data set from remote database server.

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The following notice shall apply to this document: Copyright (copyright) 1999, Microsoft, Inc.
The present invention pertains generally to computer-implemented databases, and more particularly to an adaptive caching and data retrieval mechanism for multi-dimensional databases.
Online analytical processing (OLAP) is a key part of most data warehouse and business analysis systems. OLAP services provide for fast analysis of multidimensional information. For this purpose, OLAP services provide for multidimensional access and navigation of data in an intuitive and natural way, providing a global view of data that can be drilled down into particular data of interest. Speed and response time are important attributes of OLAP services that allow users to browse and analyze data online in an efficient manner. Furthermore, OLAP services typically provide analytical tools to rank, aggregate, and calculate lead and lag indicators for the data under analysis.
An OLAP server is a high-capacity, multi-user data manipulation engine specifically designed to support and operate on multi-dimensional data structures. A multi-dimensional structure is arranged so that every data item is located and accessed based on the intersection of the dimension members which define that item. The design of the server and the structure of the data are optimized for rapid ad-hoc information retrieval in any orientation, as well as for fast, flexible calculation and transformation of raw data based on formulaic relationships.
A fundamental entity that is present in typical OLAP databases is a cube. A cube is a multidimensional representation of a set of data having varying aspects. A cube comprises a set of dimensions and a set of measures. In this context, a dimension is a structural attribute of the cube that is a list of members of a similar type in the user""s perception of the data. Typically, there is a hierarchy associated with the dimension. For example, a time dimension can consist of days, weeks, months, and years, while a geography dimension can consist of cities, states/provinces, and countries. Dimension members act as indices for identifying a particular cell or range of cells within a multidimensional array. A measure is a structural attribute of the cube that comprises a particular type of value that provides detail data for particular members within the dimensions. For example, sale amounts and units sold can be measures of a retail cube having a time dimension and a geography dimension. The measures provide the sale amounts and units sold for a particular geographic region at a particular point in time. For example, consider the following query:
select
time.members on columns,
geography.members on rows,
from sales.
In this query, time and geography are dimensions of the underlying database while sales in a measure. Conventional OLAP databases return a data set that does not include any calculated members that are within the range of the data set.
A calculated member is a member of a dimension whose value is determined from other members"" values (e.g., by application of a mathematical or logical operation). Calculated members may be part of the OLAP server database or may have been specified by the user during an interactive session. This allows the user to customize the dimension tree by combining cube data, arithmetic operations, numbers and/or functions.
OLAP services are conventionally provided using a client-server model. An OLAP server is a high-capacity, multi-user data manipulation engine specifically designed to support and operate on multi-dimensional data structures. An OLAP client interfaces with the OLAP server, thereby providing OLAP services to external application programs. For example, an OLAP client may provide OLAP services to a variety of external application such as a data mining application, a data warehousing application, a data analysis application, a reporting application etc.
It is well known that retrieving data from a database server is costly with regards to memory consumption, input/output and network latency. Conventional client-server database systems have caching mechanisms that seek to minimize these costly server requests. There is a need in the art, however, for an adaptive caching mechanism that aggressively retrieves data in order to increase the probability that cached data will satisfy future database requests, thereby reducing the number of roundtrips to the OLAP server, yet weighs this benefit with the costs of high-volume database queries.
The above-mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed by the present invention, which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification. Systems, clients, servers, methods, and computer-readable media of varying scope are described in which.
The invention is directed toward a data retrieval software module that implements an aggressive caching mechanism that retrieves additional data with the expectation of satisfying future queries. The amount of additional data retrieved is based upon a cost benefit analysis that considers the costs of further retrieval versus the benefits of having the data ready for such future requests. The caching mechanism uses one or more probability schemes to predict which groups of data cells that will satisfy future queries and applies cost benefit policies to determine what granularity of data cells to retrieve.
More specifically, according to the invention upon receiving a query a database client determines a set of member sub-hierarchies for each dimension specified by the query that are suitable for satisfying the query. The client analyzes the costs and benefits of retrieving each member sub-hierarchies from the multidimensional database of the database server and selects one of the member sub-hierarchies for each dimension as a function of the analysis. Finally, the database client retrieves the selected member sub-hierarchies from the multidimensional database.
The present invention describes systems, clients, servers, methods, and computer-readable media of varying scope. In addition to the aspects and advantages of the present invention described in this summary, further aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent by reference to the drawings and by reading the detailed description that follows.

Adaptive database caching and data retrieval mechanism


The present disclosure provides a clamping assembly in operative connection with a mold of an injection-molding apparatus. The clamping assembly includes a fixed plate, a rear plate, a plurality of tie bars, a movable plate, a driving module, and a temperature adjuster. The rear plate is spaced apart from the fixed plate. The tie bars are interlinked with the fixed plate and the rear plate and provided with a plurality of channels. The movable plate, between the fixed plate and the rear plate, is capable of moving with respect to the fixed plate along the tie bars. The driving module interlinks the rear plate and the movable plate. The temperature adjuster is employed to supply a fluid into the channels to remove heat from the tie bars, thereby preventing non-uniform thermal expansion of the tie bars, and hence preventing the structural wear and flash issues.

Injection molding is a process to rapidly create a mass quantity of identical plastic parts. The flexibility in shape and size achievable by the use of injection molding has expanded the limits of design in plastics and allowed substantial alternatives to traditional materials due to design freedom and weight reduction. Therefore, injection-molding techniques have been developed and applied in automotive components, consumer electronics, optics, medical products and daily necessities, among other areas.
This Discussion of the Background section is provided for background information only. The statements in this Discussion of the Background are not an admission that the subject matter disclosed in this Discussion of the Background section constitute prior art to the present disclosure, and no part of this Discussion of the Background section may be used as an admission that any part of this application, including this Discussion of the Background section, constitutes prior art to the present disclosure.