A scalpel with a retractable blade comprising a handle having a proximal section grasped by the surgeon and a distal section, and a blade holder slidable in a channel defined in the distal section of the handle. The distal section has a hinged flap to provide access to the blade for removal and replacement of the blade when in the retracted position, and can accommodate disposable blades having a variety of sizes and shapes. The scalpel has an ergonomically shaped button mounted on the blade holder providing fingertip control over retraction and extension of the blade.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to scalpels, and more particularly, to a scalpel handle and retractable blade holder for use with disposable or replaceable scalpel blades having a variety of sizes and cutting shapes.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the operating room surgical scalpels undergo frequent handling back and forth between members of the surgical team, often in circumstances where speed is a consideration. While there has always been a degree of concern over cuts and nicks which may accidentally occur in the course of such handling, fears over the transmission of AIDS and other infectious diseases through such open wounds have led to various devices for protecting operating room personnel such as retractable scalpel blades and retractable shields for fixed position scalpel blades.
The scalpel described in Cote (U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,672 issued Jul. 11, 1995) is a disposable scalpel in which the blade is mounted on a slidable carriage having an extended cutting position, an intermediate shielded position, and a fully retracted position in which the blade is locked inside the handle for disposal, the slide being controlled a button and slot on the side of the handle. Shackleford (U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,754 issued Jul. 2, 1996) describes a retractable blade mounted on a body member which slides in the handle, controlled by serrations on the body member extending through a slot on the bottom of the handle, with spring clips to lock the blade in place.
A guarded finger scalpel having spring arms which extend the blade when pressed between the thumb and forefinger is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,175 issued to Abidin, et al. on Aug. 13, 1996. The blade does not lock in the cutting position. A surgical knife for ophthalmic surgery is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,620,453, issued Apr. 15, 1997 to Nallakrisnan. The blade is extended to a cutting position by pressing a plunger at the end of the handle, and the depth of cut is adjustable by a micrometer. Four embodiments of a permanently retractable scalpel blade are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,599,351 issued Feb. 4, 1997 to Haber et al. A scalpel with the blade mounted on a mandrel biased in a retracted position by a tension spring is described in Australian Patent 651,790 issued to Dillon, et al. Jul. 28, 1994.
Representative examples of a blade held in a fixed position with a retractable guard or shield sliding on the handle are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,281 issued Oct. 29, 1996 to Abidin, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,620,454 issued Apr. 15, 1997 to Pierce, et al., and European Patent EP 555196 issued to Abidin. While not a scalpel, the sliding blade knife in U.S. Des. Pat. No. 155,378 shows a button and slot on top of the knife handle, but does not show a blade locking position.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singularly or in combination, is seen to describe a scalpel handle and blade holder adapted to receiving replacement scalpel blades in a variety of sizes, nor to have an ergonomic button design for controlling extension of the scalpel blade as shown in the instant invention. Thus a scalpel with a retractable blade solving the aforementioned problems is desired.


The present invention include a main substrate on which electronic components are mounted; a secondary substrate wherein electronic components are mounted on a surface facing a mounting surface of the main substrate; and a shield perimeter wall formed by arranging multiple shielded substrate connectors connecting the main substrate and the secondary substrate so that an electronic circuit is surrounded. The shielded substrate connectors is formed from plugs mounted on either main or secondary substrate and sockets mounted on the other substrate, the plugs and the sockets being removably connected. The plugs and the sockets are attached to the main substrate and the secondary substrate with an attachment tool member that supports the plugs or sockets so that they are aligned with the shield perimeter wall.

The present invention relates to a shield structure primarily for shielding high-frequency circuits and the like formed from multiple electronic components.
Conventionally, shielding electronic circuits such as high-frequency circuits formed from multiple electronic components attached to a substrate has been done by covering and surrounding the high-frequency circuit with a shield case formed as a box-shaped structure of conductive material. See, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication Number Hei 06-338435.
However, in conventional technologies such as the one described above, the shield case must become larger if the number of electronic parts in the high-frequency circuit or the like increases, increasing the amount of space taken up on the substrate by these electronic parts. This makes it difficult to provide compact designs for devices.


A viewfinder display device comprises a viewfinder optical system and a display structure disposed to be superimposed on a viewfinder optical image in the viewfinder optical system, and the display structure is arranged to divide a viewfinder display area into a plurality of small areas and is capable of selectively varying a transmittance of each of the plurality of small areas.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a viewfinder display device for the observation of an object.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has been proposed to provide various kinds of transmission viewfinder display devices for use in a photographic apparatus, such as a camera, which are arranged to display in a superimposed manner an automatic focus detecting area, an automatic exposure measuring area, a panoramic photography area, a parallax between the range of photography and the field of view of a viewfinder and the like.
Normally, these displays can be switched in accordance with the alteration of each individual setting condition, and the range and area of operation of each function of the photographic apparatus is displayed so that a photographer can be given assistance in performing photography.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,404,193 and others disclose a particularly convenient arrangement capable of displaying a focus detecting point in a superimposed manner when an in-focus state is detected at that focus detecting point.
It is also known that a viewfinder for a single-lens reflex camera or the like has a very useful function which enables a user to directly confirm the state of focus adjustment.


A brassiere for women who need or desire breast enhancement manufactured with internal air bags or the like which can provide apparent enhancement without the need for surgery, or for use after surgical loss of breast tissue. The brassiere can be used either by women who have had surgical removal of a breast or by women who desire breast enlargement.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a prosthetic brassiere.
2. Background of the Invention
Women who suffer surgical loss of breast tissue for treatment of cancer, because of injury or other conditions have a variety of permanent or temporary clothing options to restore their appearance and to match the appearance of the non-affected side. U.S. Pat. No. 3,934,274 describes a prosthesis which is surgically implanted and filled with fluid or liquid and U.S. Pat. No. 4,178,643 describes a valve which may be used to either fill or withdraw fluids or gels from a surgically-implanted prosthesis. U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,078 describes a brassiere having a liquid reservoir chamber and U.S. Pat. No. 7,144,296 discloses a strapless fluid-filled breast enhancement system to be worn by adhesive attachment to the wearer's skin. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,302,760; 6,461,221; and 6,811,463 all describe brassieres with air inflatable chambers. The '760 patent discloses a brassiere with which air bladder can be symmetrically filled or depleted of air and requiring the use of a blast air pump. The '221 patent directs the airflow to only the lower portion of the bra, whereas the '463 patent describes a brassiere comprising non-fillable air bladder pads throughout the brassiere material. There exists a need to have such clothing available that is both easy to use and easily adjustable by the wearer.


An immunogenic complex, essentially consisting of neisserial outer membrane protein proteosomes hydrophobically complexed to native purified bacterial lipopolysaccharide and formulated in accordance with the current invention for mucosal delivery such as via the oral or intranasal route is used as a vaccine. Specifically, a vaccine using shigella lipopolysaccharides complexed to proteosomes for such mucosal administration induces IgG and IgA antibodies in sera and in respiratory and intestinal fluids. Furthermore, such antibodies are associated with protection against shigella infection and these vaccines are herein demonstrated to protect against mucosal infection with shigella.

1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to the use of oil-in-water submicron emulsions as vaccine adjuvants for enhancing the immunogenicity and improvement of the immune response of antigens and to methods and compositions for preparing them. The invention further relates to a novel vaccine delivery system using proteosomes hydrophobically completed to lipopolysaccharides and formulated for oral or intranasal administration to induce protective antibodies in sera and/or respiratory and/or intestinal secretions that are associated with protection against disease.

Oral or intranasal vaccines using hydrophobic complexes having proteosomes and lipopolysaccharides


A pillow 1 stores a main part 2 and an elastic part 3 laminated by the main part 2 in a cover part 4. The main part 2 includes a core material 21 arranged along a longitudinal direction, and a storage object 23 in which charcoal 22 is stored at both sides, and is covered by a cover material 25. A concave portion 27 is formed in a position corresponding to the core material 21. The elastic material 3 has elastic materials 31, 32 and 33 having hardness which becomes larger as they come closer to the main part 2. A convex part 27 is formed in the surface, and a convex part 34 of the elastic part 3 is fitted to the concave portion 27, and a portion corresponding to the convex part 34 is formed thicker than a portion which does not support the convex part 34.

The invention relates to a pillow where charcoal is used.
In recent years, the pillow containing bamboo charcoal with various structures where bamboo charcoal is stored inside the pillow has been developed in view of the effects of the deodorization, moisture absorption, and antibacterial action of bamboo charcoal. With this pillow containing bamboo charcoal, discomfort by the sweat and the smell which come out of a user's head and etc. during the sleep can be reduced by the moisture absorption and deodorizing action of bamboo charcoal which is stored inside the pillow, and it is also excellent in the health by the antibacterial action of bamboo charcoal and cool feeling can be given to a user. There is a pillow containing bamboo charcoal, which comprises only a main part in which bamboo charcoal is stored inside. With such a pillow structure containing bamboo charcoal, the effect of bamboo charcoal has been demonstrated, but there is a problem that a feeling is hard when a user touches the surface of a pillow, and it is not comfortable.
In order to solve the problem mentioned above, the pillow containing bamboo charcoal with various structures has been developed. FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the pillow containing bamboo charcoal as an example in the prior art. As shown in FIG. 7, pillow 101 containing bamboo charcoal is disclosed in, for example Patent Document 1, which includes a two-layer structure where an elastic part 103 which provides cushioning properties is laminated in the main part 102.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-37274,
With the conventional pillow containing bamboo charcoal mentioned above, since the back of the head in contact with a pillow is in a convex form, the thickness of an elastic part is uniform, so that there is a problem that the cushioning properties in the back of the head which sinks in a pillow most are not enough, and a user feels hardness. On the other hand, although the cushioning properties can be increased by enlarging the thickness of an elastic part, if the height of a pillow becomes large, a large force will be applied onto the neck and etc. If the height of a pillow is not changed, because the thickness of a main part becomes small and the effect of bamboo charcoal may decrease, there is a limit in enlarging the thickness of an elastic part. Moreover, although it is better to prepare a crevice between the contact surfaces, without mutually adhering the contact surface of a main part and an elastic part, in order to improve air permeability and to acquire the effect of bamboo charcoal, when the pressure acts from the exterior, and a main part and an elastic part produce a skid etc. mutually, there is also a problem that the internal structure of a pillow changes. Especially, at the time the user changes the sides during sleep, the force more than the weight of the head may act on the pillow, and it is easy to slide mutually on the contact surface of a main part and an elastic part.
The purpose of this invention is to provide a pillow containing bamboo charcoal in which the cushioning properties are raised and the effect of bamboo charcoal can be fully demonstrated.


A digital photo album 901 has image enhancement provided by a pre-programmed set of characteristics on a removable image enhancement card and includes a body section 902 connected to a display screen 904. The body 902 houses control circuitry for operating the digital photo album and an internal printer 500 for printing displayed images. The printer 500 has a removable ink/print media cartridge 504 and prints images of equal size to those displayed.

The following invention relates to a digital photo album with an internal printer. More particularly though not exclusively, the invention relates to a digital photo album having a page width drop-on-demand ink jet printhead and a source of print media located in the body of the digital photo album.
A digital photo album is typically a portable electronic device that receives an electronic memory card on which is stored one or more digital images. A card reader inside the digital photo album retrieves image data from the card and displays an image on an electronic display screen forming part of the digital photo album.
Digital photo albums thus provide a convenient way for transporting digital images in a manner that allows for their quick and spontaneous display. Furthermore, digital photo albums can include image manipulation software that modify stored images in accordance with a programmed set of characteristics. These image enhancement techniques can be used to create artistic effects as well as enabling the addition of text, labels, etc. Image enhancement can also be by way of removing unwanted portions of an image such as obvious dirt marks and by making rotational and vibrational corrections. Examples of image processing hardware can be found in our co-pending application U.S. Ser. No. 09/112,786 the contents of which is duly incorporated herein by reference. Examples of image processing software can be found in our co-pending applications U.S. Ser. Nos. 09/113,070, 09/112,777, 09/113,224, 09/112,804, 09/112,797, 09/112,796, 09/113,071, 09/113,091, 09/112,753, 09/113,055, 09/113,057 and 09/113,054 the contents of which are duly incorporated herein by reference.
Much of the benefit of such portable prior art photo albums is lost however if a print-out of any one or more images is required. To print an image, prior art digital photo albums must be connected to a print device compatible with the photo album which requires additional cabling to be carried thus reducing the portability of the photo album. Alternatively the digital storage medium that stores the images within the digital photo album can be transferred to another computer having compatible software for reading the images and which is connected to a printer. Each of the above alternatives can only be implemented if these other computing devices are readily at hand. The prior art digital photo albums are thus yet to reach their maximum potential as a functional medium for transporting digital images.

Digital photo album with image enhancement and internal printer


An output circuit for a semiconductor device that offers improved reliability of data transfer over long distance as well as low consumption. In one embodiment, an output circuit according to the invention includes: an output circuit section having a pair of output terminals for outputting complementary output signals in response to an input signal received by the output circuit section, and a switch circuit connected between the pair of output terminals of the output circuit section. The output circuit section sets the pair of output terminals in a high-impedance state in response to a high-impedance setting signal received by the output circuit section. The switch circuit causes electric coupling between the pair of output terminals in response to the high-impedance setting signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an output circuit for a semiconductor device. More particularly, the invention relates to an output circuit suitable for use in a data communications system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a bus-based data communications system, it is important to lengthen the data transfer distance and improve the reliability of data transfer. Therefore, in output circuits of semiconductor devices which are used in such a data communications system, ensured reliability of data, longer transfer capability and lower consumed power are demanded.
FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram showing a conventional 3-value output circuit for a semiconductor device that outputs three values of "+1", "0" and "-1". The output data "-1" is obtained, for example, in the following manner. As NOR gate 1a, NAND gate 2a, inverter circuits 3b, 3c and 3d, and transistors Tr1 and Tr2 operate in response to a L-level high-impedance setting signal Z and a H-level input signal IN, a L-level output signal OUTP is output from an output terminal T.sub.01. As NOR gate 1b, NAND gate 2b, inverter circuits 3a, 3e and 3f, and transistors Tr3 and Tr4 operate in response to the L-level high-impedance setting signal Z and the H-level input signal IN, a H-level output signal OUTM is output from an output terminal T.sub.02. The output data "-1" is acquired from the L-level level output signal OUTP and the H-level output signal OUTM.
The output data "+1" is acquired from a H-level output signal OUTP and a L-level output signal OUTM, which are output when the aforementioned individual circuits operate in response to the L-level high-impedance setting signal Z and a L-level input signal IN.
The output data "0" is obtained as follows. When the high-impedance setting signal Z is set to the H-level, the transistors Tr1, Tr2, Tr3 and Tr4 are turned off regardless of the level of the input signal IN. As a result, the output signals OUTP and OUTM are both rendered in the high-impedance state, thus yielding the output data "0".
When the output signals OUTP and OUTM are both in the high-impedance state, the voltages on transfer lines L1 and L2 which are respectively connected to the output terminals T.sub.01 and T.sub.02 become unstable. During the transition of the levels of the voltages on transfer lines L1 and L2 from the H-level or L-level to an intermediate level, therefore, noise N such as undershoot or overshoot as shown in FIG. 2 is likely to appear on the output signal. Such noise N may lead to the transfer of erroneous data to a receiving apparatus connected to the transfer lines L1 and L2 (see FIG. 1). This noise N can be reduced by providing a terminating resistor R having a relatively low resistance between the transfer lines L1 and L2. This terminating resistor R however lowers the rising and falling speeds of the output signals OUTP and OUTM. Further, the amplitudes of the output signals OUTP and OUTM become lower and thus reduces the reliability of data transferred using the long transfer lines L1 and L2. Also, the use of the transistors Tr1 to Tr4 having an enhanced current drive performances to acquire an output signal with a sufficient amplitude results in the undesirable increase in the current that flows across the terminating resistor R. Consequently, the terminating resistor R increases the power consumption of the output circuit.

Tri-state output circuit for semiconductor device


A ball grid array connector comprises an insulative housing having a mating face and a soldering face opposite to the mating face and a plurality of passageways defined between the mating face and the soldering face. A plurality of contacts are received in the passageways and each contact comprises a contacting portion and a soldering portion substantially perpendicular to the soldering portion. A solder ball is attached to the soldering portion of each contact and the solder ball has a diameter less than a width of the soldering portion of the contact.

1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates to a ball grid array connector, especially a ball grid array connector having a positioning structure for retaining corresponding solder balls in position.
2. The Prior Art
Through hole type connectors have been used for decades. However, these kinds of connectors need the soldering pins thereof to pass through soldering holes in a printed circuit board thereby occupying two sides of the printed circuit board. Ball grid array (BGA) connectors are used to replace the through hole connectors because they only need the soldering tails of the connectors to be directly soldered on the printed circuit board via a solder ball. Therefore other side of the printed circuit board can be used for other components. For a BGA connector, a solder ball has to be soldered on the tail of the connector in advance and then soldered on the printed circuit board via a baking procedure. A conventional BGA connector 5 as shown in FIG. 6 comprises a housing 52 having a soldering face 521 and a plurality of contacts 51 received therein (only one is shown). A soldering tail 511 of the contact 51 extends beyond the soldering face 521 and comprises a bottom 512 to which a solder ball 23 is in advance soldered. The solder ball 23 is then soldered on a conductor pad 31 of a printed circuit board 30. It is difficult to properly position the solder ball 23 to the solder tail 511 because the bottom 512 of the solder tail 511 is only a relatively small plane. Therefore, some of the solder balls 23 (not shown) are apt to be attached to one edge of the soldering tail 511 which in turn damages the coplanarity of the solder balls 23.
It is requisite to provide an additional positioning structure to solve the above problem.


A cosmetic composition having improve transfer resistance comprising:. a) from about 0.1-60% by weight of trimethylated silica, PA1 b) from about 0.1-60% by weight of a volatile solvent having a viscosity of 0.5 to 100 centipoise at 25.degree. C., PA1 c) 0.1-60% by weight of a nonvolatile oil having a viscosity of 200 to 1,000,000 centipoise at 25.degree. C. PA1 d) 0.1-80% of a cosmetically acceptable carrier.

Cosmetic compositions are generally defined as compositions suitable for application to the human body. Cosmetic compositions such as creams and lotions are used to moisturize the skin and keep it in a smooth supple condition. Pigmented cosmetic compositions such as makeup, blush, lipstick, and eyeshadow, are used to color the skin and lips. Since color is one of the most important reasons for wearing cosmetics, color containing cosmetics must be very carefully formulated to provide maximum wear and effect.
One of the long standing problems with makeups such as face makeup, lipstick, mascara, and the like, is the tendency of the cosmetic to blot or transfer from the skin or lashes onto other surfaces such as glassware, silverware, or clothing. This not only creates soiling, but forces the cosmetic user to reapply cosmetic at fairly short intervals.
For example, traditional makeup compositions are either water and oil emulsions containing pigments, or they can be anhydrous systems containing waxes, oils and pigments. These formulations are applied and blended into the skin to provide color and correct skin topography to provide an even, smooth appearance. The films are simply deposited on the surface of the skin and if touched with fingers the product may transfer or become blotchy and uneven. Perspiration or sebum will break through the film and cause running or smearing. If skin comes into contact with clothing, the clothing may become soiled.
The object of this invention is to formulate a cosmetic with long lasting adherence to skin.
Another object of the invention is to formulate a cosmetic which yields a film which is not disturbed when blotted to remove sebum or perspiration.
Another object of the invention is to formulate a cosmetic which yields a film which does not readily transfer to clothing or utensils.
Another object of the invention is to formulate a cosmetic which yields a film which exhibits reduced permeability to oil and water.


A fan coil media cabinet for use with a fan coil unit. The cabinet includes an open-sided inner liner having co-joined top, bottom, back, and front panels. The inner panel is mounted within an outer shell having top, bottom, and back walls that are located adjacent to the top, bottom, and back walls of the outer shell. The outer shell contains a ledge that extends about the inner periphery of the shelf upon which the inner liner is seated. The width of the outer shell walls is greater than that of the inner liner panels so that the walls extend outwardly to one side beyond the inner liner. In assembly, the extended wall sections of the outer shell are mounted in contiguous relation with the return inlet of the fan coil and are fastened thereto to create a rigid structure.

This invention relates to a media filter cabinet for installation in a ducted system that has been modified either at the time of installation or sometime thereafter so that the system can provide both heating and cooling.
Currently, dealers and distributors who install or modify existing ducted systems so that the system can provide both heating and cooling find difficulty in installing a filter cabinet into the system because of the presence of the fan coil unit at the entrance to the return air duct. Attempts to alter existing cabinets such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,502,909 to Swilik, Jr. et al., have not proven to be very successful because the existing cabinets are of a different dimension than that required in a ducted system equipped with a fan coil unit. Accordingly, any needed alteration is work intensive, time consuming, and costly. In addition, a relatively large number of fasteners are generally required to properly mount the altered cabinet particularly with regard to the return air duct of the system.
A number of after market cabinet suppliers manufacture cabinets that provide a better fit than the modified cabinets, however, these after market products still require a certain amount of refinement before they fit properly into the system again wasting a good deal of time and effort on the part of the installer.


A signal output apparatus, a charge pump, a voltage doubler and a method for outputting a current are provided. The interior circuit of a chip is used to generate an oscillation signal with a swing of 0 to 2×VIN, which drives a charge-pump type voltage doubler using large capacitors outside the chip to output a large current.

A charge pump circuit is a circuit for generating a voltage higher than its input voltage. In some interface circuits, an output voltage higher than the input voltage and a large output current are required to be provided, thus a charge pump-type booster circuit, which can generate a large current output, is needed in the interface circuit chip. For example, in a Universal Serial Bus On-the-Go (USB OTG) interface circuit, a vbus in a cable is required to be driven to a voltage over 4.75V, and a current over 8 mA should be provided to a Self-Powered Device or a current higher than 100 mA should be provided to a Bus-Powered Device.
In A High-Efficiency CMOS Voltage Doubler, Pierre Favrat, et al., IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, Vol. 33, No. 3, MARCH 1998, a structure of a charge pump is described. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the circuit structure of the charge pump, in which a clock signal CK changes periodically between an input voltage VIN and 0 and a CKN is the inverted clock of CK. After an operation time long enough, an output voltage VOUT will be finally stabilized at about 2×VIN. However, when a current with order of magnitude of tens or even hundreds mA is provided by using the charge pump shown in FIG. 1, the capacitance of the capacitor in the charge pump will be very large (with the order of magnitude of about 0.1 g), thereby causing that the capacitor only can be connected to the charge pump circuit in a chip pin mode from the outside of the charge pump circuit chip, thus one or more of nodes CP1 and CP2 will be pins for the chip to connect to the outside capacitor. In the practical application using standard CMOS manufacturing process, N-type metal oxide semiconductor (NMOS) N1a and N2a may be destroyed due to electrostatic discharge (ESD) or latchup, because their bulks have no independent wells for protection, and their sources or drains and their gates are connected to high voltage chip pins.
In A Regulated Charge Pump With Small Ripple Voltage and Fast Start-Up, Jae-Youl Lee, et al., IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, Vol. 41, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2006, another structure of a charge pump is disclosed. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing the circuit structure of the charge pump. There exist the following problems in the structure of this charge pump.
1) The drain and gate of a P-type metal oxide semiconductor (PMOS) P2b are connected with each other, which results in that, when a capacitor C2b is charged, the ascending extent of voltage on a node CP2 is limited, and the charges that can be obtained by the charge pump from the input voltage VIN in each period is limited. Therefore, such a structure greatly limits the quantity of charges that can be output from the node CP2 at a high potential (about 2×VIN). If providing a large current output by using such a structure, a chip with a large area is needed, and the cost is relatively high.
2) Because a bulk of an output switch P3b is connected with an output node VOUT, when other circuits connected with the VOUT requires to drive VOUT to logic 0 level when the charge pump is not at work, the PN junction between the P-type source (connected with the node CP2) and the N well (connected with the bulk) of the P3b will be forward conducting, thus the potential of VOUT can only be driven to VIN-VthPMOS-VthPN at the lowest (where VthPMOS is the cut-in voltage of the P-type metal oxide semiconductor, and VthPN is the forward conducting voltage of the PN junction), and cannot be normally driven to logic 0 level by the external circuit.
CN Patent NO. ZL 02157151.1 discloses a charge pump and a voltage doubler using the same. A schematic diagram of the whole circuit structure of the voltage doubler is as shown in FIG. 3, where CK and CKN are a pair of oscillation signals with opposite phases and a swing of 0˜VIN. The operating principle of the charge pump circuit is as follows.
It is hypothesized that, at the initial state, the potential of the node CKN is VIN and the potential of the node CK is 0, then a module 2 outputs a hclk1 (the initial potential of a signal hclk2 output by the module 2 is about VIN) signal with the potential of 0 to a module 1, so that the potential of the output signal CP1 of module 1 is pulled up to VIN via a switch P1c, while the potential of the output signal CP2 of module 1 is raised to VIN due to the capacitance characteristic. Then the potential of the node CKN is inverted to 0 and the potential of the node CK is inverted to VIN, and the potential of the output signal CP1 of module 1 is raised to 2×VIN due to the capacitance characteristic, the module 1 outputs the CP1 signal with the potential of 2×VIN to the module 2, the module 2 generates an hclk1 signal with a potential of 2×VIN by using the CP1 signal with the potential of 2×VIN output by the module 1 and outputs the hclk1 signal to the module 1, so that the CP1 signal output by the module 1 keeps at the potential of 2×VIN; furthermore, the module 2 further outputs an hclk2 signal with a potential of 0 to the module 1, so that the CP2 signal output by the module 1 is again raised to the potential of VIN (at the moment the potential of the node CKN is inverted to 0, the potential of the CP2 signal output by the module 1 is pulled down to 0 due to the capacitance characteristic). Subsequently, by the same token, when the potentials of the nodes CK and CKN are inverted between 0 and VIN, two output signals CP1 and CP2 with opposite phases may vary periodically in a range of VIN to 2×VIN.
The solution described in CN Patent NO. ZL 02157151.1 has the following disadvantages:
1) In addition to providing charges to the VOUT, the output signals CP1 and CP2 of the module 1 act as the input signals of the module 2 to make the potentials of the output signals hclk1 and hclk2 of the module 2 (at the same time, they are also the input signals of the module 1) change from 0 to 2×VIN and to make the potentials of the nodes a and b of the module 2 change from 0 to VIN, thus the charges stored by the capacitors C1c and C2c are wasted and the output charges are reduced;
2) When a circuit is required to output a large current (a current of tens or even hundreds mA) when the output voltage VOUT is higher than the input voltage VIN, the capacitance of the capacitor C1c or C2c would be of the order of magnitude of about 0.1 uF, thus the capacitor can only be connected from the outside of the circuit chip. At this point, the upper and lower plates of the capacitor and the VOUT are high voltage input/output pins of the chip. The metal oxide semiconductor would readily subject to the destruction of electrostatic discharge or latchup when the high voltage input/output pins (for example, CP1, CP2 and VOUT) of the chip are connected directly to the gate, the source and the drain of the metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) simultaneously;
3) Because the CK and CKN are an operation clock signal and an inverted operation clock signal with an opposite phase to the operation clock signal, respectively, the charge loss due to the clock level inversion cannot be avoided, and the efficiency of the energy output of the VOUT is relatively low. Especially, when the clock signal is inverted, a problem of charge loss may arise because a breakover current from the VIN to the GND may flow through a driver that provides charges to the lower plate of the capacitor C1c or C2c; and when the clock signal is inverted, a problem of charge loss may arise because the switches P6c and P5c and the switches P1c and P8c are conducting at the same time, which causes the charges to flow back from the CP1 (or CP2) with a high potential to the CP2 (or CP1) with a low potential. Furthermore, because the current that flows through each metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) is large in the application of outputting a large current, and the parasitic capacitance is relatively large due to the size of each MOS is relatively large, thus the ascending time and the descending time of the clock signal level inversion is relatively long, thereby causing the above two problems of charge loss to be serious. Moreover, because it is limited by the structural characteristic of this solution, even if the CK and CKN are modified as two-phase non-overlap clock signals, the above two problems of charge loss still cannot be solved at the same time.

Signal output apparatus, charge pump, voltage doubler and method for outputting current


Utterance data that includes at least a small amount of manually transcribed data is provided. Automatic speech recognition is performed on ones of the utterance data not having a corresponding manual transcription to produce automatically transcribed utterances. A model is trained using all of the manually transcribed data and the automatically transcribed utterances. A predetermined number of utterances not having a corresponding manual transcription are intelligently selected and manually transcribed. Ones of the automatically transcribed data as well as ones having a corresponding manual transcription are labeled. In another aspect of the invention, audio data is mined from at least one source, and a language model is trained for call classification from the mined audio data to produce a language model.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to speech recognition and more specifically to call classification of speech for spoken language systems.
2. Introduction
Existing systems for rapidly building spoken language dialog applications require an extensive amount of manually transcribed and labeled data. This task is not only expensive, but is also quite time consuming. An approach is desired that significantly reduces an amount of manpower required to transcribe and label data while creating spoken language models with performance approaching that of spoken language models created with extensive manual transcription and labeling.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Unsupervised and active learning in automatic speech recognition for call classification


The present invention aims to provide a CATV converter which can receive both of analog and digital signals. The CATV converter comprises a second mixer (10) coupled with a first filter (13) which attenuates approximately equal frequency to an audio carrier of an upper adjacent channel and approximately equal frequency to a video carrier of a lower adjacent channel, a first amplifier (14) coupled with an output terminal of the first filter (13), and a second filter (15) coupled with the output terminal of the first amplifier (14). The second filter (15) attenuates a video carrier of the upper adjacent channel and an audio carrier of the lower adjacent channel. When an input signal is within a predetermined frequency range, the input signal fed to the input terminal (1) can short-circuit the input and output terminals of the second filter with a high frequency of the input signal.

A conventional CATV converter, as illustrated in FIG. 7, comprises:
(1) an input terminal 57A, PA1 (2) a first local oscillator 51, PA1 (3) a first mixer 52, where an input signal to the input terminal 57A is fed to a first terminal of the first mixer 52, and an output from the first local oscillator 51 is also fed to a second terminal thereof, PA1 (4) an intermediate frequency filter 53 to which an output of the first mixer 52 is fed, PA1 (5) a second local oscillator 54, PA1 (6) a second mixer 55, where an output of the intermediate frequency filter 53 is fed to a first terminal of the second mixer 55, and an output of the second local oscillator 54 is also fed to a second terminal thereof, PA1 (7) an output circuit 56 coupled with the output terminal of the second mixer 55, and PA1 (8) an output terminal 57B coupled with an output terminal of the output circuit 56. PA1 (1) a first filter coupled with an output terminal of a second mixer, where a first filter attenuates frequencies approximately equal to an audio carrier of an upper adjacent channel and video carrier of a lower adjacent channel, PA1 (2) a first amplifier coupled with an output terminal of the first filter, PA1 (3) a second filter coupled with an output terminal of an first amplifier, where a second filter attenuates a video carrier of the upper adjacent channel and an audio carrier of the lower adjacent carrier, PA1 (4) a second amplifier disposed between the second filter and the output terminal, and has the following function: when an input signal fed to the input terminal is within a predetermined frequency range, the input and output terminals of the second filter are short-circuited because of a high frequency of the input signal.
The output circuit 56 comprises the following elements coupled in series in this order: a first filter 58, a first amplifier 59, a second filter 60, and a second amplifier 61.
An operation of the above conventional CATV is explained here:
A signal fed into the input terminal 57A is mixed in the first mixer 52 whereby being converted to a first intermediate frequency. The output thereof is fed to the intermediate filter 53, and only an intermediate frequency bandwidth is tapped off. The output thereof is fed to the second mixer 55, whereby being converted to the second intermediate frequency before being tapped off. The output thereof is fed to the output circuit 56, and then tapped off from the output terminal 57B. In the output circuit 56, a signal tapped off from the second mixer 55 is fed to the first filter 58, where a video carrier of an upper adjacent channel and an audio carrier of a lower channel are attenuated and then tapped off. The output thereof is fed to the first amplifier 59 and amplified, then tapped to the second filter 60, where an audio carrier of the upper adjacent channel and a video carrier of the lower channel are attenuated and then tapped off. Further the output thereof is fed to the second amplifier 61 to be amplified, then tapped off.
In this conventional structure, a trap is provided nearby the received signal bandwidth because of the first filter 58. Therefore, in the system which handles digital and analog signals, when receiving compressed digital signals, original signals cannot be reproduced due to deterioration of a differential phase or differential gain in the receiving signal bandwidth.

CATV converter for receiving both analog and digital signals

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


The present invention provides a method, apparatus, and computer implemented instructions for executing cryptographic operations. Responsive to a request to perform a cryptographic operation, one (or more) of a software process and a hardware process is selected for performing the cryptographic operation based on a policy which process results with available resources to perform the cryptographic operation to form a selected process. The cryptographic operation is performed using the selected process. Necessary object conversions, which is transparent to the application, is carried out in order to convert objects to usable forms of the selected process(es).

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, and in particular to a method and apparatus for performing cryptography operations. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method, apparatus, and computer implemented instructions for a dual hardware and software cryptography system.
2. Description of Related Art
Cryptography is the art and science of keeping information secure. A person who does not know the method used to change the information to keep it secure cannot copy the method used or reverse the change. The basic components of cryptographic systems are used to encipher (scramble) information so that it is difficult to determine the meaning without the appropriate key or keys to decipher (unscramble) the information. The components include cryptographic algorithms (mathematical functions) for enciphering or deciphering information and keys (strings of information that cause a cryptographic algorithm to encipher or decipher in a distinctive way). Symmetric and asymmetric are two examples of cryptographic systems. Symmetric systems use the same key to encipher and decipher. This system is also referred to as a secret key algorithm.
In contrast, asymmetric systems generate and use different keys to encipher and decipher a secure key pair. With this key pair, consisting of a public key and a private key, only one key can decipher what the other enciphers. Asymmetric key pairs are used in creating digital signatures and transporting symmetric keys. In the past, most encryption systems only used symmetric cryptography. The problem with symmetric cryptography, however, is the difficulty encountered in distributing keys to targeted recipients. Since symmetric cryptography uses the same key for enciphering and deciphering, a person has to use creative and difficult means to prevent the unwanted from intercepting the key. If a third party were to intercept the key, they could use it to decipher anything it was used to encipher.
A solution to this problem is public key cryptography which uses asymmetric cryptography to transport symmetric keys. In such a system, a recipient's public key is used to encipher a symmetric key. Once enciphered, the symmetric key can only be easily deciphered using the corresponding private key.
The Internet and other networked environments are full of hackers, viruses, eavesdroppers, thieves, terrorists, and other threats to information privacy and control. Cryptography is necessary because it helps individuals and organizations protect themselves from these threats. For years, cryptography has been predominantly used by government intelligence agencies, military forces, and the banking industry. Today, others are beginning to realize the benefits and the necessity of cryptography.
Cryptographic systems may be implanted using hardware. As an overview summary, hardware cryptography implementation is required in certain industrial sectors such as financial areas. It is important that confidential information is kept in secure location. A classic example is the storage of private key. Although the access to the private key can be limited by the data structure/nature in software (e.g. declaring the key as a private attribute which cannot be accessed by any outside application), the memory that stores the key is not protected by secure means. An intruder/adversary can read the key information by brute memory reading or any work around. Besides secure storage, hardware also provides an environment to execute operations that involve confidential data such as digital signature and encryption. Hardware provides a secure means for storing confidential data and executing sensitive operations.
Cryptographic systems also may be implemented in software. In this type of implementation, the speed of a software implemented operation depends solely on the operating machine. The performance of software implementation can be improved by various techniques such as multithreading. The execution time is not necessary proportional to the size of input data once the code is loaded to memory since no more Input/Output (I/O) is needed and thus repetitive operation would yield in smaller overhead and shorter execution time.
Hardware, on the other hand, due to extra connections to the operating machine and limited memory (relatively smaller to the operating machine), has a limited and costly performance.

Method and apparatus for dual hardware and software cryptography

International Business Machines Corporation


A shim coil device for installation and/or arrangement within a local coil of a magnetic resonance device is provided. The shim coil device includes at least one shim coil formed by at least one conductor loop, and at least one compensation coil formed by at least one conductor loop. The at least one shim coil and the at least one compensation coil are arranged in a same coil plane. An overall arrangement of the at least one shim coil and the at least one compensation coil is symmetrical about a first central axis and a second central axis. The first central axis and the second central axis are perpendicular to each other and lie in the coil plane. An overall induction surface is enclosed by the at least one conductor loop of the at least one compensation coil corresponding to an overall induction surface enclosed by the at least one conductor loop of the at least one shim coil.

The present embodiments relate to a shim coil device for a magnetic resonance device.
Magnetic resonance imaging is a known, established imaging technique that is used in the medical engineering area. In order to obtain images useful for diagnostic assessment, the aim has been to obtain a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that is as high as possible. The use of local coils for this purpose is known. For example, antenna systems arranged in the immediate vicinity, on (anterior) or below (posterior) the patient, have been used. During the recording of magnetic resonance image data, the excited cores induce a voltage in the individual antennas or conductor loops of the local coils. The induced voltage is amplified with a low noise preamplifier (LNA) and forwarded via a cable to a receive device. The receive device further processes the magnetic resonance image data.
A further improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio (e.g., for high-resolution magnetic resonance images) is the aim of high-field systems. The basic magnetic field of high-field systems has a strength of, for example, 1.5 T to 12 T or more.
For all magnetic resonance imaging purposes, homogeneity of the basic magnetic field (B0) is of importance. If variations in the homogeneity of the imaging volume are too great, artifacts or distortions may arise. Also, specific applications such as fat saturation may no longer function. Fat saturation (e.g., fat set) is an imaging technique, in which the frequency shift of protons bound to fat or fatty materials is used. A saturation pulse at the fat frequency is used as a send pulse to exclude the frequency of signals originating from fatty tissue. Since the difference between the proton frequency in water and the proton frequency in fat is very small (e.g., equivalent to a few ppm of the basic field), this imaging technique is heavily dependent on the spatial homogeneity of the basic magnetic field. In such cases, a homogeneity of up to 0.5 ppm may be reached over imaging volumes of approximately 30×30 cm.
In this context, the influence of the object to be recorded (e.g., a patient) on the homogeneity of the basic magnetic field is not to be ignored. Thus, in the region of the nape of the neck of the patient, the body tissue is significantly susceptible to inhomogeneous body tissue distribution. Because of inhomogeneous body tissue distribution, distortions of the basic magnetic field may occur. To rectify these distortions, shim coils are used. In such cases, the number of different shim coils, their arrangement, and activation only allows a restricted number of degrees of freedom to compensate for inhomogeneities of the basic magnetic field. These inhomogeneities are generated by a mostly superconducting basic field magnet, by shim currents, and by corresponding shim magnetic fields, which are generated by conventional coils (e.g., copper coils). The options or degrees of freedom provided by the shim coils are not sufficient to compensate for inhomogeneities in many already known magnetic resonance devices (e.g., in the neck vertebrae area). A great jump in susceptibility arises precisely in the neck vertebrae area as a result of the transition from thorax to the neck/head.
However, homogeneity is not just disturbed by the presence of an object or patient to be detected, but may also be disturbed by the properties of the magnet system itself. For example, inhomogenities to be corrected may occur at the edge of the homogeneity volume.
German patent application DE 10 2011 077 724 proposes to compensate for sharply varying local magnetic fields within a magnetic resonance device by using shim coils as part of a local coil, so the shim coils are located close to the region of interest (roi) in the patient to be examined.
A problem with the use of magnetic resonance imaging in the field of the fat saturation techniques is inadequate fat saturation. Fatty tissue, in the area of the nape of the neck, for example, is still shown as brightly illuminated in an image, even though fat saturation techniques are designed to hide the fatty tissue in the image. This effect occurs because the fatty tissue in this area does not have the expected resonance frequency due to the local B0 variation. The saturation pulse, which should fully activate the spins of the fatty tissue, does not reach the spins, since the resonant frequency is different. A shim coil provided as part of the local coil may help to alleviate this issue.
An issue with this approach is that the shim coil is to be decoupled from the gradient field, since there may be no disruption of the shim activity and, therefore, also the shimming effect of the shim coil. Lowpass filtering may be used, since the gradient fields are low-frequency. However, the use of ferrite filters within the local coil and the use of ferrite filters of suitable size in the magnetic field is not possible. Ferrite-free filters are not used in a local coil because of the volume. Without such lowpass filtering, however, the current induced in the shim coil leads to a distortion of the gradient field or a distortion of the shim field generated by the local shim coil. Since the position in the k-space represents the time integral over the gradients, even small disturbances may accumulate rapidly over the sequence runtime. A further peculiarity of shim coils integrated into the local coil is that since the local coil itself is able to be moved directly or via the movement of the patient support, the decoupling is independent of the position of the shim coil integrated into the local coil in the longitudinal direction of the patient chamber (e.g., z-direction) and may have been realized independently of a position of the shim coil.

Gradient-independent shim coil for a local coil of a magnetic resonance device


The present disclosure provides, inter alia, multi-drug Antibody Drug Conjugates (MD-ADCs) and Linking Assembly (LA) Units, that are constructed in a site-specific matter via ‘orthogonal’ deprotection and drug loading. Also provided are, Protected Linking Assembly Units, which allow for ‘orthogonal’ deprotection and construction of MD-ADCs and LA Units of the present disclosure.

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) combine the tumor targeting specificity of monoclonal antibodies with the potent cell-killing activity of cytotoxic warheads. There has been a surge of interest in designing new ADC formats due in part to the recent clinical success of ADCs, which includes the approvals of brentuximab vedotin (ADCETRIS™) in relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma and anaplastic large-cell lymphoma, and ado-trastuzumab mertansine (KADCYLA™) in HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. Most of these new methodologies have focused on addressing some of the shortcomings of existing clinical molecules, such as heterogeneous drug loading, limited drug-linker stability, and warheads with activities that are restricted to a subset of cancer types. To enable improved ADCs, much notable advancement has been made in the field. These include site-specific drug-linker conjugation strategies that enable homogeneous loading, drug-linker attachment modalities with improved stability, potent new payloads, and linker strategies that utilize alternative release mechanisms.
Almost all effective cancer chemotherapies utilize complementary drug combinations that are designed to overcome differential drug sensitivities within heterogeneous tumor cell populations. That strategy has recently been applied to ADCs, which are now being tested in combination with unconjugated, clinically approved anticancer drugs. In addition, emerging clinical and preclinical data for ADCs has demonstrated that insensitivity to a particular ADC can be overcome through delivery of an alternative warhead by administering a separate ADC using the same antibody. Here, we disclose complementary drug payloads within a single ADC, which constitutes a significant advancement in the field of targeted drug delivery, by describing an accessible dual-cytotoxic drug conjugate technology for antibodies targeting cancer cell antigens. That technology, which is applicable for other targeting agents, demonstrates the first use of orthogonal thiol protecting groups for preparing ADCs which is not dependent on an engineered antibody. We present the first data demonstrating that multiple drug ADCs having dual conjugated drugs (MD-ADCs) exhibit enhanced in vitro and in vivo activities compared to conventional ADCs.
In one exemplification of the MD-ADC technology, two different, highly potent auristatin molecules with complementary physiochemical properties are conjugated to a single antibody that enhances ADC activity on heterogeneous cancer cell populations. Commonly employed auristatin drug-linkers, also referred to as auristatin Linking Assembly Units, include mc-MMAF (1), mc-vc-MMAF (2), and mc-vc-MMAE (3). The released drug from the mc-vc-MMAE drug linker, monomethyl auristatin E (MMAE), is cell-permeable and exhibits bystander activity, or the killing of neighboring antigen-negative cancer cells. However, MMAE is also a substrate for multiple drug resistant (MDR) exporters and thus has diminished activity on cells with high MDR expression. Conversely, MMAF and cys-mc-MMAF, released from mc-vc-MMAF and mc-MMAF ADCs respectively, are not susceptible to drug export and retain activity on MDR(+) cells but are minimally cell-permeable. Thus, they do not exhibit bystander activity and have little activity on antigen-negative tumor cells. Combining the features of both types of drugs could provide complementary activities on cancers, yielding ADCs with enhanced cytotoxicity profiles.
To date, only a single example of a MD-ADC has been reported, but this work was conducted on an antibody Fab fragment and required the genetic introduction of an engineered cysteine (eCys) residue to enable site-specific discrimination of conjugation sites (Puthenveetil et al. Bioconjugate Chem. (2016) 27(4): 1030-1039). A number of other approaches for the site-specific conjugation of two separate agents to an antibody have been presented (Maruani et al. Org. Biomol. Org. (2016) 14(26): 6165-6178), but most of these methods require specialized reagents including site-specific amino acid mutations or custom enzymes, and sometimes require two distinct conjugation handles. All of those factors increase the complexity of reagents required to generate and screen MD-ADCs. One such method utilized pyridazine-dione re-bridging of reduced native antibody disulfides followed by dual-Click functionalization to construct a largely homogeneous product, but this method was only used to create a fluorophore-drug antibody conjugate and consumed two conjugatable sites on the antibody, thus reducing potential total drug loading.
What is needed is a methodology (and ADCs) for incorporation of dual drugs into a single Linking Assembly Unit that requires only one conjugatable site for each Unit, and results in a homogeneous and site-specific loading of both drugs in a specified ratio. That approach should not be dependent on engineered antibodies requiring restrictive eCys sites or enzyme-mediated conjugations and should be applicable for drug combinations that can be screened on an array of antibodies, including commercial antibodies and hybridoma antibody libraries. The present disclosure addresses those and other needs.


A digital data bus provides common-mode noise immunity equal to approximately one-half that of a fully differentially driven and received bus. For a data bus having n data lines, n+1 lines are provided, the n+1th line being a reference voltage line. The data and reference lines are driven by drivers having similar impedance characteristics. The reference line is received by a line receiver having impedance characteristics similar to the differential receivers of the data lines. The data line receivers have one differential input connected to respective data lines and the other differential input connected to the output of the reference line receiver. The reference line is routed with the data lines to ensure induced signals are common-mode, but spaced therefrom to reduce cross-talk.

To reliably transmit binary digital data between a source point and a destination point, it is necessary to provide the destination with a means of determining when the data has changed state. When the two states in a binary digit scheme are represented by different voltage levels, typically the destination compares the received signal to a reference voltage. Usually, this reference voltage is implicit as it is derived from a common ground connection. However, in cases where the ground is not common, or where there are significant DC offsets in the ground, it is necessary for the source to transmit a reference level to the destination. This may also be necessary where AC noise is present on the ground and power planes. Typically, to transmit a reference signal from the source to the destination, a differential scheme is used. In a differential scheme, the binary complement of the signal is sent along with the signal. At the destination the signal can be compared to its complement and the two states resolved.
It is well known to use differential line drivers and differential receivers in high-speed data busses. The connection between drivers and receivers can be provided by twisted pairs that are in cable or ribbon form. Flat ribbon cable may be used in single-ended fashion with every other conductor grounded at both the driver and the receiver end. The above is described in "MECL System Design Handbook" 4th Ed., William R. Blood, Jr., Motorola Semiconductor Products, Inc., 1988, pp 70-76. While the noise immunity of differentially driven and received twisted pair cable is well known and very desirable, it comes at the expense of having to provide two lines for each data line in the bus.


A method of manufacturing a gas cylinder according to an embodiment of the present invention may include applying a sealant to at least a portion of inner surface of a hollow spindle; inserting a cylinder assembly contacting the inner surface of the spindle through an inlet of the spindle and forming a sealant film on an inner surface of the spindle by frictionally applying the sealant to the inner surface of the spindle; and hardening the sealant film to form a cured film cylinder in contact with the inner surface of the spindle.

A gas cylinder or gas spring is a device that can fix or apply force to a cylinder to a desired length using hydraulic pressure. The inside of the gas cylinder or gas spring is usually filled with high-pressure nitrogen (N2) gas, and a gas flow is controlled by opening and closing an orifice through a gas open pin or valve, thereby adjusting the overall length of the gas cylinder or gas spring.
Herein, since the gas cylinder or the gas spring performs properly only when the pressure inside the cylinder is maintained, the gas cylinder or the gas spring has a sealing system including a plurality of O-rings to prevent gas from leaking to the outside.

Gas cylinder and gas spring for preventing gas leakage, and method for manufacturing same


A spread spectrum communication device according to the present invention includes a transmitter and a receiver, and suppresses demodulation errors to a minimum value, even if there exit a plurality of narrow band disturbing signals. In the transmitter, a first PN (pseudo noise) code from a fist PN code generator and a second PN code having a delayed phase coming from a shift register are inputted to a multiplexer and switched according to an exclusive logic sum of data and a disturbing signal. The multiplexer output is modulated by a modulator so that it can be transmitted. In the receiver, a correlation output from a correlator is detected by a detector and a detection output thereof is digitalized by a voltage comparator. A correlation pulse thus obtained is applied to two AND gates. Two time window pulses are each applied to two multiplexers nd are switched by a control signal, the outputs of the multiplexers being respectively applied to these AND gates. Pulses from these AND gates are counted by an up-counter and a down-counter in a demodulating circuit to demodulate the data.

The SS communication method has as characteristics that it is resistant against disturbance, noise and fading and it has a signal concealing property and secrecy, and that asynchronous random access is thereby possible, as described in "Spread Spectrum Systems" by R. C. Dixon.
In such an SS modulation communication, the data modulation-demodulation system suitable for this communication method was heretofore a problem to be solved.
For this reason the applicant of the present application has proposed a new data modulation-demodulation method in two older Japanese patent applications Hei 1-29538 and Hei 1-244931. By the data modulation-demodulation method disclosed in the first of the two Japanese patent applications described above, on the transmitter side an SS code is transmitted after having been formed by switching between a plurality of pseudo noise (hereinbelow abbreviated to PN) codes different from each other according to values of data bits, while on the receiver side a surface acoustic wave (hereinbelow abbreviated to SAW) convolver is used as a correlator so that data are demodulated without requiring any synchronization between a PN code included in a received signal and a reference PN code generated within the receiver, as indicated in FIGS. 1 and 2 thereof. The system described in this patent application is so constructed that the reference PN code therein tracks the PN code included in the received signal, as indicated in FIG. 9 thereof. Consequently it is devised so as to always obtain a correlation output. On the other hand, the system disclosed in the latter (Japanese patent application No. Hei 1-244931) of the patent applications described above is an improvement of the system disclosed in the first, in which a pattern matching circuit and a low pass filter are added to the output side of the correlator to reduce influences of noise and disturbance so that detection of the presence or absence of the correlation output is made surer and that the tracking method, by which two PN codes are switched-over at detecting disappearance of the correlation output, can be effected more efficiently.
However, in the latter patent application (i.e. patent application No. Hei 1-244931), since in-loop delay of the tracking loop is increased if the performance of the added circuits is increased, which can give rise to out-tracking, it was difficult to obtain performance higher than a certain degree.
Therefore, the applicant of this application has proposed in the patent application No. Hei 2-331399 an SS communication method and a device capable of demodulating data more surely without using any tracking loop.
By the SS communication method according to the invention in the older patent application described above, on the transmitter side (a) a first PN code train consisting of first PN codes repeated with a predetermined period and a second PN code train having a phase deviated from the phase of the first PN code train by a predetermined value are generated, and (b) an SS modulated output is generated by selecting either one of the first and the second PN code trains according to each bit of the data to be transmitted so that each bit of the data to be transmitted is CPSK-modulated. On the other hand, on the receiver side, (a) a correlation-demodulated output is generated by correlation-demodulating a received input with a third PN code train consisting of PN codes repeated with the predetermined period described above, which are inverted in time with respect to the first PN code stated above, and (b) the correlation-demodulated output described above is CPSK-demodulated. This CPSK demodulation is effected (i) by generating a first time window pulse train consisting of pulses synchronized with the correlation-demodulated output described above and having a period which is equal to a half of the period stated above, by generating a second time window pulse train consisting of pulses deviated by the predetermined phase with respect to the pulse train described previously, and by generating a bit period indicating signal indicating the period of each bit of the data to be transmitted described previously, (ii) by generating a binary converted pulse output obtained by binary-converting the correlation-demodulated output with a predetermined threshold, (iii) by detecting a difference between the number of pulses within the first time window and the number of pulses within the second time window described above in the binary-converted pulse output in the period of each bit, and (iv) by determining the state of each bit, depending on the polarity of the difference described above.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram indicating a device for realizing the SS communicating method according to the invention disclosed in the older application described previously, using a SAW convolver for the correlator in the receiver and CPSK for the modulation-demodulation system.
In the figure, T represents a transmitter, in which reference numeral 1 is a PN code generator; 2 is a multiplexer (MPX); 3 is a shift register; 4 is a double balanced modulator; 5 is a HF signal generator; and 6 is a transmitting antenna. On the other hand, R represents a receiver, in which reference numeral 7 is a receiving antenna; 8 is a HF amplifier-frequency converter-IF amplifier; 9 is a correlator (e.g. SAW convolver); 10 is a PN code generator; 11 is a HF signal generator; 12 is a detecting circuit; 13 is a voltage comparator; 14 and 15 are AND gates; 16 is a demodulating circuit including an up-down counter; and 21 is a double balanced modulator.
In the transmitter T, as indicated in FIG. 6, the first PN code (i) having the predetermined period generated by the PN code generator 1 is inputted directly to the MPX2 and at the same time the second PN code (ii) obtained by delaying the first PN code by a predetermined phase by the shift register 3 is inputted in the MPX2. The delay amount of the first PN code by the shift register 3 is determined in accordance with the phase shift amount of the code at the CPSK demodulation. Concretely speaking, it is selected so as to be about 1/2 of a period of the PN code. That is, denoting one period of the PN code by T.sub.PN, about 1/2T.sub.PN is selected for the delay amount. (ii) in FIG. 6 represents the state thereof. This is because the phase difference between the two codes (in this case PN1 and PN2) when the CPSK modulation is effected is maximum so that the number of phase judgment errors at the demodulation can be minimized, if the delay amount is selected as described above.
Data are given to the MPX2 as a control input (iii), and a PN code (iv) having a different code phase is outputted to the modulator 4 in response to these data. The modulator 4 multiplies the PN code (iv) stated above by an HF signal to output an SS modulated signal (v), which is transmitted through the antenna 6.
On the other hand, in the receiver R, a received signal (vi) coming from the antenna 7 is amplified and frequencyconverted by the circuit 8 and a signal (vii) thus obtained is inputted to one of the inputs of the correlator 9. On the other hand, a reference signal (viii) is applied to the other input of the correlator 9.
This reference signal (viii) is generated by multiplying a third PN code (ix), which is inverted in time with respect to the first PN code (i) coming from the PN code generator 10, by an HF signal (x) in the modulator 21. The SAW convolver disclosed in the older application No. Hei 2-331399 described previously, as indicated in FIG. 8, can be used for the correlator 9. Here the received signal s(t) and the reference signal r(t) are received by a terminal IN1 and the other terminal IN2, respectively, and inputted thereto through interdigital transducers IDT8. 83 is a gate electrode for taking out the output; 84 is a zinc oxide (ZnO) layer; 85 is a silicon oxide (SiO.sub.2) layer; 86 is a silicon (Si) layer; and 87 is an ohmic electrode. In the case where a SAW convolver is used for the correlator, since the input directions to the convolver are opposite to each other for the PN code and the reference code, one of the signals which are to be correlated with each other should be inverted in time. In this embodiment, the third PN code is inverted in time with respect to the first PN code.
A correlation output (xi) consisting of HF signals having a spike-shaped envelope part, as indicated in FIG. 7, is generated by the correlator 9. This spike-shaped part is a self correlation peak, which is called a correlation spike, in the case where the PN code in the received signal and the PN code in the reference signal are in accordance with each other.
The generator interval between two adjacent correlation spikes, in the case where the signal is not modulated with data, is equal to 1/2 of the period of the PN code in the received signal (which is equal to the period of the PN code in the reference signal). On the contrary, in the case where the received signal is CPSK-modulated, as described previously, the generation interval between two adjacent correlation spikes varies, depending on the data, as indicated by (xi) in FIG. 6.
The correlation output (xi) is envelope-detected by the detecting circuit 12 and the detection output thereof is given to one of the inputs of the comparator 13. A predetermined reference voltage is inputted to the other input of the voltage comparator 13 and a binary converted correlation pulse (xii) is obtained at the output thereof.
This correlation pulse is applied to one of the inputs of each of the AND gates 14 and 15 and time window pulses (xiii) and (xiv) are applied to the other inputs, respectively, after having been generated by a burst synchronization, as indicated e.g. in the Japanese patent application No. Hei 2-331399 described previously. Therefore, the correlation pulse passes through either one of the AND gates only during a period of time where either one of the time window pulses exists and is applied to the demodulating circuit 16.
The demodulating circuit 16 up- and down-counts pulses passing through the respective gates by means of an up-down counter included therein, in order to judge during which time window more correlation pulses pass therethrough to effect the data demodulation. Further, the time window pulses described above are synchronized with the correlation output, and e.g. the burst transmission method described in the older application stated previously, i.e. patent application Hei 2-331399, may be used for the synchronizing method.
Although the system of the SS communication device disclosed in the older application described above is basically excellent, it was found that it still had problems described below when it was used in practice.
For example, in the case where a plurality of narrow band disturbing signals are mixed in a received signal, depending on the relation between these disturbing signals and the frequency used in the SS communication device, a strong disturbing correlation output appears in accordance with the generation period of correlation spikes due to the object signal, as indicated by (b) in FIG. 7. In the case where both the object signal and the disturbing signals exist, the correlation output can be as indicated by (c) in FIG. 7. In this case, although the correlation spike due to the object signal is in accordance with the time window pulse (xiii):(c-1), since the disturbing signals are in accordance with the other time window pulse (xiv):(c-2) and in addition the disturbing signals are stronger, the number of binary converted correlation pulses generated by the disturbing signals in accordance with the time window pulse (xiv) is greater. Consequently, as the result, errors are produced in the demodulation by the up-down count of the correlation pulses described above.


A wireless multimedia communication device includes a shell module, a wireless module, and an energy storage module. The shell module has a waterproof function. The wireless module installed in the shell module has a mobile communication function. The energy storage module installed in the shell module for storing energy. When the wireless module is turned on, the wireless module utilizes the energy to operate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless multimedia communication device, and particularly to a wireless multimedia communication device that has a wireless communication function, a wireless charging function, and a characteristic similar to "tumbler".
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, a monitor with a Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) function, a fourth generation (4G) mobile communication function, or a third generation (3G) mobile communication function usually be installed fixedly near an indoor ceiling, on a building wall, or near a computer, so the monitor is not usually moved easily after the monitor is installed. Because the monitor is usually installed fixedly, an image capture range of the monitor can not be changed at will.
Therefore, how to make the monitor be a light portable electronic device and the image capture range of the monitor adjustable anytime is an important issue for a monitor designer.

Wireless multimedia communication device


A new dual reservoir coffee machine for making two different types of coffee in two separate pots. The inventive device includes a dual system coffee maker comprised of a housing. The housing has an upper water dispensing portion and a lower burner portion. A control panel is disposed within the housing of the dual system coffee maker. A coffee filter attachment couples with the water dispensing portion of the dual system coffee maker. A pair of semi-cylindrical pots are positionable on the lower burner portion of the dual system coffee maker. Each of the pots have a cover with an opening therethrough. The openings align with the coffee filter attachment. Each of the pots have a handle extending outwardly therefrom.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to coffee makers and more particularly pertains to a new dual reservoir coffee machine for making two different types of coffee in two separate pots.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of coffee makers is known in the prior art. More specifically, coffee makers heretofore devised and utilized are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
Known prior art coffee makers include U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,589 to Yerves, Jr. et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,207,809 to Brill; U.S. Pat. No. 4,651,862 to Greenfield, Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,550,652 to Da Silva; U.S. Pat. No. 4,039,772 to Thorsoe et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. Des. 334,685 to Coulter.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not disclose a new dual reservoir coffee machine. The inventive device includes a dual system coffee maker comprised of a housing. The housing has an upper water dispensing portion and a lower burner portion. A control panel is disposed within the housing of the dual system coffee maker. A coffee filter attachment couples with the water dispensing portion of the dual system coffee maker. A pair of semi-cylindrical pots are positionable on the lower burner portion of the dual system coffee maker. Each of the pots have a cover with an opening therethrough. The openings align with the coffee filter attachment. Each of the pots have a handle extending outwardly therefrom.
In these respects, the dual reservoir coffee machine according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of making two different types of coffee in two separate pots.


Provided is a polymeric fluorescent substance comprising a copolymer which has a substituent containing a specific aromatic amine structure below in the side chain,

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a polymeric fluorescent substance and a polymer light-emitting device (hereinafter, sometimes referred to as polymer LED) using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Unlike with low molecular weight light-emitting materials, polymeric light-emitting materials (polymeric fluorescent substance) are soluble in a solvent, and can form a light-emitting layer in a light emitting device by a coating method, consequently, have been variously investigated. In recent years, polymeric fluorescent substances having a fluorene unit attract attention, and in order to improve the performance, copolymers comprising a fluorene unit and other unit have been studied.
Among the above copolymers, a copolymer comprising an aromatic amine structure (hereinafter, may be referred to as aromatic amine unit) as other unit is disclosed, for example, a polymeric fluorescent substance comprising a copolymer which comprises a fluorene unit and an aromatic amine unit having a nitrogen atom in the main chain (WO 99/54385).
However, the above known polymeric fluorescent substance comprising a fluorene unit and an aromatic amine unit having a nitrogen atom in the main chain has a problem that luminance and light emitting efficiency are not yet sufficient, when the polymeric fluorescent substance is used as a light emitting layer.
An object of the present invention is to provide a polymeric fluorescent substance comprising a copolymer which has a substituent containing a specific aromatic amine structure in the side chain, and when said polymeric fluorescent substance is used for a light emitting layer, high luminance and high light emitting efficiency are attained, and to provide a polymer LED using the polymeric fluorescent substance.

Polymeric fluorescent substance and polymer light-emitting device using the same

Abstract: wherein X1 is a divalent hydrocarbon group; Ar2 is an arylene group or the like; Ar3 and Ar4 independently represent an aryl group or the like. The polymeric fluorescent substance is preferably used for a light emitting layer of a polymer LED having high luminance and high light emitting efficiency.


Accessories are disclosed for use with a laser tool which may or may not be self-leveling. The accessories include one or more diffraction elements, effective to receive the incoming beam and produce a plane of diverging laser beams. In preferred embodiments the diffraction elements are self-leveling. When the diverging beams are directed against a surface such as a floor, wall or ceiling, a series of discrete spots define a visible reference line useful in construction layout. The spots themselves may each locate the position of a fastener to be installed, for example, by giving the approximately correct spacing for reference of the user. In another embodiment, lenticular arrays are used to create beams which diverge in a plane and overlie one another to form a visible reference line on a wall or other surface. The line preferably is plumb or level and in one embodiment the user can select among two or more arrays to form a plumb or level line of selected length.

This invention relates to hand tools, and in particular the invention is concerned with a compact hand tool for projecting plumb, level, and square reference beams of visible light for precise alignment.
The use of such a tool has been limited to the ability of the operator to see the projected spot or line in daylight. In cases where the laser beam is used to produce a reference spot all the energy is concentrated in the spot. This spot is visible because its brightness is higher than the background. In cases where a reference line is needed, a cylinder lens is often used to spread the beam to generate a line. Because of the resulting lower intensity, the line is difficult to see.
The invention creates a reference line using an array of discrete spots via optical diffraction. An objective of the invention is to use an array of discrete spots to determine a more visible reference line. Another objective of the invention is to provide means to ensure that the reference lines are either plumb, level or providing a 90 degree reference through the use of self-leveling pendulums. The invention is particularly useful when it includes a self-leveling laser instrument, allowing transfer of a point to a line of spots on a wall, at the same height as the point; and allowing transfer of a floor point to a ceiling, the array of projected spots being directly above the floor point, in a common vertical plane with the floor point.
A variety of survey and carpentry tools have previously employed lasers. The first laser alignment tools were manually leveled as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,897,637 and 3,279,070. When a beam has been used to form a reference line, a cylinder lens has been commonly used. Other means for generating a line are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,283,694 and 4,589,738. Such a laser instrument, shown generally by 2 in FIG. 1, consists of a laser beam projector 4 producing a round beam 6 which is fanned out, spread, or expanded in one axis by a positive cylinder lens 8. A bubble level 10 is mounted parallel to the horizontal axis of the cylinder lens on an adjustable platform 12. A mounting frame allows the assembly to be leveled using a tangent screw 14, the laser 4 being leveled along with the platform 12. With this apparatus a horizontal line of laser light may be projected onto a surface from a level beam of light.
In FIG. 2 the apparatus of FIG. 1 produces a horizontal line 18 on the wall 20. Note that the cylindrical lens apparatus is hidden from view by the laser beam projector 4. There are several variations of this basic system in use which employ the same principles. For example, the beams may be diverging in the horizontal or vertical direction. A second orthogonally oriented level vial may be used, etc.
In contrast to the manually level laser instrument, self-leveling instruments using a rotary beam of light have been employed to improve accuracy and reliability. These typically generate a plane of light which is detected electronically. Such instruments have been described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,221,483 and 4,679,937. The use of a detector is required since the limited laser power is distributed over a large area. Such systems are expensive and inconvenient since the user must purchase an electronic detector and always have the electronic detector at hand. The present invention is attractive because no detector is required and a more inexpensive laser instrument may be used.
A low cost automatic self-leveling laser instrument is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,459,932, assigned to the same assignee as the present invention. The disclosure of that patent is incorporated herein by reference. The present invention is used in conjunction with such a compact battery operated laser projector of the type described in the above mentioned patent as well as with some manually leveled laser instruments. Such a generic laser instrument can be considered as generally shown by 2 in FIG. 1.
Lasiris Inc. of Quebec, Canada, produces a laser tool for manually positioning spots of laser light used as reference in measuring, without any self-leveling ability. The spots are generated by diffraction of a laser beam.
The present invention achieves an efficient light distribution for construction alignment or layout by providing an array of discrete spots via optical diffraction or a light line via a lenticular lens array, in a compact and cost effective arrangement. The level or plumb lines of laser spots, or a line of spots on a ceiling perpendicular to a reference line, can be used for locations of drilling holes, setting nails or screws, locating windows or doors, sawing lines, erecting moldings, or ledges or other operations wherein the projected arrays of spots are far easier to generate than would be the case with a plumb bob, measuring tape, carpenter's level used to transfer lines, etc. These and other objects, advantages and features of the invention will be apparent from the following description of preferred embodiments, considered along with the accompanying drawings.

Construction laser accessory for generating aligned spots or lines


Approaches for preventing TCP data injection attacks in packet-switched networks are disclosed. An ACK message or dummy segment is sent to verify the authenticity of the data in the re-assembly buffer, and to help discard spurious data faster. These approaches involve the sender in detection of spurious data, and make improved use of mechanisms for processing ACK messages that are native to typical TCP implementations. The latter approach may be implemented without modification of the sender's TCP implementation. Further, the receiver's TCP implementation maintains compatibility with RFC 793.

The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Networks have become an important tool for businesses and consumers alike, many of which are now dependent on the constant availability of network resources such as mail servers, Web sites, and content servers. As use of networks increases, protecting networks from disruption by malicious entities becomes more important. For example, denial of service ("DoS") attacks may deprive legitimate users of access to network services, and have been used successfully to disrupt legitimate user access to internet sites such as Yahoo! and CNN.
Data injection attacks may result in DoS or other adverse effects. One type of data injection attack takes advantage of the basic design of the Transmission Control Protocol ("TCP"), one of the foundational protocols of the Internet, as defined in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC) 793. In a data injection attack, an attacker guesses parameter values for a valid TCP connection and then sends spurious segments that contain malicious or spurious data payloads. If the receiver passes such segments to an application, malfunctions may occur when the application acts on or executes the data payloads.
A typical implementation of TCP that is compliant with RFC 793 and is acting as a receiver of data maintains out-of-order data in a re-assembly buffer pending receipt of any missing segments. The receiver sends an acknowledgment ("ACK") message for each segment that is received out of order and indicating the last valid sequence number. The sender holds non-acknowledged segments in a re-transmission buffer. This process enables a sender to rapidly re-transmit segments that have been lost in transmission, because such segments are not acknowledged.
One type of TCP data injection attack exploits the foregoing mechanisms in TCP implementations that are intended to manage segments that arrive out-of-order and need to be re-assembled into the proper order before they are passed to applications at logical layers above TCP. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), some voice protocols, Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), and other protocols use TCP connections and are targets for these attacks. The consequences can be severe. For example, when a BGP session of a router is disrupted by closing the associated TCP connection, the router will discard all BGP routes that it has created, essentially causing a failure of the BGP process. As a result, the BGP process must re-synchronize itself with peer routers in the network, and during the re-synchronization period the failed router cannot forward any traffic.
Further, data injection attacks may result in presenting malicious commands to an upstream process, needlessly filling the re-assembly buffer, faulty operation of other higher-layer applications, initiating "ACK wars," etc. Accordingly, researchers in this field are interested in creating ways to thwart TCP data injection attacks, without fundamentally altering the operation of TCP as specified in RFC 793.
A successful attack must inject a TCP segment that carries proper values for source port, destination port; a range of values is allowed for sequence number and ACK number. The allowed ranges for these values are large, so that mounting a brute-force attack involving serially checking all possible values for each parameter would seem impossible. However, in most TCP implementations the task of selecting valid values is simpler because certain loopholes present in RFC 793. These loopholes create security vulnerabilities in implementations that are compliant with RFC 793. For example, assigning a pseudo-random 32-bit value as the Initial Sequence Number (ISN) for a new TCP connection might appear to prevent an attacker from guessing the correct sequence number in any practical way, because the number of potentially correct values is 232 or approximately 4 billion values. However, a conventional TCP implementation compliant with RFC 793 will accept a segment if the sequence number of the segment falls within a window or range of acceptable values, even if the sequence number is not an exact match to the next expected sequence number. The window or range typically is the same as the size in bytes of the re-assembly buffer, and is used to compensate for the possibility that segments may be lost. In some implementations of TCP the range of allowed sequence values may be as large as 16,384,65,535, or larger.
A consequence is that the attacker does not need to generate all 32 bits of the sequence number correctly to provide a number that a receiving node will accept, even when a truly random or pseudorandom ISN is used. If the range of allowed sequence values is sufficiently large, then the chance is greatly increased that an attacker can guess a correct sequence value through either random or brute-force selection in a practical amount of time. The larger the window established by the receiving node, the easier it is for the hacker to carry out this attack.
Further, most implementations use a relatively small range of values for the initial port number, and merely increment the port number for each new connection. As a result, using ordinary computing resources it may be relatively easy for an attacker to guess the port values that are used by two endpoints to a legitimate TCP connection.
Still another vulnerability occurs because most TCP implementations do not test whether the ACK value is equal to an expected ACK value or even within a range of allowed ACK values. Instead, most implementations will accept any segment that carries an ACK value greater than a previously received ACK value, provided the sequence number is within the allowed range. RFC 793 defines an ACK value as an unsigned integer in the range 1 to 232. Thus, an attacker who guesses an allowed sequence number can succeed with a data injection attack by trying only two ACK values—one (1) or 232-1—and one or the other is certain to be accepted.
The result of the foregoing compromises is that an attacker can theoretically inject data into a connection in (232/window-size/2) segments, or roughly 30,000 segments in most implementations. Therefore even a brute-force attack can proceed relatively rapidly using conventional computing equipment.
Approaches for preventing network DoS Reset attacks are described in co-pending application Ser. No. 10/755,146, filed Jan. 9, 2004, entitled "Preventing Network Reset Denial of Service Attacks," by Mitesh Dalal et al., Attorney Docket No. 50325-0868. An approach for addressing a similar attack, known as the SYN-RST attack, is provided in co-pending application Ser. No. 10/641,494, filed Aug. 14, 2003, entitled "Detecting network denial of service attacks," of Pritam Shah et al., and assigned to the same assignee hereof. The approach of Shah et al. is appropriate for an intermediate router rather than a TCP endpoint device, but does not fully address all issues described in this disclosure.

Preventing network data injection attacks using duplicate-ACK and reassembly gap approaches